Grace

  “You didn’t tell anyone where I was, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “What if someone finds out?”

  “How will they find out? I’m in a clubhouse in a field behind your house.”

  “But what if they do?”

  “It’s no worse than if I go back.”

  “But, if they find you…”

  She looked at me with sudden understanding. “Are you afraid for me or for you?”

  I hesitated. “Both.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about me. I can handle me.”

  The conversation wasn’t going the way I had hoped. “The question is,” I said, failing to conceal my exasperation, “when are you going back to school?”

  She looked at me as if I were stupid. “Never.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t go back. If I go back, my parents will find me.”

  “But you can’t just skip school.”

  “Why not?”

  I had never questioned this before. “Kids go to school. It’s what they do.”

  “Why?”

  “To learn things.”

  “Why? So we can learn how to make atom bombs and kill ourselves faster?”

  “No. So we can improve our lives.”

  “Right,” Grace said sardonically. “My mom graduated from college, and it didn’t do her any good. In fact, I think school makes you dumber.”

  As a three-year recipient of the perfect attendance award, I took offense to this. “How could learning things make you dumber?” I said. “That’s just stupid.”

  “I didn’t say ‘learning,’ I said ‘school.’”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “No it’s not. School makes people lazy. They stop thinking things out for themselves and just plug in the facts other people want them to think.”

  “Like what?”

  “How about what really happened to the Indians?”

  I didn’t know how to respond, since, frankly, I wasn’t sure what had happened to them.

  “We need school to learn socializing skills.”

  “What socializing skills has school taught you?”

  She had a point. The only social lesson I had learned at Granite was that big dogs eat small dogs; a particularly disturbing lesson when you’re a small dog.

  “You’re just parroting the Establishment,” Grace said.

  I was starting to get mad. “I’m not parroting.”

  “Yes, you are. They can tell you anything and you’ll just believe it.”

  “Give me one example,” I said.

  “Okay. In Christopher Columbus’s time, why were people afraid to sail?”

  “Everyone knows that,” I said. “It’s because they thought the world was flat.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  Her saying that made me not so sure. “Yeah…”

  “Guess what year the first globe was invented?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Fourteen ninety-two. You know the poem, In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. It was the same year Columbus sailed. If they thought the world was flat, why were they making globes?”

  “You just made that up.”

  She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

  I couldn’t tell if she were making this up or if she really was a lot smarter than me. The latter seemed likely. Either way I was losing the argument. “What does Christopher Columbus have to do with you living in my clubhouse the rest of your life?”

  She looked at me, stunned. “Fine,” she said between clenched teeth, then began grabbing her things and shoving them in her bag.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You want me to go? I’ll go.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Yes you did.”

  Even though she was turned from me, I saw her furtively wipe a tear from her cheek. I touched her shoulder. “Grace…”

  She pulled away from me. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Please, stop.”

  “No.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Grace. I never want you to leave. You’re the only good thing in my life.”

  She stopped, then turned back and looked at me. Her face was streaked with tears. “You mean that?”

  “Yes.”

  She brushed her cheeks with the back of her hand. We just sat there looking at each other, then she leaned forward and kissed me for the second time. It made me feel better.

  “I better go,” I said. “I have to go to work.”

  “Every time I kiss you, you say you have to go. Should I not kiss you?”

  “No.”

  “No, I shouldn’t kiss you, or no, I shouldn’t not kiss you?”

  I was thoroughly confused. “You should kiss me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I just haven’t done a lot of it. I’m probably not very good at it.”

  Her eyebrows raised. “No, you’re a pretty good kisser.”

  “Really?” I felt myself blushing.

  “Really.” She smiled at me. “Have you ever had a girlfriend before?”

  “I had a crush on a girl last year.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing. I never told her I liked her.”

  “You’re kind of afraid of girls, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “A little?”

  I felt stupid. “Maybe a little.”

  “I think that’s sweet.” She took my hand. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

  I kept looking at her, waiting for the punch line. “What exactly does that entail?”

  “Well, for one thing, you can’t have any other girlfriends.”

  Fat chance of that, I thought. “That’s no problem. Anything else?”

  “You can kiss me anytime you want.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked, barely concealing my excitement.

  She laughed. “Yes.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I’d just been given a key to an ice cream parlor. “Like, I could kiss you right now?”

  “Yes.”

  I just stared at her.

  “So?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Are you going to kiss me?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I slowly moved forward to put my lips on hers. Even though we’d already kissed twice, up to this point she’d pretty much done the heavy lifting. This was a first for me. I was as awkward as a nurse giving her first shot.

  “You’re not going to hurt me,” she said.

  Our lips touched and she closed her eyes. It was incredible. It was like Christmas, my birthday, and scones for dinner all rolled into one. When we finally parted there were big smiles on both of our faces.

  “See, you are good at it,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I replied, slightly breathless. “Let’s do it again sometime.”

  She laughed. “Sure. That is, unless you still want me to leave.”

  “I never want you to leave,” I said. “You should never leave.”

  “Then,” she said coyly, “I shouldn’t go back to school?”

  “School makes you dumb,” I said.

  She grinned. “You better go. You have work.”

  “Right. I’ll see you after.”

  She cocked her head. “Bye, Eric.”

  “See ya later.”

  For the first time in my life I was smitten, dashed on the rocks of femininity. I had just been given permission to kiss the most beautiful girl in the world. It was better than winning the lottery.

  CHAPTER Eighteen

  There are times I feel like shouting my feelings to the entire world.

  But I think they’d only close their windows.

  GRACE’S DIARY

  One Sunday a minister in a small, pious community decided to play hooky from church and go golfing instead. He was afraid of being caught, so he changed out of his Sunday clothes, put on sunglasses a
nd a hat, and quietly slipped out the back door of the church.

  As he drove to the golf course, the voice of God spoke to him. God warned the minister that if he played golf on the Sabbath he’d be cursed. But the minister had made up his mind and went anyway.

  The minister got to his first hole and hit the ball. It sailed all the way to the green and bounced in for a hole-in-one.

  “Incredible!” shouted the minister.

  He went to the next hole and hit another hole-in-one.

  “Fantastic!” cried the minister.

  The exact same thing happened on all eighteen holes. “A perfect game!” the minister shouted. As he carried his clubs back to his car he looked to heaven and said, “God, I thought you said you were going to curse me. Instead I shot the best game in history!”

  “Yes,” replied God. “But who are you going to tell?”

  That’s exactly how I felt about having Grace as a girlfriend.

  CHAPTER Nineteen

  The newspaper said that we need to inspect our Halloween

  candy because some people have put razor blades and

  something called LSD inside. I can’t figure out why

  someone would do that. They must hate themselves.

  GRACE’S DIARY

  WEDNESDAY, OCT. 31

  Every Halloween my mother made an enormous cauldron of chili and a couple pans of hot Parker House rolls that Joel and I would consume smothered in butter and honey. Those were good times. Part of that tradition was my mother saying, “Where are you boys putting all that?” and her favorite, “You must have hollow legs.” We were never quite sure what that meant.

  After dinner my parents retired to the living room for television and candy bowl duty, while Joel and I suited up in our Halloween costumes.

  Oddly enough, Halloween costumes were the one thing we had plenty of. My mother liked to sew and back when she stayed home she made us new costumes every year. She even once helped make costumes for a school play I was in. We saved them all.

  Joel went as the Lone Ranger complete with mask, bandanna, a cowboy hat with a drawstring, and a cap gun. I went as the devil with a red cape, a long tail, and horns. We had a pitchfork too and even though it looked cool, I wasn’t about to lug that around all night.

  After we were dressed we went out back, taking chili and rolls for Grace, as well as all the costumes we thought might fit her. She devoured the chili and rolls as happily as we had. Then she began trying on the costumes, eventually settling on a clown outfit my mother once wore. It was a little big on her, but no one would notice. That’s kind of the point with clown costumes.

  She put on a red foam rubber nose and a bright orange wig and she lined her mouth with a wide swath of lipstick. She decided to be a sad clown, so she drew tears on her cheek with eyeliner. When she was finished, I couldn’t have picked her out of a police lineup.

  “You really can’t tell who I am?” she asked.

  “Nope,” said Joel.

  I shook my head. “Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.”

  It was hard to tell with all the makeup but I think she frowned when I said that.

  We decided that we would go for an all-time candy harvest record. With ambitions as high as ours, we’d have to go some distance to find fertile ground—someplace far away from our poor, stingy street.

  We were discussing the positives and negatives of taking our bikes when Grace said, “I know the perfect place. But we’ll have to take the bus to get there.”

  Joel and I were open to going any place that promised more candy. I got three pillowcases from the linen closet, then the three of us walked down the street to catch the bus.

  The bus ride was only fifteen minutes long and our destination turned out to be as fruitful as Grace promised. It was a crowded suburb of small, tidy homes built close together, just ripe for the picking. There were scores of children out and the streets looked like an elementary school Halloween parade.

  The three of us swept the streets with remarkable efficiency. For the first two hours we rarely even had to say “trick-or-treat,” as invariably someone would already be at the door dispensing candy to another group of children.

  As evening fell, the crowds started to thin, and by ten o’clock most of the little kids had gone home to bed. We continued to add to our haul, carrying our bulging pillowcases over our shoulders like Santa Claus. Although it was a reasonably warm night, relatively speaking, we still had to wear coats over our costumes.

  We had worked our way over by my school when Grace led us down a small, dead-end street with pumpkins smashed in the middle of the road. The houses were smaller than the homes on the other streets we’d been to and not as well cared for. A couple of the homes had dilapidated cars parked in their front yards, with flat tires or wheels missing altogether.

  “This doesn’t look like a good street,” Joel said. “Let’s go down a different one.”

  “I second that,” I said.

  Grace continued on as if she hadn’t heard us. She walked past several homes then stopped at the edge of the yard of a small bungalow. The home was pretty much the same size and construction of the other houses on the street, but it was in even worse shape. The yard was engulfed by orange-berried Firethorn bushes that also spilled over and poked through the front and side chainlink fence. One of the windows was broken and was covered with a sheet of plywood held in place with duct tape.

  The sidewalk in front of the home hadn’t been shoveled but had been tramped down, probably by earlier trick-or-treaters.

  There was a motorcycle and an old red Ford pick-up truck in the driveway as well as another pick-up that was hoisted up on cinder blocks.

  Grace just stared at the house. The curtains over the picture window were drawn but a light was on and I could see the silhouette of a woman moving around inside.

  “Do you know who lives here?” I asked.

  She didn’t move.

  “Grace?”

  She turned to me with a peculiar look in her eyes. “This was my house.”

  My heart raced. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  She just turned back and looked at the house. “Would you ring the doorbell?”

  “What?”

  “Please.”

  I glanced back at the house then again at her. “Are you sure?”

  “I want to see my mother.”

  Joel stood next to me silently staring at the house. I could tell he was afraid. I suppose I was too. I took a deep breath. “All right. Come on, Joel.”

  We went to the front gate and opened it then marched up the walk. There were no pumpkins or Halloween decorations but I didn’t think the house needed them. It was kind of scary already.

  “Trick or treat,” I yelled. Joel said it too, but almost inaudibly.

  After another minute I went to ring the doorbell but it was covered over by duct tape on which was written “Doesn’t work.” I knocked instead. I was glad when no one came and was ready to go when I heard footsteps. The door opened. A balding man stood in the doorway. He was taller than my dad, and had a large belly. He wore a white sweat-stained sleeveless T-shirt and his pants were secured by suspenders. He held an open can of beer.

  “Trick or treat,” I said.

  He looked me over. “Well if it ain’t Scratch himself.” He looked at Joel. “Who are you, Howdy Doody?”

  “I’m the Lone Ranger,” Joel said.

  He looked back at me. “Guess that makes you Tonto, sweetie.” He punctuated his remark with a swig from his can. Even if I hadn’t already known who he was I wouldn’t have liked him. He looked out across the yard where Grace had been. I panicked.

  “Are you going to give us candy or not?”

  He looked back at me. “Oh, a smart aleck. Show me a trick first. That’s the deal, ain’t it?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No trick, no candy.”

  I heard a woman’s voice. “Quit giving them a hard time Stan.”

  He l
ooked at me. “You think you’re the devil?” He laughed. “Here’s a trick for you. Get on all-fours and bark like a dog. Go on.”

  I turned. “C’mon, Joel, let’s go.”

  “Oh, don’t like that, huh?”

  We walked away.

  “What a couple of Marys,” he yelled after us. He laughed, then slammed the door.

  “I told you this was a bad street,” Joel said.

  When we reached the sidewalk Grace was gone.

  “Where’d she go?” Joel asked.

  “I don’t know.” I was sure she’d be waiting for us. When we got near the end of the block we found her sitting on the curb behind a garbage can. She was sobbing so hard she could hardly catch her breath. I knelt down next to her. “You okay?”

  It was a while before she could speak. “Let’s go home, please.”

  I helped her to her feet and we all walked five blocks to a bus stop. Grace didn’t say a word until the bus came and we were safely on board.

  “Was that your stepfather?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “We didn’t like him either.”

  She didn’t say anything the rest of the night. She didn’t even want her candy.

  CHAPTER Twenty

  Last night I saw Stan.

  I don’t know why God put people like him on this earth.

  Maybe for the same reason He made rattlesnakes,

  cancer, and earthquakes.

  GRACE’S DIARY

  MONDAY, NOV. 5

  Another Monday at the Queen. I was standing up front at the cash register when a woman about my mother’s age walked in. She had a bouffant hairdo that looked like it was a yard high and pretty eyes that matched her blue topaz necklace. In one hand she held a rolled-up poster.

  “May I help you?” I asked.

  She said with a slight southern accent, “I’d like to speak with your manager.”

  “Our assistant manager’s here,” I said. “I’ll get him.” I walked to the back where Gary was checking receipts against a cash register tape. “Gary, there’s a woman up front asking for you.”

  He looked up, his eyes wide with fear. “Is she like five foot tall with kind of ratty red hair and painted-on eyebrows?”