Outside Beauty

  “What jeopardy?”

  He was just like my mother asking about Yellowstone. “You don’t know what Jeopardy! is?”

  “Ah, jeopardy is when in danger. I read that in dictionary.”

  Was anyone ever as out of it as my father? “It’s a TV game show,” I said.

  “Oh, TV,” he said, as if that were the end of it.

  Later, when I got in bed, I felt angry that Maddie wasn’t even allowed to call me. I hadn’t even been able to tell her anything. When I pictured Maddie wetting the bed as she dreamed about our good friends the bugs, I just wanted to kill Mr. Bronson for spanking her. In fact, I felt so angry I couldn’t sleep. Then I got angrier and angrier, and when I did fall asleep, I dreamed of Mr. Bronson losing on Jeopardy!

  chapter eleven

  I CALLED MARILYN AGAIN THE next day, the second Jiro left the house.

  When she answered, I said, “It’s me.”

  “Hi, Shelby.”

  “Maddie says that Mr. Bronson spanked her for wetting the bed. And then she called me and he made her hang up.”

  “He’s such a jerk. She can’t help it! I can’t stand him.”

  “Me neither. I was thinking we should ask Mom if Maddie can stay with you and Mack or me and Jiro. Then at least she’ll be with one of us.”

  “I already asked,” Marilyn told me.

  “You did?”

  “Uh-huh. She said she didn’t want to rock the boat with Bronson at the moment because of some legal stuff.”

  “When did you ask? Maybe you can ask Mom again next time you see her. Tell her Mr. Bronson spanked her. Is she getting any better?”

  “I see her every day. Her arm’s getting better. But she’s pretty depressed.”

  “But she’s getting better.”

  “She looks bad,” Marilyn said. And that told me everything. “Shelby, I know you’re worried about Maddie, but I don’t want to upset Mom. She’s very emotional right now. I don’t think it’s a good idea to ask her something that will only worry her.”

  Exasperation and anger rose in me. But I also felt guilty for being mad at someone going through surgery after surgery. I wasn’t sure what my mother even looked like now. Marilyn said her looks were going through a “challenging” period.

  The next day Marilyn called back. She’d talked to Mom about Maddie after all. “Mom started crying and saying there was nothing she could do. She said Bronson was taking advantage of the situation.”

  So the days formed weeks, and still Maddie cried whenever we talked. During that time, our mother was released from the hospital once and then readmitted a few days later to have the plates put in her forearm. Meanwhile, as summer ripened, the last kousa dogwood blooms dropped from the trees in Jiro’s front yard. The hillsides were all the same deep green, and at night the air was thick with mosquitoes. No matter how careful Jiro and I were about closing our screens and getting quickly into and out of the house, every night I would lie in bed and hear buzzing in my ears. Sometimes I turned on the light and went on a mosquito hunt, smashing a few mosquitoes and seeing blood squirt out.

  One day I sat outside with my new goat friend and some nail polish. At first the goat was curious, maybe wondering if this new activity involved some kind of snack for him. When he saw it didn’t, he walked a few feet away and folded his legs under himself and watched me.

  Painted nails never helped my feet look any better. It seemed to just make my funny toes look even funnier. My feet had never been soft and pretty. In fact, they were so bad that when Maddie was a toddler, she asked me if my feet were “broken” because they were as cracked as a drought-stricken field. They were even worse now. Since my sisters and I had always painted our nails together every week, it just made me lonely to do it now.

  I went inside and got the A volume of Jiro’s encyclopedia set. Jiro had shown it to me and said I could read it when I had nothing to do. He said he’d read the whole set from A to Z. I randomly opened up the volume and read, Marie Antoinette is perhaps most famous for her alleged line “Let them eat cake.”

  I looked at the goat. “Who cares what she said?” I said. “She lived a million years ago.”

  Jiro said that not only had he read the entire encyclopedia set, he’d also read two different dictionaries. Nobody read one entire dictionary, let alone two. I took a dictionary and got through one fourth of one page before I stopped. All I was able to focus on was that I couldn’t wait to go back to Chicago and be with my sisters again. We had such a great time together. Without them, I didn’t really seem to be living my life. It was like my life was on hold and I was living in some kind of temporary world. The only thing important to me was writing my sisters and getting mail from them. Later that day I got Maddie’s next batch of letters:

  Duhthegear Shelby,

  I hope you are doing well. My father is helping me to write my letters. I sincerely hope you are doing well. I am doing well and am grateful to Father for helping me get through this difficult time.

  Luhthegove,

  Madeline

  The letter struck me as really creepy. I pictured Mr. Bronson sitting next to her, okaying each sentence as she wrote. Maybe he even dictated the words to her. I ripped open the other two letters, and they were the same way. By the time Jiro got home I’d started to worry that Mr. Bronson didn’t have to dictate anything to Maddie—he’d beaten her down so much, he was changing her personality. I ran up to greet my father. “It’s an emergency!” I cried out, holding a letter out to him. He looked concerned when he started the letter, but not when he finished it. “Why is this emergency?” he said.

  “He was dictating the letter to her!” I said.

  Jiro looked confused. “How you know that?”

  “It doesn’t sound like her.”

  “Who it sound like?”

  “Nobody,” I said. I got a little irate with Jiro. “Nobody! That’s the point.”

  “I have long day today. Lost account because I charge more than competitor. I can’t afford to charge less.”

  “But . . .” But I couldn’t say more. I guess I felt kind of like I had to defend Jiro from this competitor. But I also had to take care of Maddie. Why did the world give you twice as much as you could handle?

  Sitting on the porch had already become a tradition. That night I sat out there before Jiro did, and he came and joined me.

  “So can we have Maddie up for a visit?”

  “Ahh, that would be up to Bronson-san.”

  “You don’t have to call him san. Also, I was wondering, why do you keep a goat?” I asked Jiro.

  “I don’t keep. He just decide to live here one day.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “I know,” Jiro said. “I see you out there when I get home.”

  “Do you think we could get him something?”

  “Something?”

  “I don’t know. Goat treats.”

  “Ah, I think, ah, the oats and hay make happy goat.”

  “I meant a chew toy or snack.”

  Just then the phone rang, and I knew it was Maddie. I just got right up, went inside, picked up the phone, and said, “Hi, Maddie.”

  “Hi,” she said. “My father let me call you tonight because I was good today.”

  “Is he standing right there?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, how are you?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Okay. Mr. Bronson, uh, Father is teaching me French.”

  “Mom would like that. It’s very sophisticated.”

  “What’s surfisticated?”

  “Sophisticated. I can’t explain what it means, but French is sophisticated. A wineglass and a diamond bracelet are probably sophisticated also.”

  “Oh. How interesting, Shelby!”

  “Mom is sophisticated.” Then I thought, How interesting, Shelby? Since when did Maddie say “How interesting, Shelby”?

  “My father prefers not to talk about her. You know what?
I have to go. My father just wanted me to call you and let you know that things are going well.” I heard Mr. Bronson in the background saying something. Maddie continued, “Things are going very well. Good-bye.”

  “Bye, Maddie.” I hung up and then stared at the phone for a second. That was a very weird conversation.

  I returned to the porch. Jiro was smoking a cigar, which I’d never seen him do before and which smelled about as bad as a thing can smell. He said, “Sometimes I think maybe I should import cigar to supplement gum business. Or maybe make baseball cap again.” He looked at me as if for an opinion.

  “Gum and cigars?” I said. “I guess they’re kind of related. You put them both in your mouth.”

  He nodded thoughtfully.

  “Jiro?”

  “Ah?”

  “Why can’t Maddie live here? I could go get her secretly, and I would pay for everything. I have some money. It wouldn’t cost you anything.”

  He puffed on his cigar. “Bronson-san her father,” he said firmly. “I already ask him about visit.”

  “Really? When did you ask? What did he say?”

  “I call last week. He say no very strong. He say he expert in raising child. He say he working on book about it.”

  I’m going to go get her, I thought, but all I said was, “You don’t have to call him san. I thought you said that only when you respected someone.”

  “I respect everyone,” he said. “Even Bronson-san.”

  chapter twelve

  I DECIDED I WOULD HIDE Maddie in the garage. I went out and looked around the next morning. I took the broom and cleaned away the spiderwebs and swept the floor. Because I’d left the door open, the goat came in and tried to eat the straw on the broom. “No!” I said. “No!” But he didn’t pay any attention to me. He grabbed the broom and pulled hard. I pulled back. “Out!” I said. For a reply, he tugged even harder. I tried to change my grip, and he took the opportunity to pull the broom away. He ran outside, and I chased him until he ran down the steep hill.

  Anyway, the garage wasn’t the Ritz, but it wasn’t so bad. The thought of going after Maddie was scary, but I kept thinking of our mother. One thing she said over and over was, “It isn’t what you decide that matters, but what you do. I think Bertrand Russell said that . . . or one of those philosophers. It doesn’t matter which.” I had to do something. I felt like it was my responsibility to act before Maddie’s personality was squashed for life. That afternoon I got this letter from her:

  Dearest Shelby,

  Everything is great here. I’m having a superb time staying with my father and his wife. He’ll be going to visit his brother next week, and I’ll stay here with my stepmother. I hope all is well with you.

  Sincerely,

  Madeline

  “Sincerely”? “Superb”? “Madeline”? The letter sounded like a robot wrote it—a little Bronson robot, to be more specific. I knew she wasn’t having a good time. What was scaring me was that Maddie would start to think that it was normal to feel miserable the way Sophie thought that it was normal. I reread the letter several times and then pulled out the phone book. I saw that the local bus stop was right there at Mrs. Sherwood’s store. I called the emporium.

  “Hi. My name is Suzy,” I lied.

  “Suzy?”

  “Yes, and I was wondering when the bus south comes through.”

  “Oh, you mean the bus to Little Rock?”

  “I was thinking of Cortez.”

  “Suzy . . . Suzy . . . I don’t think I know you,” Mrs. Sherwood said cheerfully.

  What difference did it make? But I felt panicked. “I was just asking for my cousin.”

  “The bus passes through at two in the morning. You can buy a ticket from me during the day or on the bus. But if you don’t let me know ahead of time, you’ll need to wave the bus down with a flashlight. It’s a flag stop. The bus doesn’t stop unless somebody’s there.”

  I called Maddie that evening while Jiro sat outside. Mr. Bronson answered. “Hi, it’s Shelby,” I said. “I have permission from my father to call Maddie.”

  “Five minutes,” he said.

  “Hello?” It was Maddie. She must have been standing right there.

  I lowered my voice, as if Mr. Bronson could hear me. “Maddie, I’m catching a bus tonight,” I said urgently. “I’ll be there by early morning to bring you here. Don’t pack, or Mr. Bronson might figure out what’s going on. Stay put. Just say ‘okay.’”

  “Okay.”

  “See you soon.”

  “Bthegye,” she said excitedly, and then hung up.

  That night after Jiro fell asleep, I sneaked out of the house and into the garage. I thought I heard the sound of mice. That put some fear in me, but I went in anyway. I’d placed Jiro’s bicycle near the door, but it wasn’t there. I didn’t move for a second. I tried to feel around in the dark for the bicycle. I pushed something over and stood without moving as it—whatever it was—crashed on the floor. I could have just turned on the light, but my plan had been to keep the light off. Still, Jiro was almost sure to be asleep. I flicked on the light, spotted the bike, and flicked off the light. I didn’t move for another moment. Then I felt my way over to where the bike was. I brought it out to the road and I set off. I had my roll of money with me and one change of clothes. If all went well, I’d be back before I’d need more.

  I had never been out in nature that late by myself. It felt completely different from the only camping trip I’d ever taken, one time when Larry drove us all out to Colorado. That would have been fun, except I twisted my ankle on some rocks and fell into Marilyn, who fell down and sprained her wrist. So we had to go home instead of to Larry’s cabin as we’d planned.

  Right now all the trees surrounding me were kind of shocking and kind of cool at the same time. I was alone but also surrounded by bugs and animals and plants. Here and there a small house or business was illuminated with a dim light, but mostly, I used the moon or a flashlight to see the road. I pedaled frantically at first, then lazily as the breeze hit my face and hypnotized me. Then I noticed too late that a log lay on the road. I went flying over the bicycle handlebar and thudded to the ground. Fortunately, I landed on the soft dirt on the side of the road. Still, the noise from my fall echoed against the humid air.

  Falling shook me up, shook up not just my body, but my head. It shook the fervor out of me and made me wonder what I was doing and why. And it made me scared. I closed my eyes and saw myself falling off the bicycle again. I opened my eyes. I’d gone this far, and I’d already told Maddie I was coming. So I knew I couldn’t stop. I righted the bicycle and continued down the road.

  Every so often I would catch glimpses of a river and see spots along the bed that seemed to be glowing. I figured it was just the moon shining off a wet spot, but still it was eerie.

  I began sweating. I had to keep drying my palms on my clothes so I could grip the handles. Not a single vehicle passed in either direction.

  When I reached the emporium, I laid my bike down behind the building. I wished I’d thought to bring a note to leave for Mrs. Sherwood, to let her know whose bicycle this was. But I figured that would all get sorted out eventually.

  I squinted at my watch, saw the lone tiny diamond catch a light and sparkle. The time was one forty-five a.m.

  The medical clinic down the road was actually open. At one point as I sat in the darkness, a car screeched up to the clinic. A doctor ran out while three men jumped from the car, one of them being supported by the other two. “He was trying to shoot a snake and accidentally shot his foot!” one of the men yelled. They all rushed inside.

  I was not the least bit sleepy. I looked around. Everything around me seemed lush and wild, except for a potted plant bent in half over a rotted middle. Way down the road I saw a church cross outlined against the sky.

  I shivered. I started to feel scared that some sheriffs would come to get me. Then I felt scared that they wouldn’t come. I heard a bell and saw the clinic door opening.
I jumped up and rushed around to the side of the store, trying to be as quiet as possible as I pressed hard against the wall. I felt like a secret agent.

  I heard footsteps in the gravel. Unfortunately, the footsteps were getting closer. I would have run around to the back, but I didn’t want to make any more noise. A man in a white smock shined a light on me. He came and stood right in front of me without saying a word at first. I just about wet my pants.

  Finally, he spoke. “Nice night, isn’t it?” His voice was a soothing drawl.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Man shot himself in the foot. It’s not the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s pretty darn dumb.” He stopped to think before continuing. “I guess the dumbest thing I’ve seen is the time Johnson got a bone the size of a golf ball stuck in his throat. Only the Lord knows how that happened and why he didn’t choke to death.”

  I didn’t reply, so the man continued.

  “That was a Tuesday night he tried to swallow that bone. I’m only open one night and two days a week. I swear, some people just pick Tuesday nights to pull off their craziest stunts.”

  I still didn’t reply.

  “I’m Dr. Reed. Your father called me,” he said. “He wants me to have you wait at the clinic.”

  One second I was thinking, Rats, they caught me! And the next second I was thinking, Good, I was afraid nobody would catch me! I heard rumbling down the way, and I knew it was the bus. In a minute it rumbled to a stop in front of the emporium. I saw a couple of sleepy faces in the windows. The driver opened the door. I imagined jumping aboard and shouting, Let’s go! Instead, I stood sheepishly next to the doctor. I’d never run away before, so I didn’t know how to act.

  “Anybody getting on?” asked the driver.

  “No, sir,” said the doctor. The door closed and the bus rumbled on.