Tallahassee Higgins

  "Oh, Talley, you're so smart!" Melanie clapped her pudgy hands and smiled. "But what about Aunt Thelma? She won't let you make a long-distance call."

  "I'll do it while she's at work." It was so simple, I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner.

  ***

  The next afternoon, I persuaded Jane to come home with me after school.

  "But I'm not supposed to go to people's houses unless their parents are home," she whispered nervously as I unlocked the front door.

  "Your mother will never know. She'll think we're at the park." I led Jane back to the kitchen where Fritzi greeted us with his usual fusillade of barking.

  To shut Fritzi up, I gave him a dog yummy. "Why can't you like me?" I asked him as he took his bribe under the table and started gnawing on it. His only reply was a low growl.

  While Fritzi was occupied, Jane and I studied the phone book, trying to figure out exactly what we were supposed to do to call long-distance. After a couple of mistakes, I finally got the operator in Los Angeles and told her what I wanted.

  "Which Big Carrot?" she asked.

  "There's more than one?"

  "It's a health-food chain. There must be more than half a dozen in Los Angeles."

  "Well, can you give me the numbers of all the Big Carrots?"

  Although she didn't sound happy to do it, the operator read off the numbers of eight Big Carrots, and I wrote them all down.

  "Now." I looked at Jane, my hand poised over the phone. "Let's hope we find Liz before Aunt Thelma comes home."

  "Are you going to ask her about Johnny?" Jane asked as I dialed the first number.

  "Of course I am. Next to finding out when she's sending me my plane ticket, that's the most important thing."

  While Jane hung over my shoulder, scarcely breathing, I called seven Big Carrots before I got the right one.

  "Liz Higgins?" A woman's voice asked. "Yes, she works here. Do you want to speak to her?"

  "Yes, please." Of course I wanted to speak to her—why else would I call?

  "Hey, you seen Liz?" the voice yelled. "Tell her she's got a phone call."

  Then, clunk, down went the receiver, leaving me standing in the kitchen with my heart going thump, thump, thump. Finally, somebody picked up the phone. "Hello?"

  It was Liz, and for a minute I couldn't say anything. It was Liz, it was really Liz!

  "Hey, is anybody there?"

  "It's me," I whispered. "It's me, Liz."

  "Who is this?" Liz shouted.

  "It's Tallahassee!" I was so scared she was going to hang up that I yelled. "Your daughter, in case you forgot!"

  "Talley, baby!" Liz sounded amazed. "How did you get my number?"

  "From Information. When am I supposed to come out there, Liz?"

  "Didn't you get my postcard?"

  "Yes, but it didn't say anything. Please let me come out there, please!"

  "Look, Tallahassee," Liz cut into my pleading, her voice sharp as a knife. "I've told you I can't afford it right now. It's just not possible."

  "How about the bus? It's cheap." I was whining now, something I knew she hated, but I couldn't help it.

  Liz paused to light a cigarette and then exhaled so sharply I could hear her. "You don't understand, Talley. Bob's friends turned out to be a bunch of losers. They don't know anybody. They just sit around all day drinking wine and talking about the good old days. And Bob is perfectly happy fooling around with them and riding around on his motorcycle. I swear I might as well have stayed in Florida."

  "You mean you haven't met anybody in the movie business?"

  "I'm sorry, baby. I wish I had better news for you." Then Liz started crying. "Look, honey, I can't talk now. I've got tables waiting, and I need all the tips I can get. Be good, will you? I'll call you, I promise."

  Before I could say another word, she hung up.

  I put the receiver down and turned to Jane. "Come on, let's go to the park before Aunt Thelma comes home."

  Safely out of the house, Jane and I ran across the yard and down the street. When we got to the park, we collapsed on a bench, too out of breath to talk.

  After a while Jane turned to me. "What did your mother say?"

  "Not much." I sighed and watched a mother pushing a little kid in a swing. She was singing a song Liz used to sing to me about the big rock-candy mountain. "Things aren't as great in California as she thought they'd be."

  Jane stared at me, her face solemn. "She hasn't met any stars or anything?"

  I shook my head so hard my hair swung out and thwacked Jane's cheek. "And she's real depressed, I can tell, and I'm not there to cheer her up. Oh, Jane, she really needs me, I know she does."

  Jane's hand closed over mine. "She'd send for you if she could. I'm sure she would."

  Tipping my head back, I stared up at the sky. It was just starting to get dark. A star hung in the pale strip of sky above the treetops, and the air was getting colder. I saw the mother lift her little kid out of the swing and walk away, still singing.

  "I guess we'd better go," I said to Jane. "If you're not home when the streetlights come on, your mother will ground you again."

  Jane stood up, and we walked slowly out of the park. As we passed Mrs. Russell's house, Jane said, "Oh, Talley, you didn't ask Liz about Johnny."

  "I didn't exactly have a chance." I paused by the fence. The kitchen light was on, and I could see Mrs. Russell sitting at her table eating dinner.

  "It must be awfully lonely to eat by yourself every night," Jane said.

  "You'd think she'd be glad to have a granddaughter, wouldn't you?" Happy scenes formed in my head like home movies as I imagined Mrs. Russell and me sitting around the kitchen table laughing and talking, Bo stretched out at our feet.

  "The streetlights are on!" Jane gasped, scattering my daydream into fragments. "I have to go!" Leaving me behind, she ran for home.

  Well, I didn't feel like running, so I dawdled along, looking in windows and imagining what the people inside the houses were like. Were they happy? Were they sad? Did they like living in Hyattsdale or did they all wish they were in California?

  By the time I reached Oglethorpe Street, I was late for dinner. I got in trouble for that and for being out after dark. As a punishment, I had to spend an hour with Uncle Dan going over my math problems instead of watching even half an hour of television.

  ***

  Two long weeks passed. Although no word came from Liz, Aunt Thelma's telephone bill arrived. I was in my room when she opened it, but from the way she called me to come downstairs, I knew I was in trouble.

  She was standing at the foot of the steps with the envelope in her hand. "What is the meaning of this?" she yelled at me. "I've got twelve dollars and fifty-five cents worth of long-distance calls to California on my phone bill!"

  "What are you talking about?" I stopped halfway down the steps and stared at the bill she was waving at me.

  "You made these calls, didn't you?"

  "I just wanted to talk to my mother!"

  "You told me you didn't have her number."

  "I didn't! I called Information."

  Aunt Thelma slammed the telephone bill down on the table. "First I had to pay for that blouse you ruined, and now this. I will not have you sneaking around behind my back, running up bills on my phone. Do you understand?"

  As I started to run back upstairs, she stopped me. "What did Liz say when you talked to her?"

  "She'll be sending for me real soon!" I yelled. "That ought to make you happy!" Then I turned my back and thundered up the steps.

  Flopping down on my bed, I picked up Melanie and looked out the window at the gray clouds sailing across the sky. As I lay there, I saw a bunch of dead leaves spiral into the air, as if they were being sucked up by a giant vacuum cleaner.

  "I wish I were Dorothy," I whispered to Melanie, "and a huge tornado would take me away from here. Maybe not all the way to Oz. Maybe just to California."

  Chapter 15

  THE NEXT
DAY was Saturday. Jane was at the orthodontist, safely away from my influence, so I hopped on my bike and rode over to Mrs. Russell's. I wasn't ready to give up on her yet.

  I found her in her backyard hanging a sheet on a clothesline stretched from the porch to the garage. Bo was frisking around, snapping at the towels blowing in the breeze.

  "Do you want some help?" I vaulted over the fence again, leaving my bike locked to one of the palings.

  Mrs. Russell mumbled something that sounded like yes through a mouthful of old-fashioned wooden clothespins.

  "Don't you have a clothes dryer?" I grabbed one end of a wet sheet and struggled to pin it to the line.

  Dumping the clothespins into a little bag hanging on the line, she said, "On nice days like this, I hang my sheets and towels outside. It makes them smell good." She yanked a corner of a sheet away from Bo. "No, Bo! Bad dog!"

  Bo immediately sat down and looked so ashamed of himself that I couldn't help laughing.

  "Want me to take him for a walk?" I asked. "We could play in the park or something."

  "I suppose that would be all right." Mrs. Russell looked from me to Bo and back. "But you'll have to keep him on his leash, Tallahassee. I've already gotten in trouble with the park police for letting him run free. Poor thing." She patted Bo. "You don't understand about leash laws, do you?"

  When she went inside to get his leash, I followed her up the steps, hoping again to be invited in. "Wait here," she said to me. "I'll be right back."

  I peered through the screen door at the big, sunny kitchen. Johnny's kitchen. One whole window was full of glass shelves, jammed with African violets, all blooming and healthy. They reminded me of Liz's futile attempts to grow plants; when they died, she said it was because she had a brown thumb, but I knew better. Plants have to be watered. You can't just go off and forget them if you want them to bloom.

  When Mrs. Russell reappeared with the leash, Bo jumped around, his tail wagging. "He's so smart," she said. "The minute he sees this, he knows he's going for a walk."

  She knelt beside him and clipped the leash to his collar. "Now you be careful with him, Tallahassee," she said. "And remember what I said about not letting him loose."

  Mrs. Russell followed us down the sidewalk and waved as we started up Forty-first Avenue. "Be back in an hour," she called.

  "Come on, Bo! Let's go, boy!" I started running as soon as we got to the park, and Bo lunged ahead like a racehorse, just flying along. I would have loved to unfasten his leash, but I was afraid Mrs. Russell would find out and never let me take him anywhere again.

  We didn't slow down till we got to the pond. Then I let Bo wade into the water and drink his fill. I hoped Mrs. Russell wouldn't get mad when she saw how muddy he was.

  On the way home, I stopped and let a bunch of little kids pet Bo. They all seemed to know him, and one of them wanted to know where Mrs. Russell was and who I was.

  "She's at home doing the laundry," I said, "and I'm her granddaughter. That's why I get to take Bo for a walk."

  "I have a grandmother," a little girl told me.

  "Me too," another kid said. "Only she's out in Arizona. I'm going to see her this summer. On an airplane." He spread his arms like wings and ran back to the tot lot, making jet plane noises.

  By the time Bo and I got back to Mrs. Russell's house, the leash hung slack between us. We were too tired to run.

  "Did you have a good walk?" Mrs. Russell was standing at the gate waiting for us, her hands clasped in front of her, her back straight.

  "Bo got kind of muddy," I said apologetically. "He waded in the pond and then he drank out of all the mud puddles we passed."

  Mrs. Russell scratched Bo's ears. "This big oaf could find water in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Couldn't you, you silly old dog?"

  Bo rolled over on his back and waved all four legs in the air while Mrs. Russell rubbed his tummy. "Who's the biggest rascal in the world?" she asked him.

  Straightening up, Mrs. Russell smiled at me. "I imagine you're pretty thirsty yourself, unless you were tasting the puddles, too. Would you like to come in for a minute and have a cup of tea with me?"

  I followed her around the house to the back door. Before she let me in, she made me wipe the mud off my shoes while she cleaned Bo's paws with an old rag. Inside, she sat me down at a big oak table, the kind with lion's feet carved on its legs, and poured tea into pretty little flowered cups.

  "Cookies?" Mrs. Russell passed me a plate heaped high with gingersnaps.

  While I was eating, Mrs. Russell said, "I was thinking about something while you and Bo were gone, Tallahassee. How would you like to give him a run every Saturday in the park? I could pay you a dollar an hour."

  "Oh, you don't have to give me any money." I stared at her. "I'll do it for free. I just love Bo!" I bent down and ruffled his fur so she wouldn't see how excited I was. She must like me, I thought, she must!

  "No, no, I insist on paying you, Tallahassee. That is, if it's all right with your aunt and uncle."

  "They won't care."

  She shook her head. "I'll call tonight and make sure it's agreeable to them." She sipped her tea. "I enjoy walking Bo, but I can't run him the way you can. He needs the exercise."

  "Where did you get Bo?" I asked. "In a pet store or what?"

  Mrs. Russell smiled at Bo. "One day last spring, I was out walking with a friend of mine. We'd taken a path that runs along the railroad tracks, and suddenly we saw a puppy sitting on the ties. If a train had come along, he would have been hit. We called to the puppy and he came right away." She paused and scratched Bo behind the ears.

  "We couldn't leave him there," she went on. "Since my friend Emma lives in an apartment, she had no room for him, so I brought him home. I ran ads in the paper for a month, but nobody claimed him."

  Bo made a funny little sound and put his paw in my lap, his head tilted, grinning at me. "Do you mean somebody just left him there? They abandoned him?"

  "Maybe they couldn't keep him and they didn't know what to do." Mrs. Russell shook her head.

  "They could have taken him to the pound," I said. "He would've been safe there." Bo scratched at my leg and whuffed gently. His eyes rolled sadly from my cookie to me and back again. "Can he have a cookie?"

  "Just one. They're really not good for his teeth, but he loves sweet things." Mrs. Russell chuckled. "He's very spoiled, I'm afraid."

  "How come you gave him such a funny name?" I watched Bo snap up the cookie. I think he swallowed it whole, it disappeared so fast.

  "Since he was sitting on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad tracks, I called him Bo. You know, short for B and O."

  "That reminds me of how I got my name. I was born in Tallahassee, Florida, so Liz did pretty much the same thing you did." I made a face. "It's not so bad naming a pet for the place you found him. Me, I would have preferred a real name."

  "I wouldn't expect Liz to give her child an ordinary, everyday name," Mrs. Russell said.

  I looked up, wondering if she was criticizing Liz. If she was, her face didn't give anything away. "Why do you say that?"

  "Well, Liz never did things the way most people do."

  I put my teacup down very carefully. It was so fragile you could almost see through it, and I thought a loud noise might shatter it. "Did you know my mother very well?" I asked cautiously, sensing how close we were coming to the question I really wanted to ask her.

  "As I told you, I taught her." Mrs. Russell sipped her tea. "Then, of course, since she lived so close, I saw her around the neighborhood. Liz and Linda DeFlores and my son, Johnny, were all the same age, and they spent a lot of time together, especially when they were teenagers."

  Mrs. Russell gazed past me toward the back door. "On days like this, they'd gather on the back porch. Liz would usually have her guitar and they'd sing. Poor Johnny—I could always pick out his voice. He was the flat one. But Liz—her voice was truly beautiful."

  "I can't carry a tune," I told Mrs. Russell. "Liz says my f
ather couldn't either. She says I look just like him, too." I leaned toward her, my heart pounding.

  "What else did Liz tell you about your father?" Mrs. Russell was staring at me as if she'd never seen me before.

  "Nothing. Except I have his hair and his teeth."

  For a few moments neither of us spoke. Through the open window, I could hear a bird singing. Close by, someone started a power mower, and a car sped up the street.

  Then the phone rang so loudly that I jumped. Mrs. Russell left the room to answer it, leaving me alone with Bo.

  "Yes," I heard her say, "yes, she's here. I'll send her home right now. No, not at all, Thelma."

  "Mrs. Russell came back into the kitchen. "That was your aunt, Tallahassee," she told me. "She wants you to come home for lunch."

  "How did she know I was here?"

  "Mrs. DeFlores saw your bike chained to my fence."

  "Is Aunt Thelma mad?"

  "I don't think so." Mrs. Russell watched me as I carried my fragile little cup to the sink and set it down carefully on the drainboard.

  "That's a wonder. She's usually mad about everything."

  Mrs. Russell rinsed the little cups and wiped them carefully. "Now, Tallahassee," she said gently, "you had better run along."

  "It was Aunt Thelma's fault Liz ran away," I said as I edged toward the door, knowing I should leave but wanting to stay.

  "That's really not fair," Mrs. Russell said. "People do what they want to do. Nobody makes them." She opened an old-fashioned kitchen cabinet and put the cups safely on a shelf.

  "Sometimes I'd like to run away to California and find Liz," I said.

  "Running away doesn't solve anything," Mrs. Russell said. "In fact, it usually gives you a whole set of new problems worse than the old ones. And it hurts the people you leave behind."

  "It wouldn't hurt Aunt Thelma. She'd be glad."

  Mrs. Russell shook her head. "What about your Uncle Dan? He's never gotten over Liz leaving. You wouldn't want to hurt him, would you?"

  I turned my attention to patting Bo and tried not to think about what Mrs. Russell was saying. Of course I didn't want to hurt my uncle. I loved him. But Liz had loved him, too, and it hadn't stopped her.