Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters

Norrie was waiting for me in the lobby. She took me to Lexington Market for a crab cake to celebrate my first day of tutoring. I ate the crab cake, even though I knew I didn’t deserve it.

  FOUR

  THE NEXT DAY WAS A TEA DAY. I REMEMBER A LOT OF TALK about Brooks Overbeck and Norrie and college applications and the Cotillon. I’m interested in those things, but I found myself tuning out. It was a cloudy afternoon but warm, and through the big glass doors that led to the terrace I could see Wallace outside helping Raul with the gardening. He wore blue overalls and a straw hat covering his bald, pink and white head. He spotted me and gave me his two-finger salute. I loved Wallace’s salute—it was like a silent way of saying “Howdy, partner.” I wanted to salute him back but I know that’s not good table manners.

  I’d never wanted to hurt Wallace—you know that. I loved him. He never forced the grandpa thing on us. I liked the way he stood quietly by your side, watching in admiration while you ran your fiefdom. I liked the way he insisted on referring to you as our “grandma,” even though it doesn’t suit you.

  You were telling Norrie that you could pull some strings at Georgetown if she needed it, while outside, Wallace watered the rosebushes. The sun had come out and he wiped a bead of sweat off his large forehead. I offered to take him some iced tea, and you said I could be excused.

  I went into the kitchen. Bernice was sitting at the table watching The People’s Court. I poured the tea over ice and added a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint, no sugar. “Sweet tea is for Southerners,” you always say. I guess that means we’re not Southerners. But you also say, “Yankees brag too much,” which implies we’re not Yankees either. I don’t know what we are. Our own breed, I guess.

  “Tell Mr. Wallace I’ve got a chicken sandwich ready for him if he’s hungry,” Bernice said as I left the kitchen with the tea.

  “Will do, Mildew.” We both snickered. It’s an old joke we kids have with Bernice. None of us liked your old secretary, Mildred—she was so bossy and stuck-up we called her “Mildew” behind her back. Bet you didn’t know that. A little bonus confession for you.

  Wallace was putting away the hose when I found him near the garden shed. “Is that iced tea for me? Well, thank you so much, honey.” He took off his hat and took a long drink. “Had enough of that girl talk in there?”

  I nodded. “It’ll be terrible after Norrie and Jane leave for college and I’m the only one left to go to Tuesday Tea. Just me and Ginger. I’ll have to put Takey in a dress and make him come too.”

  “I bet Takey looks pretty good in a dress.”

  “He does. Norrie and I made him wear all our favorite old dresses when he was littler. With lipstick. He looked like a doll. Jane even put her old tutu on him and taught him a ballet routine.”

  “Poor boy. Where were his big brothers when he needed them?”

  “Sitting on the couch laughing at him,” I said.

  Wallace chuckled. “Well, your grandma has good reason to sit down and talk to you girls every week. She’s preparing you to take her place in the world. She’s an important woman, and someday you will be too.”

  “Just because I’m her granddaughter?”

  “No, I think you’ll be important in your own way. But being her granddaughter doesn’t hurt. Want to help me put this garden hose away?”

  I helped him carry the hose into the shed and rest it under the worktable. “Up to anything interesting? Aren’t you getting your driver’s license this year?”

  “In February. I have my learner’s permit.”

  “Good for you. You need someone to take you out driving, I’ll be happy to do it.”

  “Thanks. Everybody else is always too busy.”

  “I’ll bet they are. What else are you up to?”

  “Well, I started tutoring at this place downtown,” I told him. “They assigned me to a fifth grader. The only thing is, they want me to help her with math.”

  “Not your forte, eh? Stick with it. Maybe teaching math will help you understand it better.”

  “Anything’s possible, I guess,” I said.

  Have you ever been inside the garden shed? Wallace and Raul decorated it like a clubhouse. Raul put pictures of his family on one wall, and Wallace tacked up a picture of a race car and an old photograph of you from your debutante days. I bet it’s still in there, unless Raul took it down.

  I heard someone calling my name. Jane stood on the terrace yelling, “Sassy! Vacation’s over! Time to come back to your jail cell!”

  “Guess you’re wanted back at tea,” Wallace said. “Thanks for the drink, Sassafras.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He gave me the two-finger salute, and I saluted him back before walking up to the house.

  “I hope Wallace didn’t bore you with too much of his plant talk,” you said when I got back to the library and took my seat at the table.

  “He never bores me,” I replied.

  “You’re a saint,” you said.

  Don’t worry, Almighty. I know you loved him. He knew it too.

  FIVE

  THE FIRST MONDAY IN OCTOBER, I DECIDED TO TAKE THE BUS downtown to tutoring. I braced myself for a storm of protest, but it turns out if you don’t tell people what you’re doing, they can’t say no. Miss Maura thought Norrie was driving me downtown. I lied and told Norrie that I was getting a ride with Lula and her mother. Norrie said, “Cool,” and forgot all about me. Ginger and Daddy-o barely know what I do all day, and as long as there’s a breathing body in my bed every night they don’t worry about it.

  I walked to Charles Street and waited at the bus stop. When the bus came I took a seat and watched the buildings I’d known all my life pass by from a new perspective. Everything looks different from high up in a bus. It’s kind of like watching a movie that’s been filmed in your neighborhood; you recognize the houses but they look different somehow.

  The bus took longer to get to Fayette Street than I thought. Cassandra was waiting for me in our cubicle. Another tutor-student pair worked in the cubicle behind her.

  “Hey. Ms. Frazier throw any body parts at you lately?”

  She didn’t laugh. “Just sit down and help me.” She dropped a workbook on the table with a few crinkled sheets of homework stuffed inside. “I’ve got to finish these problems tonight and we’re having a quiz tomorrow. My mother said if I don’t get at least a C in math this year, she’s going to make me go to summer school.”

  “That would definitely suck.” I opened the workbook and looked at the problems. Long division. I know how to do that. I don’t always get the right answer, but I understand the basic concept.

  “I’ve got a calculator at home,” Cassandra said. “I don’t see why I can’t just use that. It always gives the right answer.”

  “You still have to learn how to do division on paper, or in your head,” I said. “In case you find yourself on a desert island where there aren’t any calculators.”

  “That’s never going to happen. And anyway, why would I need to do long division on a desert island?”

  “Well, what if there’s some big catastrophe and there’s no electricity and your calculator won’t work? What then, huh?”

  “Calculators use batteries, genius. I still don’t see why I would stop in the middle of running for my life from a big catastrophe to do long division.”

  “Well, what if you’re in a restaurant and you need to split the check?”

  “While the world is falling apart all around me?”

  I shrugged. “Long division wasn’t my idea.” I looked at her homework. “I think I see where the problem is. Decimals.”

  “I know that’s the problem,” she said. “I don’t understand why they’re always moving around the way they do. When the teacher makes those looping lines underneath them.”

  I always thought that was weird too. If you can move decimals around so easily, don’t they mean anything? “I can’t really explain it,” I said. “You just have to do it.”

  Her
look made me want to crawl under the desk.

  “That’s your lesson for the day? Just do it?”

  “Um—” I looked at the test again. I remembered struggling with the same problems, and finally realizing that the best way to handle it was not to try to understand it—for some reason my brain doesn’t want to understand it—but just to learn the procedure and follow it like a recipe or a formula. Wasn’t that what math mostly was anyway—formulas? But how could I say this to Cassandra? A better tutor would be able to help her understand the thinking behind the recipe.

  “Are you going to say something or you going to sit there like Dawn of the Dead?”

  “Dawn of the Dead isn’t a person,” I said. “I used to think that too. I thought the movie was about a zombie named Dawn. But it’s really about the morning after the Night of the Living Dead—”

  “You’re a tutor who knows more about zombies than you do about long division. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  I wanted to cry. Tutoring was not working out. I wasn’t helping anybody. I was just wasting Cassandra’s time and probably turning her off of math forever.

  I was an awful tutor. I glumly pondered this terrible reality as I walked the four blocks to the bus stop. It was getting dark, and it occurred to me that if I walked uptown a few blocks to the Walters’, I might still catch Daddy-o and get a ride home with him.

  I was crossing the street, deep in thought, when suddenly I found myself face-to-face with the metallic green hood of a Honda. I heard a screech of brakes as I landed on the street on my butt.

  I sat on the asphalt in a daze. Someone ran over to me. “Miss? Honey? Are you okay?”

  A small crowd gathered around me. A young man stared into my eyes. “Hello? Are you okay? Oh my God!” He pressed a cell phone to his ear as I blinked at him. “9-1-1! I need an ambulance!”

  “I’m okay,” I said. I started to stand up, but the young man and an older woman helped me to the curb and sat me down again. A police car drove up, lights flashing, siren wailing.

  I started coming back to myself. I picked a piece of gravel off my palm. Just like the last time, the car had barely tapped me. I wasn’t hurt, just a little confused.

  Two police officers stood over me. The young man who’d helped me said, “It was an accident. I was making a right turn and I didn’t see her—”

  “It’s true,” said the older woman. “I saw the whole thing. The girl was crossing against the light.”

  One policeman talked to the young man and the witness while the policewoman asked me if I was hurt anywhere. She checked my arms and legs for broken bones and looked into my eyes with a flashlight. Then an ambulance arrived and a paramedic took over for the policewoman.

  “I’m okay—really,” I insisted. “I don’t need an ambulance.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.” The paramedic put me inside the ambulance and checked my arms and legs again. He pressed against my abdomen and asked me if it hurt. He stared into my eyes and asked if my head hurt.

  “You look okay,” he said. “But we’ll take you to Mercy to make absolutely sure.”

  I had to go to the hospital? Ginger and Daddy-o would freak. “Really, I just want to go home,” I said.

  “It’s policy. We have to do it. We’ll try not to keep you too long.”

  The policewoman popped her head into the ambulance. “Can I get a statement from her now? Can she do that?”

  The paramedic nodded. “Sure.”

  The policewoman asked me my name and address and to tell her what happened. I told her I had a tendency to space out while I walked and wasn’t watching where I was going. She shook her head.

  “Sweetheart, this is the big city. You’ve got to keep your head about you. Now, do you want to call your parents?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, if you don’t, I will,” she said, handing me a phone.

  “That’s okay, I’ve got one.” I took my phone out of my backpack and called Norrie. “Can you come pick me up from Mercy Hospital?”

  “What? What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I got hit by a car again. But I’m fine. They’re making me go to the emergency room just to make sure. But I’m perfectly okay.”

  “Oh my God! What’s the matter with you? Why do you keep walking in front of cars?”

  “I’m not doing it on purpose,” I said.

  “I’m going to call Daddy-o. He’s already downtown. He’ll be there faster.”

  “Please don’t tell Daddy-o and Ginger,” I said. I didn’t want to upset anybody. Even then, before the big disaster, I knew I was somehow responsible for these accidents.

  “Sassy, you got hit by a car! Your parents should know about it.”

  “Norrie, come on—”

  “Sassy, no. I’m sorry. I’m calling Daddy-o right now.” She hung up.

  I sighed and made myself comfortable on the ambulance gurney. It was going to be a long night.

  SIX

  I WAS STARVING WHEN DADDY-O AND I FINALLY GOT HOME from the hospital. Since my case was hardly critical, I had to wait three hours to see a doctor. Miss Maura had kept our suppers warm for us. Everybody fussed over me—even Ginger, in her way: She asked Miss Maura to get me some ice cream if I wanted it—but all I had to show for the accident was a plastic hospital bracelet and another bruise, this one on my left arm. The doctors had confirmed that I was otherwise unhurt.

  “You’ve really got to get your head together, Sass,” Jane said. We had gathered in Norrie’s room late that night for a recap of the day. “Getting hit by two cars in one month—that’s pathetic. I wonder what the record is?”

  “What record?” Norrie said.

  “Most times somebody’s been hit by a car in a month,” Jane said. “Or at all.”

  “I hope you’re not trying to break some crazy record like that, Sassy,” Norrie said. “You’re not, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “But I do feel weird about something.”

  Norrie immediately put the back of her hand to my forehead. “Weird? In what way? Do you think you have a concussion? Maybe the doctors missed it.”

  “Not like that,” I said. “It’s funny how things have been happening to me—accidents, I mean—and I don’t get hurt. Falling down that hole in Lula’s house, and getting hit by two cars…I kind of feel like my bones are made of rubber or something. Like I’m indestructible.”

  In bed, late at night, when I relived the accidents in my mind, I saw myself bouncing off cars unharmed like a cartoon character, some kind of indestructible rubber superhero. I saw my body bouncing off floors and hoods and windshields and bumpers like an eraser off a desk.

  “Sassy, don’t think that way,” Norrie said. “You’re not indestructible. You have to be careful.”

  “Here’s what I want to know,” Jane said. “Why do you keep walking in front of moving cars?”

  “But what if I am?” I said. “What if I’m immortal?”

  Jane laughed her annoying snort-laugh. She can be so smug. I’m sure she thought that if anyone in the family was immortal, it would be her.

  Now that I’d said the words out loud, I couldn’t get them out of my mind. I was immortal. Unkillable.

  The thought terrified me. But I couldn’t resist a moment of Jane-like bravado.

  “Out of my way,” I said. “I’ve got some death to defy.”

  SEVEN

  “I GOT A C ON MY LAST MATH TEST,” CASSANDRA ANNOUNCED the next week. “Not that you had anything to do with it. Just thought you might like to know.”

  She waved the test paper, with its big red C and a “neutral” face—Ms. Frazier had drawn a straight line where the smile or frown should have been.

  “Cassandra, that’s great!” I said. “Congratulations. How did you do it?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. A C isn’t all that great.”

  “It’s a lot better than an F.”

  “Yeah.”

  I opened the
workbook, flipping through it without really knowing what I was looking at. “What lesson should we work on today?”

  “Here’s my homework for tomorrow.” She passed me a paper covered with problems. Oh no. Fractions again.

  “Are you all right?” Cassandra asked.

  “Me? Sure. Why?”

  “You got a big purple splotch on your arm.”

  “Oh. This.” The bruise on my left forearm had spread in the week since the last car accident. I tugged the sleeve of my sweater over it. “It’s nothing. Totally hideous, but not as bad as it looks.”

  “It’s hideous all right. How did you get it? Somebody hit you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “With his car.”

  “You got hit by a car? Why aren’t you dead?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It didn’t hit me that hard. It’s happened to me before, and I didn’t get hurt then either.”

  “Whoa. You’re lucky.”

  “I know.” Should I tell her? I wondered. Should I tell Cassandra my theory? I was curious what she’d think, though deep down I knew what she’d think. She’d think what everyone else thought: that I was crazy.

  But what the heck.

  “I have this idea that I can’t get hurt. Or killed, or anything like that. Like, maybe I’m immortal.”

  She pushed her red glasses up her nose like she wanted to make sure she was seeing me right, even though it was her ears, not her eyes, that were troubling her.

  “Say that again?”

  “I think something happened to me—it’s a long story—that made me immortal.”

  “What happened? Did you get bit by a vampire?”

  “No. But I keep getting hit by cars and just bouncing up like, ‘Everything’s okay.’”

  She frowned. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Maybe I’m not immortal, I don’t know. I’m just saying it’s weird, that’s all.”

  “You’re right that’s weird. Spooky too. And I don’t believe it. My mother told me everybody dies sometime. My granddad died last year. I saw his body at the funeral. He looked kind of like a big, wrinkly doll. And when nobody was looking, I touched his hand.”