Authors: Diane Munier
Darnay Road (22 page)
Darnay
Road 40
I
am glad to have the bike ride and I’m not in a really big hurry but I’m not
exactly dawdling either because it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to have Aunt May
pull alongside the curb because I took too long to get home.
So
I’m going medium speed and my purse is rattling a little in my basket. I feel
the weight of a fortune in there. That is what Granma called it—a fortune. But
I reach the place where I can turn off for Scutter, and I never thought I’d be
so happy about it. I get over the grass and tracks and through a gangway that
leads to Scutter and I am peddling faster to reach Easy’s house.
I
get there and I don’t hear his dog, not even when I go up on the porch. I knock
and knock but Easy doesn’t answer. I call him too, but he doesn’t show. Well,
he could be at big white or big gray or Nettie’s for all I know.
So
there is a flower pot on the end of the porch. No flower, of course, just hard
dirt. I drag that heavy pot near the door and I kneel and get the money out of
my purse and put the money under the pot. I leave enough peak out that he can
see it if he looks. I think he will cause this pot doesn’t normally sit right
smack in front of his door.
Once
on Darnay I look up at the trees, Sycamores mostly, lining the street. I guess
I won’t be seeing these for a while except from my window or when I walk to
school. Maybe then, but not as a free American.
So
I get home and she is on the porch and I’m coming from the wrong way and it
doesn’t matter now. “Hello Granma,” I say leaning my bike against Easy’s
wonderful paint job on the porch. She stands very, very tall at the top of the
porch stairs and I take them slowly, my purse in my hand.
“Millie
called,” she says. “I suppose you did it.”
I
am looking at her. “You can’t say anything to him. Not anything. You’ll ruin it
if you do.”
“Oh
my dear and darling girl I can do anything I need to do in a case like this,”
she says.
“Yes
Ma’am. But I will take the punishment so you don’t need to bother Easy about
it.”
She
blows a big breath and looks at the sky. “I blame myself and Hayley Mills and
that gosh-darn movie
Tiger Bay
.”
I
gasp.
Tiger Bay
is my all time most, most favorite movie ever made. Mine
and Abigail May’s. But Easy is not Korchinski. In the movie, Hayley Mills knows
Horst Buchholz who plays Korchinski murdered his girlfriend but she’ll do
anything to protect him. I admit I admired the daylights out of Mill’s
character Gillie who is about the best girl I ever, ever knew, and I did love
Korchinski, too, but Easy hasn’t killed anyone.
At
least…well if he did…he didn’t mean to.
“Granma,
you can punish me now,” I say.
She
stands aside and waves her hand and I slowly finish my walk up the stairs and
past my Granma. I hold my hands in front of me, wrists touching like I’m
wearing handcuffs. I imagine black and white stripes painting themselves around
me, and a little convict hat on top of my braids.
I’m
a prisoner now. But I’m smiling inside where it won’t look disrespectful. I’m
smiling because that money is under that pot and Easy will find it now and Cap
and his mom will come home.
He
comes over around two. I would have called him and warned him off but he
doesn’t have a phone. I should have left a note. Some spy I am.
I
have seen him come up the walk. He puts his bike on the fence and pushes
through the gate. As soon as I see him, the sun in his hair, I about know I
would do it all over again—rob the bank.
But
I hurry to the top of the stairs because she has him right off. He is on the
porch and she is talking through the screen. I hear the word trust.
He
looks past her at me cause I’m on the stairs now, my barefeet so quiet, me so
quiet. He looks at me and I look at him and he is my Korchinski. He’s dark like
that. Granma knew when I didn’t.
Granma
turns cause she is caught between our looking. I have given him the money and
no one ever has and it is in his look. I wasn’t expecting anything. That is
love. Granma has taught me that and taught me that.
But
he hasn’t had love. I am so glad he feels it now. Like me.
“You’re
in trouble,” he says.
But
he’s in trouble. That’s what this was about, not me.
“It’s
okay,” I say, eyes darting between them.
“If
you would have come to me,” she says and I see then, the money in his hand.
“I
meant to pay it back,” he says to Granma. He pulls the door and tries to hand
her the money and she takes it and puts it in her apron pocket.
“No,”
I say coming off the stairs. “Granma you can’t. It’s mine and I gave that to
Easy so that makes it his.”
“Easy
knows it was wrong,” Granma says. She widens the door and moves her head a
little and he comes in.
“You
come in the kitchen and tell me what this is about,” she says.
“I’m
so sorry Easy,” I say.
“It’s
all right,” he says softly. I just stop talking then. We follow my Granma into
the kitchen. We sit around the table. I can see Easy is tired. He’s worked all
day like usual. I am so sorry to do this.
I
jump up.
“Where
you going?” Granma says.
“To
get Easy a drink,” I say in a meaner way than I meant. “And lunch,” I add.
Now
Granma gets up too. “Watch your tone Georgia,” she says to me. “And sit.”
I
don’t answer, just look at Easy as I slowly retake my seat. I fold my hands on
the table and while Granma is getting him a big glass of iced tea and making
him sandwiches, cause he eats at least two and we know he’s holding back, he
reaches across that little table and around the salt and peppers that look like
ears of corn, and with just one finger he touches the knuckles on my one hand.
I
want to tell him it will be okay. But I think you should know some things
before you say it.
He’s
not worried, but he expects things to go wrong.
Granma
brings his food and drink to the table, but he cares more about looking at me
than eating his food. I hope he doesn’t feel sorry about my punishment. I heard
Granma tell him at the door that I am grounded. But letting him in and me at
the table is just pure luck I guess.
“Easy,
I hope you are not going to make this difficult,” Granma says.
“You
didn’t tell her?” he says to me.
“I
said I wouldn’t. But I probably did say too much. She knows it was for you,” I
say meaning the money.
“According
to Georgia you are in some kind of trouble,” Granma says.
There
is a knock at the front door and Aunt May calls and Granma calls she should
come on in.
I
fidget in my hands and feet cause this will make it harder than ever for Easy
to tell the truth.
“May
knows all about it, Easy,” Granma says.
Aunt
May enters the kitchen. “You in some kind of trouble youngster?” she says.
“No,”
Easy answers firmly. “Not real trouble. I was trying to get enough to bring
Beaucap home.”
Granma
and May look at one another like they just cracked the code to the secret
passage.
Easy
looks at me and my lips are pressed as tightly as two lips can be.
“I
see,” Granma says like this is a revelation.
“Well
I never,” Aunt May says pulling the last chair and sitting heavily upon it even
though she is not so heavy as grown ladies go.
“I would hope you could
come to us,” Granma says to him. “Go on and eat your sandwich.”
Easy
looks at me and he takes one half of one sandwich and puts it to his mouth and
nibbles at it like a hamster which is never the way Easy eats.
“Thirty-six
dollars is a sight of money. Is your brother in Alaska?” Aunt May says. “Was
there something more? Something you’re not telling us?”
I
swallow so loudly it sounds like I just crinkled my lunch bag at school.
“No,”
Easy says. He takes a bigger bite then.
“He
got a paper route,” I pipe up.
He’s
looking at me and first time I see the littlest smile in his eyes.
“Well
where does all this money you’re making go to?” Granma asks, and his smiles
goes right back to nothing.
“Home.
I help out,” he says with his mouth pretty full but I don’t know what they
expect firing questions like this.
“We
figured you did,” Aunt May says. “What if we were to visit your mother and see
what we could do? There is a fund at Sacred Heart, I could talk to An…Father
Anthony and see if something couldn’t be done for relief.”
“No,”
Easy says very firmly. “Thank you Miss May but no.” I am so relieved he knows
manners. He does, they are just a little rough.
“Well
if she is sick it may not be yours to decide,” Aunt May says.
“She
don’t like company,” Easy says, looking directly at Aunt May.
“We
would not bother her, but there can be meals and cleaning. Maybe a ride to the
doctor’s office?” Granma says.
Easy
stands now and he bumps the table and his tea sloshes. He looks surprised he
did that. “I ain’t asking for this,” he says. “I just wanted to bring them
home.”
“Them?”
Aunt May says. “Are there more children than the brother?”
Easy
looks at me and he’s shaking his head. I stand too. “It’s all right,” I tell
him. “Don’t get upset.” But I am so upset my stomach hurts. “He means Cap.
That’s all,” I tell Aunt May. “He’s not used to questions like this.”
“Let
him speak his own words,” Granma tells me while she’s mopping Easy’s tea. “Sit
down son. We are your friends.”
Easy
looks at me quickly, then at the two of them. “I know you mean well,” he says.
“Folks mean well. But if you want to help someone, how about Miss Little? She
lives right down there on your same road even. How about doing all those things
for her? That would be fine.”
He
walks to the doorway then, not even taking a sandwich.
“Where
are you going?” Granma says.
“Home,”
he says.
I
grab his plate and run after him.
Granma
doesn’t try to stop me.
I
go right out. “Easy,” I say.
He
stops. “Georgia, I won’t come around anymore. You’re in all kinds of trouble
and I probably am too.”
“But
what about Cap and…,” I nearly say it. “Are you mad at me?”
“No.
You…I’m not mad. You’re the…well I don’t think we’ll make it until we’re older.
I mean…maybe I’ll have to go back to Tennessee. I just don’t know,” he says
looking off.
“I’m
sorry….” I hold the sandwiches his way but he shakes his head.
“You’ve
got nothing to be sorry about. Nothing. I’m the one who dragged you down. You
tried to help me and I won’t ever forget it. Not ever.”
“Stop talking like
this. If you go away I’ll be so sad, Easy. I don’t want you to ever, ever go.”
“I
wish I could tell you all of it. I wish I could, Georgia. But it’s just too
much. But I didn’t know there was someone like you…your pink room,” he laughs a
little, he smiles and looks off.
“Well
you just think I’m silly,” I say.
He
looks at me, so deeply, so true. I don’t know how he does it, says so much with
his face, his eyes mostly. “Oh no, Georgia. I don’t think you’re silly. Not
like that. You’re just…a ballerina. Disbro gave her your pom-pom. It was in the
street he said, but he saw it before I did. I was just looking at you, I guess.
Anyway, she likes it so much I couldn’t take it from her. Same with the cats.”