Where ya been, Miss Sally? I was gettin’ ready to send a posse out for ya,” Ethel says when I come barging through Mrs. Galecki’s back door.
My other best friend is standing at the sink barefoot to give her bunions some breathing room while she’s popping the tops off juicy red strawberries and running them under cool tap water, never hot. That would suck the sweetness right out of them. There’s an angel food cake baking in the oven. She makes one every week around this time. Later on, she’ll whip a bowl of cream ’til, as she says, “It’s cryin’ for mercy.” Strawberry shortcake is Mrs. Galecki’s favorite dessert. Because she’s so long in the tooth, she gets to have it whenever she wants.
Ethel’s wearing her white nurse dress that she’s always got on when she’s working. It sets off her skin that is almost the exact same color of chocolate pudding after you pour milk over it and mix it all together. Ethel is tall and solid, like the Kelvinator. Once she knows you some and likes you more, she’ll let you pat the top of her hair. It feels like a new mattress because it’s got a lotta bounce to it. Though she says a lady never tells her age, I know that she is thirty-six years old because I always give her a green lanyard on her birthday, which falls on St. Patrick’s Day.
Ethel has been taking care of Mrs. Galecki for… I’m not sure how long. Mrs. Galecki’s husband died in a war so she lived alone in the house next door to Dave’s until she got a bum ticker. That’s when Mrs. Galecki’s son, Gary, who lives in California, hired Ethel to come and take care of her. Ethel has nursing experience and is also a great baker. Mrs. Galecki needs medicine and appreciates a flaky crust, so they scratch each other’s backs.
I say, “Sorry I’m late,” and slide out the three-step ladder she keeps next to the sink for me. This is almost always where I get situated when we have what Ethel calls a rockin’ chair visit minus the rockin’ chair.
“Apology accepted.” Ethel wipes her wet hands on the yellow dish towel and says, “Peanut ’n marshmella?” That’s Troo’s and my favorite sandwich in the world.
“No, thank you.” My stomach is still not calmed down from what Mother served us last night at supper. She called it jellied moose. “But I’d love some Ovaltine.” That’s Troo’s and my favorite drink in the world.
Ethel says, “Sure ’nuff,” and gets up on her toes and gets down my favorite lilac metal glass off of the top shelf of the cupboard and takes out two of her famous Mississippi blond brownies from the cookie jar in case I change my mind about eating something, which I already have once I get a load of the melt-in-your-mouth buttery squares on the clean white plate.
“Where’s your sister?” Ethel asks in that accent of hers that sounds less like talking and more like crooning. If Frank Sinatra came from Calhoun County he would sound just like her. He wouldn’t be so skinny either.
I say, “Troo’s over at the Fazios’ talkin’ to Fast Susie.”
“That’s fine, long as she ain’t listenin’ to her.” Ethel shakes her head. “That Fazio girl had one good idea it’d die from loneliness.”
She said that to make me feel better because she knows how much Fast Susie razzes me. It’s Ethel’s way of sticking up for me. That’s the kind of person she is. True blue. And not only to me. She takes such good care of Mrs. Galecki and that’s why she deserves exactly what’s coming to her. When Mrs. Galecki passes away, Ethel is going to get a bunch of money from her Last Will and Testament. Ethel doesn’t know that though. The reason I don’t tell her is because she loves a good surprise, and second off, Mr. Gary Galecki made Troo and me promise not to tell a soul when he let that inheritance secret slip because he had too many Tom Collins cocktails on his screened porch last summer during his yearly visit. Mr. Gary adores Ethel and he doesn’t need any of his mother’s money. Just like Dave, Mr. Gary has a thick wallet. He’s in the movie business. I want Ethel to open a bakery with that money she gets, but one of her dreams for the future is to open a school for Negro kids, so that’s what she’ll probably do. She should call the place Miss Ethel’s School of Manners and Everyday Advice. She’s smart at those things and a lot of others. She studies both the morning and evening newspapers and never misses the Reader’s Digest.
I ask, “How’s Mrs. G been feelin’?”
Ethel sighs hard enough to flutter the curtain above the windowsill where Mrs. Galecki’s medicines, over ten bottles, are lined up.
She says, “Her gut’s still actin’ up. Gotta go pick up some more Pepto. That’s what Mr. Lou recommended for this sorta thing.”
My future father-in-law and Ethel Jenkins are friendly because she has to go to the drugstore all the time to get the pills Mrs. Galecki needs to take every day to keep her going, which Ethel doesn’t mind because Henry’s father acts toward her the same way he acts toward everybody else. Gentlemanly. Not like the vegetable man at the Kroger. He treats Ethel like she’s week-old cabbage.
“Would you say hello to Henry for me when you go?” I miss him and our visits. Next time I know that Troo can’t get into anything she shouldn’t, when she’s locked in our room for disobeying Mother again, that’s where I’m heading. “Please tell him I’ll get over there really soon to count Ramblers.”
“Will do,” Ethel says, stirring my Ovaltine. She is such a great cook. Gets all that malty grit to dissolve just perfect so there’s only smoothness going down your throat. “Ya heard anything more’bout the orphan boy that disappeared?”
That’s the way it is in the neighborhood. It’s like living with a hundred Chet Brinkleys. No matter where you go-the park, the playground, Mass, the Five and Dime, the library-you can’t get away from the hottest subject. Even if the last thing you want to do is think about it anymore, rotsa ruck. Everybody’ll be flapping their lips about Charlie’s running away from us and Greasy Al running toward us-well, limping toward us-until another disaster happens, which could be at any minute. When we lived in the country, all I ever had to pay attention to was not getting too close to the chickens, who have the worst personalities, but here in the city… it’s the people you gotta watch out for in more ways than one. They can egg your worry on and even if you are doing your absolute best to keep it under control, they won’t let you with all their jibber jabber.
“Thank you,” I say, when Ethel sets down the lilac glass that’s sweating as bad as the both of us. “All I heard about Charlie is that he’s still missin’.” I pull up the neck of my T-shirt to dry myself off and Ethel uses her arm on her forehead because she’s already got her hands full. She’s taken the blue bowl of strawberries to the counter and is holding a small sharp knife to slice them up real thinly between her fingers.
“Miss Bertha’s friends with Sister Jean from the orphanage,” Ethel says. “She come over for a visit and was real broke up. Told us that boy was really something. And how the Honeywells are so disappointed to have lost him. Father Mickey is tryin’ to put some men together to go lookin’ for him.”
I don’t tell her that Father Mickey probably doesn’t give a hoot about some orphan kid, he just wants the poor-box money back. The church loves moo-la-la. If it isn’t paper drives, it’s fish fries or Bingo. They’re always asking to give until it hurts. Especially lately. Father Mickey says we need to build more classrooms onto the school. All the money that gets taken in will go to finishing the new wing, but even if that’s a good cause, I notice people’s pinched faces when they drop dollars into the collection plate on Sunday. They have to work hard for their money, almost all of them at the cookie factory.
Ethel says, “That Father Mickey sure is something. Easy on the eyes, too.” Music is coming out of her bedroom. I can’t barely hear it, but her body is having no trouble keeping the beat. It’s swaying. “Ya know what I been thinkin’, Miss Sally?”
“What, Ethel?” I say, snitching a berry out of the bowl.
“I been thinkin’ I’m gonna switch myself over to the Catholics.”
“Oooh… nooo… nooo… I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say, in the same no-nonsense voice she uses on me when I come up with an idea that she thinks stinks. “That… that would be like takin’ that shiny orange dress of yours and tradin’ it in for a… burlap sack.”
Mother lets Ethel take me down to her church on 4th and Walnut Street sometimes. It’s in an old store that has the sign: JOE KOOL’S SMALL AND LARGE APPLIANCES FOR THE DISCRIMINATING hanging above the door. The basement windows of the church are stained, not with glass, but who cares? The whole congregation dances and shouts even when the Reverend Joe Willow is sermonizing. I have already decided that when I grow up, that’s what I’m gonna be. A Baptist. Mary Lane said she’d do it with me. I’m sure more for her hungry tummy than her hungry soul. She went down there with me and Ethel a coupla times so she knows all about the fried chicken and colored greens they put out after the service.
“You’ve got the wrong idea about our church,” I tell Ethel. “You’ve only been up there for funerals. You don’t know how bad it can get.”
“Mmmm… hmmm.” In southern, that means, Go on, tell me more.
“You gotta starve yourself for hours before you receive Holy Communion.” Ethel would especially not like that part. She adores a big country breakfast with ham first thing every morning. She wouldn’t like the taste of the body and blood of Christ. He’s really bland. (I’m too nervous to bring this up to anybody who might know the answer, but isn’t swallowing down Jesus kinda like being a cannibal?) “And the nuns, they got ways of torturin’ people that are worse than the Red Chinese.”
“That’s nothin’ but your big ’magination talkin’,” Ethel says with a snort.
“No, it’s not! Swear to God. The sisters tied Mary Lane down and dripped holy water on her forehead after they caught her peepin’ on them.”
“Sounds to me like that girl was spinnin’ one of her no-tripper tales,” she says, still slicing away at those berries, making them not too thin so they fall apart, but not too thick either. “I only know the one nun. Sister Jean seems real nice.”
“She’s only bein’ nice to you because ya aren’t a Catholic.” Ethel doesn’t understand how those crabby penguins work. “You can’t believe how bossy they are. They’re the brides of Christ so that makes them almost as powerful as priests,” I say, hoping that I’m getting through to her. “If you join up, you’ll be under all a their thumbs. Even in your dreams they can come after you.”
“Well, I sure wouldn’t like that.” No, she wouldn’t. She needs her beauty sleep and takes pride in her freedom. “Here I been thinkin’ that was a place of worship all these years. That only goes to show ya how wrong a body can be about something, don’t it? Thank you kindly for the warnin’, Miss Sally.” Ethel’s teeth are enormously white. She sucks on lemons to make them that way. She shouldn’t be smiling, though. I’m not kidding around. “But I’d be keepin’ my voice down ’bout that church stuff if’n I was you,” she says.
As usual, the smartest woman I know is right. Catholics are not supposed to even think something bad about the church, so saying it out loud has gotta be worse.
Ethel lifts her chin and nods it at the window. “Ya wouldn’t want Father Mickey to hear ya.”
I jump up off the stepladder and almost knock it over. “Father’s right outside?”
“He’s out back with Miz G. Surprised ya didn’t see them when ya got here.”
Shame on me. I was in such a hurry to escape from Fast Susie that I wasn’t paying attention to the details. I creep over and inch back the white kitchen curtain. Just like Ethel said, there’s Mrs. G in her wheelchair under the crab apple tree and Father Mickey’s by her side. “What’s he doin’ here?”
“He’s been comin’ to give Miss Bertha comfort and the Holy Communion you was tellin’ me ’bout. Too hard for her to get up to church much as she’d like.” Ethel cracks opens the oven door to check on her cake. “Father’s also been kind enough to watch over her while I run out to do my errands.”
Seeing handsome Father Mickey has made me come up with an even better reason to keep Ethel from turning her back on the Baptists and joining forces with the Romans. “If you changed over to Mother of Good Hope, you’d never get to see Ray Buck.” That’s her boyfriend, who is a bus driver. They spend every Sunday together, which is Ethel’s day off.
“Don’t see that as a problem,” Ethel says. “Ray Buck could join up, too.”
I’m not gonna be the one to tell her that I don’t think that would be allowed. I’m sure they only let Ethel go up to church because she has been in the neighborhood for so long. Ray Buck doesn’t live around here. He lives in the Core with the rest of the Negroes. Ethel might think that Father Mickey’s the best thing since the invention of aluminum foil, but I got news for her.
Before I can stop myself, “I don’t like him” just dribbles out.
“Whaaat?” Ethel says, wiggling the cake out of the oven into her dish-toweled hands. It’s perfectly browned on top, just how she expects it to be. “Since when don’t ya like Ray Buck?”
“What’re you talkin’ about? I adore Ray Buck.”
(More than she’ll ever know.)
“Is this heat gettin’ to me or is my imagination gettin’ more het up than yours?” Ethel says. “I swear ya just told me ya didn’t like him.”
“I… I didn’t mean Ray Buck.”
Ethel sets the angel food cake down on the top of the tall green bottle she uses to cool it off. “Who did ya mean then?”
It’s too late now. I am putty in her hands. “Father Mickey,” I say, getting right up close to her so there’s no chance he could hear me with his all-powerful priest ears.
“For heaven’s sakes, what could be wrong with… wait a Tallahassee minute.” When she turns her head my way, her warm cheek is pressed almost on top of mine. I can smell the violety toilet water behind her ears. “This is soundin’ awful familiar to me,” she says with suspicious eyebrows. “You’re not gettin’ a bee in your bonnet over Father Mickey the same way ya did with Mr. Dave last summer, are ya?”
No matter how hard Ethel tried to convince me that I was wrong about him, I was sure that Dave was the murderer and molester. So I could have a bee in my bonnet and not even know it. I can’t seem to get a grip on these sorts of things.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“I should hope not,” Ethel says, getting back to sprinkling powdered sugar over those berries and mixing it in with a wooden spoon. “It takes a lot to dedicate your life to our Savior. Ya need to respect that.” She’s shown me pictures of her brother named Gaston, who is a preacher back home in a country church, so I knew she might take that the wrong way. That’s why I haven’t told her how I felt about Father Mickey before now. “Sacrificin’ the pleasures of life for the ways of the Lord ain’t easy.”
“I know, Ethel, I know. That’s really nice of people to dedicate their lives to God. That’s why I am gonna try my hardest not to feel that way about Father from here on out.”
When she doesn’t say anything reassuring back the way she usually would, I slip my arm around her waist. “Are ya mad at me? For not likin’ Father?”
“Your feelin’s is your feelin’s. I’m just ponderin’ the why of ’em. Last summer, it was Mr. Dave that got ya all worked up and now it’s the priest.” She holds out a spoonful of sweetened strawberries for me to taste. “Maybe ya got something against men in uniforms. Had me a dog like that once. Wouldn’t let the ice man get within ten feet a the house.”
I don’t know the reason I don’t like Father Mickey, but I don’t think it’s because of the way he dresses, which is your basic black. He hasn’t done anything wrong to me, just the opposite. He always admires my long legs and asks if I’d like to sign up for the girls’ basketball team when I pass him in the hallways at school. And he’s being extra, extra kind to Troo. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t like all of the time him and her are spending together. Mother is jealous of all the time Dave is spending with his partner, so maybe it’s like that.
“You sure you’re not mad at me?” I ask Ethel because she hasn’t said anything for a minute or so and is mixing the berries more than she should. They’re starting to look floppy.
Ethel sets down the spoon and says reluctantly, because she is not a complainer by nature, “It’s not you, honey. I got a few other things that’s makin’ my mind distracted.”
Since she’s my sounding board, I always try to repay the favor if something is bothering her. “Like what?”
“I can’t hardly put my finger on it… but… something strange is goin’ on round here. Miss Bertha, she had me call up Mr. Cooper to come over last week.” He is the man Mr. Gary Galecki picked out to make sure his mother’s bills are paid. He also signs Ethel’s paycheck that comes in the mail every Friday from his office called Cooper, Cooper and Barrow. I’ve only met him once. He was carrying a briefcase and didn’t say hello back to me. “After Mr. Cooper arrived,” Ethel says, “Bertha shushed me away and the two of them and Father Mickey got settled in the parlor and had a nice long visit. Usually I’m included. Can’t figure out why I weren’t.”
I bring my hand up to my chest, roll my eyes and do my imitation of her. “Lord, I can’t imagine.” That’s a very Mississippi thing to say when you’re stumped. “Maybe Mr. Cooper’s fixin’ to fire ya.” I’m trying to make her laugh because that is so silly. She will never get let go from this job. Nobody could take better care of Mrs. Galecki than she does.
When all Ethel gives me back is a small smile as she slides the bowl of strawberries into the fridge, I tell her in my regular voice, “Don’t feel bad.” Long as she’s in there, she takes a breath of that cool air and paddles some down the front of her dress. “I got worries, too.” I’ve found when somebody tells you something that’s bothering them they appreciate it if you tell them something’s bothering you, too. That way it doesn’t seem like you think that you’re better than they are. “I can’t stop thinkin’ about Greasy Al and how he’s gonna-”
“Whoa up.” She closes the fridge door and flips up both of her pink palms. “Like I told ya before on this subject, ya gotta think a something else ya really like when that boy comes to mind.”
What she really told me was, “When I’m ’bout to blow a fuse, I think about dancin’. And Ray Buck. You could think about Henry… or you could read or pray.”
I tried doing what she wanted me to do, I really did. The second I started thinking about Greasy Al, I tried to switch gears and think about my future husband. Or driving around the countryside with Nancy Drew in her blue coupe. But somewhere down the road, Molinari would flag us down and ask us for a ride back to 52nd Street so he could murder my sister. I also tried praying to Daddy, but all that did was make me feel like if I didn’t work harder at keeping Troo safe, how disappointed he was gonna be when we met again in heaven.
Ethel runs her big cool hand down my arm and says, “All right then. Think we ’bout wore this conversation out, don’t you? Time for storytellin’.” She steps into the back hallway and opens the milk chute, which is where I keep my book so I don’t forget and leave it at home.
“Are you gonna come out, too?” I ask when she hands over The Hidden Window Mystery.
This is the third Nancy Drew that I’ve read to them and, by far, our favorite. There’s a colored woman in this story. Lovable old Beulah who serves corn pudding and strawberry shortcake. Just like my Ethel! The story also takes place in the South so that’s gotta give her a home, sweet home feeling.
“Ya know, sittin’ down in the shade and listenin’ to ya read sounds mighty nice,” Ethel says. “Don’t think the sheets are gonna dry on the line today anyways. Too hot and wet.” She does her slidey walk to the kitchen window that makes me think she’s hearing Waltzing Matilda in her head. She calls out, “Y’all ’bout done out there, Father?”
I couldn’t hear his answer, but Ethel turns back and gives me a look that says whatever it is you are thinkin’ at the present moment, it’d be a mighty good idea to keep it to yourself and get your behind outta that door.
“What a delightful surprise,” Father Mickey says when we join him and Mrs. Galecki under the crab apple tree. He is a different kind of Irish than our family is. He is black Irish, which doesn’t mean he’s a Negro born in Killarney the way people might think. It means that Father has hair the color of a funeral, not a stop sign. Most Irish people have bad tempers, but black Irish people are famous for having the worst. “Hello, Sally. Haven’t seen you since school let out.”
“Good afternoon, Father… I… I came over to read to Mrs. Galecki.” I hold up the book so he doesn’t think I’m lying.
“Ah, yes. Your sister tells me you’re quite the reader.”
“Don’t you mean she tells you that I’m a bonehead?”
When Father Mickey smiles grandly, I can see what everybody goes silly over.
“That’s a beautiful watch you’ve got there.” He taps his finger on the face. “A Timex, isn’t it?”
“It was my daddy’s,” I say, forgetting that pride is a sin. Father musta forgot that, too, because the watch he has on is very fancy. “Mother got it made small for me.”
Father says with a twinkle in his eye, “Helen’s always been a very considerate person.”
I wouldn’t use that word to describe Mother in a million years. I guess he must be referring to the way she used to be back in the olden days. Before Daddy died. Before she got married to Hall. Before she got sick.
“Is there anything I could offer ya before ya go, Father?” Ethel with the perfect manners asks. “A glass a fresh-squeezed lemonade should set ya right.”
“I cannot imagine anything I’d enjoy more, but I’m afraid I’ve got another parishioner to attend to.” He lifts up my wrist and taps my watch. His fingers are soft and his nails are shiny like they’ve been painted with something. “Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’,” he says, not to me, but Mrs. Galecki. “Just like you, Bertha.”
Mrs. Galecki’s head bobs up and down, but that doesn’t mean she is agreeing with him. She’s got some palsy.
Father slips his golden chalice that he brought the Holy Communion in over from the church into a black velvet bag and says, “Tell your sister to come a little earlier Tuesday night, Sally. We have a lot to discuss.”
That’s the day Troo goes up to church for her extra religious instruction. If she doesn’t get holier soon, she’s gonna end up going to Vliet Street School. I will miss walking up to Mother of Good Hope with her and eating lunch together and even ringing doorbells on our way home, but most of all, how will I ever keep watch over my sister if we’re not going to the same school? The thought of her being out of my sight that many hours of the day makes me want to curl up. The only one that could prevent that from happening is Father Mickey.
He tells Ethel, “Tomorrow, same time,” and heads toward the front of the house, but stops at the bushes that run alongside it. When he trots back and lays the pale pink flower in Mrs. Galecki’s lap, he says, “A rose by any other name.”
Now, if you weren’t me, you would be thinking to yourself, Boy, how did this neighborhood get so lucky? This priest is really something! He can even make the same quote that Donny O’Malley would make when he’d stuff fallen petals into his daughters’ pillowcases so they would be guaranteed sweet dreams. But on this hot, hot day, all I can think of as Father Mickey leaves to minister to another one of his flock is how much he reminds me of the black ice we get on the streets during winter. It’s slick. And invisible to the naked eye.
What’s wrong with me?
Ethel places the rose Father picked off the bush gently into Mrs. Galecki’s high hair and says, “Don’t that look nice. Miss Sally’s gonna read to us now, Bertha.”
Her patient doesn’t answer. She’s fallen back to sleep again. She does that. I can be right in the middle of a sentence and kablooie-she’s dead to the world. That’s okay. I decided a long time ago that reading still counts as a charitable work even if she can’t hear it. I open the book and bring my face down to the pages and breathe. Books do not have the reputation of smelling nice, but they do. Not as good as mimeograph, but still very good.
“The name of this chapter is ‘An Angry Suspect,’” I say, kicking off my sneakers and getting comfy in the backyard chair. “ ‘Bess was so startled to hear the name of the man for whom the girls were searching that she-’ ”
“Bertha? Bertha?” Ethel shrieks. She pops up and presses her ear down to her boss’s lilac blouse. I am not worried. This happens all the time. At least once a week, Ethel is sure that Mrs. G has sucked in her last breath.
While Ethel’s still down on her chest, Mrs. Galecki’s eyes fly open and she says in the meanest voice, “What’re you doing? Trying to steal my locket like everything else?”
That completely flabbergasts me. How dare she say something so cruel about the woman who gives her bubble baths and wipes the drool off her mouth and sometimes her heinie?
Before I can suggest to Mrs. Galecki that she should count her blessings, Ethel lifts her head off her chest and says back so kindly, “Locket’s safe, Miss Bertha.” My good friend stands and pulls me a few steps away. “She’s been gettin’ more and more confused the last coupla weeks. This mornin’ she went yelly about how her emerald necklace was missin’.”
I don’t understand why this is bothering her so much. Being a nurse, Ethel should know the same way I do that old ladies’ brains can really go to pot when their arteries get hard. Our other granny changed her name from Margie O’Malley to Marie Antoinette on her eighty-sixth birthday.
“Where did ya end up findin’ it?” I ask.
“Tha’s the funny thing. I looked and looked for that necklace, but it weren’t in the hatbox under the bed where it usually is or nowheres else. Bertha didn’t come right out and say so, but…” Ethel shrugs. “I think she’s believin’ I’m the cat burglar who’s been sneakin’ around.”
I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. Ethel is way too big to sneak around anywhere. When she’s somewhere, you know it.
I remind her, “Once somebody’s mind takes a turn around the bend like that, not only do their memories get backed up, but they can start sayin’ strange things.” What I’m trying to tell her as politely as I can is that Mrs. Galecki’s brain has gone as stiff as her hair. “Granny Marie Antoinette used to misplace stuff all the time and then blame her husband, Louie, for stealin’ it. Her husband’s name was Alvin.”
Ethel looks at me and, for the first time ever since I have known her, she doesn’t have anything to say. Her eyes that are usually gentle brown pools look stirred up when she returns to Mrs. Galecki’s side and places her strong hands on the chair that she starts pushing carefully toward the back door of the house so her patient, who is snoozing again, doesn’t get a bumpy ride. “She was real attached to that necklace,” Ethel tells me. “Her husband gave it to her the night ’fore he went off to the war.”
I lay one of my hands on top of hers. “Don’t you worry. It’ll turn up.” I scurry over to open the screen door so Ethel can push the wheelchair past me. “I’ll help ya look the next time I’m over,” I say once she’s inside. “You know how great I am at findin’ things.”
Out of the dark hallway of the house, my beacon of light, my Land Ho! my Ethel says, “That’d be fine, Miss Sally,” but she doesn’t sound like she means it. She sounds like the wind has gone outta her sails.