In the middle of another night of mirror dreams I got up and checked on Bird, who seemed to be having herself a highly satisfactory sleep; she was smacking her lips. Next I went into the bathroom, where I turned on both taps and held on to the edge of the sink with a feeling of terror. I didn’t switch on any lights. It didn’t seem impossible for the rat catcher to be right behind me, ready to dunk my head into the water and hold it down until I drowned this time.
I heard myself saying I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. But I was saying that only to divert my attention from what I was about to do.
I washed my face, then went into the parlor, picked up the phone, and tried Clara Baxter’s number. This time she answered immediately, which threw me a little bit. I mean, I gave the operator her number, and the next thing I knew Clara said, “Hello?”
“Hello, Clara. This is Boy — you sent me some flowers a while ago, and—”
“Hello, Boy. How are you?” Her voice was clear and gentle, and it sounded to me as if she was smiling.
“I’m fine, Clara. Thank you for the flowers,” I said. Then I held my hand over the receiver and tried to finish crying without making any noise.
“How’s the little girl? Arturo told me her name’s Bird. It’s a pretty name.”
She waited for me to answer, then she said: “Don’t you worry ’bout a thing, Boy. When Bird starts eating solid food, you bring her over here. She can stay with me. I won’t blame you. No one will blame you, and you can come visit her whenever you want.”
“Clara.”
“Yes?”
“Your mother sent you away?”
“Yes, she sent me to Mississippi, to live with my aunt Effie.”
“And you’re not… you’re not mad at her?”
“No, Boy. I don’t like her much, but I’m not mad at her. Aunt Effie did right by me. And now I’m living how I want to live. Wouldn’t have been able to do that under Ma’s thumb, don’t you know. You didn’t have a mother yourself, did you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And you’re all right, aren’t you? We turn out all right.”
(Do we?)
“Let Bird start on solid food before you come see me,” Clara said. “And don’t be too hard on Arturo. He doesn’t mean any harm, couldn’t do any if he tried.”
“I want you to take Snow,” I said. “Just for a little while. Please.”
—
just for a little while. Just for a little while. It was Arturo who took her to Boston. She was wearing a straw boater and had her pockets stuffed full of cookies, just as she had the first time I ever saw her. She gave Bird three hundred kisses and said: “That oughta hold ya ’til I’m home again.” Agnes Miller took ill; I knew it was because Snow was going away from her. She waved her handkerchief from her bedroom window by way of saying farewell. Up until then I hadn’t realized she lived in Olivia and Gerald’s house, that a room in that house was all she had to call home.
I was the last one she hugged before she jumped into the car with her father.
“See you next week,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Next week.”
Snow is not the fairest of them all. And the sooner she and Olivia and all the rest of them understand that, the better. Still, I’d snuck Julia’s records into the kid’s luggage because I didn’t want to leave her with nothing.
two
1
lately I’ve become the kind of girl who likes to think on paper, settle down with a notepad and a decent pen and an aniseed jawbreaker so big that my back teeth clasp around it as if it were a long-lost part of my skull they’re welcoming home. When I’m older, I’ll be a reporter like Aunt Mia, who isn’t really my aunt in any biological sense, but is much closer to my idea of an aunt than my dad’s sister is. I can usually get Aunt Mia to splash a little wine into my orange juice when Mom’s not around. And she’s not exactly a chore to look at. I’ve observed reactions to her on the street. Women look at her and get this happy “What a waste” expression on their faces, like the sight of her is making them feel good about themselves but also they think someone ought to give her some beauty tips. Aunt Mia wears flat shoes and really practical tortoiseshell hair slides and slacks and blouses in clashing colors; it can get pretty extreme. You think hmmm, could be a story there. She was an ordinary librarian, innocent of any crime, but one day she fell into a giant paint box and has been on the run from the fashion police ever since…
So the women who pass Aunt Mia get a little extra pep to their step, but the men look at her the way I might look at a hot fudge sundae in the hours between lunch and dinner. You know, when you’re not sure if it’s a good idea to go ahead — you’re interested beyond a shadow of a doubt, but you wonder if it might turn out to be a little too much for you. Men seem to realize that Aunt Mia’s already making the most of herself. She and Aunt Viv are probably just as smart as each other, but Aunt Mia’s a lot more educational to be around than Aunt Viv, or she’s more my kind of educational.
Something about Aunt Viv is all curled up at the edges, like — I’ll die if she ever sees this, but she won’t, she won’t — like a piece of old bread. I’m mean. Dad’s warned me about it; I know the risk I run when I find fault with people more often than I look for something to appreciate. It’s like having grit in your eye; you see less and less of the real person standing right in front of you and more and more of the grit in your eye. I get the message. I’ve noticed that she doesn’t keep trying to test his vocabulary, though, so I feel like it’s easy for him not to get cranky with her. Also The Ed Sullivan Show isn’t one of Dad’s favorite TV shows, so when Aunt Viv drops by on a Sunday to watch it with us, it’s not Dad’s parade she’s raining on. Her face whenever the Supremes come on… she’ll try to be girlish and sing along but her eyes say SOS SOS it’s an alien invasion. Aunt Viv with her fingers patting away at her super-straight hair, like she’s trying to wake it up or calm it down or show it off or hide it or who knows… I guess she tries her best to look out for me, but I’ve got better things to do than be precious about my complexion. Aunt Viv says it’s not so much a matter of making improvements, it’s more to do with stopping things from getting worse. But I can’t sit in the shade on a fine day, not when the sun wants me. It’s too much like playing hard to get, which I’ve heard all about and don’t believe in at all.