“Who do you think that is?”
“Your husband?”
Ramona’s eyes danced. Grace noticed their color for the first time. Brown so dark it verged on black. “You are a smart one. Though I guess it’s the logical assumption seeing as I’ve got him all over the place and I’m too old for a teenage crush.”
More young-woman laughter. Then Ramona’s lower lip quivered and she blinked. She flashed white teeth, as if to prove she was happy.
Grace said, “He was a cowboy?”
“He sure liked to think he was. He also fancied himself an actor and he did do a few B oaters — that means not-so-famous western movies, back when westerns were the thing. You ever see a western?”
Grace shook her head.
“He made fourteen,” said Ramona, glancing at the photo. “But he was no Gary Cooper, so finally he got smart and bought this place and started renting it out to big-shot directors and we made a fine living. His movie name was Steve Stage. Think that was his real name?”
Grace shook her head.
“Correct,” said Ramona. “But he made it his real name, legally and all, by the time I met him he was Steve Stage so I was Mrs. Stage. In fact, he didn’t tell me different until we were driving to Las Vegas, that’s where we got married, it was kind of a quick thing.”
She smiled. “Fifty miles before we get to Vegas, he’s already given me the ring and I say sure, so he probably figured he could risk telling me.”
She showed Grace her hand. A shiny chip glinted in a white metal setting, bright and smooth against dry, weathered skin.
“Pretty,” said Grace.
“Pawnshop find,” said Ramona. “Place near the studio — Paramount, that’s in Hollywood. Anyway, fifty miles away, he decides to tell me. Not just his name, his whole family, where he’s from, the works. Guess where he was from.”
“Texas.”
“Good guess, dear. And totally wrong. New York City. Turns out the hunk of desperado I knew as Steve Stage was really Sidney Bluestone. What do you think of that?”
Grace shrugged.
Ramona said, “He figured — rightly so — that Sidney Bluestone wouldn’t find much employment in oaters, so off to court he went and voilà, Steve Stage. When I wanted to kid him, I’d call him Sid from Brooklyn. He was good-natured about it but it wasn’t his favorite thing. Remembering can be hard.”
She looked at Grace.
Grace didn’t feel like smiling but she did.
“Anyway, let’s talk about your schooling,” said Ramona. “Wayne Knutsen told me your history, moving around but mostly going to the same school because all those other people lived close to each other. Unfortunately, we got a problem: You’re too far from that school now. From any school, period, because the city bus won’t come out here and the county’s not ponying up for private transportation. I’d drive and pick you up but it’s just me and Maria-Luz, that’s the woman who cleans, and we both need to be here. Top of that, she doesn’t drive, her husband drops her off and picks her up. If you were a little younger, we’d be okay. There’s a preschool over in Desert Dreams, a trailer park, which is where the two boys go, but it’s basically some woman, nothing educational. So we have a problem. You like school?”
When no one bothers me and I can learn.
Not wanting Ramona Stage to feel bad, Grace said, “It’s okay.”
“So no big deal. Your IQ, you’re most likely way ahead of grade anyway, most of what you learned you probably taught yourself. Am I right?”
Now Grace’s smile was real. “Yes, ma’am.”
“So what I’m thinking is we go for homeschooling. I already applied and it was no big deal. Basically we get books and lesson plans and do it ourselves. I went to college, got a degree from Cal State, so I figure I can handle fourth-, fifth-grade material, even math, though I kind of taper off at algebra. What do you think?”
Books and being alone; it sounded like heaven. Unable to believe it, Grace said, “I just read?”
“A lot of it will be reading but you’ll also have to do exercises and take tests just like if you were in a real school and I have to grade everything. I’m not going to cheat, you get what you earn. You up for that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I figure it’ll be easy once I know your level. To do that, I’m bringing in an expert to test you. A kind of doctor, but not the kind who gives shots or touches your body or anything like that, he’ll just ask you questions.”
“A psychologist.”
Ramona’s white eyebrows rose, clouds lofted by a breeze. “You know about psychologists?”
Grace nodded.
“Might I ask how?”
“Sometimes kids would have problems — in the other fosters — and they’d get sent to the psychologist.”
“You’re making it sound like punishment.”
The kids who’d talked about it made it sound that way.
Grace was silent.
Ramona said, “Other kids.”
Grace knew what she was getting at. “I never got sent.”
“You have any other notions about psychologists?”
“No.”
“Well this one, he’s not going to be like punishment. I’m not talking through my hat, I know him as a person, not just a doctor. He’s my husband’s baby brother but that’s not why I picked him. He’s a professor, Grace. That means he teaches people to be psychologists, so we’re talking a top-of-the-line expert.”
Ramona waited.
Grace nodded.
“His name is Dr. Malcolm Bluestone, Ph.D., and let me tell you, he’s smart.”
Ramona flashed another easy smile. “Maybe even as smart as you, young lady.”
Soon after she’d finished her toast, Grace met the two boys who shared one room. Both were black and she knew they were five years old because Ramona had told her.
“They look alike but they’re cousins, not brothers, have had hard lives, you don’t want to know, I’m hoping their adoption goes through.”
Grace couldn’t see any resemblance between the boys. Rollo was much taller than DeShawn and his skin was lighter. Both entered the kitchen appearing sleepy. Rollo held on to a ragged blue blanket. DeShawn looked as if he would’ve liked something to hold.
“Rise and shine, troopers,” said Ramona. She made the introductions. The cousins nodded absently at Grace and took chairs at the table. DeShawn managed a shy smile and Grace pretended she hadn’t seen it.
The boys spread napkins on their laps and waited as Ramona set out scrambled eggs, sausage patties and links. They ate silently, began to wake up.
Ramona said, “You three are okay down here, right? Time to see how Bobby’s doing.”
The mention of Bobby’s name caused Rollo and DeShawn to exchange a quick, nervous look. Ramona left and the kitchen turned silent. Grace had nothing to do so she just sat there. The boys ignored her and continued to eat, slowly but without pause, like robots. The eggs looked stiff and rubbery and Grace already knew what Ramona’s toast tasted like. None of that gave the cousins pause and Grace wondered if they’d never gotten over feeling hungry.
It had been a while since she’d been hungry but you didn’t forget that kind of thing.
She turned away from the cousins and looked up through the kitchen window over the sink. One of those roundish trees with the small leaves stood a few feet away from the glass.
Grace got up to have a closer look.
To her back, Ramona’s voice, “California oak, water them too much, they die.”
She hadn’t heard the old woman enter, felt as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.
Turning, she saw Ramona holding the hand of a different-looking boy.
Small — no taller than DeShawn — he had the face of an older child, maybe even a teenager, with pimples and a large jaw and a shelf-like forehead that shadowed squinty eyes set crookedly, one a good quarter inch higher than the other. Curly red hair was thin in spots, like that of an old man. His mouth hung open in some kind of smile but Grace wasn’t sure that meant he was happy. Widely spaced yellow teeth were separated by an oversized tongue. His body — sunken and bowed — swayed, as if he needed to move to stop from falling. Even though Ramona held his hand tightly.
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