Lesley Kagen - Good Graces

The people who live in them might look different, but most of the houses on the block are the same shape and size and made out of wood or brick and always two stories high, maybe three. They’re enough alike anyway that you might head into the wrong front door if you have too much to drink late at night. That happened to Mr. Fred Latour. He accidentally got into bed with Mrs. O’Hara, who lives next door to him. That was a laugh riot. Mrs. O’Hara started calling him Fred La mour until his wife made her stop. ( Lamour is French for love bucket.)

Something like that would never happen to me. Even if I gouged my eyes out of my head the way St. Lucy did, if somebody led me past any of these houses at suppertime, I could tell you who lives there without second-guessing.

The Fazios’ smells like this spice called garlic they use on just about everything and the Latours’ like cheesy casseroles made with condensed milk. The O’Haras’ reeks of cabbage and sometimes liver and onions if they’re celebrating something. If you walk past the Goldmans’ at six o’clock, the aroma of sauerkraut and schnitzel will be drifting out of their kitchen window along with their Germanese and violin music.

Troo’s a little in front of me bouncing a red rubber ball that she “borrowed” from the playground shed. She’s warming up to play that a my name is Annie and I come from Alabama with a carload of Apples game. When she gets to the letter f , her name will be Fifi and she comes from where else but France . I refuse to repeat what she will have a carload of.

When we pass the Osgoods’ house, the flag flying off the front porch reminds me to ask Troo, “What are you gonna do for the Fourth? Are you gettin’ ready to decorate? Is that why you’re comin’ with me? To get some Kleenex to make your flowers?”

If my sister does not end up being a ventriloquist or a drummer in a band like Sal Mineo or the fat lady in a traveling freak show, all ideas that she has from time to time, she could become a Kleenex flower maker. That’s how good she is at folding the tissues, sliding a bobby pin down the middle and separating the layers until they spring alive and look like real carnations, which was Daddy’s favorite that covered his casket.

When Troo keeps bouncing, I keep asking, “Are you gonna wear a costume again?” Last summer, besides covering her bike in flowers, she dressed herself up like the Statue of Liberty because that was a gift to America from France. “Or are ya just gonna do up your bike?” I don’t have a Schwinn. Even if I did, I don’t think I would fancy it up for the Fourth. What if I accidentally won the decorating contest? Having the feeling of that silky blue ribbon sliding across my neck is just not worth Troo tricking me with some of that gum that turns your teeth black or licking my Jell-O when my back’s turned. “What’s your plan?”

“You writin’ a book?” Troo asks snotty.

“No, I’m just tryin’ to-”

“What I’m doin’ is for me to know and for you to find out,” she says with a flip of her ponytail. “But I’ll tell ya one thing, I’m gonna win that decoratin’ prize this year hands down. No ties. And I’m gonna be Queen of the Playground again, the same way I was the first year we moved here.” She starts up the game for real very loudly. “ A my name is Annie and I come from…”

“Whatever you’re doin’, you better get busy. Time’s runnin’ out,” I tell her when we come to the front of the Kenfields’ house.

When we first moved into the city, it was into the house next door to them. Late at night horrible sounds would come out of a bedroom that was across from mine and Troo’s. I thought the place was haunted and I guess in a way it was. Mr. Kenfield would moan into his daughter’s pillow that probably still had the smell of his precious girl’s perfume hidden in the seams the same way that Daddy’s blue shirt still has Aqua Velva. After he was cried dry, he would go sit on the front porch of this house and smoke his Pall Malls, rocking until the church bells rang twelve midnight. After Mother went into the hospital, some nights after Troo would fall asleep and I was sure that Hall had passed out, I’d slip outta our bed and go sit with our neighbor. We didn’t talk so much. We held hands and listened to the creaky sound the porch swing made. I’d like to do that again, but I’m not sure Mr. Kenfield would. Sometime between last summer and this one, he got a reputation for being the neighborhood crank.

“ C my name is Carol and I come from California with a carload of candy ,” Troo sings.

“Wait a sec,” I tell her when she dribbles past our old duplex. There’s a Yellow Taxi parked out front of 5081 Vliet Street, which is something you don’t ever see around here. This is the closest I’ve ever come to one. The trunk is open and there are some suitcases jammed in. “Something’s goin’ on at the Goldmans’.”

Troo doesn’t glance up. She just keeps on singing in her high soprano voice that she inherited from Mother, “ D my name is Denise and I come from… come from… damn it all, Sally, look what you made me do? Now I can’t think of a place that starts with D .” She spikes the ball. If you mess up you gotta start over and even hell-with-the-rules Troo O’Malley plays by that one. “Who gives a crap about the Goldmans anyway?”

“I do,” I say, feeling bad again about letting our old landlady down. I promised Mrs. Goldman I would stay her friend even after we moved out of this house, but I haven’t.

She is standing on her front porch in a crisp blue shirt and a pleated black skirt, her special sturdy shoes in size 10 peeking out from beneath the hem. Her dark curls used to be braided and wound around her head but now her hair looks pixie cute. She is instructing a man in a T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves, “Careful vis it. Careful.”

I wait until the man passes me by carrying a big black trunk and grunting something under his breath to call out to her, “Yavol!”

Mrs. Goldman brings her hands up to her cheeks and says, “Liebchen!”

Her calling me sweetheart in her language is making me feel even worse about not showing up the way I told her I would, but she looks happy to see me, so I race up the house steps two at a time and wrap my arms around her spongy waist.

“ Mein Gott , how you’ve grown,” she ho … ho … ho s. “Your legs-”

“I know, I know,” I say, looking the long way down.

“And vere is your sister the Trooper?”

Everyone always asks me that if they come across me when I’m alone because they’re used to seeing the O’Malleys roaming the neighborhood’s nooks and crannies together.

“She’s right down there. See? Hey, Troo!” I excitedly point to Mrs. Goldman like we’ve been searching for her for months. “Look who I found!”

“Top o’ the morning,” our old landlady yells down to the curb. (I taught her that.)

Troo gives her a blank-eyed stare. My sister is still holding it against our old landlady for liking me better than she likes her, and also for not letting our dog Butchy live with us so he had to stay in the country with peeing Jerry Amberson, who lived on the farm next to ours and would hose you down with his wiener for no reason. Dave drove out and got Butchy back for Troo last summer, which I thought was so nice, but Butchy didn’t. That dog couldn’t get used to living in the city. He broke through two chains and ripped Mimi Latour’s pants right off her body when she tried to pet him, so he had to go back to live with the Ambersons, which made Troo hate Dave even more and call him an Indian giver.