Lesley Kagen - Good Graces

“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.

“Wh aaa t?” 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.