Lesley Kagen - Good Graces

Things aren’t going too great for Nell these days.

Her and Eddie moved in above Delancey’s Grocery Store on 59th Street after they got married so Troo and me stop by to see her every Friday afternoon when we’re done washing out socks at Granny’s. Spending time with our half sister is something I bribed Troo to do so we can add visiting the infirmed to our “How I Spent My Charitable Summer” stories. She hasn’t stopped holding it against me for a second.

When the two of us climbed up the steps to Nell’s apartment last week, Troo groused the same way she always does, “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. Comin’ over here is worse than bein’ one a them martyrs they’re always tellin’ us about at school. At least St. Joan of Arc burned up quick.”

We’d brought along our sleepover clothes the way Aunt Betty told us to. I’d planned out a whole speech begging Eddie and Nell to take Troo and me with them to the Bluemound Drive-in. If they said yes, I was gonna ask if we could stop for a few minutes at the new zoo so I could check to make sure Sampson was doing okay without me.

The apartment door was partly open so we could see Nell and the baby sitting on the davenport. I thought at first that I got the wrong Friday because Nell didn’t look ready for a hot date. Of course, her hair that’s the color of a brown paper bag looked good combed back into a DA, but she was wearing a nightie that was stained brown and snot was pouring out of her ski jump nose.

Troo took one look at her and said, “Holy God in heaven.”

Nell cried out, “Eddie… we aren’t goin’ to the movies… he’s been eatin’ every night at the Milky Way… and… I think he’s been feelin’ up Melinda Urbanski… there was glitter under his fingernails… and…” Nell yanked her nightie up past her bosoms and moaned, “Eddie doesn’t call them my thirty-six dee lightfuls anymore. He calls them… sob… sob… sob… my old longies .”

Eddie Callahan is a big fat drip, but I understand why he’s going up to the drive-in for supper. Nell learned to cook from Mother and the Milky Way… Our Food is Out of This World has the best grub with nifty outer space names like the Giant Galaxy Burger and Uranus Fries brought to you by girls with classy chassis who wear silvery skirts, and on their heads, glittery antennae bob back and forth when they glide on their roller skates between the cars to loud rock ’n’ roll music. And since I heard that large , not long bosoms are a very big deal to boys, Nell’s probably right about her husband feeling up Melinda the skating waitress. Even I noticed that her chest is high and mighty. (If Eddie’s so nuts about outer space bosoms, I think he could give Nell a little credit. At least part of hers look like flying saucers.)

When Troo and me got back home from the apartment, I ran straight into Mother’s bedroom and told her how awful Nell looked and how she suspected Eddie was being moony over an outer space skank. Mother was perched at her dressing table, brushing her glimmering hair with her golden brush. I thought she’d be understanding and so sympathetic because the same thing happened to her. Hall Gustafson stepped out with a cocktail waitress at the Beer ’n Bowl when Mother was supposed to be dying up at St. Joe’s. But Mother didn’t take her eyes off the mirror when she said, “Your sister made her bed, Sally, now she’s got to lie in it. Let this be a lesson to you.”

The cop side goes up on their feet when Mr. Kollasch hits a high fly ball that sails over Eddie’s head in right field.

“Where do you think Dottie is right this minute?” Nell asks me, not even noticing that her husband let a run get driven in. “Out dancin’ in a new dress with her hair done up in a bow?”

Nell and Dottie Kenfield were in the same class in high school together so they knew each other, but didn’t have much in common back then. Dottie was on the honor roll, and Nell… like Troo says, most of her brain is in her bra. Nell only started bringing up Dottie all the time after she heard that she escaped from the hospital with her baby in Chicago. She’s sure that Dottie’s living the high life in some fancy supper club and wishes she could be, too.

“How am I supposed to know where Dottie is?” I feel sorry for Nell, but I am getting as tired as Troo is of her asking us what we think has become of Dottie, so I answer her the same way she does minus her special f word. “Do I look like a map?”

“Ya know, being a mother isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Nell spits back. “Tell your sister that. I see those looks she’s been givin’ me.”

Just like her, I can easily see Troo sticking out in the crowd. There’s other redheads in the neighborhood, but none like my sister. She’s giving Nell dagger eyes. She’s never liked her and she hates it when I go outta my way to be nice to her. She’s also giving me the c’mere finger.

“Well, nice chattin’ with you. I gotta go,” I say, kissing freshly diapered Peggy Sure on her nose and handing her back to Nell, who takes all that pinkness back into her arms like she’s a piece of Dubble-Bubble I clawed out from underneath the bleachers.

“Oh, where oh where has my little Dot gone, oh where oh where could she be?” Nell starts singing, not to Peggy Sure.

She’s been acting like this since she got home from St. Joe’s with her bundle of joy. I think she caught a disease in the hospital that is making bats fly out of her belfry. That is not just my opinion, I know something about this. Troo reminds me all the time that people who have big imaginations can go off their rockers the same way Virginia Cunningham did in The Snake Pit movie, so I have memorized the signs to watch out for:

1. Talking to objects or singing to yourself.

2. Not brushing your teeth regularly.

3. Smiling or laughing at times or places when you’re not supposed to.

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if somebody told me tomorrow that they saw Nell running down the street chortling at dead birds on the sidewalk with her tan teeth. Mark my words, one of these days the men in the white jackets will be coming to move her out of her apartment and over to the county loony bin.

Stepping over feet on my way back to my bleacher seat, I catch a glimpse of Mr. Kenfield. He hasn’t come across the street to cheer with the rest of us, but is watching the game from his porch swing. The tip of his cigarette is glowing in the dark. I’d like to head over there to have a visit with him after the ninth inning the way I woulda last summer, but I just don’t know anymore if my old friend would be happy to have me rocking next to him. He told me once during one of our visits that he loved children and wished he coulda had a whole houseful, but I think he mighta changed his mind. I heard he’s been chasing kids outta his yard.

His wife, Mrs. Kenfield, is sitting ramrod straight on the other side of Mother, who looks particularly pretty tonight in gold hoop earrings and a sleeveless white blouse that shows off her summer brown-sugar skin. I can hear the two of them talking, but not what they’re saying. I scoot closer, afraid that Mrs. Kenfield might be ratting Troo out for stealing from the Five and Dime, but the only thing I catch her saying is “… so upsetting about Charlie Fitch. I asked Father Mickey to say a novena for Lorraine and Ted. To lose that boy…”

I could tell she was trying to hold back tears. And not just for the Honeywells. Mrs. Kenfield had to be thinking about what she’s lost. She must miss her disappeared daughter and her granddaughter, and her husband, who is still here, but not really, not the way he used to be anyway, which in some ways I think has gotta be worse.