Lesley Kagen - Good Graces

“A course you’re gonna win for decorating, Trooper. Not a doubt in my mind,” I say, not believing it for a minute.

Usually by this time our bedroom would look like the cemetery, blanketed with carnations. Not the real ones, the Kleenex kind. Her blue bike should already have a bunch of those fluffy flowers taped to the handlebars and fenders, but when I checked today to see how it was coming along, I found it leaning against the side of the garage looking not ready at all.

In the hallway, I can hear Dave still trying to smooth things over with Mother. He calls to her, “I’ll be home as soon as I can. It shouldn’t take long. Riordan’s already over there.”

Mother slams a pot down on the counter.

Needing to cheer Troo up, I tell her, “If you don’t want to play Battleship, let’s play War.” She’ll kill me at that, too. Any kind of game that has fighting in it is something she’s great at. “I’ll get the cards. You wait for me here, okay?”

I’m sure she’s going to be contrary like she always is when something isn’t her idea, but she says, “Okay, but only if ya kiss me first. I need to practice.” She opens up one of her hands to reveal a pair of those red wax lips I get for her at the Five and Dime. She slips in the lips and closes her eyes. In her mind, she’s smooching with somebody better than her sister. Somebody named Rhett Butler. She adored Gone with the Wind when we saw it at the Uptown Theatre during old-timey movie week. We cracked open our piggy bank and went four times so that’s how come I can do an imitation of Rhett that is “damn” good if I do say so myself.

“Fine,” I tell her. “I’ll kiss ya, but keep your tongue to yourself. No pullin’ any of that Frenchie stuff.”

“You gotta say the words, too,” she answers, muffled by the lips.

Troo is asking me to repeat what Rhett says to Scarlett O’Hara when he comes to visit her at her magnificent house. That’s my sister’s favorite part of the movie. She swooned all four times we saw it.

I kneel over her, lower my voice and do the accent that Rhett has, which is a little like Ethel’s, but not quite as much. “ ‘You should be kissed, and often, Scarlett. By someone who knows how.’ ”

When I’m done pressing down, Troo slips the lips outta her mouth and says, “Don’t you think Father Mickey looks a lot like Clark Gable?”

Father Mickey? How the heck did he get into this?

He wears his hair slicked and parted so he does kinda look like Clark Gable without a mustache. Father Mickey also has those kinda eyes that look like half-raised window shades and… well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I know what’s going on here. Troo’s got a fat crush on Father! She’s been bitten by the same lovebug everybody else has around here!

I snatch the wax lips out of her hand and scold her, “You better get to confession soon as you can. You’ve been playin’ too much rummy with Mrs. Callahan. You’re gettin’ hotter to trot than she is!”

Tonight the old Vliet Street gang is gathered out front of Willie’s house the way we usually are if there isn’t something else big going on in the neighborhood. The O’Haras have the most steps and they live across from the playground, so if we don’t get a big enough group together for a decent game of red light, green light or kick the can, we can cross the street and play tetherball. I never like going over to the playground once it gets dark, so I’m hoping more kids show up before the sun goes all the way down.

“Good evenin’, ladies and germs,” chubby Willie O’Hara says to us in his Brooklyn accent. When he grows up he wants to be something called a stand-up comic, which is a person who doesn’t sit down and tells jokes for a living. Like Henny Youngman. Willie needs to practice all the time if he wants to get on the Ed Sullivan Show someday. “A funny thing happened to me on the way to the steps tonight. I thought of a really good joke,” he says.

This is the way he always starts out. I don’t know where Willie gets them, but he always has a new one all warmed up for us.

“What does it say on the bottom of a Polish Coke bottle?” Willie says.

“What?” we ask like we’re half of the choir at Mother of Good Hope, which we are.

“Open other end,” Willie says.

Everybody laughs louder than the kid sitting next to them.

Maybe that’s what I could do for the talent part of The Queen of the Playground contest. Being funny always goes over good around here. I would have to ask Willie to teach me a coupla new jokes, though, because everybody already knows what’s black and white and red all over. (A nun with a bloody nose.)

Troo’s not supposed to be lying out on the step in front of me with her feet up on the iron railing. She snuck out of our bedroom, where she is supposed to be right this minute saying a rosary on her knees. Mother found a pack of squishy cigarettes in Troo’s shorts when she was doing the wash after supper. She came up the basement steps, yelling, “Margaret O’Malley! Goddamn it all!” Once she got a hold of her, she slapped Troo on the back and sent her to our room. My sister’s French laughing did not help matters and neither did her teasing Mother the way she does at least once a day about not getting her annulment letter yet. “Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage? Uh-oh. Looks like your horse fell down and broke its leg, Helen. Ya know what they do when that happens, right? Bang … bang .”

I’m smooshed between Artie and Wendy Latour on the steps. Because there are thirteen of them, the Latour kids always outnumber us no matter what we’re doing. Artie lacks luster. Wendy is her normal smiley self. She has her tiara pinned in her hair that is freshly washed and almost looks waxed, it’s so shiny. If Wendy wasn’t a Mongoloid she could be a Breck girl. Mimi Latour, who is planning on being another kind of sister when she grows up, is two steps down, right below Troo. They’re in the same grade together, one back from me.

There is plenty of room on the step, but Mary Lane is crowding Mimi. She’s trying to talk her into giving her some of her grape Popsicle. She’s always asking you for some of whatever you got.

She tells Mimi, “They don’t let greedy girls into the convent, ya know. That’s their number one rule. They even got a sign posted out front that says no selfish brats allowed. You better gimme some of that before it’s too late.”

I’m watching Mimi struggling to crack the melting Popsicle in two, when Artie Latour taps my shoulder and points up the block. Uncle Paulie is coming toward us on his way to work at at the Beer’n Bowl. His head is down like it always is and he’s whistling Pop Goes the Weasel, which is his all-time favorite song.

My sister gets the oddest look on her face when she sees our uncle coming our way. She looks sorta… guilty? She must be feeling bad about making him a half-wit, but she’s never seemed remorseful before. I always thought she knew that in a funny kinda way she saved him.

When he gets in front of where we’re hanging out, Uncle Paulie stops and stares with his mouth open. He’s wearing blue jeans and a white shirt that’s got Jerbak’s embroidered above the pocket in gold. He’s got a load of freckles on his pretzel-skinny arms, but he’s not bad-looking elsewhere. You can tell he’s related to us. To Troo anyway. His hair is thick red, but our uncle’s starts back farther so you can also tell he is related to Peggy Sure, who also has one heck of a forehead.

Mary Lane, who can pick a Popsicle clean faster than a piranha fish, hands over the leftover stick to him and says, “Don’t spend it all in one place,” when my uncle shoves it in with the other ones that are making his back pocket bulge.