Lesley Kagen - Good Graces

Dave is about to ask something else, but Mother says, “Wash your hands and set the table, girls,” and then to her husband-to-be, “Could you join me in the bedroom for a minute?”

They’re gone for a while and come back into the kitchen just as I’m filling the last glass with milk. Mother looks so pretty in her Peter Pan-collar blouse and freshened-up face that I forget and smile.

“What happened to your tooth?” she shouts, taking my chin between her fingers.

“Oh, I… I…”

Troo says, “She broke it on the swings over at the school playground when she was waitin’ for me to finish up with Father Mickey. She should be more careful, shouldn’t she.”

“She certainly should.” Mother is tilting my head this way and that to get a better look. “I’ll make an appointment first thing tomorrow with Dr. Heitz. I’m not sure there’s anything he can do about it, but… oh, damn… the pot’s boiling over,” she says when she hears the lid clatter.

During supper Dave doesn’t talk much except to say, “Please pass the… what is this dish called again, dear?”

Mother says, like it’s the best thing she’s ever made, “Cow tongue in turnip sauce.”

That sorta takes the spunk outta all of us except for Lizzie. But she eats shoes, too.

Neither one of them asks us anything else about Father Mickey. I think they agreed in the bedroom not to talk about it anymore because it’s not suitable supper conversation. They wouldn’t want to scar us for life. Only once does Dave say, like he’s thinking out loud, “I’m going to have to question Tony Fazio first thing tomorrow morning.”

They spend the rest of the supper discussing Dave’s sister, Betsy, and her husband, Richie. Dave helped them move boxes back into their house today. Mother also tells us that she is going to look for a wedding suit like the kind Jackie Kennedy wears with a matching pillbox hat. Of course, her mentioning pills makes me think about Ethel and Mrs. Galecki’s coma. I know I should, but I’m too yellow-bellied to ask what’s going on with them. If it is fatal news, that will be the last straw.

Between going over and over in my mind whether Troo and me have any chance of getting caught burying Father Mickey and my worrying about what’s to become of Ethel, I barely notice how disgusting the food is. Not until Dave throws his napkin down on the table and does a little lying himself. “Delicious as always, dear.”

Mother says, “I’m so glad you like it. I’m thinking of entering it in the cook-off.”

I have to work hard to keep myself from groaning. The cook-off is held during the celebration that marks the end of summer. In two weeks, we’ll have the biggest party we have around here. The neighborhood ladies bring all the food and there is a contest for the best dishes. All I can see is bodies littered all over Vliet Street if Mother serves her cow tongue in turnip sauce to the crowd. We’ll never even make it to the crowning of the queen or hear any good rock ’n’ roll from the Do Wops. I won’t get to dance with Henry. It’s hard to do the box step when you’re throwing up.

When Mother lights her after-dinner cigarette and Troo and me get up to do the dishes, now that supper is over, Detective Dave is free to go back to interrogating us.

He asks my sister, “You sure Father Mickey was still at the rectory last night when you left?”

Thank goodness, I can always count on Troo to cover her tracks, even in an ambush. She scrapes a plate into the garbage and says, “ Absolument .”

“Sally?” he asks. “Is that how you remember it, too?”

It’s my turn to wash, so I’m already at the kitchen sink filling it up. I’m so glad that I’ve got my back to him and he can’t see my face or my goose bumps. “Yes, sir.” Most sins are about doing or saying something you’re not supposed to, but there are also sins that are about not doing something or not saying something you’re supposed to. Those are called sins of omission. That’s what I’m committing when I tell Dave, “Just like Troo said. When we headed for home last night, Father Mickey was right where we left him.”

After Dave and me get done watching Peter Gunn tonight, he tells me, “I’m going over to the Goldmans’ to fix the short in the stove light. Want to come along? Buy you an ice cream afterwards.”

As good as spending some time alone with Dave and seeing Henry behind the soda fountain at Fitzpatrick’s sounds, school’s going to start soon and I do not want to get rapped on the knuckles by Sister Raphael when I show up the first day with a half-written assignment. I also gotta finish so Troo has enough time to copy it. Summer is almost over. The block party is in three days.

I tell Dave, “Thanks, but I can’t. I gotta get the rest of my charitable story written,” so he goes over to Vliet Street with his toolbox alone.

Troo is in the bathroom in front of the mirror putting the finishing touches on her ventriloquist act for the Queen of the Playground contest before she goes over to Fast Susie Fazio’s for a sleepover and some cannolis . Mother is on the phone with Aunt Betty jabbering about this new man she is dating who is a real catch because it’s Mr. Stanley Talmidge. Troo thinks Mr. Talmidge looks like Quasimodo and that he’s lucky to have something else going for him. He owns the Uptown movie theatre.

So that’s why I come out to my and Daddy’s bench in the backyard to write more of my story with my flashlight. I need some peace and quiet, but that isn’t working out either.

Mr. Moriarity’s dog is barking worse than ever. I think Lizzie broke his heart and is now seeing the Johnsons’ poodle. The crickets are rubbing their legs together to beat the band. I can’t usually hear them, but tonight a strong warm breeze is bringing the sound of the kids at the playground trying to get in their last licks. Loudest of all are the cookie factory dads and their wives out on their steps, giving each other their two cents’ worth on the mystery of Father Mickey’s disappearance. “What do you think coulda happened to him? Do you think he was kidnapped? Murdered?”

Even though it’s been weeks since Troo and me buried Father, the neighborhood just won’t shut up. Even during Mass this Sunday, which Father Louie returned to say from his special dry retreat, I could hear people taking guesses in the Communion line. And it’s not only up at church or on the stoops. No matter where you go or what you do, Father Mickey’s missing is the subject of all conversations. There was even a story in both newspapers with a picture of him looking so sharp, and a quote from Mrs. Latour: “He was a saint. I don’t know how we’ll manage without him.”

Mostly, it seems like people are leaning toward foul play. The cops especially think that. Dave and Detective Riordan have been searching the rectory for clues and when they’re not doing that, they’re working hard to find Father’s body in the lagoon and Jack Hoyt Woods and garbage cans because you got to have a dead one to prove something like murder. Troo and me aren’t worried a bit. Well, Troo isn’t.

The police are also asking everybody a lotta questions about their whereabouts the night Father disappeared. They’re even questioning kids. I got the jitters over that until Troo reminded me that we can count on Artie and Mary Lane. When Artie is grilled, he will keep mum about the revenge plan no matter how high-strung he is. My sister told him if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut about us being up at the rectory that night he has to give back the coonskin cap. And Mary Lane, I’m especially not concerned about her spilling the beans. She’s been tortured by the best in the world-nuns. So detectives asking her a couple of questions wouldn’t bother her at all. (The one thing that is bothering her, though, is why the picture she took of Father up at the rectory slapping Troo that night didn’t turn out. I told her it musta been bad film, but she is leaning toward evil spirits. I expect very soon to hear one heck of a blood-dripping-gypsies-with-wieners ghost story.)