Lesley Kagen - Whistling in the Dark

“Yes,” I said, even though it wasn’t the complete truth. I had forgiven her. Mr. Dave, too. But I had one last thing to do before I could let bygones be bygones.

“That reminds me. I got a little early birthday present for you.” Mother dug around in her skirt pocket and came out with Daddy’s Timex. “He’d want you to have it.”

She dropped it into the palm of my hand. It looked smaller than it used to.

“Go on, put it on,” she said. “I had it sized for you. It’ll grow with you.”

I slid the stretchy silver band over my wrist and put it up to my ear and remembered how the sound of it had always made me feel safe when I’d rest my cheek against Daddy’s hand.

Then Mr. Dave came back with plates full of food for both of us. He sat down on the other side of me and said, “Gosh, I’ll be darned. I seem to have forgotten my watch. Anybody know what time it is?”

I held up my hand so he could see. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking, I thought.

And then we settled in and ate and watched everybody dancing their heads off. You should have seen Ethel and Ray Buck goin’ at it. They were really something! Better even than Justine and Tony on American Bandstand , in my opinion. Ethel brought Mrs. Galecki in her wheelchair for a little while, even though everybody was talking behind their hands about how Mr. Gary had run off with Father Jim and how they were gonna go to hell, but I could tell that didn’t bother Mrs. Galecki at all, or maybe it was the new medicine that made her smile so much.

That night Troo was well on her way for her new fat lady job, me too, that’s how much food we ate. Nana Fazio’s spaghetti and meatballs and Mrs. O’Hara’s (who was about to become Mrs. Officer Riordan) corned beef and Mrs. Latour’s slumgoodie. Nell had even made Mother’s special tuna noodle casserole with the potato chips on top. (It was still kinda black, but a lot less black than the last time she’d made it.) Of course, Ethel brought her Mississippi blond brownies. And Mrs. Goldman brought us some beautiful tomatoes from her garden in a straw basket. Mrs. Kenfield came alone and empty-handed.

While everybody was dancing the Stroll, I was having some growing pains and felt a need to stretch my legs. It was dark by then and the crickets had started up and, I knew, so had the creak creak creak of the swing. I missed hearing it even though it had always made me feel lonely. I could hear Troo’s “Chopsticks” laugh and Nana Fazio yelling something in Italian and everybody clapping along with the music as I stood in front of the Kenfields’. But when I looked up to the porch and saw him there, the bulk of him, I wondered what the devil had come over me. I turned to go back to the party, but Mr. Kenfield called out of the dark, “Come here, Sally.”

I climbed the steps and just for a second I thought I’d take off, but then he patted the other side of the swing and so I sorta had to do it because I didn’t want to be rude. But my heart, it started knocking against my ribs like it’d been locked out in a storm. I was afraid of Mr. Kenfield. And I could not ever remember him talking to me before. He probably was going to have a big talk with me about how me and Troo were always stealing stuff from his store or maybe he would even call Mr. Dave down from the party and tell him that he thought I should be sent to Juvenile Hall.

I sat down next to him and looked at his hands. His nails were bitten down to the half moons. “How come you aren’t at the block party, Mr. Kenfield?”

He threw his cigarette into the bushes. “Don’t feel much like celebrating.”

“Is it because of Dottie?”

In the glow of his porch light I could see his face get real mad and it looked like he was about to yell something, but then he quieted down.

“You know,” I said, resting my hand on top of his since it looked so forgotten about and coulda used a little Jergens lotion. “Like my mother always says, ‘It’s best to forgive and forget. Let bygones be bygones.’ ”

He said gruffly, “You’re your mother’s daughter, all right. The apple didn’t fall far from that tree.”

Mr. Kenfield reached deep down into his trouser’s pocket and took something out. It was a picture of Dottie. You could tell he looked at it a lot because it was sort of worn down and grayish, like him. Dottie was sitting on this very same swing, smiling so big with her hands behind her head.

“You know who that is?” He pointed at the photograph.

I looked up into his face. There was a shadow across his eyes. “Yes.”

“You know what she did?”

“Yes.” She’d done the same thing Mother had. Fallen in love and had a baby with someone she wasn’t supposed to.

“It’s a mortal sin. Some things you can’t forgive and forget.”

“You’re wrong about that, Mr. Kenfield. You should let Dottie and her little baby come home because I know how much you miss them. I don’t think God would mind that at all.”

He put his hands up to his face then so I wouldn’t see, but I recognized that sound. Mrs. Goldman had been wrong. It hadn’t been Mrs. Kenfield, crying every night in Dottie’s room. It was her daddy. Who did not have a stiff upper lip after all.

I got up and left then. Because that sound, that weeping from the heart, I knew that sound. And I also knew there was nothing I could say that would make him feel better. Nothing else hurts worse in the world as much as tears for the missing.

“Test… test… one… two… three,” Barb said up on the stage in front of the microphone. “Could I have your the stage in front of the microphone. ”Could I have your attention, please? It’s the time you’ve all been waiting for. Test one… two… three.” The microphone made a high screechy sound. Barb laughed when we put our hands over our ears. She was standing on the stage next to Johnny Fazio and you could see plain as the nose on your face that Johnny Fazio had the hots for her.

Barb announced, “It’s time now to reveal the name of the girl who is this year’s Queen of the Playground.” She turned toward Johnny and said very seriously, “May I have a drum roll.” She looked back at the crowd, holding the gorgeous rhinestone crown up to the stage lights. It was so beautiful that no words could describe it.

Troo picked up my hand and squeezed it. I knew it was me. Had to be. But just as Barb said, “The Queen of the Playground this year is…,” and looked over at me… I looked over at Wendy Latour. She was holding Artie’s hand and smiling so purely. She was dressed in a pink party dress with lace on the neck and had some rouge on her cheeks and something shiny on her lips.

And for the second time that night, I didn’t understand what came over me, but I jumped right on that stage and took the microphone out of Barb’s hand and said into it, “The Queen of the Playground this year is… Wendy Latour.”

When I thought later about why I did that, I figured it was because of that plastic Cracker Jack ring Wendy always wore on her wedding finger. She needed to be Queen more than I did. I knew I would go on in life and I would get married and have kids, maybe even marry a pharmacist someday. But for Wendy… well, at least she would always have that rhinestone crown.

When Artie brought her up to the stage to be crowned, Wendy gave me one of her huge hugs and then started throwing those Dinah Shore kisses at everyone. Just like a Queen should. Barb announced Teddy Mahlberg as the King and Wendy gave him a royal hug as well, which he took pretty well. Then everybody started going nuts with their hooting and hollering, but that was also because they were, a lot of them anyway, three sheets to the wind, and I had noticed that this generally improves people’s moods.