Grace
It was already last period at Grace’s school, and getting closer and closer to the final bell. And the closer it got, the more Grace felt like maybe she was about to throw up. Her face felt hot, and it tingled, and her stomach was feeling rocky, like that time when she had the flu.
But she didn’t have the flu, not this time, and she knew it.
What she had was one of those situations where you get more and more nervous and upset, and then after a while you’re so upset that you think you might throw up.
But there was really nothing much worse than throwing up in class in the fourth grade, unless it was peeing your pants, but even peeing your pants might only have been more or less a tie with throwing up. It was that bad.
So Grace asked her teacher for a hall pass to go to the bathroom.
It took the teacher a long time to write it out.
“Oh my gosh, please hurry,” Grace said, “because I think I’m about to throw up.”
“Oh, dear,” her teacher, Mrs. Placer, said, handing her the pass. “Go to the nurse as soon as you’re done.”
Which was an odd thing to say, since it was last period, and almost time to go home, but Grace figured maybe Mrs. Placer wasn’t thinking clearly about that. Grown-ups say all kinds of odd things, all the time, so this was just one more to add to the ever-growing list.
“OK,” Grace said, and ran down the hall as fast as she could.
It’s almost always better to just say OK. It’s better than arguing with them, just about every time.
She stood in the girls’ room for a while, right at the door of a stall, but now that she was in a place where she could throw up if she needed to, it seemed like maybe she wouldn’t need to after all.
After a while some older girls came in, three of them, maybe from the sixth grade, and they stood close to each other and passed a cigarette around, and one of them looked at Grace over her shoulder, and it wasn’t a friendly look.
Grace hoped they weren’t about to rob her, because that can happen in the bathroom. Not that she had anything to steal. But kids got hurt, too, especially if they didn’t have anything to steal.
“Flu,” she said, thinking if they knew she might be about to throw up on them, and if they thought what she had might be catching, they’d keep away.
Just then the bell rang.
Grace sprinted for the back door.
Her mom was there. And so was Felipe. Just like the day before.
Grace’s mom took her by the hand, too hard, and marched off toward home with her. Grace glanced over her shoulder at Felipe, but, the minute she did, her mom pulled her around by the arm so she faced forward again.
“I’m going to get to tap dance at my school,” she told her mom. “It’s for an assembly. I’ll be dancing in front of almost the whole school. First through sixth grades.”
“When?” her mom asked, sounding like she was thinking about something else entirely, and glancing over her shoulder at Felipe.
Grace turned to see if he was still back there — which he was — but then her mom turned her back around again.
“It’ll be in three months,” she said.
“Good. That’s plenty of time to learn to tap dance, I guess.”
“I already know how to tap dance.”
“Since when?”
“You missed a lot of stuff, you know. You’ve been gone a while.”
“Hasn’t been that long.”
“It’s been weeks.”
“It’s just been a few days.”
“Yeah, a few weeks’ worth of days.”
She expected her mom to maybe yell at her for saying all that. But nothing happened. Her mom just looked back over her shoulder at Felipe again.
“I have to tell Billy about the dancing at school,” Grace said.
“You’re not telling Billy anything.”
“But I have to.”
“But you can’t.”
“But I have to!” Grace shouted, finding a place in herself that just would not back down. Then she said something even braver. Possibly the bravest thing she’d ever said to her mom. “And I will!”
But nobody was paying the slightest bit of attention.
Grace’s mom stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk and turned around and started yelling at Felipe.
“Why are you following us?” she yelled. “Why don’t you just leave us alone?”
Grace said, “He’s not, he just lives the same place we do,” and Felipe said, “I’m not, I’m just going home,” and they both said it at almost exactly the same time.
“Why did you even come down to her school in the first place?” Grace’s mom shouted.
And Felipe said, “In case there was no one there to pick her up.”
“But I was there.”
“In case you weren’t, though,” Felipe said.
Grace looked at Felipe, and he looked so sad and helpless, and it started making her mad, that her mom was being so snotty to him, and not for any really good reason at all. She decided to take matters into her own hands, Mom or no Mom.
She ripped her hand free and ran to Felipe and threw her arms around his waist, one side of her face pressed against his belly. He was wearing a green flannel shirt, and it had been washed a lot of times. Grace could tell, because it was so soft.
“Te amo, Felipe,” she said, purposely loud enough for her mom to hear.
“Te amo también, mi amiga.”
“Billy y Rayleen? Dice para mi, ‘Grace te amo.’”
“Sí, mi amiga. Sí, yo lo hare.”
Then Grace ran back to her mom, who grabbed her arm and pulled her down the street again.
“Ow,” Grace said. “Could you loosen up on my arm? And slow down?”
“Just hurry up and walk with me.”
But it hurt, and that made Grace feel extra-defiant again. She stopped dead on the sidewalk, wrenching her arm free.
“Felipe! Would you go ahead of us? Please? Because I’m tired from trying to keep up with my mom, and she’s hurting me.”
Felipe crossed to the other side of the street, while Grace’s mom just stood and watched him, and then he got ahead, and crossed back. But he didn’t look over his shoulder or anything. He just kept walking.
Grace’s mom set off toward home again, but she walked more slowly this time, and didn’t grab on to any part of Grace, so that was an improvement.
“Since when do you speak Spanish?” her mom asked.
“Told you there’s a lot you missed,” Grace said.
? ? ?
When they got down the stairs to their basement apartment, they found a brown paper grocery sack in front of the door. With a big marking pen, in writing Grace didn’t recognize, someone had written on it, “FOR GRACE.”
Her mom picked it up and tried to look inside, but Grace, who was still feeling defiant, grabbed it out of her mom’s hands.
“It says for Grace, not for Eileen.”
“But I need to see what somebody’s giving you.”
“OK, fine, just give me a second and I’ll show you. Don’t have a total fit.”
Grace reached inside and felt soft cloth. She pulled it out of the bag, and let it unfold. It was a dress. A brand-new dress. Grace held it up in front of her, and it looked like it would fit just right, which was not too surprising, because Mrs. Hinman had measured all the different parts of Grace before she even ordered the pattern. It came down to just Grace’s knees, and it was the most perfect color of blue ever.
“That came out nice!” Grace said.
“Who bought you a dress?”
“Nobody bought it.”
“It just appeared?”
“Mrs. Hinman made it for me. I have to go tell her thank you.”
“Later,” her mom said.
“Why not now?”
“Because I have to go with you, and I’m tired, and I need to sit down for a minute.”
“You don’t have to go with me.”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
Grace sighed.
“OK, fine. Whatever. I’ll just practice my dancing and you tell me when you’re ready.”
Grace’s mom opened the door and let them both inside.
Grace ran straight to her tap shoes, thinking — for the twentieth time, at least — how lucky she was to have been wearing them when her mom stole her. She got them on in no time, too. It was easy with these tap shoes, because they fit. Just lace them up and dance.
But then she decided to take a minute to run into her bedroom and put on the new blue dress. She’d never danced in a dress before, and she wanted to see how it would feel. She slid it over her head, liking the soft feel of the cloth.
Then she looked at herself in the mirror, and drew in a loud breath.
“I look pretty,” she said out loud.
It wasn’t just the dress, but the dress definitely finished off the look. The dress took the newish haircut, and the nails (Rayleen had fixed the one she’d lost) and turned them into a package of…well…pretty. And there was another thing, but Grace was only just now noticing it. She’d lost weight, without even meaning to. Without even trying. Must have been all those hours of dance practice.
She smiled at herself in the mirror, which she had never done before, then ran into the kitchen to dance.
Grace’s mom was sitting on the coffee table lighting a cigarette, and she made a face when Grace began tapping on the kitchen linoleum.
“Whatever happened to smoking outside?” Grace asked, making a similar face.
“I need to keep an eye on you every minute. Do you have to do that tapping thing? The noise is giving me a headache.”
“Yes, I have to do it,” Grace said, without missing a step. “I have to do it for hours a day. I have a performing thingy coming up, and I want to be good.”
“It’s giving me a headache.”
“You said that already. I have to go to Rayleen’s and get my pajamas.”
“We’ve been through this.”
“I’m not sleeping in my clothes again tonight. I need my pajamas.”
“You can call her when she gets home and ask her to put them out in the hall. Since when do you need to dance for hours a day? You never did before.”
“A lot changed while you were gone.”
Grace’s mom finally took the bait and yelled at her. “I wasn’t gone that long! Stop saying I was! I’m sick of it!”
Grace’s feet stopped moving. She stood with her feet apart on the linoleum, as though she wanted to be sure nothing could knock her over. She looked right into her mom’s eyes, but her mom looked away.
“Look at me, Mom.”
Her mom glanced, quickly, then looked back down at the rug again and took another puff of the cigarette.
“Well, it’s all true,” Grace said, “whether you look at it or not. I tap dance, and I speak Spanish, and I have a nice new haircut that would’ve cost a lot of money if you’d had to pay for it…” Grace could hear her voice rising, but didn’t think she could stop that if she tried, and besides, she had no reason to try. “…and I have nice fingernails and a foot manicure, and I’m wearing a dress that was made just especially for me, and I have a cat!”
The part about the cat helped her finish off with a particularly convincing shriek. Because they’d been debating the issue of whether or not Grace had a cat ever since her mom had stolen her.
Grace wondered if Billy could hear her through her ceiling (his floor), and if it made him smile a little to hear her be brave and stand up to her mom, or if it worried him to hear any kind of fighting. She didn’t want to worry anybody, especially not Billy.
“And one of our neighbors shot himself and you don’t even know it!” she screamed. “And that’s how long you’ve been gone!”
Grace’s mom got quieter, instead of yelling back. She did that sometimes, but only when she was really mad.
“You do not have a cat,” she said. “And I’m having trouble understanding why you’re yelling as loud as you can after I just told you I have a headache.”
“I do have a cat. He’s a calico, and his name is Mr. Lafferty the Cat.”
“Maybe the cat exists,” her mom said, still in that scary-quiet angry voice. “I’m not saying there is no cat. I’m saying he can’t be your cat, because you can’t get a cat without my permission.”
“Well, you weren’t there to give permission, and it’s too late! And I got him, and he’s mine, and I’m going to go see him right now, and you can’t stop me!”
And, with that, Grace marched over to the door.
Her mom got there first, though, and put on the safety chain, which was too high for Grace to reach.
Grace grabbed a chair and hauled it over to the door, but Grace’s mom just grabbed the chair back and started to haul it away from the door again, but by that time Grace had already started to climb up on it. It just all happened so fast.
Grace hit the floor with her right hip and shoulder, and it hurt, especially the part on her hip.
“Ow!” she said.
“Well, I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t climb up on a chair while I’m moving it.”
“Well, you shouldn’t move a chair while I’m climbing up on it,” Grace said, still down on the rug.
“Why are you being so awful, Grace? You’re not usually like this.”
“Because I want to see my friends, and I want to see my cat, and you won’t let me.”
“They tried to take you away from me.”
“No, they didn’t! They just took care of me! It was all my idea! I didn’t want to be around you when you were loaded! I hate being around you when you’re loaded!”
In that quick and very dark moment, Grace’s mom stood over her, and just for a split second Grace thought her mom was about to haul her off and smack her. Which she had almost never done before. Then again, they’d never had a fight this bad. At least, not out loud. But it was almost as though Grace could see the urge move through her mom. Fortunately, it just kept going. A minute later Grace’s mom was talking in her quiet voice again.
“You’re giving me a headache. I have to go take some aspirin. Don’t you dare go anywhere while I do.”
And she walked away, through her bedroom and into the bathroom.
Grace looked at the door. She rose to her feet, but her hip still hurt when she put her weight down on that side. She thought briefly about pulling the chair back to the door again and unlocking the safety chain, but she figured her mom would catch her fast enough that it wouldn’t do a bit of good anyway.
So she just hobbled into the kitchen and went back to dancing. It hurt her hip to dance, but not enough to stop her. Nothing would have been enough to stop her. Instead she just winced a little on every step.
Her mom came back in a few seconds later.
“Did you take your aspirins?” she asked.
“Yeah,” her mom said. “I did.”
“You sure that’s all you took?” Grace asked, still dancing.
“Don’t push your luck with me, kiddo.”
“Do you even still have all those drugs in the house? Because, if you do, you’ll probably take them. Sooner or later.”
“New subject,” her mom said, without much of any kind of energy at all.
“That’s not just my opinion. Yolanda always says that to you.”
“More dancing,” her mom said. “Less talking.”
So for the next twenty minutes or so, Grace danced, and watched her mom to see what she had really taken. It shouldn’t take long to find out, she figured, because if she’d only taken aspirin, she’d stay awake. No real need to argue, she figured, when you can just wait and watch.
When her mom nodded off on the couch, with her head tipped back and her mouth open, Grace slid the chair over to the door again, climbed up on to it carefully (tap shoes were not ideal for this) and unlocked the door.
Her mom did not wake up.
She clicked her way up all three flights of stairs to Mrs. Hinman’s apartment and knocked on the door.
“It’s only me, Mrs. Hinman. Grace. I just wanted to show you how nice I look in my new dress and tell you thank you for it.”
She tried to talk like she had some energy, and like she was happy, so Mrs. Hinman wouldn’t think she didn’t like the dress.
“We all thought you had to stay downstairs with your mother now,” Mrs. Hinman said through the door while she was undoing all those locks.
“Yeah,” Grace said, no longer bothering to hide her depression. “I sort of did. It was sort of like you thought. But it didn’t last very long.”