Tuesday, July 4, we had a picnic dinner in the park. Fireworks at first dark, the sky painted with cascading colors.
Mother and Grandpa Teddy set off together Wednesday morning. Woolworth’s had offered her a longer shift than she had been getting, and although she was frustrated not to be able to find a singing gig, she needed those extra hours. Grandpa still performed five nights a week at the hotel, but he had taken on two more afternoons at the department store. Until school started in the autumn, I would be on my own every weekday.
That morning, I sat on the porch steps, hoping Malcolm would see me and take it as an invitation to come over and rock the living room again. I had neglected to find out which of the houses across the street was the Pomerantz residence. If he came over, I couldn’t pour out to him everything that I’d been hiding from my mother. In fact, I didn’t dare tell him any of it. But neither The Star Beast nor any other book would fade my worry back to mere concern. Neither would practicing the piano alone. At least with Malcolm, as well as he played and as smart as he talked, I’d be too distracted to continue imagining one death scenario after another.
When the woman strode along the public sidewalk from my left, through a dappling of sunlight and tree shadows, I didn’t initially pay much attention to her, preoccupied as I was with all the dreadful events that I could imagine forthcoming. I was vaguely aware that she dressed pretty much like Grandma Anita had dressed for work in the monsignor’s office: sensible black shoes with a low heel, dark-gray suit with a mid-calf skirt and hip-length jacket, white blouse. When she turned onto our front walk, I saw she also wore a black straw hat with soft crown, straight brim, and three blue feathers. I knew her.
I started to get to my feet. “Miss Pearl.”
“Stay where you are, Ducks. I don’t expect you to dance with me. I’ll just share that step with you.”
I hadn’t seen her since June of the previous year, the day after my mother packed my father’s belongings and locked him out of the apartment. Miss Pearl had been among the crowd in the Abigail Louise Thomas Room, listening to Mom sing while I played the piano. I’d only ever seen her twice before; I couldn’t count the two times she’d been there in the dark after a dream, because once she’d been just a voice and the other time a voice and a silhouette.
Scented faintly with rose perfume, she sat down and put her large black handbag between us. She was still tall and pretty and mahogany, but not as glamorous as she had been when dressed all in flamingo-pink.
“How have you been, Ducks?”
“Not so good.”
“Yes, I see you’re just as glum as that day I first saw you on the stoop at your old apartment building. You looked like the king of grump that day, like you must’ve been sitting on nails and chewing thumbtacks. You remember what you were so down about?”
“I guess because … Tilton was never going to let me take lessons and be a piano man.”
“And how did that work out for you?”
“Pretty good, I guess.”
“You guess? Don’t give me no guess. You’re already a piano man before you’re even a man.”
“Thank you for the piano, Miss Pearl.”
“You see? If you get in a mood and scowl at the world, the world will just scowl back at you. Vicious circle. No point to it. Is this the sunniest of sunny days or isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You’ve got eyes, child. Look around, look around!”
“Sure, it’s sunny.”
“Then you be sunny, too, and things will turn out better than if you aren’t.”
“I’ve got bigger trouble now than I did back then. Way bigger. Just thinking sunny isn’t going to help.”
She arched one eyebrow. “You mean your father with Miss Delvane, Mr. Smaller screaming like a lunatic at police, Fiona Cassidy going to Woolworth’s, plus Lucas Drackman plotting with your father and the rest of them?”
I met her eyes, and as before, I saw nothing scary in them. Kindness is what people do for one another; it isn’t something that you can peer into their eyes and see. Yet in her warm brown eyes, I saw unmistakable, inexhaustible kindness. They sparkled, too, not with morning sunlight but as if she were gazing at some glittering display of diamonds, instead of just at me. My breath caught in my throat—I don’t know why—and I was filled with such wonder and such a sense of mystery that I thought I might swoon and pass out.
She put a hand on my shoulder, and that brief touch seemed to release me from a trance, so that I could breathe again. I looked away from her, at the trees along the street, which struck me as far more beautiful than they had been only a moment earlier.
When I could speak, I said, “How do you know about them and their … plotting?”
“Well, who was it first showed you Fiona and Lucas in dreams?”
“Yeah, and how could you do that? You’re not a witch.”