Anyway, for this reason alone, Winky’s unmade bed made me happy. It was the first time I had ever come across anyone who dared dismiss Emmanuel’s rules, however trivial. I sat down on the edge of his soft mattress and swung my legs and wondered what other rules he broke.
It wasn’t long before I found out. One night, after hearing strange noises coming from downstairs, I crept to the top of my stairs and peeked over the railing. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw Winky sitting in his green chair staring at a tiny black-and-white TV. The screen was no larger than a piece of loose-leaf paper and the picture, which at times skit-tered up and down, was fuzzy at best. Guys in rimmed hats and black-and-white-striped uniforms stood around a gigantic baseball field, and a crowd roared every time one of them hit the ball. When someone got up to bat, Winky shifted restlessly in his seat and grunted. I sat still as snow and watched the rest of the game from the stairs. When it ended, Winky stood up, burped, unplugged the television, and pushed it back under his bed. I crept back to my own bed, listening to my heart pound in the dark as Winky’s snores filled the house. Segregated or not, the Milk House was starting to feel like home.
Now I tiptoe around to the back of the house. Winky is on his knees in the middle of the garden, tamping down soft dirt around the pepper bushes in the back row. Perfect. I back up slowly and sneak into the house. Moving as quietly as possible, I angle the tiny TV out from under Winky’s bed, set it on the orange milk crate next to his slippers, and plug it in. Days of Our Lives is nearly over, but I watch the last ten minutes of it breathlessly, trying to figure out what I missed. I think someone may be plotting to kill Hope, but I’m not sure. It’s just a hunch. I keep an eye on Winky, peeking out the window every few minutes. He once caught me watching this show and flipped his lid. He doesn’t care if I watch baseball with him, but he thinks everything else is trash and he doesn’t want to be responsible for me watching it. My mouth waters as a Coke commercial comes on. I wonder what a Coke would taste like. Too soon, the credits start to roll and when the hourglass appears on the screen, I flick the television off and shove it back in its hiding spot. Then I stroll out to the garden.
“Hey!” I squat down next to Winky, watching as he pours a bucket of water over the pepper bush. He grunts in response but doesn’t look up. “I was afraid you might not be here. How’d you get out of Ascension duties today?”
Winky reaches under his robe and removes a small pair of garden shears from his back pocket. “I was peeling potatoes, but Beatrice said I was too slow. She told me to go away.” He struggles to get the words around his tongue, which lolls heavily against his lower lip.
“Oh, Beatrice is an idiot,” I say, sitting down carefully on the grass. “She thinks she can boss everyone around because Veronica put her in charge of the Ascension dinner this year. She’s impossible. Don’t take it personally.”
Winky begins snipping off the dead leaves from the pepper bushes. “I don’t think she likes looking at me. She gets scared. She always tells me to go.” His left eye, which spasms uncontrollably as he talks (and is the reason for his unusual nickname), is moving so fast that I wonder if there is a small engine underneath the lid.