Uh-oh.
Because I’m almost positive that he wants to army-interrogate me about what I saw out the bedroom window last night, I think this might be one of those desperate measures times that Daddy used to tell me I had to always BE PREPARED for, which I am. I don’t even have to put a fake terrified look on my face when I point to the side of him and yell, “Holy Mother of God! Run for your life, Mister McGinty! Look out! It’s a bee!” and with my other hand reach around and pinch Birdie on the heinie really hard.
“It got me!” she screams. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!”
Thank goodness that the caretaker is as impressed as I am by my sister’s big-lunged, operatic performance. He’s windmilling his arms and frantically backpedaling, which is exactly what I hoped he’d do, because believe me, getting the third degree from a guy who is deathly allergic to bees, but who might be very copacetic when it comes to kidnapping and murder, that’s the kind of close call I’m 100% positive the Finley sisters can live without.
12
THE DEAD MAN’S FLOAT
After Birdie and me make our getaway from Mr. McGinty, we stop on top of the steep, grassy hill that overlooks the cemetery pond, because even as desperate as I am to see my fiancé, the Finley sisters need to take a breather before we head over to our Mutual Admiration meeting. We gotta recombobulate ourselves.
“It’s very important to always look your best when spending time with the man of your dreams,” was another suggestion from that Good Housekeeping magazine article, and I’m pretty sure after chasing Birdie around during her wild streak, collapsing in a pile of fallen leaves behind Mr. Gilgood’s mausoleum, and making a break for it from Mr. McGinty, that I don’t look shipshape. More like “The Wreck of the Hesperus.” (Joke!)
My already wavy hair has gone springy, my tan T-shirt has come untucked from my shorts, I’m drenched in Indian summer sweat, and Daddy’s little dreamboat isn’t anything to write home about, either. One of her pigtails got undone, her mouth that’s ringed in chocolate is clashing with her cheeks that are pinker than a bubble gum cigar, and her shorts have a new grass stain across the seat in the shape of our state.
“Tessie?” she asks me as she rolls around on the ground.
“Yeah?”
“I been thinking.”
That’s never a good sign.
“Mommy named you after Saint Theresa the Little Flower,” Birdie says, “so shouldn’t bees come after you more than they come after me?”
Naming me after that sainted gal was just wishful thinking on my mother’s part. “Like I told ya all the other times you asked me, the reason bees are attracted to you more is because you’re a sweeter kid than me, honey, and you gotta remember not to call her Mommy.”
“Roger that, Tessie,” she says, and goes back to rolling around on the ground to try and locate the imaginary stinger I made her think she has in her heinie, which is fine by me. I need some time to pull myself together the best I can for Charlie. He better still be waiting for us at the weeping willow tree next to the pond that most cemetery visitors find such a lush oasis in the middle of row after row of unending sadness.
Staring down at the water from up here, I’m remembering how Mr. McGinty told me a long time ago that the pond was dug in the first place because “Beauty can help fill the cracks in people’s hearts and comfort their souls.”
There was a time not that long ago when the sweet smell of flowers drifting over from the graves, songbirds in the trees, and the feel of the pond mud oozing between my toes with someone I love and who loves me back did make my heart and soul feel good, but those days went away when Daddy did. I still do get a little glimmer of hope when I fish with Mr. McGinty, skim rocks across the pond with Charlie, or pick wildflowers that grow along the bank with Birdie, or if we have a really great Mutual Admiration meeting under the weeping willow, because sometimes, just for a minute or two, the crack in my heart does feel like it’s getting just a little sealed up with hope. But most of the time, when I stare at the furry cattails alongside the water, the missing sadness and an awful wave of black guilt washes over me.
Ever since I let Daddy drown, I have been blaming myself on two counts. And I’m not the only one. I’ve come to learn in Modern Detection that not diving in after him is known in the eyes of the law as “accessorizing after the fact.” And in the eyes of the Almighty, sitting on my hands and laughing my head off while my father sunk to the bottom of Lake Michigan because I thought he was playing a Gotcha! joke on me, instead of at least trying to save him, makes me guilty of committing a sin of omission.
Hey, Tessie, who’s next on your list to let down? Birdie? Charlie? Your dear old grandparents?