Gilly followed her to the door, eager to get her out of the looney bin the house had suddenly become.
“I’m glad to have met you,” she said as politely as she could. She had no wish for the woman to think poorly of her. After all, she was—or, at least, she claimed to be—Courtney’s mother.
The woman paused, resisting Gilly’s efforts to hurry her out the door. She reached over abruptly and pecked Gilly on the cheek. “I’ll get you out of here soon,” she whispered fiercely. “I promise you, I will.”
Fatigue had made Gilly stupid. She simply nodded and closed the door quickly behind the little form. It wasn’t until she’d gotten Trotter back in bed and was putting the turkey in the oven that the woman’s meaning came clear.
Oh, my god.
Well, it didn’t matter what the woman thought. Miss Ellis could explain about today. No one could make her leave here, not when everyone needed her so. Besides—Trotter wouldn’t let them take her. “Never,” she had said. “Never, never, never.”
NEVER AND OTHER CANCELED PROMISES
Dread lay on Gilly’s stomach like a dead fish on the beach. Even when you don’t look at it, the stink pervades everything. She finally made herself admit the fact that it was her own letter that had driven Courtney to get in touch with her mother after a silence of thirteen years. What had it said? She couldn’t even remember what the letter had said. And Courtney’s letter had, in turn, brought the little lady up from Virginia to spy her out.
And now what? It was not at all the way she’d imagined the ending. In Gilly’s story Courtney herself came sweeping in like a goddess queen, reclaiming the long-lost princess. There was no place in this dream for dumpy old-fashioned ladies with Southern speech, or barefoot fat women in striped pajamas, or blind old black men who recited poetry by heart and snored with their mouths open—or crazy, heart-ripping little guys who went “pow” and still wet their stupid beds.
But she had done it. Like Bluebeard’s wife, she’d opened the forbidden door and someday she would have to look inside.
By Saturday night, when the turkey was finally upon the kitchen table with the four of them gathered gratefully around it, there was still no word from either Miss Ellis or the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Trotter and W.E. looked deathly white, and Mr. Randolph was the shade of ashes, but they had thrown off the crankiness of their illness and were eating the cold dry meat with chirpy expressions of delight.
“I declare, Miss Gilly, you are the only person I know who can rival Mrs. Trotter’s culinary skill.” A statement Gilly knew for a bald-faced if kindly intended lie.
“The potatoes are lumpy,” she responded, doing some tardy mashing with the tines of her fork.
“Mine ain’t lumpy,” W.E. whispered loyally.
“They’re just fine, Gilly, honey. I think you gave yourself the only lump in the pot. Mine’s smooth as ice cream. I don’t know how long it’s been”—Trotter paused, head tilted as though reaching far back into her memory—“I don’t think food’s tasted this good to me since…since before Melvin took sick the last time.” She beamed, having delivered the ultimate compliment.
Gilly blushed despite herself. They were all liars, but how could you mind?
“Gilly, honey”—Trotter stopped a forkful in midair—“who was that woman come here the other day? What she want?”
Now it was Gilly’s turn to lie. “Well, I think she was about to ask us to join her church, but before I could tell her about being faithful Baptists, all of you came roaring in looking like three-day-old death. Scared her straight out the door.”
“Me, too?” asked W.E.
“You were the worst one, William Ernest. She saw you standing there, all tall and white and skinny, calling my name, ‘Gi—lyeeeeeee. Gi—lyeeeeeee.’ She nearly swallowed her dentures.”
“Really?”
“Would I lie?”
“Pow,” he said.
“Well, she sure got up and hightailed it when I come in and bulldozed poor Gilly clean through the carpet.” Trotter snickered. “I reckon she thought she was fixing to be next.”
“What you do?” asked W. E.
“I fell smack down on Gilly and couldn’t get back up for the life of me.”
Mr. Randolph was giggling. “I was awakened by a terrible crash. I came as fast as I could….”
“Then all you could hear was this little squeak, “Roll off me, Trotter. Roll off me!’” Trotter repeated herself getting nearer to hysterics with each repetition. “Roll off me!’”
“Did you roll off her?”
“Mercy, boy, it weren’t that easy. I huffed and I puffed…”
“And you blew the house down!” William Ernest pounded the table, and they all laughed until the tears came, taking turns to cry out, “Roll off me!” and “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!”
“Roll off me!” was not what Gilly remembered saying, but it didn’t matter. It was so good to have them all well, laughing, and eating together. Besides, in their merriment, the little gray-haired lady had slipped from their thoughts.
But Monday came, and the long holiday weekend was over. Gilly, armed with an absence excuse that looked more like a commendation for bravery in battle, and William Ernest, cheerful but pale, went back to school. Mr. Randolph moved home again, and Trotter, taking time to rest every few minutes, began to straighten up the house. And, as Gilly learned later, by the time Miss Ellis reached her desk at twelve after nine, there was already a note upon it directing her to call a Mrs. Rutherford Hopkins in Loudoun County, Virginia.
Gilly had waited after school at William Ernest’s classroom door. She didn’t want him taking on any fights while he was still wobbly from the flu, and she knew, with her reputation, that no one would sneeze in his direction, if he were walking with her.
Agnes Stokes danced along beside them, trying to entice Gilly to join her in a trip to the deli, but Gilly was too intent on getting W.E. home.
“Or we could go to my house and call people on the phone and breathe weird.”
“Come off it, Agnes. That is so dumb.”
“No, it really scares ’em. I’ve had ’em screaming all over the place at me.”
“It is dumb, Agnes. Dumb, dumb, dumb.”
“You always say that when you don’t think it up yourself.”
“Right. I don’t think up dumb things.”
“C’mon, Gilly. Let’s do something. You ain’t done nothing with me for a long time.”
“My family’s been sick.”
Agnes sneered. “What family? Everybody knows…”
“My brother.” At this William Ernest raised his head up proudly. “My mother. And my—uncle.”
“Gilly Hopkins. That is the dumbest idea…”
Gilly spun around and jammed her nose down onto Agnes’s face, her mouth going sideways and narrow exactly like Humphrey Bogart’s on TV. “You want to discuss this further—sweetheart?”
Agnes backed up. “It’s too dumb to talk about even,” she said, still backing. “Really dumb.”
William Ernest slid close to Gilly so they couldn’t help touching as they walked. “Bet I could beat her up,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” Gilly said. “But don’t bother. Hell, it wouldn’t be fair. You against that poor little puny thing.”
Trotter was at the door, opening it before they reached the porch. Gilly went cold. You could tell something was badly wrong by the way the woman’s smile twisted and her body sagged.
Sure enough. Miss Ellis was sitting on the brown chair. This time the two women had not been fighting, just waiting for her. Gilly’s heart gave a little spurt and flopped over like a dud rocket. She sat down quickly on the couch and hugged herself to keep from shaking.
Suddenly Miss Ellis began to speak, her voice bright and fake like a laxative commercial: “Well, I’ve got some rather astounding news for you, Gilly.” Gilly hugged herself tighter. The announcement of “news” had never meant anything in her li
fe except a new move. “Your mother…”
“My mother’s coming?” She was sorry immediately for the outburst. Miss Ellis’s eyebrows launched into the twitchy dance they always seemed to at the mention of the words, “my mother.”
“No.” Twitch, twitch. “Your mother is still in California. But your grandmother…”
What have I to do with her?
“…your mother’s mother called the office this morning, and then drove up all the way from Virginia to see me.”
Gilly stole a look at Trotter, who was sitting bolt upright at the far end of the couch, rubbing W.E.’s back, her hand up under his jacket and her eyes like those of a bear on a totem pole.
“She and your mother”—twitch—“want you to go with her.”
“With who?”
“With your grandmother. Permanently.” The social worker seemed to be dangling that last word before Gilly’s nose, as if expecting her to jump up on her hind legs and dance for it.
Gilly leaned back. What did they take her for? “I don’t want to live with her,” she said.
“Gilly, you’ve been saying ever since you were old enough to talk…”
“I never said I wanted to live with her! I said I wanted to live with my mother. She’s not my mother. I don’t even know her!”
“You don’t know your mother, either.”
“I do, too! I remember her! Don’t tell me what I remember and what I don’t!”
Miss Ellis suddenly looked tired. “God help the children of the flower children,” she said.
“I remember her.”
“Yes.” The pretty face grew sharp with tension, as the social worker leaned forward. “Your mother wants you to go to your grandmother’s. I talked to her long distance.”
“Didn’t she tell you she wanted me to come to California like she wrote me?”
“No, she said she wanted you to go to your grandmother’s house.”
“They can’t make me go there.”
Gently, “Yes, Gilly, they can.”
She felt as though the walls were squeezing in on her; she looked around wildly for some way to escape. She fixed on Trotter.
“Trotter won’t let them take me, will you Trotter?”
Trotter flinched but kept on looking wooden-faced at Miss Ellis and rubbing W.E.’s back.
“Trotter! Look at me! You said you’d never let me go. I heard you.” She was yelling at the totem pole now. “Never! Never! Never! That’s what you said!” She was on her feet stamping and screaming. The two women watched her, but numbly as though she were behind glass and there was no way that they could reach in to her.
It was William Ernest who broke through. He slid from under Trotter’s big hand and ran to Gilly, snatched the band of her jacket, and pulled on it until she stopped screaming and stood still. She looked down into his little near-sighted eyes, full of tears behind the thick lenses.
“Don’t cry, Gilly.”
“I’m not crying”—she jerked her jacket out of his hands—“I’m yelling!” He froze, his hands up as though the jacket were still between his fingers.
“Oh, hell, kid.” She grabbed his two fists. “It’s gonna be OK.” She sighed and sat down. He sat down next to her, so close that she could feel the warmth of him from her arm through her thigh. It gave her the strength to look up again defiantly.
Miss Ellis was looking at the two of them like a bird watcher onto a rare species. But the big woman—Gilly could see the pain breaking up the totem-pole stare—Trotter shuddered to her feet like an old circus elephant.
“You tell the child what’s got to be done. C’mon William Ernest, honey.” She stuck out her big hand. “We ain’t helping here.” When he hesitated, she reached down and gently pulled him to his feet. They closed the door behind them, leaving Gilly cold and alone.
“You seem to have changed your mind about a lot of things.”
“So?”
“So you goofed it, right?”—Gilly didn’t answer. What did it matter?—“I’d really like to know what you wrote that fool letter for.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“You bet I wouldn’t. I don’t understand why a smart girl like you goes around booby-trapping herself. You could have stayed here indefinitely, you know. They’re both crazy about you.” Miss Ellis shook her long blonde hair back off her shoulders. “Well, it’s done now. Your grandmother will come to pick you up at my office tomorrow. I’ll come about nine to get you.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Gilly, believe me, it’s better. Waiting around is no good in these situations.”
“But I got school”—not even a good-bye for cool, beautiful Miss Harris or silly little Agnes?
“They’ll send your records on.” Miss Ellis stood up and began to button her coat. “I must admit that last month when you ran away, I thought, Uh-oh, here we go again, but I was wrong, Gilly. You’ve done well here. I’m very pleased.”
“Then let me stay.” Galadriel Hopkins had rarely come so close to begging.
“I can’t,” Miss Ellis said simply. “It’s out of my hands.”
THE GOING
For dinner that night Trotter fried chicken so crisp it would crackle when you bit it, and she beat the potatoes into creamy peaks with the electric mixer. She had made Mr. Randolph his favorite green beans with ham bits and for Gilly and W.E. there was a fruit salad with baby marshmallows. The sweet-sour smell of cherry pie filled the kitchen where the four of them sat around the table without appetite for food or speech.
Only William Ernest cried, big, silent tears catching in the corners of the frame of his glasses and then spilling down his cheeks. Mr. Randolph, smaller and thinner than ever, sat forward on his chair, with a shy, half smile on his face, which meant he was just about to say something but he never quite got it out. Trotter was breathing as hard as if she had just climbed the stairs. She kept rearranging the serving dishes as though just about to offer seconds, but since the four plates were still piled high, the gesture was useless.
Gilly watched her and tried to decide how much Miss Ellis had told her. Did she know the Thanksgiving visitor was Gilly’s grandmother? Did Trotter know—she hoped not—about the crazy letter? She still couldn’t remember what she had said in the letter. Had she said W.E. was retarded? Her mind blanked in self-defense. Oh, god, don’t let Trotter know. I never meant to hurt them. I just wanted—what had she wanted? A home—but Trotter had tried to give her that. Permanence—Trotter had wanted to give her that as well. No, what she wanted was something Trotter had no power over. To stop being a “foster child,” the quotation marks dragging the phrase down, almost drowning it. To be real without any quotation marks. To belong and to possess. To be herself, to be the swan, to be the ugly duckling no longer—Cap O’Rushes, her disguise thrown off—Cinderella with both slippers on her feet—Snow White beyond the dwarfs—Galadriel Hopkins, come into her own.
But there was to be no coming, only a going.
“If you all don’t start eating this supper, I’m gonna”—Trotter stopped, fishing around for a proper threat. She took a deep breath—“Jump up and down on the table, squawking like a two-hundred-pound lovesick chicken!”
“Really?” William Ernest took off his glasses and wiped them on his pants to prepare for a better view.
Mr. Randolph’s fixed smile crumbled into a nervous titter. Gilly swallowed to clear her clogged-up throat and took a large noisy bite of her drumstick.
“Now, that’s more like it.” Trotter patted her shiny face with the tail of her apron. “This was supposed to be a party, not some kinda funeral.” She turned to Mr. Randolph and half shouted. “Gilly’s folks are from Loudoun County, Mr. Randolph.”
“Oh, that’s lovely, lovely country, Miss Gilly. Real Virginia horse country.”
“You got horses, Gilly?”
“I don’t know, W.E.” She found it hard to imagine the little pudgy lady on horseback, but who could tell?
“Can I see ’em
?”
“Sure. If I got ’em, you can see ’em.”
She caught a flicked warning from Trotter over the boy’s head, but Gilly ignored it. “It’s not as if I’m going to Hong Kong. Hell. You can just hop on a bus and come to see me—any time.”
Trotter was shaking her head. She put her hand over on W.E.’s shoulder. “When folks leave, William Ernest, honey, they gotta have a chance to settle in and get used to things. Sometimes it’s best not to go visiting, right away.”
If you mean “never” Trotter, say so. Is that it? Will I never see the three of you again? Are you going to stand by and let them rip me out and fold me up and fly me away? Leave me a string, Trotter, a thread, at least. Dammit. She’d tie her own.
“I’ll write you, W.E. The mailman will bring you a letter with your name on it. Just for you.”
“Me?” he said.
“Nobody else.” She looked belligerently at Trotter, but Trotter was so busy making the meat platter and the salad bowl switch places that the expression was wasted.
After supper Gilly did her homework, knowing it was useless, that Miss Harris would never see the neat figures, row on row, that proved that Gilly Hopkins had met and mastered the metric system. When she finished, she thought briefly of calling Agnes, but what should she say? “Good-bye” when she’d never really said “hello”? Poor Agnes, what would become of her? Would she stomp herself angrily through the floor, or would someone’s kiss turn her magically into a princess? Alas, Agnes, the world is woefully short on frog smoochers.
No, she wouldn’t call, but maybe, someday, she’d write.
William Ernest walked Mr. Randolph home and returned carrying The Oxford Book of English Verse for Gilly—a farewell present from Mr. Randolph.
“Gilly, honey, do you know what kind of present that is?”
Gilly could guess.
“Like he tore a piece off hisself and gave it to you.”
Gilly ran a finger over the wrinkled brown leather, which could almost have been a piece of Mr. Randolph, but the observation seemed too raw, so she kept it to herself.