47
“Did you see it?”
A simple question. It was the first thing out of Boo Boo’s mouth when I saw her next morning. She dragged me into the Quiet Room. She sat me on the bench, hunkered herself in front of me and said it again: “Did you see it?”
I’d expected breathless questions about the envelope plant. This question didn’t seem to fit. “See what?” I said.
“The Spootnik.” She punctuated the word with a poke to my shoulder that was just a little too hard.
What did the Russian satellite have to do with the note to Delancy? I was befuddled. All I could say was “Huh?”
She squeezed my arm. “I told you to look for it. You can only see it at night. I’m inside. I told you to look up and see it.”
For the life of me I could not remember her telling me to do that. My impulse was to say something like You did? or Are you sure? A second thought advised me to put the blame on myself, not her. “Sorry,” I said. “I forgot.”
I braced myself for another poke. It never came. Her face changed. She blinked at me, as if she was trying to remember who I was. Her entire body said: I am hurt. She went to the wheelbarrow waterfall. She stood there for several minutes, holding her hand under the falling stream. I felt terrible. I wanted to smack myself. She’d asked me to do one simple little thing. And I had blown it. Great friend I was.
I called, “I’ll do it tonight. Promise.”
She didn’t seem to hear me. She stood a while longer before the waterfall, fingering the long green leaves nearby. When she turned back to me, she was Boo Boo again. She pointed. “You ain’t shopliftin’, are you?”
“No, ma’am,” I said, relieved that we were off the “Spootnik” track.
She nodded crisply, mentor to pupil. “Good.” She sat beside me. “I don’t want you in here.”
“No, ma’am.”
She laughed. “What would your daddy say?”
We both laughed.
And then she fell silent. We must have sat side by side on that bench for ten minutes and she never said a word. I detected no attitude. She didn’t seem upset or angry or, as usual, happy. She wasn’t brimming. That was the word. Boo Boo was always brimming. There was a sense that things—words, feelings, laughs—were forever brawling inside her to be the first one out. Now, beside me, I sensed…emptiness. Emptiness in such a person is not nothing, is not small. It is enormous.
I was lost. Conversationwise, I was used to Boo Boo carrying the ball. I wondered why she was acting this way. Had something bad happened between her and Delancy? Was the note in the envelope not a happy, lovey-dovey note after all? Was it a Forgive me note or a Let’s make up note?
The silence, the tension, became too much for me. I blew it away: “A boy likes me.”
Again she didn’t seem to hear. Then she turned, just her head. She looked down at me. “A what?” she said.
“A boy likes me.” This time the words didn’t fly out so easily.
She blinked. She stared. “A boy likes you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, I think so anyway. Not that I have a lot of practice with boys liking me.” I gave a nervous laugh. She didn’t. “Anyway, so, he walked me home from the fireworks on the Fourth of July…”
I blabbed on and on about Danny Lapella. I discovered that it excited me to wind my tangled feelings into thoughts and words and belt them out of me, over the walls of myself like stringballs onto Marshall Street. I also blabbed to keep the uncomfortable silence from returning, to keep Boo Boo engaged, locked into here and now, into me.
It wasn’t working. Her eyes drifted away from my face and across the room to the waterfall. I kept talking, trying to reel her back. When I ran out of Danny Lapella, I jumped to Reggie and the whole Bandstand thing and the fan mail and the snowball fight at the icehouse and my dream of playing for the Phillies. I threw in energetic gestures and laughs. I popped off the bench and demonstrated how I ran over little Benny House at home plate, which I suddenly found funny. I was almost out of material when she turned back to me and—click!—once again it was Boo Boo’s eyes twinkling at me. I shut up. She slapped her knee and exclaimed, “Scooper Dooper!”
I recalled our plan. “Yeah!” I replied, trying to match her spark. “We’re gonna go. Soon as you get out.”
She looked at me lovingly. She nodded. “That’s right. But you know what?”
“What?” I said.
“I want you to go now.”
I wasn’t following. “But you’re still here,” I pointed out.
She looked into my eyes. She took both my hands in hers. “Do you love Boo Boo?”
This was my day for being caught off guard. “Love” was not a word I threw around much. I used it occasionally as applied to Carl’s pies or the oil-scented, leathery smell of my baseball glove when I retrieved it from the shoe box every spring—but not to people. Living people.
I swallowed once and swung at a fastball down the middle. “Sure,” I said.
My answer made her happy. She was still smiling at me when she said, “You know what a proxy is?”
48
“No,” I said.
Boo Boo told me that a proxy is someone who is authorized to act on behalf of somebody else. A proxy could take your place and vote for something. Or sign some legal papers for you. It’s like a proxy person has permission to play the part of you.
“Sounds like pinch-hitting,” I said.
She slapped the bench. “ ’Zacly! You wanna pinch-hit for Boo Boo?”
“Sure,” I said. “What am I doing?”
She told me. She wanted me to go to Scooper Dooper. She wanted me to order a banana split. All three scoops chocolate. Wet walnuts. Hot fudge. Extra whipped cream. Four cherries. One for each scoop, plus one. No pineapple. Just like we talked about. “And then,” she said, and she turned fully to me on the bench and her voice went soft and solemn, “you gonna sit there—in a window table, you got that?”
I nodded. “I got it.”
“A window table in front, so’s you can see the peoples walkin by…” She waited.
“Got it.”
“And you’re gonna eat that banana split. Only”—she poked me softly—“it ain’t gonna be you eating it. It’s gonna be me.” She could see I was struggling to keep up. “Listen to me, Miss Cammie…” She took my hand. She placed it on my chest, then hers. “There’s love between you and me. A love bridge.”
I squeezed her hand, which seemed big as a baseball glove. I loved the disparity between our fingernails—hers red and long and glamorous; mine stumpy, ragged, dirty. “I like that,” I said.
“And that love bridge, that makes us sisters. Y’see?”
I nodded. “I see.”
“So you is me and I is you.” She frowned. Maybe at the grammar, maybe at the idea. Whichever, she laughed the frown away. “You with me?”
“I’m with you.”
“So, when you’re up there eatin’ the banana split…” She paused; she seemed to be getting her thoughts straight. “Eatin’ that banana split…it’s goin’ in”—she poked me—“you, but the one tastin’ it”—she poked herself—“is me.” She cocked her head. “Still with me?”
“Still with you,” I said. Even though I wasn’t, not really.
She looked away, into some beyond I could not see. A peacefulness came upon her. “Miss Cammie, as long as you’re eatin’ that split, I’m gonna be out…without bein’ out.”
We stared at each other, silenced by the wonderfulness of the notion.
She jabbed a red fingernail at me. “And don’t you think you can fool me, girl. If there ain’t four cherries gone into that moutha yours, I’ll know it.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll do it right.”
She smacked the bench. “It’s gonna work. I know it.” She leaned into me. “You know why?”
“Why?” I said.
She slumped. “Miss Cammie,” she said with exaggerated dismay. “We went over this.
It’s gonna work because…”
She waited for me to complete the sentence. I couldn’t. I was on summer vacation. The last thing I needed was a pop quiz. “Because…?” I peeped.
She took my face in her hands. She pronounced a syllable: “Luh…luh…”
I cried: “Love bridge!”
She kissed me on the nose. She swallowed me in a hug. “Only two peoples with a love bridge can do it.” She tapped me. “Proxy.”
I nodded. “Proxy.”
“Sisters.”
I looked up at her. I fell into her eyes. “Sisters.”
Sisters.
The word occupied the space between us as the brewery whistled lunchtime. We wrapped it up with a flurry of will-yous and yes-I-wills and “Four cherries!” As we left the Quiet Room, I released a thought that had been nipping at me. “Boo Boo,” I said, “I know it’s really gonna be you eating the banana split, but can I sneak in just one bite for myself?” As I recall, she was laughing too hard to reply.
I was at my backyard gate when a thought flew straight through my brain and out my mouth: “Boo Boo!” I called. “I left the note!”
By then she was heading in for lunch, towering as always above the others. I could only hope that she heard me.
49
I was not going to blow it this time. I had failed to look for Sputnik. I wasn’t going to fail with Scooper Dooper.
I didn’t even bother to eat the lunch Eloda had put out for me. I grabbed a five-dollar bill from my cigar box savings bank and headed for the West End on my bike.
The day was typical August in the Delaware Valley: hot, humid. I was in such a hurry and so preoccupied with my mission that I failed to notice I was riding west on Oak Street—until I was within half a block of Oak and Cherry. The Corner. Simultaneously I U-turned and mashed the back pedal. My tires flew out. The left pedal raked the asphalt and pinned my ankle to the street. Car brakes screamed. I looked up…into the distinctive bullet-nose grille of a Studebaker. I righted myself, flung a “Sorry!” at the horrified driver and hightailed it out of there. Someone in heavy shoes was chasing me…thumping…No…it was my heart.
I didn’t slow down till I hit Marshall, then headed west again. Within a block or two, the thumping went away. I took deep breaths. I welcomed the warm smother of the day. I reentered the sanctuary of my mission.
I couldn’t pretend to understand all the “proxy” stuff Boo Boo had talked about. She was proving to be much more complex than the jolly giant I had first known in the yard. But the “love bridge”—that was a different story. That I understood. That I believed in.
I parked my bike in front of Scooper Dooper. I pushed open the screen door. The bell tinkled—and things began to change. Yes, it was me walking into the ice cream shop. Me moving toward the long white counter. Me passing between the bright steel-banded Formica tables, some empty, some with customers digging into their treats. Me standing before the squad of topless tubs. Me, yes…but not only me. Something else, a presence as ethereal as I imagined an angel’s to be, was beside me. Was in me. Like on a party telephone line, someone else was there—here—looking through my eyes, gazing at the frosty mounds, the flavors in all their colors.
“Banana split, please,” I said to the man in the white teardrop-shaped paper cap.
I recited the list, slowly, carefully: all three scoops chocolate…wet nuts…hot fudge…extra whipped cream…
“Pineapple?” he said.
“No!” I said. “Cherries. Four.”
He gave me a look but he did it. I got the sense that he was about to charge me extra for all the customizing, but as he planted the last cherry in the whipped cream, he stepped back to see what he had done. His admiring smile began at the banana split and shifted over to me. I almost said It’s not for me. With a show of reverence, or maybe envy, he pushed the masterpiece across the counter. “Eighty cents,” he said.
A mother and two little kids were just getting up from a window table. I hustled toward it.
“Miss…” The counter man was calling.
I turned.
He was pointing. “Your ankle.”
I looked. Blood was seeping through my sock. Bike spill. Studebaker. I grabbed napkins from the dispenser on a vacant table and stuffed them into my sock and practically ran to the table by the window.
I sat. I closed my eyes. I settled myself down. I whispered, “Okay, Boo Boo. Here we go.” When I opened my eyes, again I sensed it wasn’t just me looking out through them.
I did not plunge in as I would have if I were eating only for myself. I took it slow. I started with a cherry. I held it in my mouth. I closed my eyes. I held it there…held it there…hoping Boo Boo was tasting, savoring. When my teeth finally crushed that first cherry and the juice exploded in my mouth, I imagined I heard Boo Boo give a quick peep of delight.
Spoonful by spoonful, savor by savor, I received the masterpiece. I may have broken the world record for Slowest Eating of a Banana Split. I spaced out the remaining three cherries, the last one being the last thing of all into my—into her—mouth. As I wiped my lips with a napkin, I was not just pretending I could feel Boo Boo smiling. I was believing it. I was sold.
Proxy.
Sisters.
I’m gonna be out!
—
I raced homeward, my front tire barely skimming the steamy face of Marshall Street. Every muscle in my body was twitching, pulling toward Boo Boo like a dog on a leash. I wanted to crash into her arms, tell her I did my job, ask her if it worked. And then, clattering over the railroad tracks, the problem hit me: I wouldn’t be seeing her until ten o’clock next morning.
I couldn’t imagine waiting that long. As I pumped up the long town-top hill, I toyed with the idea of visiting her cell. I had never used my privileges so recklessly before, but I doubted the guards would deny the warden’s daughter. A screaming ambulance racing past me brought me to my senses: How long would I be grounded after my father found out? I scotched the idea.
—
A single demonstrator—BURN BAKER—was braving the heat outside the prison. As I hoisted my bike up the front steps, a flashing squad car went racing down the wall-side alley. I leaned out from the tiny, grassy plateau. Uniforms were dashing across Marshall Street; lights were flashing. What was happening? Had Baker escaped?
Inside, Mrs. Butterfield said nothing, but her face followed me with an expression I could not read. Her glasses were off. A crowd of people, some in uniform, some not, filled my father’s office. They all seemed to be talking at once. I could feel urgency. Turmoil. Distress.
As I mounted the stairs to the apartment, solo words rose like bubbles from the boil of voices. But only one stuck to my ear: “hanged.” That was all I needed to hear. By the time I hit the top step, Marvin Edward Baker’s own words completed the picture: I ain’t never goin’ to Rockview.
I raced back down. I almost veered right and out the door to shout at the demonstrator: You can go home now! But I didn’t. I ran straight to Mrs. Butterfield, gushing, “He did it, didn’t he? He said he would and he did it!”
She blinked. She put her glasses on as if to better see me. She seemed confused. “Who?” she said.
“Marvin Edward Baker!” My stomach pressed into the front edge of her desk. I may have been yelling. “He said, ‘I ain’t never goin’ to Rockview.’ And he ain’t! He’s not! He hanged himself! Right?”
Mrs. Butterfield took her time digesting my information. She removed her glasses. She placed them carefully on her desk. She positioned them precisely in a way that seemed important to her. When her face came back up to me, there was a smile on it, but it wasn’t happy.
“It wasn’t Mr. Baker,” she said. And for the first time ever, the formal Mrs. Butterfield pronounced an inmate’s yard name. “It was Boo Boo.”
50
Find Delancy.
That’s the first sensible thought I can recall. I had to find Delancy. If he didn’t know, I had to tell him, find th
e words I could not even think to myself. If he did know, I had to console him. There would be no wedding. No house by bright water. No ten kids.
I was standing between two massive columns under the entrance to the courthouse.
I found the Recorder of Deeds. Through a square cutout in the wall I could see a woman pecking at a typewriter. Her fingernails were blunt and ugly, more like mine than Boo Boo’s. A tortoiseshell comb was sunk into the hair bun in the back of her head. That bothered me. So did her nose. I hated her.
She sat at a right angle to me, pecking. I was sure she could see me in her peripheral vision, but she acted as if she didn’t know someone was standing at the window. I wanted to reach in and jam her precious tortoiseshell comb through her bun and into her neck.
“I want to talk to Delancy Worthington,” I said.
She pecked some more and finally stopped. She turned her face, nothing else, to me. Direct on, her snout showed nostrils the size of kidney beans. “Excuse me?” she said.
“Delancy Worthington,” I repeated. “Can I talk to him, please?”
She blinked. “There’s no one here by that name,” she said. Her fingertips hovered above the typewriter keys. I swore I would never become a secretary. “Do you have the right department?”
“Recorder of Deeds,” I said. I looked up at the sign. “Isn’t this it?”
“It is,” she said. “But as I say, there’s no one here by that name. Not in this office.”
“Delancy Worthington,” I said. It seemed I was in a game that required me to repeat the name a certain number of times.