Follow Me (28 page)

Bam, bam, bam!
That was the sound of violence in cartoons. But Sally was discovering that in real life the sound of flesh against flesh
was far more muted, more of a thumping and shuffling, with the occasional crackling that seemed to come from far away, not
from a measurable distance but from another dimension.

She was on her knees, half on the wet pavement, half on the muddy ridge that ran between the alley and the side of the fence.
Her hands were flat on the ground, with the first two fingers of her right hand touching the edge of a rough, rounded object,
just a rock, a simple rock the size of a baseball, and in an instant she’d seized it in her hand and with a desperate contortion
flung it toward him, heard his grunt that meant the rock had hit its target, though with the sting of drizzle and the blood
in her eyes she couldn’t see where the rock hit him or even what he was doing, could feel only that the pinching force on
the back of her neck slackened.

She scrambled to her feet, swinging blindly, knocking his cap off but missing his face. He grabbed her elbow, but she shook
free. She would escape him, she would leave him sitting at the counter in Fenton once and for all, that’s what she wanted
to do, not to hurt him, only to desert him, and she would have succeeded if he hadn’t caught her from behind and pushed her
up against the fence, binding her wrists together against her side with one of his bulky hands and with the other yanking
at the collar of her raincoat, even as he promised her in a whisper, his mouth close to her ear, that she’d never get away
from him again.

That old song.

You can run but you can’t hide.

Had he said
run?
Why, she knew that word.

Run.
That was one of the words she’d never forget. Sometimes it was followed by the clattering of shoes on pavement. Sometimes
it revealed its meaning with the shush of grass being pushed away from an overgrown path. And sometimes — listen! — it provoked
frightful caterwauling.

Cats, Sally knew, never said
meow,
nor did any two cats sound exactly alike, no more than two human voices ever matched exactly. The sound that Leo the cat
made when he landed on Benny Patterson’s head could not really be conveyed with a decipherable arrangement of letters.

But Sally could guess what the sound signified and looked up in time to catch a glimpse of Leo leaping from the peaked roof
above the door. But she didn’t know he had landed on Benny Patterson until she felt her attacker veer backward. He would have
pulled her with him if she hadn’t ripped herself free of his grasp. He stumbled, tripped over the corner of the step, and
as the cat leaped forward, Leo’s weight exacerbated Benny’s fall; he plunged backward, his feet came out from under him, and
his head snapped hard against the brick wall of Potter’s Hardware.

All this thanks to a cat that unbelievably had come to Sally’s rescue. Some crazy things happened in this world, things that
sure would seem impossible in any account of them.

As she watched Benny Patterson roll in agony onto his knees, she understood the danger he presented to her daughter, and her
certainty came to her in a full sentence that she almost uttered aloud:
he must never know of her existence
. Right then it seemed that everything depended upon keeping the child a secret from her father. She must
hide
her daughter, and in order to do that, she had to… what?

What does a woman do when the man who has beaten her has himself been injured and is moaning on his knees, cradling his aching
head in his hands? Does she offer to help him? Or does she club him with a stick and deliver a fatal blow?

Of course not. Not at that particular moment, at least. Not when another man was approaching from the parking lot, walking
hesitantly at first, picking up his pace when he saw Benny on the ground.

Then what else should she do?

Remember that word,
run?

Run, Sally Mole!

Where to?

Follow the cat!

The huge, loping cat, with his big belly jiggling, would have preferred to take his time, but he seemed to understand the
urgency. And he knew the way, at least from one end of the alley to the other, to State Street, where Sally could take over
the lead while fat Leo ran panting along behind her.

Run.

Turn right on Beverly Place, Hamlin Street to Lincoln to the labyrinthine streets between downtown and her apartment, left,
no, right, stop, go back, go forward.

Her lungs burned, and she was trying to blot the blood dribbling from her chin with her raincoat sleeve, but still she ran.
She knew how to run. And if she kept running, she’d eventually reach where she wanted to go.

It felt magical, this ability to fly through the air, her feet barely touching the ground. Forget the absurd fact that a huge
cat had come to her rescue and felled the man who’d been pummeling her. That could be attributed to a combination of divine
intervention and good luck. But this flight… why, the motion of her legs seemed to have an inexplicable separateness from
the rest of her body. If there was anything in her life that could be called a miracle, it would have to begin here, with
the simple, miraculous action of running.

Run, Sally Mole.

She’s running.

Look at her go.

Good-bye, Sally.

She’ll be back.

Gurgling sound coming from the downspout of the Tuskee Presbyterian Church. She would remember that sound. She would remember
the place on Everett Street where the macadam crust had broken, revealing the checkerboard of old cobblestones underneath.
She would remember the haze around the streetlamps on a misty night. She would remember the story Penny told about Father
Macklehose and his six pairs of women’s pumps, size nine. She would remember thinking when Penny played the piano that she
must have had eyes on her fingertips. She would remember Penny’s meat loaf, her freckles, her talking Appaloos’. She would
remember the little boy who would have fallen into the river if she hadn’t saved him.

She would remember the way a summer breeze would waft through her apartment when she left the front and back doors open, drying
her daughter’s damp bangs after a bath. And for some reason, she would remember a magazine article she read about campers
who survived a grizzly bear attack.

And a line in a library book about singing:
Pretend your mouth is a rubber band.

She would remember the set of phrases the book’s author instructed her to repeat:
Selfish shellfish, fresh flat fish, sharp shrews sweet shop,
and
letter.

Over and over:
Letter letter letter letter letter.

Ma, me, mi, mo, mu.

How much did you say? My damn hearing aid…

Month after month…

Or just gilding the lily…

But still, you know, she won’t believe you.

You don’t mind?

See, it’s dreams that it’s about.

Peekaboo.

Now bow your head, like this.

For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.

Herein is love.

Amen.

The smell of applesauce in a bowl left overnight in the sink. Graham crackers soggy from spilled milk. Lifting fistfuls of
cold spaghetti from the colander that night after she and Penny had the whole Campbell family over for dinner.

And the day she followed the sound of buzzing and discovered a swarm of ground bees in the ivy.

What about that hairy centipede the size of a small frog. Eek!

Dreaming about a squirrel perched on the kitchen counter, gnawing on an apple core. Dreaming about missing the bus. Dreaming
about Mole, tasting the salt on his skin. Only afterward would she consider how his hands had changed, the nails far too clean
and oiled, as if he’d been for a manicure.

“The test of our capacity for self-government,” intoned Adlai Stevenson from the steps of city hall, “is in our ability to
deal with the unknown.”

Now it’s time to push, Sally. Push!

Push, pushing, pushing a baby girl, six pounds twelve ounces, into the world. Little Miss America.

She would remember the variegated edges of a new hybrid lilac in the park, lavender rimmed with white. Her breasts leaking
milk while she was ringing up a sale at the cash register. The sound of waves crashing on television. The list she made with
her daughter of the places they would visit: Beverly Hills, Coney Island, the Empire State Building, the Grand Canyon, London
Bridge, Miami Beach, the North Pole, the Sahara Desert, and Timbuktu.

I’m yearning for you. I’m yearning for you.

How she wanted to give the impression that she felt whatever she was singing about. Though no one had to tell her to be careful
not to overdo it. Sometimes she wished Penny had been more critical in her coaching. But Penny wouldn’t ever complain. She
loved spontaneity too much and was too amused by mistakes to offer advice to avert them.

The mayor’s wife with her webbed feet. Buddy Potter with his coal black hair. The man who rode into town on a donkey.

The creaking and rattling as the Ferry Street drawbridge was raised.

Sliding with Penelope on a flattened cardboard box down a snowy slope after a freak snowstorm in October.

Again!

Soup simmering atop the stove. Dandelions yellow one day, gray puffs the next. A child’s growth measured by penciled lines
on the wall.

Listen…

She listened.

Running through Tuskee, New York, on the evening of October 23, 1957, with Leo the cat at her heels. She was conscious of
the solidity of her body and yet how light she felt, almost weightless. She was running, running, running away, and nothing
could hold her back.

She used the knocker on the front door rather than letting herself into the apartment, and when Penny Campbell appeared she
grabbed her, pulling her outside. Penny, roused abruptly into a wild state of disbelief by the sight of her bloodied friend,
pushed her away in order to study her and understand what she was seeing. But the only way she could understand the image
in front of her was to mistake it for a theatrical deception, as though Sally had put on a ghoul’s costume a week ahead of
Halloween.

“Good God, Sally Mole, what did you do to yourself?”

Just as Penny was mistaken about Sally, Sally was mistaken about Penny, and the hint of accusation in her friend’s voice threw
her into a state of such stunning isolation that she could only stand there blinking, baffled, without any means available
to communicate what she was feeling.

Communication, then, was Penny’s job; from the awful sight in front of her, she surmised that Sally Mole wasn’t pretending
to be hurt. “You really are hurt,” she said with simple desperation, drawing Sally into her arms. She tried using the fleshy
side of her fist to wipe the blood from her friend’s face and then thought better of it and pulled a tissue from the pocket
of her shirt. “Poor Sally,” she said, “dear Sally.”

Her sympathy helped orient Sally, reminding her that she was not alone and enabling her to think clearly enough to decide
what she needed to say, first of all to insist that she stay out of sight, for she didn’t want to frighten Penelope, they
must be quiet while Sally cleaned herself up. “Shh,” she kept saying, a command that Penny echoed back, “Shh,” in an attempt
to reassure her, as though it were in her power to declare that the trouble was over and Sally would be all right. She just
needed to let Penny take care of her.

But the trouble wasn’t over, and there wasn’t time for care, only for a quick wash and a change of clothes, she needed clothes
for Penelope, as well, she had to pack a suitcase, but she didn’t have a suitcase of her own, she recalled. Could she borrow
Penny’s suitcase?

Sure, she could borrow whatever she needed — not even borrow. She could have it for keeps, along with anything else,
everything
else, Penny pledged, only vaguely comprehending that she was saying good-bye to her friend even as she was trying to assist
her.

They had to make their way to the one bathroom at the far end of the apartment. Penelope was watching television, and her
own laughter accompanying the loud canned laughter on the show helped to cover up the sound of their shuffling steps as Penny
and Sally snuck past the open doorway down the hall.

The bathroom light switched on by Penny was brutal, too bright and revealing for Sally to endure. She grabbed a towel from
the rack and held it over her face, blotting the oozing cuts on her lip and brow. Perhaps sensing her embarrassment, Penny
kept her gaze averted and instead of immediately setting out to help Sally wash, she fumbled around in the cabinet for supplies,
muttering the list of things she was searching for, “Cotton balls and bandages and tape… the tape… and the peroxide, there
should be some in the medicine cabinet, and don’t we have any Mercurochrome, my ma swears by Mercurochrome, I thought about
picking up a bottle of it just the other day, and then wouldn’t you know, I forgot, I just forgot, and now all I can find
is a box of Band-Aids. That’s a start, but still… did I ever tell you about the time I stitched up a cut on Nestor’s neck
—”

“Penny!”

“A big gouge from a broken board —”

“Penny!”

“What?”

“Soap and water will be fine.”

“You should see a doctor, Sally.”

“Don’t worry. Let me just wash up and change.”

“Isn’t there anything I can do?”

“A cup of tea would be nice,” Sally said, lowering the towel to steal a glance at herself in the mirror.

“I’ll get the water boiling,” Penny said, but she didn’t move.

Sally said she sure was looking forward to a hot cup of tea, and Penny’s voice returned in a weak echo, “Cup of tea.”

Sally tried to find a way to tell Penny how grateful she was for her help, for the whole of it, for everything since they
stepped off the bus in Tuskee, but all she could think to say was “Thanks.”