Lila Blue (26 page)

"More than one a day?" he
asked her.

She nodded to us.

"Tell us how you learned to
read," Shelly said. "How old were you?"

"My big sister taught me to
read," he said. "She was in first grade and I was three years old.
Every day after school she'd come home and teach me what she had learned."

"Wow," Shelly said.
"Your teachers must have been impressed when you got to school."

"Not really," he said.
"My first grade teacher told my mom there was something wrong with my
hearing because I read all day instead of listening to her."

"What did your mom do?"

"She ignored her too."

We all laughed. I could see how
frustrated teachers might be with someone as addicted to reading as Curtis was.

"Have you always been such an
avid reader?" Shelly asked him next.

"Well I had to work for a
while after high school," he said, trying to remember. "And then I
only had time for three or four books a week."

"I see," said Shelly,
writing it down. "What sort of work did you do?"

"I was a security guard at a
mall in Salem," he said. "But I wasn't very good at it. Marge and I
found each other in the bookstore there, and she rescued me. I've been a kept
man ever since."

"Oh, I make you work once in a
while," Marge said.

He shook his head and smiled at
her. "Every job I do for you is pure pleasure, Margie."

There it was again, that grownup
love vibration, and I looked at Shelly to see if she caught it. She did, and
she grinned at me. I felt kind of annoyed with myself, wondering how I'd been
so naive.

"What genre is your favorite?"
Shakti asked Curtis.

"Right now I'm interested in
astronomy and theoretical math and physics. And I always read fiction while I'm
reading science. It's like having the main course and then dessert."

"With fiction being the
dessert," Shakti said, writing in her notebook.

"Usually," Curtis said.
"But sometimes you run across a science writer who makes the life cycle of
a termite seem as entertaining as a bestselling mystery. Like this one,"
he showed her the book he was reading. "It's great."

She wrote the title and author down
for her report. "What advice do you have for those of us embarking on
seventh grade?" she asked.

"Read everything you can get
your hands on," he said, grinning at us. "Live in a bookstore."

Just then Molly came down to join
us. "Perfect timing, Moll," he said to her, "Your friends are
here to see you." He gave us one more gorgeous smile and fell back into
reading.

Shelly put away her notebook and
then did a full scale photo shoot of the store, the Mills family, and me. She
even had me take a picture of her standing behind Curtis's chair pointing down
at him. Her eyes were all bugged out in fake astonishment. We were lucky Curtis
was so kind. Some adults would get tired of children buzzing around using them
as a giant prop for their photos.

Molly and Shakti took to each other
so easily I was reminded of my school bus dream, where they were blended into
one person. Maybe my Dream Mother chose them for me, my best friends.

Molly took us upstairs to her room.
She was plotting to get a new dog for Kitty Lynn, and she wanted our opinion on
the ones she'd found in the paper.

Watching Molly and Shakti together,
I felt so much love it made tears come, and they were rolling down my face
before I could stop them. I wondered if all this emotion was another symptom of
puberty. At school they told us we'd be having lots of feelings, but they
didn't say we'd cry every time we turned around. I hoped it was a stage I would
go through quickly, like sore breasts or growing pains in my legs. I didn't want
to be crying every day all the rest of my life. How humiliating!

We settled on a collie, because one
of Shelly's nannies had a wonderful one, and a black poodle mix, because it
looked sort of like Oleander but not too much. Both of them were up for adoption
from the humane society. Molly called the shelter, and both dogs were still
available.

"Did you ask Kitty Lynn
yet?" I asked Molly.

"Not exactly," Molly
said.

Shakti and I both looked at her.

Molly took a deep breath and said,
"I think it should be a surprise."

"I don't think so," I
said. "She's had enough surprises. I think we should tell her about the
dogs and see if she's interested."

"That's what my mom
said," Molly said, acting as if I'd betrayed her.

"Sometimes moms are
right," Shakti said.

"Okay," Molly said.
"I was only trying to follow The Golden Rule."

After Marge called Kitty Lynn to
find out if we could stop by, we got Curtis to drive us. We took Kitty Lynn
some pink carnations from Franny's Flowers & Gifts and spice cookies from
The Bakery Boys. Franny wouldn't let us pay for the flowers when we said we
were taking them to Kitty.

"Tell her we all miss
her," Franny said. "And poor Oleander. He never had to lift a paw his
whole life. She spoiled him to death."

"He had a stroke," Molly
said.

"Oh my goodness," Franny
said. "I didn't mean she killed him!"

After we left the flower shop,
Molly said, "I hate it when people say
loved him to death
or
spoiled
him to death
. What horrible things to say!"

I guess she was still upset about
us having to ask Kitty Lynn first about the dog. I hoped she wouldn't be too
upset if the answer was no.

When we got to the house, Kitty
Lynn's daughter led us to the sun porch off the kitchen. Kitty Lynn was
lounging under an afghan that looked like the one I was making, only hers was
pink.

It was the first time I'd seen her
since she'd fallen, and she looked okay. The bruises around her eyes were all
green and yellow, and the wound on her forehead still had black stitches, like
spider legs, but it did seem to be healing okay.

After I introduced her to Shakti,
and she'd offered us spice cookies from the box we'd brought her, Molly pulled
out the pictures of the shelter dogs, showed them to her, and launched into her
prepared speech about the plan to get a new dog.

Before Molly got up to speed, Kitty
Lynn started crying, and then we all cried, except for Curtis, who was
desperately looking around for something to read. He found a needlework
magazine on the floor and grabbed it. Holding it in his hands calmed him down
enough so he didn't cry.

"It hurts so much," Kitty
Lynn said, hiding her face in the afghan for a second. "He slept with me
every night for sixteen years. I got him right after my husband died, so it was
just we two for all that time. I wake up now and can't believe he's gone."

"I'm sorry," Molly said.
"I didn't mean to make you sadder. I thought it could help."

"Oh, Molly," Kitty Lynn
said, "You are helping. I need to cry until all the tears are gone. I know
you care about me. That helps. Sometimes the best you can do when someone you
love dies is all cry together."

Kitty's daughter passed a box of
pink tissues around to everyone. Then she passed the box of cookies again, and
we all took another one. Kitty Lynn took a big bite out of hers and chewed it
while we munched on ours, afraid to say anything.

Then Kitty sighed and smiled at
each of us and said, "Eating spice cookies helps a lot too, so you've
brought me wonderful gifts today. Flowers, tears, and cookies."

On the way back to the bookstore,
Curtis said, "Molly, you did your best. You made her feel better by caring
so much. You're a fine person."

"And maybe she will want
another dog soon," I said. "You planted a seed."

Shakti said, "You chose really
good dogs, Molly. Either of them would have been perfect."

Molly didn't respond. She just
crumpled up the dog pictures and stuffed them in her pocket. Then she folded
her arms and slumped down, looking forlorn.

We were quiet the rest of the way
back.

When we came through the back door
into the bookstore, Marge could tell from looking at us how it had gone.
"Molly," she said. "If your friends can spare you, I need your
help. A big shipment came in, so I need you to check off the packing
list."

Molly seemed relieved to have a job
to do. We said goodbye and headed to Lila's shop.

Lila and Herbert were both cutting
hair, so after I showed Shelly around and she admired everything, we headed
back to Lila's house.

As soon as we got outside, Shelly
said, "It's great being able to walk everywhere."

"I love it here," I said.
"I can barely remember my life before this summer."

"Do you think your mom will
let you stay?"

"What do you think?" I
asked. Shelly was smart, and she'd seen my mom in lots of different situations.
I valued her opinion.

"Your mom needs you," she
said. "Not in a healthy way, though. She needs you like a thing, not like
a daughter."

"I tried to make her
happy," I said. "I used to think I was causing her problems, but now
that I'm gone, she has more problems."

Shelly nodded. "You should
stay here with Lila. She loves you. You're happy here. You can come visit me in
Boston, and I can come back here."

"But what about Janice?"
I said. "What if she really messes up?" I hated to think that way
about my own mother, but it was the truth.

"She's supposed to be the
grownup one, not you," she said. "Your mom is not your
responsibility. Let her make it on her own."

"Yea," I said, but I felt
awful. "So you think she will make me go back to California?"

She shrugged. "A miracle could
happen."

"Yes," I said. I believed
with all my heart that I would stay in my new home in Oregon. I rejected all my
doubts, fears, and guilt. I believed as if believing could make it so.

We all decided to go to the Big
Fish Bar and Grill for dinner. It sounded like a dive, but it was actually a
nice restaurant on one side and a bar in a separate part. We got a table by the
window overlooking the river, which was beautiful in the soft pink light of
sunset. Beyond the river were pine trees and low brush, places where lots of
little animals would enjoy living so close to clean water.

After the waiter took our orders,
Shakti told Radha and Lila about our adventures in town. They shook their heads
over Molly's efforts to help Kitty Lynn.

"Grief takes its own
time," Lila said. "When Kitty Lynn is ready for a new pet, one will
come." Then she told us the story of how she got Chloe and Zoe.

"I'd been praying for some
kitty companions, and I had in mind twin girls, Siamese, because that seemed
right for my little beach house. I looked everywhere, and none were
available."

"That's strange," Radha
said. "There are always too many kittens."

"That's what I figured,"
Lila said. "I took it as a sign, and I stopped looking. I knew the kittens
would come to me."

I tried to imagine two lost little
kittens wandering into the barbershop, but I couldn't picture it. "How did
they find you?" I asked.

"After I'd completely given
up, I woke up one morning with a vision. I saw two darling little white faces
peering over the edge of a cardboard box, and they were crying for me to come
get them."

"The twins," I said.

"Yes! When I got to work the
weekly paper had just come out with an ad for Siamese cats. I called the number
and the lady said, ‘All we have left are two females. We call them the
twins.’"

“‘Those are my kittens,’ I told
her, and I closed the shop and went for them. The lady took me to her laundry
room, and there they were, the two little white faces peeking over the box
crying for me to take them home."

"Wow," Shakti said,
laughing and shaking her head.

"They still send me pictures
sometimes to keep in practice," Lila said. "Last week I was giving
someone a scalp massage after a haircut, and I had a vision of the twins up in
the top of my closet knocking off shoe boxes to make space for a nap. When I
got home, they were still sleeping there and my shoes were scattered on the
closet floor."

"Careful, Cassandra,"
Radha said. "Your grandmother has the gift of far seeing." She
grinned at me.

"It runs in the family,"
Lila said. "Cassandra has gifts of her own."

"All women do," Radha
said.

We laughed at that, but it felt
deliciously true to be included in the mysteries and magic of all women.

The restaurant was crowded, and the
service leisurely. Our waiter brought salad and bread first, and we finished
nearly every crumb of that. Then it was still awhile before our dinners came,
so we had plenty of time to enjoy the fading light over the river.

Shelly told her mother she'd
decided to be called Shakti from now on. "We tried it out today, and it
was fun," she said.

"Fun for you, maybe," I
said, "but I kept getting twisted up in my brain and calling you one thing
one minute and another the next."

"Well, you did that to
us," Shakti said. "I still call you Sandy in my brain."

"It will take us all some
practice," Radha said. "It will be easier at your new school, because
no one will know you were once called Shelly."

"I think it's glorious to grow
up into our true names," Lila said. "I'm proud of both of you.
Cassandra, Prophetess, and Shakti, Divine Creator. Let's hope they have ambrosia
for dessert."

Radha laughed and said, "Food
of the goddesses!"

That night was the first I'd ever
spent in the Crow's Nest, and so it was another adventure, this time with
Shakti. We'd spent lots of overnights together in California the two years we'd
been best friends, but everything seemed changed now. We had our grownup names,
our grownup hairstyles, and our growing up bodies. We were too excited to go to
sleep right away, even though it was late. Plus we'd both had chocolate ice
cream cake for dessert, and we were giddy from all the sugar.