Love, Stargirl (12 page)

I waited for him to ask me why I was doing all this. He didn’t.

“It’s going to be the neatest moment,” I said. “Maybe I’ll write a poem. Or a song. I could play my ukulele. I could dance.” I got up. I danced. I danced out to the edges of the roof, where I could see the canal silvery in the moonlight. I danced a circle around him. When I was behind him, he did not turn to watch me, but he did sit up. When I sat back down, he said nothing. He looked at me and nodded.

“So,” I said, “maybe you could come with me some morning when I go to plant a new marker.”

“Maybe.”

“Or meet me there. I go on Thursdays.”

“Maybe.”

My sense is that after the second “maybe” we looked at each other for hours, but I guess it could have been only minutes, maybe less. Roof time is harder to track than sunrise time. Sooner or later I said, “Well…” I put on my sandals and stood. “’Night.”

“’Night,” he said.

I went to the edge. He was lying back down. “And I am
not
a typical girl,” I said, and I stepped onto the ladder and returned to earth.

August 8

A mockingbird has moved into our neighborhood. It perches atop a telephone pole behind our backyard. Every morning it is the first thing I hear. It is impossible to be unhappy when listening to a mockingbird. So stuffed with songs is it, it can’t seem to make up its mind which to sing first, so it sings them all, a dozen different songs at once, in a dozen different voices. On and on it sings without a pause, so peppy, frantic even, as if its voice alone is keeping the world awake.

August 9

Before I walked to Calendar Hill today, I asked my mother about our next-door neighbors, the Cantellos, and their porch light. I notice that it’s on every time I go to the hill. At first I had thought they left it on by mistake, but now I was beginning to wonder. “It’s no mistake,” my mother said. She said she told Mrs. Cantello about my Thursday early-morning ritual, so now Mrs. Cantello helps to light the way for me. Isn’t that nice?

August 10

I told Betty Lou about the rooftop night with Perry.

“What about Leo?” she said. (I had long since told her about you.)

“Leo’s there,” I said. “Perry’s here.”

I also told Betty Lou about the mockingbird. “You’re so lucky,” she said. “I wish I had a mockingbird.”

August 11

Dear Archie,

(Letter within a letter here, Leo, but you’re allowed to peek—as I said before, I have nothing to hide from you.)

I met a boy. Perry. I don’t even know his last name. He lives behind a bike and lawn mower repair shop. (Remember what lawn mowers are, you desert dweller?) He has dark hair, blue eyes. Sometimes he sleeps on the roof. He seems to be poor. He scavenges in Dumpsters. He steals. He’s been in trouble with the law. He went to one of those so-called boot camps for a year. He sucks on lemons. He spits the seeds at me. He doesn’t talk much (though he did holler at me once). He’s often grumpy. But he was nice to my little friend Dootsie. Maybe the best thing I can say about him is that Dootsie really seems to like him. He reads. He introduced me to
Ondine.
He’s very smart, but it takes a while to find that out. Sometimes he acts as if he owns the world. He swaggers. When he climbs the ladder to the high dive at the pool, he doesn’t jump right off but stands there for a while, surveying his domain. He lay on a beach towel with a girl named Stephanie, but after he went in the water he didn’t return to her. My friend Alvina the Pip has a crush on him.

“Do
you
?” I hear you say.

I don’t know, Archie. I have
something,
but I don’t know what to call it. I spent almost a whole night on his roof with him (no hanky-panky). We talked…well, I talked mostly (except when he hollered at me). I danced for him. He gives so little that all he needs to do to make me feel good is to keep his eyes open.

“What about Leo?”

You’re not the first to ask me that. At the moment I must admit I’m just not thinking a whole lot about Leo. In fact, I’m deliberately
not
thinking about him. Every day when I wake up, the question is there waiting for me:
What about Leo?
But I turn away from it. I pretend I don’t hear. Do you think it’s because I’m afraid of the answer? I wish Dootsie could meet Leo in person. As it stands, she despises him because he “dumped” me.

If this were happening in Mica, I’d be sitting on your porch about now, you and me on the white rockers, you puffing away on your pipe, the air smelling like cherries. You would listen and you would nod and smile and patiently wait until I was finished talking. You’d ask a few questions. Then you might say, “Why don’t we go consult Señor Saguaro?” And we would walk over to the Señor and you would speak to him in Spanish and he would answer and you would translate for me, and between the two of you—you and Señor Saguaro—you would make things a little clearer for me, you would show me the way.

Your Pupil, Loving and Forever,

Stargirl

August 14

Today was Charlie’s birthday. It says so on the tombstone he shares with Grace. August 14, 1933. Then the dash. Then the blank space, patiently waiting. I had been thinking of today for some time. I had gotten Charlie a gift. I wrapped it. White paper, blue ribbon.

I had decided that today would be the day I would walk right up to Charlie and say something.

I was about to head for the cemetery when Dootsie came bursting in: “Let’s go someplace!”

Dilemma.

On one hand, just the day before, my father had worked up a little pull cart for my bike, so I could haul Dootsie along when I took it out. Dootsie was rabid for a ride. On the other hand, it would be all I could do to fight off my terror and face Charlie—how could I manage Dootsie and her unpredictability at the same time? On the third hand, how could I say no to that begging little face beaming up at me?

“Okay,” I said, and before she stopped squealing, I had the new cart hitched up and we were rolling. Cinnamon sat in Dootsie’s lap. Along the way I tried to explain the situation as best I could. I told her that Charlie was sad because he missed his wife, and he came here every day. I told her that we must respect his feelings and not bother him. I was simply going to give him the gift and maybe say a brief something, and then we would go. Dootsie was to stand by me and not say a word. Usually I rode my bike into the cemetery. This time I parked at the entrance. I put Cinnamon in my pocket. As Dootsie climbed from her cart, I knelt in front of her, held her by the shoulders, and looked her in the eye. “Do you understand all that now?”

She nodded vigorously. “Yep,” she said. “And I’m
not
gonna say a word.” To prove it, she locked her lips and threw away the key.

We headed for the grave site. Dootsie pointed. She whispered, “Is that Charlie?”

“Yes,” I whispered, “now
shhh.
”

We approached him from the side. If he could see us out of the corner of his eye, he didn’t show it. My kneecaps were Jell-O. If Dootsie hadn’t been there, I think I would have turned and run. I kept telling myself:
He accepted your donuts. He’s only a man. He won’t bite you.
I also kept hearing Perry’s voice:
Who do you think you are?

As always, he sat in the aluminum chair with green and white strapping. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt, black pants and shoes, white socks. His shins were almost as white as his socks. The old black lunch pail sat in the grass. The red and yellow plaid scarf was draped across his thigh. For the first time it struck me that that was all. No magazine, no book, no portable radio or TV, no headphones—nothing else to “do,” nothing else to help him pass the time. Even in death, Grace was all he needed. In his own way, he was echoing the legend of the Lenape girl. He had already leaped—it was just taking him longer to fall.

We stopped a few feet away. Still, he didn’t seem to know we were there. Dootsie’s tiny hand was wrapped around my finger. When I finally dared to look directly at his face, I discovered to my horror that he was faintly smiling. No doubt he was reliving a happy moment with Grace or maybe having a conversation with her. I was mortified.
You idiot! You busybody! Get out! Leave the man in peace! Run!
And I might have, had he not suddenly turned his head and looked up at us. For the first time I was fully seeing the face that Grace had lived with. The smile was gone. His eyes, out from under the shade of the cap brim, were looking at us from another place. Grief had not pared him down. He was beefy. His wrists were thick as hoagie rolls, his arms blotchy and red and white-haired from the summer’s sun. There was a thready logo above the pocket of his white shirt. It said
GOSHEN GEAR WORKS
. “I’m sorry—” I stammered. “I—” I didn’t have a clue what to say.

All of a sudden Dootsie snatched the gift from me, thrust it out to him, and piped, “Happy birthday, Charlie!”

I just stood there like a dunce while Dootsie took over. When Charlie failed to take the gift, Dootsie laid it in his lap. He didn’t take his eyes off her. Dootsie didn’t wait very long before saying, “Aren’tcha gonna open it?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She grabbed it and tore off the paper and ripped open the box. She took it out. “Look!”

He looked at the gift, at her, at me. “It’s a mister,” I said. “You spray it on yourself to keep cool in the hot weather.”

Dootsie shook the plastic bottle. “Look—we already filled it with water. Want me to spray you?” She took his non-reply for a yes. She sprayed one of his forearms. Droplets glistened like dew on the freckled white meadow of hair. He kept staring at his arm. At last he reached out. He took the mister from her hand. He sprayed his other arm. Dootsie snatched the bottle back. She sprayed her own face. Then mine. Then
his.
He blinked. She yelped, “Yes!” and jumped up and down and twirled around and sprinted twice around the tombstone and handed the mister back to him. Still he had not cracked a smile, but his eyes were different now, they were
here.

Dootsie propped herself in front of him. “So, Charlie, how old are you today?”

Charlie showed her with fingers. Dootsie counted them up.
“Eleven?”

“Seventy-four,” I said. At first I thought it was cute, answering the little girl’s number question with fingers; then something else occurred to me.

“I’m six,” Dootsie was saying. “Stargirl is sixteen. She got dumped.”

He was looking a little confused. I was looking a little miffed.

I stepped in front of him and waited for him to look up at me. I pointed to my ear and enunciated as clearly as I could, “Can you hear?”

He shook his head no.

I put my hand on Dootsie’s shoulder. “Charlie can’t hear you.”

Dootsie cupped her hands around her mouth, and before I could stop her she bellowed full into his face, “CAN? YOU? HEAR? ME?”

He looked up at me. He was smiling. I thought:
We’re sharing something! Two grown-ups smiling over the antics of a little kid.
Then he was reaching into a pocket and pulling out a pinkish thingy and putting it in his ear. He leaned in to Dootsie’s face. “Now I can hear you.”

Nosy me, I asked him, “Why weren’t you wearing it?”

“I don’t never wear it here,” he said. “So I can hear Grace better.”

His voice was gruff, callused like his meaty hands.

Dootsie looked at me, at him. “Is Grace your wife who died?”

He nodded.

“And you’re sad because she died, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

She said, “I’ll be sad with you, Charlie.” She climbed onto his lap and hugged him. He closed his eyes and stroked her hair. I stared at the tombstone.

When she climbed down from his lap, she propped her elbows on his knees and said, “Are you going to the Blob Festibal?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I am,” she said brightly. “I’m going as Mrs. Blob. I’m going to win!”

He looked at me. “
Mrs.
Blob?”

I shrugged. “Her idea.” I tapped Dootsie. “Okay, young lady, time to go. We’ve bothered Charlie enough for one day.” I pulled her to her feet.

She stuck out her arm. “Nice to meet you, Charlie.” Before he could respond she cried out, “Wait! I forgot!” She pulled Cinnamon from my pocket. She held him in front of Charlie’s face. She held out Cinnamon’s tiny paw. “You have to meet Cimmamum.”

Charlie didn’t bat an eyelash. He took Cinnamon’s tiny paw between his thumb and forefinger and shook it. Dootsie tugged at him till he bent over. She sat Cinnamon on his shoulder. He straightened up. He and Cinnamon looked at each other. He turned to the gravestone and—proudly, it seemed to me—posed for Grace.

“Well…,” I said at last, not trusting myself to say more. I returned Cinnamon to my pocket.

Dootsie grabbed Charlie’s hand and shook it. “Goodbye, Charlie.” She waved at the tombstone. “Goodbye, Mrs. Charlie.”

“Goodbye—” said Charlie, and looked at me, frowning.

“She’s Dootsie,” I said.

The frown stayed.

Dootsie said it this time, tugging him back down to her:
“Doot-sie.”

He nodded.

“Say it,” she said.

He almost grinned. “Dootsie.”

I led her away, then heard him call, “Hey.” I turned. “You?”

“Stargirl.” I saw the puzzled look. “Really,” I said.

He smiled. “Funny names, you two.”

We continued walking and he called again: “Hey.” I turned. “The donuts.” He pointed. “You?”

I nodded. “Me.”

He didn’t actually say the words “thank you.” He didn’t have to.

As I climbed onto my bike, I wondered why in the world I ever hesitated to bring Dootsie along.

August 16

Thursday. The one day in the week I’m up earlier than the mockingbird. Today I was up earlier than usual. I pretended my mother didn’t notice.

I go on Thursdays.

I had said that to him on the roof. Was I just giving information? Or more?

I practically ran to Calendar Hill.