Shooting Stars 03 Rose (3 page)

Mommy was up almost as early as Daddy Saturday morning. When I came down to breakfast, she told me she must have just missed him. She was sitting at the table, flipping the pages of her cookbook, searching for a new and interesting recipe for duck.

"I'm tired of having duck, but if we don't eat what he brings home, he'll make me feel like I've committed a sin, having him kill a duck for nothing."

"You always make it delicious. Mammy," I said.
"Um," she replied, her eyes on the recipe she had found.. "I've got to go to the supermarket to get some of these ingredients."
"I'm going to the movies tonight with Paula Conrad," I reminded her. She nodded. half-listening.
"Mammy. Daddy didn't say anything about us having to move soon, did he?" I asked, and she brought her head up so fast, I thought she would snap her neck.
"No, why?"
"I don't know. He was talking so..."
"What?"
"Seriously. I just got that feeling," I said.
"I won't go. I won't." she insisted. "This time. I'm going to plant my feet in cement. I've got an interview with Mr. Weinberg who owns that insurance agency on Grant Street. He's looking for a receptionist and bookkeeper and I can make a good salary. I won't go.
"Besides," she continued. "you've got to finish your senior year here. Did he actually suggest moving?"
I shook my head.
"It was just a feeling I got. Mammy."
"Um," she said, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. "I should be wary. Whenever he starts going off by himself regularly on weekends and increases his drinking, it usually means something. No one can blame me for being paranoid,'" she added.
She sat there, pensive for a long quiet moment, and then she slammed her palm down on the table so hard, she made the dishes jump and clang.
"I'm not going and that's final,"
She rose and marched out of the kitchen before I could even try to calm her down. I felt guilty for putting her ill at ease and probably clawing and barking at Daddy the moment he returned from hunting.
All day long she built up her fury. I could see it in the brightening fire in her eves and could hear it in the way she pounded through the house, slammed doors, and ran the vacuum cleaner. She was pressing down so hard on the handle. I was sure she was sucking up the very foundation of the house.
Early in the afternoon, she set out for the supermarket. She asked me to go along. I was afraid even to hesitate. It was an unusually warm day for late October, with just a few puffs of cotton white clouds barely moving across the turquoise sky. The world looked so vibrant, all the colors sharp and rich in the grass, the flowers, the picket fences. Days like this encouraged people to wash their cars, cut their lawns, paint and spruce up their homes. The freshness and the sharpness around us underscored how good we both felt about our present home and how much we wanted to hold on to it.
How could he even dare to contemplate a move now?" Mommy muttered.
Once again, I emphasized that I didn't know he was for sure. It was just a feeling.
She looked at me and nodded, convinced of the worst possible scenario.
"He is." she said. "You're right on it. I live in denial most of the time and ignore all the signals until they're plopped right in my fact.
"I'll make him a duck dinner," she fumed, making it sound more like a threat. "I'll make him a duck dinner he'll never forget."
She carried her fury into the supermarket and stomped around the aisles, pushing the cart like a lawn mower, plowing anyone in her way to the right or to the left before they had to meet her head-on. When anyone said hello, she fired her hello back as if they had cursed her. Her reply of "I'm fine, thank you very much." was almost a challenge to declare otherwise. I saw some people shake their heads as we continued by.
At the checkout counter. Jimmy Slater gave me his usual big grin as he packed my mother's groceries.
"How's Miss Lewisville Foundry today?" he asked me.
"I'm not Miss Lewisville Foundry," I said for the hundredth time.
"You are to me." Jimmy insisted.
My mother glanced at him with her eyes askance and almost smiled at me as we headed out to the car. At home I helped her unpack and put away our groceries, and then I went up to my room to continue my homework. Around five o'clock. I expected to hear Daddy's Jeep pulling into the driveway with its usual squeal of tires. I leaned toward my window, which faced the front of our house, and looked down, anticipating his arrival any moment. At five-fifteen, I heard Mammy pacing in the downstairs hallway.
"If that man expects a duck dinner tonight, he'd better be here in five minutes.' she declared. "I don't serve greasy duck. It takes a few hours to make it right."
She pounded back to the kitchen and then, twenty minutes later, she returned to the living room to look out the front windows. I came down the stairway and stood in the living room doorway. She was standing there, her arms folded, glaring at the street. For a long moment, neither of us moved or spoke. Then she tamed and looked at me, her face twisted with anxiety and anger.
"I don't know why I'm surprised. Why should time matter to a man like that now? It never has before," she said.
I glanced at the miniature grandfather clock on the mantel above our small fireplace. It was now fiveforty-five. Twilight deepened. Shadows were spreading like broken egg yolks over the street.
"You go make yourself something to eat. I know you're going to the movies," Mommy told me.
I nodded and went to the kitchen, but I had very little appetite. My anxiety over what would go on when Daddy returned had turned my stomach into a ball of knotted string. Every once in a while my heart would pitter-patter like a downpour of rain against a window.
Six o'clock came and went and still we were waiting for Daddy's Jeep to pull in. Mommy came into the kitchen and banged some pots and pans and then started to put things away.
"If he thinks I'm going to make a duck dinner now, he's got another think coming," she muttered.
At six-thirty. Mommy's lines of anger began to slip and slide off her
face to be replaced by folds of anxiety and concern in her forehead. Small flashes of panic lit her eyes as she walked back to the front windows.
"Where is he?" she cried.
When the phone rang, we both looked at it for a moment. Then I lifted the receiver. It was Paula, telling me she would be by to pick me up at ten after seven. I looked at Mommy. I couldn't leave her until Daddy had arrived. I thought.
"I can't go, Paula."
"What? Why not? We're supposed to be meeting Ed Wiley and Barry Burton. We practically promised. Rose."
"I can't go. My father hasn't gotten home yet from hunting ducks and we're worried about him," I said.
She was silent.
"Oh, go to the movies," Mommy said. "You're not 'acing to do me any good sitting here and clutching your hands. I'll eat something and watch television. I'm sure he's just gone a little farther this time."
"Why wouldn't he call us. Mommy?"
"Why? Why? Don't start asking me why your father does this or that. We'll be here forever thinking of answers. Go on. Be with your friends."
"Are you sure?"
"yes," she insisted.
"Okay, Paula." I said. "Come on over to get me."
"Good." Paula said and hung up before I could change my mind.
I didn't see how I was going to have a good time. but I went up to fix my hair and put on some makeup. At seven o'clock. Mommy hovered over a plate of cold salmon and some salad, but she had eaten very little.
"Two hours late. Mommy."
"I can read a clock. Rose. When he comes through that door. I'm going to hit him over the head with it, in fact," she threatened. I knew it was a very empty threat. When he came through that door, all the air she was holding in her lungs would be released and all the tension in her body would fly out. We both spun as if we were on springs when we heard a car pull into the driveway.
"See if that's him," she ordered. and I went out to look. It was only Paula arriving a little early.
Paula was tall and slim with long dark brown hair and round hazel eyes. She was the captain of the irls' basketball team and very popular in school. The real reason we were going out together was that the boy she was after. Ed Wiley, was best friends with Barry Burton. who I heard was interested in me, but was very shy. Paula
had practically begged me to go out with her.
"Hi," she cried enthusiastically as soon as I opened the door.
My mother stood in the hallway, her arms folded, gazing at us and forcing a smile onto her face. Paula looked from her to me and raised her eyebrows.
"Your father still not back?" I shook my head.
"He'll be fine. Don't worry about it." Mommy assured me. "Go on. Have a good time, girls."
"Thank you, Mrs. Wallace," Paula replied instantly.
Was her budding, romance so important to her that she could ignore our worries? I wondered. One look at her told me most definitely. "Let's go," she urged, practically pulling me out the door.
I glanced back at Mammy and felt so terrible leaving her. "Go on," she ordered in a loud whisper.
"I'll call after the movies. Mammy," I promised. She nodded and we left.
Paula babbled about the boys all the way to the theater complex. I
was only half-listening. Daddy's behavior the night before had made me nervous and his considerable lateness on top of that had practically turned me inside out.
"Stop worrying," Paula finally cried as we drew closer to the movies. "He's probably with some of his buddies in some bar. My father's done that dozens of times."
"My father hasn't," I said dryly.
She shook her head and looked at me as if I lived in a bubble.
When we arrived at the theater, the boys were waiting in the lobby. Paula went right after Ed, swooping in on him as if she was afraid to let him have a moment without her voice in his ear and her face in his eyes. He looked overwhelmed, and glanced back at Barry, who just smiled and escorted me quietly to our seats. I liked Barry well enough. He was a good-looking boy and seemed very nice. His shyness was actually calming and refreshing. Most of the boys I knew thought they were God's gift to women and spent more time on their coiffure, complexion, and clothes than most of the girls.
But I was a poor date this night. Even the movie, an exciting thriller about a woman and her seven-year-old daughter imprisoned by a mad family after her car broke down on an old country road, didn't keep my attention. My mind continually drifted back to Mommy standing in that hallway, looking so small and fragile under the cloak of fear and anxiety. I couldn't wait for the show to end so I could get to the pay phone to call her.
She answered on the first ring, which told me she was hovering over the phone in anticipation.
"Mammy, isn't he back?"
"No," she said, her voice cracking. "I don't know what to do. Should I call the police? I just know what they'll do about it... nothing, I bet. A man doesn't come home to his wife for hours. That's probably not so uncommon, but your father hasn't done something like this before. He's done lots of things I could ring his neck over, but this isn't something he's done. Of course, there's no telling if he's starting some new outrage for me to tolerate."
I realized she was babbling to me.
"Call the police anyway, Mammy," I said. "Let them be the ones to tell you not to worry, but at least let them be aware of your concern."
"I don't know. It's embarrassing," she said. "But maybe you're right. Maybe..."
"Do it, Mammy," I insisted.
Finally, she agreed and hung up.
I turned to the others.
"I've got to go home." I said.
"What?" Paula cried, her face practically sliding off her skull. "We're going to get some pizza and then we're going to Ed's house and..."
"I've got to go home," I repeated. "I'm sorry. My father hasn't come home from hunting and it's almost ten o'clock. My mother's calling the police."
"Wow!" Ed said.
"Oh pooh," Paula groaned.
"I'll take her home. You two go for pizza," Barry said.
"Really? Okay," Paula said quickly. She scooped her arm into Ed's. "We'll just go ahead in my car." She practically tugged him out of the movie lobby.
"Thanks." I told Dairy. We left the theater quickly.
"I'm sorry to spoil everyone's good time," I said after we got into his car.
"No problem. There'll be other good times," he replied and I understood why I liked him. He wasn't really shy. He had a more mature way about him, a quieter, far more self-assured manner than most of the boys in my class. He was a contender for
valedictorian, only half a percentage point separating him from Judy McCarthy, a girl the other students called "Dot Com" because of her computer-like brain and zero personality.
Barry tried his best to reassure me as we drove to my house. He talked about duck hunters who lost track of time, uncles of his who went to such out-ofthe-way places for their secret spots it took half a day to get back.
"Maybe your dad just met up with one of the old-timers here who took him to his special pond or whatever. Some of these guys travel hundreds of miles to shoot a duck."
"You don't go hunting?" I asked him. He shook his head.
"I fish a little, but I've never been into guns. My father wishes I was. He'd like me to go with him, but I never took to it. Bugs, mud, ugh." he said. and I had my first smile since Daddy hadn't arrived at five.
I thanked Barry and got out of his car quickly when we pulled into my driveway. I could see that Daddy's Jeep was still not there.
"I'll call you," Barry shouted as I hurried to the door.
I waved back at him and practically lunged into the house.
Mammy was in the living room staring at the wall. I caught my breath and waited.
"I phoned the police and it was just as I expected. They told me he'd have to be gone longer for them to consider it any sort of police matter. I asked how long and the dispatcher said longer. He wouldn't give me a specific time.'
She lifted her hands, palms up.
"What do we do?"
"What can we do, Mommy? We wait." I said and sat beside her.
She took my hand and rocked a bit and then she leaned against me and we both sat there, our hearts pounding as one, waiting in silence.
"Put on the television set," Mommy said after a while. "I need something to distract me."
I did. We gazed at the picture, heard the voices of the actors, but it all ran together. Near midnight. Mommy fell asleep beside me. I rose to turn off the television set when I saw the car headlights pulling into our driveway. My heart did flip-flops.
Daddy
, I thought.
Finally.
But when I stepped up to the window, I saw it wasn't Daddy. It was a police car, with the emblem on the side identifying it as a Georgia State Police vehicle. Two officers stepped out, put on their hats, and walked toward our front door. For a moment, I couldn't move: I couldn't breathe. I just watched them approaching. Then I turned to Mommy. I thought I said. "Mommy," but she didn't stir and I wasn't sure if I had spoken or shouted in my own mind.