Tallahassee Higgins (9 page)

"My mother says you used to be her English teacher," Jane said.

Mrs. Russell nodded. "I taught her and Liz and both your aunt and your uncle," she said, turning to me.

"I bet my mother was one of your worst students," I said, giving Bo's leash a little tug to remind him to heel.

Mrs. Russell made a funny sound, a sort of barking laugh. "Liz could have been my best student," she said. "But she was more interested in other things."

"Like what?" We were on dangerous ground, but I never have known when to keep my mouth shut.

She shook her head. "I know it must be ancient history to you girls, but I taught Liz in the seventies, and most of the kids were caught up in protest marches and demonstrations and all kinds of things. It was hard to convince them that Shakespeare was relevant."

"You mean Liz was against the war in Vietnam?" I'd seen pictures of antiwar demonstrations—kids waving signs and putting flowers in guns and things like that, but Liz had never said anything about being involved in demonstrations. For some reason, I'd never associated her with that kind of thing.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Russell said. "Liz hated the war."

"Didn't you hate it too?"

"Of course I did." Mrs. Russell glanced at me. "Don't let Bo tug on the leash," she said gently.

"How about my mom?" Jane butted in. "Was she against the war?"

Mrs. Russell shook her head. "Linda wasn't the type to get involved in demonstrations. She was an honor student. Straight A's in everything."

Jane sighed. "She expects me to be just like her. Only she wants me to go to college."

"She should have gone to college herself." Mrs. Russell frowned again and quickened her pace. "Perhaps you'd better give me the leash now, Tallahassee. I have to stop at the post office before I go home."

I surrendered Bo reluctantly. "Can I come over next week after school and play with him?"

"If you want to." She waved to us and set off down Madison Street, walking briskly. Although she didn't look back, Bo did.

"Well," I said to Jane, "I guess she didn't realize that she was talking to her own granddaughter."

Jane shook her head and sighed. "She was friendly, though. And she did stare at you when I told her you were Liz's daughter."

"Maybe I should have walked on my hands or turned a couple of cartwheels."

Jane looked puzzled. "What good would that have done?"

"Don't you remember what it said in the yearbook? Johnny was in gymkhana, and in lots of pictures he's standing on his hands or doing something acrobatic." I turned a cartwheel. "See? I'm really good at gymnastics, too."

"What if you just asked her about him?"

"I was going to, but you changed the subject to your mother." I frowned at Jane, then pulled a flower off a forsythia bush hanging over the sidewalk. "Maybe when I go over to her house to play with Bo, I'll say something. When it's just the two of us. Her and me."

W
HEN JANE AND I
were nearly home, she asked me if I wanted to eat dinner at her house. "Maybe your aunt would let you stay overnight," she said. "We could stay up late and watch
Creature Feature
on TV. Wouldn't that be great?"

"Would it be okay with your mom? I'm not exactly her favorite person, you know."

"You wait here, and I'll go ask her." Jane left me sitting on the deck's top step and ran inside.

Since it was a warm day, the sliding glass doors were open, and I could hear every word Jane said.

I could also hear Mrs. DeFlores. "No," she said.

"Why not?" Jane asked. "You're making spaghetti, so there's plenty of food."

"I said no."

"But I told her she could stay overnight and watch
Creature Feature
and everything!" Jane's voice rose a little.

"Do you know what 'no' means?" Mrs. DeFlores's voice was rising, too, and I hoped Jane would give up and come back outside. If she continued to argue with her mother, she'd end up grounded for the rest of the weekend.

"But you let Judy Atwood stay overnight!"

"That was different."

"What was different about it?"

"Judy Atwood is a nice girl."

If I'd had any sense, I'd have gotten up then and sneaked back to Uncle Dan's. But no, I had to sit there and listen to everything else Mrs. DeFlores had to say.

"Tallahassee Higgins has been a bad influence on you since the day she came here. She's as common as dirt and a liar and a troublemaker. I don't want her in my house!"

"Shut up!" Jane cried frantically. "She's sitting right outside!"

I heard a sharp crack and I winced, knowing Mrs. DeFlores had just whopped Jane.

"I don't care if she does hear me!" Mrs. DeFlores yelled. "Don't you ever tell me to shut up again!"

I glanced at the door, thinking I heard Jane coming, but Mrs. DeFlores stopped her. "You go up to your room right now, young lady, and don't you come down till I call you. And you can forget about Sunday. You'll stay here and help me clean house all day."

Afraid that Mrs. DeFlores was going to come outside and start yelling at me next, I jumped off the deck and ran through the hedge. "Bye-bye, Leopard Girl!" I heard Matthew yell from the house.

***

At the dinner table that night I could hardly eat anything. Just before we sat down, I'd tried to call Jane, but her mother hadn't let me talk to her. "Jane can't come to the phone," she said. "She's being punished." Then she hung up. Just like that.

As I sat there poking my mashed potatoes, Uncle Dan asked if I was feeling all right.

"I'm not hungry," I said.

"Eat your dinner before it gets cold," Aunt Thelma said at once.

I shook my head and stared at the napkin in my lap. I could hear Uncle Dan chewing, and the clock ticking, and Fritzi clicking around in the kitchen. "I don't want anything." I pushed my plate away.

"Maybe you should just go on up to bed then," Aunt Thelma said. "That's where people who can't eat their dinner belong."

"Fine." I carried my plate out to the kitchen, giving Fritzi a wide berth, and went upstairs without saying another word to either Aunt Thelma or Uncle Dan.

After an hour or two I heard somebody come up the steps and knock on my door. Putting down
National Velvet,
which I was reading for the second time, I told Uncle Dan to come in.

He handed me a plate with an apple and a couple of cookies on it. "I thought you might be feeling a little hungry now," he said.

I shook my head, but I was glad when he sat down on the edge of my bed.

"Things aren't going too well for you, are they?" he asked softly.

I plucked at a tuft on my bedspread. "Mrs. DeFlores hates me," I told him. "She thinks I'm common as dirt and she doesn't want me to be Jane's friend."

Uncle Dan sighed and then cleared his throat. "Where do you get these ideas, Tallahassee?" he asked.

"I don't get them from anywhere." I glared at him. "I heard Mrs. DeFlores talking to Jane about me. It's a wonder you didn't hear her, too. She was yelling loud enough to tell the whole neighborhood!"

He lit a cigarette then, just like Liz would have. Exhaling the smoke slowly, he said, "It's your mom she's mad at, Talley, not you."

I stared at him, forcing myself to say it. "Liz stole her boyfriend away." I pulled Johnny's picture out from under my pillow. "Johnny Russell," I said. "He's my father, isn't he?"

Uncle Dan looked at the photograph and shook his head. "I don't know who your father was, Tallahassee. Liz never told me, and I never asked. I figured if she wanted me to know she'd tell me." He gave me a little hug. "But you do look a lot like Johnny. Both Thelma and I noticed it."

I stared at him, waiting for him to say more. "Did Liz like Johnny? Did they go out or anything?" I prompted him.

He sighed and took a drag on his cigarette. "Johnny went with Linda all through high school," he said. "They broke up just before graduation, but only Liz can tell you what happened. Or Linda. It was all a long time ago, honey."

"Did Johnny go to Florida with Liz?"

"No. He got drafted. It almost killed Mrs. Russell. She was so against that war."

"Who did Liz run away with, then?" I hugged Melanie against my chest and watched Uncle Dan blow a perfect smoke ring.

"Oh, some draft dodger she met at one of those demonstrations," he said, as the smoke ring floated up to the ceiling and faded away. "She ran off with him without telling anybody she was leaving. Not even Johnny."

"I met Mrs. Russell today," I said. "I thought she might recognize me."

"Recognize you?" Uncle Dan looked puzzled.

"As her granddaughter." I began fiddling with Melanie's braids, trying to smooth them a little. "I'm sure I am," I added when Uncle Dan didn't say anything.

"You get the craziest ideas, I swear you do. You're worse than your mother."

I could tell by Uncle Dan's tone of voice that he wasn't criticizing me. There were things about Liz that he liked, even if nobody else did.

"Do you think I should ask Mrs. Russell about Johnny?" I asked.

"No." Uncle Dan sounded shocked. "She never has gotten over that boy's death. He was her only child."

"Don't you think she might like to have a granddaughter?"

"Tallahassee, you stay out of that woman's business. Don't you dare say a word to her about this." He frowned at me. "I mean it."

Turning my head, I slid down under my covers. "If I can't have a father or a mother, can't I at least have a grandmother?"

"What?" Uncle Dan leaned toward me. "I can't hear you when you've got the blanket over your head."

"Nothing." I peeped out at him. "I want to go to sleep now, okay?"

"Sure, honey." He gave me a little kiss on the forehead. "Don't let Mrs. DeFlores upset you, Tallahassee. I don't think much of a grown woman who takes out her anger on a kid. She's been married for years to a real nice guy. What's she still worrying about Liz and Johnny for?"

***

On Sunday I was bored without Jane to play with, so I went for a ride on Liz's old bicycle. It had been sitting in the basement with two flat tires for years, but Uncle Dan had painted it a shiny dark red and fixed it up like new. I'd never had a bike in Florida, and I loved cruising around Hyattsdale, seeing the same things Liz had seen when she was my age.

On the way home, I coasted down Forty-first Avenue, past Mrs. Russell's house. When I saw her out in the yard digging in a garden, I slowed down and skidded to a stop, almost hitting her fence.

She looked up, startled by the screech of my brakes. "Well," she said, "good afternoon, Tallahassee."

Although Mrs. Russell didn't look particularly pleased to see me, Bo charged up to the fence, barking and wagging his tail at the same time. "Hi, boy!" I reached out and petted him.

While Mrs. Russell watched, Bo stood on his hind legs and licked my nose. "Can I play with him for a while?" I asked her.

"I suppose so," she said.

"Watch this," I told her and jumped over the fence the way I'd learned to go over the vaulting box in P.E.

"Next time, use the gate," she said, unimpressed. "You could hurt yourself doing that."

"Come on, Bo!" Picking up a stick Mrs. Russell had removed from the garden, I ran across the lawn and tossed it.

We played for a long time, and when Bo was too tired even to look at the stick, I showed Mrs. Russell my cartwheels.

"They're perfect," I told her, hardly out of breath. "Mr. Adams, my P.E. teacher says I have a real talent for gymnastics. Want to see me walk on my hands?"

She didn't say anything, so I staggered across the grass upside down, then showed her my walkovers and backbends. "I can even do the splits."

I grinned up at her from the grass, thinking she had to notice now. Hadn't Johnny been in gymkhana?

But all Mrs. Russell said was, "Your face is scarlet. Maybe you should rest for a while."

Disappointed, I watched her rake the soil in the garden. "Would you like me to help you with that? This guy Liz used to know had a garden, and I helped him with it a lot. We grew the biggest tomatoes you ever saw, but his dog kept eating them." I laughed, remembering how mad Roger used to get at poor old Sandy. "Did you ever hear of a dog liking tomatoes?"

"I'm about to quit for the day." Mrs. Russell looked at her watch. "Isn't your aunt going to wonder where you are?"

I shrugged. "She's probably hoping I got run over by a truck or something."

"Tallahassee, that's a terrible thing to say." Mrs. Russell leaned on the rake handle and stared at me.

"She doesn't like me very much. Nobody around here does, except Jane and Uncle Dan. But I don't care. Soon I'll be out in California with Liz."

Bo stuck his nose in my face then and licked my chin, and I started playing with him again.

"I think he's had enough excitement for one day, Tallahassee," Mrs. Russell said. "Come, Bo, time to get supper."

"Can I play with Bo again?" I followed Mrs. Russell halfway up the steps, hoping she might invite me inside.

"If you like." She paused on the back porch and looked at me, taking in every detail, I thought. "You go on home now," she said.

After she closed the door, I turned and ran down the steps, vaulted the fence again, and pedaled back to Oglethorpe Street, wishing I'd had the nerve to say something about Johnny. I had wanted to ask her what he was like and how he died. Most of all, I had wanted to ask her if she was my grandmother. But all I had done was show off like a little kid.

T
HAT WEEK I FINALLY
got a postcard from Liz. It was pretty short:

Talley, honey—No money for a house yet, still working in the Big Carrot—Miss you heaps and hope to see you soon—Love ya! Liz

"So that's the way it is," Aunt Thelma muttered, reading over my shoulder. She shook her head and pruned up her face. "Well, it's what I expected."

"What do you mean by that?" I held my card flat against my chest so she couldn't see any more of it.

Aunt Thelma didn't say anything. Instead she picked up Fritzi and carried him away, calling him sweetums and dearest and asking him what he wanted for supper. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear him ask for Chateaubriand or steak tartare. If he had, I'm sure she would have given it to him.