A Big Dose of Lucky Read online

  She stumbles and grips the curtain, swaying slightly when it’s not firm enough to hold her. “I’d forgotten for a moment…What a terrible thing!” She is breathless again, seriously surprised to be reminded of the smoking ruins beyond the glass.

  She presses fingers to lips and blinks a couple of times, then gives me a weak smile.

  “I was going to show you how it was that I saw your…” She lets the curtain drop back into place, veiling the blackened heap. “…your arrival.”

  I stay utterly still and quiet. She has never told me this before. She has purposely not told me this before, despite my asking a thousand times.

  “The car stopped,” she says. “The driver hopped out to open the back door, as if the passenger was an opera singer or a movie star.” She closes her eyes. “I was still in my housecoat at that time in the morning. I did not imagine I would be called upon to entertain company. And nor was I.”

  She sits, but the armchair is angled toward the window, so her neck is awkwardly turned to keep her gaze on me.

  “The driver,” she says, “was a Negro. The person in the car passed him a slatted wooden box, the sort that grapefruits are packed in at Christmastime. I only know it was a woman because she wore gloves the color of peony buds.

  “The man took the box…and carried it to the doorstep of the main house, where he put it down. He resumed his seat behind the wheel of the car and off they went down the drive. They were here perhaps two or three minutes.”

  In the lull, I hear the wind blowing right through my head.

  “I dressed as quickly as I could. I did not bother with stockings, but slid shoes on over my bare feet. It might have been anything, a donation of fruit or clothing. We were often the recipients of kindness in those days. But my heart told me otherwise, thumping away like a timpani drum.”

  “And you were right,” I say.

  “Indeed I was.” She smiles her real smile, not the wan, dismal one that she has shown up till now. She makes her way back to the desk, using the bookcase and a chair to assist her.

  “This…” She taps a brown envelope lying on the blotter in front of her. I see my name, MALOU, in bold lettering across the front and a small lump inside it. “This holds what accompanied your arrival. Perhaps you will choose to follow its lead, to discover your parentage.”

  “My parentage? How would I do that, if even you don’t know?”

  “I have only the smallest clue,” she tells me. “It will be up to you…”

  I shake my head. “They’re dead,” I say. “And obviously their families didn’t want me.”

  “Don’t be hasty, my dear. You know from all your reading…the reason behind most human behavior is not so easily understood.”

  “I’d rather stay here and help,” I say. “Maybe some of the other girls will stick around too. We could all work together, build the Home again.”

  “The Home has closed its doors,” she says. “Forever. It was going to happen anyway, with these new laws in place.” She tilts her head gently, sadly. “You are young to be on your own, I know. It is frightening, perhaps, but my faith in you is not misplaced. It is faith in yourself that you must look for.”

  She leans back in the chair and closes her eyes for a moment. “You will find, upon occasion…that moving forward does not occur in a straight line.” She peers at me, the fuzziness of being ill gone for the moment, her eyes bright and piercing.

  “There will be digressions…distractions…perhaps a circle or two.” She shifts the brown envelope to reveal a white one, also with my name on it. She puts it inside the larger brown one and pushes it across the desk.

  “This is a contribution toward your future. I have divided my spare funds amongst the seven of you, my dear girls…I would like also to assist you with travel plans, if you—”

  “No, thanks.” I cut her off. I’m not going anywhere. Even if she thinks I should be traveling some place, I’ve got other ideas. Where the heck else would I go? Plus she’s sick. A blind person could see that. So I won’t be troubling her with looking after me. The only plan I’ve got right now is to have a sleepover in the shed.

  “Malou…”

  “That’s okay, Mrs. H. I’ll take care of things. You should be getting ready for your own travel, right? I’ll make my move when I’m ready.”

  I get the sneaking feeling that she’s reading my mind, but she only spouts more poetic words of guidance.

  “You may discover that going backward—discovering your past—will be the best route to the next chapter in your life.”

  “Uh-huh.” There is nothing I want less than to say goodbye. She stands up to embrace me, what seems like her full weight in my arms, all the strength she has left being handed over to me.

  Sara is waiting when I come out. For a second I wish I’d gone through the kitchen, not seen anyone. Especially her. Why does she like such a terrible boy?

  But she’s still my Seven sister. And in one minute she’s going to hear something from Mrs. H.—whatever it is—that will make her feel like a turtle on its back in the middle of a highway.

  “Oh, Sara.”

  She must sort of know what’s about to happen because she hugs me hard, as if bewildered. Nothing is the way it’s supposed to be. She asks why Mrs. H. needs to talk to us, but I’m not the one to tell her. What I’ve got in these two envelopes is like dynamite under a bridge; my life is on the verge of blowing up.

  “Sara. Good, you’re here.” Mrs. H. has appeared in the doorway of her office, her cheeks still a bit flushed. Sara moves toward her but darts another look at me, puzzled and maybe scared.

  “Hey.” I grab her arm. The other girls are getting ready to go. Some are gone already. It’s like the ground is shaking, aftershocks from the fire.

  I whisper to Sara, “Find me, okay? Before you go anywhere.”

  ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHT DOLLARS!

  The white envelope from Mrs. Hazelton holds a stack of dollar bills as thick as a paperback book almost. More money than I have ever seen. Ever.

  IN THE OTHER ENVELOPE

  One item only, supposedly the key to my identity:

  A strip of paper encased in plastic, made to form a circle like a tiny bracelet. Words on the bracelet say St. Joseph’s Hospital, Parry Sound, Ontario. BABY FOX

  That’s it.

  THAT’S ME???

  Three syllables, and there I am, before your very eyes. Baby Fox. I rub my thumb back and forth across the smooth, tiny strip.

  One minute I’m Malou Gillis and the next minute I’m somebody else?

  Baby Fox?

  That must mean there is—or was—a Mama Fox and a Papa Fox, just like in a book, right? I can’t help seeing a picture of a cozy fox house with three rusty-tailed critters sitting beside a wood-burning stove. Papa is wearing a scarlet silk vest with pockets and reading the Fox Herald. Mama is knitting a cap with slits for ears to stick through. And Baby Fox is in a cradle on the hearth rug, waving a rattle shaped like a chicken.

  That’s me, Baby Fox.

  MALOU FOX

  I say it about ten times out loud.

  And a hundred more inside my head.

  Then I say, Malou Gillis, and it sounds better. I like having the extra syllable. I like that Mrs. Hazelton picked it out of her favorite book.

  I try out Malou Fox again.

  Hi, I’m Malou. Malou Fox.

  Nice to meet you. My name is Malou Fox.

  Maybe you’ve heard of me? The name is Fox. Malou Fox.

  I can probably get used to it.

  MR. FOX AND MRS. FOX

  Who are they?

  THREE

  SAYING GOODBYE TO JOE

  The first time I went into Joe’s room to see a news report on his television, I was six years old. He wanted me to see the Negroes walking to work in a place called Montgomery, all in a big crowd instead of riding on the bus. I didn’t know back then what a bus was. And I sure as heck had never seen that many brown faces. Joe tried to explain
that they were walking because they were mad about not getting to choose where to sit on the bus. They always had to be in the back, even if there were empty seats up front. All I understood was that it wasn’t fair play, and fair play was a big notion at the Home.

  So now I’m standing beside his old pickup while he gets ready to move Mrs. H. to Cartwright, where she’ll recuperate from sucking in smoke. And after he drops her? Well, who knows? Joe is putting his thermos on the front seat next to a wax-paper packet of sandwiches. I know without asking that they’re his favorite, made with chopped-up hard-boiled eggs. My head hurts with all the things I won’t have time to say.

  He’s humming a jerky tune as he loads in a couple of boxes of books from Mrs. Hazelton’s study. But I see his old canvas bag back there too, alongside a laundry basket holding some cooking pots from Mrs. H’s cottage kitchen. He’s got to find someplace else to work and live. It’s my guess he’ll take his time looking once he makes certain Mrs. H. is settled with her belongings.

  I push on corners to help make it all fit, and then finally there’s nothing left to do except look at each other.

  “Someday,” I tell him, “I’m going to take a bus. And I’m going to sit as close to the front as I can.”

  “Ha!” he says. “You remember that?” He puts a hand on the top of my head like he likes to do, squeezing his fingers into the spring of my hair. “Lucky thing you’re in Canada. You know that?”

  “Uh-huh.” I feel like a cat, pushing at his hand for more patting.

  “Lemme add a little something,” he says.

  He tells me that when brown people agree to sit in the back of the bus, they’re accidentally letting themselves feel low-down based on nothing but where they’re sitting.

  “Turn it around,” he says. “Those white folks up front have a mistaken idea of their own importance based on the same foolish notion of who sits where. What you gotta do, Miss Malou, is adjust the map. Plunk yourself in any territory that tickles your fancy. You hear what I’m sayin’?”

  “I hear.” I’m blinking hard.

  He climbs into the driver’s seat, closes the door, starts the engine. And starts it again, because it’s hiccuping like an old man with indigestion. When it catches, Joe rolls down the window, salutes that way he does with two fingers. And drives on over to the cottage, where Mrs. H. is waiting. I wave from here. No point in saying goodbye more than one time.

  How does he think I’m going to adjust to anything, all by myself? What am I supposed to do? Walk around telling people how important I am, when really I’m lower than a snail? That’s how fast I’m going places. I was lying about getting on any bus. That was just my way of telling him…well, that I’d be thinking about him.

  I take out the bracelet and look at it again. Parry Sound Hospital.

  Where is Parry Sound? Ontario. The Dominion of Canada.

  The bigness is too much. How could I go to some place I never heard of before this afternoon?

  IN THE SHED

  Not to sound pathetic, but I have never been alone in the nighttime. Never. Hardly ever by day either, since this place is crawling with girls, like an orphan anthill. Not many corners of solitude. Always noise and always company.

  It’s still light and I’m hungry. Do I walk into town? I think of the crack of glass and Luke’s boot on my box. I’ll wait till morning. I have half a bag of Peek Frean shortbread cookies and the church-lady sandwiches, bologna and cheese.

  It’s so quiet inside the shed that I can hear whispers of wind sneaking between the slats. I think about Mary Lennox from The Secret Garden, how she wakes up one morning in her home in India and finds that both of her parents and several of the servants have died in the night, victims of a cholera epidemic. The story moves quickly past this bit, but I think about the awfulness she must have felt, suddenly stranded like that. She doesn’t see her parents’ bodies because they’ve already been carried away. I imagine them on a cart, bouncing over cobblestones, turned yellow overnight, with seeping sores and mouths gaping in anguish. Meanwhile, Mary is left alone in the bungalow with only a little rustling snake.

  That’s me right now, only there’s no snake. There’s a spiderweb in one corner and a fly buzzing against the teeny window—two critters of the cosmos destined to come together with a bad end for one of them.

  I stand at the door, my hands inside the big sweater sleeves like mittens, arms folded as tightly around myself as I can manage. Looking out at the hill of blackened rubble, I might as well be in India—or on the moon. The landscape is so altered, especially now, at twilight, that I expect to see ghostly spirits hovering in the half-light.

  I eventually sleep, on a heap of burlap sacks, feeling like a pioneer or a runaway or something. In the morning I pee in the grass and pluck burlap threads off my skirt and wish the church ladies had given us deodorant along with the toothbrushes. Also that I had some water to make the tooth brushing not so…gooey. I spit about ten times. Where am I going to find water? Who knew I would miss the blue-door bathroom in such detail? The door was painted turquoise by an art class when I was about seven. The deep porcelain bathtub had griffin claws for feet, there since long ago when the house was for a family instead of orphans, when the maids who had the attic quarters were lucky enough to have a proper big tub to soak in and a row of sinks with silver taps marked Hot and Cold in cursive script.

  Thinking about water taps makes the layer of leftover toothpaste taste like mud in my mouth. And then I remember the rain barrel behind the shed. Yes! It’s nearly full. I scoop up water in cupped hands and swish away the toothpaste and drink and drink. I splash my face. My hair pick is somewhere in the ashes, a melted lump of metal, but I do my best, tugging at the worst tats in my hair.

  I’m awake and groomed. So now what?

  Mrs. Hazelton’s cottage is locked. I try the door, of course. I sit on the bench. I look at her flowers. I listen. Bugs buzz, a frog croaks, a breeze riffles the grasses. Mostly it’s quiet.

  So quiet.

  I don’t want to go to town. I’d stick out like a poppy in a field of daisies, worse than before. Used to be our smocks would scream, Orphan! Now it would be only my skin. They’d remember. Oh, the dark one. Maybe it’s even against the law for me to be hanging around like this, sleeping in the shed.

  I eat the second-last bologna sandwich and four cookies.

  THE DOOR OPENS, SCARING THE BEJEEBIES OUT OF ME

  It’s only Sara. Phew. Was I expecting the boogeyman? I’m dying to know what Mrs. Hazelton told her, but she starts with “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  She admits that she suspected that Luke was a small-minded pig even if she pretended not to know. She feels badly for never standing up for me, for not telling him to piss off. She’s sorry, she says again.

  Why now? I look away, wondering.

  All this time Joe has been teaching me that being a colored girl out there in the big wide world was going to be a whole lot harder than what I knew in the Home. I didn’t care what he said because I was never going to leave. I was going to have my Seven sisters forever, and they would love me whatever my color. But maybe that isn’t true. Maybe it was hard for them to be my friends. Maybe white girls can never ever understand how many times a day a brown girl feels brown.

  So what did Sara learn today about where she came from? Why is she saying sorry and then sorry again?

  “I know it doesn’t fix everything.” She sounds as if telling me sorry is the most important thing she has to do today.

  “It helps,” I say, not exactly believing it. “Thank you.”

  “I’m going to Germany,” says Sara. She’s fighting back tears. “Can you imagine?”

  No, I can’t. Germany is impossibly far. On the other side of an ocean.

  She reaches inside her blouse and extracts a necklace with a little charm hanging from it. A star with six points.

  “That’s what you got?” I say. “What does it mean?”

  Sara
blinks back tears. “This is a Star of David. Mrs. Hazelton told me that my mother was Jewish. That means I am too.”

  “Oh. Wow. That’s pretty huge,” I say. “Bigger than just getting a new name.” I tell her I’m Baby Fox now. “Being Jewish,” I add, “makes you different from everyone. More like me.”

  How weird to be saying hello to new selves and goodbye to each other in the same minute.

  “What about your boyfriend?” I say.

  The shed goes quiet, except for a piece of dangling twine flapping in a whisper from one of the shelves.

  Sara sighs. “I think I’m happy to be leaving him behind.”

  SO NOW THEY’VE ALL GONE

  As far as I can tell, there is not another person anywhere on the entire school property. Mrs. Hazelton…gone to a nursing home, I think. Miss Webster…who knows where? Someplace where bossy is a valued quality. If Joe’s lucky, he’ll find this catastrophe is an invitation back into the world of music. Maybe he’ll play the guitar again.

  The main thing is, the other girls are gone. Sara on her way to Germany, Tess someplace French. I’m not sure where Cady is headed. Betty and Dot are still in Ontario, I think. And Toni went to Toronto.

  Baby Fox, I say to myself. You know what you’re supposed to do, right? You’re supposed to be an adventurer like every other orphan. Like Toby Tyler joining the circus, or Huck Finn taking a raft the whole way down the Mississippi. You’re supposed to go to the hospital and get your mother’s whole name. Like a quest in a book. Easy peasy.

  Maybe tomorrow.

  MORE TIME

  At night, raindrops ping on the roof, weirdly comforting. I invent new stories to be in. I’m a prospector in a tarpaper shack. I’m a Mohawk maiden in a wigwam. I am a cabin boy on a ship heading to a new land. I imagine that I’ve tilled the ground and I have an abundant crop of lettuce and beans. I’ve somehow learned to shoot a rabbit. Skipping the part about skinning and gutting, the stew is delicious, just the way it always is in books about pioneers.