The Perfect Place (6 page)

It's even hotter now than it was before. Great-Aunt Grace starts up the walkway. I don't move. I look over at the patch of grass where the driveway should be. Empty save for a big bald space in the middle.

“Don't you have a car? Aren't you going to drive us?”

She looks at me like I've asked her if she wants to bend over and let Tiffany and me climb on her back.

“I don't drive. Besides, that won't be necessary. Moe and Joe will get us where we need to be.”

“Who're Moe and Joe?” Tiffany asks.

Great-Aunt Grace points down at her two sneakered feet.

“We can't walk in this heat!”

Great-Aunt Grace swats away my words the way a horse swats flies.

I should take Tiffany and demand that Great-Aunt Grace let us back inside. But even this heat isn't enough to make me stupid. It's one thing to suggest to Great-Aunt Grace that walking in weather this hot is ridiculous. It's an entirely different beast to try to go back inside when she told us to come out. We have no choice but to follow her. This is going to be the Longest. Walk. Ever.

It is a bit after nine now, the butt crack of dawn in the summer as far as I'm concerned. And yet, people are out. Two old men wearing tank tops and shorts sit on the saggy porch of a white house. When a car drives past, they wave. They don't wave at us. In fact, they exchange a look and shake their heads. As we pass the house two doors down from Great-Aunt Grace's, a woman comes flying out the front door, carrying a stack of papers. It's the same woman who darted in front of Mom's car on our way here. She's still wearing her flowered housedress and big sun hat.

“Grace!” the woman calls out.

I stop. Tiffany does too. Great-Aunt Grace keeps on walking, her cooler banging against her thigh.

“Grace!” The woman comes charging down her walkway and stops beside Tiffany and me. She doesn't even acknowledge our presence. “I'm talking to you!” she shouts at Great-Aunt Grace's back.

“And that is unfortunate, Dot,” Great-Aunt Grace says loudly, but she stops walking and turns to face the woman. There's a stretch of dirt road between Great-Aunt Grace and Dot that doesn't invite conversation, but Dot closes the distance in four huge steps.

“I've been robbed. Low-down dirty thief stole my elephant statue with the little flecks of gold in it. Look.” Dot pulls a flier from the top of her pile and waves it in Great-Aunt Grace's face. Great-Aunt Grace reaches up with her free hand and snatches it.

“A hundred-dollar reward, huh?” she asks.

“Yes, indeed. I gotta get to the bottom of this!”

“What you
got
is too much dang free time,” Great-Aunt Grace replies, crumpling up Dot's flier and shoving it in her pants pocket.

Dot's nostrils flare. “It's been nearly a decade, but don't think I forgot how you robbed my kin all those years ago. Would you happen to know anything about my missing statue?”

“Why would I?”

“Everyone knows you got a record, Grace, and a knack for getting yourself caught up in the worst type of situations.”

“That explains me standin' here talkin' to you. Come on, girls, let's go.”

Great-Aunt Grace strides away, leaving Tiffany and me to stare after Dot, who storms back to her house and slams the door shut behind her. Tiffany runs to catch up to Great-Aunt Grace. I do too, though neither of us walks close enough to rub elbows with her.

“Do you think someone broke in and stole Mr. Teddy Daniels's clothes?”

“Don't be ridiculous, girl. Your mama forgot to pack them.”

Tiffany's face falls.

“Don't worry about it,” I tell Tiffany. “When Mom comes back with Dad, we'll get more clothes for Mr. Teddy D.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

Tiffany smiles. Great-Aunt Grace rolls her eyes.

When we come almost to the end of Iron Horse Road, Tiffany furrows her brow and looks up at Great-Aunt Grace. “What kind of records do you have?”

“What, girl?”

“That lady said everybody knows you got records.”

“She means a police record. It means Great-Aunt Grace has been arrested, right?” I say. “Mom and Dad got her out of jail.”

“That's right, girl. Guess you're not as simple as you look.”

But I bet she's as old as
she
looks. And maybe she's a thief on top of everything else.

“Did you get arrested for stealing?” I ask.

“Depends on how you see thangs. See, Dot's fool son was the mail boy back in the day, and he always used to come through here with this portable radio in his truck, blastin' that be-pop.”

“You mean hip-hop?”

“Who's tellin' this story, girl, you or me?” Great-Aunt Grace snaps. “So he used to come through blastin' that be-pop, loud enough to make your dang ears bleed. I told him if you don't cut it out when you come round my house, I'm gonna give you what for. He came around next day, still blastin' that noise, but I was ready for him. Told him he had a flat rear tire. When he got out his truck to check, I reached in and took that dang radio.”

“You stole some kid's radio?” Tiffany asks, incredulous.

“Threw it on the ground and smashed it too.”

I can just picture Great-Aunt Grace out by her mailbox, waiting to strike.

“So did you take Dot's elephant, too?” I ask.

“Yeah, did you?” Tiffany chimes in.

“Dot's a fool. This town is full of 'em. Don't worry: Y'all will fit right in.”

There are so many places Mom could've left us instead of with Great-Aunt Grace. An abandoned building, maybe, or the sewer. The Everglades. I'd rather take my chances with the gators and the snakes.

W
E
walk for what feels like a month. When we reach the end of Great-Aunt Grace's road, we turn down another and yet another, both almost identical to hers: narrow and flanked on either side by boxy, rundown houses. Soon we turn left and come to the street where Mom made her U-turn. Here there's a gas station, a convenience store, and two signs that we haven't completely fallen off the face of the earth: A few cars drive by and a woman passes us, jogging.

“Are we almost there?” Tiffany says.

“No, and whinin' ain't gonna speed us up, so cut it out, girl.”

Tiffany clamps her mouth shut and scowls. We keep on walking until we come to a stoplight. We cross the street and now we're in what Great-Aunt Grace calls downtown Black Lake, which isn't much more than a few blocks with small stores on either side of the street, languishing in the shade of faded awnings. DeGroat's Dry Cleaning; W. T. Fine Arts and Prints; Pet and Purr.

Great-Aunt Grace's store is called Grace's Goodies. We're just stopping in front of its heavy metal-and-glass door beneath a worn burgundy awning when a voice calls out, “Morning, Ms. Washington.”

A young man is climbing out of the driver's side of a shiny black pickup truck. He's broad-shouldered and the deep brown of milk chocolate. He has muscles on top of muscles and looks like he walked straight off the cover of one of Mom's urban romance novels, the ones Dad asked her to stop reading in public.

“Mornin', Byron,” Great-Aunt Grace says.

“You're looking lovely as ever today,” Byron says.

Great-Aunt Grace is sweaty and scowling. If that's lovely, I'd hate to see what Byron considers unpleasant. “Aren't you gonna introduce me to your pretty friends?”

My face grows hot. Tiffany smiles up at him. She loves anyone who calls her pretty.

“Not friends,” Great-Aunt Grace says, setting her cooler down. “Family.”

“Well, they got names?”

Before Great-Aunt Grace can answer, a girl comes bursting out of the store two doors down from Grace's Goodies, carrying a greasy brown paper bag. She's wearing the shortest shorts I've ever seen and a tank top thinner than one-ply toilet paper.

Byron holds his hand out for the paper bag and peeks inside. “You got me sesame seed.”

“You asked for sesame seed, didn't you?”

“No. I asked for poppy.”

The girl cocks her head to the side and looks at Byron, wide-eyed. “They're pretty much the same thing. But my manners!” She waves at Great-Aunt Grace, Tiffany, and me. “I'm Sasha, Byron's girl.”

Great-Aunt Grace eyes the girl's wrists, which are covered in tangled gold bracelets. Sasha notices and holds her arms out so Great-Aunt Grace can get a closer look. “I'm a jewelry freak,” she says.

Byron is scowling at her. She understands the look on his face, which says, plain as day,
Go get in the car,
because that's exactly what she does.

“Where'd you find that one?” Great-Aunt Grace asks.

“She lives over in Bracie.” Byron smiles, showing two rows of perfect teeth. “You know I love the ladies. Listen, you beautiful girls have yourself a good day, you hear?”

“You too,” Great-Aunt Grace says, fishing her keys out of her pants pocket.

“He said I'm beautiful,” Tiffany says, as Byron pulls away from the curb.

“Girl, please,” Great-Aunt Grace says. “That fool has more women than he has sense.” She grabs her cooler, unlocks the door to Grace's Goodies, and ushers us inside.

The first things I see are the shiny wrappers of rows and rows of candy glittering in the murky light, like coins in a fountain. Great-Aunt Grace flicks a switch, and everything comes into sharper focus. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, 3 Musketeers, Swedish Fish, Skittles, no-name chocolate bars (but who cares because chocolate is chocolate), sour watermelons, gummy bears. My eyes don't know where to settle and my hands don't know what to grab.

“Don't even think about askin' for anything.”

My eyes land on Great-Aunt Grace. “I don't even like candy.”

I would lie, cheat, and steal for candy. And the first chance I get, I'm going for a pack of Sour Patch Kids. In the meantime, Great-Aunt Grace informs us that there is work to be done. I'm to wipe down the shelves in the back, and Tiffany—

“Can I work the register?” she pleads.

Tiffany has a thing for buttons.

Great-Aunt Grace grunts, neither a yes nor a no. “First you're gonna help me restock the shelves out here in the front, make sure there's enough of everything.”

Tiffany and I follow Great-Aunt Grace through a waist-high swinging door that's connected to the counter. As we pass the cash register, Tiffany looks back and sighs.

Great-Aunt Grace leads us to the stockroom, where I'll be working. It's cold and gray, but anything is better than being outside in the Black Lake heat. Shelves line each wall, and on each shelf are boxes and boxes of candy. When I turn to look toward the front of the store, it's like it's back in Jersey, it's so far away. Tucked away in the corner is a phone hanging on the wall. Does it work? Can I use it to call for help? It's not fair that Great-Aunt Grace won't let me work in the front too. She probably doesn't want to be around me any more than I want to be around her. On the plus side, working in the stockroom means I'll be left unattended with more candy than I'll probably ever see again.

It's like Great-Aunt Grace reads my mind.

“I know which boxes ain't open, and of the ones that are, I know exactly how much candy is in 'em.” She gives me a long, hard look. “You want some, you gotta pay, just like everybody else.”

I think about the money in my pocket. Mom gave it to me for emergencies. Somehow it doesn't seem right to spend any of it on candy—candy that should be free, any old way. And now that I know cleaning these shelves isn't going to produce any type of reward—given or otherwise—the shelves and boxes seem to multiply right before my eyes.

“I can't do this by myself.”

“Maybe you won't have to.”

“Maybe?”

“You might get help, you might not. Pray on it, girl.”

Great-Aunt Grace takes a few rags and a bottle of yellow cleaner down from the shelf next to her and hands them to me.

I
might
get help? To do this job, I'm going to need the help of ten men. Or Jesus. I hope Great-Aunt Grace doesn't plan on sending Tiffany to work back here. I can just picture her spindly arms trembling. Before I can ask Great-Aunt Grace about this possible help, she is on her way to the front. Tiffany turns and waves at me over her shoulder. I see pity in her eyes.

What if I spent all day sitting on this cold stockroom floor, not cleaning a single shelf? Would Great-Aunt Grace call Mom and tell her to come back and pick me up? Doubt it. She's more the warm-your-butt-with-a-whupping type.

I take one deep breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth. Then I get to work, pulling the boxes down from the first shelf. When it's empty, I start wiping it down.

I'm bored within minutes. The cleaner turns out to be pine-scented and slick. It leaves a greasy sheen on the shelf and I have to wipe extra hard to get it to go away. Which means my shoulders go first. Then my patience, followed by my will to live. I can hear Great-Aunt Grace explaining to Tiffany how the cash register works.

“You type in the price and hit this button. . . . No, not that one; this one, girl. It's like tryin' to teach Mr. Shuffle.”

By the time I'm up on the ladder, cleaning the top shelf, I'm so deep into counting the many ways I despise my great-aunt, I don't even notice the witch herself standing below me.

“Girl, you deaf or something?”

I look down, right into Great-Aunt Grace's flared nostrils. A boy is with her. A boy around my age wearing khaki cargo shorts and an orange T-shirt with a robot on the front of it.

“Help is here,” Great-Aunt Grace says. “Get on down here and meet him.”

I climb down the ladder slowly. The boy looks at me and I look back at him. He has copper-colored skin and eyes the color of pencil shavings.