Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

other side, against the wall. I lay on the outside andopened the book.

I read the book and also floated above the three of us and watched myself reading the book. I was snuggled in close to warm, soapy-smelling Izzy, who fit against my torso like a foot in a slipper. Sheba was stretched out long with her arms flung over her head, her black hair pooled behind her like an oil spill. A steady current of contentment ran through me like a tuning fork humming deep in my bones. I hoped that I would be a mom one day and the person I loved to kiss would lie on the other side of our kid while I read stories. It seemed like a simple desire. The twins both wanted to be the first woman president. They had agreed that one would be president and the other would be vice president the first four years, and then they’d swap.

When the book was finished, Izzy was asleep. We lay there in silence. I could feel that we three were breathing in unison,our chests rising and falling as one. Then Sheba leaned up onto her elbows, looked over at me, and nodded toward the door.I slipped out of the bed and then reached my arm out to Sheba so she could stand on the bed and step over Izzy without wakingher. Just as Sheba was straddling Izzy, her legs in a long upside-down V, Izzy popped open her eyes and said, “Wait.”

Sheba stepped off the bed and said, “What?”

“Is your witch mom a pretty witch or an ugly witch?”

“She’s pretty if you look at her picture. But when you talk to her, the bad witchiness comes out and you can see that sheisn’t really pretty at all.”

“Can we see a picture of her?”

“I don’t have one with me. I’ll draw one tomorrow.”

“Okay. Good night.”

“Good night,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

“Close the door all the way.”

“I will.”

“I never heard of a five-year-old wanting to sleep with the door closed,” Sheba said.

“The witch can’t get through my door.”

“Ah. I see. The maraschino cherry witch?”

“Yes, Mary Jane says she’s good, but until we’re ONE HUNDRED PURCHASE SURE, we have to close the door.”

“One hundred percent,” I said.

“ONE HUNDRED PERCENT.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Sheba said. “Good night.”

“Wait,” Izzy said again. Sheba and I both stood still, looking at her round little face crowned in red curls. “If Sheba joinsour team, then the ratio of us to the witch is”—Izzy pointed at us and then herself as she counted—“three to one.”

“Okay, I’m in,” Sheba said.

“That’s a good ratio,” I said. “Good night.”

Sheba sang, “Gooood niiiiight,” like the kids from The Sound of Music.

“Gooood niiiight,” I sang one octave higher.

“Good night. I love you,” Izzy said. I wasn’t sure which of us she was speaking to, but the words suspended me in motion.I stood halfway to the door, wondering if I should say it back. I’d never said that before, not to anyone. And no one hadever said it to me. But when I thought about it, I did love Izzy. And I kinda loved Sheba, too.

“Looove, looove, looove,” Sheba sang as she walked out the door. I knew it was the beginning of a Beatles song, because the twins had those records.

“Looove, looove, looove,” I sang after her, and then I went out the door and pulled it shut behind myself.

“How do you get home?” Sheba asked.

“I walk.”

“In the dark?” Sheba looked out the window on the hall landing. Tree branches moved in the thick blackness, like a giant’swaving arms.

“Well, I’ve never gone home in the dark before.” The sun set fairly late, but we’d had a long dinner, and then the bath.

“I’ll drive you. I want to see your house. Where exactly does Mary Jane, the harmonizing, churchgoing summer nanny live?”

I followed Sheba down the stairs and then into the kitchen, where Dr. Cone, Mrs. Cone, and Jimmy were sitting at the banquette.Jimmy was forearm-deep into a box of Screaming Yellow Zonkers.

“Richard, where are the keys to your car?” Sheba asked. “I want to drive Mary Jane home.”

“Over there on the . . .” Dr. Cone pointed his finger from left to right. He lost his keys every day and I found them everyday. I had been putting them in the same place, on the covered radiator in the entrance hall, with the hope that he wouldunderstand that when he came in the house, he should just drop them there. So far he hadn’t. Understood or dropped the keys.

“I know where they are,” I said.

“I want to come.” Jimmy shoved a handful of Zonkers into his mouth and then dropped the box onto the table so it fell sideways.He scooted out from the banquette and picked up Sheba’s hand. “Let’s go!” Jimmy took my hand too and pulled me and Sheba towardthe swinging kitchen door.

“Can you find your way back?!” Mrs. Cone shouted.

“Yes!” Jimmy shouted. Sheba and I were laughing as he hurried us out of the kitchen.

“Do you want me to come with you?!” Mrs. Cone shouted.

I heard Dr. Cone say, “She’s just down the street, Bonnie!”

“We’ll be right back!” Sheba shouted.

In the entrance hall, I handed Sheba the keys and she ran out the door with them. Jimmy ran after her and then I ran too, as if we were fleeing something. When I was halfway to the car, I ran back and closed the front door. Then I doubled my speed to catch up to Sheba and Jimmy.

Jimmy was in the car and Sheba was standing at the open driver’s side. She banged on the roof twice and shouted, “C’mon, c’mon!”

I hurried into the back seat as Sheba was starting the car. She pulled away from the curb before I had the door shut. I feltlike we were in an episode of Starsky & Hutch. One of them was always jumping into a moving car.

“We made it!” Jimmy shouted.

Sheba did a kind of a yodeling yell, and then we all started laughing. I knew it was