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

with the adults as I did the youth choir. Singing with my peers, I never let my voice go too loud, as I didn’t want to be teased for my vibrato, or for slipping into a harmony when my ear told me that it would be right to do so.

We were always home before noon on Sunday. After lunch, Mom either did prep work for the meals she would serve during theweek, or worked in the garden. Our lawn looked like a green shag rug. In front of the house were blooming azaleas, all trimmedto the exact same height and width. In the backyard were more blooming trees, and flower beds that curved around rocks andoutlined the property like a plush purple-and-pink moat. Gardeners came once a week, but no one could keep it as neat as mymother. Weeds that dared to poke their pointy green heads out from the soil were immediately snatched from life by my mother’sgloved hand.

Every spring, a team of men showed up to wash our house’s white clapboard, repair the loose black shutters, and touch up thepaint where necessary. It was only after this touch-up that my mother planted the window boxes that hung below each windowon the front of the house. When I was around Izzy Cone’s age, my mother hired an artist to paint a picture of our house. Thatpainting now hung above the sofa in the living room. Sometimes when I helped pull weeds or water the flower boxes or plantnew annuals in the beds, Mom would say, “We’re obliged to live up to the painting, Mary Jane. We can’t let that painting befiction!”

The Cones seemed uninterested in how their house or yard looked. The only thing that appeared to concern them was turning the third floor into a guest suite, which they were discussing every time they passed me and Izzy—in the TV room, in the kitchen at lunch, and on the front porch, where Izzy and I played with her Erector Set.

At five, when it was time for me to go, Izzy and I wandered around the house, looking for her parents.

“Mom! Dad!” Izzy yelled.

I was growing accustomed to the yelling but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I quietly sang out, “Mrs. Cone? Dr. Cone?”

On the second floor, the doors except for Izzy’s were open.

“Why is your door the only one that’s ever shut?” I asked her.

“To keep the witch out,” Izzy said. “Mom! Dad!”

“What witch?”

“The one that haunts the house. If I shut my door, she doesn’t go in when I’m not there.” Izzy walked straight into her parents’bedroom. I stood in the hallway and waited.

Izzy came out a minute later. “They’re not in there. I’m hungry.”

We went downstairs, through the living and dining rooms, and back through the swinging door into the kitchen. In my own house,the kitchen belonged to my mother and it was up to her if it was “open” or “closed.” Most days, it closed at two p.m., asshe didn’t want anyone to lose their appetite before supper. Though sometimes it closed right after lunch.

I wondered if Mrs. Cone planned to make dinner that night. There was nothing in the Cones’ oven, nothing defrosting in the sink, nothing in a saucepan on the stove. There was no indication that plans had been made to feed the family.

I had a feeling that Dr. and Mrs. Cone wouldn’t be angry if I made dinner for Izzy. “Lemme call my house,” I said. I lookedaround the kitchen for the phone. I’d seen one somewhere earlier but couldn’t remember where. “Where’s the phone?”

Izzy found the cable plugged into the wall below the counter and followed it with her hands as high as she could reach. “It’shere somewhere!”

I pushed aside the bathrobe that was on the counter, and found the phone.

“Can I dial?” Izzy climbed up onto the orange wooden stool and balanced on her knees. She removed the handset from its cradleand rested it on the counter.

“Four.” I watched as Izzy carefully examined the holes in the number dial, found the four, and inserted her chubby littlefinger. There was a line of black dirt under her nail and I made a note to myself that I’d give her a bath after dinner, ifI ended up staying that long.

“Four!” Izzy rotated the dial until it hit the silver comma-looking thing, then released her finger as the dial clicked aroundback to the start. We went on like this for six numbers. On the seventh number, I glanced away and looked back, only to seeIzzy had inserted her finger into the 9 instead of the 8. When the dial finished its slow click-click-click, I picked up the handset, placed it back in its spot to disconnect the call, then took it out again so we could start oncemore.

When we finally got the numbers dialed, I put the phone to my ear. Izzy leaned in and I tilted the receiver toward her.

“Dillard residence,” my mother said.

“Hey, Mom, I need to stay and feed Izzy dinner.”

“Oh?” Mom’s voice screeched up.

“She needs to feed me dinner!” Izzy shouted. I stood up straight and pulled the handset from Izzy’s ear.

“Is that Izzy?”

“Yes,” I said. “She’s a goofball.”

“Sounds like it. Why do you need to feed her dinner? Where is her mother?”

I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t find Dr. or Mrs. Cone. I turned away from Izzy so she wouldn’t hear, and whispered,“Her father is stuck with a patient and her mother is sick in bed.” It was, as far as I could remember, the first time I hadlied to my mother.

“Oh,” my mother said. “Oh no. Okay. Well, maybe I should come down there and help.”

“No, it’s okay,” I whispered. “Everything Mrs. Cone was going to make is out on the counter. The oven’s already turned ontoo. I just need to stick the casserole in the oven and then—”

“Cereal!” Izzy shouted. I turned and saw she had opened a cupboard and pulled out four different boxes of cereal.

“I’ll call after dinner to let