How High the Moon Read online

  Even as I stated my case, though, I wondered. Maybe that was why the bed banged so loud, because a guy would have to work like crazy to make that thing go in there. I told Charlie my doubts and he said that wee-ers didn’t stay little. They grew real big and stiff when men were going to “do it,” which I took to mean the Juicy Jitterbug.

  “How do you know that?” I asked Charlie.

  “Cause our house was only one room, and I saw my ma and dad doing it more than once. My dad and some other ladies, too. When I was supposed to be sleeping.”

  I stayed quiet for a while, my head going back and forth, back and forth, thinking Charlie was all wet one minute, then thinking maybe he knew what he was talking about the next. After all, who would have thought that Charlie had the smarts to know how to play the piano, either? But that was Charlie for you. Full of surprises. And he did seem awful sure of himself on this one.

  “No wonder Miss Tuckle never married or had a boyfriend before,” I told Charlie as we sat, me watching my house. “She probably thought the whole thing sounded disgusting, too.”

  I narrowed my eyes until Charlie blurred. “Hey, wait a minute. Maybe that’s why she has her sights set on Teddy. She’s probably thinking that a guy as little as him has to have a little wee-er, too, which wouldn’t make it quite as painful.”

  “Maybe,” Charlie said.

  I looked across the street, where Johnny was leaned under the hood of his new hot rod, which was nothing but a junky old car he was going to fix up. “Hey, Charlie. If you get married, do you have to let your husband do that to you, do you know?”

  “I think so,” Charlie said, and I said, “Man.”

  I sat there thinking for a minute, then I said, “Hey, Charlie. If that’s how you make babies, and your dad was doing that with your ma and some other ladies all the time, then how come you’re an only kid?”

  Charlie shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe he was doing it wrong.”

  The night was warm, the wind still, and with the Jacksons inside probably having their supper, you could hear an occasional faint Miss Tuckle giggle through the screens. “Okay, that’s it,” I said to Charlie. “I’m going spying. You stay here. I’ll be right back.” Charlie looked disappointed, but the sorry fact was, Charlie wasn’t as fast as me and I didn’t plan on getting caught. “If Grandma G comes out and sees me gone, you just say I ran out to my shed to get something for us to play with, okay?”

  “Is there something for us to play with in there?” Charlie asked.

  “Course not, but how would she know that?”

  It wasn’t easy sitting still and quiet under the window because skeetos with the appetite of a Charlie were gnawing on me, and I had to rub them away instead of squashing them with a slap.

  “Teddy,” Miss Tuckle said after she got done giggling over something or other Teddy said (which couldn’t have been funny, since Teddy’s funny bone was undersized, like everything else on him). “I hope I didn’t offend you with my offer earlier. And I hope you don’t think I’m trying to buy your friendship. Though I have to admit, when I was younger, I did try to buy friends by giving them gifts and being overly helpful.”

  Teddy’s voice sounded uncomfortable when he said, “I wasn’t above that myself. Though I can’t imagine you needing to buy anyone, April. You’re kind. Sweet. A genuinely nice person.”

  I could almost hear Miss Tuckle blush.

  “Well, anyway,” she said, after a soft giggle, “I just want you to know that I’d be more than happy to lend you the money. You can’t keep putting up with this emotional blackmail. That’s no way to live.”

  “Oh, April, I couldn’t take money from you.”

  “Wait. Hear me out. Okay?” April said, even though I knew she was wasting her time, because Teddy didn’t do handouts.

  “I make decent money, Teddy. And I’ve not really had anything to spend it on. I’ve lived in my tiny apartment since I left home, and I make all my own clothes. I’ve just never had much reason to indulge in the things a lot of other women indulge in. What I’m saying is that I have money in the bank doing nothing but collecting dust. You can’t go on like this, afraid to let Teaspoon get the mail for fear there will be another one of those letters in the box, then having to fork out money you don’t have for fear of the repercussions if you send nothing.

  “I know we haven’t known each other long, but I can tell a trustworthy person when I see one. And what good is money if you can’t do something worthwhile with it? You need a loan, and with that lien on the house…”

  Teddy must have made like he was going to say something because Miss Tuckle said, “Don’t say anything just yet. Just think about it, okay? We could work out a payment plan with interest, if that would make you feel better. Teaspoon’s future has to be more important than my uncomfortableness at offering this, and, more important than your pride in taking it.”

  I turned around and rested my back against the siding when Teddy changed the subject to something dull. My security? The lean? My future? Blackmail? What on earth were they talking about?

  And then I got it. Before the roof started leaking, one day when Teddy came out to the mailbox, his foot hit a creak on the porch and he stopped and bounced in place on boards that were frayed like old ropes. Then he said, “I don’t know how much longer this old porch is going to stay secure.” He shook his head and carried his mail inside. Wasn’t that just like Teddy, to worry about me running back and forth across an unstable porch. Like what? I was Charlie-fat and might roll right off it, or fall right through it?

  And my future? Sure enough, Teddy was thinking about how one day after he got old and the Lord called him home, I’d inherit this place, just like he did. Teddy just didn’t want to leave me the same run-down house his ma left him. That Teddy, what a worrywart. He was only thirty-eight years old. Mrs. Fry was eighty-two and she was still kicking. That should have told him something. As for me seeing a bad black bill in the mail, what difference did it make what color the envelopes were or if I saw them or not? I always knew when a bad bill came anyway, because Teddy’s eyebrows would bunch until payday.

  I wanted to jump up right then and there and stick my face up to the screen and yell, I’ll use the back door, then, for crying out loud! And it won’t matter what shape the house is in in a bajillion years from now anyway, because Ma will be back before then and we can fix it up with her movie-star money. But I didn’t do that, of course, or Teddy would have known my ears were snooping.

  “I should go,” April said. “Please think about my offer, Teddy.”

  I heard the couch spring squeak and knew they had gotten up, so I raced around the back of the house so it would look like I was just coming from the Frys.

  “Hi,” I said, maybe a bit too loud, because I startled Miss Tuckle, which would have been funny, had Teddy not put his arm on her back to steady her.

  Teddy walked her to the car and I tagged behind them. I could tell Miss Tuckle thought my friendliness meant that I liked her like I did when she was only my Sunday school teacher. Little did she know that I was just hanging around so Teddy wouldn’t forget he was somebody else’s boyfriend and that Miss Tuckle and him were only friends and try kissing her, like men always did when they said good-bye to ladies in the movies.

  Poor Miss Tuckle, all slumped and skinny and homely. I almost felt sorry for her as she slipped behind the steering wheel of her car and smiled up at Teddy, like she didn’t know that he would never give up a pretty movie star for an old maid who made oven mitts.

  Teddy was more quiet than usual the next day, like he was thinking, but he wasn’t as fidgety, either. And when he decided to take a stroll because the evening was breezy and the sunset pretty, I went with him, just in case he decided to veer over to Miss Tuckle’s place, which I’d learned from Mrs. Fry was right above the drugstore.

  We went down Thornton Street, past Mr. Miller’s house, and Miller came out of his garage and called, “Hi there, Big Guy,” in that booming voice of
his that always sounded like he was doing a TV commercial.

  Miller headed right over to the sidewalk, so we had to stop. Then we had to wait while he lit a cigar—Cuban, he said. Ordered special for him by Pop. “Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful to you the other day. But you get that lien squared away, and we’ll do some business,” he said. Teddy nodded without looking Mr. Miller in the eye.

  “And while you’re at it, maybe you should get yourself some cash for a car, too. I’d give you a good deal.”

  “Teddy’s face got red, and started twitching right here,” I told Charlie after Teddy and me got home, and I tapped my face right on the sharp bone under my ear to show Charlie where Teddy twitched. “And he didn’t talk the whole way. I told him right out that what Mr. Miller said sure was idiotic, since if we could get the lean and the leaks fixed in the first place, we wouldn’t even need a loan.

  “I don’t know, Charlie,” I said. “Trying to figure out why big people fret so much is about as hard as trying to figure out why Poochie barks all the time. All that worrying, it’s nothing but a big waste of time.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  You’d think that since I’d seen Leonard’s picture in the newspaper, I’d have recognized him right off the bat when he came into the Starlight. But I didn’t. At least not at first.

  He came through the exit door near the screen that Johnny and the guys had propped open with a brick so they could carry boards and tools in and out without having to turn the doorknob when their hands were full. With the sun bright behind him, Leonard didn’t look like nothing but an exclamation mark standing in that doorway.

  I was looking for a phone number Brenda had written on a piece of envelope that she was sure she’d left on the concession stand counter when he stepped inside. The guys glanced up and got back to work. Well, except for Johnny, who watched Leonard skip over the scraps of wood and tools on the floor like he was playing hopscotch.

  In his fancy slacks and button-up shirt, I thought Leonard was a salesman. Even before he got close enough for me to see his pinched nose, though, you’d think I’d have recognized him by his hair. Platinum as a starlet’s, the top flat, like a miniature lawn that just got mowed.

  Leonard didn’t ask the guys if Brenda was around. He waited until he reached the concession stand and he asked me. I pointed up toward the projector room. “She’s up there. I’ll show you where in a minute.” I hurried and fanned through the papers again, thinking maybe I missed the corner of the envelope the number was on the first time, and wanting bad to find it because Brenda was not having a good day.

  “Ah, here it is!” I said to Leonard. But Leonard was already up to the nosebleed seats.

  When I got to the projector room, the phone number in my hand, the door was open, and so was the door to the meeting room. I could see Leonard and Brenda standing next to the long table. Brenda had a stack of papers in her hand. The edges were mismatched and messy and she was trying to straighten them by rapping the bottoms against the table. “I told you, Leonard. I can’t see you this afternoon. There’s an organizational meeting for the gala at four thirty and I’m in charge. Everything’s a mess and I feel like I’m drowning in details.”

  I backed up a little, then dipped to the side of the room like a good Sunshine Sister who didn’t interrupt big people when they were talking.

  “What? Your mother twists her ankle a little and she can’t do a thing now? I played the whole state tournament my senior year with a sprained ankle,” Leonard said.

  “It’s not just her sprained ankle,” Brenda said, “though she does have to stay off it and keep it elevated and iced for a while. She’s working from home with her assistant, but most of the work concerns the drive-in. She wants it open as soon as possible since this place will be closed for some weeks. This means everything related to the Starlight is falling in my lap. The construction, chairing the committees for the gala, booking the acts, lining up… well, everything.”

  I wanted to jump into the projector room and remind Brenda to delegate, delegate, but I was making progress with my afflictions and I didn’t want to blow it, so I slipped up against the wall and listened, peeking now and then, even if that probably wasn’t the respectable thing to do, either.

  “Plus,” Brenda continued, “Mother doesn’t want me leaving while the workers are here.”

  Leonard peered down at the Perkins crew. “Why? What are they going to do, steal Jujubes?” He laughed like he’d made a funny, then he huffed, “I don’t know why she clings so hard to this old relic. Or why she’s erecting another theater. It’s not like she needs the few bucks it’ll generate. But I suppose she needs something to keep her busy.”

  “Leonard, please,” Brenda said.

  “My poor little overworked pet,” Leonard said, in a voice every bit as creepy as the voice of a movie bad guy. “All the more reason to come play hooky with your big daddy for a while.”

  Leonard must have grabbed Brenda then, because I heard the papers swish, and her groan. “Leonard, I had those all in order.” Brenda said this like she was saying it in fun, but she didn’t sound like she was having any fun to me.

  Leonard sighed. “Well, I can see you’re going to be a drag today. Okay, then. I’ll let you get back to your little party plans. I’ll pick you up at five thirty.”

  “Five thirty?”

  “Thad and Trish are having a cookout. We’ll have a few beers… play a little tennis maybe. I told them we’d be there.”

  “But I don’t know how long this meeting’s going to last. We have a lot of ground to cover. Probably more than I even know.”

  Leonard’s sigh sounded more like a grunt. “I would have thought you’d clear your plate for your fiancé, since I only get home about one weekend out of the month. But suit yourself. Call me if you can be on time. If not, you know where Thad lives.”

  Mrs. Fry never did say if it was okay for men to stomp when they walked, but it must be, because Leonard stomped like a giant across the projector room and headed down the stairs.

  I was about to step into the projector room to give Brenda the phone number when she came barging out. “Leonard, wait!” Her voice echoed so that even the guys down by the half-made stage heard and looked up.

  I could tell that Brenda was apologizing, the way she was holding out her hands like she was pleading, even if she was talking quiet and glancing down at the stage, then up to toward the nosebleed seats, like she was afraid we would hear her.

  Leonard had his right hand in his pocket and the other straight at his side, but then his left hand came up like a stop sign for a bad dog, and Brenda stopped talking. She pinched the sides of her skirt and twisted the material with nervous fingers while Leonard said words I couldn’t hear. Before he could turn to walk away, Brenda got on tiptoes and gave his cheek a quick kiss. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she turned and saw me watching.

  I helped Brenda pick up the papers that had fallen in the meeting room. Four pages of information for each committee we’d have, with the tasks for each listed, along with a calendar and what Brenda called a “time line.” We put the papers back in stacks, one stack for each page, one through five, then Brenda took one page off each pile, straightened them, and handed them to me so I could staple them together. While I waited for her to get me a new stack, I kept looking at that new ring on her finger. Boy, that diamond sure was a honker! So heavy that it kept slipping and leaning up against her pinkie, like it needed a rest from standing up by itself.

  Good thing Brenda had me there to help her get ready for her meeting, because she was so busy on the phone that she didn’t have time to do anything else. Things like wiping out the coffee cups with napkins in case they had any dust or baby spiders in them that might float up to the top when the coffee got poured. And running to check both bathrooms to make sure there was toilet paper in every stall (there was, because that was Mr. Morgan’s job, and that man was on the ball). Important stuff like that, that could ruin a perfectl
y good meeting for fancy folk if they weren’t done.

  Brenda started each phone call with, “Mother thought you might be able to tell me how to reach Les Paul’s agent…,” always jotting more numbers on scrap paper and getting more and more agitated. Finally fifteen minutes before the meeting, she made her last call for the day. And afterward, she sat staring for a while, then crumpled up her notes and tossed them in the trash can and stared at nothing.

  Boy, I don’t care how lit the Starlight was, when you walked outside on a sunny day, that sun about blinded you. I squinted and blinked a few times, thinking it was just my eyes playing tricks on me when I saw nothing in front of me but white. That is, until my eyes adjusted and I saw the car, big as me and Teddy’s living room, parked sideways, so close to the doorway that had I not waited for my eyes to get used to the light, I would have ran smack-dab into it.

  “Isabella? Isabella!”

  For just one second there, I thought it was my Ma, coming back in a movie-star car—but she would never call me by my given name. Nope. That crabby voice could only belong to one lady. Mrs. Bloom. “Don’t shut that door!” Mrs. Bloom yelled. “Those idiotic construction workers must have locked it behind them, and I don’t have my keys on me.”

  And there she was, stretched out in the backseat, her fat foot wrapped and propped on the seat, a lady wearing a nurse’s hat and a lot of chins squeezed behind the steering wheel. Boy, Mrs. Bloom sure didn’t look like a movie star that day. Her hair was flat in the back, and her eyes looked as pinched as Leonard’s nose.

  “Get me Brenda, please!” Mrs. Bloom said, all grouchy.

  I opened the door and kept my knee against it, leaning in and yelling Brenda’s name, loud as I could.

  “Go inside and get her, for heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Bloom snapped.

  I turned around. “You having a bad day, Mrs. Bloom? I think you are. But like I learned from watching Teddy when his wrist was paining him, when grown-ups get hurt and can’t work, even the ones who are good as Jesus get a little owly.” I didn’t say the other part. That I knew that meant that grabby ones like her were going to be even worse.