Gingersnap (7 page)

My grandmother?

I wanted that. I wanted that thin woman with the lilt in her voice to belong to Rob and me. Next to Rob’s coming home, I wanted it more than anything.

Without thinking, I stood up. I was filthy, dirt on my legs, my shoes scuffed, and my dress! Wrinkled and stained. How could I …

“You could,” the voice whispered.

I had to.

An old path led to the back door. She stood at the stove. Was she cooking something for her dinner?

I’d tell her that I’d stop and think from now on. I’d be careful. I’d never ruin a cake again … never.

I knocked on the door and she turned toward me, tilting her head.

“Please,” I said, not sure that she could even hear me through the glass. But she came to the door and opened it. She was surprised to see me again, or maybe at the way I looked.

“Could I come in?” I asked. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

E
lise nodded and stood back. There were chairs around a large floury table, and I sank into one, rubbing my eyes against the light.

“Are you hungry?” She glanced back at the stove. “I made potato pancakes with a little meat on the side.”

I nodded, suddenly starving.

“There’s something comforting about potatoes,” she said. “Something soothing.”

Last winter I’d cooked potato soup. And that was exactly what I’d called it: Soothing Soup.

The pancake she put in front of me was golden; the meat was spicy. I breathed in the steam that rose from
it. I took huge bites. Celine would have had a fit. I tried to slow down.

Elise sat across from me, eating, too. I could tell she was watching me, but I didn’t look up.

“I don’t know what the meat is,” she said. “I take whatever the butcher has these days.”

“It’s good,” I whispered.

We kept eating, the sound of the wall clock clicking. I could see the ghost—part of her, anyway: a small hand with a ring on her finger.

“Where do you belong?” Elise said at last.

I didn’t dare say
here
. But I wanted to say that I belonged in her warm kitchen, staying with her while I waited for Rob.

Instead, I told her that I broke things. I didn’t mention Celine’s vase, though. I raised my shoulders in the air. “I’m so sorry about the cake.”

I began to cry silently. The tears slid down my cheeks and dripped onto my hands at the edge of the table, leaving dark spots in the floury wood.

“Save your tears for something more important than a cake,” she said, smiling just a little.

“But the eggs, the butter …”

“This isn’t the first time I managed without enough eggs or butter,” she said, but still she looked a little worried.

I could see that. How could you run a bakery without eggs or butter?

“I was in another war,” she said, “in France, when I was young. We called it the Great War.”

I nodded. Mrs. Murtha had told us about that war.

I told her about Rob. “There are just the two of us,” I said. “And now he’s missing in action.” It was hard to swallow. “His ship might have been hit by a kamikaze plane. I don’t know.”

Her face was sad. “Young pilots diving into ships. Some of them only seventeen years old. Such a waste of life. But you can’t be alone. There must be an adult to take care of you.”

I pictured Celine with the hairpiece over her eyes.

Then I remembered Theresa, outside somewhere in those high weeds.

I pushed back my chair. “I have a turtle.” I darted toward the door. “Please, I just have to find her.”

I waded in the sea of grass and weeds, then crawled through the old winding path where the growth wasn’t as high, back and forth, calling softly, as if she could hear me.

I searched for her until it was too dark to see, then circled the fence with its huge spaces on the bottom. Those spaces were more than large enough for Theresa to have wandered through.

She was gone.

I went back to the kitchen door, which Elise had left open. She was setting out dough to rise, with the radio blaring war news: rings of destroyers around the
island of Okinawa, many damaged, some sunk, but still many more alert, ready to fight.

The
Muldoon
.

Not ready to fight.

Gone under the water.

Elise turned to me, a dusting of flour on her face, wisps of hair escaping from her bun. “You’re back?” She shook her head a little. “It’s late. What are you doing here, child?”

“Please let me stay,” I burst out.

I could see the shock in those turquoise eyes. “But where do you live?”

“Tell her,” the voice said. “Say it.”

“I lost my turtle. A beautiful turtle Rob and I call Theresa. Please let me stay. I’ll find her in the morning. And then …”

“And then you’ll go home.” Elise spread out her thin hands. “You have to go home. You belong somewhere. I know that.”

I didn’t answer. How could I?

“I don’t even know your name,” she said.

I hesitated. Suppose I told her about Gingersnap?

“It’s Jayna,” I said.

E
lise looked out at the darkness. “You’ll be safe here tonight. We’ll sort it out in the morning. If I had a phone …” Her voice trailed off.

Tonight. It was a beginning. I was too tired to think of more.

She went ahead of me through the bakery, flipping off the light switch and opening a door to a narrow hall. Ahead of us was a long, curved stairway, with a shiny wooden banister that was smooth against my hand. I loved the feel of it.

What would it be like to live here? Really live here? To go up these stairs every night?

I felt a rush of air as the ghost went past me. Her
footprints appeared and disappeared, pressing down the carpet as she skittered up the stairs. “To belong,” she whispered.

Yes, to belong.

My fingers felt a difference in the wood of the banister. Someone had gouged out …

Initials?

I traced them with my finger, hesitating on the step.

ML
.

Marie Louise?

My mother’s initials?

Could that be?

On the next level, we passed a living room, and beyond that a dining room with a dark table as shiny as the banister. It was old, with scratches on the legs and a few on top.

I counted four doors on the top floor. Elise opened the first one, just off the stairs. It was a perfect room for me, tiny, with a bed and a dresser and faded red flowers in the wallpaper. It overlooked the street, the darkened windows of the dress shop and the bookstore across the way.

“You can shower,” Elise said. “The bathroom is down the hall. And root around in the dresser for something clean to wear.”

She ran her hand over the bedspread, smoothing out a wrinkle. “We’ll call home in the morning. There’s a
phone in the stationery store around the corner. After that, you’ll go back.”

I opened my mouth, but what could I say? No one was there in our blue house. No one at all. And that was home.

“It’s late,” Elise said. “We’ll talk about everything in the morning.”

She smiled again and brushed my shoulder with her hand as she passed me and went out the door.

Tomorrow
, I thought.

“Tomorrow,” the voice echoed.

I was tired now, so tired that I slipped out of my blouse and skirt and left them bunched up on the floor. I went into the bathroom and stood in the shower with my head against the smooth tile wall, the water warm, my eyes closed.

I let the mud, and the grit, and the sand wash down the drain. And my tears, too. Tears for Rob, for Theresa. Who knew where they were?

I began to think about Elise and why I’d had that book. I remembered the day Rob brought me to the house with the blue roof. I’d wandered around from one room to the next, opening drawers, touching curtains. “Just tell me something else about our mother and father,” I’d said.

“They were kind.”

“Not that. Something different.”

He raised his hands to his head. “Mom had ginger hair like yours. Her name was Marie Louise.”

I knew all that. I wanted more. “What else?”

But that was it for that day. Rob was a quiet guy.

In the bedroom now, I found pajamas with tatted lace around the collar and a little more around the cuffs. I fell across the bed, my head on the pillow with its faint smell of lavender.

I went back to my skirt, reached into the pocket, and found the stone girl. I put it on the dresser opposite the bed, where I could see it in the dim light coming from the window.

I slid under the covers, so tired, so glad to be there, if only for one night.

“Sleep.” Was that what the ghost said?

“Yes,” I mumbled.

And then I was dreaming.

D
aylight edged around the brownstone houses across the way, turning the steps rosy colors. A tiny glass clock on the dresser said four-fifty-five.

A few minutes later, a church bell nearby chimed five times. From the window, I could see the steep roof and the cross on top of a church, blocks away.

I pulled the sheet over my head, telling myself to sleep. Eyes closed, I pictured ships sinking and planes spiraling into the ocean.

Hadn’t Celine told me about a pilot and his crew that were stranded on a raft for a few weeks? They’d been saved when a seagull landed on the pilot’s hat, giving them just enough food to get them through
until they were rescued. But how often could that happen? A seagull!

The pilot had kept thinking of chocolate malteds. I’d heard that somewhere. Was that what Rob was thinking of? Malteds and ice cream?

“Soup,” whispered the voice. “He’d think of your soup. And when he comes home, you’ll make it for him.”

“Asparagus soup,” I said.

“Horrible.”

I veered off. “Beef, then, thick with tomatoes and noodles, lots of noodles.”

“Better.” Was she smiling?

If only that would happen.

I was wide awake. Cooking tins rattled in the bakery kitchen below. Bread was baking, or rolls, and I smelled fruit and cinnamon simmering.

I remembered: Theresa! I had to find her.

In one of the drawers, I found a plaid dress with bone buttons that fit. I went downstairs to the kitchen. Elise stood at the table, rolling out dough. She glanced at me and nodded.

The boy from yesterday stood opposite her. His dark hair hung over his eyes. I hadn’t combed my hair this morning; I didn’t even have a comb.

I stared at Elise, the soft loop of hair against her neck, earrings like drops of snow, and an apron that
covered her completely, rustling as she moved, so starched it could have stood by itself.

She worked quickly, twisting bits of soft dough into small braids, then put each one onto a metal tray in front of her.

As fast as she finished one of the rolls, the boy dipped a brush into a pan of melted butter.…

Not butter, but oleo, white margarine.

Elise nodded at me. “Doesn’t taste exactly like butter,” she said, “but we make do.”

He coated each roll, almost as if he were splashing paint on a wall. He never stopped talking, even though I was sure he’d seen me standing in the doorway.