Tallahassee Higgins (6 page)

As I rearranged my spaghetti, I heard Aunt Thelma say, "Well, it's about time you called. Somebody has been very worried about you."

Leaping from my chair, I ran to the kitchen as Aunt Thelma said, "Yes, you can speak to her, but I want to talk to you before you hang up."

My heart was pumping so hard I thought I might die of cardiac arrest. "Liz, Liz!" I yelled into the phone.

"Talley, honey, how are you?" Liz sounded like she was calling from across the street.

"I'm fine, but why haven't you written to me? You promised you'd write every day!" I shouted.

"I'm sorry, Talley, but you know me. I kept meaning to write and then forgetting."

"Are you sending the ticket soon?"

"Oh, honey, things haven't worked out quite as well as Bob and I hoped they would. We don't even have a decent place to stay yet, just a room in a motel, sweetie."

She paused, probably to light a cigarette. "Bob found a job in some pokey little photography shop, and I'm waiting tables in the Big Carrot, but we're looking every day for something better so we can get you out here. We miss you so much, Talley, we really do, but we can't have you come right now."

"But what about the movies, Liz? What about those people Bob knows, the ones who were going to get you started?" I bit my lip and tried not to cry. What was she doing working in a restaurant? She didn't have to go all the way to California to be a waitress.

"It takes time, honey, to get into films, but I'm working on it. And Bob's friends are sure I'll make it. All I need is the right break."

"But can't I come out there now?" I clutched the phone and whispered into it. "I can't stand it here, Liz. Aunt Thelma hates me. She won't let me do anything. I can't even stay up late and watch TV." I snuffled hard and tried to keep my voice low, but I knew it was rising up to a real mosquito whine.

"I don't care if it's just a motel, Liz," I babbled. "I'll sleep on the floor and I won't be any trouble at all. You won't even know I'm there. Just send me the ticket, please, Liz, please!"

"Tallahassee, will you calm down?" Liz sounded cross. "I can't handle all this emotion right now. I told you I can't have you with me yet, and you're just going to have to accept that."

"I don't think you even miss me!" I was angry now. "I'll bet you never think about me at all!" I yelled. "You probably go surfing and swimming and lie around on the beach all day while I freeze in Maryland. More than likely I'll come down with pneumonia and die and you won't even get here for my funeral!"

"Don't be silly, Talley! You're just a child and you have no idea what it's like to be an adult and have to earn a living and worry all the time about important things like buying food and paying the rent, which isn't cheap even in this crummy place. It isn't like I left you with strangers or something. You're with your uncle in the house I grew up in."

"You hated it here, and so do I! If you don't come get me soon, I'll do just what you did—I'll run away!"

"Don't you dare talk to me like that! You'll stay there in Hyattsdale till I send for you!"

"And when will that be?"

"Give me another month or two. That's not so long, Talley." Liz's voice softened a little and took on a pleading note.

"It's forever!" I looked up as Aunt Thelma appeared in the doorway.

"Let me speak to her when you're finished," she said.

"Aunt Thelma wants to talk to you," I said to Liz.

"Listen, sweetie, I can't stay on the phone any longer. This is really costing me. Tell her I really appreciate her taking care of you and give my love to Dan. Okay?"

Before I could say another word, the phone clicked, and Liz was gone.

As I started to slam the receiver down, Aunt Thelma grabbed it. "She didn't hang up, did she?" She spoke into the receiver, "Liz? Liz?" Then she turned to me. "Didn't you tell her I wanted to speak to her?"

"She said she couldn't afford to talk anymore," I yelled. Ducking under my aunt's arm, I ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my room.

"She isn't sending me a ticket," I cried to Melanie. "Not for a long, long time. And she's not a movie star yet. She's just a waitress like she was in Florida."

"Poor Tallahassee," Melanie whispered. "But don't worry. Maybe Richard Gere will come to the Big Carrot for lunch one day and he'll see Liz and decide she's exactly the person he's looking for. Then, before you know it, you and me will be in California lying on a beach with Liz and we'll all live happily ever after."

I hugged Melanie and thought about Richard Gere walking into the Big Carrot. Liz would ask him if he wanted the special, and he would say, "I think I'll have you instead," and he would carry her out of the Big Carrot, just like he carried Debra Winger away at the end of
An Officer and a Gentleman.
"You're coming back to the studio with me," he would say, and overnight Liz would become a star and I would go to California.

T
HE NEXT WEEK
Dawn and her friends joined Jane and me at our lunch table. "I thought you'd be in California by now." Dawn took a sip of chocolate milk and stared at me.

"Well," I said, "they're having some trouble with the script. They're reshooting a lot of scenes, and they've put off going to the Caribbean. That's why Liz hasn't sent for me. Things are all up in the air right now. You know how it is in Hollywood."

"It's not easy to be a movie star," Jane added loyally. "I saw Meryl Streep once on
Good Morning, America,
and she said your personal life really suffers. You have to sacrifice an awful lot."

Dawn nodded. "Being a star must be worth it, though."

Terri agreed. "They have tons of money and big houses and fancy cars. They all drive Mercedes or Jaguars."

"So it's worth waiting for," Karen said, looking at me over her tuna sandwich. "If it's really true." She and Dawn exchanged a quick look.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Karen leaned toward me, her sandwich forgotten. "Me and Dawn read lots of magazines, and we haven't seen anything about Richard Gere being in a movie called
The Island.
"

"That's because it's top secret, dummy." I glared at her, but I had this awful feeling that she and Dawn had decided that I was lying about Liz.

"You don't know anything about Hollywood, Karen," Jane said coolly, "so don't argue with somebody who does."

Karen picked up her tray. "I'm not sitting with anybody who calls me a dummy." She stood up, and Dawn and Terri followed her across the cafeteria.

Angrily, I watched them crowding in at another table. They were laughing now, and looking at Jane and me. "Stuck-up snobs," I muttered.

"Don't let them bother you," Jane said. "What do they know?"

***

To make things worse, I got in trouble with Mrs. Duffy that afternoon. She was already mad because I hadn't handed in my math homework. Then I got a bad grade on my spelling test, and I couldn't remember the year the Civil War began. She really blew up, though, when she caught me reading
National Velvet
during current events. She made me stand up and tell the whole class about it, and then she caught me as I was leaving and told me I'd better start putting more effort into my schoolwork.

"When you came to me," Mrs. Duffy said, "I didn't think you'd be here long enough for me to worry about your progress, but now you'd better start paying attention and stop daydreaming out the window. You don't want to repeat the sixth grade, do you?"

Well, of course I didn't. Nor did I want Mrs. Duffy to have the conference with my aunt and uncle that she was threatening. So I promised I would try harder.

"I hope so, Tallahassee." Mrs. Duffy smiled at me then. "You're a smart little girl. There's no reason for you to do so poorly."

She paused, and I started to stand up, thinking she was finished. Jane was outside waiting for me, and I didn't want her to freeze to death.

"Just a minute," Mrs. Duffy added. "Is there anything bothering you that you'd like to talk to me about?"

I rearranged my books to avoid looking at her. "No, ma'am," I said.

"I know you must miss your mother," the teacher said gently.

I fumbled with the zipper on my ski jacket, ashamed to tell her I was scared my mother had dumped me on Uncle Dan's doorstep like a cat she didn't want anymore. "She'll be sending me a ticket soon," I told Mrs. Duffy so she wouldn't feel sorry for me.

"I hear she has a role in a movie," Mrs. Duffy said. "You must be very proud of her."

I nodded without looking at her. "Can I go now?" I asked her. "Jane's waiting for me."

"Yes, of course, Tallahassee." Mrs. Duffy patted my shoulder. "No more reading in your lap, though," she reminded me. "And please hand in your homework on time."

"Yes, ma'am." I ran from the room and found Jane on the steps outside.

"Was she mad?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, she just wants me to do my homework and stuff."

As we crossed the street, I asked Jane more about Meryl Streep. "Did she ever abandon her daughter or anything like that?"

The wind was whipping Jane's hair around her face, and her nose and cheeks were red. "I don't think Meryl Streep has a daughter," she said.

When I didn't say anything, Jane walked a little more slowly. "Are you worried about Liz?" she asked softly.

I shrugged and jammed my hands deeper in the pockets of my jacket. The wind was knifing right through my clothes and I felt like I'd never be warm again. Not even in the summer.

"Sometimes I think she doesn't miss me very much," I said without looking up from the cracked and uneven sidewalk.

"She's your mother, Talley. Of course she misses you!" Jane sounded shocked.

"Oh, Jane," I sighed. "You just don't know. Liz is so different from your mom." I glanced at her, wondering how I could ever explain Liz to a person who had lived in the same house all her life with both of her parents. She had brothers and sisters and grandmothers and grandfathers and uncles and aunts and dozens of cousins.

And Mrs. DeFlores stayed home all day and took care of her kids and cooked and cleaned and wore polyester slacks like Aunt Thelma and had her hair permed at a beauty parlor. She would never go around the block on a motorcycle, let alone all the way to California. She didn't want to be a movie star. Or a singer. As far as I could see, she just wanted to be an ordinary, everyday sort of person.

Grumpy as Mrs. DeFlores was, Jane was lucky in some ways, I thought. When she walked in her front door, she knew her mother would be in the kitchen, feeding the baby or fixing dinner.

"I think it would be wonderful to have a mother like Liz," Jane said, interrupting my thoughts. "A real live movie star. Just think, when she sends you that ticket, she may meet you at the airport with Richard Gere."

"By then, he might be an old man," I muttered.

"Don't be silly." Jane turned to me. "Do you know what my mother is doing right now?" Jane kicked a stone so hard it sailed up in the air and bounced down the sidewalk ahead of us, narrowly missing a skinny black cat.

"She's wallpapering the bathroom for at least the third time. That's
her
idea of fun and excitement. My dad says he's never sure he's in the right house because she's always redecorating and moving the furniture around."

"At least you know where she is, Jane." I bent down and called to the cat. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty."

As he circled my legs, purring, I stroked him. He reminded me of my old cat, Bilbo, and I wondered sadly what had ever become of him. "I remember you," I thought, picturing his big, green eyes and his shiny, black fur, "even if nobody else does. And I miss you."

"When I grow up," Jane said loudly, "I'm going to have an exciting life like Liz. I'm not going to stay home all day and wallpaper bathrooms."

"Then don't have any kids, Jane." I watched the cat give himself a little shake and walk off, twitching his tail, his head high.

"Liz had you." Jane jumped up and grabbed a tree limb hanging over the sidewalk. She chinned herself and dropped back to earth.

"Lots of movie stars have kids," she continued, a little out of breath, "and they don't get married, just like Liz. And they still have exciting lives."

"You shouldn't believe everything you read in
People
magazine." I grabbed the limb and chinned myself five times in a row without letting my feet touch the sidewalk. I knew I was going to get mad at Jane if she didn't shut up about movie stars and their exciting lives.

"You sure are in a bad mood today," Jane said. "Just because of Dawn and Karen."

"Race you to Uncle Dan's." I started running before she had a chance to say yes or no. The big old houses on Oglethorpe Street flashed past me, and I heard Jane yelling at me to slow down, but I couldn't stop. For a few seconds I felt as if I could run all the way to California without stopping once and get there before it was dark.

O
NE AFTERNOON JANE
and I were slogging home under a dark sky. It was almost the end of March, but, except for a lonely crocus poking up here and there, it didn't look much like spring. The wind was still cold, the grass was brown and marshy with puddles, and the rain hung in huge drops on the bare branches and dripped slowly to the ground. A few drab little birds—sparrows, I guess—huddled together on the telephone lines, their feathers fluffed to keep warm. They made a sad, wheezing sound, nothing you could call a song.

"Want to come over for a while?" Jane asked when we got to her corner.

"Is your mother still mad about last Saturday?" I looked at Jane uneasily. Mrs. DeFlores had grounded Jane because we had gone to the park without telling her and come home with wet feet and muddy jeans.

"I don't think so." Jane didn't sound very positive, but she added, "We could go straight upstairs. I've got something to show you."

As soon as we were safely in her room, with the door shut, Jane pulled an old photo album out from under her bed. "I found this last night when I was looking for a dictionary. See if you can guess who the people are."