Tallahassee Higgins (7 page)

Opening the album, she spread it out on her lap. The first picture was of two little girls squinting into the sun. They were holding dolls, but their faces were too blurry to tell what they really looked like. Underneath, somebody had written, "Linda and Liz, Christmas, 1961."

"Is that my mother?" I stared at the little face, fascinated.

"Isn't she cute? Look at those long braids." Jane smiled at little Liz and then tapped her mother's face. "She's kind of pudgy, don't you think?" She puffed her own cheeks out and giggled.

Jane skimmed through the album, flipping past page after page of photographs of the DeFlores family at long ago Christmases, Easters, and Thanksgivings, every now and then finding Liz in one of them.

"Here she is when she was your age." Jane paused on the first good picture of Liz she'd produced. She was standing next to Mrs. DeFlores on the front steps of Jane's house, grinning at the camera, her head tilted to one side, her tawny hair hanging loose in long waves. She was wearing bell-bottom jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt. Mrs. DeFlores, shorter and plumper than Liz, was dressed much the same.

"Don't they look funny? Like hippies or something."
Jane laughed. "I bet they thought they were so cool."

I didn't reply. I was staring at Liz, wishing I looked like her. She didn't have rabbit teeth like mine, and she didn't have dirty-red hair. Even when she was twelve, Liz was beautiful.

Jane tugged at the page, trying to turn it. "Wait till you see the next ones," she said. "You'll die laughing."

Jane was right. When Liz and Mrs. DeFlores appeared again, they were teenagers. Right in front of our eyes we could see them changing. Liz stayed tall and skinny, but Mrs. DeFlores started getting a little plumper. Although she wore bell-bottoms, her hair wasn't nearly as long as Liz's, and she didn't wrap bandanas around it.

"Your mom was a real flower child, wasn't she?" Jane asked. "My father told me he used to tease her about being a hippie; he called her Hyattsdale's own Joan Baez because she used to play the guitar and sing folk songs."

"Who's this guy?" I pointed at a tall teenager with long, red hair. In most of the pictures, he had his arm around Mrs. DeFlores, but he often seemed to be smiling at Liz. "It's not your dad."

"No." Jane stared at the boy's face. "He must have been Mom's boyfriend." She sounded puzzled. "I always thought Daddy was her first boyfriend." She bent her head over the picture. "It's Liz he's looking at, isn't it? And she's looking at him, too."

I nodded and turned to the last page. There was only one photograph on it—a class picture, I guess—the kind you see in yearbooks. It was of the same red-haired guy, the one with the big teeth I'd seen in all the other snapshots. Across the bottom of it he'd written, "To Linda, with all my love, Johnny."

"Does he remind you of anybody?" I whispered.

Jane sucked in her breath. "He looks like you, Tallahassee!"

We stared at each other, then at Johnny. My heart was pounding so fast, I thought it would fly out of my mouth. If what I was thinking was true, it was no wonder that Mrs. DeFlores didn't like Liz or me.

"Can you find out anything about him? Like his last name or something?" I asked Jane.

In answer, she reached under her bed again and pulled out a Northeastern High School yearbook. Flipping to the seniors, she studied each face till we found him. "John Randolph Russell," Jane read, "'Reds,' Gymkhana Club. Ambition: See the world."

Then we sat and stared at each other. "Liz never told you your father's name, did she?" Jane asked.

I stared at Johnny's dirty-red hair, at the freckles visible even in the photograph, at the big front teeth. "The only thing I really know about my father is that I look just like him."

We turned back to the album and studied all the pictures of Johnny. "What do you think happened to him?" Jane stared at me.

"I don't know, but I'm sure going to ask Liz." I gazed at Johnny's smiling face. He looked nice, I thought, and funny. In the old color prints, he was always clowning around and making silly faces, standing on his hands sometimes or hanging upside down by his knees.

"Can I have this?" My hand hovered over the signed portrait.

Jane shook her head. "Mom would notice if you took that. Take one of the snapshots instead."

It was a hard choice, but I finally decided on a picture of Johnny sitting on a wall. He was wearing rainbow-striped suspenders, a T-shirt, and faded jeans. His feet were bare and his long hair was blowing in the breeze, and he was smiling as if the summer sun would never stop shining on him.

Just as I slipped the picture in my pocket, Mrs. DeFlores opened the door. I don't know what she was going to say, but when she saw the album and the yearbook, she snatched them away from Jane, her face reddening.

"What are you doing with these?" she asked.

"I was just showing Tallahassee some pictures of her mother," Jane said. "I didn't think you'd mind."

"Well, I do mind." Mrs. DeFlores glared at us, the books pressed to her bosom. She started to leave the room, then paused in the doorway. "Oh, I came up to tell you that your aunt's home, Tallahassee, so you can run along over there. Jane, you get started on your schoolwork."

We sat still for a minute, listening to Mrs. DeFlores go downstairs. "What do you think she'd say if you asked her about Johnny?" I asked Jane.

"I'd be scared to," Jane said frankly. "She'd get really mad, I just know she would."

I stood up and started pulling on my jacket as Susan stuck her head in the door.

"You have to go home," she said in her usual bratty way. "My mommy said so."

I crossed my eyes at her and ran downstairs, passing Mrs. DeFlores in the kitchen. She didn't even bother to say good-bye.

***

At Uncle Dan's house I ran to the basket where Aunt Thelma always put the mail. As usual, there was nothing for me.

"It's about time you got home," Aunt Thelma greeted me. "Set the table and then help me fix the salad."

Wordlessly, I held out Johnny's picture. "Do you know him?"

Aunt Thelma snatched the picture out of my hand. "Where did you get this?"

"Never mind where I got it. Do you
know
him?" I reached for the picture, but she held on to it, scrutinizing it as if she was memorizing every detail.

"Of course I know him," she said slowly. "It's Johnny Russell. He lived right around the corner on Forty-first Avenue. I used to babysit for him."

"Does he still live there?"

"He was killed in Vietnam," she said softly, "just before the war ended."

I sucked in my breath and my knees felt weak. "He's dead?" I whispered.

She nodded, gazing past me as if she could see Johnny somewhere beyond me. "His name's on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. Your uncle and I went down to see it."

"He's my father, isn't he?" My mouth felt funny saying the words—dry and stiff and sort of shaky—but I forced them out.

"Your father?" Laying the picture on the counter, Aunt Thelma opened a kitchen cabinet and started pulling out the things she needed for dinner. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Look at him." I picked up the picture and waved it at her. "He looks just like me. Same hair, same teeth, same freckles! He's my father, I know he is!" I was yelling now, and Fritzi was barking, circling my feet, making little dashes at my shoes and jeans.

"Don't shout at me like that!" Aunt Thelma slammed a can of paprika down on the counter beside the chicken she was preparing to cook.

"Then tell me the truth!" I wanted to throw myself at her, hit her, force her to be honest with me.

"The truth? You want the truth?" Aunt Thelma's face reddened. "I have no idea who your father is! I doubt your own mother knows!"

For a second everything in the kitchen seemed to freeze. Even Fritzi stopped barking as Aunt Thelma and I stared at each other. When she finally opened her mouth to say something, I ran out of the kitchen and up the steps to my room, clutching Johnny's picture in my hand.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
while Jane and I were walking to school, I told her what Aunt Thelma had said about Johnny dying in Vietnam. "She also said she didn't know who my father was," I added, not mentioning what she'd said about Liz.

"Oh, Talley, that's so sad." Jane looked close to tears. "He wanted to see the world."

"Well, I guess he saw some of it," I said, blinking back my own tears, "but not a very good part."

We were passing Forty-first Avenue, and I paused for a minute and looked at the big, old houses inching up the hill toward the park. "Do you think his family still lives there?" I asked Jane.

"Mrs. Russell," she said. "Why didn't I think of her? "She must be Johnny's mother!"

Jane pointed up the street. "See that big house, the one with the tower? She lives right there."

"Just Mrs. Russell? All by herself?"

"Mr. Russell died a long time ago," Jane said. "I never knew she had any children, but she has a big dog. You've probably seen her out walking him."

"She's pretty old, with gray hair and kind of strict looking? And the dog's black and white and about the size of a pony?"

Jane nodded. "That's her. Never talks to anybody, just walks along with her nose up in the air. She was my mom's English teacher, but she's retired now."

"But, Jane—" I grabbed her arm so tightly she winced. "If Johnny was my father, she's my grandmother! My
grandmother
!"

"My gosh, Mrs. Russell a grandmother." Jane shook her head. "She just doesn't seem the type."

"You better hurry up, Jane," Matthew yelled from almost a block away. "You're going to be late! You, too, Leopard Girl!"

"Come on, Talley." Jane started running. "If we're late one more time, Mrs. Duffy is going to give us detention!"

"Who cares?" I said, but I hurried to catch up with Jane. Any more trouble and Mrs. Duffy would call my aunt and uncle in for a conference. Aunt Thelma hated me enough already. For all I knew, she'd send me off to a foster home the next time I did something she didn't like.

***

That morning, instead of working on my report on Germany, I thought about Mrs. Russell and how I might introduce myself to her. As Jane said, she wasn't exactly a friendly person, certainly not the grandmotherly type. If the wolf had come to her house, I'll bet she would have run him off long before Little Red Riding Hood arrived.

I finally decided that I would walk up and down in front of Mrs. Russell's house till she noticed me. One good look and she would run down the sidewalk and throw her arms around me, sobbing with joy, delighted to find her long-lost, one and only grandchild.

Just as I was imagining this wonderful reunion scene, Mrs. Duffy announced that it was time for art, my favorite subject, the only thing I get A's in except P.E.

We lined up and went down the hall to the art room. Jane and I sat together, as usual. I was painting a picture of a girl surfboarding. The foam on the top of the wave looked perfect, but the girl herself wasn't quite right. Her head was a little too big for her body or something.

"Is that supposed to be you on your surfboard?"

I looked up, surprised to see Dawn standing next to me. She and Terri and Karen hadn't spoken to me for weeks. Once I'd seen a note Dawn had passed to Terri; in it, she'd said that I was stuck-up. "She thinks her mother is so great. Well, so what? She's still here, isn't she."

Dawn stared at the picture. I could feel her breath on my hand she was so close to it.

"No," I said, even though the girl had red hair and I'd been thinking about being in California while I drew. "She's just made-up."

"You're pretty good at making things up, aren't you?" Dawn looked me in the eye. We were almost nose to nose.

I noticed that Terri and Karen were standing behind Dawn. Terri had her hands behind her back, as if she was hiding something.

"Ask her," Terri prompted Dawn.

"How's that movie coming along?" Dawn pushed her hair back, showing off the little cloisonné earrings she was wearing.

"What movie?" I concentrated on the blue sky I was painting.

"You know. The one with your mother and Richard Gere." She popped her gum, and I could smell artificial grape. "
The Island
or whatever it's called."

"It's fine." I looked at her and frowned, stung into saying something. "Liz just called to say she's sending for me soon. They've definitely got a part for me."

"Really." Dawn looked at Terri and nodded.

"How about this then?" Terri waved the
People
magazine she'd hidden behind her back. Richard Gere grinned at me from the cover. "There's a whole article in here about him and this new movie he's making with Sissy Spacek. There's no mention of your mother or any film about an island!"

"You made it all up, didn't you!" Dawn popped her gum and smirked.

"Your mother isn't any movie star," Terri added, shoving her face so close to me I could smell her breath.

"Don't talk to me like that!" I put down my brush and clenched my fists. Boy, did I want to sock them.

Dawn leaned toward me, bumping the jar of water on the table. Before I could move my painting, muddy gray water ran across it, ruining the whole thing.

"Look what you did!" Without thinking, I picked up a jar of blue tempera paint and hurled it at Dawn.

As Dawn opened her mouth to scream at me, Mrs. Duffy appeared. "Tallahassee!" she said, staring at the jar of paint in my hand. "What's going on here?"

"Look at my blouse!" Dawn cried.

"She ruined my picture!" I held it up. The beautiful foam was running down the waves, the girl's red hair had spread all over the sky, and everything was streaked with gray.

"I didn't mean to!" Dawn glared at me. Blue paint dribbled down her nose and dripped onto her chin. It streaked her white blouse and tipped the ends of her hair. If I hadn't been so upset, I would have laughed.

Before Mrs. Duffy could say anything, Jane intervened. "Dawn and Terri started it! They called Talley a liar, and then Dawn spilled water all over Talley's painting."