Theresa’s eyes are big as Bundt cakes. “Why’d you do that?” she asks.
But I ignore Theresa as I hurry over to Doc Ollie’s sister, who looks exactly like him. She even wears the high-heeled equivalent of his sturdy shoes. I give her a rose and one to Mrs. Caconi and one to Bea Trixle.
“Why, Moose!” Bea Trixle’s face glows all the way down to the mouse brown roots of her newly blond hair. “Isn’t that the sweetest thing! What a nice young man you are! Darby! Oh, Darby!” Bea waves her husband down. “See what that nice Flanagan boy gave me.” She jiggles the rose in his face.
Darby sucks on his bottom lip.
“A rose. Long-stemmed too,” Bea tells Darby. “You know my birthday is coming up.”
“Yes, honey bunch.” Trixle glares at me. “I know.”
“They couldn’t be that expensive if a twelve-year-old boy got one,” Bea tells him as the warden appears, walking across the deck in his deliberate manner, the boat gently swaying. He surveys the scene.
“Where did the roses come from?” the warden asks Trixle.
Trixle waggles his head in my direction. “Flanagan boy, sir.”
The warden looks at me so hard it feels like he can see through my skull. “What’s this business about, Matthew?” he asks, using my real name, which always means trouble.
My knees are quaking under me. “Nothing, sir,” I tell him, trying to force my voice through my tight throat.
“Nothing, is it?” The warden raises his eyebrows. “Quite the ladies’ man, aren’t you?”
“No, sir,” I mutter.
“That’s not what my Piper says. I have my eye on you, Flanagan.” The warden shakes his head. “Got my fingers crossed the next one is a boy so I won’t have to worry about the likes of Moose Flanagan,” he tells Trixle.
“Ain’t nothing like a boy, sir,” Trixle agrees. “Me and the missus got our hopes on one too.”
“For twenty years been hankering for a son.” The warden smiles, his chest full, his blue eyes bright with possibility. Then he seems to realize I am still here.
“Go on, get out of here, Mr. Flanagan,” the warden tells me, and I begin to walk away but then I hear Trixle.
“It ain’t Moose I worry about. It’s his sister.”
“She’s not even on the island now, right?” the warden asks.
“Yeah, but she’s comin’ back, ain’t that right, Moose?” Trixle raises his voice so I can hear. He knows I’m listening to this.
I turn around. “Yes, sir, but we keep a close eye on her. She’s never been in any trouble, sir,” I tell him.
Trixle snorts. “She’s a loose cannon. It’s a cryin’ shame it is. Lettin’ normal kids mix it up with buggy ones,” Darby tells the warden. “Don’t know what some people is thinking.”
“Natalie’s not buggy, she just thinks a different way.” The words shoot out of me before I can stop them. I know my dad would not like me talking to the warden and Trixle like this.
“Is that so?” Trixle asks.
“Yes, sir.” I nod to the warden. “It is.”
When I get back to Annie and Theresa they’re staring at me, their eyes squinting, their mouths half open. They have clearly been discussing me in my absence.
“We can’t take these,” Annie says, the wind whipping her hair, the rose held tightly against her chest.
“They’re for Piper,” Theresa scolds, leaning close so I can hear her over the wind and the rumbling motor.
“Course you can. I always meant to give them to you. I just wanted to surprise you,” I tell them.
“Surprise us?” Annie cocks her head.
Theresa squints at me. She clearly doesn’t believe this.
“No, really,” I say, steadying myself on the boat railing.
Annie looks at the rose, holds it delicately with her hand. A smile forms on her big square lips as she smells it. “Are you sure?” she asks without looking at me.
“Sure I’m sure,” I say.
“But what about Piper?” Theresa insists.
“I don’t want to give Piper flowers.”
Annie watches me from behind the rose. “That’s not what you said,” she says.
“Like I said, I wanted to surprise you.”
Annie’s pale cheeks are flushed. She lets her finger bump on the smooth part of the stem. She holds it safe from the wind.
“But, Moose.” Theresa jabs her elbow in my side. “Mae said your name.”
“She couldn’t have,” I tell them.
“She did though. I heard it with my own ears.” Theresa touches one of her ears as if to prove her point.
“I don’t know, Theresa,” I murmur with one eye on Annie. I can’t tell if Annie’s listening or not.
“You don’t know?” Theresa’s eyes are white all around. “I have to put it in my book, Moose. This is a very strange occurrence,” she informs me.
I wish she wouldn’t. But then most of what she writes is made up anyway. No one will think it’s actually true.
In the visitors’ section I see Mae Capone holding her yellow rose across her lap. Doc Ollie’s old sister with her practical shoes has placed the rose behind her ear, like she’s become a flamenco dancer. And there’s Bea Trixle talking to Mrs. Caconi, holding the rose as if it is made of glass.
It’s amazing the power of a few stupid flowers. Simply amazing.
16. PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
Same day-Sunday, August 18, 1935
Why, thank you Moose. The lilting sound of Mae’s voice is spinning around like a gramophone inside my head. And now Darby Trixle is heading back to us. Won’t he ever leave me alone?
“What you kids doin’ on this run anyway?” Darby asks.
“We went to visit my sister,” I tell him.
Trixle’s chiseled face sets. His eyes narrow. “That it, is it? Wasn’t nothin’ to do with Mae Capone bein’ here? The warden thinks this ain’t no coincidence.”
My forehead begins to sweat when I hear this. Big beads drip down.
“We didn’t know she was going to be here, sir,” Annie offers.
“We just got lucky,” Theresa adds.
Darby glares at her. Theresa darts behind Annie.
“And what about you, Mr. Ladies’ Man?” He squints at me, catching himself as the boat dips in the wake of another ferry. “Just went to visit your sister, did you?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
Tsk, tsk, Darby clucks. “How’s she doin’ at that place?”
“Fine, sir.”
“But it ain’t permanent, then, this… what you call it now?”
“It’s a school, sir.”
His mouth sours up. “Is that it, is it…” He looks over at Theresa’s rose. “And them flowers the missus is all worked up about? How much they put you back, son?”
I shrug. Best not to say anything. He’s just looking for trouble, and I don’t want to give it to him.
“Bet it was a lotta dough. And you just giving them away free like that? How you get that money?”
“My grandma sent it to me.”
“Your grandma sent it to you and you bought my missus flowers with it, did you?”
“Not exactly… I bought them for Annie and Theresa and I had a few left over.”
“So my missus didn’t rate. She was leftovers?” He snorts.
“Well, no, I mean, um.”
“Darby! Darby!” Bea is doing her best to run across the rocking boat in her high-heeled shoes while holding her scarf around her head. She shakes her finger at Darby. “Don’t you be getting after that nice young man. I won’t have it. Just because you aren’t kind and thoughtful the way he is.”
Darby’s face gets dark red like a kidney bean. He whispers something in Bea’s ear.
Bea purses her lips. Her eyes get small and hard like the short end of a bullet. “Not if you expect to have another pineapple upside-down cake in your lifetime, buster.” Her shoulders swing as she says this.
He whispers again.
Her hands fly to her hips. She glares at him as the wind whips at her scarf.
“Now just you be still and let me do my job here, missus…” Darby turns back to us. “Here’s how we’re going to play this. Boat gets to Alcatraz, you stay put. All of you.” He carves a circle with his finger. “Won’t have no shenanigans on my watch. Not with the warden on board, you hear? And that goes double for you, missy.” He waggles his finger at Theresa.