“Nein, thank you for the kindness offer, but the packing it is finished. But there is something that occurred to me the moment you appeared on this porch, Liebchen.” She raises her finger straight above her head. “Vere you familiar vith the Peterson family that vas renting of the upstairs?”
“Not really.” We heard they didn’t have any kids so nobody really bothered with them.
“The husband lost his job at the cookie factory. It is empty now.”
Lots of times it felt that way when we were living there so I don’t look up at the second-story windows.
“I entrusted this job to Officer Rasmussen, but he is very busy with being a detective and his new family.” Mrs. Goldman winks at me and it is so adorable because she is not very good at it. “I know what good attention you pay. Do you think you could assist your father? Keep your eye on the house while vee are gone?”
She’s right. This is fate. And such a great way to make everything up to her. “Sure I could help watch the house. Don’t worry about a thing. What about the garden?”
When I still lived here, me and Mrs. Goldman planted tiny seeds together in the backyard and soon juicy red tomatoes rounded on the vines and carrot tops pushed up so determined, which has always made me wonder how something so delicate could at the same time be so strong. We also put in purple pansies and yellow daisies. Daddy only grew crops but Mrs. Goldman thinks that while having good things to eat is important, something lovely to look at fills you up in a different kind of way. She also taught me on those early mornings that people are a lot like a garden. Not everybody is beautiful or scrumptious. There are some weeds that you’ve gotta watch out for that would be happy to choke the life out of you and she was right.
“Do you want me to pull out the dandelions?” I ask her. “What about the caterpillars? Should I pick them off the vines?”
“Ach. I’m afraid there is no garden this summer.” She shows me her knobby knuckles. They’ve gotten worse than they were.
“Sally!” Troo shouts the way she does when she wants me to be at her beck and call.
Mrs. Goldman says, “Before you go… the key to the house.” She rummages around her skirt pocket until she finds what she’s looking for. “It opens both doors up and down. In case of the emergency.” She sets the key in the palm of my hand. “Vhen vee get back from our trip, I vill pay you five dollars for your hard vork.”
“No joke?” I know I should tell her, Oh no, thank you, I’m happy to do this favor for you without getting paid to make up for letting you down, but I have been saving up for bus fare to go see Sampson at the new zoo. I went over to the old one yesterday to see what was left.
Troo was getting punished for lipping back, so she had to stay in her room and write a hundred times on a piece of paper, I am not the Queen of Sheba, and Mary Lane was nowhere to be found, so that’s the reason I went all by myself.
Three yellow bulldozers were lined up, getting ready to wreck everything, but Daddy’s and my bench was still there. It’s old and pretty heavy. I wanted to drag it back to our house a little at a time every day, but I didn’t feel strong enough to get it more than a few feet. The whole time, I kept looking over at Sampson’s enclosure expecting to see him waving or hear him singing, but all that was left were the orange rocks and his favorite blue ball floating in the murky pool.
The money I would get from Mrs. Goldman to watch over her house could buy me a bus pass. I tell her, so she knows how much Sampson and me would appreciate it, “Five whole bucks? Thank you! That’s a mint!”
She pulls me close and gives me one of her good schnitzel-smelling hugs. “What a special girl you are,” she says, somewhat proud, but also somewhat something else. Sad?
Troo yells something, but I can’t make it out. I back out of Mrs. Goldman’s arms even though I don’t want to and shout down to the curb, “What?”
My sister makes this obnoxious sound like I’m a contestant on Beat the Clock and my time is up.
“Marta,” Mr. Goldman calls to his wife from behind the drawn curtains. “Vee must go. The meter it is running.”
“Well, I guess we both gotta hit the trail,” I say. “You have a safe trip. I’ll say a rosary for your brother to get better fast and come look at the house every day. Remember to check the stove and unplug your iron before you go.” Mother always makes sure she does that before she leaves the house. “And…” I don’t think Mrs. Goldman has any fancy jewelry that could get stolen, she never wears any, but she could have some guns from the war or a shoebox full of cash hidden away, which are some of the things that have already gotten taken out of people’s houses, according to Dave. Of course, everybody is talking about the burglaries and how worried they are that they could be the next to get hit, but since Mrs. Goldman doesn’t go to Mass or the baseball games or bowling, she might not have heard the scuttlebutt. “There’s been a cat burglar prowlin’ around the neighborhood. Lock up extra tight.”
“This is good advice.” When she says that, she is not looking at me. She is watching Troo bounce her ball up the block very ferociously. “All of us must vork hard to keep vhat is valuable to us safe. Promise me you vill keep a good vatch, Liebchen.”
“You can count on me.” I don’t say this time, but that’s what I’m thinking. “See ya when ya get back. A lot more often. Aufedersein,” I say, hurrying off the porch to catch up with my still-buzzing sister.
Chapter Nine
The sign hanging above the store says in peeling white letters:
KENFIELD’S FIVE AND DIME… WE HAVE WHAT YOU NEED!
That’s not tooting their own horn. They really do.
The floors are a yellow color and the aisles are close together but packed high with bottles of bubble bath and sewing needles and erasers and, well, just about everything under the sun. There’s pets, too. Chatty budgies and whisker-twitching mice and lovebirds that have to be kept in different cages because they don’t actually get along that well and all sorts of different kinds of fish. This is where Dave bought me the aquarium that’s on top of the dresser in our bedroom. The pet aisle reminds me of living out on the farm, but the rest of the Five and Dime smells like popcorn. There is a machine up front that pumps it out all day long. You can get a small bag for two cents and a bigger bag with butter for a nickel and the salt is free.
The best part of the store, though, has gotta be the candy case. It’s the first thing you see when you come in and it’s even better now that it’s been new and improved! My favorite used to be pink and green Buttons, but I got sick from swallowing too much paper, so I switched over to Oh Henry! bars in honor of you know who. Troo’s favorite used to be licorice, but now she goes silly for those lips made out of wax because she has gotten very interested in kissing recently. The Frenchy way, less lips, more tongue, which I tried to explain to her is just asking for trench mouth, but would she listen?
Our old Vliet Street neighbor, Mrs. Kenfield, lifts up her head to greet whoever just walked into her store, but when she sees that it’s Troo and me, she mutters, “The O’Malley sisters,” like somebody just asked her to name the last two kids in the world she’d like to have come through her doors this morning. She goes back to spritzing Windex on the counter and rubbing it off with a blue rag until the smudges disappear, maybe wishing she could do the same to me, and for sure Troo. “How’s your mother?”