Free Stony River by Tricia Dower Page A

made a pillow of Buddy’s spicysmelling jacket and stretched out sideways on the scratchy couch. She drew her legs to her chest and rubbed her toes back to life. Remembering a mouse in Ma’s slipper two houses ago, she tucked her shoes next to her pocketbook under her blanket of drapes.
    It must have been swell when there was only her and her mother, Reenie. Just Tez, as Ma called her, and Reenie. She wasn’t quite four when Jimmy came along; she didn’t remember having Ma to herself but it must have been heaven. Ma looked younger than thirty-three and, with makeup, Tez looked older than thirteen. But they had the same curly black hair and brown eyes. If not for Jimmy, they could almost have lived as sisters. She closed her eyes and sank into that warm thought.
    â€œTER-EEEEEZ-A!”
    She woke to a room as cold and gloomy as the night before, shot up and listened, but the voice didn’t call again. She must’ve dreamt it. Splinters of light peered from the edges of the plywood covering the window. She wouldn’t have known it was already nine if not for the glow-in-the-dark watch Ma had gotten her with Green Stamps so she’d be on time once in a while.
    Allen would be having Sugar Pops and grape juice in the Howdy Doody glass that used to be hers; Ma, a boiled egg and rye toast; Jimmy, three basted eggs, six bacon strips and four pancakes. Tereza did the breakfast dishes on Saturdays and, later, took Allen to the movies so Ma and Jimmy could screw. They didn’t say they were going to, but when Tereza and Allen returned, that telltale fishy odor would be in the air and Ma’s voice would be throatier.
    On Saturdays Jimmy was nicer to Tereza, probably afraid she’d crap out on babysitting. She hated the full-of-himself way he doled out the money: only enough for two tickets and a puny box of Dots to share, like nothing was theirs unless he gave it to them and what Ma made was his, too. Ma acted like Saturday’s Jimmy was the real one. Embarrassed to own up to marrying a jerk, probably, because what would that make her?
    â€œGive him credit once in a while,” Ma would say, “and you’ll see how sweet he can be.”
    She might as well have told Tereza to balance on one finger. Jimmy hardly ever smacked Ma and Allen. He never hit their jaws so hard they practically amputated their tongues with their teeth. That time, he’d been scared shitless the hospital would call the cops. He bought her a Dale Evans lamp and didn’t raise a hand to her for months. That was when she was eleven and keener on Dale Evans.
    She played the flashlight around the room: cobwebs, purple old-lady flowers on the wallpaper, a pink and beige rug clumped with dog hair, a fireplace she’d use if she wasn’t afraid the smoke would give her away, half a dozen candles on holders as tall as her ringing the room, a wind-up phonograph and stack of records on a small dark table, bookshelves so high even Haggerty would’ve had to stand on tiptoe to reach the top shelf.
    She couldn’t have gotten through that many books if she gave her life to it. The kids at school rolled their eyes when she read aloud. Nobody believed that the words bounced around like Mexican jumping beans and gave her a headache; her eyes tested perfect. Teachers said she didn’t apply herself; that she only wanted to clown around and distract the class. She couldn’t help it if she was funny as hell. She could belch the alphabet from A to K. Do a great Elmer Fudd, Desi Arnaz, Imogene Coca.
    She had to pee. “If I was a john, I’d be upstairs,” she said out loud, but she wasn’t ready to chance it. She’d heard skittering above her head during the night. Probably mice, but it could’ve been rats or foot-long radioactive tarantulas. She peed into a pan that had been left on the stove—the inside was furry. Nauseating , Linda would’ve said. She emptied it down the sink