Rust & Stardust Read online

  “Can I go home now?” Sally asked, and immediately regretted being so bold.

  His face darkened, he hesitated, and for a moment she worried he’d changed his mind.

  “Here’s the arrangement,” he said, his voice low and gritty like dirt. “You don’t say a word of this to nobody. I’d be in a lot of trouble with the FBI if they found out I’m taking mercy on you after what you’ve done. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded, still crying.

  “I’ll be waiting for you outside school tomorrow. To check in.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I promise. Can I please go home now?”

  He gripped her arm again, and this time she noticed a crescent moon–shaped scar across his hand. His face was scarred, too. It made her think of the scar she had on her leg from falling out of her high chair when she was a baby. It made her think of accidents.

  “Not a word, Sally Horner. Because I can change my mind any time. And you will wind up in the reformatory. Understand?” His mouth was close to hers now, so close she could smell the split-pea soup on his breath.

  “I promise,” she said, nodding.

  “Now that’s a good girl,” he said, and smirked. Then his grip on her arm loosened, he shoved his hands in his pockets, and he left her there, walking swiftly, bowlegged across the street, toward the courthouse.

  ELLA

  The clock ticking loudly in the kitchen said four o’clock. Sally should have been home an hour ago. Sometimes she went to the library after school, but the school year was over tomorrow. The muggy air spoke of summer. Ella Horner wiped her wrist across her forehead, releasing her foot from the treadle, which accelerated the stitches across the endless swaths of cloth. She pushed herself to standing, every ligament and joint resisting.

  Ella lived in a cage of pain. Though mornings were the cruelest. When she woke, she lay flat on her back, tears running down the sides of her face as she summoned the will to rise. Because as she slept, her body stiffened: knees, shoulders, wrists. Even her ribs, it seemed, became the delicate bars of a birdcage inside which her heart beat and beat, wishing open the hatch that might set her free. She couldn’t remember what it felt like to move without the complaint and resistance of every joint. At forty-one, she was already an old woman, the rheumatism rendering her bones a virtual prison.

  It began not long before Russell died: started in her knees and then crept through her marrow to her hips, across her shoulders, down into her elbows, and finally into her hands. But for some reason, it hadn’t been so crippling when he was still around. He’d been a master of distraction, always cracking a joke when she most needed it. It was impossible to feel self-pity when Russell was there, swooping in. She remembered when both of her knees were so swollen they wouldn’t bend, and he’d swept her up in his arms and danced her across the kitchen floor. He was drunk, and he’d knocked a full cup of coffee off the counter, but she’d forgotten the pain for the full length of “Velvet Moon,” which he hummed softly in her ear. But now Russell was gone. Just a wink, a blink, and he’d disappeared, and the latch on the cage was locked again.

  Sitting at the sewing machine all day (and sometimes deep into the darkest parts of the night) didn’t help the pain, either. Still, the piecework arrived at her doorstep weekly, and when she completed it, she had only to set it outside their door before another package appeared. On the mornings when the simplest tasks seemed to require a level of stoicism she just could not summon, she stayed in bed, but the bundles arrived with or without her. Unfortunately, she had no other income-generating skills, but this way she could at least stay at home, sitting, rather than standing on her feet all day at some factory. Be here when Sally got home from school, like the other mothers in the neighborhood, the ones who still had husbands to bring home paychecks.

  When Susan was still living at home, she had been there to help take care of Sally, and later, after the rheumatism set in, of Ella herself. But now that she and Al were married and Susan pregnant, her visits were limited to family dinners and occasionally taking Sally out with them to a picture show. And Sally was still just a child. Her life revolved around school and her studies; she was the student that neither Ella nor Russell had ever been. Ella had dropped out after her first year of high school, and Russell had only made it through the seventh grade. Whenever Ella felt abandoned, alone, she had to remind herself that this was what they had wanted for the girls. Every day, Sally came home from school practically buzzing with whatever she’d learned that day. Mama, did you know your heart beats a hundred thousand times a day? That means it’s beat over a billion times! And Mama, I read that dogs can smell a million times better than humans. Can you believe it? I wish we had a dog. Maybe we could get a dog some day? Oh, Mama, maybe a dog like Lassie. Remember when we went to see Elizabeth Taylor in Courage of Lassie last year? I just love Elizabeth Taylor …

  Sally, with her infinite curiosity and enthusiasm, was the single bright light in Ella’s life, a solitary shining ray in a dimly lit room. But she was also easily distracted, a dreamer. So like Russell, even though they weren’t related by blood. Sally, Ella would reprimand, lest the child go on endlessly, stop with your chitchat and help me fold this laundry.

  Now with the school year coming to an end, her hope was that Sally might be able to help out around the house more. She was eleven years old and fully capable of doing household chores. Having Sally home meant help with the dishes, the floors, the beds. She thought she might even teach Sally how to sew so that when her bones became as rigid as bricks, she could help with the endless work. And she’d be there to keep Ella company as well, just a little bit of sunshine.

  The clock tick, tick, ticked. Four thirty. Where was that girl?

  SALLY

  When Sally emerged from the dark alleyway, the girls were gone. She looked up and down Broadway as if they would simply be waiting there for her, in front of the Woolworth’s or the J.C. Penney across the street. She’d done what they’d asked, nearly gotten herself arrested in the process, but nobody had stuck around. They had to have seen she was in trouble, but not one of them waited to make sure she was okay. Not even Vivi.

  As Sally ran home, her throat raw from crying, she thought of the notebook. The FBI man had tossed it down, like he didn’t care about it at all. Then why, if it was so insignificant, had he demanded so much of her? All of this trouble, and she still had nothing to prove to the girls tomorrow that she’d passed their test. Tomorrow. The FBI man said he’d check in with her tomorrow. She wasn’t free, not really. He’d only taken pity on her. The law was still the law.

  The only other time she’d ever even been close to someone official like this was after her stepfather died. They’d come to the house in the middle of the night. She remembered thinking the noise was just the sound of her stepfather stumbling home; her mother’s cries the same as on any night when he came home stinking of booze and (supposedly) other women. (Sally had once locked herself in the bathroom and pressed his clothes to her face, trying to smell what her mother smelled. Perfume? Skin? The only thing she’d been able to discern was the familiar ammonia scent; he cleaned houses for a living and carried the sharp stink of bleach in everything he wore.) But when she snuck to the top of the stairs and peered down at the foyer that night, it wasn’t her stepfather bumping into the walls as he tried to remove his shoes. And it wasn’t her mother, shoulders shaking, fist shaking, as she spat and cried. Instead, it was a police officer holding her mother in his arms. It confused her. Was this policeman in love with her mother? Was he going to kiss her? Her body felt hot with whatever this meant. But then her mother opened her mouth and a sound came out, a wail that sounded unreal, like the feral cats who lived in the alley behind their house, the ones that cried out in the night.

  It wasn’t until a week later, after the funeral, when she understood that her stepfather had gotten drunk and walked out in front of a train. People had seen him, said he did it on purpose. When she asked her mother if he was in heave
n now, her mother had shaken her head, and said St. Peter didn’t let in suicides.

  * * *

  The whole way home from Woolworth’s, she rehearsed the story she’d tell her mother to explain why she was late. Some girlfriends and me, we went and had cherry Cokes at the lunch counter. On account of it almost being summer, you know?

  Who?

  You know, the usual gang … Bess and Vivi mostly.

  And as she fabricated the dream, she could almost see herself sitting at the lunch counter, swinging her legs, sipping a syrupy soda pop through a red-and-white-striped straw. She imagined whispering something into Vivi’s pink ear and Vivi flashing her a bright smile and a wink.

  Or, perhaps, she should just tell her mother the truth. Tell her exactly what happened at the Woolworth’s, explain that she’d only wanted to join their club. That she hadn’t meant any harm. She might be a thief, but she didn’t need to be a liar as well.

  But when she let herself into the house, her mother wasn’t waiting. She was upstairs in the bathtub; she could hear the water sloshing as her mother eased herself in. The hot baths were the only thing that brought her mother’s body relief. Sally knew that when the water went cold, she’d call for her to help her out. It was embarrassing for them both, but they didn’t talk about that. Or anything else that brought them shame.

  SALLY

  The next day, the last day of school, Sally sat in the front row of her fifth-grade class. She liked to be close to Mrs. Appleton, who was sweet and smelled exactly like green apples, which Sally thought was maybe how she’d gotten her name. Mrs. Appleton always called on Sally when she raised her hand and often asked her to come to the chalkboard to work out a math problem or diagram a sentence. Sally loved school, loved learning. She was always the first to raise her hand in class (though never with answers, only questions, questions), ignoring the collective rolling of her classmates’ eyes.

  Yes, Sally? Mrs. Appleton might ask.

  How many stars are there? In the Milky Way? Has anyone counted?

  No one knows for sure. Millions, I suppose. Does anyone else have questions?

  Sally’s hand would shoot up again. Why are some of them brighter than others?

  Well, distance, for one. Stars that are closer to us seem to shine brighter. But some are simply more luminous.

  And Sally would carry this knowledge with her, the word “luminous” at the tip of her tongue.

  “You look luminous, Mama,” she might say to her mother, Ella, as she worked at her sewing machine at home, leaning in to embrace her hunched shoulders.

  “Oh hush, Sally. That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s luminous,” she might say to Susan, as she painted the nursery a bright lemon yellow. And Susan would smile and touch her round belly. “Why, yes it is, Sally. That’s exactly what it is.”

  At school, Sally liked to be front and center, where her view was unobstructed by anyone or anything. It had been her habit since she first started school. But today, Sally wished she could disappear into the back of the room, because it felt like she was the obstruction and twenty pairs of eyes were boring through her skull.

  Vivi sat next to her (by assignment, not by design). She was always in the periphery of Sally’s vision, but Sally never dared turn her head, to be caught staring at her. Though now, as Mrs. Appleton rifled through her desk drawer for something, Vivi leaned over and whispered in her ear.

  “Did that old man take you to the police?” she asked.

  Sally felt her face redden; her ears were so hot they itched. She shook her head. The girls hadn’t forgotten her. At least Vivi hadn’t.

  Sally turned to look at Vivi, whose face seemed full of genuine concern. Perhaps she could tell her what the man had said, about reporting to him after school. Maybe she could share the promise she’d made to meet him, so that he wouldn’t send her to a reformatory. But she had sworn to him that she wouldn’t say a word. She hadn’t even told her mother. Would he know if she told Vivi? She was then struck with the thought that he’d gotten hold of Vivi, too, and this was part of the test. Or worse, what if the man wasn’t with the FBI at all, but rather someone Bess and Irene had convinced to trick her? What if this initiation was all a cruel joke? She didn’t know which would be worse.

  “Well?” Vivi insisted, but then Mrs. Appleton found what she’d been looking for and scowled at the girls over the tops of her dusty glasses.

  “Tell me later?” Vivi asked, and Sally nodded.

  But later, at recess, at lunch, and when the final school bell of the year rang out, Sally didn’t say a word. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Vivi, or anyone, what had happened, as if saying it aloud might conjure him again. Perhaps, if she never spoke of it, she could somehow undo it. Make him disappear back into the ether from which he came. And so when the final bell rang, she hid in a stall in the bathroom until the girls were all gone, until the hallways were empty, until she was pretty sure that no one but she and the teachers and the janitor remained. Then she slipped down the hall to the front doors. It crossed her mind that she might be able to hide here for the whole summer while school was out. She could eat in the cafeteria, sleep on the lumpy couch in the teachers’ lounge. She would be safe here. Safe and sound. She shook her head. She was being silly. She needed to just go home.

  As she walked out the front door, she gasped when someone grabbed her shoulder from behind.

  “Sally,” Mrs. Appleton said. “Have a wonderful summer, dear.”

  Sally muttered, “Thank you,” then took a deep breath and peered up and down the street. She expected he’d be standing by the big cherry tree, maybe with a police car or whatever the men from the FBI drove. But the only car on the street was covered in rotting blossoms. It hadn’t moved in weeks.

  Was it possible he wouldn’t come for her? That he’d only meant to scare her? She was a child, after all. Just a girl. The realization of this made her feel ashamed at her silliness, at her gullibility. Maybe it had all been a trick played on her. A cruel one, but just a prank.

  She looked down the street again and, with a shuddering sort of cry, she wiped at her eyes and started to walk home. With each step farther away from school, the more certain she became. A rotten trick. Bess and Irene, such vicious girls. But Vivi, at least, had been considerate, the only one to check on her after. Vivi lived just a few blocks away from Sally’s house; Sally thought maybe she’d walk down and knock on her door one day soon. See if she might like to go to the swimming pool at Farnham Park. She’d need to get a new swimsuit, though; the one from last year was busting at the seams. She wondered if Vivi liked to go to the movies. Sally adored the picture shows. Homecoming with Clark Gable and Lana Turner was in the theaters now. Clark Gable was so handsome. But not as handsome as Cary Grant. She saw The Bishop’s Wife just last year with Susan, and they both swooned.

  She began to skip. It was summer vacation. The months ahead held nothing but possibility.

  When she got to the corner where she normally turned to head home, she briefly considered going on to the Woolworth’s, where she was now almost positive Bess and Irene and the others were laughing at her expense over dripping hot fudge sundaes. She could imagine Vivi reprimanding them, defending Sally. Saying that Sally was actually really pretty keen. How wonderful would it be to show up, to sit down next to them, and say, You got me! Wouldn’t that be grand? She giggled thinking of it, even pantomimed their surprise.

  “Sally,” he said, stepping in front of her.

  Her heart stopped like a cork in her throat.

  He was wearing the same pale blue shirt and black jacket as yesterday, his tie knotted loosely. In the bright sunlight she could see his face more clearly now, though he still wore the broad-brimmed fedora. The scar on his face she’d noticed before was also sharper, slicing his cheek in two like a jigsaw puzzle.

  “Listen up. There’s been a change of plans. The government says I’ve got to deliver you to headquarters.”

  Sally felt her
knees weaken. Bile rose to her throat, but she was too afraid to spit it out, and so she swallowed it back down, burning. She shook her head.

  “To the courthouse?” she asked.

  He laughed and patted her on the back. “If only it were that easy, darling. You see, they’re at the shore. Atlantic City.”

  “Oh no,” she said. “I can’t leave Camden, my mama would never let me. She’s sick. She needs me to help at home.” Sally shook her head. “My sister’s about to have a baby.”

  But then he pulled back his coat, and Sally could see the butt end of a gun sticking out from his waistband. Her vision started to darken around the edges.

  “Here’s what you’re gonna do,” he said.

  ELLA

  Ella was hunched over the sewing machine in the dusty dining room when Sally ran through the front door.

  “Mama,” she said, coming to her and throwing her arms around her.

  “Careful, careful,” Ella said, wincing. Sally loved her mother with an intensity that embarrassed Ella. Since she was a small child, she’d clung to her in a way Susan never had. Perhaps it was because she didn’t have a daddy; after Russell died, it was as if the love Sally had felt for him needed a place to be directed, and Ella became the vessel into which Sally poured her giant heart. Sally’s affection was like something liquid. Brimming.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Ella asked, shrugging her off, aware that both her words and this gesture came out meaner than she meant for them to.

  Sally hesitated and then sat down in the chair next to Ella.

  “I’ve been invited. To the shore,” she said, her eyes imploring. “To go with my friend’s family.”