The McDonalds Maid

The panes of glass were scratched and stained with dirt. The rows of tiles covering the floor were caked with mud and rust, dotted with catsup smiles and translucent lettuce leaves. An old woman bent to pick up a French fry with her gloved hand, half hidden behind her mop and bucket. I disliked McDonalds but I went because they had the best light to write by, and I could sit there as long as my stomach could take the smell of soggy French fries and the sour insides of babies’ stomachs, provided I bought a cup of 99 cent coffee.

Marlena the McDonalds maid’s life was in this building. She had been there since the building opened in 1973. She had been a secretary for the law firm that constructed the building. Every morning, she had brushed her long blonde hair for twenty-six minutes to make it shine, put on a crisp white oxford shirt and popped three breath mints before heading to work.

When the law firm went bankrupt, they put in a Chi-Chi’s. Marlena worked as the pretty hostess. She wore shorts and she cut her hair shorter to match, bleaching it bright blonde. But that went under, too.

She worked bagging groceries when they put in a grocery store. Her hair turned greasy and she hid her body under her big red apron. She painted her nails bright and grew them out so they clicked on the keyboard when she stood at the cash register.

When the grocery store closed, they opened the McDonalds that Marlena and I have known for the past ten years. Marlena started out as the premier fryer, making batches and batches of fries, chicken nuggets, and burgers. After a few years, the smoke and grease began to play on her eyes and her eyesight left her. They took her away from the fryer for fear she would burn herself or else fry something plastic. So she started to clean the McDonalds and her skin turned into ammonia.

Marlena was working her way to a dumpster funeral out back.

The people in this town were not destined for greatness. That was why I always came back to Marlena – crusty nametag and all. Marlena had it right, in this life. Whatever it was. She lived a simple life, in a simple town. She woke up, put her uniform on, washed her hands and went to work. At night she sat up with her television and went to bed by ten. Uncomplicated.

I’d come to this McDonalds once a month for the past eight years but I had never tasted the food, not once. This time though, Marlena’s look from the back booth as I stepped up to an open register was too much to bear. I ordered the hash browns.

I know, nobody eats has browns any more, particularly at two in the afternoon on a Monday – but I felt obligated. I carried my tray to a seat by the window and stared at the cold slab of deep-fried potato in its cardboard bed. Now I remembered why.

I turned to Marlena. She looked at me, waiting. I took a bite, then another, and another. The hash was gone, and I was filled with a warm, comforting feeling. Marlena beamed, shuffling over to remove my empty tray.

Maybe she led a small life, but Marlena’s looked pretty great to me. There were no spoiled children, or deadlines or torturous divorces. There was no fighting or bankruptcy or credit card bills. She never had to worry about dying parents or college funds or meetings.

I couldn’t write, so I packed all my papers into my backpack and headed home. In bed that night, Marlena’s face haunted my ceiling – her greasy, dark hair, her mad smile with tobacco-stained teeth, her grimy fingers washing, washing, washing the McDonalds’ bathroom. Not a bad life.

My back ached. I turned onto my stomach and curled into a ball like I did as a child. I fell asleep with my face in the pillow and dreamed that Marlena glowed, bright purple and yellow; her hair was curled and black. Her face was brilliant, her teeth gigantic. She stretched her arms out to me. She began to dance, spinning around me, faster and faster.

When I woke up, I had grown wings.

Molasses

My foot dropped to the first floor landing and I raised my hand to the wall instinctively. The paper was rough from the imprints of hundreds of flowers. I traced the edge of a viola before moving to the kitchen, passing the mud room and the pantry on my way down the hall. Walter had put the kettle on the stove at six and I could hear the whistle from upstairs. He knew I would want a cup of tea before he returned home from the mechanic.

The first time I met Walter years ago, I told him he had hands like a mechanic’s. They were cracked and dry, covered in dirt, and they smelled a bit like gasoline. I didn’t think I needed a caretaker, but it becomes inevitable if you live as long as I have. As I grew older, the people I had grown to rely on got older too. Metty Lord absolutely could not be trusted behind the wheel any longer, and my butcher, who had delivered the finest meats to my door every week for thirty years, had passed away the previous September. Personally, I had only fallen once and that was because of Chester, but he was dead now too.

I felt the tiles on the floor with my bare toes, counting one, two, seven before raising my hand to the counter. I reached for the knob of the cabinet overhead, pulling out my ceramic cup. Setting the cup down on the counter and swinging the door of the cabinet shut, I wrapped my hand protectively in an oven mitt before proceeding to pick up the kettle from the open flame. It is amazing to me how many people lose an arm or else get badly burned because they haven’t been careful with their stove.

I hoped Charlie wasn’t awake yet; Walter’s cousin was staying in the basement, in the room with the furnace. He was a quiet man, someone I couldn’t easily notice in a room. I didn’t know what Charlie would have done if he’d had seen me wandering the house alone. Walter was careful to give me space, but most people insisted on helping me. To be honest, if Walter hadn’t spoken out of such necessity, I probably never would have let his cousin stay at Marlfarm. I trusted Walter completely, but we got on well with our privacy.

Walter hadn’t seen Charlie in over thirty years and then he found him in the corn field. At night, I liked to stand by the back windows overlooking the old corn fields. Walter would play the piano and I would sing. Sometimes he would put on a record and in a really wild mood we would dance. It was one of these nights when Walter found Charlie. We were dancing and carrying on when we both heard a strange noise, like a low growl, then a high keen. Thinking it was a wolf, Walter said he was going out to secure the trash. I stood by the back window with my palms against the panes; I must have been a sight with my hair wild from dancing. A few minutes later, Walter returned with a man he introduced as his cousin.

Charlie was escaping something. Hospital or prison, I wasn’t entirely sure and I didn’t care to know. I sensed Walter’s hesitance when he tried to explain it to me. I didn’t want to be involved but I told him Charlie could stay for a while. I knew what it was to miss a loved one; sometimes you’ll hang on to the closest thing. All the same, I would have hated to run into him alone in the house. I’d never forget the time I reached out for his hand; we were at the table and Charlie asked Walter to pass him the potatoes. That night Walter and I had made a stew with chicken and potatoes and peas. Of course, the potatoes were mixed in with everything, but I thought Walter’s response was a little harsh. Charlie was a bit slow; he had a sweet voice, low and quiet with a heavy drawl. I reached for him out of empathy, laying my right hand on his left as he sat near me. The whorled scars bubbled as though from deep within his bones. He pulled his hand away quickly, hissing at me. I had never felt something wicked like that before.

Feeling a need to get out of the kitchen, I moved to the window in the great room, placing my palm against a cool pane. I hoped the weather was nice today because I wanted to sit outside on the porch. Picking up my shawl from the back of my favorite comfy chair, I stepped into my most substantial slippers before unlocking the front door. The porch’s floorboards creaked as I pushed myself through the door frame, making sure the screen door was closed tightly before settling into my rocking chair.

The crisp October morning rolled toward me. I felt a breeze from across the orchard, carrying the smell of singed apples from Raymond’s place. I heard geese overhead, forming their V pattern in the sky. It wasn’t truly cold out yet but I was glad for my blanket. I heard a new whistle, from the distant East, as the night train steamed through the Hudson Valley toward the Catskills.

Rocking, I sipped my tea slowly. A car pulled into the drive, and I stood to greet it. As the door slammed, my neck curved toward the man who had just emerged. “Walter, you’re home early.” I could smell the grease on him from the drive. I had known he would try to help the mechanic despite what the doctor said.

“Hello, Miss Daisy,” Walter drawled. His voice was like molasses. “The car’s all fixed. Do you still want to go to the market today?”

“That would be nice, Walter. We’re all out of carrots, I noticed, and I thought maybe I’d make up a stew for us tonight.”

“Alright, Miss Daisy. Tell you what, let me check on Charlie and then we can go right away. Let’s get you tucked in the car and I’ll be back in five minutes.” Walter took my arm, trying to guide me toward his car.

“Now hold on, Walter. You know I can make it to the drive on my own. You go ahead. I’ll be fine,” I batted at Walter’s shoulder before walking to the edge of the porch, stepping down to the first line of bricks leading down to the parked car.

Walter sighed, muttering, “Okay, Miss Daisy,” under his breath as he opened the front door.

I trudged to the passenger side of my old Dodge, pulling the handle and shifting quickly to avoid hitting my head on the way into the car. I found the key where Walter had left it in the glove compartment and turned on the heat. As the car warmed up, the hot dry air began to lull me to sleep.

I was driving with Walter, through the lovely winding woods of the upstate. I could almost smell the sap on the air. Pines always meant Christmas and my father. Walter drove beautifully. That had been one of the demands I made in my advertisement; my caretaker must know how to drive, well. No racing over speed bumps, barreling through curves. I kept to the country and driving like a maniac from the metropolis just wouldn’t do.

I turned in my seat. Walter was suffering. I was in his apartment before I met him. He was eating pickles and dry toast. The walls were threadbare. We were both alone in the deep space. We were both orphans.

The noise jolted me. I had brought my blanket into the car with me and I struggled with it before freeing my arm and thrusting myself out of the door. Whatever noise it had been had propelled me into motion. Now I could hear only silence, radiating from the farmhouse in front of me. “Walter!” I yelled, rushing forward. I heard no response from inside the house but I tripped across the front lawn.

I heard a faint noise from the back of the house, like rustling corn. I kept moving. Finding the iron railing, I mounted the brick steps I had descended just minutes earlier and pulled open the screen door.

I was overwhelmed by the smell of gunpowder. I’d gone hunting with my father every weekend before he had his accident. I remembered him placing an orange cap down over my blonde curls that morning before we left. We were tracking in the back woods when I saw a flash. Pellets sprayed and I’d hit the forest bed, crunching into needles. My father was always careful when he brought me hunting. He had been taken by surprise and I was knocked down in the confusion. When I woke up, my sight was missing.

The air was thick with it, with something sweeter underneath. Making my way in, I heard a faint rattling from the piano room. I crossed the great room in three strides, passing through the French doors into the back room. My foot bumped against something soft and sharp. The something groaned and I recoiled.

“Is he still here?” the thing croaked. I barely recognized his voice. I knelt down, crawling toward Walter, who lay inert with his arm under the piano bench. I could feel the sunlight streaming through the windows from the field. My knee felt moist and when I reached for Walter’s face, my hand came away sticky.

“I think he left,” I said, my voice wavering. My face was a few inches away from Walter’s. I wanted to see him; to Walter, my eyes would look almost white. They were blue once, a brilliant dazzling blue like you’ve never seen before but the doctor cut my irises out.

“Did he hurt you? I heard it.” I ran my hand across Walter’s chest, feeling for broken edges.

He inhaled too quickly. “Yes, Miss Daisy, he got me good. Right through my shoulder. You’d better make the call.”

I fell backward, catching my weight with my left palm. Spinning up, I felt for changes in the air. Charlie wasn’t here now. I walked to the kitchen, reaching for the telephone on the wall and dialing.

“Hello! Yes, we need help. Come quickly. It’s happened, Raymond,” I wavered as I slid down the wall, closing my cloudy eyes.

Turning

You jolt awake. Your cell phone alarm sounds from under the covers. You blink bleary eyes as you rise fully dressed from your bed. Running a brush through your hair you pad to the bathroom and realize that you’ve already been awake today, at six a.m. when your roommate decided to begin work on his latest Rorschachian mural on the wall of your loft.

You unscrew the cap from the case holding your left contact, inserting first that contact and then the right into your eyes, wincing as you scratch your cornea with a finger nail. You blink furiously, turning away from your roommate to avoid his scrutinizing, bespectacled gaze. You check your white shirt for wrinkles before pulling socks on over the black leather leggings you have just worn in bed for five hours.

In the kitchen, you pull a banana off the shelf, grabbing a Kashi bar and a carton of milk. You have fifteen minutes before class starts and you sit down on the couch to write, pulling your knees up under your chin. Artemis your cat slinks up the back of the couch and curls around your neck, strangling you with his fur.

You hear techno blaring from upstairs and Jack’s footsteps as he races from one end of the loft to the other. Flicking on the television, you track Matthew Fox’s face as he runs across the screen, pursued by something large and black.

You lie back on the couch and stare at the ceiling fan. The front door opens and you flinch.

Molly has returned from New York with four pieces of luggage and an oversized Barney’s bag that she struggles to haul inside. It is raining.

You stand up and gather your books, wrapping a red scarf around your neck. “Bye Mol,” you call over your shoulder as you walk past her to the open door.

You shut the door, consciously leaving it unlocked. A boy passes by your feet and you track him with your eyes. His hair is sticking straight up out of his head and blue. You say, “Paul, give me your umbrella. I’m late to class.”

He grins up at you and shakes his head. “Sorry, duckling, I can’t get this wet,” he explains, pointing up at his hair. “You coming this way?”

“No, asshole. I have class in Walsh,” you say, tapping your foot. “See you for dinner? At Peacock?” Your feet splash on the brick steps as you walk down to Paul’s level. You put a hand to Paul’s face, kissing him on the mouth. He tastes like broccoli, which you find strange because he usually tastes like cinnamon in the morning. You push your orange-flavored gum into his mouth with your tongue. You have five minutes to get to your writing class and you don’t want to call attention to yourself today because you have to make a deal with your professor.

You pull your scarf up over your head as you step over the cobblestones in your patent white flats, careful not to get mud on the faces of the mice printed on their toes. You focus on your feet as you cross the road once, twice, three times.

You see Jasper sitting on his windowsill in Nevils, smoking a joint. He reaches his hand back into his room and pulls out a Colombian flag, which he waves at you. It floats for a second, then is too saturated to move. You look away, moving toward the building. “You’d better hurry, Merrin,” Sam calls as she races into Walsh before you.

What an excellent day for an exorcism.

Going for the Western & Attraction (Companion Pieces)

Going for the Western

John held Susan by the elbow as they walked across the lot toward their new car. He held the door for her as she slid in, tucking her in like a kitten before bounding to the driver’s side and slamming the door after him. He checked behind him before easing the car out onto the road. They needed to get moving if they wanted to reach Las Vegas by midnight.

Susan arched her back and curved her neck to the left, peeking between the seats. “Lots of room back there,” she commented. Her heart was still beating two times too fast. She had never seen so much red paint, so much cream leather before. “We’re sitting on some goddamn soft cows.”

Susan was jolted out of her thoughts as the car swerved to the left. John had taken his eyes off the road as he reached up to ease the fabric of the convertible top back behind their heads. “Can you jump on back there and fix us up, baby?” John asked Susan with a lopsided grin.

Susan squirmed in her seat, pivoting between the front seats and hoisting herself far enough into the back seat to push the convertible top down to rest in place. She felt a bit self conscious; she knew her skirt was a little too short and John was guaranteed to be staring. She looked around from her place in the back seat; by now, they had made it to the highway. The desert extended in every direction possible. The night was clear and perfect; the velvety black sky dotted with sequins.

“Susie Q, why don’t you come back up here where I can see your cute ass?” John drawled.

Susan complied, but once she was tucked in to the jump seat, she looked over at John. Glancing hesitantly at first, her gaze whipped back over to John and she drew in a sharp breath as she stared at his ear. “I told you not to call me that,” she said, soft but evenly, gaining confidence, “Or Susan. I’m Martha now, Mrs. Martha Washington.”

“Okay, Martha. What do you want for dinner, Mrs. President?”

She smiled shyly. John had been her man for six years and he still made her nervous sometimes. She was proud of herself, and what they had just done. Part of her still couldn’t believe it. She was the best damn assistant John could ever ask for. “What can you eat that’s three thousand dollars?” Susan asked.

They had put John’s black dress socks on their faces before they jumped out of their old clunker – what a car; it had only taken them five blocks from the bank when it started making that funny noise. On an impulse, John decided to trade it in for a new 1958 Thunderbird before the cops could even figure out what was going on. Cranbrook was a slow town and things like this never happened.

The sock had been itchy. Susan was surprised she could see out of it as well as she could; she knew the people in the bank couldn’t see her. They had planned it out over breakfast. John was to take the lead and Susan would hold the gun. She could shoot pretty good, but she sure didn’t want to. John said he knew it would look better if the man was holding the gun but they both knew Susan couldn’t be trusted to get what they wanted. “You’re not the best with speeches, darlin’,” John had put it sweetly.

They stopped at a diner in New Mexico, a real greasy spoon. “Pancakes?” John asked. Susan gave him a fierce, happy look. “Not tonight. I’m going for the Western tonight.”

“Baby, you sure do like them omelets when you’re proud. I’m glad you’re so pleased with yourself. You should be. We pulled off a real great heist today. I couldn’t a’ done it without you, sugar.” John leaned across the table and landed a quick kiss on her forehead.

After dinner, it was back to the road. “When we get to my sister’s place, what do you think we’re gonna do, Johnny?” Susan trained her owl eyes on John’s ear, following his sideburns down to his stubbly chin. They hadn’t showered yet today and she wondered if they’d get to.

As if reading her mind, Johnny said, “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m going to take a nice, long hot bath and if I fall asleep after there’s no harm in that.”

Susan shivered. “No, Johnny, I mean with our lives.” She pulled a flowered scarf from her bag and tied it around her face and under her chin, keeping her hair back and warming her ears.

“You sure look silly like that, Susie. I mean, Martha Washington, excuse me,” Johnny said with a smile.

Susan ignored his last comment. She knew she would finally get the answer she wanted after how proud Johnny was of what she’d done today. She had to ask him. “Let’s get married, Johnny,” Susan stared at John, imploringly. “Don’t you want a baby soon? We can stop all this nosing around and start a real life. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Susan had been waiting an awful long time for Johnny to come around. He knew how important it was to her for them to get hitched but he always had an excuse. Sometimes she thought maybe she wasn’t likable enough, sometimes it was her lack of smarts. She knew she wasn’t getting any younger. After what she’d done for him today she thought she’d finally caught him.

“Baby, that’s a lot of talkin’ about marriage for one night. I’ve had just about as much as I can take on the subject. I love you, baby, but it just ain’t a good idea.”

“Oh Johnny,” Susan flopped down in her seat, pushing her knees toward John and leaning on the door a little. “It’s just an idea,” Susan conceded, rubbing the arch of one foot with her thumb. A giant green sign declared that they were ten miles from Nevada. “And keep your eyes on the road.”

Attraction

The fan in the bathroom hummed. My foot shook. It was quiet in the room. I could hear a woman squealing.

“Oh Daddy, Daddy I beg of you, whisper to Mommy, it’s alright with you.” Johnny was singing in the shower. He was dancing, the white bar hugging his slick body. He would be in there forever.

I waited on the bed, but damn it, I couldn’t forget. I was the one who needed a shower. I knew tonight would be one of those nights, when you cry so hard your face turns orange and your eyes get that baked look in them. That’s what showers were for.

He was right though, he did smell something awful. I picked up his shirt. He wore a ratty white t-shirt all day with the pocket half torn off.

There was blood on the shoulder but I pressed the shirt to my face anyway. The smell was familiar and intoxicating, like a car crash where no one gets hurt.

I took off my skirt, slipping his old shirt over my shoulders. I would wait here on the bed in his shirt until he came out of the shower. He would see me and as we made love he would know he wanted to get married.

We were in Las Vegas for Christ’s sake. If he were ever going to change his mind, it would be here.

The bed was an expanse of white and down. I thrust the back of my skull against the pillows, squeezing them against the red headboard and kicking my knees up. The water was pounding against Johnny. Steam escaped through the cracks in the door.

I burrowed my toes in the blanket, pushing them forward. I was exposed. As the water shut off I threw off Johnny’s shirt, pulling the robe down from the hook and twisting it around my body.

I sat on the edge of the bed, legs crossed. The doorknob turned.

“Watch out, lady. I’m about ready to crash. That shower’s all yours.” Johnny’s towel was slung low on his hips, exposing the patch of dark hair below his navel.

“Johnny,” I whined, “I’m not quite ready to get in the shower.” I sat primly on the edge of the bed, looking up at Johnny. He walked toward me. The dark patch was right in front of me.

“Baby. I ain’t playing around. Why don’t you take a nice, long bath? You need to get clean, Susie.”

I hated when he called me that. Plus, he was still supposed to call me Martha. “Martha!” I yelled, scooting past him and heading for the bathroom.

“Martha!” he yelled back, grabbing me with one hand under my shoulders and hoisting me up into his arms so the backs of my knees were over his left arm. He kissed my neck and the exposed part of my chest between the folds of the robe.

We rushed into the bathroom. Johnny held me tight to his chest as he bent down to turn the water on for the tub. He sat down on the toilet lid to wait, with me on his knee, my arms around his neck. The scruffy hairs on the back of his neck felt strange. I was too close to his chest for us not to be touching.

I tilted my chin up and looked into his eyes, deep and brown like an Utahan forest. He had shaved his stubble and I brushed my nose against the smooth surface of his cheek before kissing him on the mouth. I moved in and our skin touched. He wrapped his arms across my back, pulling me closer. This was what I had wanted all along.

The steam rose from the hot surface of the water, which had now reached the lip of the tub. “You’re all ready,” Johnny stood up, pulling me with him. I braced my arm against him, easing myself in.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, John had gone. I wondered what he was doing, out in the bedroom. He had probably fallen asleep on the bed, feet at the headboard, listening to the radio as usual, but I had a nagging feeling he wasn’t in the room at all.

I scrubbed my toes, hurrying to rinse the shampoo out of my hair. I was so tired, but I pushed myself to get out of the aromatic bathwater. I rubbed the hard towel all over my body until I was completely dry, pulling my robe back on after.

I turned the glass doorknob, peeking out into the room. It was empty.

Johnny’s suitcase was out on the bed. His shoes were missing and so was his heavy coat.

I went to the balcony, throwing open the curtains and stepping outside. “Johnny!” I yelled. A couple on the street stared up at me, then hurried away down the road. I kept yelling. A woman in a room on the floor below us told me to shut up.

I put my palms up to my temples. I didn’t feel well. I ran back into the room, checking under the bed and in the closet. Maybe Johnny was just playing a trick on me. He left me in the tub, asleep, to die. People really died that way.

I pulled the room apart. He wasn’t there. I either had to wait for him or go find him myself. I had no idea where he would have gone. He couldn’t pull something in Vegas, it was too dangerous. Plus we had more than enough cash from this morning.

The money was gone. I checked once, I checked again, I put my whole hand through the false bottom to Johnny’s suitcase but the money was gone. Johnny had taken the money and run.

I weighed my options. I could call the police. Would they know it was me back in New Mexico this morning? I was the one with the gun. Calling the police wasn’t really an option. I could look for our new car, keep looking for Johnny, keep chasing him across every border. Or I could just end it now.

I couldn’t jump in my bathrobe. I searched the suitcase for my light purple slip. I put on my pantyhose, my longest tan skirt, my silk lavender blouse. I buckled my brown Mary Jane pumps and checked my face in the mirror, freshening up my red lipstick.

I stepped out onto the balcony. The night was cool and crisp, and I could see stars in the moon despite the heady glow from downtown. I looked down and felt the rush of nine stories. I swung one leg off the edge of the balcony, turning around to face the inside of our hotel room. I stood on the edge, scraping the concrete with my Mary Janes and extending my arms. I was shaking. I closed my eyes; it was peaceful.

“What are you doing? Susie!” I opened my eyes. Johnny was standing in the door with a bucket of ice. I smiled. “You old nut, get in here right now,” Johnny pulled me over the metal rail, sweeping me to the bed. My head was cushioned by about a dozen pillows. I felt calm.

“Baby, you could have killed yourself. Are you still hung up on that marriage thing? I’ll think about it. Okay? I promise.” John looked very worried. “Let me tuck you in here.” He poured himself a big glass of Jim Beam, making it a double for me. I’d done good.

Papa Nico

“Quiet,” it whispered. The boy looked up from his chess set. Papa Nico had gone to town on business today and he had been taking turns with the black and ivory pieces. Nanny was inside cleaning God knew what, although she had promised him iced tea over an hour ago. The boy lifted his dark cotton shorts, flapping them to cool his thighs. The garden was usually in shade but when the sun reached its zenith even the garden couldn’t hide from its rays.

Cypress trees lined the outer edge of the property above the cliffs, past the high stone wall that ran along the perimeter of the garden from the greenhouse to the rose trellis. The boy sat in the garden’s only clearing, marked by the hot flagstones under his feet. From here, he could smell the flowers from the burgeoning orange trees Papa Nico had moved out of the greenhouse. The boy heard a familiar “cu-coo” from his great-uncle’s aviary.

Looking around, the boy saw no one. He turned in his chair to check but he was alone in the garden. A breeze passed, stirring the thick ivy that covered the back wall. The boy hummed as he picked up an ivory knight, counting as he moved the horse’s head toward the forbidding black queen.

“Quiet.” He stared at the back wall. The boy missed having mates his own age around. He had lived in a school with a whole bunch of boys his age in England, but ever since the war had started and his parents sent him to live with Papa Nico he hadn’t been going to school at all.

He knew his parents feared for him after the Blitz began. The boy had gone home when the soldiers arrived at Ipswich, but it was terribly dangerous to be in London. Although his parents couldn’t come away with him, the boy expected they were safe with the others.

Now, Papa Nico was teaching the boy himself. He was learning all about geography and history, and ever so much about chess, but it was different without mates to share it with. He saw children in town when Papa Nico brought him to the market in Siena, but that was not the same. Those children were mangy and weird, dressed in rags and wearing veils. Their eyes bored into the boy and haunted him like no English mate’s ever would have done.

The boy had only met one child around Le Compane, and she was the strangest of them all. She wore odd, disheveled clothes and was always playing in the road with her brothers outside the tenuta. He thought maybe it was she who had been whispering from the back wall. He turned out of his chair slowly, keeping his eyes on the wall as he crouched under the game table. The ivy was thick and he could sneak up on her.

The boy edged to the back wall on his hands and knees, shooting up and tearing away a panel of ivy. A row of stones, loose in their mortar, stared back at him. Peering past the stones, he could see the lawn beyond the garden but he did not see the girl. Just then, he heard the whispering voice again, to his left along the wall. The boy ripped at the ivy, parting section after section to get closer to the voice, but still he could see no one.

Baffled, the boy began to turn away when he heard his name from inside the ivy. He reached a hand out toward the voice.

“What are you doing, Charlie?” The girl was behind him, in the courtyard.

Charlie spun around. “Nothing.” His face felt hot, like when his mum opened the door to his room without knocking. He flattened his palms against the stone behind his back. “What do you think you’re doing in here?”

“I saw you playing chess. Nanny said it was all right to come in,” the girl peered up at Charlie. Her brown eyes made him uncomfortable. The only kid in his school with dark eyes and dark hair like hers had worked for the cook so he could take classes there. His mother had told Charlie that the boy was Jewish. He thought it must be awful to be a Jew.

“Are you Jewish?” Charlie wanted the girl to get out of his garden. He hoped the wall would stay quiet until she left.

The girl sighed, sitting down on the bench by the wall. “Charles Darlington, you shut up. My family has lived in Siena for centuries.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Charlie taunted her. Madalen’s long dark hair was covering her face. Charlie saw how small she was.

“Look!” Charlie said. “I heard something speaking in the wall here.”

Madalen sat up, smoothing her dress and tucking loose hairs around her ears. She braided a few strands absentmindedly. “I don’t believe you for one minute.”

“No, really! I was sitting over there playing chess and I heard it twice! We just have to sit here really quietly and we’ll hear it.” Charlie sat down on the bench next to Madalen, the weathered wood carving splinters down the backs of his knees as he slid into the seat.

Their legs swung in the heat and a fly buzzed over Madalen’s head. Madalen sighed again, but her eyes were closed, her head tilted in concentration. The cuckoo bird called from near the rose trellis. Her eyes opened. “Are you pulling my leg, Charlie Darlington?” Madalen’s brown eyes stared right into Charlie’s blue ones, inches away from his face. From this distance, they looked beautiful.
Charlie shook his head. “Just listen.”

Madalen closed her eyes again. “Maybe they’re fairies,” she said with a slow half-smile. Her lips curved up on one side but stayed straight as a bullet on the other.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Charlie said. He couldn’t sit still any more so he stood up, shuffling his feet. “Want to play chess now?” He didn’t want to share the wall with Madalen, but he didn’t want her to think he was crazy either.

“You are a silly boy, Charlie. I almost believed you about the fairies.” They sat down at the game table just as Nanny brought out a tray of steaming scones and a pitcher of iced tea.

Charlie had seen Madalen playing chess with her brother on a crude wooden set when he passed her house in his uncle’s carriage. “Don’t worry. I’ll go easy on you since you’re a girl.”

“I’ll whoop you, just wait.”

Charlie moved his rook and took Madalen’s last bishop. “Check.”

The door to the aviary opened and Papa Nico emerged with two men. Charlie recognized one, Herr von Ribbentrop. His godfather had been absent at his last birthday party and Charlie ran to hug him. He stopped halfway when he heard Papa Nico’s voice. “What is that Blum child doing in my garden? Get out of here, ebreo! Git!”

Charlie turned to see his uncle’s rough hand encircling Madalen’s thin arm. Papa Nico pulled her along to the garden wall, parting the ivy at the great iron gate. He drew a brass key from his pocket, unlocking the door and pushing Madalen out onto the lawn. “Stay out!”

Charlie stared at the space where Madalen’s image had been, open-mouthed and frozen on the patio between his German godfather and his Papa Nico. He felt her running, running through the cypress trees. The voice whispered, “Quiet, quiet.”