Just then the station wagon cruised by our front window. It was impossible to see Sheba’s and Jimmy’s faces in the dark. “That’s him,” I said.
“How was the meatloaf?”
“I think it was perfect.”
My mother laid her needlepoint on her lap and looked at me, smiling. “That makes me very happy.”
“Maybe I’ll just use our menu for their dinners this month?” My mother worked so hard on planning our family dinners, I thought it would please her that more than just our small family would enjoy them.
“Excellent idea. Do you think she has any dietary needs? With her illness?”
“Um . . I don’t know,” I said.
“I have a feeling it’s cancer. Especially because no one knows—I tried to pull it out of a few women at the club today. People are very secretive about cancer. No one wants their neighbors to know about the hardships in their home.”
“Oh. Okay.” I wondered how many hardships were going on in the houses around me—hardships I’d never before imagined.
“Did they pray before dinner?”
“Yes,” I lied. The third lie. I would start losing count if there were too many more.
“In Hebrew?”
“No. In English.”
“Hmm.” My mother nodded once, decisively. “Well, good for them.”
6
Beanie Jones was standing on the front porch holding an angel food cake on a glass platter. She hadn’t knocked. Izzy and I had opened the door for our daily walk to Eddie’s market and there she was, a too-big smile smeared across her face like a cartoon drawing.
“Hey, Beanie!” Izzy said.
“Hello!” Beanie said.
“Hey.” I blushed. “I’m sorry about the other night. I’m sorry we were parked in front of your house.” It was Thursday and I hadn’t seen Beanie since Monday night, when Sheba and Jimmy had driven me home. Driving me home had become a ritual, one that began with Sheba taking off and Jimmy and me jumping into the moving car. We called it “Doing a Starsky and Hutch.” Sheba critiqued our performance each time. Mary Jane, you should have jumped in deeper! What if I had been going faster? You would have ended up under the back wheels! I took Sheba’s critiques seriously, and put real effort into being a better car-jumper.
We took a different street to avoid Beanie Jones. And we only parked in front of houses whose owners I knew were out of town. Jimmy always lit a joint, and then the three of us sang church songs, with Sheba on melody and Jimmy and me harmonizing—him low and me high. Turns out that Sheba and Jimmy had both been in their church choirs, Sheba because she liked it, Jimmy because his grandmother forced him to. （Of his grandmother, Jimmy had said, “She was a warty old hag who loved Marlboros and Old Crow bourbon almost as much as she loved Jesus.”）
“No need to apologize,” Beanie said. And then she lowered her voice to a whisper and said, “But tell me. That was Sheba and Jimmy, wasn’t it?”
Izzy looked up at Beanie with huge, blinking eyes. “NOPE!”
“Uh, it was just some people who looked like them. Old friends of the Cones. They’re gone now.” The words came out so smoothly that I almost wanted to laugh. The more I lied, the easier it was. And instead of feeling guilty about my lies, I was starting to feel guilty that I didn’t feel so guilty.
“Mary Jane.” Izzy tugged my hand. When I looked at her, she quietly said, “Secret.”
Beanie’s eyes ticked like a cat clock, back and forth. “Huh. Amazing resemblance. Why don’t I bring this cake in? Mr. Jones suddenly decided he was watching his ‘girlish figure,’ and I thought, with you here all summer, there were enough people in the house to need an angel food cake.”
“Oh, I’ll put it inside for you.” I took the cake and turned to go. Izzy followed me, and Beanie followed her. There was no one to see; Jimmy and Dr. Cone were in Dr. Cone’s office, and Sheba and Mrs. Cone had gone to the Eastern Shore for the day. They both wore wigs this time, long and blond, like Swedish sisters. Still, I felt a bolt of panic with Beanie in the house.
I put the cake on the kitchen table, then turned to Beanie. “Thank you so much.” I wasn’t sure what to do. How to be good, polite, and kind while still getting Beanie out of here?
“Is Bonnie home?”
“No, she’s gone.”
“And my dad’s in his office with a patience,” Izzy offered.
“A patient,” I said. “We’re on our way to Eddie’s.”