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"Wow," Dave said.
"Wow," I echoed. Out the back window I saw two policemen guiding my cousin, Malachi Dufresne, into a van with iron mesh bars on the windows. He paused and scanned the crowd, one foot poised midair.
One of the cops pushed him forward, and he disappeared into the vehicle.
Later that night I cornered Lulu in the kitchen. You corner Lu
lu and you're taking your chances, but I was feeling brave after what I saw as my victory in the courtroom. I sidled up alongside her at the sink and broached the subject I knew she least wanted to see brought up. "So what is that place, what Aunt Eliza said?"
"Don't call her that. "
"What was it you called her? Tatie? What's that mean? It's not like 'Katie,' is it? It's not like a name or something?"
"Just call her Eliza. She never needs to hear more than that from you. "
I hopped up on the counter and picked at a foil bag of potato chips. "All right. " I stuffed a crispy potato shingle into my mouth and talked around my chewing, so I could pretend that Lulu had misheard something in case I needed an excuse to backtrack.
"So it's Pine Breeze, huh—not the Pine Trees like I used to think. And it's for real; I didn't make it up. I really heard it someplace. Are you going to tell me what it is, or not?"
"No, I'm not going to tell you, not yet. And don't ask again. I'll bring it up when I think you're old enough to hear about it. "
That wasn't what I wanted to hear, but it wasn't as harsh a reaction as I'd nearly expected.
I grunted, still gnawing on that salty chip. "Maybe I'll ask again, and maybe I won't. "
"Well," she said, taking the bag away from me, "you'd better not. "
III
I missed two weeks of school during the trial, and when I returned I was something of a celebrity. Chattanooga isn't a big city, and anyone's business is everyone's business, especially if that business makes the news. Lu mostly kept me clear of the television during those weeks, though I don't think she did me any favors. Not surprisingly, the media had gotten wind that my case was related to an older, equally perplexing one. Soon everyone in town knew more about Leslie than I did.
Leslie. She was my mother.
Her picture had been plastered across the screens almost as often as mine. I don't know which one they used for either of us. My fourth-grade portrait was a likely candidate for me . . . but for my mother? I couldn't even swear I would recognize a photo if I saw one. The only one I knew of was grainy and distant, of the three sisters linked by a tangle of arms thrown over shoulders. Lu couldn't have seriously thought she could keep me from hearing something the entire valley considered old news. She must have known that someone, somewhere would bring it up.
Within a few hours of my return to the classroom, someone did.
There was a new girl in my class. Her name was April, and she was from up North. Not up North like over the river, or up North like Nashville or Louisville, but farther away—Chicago, she said, and you knew it was true. You could hear it in her vowels, and in her almost audible sneer. She believed that the more snow you got for winter the smarter you were; and consequently, the hotter your summers the more likely it was you'd marry a cousin. By the time I met her, she was the most hated member of my class. This is not to say she had no friends; on the contrary, she was quite popular with the richer kids, for they envied her cosmopolitan air and her bizarre clothes, which she insisted were the veritable height of fashion. But make no mistake, they hated her too. They hated her for the reason we all did: she thought she was better than us, and we were afraid she was right.
On my second day back we took a field trip to the train station, the Chattanooga Choo Choo. My apathy knew no bounds. Everyone knew it hadn't been a real station for years, and it had since been converted to a Holiday Inn. After all the excitement of my last month, a mere hotel was not going to engage me. I might have complained aloud, but at least I wasn't stuck in a classroom pretending to pay attention to the goings-on at a chalkboard. Any field trip—even a field trip down the mountain and into the ghetto—was better than a day of diagramming sentences.
I sat sourly in the bus on the ride down the mountain, taking an entire seat to myself so I could spread out, lean my back against the window, and let my head knock against it during rough patches of road. We parked, unloaded, and then all us fourth and fifth graders milled about together while our teachers made arrangements with guides. I stood in the parking lot with my peers and stared up. And up. And up. At what was really quite a grand building.
Yes, it was grand—even despite the nasty urban rot surrounding it. Across the street was a series of restaurants and lesser hotels that hadn't seen a customer in fifty years, boarded and blackened with pollution and mildew. Down the road both ways I saw only more of the same, and except for the large parking garage next to the station, it seemed that everything for blocks around was decrepit and deserted.
But the station. I was grudgingly impressed.
Our teachers ushered us into the lobby. By then my neck was aching, but I couldn't stop myself. An enormous domed ceiling in gold-and-red glass loomed above us, and even the most cynical of students gaped at the glittering glass-and-iron chandeliers. I finally dropped my head and saw my own reflection in the polished marble floor.
The guide started talking in a squeaky old-man voice that matched his appearance in every way. "In 1840," he began, and my mind was already wandering. God, to have stood so long, to have seen and survived so much, only to be turned into a cheesy hotel. It was positively criminal.
With increasing irritation, I sensed someone pressing close to me in the crowd. For once I was actually listening to the lesson and enjoying it, and I didn't want anyone interrupting. I shuffled forward a foot or two towards the front, but April followed me. I knew it was her. I could smell her expensive cherry lip balm even before I saw her, and everyone else knew enough to leave me alone.
I tried to ignore her, but when she whispered into my ear there was little I could do to pretend she wasn't there.
"So it's you, huh? You're the one everyone was talking about. "
I nodded, acknowledging that I'd heard her without admitting guilt. I kept my eyes forward, still dutifully watching our guide. "Maybe. "
