A Tinfoil Sky Read online

Mel took in a deep breath, stepped forward, and knocked. The sounds of a TV filtered through the varnished wooden door.

  “Louder,” Cecily whispered.

  Mel knocked again, this time striking the door with enough force to make her knuckles hurt, but the pain only fueled her excitement. Someone lowered the volume on the TV. Cecily motioned for Mel to knock again. Mel’s heart began to pound.

  “Who’s there?” a woman called out from behind the closed door.

  “Is that you, Gladys?” Cecily asked.

  Standing purposely tall and perfectly still, Mel held her breath and kept her hands at her sides.

  When Gladys didn’t answer, Cecily spoke again. “It’s Cecily,” she said as she gave Mel a nervous smile and a little poke with her elbow. “Say hi,” she whispered.

  Mel took in a small breath, and, on the exhale, whispered, “Hi.”

  Still nothing.

  Mel could still feel her heart beating against the inside of her chest, but the excitement had turned to nervous dread. She looked out the window; she could see the top of the Pinto parked out front.

  “Gladys!” Cecily called out. And then, in an even louder tone, added, “It’s Cecily and Melody! We’ve …” Cecily paused. “We’ve come for a visit.”

  “Go away!” Gladys shouted back. “There isn’t anything left in here for you to steal!”

  Cecily seemed to ignore Gladys’s statement. “Look!” she said as she pulled Mel in front of her and stared directly at the small brass peephole in the door. “I’ve got Melody – you know, your granddaughter.”

  “Let’s go,” Mel said, undoing herself from Cecily’s grasp.

  “Gladys! Open … the … door!” Cecily yelled.

  She waited a moment, but there was no response.

  “I was hoping,” Cecily said in a much calmer voice, “that Mel and I might be able to stay, maybe a day or two, while we looked for a place of our own.”

  A place of our own, Mel repeated in her head. I thought we were coming here to be home. “I’m trying to get back on my feet.” Cecily quickly glanced at Mel and then continued, “No drugs, no booze.”

  Still, there was no response from Gladys.

  “Look, I can understand you not wanting to see me, but what about Melody? What’d she ever do to you?”

  Mel could taste the rage building in Cecily’s words. “Let’s leave,” she pleaded.

  Cecily ignored her and began pounding on the door with both fists. In this way, Mel and Cecily were different; when things went wrong, which they inevitably did, it was Mel who needed to stay calm and think things through with hopes of counterbalancing the anger in Cecily’s quick temper. But in many other ways, they were the same: thin and fine-boned, agile with long, slender hands. Cecily wore her hair in long, straight braids, unlike Mel’s tight-knit, copper-colored curls. Her curls were the one thing, she believed, that she got from her father – whoever he was.

  “That’s it,” Gladys yelled. “I’m calling the cops!”

  Mel heard what sounded like a chair or table being pushed up against the door. Moments later, the volume on the TV was turned up another notch or two.

  “The grand total of all that crap in your jewelry box … thirty-five bucks, Gladys!” The TV volume cranked again and was now so high that Mel was sure that Gladys wouldn’t hear her no matter how loud Cecily yelled or pounded on the door.

  “That’s it! Thirty-five bucks! You act like I pawned the queen’s jewels or something!” As Cecily yelled, she reached into her coat pocket, pulled out the last of the little money they had left, threw it, and then kicked the door. “There, I hope this makes you happy!”

  Two fives and a ten lay on the floor.

  “You heard her,” a young guy said, poking his head out from his apartment door down the hall. “She said to leave her alone or she’s calling the cops.”

  “Shut up!” Cecily yelled back at him.

  “And if she doesn’t,” the guy added, “I will!”

  “I’m going to the car,” Mel said, and then she turned and began to walk down the hall. As her feet descended the staircase, she could feel a rubbery looseness in her knees. She let everything she’d hoped this day would bring tumble down the dusty and scuffed wooden treads of the stairs. What remained was a cold, empty hole in her stomach.

  Cecily continued yelling at Gladys as she stomped down the stairs behind Mel, and she continued yelling all the way out the front door. Then she stood on the parched remnant of a lawn, two floors down from Gladys’s apartment, and yelled up at the closed window.

  Mel got into the Pinto and prayed to a god she didn’t really know. Please make Cecily stop, get in the car, and drive away.

  “I should have known it wouldn’t work,” Cecily yelled half in Mel’s direction and half at the apartment building. “We’re better off on the street.”

  Mel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The street was where they had been before moving in with Craig. They’d slept in shelters, they’d sung for handouts, and panhandled on street corners. How could we be better off on the street?

  “If Tux were alive, he would never have done this, Gladys!” Cecily shouted as she shook her fist in the direction of the window. “He wouldn’t have turned away his own flesh and blood!”

  Cecily took her cigarettes out of her bag, lit the half-smoked butt, and blew a steady stream of smoke in the direction of the window as though waiting for Gladys to yell back. When there was no response, Cecily turned and marched to the car.

  Cecily no sooner started the car than she shut it off, jumped out, and ran back into the apartment building. Mel turned her head purposely away and looked in the direction of Frohberger’s. The store, with its fresh, grassy-green paint and cream trim, was the best-kept building on the entire street. It was the image, in many ways, that she’d held in her heart of what Gladys’s was going to look like.

  When Cecily returned a few minutes later, she looked exuberant. “Got there just in time. That’ll teach her for not opening the door,” she exclaimed as she held up the cash, started the engine, and sped away.

  For Mel, there was no exuberance because she knew now that they were definitely not going home.

  They drove for what seemed like hours, traveling up one side of the main street and back down the other, five maybe six times, then along the river, through other neighborhoods, and then back into the downtown. Cecily played tour guide, nostalgically pointing out the bars and restaurants of her old hometown, but it was obvious to Mel that Cecily was looking for someone she knew. They returned time and time again to a public phone booth, where Cecily made several calls but got no answer.

  “And look, Mel,” Cecily said as she gave Mel a little jab. “They have a library – four floors of books, a pretty nice place for a town this size.”

  Mel didn’t look. Nor did she say anything; instead, she continued to lean her head against the edge of the open window and watch as the streetlights flickered on above the Mission Soup Kitchen. The thought of the library only reminded her that Craig had probably gone back to the house, and that he’d probably found her journal.

  She looked into the shops and houses they drove by. Warm light glowed through softly colored curtains. She could almost smell the sweet aroma of summer barbecues, but it only added to the doubt that anything so good could ever be hers. There were no words for the feelings lost inside of her, just emptiness.

  Cecily drove them to the edge of town, and then she slowed the car to peer into the darkness for a campground sign. Suddenly a distinct hissing noise, one that appeared to be coming from under the dash, brought Mel’s eyes back into the car; a caution light was blinking. She was about to point it out to Cecily when smoke began billowing into the air from somewhere under the hood.

  Cecily pulled the Pinto wagon to the edge of the road and began a tirade. She got out, kicked the tires, lifted the hood, and slammed it back down. It wasn’t the first time water had come spewing out from the radiator and bubbled over onto th
e engine. What was different this time was the goop leaking out the bottom onto the road.

  Cars drove by – some slowed. Mel hoped someone would stop. But that was unlikely, especially with Cecily yelling at the car.

  When Cecily calmed down, Mel asked, “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Cecily answered. “But for now, we need to get this piece of junk off the road.” Mel steered while Cecily pushed the car over a grassy area onto a patch of old asphalt, which was next to a pillar under an overpass that was, for the most part, out of view of passing cars. With the Pinto parked, they dug out their clothes and draped them like curtains over the car windows. Mel lit Cecily’s cigarette lighter and held up the flame so Cecily could find the bag of bread in the back. Cecily tore each of the two remaining pieces in half, undid the lid on the peanut butter, and scraped what was left from the edge of the jar with the bread, making them each a sandwich.

  With the clothes draped over all the windows, the car felt like one of the many childhood forts Mel remembered building.

  “Would you like some tea and cake?” Mel asked, holding up a pretend teapot in one hand and the peanut butter sandwich in the palm of the other.

  “Oh, that would be nice,” Cecily said, holding out her pretend cup and then sipping the hot pretend tea.

  They both sat in the back of the car, drinking their tea and eating their cakes.

  When Cecily finished hers, she put her hand on Mel’s knee. “I’m really sorry about what happened at Gladys’s today,” she said. “I just kind of lost it.”

  “It’s okay,” Mel said, lowering the pretend teapot. Cecily lit her last cigarette of the night, and then, when Mel was finished her sandwich, curled up beside Mel.

  It was difficult to get comfortable. In the place where the backseat folded down, there was an edge that dug into Mel’s hip. Each time, when she seemed to be finally nodding off, the words “Go away!” stabbed the place in her heart that had been dreaming about going home.

  6

  July 7

  When they woke up, Cecily announced that they should stay on in the broken-down Pinto until they could figure out some way to get it fixed. They got out of the car and took a good look at everything they hadn’t been able to see last night in the dark.

  “This little spot,” Cecily said as she walked through the tall grass, “is not only better than any old campsite, it’s free! I mean, look at that! Riverfront camping.”

  It isn’t much of a river, Mel thought. It’s more like a creek. But the edge was blanketed with tiny, smooth, and creamy white-colored pebbles – perfect for walking barefoot.

  But first things first,” she added. “We need to get some breakfast!”

  Cecily remembered a bakery that made what she called incredible delicacies. And with that thought in mind, they organized themselves and made the ten-minute walk into town.

  Everything about the little bakery, from its paned glass windows to the overflowing flower boxes of nasturtiums to a bright cobalt blue bench, felt welcoming.

  Mel loved the smell of the fresh bread, and, as she breathed it in, she gazed at the array of scrumptious baked goods. Spending their last few dollars on a treat was something that came easily to Cecily. She’d often say, “Let’s go for it. It might be awhile before we’ve got money to do this again.” And so here they stood, mouths watering before a world of wonderful sweets.

  “Pick one,” Cecily said, encouraging Mel. “Whatever you want.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Come on,” Cecily repeated. “Pick whatever you want.”

  Mel chose a blueberry muffin. Cecily chose a chocolate-filled croissant. “And one of each to go also,” she told the cashier as she handed her a ten dollar bill.

  Next door to the bakery was a little market. Cecily went in and bought a jug of milk and a pack of smokes. Mel did the math. Two blueberry muffins cost three dollars, two chocolate croissants cost three or four, one jug of milk costs about two, and cigarettes cost seven dollars. That meant that fifteen or sixteen of their last twenty-some dollars were gone.

  —

  They passed the milk back and forth between them as they walked back to the Pinto. Once there, Mel pulled her blanket out of the backseat, walked to the river’s edge, and laid the blanket down in the tall grass. Cecily followed her.

  “Let’s make a list,” Cecily said, “of all the different kinds of muffins we’ll make when we get our next place.”

  It was a game Cecily played often: The List Game. It wasn’t like anything on the list ever got done or happened. When Mel was little, it always cheered her up – but not anymore. Now Mel saw it as dreaming – silly, stupid dreaming.

  “It’ll be fun,” Cecily said, encouraging Mel.

  “I don’t really want to.”

  “What do you mean? You love this game.”

  “Maybe when I was a kid, but not anymore.”

  Cecily ignored Mel’s apparent disinterest and changed the subject. “Do you remember when you wanted to change your name to Strawberry Blueberry Raspberry?” Cicely asked.

  “I was six. Kids say things like that when they’re six,” Mel said as she stared up into the clear blue sky.

  What Mel really wanted to talk about was what they were going to do now. If it was true that the twenty dollars Cecily threw on the hallway floor outside of Gladys’s was the last money they had, then that meant they were almost broke. Even if they wanted to, there wasn’t enough money to buy the gas to get back to the city. Gladys had been their only option, and although Mel didn’t say it out loud, she was mad at Cecily for whatever it was that she’d stolen from Gladys.

  She was about to ask Cecily if there was anyone else she knew in Riverview that could help them out when they heard a vehicle pull up somewhere in the direction of the Pinto. Doors opened. There were two voices.

  Cecily and Mel pasted themselves to the blanket, hardly breathing, hoping the tall grass concealed their presence. Moments later, doors closed. An engine started, followed only by the sound of tires rolling over the loose stones on the worn pavement. They both sat up.

  “We need to figure out a way to get this car fixed and get out of here,” Cecily said as she lowered her head to the blanket.

  Mel got up and walked over to the car. What caught her eye first was the large fluorescent-pink sticker stuck to the driver’s side window.

  The date July 7 was written in black felt marker. They had two days. The Pinto needed to be moved or it was going to be towed. Mel walked back to the blanket and broke the news to Cecily.

  “This is a free country and if I want to park under an overpass for a week or two, no one is going to tell me I can’t.” Cecily said it as though this was a matter she had a choice in. Mel didn’t bother to disagree; instead, she walked back to the Pinto, opened the door, and began folding and sorting the mess of clothes.

  7

  Looking for a Gig

  The next morning, Cecily woke up with a plan in her head. She was going to look for work. Bars and restaurants often hire singers or musicians to perform for their patrons. One, maybe two nights worth of singing and they’d be able to get the car on the road.

  “I might even be able to get a regular gig,” Cecily said.

  Mel didn’t like the thought of Cecily being out at night, but tips were better in a bar or at a fancy restaurant than on the street.

  The same scene played out in bar after bar all morning. Cecily would go inside, guitar in hand, and ask to speak to the manager. Mel would find a patch of shade, if there was one, and wait. Sometimes she would hear Cecily singing and Mel would cross her fingers. But no one, it seemed, was hiring.

  Cecily decided to give up for the morning and suggested they get some lunch at the Mission Soup Kitchen. It would give them a chance to sit down, she told Mel, and get out of the blistering sun. The line for food was long; she and Cecily leaned against the building in an effort to squeeze out a little bit of shade. Mel glanced up at the library wind
ow; her eyes caught those of a boy, about her age, looking down in her direction. Mel untied her sweatshirt from around her waist, put it on, and pulled the hood onto her head to avoid being seen.

  When they finally got inside, Mel noted that the soup kitchen was not all that different from others they had eaten at. It was a large, plain room. Tables were arranged in two rows; there was an aisle down the middle, and at the back stood two worn and weathered brown couches. Cecily went up to the serving window to get their lunches and Mel found them a place at a table. The room’s only art (and Mel wasn’t sure you could really call it art) was a message: the words “Jesus Lives Here” painted in large pastel letters above the counter. As people shuffled past the table, Mel noticed the cooks, who greeted each person as they loaded plates. It seemed that the cooks knew many of the people by name. But Mel was tired, and it was soon easier to close her eyes and rest her head on the table than to take in more of the hustle and bustle of the soup kitchen.

  —

  “Is she feeling okay?”

  Mel awoke to a warm, heavy hand resting on her forehead. She looked up. An absolutely enormous woman with a colorful chili-pepper apron towered over her.

  “She’s fine,” Cecily said, “just tired.”

  Mel smiled at the woman. She was one of the women she’d spotted in the kitchen serving the lunch. “I’m fine,” Mel said.

  The cook, or whoever she was, smiled and walked back through the swinging metal door and into the kitchen.

  The dark burgundy soup was both sweet and tangy. Mel carefully spooned bits of the dollop of sour cream into each mouthful of beets and cabbage. She wanted to savor the creamy texture, but Cecily was in a rush, and as soon as Mel finished they were back on the move.

  The afternoon was no different than the morning. Only now Mel was really tired. Cecily began asking about work anywhere: fancy shops, shoe stores, grocery stores, and offices. It was as though, Mel thought, Cecily was proving to herself there was no work, no hope of fixing the car, no hope of finding a place, no hope of anything.