The Same Stuff as Stars

Even as she crept down the stairs, even as she took the phone off the hook, even when with her finger shaking she yanked around the dial the numbers she had memorized without ever meaning to, even until the moment the voice at the other end answered—something in her stomach warned her not to go ahead, her whispery voice as trembly as her body.

“This is Angel Morgan. I need to get a message to my daddy, Wayne Morgan. Just say...just say Verna’s come and took Bernie off. Just tell him that.”

She hung up the phone and went to the kitchen door to look out. She could smell frost in the air and hear the wind wailing in the changing leaves. It was a night of no stars.

***

Like a sleepwalker, she stumbled through the next day at school. She hadn’t wanted to go at all. She’d wanted to stay by the phone, in case. But Grandma made her go. “It’s like sitting in the garden watching cabbage come to a head. The phone’ll never ring long as you’re waiting beside it. Ask me. I know about such things.”

She spent most of lunchtime in the bathroom and was still there in the stall when a group of girls swept in. “What did she say when you asked her about the robbery, Megan?”

Angel froze as Megan’s voice answered the question. “Oh, she pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about, but my grandma told my daddy and he told my mom that she’s Wayne Morgan’s girl. Grandma even had the clippings. She saves everything, and Daddy was in grade school with Wayne Morgan, so she thought he’d be interested.”

Angel strained to hear the details. They might think she was pretending, but she really didn’t know. It made her feel the fool to have Megan Armstrong know more about her daddy than she did.

“Did he shoot somebody?”

“He said he didn’t, but the clerk had a bullet in him, didn’t he? One of those guys in the ski masks shot him, and the other guys said Wayne Morgan did it. So it was two against one. They shouldn’t ever let somebody like that out of jail.”

But he didn’t do it. Angel broke out in a cold sweat. Wayne wouldn’t hurt anybody. But how did she know? She hardly knew her own daddy. It had happened when she was five, and all she could remember before that was the yelling. There must have been good times, too. Yes, when he bought her Grizzle. She remembered how happy she was when he gave her Grizzle. Verna had snorted something like “Blue bear? I swear,” but Angel had loved it from the first. It was the only present he had ever given her, although for a while Verna would give her something and say “It’s from your daddy and me.” She had stopped saying it years ago. There hadn’t been many presents, just the toys they got from the Salvation Army Santa Claus. That hardly counted.

The girls were still whispering, but whether about Wayne or something or somebody else, she didn’t know. She wished they’d leave so she could come out of the stall. She read the dirty words and looked at the pictures scratched into the back of the door. You’d think the school would paint them over. Then again, some were dug deep in the door, so they’d probably show through the paint. She wished she had something with a sharp point, so she could scratch something nasty about Megan Armstrong on the door. Something that would last for years.

“Megan, shh! There’s somebody in there.”

“What of it?” Megan’s voice answered. “Hey, you in there. You’re not supposed to eavesdrop.”

Angel stayed still, but she was seething inside. She’d been here when they came in, hadn’t she?

“You scared to come out?” It was the voice of one of Megan’s gang, Heather Somebody-or-other.

There was a giggle. “Hea-thur!”

Then suddenly Heather’s head appeared under the stall door. The eyes went wide and quickly disappeared. “It’s her in there!” she whispered fiercely.

“Everything I said was true. It was in the newspapers.” Angel could almost see Megan tossing her bouncy curls.

“Let’s get out of here,” someone said. She could hear them scuffling out into the hall, whispering and giggling as they went. Angel was almost glad. For a few minutes she was able to think how much she hated those girls instead of the fact that Bernie was gone. Gone.

***

She slumped onto her bus seat with something like relief. The worst day of her life was coming to an end. Soon she’d be home. It was strange to think of Grandma’s house as home, but it was. Home with a hole bigger than a moon crater, now that there was no Bernie in it.

“It didn’t ring,” Grandma said. She wasn’t in her rocker. She was standing by the hot plate. “I’m fixing me some tea,” she said. “You want some, too?”

Angel nodded. “Then I think I’ll walk up to the library.”

Grandma stiffened. “It’s getting dark early,” she said. “Tomorrow’s Saddidy. Wait till tomorrow. Then you’ll have time to shop, too. We must be out of one of them precious food groups by now.”

Angel giggled despite herself. “You’re catching on, Grandma. I’ll have you trained yet.”

They drank their tea in the darkening kitchen, their bodies in knots, fighting to keep from turning to stare at the phone. She’d always tried to defend Verna, always tried to see her mother’s side of things, but it was hard to do this time.

***

She woke up in the night. She couldn’t quite remember the dream that had awakened her. Someone—Bernie, she thought—had been crying, but the only fragment of the dream that had stayed with her was the sight of the pickup pulling away with Bernie’s arm sticking out the window on the passenger side. “Pull in your arm, Bernie,” she’d yelled. “How many times do I have to tell you? Get your arm out of the

window!” She sat up, her throat as hoarse as though she’d been yelling out loud instead of in a dream.