The Same Stuff as Stars

“If they’re selling, I ain’t buying.”

“Mrs. Morgan can’t come to the phone right now,” Angel said in her Verna voice. “Can I take a message?”

“This is the Central Vermont Hospital,” the voice said. Oh, God, not Bernie. “We have a Ray Morgan here as a patient. He wanted Mrs. Morgan to be informed of his impending operation.”

“Who’d you say was having an operation?”

“What’d she say?” Grandma was on her feet. “Lemme talk.” She came and took the phone out of Angel’s hand. “This is Miz Morgan,” she said. “What’s going on?”

There was nothing for Angel to do but wait. At first, she could only feel relief that the call was neither about Bernie nor the police asking after Wayne. It wasn’t even Welfare on her tail. It took several minutes before dread like icy fingers began to claw at her. Who was in the hospital? Ray Morgan was dead. Grandma had said so.

Grandma wasn’t saying much, mostly nodding, as though to show the caller she understood. She was obviously getting a lengthy explanation, at the end of which, she said, “How ’bout doing that once more in English?” Another explanation. “Oh. Oh. Yeah. Okay. No, I guess not. Okay. Yeah.” After which she hung up. When she turned away from the phone, her eyes were wide, like an animal caught in the headlights of an onrushing car.

“He’s gonna die,” she said. “I just know it.”

“Who? Who’s going to die?” Angel could hardly breathe.

Grandma made her way back to the rocker like a person in great pain. “Santy Claus,” she said and began to rock, her eyes and face still paralyzed.

NINETEEN

Stardust to Stardust

Grandma, there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.” She could feel a chill spreading to her stomach as she said it.

The old woman looked up at her with eyes as sad as a little child’s. “Well, I guess you ought to know.”

“Still, someone has been helping you out all these years. Was that Ray—your son Ray?” The star man?

“I ain’t got no sons nor grandsons nor great-grandsons neither.”

“The woman from the hospital said Ray Morgan.”

“And just what does she know about anything?”

“The man who’s in the hospital told her he was your son Ray. She was just passi

ng his message along.”

“My Ray died a long time ago. He went to the army and died in that there Vietnam. He never come back to me.” She closed her eyes and began to rock. “The government took away my baby boy, and he never come back.”

She didn’t want to ask, didn’t even want to know, but she had to. “Then who—who’s living in your trailer?”

“What do you know about somebody living in the trailer?”

“Me and Bernie were looking around the property, and we peeked in the window. Somebody lives in there.”

“You got no right to go poking your nose in places that ain’t none of your beeswax.”

“I know. But I did it anyhow.”

“You ain’t seen nobody around, have you?”

“Well, the first night we were here, Bernie thought he saw a man down in the yard with a gun.”

“You ain’t seen nobody then?”

She wanted to lie. She didn’t want the star man to be Grandma’s strange, not quite alive, son.