Mrs. Mulrooney seemed to respond to his rebuff graciously enough at the time, but the girls and I suspected that she was so infuriated about getting passed over that she could barely see straight. Of course, she couldn’t be blatantly vindictive toward Aunt Jane May. Jealousy was a sin and the president of the Ladies Auxiliary couldn’t let her slip show. But if you observed people as closely as we did, you’d learn that no matter how holier than thou they appeared, their oiliness would eventually seep to the surface, and Evelyn Mulrooney’s had at that month’s church fundraiser, “Pastry for Pagan Babies.”
After she strode onto the school’s gymnasium floor last week, she appeared to be gushing with excitement when she greeted the crowd who’d forked over five dollars to spend the evening sampling pies, cakes, and cookies and voting on the most delicious, but she didn’t fool the girls and me. When Mulrooney leaned into the microphone and said, “May I have your attention, please? The ballots have been counted and Jane May Mathew’s devil’s food cake has taken top honors. Again,” she smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. And instead of offering hearty congratulations to the winner, she quipped, “But I’m sure we can all agree that an angel food cake would’ve been more in keeping with our Roman Catholic values.”
The crowd got a big yuck out of that, but the second that crack came out of Mulrooney’s mouth, I told the girls, “Something’s rotten in Denmark.”
Seemed like Viv barely listened to the Shakespearean passages Aunt Jane May would read aloud to make us more cultured, but she said, “Yeah, but something stinks around here, too, and I think it’s the stench of the green-eyed monster comin’ off Mulrooney. You see that look she’s givin’ Auntie? I’ve seen it a million times on my ma’s and granny’s faces.”
Frankie and I were well familiar with that look. Viv had inherited it.
“We gotta keep extra close tabs on Auntie from here on out,” Viv added with a shudder, “because as cagey as she is, she’s no match for an Irish gal lookin’ to get an eye for an eye.”
Frankie nodded in agreement and said, “Dell says all the time that ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’”
So whatever came out that night at the town hall meeting, if it involved Mulrooney, the girls and I knew it wouldn’t be good. We couldn’t be sure, of course, because as Frankie said, we had no proof, but it sure seemed like she was up to something that’d put a crimp in our freedom and adversely affect the patients at Broadhurst as well. Not to mention that she might be going after darling Mayor Kibler’s job and had something nasty in store for our beloved aunt, too. The Bible taught us to “know thy enemy” and the girls and I thought we did, but what good would it do us if we didn’t know her plan?
“I think Frankie’s right.” I kicked the soup can so hard it dented the tip of my patent leather shoe. “We need to get to that meeting tonight to find out what Mulrooney’s up to, but when we ask Aunt Jane May she’s gonna tell us to—”
“Mind our own businesses,” Frankie and Viv chimed in.
It was a lot for us to take in, and we walked the rest of the way home stewing over the powerful forces we were up against. When we rounded the corner toward home, I could see the rainbow flag attached to the roof of the hideout hanging lifelessly in the still morning and I thought, That’s just how I feel.
Sensing my despair, Viv reached for my hand and gently ran her thumb across my knuckles. “Auntie forbid us to cross the tracks and warned us to stay away from Broadhurst, but that hasn’t stopped us. And if you think I’m gonna let her keep us from goin’ to that meeting tonight,” she said with a grin, “you’re even stupider than you look, ya dumb chump.”
Chapter Five
On our walk home from Mass that morning, the girls and I had decided it was pointless to ask Aunt Jane May if we could go to the emergency meeting that night, but Frankie insisted we take a run at her later that afternoon. “We could get lucky,” she’d said as we roller-skated past the downtown shops. “She might still be in her church mood.”
Sure that Viv already had one foot in hell, Aunt Jane May spent a good part of her day reprimanding her, but deep down? Those two were cut from the same cloth. Both of them were extravagant with their words and their gestures, and what beautiful music they made together. Viv would often slip out of the hideout after she thought Frankie and I were asleep to go sit with our aunt on the back porch glider. They loved Doris Day songs and show tunes like “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” but they harmonized on hymns, too. Their version of “Amazing Grace” just about did me in.
Sure that Viv would have the best chance to win Aunt Jane May over, after we unstrapped our roller skates, we went looking for her and found her on her knees in the front garden. She was snipping roses for that night’s supper table.
“Excuse us for botherin’ you, Auntie,” Viv said, “but we can’t seem to agree on what time you said you wanted us to be ready to go to the town hall with you tonight. We wouldn’t want to be tardy. Did you say six thirty or quarter of?”
Aunt Jane May leaned back onto her haunches and said, “Vivian Edna, because it’s the Lord’s day, I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear you ask to attend a meetin’ that’s none of your businesses.”
Repaying the favor, Viv acted like she hadn’t heard her. She was about to launch into another one of her cock-and-bull stories when our aunt reached into her gardening box and yanked out a few of the tools the girls and I called Satan’s pitchforks. “And if I hear one more word comin’ out of any of your mouths, you’ll be poppin’ dandies out of the lawn the rest of the day, I don’t care how blasted hot it is. On second thought—” she grinned, not nicely, and tossed the tools at our feet.
Viv protested, “But … but it’s supposed to be a day of rest!”
“Fifty each, and you can bet I’ll count ’em.”
We couldn’t afford to get on her bad side any worse than we already were, so we did as we were told. But after we’d accumulated half our quota, we took a break from the beating sun beneath the big weeping willow out back. The one Aunt Jane May promised to bury us under if she ever caught us “prevaricating” to her. We were gulping water out of the garden hose, making necklaces with the dandelions we’d dug up, and cloud watching through the tree’s dangling emerald branches.
When a chubby cumulus floated by, Frankie tickled my cheek with a blade of grass and said, “Hate to break it to ya, but I think another something Mulrooney’s got up her sleeve is the sheriff.”
I swatted her hand away. “What d’ya mean?”
“I think she wants to marry him, and Viv thinks so, too.”
“What?” The most shocking part of that statement wasn’t that that social-climber wanted to become part of the most powerful family in Summit, but that the girls had agreed on something.
I bolted upright and asked Viv, “Is that right?”
She nodded with gravitas, but then said, “Rotsa ruck” and burst into giggles and didn’t stop until she wet her pants.