Making Friends with Billy Wong Read online

  Grandma Clark made a sound that reminded me of my first-grade teacher when we didn’t line up straight for recess. “Why on earth don’t you know your neighbors at the very least?”

  “We’ve moved a few times.”

  Grandma Clark clucked again. “Your father always imagines a better job, a bigger house, something waiting around the corner. No way to raise a child.”

  Good gravy. Was I going to have to talk to strangers, pull up weeds, and take up for Daddy all the livelong day? I turned away from my grandmother and checked on the casserole bubbling in the oven. When she pronounced it ready, I served it up. On the kitchen wall, her cat clock tick-tick-ticked away while we quietly ate.

  Finally, my grandmother took her last bite of casserole and said, “That wasn’t the worst supper I’ve ever had. At least we have food in the icebox. For now. People in Paris Junction try their best when a neighbor’s in need. Your granddaddy always said friends are a true treasure.”

  “I like to know somebody awhile before making her my friend.”

  Grandma Clark patted her lips with her napkin, then folded it next to her plate. I’m sure she can’t imagine spending a single day in a place where a zillion strangers don’t come running at the first sign of a sprained toe. “No need to worry. You’ll make friends. Be your own, true self.”

  “Tell the truth and shame the devil, Daddy always says. Being truthful doesn’t make me like meeting people, though. Besides, I thought you needed me for garden stuff. Why do we need other helpers?”

  “Stuff is not a becoming word, Azalea. Don’t need help with stuff.” She pronounced it like a cuss word that needed washing out of my mouth.

  After I dried our plates with a white ironed dish towel and my grandmother told me where to stack them, she wheeled into her bedroom. I stood a few feet away, waiting for orders. The real truth? My grandmother kind of scared me.

  Grandma Clark slipped into her nightgown, muttering, “We’ll get an early start tomorrow. Lots to do.” She took off her glasses for the night and squinted. “Come here, Azalea,” she said, and my lip trembled more than a little.

  I tried to lean away. But she took my hand and pulled me so close I smelled the rose lotion on her wrinkles. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Let’s see if you resemble that father of yours.” She pulled me closer. “As I feared. Johnny Morgan’s devilish blue eyes. Sure as the grass grows, you didn’t get your eyes or your height from our side of the family.”

  “Good night, Grandma Clark,” I whispered. I turned off her light and tiptoed to my new room, heart beating fast. I stumbled only once on the creaky stairs.

  When the sun peeked under my window shade the next morning, I started down the steps. But Mama’s voice sneaked into my head, so I listened and pulled a comb through my hair and passed a toothbrush across my teeth.

  In Grandma Clark’s kitchen cupboards, spices were lined up in order, but I didn’t recognize a single box of cereal. I grabbed a banana and a Ladies’ Home Journal magazine snitched from the coffee table. As I tiptoed outside, I passed my grandmother’s room. She was snoring loud.

  If I was back in Texas with my friend Barbara Jean like I oughta be, we’d be watching The Lone Ranger on her brand-new TV. Then we’d drink lemonade on her porch swing, talking about sixth grade, hoping we’d get Miss Cain for our teacher.

  Here in Paris Junction, I stared down the sidewalk, hoping a squirrel would run across the grass. Even a squirrel’s better to look at than fancy pictures of tabletop settings. I wanted to fling my grandmother’s magazine across the porch! Compared to reading about cake decorating, running through my sprinkler back in Texas with Barbara Jean counts as diving into the deep end of a swimming pool.

  But when a car stopped and a short, skinny stranger stepped out, I almost hightailed it inside. I wasn’t fast enough. She was on the porch, shifting her pocketbook under an arm and talking.

  “This is Mrs. Clark’s house,” she said, like she was telling me something I didn’t know. “And you are?”

  Since sooner or later everybody in Paris Junction knows everybody else, I answered, “I’m her granddaughter. Visiting from Texas.”

  She looked at the front door. “I’m Jane Partridge. Is she available?”

  “I’ll see.” I disappeared inside.

  Grandma Clark was twisting the back of her hair into a tight bun and poking it with bobby pins. “I’ve been awake for hours. Where’ve you been?”

  To be nice, I didn’t point out her snoring.

  Motioning for the wheelchair, she looked out the window onto the porch. “No doubt Jane Partridge needs something. Hand me my glasses and my hankie.”

  Good gravy. For an old lady, she had things to learn about please and thank you. I wheeled her into the living room anyhow.

  “Wait on the porch, Azalea.” My grandmother flapped her hand toward the door, and I got the message. Not that I wanted to talk to this person. But in case they said something good, I crouched under the open window, listening. While Miss Partridge and my grandmother blabbed about a boy named Willis Something-or-other, I quietly unraveled a string on a chair cushion.

  “You would be doing the county a favor. We hate for this to be blown out of proportion, but there are laws,” Miss Partridge was saying. “I suggested he work it off at the grocery store. Mr. Wong wanted no part of that. I gather the boy has a bit of a reputation.”

  Holy crow. Somebody was in hot water.

  Finally, my grandmother answered. “Don’t like to be in the middle of Mr. Wong’s business.”

  “If you let him work off his punishment in your garden, Mr. Wong will be satisfied. As will the county judge.” Miss Partridge snapped her purse shut, put the cap on her fat fountain pen, and handed my grandmother a manila folder.

  “I could use the help of a strong boy. But with my granddaughter here and the other children coming, I have enough on my hands.” Grandma Clark pushed the folder back in the lady’s direction.

  Miss Partridge must not be one to take no for an answer. “Things aren’t going well for the family. You should reconsider.”

  I saw that folder go back in my grandmother’s hand and for a long, quiet minute, all I could hear was the ceiling fan humming on the porch. Then Miss Partridge left as quick as she came. I hopped up and hurried inside, tossing Grandma Clark’s magazine on the table, wondering if she would spill the beans about this boy Willis.

  “Can I fix you some breakfast?” I asked. But after I nicely made toast and coffee, my grandmother wheeled herself into her bedroom and clicked on the radio.

  “Till Mama took her new job, we listened to The Guiding Light together all summer long,” I said, quiet and hopeful.

  “I prefer hearing my stories alone,” she answered.

  Maybe she’d turn the volume up.

  Standing outside her bedroom door, waiting for her radio to warm up, I figured out two things about staying in Paris Junction.

  Like it or not, I was going to meet more people than I was ever friends with back in Texas.

  Because somebody named Willis was in big trouble, my grandmother needed to lie down and listen to the radio. Alone.

  If I pressed my ear against my grandmother’s bedroom door, I could almost hear the radio. As soon as The Guiding Light announced The End, Grandma Clark summoned me. I handed her a tall glass of sweet tea. She raised an eyebrow. “I take lemon. Remember that. You need to pick up lemons at Mr. Wong’s grocery.”

  “Mr. Wong’s grocery?”

  “Pay attention, Azalea. You saw his great-nephew Billy in the garden last night.”

  “The boy in the tree? Are they really Chinese? I never met anybody from China.” Wasn’t sure I needed to start today, either.

  “The family came from there a long while ago. But Billy’s from across the river. Shallowater, Mississippi. He’s living with his great-aunt and uncle so he can begin school.”

  “Don’t they have schools in Shallowater?” Maybe a town with a name like that wouldn’
t have much of anything.

  “Not schools Billy prefers to attend. He was to go to the Negro school, much inferior. He wasn’t allowed to go to the better school, simply because he’s Chinese.”

  I didn’t know why so many Chinese people lived here and I sure didn’t understand why one school needed to be better than another school or why you couldn’t go to whichever school you wanted to. If I paid attention and listened, maybe I’d find out.

  “Why are there Chinese people in Paris Junction? Back home, I don’t know any foreigners.”

  “Azalea! Billy’s not a foreigner.” Grandma Clark’s mouth pinched up and she shook her head. “Too many questions. Now, walk to the end of Ruby Street, turn right. Since the fancy grocery by the gas station closed, Lucky Foods is the only food store in town. Otherwise, it’s a drive out to the highway.” She glanced toward the fat bandage covering her foot. “Even when I can drive, I prefer Lucky Foods. Everybody loves Mr. Wong. He’ll help you.”

  “Is it okay if I look around?”

  A quick laugh escaped from my grandmother. “Downtown Paris Junction? That shouldn’t take long.” She handed me a sack of tomatoes. “Give these to Mr. Wong. Hurry. It’ll be busy in there by noon. But I called in my order. He’ll put it on my tab.”

  “So I don’t have to talk to anybody?” I didn’t want to be rude. But how’d she expect me to understand an old man from China when I didn’t speak a word of Chinese?

  “Of course you’ll talk. And if you see Billy, tell him we’re looking forward to having him help. Tomorrow, before it gets hot as the dickens. And one more thing.” Grandma Clark grasped my bare arm. “Mind your manners. Be friendly to Billy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  But truly, what would I say? Would this Billy Wong boy want to talk to me? Did we speak the same language? I wasn’t so great at talking to ordinary boys back home—boys who didn’t look like they’d just arrived from some faraway country. Mama says I’ll get over that talking-to-boys thing. I doubt I’ll get over it this summer in Paris Junction, Arkansas.

  Not counting stopping to wave back to a man sweeping the sidewalk and the time I wasted turning left instead of right in front of Ward’s Drugstore, walking to town took ten minutes. Even with a stop in front of a store advertising Whitman’s Samplers, the candy Daddy brings home. Oh boy, could I go for a chocolate-covered cherry right now. But a bigger sign on the boarded-up door said Closed. Shoot.

  Another sign in a window said the Kitty Korner and Dog Delight store sells homemade cupcakes. The library opens at ten, three days a week. Next door, the Paris Junction History Room was shut tight.

  Lordy, you could roll a bowling ball down Main Street today and nobody would notice. Not that I’d ever held a bowling ball. I’d probably drop it on my toe and end up like Grandma Clark.

  Outside the Lucky Foods grocery store, I took a deep, brave breath. My grandmother said everybody loves Mr. Wong. I didn’t know if I’d love him. I hoped I could understand him. Maybe he’d hand me our groceries and I could leave. Letting my breath out in a whispery whoosh, I opened the screen door and a bell ting-a-linged.

  Holy moly. I’d never seen a store like this! Cereal boxes, cookie boxes, and wooden crates filled with apples and pears were stacked near the front. On the counter, a newspaper lay open to a page with squiggles that made me blink. The Chinese boy from yesterday was nowhere in sight. But voices I couldn’t understand swirled around the store. I wanted to run all the way home to Grandma Clark’s.

  I didn’t have time to run. An old Chinese man walked right up. Oh, no! I was going to have to talk! My hands were sweating and not just because it was hot as everything. I tried not to stare at his white apron dotted with blotches that matched the inside of his butcher’s case.

  Then he smiled! “What can I do for you?” I understood!

  I handed him the tomatoes and tried to make my voice strong. “I’m Azalea. Mrs. Clark’s granddaughter. These are from her garden.”

  “Thank you. It is nice to meet you, Azalea.” He reached in his apron pocket and held up a piece of paper. “Groceries almost ready.”

  We walked through the store, picking up milk and cream, a giant square of butter. Mr. Wong had his note from Grandma Clark, and quicker than I could mumble lemons for tea three times fast, I was holding my groceries.

  That wasn’t so terrible.

  But then a boy wearing dirty tennis shoes and a shirt that barely covered his belly button pushed his way in. When his eyes cut over to where I was standing, I slipped behind the cereal display. He grabbed a little jar of peanut butter, a bottle of Double-Cola, and a sleeve of Saltines.

  Mr. Wong shook his finger. “Be quick!” he said. While Mr. Wong packed his groceries in a sack, sly as anything, the boy stuffed something in his front pocket.

  Was it an entire pack of bubble gum? Had he forgotten to pay? Or did that boy outright steal from the Lucky Foods store in plain daylight?

  Mr. Wong opened the door to the sidewalk, motioned for him to leave right now.

  Tucking Grandma Clark’s groceries in the crook of my arm, I walked into the bright sunshine. Down Main Street past the gas station, the boy balanced his sack on his bike’s handlebars. After he gulped down a big swig of Double-Cola, he pushed his kickstand up and pedaled past the boarded-up store that used to sell Whitman’s Samplers.

  What had made Mr. Wong mad enough to tell him to leave? Where was he going in such a hurry? But even if I did wonder about the boy and even if I could run real fast, the bike zoomed off. Really and truly, I did not want to talk to one more person today.

  Besides, the milk was getting warm. The butter was close to melting. And I had a grandmother waiting for lemons and dying to boss me around.

  Who Shops at Lucky Foods

  From the back of the store

  through our half-closed kitchen door

  I watch.

  A boy barges in.

  Wearing a faded yellow shirt.

  Skin with a million freckles.

  A crew cut so short his ears stick out like a clown.

  But he’s not cutting up.

  He’s strutting.

  Great Uncle’s smile disappears.

  “What do you need? Get it and be quick.”

  The boy picks up crackers, a cold drink.

  A jar of peanut butter.

  Great Uncle barks, “One dollar twenty-four.”

  Pennies, dimes, nickels roll from the boy’s hand.

  He rescues every coin.

  Reaches in his pocket for one last quarter.

  Slides money across the counter.

  Sneers at Great Uncle.

  Touches Bazooka bubble gum.

  Walks out.

  The girl hiding behind the Wheaties leaves, too.

  I ask, “Who was that?”

  “Mrs. Clark’s granddaughter. Very nice.

  Boy, name is Willis. Bad influence.

  Stay away from him.”

  Great Uncle’s frown says

  he wants to string Willis up

  like the sausages behind the meat counter.

  But he turns back to chopping neck bones

  with a meat cleaver.

  No more talking.

  I grab my apron. The broom.

  Sweep up the sawdust flakes

  left from this morning’s cleaning.

  Whisk them across the wooden floor

  to the sidewalk.

  Send sawdust and a wish flying behind the boy.

  A wish that Willis will stay away from Lucky Foods.

  Forever.

  Billy Wong, Great Nephew

  When I hurried inside with the groceries, the butter hadn’t melted.

  Grandma Clark pushed her wheelchair close. “What’d you think of our little town?”

  Instead of blabbing that Mr. Wong wasn’t so friendly to everybody, I opened the icebox and answered, “Tyler, Texas, has more than one street downtown.”

  “If you’re baking cookies and run out of cin
namon, in Paris Junction you can walk to buy it and be back before the cookies are ready,” she said.

  If a million people didn’t try to talk to you before you hardly got out the door, I didn’t say.

  After I fixed our noon meal, put the dishes away, and hung two loads of laundry on the clothesline, I collapsed into a kitchen chair. But when the phone rang, I jumped up.

  “It might be Mama! She said she’d call today.”

  “Don’t pick up the phone! Wait for the rings. Long-long short.” She counted with a hand tap on the kitchen table. “Remember. I share a party line.”

  Grandma Clark could have been speaking pig latin. I didn’t know what that meant, but I grabbed the phone as soon as she nodded. The clink, clink, clink of coins dropping into a pay phone meant Daddy was on the road.

  “Hey, Sugar Bee,” the voice said. “Know you just settled in but I miss you.”

  “Daddy!” I chewed on my lip when it started to quiver. His voice sounded a million miles away. Which he just about was.

  Grandma Clark’s phone didn’t have an extra-long cord to drag into the hall closet. But I sure didn’t want her to know hearing my daddy almost made me cry. Still, when he said our cat, Lulu, was fine and Mama said tell me it was hot as the dickens in Texas, I bit the inside of my cheek extra hard to keep from sniffling.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Amarillo. Mama’s at work. Sends her love. We better hang up before I have to sell my truck to pay for this.” I heard some clicks, then his voice. “Having trouble hearing you,” he said.

  But I had so many questions! What did Mama know about the beautiful painted plate upstairs in her room? Was it valuable? Should I tell Grandma Clark I’d broken it? Did they know actual Chinese people lived in Paris Junction, not to mention possible shoplifters?

  His voice came back for a second. “Love you, Azalea.”

  “Daddy,” I whispered. “When can I come home?” I glanced at Grandma Clark. The look on her face was pure hurt.