The Secrets on Chicory Lane: A Novel(9)

He blushed and turned away, grinning. Suddenly, I felt good about walking home with Eddie.

I didn’t care that I was a year older. If other girls thought he was cute, then maybe I did, too. I’d never had a boyfriend. I didn’t know much about sex at all. After all, I had just turned twelve in May. Kids these days learn about the birds and the bees at very young ages, but back in the mid-sixties, that certainly wasn’t the case. I’d already gotten my period, so I understood all of that, but as far as I knew, sex was a mysterious thing that married grown-ups did to have babies. I wasn’t too clear on the mechanics. Back in sixth grade, all the girls were taken out of class for an assembly to watch a film about periods and how our bodies would be changing in the next few years. Some of us were already doing so! However, the movie was vague on the aspects of reproduction. That didn’t stop the girls from talking and trading stories and myths about boys—just as the boys did about us. We weren’t stupid. Nevertheless, I was old enough to know what infatuation felt like—a lovely lump of feeling in the middle of the chest. The very feeling that began to grow that day as I walked back home with Eddie on the sidewalk.

From February through June of 1966, Eddie and I were inseparable. I strain to recall, unsuccessfully, a complete sequence of events. A few concrete memories, likely not in the proper order, that stand out in my mind.

I remember Eddie’s cat. A pretty black cat that was free to roam both inside and outside the Newcott home. It had a boy’s name, something like “Jimmy” or “Johnny.” Yes, I believe it was Jimmy. My dad once commented that Jimmy would get run over one day because it tended to dart across the street at night when it was out on the prowl for unsuspecting prey, usually in our favorite park.

There were also the times we spent in the park, lazing away many afternoons while school was still on. I remember one of those days. Eddie, some of the other boys from the block, including Greg and Dean, and I were hanging out on the monkey bars. I watched as Greg and Dean, who always wore identical sports jerseys, swung back and forth. They might as well have been Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Not missing his chance to show off, Eddie mentioned that Mr. Alpine had just given him a couple of Spider-Man comic books, which he considered a tremendous score.

Greg stopped swinging. “Mr. Alpine is creepy,” he said, adding that he refused to go by the man’s house.

“Yeah,” Dean concurred. Dean always agreed with Greg. Turning to look me right in the eyes, he said, “You better watch out; he’s a boogey-man.”

I didn’t know what they were talking about. “No, he’s not,” I said. “He takes our school pictures.” It was true—one of Mr. Alpine’s jobs, aside from working at the library, was to take the portraits of the kids at school. In fact, he had recently shot an adorable photo of baby Michael. “Mr. Alpine’s always been nice to me.”

The two older boys laughed. “Sure, he’s nice to you. I bet he’s nicer to Eddie, though.” Snicker, chuckle.

Eddie blushed and furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“If you don’t know, then never mind,” Greg answered.

Then Dean said, “Don’t you know he killed his kid?”

“What?”

“Yeah, about ten years ago. He was married and had a kid, a little boy. He lived somewhere else then.”

I looked at Eddie. “Is that true?”

Eddie shook his head. “I never heard that.”

Greg continued. “Yeah. Mr. Alpine’s wife told the police that he killed the baby and divorced him.”

“Did he go to jail?” I asked.

“Nah. He wasn’t even arrested. The cops didn’t believe her. You know who his brother is?”

I did know. “Mayor Alpine,” I said. The mayor of Limite.

When the twins had left, I asked Eddie, “Is that true about Mr. Alpine?”

“What?”

“About his wife, his kid, and all that.”

“Are you kidding? I think I knew he was married before, but I never heard that he killed his own kid. Don’t pay attention to them. They’re just bullies. I don’t know what they’re talking about. C’mon. Let’s go in the airplane.”

“Okay.”

We wandered over to the wrecked fuselage and climbed the ladder to the cockpit. From there, we descended into the hull of the plane and sat on the dirty metal floor. I looked at my watch—my treasured Mickey Mouse wristwatch that I got for my previous birthday—and noted the time.

“I’ll have to get home for dinner soon,” I said. “Mom doesn’t like it if she has to go outside and call for me.”

“I know. My mom and I will probably end up going to the cafeteria again. She doesn’t cook much except when my dad is home.”

“Is he gone again?”

“He’s working in the field. You want to come over after dinner? We can go down to the bomb shelter if you want.”

The idea of being alone with Eddie in his backyard sanctuary shook up the butterflies in my stomach. “Better not,” I said. “We might get in trouble.”

“My mom doesn’t care. She won’t even know. She doesn’t pay any attention to me or what I’m doing. And Dad’s not home.”

I changed the subject. “Are y’all going anywhere on vacation?”