7.
ITCHY ALL OVER
Tuesday, August 13, 1935
In my dreams Natalie is encased in ice. It’s inexplicably hot, hotter than the hottest spot on the equator, hotter than it’s ever been before, but the ice won’t melt. She is frozen solid in her ice rectangle and nothing I can do will melt it. Annie’s big face peers down from the sky. “I told ya so, so, so . . .”
All night I toss and turn. No matter what I do, I can’t get comfortable. Every time the sheets touch my skin, I scratch, itch, burn. When I finally get out of bed, I have raised welts in wild irregular shapes all over my body.
“Mommy?”
My mom sticks her head in my room. “Hey there, sleepy-head. It’s half past nine already.”
“My skin looks funny.” I show her the welts all along my belly, my neck, my arms, my back.
She runs her finger over one of them, lightly, carefully. “Hives,” she concludes. “You used to get them when you were little.”
“What causes them?”
“Could be something you ate. Could be your clothes . . . the detergent.”
“The laundry?” My voice squeaks.
“Could be they changed the soap up top.”
Suddenly I wonder if this is intentional. What if Al Capone targeted me with itchy soap?
“You ought to take a walk up to Doc Ollie’s. See what he has to say about this. Do they itch?”
“Like crazy.”
She sits down on my bed and runs her hand over my hair, like I am six instead of twelve. “When you were little, I used to stick you in an oatmeal bath. Did you a world of good. I’ll go down to Mrs. Caconi’s now, give Ollie a call, see if he has a minute to look at this. You want me to start your breakfast?”
I can’t remember the last time my mom made me breakfast. Usually, I just pour my own self some cereal: the cold kind. I’m not going to let this opportunity slide by. “Blueberry pancakes, bacon, hash browns, toast, and some juice and ham too, if you have it,” I tell her. “Oh and maybe some scrambled eggs.”
She laughs. “That’s my Moose. Doesn’t let anything get in the way of his appetite. I’ll see what I can do.”
When she gets back, I hear her banging pans around in the kitchen and then the smell of sizzling bacon.
I hate to admit it, but it’s nice having my mother to myself this way. We’ve been three people and an octopus all of my life, and now the octopus is gone. It’s not Natalie that’s missing so much as the hubbub around her. The wild-goose chase of what to do and how to help her—one heartbreak chasing another.
What’s left now is just my mother and me. How strange this is. How quiet.
But realizing this makes my hives itch all the worse. If I tell my dad what’s happening, he’ll tell the warden and Natalie could get kicked out of the Esther P. Marinoff School and then the craziness will be back again.
It’s up to me to keep her safe.
My blanket is pulled over my head. I breathe in this dark, gray hot itchy space and scratch my skin raw and red.
My mom sticks her head in the door again. “Go on and get dressed, Moose. I want you to get some food in your belly before you go up and see Ollie. He’s got time for you at ten.”
At the table, she sits with me while I eat, as if she has nothing better to do. “You’re a good son, Moose,” she says as I help myself to another pancake. “A good brother too. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
She averts her eyes when she says this, as if she has suddenly revealed too much and embarrassed us both. This is not how my mother usually behaves. She doesn’t notice me except in relation to Natalie.
“You want me to go up to Ollie’s with you?” she asks.
This is a ridiculous question. I’m almost thirteen. What if Jimmy or Piper sees me walking up with my mommy. But suddenly my head is nodding yes instead of shaking no.
“You do?” Even she is surprised.
“No, of course not,” I mumble, my mouth full of pancakes.
She nods, slowly taking this all in. “I wonder if you’ll forgive me,” she says in a voice barely audible.
“For what?” I manage to say.
Again her eyes search my face. “For being so wrapped up with Natalie,” she whispers.
I stuff my mouth full of more pancake to push the unexpected feelings down.
She picks up my empty milk glass and puts it in the sink, making movements that fill the kitchen with sound. She seems to know I’m not going to answer.
“Go on now. Ollie’s expecting you.”
Doc Ollie is a stout man with double-thick soled shoes and big deft hands that can thread needles, rock newborns, and gut fish. Doc Ollie can do anything. He’s a great whistler to boot, always starts his visits by taking requests.
“ ‘All of Me,’ ” I tell him today, and he whistles two verses.
When I show him my hives, he chuckles. “They certainly do have all of you,” he says, making sympathetic clucking noises as he questions me on what I might be allergic to.
“Far as I know, I’m not allergic to anything.”
“You doing some worrying?”
I shake my head. “Nope,” I say, sucking the inside of my cheek. He is a nice man, Doc Ollie, and I wish I could tell him everything I’m worrying about—give it all to him so it wouldn’t be my problem anymore. For a second that almost seems like a good idea. But then I imagine trying to explain to my father how in the world I got our family into this mess.
He nods again. “You nervous about school starting?”
“No, sir.”
“Everything okay with your folks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All righty then. I’ll get you some salve. Fix you right up. Be all gone in a few days, but keep it handy because they’ll be back. Might take a few weeks ’fore you’re good as new.”
The salve helps a little, or maybe it’s the fresh air. On the way home I start thinking more clearly. Capone must have decided not to send a note in the laundry because of the timing. The boat is coming this Sunday, the laundry doesn’t come back until Monday.
It had to have been Seven Fingers who left the note. Trixle is supposed to watch him when he works on the plumbing, but sometimes he and my dad get to talking.
What I don’t know is why. Why would Seven Fingers leave a note from Capone? Are they friends? Piper once told me every con is either a friend of Capone’s or his enemy. People love him or they hate him. That’s the kind of man he is.
But the note has made me wonder if Capone is crazy. Does he really expect me to buy a dozen yellow roses and hand them to Mae? If I did that, I would get my family kicked off the island in about thirty seconds. Maybe forty-five. He has to know that, doesn’t he?
Why didn’t he tell me the name of the hotel where she’ll be staying? Then I could have left the roses for her at the front desk. No one would have to know about it. And what did he mean by Then we’re square? Will I really be off the hook if I do this?
All of this thinking has me back to scratching again. I don’t think the salve is working so well now. It’s no match for Al Capone.
The thing I keep coming back to is this: If Capone was a regular person and he asked for a couple of lousy flowers to get Natalie in school, I’d think nothing of giving them to him. I’d give a person all the roses in the world for that.
I owe the man. I do.