Dreamsleeves Read Free Page B

plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again.” That Peter, Paul and Mary song I like flits through my mind. Oh, how I’d love to leave on a jet plane, fly off to California. To anywhere. With Maizey, of course, or maybe Mike Man …
    My father turns around and looks at me.
    It’s as if he heard my mind talking.
    â€œReady, Freddies?” he says, meaning ready to go home.
    B, C, and D giggle. They all know Dad’s talking about Freddy Freihofer, that guy on TV who draws pictures for kids and then gives them Freihofer’s chocolate chip cookies.
    Driving home, Dad screeches on the brakes, flips on the blinking lights, and swerves our red convertible off to the side of the road so fast E nearly topples off my lap.
    This can only mean one thing.

Such sights as youthful poets dream on summer eves …
    â€” M ILTON
    S it tight, I’ll be right back,” Dad tells us, all squeezed like sausage links in a frying pan in this hot, cramped backseat. It would be cooler if the top was down, but Mom made Dad promise he wouldn’t do that with all of us in the backseat. He drives so fast she’s afraid somebody will fall out.
    Beck and Callie giggle-tease each other and play the itsy-bitsy spider finger rhyme I taught them. Dooley eats a monkey cracker, then races his favorite red Matchbox car, vroom, vroom, vroom , up and down Eddie’s leg. Eddie giggles and tries to swipe the car.
    Me? I follow my father like a hawk. What does he see in those hubcaps?
    Sticking my head out the window, I watch him pick up the silver circle, look in it as if it’s a mirror, his face aglow like a kid on his birthday. He turns it around in his hands, studying it. My dad knows every make and model of every car there is.
    Our car was probably real sharp when he first got it, and Dad takes good care polishing it every Saturday for what seems like hours, but no amount of wax can polish away the rust.
    Dad wants to buy a new car; that’s his really big dream. I hear Mom and Dad arguing about it. Dad wants a Cadillac, the most expensive car of all, but Mom says we need a station wagon and besides, we need to save every penny for our house.
    I open the note from Nana. There are two quarters taped on the paper. “For a treat,” she wrote. Nana’s always giving me two quarters taped up tight like it’s gold.
    When we get home, Dad heads straight to the shed to hang up his new hubcap. He’s got a whole hubcap gallery, carefully arranged and polished and hung in neat rows. He’s prouder of those hubcaps than of me, I think.
    Mom is home from work, in the kitchen frying hamburgers for dinner. Her face is puffy and there are circles under her eyes. Dooley runs to clutch her legs.
    â€œYou look exhausted, Mom,” I say.
    â€œI’m fine, honey.” She smiles at me. “Nana get off okay?”
    â€œYep.” I race to call Maizey before Dad comes down from the shed. He doesn’t like us talking on the phone. “A customer might be trying to call me,” he says.
    Mrs. Hogan answers. “Oh, sorry, A, Maizey’s still at the pool with Sue-Ellen.”
    Sue-Ellen? My enemy? That snotty, awful girl who made fun of me in front of the whole class in fourth grade? What is Maizey doing with her?
    After dinner, Dad gargles with Listerine, slaps on some Old Spice Cologne, and puts on a new shirt and tie and his blue suit jacket. Then he takes one of the HELLO MY NAME IS labels from his desk and writes ROE .
    â€œI’ve got a meeting,” Dad says and leaves.
    It’s probably a sales meeting or that Toastmasters club he belongs to where people learn how to talk confidently in public and win prizes for giving speeches. I just hope he comes right home after instead of going to a bar.
    Mom washes the dishes and I dry, then I sweep the kitchen floor. Mom gives E his bath. Maizey still hasn’t called. I try her number again. This time Mr. Hogan answers.