This Is Not the Tropics: Stories

The Shouting Woman

67 The Shouting Woman Out the bay windows that night overlooking our backyard , orange leaves from the maple trees fell slowly. My mother was telling a story as we sat at the dining room table. “They’re having a mouse problem. Both Mary Lou and Tom are afraid of mice,” she explained, as though this somehow made them special comrades since they shared her fear of mice. Tom and Mary Lou McCoy were new teachers at the local high school and had recently moved into the large house across the alley from us. I was most interested in them because of their oneand -a-half-year-old son, Buster. “Even Tom is afraid,” my mother went on. “He won’t release the traps after they’ve been caught.” Daddy shook his head as he bent to take a bite of sauerkraut and sausage. “Mary Lou says they can barely stand to sweep the traps into the dust pan, and they fight over who did it last, taking turns.” Daddy shook his head again. “I never.” He liked Tom, but I could tell that my father, a working man, The Shouting Woman never really trusted a man who didn’t work with his hands. In Tom’s case, since he coached the local football and track teams in addition to teaching chemistry, Daddy seemed to have made an exception. My parents had sort of adopted Tom and Mary Lou, and already after living near us for less than four months it was common for one or the other of them to come to our house for advice, or to borrow a tool, or an appliance. In addition, Mom had started babysitting Buster while Mary Lou and Tom were teaching all day. I had been told that the following year I would be old enough to babysit. Only the Saturday before, Mary Lou had paid me to come watch Buster while she did some house cleaning. Often, during the hours between his parents’ arrival home and the supper hour on those fall days, I played with Buster in our back yard where Mary Lou could watch from the kitchen window as she prepared their meal. She had told my mother that she didn’t know how she’d managed without having me next door and that once I was twelve she’d hire me to babysit on weekend evenings. “What they need is a good mouser,” Daddy said that night, “like that big old tom we used to have.” I had already finished my meal and wanted to leave the table. My younger brothers were wrestling with one another in their chairs. My mother had already scolded them a couple of times, when Daddy shouted, “Stop that goofing around! Get out of here! All of you!” He looked at me then, “It’s okay if you stay, Jenny.” I was 68 The Shouting Woman 69 often singled out in this way because I was the oldest child, and the only girl. “That’s okay,” I said. I pushed my chair away from the table, but before I left I heard Daddy say to Mom under his breath, “They might want to get thicker walls over there too.” “Shush now,” Mom said. I didn’t know what Daddy meant and didn’t care. I was anxious to get to my bedroom and close the door. My room was large, with a dormer window facing south toward the alley that ran behind our house. I could see the top of the McCoy’s roof above the trees. The walls of my room had been painted a pale pink that summer, and my mother had made a flouncy pink floral bedspread and matching curtains. I plunked down on the bed to read my newest Nancy Drew mystery, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase. Each Saturday I walked downtown to the one-room library in our small town. I liked it best in winter with the tangy smell of propane heat and the dusty smell of old leather books. I had secretly begun to refer to myself as a sleuth, something Nancy was called. It was a word I admired but didn’t really know how to pronounce, so I kept it to myself as I did all of my mystery solving aspirations. As I tried to read that evening I kept hearing intermittent bumps of what I guessed were shoes or elbows coming from my brothers’ bedroom. My brothers were on strict orders from...