The Book of Baby Names Read online

  Why did he keep talking? If Daddy wanted to calm her down, he needed to make things right.

  “How about I buy you a new doll, just as nice. Maybe nicer.”

  She stopped crying only long enough to say “I don’t want…” He could finish the sentence for her.

  “Wait,” Daddy said, holding up his hand. His toolbox made a heavy clank as he set it on the stoop beside her. “Wait here. I have an idea.”

  He stepped to the side of the house and lifted the garage door. The broken car was in there, the one like a red ladybug. Daddy mostly kept big tools in the garage, and scraps of wood and metal, rags, things he thought worth saving.

  Cheryl Ann wandered over to the garage to see what he was doing. She paused at the opening, since she wasn’t allowed inside. Even Miss Rose forgot her shyness and looked in.

  Daddy moved several rag boxes off the hood of the ladybug. Cheryl Ann recognized her old gray dress with the ripped knees, and one of the plain loose dresses her Mom wore just before she went away, during that time when her stomach grew big for a different reason than eating.

  “Here it is.” Her father pulled out a cloth that was neatly folded, not crumpled like the others. It had never been worn. Would he really give it to her? And did he think a new dress would make up for her broken doll?

  When he unfolded it, she noticed there weren’t any sleeves. It wasn’t a dress, but more like a pillowcase. Light green, with a white drawstring at the open end.

  He moved closer to her and held it out. “Take it.”

  She took a few tentative steps past the threshold of the garage. He didn’t yell at her.

  The cloth she took from her father was the softest Cheryl Ann had ever touched. She pinched the fabric between her fingertips, then reached inside, her hand twisting in air and cool cotton.

  “Go on,” her father said. “Put your doll inside.”

  Cheryl Ann had a horrible thought. She shook her head back and forth.

  “You’ve got to trust me.”

  That phrase was trouble, usually. Bad tasting medicine or vegetables or something else “good for you” that she wouldn’t like.

  “Now, I know you’re too smart to believe in a magic bag, or anything silly like that. But think about it this way: If you put your doll in there, and seal it tight, she’ll never change.”

  The cotton so soft, even softer than Miss Rose’s fading dress.

  “You remember what your doll looked like, don’t you? Before that happened to her head? If you concentrate really hard, that’s what your covered doll will be like.”

  Her hand was inside the bag, the outline of her fingers visible through the soft cloth. She concentrated on the idea of her hand after she washed away smudges, picked dirt from beneath her fingernails. In her mind she made it pretty like a rich lady’s, smooth like porcelain.

  “I’ve seen people do the same trick with furniture,” her father continued. “They put something on called a slipcover, and the ratty sofa is transformed. It really is a kind of magic.”

  Miss Rose was huddled in the crook of her left arm. She grabbed the doll by the waist and shook her. Miss Rose’s limbs wriggled. She was anxious to crawl into her new home.

  Cheryl Ann slipped her in, feet first. She pulled the drawstring tight, and the bag puckered shut.

  “Good girl. Now hand her to me.”

  Her eyes widened. “No!”

  “Calm down. I just want to seal the top.” He held up a leather shoestring he’d retrieved from another box. “We have to make it permanent, or you’ll be tempted to take her out again—that would ruin the illusion.” He pointed to a work table against the wall. A shelf high above the table, and hooks in the wall, all holding knives and saws and drills she wasn’t allowed to touch. “I’ll do it right here, where you can watch.”

  Cheryl Ann gave him the covered doll. She held her breath.

  Her father cut out the drawstring, then used a hammer and nails to tap holes in the cloth. His right arm made dramatic swooping motions as he threaded the leather string through the holes. He tied a knot, tightened it, tied another knot, over and over.

  She breathed again when her father returned the bag to her. She ran her fingers over the rough leather stitching. Miss Rose’s face pressed its features into the cloth. The doll’s cheek was smooth and beautiful again.

  Her Daddy really could fix almost anything,

  * * *

  Sometimes things happened that didn’t happen.

  Her father warned Cheryl Ann about stray animals. They were stronger than they looked; their teeth were sharp. You never knew what they were thinking. Dogs especially.

  One day a dog visited while her father was working in town. The dog’s eyes were sad and cute, like the plastic eyes on her teddy bear. His fur was white with black patches, and tangles that were wet and a little dirty. He smelled like the bottom of the creek. But he didn’t have foam around his mouth, like Daddy warned about. And he didn’t jump at her half sandwich—he just sat and waited and stared, until she tore off a corner and threw it to him.

  She named him Mr. Charley, and they became friends. Mr. Charley seemed to know when she had a sandwich or a handful of cheese durdles—that’s when he’d most likely show up, if he had a mind to visit that particular day. He was smart, too. He knew the sound of Daddy’s truck: Mr. Charley’s ears would stick up, his head would turn like he thought someone was chasing him, and he’d run toward the woods. As far as Daddy knew, Mr. Charley never visited at all.

  Then the dog’s stomach grew big for a different reason than eating. Cheryl Ann changed his name to Miss Charlene.

  One day Miss Charlene stopped running at the sound of Daddy’s truck. She hid herself in a little space beneath their front stoop, and you wouldn’t know she was there except for a bit of that nasty creek smell. Cheryl Ann pretended not to notice that time her father sniffed at the air. The thing about bad smells is you get used to them after a while.

  So Miss Charlene would have stayed hidden fine, if it wasn’t for her stomach. For a long time the big stomach didn’t seem to hurt at all, but then somehow the pain got so bad Miss Charlene couldn’t help but cry out. The dog yelped and yelped like somebody stepped on her tail. Daddy turned down the TV and listened for a bit, tilting his head, then he turned the TV back up.

  Later, it wasn’t hard to find Miss Charlene, even though she’d stopped all the howling. Daddy stepped outside and looked under the stoop. Cheryl Anne and Miss Rose both pretended not to know the dog. Truth to tell, it wasn’t the same animal she befriended—all whimper and growl now, lips curled up revealing sharp teeth when Daddy said “What have we here?” and reached towards Miss Charlene’s back legs to move aside that old gray dress with the ripped knees.

  Miss Charlene’s stomach had exploded, her guts falling out like spit-soaked rags with wriggling little limbs, little tails, heads with flat ears and closed eyes. They stumbled and lurched towards Miss Charlene with hungry mouths that nipped at her belly, eating her alive.

  “They’re feeding,” her father said. “Perfectly natural.” He wrapped the rag dress around his right hand several times, tight. “Go back in the house, now.”

  Cheryl Ann did as she was told, but once inside she kneeled near the front door. Miss Charlene made that strange angry growl a few more times, then stopped. A few footsteps on gravel, and the garage door opened. Distant boxes moved around. Beneath the stoop, little yips like squeak toys. Gravel steps coming back then her Daddy’s voice, counting. At seven, the yips sounded muffled. Gravel steps leading away, towards the woods.

  More of the things that happened and didn’t happen: Cheryl Ann knew better than to disobey and leave the house, tiptoe past where Miss Charlene was sleeping now, so peaceful, to follow her father through the woods and down the path to the smelly creek.

  If she did follow, she’d have taken Miss Rose with her, the covered doll tucked under her arm to protect soft cotton from the needle-pok
e of tree limbs. There’d be no difficulty in following her father’s heavy footsteps, listening also for faint muffled yips from a bag he carried, similar in size to hers but rough like a wool blanket, lumpy, slung over his shoulder. The bag would sway along her father’s back, it would squirm if he swung it hard a few times against the trunk of a tree, then might grow mostly still again until he pushed it into the creek, held it under like he was washing grease out of his overalls, wringing the bag through the water, squeezing out dark liquid; then, instead of taking it out to dry in tomorrow’s sun, stuffing rocks down the bag’s throat, sealing it, sinking it deep into the water.

  “Don’t look, Miss Rose,” she would have whispered, covering her doll’s already covered eyes. She’d hurry home, a direct line through the trees so Daddy couldn’t see her from a distance, a quick check on Miss Charlene at the stoop (still sleeping, still quiet), racing into the TV room to turn the volume up, plop into a chair she’d been in all along, and pretending she wasn’t out of breath.

  Miss Rose faced the TV screen. A man in a suit wanted them to buy a new car that got good gas mileage in the city. A smiling woman poured soup from a can, served it to her happy family. Outside, her father’s feet trudged and smudged in the gravel driveway, his tread even noisier than usual. He didn’t come in for a long while.

  * * *

  That night, Miss Rose woke up screaming. Cheryl Ann tried to calm her, petting the cotton that softened her doll’s skin into beauty. Miss Rose complained that she couldn’t breathe. Her arms and legs flailed inside the sack; porcelain fists pounded at the fabric.

  “Quiet, or you’ll wake Daddy.” She put her finger over the doll’s mouth, but that made Miss Rose panic even more. There was a crack in the doll’s mouth Cheryl Ann hadn’t felt before, like a tooth, and it bit her.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll give you some air.” She tugged at the leather knots that sealed the top of the bag, worked her small fingers under a loop of shoestring, stretching the opening. “Is that better?”

  Miss Rose ceased struggling. Cheryl Ann tucked the doll under her chin, letting the cotton bunch up over Miss Rose’s stiff hair. The doll was softer everywhere now that Daddy had covered her—much more pleasant to sleep with. And Miss Rose always had the perfect shape.

  Unfortunately, Cheryl Ann’s finger throbbed where she’d been bitten. She kept her hand away from Miss Rose’s mouth, and imagined the doll’s lips painted smooth and flawless.

  * * *

  The next day, Miss Charlene wasn’t under the stoop anymore. Cheryl Ann brought out a handful of cheese durdles and waved it in the air, but the trick didn’t work that morning, or the next morning either.

  She got bored with television and the same old picture books her Mom left behind—the one with glossy pages of women in big white dresses; or the one with cakes and soup and cookies, and vegetables covered with cheese; or the one with ladies whose stomachs got big for a different reason than eating. She took Miss Rose and followed the path toward the creek.

  At the edge of the path stood a big tree, its trunk so wide she couldn’t stretch her arms around it. Cheryl Ann sometimes held its roots for balance when she reached into the water. The bark was rough, with lots of shapes in it. Several of the shapes looked like tiny faces with flat ears and closed eyes.

  The area near the creek was dirty and covered with sharp stones, but there was a nice dry patch where the tree’s roots stuck up from the ground. She found a notch that made a perfect seat for Miss Rose: the doll’s head lolled against the trunk, and her covered legs flopped on either side of the raised root.

  “Stay there, Miss Rose.” Cheryl Ann scooted closer to the water. She held on to the thickest root; her hand followed where it curved over the bank and into the creek, and she leaned into the water with her other hand, making a scoop.

  Summer sun couldn’t quite reach the creek, so the water was cool. This was like treasure hunting. Sometimes her hand found a tadpole or a fish or something else slimy she couldn’t hold onto. More often she found something made by people and discarded: a tin can or other rusted metal; a bottle or carton or a plank of rotted wood. Sometimes the loop handles of a plastic grocery bag got caught in the big tree’s underwater roots—but those bags typically held spoiled food or other garbage.

  Something slimy brushed against her fingers, but when she lifted her hand she had nothing. She tried again, leaning in, holding the root for balance and reaching farther and deeper. She scooped through cool, thick water.

  Currents in the water sometimes felt solid, but she’d squeeze and the shapes would disappear.

  No treasure. She scooped her hand back to the creek bank, ran it up and down the underwater tangle of tree roots. One bent knee jutted over the water, while the other pressed into the dirt, and her hand hunted deeper.

  One of the roots had an odd familiar bump. A raised and knotted ridge like…

  …like the leather shoestring Daddy fastened around Miss Rose’s bag.

  She leaned in farther. Her knee hit a sharp rock under the dirt, and it cut into her, but she kept straining. Her finger hooked beneath the knot, knuckled into a scratch of wool or burlap, and she pulled.

  Heavy, really heavy, or maybe it was snagged, so she jiggled and pulled again, kept trying until she felt something give and her arm broke free, tugged a treasure to the surface.

  The bag wasn’t pretty like Miss Rose’s. Miss Rose was a soft green pillow against gray bark and dark soil. This bag was rough and wet and brown, blending into the mud it formed in the dirt beneath it.

  It was heavy. Cheryl Ann stared at it for a while, catching her breath. The top was still sealed. The creek smell was horrible: it had soaked into the fabric, or whatever was inside. It would be worse if she opened the bag.

  She didn’t want to open it. Not when she considered the magic her Daddy taught her about, the same magic that made Miss Rose soft and pretty as new.

  Cheryl Ann sat next to the treasure. It was about two feet tall; she could reach her arms around it easily if she wanted, but it was too wet and smelly to hug. She held one hand behind it for support, then felt the hard lumps that settled at the bottom. They were round with sharp edges, and when she scraped them together under the wet fabric she knew they were rocks. But there were soft lumps in there also, like balled fists. Cheryl Ann counted like she learned on the television. One, two, three…

  Seven. She thought there were seven.

  Cheryl Ann pressed the cloth tight against one of the lumps. This bag was too rough and thick, so it was nearly impossible to distinguish the features beneath. She thought about white fur with black patches and rubbed the bag like it was Aladdin’s lamp, rubbed over closed eyelids until she felt them flutter open.

  She knew her father had put the bag in the creek for a reason, though she couldn’t quite puzzle it out. He wasn’t getting rid of nice things because he’d gotten bored: he hadn’t had the seven soft shapes long enough to get bored with them. And it wasn’t that he’d gotten something a little nicer and needed to make room.

  Whatever Daddy’s reason, she’d have to return the bag to the creek. She had to trust him. But she hesitated, tracing the rest of the shapes, feeling burlap then loose skin beneath, then the tight poke of small bones beneath that. More eyes fluttered open at her touch. They stared at her, waited and stared, the way Miss Charlene pleaded for a bite of sandwich.

  As long as the bag stayed closed, the seven shapes could stay soft and fresh in her mind. Eyes open, and smiles on their hungry mouths. That was the best way to remember them.

  At the top, one stitch of leather string had come loose when she’d tugged the treasure bag from the creek. What would happen if she loosened it a tiny bit more? Enough to widen the opening to fit a finger inside. A hand. An arm. She imagined doing it. The smell from the bag would worsen as she swirled her hand through its contents. Things she touched would be a sticky wet, warmer than she expected, with more sharp edges. She’
d scoop and sift until she found the best one.

  Because she wanted a piece of the treasure. A souvenir of something that happened and didn’t happen.

  * * *

  “Don’t bring that doll to the dinner table. It stinks.”

  Dinner came out of a paper sack, the bottom soaked through with grease. Daddy set a wrapped burger on her side of the table. A gray clump of meat pressed like a tongue against the inside of the wax paper, and ketchup and mustard oozed onto the table. She and her father were supposed to share the cardboard basket of crinkle-finger fries.

  Cheryl Ann sat at the table, ignoring her father’s rude comment about Miss Rose. “This dinner is what stinks,” she said.

  Daddy’s hand moved like lightning. She wouldn’t have thought his arm could reach full across the table, but he smacked her good. So hard, Miss Rose fell off her lap and conked the ground head first. Her own head spun fast—she was looking where she hadn’t been looking, at the stove now instead of the table. A sound echoed like a TV gunshot or a snapped neck or a popped light bulb, and her ear and cheek felt warm.

  Then she was crying. Daddy said it didn’t happen, and said he was sorry for what didn’t happen.

  “Let’s pretend,” he told her. Daddy stood next to her chair, then hugged her tight to his chest. His shirt was rough and wet with sweat. It almost smothered her, like a bag placed over her nose and mouth.

  * * *

  She counted Miss Rose’s arms through the bag. One, two, three. Maybe she counted one of the legs by mistake—it was hard to tell. The doll’s shape wasn’t quite right anymore. Her head didn’t fit so easily under Cheryl Ann’s chin while she slept. The green cloth was getting dirty, too: smudges of ash and dirt, and the color fading more each day. Soon it might tear, like her dresses eventually ripped at the elbows.