Charlotte Figg Takes Over Paradise by Joyce Magnin Page A

team. If that's what will make you happy. You know I only ever wanted your happiness, even when you were married."

7
     
     
     
    L ater that morning I ventured outside. The mid-March air felt crisp and cold and tickled my cheeks and the sun shone bright and happy, and for the first time in I don't know how long I felt a spring in my step. This was the first real opportunity I had had since we finished the major trailer overhaul to walk around Paradise. I went out in the Galaxy to purchase groceries and mail letters and such, but I had never taken the time to see the entire park.
    Every now again I saw children running around outside, but even they didn't seem to stay out very long. Once I heard Fergus Wrinkel holler over the public address system, "Mrs. Crabtree, get your dang blame brats out of the fountain area immediately before I call the dog catcher out again."
    Now, there was no fountain that I ever saw, just a circular space of cement painted blue with a pipe sticking up from the middle. I suspected that was the fountain area and figured at one time or another it actually flowed water.
    Lucky and I walked down nearly every street in the park and I only saw one person, a youngish woman hanging clothes on a line strung between two poles. She was scrappy looking, wearing a spotted dress and a thick tangerine sweater. Second base, was my first thought. Scrappy is good for a second baseman.
    "Hello," I called. I made sure to smile wide and even waved, but she never looked my way. "Hello," I called a second time and she turned around.
    "I'm Charlotte Figg. I just moved in on Mango Street."
    The woman pulled a clothespin from her mouth, turned her back to me and secured a wet tee shirt with a rip in the collar to the line.
    I took a step closer. Lucky clung close to my side. "Hello," I called again. By now I was starting to feel annoyed, but persisted until she finally spoke.
    "That's nice," she said. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
    I reached out my hand in a gesture of neighborliness. She took it and shook with a powerful grip. "Clara Kaninsky." But there was no real howdy-do in her voice and she went back to her laundry. Still, I took down a mental note that possibly I had found a player. The woman had big hands and strong arms—probably from carrying all that wet laundry out of her trailer.
    I heaved a sigh and went back to my walk. Paradise didn't have what you would call sidewalks or pavements, only the roads that wound around the trailers like a deep, black river. Lucky and I walked down Coconut Lane until we arrived at Moonlit Bay Road—Rose's street.
    "She said her trailer is the very last one," I said.
    There were fewer trailers on Moonlit Bay than the other streets—fewer trailers and larger yards, more space for cars and kids. Lucky ran on ahead like he'd been there before, barking and yapping, happy that we were finally going to Rose's house. Now, I had considered Rose to be what they call eccentric and I gave her a lot of latitude by way of honoring her artistic sensibilities and not wanting to disturb the universe that was Rose's. But no amount of latitude could have prepared me for what I encountered when I stopped out in front of her trailer.
    "Lucky, will you look at that? Did she make it?"
    Lucky barked and sniffed around the large sculpture in Rose's yard. A giant hand, bolted to the ground and rising about eight feet to the sky with a huge open palm, stood in her yard just as natural as any old birdbath.
    "Now, I've seen some strange lawn ornaments in my day, but this . . . well, it certainly broadens the meaning of the words palm tree, Lucky."
    He barked and then circled under the hand until he collapsed into a nap.
    "What in the world would inspire a person to have this in their yard?"
    "Charlotte," Rose called. "I saw you out the window from the kitchen. Welcome. Welcome to my home. I am so glad you finally made it up here. I know it can be a bit of a walk, but there's shortcuts I can show