“Let’s get up on the stage,” I whispered.
“What for?” Jennifer asked. She was obviously waiting for Anthony Cruz to notice her. She flung her hair out of her face again and looked around. One of the girls whispered to her friend and they both glanced over at us and laughed. Then she said something to the friend sitting on the other side of her and they both turned to give us the once-over with bored, heavy-lidded eyes.
Then they turned away as if to say, Yeah, no competition.
“Let’s explore first,” Jennifer said. She led the way by the Ping-Pong table and looked over her shoulder at Anthony. “Hi, Anthony,” she said.
He glanced at her quickly and then back at the ball coming his way. “Hey.”
She smiled with crazy triumph for no reason at all, as far as I could see. Then we wandered out to the patio and through another door to a study hall, and then into a kitchen. We peeked into every nook and cranny. Going around ignored, unseen, and overlooked was right up our alley. We inspected the cabinets. Cold cereal and Wonder Bread. In the refrigerator, we found eggs and milk and a pink box of glazed doughnuts. My mouth watered. Jennifer sniffed the milk.
“Still good,” she announced. “Wonder if they have any cookies.”
“Come on. Let’s go up on the stage,” I urged.
We slipped out of the kitchen and retraced our steps back to the multipurpose room. The stage curtains were drawn. We climbed the steps on the side and scooted behind them. It was dark, with the exception of a thin band of light where the curtain didn’t quite touch the floor. We sat cross-legged on the floor and squinted at our scripts as we angled them toward the light under the curtain.
“I’m supposed to be missing,” I said, “but I’m actually hiding in a wardrobe in the attic.”
“They should have found you easily, now that I think about it.” Jennifer commented.
“It’s a play, not real life,” I said, annoyed.
“All I know is I want to be Julie, because she’s so mean. But in real life I’m not mean—at all. Get it?”
“I get it exactly,” I said. And I did. I just couldn’t explain it. Once again my stomach was full of butterflies. We read some more and it was the most glorious, absorbing thing. Finally, Jennifer closed her script and got herself into some kind of yoga position. Legs crossed, eyes closed, and her hands with palms up resting on her thighs, thumb and forefinger touching. I closed my script, too. I shut my eyes, got into that same position, and tried to think only: Om.
CHAPTER 9
Marcia Stevens
* * *
ON SATURDAY I woke up excited. Jennifer’s mom was taking us shopping and then on to Sutton’s, the cafeteria located down the street from May Company Department Store. The great thing about Sutton’s was that everything was laid out—right in front of you. All you had to do was slide your tray along a steel counter and select what you wanted from all the main dishes and desserts and drinks. It was heaven.
So I was excited about that, and also that I was going to get the role of Olivia in the play. The sweet Olivia. Just as I reached for the script on my nightstand, I heard my mother out in the hall going on and on about her datebook.
“Have you seen Mom’s datebook?” Lily asked me. She was slipping into her work outfit—a yellow sheath and some white flats. Her hair was still in rollers.
“No,” I said.
“She’s walking around accusing people.”
People meant us. Every once in a while our mother misplaced her datebook. It was where she kept all of her appointments and phone numbers. When she misplaced it, she blamed everyone in the house (except Mrs. Baylor—if Mom blamed her, she kept it to herself).
“I left it right here,” I heard her screaming. Well, not screaming. But just a few decibels below a scream. “Right here on this entry hall table. And now it’s gone.” She appeared in our doorway. “Look for my datebook,” she said in a voice full of grit and resolve.
That meant pretending you were searching for it with the determination of a dog missing a bone: scoping under beds, poking around in closets, checking the dirty clothes hamper, the buffet drawers in the dining room. As a joke, Lily would even check the medicine cabinets. Just so we could say, “We’ve looked everywhere!”
On this occasion, our mother found it just where she’d left it—on the floor next to her side of the bed—making me wonder why she didn’t look there first.
She slinked away like a cat.
“Daddy didn’t get home until after two,” Lily said matter-of-factly.
“Was he playing poker with his friends?” I asked. Sometimes he called home to tell our mother not to wait up for him because he’d be playing poker with his buddies.
“Something like that.”
“I am sure that I want to be Olivia,” I announced as soon as Jennifer opened her door.
She grinned. “And I’m doubly sure I want to be Julie.”
We beamed at each other for still not wanting to compete for the same role.
Jennifer looked back toward her house and dropped her voice. “Listen, you have to tell my mother how much I took up for you when we went to the Bakers’.”
“Why?”
“She wants to hear exactly what happened, but from you. I guess she wants to be sure that I did take up for you, a lot.”
So I told Jennifer’s mother what had happened and how Jennifer really stuck up for me. The whole time I was talking, Mrs. Abbott cocked her head to the side and back a bit as if she was trying to see whether I was telling the truth about Jennifer or exaggerating. She sighed a long sigh that seemed to go on forever. Then I did exaggerate a little. I told Mrs. Abbott that Jennifer had been getting ready to leave with me, but I’d begged and begged her to stay and have fun. And she’d absolutely refused.
Mrs. Abbott turned to look at her daughter and really scrutinize her. Jennifer kept her eyes on me. “Is that true, Jennifer?” her mom asked, and Jennifer nodded so slowly and somberly, she looked completely believable. “Yes, Mummy, and I refused.”
Mrs. Abbott glanced from Jennifer to me and back to Jennifer again. “If this should ever happen in the future, you make them understand that they wouldn’t like to be treated that way and that we’re all human beings created equal. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Next time, let it be an opportunity to teach them about how God created us all equal.”
First of all, I knew Jennifer was not going to bother trying to teach the Baker girls anything, and I probably wouldn’t either. But here’s the thing. My mind had practically stopped on the word Mummy. I liked the ring of Mummy so much that I wondered for just a second if I could get away with calling my mother Mummy.
Soon we were off to Sutton’s by way of May Company for a little shopping. Mrs. Abbott let us ride in the front seat next to her so Jennifer could turn the knob up and down the dial until she landed on KFWB. Lucky break—the Beach Boys were singing “California Girls,” and we sang along with them because, after all, we were California girls. Extra lucky for us—right after that, with no commercial breaks, the Beatles’ “Help” came on.
“I saw them on Ed Sullivan,” Jennifer said.
“Me, too.”
We sang “Help” all the way to the shopping center.
At May Company, we followed Jennifer’s mom around the shoe department while she picked up one shoe after another, turning it this way and that. She was looking for the perfect pillbox hat for church, as well. This was almost as boring as watching my mother get her face powder mixed. After a while Jennifer draped herself on the counter in the hat department, moaning.
“Mummy, can me and Sophie go to SavOn’s and look at the magazines? We need to check the styles so we can get wardrobes together for ninth grade. We want to see if the fall teen magazines are out.”
I could tell Mrs. Abbott kind of wanted to be rid of us as well so she could do some serious shopping, unburdened by Jennifer’s whining. She looked at
her watch. “Meet me in the juniors’ section in one hour.”
We turned toward the back exit.
“One hour!” she called to us as we hurried out the door.
We were free! To check out the makeup and the cheap costume jewelry and the candy aisle, and to find the teen magazines to slowly pore over and discuss. Although seeing some fall stuff in the store already made me realize that I did not like the push of things. Why couldn’t life linger . . . and then move on when a person was ready? I did not like this rush to the end of summer, when Lily would be leaving me.
We were walking past Prides, a small coffee shop wedged between SavOn’s and Von’s Supermarket, when I looked in the big plate glass window and saw my father. He was sitting at one of the small café tables. With a woman. I stopped. I wasn’t close enough for him to notice me. Besides, he appeared to be deep in conversation.
Jennifer, who had walked on, soon realized I wasn’t at her side. She stopped and turned back. “Come on. What are you doing? What are you looking at?”
I was looking at my father leaning forward and saying something to that woman who was not my mother—something that was making her smile. I was looking at him putting his hand on top of hers. Then she put her other hand on his. He reached out to touch her cheek.
My stomach dropped.
That wasn’t his secretary, Mrs. Mosely. She was short and stout and way too old. Maybe fifty. This was someone with a heart-shaped face. And a slim figure; I could tell, even though she was seated. I could tell by her slender arms in her sleeveless shift and her wrist full of bangles. It was that Paula person. Something told me. I was certain. That was her.
“Come on!” Jennifer said. “Now we have less than an hour!” She started toward me.
My father was leaning back, laughing. I stood there stunned, my stomach queasy.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” I hurried toward her with my mouth suddenly dry and my heart beating out of my chest.
“Well, hurry up!” Jennifer said, and then she examined me and frowned. “Why are you looking like that?”
“Like what?”
“I can’t explain it.” She studied my face. “Like you have a stomachache or something.”
“I do have a stomachache,” I said. “Maybe the cereal I ate for breakfast was too old.”
She snorted. “I’ve never heard of cereal being too old.”
Nothing seemed good then. We checked the eye shadows and lipsticks, swiping the back of our hands with samples of apricot ice and pink blush. We held gold-plated hoops to our ears and tried on bracelets. Jennifer critiqued me, and I critiqued her. Then we checked the latest issues of Ingenue and Mademoiselle and Seventeen and decided we’d get box-pleated skirts in tartan plaid—green—for the first day of school. Even if it was hot. They wore uniforms at Jennifer’s school, but they had free dress the first week.
We made it back to May Company on time and found Mrs. Abbott in the juniors’ department, where she held up items of clothing for Jennifer’s approval or disapproval. To most, Jennifer slowly shook her head.
I stood to the side. From time to time, I felt tears at the ready that could, if I let my guard down for one second, spill over and roll down my cheeks.
I wanted to go home. But there was still lunch to get through, with no appetite whatsoever. Jennifer had weaseled the trip to Sutton’s out of her mother as a treat for me since that awful thing had happened to me at the Bakers’. We only had to walk down the street and enter through the cafeteria’s big welcoming doors, with its famous treasure chest just inside.
I followed Jennifer and her mom into the restaurant. The place had lost its allure. Mrs. Abbott led the way to a booth and staked it out by setting down her purchases there. Then we got plates and utensils and trays to push along the stainless steel counter as we decided what we wanted. It was simple for me. I got whatever Jennifer got. She was pleased, thinking we were on the exact same wavelength.
I watched her eat her macaroni and cheese and fried chicken and green beans and coconut cake while I pushed my food around my plate between tiny bites.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Abbott asked me.
“She said her stomach is bothering her,” Jennifer offered.
“Do we need to get you home?”
“No, I’m okay. I’m just not real hungry.”
When we had finished, Jennifer led the way to the treasure chest. Even that had lost its appeal. Jennifer wanted a glitter pen. The last time she had come, another girl had gotten the last one.
Now she looked back at me. “I saw a bunch this time. You get one and I’ll get one, and then we can write each other notes in glitter.”
“Okay,” I said.
She frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She plucked out a purple glitter pen. “Get a purple one, too,” she urged.
I looked into the chest. Among the whistles on colorful coiled plastic key chains, small blue rubber footballs, Frisbees, yo-yos, bubbles, and glow jewelry, I saw green and red and blue glitter pens. Where were the purple ones? The hostess, who also oversaw the treasure chest to make sure kids took just one prize and not a handful, had turned away to speak to a man in a suit who looked like he could be the manager.
She came back to her duties just as I finally spotted a purple glitter pen and was retrieving it from the mound of treasures.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “How many prizes did you get?”
I held up my pen. “Just this,” I said.
She turned to Jennifer. “Did this girl get one treasure or more than one?”
She must not have realized that Jennifer and I were together. “She got just the one,” Jennifer said, seemingly puzzled.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
By then Jennifer’s mom was coming over to see what the problem was. The lady must have put Jennifer and her mother together. She leaned close in, but I heard her say to Mrs. Abbott, “I think that little colored girl got an extra prize.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well,” she said with a smile, as if she and Mrs. Abbott were secret friends, “you know how they are. They’ll steal at the drop of a pin.”
I saw Mrs. Abbott grow red. “No, I don’t know how they are. I can assure you, this girl would never steal anything.” She looped her arms with mine and Jennifer’s and marched us out of the restaurant. I wanted so badly to glance back at the hostess, just to see the look on her face—but I didn’t. I hurried to keep up with Jennifer and her mom.
“Forget what that silly woman said.” Mrs. Abbott looked down at me. “Just put it out of your mind. What an idiot,” she added under her breath as if she were talking only to herself.
“Can we go by Marcia Stevens to see Sophie’s sister?” We were in the parking lot behind May Company, standing beside the car.
“We can see her another time,” I said quickly.
Mrs. Abbott looked at me. She smiled as if she thought this was something I really wanted to do, but I was just being polite. And, probably to try to make up for all the bad stuff that had happened to me lately, she drew in a big breath and said, “Okay. Let’s go see Sophie’s sister. Why not?”
My heart sank.
Before I knew it, we were pulling into a parking space behind Marcia Stevens, and Jennifer was jumping out of the car before her mom could even turn off the ignition.
“Calm down, Jennifer,” Mrs. Abbott said. “This is Lily’s place of work. Don’t go running in there expecting her to drop everything to tend to you. Let’s take our time, and wait for her to come over to us—when she has a moment.”
Jennifer turned to me and rolled her eyes out of her mother’s line of vision.
A bell chimed overhead as Mrs. Abbott pushed through the door. We looked around for Lily. She was nowhere to be seen. I felt relieved. My heart was beating almost loudly enough for someone to hear. I stood just inside the door, trying to will Lily to go on a coff
ee break or to get off early or something.
Mrs. Abbott’s attention was drawn to a stack of lightweight crew-neck sweaters. “These are such lovely colors,” she said, running her hand over the pale lavender one at the top of the stack. “Look, Jennifer. What do you think?”
Jennifer glanced over her shoulder. She shrugged. “It’s okay. I guess.” Her mind was probably on Lily. Where was she?
I recognized the owner of Marcia Stevens from my sister’s description of her: kind of old—at least in her forties—blond hair with dark roots, and lipstick applied slightly above the top lip line, like Lucille Ball. Happily, she was busy ringing up a purchase.
Then we saw Lily coming out of the stockroom with four or five off-the-shoulder summer blouses in soft green. She was heading to the register. She spotted us and stopped. I could tell that she was momentarily flustered. She smiled and waved, but it was not an eager wave. It was a halfhearted one that she was trying to make look friendly and eager.
She went over to Mrs. Singer, who was now in the middle of a conversation with Phyllis, the other sales girl.
Lily said something to her while gesturing toward us. Mrs. Singer, obviously more engaged in what she was saying to Phyllis, glanced at us standing by the entrance and she, too, gave a little wave.
Finally, Lily hurried over to us. “What are you guys doing here?” she said, and then smiled to blunt some of the panic in her voice. “I mean, this is a real surprise.”
Jennifer beamed. “It was my idea,” she said.
Lily looked over her shoulder. Mrs. Singer was now dealing with another customer—leaning forward and draping a scarf around the woman’s neck and then cooing over the effect it added to the top the woman was wearing.
“Oh, great,” Lily said, but her tone revealed her distraction. Jennifer’s mom looked at Lily closely. “We’re going to get out of here,” she said. “Don’t want to interrupt your work and get you in hot water.” She started ushering Jennifer and me toward the door as we said our goodbyes.
It All Comes Down to This Page 8
