by M. E. Kerr
“Even though I don’t approve of your drinking,” my mother was saying, “I would not water down your sherry. Faith.”
“My drinking?” my aunt said. “Just how much do you think I drink? I’ve had that bottle of Dry Sack since last September!”
“That’s your own business,” said my mother.
“I hope to tell you!” my aunt said. “And I hope to tell you I know the difference between sherry with water added to it and undiluted sherry!”
“I’m sure you know a great deal about alcohol,” my mother said. “My ignorance on the subject is well known—so well known that I married an alcoholic without even being aware what he was.”
“Hank was not an alcoholic, Millie!”
“You weren’t his wife, Faith. His sidekick, maybe; his buddy, indeed . . . but not his wife.”
“I know what he wasn’t. I didn’t have to be his wife to know what he wasn’t.”
“You knew what he wasn’t, and I knew what he was,” said my mother. “I don’t want to get on that subject. You have more trouble forgetting him than I do.”
My aunt said, “I wouldn’t be proud of the fact I could so easily forget the man I married.”
“You married Doc Hendricks, Faith.”
“I haven’t forgotten that, and I haven’t forgotten Doc.”
“We both know you remember Hank better, but I don’t want to get on that subject.”
“No. Please, don’t,” said my aunt.
“Don’t worry, Faith, I won’t. I’d like to forget the way you made such a fool of yourself, laughing like a loon around him, thinking you enjoyed some special intimacy with him because he treated you like one of the boys. Well, a man doesn’t marry one of the boys!”
I heard my aunt slam the door and hurry down the stairs.
When my mother stopped by my room to ask if she could drop me at school, I told her I wasn’t ready, that I’d take the bus.
After she left, I went downstairs where my aunt was sipping tea and watching a morning television show.
I said, “Aunt Faith, may I say something?”
“Of course, dear.” I knew that she’d been crying.
“I watered down the sherry,” I said. Then I told her about giving Ty Hardin a tumbler of it on New Year’s Eve. I told her a lot of things I hadn’t told anyone, not even Adam. I told her everything that had happened between Ty and me after we left the party, and I told her how Ty was behaving toward me as though none of it had ever happened, as though I was just this character he swatted across the back and traded quips with. Then I told her about Nothing Power.
“None of it worked,” I said. “It didn’t change anything or anyone, and Adam and I are just these two phonies pretending to be going steady.”
“Is it Ty Hardin you really care for?” she asked.
“I don’t even know,” I said. “I only know I feel differently about him than I do about Adam. And I think Adam feels that way about Christine Cutler.”
“Brenda Belle,” she said, “Nothing Power was a nice idea but you can’t play God. You can’t make someone feel like something unless you really mean it . . . any more than you can decide to go steady with someone unless you both really feel it.”
“I thought it would make Mother happy,” I said.
“I know,” my aunt said, “but you can’t see the world through your mother’s glasses. You’ll just see a distortion.”
“She really does have a distorted viewpoint!” I said emphatically.
“No, I didn’t mean that,” my aunt said. “She sees things her way, and that’s right for her. It’s like a prescription for eyeglasses. You can’t use someone else’s.”
“But there has to be a right way to look at things!” I said.
“There simply isn’t one way, Brenda Belle. The right way is what you grow to learn is right for you. All your life you’ll find people who differ with you, who don’t see things as you do. From time to time you’ll change your own way of seeing things, too.”
“I don’t care about the future,” I said. “I just want to get through right now.”
“Then don’t hurry yourself into the future,” my aunt said. “Don’t force it. It’ll be here fast enough.”
“Thanks, Aunt Faith,” I said, “I’m going to think about it hard.”
“Don’t think about it too hard,” she said. “Relax . . . and about Ty Hardin, honey, just be yourself around him. If he’s pretending New Year’s Eve didn’t happen, that only means he’s having trouble being himself. Everybody has trouble finding his way, remember that—you’re not the only one.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the sherry before this,” I said.
“I forgive you this time,” said my aunt, “but always remember two things. Own up to sparks before they’re fires, and never serve sherry in a tall glass.”
While I waited for the bus that morning I tried to concentrate on my English assignment. We were supposed to memorize some short poetry that expressed poignancy. I’d found one written by someone named Frances Cornford, called “To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train.”
This is it:
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves
When the grass is as soft as the breast of doves
And shivering-sweet to the touch?
The poem took on a whole new meaning after that talk with my aunt. It wasn’t so much what we’d talked about; it was more the difference between my aunt and my mother. I’d always thought my mother was just plain mean a lot of the time, and I still don’t think she’ll ever be handed any bouquets for kindness. But in a way it was as though life was that field in the poem, and my mother was going through it wearing gloves, while my aunt was going through it with her gloves off. From my mother’s point of view, life was just going along, maybe being aware of what was around her, but never allowing herself to touch it. . . maybe because she was afraid to soil her hands, maybe because it just never occurred to her to reach out. But my aunt reached out, put more into living, and got more back: that’s why she wasn’t mean.
I think I understood something else about my mother that morning, too. The reason she didn’t like the fact I was like my aunt wasn’t at all because she thought my aunt was a failure as a woman. It was really because she was jealous of my aunt. She couldn’t bear the idea that growing up in that house with the two of them, I’d followed my aunt’s example instead of hers. . . . She made so much of the fact she was the woman my father had married, but it was my aunt my father had laughed with, and my aunt who’d understood him . . . and she made so much of the fact she had a daughter, but it was my aunt I emulated, and my aunt who understood me.
If it wasn’t a very pretty picture, it was a clearer picture of my mother and me than I’d ever had before. The new light I saw her in didn’t make me dislike her, but I had the distinct feeling she wasn’t going to get to me again, as she had in the past.
When the bus rolled toward me, I made that New Year’s resolution about trying not to be such a sneak. Honesty had paid off with my Aunt Faith. I decided there was something else I had to take care of—this business of Adam and me going steady. We had to call off the whole thing. I had his ring in my pocket, ready to return it.
Something was happening to Adam. He was moody, and he had become this terrible show-off. He was also beginning to flunk tests he should have passed with flying colors.
Rufus Kerin was driving the bus, and as I climbed aboard he looked right through me when I said hello. The only thing changed about Rufus Kerin was his dashboard. Scotch-taped to it was Billie Kay Case’s autograph. Otherwise he was the same grouchy Rufus he’d been before the establishment of Nothing Power.
As far as I could tell, there’d been no change in Dr. Cutler, Marilyn Pepper or Ella Early, either.
So much for Nothing Power, I thought, an
d I looked for Adam when the bus reached the bottom of the hill. He wasn’t there. The week before he’d overslept twice, arriving at school midway through English.
That was another symptom of his change: he was late a lot for everything.
I guess the strangest happening was his flunking the history test. Mouse Meredith teaches History, and his idea of history is names, places and dates. Old Mighty Mouse doesn’t care why we fought the Civil War; he only cares where and when we fought it. He’s the same way about everything, from the Boston Tea Party to Paul Revere’s ride.
Adam had predicted that Mighty Mouse would ask for the names of all the United States presidents, and that he’d want them listed in order. Then Adam had devised this neat way for us to remember the information. To give you an example, take these sentences.
WE ARE JUST MAKING MORE QUINCE-APPLE JAM. VAN HAS TYPED PAUL THAT FIG PIES BAKE LOVELY.
There you have all the presidents through Lincoln, in order, with clues like MA for Madison, MO for Monroe, QUINCE APPLE for John Quincy Adams (as distinguished from John Adams), TY for Tyler (as distinguished from Taylor) and PI for Pierce (as distinguished from Polk).
After you have memorized the sentences, it is practically impossible to ever forget. . . . But Adam, who had invented the whole system and taught it to me, blocked on test day. He had to hand Mouse a blank test book.
When the bus arrived at school, I was surprised to see Adam waiting to meet it.
“I got a phone call early this morning,” he explained to me. “I couldn’t sleep after, so I got dressed and walked around town. I just ended up here, about an hour ago.”
“Did Billie Kay call you?” I said.
“She isn’t the only person I know who’d call me,” he said. “I do have a father.”
“How is he?” I said. I couldn’t picture his father. I had some hazy image of this shoe salesman, this man going around with his sample cases, like that actor, Frederick March, in the old movie Death of a Salesman.
I’d been wishing it’d been Billie Kay who’d called him, because anything and everything about her fascinated me. She was the only real live celebrity I’d ever met.
Adam shrugged. “He’s okay, I guess.”
Adam had told me that his mother was dead, but he’d never told me much about either of his parents. I thought that his father was some kind of failure, someone Adam wasn’t very proud of.
“He sort of wants me to show up for something in a few weeks,” he said. “I may have to go out there.”
“Go out where?”
“The coast.”
“Then you’ll see Billie Kay. Will you? Will you see Billie Kay?”
“I suppose I’ll see her. Grandpa may come with me.”
“Will you ask her when she’s doing that special? She said she was going to make a special for television.”
“A lot of things she says she’s going to do don’t pan out,” he said.
“Ask her anyway.”
“I don’t really want to go.”
“Do you have to go?”
“Yes, I have to go.”
We were about to approach The Pillars. They’re right in front of the school entrance, and that’s where everyone hangs around before first bell.
I felt Adam’s arm around my shoulder.
I wasn’t surprised, but I knew, by then, what it meant.
It meant Christine Cutler was one of the people hanging around The Pillars. It meant Adam was going to act real turned on to me.
“Show time,” I said sarcastically. “Curtain up.”
Adam didn’t pick up on the sarcasm. He was pulling me closer and looking into my eyes and talking in this very loud voice. “. . . So if I do have to wing it to the coast, love, I’ll be on the horn daily. And tell me what kind of a surprise I can bring back for you. Earrings? Hoops? Small ones?”
I would have cracked up laughing if I hadn’t felt so sorry for him. I mean, who talked like that? Half the time he didn’t have the money to buy himself a second Coke in Corps, never mind earrings, hoops, small ones, from the coast.
As we passed The Pillars, I noticed Christine and Marlon Fredenberg standing together, and for Adam’s sake I decided to play one last scene.
“Darling, I’m going to miss you fiercely,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as phony to them as it sounded to me.
Marlon Fredenberg gave me this big wink. I had the distinct feeling it was his way of letting me know what a creep he thought I was, this laughable creep.
The bell was ringing.
Once we got inside, Adam let go of me.
I reached inside my coat pocket for his ring.
“Now she’s playing up to Marlon Fredenberg,” he said.
“We have to have a talk,” I said.
“Marlon Fredenberg of all people!” he said.
I was turning the ring with my fingers. “There’s nothing wrong with Marlon Fredenberg,” I said. “Football captain, track star, basketball—”
Adam snapped, “Oh Brenda Belle, can it!”
It was a perfect moment for me to slap the ring into Adam’s palm, which was exactly what I intended to do, when suddenly I noticed something about the ring that I’d never noticed before.
I managed to pursue the conversation. “Nothing Power isn’t working,” I said. “I cannot write another mash note to Ella Early. After three of them, she’s the same old dark cloud. And look at us, Adam, look at—”
Just at that point, Miss Flexner, the principal’s assistant, called out to Adam. “Mr. Blessing? Mr. Baird would like to see you in his office.”
Adam walked away from me without saying anything.
I stood there examining the ring. Adam had said it was his father’s school ring, but the last initial was not a B.
From the Journal of A.
It was still dark out when the telephone rang early that morning. My grandfather slept through it. He’d been drinking beer the night before; he’d called Late Night Larry to announce he was probably going into the restaurant business out on the coast. (“If you’re ever out that way, stop into Chuck From Vermont’s for a delicious meal.” . . . “We certainly will,” Late Night Larry had answered, “and we’ll miss you, Chuck From Vermont!”) My grandfather had gotten that new pipe dream from Billie Kay, who was busy sending him all sorts of information about franchise businesses.
It was my father calling, and I could tell by his voice he was feeling no pain.
“Someone here wants to meet you, A.J. Say hello.”
I said, “Hello?”
“I’ve heard so much about you, A.J.,” this female voice said.
“Who are you?” I asked as I groped for the light switch in the kitchen.
“Ha, ha, how silly of me, you don’t even know me, do you, sweetie? Sweetie, this is Electra Lindgren.”
“How do you do,” I said. I sat down on the kitchen stool and stared at the sweet potato plant on the window sill. There were small green shoots all over its side.
“Is it snowing in Vermont?” Electric Socket asked me.
“Not right now,” I said.
“Have you had a lot of snow this winter?”
My father’s voice cut in. “Never mind all the small talk. A.J.?”
“Yes?”
“You may have to wing it out to the coast in two weeks for a wedding.”
“Are you getting married?” I asked.
“What do you think I’m on the horn about at this hour?” I figured it was about three in the morning out there.
“Congratulations,” I said.
“Your grandpa can come with you,” my father said. “Billie Kay tells me he’d like to look around out here for a place to set up business.”
“When did you see Billie Kay?” I said.
“We saw her yesterday. Jesus, she’s aged!”
“I don’t think she can help it,” I said.
“What?”
“I said it happens to the best of us.”
“What
are you talking about, A.J.? Speak up!”
“I said none of us is getting any younger.”
“A.J.,” my father said, “never mind manifest knowledge at long-distance rates. Stick to the subject. We’ll probably tie the knot around the fourteenth.”
Electric Socket was back on the wire. “A.J.? We’re going to have a very free ceremony. I’m writing the vows myself. You can wear jeans if you want to. We’re going to be married in the desert.”
“Fine,” I said.
“A.J.,” my father said, “I’ll wire you some money.” Then he began whispering. “Pick up a wedding gift from you to Electra. . . . Earrings? Can you pick out some simple gold earrings for pierced ears?”
“I guess so,” I said.
“Hoops,” he whispered. “Small ones. . . . Here’s Electra again.”
“A.J.? I just stepped away to get my notebook. Here’s part of the ceremony I wrote myself. Are you listening?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Okay. It goes, ‘We are gathered here to marry two people who love each other.’ That’s the minister. Then I go, ‘I love you and want to live with you as long as you want to live with me.’ Then your father goes. ‘I love you and want to live with you as long as you want to live with me.’ Then I go, ‘I will care for you but never crowd you.’ Then your father goes, ‘I will care for you but—’ ”
My father’s voice interrupted. “Never mind that now. A.J.?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You come out on the thirteenth. Bring your grandfather with you. Billie Kay will probably be calling him about it.”
Electric Socket said, “Don’t wear winter clothes because we’ll be in the desert.”
I said, “Dad?”
“What is it. A.J.?”
“Listen, should people know about this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, should this be widely known?”
“You mean widely known in Storm, Vermont?” He laughed. He said, “You just get your tail out here and let me handle press relations.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“You’re still incognito there, aren’t you, or couldn’t you stick to it?”
“I’m sticking to it,” I said. “I’m not getting great grades. I flunked a history test last week.”
