“Listen to that, Vi,” she said as she descended back into the attic. “Doesn’t the rain sound lovely? Rain makes the attic seem even more cozy.”
“Cozy, yes,” Vi agreed. “But it also means the boys’ ball game will be rained out.”
Carrie wrinkled her nose. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“If they come up here, they have to play what we’re playing. No changing. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Carrie said with as much firmness in her voice as she could muster. Actually, it was difficult to be firm at all with Garvey. Her cousin was forever cutting up and acting silly.
The rain grew from fat drops to a steady drumming on the roof, making little rivulets on the windows.
“Let’s both be rich ladies,” Vi suggested, changing the subject.
“Oh, let’s,” Carrie agreed. “The governess will come and care for the children, and we’ll go to the opera. A special car will come with a chauffeur to take us.”
Vi giggled. “Like Mr. Carruthers next door?”
Carrie waved her hand. “Oh, pooh. His old car is nothing to the one that will come to fetch us.”
Vi laughed even more. “Ours will be like the Pierce Arrow that Greta Garbo drives.”
Violet loved to read movie magazines, and that’s where she had seen a photo of Greta Garbo in her custom-designed Pierce Arrow.
“Yes! That’s it,” Carrie agreed. “Like Greta’s car.”
A slam of a door and heavy footsteps on the attic stairs interrupted their game. Vi rolled her eyes. “Guess who?” she said.
“Here we are,” came Garvey’s voice before his head appeared at the stairwell. “Now the fun can begin.”
CHAPTER 2
Sonny’s Radio
Like two frisky colts with an overabundance of energy, Garvey and Nate barreled into the attic room, rain-soaked and mud-splattered. Nate yanked off his ball cap, underneath which his thatch of sandy hair was matted from the rain. “Glad to see us?” he said, grinning.
“How did you get by Opal looking like that?” Vi demanded. “You could have at least changed into something clean and dry.”
“Opal’s busy in the kitchen. We came up the front stairs,” Nate said.
“And what’s wrong with the way we look?” Garvey demanded. “We’ll dry off.”
Vi leaned over to Carrie. “At least they left their bat and ball and mitts downstairs.”
Carrie snickered. “Wonder of wonders,” she remarked.
Nate sat down on the wooden floor to tie a long, trailing shoestring. “If it’d been up to us, we’d have kept right on playing, rain or no. Right, Garvey?”
“Right as rain!” he quipped, then laughed at his own bad joke, making the girls groan. “We were whipping them something awful.
I smacked a homer that would have made Babe Ruth smile.”
“Garvey,” Carrie said, “it’s not polite to brag on yourself.”
“But he did,” Nate insisted. “He slammed a good one and sent three runners in. Me included.”
“Well, we’re not interested in baseball,” Vi announced. “If you’re staying up here, you have to be the husbands.”
Now it was the boys’ turn to groan.
“We’re rich ladies,” Carrie explained. “And these,” she added, pointing to the dolls, “are our children.”
“No need to pretend there,” Nate said to Carrie. “You already are rich.” He was still sitting on the floor, his wet hair all askew and his arms clasped around his knees.
“Why, Nathaniel Bickerson,” Vi chided her brother, “that wasn’t a very nice tone of voice.”
Garvey was digging through one of the trunks. He stopped and turned to Nate. “Hey, Nate, she’s my cousin, and I can tell you she’s not rich. It’s just that they don’t have as many mouths to feed as we do at our house.”
Nate shrugged. “You both have a bunch more than we’ll ever have.”
Garvey threw a suit coat and an old silk-lined fedora at him. “Good grief, Nate. Stop whining. Look at all this great stuff you have to play with. We don’t have anything like this at our house.”
Nate caught the hat in midair. The jacket landed beside him. “But none of it’s mine. It all belongs to Aunt Oriel. And Sonny, of course,” he added. When he mentioned Sonny, his green eyes took on a stormy look that Carrie had seen there much too often in recent days.
Carrie knew Nate didn’t care much for his aunt’s seventeen-year-old grandson. But she’d never really heard such bitterness in Nate’s voice before when he talked about Sonny. Sonny was an orphan, just as Nate and Violet were. Carrie had no idea how long Sonny had lived with his grandmother.
“If you’re going to play,” Vi said, ignoring her brother’s remarks, “you have to get dressed up. The chauffeur is arriving soon, and we’re all going to the opera.”
“The opera? Oh, brother!” Garvey slapped his forehead. “I have a better idea than that. You three pretend you’re going to a vaudeville show, and I’ll be the song-and-dance man.” With that, he mashed a hat on his head and twirled a pearl-headed cane in his hand.
Nate jumped up. “Great idea, Garvey. Let’s string up twine from that nail by the window to that hall tree over there. We’ll hang a sheet over it and make a stage.”
Carrie glanced at Vi. “They’re doing it again,” she said. It seemed like the boys were always ruining their games.
“Garvey, look.” Nate was pointing to the girls’ empty food tray. “They had a snack, and we missed out.”
“There’s more where that came from,” Vi told him. “Opal said for you to come down to the kitchen anytime.”
“I’ll go down,” Garvey said to Nate. “You fix our stage curtain, and I’ll be back in a minute. With food, of course!” Down the stairs he went—just as noisily as he’d come up.
Nate found a coil of twine used to tie up old boxes. “Garvey truly did hit a great homer,” he said as he stood on a crate and tied one end of the twine to the nail. “He’s a doggone good player.”
Carrie looked over at Vi, and Vi rolled her eyes. All the two boys ever thought about or talked about was baseball. Carrie knew perfectly well that Nate was every bit as good as Garvey. Even better. But they bragged on each other constantly.
“Are we ready to go to the show?” Vi asked, ignoring Nate’s baseball comment altogether. “Or shall we change our frocks?”
“By all means, let’s change,” Carrie said, waving a long silk glove in the air.
After a few moments, they had the first dresses off and new ones pulled on and were pinning one another. Suddenly a horrendous noise sounded from behind them, like a loud slam and then a guttural growl. Vi jumped and gasped. Carrie screamed and whirled around, her heart pounding in her throat.
There stood Garvey with an old sheet draped over his head. He’d snuck up the back way. Now the two boys were laughing hysterically. “Did you see them jump?” Garvey said, pulling the sheet off.
“Both of them,” Nate gasped as he held his sides. He had to get down off the crate because he was laughing so hard. “Jumped about a mile in the air.”
Now Vi was laughing, too. “Garvey, you crazy guy. You scared me all right. You’re always up to some kind of mischief.”
Carrie didn’t think it was so funny. Her heart was still pounding like a trip-hammer. She didn’t always care for Garvey’s antics, but what could she say? Nate and Vi never seemed to mind. In fact, no matter how corny Garvey acted, they always laughed.
“How’d you know, Nate?” Vi wanted to know. “Why didn’t he scare you?”
“He signaled to me on his way out. Pretty funny, huh?”
“Those back stairs are a clever setup,” Garvey said. “I love this swell old house.”
“Hey,” Nate said, “what about our food?”
“Oh yeah,” Garvey said, grinning. “I left it on the landing.”
In no time, the boys wolfed down their cookies and juice and turned their attention back to the makeshift
curtain.
Garvey helped as they strung the twine from the nail over to the hooks of a discarded hall tree. They used the sheet Garvey had worn for his awful joke, spreading it over the twine for a curtain. As they did, Nate happened to look out the window.
“Well, would you look over there,” he said, his hands on his hips. “There’s Mr. Carruthers’s new chauffeur! Sonny says he’s a Russian Jew. A poor immigrant Jew.”
Garvey dropped the twine and craned over to peer down at the neighbor’s house.
Vi was putting on yet another elegant hat. After adjusting it, she said, “I want to see.” Lifting her long skirts, she scurried over to where the boys were gawking.
Carrie wondered what all the fuss was about. It wasn’t as if they’d never seen Mr. Carruthers’s chauffeurs before. He’d been through several in the past couple years.
“Come look, Carrie,” Vi said, motioning.
Carrie sighed. She lifted her long skirt and traipsed to the window as she’d been asked. Looking through the window, which was rain-streaked on the outside and dusty on the inside, she saw the Carrutherses’ elegant Packard car. Slowly, the car moved from the large three-car garage around to the portico. The front of the car was open, the back enclosed, leaving the uniformed driver in the rain—which had slacked off to barely a sprinkle. Carrie leaned closer to look down, but the driver, dressed in a trim uniform complete with visored cap and jodhpurs, didn’t look so different. Nothing special set him apart.
The car stopped beneath the open portico. The driver stepped out and, standing straight and tall, opened the car door for Mr. Carruthers to enter. As usual, Mr. Carruthers was dressed to the teeth in his tailored three-piece suit. The chauffeur then got back in the front seat, and they drove away.
“Jewish,” Nate said with a sneer. “He probably wears one of those little beanie things on his head under that chauffeur’s cap.”
“It’s called a yarmulke,” Garvey said.
“Yeah,” Nate agreed. “One of those.”
“So what if he does?” Carrie commented. She didn’t particularly like the way Nate was talking about this poor man. “Mr. Carruthers doesn’t seem to care if he’s Jewish or not.”
“Sonny says the Jews should stay in their part of town,” Nate said.
“But that’s his home,” Carrie countered, pointing to the Carrutherses’ place. “Mr. Carruthers’s chauffeurs always live above the garage. Besides, what does Sonny Simmons know anyway?”
Sometimes Nate seemed not to care a thing about what Sonny said or did. Other times, he acted as though what Sonny said was law. How confusing.
“Are we going to finish our game?” Vi asked, moving back to their tea table, “or are we going to stare out an old window all day?”
“Yes,” Carrie agreed. “If you’re going to make a stage, then make a stage. We’re ready to go to the show.”
She figured playing vaudeville would be better than staring at the neighbors.
Garvey tossed Nate the fedora, and Nate caught it and put it on at a rakish angle.
Just then, from outside came a familiar chugging and popping noise. There was no mistaking the sound of Sonny’s old jalopy that he’d souped up. The old car was the noisiest one in the entire neighborhood. Which seemed to suit Sonny just fine.
“Oh my!” Nate exclaimed, still gaping out the window. “Looky there. Sonny’s gone and got himself a radio set!” He pulled off the hat and gave it a spin, making it sail toward an open trunk. It landed perfectly inside. “A real honest-to-goodness radio set!”
He grabbed Garvey’s arm. “Come on, Garvey. We gotta see this. Maybe he’ll let us have a look.”
“Or a listen,” Garvey added, dropping the twine and tripping right on Nate’s heels.
Down the stairs they went, sounding like a herd of elephants.
CHAPTER 3
Tennis Lessons
Carrie shook her head as the attic was suddenly quiet again. “Boys,” she said with a sigh.
“Carrie?” Vi stood in the middle of the room, looking somewhat distracted.
“Yes?”
“I’d like to see the radio set. I’ve never seen one before.”
“What do you mean? You’ve seen our radio.”
Vi was pulling off her dress-up dress and putting it back into the trunk. “Your family radio is different. Sonny probably put this one together wire by wire and tube by tube.”
Carrie could see it was useless to argue with her friend. Their game was over for this day. She, too, pulled off her long dress, her hat, and her shoes and put them back into the trunk.
“Hurry,” Vi said. “We’ll pick up the rest of the things later.”
The attic stairs opened into a hallway on the second floor, where Nate and Vi’s bedrooms were located. From there, they went down the back stairs, which led to the kitchen and the stairs that led to the basement. By the time they got down there, Sonny had situated the radio receiver set on a broad worktable and was fiddling with the glass tubes and hooking up wires here and there. Garvey and Nate were standing at a respectful distance, quietly watching Sonny’s every move.
Sonny looked over at the girls as they entered and rolled his dark eyes. “That’s all I need,” he spouted. “Two more pests.”
Carrie had never known Sonny to be very friendly, and today was no different. The tall, lanky boy had the disposition of a porcupine, keeping most everyone at a distance. His thick dark hair was cut high over his ears but long on top and kept falling across his forehead as he worked.
For reasons known only to Sonny, he preferred to live in the basement. Not that it was a bad place. It was fixed up as nice as any other part of the house, with paneled walls and ample lighting. It just seemed odd to Carrie that Sonny kept himself isolated in much the same way that his grandmother did. Which didn’t make living here any easier for Vi and Nate.
Vi was right about the radio. It looked nothing like the mahogany console sitting in the Ruhles’ living room. Sonny’s radio was definitely a do-it-yourself contraption of which he was obviously very proud. On the one hand, he talked as though he wanted them to leave, but on the other, he kept fussing over the set as though he wanted them to watch.
He leaned close to the set, a weak smile playing on his usually scowling face, his dark, deep-set eyes focused in concentration.
Presently, there were scratchy sounds coming over the airwaves. After a little dial twisting, Sonny was able to bring in—through spurts of heavy static—sounds of a jazz band playing. As soon as he did, he picked up a set of headphones and put them on his ears, wiring them to the set. The music was silenced; only he could hear.
“Can we try the headphones, Sonny?” Nate asked. “Please?”
“Not on your life,” Sonny answered. “You think I’d trust this delicate equipment to a bunch of little kids?” He lifted up one earphone and looked at the four of them. “You twerps are bothering me. Now scram! All of you!”
Carrie turned to go up the stairs. She wasn’t used to being talked to in such a rude manner. She was the first up the steps, followed by the other three. When they were all standing in the middle of the big kitchen, she asked, “Why does he have to be so snippy?”
“He’s just that way,” Nate replied, pulling his ball cap on over his still-mussed-up hair. “Come on, Garvey. The sun’s back out. Maybe the fellows are ready to start the game again.”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
“Wait just a minute.” Opal stood in the kitchen doorway with her hands on her ample hips. “Did everything get picked up and put away in the attic? I seem to be missing two trays, complete with tumblers and pitchers.”
Garvey groaned.
“Come on,” Vi said. “Let’s all pitch in.” Looking over at Carrie, she said, “After we finish picking up, let’s go play at the park.”
Quickly the foursome ran back up to the attic, and in a matter of minutes, they’d put everything back in its rightful place. As they came back into the kitchen to put the tra
ys in the sink, the telephone rang.
Vi ran to the wall phone in the kitchen to grab it before Opal could answer one of the extensions. Carrie wasn’t sure how many telephones were in the Simmonses’ house, but there were several.
“Here, Carrie,” Vi said, handing the receiver off to Carrie. “It’s for you.”
“Me?”
“Your mother.”
“Wonder what she wants?” Carrie took the phone. “Hello, Mother.”
“Carrie, why aren’t you here? You should be changing into your tennis togs by now. It’s almost time for your lesson.”
“Oh my. I completely forgot.”
“Well, get home as quickly as you can. Perhaps we can still make it on time.”
Carrie placed the receiver on the hook of the wall phone. Wrinkling her nose, she said, “I have to go. It’s time for my tennis lesson.”
“Oh yeah,” Garvey said, “your tennis lesson. I was supposed to help you remember. We neither one did a very good job, did we?”
Carrie shook her head. She hated going to tennis lessons at the country club each week. It was something Mother thought would help make her a more well-rounded person. That and the elocution sessions, piano lessons, and two workshops of art appreciation. It was as though her mother was attempting to schedule Carrie’s entire summer.
“I sure wish you didn’t have to leave,” Vi said. “Guess I’ll have to go play by myself for a while.”
“Sorry,” Carrie said, heading out the back door. “I’d better hurry, or Mother will be upset.” She waved to Vi as her friend stood on the back porch with a forlorn expression on her face.
Carrie knew Violet was often lonely, so she spent as much time with her friend as possible. And besides that, the two of them had great fun together.
As Carrie walked past the Carrutherses’ place, the fancy Packard was pulling into the driveway. The new chauffeur looked over at Carrie and smiled. It was a very nice smile. It made her think of the poem in her reading book that went:
The thing that goes the farthest
Toward making life worthwhile,
American Progress Page 24
