Sister of the Bride

by Beverly Cleary

  In the spirit of things Gordy sang from his room, “What will the wedding supper be? Ah-hah. Three green beans and a black-eyed pea. Ah-hah.” He had been much more agreeable since his trio had been so well received at the Latin banquet, and Barbara was surprised at the improvement in his guitar playing.

  Mrs. MacLane, coming into the kitchen, paused to look back at Millie, who was cutting out the taffeta slip for her bridesmaid dress, and Barbara followed her mother’s worried glance. Deliberate Millie, wearing a muumuu and beaded Indian moccasins, had laid her pattern exactly on the straight of the goods. Meticulously she had inserted each pin exactly three inches from the last pin.

  Now Mrs. MacLane stepped into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. She shook her head. “That girl is driving me out of my mind. She isn’t going to finish that dress in time for the wedding if we don’t do something drastic,” she whispered. “And she spends half her time playing the recorder.”

  “Do you want me to help?” asked Barbara.

  “You’ll have to,” agreed her mother. “You go on. I’ll get Gordy to help with the silver.”

  Gordy was singing, “Uncle Rat has gone to town. Ah-hah. To buy Miss Mouse a wedding gown. Ah-hah.”

  “Gordy!” Mrs. MacLane called down the hall. “Come and help polish the silver.”

  A couple of noisy chords came from the guitar. “Aw, Mom, do I have to?” Gordy wanted to know. “That’s woman’s work.”

  “Well, woman’s work is never done, so hurry up.” Mrs. MacLane’s patience was wearing thin.

  Barbara found trying to work with Millie exasperating. The dress was finally cut out, but Millie carefully refolded the pattern into its original creases and tucked it into the envelope instead of just stuffing it in, to get it out of the way. She pinned the seams together with pins exactly two inches apart and five eighths of an inch from the edge. Barbara, whose own impulse was to sew up the seams on the sewing machine without bothering to baste, could stand it no longer. She did not even offer to help. She simply picked up a needle and thread and started basting with generous stitches. Then she noticed Millie’s careful, even stitches, and measured hers accordingly—or tried to. She was too impatient to see the dress finished and too exhilarated, in spite of her broken heart, by the excitement of the wedding preparations to work with Millie’s deliberation.

  “Aren’t you excited that the wedding is almost here?” Barbara finally asked.

  Millie licked her finger and knotted her thread. “Not particularly,” she said. “I’m not the one who is getting married.”

  Barbara found this calm infuriating, although she tried to tell herself that it was a good thing. Millie at least would never panic, and there was no telling what the rest of them would do when the wedding day finally came. Barbara loved every ring of the doorbell, every conversation about how many people did they really think would stay for the reception, every satin bow, every shred of excelsior. She wished it could go on and on and never end. She dreaded the moment when it would all be over, when the wedding cake was eaten and the rice was thrown and Rosemary had gone off to that awful apartment to live with Greg and be a member of the Dames. She dreaded having the bedroom to herself forever—or until she left home herself.

  This brought Barbara back to her daydream of Bill Cunningham. The cookie jar was now empty, the cookies eaten by the bearers of wedding gifts, but it did not matter. Bill was not around to eat them. She hoped Gordy would not notice and make caustic remarks. If he did, she was sure to answer with even more caustic remarks, and that would be the end of the truce they had declared when she had crowned him with the rhododendron wreath before the Latin banquet.

  And then unexpectedly Barbara heard the familiar sound of a Vespa in the distance. She had long since learned to distinguish the sound of a Vespa from that of many other motor scooters. She went taut with anticipation. It might not be Bill’s scooter, she warned herself, to keep from being hurt if the scooter did not come in her direction. It might not come up the hill. But it did come up the hill. Still she did not relax. It did not have to be Bill’s Vespa. His was not the only one in Bayview, she told herself, to stave off disappointment if the scooter passed her house without stopping. But it did not pass by. It really did stop, and Bill Cunningham ran up the steps and rang the doorbell.

  “I’ll get it,” cried Barbara, and sprang up from the welter of silk to hurry to the door before anyone else got there. “Why, Bill!” she exclaimed, as surprised as if she had not heard his Vespa blocks before it reached her house. There were no circles under his eyes. He looked lively and alert, not at all like someone who had danced till dawn. Perhaps he had not even gone to the party. There was nothing for her heart to be broken about, because now she knew Bill really liked her. He had come in the summertime at an hour of the day when he could not possibly be hungry. “Come on in,” she said, and smiled up at him.

  Bill stepped inside, and Barbara introduced him to Millie, explaining, “We have been sewing like mad on her bridesmaid dress.” And then, lest he think she was too busy sewing to spend any time with him, she added, “I’ve been basting until my fingers are stiff. I was just going to take a break.” She wished Millie was wearing something other than that muumuu and those beaded moccasins, that she felt insecure enough to care more about her appearance. She also wished Millie would go off someplace and tootle on her recorder, but Millie did not have this much tact. She said hello to Bill and continued to sew.

  “Yeah, I thought you might be sewing,” said Bill, and for the first time Barbara noticed he was carrying something rolled up under his arm the way boys carry swimming trunks rolled up in a towel. This was not a towel, so he could not be here to ask her to go swimming. She watched him pull the bundle out from under his arm and unroll it. It was a plaid shirt. “I was wondering—could you sew my shirt? It’s my good Viyella shirt, and I tore the pocket. See?”

  Automatically Barbara took the shirt and examined it. It was beautiful. The brown-and-green plaid was subtle, the fabric soft, one corner of the pocket had been ripped loose, and the rim of the collar was a bit grubby. Barbara was so disappointed she could have cried. She wanted a date, and he had brought mending. “Couldn’t—couldn’t your mother do it?” she faltered.

  “She doesn’t go in much for sewing,” explained Bill. “She has this big career and all.”

  Barbara looked at Bill, standing there so expectantly by the front door, and thought of all the things she had to do before the wedding—Millie’s dress to finish, hair to be washed, errands to be run, a thousand things. Maybe she didn’t have a career, but she certainly had plenty to do. Suddenly she was mad. Just plain mad. Who did Bill think he was, anyway, eating her cookies day after day and then coming around taking it for granted she would do his mending? She was not his mother. Or his wife. She most emphatically was not his wife. She would not be his wife if he were the last man on earth. His torn shirt was not her responsibility. Just because she fed him cookies did not mean she was going to do his mending. Mend his shirt, and he would be bringing his socks next. Well, she did not want to mend his shirt, and she was not going to mend it.

  Barbara looked Bill in the eye. “No, I will not mend your shirt!” she informed him. It was with good reason that Gordy sometimes called her Barbed Wire.

  “You don’t have to be so ferocious about it.” Bill was obviously taken aback. “I just thought—”

  Barbara felt ferocious. “I suppose you thought I would be glad to mend your shirt!” she said. “I suppose you thought I would consider it an honor to do your mending.”

  “Well…no, not exactly.” Bill put his hand on the doorknob as if preparing to retreat.

  “Well, I don’t!” Barbara informed him.

  Bill stepped back and opened the door.

  “And furthermore, it isn’t even a clean shirt,” Barbara pointed out.

  “Well, I’m sorry. You seemed so domestic and all…I didn’t think…” Bill began to back out the door.

&nbs
p; “Obviously you didn’t,” snapped Barbara. “Well, for your information, I may bake cookies, but I don’t take in mending. Or washing.” She rolled the shirt up into a ball. “Here. Take your old shirt.” She threw it at him with such a poor aim that it flew over his head, and Bill, now halfway down the steps, automatically sprang up to catch it, like a fielder catching a baseball.

  “Good-bye, Bill Cunningham,” said Barbara emphatically. “I don’t care if I never see you again.”

  Bill must have begun to recover from his surprise and to regain his poise, because he said with exaggerated sorrow, “Good-bye, dear Barbara, I shall go. It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done before.”

  “Oh, be quiet!” snapped Barbara, and slammed the door. He needn’t think he was going to win her over by being funny.

  “Why, Barbara,” said Mrs. MacLane, coming into the living room with a dust cloth in her hand, “that’s no way to treat a boy. You weren’t very nice to Bill.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” agreed Barbara, “but I don’t think he was very nice to me either.” As soon as she had shut the door between herself and Bill, she did not know whether to giggle or to cry. The Vespa began to putt off down the hill, taking Bill farther and farther away from her, and to her great surprise a feeling of lightness came over her. She discovered she was tired of baking cookies for that—cookie hound. She was tired of trying to win him, and as for her daydreams about getting married someday, she found them so silly she was embarrassed even thinking about them. Imagine living in an apartment like Rosemary’s with Bill Cunningham and washing his socks. Never, never, never!

  “I guess you told him,” observed Millie, slipping out of her muumuu and pulling on the bodice of her dress to see if it fit.

  Barbara had forgotten all about Millie. “Yes, I guess I did,” she agreed a bit ruefully, thinking perhaps she had been too hard on Bill. After all, she had led him to believe she was such a…a domestic little wren that naturally he would think she would be glad to mend his shirt. Still, she was glad she had refused to do it. For the first time she felt that she had behaved honestly with Bill. She only wished she had been a little less ferocious about it, so she would not be left feeling quite so ridiculous. Oh well, it was all over now. She picked up her needle and thread and began to baste once more. That was that. Now to get on with the wedding.

  As Barbara stitched, she reflected that if she did not learn to get along better with boys, Rosemary’s wedding might very well be the only one in the family. Tootie and Bill. What a pair. But perhaps, as Rosemary had said of Tootie, they might mature into something, not that she cared if they did. Her thoughts wandered off into another daydream. Barbara MacLane, career woman. Barbara, a highly paid writer of advertising copy. Barbara, buried in a laboratory. Barbara, city planner. As the afternoon wore on, she began to feel ashamed of herself. If she ever ran into Bill, she would apologize for being so angry. Not apologize abjectly, but apologize nevertheless.

  The postman brought another package, and shortly after that Rosemary and Greg came in, both wearing the special glow of a couple that has bought a marriage license the day before and has just had a talk with the minister. Greg refused an invitation to dinner—he was painting the bathroom in the apartment and wanted to go back to Berkeley—and Rosemary, smiling absentmindedly, cut the paper tape on the package with an old butcher knife she had kept handy since the packages had begun to arrive.

  “What is it this time, dear?” asked Mrs. MacLane.

  While Greg waited to see the gift, Rosemary opened the package and pulled out, one piece at a time from a nest of tissue paper, two sets of silver salt-and-pepper shakers.

  “How lovely,” said Mrs. MacLane. “Doesn’t that make four sets?”

  Silver to be polished, thought Barbara. Just what Rosemary doesn’t want.

  But Rosemary appeared to admire the salt-and-pepper shakers. “Uncle Charlie and Aunt Ruth,” she read from the card. “Mother, promise you won’t let Uncle Charlie try to sell Greg a life insurance policy at the reception.”

  “Oh, don’t mind your relatives,” said Mrs. MacLane. “Everybody has them. Your Uncle Charlie can no more keep from selling insurance than he can stop breathing. That’s why he’s such a good salesman.”

  “I have a fine collection of relatives myself,” said Greg. “I even have a cousin with tattooed ears.”

  “Really?” asked Rosemary, fascinated.

  “A small anchor on each earlobe,” explained Greg. “He had it done while he was in the navy.”

  “You never told me that.” Rosemary was looking at Greg with love in her eyes, marveling that she had not known he had a cousin with tattooed ears.

  “Not an easy thing to bring into the conversation,” said Greg.

  “And to think that I am going to be related to him,” said Rosemary. “What does he have tattooed on his chest?”

  Greg laughed. “I don’t know. I was afraid to ask.” And with that he kissed Rosemary lightly, said good-bye to the MacLanes and Millie, and left to return to his brush and paint can in Berkeley.

  Soon after Greg had gone and Rosemary was entering the additional pairs of salt-and-pepper shakers in the bride’s book, the doorbell rang. “It can’t be the mailman,” said Rosemary. “He has already been here.”

  “I’ll get it,” said Barbara, who was tired of basting on Millie’s dress. When she opened the door a delivery boy handed her a long white box from a florist. Without even thinking, she turned it over to Rosemary.

  “Flowers? Before the wedding?” Rosemary accepted the box and looked at the name on the card. “But it’s for you, Barby.”

  “Me?” Barbara did not believe it. “Who would send me flowers? I’m just the sister of the bride.”

  “That’s what it says. Barbara MacLane.” Rosemary held the box out to her sister.

  Still not believing the flowers were for her, Barbara took the box. Sure enough, there was her name on the envelope. “Who on earth?” She tore open the little envelope and pulled out the card. It was not a florist’s card. It was a calling card, and it bore the name William Calvert Cunningham. Above the name was written one word—“Regrets.” It took a moment for it to register with Barbara that William Calvert Cunningham was Bill Cunningham, who naturally would have calling cards, because he had recently sent out announcements of his graduation from high school. But regrets! Bill Cunningham regrets. Regrets what? That she did not mend his shirt? That she was angry with him? That he had been so thoughtless? She ripped the card in two and tossed it into the fireplace. “That’s for Bill Cunningham,” she fumed. “Let somebody else mend his old shirts.”

  “Aren’t you going to look at the flowers?” asked Rosemary.

  Oh yes, the flowers. Barbara lifted the lid from the box and laid back the green tissue paper. Flowers! One flower. One single solitary flower, a perfect yellow rose. “Oh, that Bill!” sputtered Barbara, positive now that he was laughing at her. “Of all the nerve.” And to think that she had planned to apologize for throwing his shirt at him if she ever happened to run into him again! Apologize! She wouldn’t even speak to him. Sending her one yellow rose and his regrets!

  “At least it’s a rose, not a thistle,” Millie pointed out.

  “Yes,” agreed Mrs. MacLane. “Under the circumstances a thistle might be more appropriate.”

  “I’d like to send him a thistle,” said Barbara darkly. “One dozen thistles.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Millie. “A flower from a boy is a flower from a boy. Look at it that way.” That was Millie—practical, down-to-earth, interested and yet detached about other people’s problems.

  “Yes,” agreed Rosemary. “And thank him for the beautiful rose the next time you see him. He’ll be surprised.” She could afford to be amused by her sister’s situation. Rosemary had her man. She was past this sort of thing.

  Barbara lifted out the rose and held it to her nose. It was fragrant and perfect, and it was, as Millie had pointed out, a flower f
rom a boy, her first. Perhaps Rosemary was right about thanking Bill. Rosemary had had a lot of experience with boys. She went into the kitchen to find a vase, but none was the right size for a single long-stemmed rose. She finally seized the kitchen shears, chopped the stem in half, and put the rose in a small vase, which she carried back to the living room and set on the coffee table until Buster jumped up to investigate it. Then she moved it to the mantel.

  Oh…thought Barbara, feeling that the rose was mocking her. Regrets! He is infuriating. She would have moved the rose to some less conspicuous spot, but she refused to attach that much importance to it. It was just a rose. That was all it was. Just a yellow rose. How silly she had been earlier in the day to fancy she had a broken heart. She tested it now to make sure it was all in one piece. Bill. The thought was no longer painful, just infuriating. Resolutely she put Bill out of her mind and got out the ironing board to press seams for Millie.

  Barbara put Bill so completely out of her mind that she was entirely unprepared for his telephone call—not that she would have been prepared, even if she had been thinking about him. He had never telephoned her before.

  “Hi, Barbara,” he said when she had been called to the phone. “This is Bill. Bill Cunningham.”

  “Oh. You,” she said flatly, because she could not think of anything else to say. He had his nerve calling her after all that had happened that day.

  “Yes, me,” he said cheerfully. “Still mad?”

  “Mad? Why should I be mad?” she asked coldly. Then, remembering Rosemary’s advice, she said, “Thank you for the flower. It is very pretty.” She did not sound very grateful, but she had not intended to.

  Bill, contrary to Rosemary’s prophecy, did not seem surprised. “Look, I am sorry about the shirt,” he said. “How would you like to go bowling tonight?”

  Barbara could remember when this question would have filled her with joy. She could not help reflecting that she was much more mature now at five o’clock than she had been at, say, nine o’clock this morning. “No thank you, Bill,” she said politely. “I have to sew on my sister’s roommate’s bridesmaid dress. We have to finish it in time for the wedding.”