The Riverses didn’t yell and argue like the Pennoyers. Jenny had never heard either Mr. Rivers or Mrs. Rivers say a loud or harsh word to Rhoda. They had no children except Rhoda, and they seemed to enjoy nothing in life quite as much as Rhoda-watching.
“It would drive me bananas,” Jenny said as they brushed their teeth in the Rivers’ blue tile bathroom. (Mrs. Rivers had just popped her head in to check if Rhoda was wearing her flannel nightgown.)
Rhoda shrugged and examined her teeth in the bathroom mirror. “In one ear and out the other,” she said. “That’s my motto.”
“Cool, you’re really cool,” Jenny said admiringly. “Me, I am hot as a firecracker. Do you think that’s why we like each other? We’re opposites, all right.”
“Must be true love,” Rhoda agreed.
In Rhoda’s room they both got into the same twin bed to talk. “All this furniture in my room is bird’s-eye maple,” Rhoda said. She had twin maple beds with red and white striped spreads, matching curtains at the windows, a rag rug on the floor, a maple rocker, and a maple bureau cluttered with a camera, three bottles of cologne, a round-faced clock in a brushed red traveling case, a silver-backed brush, and four United Nations’ dolls.
“You’re supposed to be impressed when you hear bird’s-eye maple,” Rhoda said.
Jenny, who was indifferent to furniture, said, “Okay, I’m impressed. You know who’d appreciate this? Gail. She and my mother spend hours looking at the Sears catalogue. Gail wants my mother to promise to buy us new bedroom furniture for Christmas. Isn’t that a rotten idea?”
“New furniture is nice,” Rhoda said, spitting on her forefinger and rubbing a spot off the headboard. “I like new things.”
“Some new things are all right. I wouldn’t mind if I never had to wear any of Gail’s clothes again. But furniture is different. You know my bureau at home? The one that’s painted kind of an oceany green? That was my father’s when he was a kid. I like it fine, but my mother says it’s a piece of junk. So I’ll probably have to have a new one whether I like it or not.”
There was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Rivers came in. “Girls, don’t forget you need your sleep. If you talk too late, you’ll have bags under your eyes in the morning, Rhoda.”
“We won’t stay up long,” Rhoda said. As soon as her mother shut the door, Rhoda turned on her side toward Jenny. “Let’s talk real talk. Who do you love? Tell me his initials.”
“C. P.,” Jenny said.
“C. P.,” Rhoda repeated. Then she got it. “Your grandfather. No fair. You know what I mean. What boy in school do you love?”
“How do you know I love anyone?”
“I know,” Rhoda said. “I know! Listen, remember last term when I had a crush on Mr. Spencer? I told you, didn’t I? And I told you about dreaming about your brother Vince.”
“I never dream things like that,” Jenny said, but instantly she remembered a dream she’d had only a few nights before about the boy whose name Rhoda was trying to get out of her. George Uhlmann. Old sexy George, with his slouching, easy walk. Passing him in the halls, Jenny couldn’t help looking up, smiling hopefully, saying, Hiii! If she was lucky she got a distant smile out of George Uhlmann, the smile of a boy two years older than she, a boy who knew he was something.
“Give me his initials,” Rhoda said. “Is he the same one as the summer?”
“Gawd, no!” All summer, out of boredom, Jenny had had a crush on Lloyd James, a boy who lived on Pittmann Street, who was her age but half a head shorter and filled with more pure male arrogance than even George Uhlmann. Lloyd wore his T-shirts with the sleeves cut off to show off his muscular arms. He was a weight lifter, he never acted small, and he never missed an opportunity to say something nasty to any girl who got near him. It had been so humiliating to have a crush on him. So stupid! Jenny had hated herself even as she made opportunities to bump into him. Thank goodness she was over that. “I hate Lloyd James,” she said firmly. “I mean hate hate, not like hate.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Rhoda said. “I can’t stand the slimy little beast. All right, give me a hint about the new one, his first initial is …?”
“G.,” Jenny said.
“G.” Rhoda began reeling off all the boys in their class whose names began with G. “Gerald Whyken.”
“No.”
“Gary Bruno.”
“No.”
“George Taylor.”
“No.”
Jenny kept saying no, laughing harder and harder as Rhoda got more frustrated. “Come on, tell,” Rhoda said, pinching Jenny’s arm. “We’re best friends, you have to tell me who he is.” Rhoda didn’t like being frustrated.
“Listen,” Jenny said in a solemn voice, suppressing her laughter, “he’s not in our class. He’s older. And he’s this fantastic sexy person who I thought I liked for a while, but now I’m getting to hate because he doesn’t know I’m alive.”
Rhoda pounced. “If you hate him, then it doesn’t matter. Tell me his name.”
“Initials, G.—” Jenny paused, drawing it out. “G.—U.”
“G. U.,” Rhoda repeated. “G. U., G. U., who do I know G. U.?” Then she screamed. “George Uhlmann. Oh, no, not George Uhlmann. Jenny, how could you. He’s such a big snob!”
“You’re right. A big snob, and a big conceited jerk. You know what? I’m not looking at him in the halls anymore. No more saying, Hi, George, hoping he’ll deign to answer. No, sir! From now on when I see him, I cross my eyes.”
Suddenly they were both giggling and clutching each other, arms around each other, face bursting laughter into face. “Jenny, I like you!” Rhoda cried, and hugging her tighter she kissed Jenny. They were both embarrassed. They drew apart, still smiling. Jenny saw Rhoda’s face getting redder and redder. Jenny yawned elaborately. “Hey, maybe I better get into the other bed. Your mother will have kittens if she finds us still up.” She crawled into the adjoining twin bed and punched the pillows to make it comfortable.
There was silence for a while. Then, “Jenny?”
“Yes?”
“You sleeping?”
“Not yet.”
“Let’s talk some more.”
“Okay. What about?”
“Elephant jokes?”
“Oh, no!”
“Why do elephants wear pink tennis shoes?”
“Why? Why? I’m dying to know.”
“Because white ones get dirty too fast. Okay, ready for the next one?”
“Never!”
“Why do elephants have wrinkled ankles?”
“I give up.”
“Because their tennis shoes are laced up too tight.”
Laughing, they rolled around in their beds. The embarrassment was over. Rhoda leaned across the space between the beds.
“Girls!” Mrs. Rivers called from the next room.
“Jenny,” Rhoda whispered, “did I ever tell you I was a blue baby?”
“No,” Jenny whispered back.
“I didn’t have enough oxygen in my blood when I was born. I was literally blue, my mother says. I needed a complete transfusion. That’s why no more babies after me, because my mother said she would never go through all that torture again.”
“Rhoda,” Jenny said, “when you get famous and write your autobiography you can call it, I Was a Blue Baby, And I’m Still Blue, Baby!”
“And she hates elephant jokes!”
Moments later, it was Jenny who broke the silence. “Rhoda, I was a birth-control baby.”
“Birth-control baby? I never heard of that.”
“The birth control my mother and father used didn’t work, and the result was me.”
“You mean you weren’t wanted.”
Jenny didn’t answer. She hunched the covers over her shoulders. Rhoda leaned across the beds to touch Jenny’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said such a stupid thing.”
Jenny lay still for a long time. Her thoughts drifted to her family … to Grandpa … to the
strangeness of the way Rhoda lived, only one child watched over by two adults. Her throat felt dry and she thought about getting up for a drink. “Rhoda,” she said softly, after a while. “Rhoda, you were right, anyway. I’m the family accident.” Rhoda was sleeping already and didn’t answer. Surprised at what she had said and yet, having said it, feeling as if she’d always known it, understanding now as if she’d always understood that plea in her mother’s eyes, Jenny closed her eyes and went to sleep, too.
Chapter 6
One Saturday afternoon, only a month after he’d gone back to college, Vince walked in on the Pennoyer family. Jenny was in the kitchen cleaning up bowls and beaters after baking brownies. Mr. Pennoyer, who’d been laying new tarpaper on the garage roof, had just come in for a cup of coffee, and Mrs. Pennoyer was sitting at the table with him, showing him a sale in the Sears fall catalogue on an electric meat-slicing machine. “All chrome-plated steel construction,” she read.
“How big is that blade?” Mr. Pennoyer said, and at that moment Vince entered.
“Greetings, family,” he said as casually as if he came three hundred miles home from college every Saturday afternoon. He was wearing flared corduroy pants, a blue turtleneck shirt, and boots with brass studs on the straps. He’d let his hair and sideburns grow and looked, Jenny thought, fantastic. “Vince,” she cried, throwing herself on his neck.
Mr. Pennoyer pushed back his chair. “Vince, hey, it’s Vince.” He embraced his son and stood back to look at him. “Did you get taller since the last time I saw you?”
Vince laughed. “No, Dad. But maybe you got shorter.”
“Hey, you’re still a fresh kid,” Mr. Pennoyer said, smiling. “What are you doing here anyway? Are you hungry? Sit down, have something to eat. Jenny, give Vince some brownies. Amelia, warm up that stew from last night.”
Vince rubbed his hand over his thick dark mustache. He was a good head taller than his father, wiry and handsome. “I ate already, Dad, grabbed something at a diner on the road. So how are you, Dad? You look great.” He rubbed Jenny’s head. “Where’s my other cute little sisters?” He bent over his mother. “How are you, Mom? You okay? Feeling okay?” He kissed his mother on the cheek.
Mrs. Pennoyer held on to Vince’s hand, half smiling, half frowning. “Vince, what is it? Why’d you come home like this so suddenly, without warning? I just got a letter from you a week ago and you didn’t say anything about coming home. Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
“Well—I brought you home a surprise.”
“A surprise?” Mrs. Pennoyer said. “What kind of surprise? Vince, I hope you didn’t spend any money—”
Vince laughed. “It’s a nice surprise. I hope you think it’s as nice as I think it is.” He went to the door and called, “Okay, surprise, you can come in now.”
“What is this?” Mr. Pennoyer said, just as a blonde girl holding a package wrapped in gold tissue paper came to the kitchen door. Vince put his arm around her. “This is Valerie,” he said.
“Hi, everybody,” Valerie said.
“That’s your surprise?” Mrs. Pennoyer’s face wore a faintly irritated expression.
“Hi, Valerie,” Jenny said.
Valerie stuck out her free hand to Jenny. “I bet you’re—no, not Gail. You’re Jenny. Am I right?” She had her silky hair pulled into two long straight ponytails and was wearing a nubby peach sweater that Jenny recognized as one of Vince’s. “Vince told me about you and about everyone in the family,” Valerie went on. “I’m so glad to meet you, and you, Mrs. Pennoyer. And you, too, Mr. Pennoyer. It sounds trite, but I honestly feel as if I know you all already.” She had a charming smile.
“When Vince said a surprise, I thought you might be a strawberry shortcake,” Jenny said. “Or maybe I just hoped you would be.”
Valerie laughed. “She’s better than strawberry shortcake,” Vince said.
“Do you go to college with Vince?” Mrs. Pennoyer broke in. “Is that where you met?”
“Yes, I’m an art major. I’m going to be an art teacher on the elementary level. I think little kids do such marvelous spontaneous stuff in art. I want to get them when they’re young and fresh.”
“Isn’t she beautiful, isn’t she great?” Vince said. He had brought home other girls many times, but Jenny had never seen him act quite so proud and excited.
Mr. Pennoyer cleared his throat loudly. “Sit down, kids, sit down. Here—uh—Virginia, take a seat. Amelia, give the kids a soda.”
“I really don’t want anything right now, Mr. Pennoyer, thanks anyway,” Valerie said, seating herself at the table. She put the gift-wrapped package down in front of her. “My name is Valerie,” she added.
Jenny leaned forward to look at Valerie’s rings. One had a streaked, lumpy orange stone, another contained several tiny green stones, and a third silver band was made in the shape of two clasped hands.
“I love your friendship ring,” Jenny said.
“It’s not exactly—” Valerie broke off, smiled, and smoothed the gold tissue-wrapped package.
“Don’t you young people have to be back in school Monday morning?” Mrs. Pennoyer said. She looked at the clock over the stove. “You’ve made an awfully long trip for just a few hours’ visit. You’ll have to start back first thing tomorrow morning. I don’t think you were very practical, Vince.”
“Aren’t you glad to see me, Mom? Didn’t you miss me? Your favorite son.” Standing behind Valerie, his hands on her shoulders, Vince had a special, teasing grin on his face, the smile Jenny thought of as the Vince-grin. He could almost always get anything he wanted with the Vince-grin.
“Of course I like seeing you,” Mrs. Pennoyer said. “But all that driving—you should be studying over the weekend.”
“How’s the car holding up?” Mr. Pennoyer said. They had given Vince a 1970 Dodge Dart as a high school graduation present. “You taking care of it, Vince?”
“The car is okay,” Vince said. “Listen, I’ve got something to tell you two. I didn’t come all this way home just to say hello or talk about the car.”
Mr. and Mrs. Pennoyer exchanged a glance. “All right, out with it,” Mr. Pennoyer said.
Vince smoothed down his mustache, but didn’t say anything. The room got very quiet. Jenny could hear the electric clock buzzing, the refrigerator humming, and in the cellar the bell that signaled the end of the washer’s cycle rang. “Go on, tell,” Valerie said, looking up at Vince.
“Well, listen … well, Val and I … actually, we’re married.”
Valerie shifted the gift package on the table and nodded. “Yes, we are,” she said.
“That’s my surprise, our surprise,” Vince said. “We got married two days ago.”
“Then that’s your wedding ring!” Jenny said, and Mr. Pennoyer half stood up, while Mrs. Pennoyer simply stared, her face going white.
“Repeat that,” Mr. Pennoyer said.
“We’re married, Dad.” Now Vince spoke very fast. “We’d been talking about it and thinking about it, and we decided—let’s do it, what are we waiting for?”
“So you decided just like that,” Mr. Pennoyer said. “It was something to do over a weekend!”
Mrs. Pennoyer went to the sink and ran water into the electric coffeepot. “I’m in a state of shock,” she said. The water overflowed, and she turned off the faucet. “I thought when you brought her in and said you had something to tell us—I guessed you were engaged. But this—I never even heard you mention her, Vince!”
“We knew each other last year,” Vince said. “I must have mentioned Valerie to you, Mom. Didn’t I? Sure, I must have.”
“I think I remember hearing her name in a letter,” Jenny said.
Mrs. Pennoyer, holding the dripping coffeepot, turned to Valerie. “What’s your name? Valerie what?”
Smiling faintly, Valerie said, “Valerie Pennoyer.”
It gave Jenny a queer shock to realize that this thin blonde girl now had the same name as she did, now was par
t of the Pennoyer family.
“Your parents—do they know you’re married?” Mrs. Pennoyer said. “Have you notified them?” She measured coffee out of the fin into the aluminum basket, spilling some on the counter. “Do your parents approve of what you’ve done? Just running off and getting married without a word to anyone? I can’t imagine they’re happy about that!”
“To be truthful, they’re upset,” Valerie said. “That’s why we came to you. Vince said—”
“Vince,” Mr. Pennoyer interrupted, “why didn’t you talk this over with me before you did such a stupid thing? Why didn’t you ask me what I thought? I would have told you—”
“I knew what you’d say,” Vince said.
“Oh, you did!”
“Yes, I did.”
They stared at each other. Jenny nibbled a brownie nervously.
“Frank—” Mrs. Pennoyer said.
Vince put out his hand toward his father. “You may as well know everything. I’ve dropped out of school.”
“You’ve left school, Vince,” Mrs. Pennoyer said. “Oh, Vince! How could you?”
“It’s only temporary. Now, listen, Mom—”
“Dropped out of school,” Mr. Pennoyer repeated. He sat back heavily in his chair. “Dropped out of school! Okay, let’s have it all.” He looked over at Valerie. “Is she pregnant?”
“Oh, no,” Valerie said. “No, Mr. Pennoyer, we’re not that naive. Nothing like that.”
“Naive,” Mrs. Pennoyer said. “Is that what you kids call it now?”
“Take it easy, Mom,” Vince said. “Let me explain this. We’ve both dropped out. Val’s family told her if she got married, no more money. So that explains her dropping out.”
“And what explains your dropping out?” Mr. Pennoyer said. “You lost your interest in getting somewhere in the world?”
“I don’t want my wife working at some crummy job while I’m in school,” Vince said. “We figured if we can live here at home, we’ll both work, we’ll save our dollars and then go back to school next year.”
A Figure of Speech Page 4
