Marty Greenberg, who died much too soon in 2011, was the founder of the book packager Tekno Books, one of the founders of the Sci-Fi Channel (now, for reasons that have always escaped me, operating under the name of SyFy), and probably the most prolific anthologist ever in the science fiction and fantasy fields. Marty and his Tekno Books colleagues, among them John Helfers, Richard Gilliam, Larry Segriff, and the late Kathleen Massie-Ferch (another fine anthologist who passed on much too soon) were largely responsible for keeping me in the writing game during some hard years, when both the pressures of the publishing marketplace and my own self-doubt came close to pushing me out of writing altogether. In addition to reprinting stories that might otherwise have been lost, Marty and his coeditors also put together anthologies of new work. They would contact writers and commission stories on various themes, meaning I could write a story knowing that it would be paid for and published when finished, as opposed to waiting long weeks (or months) for either acceptance or rejection. Knowing that anything I wrote would be accepted forced me to do my best, as I wasn’t about to let either the editors, or myself, down.
Marty was also responsible for helping to create an anthology I edited, Conqueror Fantastic. I sent him and John Helfers a story, a historical fantasy set in thirteenth century Mongolia I had come close to selling a few times, asking if it was suitable for any anthologies Tekno Books might be putting together. It wasn’t, so Marty suggested that instead I edit an anthology and include my own story in the book. Conqueror Fantastic was published by DAW in 2004 and enabled me to do for several writers I greatly respected what Marty had done for me: ask for a story and trust them all to give me their best. They did, as most good writers will if you trust them.
STRAWBERRY BIRDIES
As Addie finished reading her storybook, Maerleen Loegins arrived suddenly at her family’s home, as if blown in on a strong wind. She rang the doorbell and in a few minutes convinced Addie’s mother that she was the only person to move into their spare room. Addie had never seen her mother convinced so quickly.
“You seem older than most students,” Addie’s mother said. “More mature, I mean.”
“I began college late,” Maerleen Loegins replied, “and I am working on my master’s degree, not a bachelor’s.” She had an odd accent and said her name in a manner that made her sound like she came from far away: “May-er-leen Low-egg-ins.” That was how it sounded to Addie.
“Your master’s?” Addie’s mother said.
“In physics.”
“That’s my husband’s department. Didn’t know there were any women students in physics.”
“I am one of two.” Maerleen Loegins lifted her brows. She was short enough that Addie didn’t have to crane her neck to get a good look at her face. She had large brown eyes and short glossy black hair, wore a pale blue dress, and carried a large suitcase. She looked alert and ready to take charge, unlike Addie’s mother, who stood there with slumped shoulders looking as though she was ready to go back to bed.
Addie had a younger brother and two infant siblings, a boy and a girl, who were twins, so her mother had plenty to do at home, while her father was a graduate student and lab assistant in the Hayes University physics department. There, he scribbled indecipherable symbols on a blackboard and supervised students who used pieces of glass to cast rainbows. They also did experiments with something called an inclined plane, which Addie envisioned as an aircraft tilted to one side and resting on one wing. While he was engaged in these mysterious activities, Addie’s mother fluttered around the house looking worried and distracted while hovering over Addie and her brother Cyril or warming up yet another bottle for one of the twins.
But now, Addie thought, they would have somebody to help out. The reason her parents had put an ad in the paper offering free room and board and a small stipend to a college student was to have someone around to look after their children, especially Cyril, who wouldn’t be ready to go to school that fall, not even to kindergarten, and might never be ready.
Addie’s mother looked over the letter Maerleen Loegins had handed to her. “Professor Eberhardt recommends you very highly, says he was really sorry to lose you. Why did you decide to leave?”
“His boy is going away to boarding school this autumn, so there was no reason for me to stay on.”
Boarding school, Addie thought; it sounded both exciting and scary.
Her mother frowned. “I didn’t know Sam was going away to school. He seems awfully young for that.”
“He is almost ten years old. He seemed happy about going away, although Mrs. Eberhardt does not seem overjoyed. And moving to the home of somebody in my own department seemed appropriate, even though living in the home of a history professor was most instructive.”
Maerleen Loegins took a step toward Addie. “Adelaide,” she continued, “do not suck your thumb.” Addie jumped back and dropped her hand to her side. “It is not sanitary, and such a habit can deform your teeth.” Her voice had taken on a stern, commanding tone.
“Well.” Addie’s mother sighed. “I’m glad we found someone so quickly. Of course my husband will have to speak to you, too, but I’m sure he’ll agree…”
“Oliver Almstead? Of course he will,” Maerleen Loegins said. Addie’s mother looked surprised. “I spoke to him at some length this morning, Mrs. Almstead, just before coming over here. He told me that Professor Eberhardt’s recommendation was good enough for him, but that he would leave any final decision to you.”
“Well.” Addie picked up the uncertain tone in her mother’s voice. “I suppose… I’ll show you the room. I hope…well, it isn’t very large.”
“That is quite all right,” Maerleen Loegins said. “Except for a few books I must fetch from Professor Eberhardt’s house, everything else I need is in here.” She gestured at her suitcase.
The twins, Gail and Gary, whimpered from their room at the back of the house. As Mrs. Almstead led Maerleen Loegins toward the stairway, the two began to shriek. “Somebody sounds distressed,” Maerleen Loegins said, pronouncing the word “dee-stressed.”
“Oh, dear.” Addie saw her mother look as though she was going to start fluttering around the house again. “Adelaide, would you mind showing Maerleen upstairs? I’ve got to heat up bottles for the twins.” Before Addie could say anything, her mother had left her standing in the hallway by the stairs.
“Uh, just follow me.” Addie led Maerleen Loegins to the narrow staircase and climbed the steps, with the woman just behind her. “That’s Dad’s study.” She waved a hand at the closed door at the top of the stairway. “He likes some place quiet when he’s home. Sometimes, when the twins are crying a lot, he even sleeps up here.” Maerleen Loegins gazed at the door with a fierce look in her eyes that made Addie feel that she had said the wrong thing. “He’s…he’s…” Addie shook her head, not wanting to say that sometimes her father would come home with a scowl on his face and go straight to his study without saying anything to anybody. With his weekend job for an insurance company, and going to his labs and classes at the university, she didn’t see all that much of him even when he was home. The only money he had was from selling insurance and from something called the G.I. Bill, which made Addie see a duck waddling toward her with a piece of paper in its bill, a sheet like the ones with numbers on them that her parents often got in the mail.
“Perhaps he needs some peace and quiet while studying,” Maerleen Loegins said.
“We’re not so noisy. Cyril and I aren’t, anyway. Gail and Gary cry a lot, but they’re only babies, and anyway you can’t hear them from upstairs that much.” Already Addie heard the sound of tuneless humming coming from the room at the end of the short hallway. Cyril did that sometimes, sat in their room humming and staring at the walls for hours at a stretch. She turned away from her father’s study and gestured at the door on her right. “And that’s your room.”
Maerleen Loegins went to
the door, pushed it open, and went inside, with Addie just behind her. The room had a single bed covered with a quilt, a small night table and lamp, a worn red rug, and a window hung with white cloth curtains that Addie’s mother had made from sheets. Addie had wanted the room for herself, small as it was, instead of having to share a bedroom with Cyril.
“You like it?” Addie asked.
“I think it will do very nicely.” Maerleen Loegins set her suitcase down by the bed. “And now you may show me your room.”
Addie led her into the hall. The door to the large front room was open. The tuneless humming broke off. A small shadowy form appeared in the open doorway.
“Cyril,” Addie said, “this is Maerleen Loegins. She’s going to be staying with us.” She wondered if Cyril would just stand there and stare at the floor, run back into the room to huddle in the corner, or start shrieking and banging his head against the wall.
“May-er-leen,” Cyril mumbled.
Maerleen Loegins said, “How do you do, Cyril.” Her voice was softer. Cyril backed away from them as they followed him into the room. Although he was almost six, two years younger than Addie, he was nearly as tall as she was, with hair so blond that it was almost white. He gazed past them with his pale blue eyes, then shuffled to one side.
“Strawberry birdies,” he said as he plopped down on the floor. “Over there.” He pointed at the wall behind them.
Addie turned, knowing what she would see. On the green surface of the sunlit wall, two rows of shadows shaped like miniature cars crawled across the wall, one row upside down, the other right side up.
“That’s them,” Addie said, pointing at the shadows. “That’s what he calls them, strawberry birdies.” She didn’t know how Cyril had come up with that name, but he had his own names for a lot of things. The dogwood tree in the back yard of their next door neighbors, the Meyers, was a “brahbee” and the cribs Gail and Gary slept in were “brangbugs.”
Maerleen Loegins watched the shadows for a bit, stepped over to the three front windows to look outside, then came back and sat down on the floor next to Cyril. “How often do you see them?” she asked.
Cyril shook his head.
“In the afternoon,” Addie said, “when it’s sunny. That’s the only time we ever see them.”
“Do you know what they are?” Maerleen Loegins said. Cyril did not reply. “Those little cars are reflections from the roof just outside your windows, the flat roof over your front porch.”
“Cars?” Cyril said.
“Cars like the ones going by outside. The tin surface of the roof picks up the images and projects them onto the wall.”
Cyril gazed at the silhouettes in silence. He would, Addie knew, keep staring at them until the shadows grew fuzzier and finally faded away. Maerleen Loegins touched him lightly on the back; he leaned into her as she looped her arm around him, surprising Addie. Cyril hated having strangers, or even people he knew, get too close to him; she had expected him to shrink back or push the woman away.
She trudged toward her bed and sat down on the pink coverlet, gazing resentfully at Cyril’s bed on the other side of the room. Their father had promised to put a partition across the middle of the room, leaving two front windows for her, one for Cyril, and a clear path to the door for both of them, but he hadn’t put a divider in yet and would be even busier when school started, so maybe he would never get around to that. It wouldn’t be like having her own room anyway, even with a partition. Now she wished again that Cyril would go away, that their parents would send him to one of those places where, according to her mother’s friends, children like Cyril were better off, and then felt shame at the thought.
Maerleen Loegins looked toward her and smiled. “Adelaide,” she said, “you do not like to watch the shadows?”
Addie liked her smile, and that she had called the images on the wall “shadows” instead of “strawberry birdies,” but didn’t like being called by her full first name. “Call me Addie.”
“Addie?”
“All my friends call me Addie. It’s just Mom and other grownups who call me Adelaide.”
“Then Addie it will be.”
“What are you called? Are you a miss or a missus?” Addie’s parents had always told her to use last names for adults who weren’t relatives.
“Just call me Maerleen.”
“Okay.” Addie smiled. Maybe it was better to have somebody like Maerleen Loegins living here than to have her own room.
* * * *
Addie and Cyril played with the newspaper, which Cyril had brought up to their room after breakfast, while Maerleen went to her room to unpack. Addie had wanted to see what she would pull from her suitcase, but Maerleen had squinted at her in a way that said she wanted to be left alone.
“Ike,” Cyril said as he tore the front page from the paper; Addie recognized the smiling face of President Eisenhower in the photo. “Ike,” Cyril said again as he folded the paper into an airplane, while Addie wondered if he had somehow learned to read and was hiding it.
“I like Ike,” Cyril said.
If Cyril knew how to read, even a little, he was ready for school. Maybe his head-banging, wild shrieks, and long frozen silences were only an act, so he could skip school and stay home to do whatever he wanted.
“Adelaide! Cyril!” Their mother was calling to them. “Your father’s home!” Cyril dropped his paper airplane and shuffled toward the hallway, Addie at his heels. Maerleen stood outside the door to her room.
“Dad’s home,” Addie said to Maerleen. “That means it’s almost time for supper.”
“Follow me,” Cyril said, the “me” exploding from his mouth as he marched toward the stairs, swinging his arms.
* * * *
Cyril ate his tuna noodle casserole in silence, shoveling it into his mouth with a spoon without either playing with his food or staring at it until their mother had to feed it to him herself. Addie peered at their father as they ate. He looked more tired than usual and was silent as their mother discussed the household duties with Maerleen. She would help with caring for the twins, look after all of the children whenever their parents were out, and do some of the dusting and vacuuming.
After supper, Mr. Almstead retreated upstairs to his study, Cyril wandered off to the living room, and Addie helped her mother and Maerleen clear the dishes from the table. Even though the kitchen windows were open to the evening air, the air inside was hot and oppressive. By the time they had stacked the dishes in the sink, the twins were crying again.
“Better check Gail and Gary,” Mrs. Almstead murmured, looking even more flustered than she usually did. “Sounds like their diapers need changing.”
“I shall be happy to help,” Maerleen said.
Mrs. Almstead wiped her forehead with the back of a hand. “Adelaide, go keep an eye on your brother.”
Addie headed through the dining room toward the front of the house. Cyril sat on the living room rug staring at the television. The sound was off; blurry black-and-white images danced on the screen. He would just sit there until he got tired enough to go to bed.
She went upstairs, wishing that Leslie Vicks was back from summer camp. She could have gone to Leslie’s house to watch television, or else Leslie could have come here to sit on the front porch and spy on any neighbors out for a walk or sitting around on their own porches. Leslie always told stories about the neighbors, even if she probably made most of them up. Old Mrs. Merkel would give you the evil eye if you took a shortcut through her back yard. Leslie suspected that the young blonde woman who had just moved into the apartment on the second floor of Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s house was a secret Communist spy, maybe because she had a weird accent or maybe because Leslie’s favorite television show was I Led Three Lives. She had a crush on the actor who played the undercover FBI guy, who was always dealing with scary Communists who talked about liquidating
people; Addie would imagine somebody slowly dissolving into a puddle of water. She wondered what kinds of stories Leslie might think up about Maerleen Loegins.
The door to her father’s study was open. Both his desk and the cot under the window were covered with books and papers. She crept toward the door and stood there until her father looked up from his desk. “Addie? Something wrong?”
She shook her head.
He beckoned at her with his cigarette. “Come on in, then.”
She shuffled toward him. “How long is Maerleen Loegins going to be here?” she asked.
“I asked her if she could stay with us at least until next summer. If Cyril’s ready for…” He fell silent. “Depending on how things go, we’ll see what happens after that.” He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on his desk, already filled with a mound of butts and ashes. “You like Maerleen, don’t you?”
Addie nodded.
“I barely know her, but Morey Eberhardt has nothing but good things to say about her, and she’ll be a big help to your mother. Things have been harder for her since the twins came.” Addie thought of what it had been like just after Christmas, when her mother had disappeared from the house and come back a while later without her huge belly and with two new babies. Grandma Lohmann had taken the train from New York City to come and stay with them and had not left until February; all that time Addie had known that everybody was worrying about her mother. Having the twins was hard; her mother had not been her usual self. Sometimes she would burst into tears for no reason at all. Now she fluttered around and sometimes snapped at Addie, but at least she didn’t cry.
Puss in D.C. and Other Stories Page 5
