Anastasia's Chosen Career

by Lois Lowry

  But suddenly they all heard noise from the dressing room. "No! Don't!" they heard Helen Margaret scream. Then they heard sobbing. "Don't! I don't want you to—Please! Stop! Don't! I can't—" The words were hard to understand because the voice was panic-stricken and hysterical, choking with sobs.

  Then Helen Margaret, still dressed in the skirt and sweater she'd been wearing, ran from the dressing room. Her hands were covering her face. "You don't understand! I can't—" she gasped. She ran through the room, out the door, and disappeared.

  Aunt Vera followed from the dressing room, holding the pale blue dress over her arm. "Where is she?" she asked. "I don't know what happened. She was standing there stiff as a board, and wouldn't undress, so I started to unbutton her sweater, just to help, and she seemed to go crazy. Look—she even scratched me." Aunt Vera held out her arm and showed them a long scratch with a few drops of blood oozing from it.

  "She must have gone to the ladies' room," Uncle Charley said.

  Aunt Vera and Sarah Silverman went to look. But in a moment they were back, with puzzled expressions. "She's gone," Aunt Vera said. "Her coat is gone."

  "Well," Uncle Charley said after a moment's silence, "she'll probably be back. Her pocketbook's still right there by her chair. Is your arm all right, Vera?"

  "Oh, yeah. It's just a scratch. Listen, kids, I think we'll just continue as if nothing happened. When she gets back, let's all be real supportive and friendly. I guess we shouldn't have insisted that she try on the clothes, but I thought it would cheer her up to see how pretty she could be."

  "Anastasia," Sarah Silverman said, "we'll do you next. Vera told me that you're thinking about becoming a bookstore owner someday, and I have a terrific outfit in your size: businesslike and intellectual. Just what a successful bookstore owner should wear."

  Anastasia stood up. She couldn't think of anything else to do. But the cheerful excitement was gone. Sarah Silverman talked about Anastasia's coloring and style, but there was a worried hush in the room.

  Suddenly Robert Giannini stood up. "Listen, you guys," he said in a loud voice, "we can't just sit here doing nothing. Where does she live?"

  "Somerville," Uncle Charley told him. "The address is on the list on the front desk."

  "Well, I'm going to try to find her," Robert said. "The rest of you stay here in case she comes back or calls. I'll look out on the street, and if she's not there I'll go to her house."

  Then Robert, too, was gone.

  Anastasia Krupnik

  My Chosen Career

  One of the best things about being a bookstore owner is that nothing embarrassing would ever happen to you.

  No one would scream and cry and run outside and make you all worried.

  You don't have to change your clothes in front of other people.

  No one would ever come into a bookstore and talk about stuff like chest hair.

  12

  The day seemed endless. Anastasia dutifully tried on the clothes that Sarah Silverman had selected for her; and she could see that they looked terrific, and that she looked terrific, and that everyone else thought so, too. But the atmosphere had changed.

  After Anastasia, Henry's turn came. Anastasia sensed that Sarah Silverman had purposely saved Henry till last because she knew how sensational the transformation would be. And it was. Even with Robert and Helen Margaret gone, and with the disconcerting worry that their absence caused, it was exciting to watch Henry model the bright-colored high-fashion clothes that Sarah Silverman had provided for her.

  Tall, thin, glowing, Henry moved with her panther's stealthy, sinuous walk across the shabby, linoleum-floored room, wearing a floor-length apricot silk gown. Her dark chin high, she posed for a moment with absolute self-confidence. Then she smiled. The audience fell silent. A moment before Sarah Silverman had been describing, explaining, and instructing; now her voice fell still. Anastasia had been cracking jokes; now she couldn't speak, and she felt a shiver along her spine. Bambie stared and said nothing. Uncle Charley had been coming and going, making phone calls to Helen Margaret's number, receiving no answer; now he stood in the doorway, his arms folded across his enormous belly, and watched without a word.

  Aunt Vera dabbed her eyes. "Charley," she whispered finally, "I've waited twenty years for this."

  It was Henry herself who broke the spell, finally. "Shoot," she said, grinning, "you ain't seen nuthin' yet. Wait'll I do my monologue."

  Even Bambie laughed.

  But the rest of the day was dulled by concern for Helen Margaret. They all ate a take-out lunch of cold egg rolls and fried rice that Uncle Charley picked up from the Chinese restaurant across the street, and they listened as he tried again without success to reach the phone number written on the list.

  "I think," Bambie suggested, "that she just felt inferior and it made her nervous. I know I felt that way once, when I was waiting to do my performance at a pageant, and the girl before me did a real good accordion solo. Maybe you should have had her go first, so she wouldn't have had to feel inferior to some of us who have more experience."

  No one said anything. Bambie, who was supposed to be watching her calories, reached for another egg roll.

  "I don't think I should have let Robert go off like that," Uncle Charley said in a worried voice. "I don't like the thought of a kid wandering around all alone in the city."

  Despite her feeling of unease, Anastasia started to laugh. "Uncle Charley," she said, "you don't need to worry about Robert Giannini. I've known him for years. Robert Giannini is prepared for absolutely any emergency."

  "What if he gets lost? Do you think he'd ask directions? I know kids your age don't like to ask for help."

  "Uncle Charley," Anastasia reassured him, "Robert Giannini is not like other kids. Robert Giannini has no inhibitions. None."

  Sarah Silverman had scheduled a tour through Filene's Junior Department for the class after lunch.

  "Why don't you all go ahead?" Aunt Vera said. "Charley and I will be here in case Robert and Helen Margaret get back."

  So Henry, Anastasia, and Bambie followed Sarah Silverman around Filene's, looking at clothes, talking to salespeople, and watching the workmen in the back rooms building displays.

  They didn't go to the Basement, where everything was marked down in price. "Is it true, Sarah," Anastasia asked, "that in the Basement people try on clothes right out in public?"

  Sarah chuckled and nodded. "You want to go down there?"

  "No," Anastasia said. "I'm not into underwear, especially."

  "Do models work here?" Henry asked.

  "We hire them for fashion shows," Sarah told her.

  Henry hesitated. Then she said, "Do you think maybe sometime—I mean after I have more practice and stuff—maybe someday..."

  Sarah Silverman grinned. "Henry Peabody," she said, "I have your phone number right here in my hot little hand. It's the most valuable thing I own at the moment. You will definitely be hearing from me."

  Aunt Vera and Uncle Charley were sipping coffee and looking more relaxed when the group returned from Filene's.

  "Robert called," Uncle Charley announced. "He found her."

  "Where? What was wrong? Did he say?" Bambie, Henry, and Anastasia were all talking at once.

  "Hey, slow down. I'll tell you what I know. He said he found her—he didn't say where—and that she's okay. And they'll both be back tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow's our last day, kids," Aunt Vera reminded them.

  "It is? Rats!" said Anastasia. She had lost track of time.

  "And tomorrow we have the video camera again. We'll take the 'Afters' and compare them with the 'Befores.'"

  "Mine will really show an improvement," Bambie announced. "I've been practicing that Juliet monologue at home. And it really works better if I sort of drape myself over a chair. Then, see, I can hold up the vial of poison like this." She raised one arm dramatically.

  Henry groaned.

  Anastasia wasn't at all certain that her "After" tape would b
e any better than her "Before." Her new haircut did help, she realized. She looked less scruffy than she had. If she tried real hard, she could look right into the camera and speak distinctly. But her posture and walk were still like a giraffe's.

  She was quite sure that she would never be a model. And she didn't care. She was beginning to think that she actually could be a successful bookstore owner.

  "Henry," she said, when they were walking to the place where Anastasia would catch her bus and Henry her train, "even though I hate Robert Giannini—no, I mean I really don't care very much for Robert Giannini—I have to admit that I was pretty impressed when he went off to find Helen Margaret. The rest of us were just sitting there doing nothing, but old Robert, well, he was decisive. I was impressed by that."

  "Me, too. I like Robert. He's okay."

  Anastasia sighed. "Maybe I actually like him a little, too. I just wish he wouldn't say stuff like 'chest hair.'"

  Henry laughed. "I know people who say stuff a lot worse than that. 'Chest hair,' that's nuthin.' "

  "What was it he said he was considering for a career—metallurgy? What's metallurgy?"

  Henry shrugged. "Dunno."

  "Do you think someone who does metallurgy gets rich?"

  Henry glared at Anastasia. "You quit planning on a rich husband, Anastasia. You're gonna get rich on your own. You and me, if we want husbands, fine. But we won't need them. Like our mothers. My mom could do just fine being a waitress, and your mom could do just fine being an artist. They got husbands cuz they want them. That Bambie, now maybe she'll need a husband. But not you and me. Got it?"

  Anastasia laughed. "Okay. Got it." Then she added, "I really had fun at your house last night. I hope you'll invite me again. You won't forget me after the course ends, will you?"

  "Well, shoot, how could I forget someone who's been my best friend for a whole week? And I've got your phone number."

  Anastasia nodded. "And I won't forget you, for sure! I'll probably be seeing you on magazine covers and stuff, when you're a famous model. But I'll call you next week, before you're famous."

  "Yeah," Henry said matter-of-factly. "I'll probably be on—what's that one called? Vogue. You gimme a year or two to get my act together, then I'll be on Vogue."

  "But don't forget college. Promise you'll go to college."

  "Shoot, that's a hunnert years from now," Henry laughed. "My looks'll be gone by then, anyway."

  A man leaning against a wall near the bus stop looked Henry up and down as the girls walked past. Then he gave a long, low, admiring whistle.

  Henry whirled around and glared at him. "Stick it in your ear, turkey," she said.

  ***

  Sitting wearily on the bus during her ride home, Anastasia thought about what Henry had said to the man. It was such an assertive thing to say. Flagrant—that's what it was; flagrant.

  Anastasia wished she could say stuff like that. It wasn't that she couldn't pronounce the words. Heck, the words were easy. "Stick." "It." "In." "Your." "Ear." "Turkey." Each one was a word she had said a million times. But somehow, all put together, with the right inflection—and staring the person straight in the eye, the way Henry had done—well, then it took on a whole new feeling.

  "Stick it in your ear, turkey," she murmured to herself, practicing. There. She had said it just right: scornfully, assertively, flagrantly.

  Now if the right occasion would just come along. If someone were rude to her, the way that man had been to Henry. Surely it would happen. People were rude to Anastasia all the time.

  Why, just the week before her very own father had been rude to her. He had falsely accused her of messing with his precious Billie Holiday records. And she hadn't; her brother, Sam, had been the guilty one.

  Anastasia envisioned the scene. Her father had bellowed, "Anastasia Krupnik, I've told you a million times to keep your mitts off my Billie Holiday records, and you never listen!"

  She envisioned herself looking her father straight in the eye and saying, "Stick it in your ear, turkey."

  Gulp. No, that wasn't the right occasion. You couldn't say that to your own father, no matter how rude he was.

  Well, what about the time—also just the week before—when she had been whispering to Sonya about nude photographs, and Mr. Earnshaw had embarrassed her in front of the whole study hall by saying, "I want to see you after class—fully clothed," with that sarcastic tone?

  She pictured herself marching up to Mr. Earnshaw's desk, looking him right in the eye, and saying, "Stick it in your ear, turkey."

  Thinking of it, she cringed. No. That wasn't the right occasion, either.

  The bus stopped at Anastasia's corner. "Move it," the driver said angrily to the two boys getting off in front of Anastasia. One of them had dropped a package and was trying to pick it up. "I haven't got all day."

  Well, that was sure rude. If he says anything like that to me, Anastasia thought, it will be the right occasion.

  She moved forward toward the door of the bus. At the top of the steps she stumbled. She grabbed the rail to steady herself.

  "Come on, come on," the bus driver grumbled. "Let's get this show on the road, sister."

  Anastasia turned and looked him right in the eye.

  "I'm sorry, sir," she mumbled.

  She was still mad at herself when she got home. She didn't greet her parents or her brother. She dropped her jacket angrily in the back hall and stomped up the stairs to her bedroom.

  Unassertive twerp, she said to herself, and slumped onto her bed.

  From inside his bowl, Frank Goldfish looked out at her with his bulgy eyes. Great; she'd forgotten to feed him that morning. Anastasia sighed and tapped some fish food into the bowl. Frank swam hastily to the surface and gobbled it up. Then he came to the side of the bowl and stared at her. His mouth opened and closed. He was probably demanding a second helping.

  Anastasia stared him straight in the eye.

  "Stick it in your ear, turkey," she said.

  Boy, that felt good.

  Anastasia Krupnik

  My Chosen Career

  One of the things that I find most appealing about My Chosen Career, bookstore owner, is that you can do it sitting down, most of the time. From your sitting-down position you can reach for the phone or the cash register or even to the bookshelf to take out a book if it isn't up on a high shelf.

  Therefore, Bookstore Owner is a good choice of career for people who tend to have an ungraceful walk.

  You would have to get up from your sitting position in order to be assertive sometimes, like if someone wanted to return a book with coffee stains and you wanted to say something extremely rude to them. But you could just stand up and look them in the eye while you said it very distinctly. You wouldn't need to walk gracefully across the room, or anything. Then you could sit back down and watch while they slunk away, ashamed of themselves.

  13

  "And let's see, what else? What did I get out of this week? Well, I got a terrific haircut," Anastasia said, staring into the camera. She wasn't quite as nervous as she had been on Monday.

  "And I got advice about clothes, even though I can't afford to buy them.

  "And I had a lot of fun." She grinned.

  "And last, but maybe most important, I made some new friends. And especially my friend Henry Peabody." Anastasia kept looking at the camera, but she could see, from the corner of her eye, Henry Peabody give her a thumbs-up sign.

  "The end. Thank you."

  Uncle Charley turned off the camera and nodded at her. "Good," he said.

  Anastasia went back to her seat and looked around. She had been third. Bambie, as usual, had said, "Me first!" Bambie hadn't wanted to do the assignment—to talk about what they had gotten out of the course. She had insisted on doing her boring Juliet monologue again. Afterward, when Uncle Charley had shown Bambie's "Before" and then her "After," they had all laughed. Bambie hadn't changed at all. She still looked exactly the same; her monologue had been exactly the same, wit
h the same stupid gestures in the same places.

  But Bambie didn't care. She thought she was terrific before. And she thought she was terrific after.

  Then Henry had gone next. She stood self-confidently in front of the camera and spoke about her hopes for a career. Henry's appearance was not such a colossal surprise anymore, though it still threw the group into awed silence. But now she was less smart-alecky, more poised, more cheerful. It had only been a week, Anastasia realized in amazement. It was probably the best $119 Henry Peabody had ever spent.

  At the end of her speech, after she said, "I'd like to thank everybody here who helped me see that I could be successful," Henry couldn't resist adding, with a big wink, "and rich."

  Everyone applauded.

  Robert Giannini and Helen Margaret were back. They were sitting beside each other, and Robert had announced that they would go before the camera last. Helen Margaret hadn't spoken to anyone, but she looked much calmer than she had the day before.

  "Robert? Are you ready?" asked Uncle Charley, and Robert nodded.

  He leaned his briefcase against his chair and went to stand in front of the camera. "Are you in focus? Should I start?" he asked.

  "Go," said Uncle Charley.

  Robert cleared his throat. "I got a lot out of this week," he said. "For one thing, my new hair style, I think, makes me look more mature."

  Mature my foot, thought Anastasia. Oh, well; that was just old Robert. If he thinks he looks mature, what the heck.

  "And I've also made new friends. I've known Anastasia Krupnik for a long time, but I've enjoyed meeting Bambie and Henry, and I wish them both great success in the future."

  Yawn yawn yawn YAWN, thought Anastasia.

  "Most especially," Robert went on, "I've gotten to know Helen Margaret Howell, who is a very special person. She and I spent the afternoon together yesterday, and we'd like to tell you about it together."

  Henry nudged Anastasia, and they both watched, surprised, as Helen Margaret got up and went to stand beside Robert.