by Lois Lowry
"Helen Margaret, honey," Aunt Vera said, "you don't have to do a videotape if you don't want to."
"I want to," Helen Margaret replied in a shy voice.
Robert cleared his throat again. "When I went looking for her yesterday, I finally caught a glimpse of Helen Margaret walking across the Common."
"Running," whispered Helen Margaret. "I was running."
"Well, yes, actually she was running. But I saw her and I followed her all the way down to Commonwealth Avenue. She didn't see me."
"I was crying," Helen Margaret said. "I didn't see anything, because I was crying."
Robert nodded. "I followed her on Commonwealth Avenue until she went into a building. I knew she didn't live there because her address was Somerville—"
Helen Margaret said, "I live with my aunt and uncle in Somerville."
"I went into the building behind her," Robert went on, "and I could see that she went into a doctor's office. It was a psych—" He turned to the girl beside him. "Do you mind if I tell them this?"
Helen Margaret smiled. "I'll tell them," she said in her quiet voice. "It was my psychiatrist's office."
Aunt Vera interrupted. "Kids, we really don't need to get into any heavy stuff here. I'm just glad that Helen Margaret's okay. The tape's long enough. Thanks, Robert and Hel—"
"No, wait!" Robert said angrily. "Let us finish. That's the whole trouble—people get embarrassed about other people's problems, so they don't want to know about them. And then if you don't have anybody to talk to—because they won't listen—then the problems stay. That's what a psychiatrist is for—to listen to people's problems."
"I'm sorry, Robert," Aunt Vera said quietly. "Go on. We're listening."
"Well, I know about it firsthand because when I was younger I went to a psychiatrist myself. My parents took me because I was a bed wetter."
Oh, no, thought Anastasia. She looked at the floor. She felt awfully relieved that Helen Margaret was back and seemed to be okay, and she felt grateful to Robert for helping Helen Margaret recover from whatever had gone wrong the day before, but the last thing in the world she wanted to hear was about Robert Giannini being a bed wetter, for pete's sake. Talk about embarrassing.
She glanced at Henry so that they could make faces at each other. But Henry was watching Robert, listening intently.
She looked over at Bambie. And Bambie was watching Robert, too, and listening with a sympathetic look.
Nobody looked embarrassed. They looked understanding. Probably every one of them had had problems at some time, and nobody to tell them to. Anastasia knew that she had, for sure.
So she looked at Robert and listened. She tried to feel sympathetic instead of embarrassed. And after a moment, the embarrassment was gone.
"Well, anyway," he was saying, "that was a long time ago and I don't have that problem anymore. But I remember what it was like when other kids used to make fun of me, and I didn't have anyone I could talk to.
"So I waited for almost an hour while Helen Margaret was in the doctor's office. And I was there when she came out. I was freezing by then because I was just wearing my Harris tweed jacket—you remember that yesterday I was wearing my Harris tweed jacket with the side vents—and I was sitting on cement steps, and the jacket doesn't cover my buttocks—"
Oh, no. Just when Anastasia had gotten over being embarrassed, Robert Giannini had said "buttocks."
Helen Margaret started to giggle. She poked Robert. "Quit it, Robert. You're starting to sound like a jerk. Get to the point. Or let me tell the rest."
Robert looked a little insulted for a second. Then he chuckled. "Okay," he said. "You go on."
Helen Margaret took a deep breath. "The reason I live with my aunt and uncle is because my parents are dead," she said.
She looked straight ahead at the camera and talked steadily and quietly. "I used to live in Wisconsin," she said. "Last fall there was a fire in our house. My parents were both killed."
Aunt Vera gasped. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry," she said. "You don't need to go on."
"No, it's okay. I want to," Helen Margaret said firmly. Anastasia noticed that she was clutching Robert's hand, but her voice was very firm.
"They were both killed in the fire, along with my brother. And I was badly burned. I was in a special hospital here in Boston until last month.
"And I'm really okay now. I told Robert all about it yesterday, sitting on the steps of my doctor's building—"
"Freezing," Robert added.
"Yeah, freezing. Finally we went to Brigham's and ordered hot chocolate. And while we were there I told him about the rest. Even though I'm fine now, I still have a lot of scars. Not on my face."
She smiled timidly at the camera. Anastasia noticed again how perfect her pale skin was, and how sweet her smile.
"But my arms and chest and back, they were all burned. The doctors had to graft skin there. So I have scars. It's going to take me awhile to get used to that. But I guess I'll have to, because they'll always be there.
"I've never shown them to anybody, except of course the doctors. I always wear long-sleeved things so no one will see.
"The psychiatrist thought it would be a good idea for me to take this course, to help get my self-confidence back. And I was doing okay, I think. I really liked my haircut on Tuesday. And the walking—well, it was kind of silly, I thought, but I didn't really mind trying to walk like a deer.
"But yesterday—well, I'm sorry about yesterday. When I got into the dressing room, and Aunt Vera started to try to unbutton my sweater, I should have explained, but—I don't know—I couldn't. I freaked."
Bambie Browne said, "I know exactly how you felt. I freaked just like that once, when I was in this beauty pageant, I think it was for Junior Miss Apple Cider, and someone spilled Pepsi on my custom-made outfit—"
Everyone burst into laughter.
"Well," Bambie said huffily, "it wasn't funny."
Stick it in your ear, turkey, thought Anastasia. But she didn't say it.
"Anyway," Helen Margaret went on, "I'm sorry I upset everybody. I'm really okay. But I'm not ready to model that dress, not with its low neck and short sleeves. Maybe someday. But not yet."
"Dammit!" Uncle Charley bellowed suddenly. "I've run out of tape."
"That's too bad," Helen Margaret said. "I didn't have a chance to say what I got out of the course."
Aunt Vera walked over and hugged her. "Yes, you did, honey. We should pay you for teaching us."
Then she added, with a chuckle, "But don't you dare ask for your money back. It's already gone to pay the electric bill."
"I'm sorry to bother you at work," Anastasia said into the phone. She was standing in the phone booth outside McDonald's.
Barbara Page laughed. "That's okay. There's nobody in the store but me. I'm reading the new Updike novel."
"Well, I'm calling because I wanted to thank you for the books you gave Henry and me. And also because I still never did the interview, and now I'm really getting nervous because I have to write the paper this weekend, and so far all I have are twelve different beginnings and none of them are any good. So can I ask you a few questions?"
"Sure. Go ahead."
Anastasia looked down at the list of open-ended questions she had made the night before.
"In your opinion, what kind of person makes the best bookstore owner?"
"A person who loves books," Barbara Page said.
"Right. I figured that. But don't you think, also, that it ought to be a person who likes people, and a person who is well organized and decisive and assertive and has a good head for business?"
"Sure," said Barbara Page.
"Great. Now, second question: what kind of training and experience does a potential bookstore owner need?"
"Gosh, I never really thought about that. When I decided to be a bookstore owner, I was pretty good at horseback riding, and I could play the cello."
"But how about a college degree, maybe in literature, and also some cours
es in accounting, and maybe it would help, too, to work as a clerk in a bookstore during the summers while you're young? And maybe, even, a course in modeling so that you could develop self-confidence and poise and a fashion sense?"
"Sure. Sounds good to me," said Barbara Page. "I wouldn't even put in about the cello, if I were you."
"Okay. Now this one: what are the bad things about being a bookstore owner?"
"None. None at all."
"Well, don't you think that maybe it could be a problem that you have to spend long hours in the store, sometimes with nobody else there?"
"But you get to read," Barbara Page pointed out.
Anastasia thought about that. "So that's a good thing, not a bad one. Okay, I'll put that down: no bad things. And the next question is what are the good things? But you already answered that. Are there any other good things?"
Barbara Page laughed. "Just think of all the interesting people I get to meet. You and Henry, for example. I would never have met you if I hadn't been a bookstore owner. Or your father. Or the senior citizens or the nursery school kids or the UPS man or old Mr. Cook up the street, who's ninety-three and likes to read books about mountain climbing, or the guy who calls me collect from the state prison and talks about books because I'm the only one he has to talk to about books—"
"He calls collect?"
"I don't mind."
"Well, I guess that's a special case. That's all my questions, Barbara—thank you. I can write my paper now. I'm really looking forward to writing it. But I have a confession to make."
"A lurid, explicit True Confession? Mrs. Van Gilder on Pinckney Street loves reading those."
Anastasia giggled. "No. It's only that when I started out this week, I didn't really truly want to be a bookstore owner. I only told Dad I did so that he'd let me come into Boston to take the modeling course. But now, you know what? After meeting you and thinking about it, I think maybe I do. I think I might be a really successful bookstore owner someday. I mean, I don't want to be rude or anything, but I bet I could even sell some books!"
"I'm sure you could. You're the first person to sell a volume of your father's poetry in three months."
Anastasia peered through the phone booth, across the sidewalk. "Oh, Barbara," she said, "I have to go, because I'm looking into McDonald's and Henry's there— she's holding up her Coke toward me and acting weird."
"What do you mean, weird?"
"Well, I'm not sure. She's holding up her Coke and gesturing as if it's poison or something—oh, no!" Anastasia started to laugh. "She's doing a scene from Romeo and Juliet!"
"I did it," Anastasia announced to her parents on Sunday afternoon. "I wrote my paper for school. 'My Chosen Career.' And I'm sure I'll get an A. But I still have one problem."
"What's that?" her father asked, looking up from the New York Times crossword puzzle.
"I don't know what I'll name my bookstore. Barbara Page was so lucky, having just the right name. But Krupnik? How can you call a bookstore 'Krupniks'?"
"Barbara Page married her name," Dr. Krupnik pointed out. "She didn't start out with the name Page."
"Yeah, I know. But if I decide to get married when I'm older, I already have a whole long list of stuff to look for in a husband, and—"
"Really?" Her mother looked up from her section of the newspaper with interest. "Like what?"
"Sense of humor. Tall. Not allergic to dogs." Anastasia glared for a moment at her father, who was allergic to dogs, even though she knew it wasn't his fault. "Stuff like that. But now I have to add: right name for bookstore. And I can't even think of one, since Page is already taken."
"Goodness," said Mrs. Krupnik, looking back down at the paper, "that is a problem. You may have to spend your entire teenage years looking for someone named Harold Volume who isn't allergic to dogs, and then persuading him to marry you so that you can call your bookstore 'Volumes.'"
"I once knew a guy in the army who was named Ralph Plott," Dr. Krupnik said. "Would that do? It had two 't's, but I suppose you could take off one 't' and call your bookstore 'Plots.' Or you could sell cemeteries."
Anastasia made a face. "You guys aren't taking me seriously. May I use your typewriter, Dad? I want to type my paper."
He nodded, and she headed for the study. Behind her, she could hear her mother murmer, "There was a girl in my class in art school, Myron, whose name was Booky. It really was. Alexandra Booky. I wonder if that would be an appropriate name for a bookst—"
Anastasia closed the door to the study. She sat down at her father's big desk and looked around the room—her very favorite room in their house. The walls were lined with shelves and the shelves were filled with books. She was surrounded by books, and not only by books but by pages, sentences, paragraphs, plots, commas, periods, poems, drawings, boxed sets, first editions, paperbacks, portfolios....
She sighed. It was a sigh of contentment, not worry. She had plenty of time, and she would find the right name for her bookstore someday. For now, it was enough that she had had a terrific week and had written a terrific paper. Carefully she rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter and began to type her title.
MMY ChoXSEN carEER
Maybe, Anastasia thought gloomily, as she crumpled that piece of paper and inserted another into the typewriter, she shouldn't have spent the week studying modeling. Maybe she should have taken a typing course.
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*Myron Krupnik, Ph.D., moderately well known poet
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*Myron Krupnik, Ph.D.
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*Myron Krupnik, Ph.D.
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