A Dream for Addie (2 page)

“Well, you just stay away from there. Her folks were nothing but rich trash.”

That bit of news intrigued Carla Mae and me, but we didn't have a chance to follow it up.

“Now, James,” said Grandma. She didn't like to hear unkind gossip.

“Well, Mother, neither one of them ever did a day's work in their lives,” said Dad.

“You can't blame her for the way her folks behaved,” said Grandma. “She was always a nice girl in school. You used to say so yourself.”

“Oh, I hardly knew her,” Dad grumbled, and he got up to get his lunch pail.

Carla Mae and I grabbed the paper Grandma had been reading and leaned our heads together over the table to read the article about Constance Payne.

“When does she get here?” Carla Mae whispered.

“According to this, she's here now!” I hissed back. We gave each other one of our looks that said we were darn well going to see Constance Payne the actress if we had to go all the way to New York City and buy a ticket to Shakespeare.

Carla Mae was having a slumber party at her house that night so she and I and Gloria Cott and Tanya Smithers (my worst friend in the sixth grade) could work on our Easter Style Show dresses. I didn't really want to participate because I hated sewing, but it was the big yearly project of our 4-H Club, so I had to do it. The Women's Club cooperated by letting us present our creations at their luncheon and then awarded a prize for the best dress.

As long as I had no choice about being in the show, I was determined to do something creative. I had selected a simple dress pattern and was adding my own artistic details to it. The other three girls laid their dress patterns out on the floor so they could work as we talked, but I was still sketching in some of the artistic details I was adding, and I was going to keep it a secret until the day of the show.

We cracked our gum loudly as we worked because Tanya had recently revealed that she hated to hear people crack gum, and since then we had been doing it a lot.

Carla Mae had a lot of brothers and sisters—three of each in fact—so we all took our own blankets and pillows along and planned to sleep on the floor in her room. Actually, we didn't plan to sleep at all, as that was the whole point of slumber parties. Another point was eating, and we always cooked our favorite stuff. Our usual combination was fudge and french fried potatoes. It made my dad sick just to hear the two things mentioned in the same sentence, but we loved it.

There was always an argument over whether to put walnuts in the fudge. I hated them because I thought fudge should be enjoyed in its pure state. Tanya and Carla Mae liked the crunch of walnuts between their teeth, and Gloria, who never liked to argue about anything, just didn't care. So we always made one fourth of the pan pure fudge, and that was for me. We were eating it with our french fried potatoes while we talked about the style show.

Tanya's mother was about the only woman in town la-de-da enough to read
Vogue
and
Bazaar
, and Tanya had brought along some old copies for us to use as inspiration. Tanya was studying them carefully and writing something down.

“What are you writing?” asked Gloria.

“I'm copying some of my style show narration out of
Vogue
,” said Tanya.

We all groaned.

“How come?” asked Carla Mae.

“I want to make sure it fits in with our theme, High Society Steps Out,” Tanya said.

We had worked for weeks to find just the right, sophisticated theme idea.

“Ugh!” said Gloria. “I hate the whole thing. It's so embarrassing to walk up and down in front of all those people!”

I felt about the same way, but I didn't let on. I always hated to admit I was afraid of anything.

I leaned back on the bed with my sketch pad and put a few more touches on my design. “Oh, I don't know if I'm ever going to get the details right on this dress!” I said, trying to build up the suspense for the others.

“Let's see it,” Carla Mae said, and reached for my pad.

“No!” I said. “I told you it's a secret design until the show!”

“OK,” she said, annoyed. “Who cares?”

The three of them studiously ignored me, pretending to be interested in Tanya's copy of
Vogue.

“Oh, this is so complicated!” I sighed, trying to tantalize them. “It really is the most elaborate thing I've ever designed!”

Tanya turned and gave me a dirty look. “For somebody who hates to sew, you're sure making a big deal out of this,” she said.

“Well, I wouldn't even be in the dumb style show if I didn't have to,” I said. “But if I have to do it, I'm going to be creative, and believe me, this is creee-ative!”

“Oh, come on, let's see what you're doing,” said Gloria. “You've seen all of ours.” She reached toward me.

“No!” I said, pulling the sketch pad away.

Suddenly Carla Mae lunged across the bed at me. “Lemme see it, Mills!” she shouted, and dived for the sketch pad.

“No! You rat!” I screamed, and scrambled to get away.

Then Tanya and Gloria jumped across the bed too, and we were in a wild free-for-all. I rolled into a ball, clutching the pad to my stomach, and they pinched, tickled and clobbered me with pillows, trying to get it away. I screamed as loud as I could, which was ear-splitting.

“Shhhh!” said Carla Mae quickly, and pulled off the other two. “You'll wake up my folks, and they'll kill me!”

“OK,” I said. “Get away from me then. Truce!”

They backed off, giving up. I had kept my secret design from them.

“Immature!” I snarled at them, as I readjusted my glasses and settled myself on the bed again.

“It better be some fancy dress when we see it,” said Gloria.

I retrieved my gum from the bedpost, where I had put it when I was eating my fudge and french fries, and Tanya glared at me and turned up her nose. Tanya imagined herself to have the most refined manners of the four of us. I put my sketch pad safely away and started leafing idly through
Vogue
.

We wanted to have someone special in town present the awards for the best designs at the style show, and we discussed all the possible town celebrities. There was Miss Thompson, our favorite teacher, but she had presented the awards the year before. There was Mrs. Clauson, the banker's wife, who was the richest woman in town, but we counted her out because she was fat and not very stylish herself. Of course, Tanya wanted her mother to be the presenter, but we all ruled that out in a hurry, with much cracking of gum.

“Think of someone!” Carla Mae said, and we were silent for a few moments.

“These fashion magazines are so stupid!” I said, as I continued looking through them. “I wouldn't be caught dead at a dogfight in these clothes!”

Just then, Tanya pulled out a bottle of dark red nail polish and a big wad of cotton from her overnight bag.

“Gad!” said Carla Mae. “Where did you get that.”

“I borrowed it from my mother,” Tanya said haughtily.

None of us were allowed to use nail polish or any other make up until we were in high school, and we stared at it enviously.

“Does your mother let you wear nail polish now?” Gloria asked.

“Only at night,” said Tanya. “I have to take it off before I go out in the morning.”

We all groaned.

“That's ridiculous!” I said.

“Well,” said Tanya smugly. “When we're old enough to wear nail polish, I'm going to know how to do it, and you're not.”

She proceeded to put big wads of cotton between her toes to hold them apart and then started painting her toenails as we all watched in fascination. I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of looking too interested, so I went back to my magazine.

“‘What to Wear to a Broadway Opening Night'” I read from one of the articles.

“We've got to think of somebody to present the awards!” Carla Mae said impatiently.

Suddenly I got one of my brilliant brainstorms.

“Constance Payne!” I shouted at them.

“Addie!” said Carla Mae. “We were going to keep that a secret!”

“Oh, I know!” I said. “But I just got this brainstorm! She's the perfect person to present the awards!”

“What secret?” demanded Tanya. “Constance who?”

Carla Mae and I excitedly told Tanya and Gloria the story of Constance Gunderson Payne, interrupting each other with all the glamorous details and embroidering a bit on what we already knew. I announced that we had planned to visit her anyway to ask for an autograph. Tanya glared at me. It was just the kind of dramatic announcement she would have loved to make herself.

“And you weren't going to tell us?” Tanya said, furious.

“We would've told you later,” I said.

“Thanks a lot!” she said huffily.

“What does she look like?” asked Gloria.

“I don't know exactly,” I said. “But she has to be fabulous!”

“How do you know?” Gloria asked.

“Leading ladies have to be glamorous,” Carla Mae said.

“OK, it's settled,” I said. “When I get her autograph, I'll ask her to be our celebrity guest.”

“Who elected you?” Tanya asked. “We'll all go.”

“Well,” I said, in my best snob-lady accent, “I'm sure she doesn't want a lot of strange people descending on her house unannounced. Perhaps I should go alone.”

“Listen, kiddo,” said Carla Mae, annoyed. “It was my idea, too, to get her autograph!”

“Yeah,” said Tanya. “It's a free country. Anybody can go up to her house if they want.”

“Oh, all right,” I said. “But I'll do the asking when it comes to the moment of truth.”

Tanya was about to give me a smart answer when she looked down at her feet. “Oh, no!” she shrieked. “All my toes are stuck to the cotton!” We all hooted and cracked our gum right in her ears.

Chapter Two

The next day, contrary to my father's instructions to stay away, the four of us set off to see Constance Payne. Clear River was so small, we only had to walk about five blocks to get to the Gunderson house. We went around 3
P.M.,
because, as I had pointed out to everyone, “Actresses always sleep late.”

I had picked some of the daffodils that were just beginning to bloom around the back corner of our little house, and took them along for Miss Payne. We dressed in our best clothes, and all carried our autograph books. On the way over, there was a lot of serious discussion about who had the best autograph collection. My best autograph was Roy Rogers, who had signed my book at a parade in Omaha. Tanya was bragging about her autograph from Margaret Truman, but I told her it didn't count because she got it through the mail, and autographs weren't for real unless you got them from the actual person in the flesh. Tanya said snippily that she would rather have Margaret Truman in the mail than Roy Rogers in the flesh, and I told her that was a sign of her rotten taste.

There was also a lot of discussion about what Constance Payne might look like. Nobody in Clear River had seen her for years, and other than my father saying that she was pretty and dark-haired, we didn't know what to expect. Gloria speculated that she might have bleached her hair and look like our favorite movie star, Betty Grable, but I pooh-poohed that idea because I knew stage acting was supposed to be high-class and not pin-up stuff like the movies.

Tanya was still a bit miffed because Carla Mae and I had come up with this adventure, and she walked ahead a few steps with me to tell me something confidentially.

“My father said that when they were in school Constance Payne was always flirting with him, but he never went out with her because she wasn't his type.” She looked at me smugly.

I knew she had made it up, and I wasn't about to let her get away with it.

“Well,” I said. “My father knew her very well. I think she was mad for him. They dated a lot.” I plunged on recklessly, “I bet she can't wait to see him again. She'll want to come over for dinner, I suppose.”

“For dinner?” she asked, scornfully. “At your house?”

“Yes,” I said, putting on my la-de-da accent, “I suppose I really should invite her for some Saturday evening.”

Tanya was about to make a rude reply when the others walked up beside us. We were there.

I was feeling a bit nervous as we approached the big old house. No one had lived in it since we could remember, and we had always jokingly referred to it as the haunted mansion. Of course, we didn't take that seriously, but I wondered just what kind of welcome we would get from Constance Payne. She might not want a bunch of kids hanging around.

We trooped up on the porch, and I knocked on the door a few times. There was no answer, and after a few moments, I knocked again, louder. The house was so big, we wondered if she would ever hear it.

“Oh, come on, let's go!” said Tanya. “She's not even here.”

“Relax!” I answered.

“Well, she's not going to say yes to the style show anyway,” Tanya said. “It's stupid to ask her.”

I had a feeling Tanya would be secretly pleased if Constance said no. We waited nervously. Finally we heard footsteps approaching the door, and we all self-consciously tugged at our socks and dresses and tried to make ourselves presentable.

The door opened, and there stood Constance Payne. We were all so overwhelmed by her appearance that for a moment we said nothing. We just stood and stared at her.

I thought she was the most dramatic, exotic person I had ever seen. She looked a bit sleepy and disheveled, with her dark hair tousled about her face, but she was very beautiful. She was wearing an elegant black kimono splashed with big red flowers, and she wore dark red nail polish and strange, embroidered slippers.

She was staring back at us with a slightly irritated expression. I thought I had better say something before she closed the door in our faces.