Anastasia's Chosen Career (14 page)

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 courses 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.

*
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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