Anastasia's Chosen Career (9 page)

Anastasia stared glumly at herself in the mirror. Her haircut was progressing slowly; the woman was meticulously trimming it section by section. And Anastasia could see that it was going to look okay. But Aunt Vera had pronounced Helen Margaret's ears exquisite. And now she had said "great-shaped head" about Henry.

Anastasia wished—no, more than wished; she
yearned
—for Aunt Vera to say something in superlatives about her. They had studied superlatives in English class at school. Often a superlative ended in "est." Like "loveliest" or "grandest."

Anastasia wished that Aunt Vera would say, looking at her, "That is the loveliest hair."

Or sometimes a superlative began with the word "most." Like "most brilliant" or "most magnificent."

That would have been okay, too. "You have the most magnificent hair," Aunt Vera could say, hovering around Anastasia's chair.

But she didn't. She had run through one list of superlatives for Helen Margaret, and she was trotting out a whole new vocabulary of superlatives for Henry.

"The most glorious head I've seen in a long time," Aunt Vera said, watching as the old lady got out a buzzing electric thing and began to zzzzzzz Henry's head.

"You electrocute me and you die," Henry announced, but she wasn't scowling any more. She was watching herself in the mirror with a look of wonder.

And Henry was finished, even before Anastasia's beautician snipped her way around to Anastasia's left ear. All of Henry's hair except for a soft, even covering like a black fur cap was on the floor. The third old lady appeared from nowhere with a broom and swept it into a dustpan.

"You want to save these barrettes?" she asked.

Henry didn't answer at first. She was staring at herself, turning her head from side to side. Her brown ears, each with a tiny gold earring, lay flat against her perfect oval head. Her cheekbones showed. Slowly she began to smile: a tiny smile at first, just twitching her lips. Then the smile became broader as if she couldn't hold it back, and finally her small, white, even teeth showed in a wide, beautiful grin.

She glanced at the old lady holding the grubby plastic dustpan. She glanced at the four green butterflies lying on the mound of hair.

"Toss em," Henry said with disdain.

"I was really feeling kind of sorry for myself," Anastasia explained to her mother after she described Henry's haircut, "because even though I could see my hair was going to look good, and / was going to look good—and older, and prettier—I could see that I wasn't going to be beautiful. I was feeling sorry for myself about that—"

Her mother interrupted her. "You are beautiful, Anastasia, in your own way," she said.

"No, Mom. I'm okay-looking. Not a dog or anything. But let's face it, I'm not ever going to be a knockout. All of us Krupniks, we're just nice ordinary-looking people. I was kind of hoping that some miracle would happen when my hair was cut, and it didn't. But you know, it happened for Henry. I stopped feeling sorry for myself the instant I saw it happen for Henry. Because she really wants to be a model, Mom, so she can earn money to go to college. And I don't. Because I'll go to college, anyway. So she was the one who
needed
the miracle. And she got it! Isn't that a terrific thing?"

Mrs. Krupnik nodded. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and smoothed Anastasia's new, smoother, shorter hair. "You know, Anastasia," she said, "you are a truly nice, nice person."

"Could you rephrase that as a superlative, Mom?"

Her mother thought. "You are the nicest person I know," she said. "How's that?"

Anastasia grinned. "Fine. Thank you." She hung up her own dish towel. "I'm going up to my room to rewrite the beginning of my career paper.

"Boy," she added, as she left the kitchen, "I sure hope her mother didn't
really
have a heart attack."

Anastasia Krupnik

My Chosen Career

Some of the nicest people in the world are bookstore owners.

Other extremely nice people should not be bookstore owners because they can have a whole other glamorous career. People who have gloriously shaped heads and bony cheekbones and nice, white, even teeth should not be bookstore owners because instead they can be successful models with their pictures on magazine covers.

Then they can earn enough money to go to college. Maybe, after college, when they are old, they can be bookstore owners.

I guess I am not one of those glamorous people, though.

The phone rang while Anastasia's parents were watching
Nova
on TV.

"Hi! I found your number in the phone book. You're the only Krupnik!"

Anastasia recognized Henry's voice. "Hi, Henry!" she said. "Is your mom okay? She didn't have a heart attack or anything?"

Henry laughed. "She made me wash the rouge off, is all."

"All mothers are alike," Anastasia said. "I bet all mothers hate make-up on thirteen-year-olds."

"Maybe not all," Henry said. "I bet anything Bambie's mother
buys
her make-up."

"Yeah." Anastasia laughed.

"I called to see if maybe you could come have dinner at my house tomorrow night. We could go home together on the T, and then my dad can drive you to your house afterward. He said he wouldn't mind."

"Great! I'd like that," Anastasia said. "I'll check with my parents. I'm sure they'll say okay."

"I'll see you in the morning, then. It's gonna be boring tomorrow. Walking and talking, big deal. A
robot
can walk and talk."

"Yeah. Yuck." Wednesday's schedule at Studio Charmante called for lessons and practice in posture and distinct speech. It
did
sound boring.

"You wanta have lunch at McDonald's like we did today?"

"Sure. Oh, wait! I forgot."

"Forgot what? You can eat lunch. You didn't have to go to diet class with those tubs Robert and Bambie."

"I know, but I forgot that I promised to have lunch with someone. But, Henry—"

"What?"

"I bet anything she wouldn't mind if I brought you along. I'll call her and ask."

After Anastasia hung up and got an okay from her parents for dinner at the Peabodys' the next night, she dialed the bookstore owner and asked permission to bring her friend for lunch.

"Of course! Terrific!" Barbara Page said. "I love having company."

"I'm afraid she won't be able to buy a book," Anastasia explained apologetically. "She's studying to become a model so that she can earn the money to go to college, so—

"Hey," Barbara Page interrupted, laughing. "I said I love having company. I didn't mean I love having customers."

***

"Whaddaya mean, she had an autographing party for your father? Is your father a rock star or something?"

Anastasia shook her head. They were walking across the Common toward Beacon Hill. "He's just a college professor. But he writes poetry, too."

"Real poetry? In books? Not just funny poems for uncles' birthday parties and stuff?"

Anastasia nodded. "No. Of course he does that, too. But he writes real poetry. In books."

"Jeezum," said Henry. "Real books. Do they have his name on them?"

"Sure. Right across the front. And they have his picture on the back."

Henry looked awed. "So he's famous," she said.

Anastasia felt embarrassed. She didn't think of her father as famous. Still, every now and then, they wrote about him in the
New York Times.
Once they had called him "Master of the Contemporary Image," whatever that meant. And strangers wrote fan letters to him, asking for his autograph. So she guessed he was famous, at least a little.

"Yeah," she admitted. "I guess so."

"I never once in my whole entire life knew the daughter of a famous person before," Henry said.

Anastasia tried to think of a response. "I never knew a truly beautiful person before," she said, finally. "In fact, when I first knew you, just two days ago, I didn't even recognize that you were beautiful. And now look. Do you realize, Henry, that right now, right this very minute, as we walk through the Common, men are staring at you because you're so beautiful?
Grown men?
"

"Yeah, I know. It's weird. Last night, when I was going home on the T, men stared at me.
Women
even stared at me. That never happened to me before."

"Is it scary?"

Henry shook her head. "No. Not if they just stare. But if they
say
anything, they die."

And Barbara Page stared, too, when they entered the bookstore. She stared at both of them as Anastasia introduced her to Henry.

"Anastasia," she said, "your haircut is fabulous, and I want you to give me the name of the person who cut it, because I want to make an appointment.

"And, Henry," she went on, "
you
are gorgeous. There's no other word for it."

"Yes, there is," Anastasia told her in surprise. "You of all people—a person who owns a bookstore—ought to know that. There are
lots
of other words for it. Dazzling. Spectacular. Magnificent. Just plain
beautiful,
for pete's sake."

"Okay, okay." Barbara Page laughed. "You're right."

"Wanta see what we learned at modeling school this morning?" Henry asked.

"Sure. Show me."

Henry dropped her jacket on a bench in a corner of the bookstore. She posed, standing straight; then she took a deep breath and walked across the floor to the opposite wall of bookcases. Her chin was high, her shoulders taut, and her long legs moved with a kind of grace that Anastasia had never seen on anyone before. Instead of hanging at her sides like every other pair of arms in the whole world, Henry Peabody's arms moved with a fluid ease. She turned, smiled slowly, and strode back toward them with the same gliding movement.

Then she grinned. "Whaddaya think?" Henry asked. "Panther, or what?"

"Panther," Anastasia said. "For sure."

Aunt Vera had directed them, in class, to imagine themselves as animals. After they had finished goofing off and acting stupid because they were all so embarrassed, they had tried.

Bambie had chosen a mountain goat. Mountain goats, Bambie explained, would have a determined, sure-footed walk. Then she mountain-goated across the room with her red curls bouncing. Ho hum.

Helen Margaret had hung her head and said softly, "I'll try to be a deer, I guess." She walked timidly across the room, darting looks at Aunt Vera to see if she was doing it right. She
did
resemble a deer, Anastasia thought, remembering a deer she had seen once at the edge of a meadow; Helen Margaret had the same fearful, shy look, the same careful steps, the same vigilance.

Robert went next. "Cheetah," he announced, which was a joke before he even started. There was no way that Robert Giannini could look like a cheetah. He clumped across the room; Aunt Vera smiled a polite but pained smile, and Henry muttered under her breath, "Make that hippo."

"Ah, well, I guess I'll try lioness," Anastasia said when her turn came. She walked across the room, imagining herself stalking game on the African veldt. But she tripped on an untied shoelace and started to laugh. "I meant giraffe," she said.

Henry had simply said "Panther," and then she had panthered herself across the room so magnificently that everyone—even Bambie—burst into applause.

Now she had done it again in the bookstore. She
became
a panther somehow.

"This afternoon," Anastasia told Barbara Page, "we practice speaking. I think I can do that better than walking."

"If Bambie Browne does her Juliet death scene again," Henry said, and she imitated Bambie, "'to whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,' well, you might just hear a foul mouth make a comment. And it'll be mine."

Barbara Page made a tsk-tsking sound, but Anastasia could see she was laughing silently.

Over a lunch of egg salad sandwiches, Anastasia said, "You know, the modeling course is actually kind of fun. The haircuts and make-up day was a whole lot of fun. And this morning wasn't bad, even if I did turn out to be a giraffe."

"You should try panther," Henry commented, shaking some pepper onto her egg salad.

Anastasia made a face. "I don't think I'm pantherlike, Henry. I'm too klutzy. Anyway, I like giraffes."

"I like giraffes, too," Barbara Page said. "My husband and I went on safari in Africa last year, and we saw a lot of giraffes."

Henry's eyes widened. "Safari?" she said. "Africa?"

"Who ran the bookstore while you were away?" Anastasia asked.

Barbara looked a little embarrassed. "I just closed it down," she said. "I probably should have hired someone to come in and take charge. But I didn't trust anybody to know how to handle all the senior citizens and the little kids and all my customers that I know so well. So when I go on vacation, I just lock up the shop."

"You need to train an assistant," Anastasia suggested.

"Maybe."

"A young assistant," Anastasia said.

"I suppose so."

"Someone like
me,
" Anastasia said.

Barbara smiled. "That's a good thought," she said. "Maybe next summer we can discuss a part-time job for you. And then eventually, when you're older, I could leave you in charge, and my husband and I could go to Africa again. I'd love to go back.