Best Friends (5 page)

In the months since Ruby and Flora had arrived in Camden Falls, their life with Min had begun to fall into place, and a routine had developed. Part of this routine was doing chores, which (Ruby couldn't help noticing) had not become an issue until Aunt Allie arrived. Ruby wasn't certain who was responsible for the Chore Chart that had appeared on the refrigerator; nevertheless, chores were now a part of her daily routine. Mostly, she didn't mind them, especially since the responsibility for the chores rotated, and there was one chore that she actually liked. Ruby was currently responsible for taking Daisy Dear on her first walk of the day.

Ruby had originally protested, since walking Daisy meant getting up fifteen minutes earlier every morning. But now Ruby felt quite grown-up and responsible as she clipped Daisy's leash to her collar, Min's clock chiming seven in the background, then unlocked the front door of the Row House and headed down the path to the sidewalk. She was the only person on Aiken Avenue at that hour, and she liked the stillness of the street.

Sometimes Ruby talked to Daisy, sometimes she simply paid attention to the gardens and the light and even the air. Once she had been startled to see a nearly full moon hanging over the horizon and had said, “Did you know the moon could shine in the morning, Daisy?”

On a Saturday in mid-April, Ruby made another discovery. “It's warm, Daisy,” she said, “really warm.” And it was. Not early spring, just-warm-for-a-day warm — but true spring-is-here warm.

That reminded Ruby that her play was only a month away, and she felt a flutter of excitement in her stomach because today was the day of the first full dress rehearsal of
The Witches of Camden Falls
.

“I hope I'm ready,” she said aloud, and Daisy turned around to cock her head at Ruby, ears springing to attention.

 

The dress rehearsal was an important event, even if it was really just a rehearsal at which all the costumes were to be tried on so they could be adjusted before the true dress rehearsal in May. Min and Gigi were going to attend, since they were on the costume committee, so Liz Durbin and Rick O'Bannen would run Needle and Thread that day. Flora was helping with the costumes as well, and since Nikki had been chosen to draw the picture that would be on the cover of the play program, she also wanted to attend the rehearsal.

When Min and Ruby and Flora arrived at Camden Falls Elementary that morning, Ruby drew in her breath. “Look at all the cars in the parking lot!” she exclaimed. “It looks like the whole world is here!”

“It takes a lot of people to put on a production like this,” said Min. “There's the refreshment stand and the program and the music, not to mention the costumes and scenery and, of course, the actors.”

For just a moment, Ruby felt like a very small part of the play, and she was reminded of nights when she would lie in bed and think about how big the universe was and how small she was compared to infinity. But then she told herself that she was Ruby J. Northrop and she was the star of the production and undoubtedly the most important person at CFE that day.

Ruby put a little skip in her step. “Come on!” she cried. “We have a lot to do.” She ran ahead of Min and Flora and flung open the front door of the school. Ruby had every intention of proving to the world that she was a professional actor and that the production of
The Witches of Camden Falls
was more than just a school play.

 

Fifteen minutes later, Ruby was seated in the auditorium with Min, Flora, and Nikki, who had ridden her bicycle to school. The auditorium was crowded with people, and Mrs. Gillipetti was struggling to make herself heard above the din. After clapping her hands and calling “Attention!” to no avail, she whispered something to Harry Lang, who ran to the stage, put his pinky fingers in his mouth, and let out a piercing “
Fweeeeee!
”

Everyone fell silent, and Mrs. Gillipetti said, “Thank you. This is going to be a busy day, so let's get to work.”

Ruby jumped to her feet, ready for Scene One, but the next words out of Mrs. Gillipetti's mouth were, “I'd like to start with reports from the committee heads.”

Reports from the committee heads? thought Ruby. What about getting the rehearsal under way? But she took her seat again and tried not to wiggle as first one person, then another stood and gave a brief report.

Harry Lang's mother said that volunteers were needed to bake cookies and snacks that could be sold at the refreshment stand, and that other volunteers were needed to provide food for the cast party.

One of Stephanie Ford's dads reported that the programs wouldn't be going to the printer for two more weeks, so there was still time to buy ad space.

Then Mrs. Gillipetti called on the head of the flower committee, and a parent Ruby didn't recognize stood and said, “Jarita's Flowers has agreed to be the florist for the play. Anyone who wishes to send flowers to a member of the cast or crew should call Jarita's a day in advance. The bouquets, with cards attached, will be delivered here, to school, before each performance. The presentation of the bouquets will take place after the curtain call. We'll announce this in the school paper as well as the town paper next month.”

Ruby's mind, which had wandered during the talk of snacks and ad space, snapped back to attention at the mention of flowers. Now,
that
sounded professional. She had seen beautiful leading ladies on television receive bouquets of flowers from fans or husbands or parents and thought this very glamorous. Ruby imagined herself onstage in a filmy red dress and red high-heeled shoes (which, she recognized, might be teetery when walking across the stage, but she skipped over that detail), leaning down to accept an armload of yellow roses handed to her by someone whose face could only be described as rapturous. “Thank you, thank you,” Ruby would say breathlessly, pretending, for the fan's sake, that this almost never happened, when in fact it happened night after night. Then Ruby would glance into the first row and there she would see Aunt Allie, and only because Ruby was such a good actor would she be able to keep the smug expression from her face.

Ruby felt a poke in her ribs then and realized that Flora was nudging her. “Hey, Rip Van Winkle,” Flora said, “wake up. We're supposed to go backstage now so you guys can try on your costumes.”

“Can I come with you?” asked Nikki.

“Sure,” said Flora. “We need all the help we can get.”

That didn't inspire confidence, thought Ruby as she made her way down the aisle toward the stage. “Why do you need all the help you can get?” she asked suspiciously.

“Oh, don't worry. It's just a figure of speech,” replied Flora in an annoyingly adult voice.

But Ruby was dismayed when she went backstage and discovered first of all that by “backstage” Flora just meant the corridor and two fifth-grade classrooms, and second that this area was a madhouse.

“Where's my dressing room?” asked Ruby.

“Your
what
?” exclaimed Nikki, and everyone in earshot began to laugh.

Ruby was about to point out that she was the star but instead simply rephrased her question. “Okay, where are
the
dressing rooms?”

“Right here,” said Min.

Ruby looked at her grandmother. Min was standing midway between Mr. Levithan's room and Ms. Holton's room in front of a banner that read
THE BOOKWORM BOOK CLUB
. Ruby frowned.

“There are no dressing rooms,” said Min, turning to send Flora a warning look when Flora threatened to laugh again. “This is just a school play, honey.”

“But we have an auditorium and a stage. And there's going to be a refreshment stand. And flowers —”

“But it's still a school,” said Min gently, “not a theatre. Now, come on. You need to try on your costume.”

“Well, I'm not putting it on out here with all those boys around.”

“Of course not. Makeup will go on in the corridor. Girls will change in Ms. Holton's room, boys in Mr. Levithan's room. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Ruby glumly. This was not at all what she had had in mind. Maybe for the two actual performances she could find a spot — a utility closet or something — that she could turn into her dressing room. She could even make a gold star to hang on the door.

For the time being she had to be content with standing by the globe in Ms. Holton's room, an eye on the door at all times to make sure no boys peeked in, while Min and Flora fussed with her costume: a long, very plain brown dress; a white cloth cap; a white apron; and a pair of sturdy shoes borrowed from Flora, which were slightly too big, so the toes had been stuffed with tissue. Once the costume was on, and Min had stood back to scrutinize it, Ruby took it off again, except for her shoes and her cap, which Mrs. Gillipetti wanted her to rehearse in. Then Ruby, now wearing the shoes, the cap, her jeans, and a T-shirt, was told to go out into the hall to await her turn in the makeup chair.

“It's going to take hours to put on everyone's makeup!” cried Ruby as she watched from the doorway. “Look. There's just one person doing it.”

Sure enough, a woman (Ruby couldn't remember whose mother she was) was painstakingly trying rouge and mascara and powder (making notes as she did so) on every single performer, right down to the kindergartners, who, as far as Ruby could recall, didn't even have any lines to say.

“That's why,” Min replied patiently, “you'll have to arrive at school a couple of hours before each of the performances. It takes a long time to prepare everyone.”

“But in a real theatre,” said Ruby, “there would be more than one makeup person. And the star would probably have her own private —”

“Ruby,” said Min, “I don't even want to hear the end of that sentence.”

Ruby snapped her mouth shut and stalked down the hallway, where she sat by herself on the floor outside the door to the library, glowering, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Not far away, a group of girls, already in costume and makeup, was laughing and playing a complicated clapping game while chanting, “Eeny-meeny DIS-aleeny, ooh, ah, AH-maleeny, atcha-katcha, ooma-raga, ugga-wugga OOH! ISH-biddly oten-doten.…” Ruby knew the game and was very good at it but chose to sit on the floor until she was called to the makeup table.

This is all Aunt Allie's fault, Ruby said to herself as she sat sullenly while her makeup (including lipstick!) was applied. Aunt Allie had made her self-conscious. There was really nothing good about Aunt Allie, Ruby decided. Except maybe the fact that she had finally found a house she wanted to buy, which meant that she would soon be moving out of the Row House. Ruby couldn't wait.

Her makeup applied, Ruby again sat alone, but this time she was preparing for her role as Alice Kendall. She stretched a little and did the breathing exercises she had invented. The exercises were supposed to help her concentrate and focus, but Ruby's mind kept wandering and she found herself breathing in rhythm to “Eeny-meeny dis-aleeny, ooh, ah, ah-maleeny.…”

Later, when the dress rehearsal was finally under way, Ruby was painfully aware that this time she had more of an audience than usual. Min, Gigi, Flora, Nikki, and plenty of other people were sitting in the auditorium, watching. Ruby did her best all afternoon and even managed to become teary-eyed when the fierce Harry Lang hurled his accusation at her.

But on the way home that evening when Min said, “Ruby, my stars, you were splendid! You really looked like you were going to cry,” all Ruby could think was that she
hadn't
actually cried. Not like before.

Her performance was already slipping. She was washed up before opening night.

Flora had listened to the tape of her interview with Mrs. Fitzpatrick twice and then had spent several hours writing down most of the conversation. (“That's called transcribing,” Aunt Allie had told her, and she should know, since she was a writer.) Flora now realized that she was going to have to have a conversation with Mary Woolsey — possibly an uncomfortable one — about Isabelle, Mary's aunt, and about people leaving their lives behind and starting over with new identities.

Flora had also been looking through the notes she had made during the last few months when she had spoken with Mary or Min about Lyman Davis. And she had hauled the box of family papers out from under her bed and read through the letters several more times. But she still didn't have a clear idea of what she was going to do with all the information. How could she present her project to the Camden Falls Historical Society so that it could be displayed at the town birthday festivities? A report wasn't all that interesting, she thought, picturing some of the reports she'd handed in to teachers over the years — stapled together at one corner or (when she was younger) stuck between sheets of red construction paper. Flora wanted her part in the festivities to be memorable. After all, this was Camden Falls's big birthday, and Camden Falls was now Flora's home.

Ruby's part in the festivities would most certainly be memorable. And Nikki's drawings would be framed and displayed in an actual art gallery, while Olivia's photos would be mounted and displayed at another gallery. But where was Flora's research leading? What was she going to do with her pile of letters and hours of transcribed tapes?

Flora didn't know, but for once she decided not to worry. Her next interview was with Mr. Pennington, and she needed to concentrate on that. On a Monday afternoon, she returned from school, called hello to Aunt Allie, who was clacking away at her computer, grabbed her notebook and tape recorder, and walked across Olivia's yard to Mr. Pennington's house.

She rang the bell and immediately heard frantic barking and the sound of Jacques lumbering into the hallway, skidding on a rug, and banging into the doorjamb.

The barking continued at a furious level until Mr. Pennington opened the door.

“Hello,” he said, smiling. When Jacques saw Flora, he fell silent, then sent his tail flapping back and forth like laundry in the wind.

“Hi,” Flora replied. She bent to pat Jacques.

Mr. Pennington ushered Flora inside and said, “I feel honored to be interviewed. Where shall we sit?”

“Anywhere is okay as long as I'm near an outlet,” Flora answered. “I need to plug in the recorder. Is it okay if I tape the interview?”

“Yes, it is. Thank you for asking,” said Mr. Pennington, and Flora had a feeling that Min had already mentioned the recorder to him.

Flora and Mr. Pennington sat down in the living room, Flora in an armchair and Mr. Pennington on the couch with Jacques beside him. Jacques fell asleep in an instant and was soon snoring loudly.

Flora had been in Mr. Pennington's house many times, and the living room was her favorite room of all. It was filled with more books than Flora had ever seen in one place except a library. The room was lined with shelves that extended from the floor all the way up to the ceiling, and every inch was occupied by books. They were tightly packed but orderly, and Mr. Pennington now told Flora that they were organized by a system and that he could locate any of his books in a matter of moments. “Fiction is over there,” he said, pointing, “poetry is there, drama there, and non-fiction is divided into lots of categories. There are biographies, autobiographies and memoirs, history, science. All alphabetized according to the author's last name. A number of the history books cover the Depression,” he added, “which my family spent in a somewhat unusual manner, compared to other families, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. This is your interview, Flora.”

Flora made her rehearsed introduction about Lyman Davis, then added, “When I was talking to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, she said that after her father lost his money, he had to let his staff go, and that one of those people was his chauffeur, Rudy Pennington. I said that a Rudy Pennington was my neighbor, and she guessed that you're Rudy Pennington Junior. Is that right?”

“It is. In nineteen twenty-nine, my father was employed as the Fitzpatricks' driver. It wasn't uncommon for white families, even those who lived in the North, to employ African-American help, only back then those workers were called the colored help.”

Flora cringed. “Should I put that in my report?” she asked.

“You don't like that term, do you?”

“No.” Flora felt uncomfortable.

“Well, it's up to you, of course. But it is the truth.”

Flora changed the subject. “Mrs. Fitzpatrick also said that when your father was let go, he smiled.”

Mr. Pennington grinned. “I don't know whether he did or not, but that's a nice touch for your report. And it certainly could be true, because my father always said that the best day of his life was the day he lost that job.”

“But why?”

“Because it was holding him back. My father was lucky to have a good job, especially with a family to support, and he was grateful for it. But, Flora, do you really think he wanted to be a driver all his life?”

“No,” said Flora, who, in truth, could think of lots of jobs she wouldn't want, certainly not for her entire life.

“And it wasn't just that driving was boring and a dead end. It was much more than that. There was something my father wanted desperately.”

“What?”

“Look around the living room. Can you guess?” asked Mr. Pennington.

Flora looked at Jacques, at the tables holding the familiar framed family photographs, at the shelves and shelves of books, at the case she knew contained Mr. Pennington's trumpet.

“A nice life and a nice house?” she guessed, fairly certain that this wasn't the answer Mr. Pennington was leading her toward.

“That might have been part of it, I suppose,” said Mr. Pennington kindly, “but what he really wanted, Flora, almost more than anything except his wife and children, was an education.”

“Oh,” said Flora, and then, “
oh
.”

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“When the Fitzpatricks let my father go, he suddenly saw that he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted.”

“But he was free already, wasn't he?”

“Well, yes, technically he was a free man. But his job had been holding him back because it was comfortable. Now, my father thought, as long as he had to reshape his life, he might as well take the opportunity to find a way to do what he'd always dreamed of — to get an education. So he packed us up and we moved in with his parents, who lived a few miles outside of Camden Falls. Imagine seven people crowded into a house that was small to begin with, but my grandparents were very kind, and they supported my father's decision. Dad spent the next few years in school, while my mother and my grandparents worked at whatever jobs they could find.

“Eventually,” Mr. Pennington continued, “my father graduated from college. He was the first person in his family to do so, and we had a big celebration. Oh, I remember that day. I don't think you've ever seen anyone more proud than my grandparents, my mother, my brothers and I, and, of course, my father.

“Later, Dad became a college professor himself. When I grew up, I went to college in Pennsylvania, but I wanted to come back to this area. I moved to Boston first, and then after I got married, my wife and I moved here. That was when I began teaching at your school, Flora.”

“And then later you became the principal of the central school, right?”

“Exactly right.”

How different, thought Flora, were the Depression years for Mr. Pennington and his family than for Min and her family, for the Fitzpatricks, or for Mary Woolsey and her family.

“Mr. Pennington,” she said, “do you know of any other people who were affected by Min's father? I mean, by losing their money or getting fired or something?”

Jacques rolled over on his back and Mr. Pennington rubbed his belly. “Well, let me see. There was the gardener at the Fitzpatricks'. I recall that after he lost his job he led a rather exciting life. He hit the road, doing a little work here, a little work there, to earn pocket money, catching free rides on trains whenever he felt like moving on.”

“You mean he became a
hobo
?” exclaimed Flora.

“I suppose so. Not a life I would have liked, but he did get to see the country. Then there was a man, Johnny something, who was part-time help at the Fitzpatricks' and who was a friend of my father's. I remember my dad saying one night after we had moved in with my grandparents that Johnny still hadn't found another job, and I don't think he ever did. A year or so later his wife left him and finally he just dropped out of sight.

“Oh, and I can think of someone else you might be interested in hearing about,” said Mr. Pennington, shifting on the couch when Jacques rolled over again. “My mother knew Sonny Sutphin's grandmother.” (Flora raised her eyes and looked at Mr. Pennington with increased interest.) “The Sutphins were a respectable family in Camden Falls, what you'd call middle class nowadays. They didn't have a lot of money, but they were doing fine, and your grandfather had invested their savings. They lost it all in nineteen twenty-nine, but quite unexpectedly they came into a large inheritance in nineteen thirty or thirty-one and were then far wealthier than they'd been before the crash.”

Flora thought of Sonny in his shabby clothes, wheeling himself up and down Main Street every day. She thought of his tiny, dark apartment, which she'd visited with Mr. Pennington before the holidays. “What happened?” she asked. Surely the Sonny she knew now didn't have any large inheritance.

“The money was spent rather” — Mr. Pennington paused — “
erratically
. It really was a great deal of money and it caused some wild behavior in subsequent generations of Sutphins. When Sonny came into his portion of the inheritance, the first thing he did was spend most of it on a fancy car — maybe a Porsche, I'm not sure — and he hadn't had it very long when he was in a horrible accident. He was driving way too fast and he crashed the car late one night. His brother was in the car, too, and he was killed.”

“Oh,” said Flora in a very small voice, imagining not Sonny and his Porsche but her family and their car on that snowy evening. “Is that how Sonny got hurt?”

Mr. Pennington nodded.

Flora tried to collect her thoughts, which were tumbling around in her head. She was glad the tape recorder was running because she was having trouble keeping track of all the people Mr. Pennington had mentioned. There was the hobo (an actual hobo — very exciting), and the man who wasn't heard from again, and now Sonny Sutphin and his family. And, of course, there was Mr. Pennington himself. What would have happened, Flora wondered, if the Fitzpatricks hadn't lost their money and Mr. Pennington's father hadn't lost his job? Flora might not even know Mr. Pennington. He might never have moved to the Row Houses. Flora couldn't imagine the Row Houses, or her life now, without Mr. Pennington.

Later, when Flora was leaving, she stood on tiptoe and threw her arms around her neighbor. It was time to go home to transcribe their talk and to think about what on earth she was going to say to Mary Woolsey when it was time for their formal interview. Mr. Pennington had started to close the door behind Flora when he stuck his head outside and said, “By the way, what are you going to do with your information, Flora?”

“I'm not sure,” she replied.

“What about making a book? I think you're going to have enough material. You could bind your research into a book.”

A book, thought Flora. Could she really write a book?