Dry Your Smile (13 page)

Well, diary, this is what I did. Before my birthday, I mean for a while before, maybe a month, I had been being a very difficult (spelling?) child. I didn't mean to, but I guess I was. I had talked back and had a sharp tongue and left my white shoes not polished so I couldn't wear them one day when they were supposed to be ready. And also I acted phony because when Momma let me go to the library for Saturday afternoon story hour all by myself (because the library is right on the other side of our apartment building, and Momma can watch me from the window) I went but then snuck out and ran back across to see if maybe Jewell would like to teach me about the ball thing. But Momma was still at the window and yelled out and so I had to come in and I missed even story hour by being a phony. There were more things I did like that but I don't want to remember the bad things I'd like to be positive. I was very very sorry to have made Momma so miserable during that bad time. So I thought of the perfect birthday present for her! It was to
promise
for a whole
year
not to ever make her miserable. I drew a chart and everything. At the top it has the days of the week. On the side it has a list of things I do that give her nerves or hurt her, and not to do them to hurt her, the dearest Momma in the whole wide world! This is the list I made.

To Obey

Not to Argue

Not to be Lazy

Not to Complain

Not to Talk So Much

Not to be Selfish

Not to be a Phony

That is the list. Then I gave Momma the chart and a little box of gold stars I had that you can paste on things. And I told her that each week all year we would make up a new chart and I'd try for perfect for the whole year until I was nine. Momma laughed and hugged me. Then she said what was going to happen after I turned nine? So we both giggled and she said my grandpa who I never knew always would say “Left foot right foot” so Momma said let's just try it a week at a time okay?

So dear diary we did just that!

And now I can tell you on
every single day
of this last week there is a
gold star
beside every single thing on the list!!! I didn't make Momma miserable or give her nerves
all week long!
Momma says it already is the best present she's ever had in her whole life!

I am going to stop writing now because I wrote a lot whew and my hand is tired. Tomorrow Momma is getting me a surprise privilege because I'm the best child anybody could ever have. But I can't tell you what because I don't know yet. Be in suspense like me, diary! Good night. I love you.

Julian

Dear Diary,

We slept till nine o'clock! And then Momma made lots of bacon and toast for breakfast! And then we made peanut butter cookies together. I made the crisscross designs to flatten the cookies with a fork after we rolled the dough (spell?) into balls on the cookie sheet. Then we took a bubble bath together. Then we played tickle after the bath without our clothes on and I got her and she got me and we laughed so hard we almost cried. Then we got dressed and went for a walk to the park and fed the ducks in the pond. They were so cute and there was a Momma duck with the baby ducks right behind her in a row (just like Momma and me!). I would love to have a pet but they can give you diseases Momma says. But I'm sure glad I
don't
have any brothers or sisters like those ducks. I wouldn't want to share Momma so I'm glad it's just the two of us against the world like Momma says. And
then
we went and had dinner out and I had chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy and
peach!!!
ice cream! Momma had shrimp salad because she's on a diet. And then we walked home and looked in the store windows on Franklin Street and I told Momma I'd like to be able to buy her a mink coat and anything else she wanted. And we decided that our career was going wonderfully and if Mr. Ehrenreich (he's my agent) could get me that salary raise (I don't know how much money I make but I guess it's not enough yet) then we would just
do
it! We'd move into New York City (that's Manhattan, diary) into a fancy building with an elevator! Momma would love that, and I would too. Because I don't like the smell in the hall of our building. It's like somebody spilled grease on the floor and it got old but then you tried to clean it up with strong cleaning stuff but both smells stuck together.

And we only have one bedroom here anyway, so Momma and I have twin beds but maybe when we move I can have my very own room!! Also like Momma says, there is just almost
no
closet space in this apartment so that's why we have to hang things on the back of all the doors but there's so much hanging there that it sticks out all big and puffy with the sleeves like arms and if you wake up in the middle of the night it makes scary shapes that you don't want to move in bed for fear they might notice and come down from hanging there and get you with their flappy arms. And then maybe I can do extra parts in other shows if Mr. Ehrenreich can get Miss Unger to not have me in an exclusive contract. After all, I can pretend to be anybody they want me to be. I'd like to play other parts too because sometimes I get sick of Ingrid all the time but still I'm lucky because the cast is like having a second family, with another Momma who's Miss Clement and a brother and even a father and everything. (Oh diary I forgot to tell you that my father died before I was born. He loved Momma more than anything else in the whole world but he had to go into the war. He was a doctor and so he became a doctor in the army and cured soldiers and never killed anybody but he got killed anyhow. I maybe will be a doctor when I grow up, like my father.)

Anyway Pay Attention! So we could get out of this apartment and the smell in the hall and Hazel the woman next door who talks to herself on the stairs and Momma says stay away from and Mr. Tompkins the super who drinks too much and says worse words even than Mr. Pierce and never fixes
any
thing. There's plaster coming off the wall which Momma says she hates hates hates just behind the storage trunk that's covered with the big Mexican blanket. But Momma also says it doesn't matter that Mr. Tompkins won't ever paint because we'll probably move from here soon anyway and besides who wants to take down the pictures from the walls? There's lots of them, diary,
lots
. They're almost all of me (Momma says I am the most photographed child in history!) in different show costumes or in my ballet tutu (that's a very short dress and is puffy and one of them that looks scary on the back of the door) and modeling and on a horse once (that was for publicity and I got
right
off!) and other stuff. So you see it's just as well we don't get painted by Mr. Tompkins after all. But still, there's this long orange face in the sink from the drips all the time. And there's a green snake in the tub from the drips there. Also sometimes there are bugs in the kitchen and
I
hate hate hate
that
. That's not our fault we're clean and spotless it's Mr. Tompkin's fault and the other people in this building. Or maybe the fault of the Negroes to the side of us because Momma always makes me scrub hard in the tub after we bring them baskets? I don't think it could be the fault of the library because the library is
really
spotless and very very quiet. I love the library. And I'm a good reader (I could read even before I started school!) so I try to go there every time I can (except that time I was phony and snuck off to Jewell and gave Momma nerves).

The library has a
huge
round ceiling inside and on every single wall there are just books books books. Also on stands right in the middle of the room. Also in glass cases. Also on little carts. You could never read so many books in all your life even if you didn't have rehearsal and school and singing and piano and tap and ballet and everything else. But I would like to try. I would like to live in the library. It's spotless there for real and so quiet that Miss Quentin says Shhhh! if anybody makes noise to disturb you or give you nerves. You can learn about
every
thing
any
where in there. I never thought of it before but I bet you could even learn about balls and bikes and roller skates and surprise everybody by just knowing how to do it! (If you ever get a surprise like that, Momma, if you're reading this, you'll know what I was doing in the library!)

But really now Pay Attention!! So Momma and I came home after the walk and we talked about our Future and how even if it is just us against the world we're special enough to triumph. I don't care if it's just us, I'm glad. I'd hate a real brother or sister and I'm glad I don't have a daddy even if that is a terrible thing to say and even if sometimes I miss him but like Momma says how can I miss him when I never even met him? And besides, I have Lansing Harris, who plays my television father and is so nice that I call him Papa even off the set and he likes it. I'd hate to have a wicked stepfather.

So I really have everything and I'm glad Momma and me have each other just to ourselves. She says what do we need with a husband
I'm
like her tiny husband because my acting brings home the bacon, she says, and it will take us far. I want to do that for Momma, more than anything in the world. She's my dearest little Momma and I can take care of her better than any old husband could. She's so good to me, she never punishes me, even if I give her nerves. If I'm bad, I just get my privileges taken away, like going to the library that time, or being taken to the movies, or watching Milton Berle on TV or playing cards with Abe on the set in the breaks. Stuff like that. But privileges are bonuses anyway, like extras, so I shouldn't miss them, having them taken away that's not really punishments like other kids get.

Most of all, there isn't a little girl in America who wouldn't want to be me. Everybody says that. Momma says if we keep on this way I'll be a rich woman all my life even if I decide to stop acting someday and do something else (like be a doctor) but that it would be a shame to leave our career when I was already a star and going to be an even bigger star. I don't care about being a rich woman all my life but I would like to be a little bit rich and make Momma very rich so she can have all the things she wants like a mink coat. She says the way up for us is just what we're doing and every little girl dreams of getting up there by being a star. And last year when I was only seven I got a big scroll we have up on the wall from these people the American Federation of Women's Auxiliaries and they named me the Ideal American Girl. So it must be true.

Well diary I have to go study my lines now because Momma and me we played all day so she says we better do
some
work before our beauty sleep. And Momma is working on her stocks which are also going to help make us rich. It was a wonderful day and I wish it wasn't going to be tomorrow soon.

Goodnight, diary,

Julian

Dear Diary,

Today was October 22nd. I haven't written in you for a whole week. I apologize, diary. But it wasn't my fault. Well, in a way it was, but not because I didn't care about you or writing in you. I really love writing in you even if somebody else will read it because you never know. I didn't just not pay attention to you for a whole week because I don't care about you. I couldn't find you.

You see, I did a terrible thing or at least it turned out terrible and I should have known better. So I had a big privilege taken away and that was you. I couldn't write in you for a whole week. A whole week missed out of my life that you'll never know about because I can't remember all of it even though I'll try.

It started with the terrible thing, right at the start. On Monday, because it's an easy day and I don't have any special lessons after school so there's only homework and the script Momma let me go to the library for a half hour. And I really did go. I am reading Lamb's Tales of Shakespear because in only a few years I will be old enough to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet she was really only fourteen did you know that, diary? I didn't. That's what reading gets you. And I asked Miss Quentin to please come and tell me when half an hour was up because even though there's a big clock in the library I'm not so perfect at telling time yet. (I'm okay on the hours but I sometimes get mixed up on the quarters and halfs and anything in between.) And so she did and I left right when I was supposed to leave. I was trying for my second Perfect Week with stars but now I've gone and ruined everything for the whole year. Even if every single other week is perfect the whole year won't be because of this week and the terrible thing I should have known better.

So I was walking all by myself (I love that part) next door to our building. And then I saw just ahead up the block by our building this awful thing. It was a fight. It was Benjy and Roger who are these two boys from upstairs in 4-A and Benjy is also eight and Roger is ten and their father is not dead but him and their mother are divorced. That means they don't live together anymore and probably hate each other. Miss Clement has been divorced three times and is on her fourth husband and she says when will she ever learn and that must mean a lot of hating. Anyway, sometimes Momma and Liz from 4-A have coffee together and talk either upstairs or down here and when they do the kid or kids in whichever place is sent up or down to the other place. Us kids are supposed to play together whichever place we are. But I hate hate hate Benjy and even more Roger who is a bully. If we play up in 4-A they have only airplanes and guns and boring stuff and never want to play house or doctor or Hamlet. (I read Hamlet in Lamb's Tales I told you about and I thought we could act a play on it, with the ghost and everything.) They are very very stupid dumb boys. If we play down here in 3-A Roger likes to twist my dolls' arms around and once he broke one. They do not even know how to play poker and you can't teach them anything they are too dumb. Benjy likes to bang on the piano and I hate that. He can't even play Chopsticks and I tried to teach him it was no use. I despair of both of them. So we just watch TV but I think the cartoons are boring because I've seen how they do them on these big drawing boards and now it's never the same. But there's nothing else to do with these boys. The only good thing is when it's my turn to go upstairs I can have a Coke because they always have lots of Coke in the icebox. Liz says Honey (she calls everybody Honey) I'm from Mississippi (spell? spell?) and we just all
live
on Coke and cigarettes! I'm not allowed Coke except on special occassions (spell?) and we never have it in our icebox because Momma says it will rot my teeth and give me
huge
cavities. But I can have a Coke when I go upstairs and that's the only good thing I can think of about Benjy or Roger. And it's no good saying what can you expect from kids who don't have a father around (Hazel says this to herself whenever she passes them on the steps) because after all look at me I'm not dumb and a bully. I know I'm lucky to be me and not everybody especially not boys can be me but still they could be better than they are.