Fifteen (10 page)

“Okay,” said Stan, eager to show off his car to someone else. “Let's go!”

They drove out of the park and down the hill toward Julie's house. The car made loud, popping noises as it went downhill. “It's just the carburetor,” explained Stan. “Most cars make that noise going down a steep hill.”

Jane brushed her hair out of her eyes with her new Marcy gesture. “Oh,” she said, resolving to look up
carburetor
in the dictionary when she got home. Every car had a carburetor, she knew, and she had a vague idea that a carburetor in a car was something like an appendix in a human being, but this was the first time she had met the word in conversation. If Stan wanted to talk about a carburetor,
she wanted to find out exactly what it was.

When Stan stopped his car by the curb in front of Julie's house, Jane reached over the center of the steering wheel and sounded the horn twice, long and loud. Julie and then Buzz appeared at the window. They smiled and waved and in a moment came running down the front steps.

“Say, that's all right!” Buzz stood back to admire the Ford. “She sure looks a lot better than when you got her. Neat but not gaudy.”

“You mean me or the car?” Jane glanced sidelong at Buzz, the way Marcy so often looked at boys.

“The car, of course,” bantered Buzz. “Anybody can find a girl.”

“Stan, do you mean this car is yours, your very own?” Julie asked.

“That's right,” said Stan proudly. “I bought it last month, but I had to do a lot of work on it before I could use it.”

Julie stepped up on the running board and leaned over to examine the dashboard. “And it runs and everything?” she demanded incredulously.

“It sure does,” said Stan. “A model-A is a little noisier than the cars they make now, but it runs like a top.”

“What's this?” Julie asked, pointing to a cap on the hood in front of the windshield.

“That's the top of the gas tank,” Stan explained.

“In front?” asked Julie.

“On this model,” said Stan.

Buzz opened one side of the hood and bent over to examine the engine. Stan got out of the car and leaned over beside him.

With the two boys half hidden under the hood, Jane and Julie looked at each other and, without uttering a word, carried on a conversation. Jane's look told Julie that everything was all right. She now understood about Stan and the dance, she was happy to see him again, and she was thrilled about his car. Julie's look told Jane that she was so glad Jane and Stan had things straightened out and that she was both surprised and excited that Buzz had come over to see her so soon after the dance. Both girls silently expressed to each other a feeling of great satisfaction at the way everything had turned out.

“Stan painted his car himself,” said Jane aloud.

“Did he really?” Julie stepped back to admire the paint job.

The two boys came out from under the hood of the car. “I painted it with a powder puff,” said Stan.

“A powder puff!” Jane laughed. “Stan, not really!”

“Sure,” said Stan. “There's a kind of plastic paint for cars that you put on with a powder puff. You just wipe it on. Of course, I did get a few streaks, and a little dust got in it. And when I tried to paint it in the garage under an electric light, a few moths got into the paint on the hood. See, that's what made these spots.”

“It looks marvelous,” said Julie. “The spots hardly show, and nobody would ever dream you did it with a powder puff.”

“Look, Julie, it has an old-fashioned rumble seat,” Buzz pointed out. “That's for you and me to ride in.”

“A real rumble seat!” exclaimed Julie. “I've always wanted to ride in one. Mother used to ride in one when she was a girl and she's often said what fun it was.”

Stan got into the car and put his foot on the starter. “We'd better be on our way if I'm going to get Jane to her babysitting job on time.”

Buzz stepped up on the running board beside Jane to look at the inside of the car, and as he stood there he looked down at Jane. Then he said, “Jane, for someone who used to be a scrawny kid
who was a terrible cook, you've turned out to be a mighty Purdy girl.”

Jane felt pleased and a little embarrassed by this remark. Buzz was teasing, she knew, but at the same time she was sure he really thought she was pretty. Not knowing how to answer him, she flashed him her new Marcy look.

“A pun is the lowest form of humor,” observed Julie.

Buzz continued to look down at Jane. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a fifty-cent piece, which he tossed into the air and deftly caught. “Stan, I'll give you fifty cents to let me kiss your girl,” he said.

Jane looked at Buzz in astonishment and afterward she was shocked by her own sudden behavior. Still feeling like Marcy, she met his challenge. She smiled at him, closed her eyes, and lifted her lips. Buzz leaned over and kissed her lightly on the mouth.

Oh
, thought Jane, as his lips touched hers, what have I done? She felt her face flush scarlet as she opened her eyes and saw Buzz, grinning cockily, flip the fifty-cent piece across her lap to Stan, who caught it automatically.

Confused and ashamed, Jane looked down at her
hands. She could not think what to do or say. She did not want to look at Buzz and she could not look at Stan. No one spoke.

Unsmiling, Stan kicked the starter button, and the motor roared. As the car began to move, Jane glimpsed Buzz still grinning wickedly at her and, beside him, Julie looking dejectedly after the car, the gaiety she had shown a few minutes before gone out of her. Now I've gone and hurt Julie's feelings, on top of everything else, thought Jane, and I didn't mean to.

“Where to?” asked Stan.

Jane gave him an address in Bayaire Estates. “I'm sorry, Stan,” she said timidly. “Really I am.”

“That's okay,” said Stan briefly, his eyes on the road.

“I guess I just had a silly impulse. I didn't mean to—to do what I did.”

“Forget it,” said Stan.

He really was angry, Jane realized, and trying to explain wasn't going to help. She could not tell him that she had let Buzz kiss her because she was trying to act like Marcy. It wasn't the sort of thing a boy would understand.

Stan drove on in silence until they came to a bridge that crossed a narrow arm of the bay. In the
middle of the bridge Stan stopped his car. Jane put her hand over her eyes to shade them from the brilliant sunlight. “Why are we stopping?” she asked.

Stan did not answer. With one quick motion he shied Buzz's half dollar across the railing of the bridge and out over the bay. It flashed in the sunlight above the water for an instant before it hit the surface with a plop and sank from sight. “That takes care of that,” Stan said.

“Why, Stan…” Jane was startled by his gesture. He's hurt, she thought suddenly. I should have known. Stan was angry, because he was hurt. And with a flash of insight she realized that was the real reason she had let Buzz kiss her. She wanted Stan to feel some of the hurt that she had felt. Now she was sorry and ashamed.

When Stan stopped his car in front of the house where Jane was to babysit, he glanced at his watch. “I got you here two minutes late,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

We seem to be spending the whole morning apologizing to each other, Jane thought, as she got out of the car. He's sorry about the dance. I'm sorry I let Buzz kiss me. He's sorry, because he got me here late. “That's all right, Stan,” she said, and
looked directly at him. “Are you still mad at me?”

“No,” he said with a weak smile.

“I'm glad, because I really am sorry,” said Jane, and smiled at him. “Good-bye for now.”

“So long, Jane,” he said, without looking at her.

He looks pale under his tan, Jane observed. Actually pale. He must really be upset. She wanted to reassure him, to tell him not to be hurt—that she liked him better than any boy she had ever known—but there was no time to talk. Stan was already driving away.

“Stan!” she called urgently above the noise of the model-A engine. “Stan, phone me this afternoon!”

She could not hear his answer, but it did not matter. A boy who turned pale beneath his tan when another boy kissed her really cared, and a boy who really cared would call. Darling Stan. She was sorry for what she had done, and she could hardly wait for the telephone to ring.

Although babysitting with Patsy Scruggs was hard work, Jane was always glad when Mrs. Scruggs, the youngest of her customers, called her. Jane felt that the pleasant home the Scruggses had created with ingenuity and not much money was the sort of home she would like to have someday in the shadowy future when she was married. But first she would go to college and have a career. Just what career, she did not know—an airline stewardess, or a writer of advertising copy for a big department store, or perhaps a job at the American embassy in Paris—something like the girls in the pages of
Mademoiselle
, who always managed to be clever about clothes and to be seen in interesting
places with men who had crew cuts.

While little Patsy was engrossed in moving three dolls, a set of blocks, a floppy bear, two old aluminum pans, and a frozen orange juice can out of her doll buggy and into first one home-upholstered chair and then another, Jane, her thoughts full of Stan, sat smiling dreamily at a framed photograph of Mrs. Scruggs, looking young and radiant in her wedding gown. Darling Stan, who was sure to call soon—probably before he started his Doggie Diner route. Stan, who had really wanted to take her to the dance, Stan, who wanted her to be the first girl to ride in his car, Stan, who really cared…

Jane let her gaze drift around the room at the odds and ends of furniture, the unbleached muslin curtains at the windows, the bright unframed prints on the wall, the bookcase made of boards set on stacks of bricks, the worn copy of Dr. Benjamin Spock's
Pocket Book of Baby and Child Care
. Mrs. Stanley Crandall…Jane Purdy Crandall…Stan Crandall, Jr….

Patsy, chubby in her corduroy overalls stuffed with diapers and a pair of plastic pants, toddled across the room and plumped her floppy bear and the orange juice can into Jane's lap.

“Thank you, Patsy,” murmured Jane, and won
dered what was showing at the Woodmont Theater that evening. Or maybe Stan wouldn't ask her to go to the movies this time. Maybe they would just ride around in his car and then go to Nibley's for a milk shake. Patsy, delighted with her game, laughed and made trip after trip to Jane's lap with pans, blocks, and dolls. “Thank you, Patsy,” said Jane politely each time.

Then the telephone rang. Stan! Jane dumped Patsy's toys to the floor and flew to the kitchen, where she had to throw her shoulder against the door to open it. Doors so often stuck in Bayaire Estates. How thoughtful of Stan to call so soon! He must have remembered he had not mentioned a date for that evening and telephoned the minute he reached home. Jane picked up the receiver. “Hello,” she said eagerly.

“Hello, Jane.” It was Mrs. Scruggs. Jane not only felt let down, she also felt foolish, because of the way she must have sounded when she answered the telephone.

“I'm calling from the dentist's office,” said Mrs. Scruggs. “I forgot to tell you that when you get Patsy's lunch she likes her milk heated.”

“Yes, Mrs. Scruggs,” answered Jane. Oh, why couldn't it have been Stan who had called?

“She doesn't like it cold,” continued Mrs. Scruggs, “and she doesn't like it hot, either.”

Hurry, Mrs. Scruggs, thought Jane. Stan may be trying to get the line.

“Just heat it enough to take the chill off,” said Patsy's mother. “I don't like to chill her little stomach with milk right out of the refrigerator.”

“Of course not, Mrs. Scruggs.” Hurry and hang up, please!

“But be careful not to get it too hot,” said Mrs. Scruggs. “I wouldn't want her to burn her tongue. And when you heat it, be sure you turn the handle of the pan so she can't pull it off the stove.”

“I'll be careful,” promised Jane.

“And she likes her applesauce in the dish with the bunnies on the bottom,” Mrs. Scruggs went on.

“I'll find it,” said Jane.

“I guess that's all,” said Mrs. Scruggs, and finally left the line free for Stan.

Because it was time to fix Patsy's lunch, Jane decided to move the little girl into the kitchen with her. She did not like to leave Patsy in the living room alone, because she was never sure what mischief her small mind might devise. “Come on, Patsy,” she coaxed. “Let's go into the
kitchen and fix some nice lunch.”

Agreeably Patsy pushed her doll buggy into the kitchen and removed from it a box, which she dumped onto the floor. Spools of all sizes rolled across the linoleum.

“Patsy, you're not much help,” remarked Jane as she looked around the kitchen. Mrs. Scruggs had done everything possible to make the room childproof. The handles of the gas stove had been removed and set out of reach of little hands. Yardsticks had been run through the rows of drawer pulls so that no drawer could be opened without first pulling out a yardstick. The lower cupboards and the refrigerator door were tied shut with lengths of clothesline rope.

Patsy threw a spool across the kitchen, and Jane sighed. It was here that she had to prepare lunch. “Patsy, how would you like to sit in your high chair while I fix you some nice lunch?” At least she would be near the telephone while she worked.

“No!” said Patsy stubbornly, and hurled another spool across the kitchen.

Jane realized she had made a mistake. She should have told Patsy, not asked her. Oh, well, what difference did it make whether Patsy was
underfoot or in her high chair? She could watch the little girl while she waited for Stan's call. Jane untied the refrigerator door and removed, according to Mrs. Scruggs' instructions, the milk, some cooked green beans, a bowl containing chopped liver and bacon, some applesauce, and some cheese for her own sandwich. Then she tied the door shut again.

Next Jane untied a cupboard to look for pans, but the cupboard was full of platters and casseroles. She tied it shut again and untied another cupboard from which she removed two small pans for heating the meat and the vegetables. She tied it shut, remembered she must heat the milk, untied it, removed another pan, and tied it shut again.

Patsy rolled some spools across the floor. Stepping carefully, Jane carried the pans to the stove. Then she examined the knobs that had been removed and fitted them into place on the front of the stove. She stepped back across the kitchen and pulled a yardstick out of a row of deep drawers. The first metal-lined drawer was filled with flour, the second contained sugar, and in the third she found a loaf of bread, which she took out and placed on the draining board. Then she remem
bered that the butter was still in the refrigerator, so she untied the door again.

The telephone rang. Stan! cried Jane's heart, as she stepped on a spool, caught herself on the edge of the draining board, and picked up the receiver. “Hello?” she said, cautiously this time.

“Oh, hello, Marilyn,” said a woman's voice. “I just wanted to tell you I went downtown this morning, and Penney's is having the most wonderful sale of children's corduroy overalls. You know—the kind with snaps. These were so cute, because the knees were padded and quilted in designs like ducks and kittens, and when I saw them I thought, I must call Marilyn, because I'm sure she'll want to buy some for Patsy.”

“Excuse me,” said Jane, her voice heavy with disappointment. “This is not Mrs. Scruggs. This is her sitter.”

“Oh. Excuse
me
,” apologized the woman. “Isn't that funny? I could have sworn it was Marilyn Scruggs who answered.”

“Could I take a message?” asked Jane, wilted because the call was not from Stan. By now he had started his Doggie Diner route, but he could easily telephone from a drugstore between stops.

“No, thanks,” said the woman. “I'll call back.”

Once more the line was free for Stan. Jane heard the sound of a drawer opening behind her and turned just in time to see Patsy fill both hands with sugar and fling it onto the kitchen floor. She bubbled forth a laugh of sheer delight as she slid her little feet across the floor through the gritty sugar.

“Patsy!” cried Jane, and then told herself she might as well save her breath. It was her own fault. She should have remembered to replace the yardstick and she should not have turned her back for one instant. She would not think about the telephone anymore. Then it would be sure to ring.

Somehow Jane managed to pick up the spools, sweep up the sugar, prepare Patsy's lunch, install her in her high chair, and get her started eating, partly with a spoon and partly with her fingers. With one hand Jane ate a cheese sandwich and drank a glass of milk and with the other she assisted Patsy in finding her mouth, and all the time she wondered where Stan was on his route. The Doberman's house? The boxer's house? Or had he reached the gray poodle's house yet?

“Blah, blah, black sheep,” said Patsy, dribbling applesauce down her chin.

“Have you any wool?” prompted Jane.

Patsy squished applesauce around in her mouth and studied Jane. “No,” she answered, and Jane laughed.

When Jane finished her own lunch she used both hands to help Patsy get the applesauce into her mouth and find the bunnies in the bottom of her dish. She was about to wipe the little girl's face with a damp washcloth and find a rag for mopping up the food spilled on the floor when the telephone rang again. This time it
had
to be Stan. The third time was the charm. Jane snatched up the telephone and said breathlessly, “Hello?”

“Hello, Jane,” said Mrs. Scruggs. “I'm just leaving the dentist's office and I'll be home in about fifteen minutes. Is everything all right?”

“Everything's fine, Mrs. Scruggs,” answered Jane, disappointed a third time. “Patsy has just finished her lunch.”

“I want to talk,” cried Patsy from her high chair.

“Let her say hello,” said Mrs. Scruggs. “She loves to talk on the telephone.”

With a sigh, Jane plucked the chubby little girl from her high chair and carried her to the telephone. “Say hello to Mommy,” she directed.

Patsy grasped the telephone with both hands. “I'm fine,” she shouted into the mouthpiece before
her mother had time to speak to her. “I'm fine.”

It took Jane several minutes to separate Patsy from the telephone—the minutes, she was sure, in which Stan was trying to reach her. She dampened the washcloth again under the faucet, and while she wiped applesauce from Patsy's face and from the telephone she decided Stan might not want to call her at a stranger's house. Perhaps he was waiting until later in the afternoon, when he was sure she would be at home.

It was not long before the front door opened and Mrs. Scruggs came in. “Hello, Jane,” she said, snatching Patsy in her arms. “How's Mommy's 'ittle s'eetheart?” she cried. “How's Mommy's 'ittle s'eetheart? Have you been a good girl while Mommy was away?”

Patsy laughed and buried her face in her mother's neck. Mrs. Scruggs set the little girl down and reached for her purse. Jane glanced at her watch and saw that she had been sitting only an hour and a half. It had seemed longer. Mrs. Scruggs handed Jane seventy-five cents and Jane thanked her. The Scruggses, Jane knew, did not have much money for babysitters.

“Mrs. Scruggs, if anyone telephones for me,
would you say I'll be home in about five minutes?” Jane asked.

“Of course, Jane.” Mrs. Scruggs smiled understandingly. “Especially if someone is a boy.”

Jane left as quickly as she could and all but ran home, because she did not want to be away from a telephone an instant longer than necessary. When she entered her own house she found her mother telephoning her grocery list. “A quart of mayonnaise…a large bottle of vanilla…a box of Kleenex…oh, all right, send me two…a large box of oatmeal…yes, the quick-cooking kind…”

Hurry, Mom, thought Jane. Stan may be trying to call me between deliveries this very instant. He won't have much time.

“Do you have any nice cross-rib roasts?” Mrs. Purdy went on. “Good. Send me one about four, no, about five pounds…and a pound of lean bacon…. Let me see. Yes, I think that's all for today.”

Thank goodness, thought Jane as her mother hung up. Now Stan could reach her.

“Hello, Jane,” said Mrs. Purdy, her hand still on the telephone. “I know I forgot something. What could it be?”

“I don't know, Mom. It sounded as if you ordered everything,” answered Jane, wishing her mother would get away from the telephone.

“Oh, I know.” Jane's mother dialed a number, as if she had nothing to do the rest of the day. “Hello, this is Mrs. Purdy again. I'm sorry, but I forgot the most important item on my list. A pound of lamb liver for the cat…yes, that's right, we can't forget him. He's the most important member of the family. At least that's what he thinks.” She laughed comfortably before she hung up.

It's about time, thought Jane. Now maybe Stan can reach me. She went into her room and pulled her back-scratcher out from under the pile of sweaters in the drawer and tied it to the edge of her mirror once more. She changed into her yellow cotton dress, in case Stan dropped by instead of telephoning, and tried brushing her hair down close to her head to see how she would look with a sleek new haircut. Awful, she decided. Sort of forlorn and underfed. She fluffed up her hair again and renewed her lipstick, carefully outlining her mouth with the lipstick brush. Then she got out her paper sack of yarn and cast on seventy-six stitches to start an Argyle sock.

“Jane, would you go out and move the hose?”
Mrs. Purdy asked. “It's been running on the fuchsias long enough.”

“Okay,” said Jane. She left the front door open, in case the telephone should ring, and ran down the front steps. She turned off the water, moved the sprinkler to another corner of the lawn, turned on the water, and ran back into the house. The telephone had not rung.

As the afternoon wore on, Jane began to feel that something must be wrong. Stan had been delayed on his route. He had had a flat tire. Or, as sometimes happened, the boxer had followed the truck so far he had been obliged to return the dog to its home and tie it up. Or maybe the telephone was out of order. Or the other party on their line was talking. Quietly Jane slipped to the telephone and slid the receiver off the hook. The dial tone buzzed busily in her ear. With a sigh, she replaced the receiver. She wished the line had been out of order. Then she would know why Stan had not called. I guess a watched telephone never rings, she thought gloomily, as she went back to her knitting. Doubt began to creep into her mind. Maybe she had misunderstood. She had not actually heard Stan say he would telephone. Perhaps she had made him so angry he would never call her again.
Perhaps—but she could not bring herself to believe it.