Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories of Shirley Jackson (4 page)

S
UMMER
A
FTERNOON

R
OSABELLE
J
EMIMA
H
ENDERSON, WHO
could open and close her eyes and had real hair that could be curled and braided, lay back comfortably against the pink pillow in her doll stroller. Beside her, Amelia Marian Dawson, who could take real walking steps when her hands were held, and could say Mama and Dada upon request, slept, her long lashes shadowing her delicately colored cheeks under the roof of her doll carriage. On the front steps of the Dawson house, their maternal duties suspended for a minute, Jeannie Dawson and Carrie Henderson bent solemnly over their second-favorite game, which between themselves they called Flower People. Jeannie had fair hair pulled back into a pony tail tied with a pink ribbon, and Carrie had square-cut dark hair and wore a red shirt. Carrie thought that Jeannie’s mother was the second-nicest mother in the world, and Carrie’s father could make Jeannie laugh until she squeaked, when he made funny faces.

When they played Flower People they made tiny houses of leaves and grass, and the little bells from the bush next to Jeannie’s front porch were dainty pink and white ladies. From the low tree around the side of Jeannie’s house they gathered green pods which made cradles for the little flower children. Jeannie had a nutshell for a table in her house, and Carrie had a scrap of silver paper for a rug in her house. “My lady is coming to visit your lady,” Jeannie said, and minced a pink blossom over to Carrie’s house. “How do you do, Mrs. Brown?” the pink lady asked. “I have come to see you for lunch.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Smith,” Carrie’s white lady said, flouncing to her own front door. “Will you come in and sit down in my living room with the silver carpet and I will make some lunch for us.”

The pink lady and the white lady sat in leaf chairs and between them Carrie set a rose petal with two bird berries on it. “Will you have some ice cream?” the white lady asked. “And some cake and cookies? I made them myself.”

“Thank you very very much,” the pink lady said. “They are certainly very very delicious.”

“Listen,” Carrie said, white lady poised. “Listen, my mother
did
make some cookies today.”

“Then let’s go over to your house,” Jeannie said.

“We’ll ask her will she give us cookies and milk,” Carrie said.

Leaving the pink and white ladies at lunch, and Rosabelle and Amelia sound asleep by the steps, they moved down the front walk, stopping once to examine a small creature, which Carrie thought was most probably a daddy longlegs and Jeannie thought was almost certainly a baby caterpillar, and then paused again on the sidewalk to wonder if the moving van might possibly be going to stop on their block; when it continued on past them, they went lingeringly up the front walk to Carrie’s house. There was a path through the hedge that stood between the two houses; this was used by Jeannie’s mother and Carrie’s mother and by their fathers, going back and forth, but Carrie and Jeannie used the front walks, because they always had plenty of time.

Carrie’s mother had indeed made cookies, but it was too close to dinnertime for more than one cookie each and so, nibbling carefully around the edges to make the cookies last longer, they came out of Carrie’s house and wandered down the sidewalk again.

“I don’t want to play Flower People anymore,” Jeannie said.

“I don’t want to either,” Carrie said. “We could play hopscotch.”

“Hopscotch is really only about my fifteenth-favorite thing to do,” Jeannie said. “We could play jumprope.”

“Jumproping is only about my hundredth-favorite thing to do. We could play dancing.”

“We could color with crayons.”

“We could climb the walnut tree.”

“We could play dancing.”

Carrie thought. “We could go see Tippie,” she said.

“Yes.” Jeannie nodded so that her long hair flopped over her face. “We can go see Tippie.”

Just of a size, they moved with slow grace along the sidewalk, nibbling at their cookies. “We haven’t been to see Tippie for a very very long time,” Jeannie said.

“Maybe Tippie’s been wishing we could come to see her.”

“Maybe Tippie’s been sad because we never came.”

“It’s been days and days since we went to see Tippie.”

Without planning, they both began to skip on the same step. They did not need to ask each other if skipping might be a good idea just along here, because at this point they always began to skip, and skipped until they came just past the Browns’ driveway, where the sidewalk was broken. Then they walked again, going solemnly single file along the broken place in the sidewalk and then walking again side by side to the corner and around it, past the vacant lot where, one evening, the big boys in the neighborhood had made a Boy Scout campfire and roasted potatoes, and Carrie and Jeannie, watching curiously from the sidewalk, had each been given a toasted marshmallow, which was sticky but nice. The vacant lot belonged to the Browns, but all the big kids in the neighborhood played there, and once the boys had built a kind of hut, and no girls were allowed. Jeannie and Carrie were not allowed to play in the vacant lot because they were small, but they were allowed to walk around the block so long as they did not put one foot, not even one toe, into the street. Even when it rained and the water ran raging down the gutters and the big kids built dams and sailed leaf boats, Jeannie and Carrie were not allowed to put one toe off the sidewalk into the street. This was perfectly fair. When Jeannie and Carrie were big kids they would play in the gutter when it rained and would go to school all day and make snow forts in the vacant lot. While Jeannie and Carrie were small—it was perfectly fair—they could go all around the block, even pushing their doll carriages if they liked, but not put one toe into the street.

Once, along this block past the vacant lot, the Harris boy had given first Carrie and then Jeannie a ride in his skate wagon, and sometimes in the early evening, just after dinner, when the sky was still green and voices sounded strangely far away, Carrie and Jeannie were allowed to walk together around the corner and watch the big kids play kick-the-can in the street, or hide-and-seek around the streetlight, or prisoner’s base. One of the big girls who played prisoner’s base came sometimes to baby-sit for Jeannie or Carrie when their mothers and fathers went out in the evening, and then she would read stories, and cut out paper dolls.

Around the next corner was the part that Carrie and Jeannie did not like so well, but it was where Tippie lived. Through the trees behind these houses they could see the backs of their own houses, where they lived, and it was funny to see your own house from the back, when it couldn’t see you. One of the things that made this street less happy was Mrs. Branson’s garden, which was long and dark and shadowy with big drooping trees, and not at all a good place to play, even when Mrs. Branson did not come out and say she would call the police if children kept running over her lawn.

“I wonder if Tippie’s looking for us,” Jeannie said, skipping again; they always skipped going past Mrs. Branson’s house, because they liked to get past it quickly. “I bet she’s been waiting and waiting and waiting for us to come again.”

“I bet she’s been asking her mother could she call us on the telephone,” Carrie said.

Tippie’s house was on the corner. It would have been shorter to go around the other way, up the other side of the block, but Carrie and Jeannie always went to Tippie’s house along the street with the vacant lot; they always had plenty of time. The other way was the way to go home; after passing Tippie’s house the only place to go was the way home. Besides, from this side they could see Tippie’s window as they went along the street.

“I wonder if she’s there today,” Carrie said, stopping on the sidewalk to look up at the second-floor window. “I can see her dollhouse inside there.”

They looked up anxiously. Sometimes the window caught the sun and then they could not see anything inside, but sometimes, like today, the window shone clean and sparkling in the afternoon light.

“I can see her teddy bear and her giraffe,” Jeannie said.

“I bet she’s got her toy shelf right along under the windowsill,” Carrie said as she had said many times before. “That way, everyone can see her toys and when she comes home she can look right up and see them waiting there for her, her teddy bear and her dollhouse.”

“The Noah’s Ark is gone,” Jeannie said. “I bet she’s playing with her Noah’s Ark today.”

“And the pretty doll in the blue dress is gone. I bet she has her doll and is playing dolls with it, and then she’s going to play with her Noah’s Ark.”

“I wish she’d even wave, or something,” Jeannie said.

“I wish she’d even come to the window and look at us and wave,” Carrie said.

“I wish she’d come outdoors and play sometimes,” Jeannie said.

“Maybe she was disobedient and her mother said she had to stay in her room all day,” Carrie said as she had said many times before.

“Maybe she was sick and her mother said she had to stay in bed till her temperature went down,” Jeannie said as she had said many times before.

“Maybe she has a friend who comes to play with her every afternoon.”

“Maybe she has a baby kitten and can’t leave it all alone.”

“I wish she’d even wave, sometimes,” Carrie said.

“I bet she’s glad when we come to see her, though.”

Sighing, Carrie turned away. “I guess she doesn’t want to play with us today, either.”

They stood for a minute, looking up at the window. “Bye, Tippie,” Jeannie said softly. “Bye, Tippie,” Carrie said.

Then they began to skip, going on along the sidewalk, and skipped around the corner and most of the way down the next street; this was the longest skipping they did, because this street was not interesting at all, just houses with no children unless you counted the Andovers’ little tiny baby which might just be outside in its baby carriage and Jeannie and Carrie could tiptoe up very very softly and peek in, smiling with incredulous delight at the tiny hands and the little pink sleeping face. Today not even the Andovers’ baby was outside, and so they skipped all the way down to the corner and around that corner to Jeannie’s front steps, where the flower ladies still lingered over their dainty lunch, and Rosabelle and Amelia slept on.

“I’m going to ask my mother why Tippie can’t come out and play,” Jeannie said suddenly.

“Then your mother could call her mother on the telephone and say could Tippie come over,” Carrie pointed out. “I’m going to ask
my
mother can Tippie please come to my birthday party.”

“I’m going to ask my mother can Tippie come over tomorrow.”

“I’m going to ask my mother can Tippie come and live with us.” Giggling wildly, they reeled down the sidewalk just as the back door of Carrie’s house opened and Carrie’s mother called, “Carrie? Carrie? Time to come in now.”

Sitting in the kitchen on the high stool beside the counter, Jeannie watched her mother peeling potatoes, and sang quietly to herself. Outside it was getting darker; the leaves were changing color, and soon it would be the end of summer and the big kids would go back to school. In another year Jeannie and Carrie would go to school, would walk off each morning with the big kids, would even, perhaps, carry a book or a pencil box or lunch in a paper bag; “Mommy,” Jeannie said absently, “will Tippie go to school someday?”

“I suppose so. Who is Tippie?”

“The little girl.”

“If she’s a little girl she will certainly go to school. Where does she live?”

“Around the corner. We go to see her all the time, me and Carrie.”

Jeannie’s mother hesitated, frowning. “Another little girl around here?” she asked, and then, worried, “Baby,” she said, “have you and Carrie been crossing the street?”

“No, no, not a toe,” Jeannie said, and giggled. “Tippie lives on
our
block. Around the corner. Past Mrs. Branson’s dark old garden.”

“Which house, baby?”

“On the corner, after Mrs. Branson’s garden. We start from our own front walk and we go to the corner and we go around and we go past the vacant lot and then we go around
that
corner and we go past Mrs. Branson’s and then on the
next
corner is Tippie’s house.”

Mrs. Dawson put down the potato she was peeling and came to lean on the counter across from Jeannie; she put out one finger and touched Jeannie’s nose and both of them laughed. “Silly small thing,” Mrs. Dawson said. “That’s the Archers’ house.”

“And Tippie lives there. We go and look up at the window and we see her playing but she doesn’t come outside. We go and watch her.”

Mrs. Dawson stopped laughing and came around the end of the counter and gathered Jeannie up off the stool and then sat down with Jeannie in her lap. Jeannie curled herself up and sighed luxuriously. “Baby,” Mrs. Dawson said, “did someone talk to you about Mrs. Archer and her little girl? Maybe Helen, when she came to baby-sit?”

“No,” Jeannie said, wondering. “But can you call Mrs. Archer and ask her can Tippie come over and play sometime?”