Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself (10 page)

When Miss Swetnick had finished dictating they
folded their hands on their desks and she walked up and down the aisles grading their papers. Sally dug her nails into her palms. She hoped, she prayed, that today would be the day she’d get an E, but when Miss Swetnick came by she hardly glanced at Sally’s paper. She just made a big G in red pencil at the top, smiled, and said, “Your letters are too big and there’s too much space between each word.”

Barbara got another E for excellent.

As soon as Miss Swetnick moved to another aisle Sally felt a tug on her right braid. She whipped around in her seat to tell Peter Hornstein to leave her hair alone once and for all and when she did her braid hit her face.

“Miss Swetnick … Miss Swetnick …” Sally called, wiping ink off her cheek. “I’ve got ink all over me …” She held up her hand to show Miss Swetnick.

Barbara leaned across the aisle. “It’s on the back of your dress, too,” she whispered.

“Oh … and it’s on my dress … my mother’s going to kill me!”

“How did that happen?” Miss Swetnick asked.

“I don’t know,” Sally said.

“Peter … did you dip Sally’s hair in your inkwell?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Peter said. “By accident.”

Sally turned around in her seat. “You dipped my braid in your ink?”

“It got in the way,” Peter said. “It’s always in the way … hanging onto my desk … tickling my fingers …”

“Peter,” Miss Swetnick said, “Sally’s braids hang straight down her back, not onto your desk. You must have reached out for one of them …”

Sally glared at him.

He smiled back.

“Oh, Peter …” Miss Swetnick sighed and took off her glasses. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I don’t know, Ma’am,” Peter said.

From the back of the room, where the tallest kids in the class sat, Harriet Goodman called, “You should send him to the office, Miss Swetnick.”

“When I want your advice, Harriet, I’ll ask for it,” Miss Swetnick said.

“I thought you did … you said that you don’t know …”

“I
know
what I said. Thank you, Harriet!” Miss Swetnick came over to Peter’s desk and shook her head. “You’ll have to stay after school again. This time the blackboards get washed, the plants get watered and you’ll write
I will not misbehave in class
twenty-five times in your best handwriting.”

“But Miss Swetnick …” Peter said, “I have six spelling words to write. I’ll never get done.”

“Maybe you’ll remember that before you start fooling around again.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Sally, go and wash off your face.”

“What about my hair and my dress?”

“You can do that at home.”

“Yes, Miss Swetnick.” She still couldn’t bring herself to say
Ma’am
.

As they were lining up to go home Harriet Goodman stood behind Sally and said, “Miss Swetnick will never send Peter to the office because she goes with his brother. Everybody knows that … and I still don’t like you …”

After school Sally went to Barbara’s house. She lived a few blocks up from Sally in a yellow building with hibiscus bushes out front. Her apartment was on the first floor and had a damp smell. Sally remembered Mom saying that first floor apartments were no good in Florida because of the dampness. There was nobody home.

“My mother works,” Barbara said. “She gets home at five-thirty.”

“Oh.” Sally didn’t know anybody who had a working mother.

“She’s a secretary for National Airlines.”

“My father might fly National at Thanksgiving.”

“My mother says they’re all the same. Want a glass of milk?”

“If you do.”

“I do if you do.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Okay … then I’ll have some.”

“Okay … me too.”

“Want a fig newton with it?” Barbara asked. “They’re my favorites.”

“Mine too.”

“My sister likes butter cookies best.”

“I didn’t know you have a sister.”

“Yes … her name’s Marla … she’ll be home later … she’s in tenth grade.”

“My brother’s in ninth … but he should only be in eighth … he’s a genius.”

“My sister’s not … but she’s a majorette … she can twirl two batons at once.”

“I can’t even twirl one.”

“Me neither … but I’m going to learn.”

“Maybe I can too,” Sally suggested.

“Yes, we could learn together.”

“That’d be fun,” Sally said. “Except I don’t have a baton.”

“Maybe you can get one …” Barbara said. “Want to see my room?”

“Sure.”

They grabbed a few more cookies and carried their milk glasses through the small livingroom to the bedroom.

“Peter Hornstein likes you,” Barbara said.

“He does?”

“Yes … otherwise he wouldn’t dip your hair in his inkwell.”

“Really?” This was certainly news to Sally.

“Yes … my sister’s an expert on that stuff and she told me that if a boy teases you it means he likes you.”

“Well … I don’t mind,” Sally said. “I think he’s cute … don’t you?”

“No … I think he looks like a chimpanzee.”

“Just because his ears stick out?” Sally asked.

“That and the shape of his mouth.”

“Harriet Goodman says Miss Swetnick goes with Peter’s brother …”

“She does,” Barbara said. “Everybody knows …”

“I never knew.”

“You do now!” Barbara sat down on a bed. “This is my side of the room … I like my things neat and Marla’s a slob so my mother divided the room for us.”

Barbara’s bed was covered with a white spread and on her shelves were rows of miniature dolls and jelly glasses filled with sharpened pencils. Marla’s side of the room was a mess, with an unmade bed and clothing all over the floor.

“Where does your mother sleep?” Sally asked.

“In the livingroom … on the sofa.”

“How about your father … when he comes down?”

“My father’s dead,” Barbara said, slurping up the last of her milk. She brushed the crumbs off her hands into the waste basket. “You want to see his picture?”

“Sure.” Sally didn’t know what else to say.

Barbara took a silver framed photo from the top of her dresser and handed it to Sally. The picture showed a handsome man in a uniform and across the bottom he had written,
For my darling daughters, Marla and Barbara, Love always, Daddy
. “He got it in the Pacific,” Barbara said. “Right in the gut …” She punched herself in the stomach. “They sent us his dog tags.”

“Who?”

“Washington … the marines … you know …”

“Oh.”

“I can show them to you if you want … I know where my mother keeps them.”

“Okay.”

Sally followed Barbara into the livingroom where she opened a desk drawer and pulled out a velvet jewelry box. She handed it to Sally. “Go on … open it …”

Sally raised the lid. Inside was a chain with Barbara’s father’s dog tags.

“His name was Jacob Ash … but my mother and everyone else called him Jack. We moved here after … she needed to get away … she cried a
lot … he had big hands … when I was little he carried me on his shoulders so I wouldn’t get tired … at first I hated him for dying but now I understand it wasn’t his fault …” Barbara closed the box and put it back in the drawer. “Let’s go outside,” she said. “We can play statues.”

When Sally got home her mother said, “Sally Freedman … what happened to your dress?”

“Nothing much … it’s just ink,” Sally said.

“How did that happen … ink won’t come out … the dress is ruined …”

“It was an accident,” Sally said. “My braid got into Peter Hornstein’s inkwell by mistake and then I shook my head and the ink splattered …”

“That’s no excuse …”

Sally looked around. “Where’s Ma Fanny?”

“At her card game … why?”

“Because
she’d
know what to do!”

“I know what to do, too,” Mom said, “… soak it in seltzer water … but that’s not the point. You’ve got to learn to take care of your things … I can’t afford to replace them … money doesn’t grow on trees!”

“There are some things that are more important than money,” Sally shouted, “or clothes!” And suddenly she started to cry. She ran for the bathroom. When Mom knocked on the door Sally opened it hallway and handed her the soiled dress.

Sally was stretched out on the floor, drawing. “How old is Daddy going to be on his birthday?” she asked her mother.

“Forty-two,” Mom said, looking up from her book. “Why?”

“I want to put it on this card I’m making him,” Sally said, pulling a green crayon from her box of Crayolas. “How soon do I have to mail it?”

“Tomorrow, to be safe,” Mom said. “His birthday’s the fifteenth.”

“What do you think of my rhyme?” Sally asked.
“Forty-two and I love you!”

“Original …” Douglas said, munching on a piece of coconut. “Very original.”

Sally made a face at him and thought harder. “How about this?
Don’t be blue just because you’re forty-two
.”

“Oh, God …” Mom jumped up and ran into the bathroom.

“Smart,” Douglas said to Sally. “Very smart …”

“What’d I do?”

“You had to go and bring up the subject.”

“What subject?”

“Dad’s age.”

“So, it’s his birthday.”

“Yeah … but Uncle Eddie and Uncle Abe were both forty-two when they died … did you know that?”

“No,” Sally said, “that’s impossible … I remember them … they were both old …”

“It seemed that way to you because you were only four or something …”

“I don’t believe you,” Sally said, standing up.

“Why else do you think she’s in there, crying?” Douglas nodded in the direction of the bathroom.

“Who says she’s crying?” It made Sally uncomfortable to think of Mom crying.

Douglas shrugged and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Sally asked.

“Out.”

“Can I come?”

“No!” He let the screen slam shut.

Sally wished Ma Fanny were home instead of out walking with Andrea’s grandmother. They walked together just about every night, after supper.

Later, when Sally went to bed, she couldn’t stop thinking about her father, and then about Barbara. Barbara was the only friend she had with no father.
Even though very few of her new friends lived with their fathers, they still had them. But not Barbara. Her father was dead … killed in the war. How would it feel to know your father was dead and not coming down for Thanksgiving … that you would never see him again …

Sally prayed hard.
Please God, let Doey-bird get through this bad year … this year of being forty-two … we need him, God … we love him … so don’t let him die
. She started to cry quietly, worrying that her father was lonely, that something terrible would happen to him.
Keep him well, God … you wouldn’t let three brothers die at the same age, would you?
But somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered hearing that bad things always happen in threes. If only she was home in New Jersey now … she’d watch her father carefully … she’d make sure he got plenty of rest and if he caught cold or something she’d make him go straight to bed and stay there … and she’d get him to stop smoking two packs of Camels a day …

Finally she drifted off to sleep. She dreamed Miss Kay had died. It was raining and they were all at her funeral—Sally, Douglas, Mom, Aunt Bette, Uncle Jack, Ma Fanny. Miss Kay just lay in her coffin, dressed in her nurse’s uniform. She had a kind of smile on her face and was wearing bright red lipstick.
But where was Daddy? Why wasn’t he there too? Sally called out and sat up.

“Shut up,” Douglas said, “some people are trying to sleep.”

“I had a bad dream,” Sally told him.

“Well, it’s over now so go back to sleep.”

At breakfast the next morning Sally said, “I dreamed Miss Kay was dead.”

“That means she’s going to get married,” Ma Fanny said, pouring the juice.

“It does? But how would
I
know that she’s going to get married?”

“When you dream somebody dies it means they’re going to get married,” Ma Fanny said. “Everybody knows that … right, Louise?”

“Yes,” Mom said, “of course …” She was browsing through the morning paper, sipping a cup of tea.

“But suppose the person is already married and you dream that?” Sally said, mashing her shredded wheat.

“That means the person will stay happily married for years and years,” Ma Fanny answered. “Right, Louise?”

“Right,” Mom said, looking up from the paper. “And Miss Kay would be very happy to hear about your dream because she’d like to meet a nice man and get married.”

“You think I should write and tell her about it?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Mom said. “You can wait until the next time you see her.”

“But I won’t see her for a very long time.”

“That’s okay,” Mom said. “It’ll keep.”

Douglas was reading the back of the cereal box. He never had anything to say in the morning.

“Ma Fanny …” Sally said.

“What, sweetie-pie?”

“Do you believe that bad things always happen in threes?”

“Not always … but sometimes,” Ma Fanny said.

“How can you tell when it will be like that … when something bad will happen three times?”