Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself (5 page)

They left on a Saturday morning, from the railroad station in Newark, on a train called
The Champion
. Douglas was disappointed. He’d wanted to fly. “Flying is fine for people in a hurry,” Daddy had explained, “but it’s much more expensive and you’ll have a good time this way.”

Sally was relieved. She didn’t want to fly anywhere but if she told that to her father he might get the wrong idea and think she wasn’t adventurous after all. Why wasn’t Douglas afraid of anything? That didn’t seem fair. Sally felt safe on trains. She was used to them. It bothered her that in this respect she was like her mother.

Daddy came on board, carrying a wicker lunch basket, and helped them get settled in their seats, with Sally and Douglas facing Mom and Ma Fanny. Then he kissed them goodbye for the hundredth time and went back to the platform where he waited with Aunt Bette and Uncle Jack. When the train started Sally waved and blew kisses. And she kept waving until she couldn’t see them anymore.

“I’ll trade seats with you,” Sally said to Douglas.

“Not now … we’ve only been gone five minutes.”

“You promised you’d share the window seat with me.”

“I’ll switch in an hour.”

“Make it half an hour and I won’t nudge you.”

“Sit back in your seat, Sally,” Mom said, sounding sharp.

“What for?”

“Because I said so.”

“But I like to sit up …”

“Stop that right now,” Mom said, “or you won’t get the window seat at all.”

“Stop what?”

“She can have mine,” Ma Fanny said. “What do I need with a window seat?”

“No, Ma … she can stay right where she is.”

“Yeah,” Douglas muttered.

“Who asked you?” Sally said. She was annoyed at Mom. If Ma Fanny wanted to switch places what did Mom care? Sally turned around and adjusted the white linen napkin clipped to the top of her seat so that her head rested against it. The seats were soft and comfortable, not like the hard ones on the train to New York. These cushions were covered in blue velvet.

Ma Fanny pulled out her knitting. She was the fastest knitter Sally had ever seen. Her needles
clicked together as the wool flew off her fingers. Mom knitted more slowly, but her sweaters turned out just as good. Ma Fanny had taught Sally to knit. She could do knit-one-purl-one, and knit-two-purl-two, but her squares always came out with holes in the middle where she’d dropped stitches by mistake.

The train picked up speed and Sally and Douglas watched the scenery whiz by. After a while Douglas took out the latest issue of
Popular Mechanics
and Sally browsed through the two new Nancy Drew books Aunt Bette had given to her as a going-away present. She’d been really surprised to find them inside the pretty package because Aunt Bette didn’t approve of Nancy Drews. She thought Sally should be reading the books about the prairie girl.

Sally wrote Christine a postcard.

Sally didn’t know what
Love and other indoor sports
meant but she used to have a baby sitter named Carolyn who signed all her letters that way. Sally didn’t like Carolyn because she was always
writing letters. She never had time to play games. One time, when Carolyn left the room for a few minutes, Sally looked at one of her letters and saw how it was signed. When Carolyn came back Sally asked, “What does
Love and other indoor sports
mean?”

“Have you been reading my letters?” Carolyn asked.

“No.”

“Then how do you know about
Love and other indoor sports?
”

“I saw it, on the bottom of your letter, but I didn’t read anything else … I promise …”

“I hope you’re telling the truth,” Carolyn said, “because you know what happens to nosey little girls, don’t you?”

“No … what?”

“Nothing very good!”

“Can’t you just tell me what
Love and other indoor sports
means?”

Carolyn laughed. “Some day you’ll find out.”

So far she hadn’t. But Christine wouldn’t know that Sally didn’t know.

They ate lunch in their seats. The wicker basket was filled with roast chicken sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies and fresh fruit. When they’d finished, Ma Fanny offered some of the extras to the soldiers sitting behind them.

After lunch Mom and Ma Fanny dozed off and
Sally and Douglas walked to the club car. It was fixed up like Alice Ingram’s recreation room, with a bar, sofas, and tables and chairs. Douglas bought two Cokes and he and Sally sat at a card table and played a few hands of Go Fish. Douglas won every time.

“Are you glad we’re going to Florida?” Sally asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Same here.”

Douglas reminded Sally of a grasshopper. His legs were growing very long and the shape of his face was long too, and thin, with big brown eyes. He had very nice hair, blonde and wavy, the kind Sally would have liked because then Mom wouldn’t have to set hers in rag curlers each night.

“Did you know when I first got my kidney infection it burned when I pissed?”

“It did?” Douglas was always trying to shock her with bad words.

“Yeah … something awful … I wanted to climb the walls.”

“You said funny things when you had your fever,” Sally told him.

“Like what, for instance?”

“Oh, I don’t remember exactly … a lot of mumbo-jumbo stuff …”

“No kidding?”

“Honest.”

“Could you make anything out?” Douglas asked.

“No … I didn’t get to listen that much … I was at school all day and then they wouldn’t let me in your room most of the time …” Sally took a sip of her Coke and promptly got the hiccups.

“You shouldn’t drink that stuff.”

“But I like it.”

“Yeah … but you get the hiccups every single time.”

“They’ll go away.”

“I thought I was going to die,” Douglas said. “And I didn’t even care … that’s how bad I felt.”

“I thought so too … for a little while.”

“No kidding?”

“Really.”

“Were you sorry?”

“Well, naturally … who’d want to be an only child?”

“I figured you’d inherit my bicycle.”

“Why would I even want your bicycle?”

“It’s newer than yours … and bigger …”

“So … I wouldn’t want you to die just because of that … don’t you think I have any feelings?” She hiccupped loudly and the bartender started to laugh.

When they got back to their seats Mom was still dozing and Ma Fanny was reading
The Forward
,
her Yiddish newspaper. Across the aisle and two seats ahead of them was a Negro woman with two little boys and a baby girl. The boys had been watching Sally all morning and now she took some cookies out of the basket and crossed the aisle, offering them to the children.

“How nice,” their mother said. “Say,
thank you
, Kevin and Kenneth.”

“Thank you Kevin and Kenneth,” they said at the same time, making Sally laugh. She wasn’t as interested in them as she was in the baby, who sat on her mother’s lap.

“My name’s Sally Freedman and I’m going to Miami Beach because my brother, Douglas, who’s sitting right over there, has been sick with a kidney infection …”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I’m Mrs. Williamson and this is Kevin and this is Kenneth.” She touched each boy on the head as she said his name. “We’re going to Miami, too. We’re going to visit our granny, who’s never seen Loreen.” She held up the baby.

“She’s so cute,” Sally said. “How old is she?”

“Eight months.”

“Hi, Loreen …” Sally said. The baby smiled at her. “I think she likes me. Can I hold her?”

“Sure … if you sit down. Kevin, come sit by me and we’ll let Sally hold Loreen for a while.”

“You’ll be sorry,” Kevin said. “She makes pooeys.”

“So did you when you were a baby,” his mother reminded him.

Sally got comfortable with Loreen on her lap. As soon as she did the baby grabbed a fistful of her hair and tried to get it into her mouth.

“No, no …” Sally said, forcing the baby’s fist open.

“And she eats hair,” Kevin said. “That’s how dumb she is.”

Loreen laughed and made gurgling noises.

“She’s teething,” Mrs. Williamson said. “Here … give her this.” She passed a teething ring to Sally. Loreen put it in her mouth and went, “Ga-ga.”

“That’s all she ever says,” Kenneth told Sally.

Sally held Loreen until the baby fell asleep. Then she gave her back to Mrs. Williamson and went to her own seat.

“What were you doing over there?” Mom asked.

“Playing with the baby.”

“You shouldn’t be bothering them.”

“I wasn’t … I was helping …”

“From now on just stay in your own seat and read a book or something … it’s almost time for dinner.”

“Okay …” Sally said.

They ate in the dining car, and after took a walk to the club car, where they played checkers. Then it was time to get ready for bed. Sally, Mom and Ma Fanny changed into night clothes in the Ladies’
Room and when Sally brushed her teeth Mom warned her not to put her mouth on the fountain when she rinsed. “You could get
trench mouth
that way, God forbid.” Sally was careful.

There were sleeping compartments on
The Champion
but Sally and her family slept right in their seats. The porter gave them each a pillow and a blanket and showed them how to tilt their chairs way back. The lights in the car dimmed and the steady rhythm of the train soon put Sally to sleep.

She half awoke sometime in the middle of the night, vaguely aware that the train had stopped and that Ma Fanny was snoring softly.

In the morning Loreen and her family were gone. “But they’re going to Miami too,” Sally said. “Mrs. Williamson told me.”

“They had to change cars,” Mom said.

“But why?”

“Because they’re Negro.”

“So?”

“We’re in a different part of the country now, Sally … and colored people don’t ride with white people here.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Maybe not … but that’s the way it is.”

Sally was bored without Loreen, and angry that Mom didn’t seem to care that the Williamsons had to change cars. The day dragged on and on. Breakfast
turned into lunch and lunch turned into supper. Douglas kept pointing out the change in the scenery. They had to be getting close, he said. There were palm trees everywhere. Sally was tired of just sitting. She wished she could get off the train and run around.

Finally the conductor called, “Next stop … Miami … Miami, Florida …”

Finally they were there.

Sally stepped off the train, stretched, and yawned loudly. Now her adventure would begin. But what did that mean? Maybe I don’t want an adventure, Sally thought. Maybe I’d just rather go home. Her stomach rolled over, and tears came to her eyes. “I want to go home,” she said, but no one heard. They were too busy trying to find a porter.

They took a taxi to 1330 Pennsylvania Avenue, a pink stucco, U-shaped building, with a goldfish pool in front. Their apartment was ugly. Ugly and bare and damp. Mom opened the windows while Sally went looking for the bedrooms, but all she could find was a tiny kitchen, a breakfast nook, a bathroom and an alcove.

“I thought you said this place was interesting,” Sally said to her mother.

“And it is,” Mom answered. “Look at this …” Sally followed her into the alcove and watched as Mom opened a door in the wall and pulled down a bed. “You see … it fits right into the wall … it’s called a Murphy bed … isn’t that clever … and interesting?” But she didn’t sound as if she really thought so herself.

“Who sleeps on that?”

“Me and Ma Fanny,” Mom said. “You and Douglas get the day beds in the livingroom.

“You and Ma Fanny are going to sleep together … in the same bed?”

“Why not?” Ma Fanny asked. “I don’t take up much room.”

“But what about when Daddy comes?”

“Oh, well … when Daddy comes Ma Fanny will sleep on the bed that’s tucked away
under
your day bed. We have plenty of room … plenty …” Mom brushed some loose hairs away from her forehead.

Sally thought of the four big bedrooms in her house in New Jersey. Of her own room with twin beds so she could have friends sleep overnight. And then she remembered how Christine had said that only millionaires spend the winter in Florida and she felt like laughing, not because it was funny but because if Christine could see this place she’d change her mind pretty quick.

“So what do you think?” Mom asked Ma Fanny.

“With new slipcovers and curtains, a few plants, some knick-knacks, a throw rug here and there, a picture or two on the wall … not bad. Maybe not worth what you had to pay under the table, but not bad. It could be worse.”

“We had no choice,” Mom said, her voice breaking, “everything’s so scarce right now.”

“Don’t worry,” Ma Fanny said, touching Mom’s arm, “as soon as my Singer gets here you’ll never recognize the place.”

“Where’s the telephone?” Douglas asked.