Читать книгу The One and Only - Valerie Tripp - Страница 6

sually, when Mom asked Maryellen to clean up her room, she gave it a lick and a wish, shoving her clothes into drawers, tossing her shoes into the closet, and yanking the bed covers up. But now, Maryellen folded her clothes neatly, lined up her shoes in the closet, and pulled her covers taut so that not one lump or wrinkle could be seen. Maryellen liked to sketch, so she made a little drawing of Joan and Carolyn, wrote “Welcome!” on it, and taped it to the mirror. Then she dusted the top of the bureau, in case Joan and Carolyn wanted to put their brushes and combs there.

“Look, Mom,” she said. “Ta-da! I made everything tidy and beautiful.”

Mrs. Larkin gave Maryellen’s work a quick glance. “Good,” she said. She sounded a little out of breath because she was standing on the lower bunk bed tucking a sheet under the mattress of the upper bunk.

Mom didn’t seem overly impressed by her efforts, so Maryellen looked around to see what else she could do. She collected Tom’s trucks and Mikey’s blocks in a box and slid the box under the bed. Then she took some shirts off two hooks on the closet door so that Joan and Carolyn could hang their pajamas on the hooks.

As Maryellen was hanging the shirts on hangers in the closet, Joan and Carolyn appeared, their arms full. Maryellen was delighted to see that in addition to her pajamas, Joan was bringing her tennis dress, bobby pins, cold cream, and several books and magazines. Carolyn was bringing some clothes, some rock ’n’ roll records, and her portable record player.

Now that’s more like it! thought Maryellen. Instead of babyish toy trucks and blocks, the All Girls Room will be full of grown-up things like books, rock ’n’ roll records, and movie-star magazines.

“You need all that for one night?” asked Mom, shaking her head at Joan and Carolyn.

“Not all of it is for me,” said Carolyn. “I thought while I was at it, I might as well move these dresses I’ve outgrown into Ellie’s closet.” Carolyn showed Maryellen a plaid dress. “I wore this dress to the first day of fourth grade,” she said, “so I thought you’d like to, too.”

“Uh, thanks,” said Maryellen, polite but not thrilled.

“Hey,” said Joan, “I remember that dress. I wore it in fourth grade, too. I used to think it was so cute.”

When Joan and Carolyn left, Maryellen held the plaid dress up in front of herself as she looked in the mirror. She sighed. “Mom,” she said, “don’t you think this hand-me-down dress is sort of old and worn-out?”

“Umph,” said Mom. She was holding a pillow under her chin as she slipped a fresh pillowcase onto it.

“I sure would love a brand-new outfit to wear for the first day of fourth grade,” said Maryellen. She got carried away, imagining herself in a chic, fashionable, grown-up-looking outfit like the ones girls wore on TV shows. Oh boy! Everyone would be impressed! The perfect back-to-school dress would guarantee the perfect start to school and a perfect year in fourth grade. She said eagerly, “Mom, you and I should go shopping and—”

“Maryellen!” Mrs. Larkin interrupted in a no-nonsense voice. “Carolyn’s plaid dress is perfectly fine for your first day of school. You don’t need anything new, except maybe some socks and underwear. But right now, I can’t even think about a shopping trip. I’ve got my hands full getting ready for Betty and Florence. Now come and help me gather up these sheets for the laundry.”

“Okay, Mom,” said Maryellen. She was disappointed, but even new underwear was better than nothing. And she knew better than to press her luck. Mom sounded unusually harried. As one of six children, Maryellen had long ago learned the sad but true lesson that parents had only a certain amount of patience and energy and attention to give, and you couldn’t use more than your share or your parents got mad. So she just quietly helped Mom with the sheets. She’d save the shopping conversation for later.

After lunch, Mrs. Larkin said, “Kids, I’ve got to scrub the kitchen floor. I need you out of my hair and out of the house for a while. So put on your swimsuits and go to the beach.” She turned to Davy, who had come over for lunch, and said, “Davy, ask your mom if you may go, too, if you like.”

The girls hurried off to put on their swimsuits. The Larkins lived in Daytona Beach, Florida, just a few blocks from the ocean. Maryellen felt lucky that on hot days like this one, she could go to the beach to swim and cool off.

Maryellen was ready in a flash, so she went back to the kitchen, where Mom was helping Mikey put on his bathing trunks. Maryellen saw an old photo that she’d never seen before on the kitchen table. The photo was of Mom and two smiling ladies standing in front of a factory. Maryellen immediately figured out that the two ladies were Betty and Florence. “Hey, Mom,” she asked as she looked at the photo, “what did you and Betty and Florence do at the factory?”

“Well, they worked on the assembly line, and I was the line manager,” said Mrs. Larkin.

“The manager?” repeated Maryellen. “You mean you were the boss of the whole assembly line?”

“I sure was,” said Mom, tying Mikey’s shoelaces.

Maryellen was stunned. She had never realized that Mom had had such an important job! And now Mom just stayed home and made life organized and smooth and pleasant for their family. “What do Betty and Florence do now?” Maryellen asked.

“They’re executive secretaries at an airline company in New York,” said Mom.

“Oh,” said Maryellen. Mom’s friends’ jobs sounded swank and fancy. She asked, “Are you sorry you’re not working now, Mom?”

“Ellie, my dear,” said Mom in a jokey way as she pulled a T-shirt down over Mikey’s head, “managing you kids is harder work than managing the assembly line was.”

“Be serious, Mom,” said Maryellen.

“I am!” said Mom. “I’m seriously proud of our family, and proud of doing a good job of running our house. This is my job right now, and I like it. But nothing is forever. When Mikey is in school all day, maybe I’ll go back to work.”

“But what work would you do?” asked Carolyn, who had wandered into the kitchen with Beverly.

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Larkin. She looped a wisp of hair behind her ear. “I might work in an office, or be a saleslady in a store, or—”

“Or a movie star!” Beverly piped up.

Mrs. Larkin laughed. “I don’t think I’ll be a movie star,” she said, “though it would be nice to look glamorous, and to smell like perfume instead of peanut butter for a change.”

By now, everyone was ready to go. Mom handed some beach towels to Joan and said, “Okay, troops! Off you go to the beach. Be back by two, no later. Joan, keep an eye on the little ones. Vamoose!”

“Okay, Mom,” everyone said. “Bye!”

Davy joined the parade of Larkins walking to the beach, falling into step with Scooter and Maryellen. “What’s up, Doc?” Davy asked, pretending to be Bugs Bunny.

“I’m thinking about Mom,” said Maryellen, “and what her life was like when she had a job during the war. Guess what? It turns out that Mom was important! She was a line boss at the factory.”

“Wow!” said Davy. “Why’d she quit?”

“Lots of women quit working after the war,” said Carolyn, “so the returning soldiers could have jobs.”

“Mom shouldn’t have quit. She was famous,” Beverly sighed, “like a movie star.”

“Well, she wasn’t exactly a movie star, but she was the star of the factory back when Betty and Florence worked with her,” said Maryellen. “And now Mom’s life is about as exciting and glamorous as…as…”

“Scooter’s,” Davy finished for her.

“Yes,” sighed Maryellen. Her heart swelled with love and sympathy for Mom. Probably Mom felt sort of taken for granted. Maryellen knew how that felt. Surely Mom missed standing out and being admired, as she had been when she was an important boss at the factory. Maryellen made up her mind right then: I’m going to think of a way for Mom to impress her friends. Her next thought made her so excited, her heart skipped a little skip: And then Mom will be impressed with me.

Maryellen loved the ocean: its roar, its salty tang, and the huge blueness of it stretching all the way to the sky. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” she challenged Carolyn and Davy.

Legs pumping, arms waving, the three kids raced across the scorching sand. Maryellen plunged headfirst into an incoming wave. Swoosh! She had timed it just right, so that the wave lifted her up into the bright summery air. “Yahoo!” Maryellen hooted exuberantly.

In a second, Carolyn popped up next to Maryellen in the water. Davy popped up next.

“What took you guys so long?” asked Maryellen, grinning.

Carolyn was grinning, too. “All right,” she said. “You win, as usual.”

“I guess I’m the rotten egg,” said Davy. “But watch out—someday I’ll be faster than you.”

Maryellen doubted it. Davy was a pretty good runner, but Maryellen was fiercely determined when it came to running. She had had a sickness called polio when she was younger, and one leg was a little bit weaker than the other. Sometimes Maryellen worried that Mom babied her because of her leg. But Maryellen never let her leg slow her down.

It was fun to be at the beach with Davy and her brothers and sisters, but Maryellen missed Dad. He loved being at the beach, too, and always rode the waves with her. She floated in the water and looked back at the shore. Queen Beverly was building herself a sand castle under the beach umbrella. Tom and Mikey kept knocking her castle down, so after a little while, Davy got out of the water to help her by distracting them. “Hey, boys!” Davy shouted as he walked up the beach. “Let’s dig a hole to China.”

Joan was lying on a beach towel, reading as usual. Scooter snoozed next to her.

“Say, Joan,” Carolyn called. “Come on in—the water’s fine.”

Joan didn’t even take her eyes off her book. “No thanks,” she called back.

“I bet she doesn’t want to get her hair wet,” Carolyn said to Maryellen. “She has a tennis date with Jerry later.”

“Oooh, a date!” said Maryellen, instantly interested. Jerry was Joan’s boyfriend. He went to college and had a car. Maryellen thought Jerry was a dreamboat. He reminded her of David Nelson, a college boy on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, because he was so handsome. Even though she was still mad at Joan for the crabby, critical things she’d said that morning, Maryellen had to admit that pretty Joan and handsome Jerry were the perfect couple.

A brilliant thought came to her. If Joan married Jerry, she’d move out and go to live with him. Then she’d stop picking on Maryellen all the time—and Maryellen would have only Mom to win over about the All Girls Room.

Maryellen turned to Carolyn, who knew all about love and marriage because she was in high school, and asked, “Do you think Joan and Jerry will get married?”

“Well,” said Carolyn, lighting up, “millions of girls do get married after high school. And Joan and Jerry are already going steady. The next step is for Jerry to give Joan his fraternity pin. That means they’re engaged to be engaged. Then he gives her an engagement ring, and then comes the wedding.”

“Gee,” said Maryellen. “I didn’t realize there were so many steps. I was sort of hoping they’d get married soon.”

“Me too,” said Carolyn. “I love weddings! I wonder if Joan would let us be bridesmaids.”

“Maybe you and I could encourage Joan and Jerry,” said Maryellen.

“How?” asked Carolyn.

“Well, first of all, we could give Jerry a little nudge,” said Maryellen, “and tell him to hurry up and propose to Joan.”

“Yikes,” said Carolyn. “I’m too chicken to do that.”

“I’m not,” said Maryellen. “Jerry’s not scary.”

“It’s not Jerry I’m scared of,” said Carolyn. “It’s Joan. She’d skin us alive if she found out.”

“She doesn’t need to know,” said Maryellen. “We’ll just talk to Jerry sometime when Joan’s not around.”

Carolyn began to say, “Joan won’t—” But right then, Davy came splashing back into the water.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s do backward somersaults.”

“Okay!” said Maryellen and Carolyn, putting the topic of marriage aside.

The three kids curled up with their knees under their chins and used their arms to spin themselves around backward, swirling under the water and then up into the dazzling, sunny air. One of Maryellen’s favorite TV shows was a broadcast of the waterskiing and synchronized-swimming show at Cypress Gardens, which was right in her own state of Florida. Maryellen pretended now that she was one of the Cypress Gardens mermaids, and practiced smiling for the television camera every time she came up for air after flipping and twirling underwater.

In a little while, Joan called, “Okay, kids! Time to go.”

Normally, everyone would beg to stay longer. But today, Maryellen, Davy, and Carolyn ran up to the umbrella and toweled off and put their shoes on, and Beverly and the little boys picked up their sand pails and shovels and got ready to walk home without a murmur. Today Betty and Florence were coming!

Maryellen rushed to help Joan shake the sand off her beach towel and fold it neatly. Joan said nothing, but raised her eyebrows at Maryellen’s unusual eagerness to be neat. Then Joan tucked her towel and book under her arm, put Mikey in his stroller, and took Tom by the hand. Carolyn, Maryellen, and Beverly hoisted the beach umbrella onto their shoulders and carried it, all in a row, with Maryellen in the middle. Davy brought up the rear, herding sluggish Scooter homeward.

The Larkins lived in a housing development in Daytona Beach called The Palms. The development had its own community pool, but the Larkin kids weren’t allowed to go there for fear of catching polio. There had been a polio epidemic two years ago—that’s when Maryellen had had it—and ever since then, Dad had put the kibosh on going to the community pool. It was forbidden.

Maryellen knew just about everyone who lived in the houses on her street, most of them in big families like hers. She had always liked how safe and familiar her neighborhood was, and how homey the pretty little matching houses were, all lined up in rows, facing one another cheerfully across the street. Each house had a driveway, a carport, a small lawn, and a palm tree. But suddenly, today, the sameness felt flat to Maryellen. Today, it occurred to her that The Palms might look dull to Betty and Florence. They lived in New York City, for heaven’s sake! Maryellen had never been to New York, but she knew that it was an exciting, bustling big city full of action and variety. And she could tell that Mom wanted to impress Betty and Florence. How could their home be impressive if it was just like all the other houses on the street?

“You can hardly tell these houses apart,” Maryellen said aloud. “About the only difference is that some houses have pink plastic flamingos on their lawns and some don’t. We should do something to make our house stand out.”

“Like what?” asked Carolyn.

“I don’t know yet,” said Maryellen. “But I’ll think of something.”

As they walked up the driveway, Maryellen thought hard about what she could do to make their house extraordinary instead of extra ordinary. Davy waved good-bye and went next door to his own house. Mom met them at the kitchen door, standing in the shade of the carport. She was wearing a dress and a hat and high-heeled sandals, and the car keys jingled in her hand. “I’m on my way to the airport to pick up Betty and Florence,” Mom said.

“Wow, Mom, you look beautiful,” said Maryellen. “You look just like a mother on TV.” That was Maryellen’s highest compliment. It worried her a little bit that most of the time, Mom distinctly did not look like one of the mothers on TV who vacuumed their spotless houses wearing high heels and pearls and always had a chocolate cake on hand. Instead, Mrs. Larkin usually wore sneakers, pedal pushers, and one of Dad’s old shirts. But today, Maryellen saw that Mom’s fingernails and toenails had fire-engine-red polish on them. They were as red and shiny and eye-popping as Mom’s red lipstick. Now Maryellen was absolutely positive: Mom really wanted to impress Betty and Florence. Oh, she ached to help Mom do just that!

That’s when Maryellen had a great idea about how to snazz up their house. She thought of a surefire way that she, all by herself, could make their house stand out from every other house on the street. She couldn’t wait to make it happen.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Larkin was saying, “Thank you, darlings. Everything is spick-and-span and perfect for Betty and Florence, and I want it to stay that way. So everyone, please hose off your feet before you go inside. I don’t want you tracking sand all over my clean kitchen floor.”

“Okay, Mom,” said everybody automatically.

“What smells so good?” asked Carolyn.

“Oh, I’m glad you reminded me,” said Mom, a little bit flustered. “There are brownies in the oven. Take them out when the timer dings, okay? But don’t eat any.”

“Okay, Mom,” said everybody automatically again. Maryellen was so excited about her idea that she wasn’t really paying much attention.

“Well, all right. I’d better go,” said Mrs. Larkin. She got in the car. As she drove off, she waved and called out the window, “Be good.”

“Okay, Mom,” said everybody one more time.

Hurray, thought Maryellen, happy and excited. Mom’s finally gone. Now I can work on my surprise.