Nora Read online

  Would she touch me, kiss me, tell me to take my feet off the glass-topped table, as she always did? All I want is for her to be free of pain and to be at peace.

  Six

  Roberta Middleton has a strip-poker party every time her parents go away and leave her Aunt May in charge. Aunt May is pretty old and deaf and she likes to drink a hot toddy while she watches Wheel of Fortune with the sound turned up to the max. When Aunt May’s in charge, the sky’s the limit.

  In strip poker, you’re supposed to take off one piece of clothing every time you lose. I wear ten or twelve T-shirts, one over the other, when I play. Other kids wear tons of bracelets and/or earrings, which they remove slowly, one by one. That way no one ever gets down to the bare bod.

  Actually, I wouldn’t have minded checking out a couple bare bods belonging to Roberta and/or Erica. It was my own bare bod I didn’t want to flaunt. Well, maybe flaunt isn’t exactly the right word.

  Roberta thought strip poker sounded sexy. If you ask me, playing strip poker with a bunch of girls is about as sexy as playing Go Fish or Old Maid.

  Patsy and I talked it over and decided Roberta’s crowd was too immature. Roberta and I had been in the same Brownie troop and Roberta says that forms an unbreakable bond. Roberta’s mother was our troop leader. She’s very civic minded and is on lots of committees and stuff. She’s also president of the PTA and she collects for all diseases, big and small. When she walks up a person’s front walk with her collection can in hand, the person inside hides. Then, after fifteen minutes or so, they peek out to see if she’s gone and there she is, standing, waiting. Roberta’s mother can be very patient.

  Whenever I threaten to leave Roberta’s crowd on account of her friends’ immaturity, Roberta gets all huffy. “All right for you,” she says. “After all we’ve been through.”

  “What?” I say. “Name one thing!”

  “Plenty of things.”

  “Oh, all right.” I always give in. I guess I like Roberta in spite of everything.

  “Let’s not go to Roberta’s,” Patsy said. “I’m not in the mood for juvenile high jinks.”

  “We can say we have to go out to dinner with Daddy and The Tooth,” I said. “Remember? He wants us to go out with them Saturday night so we can get to know her better. So it wouldn’t be a lie.”

  “Forget it,” Patsy said. “So we go to Roberta’s, but I swear on a stack of Bibles, it’s the last time. Next time Roberta has a strip-poker bash, I’ll probably have a date, anyway.”

  “Who with?”

  “Who do you think, turkey?”

  “Daddy won’t let you go out on a date with a boy,” I said. “You’re only twelve. He might let you go, I guess, if I offered to chaperone.”

  That shut her up.

  Roberta called. “Bring refreshments,” she said. “My mother’s all bent out of shape because she had to chair the library meeting last night and that upset her schedule. Annabelle’s bringing her sinful chocolate delight—Milky Ways, chocolate chips, and Hershey Bars all melted together.” Over the phone I could hear Roberta smacking her lips.

  “Maybe we can’t come,” I said. “Daddy wants us to go out to dinner with him and The Tooth.”

  “Whoa, heavy duty,” Roberta said. “Is it black-tie?”

  She gets that stuff from her mother, who always asks “Is it black-tie?” even when someone invites her to a cookout.

  In the end Patsy and I went to Roberta’s. It seemed the lesser of two evils. To give you an idea of Roberta’s crowd, they drink tomato juice with a dash of Tabasco and call it a “Virgin Mary.” (I scarcely think the Virgin Mary would’ve drunk tomato juice, even if they had tomato juice back then, which I doubt.)

  Patsy and I made our world-famous yogurt dip to bring to Roberta’s. It’s cut-up radishes and cucumbers and anything else you have handy added to plain yogurt with a splash of salsa, medium hot. Everybody hates it except us. It makes your mouth tingle.

  Roberta came to the door wearing a jumpsuit covered with gigantic red flowers. She is a large, stout girl with a booming voice who should never be caught dead wearing a jumpsuit, with or without red flowers. This is only my private opinion.

  “I just got the skinny on the invaders,” Roberta said, dragging us inside. Roberta always drags her guests inside as if she’s afraid they might escape.

  “Word got out about this party.” Roberta’s eyes darted from me to Patsy and back to me. “Zero hour is eight P.M. That’s when the enemy plans to attack. Even as we speak, the troops are gathering.”

  The last time Roberta threw a strip-poker party, some guys we knew tried to crash. So Roberta got out her father’s bullhorn, a souvenir of his unsuccessful bid to be elected town supervisor, and turned on the enormous outdoor spotlight designed to scare off would-be burglars, and trumpeted, “STOP RIGHT THERE! FREEZE!”

  At the same time a bunch of us set off some rockets left over from the Fourth of July and watched those bozos run like thieves.

  It was fun.

  “Where’s your aunt?” I said. I could hear the TV blaring from behind closed doors.

  “She’s zoned out watching a game show and drinking her hot toddy,” Roberta said. “We’re all set.”

  We traipsed down to Roberta’s rec room. They were all there: Maura, Annabelle, and Sue, with Sue’s droopy cousin Erica fresh from Boston. Erica’s always telling us what her mummy says. Mummy says Boston’s the culture capital of the universe. Mummy says Boston’s museums, theater, ballet, and symphony, not to mention restaurants, are the best in the western world.

  As we settled in, Erica was saying, “Mummy reads at least four books a week, sometimes five.” Big deal.

  “Has she read the sequel to Gone with the Wind?” I asked.

  Oh yes, Mummy had devoured that one, Erica said.

  “I read in the paper that that book was written at a fourth-grade reading level,” I said. That was true. I had read that.

  Erica ignored me, but Patsy gave me a smile. We cut for deal. Patsy won. She shuffled like a pro.

  “Are you Egyptian?” Patsy asked Erica.

  Erica looked startled. “No,” she said. “Why?”

  Patsy shrugged and dealt. “It’s just that you’re always saying ‘Mummy this’ and ‘Mummy that,’ so I thought maybe you were Egyptian.”

  I smiled at Patsy. Then I dealt. I gave myself three kings and a pair of aces, a full house. Keeping my poker face on, I won a big pot. I scooped up the pile of chips, maintaining my poker face, trying not to look too victorious.

  Eight o’clock came and went. I wondered if Chuck Whipple was one of the troops coming to crash the party. Probably not. He was too new and too old. Too new in town and too old for the bevy of twelve and thirteen-year-old bozos out there falling all over their own feet, getting ready to storm the battlements.

  Roberta fidgeted, checking her watch every few minutes.

  “It’s twenty to nine,” she said at last. “I guess they’re not coming.” Somebody, I think it was Erica, sighed.

  We ate the refreshments. Maura brought cherry bread made with maraschino cherries. She always brought cherry bread.

  “It tastes funny,” Roberta said.

  “My mom said to use Crisco instead of butter on account of cholesterol,” Maura said.

  Our yogurt dip was outstanding, as usual.

  “That stuff’s gross,” Annabelle said, stuffing her face with her own sinful chocolate delight.

  I lost three hands in a row after my big win and soon was down to my green brontosaurus T-shirt.

  “Aren’t you a little old for dinosaurs?” Erica said. “My little brother has a shirt exactly like yours.”

  “How old’s your little brother?” Roberta said.

  Good old Roberta.

  “Four and a half,” Erica said with the air of someone who’s won the pot even though she’s lost.

  I think she was getting even.

  At the stroke of ten, we split. We sprinted out of Roberta’s so fast
we didn’t even say “Thanks for a nice time.”

  I had just unlocked our front door when the telephone rang. Patsy gave me one of her hip checks, which she’s good at—being on the hockey team and all—and sent me flying.

  “Hello,” she said in that breathless way she has that always makes people think she’s been running.

  “Oh, it’s you! Yeah, we just got here. It was fab, all right. Positively fab. The best. Pretty much fun. See you.”

  Patsy hung up. “Sheesh, that Roberta,” she said. “She is so insecure. She doesn’t even give you time to get home before she’s checking to see if you had a good time. She said everybody said it was the best party they’d ever been to.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “I lied and said it was great. What the heck. If it makes her feel good, it’s worth it, right?”

  “Patsy,” I said, in a rush of memory, imitating my mother’s voice, “you simply have got to learn to tell the truth.”

  And Patsy, remembering, too, said “Why?”

  Seven

  Little pieces of memory hit when you least expect them.

  It was early September five years ago and very hot. We went downtown to buy new school shoes. Patsy wanted boy’s high-tops. Mother said she couldn’t have them.

  Mother sat on a bench in the shade on the edge of the village green while Patsy and I raced to check out the statue of the Revolutionary War soldier kneeling there with his gun on his shoulder.

  Patsy patted the soldier’s stone head while I went off to the war memorial, which was made of brown marble and listed the names of all the young men and boys from Green Hollow who’d died defending their country.

  “Here’s a James,” Patsy said, putting her finger on a John. One thing she knew for sure was the letter J. She was just learning to read and a little slow at it.

  “What’s this one, Nora?” Patsy said, pointing to another name.

  “Elias,” I said importantly. I spelled it out for her. “E-l-i-a-s. E-li-as.”

  I was a good reader. I liked spelling out stuff for Patsy.

  At the shoe store, Mr. Endorf shook hands with us. “Well, well, girls. Good to see you,” he said. “You’re looking nice and tan. Have a good summer?” Mr. Endorf was a nice man. We always bought our shoes at his store.

  “Just sit yourselves down and I’ll measure your feet, see what I have that might suit you.” Mr. Endorf ran his hands through his sparse hair.

  “What grade you going into, Nora?” he asked me.

  “Third,” I said proudly.

  “Third!” Mr. Endorf’s astonishment knew no bounds. His bushy black eyebrows shot up and down. “I had no idea. How time flies! How about you, Patsy?”

  “I’m in third grade, too,” Patsy said.

  “No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re only in second.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Patsy chanted. Mother made us shush and sat between us, as she always did in church, to keep the peace. Mr. Endorf measured our feet and went into the back of the store to find just the right shoes for us.

  “Behave,” Mother said. Patsy slid off her chair and wandered off to see what she could find. Mother and I watched as she bent down and picked up bits and pieces of things from the carpet as if she were on a beach hunting for seashells.

  Mr. Endorf returned, carrying several shoe boxes under his arm.

  “These are the latest thing,” he said, taking out a pair of terrible brown shoes. “All the girls are wearing them.”

  “I hate them,” Patsy called out, putting a few bits of fluff into her pocket. “I want high-tops.” She skittered off toward the front of the store to check the windows.

  “Try this one, Nora. This looks like the right shoe for a young lady going into third grade,” Mr. Endorf said.

  I walked around cautiously, looking down at my feet. I wished for a different shoe, one not so shiny, one more grown-up, with different heels, a different color. Mr. Endorf pressed down on my toe to show my mother how much growing room there was. Oh, those shoes were perfect, all right. Mr. Endorf promised they would last me until the spring, perhaps beyond. They were first-class shoes, he assured us.

  I believed him. I just didn’t like them much.

  Then Patsy came wobbling toward us, splendid in a pair of silver high-heeled sandals she’d found left half in, half out of their box by some careless previous customer.

  Oh, but they were beautiful shoes. My heart ached for them. I would like those, Mr. Endorf, I said to myself. Wrap them up, please. I will take them. They are just what I have always wanted.

  “Careful now, Patsy.” Mr. Endorf’s voice trembled. “Wouldn’t want you to trip and fall.”

  Patsy kept on coming, not so much as slowing down. Without a word, our mother got up and snatched Patsy straight out of those silver sandals and gave her one good shake that set Patsy’s hair to dancing.

  “Sit,” Mother said, the way you say “Sit!” to a dog who’s been to obedience school.

  Patsy sat.

  “They certainly keep you hopping, don’t they?” Mr. Endorf said.

  “That they do,” Mother agreed.

  Patsy did. I didn’t.

  After, she treated us to chocolate sodas at O’Malley’s. We even got extra whipped cream. The glasses were tall and thin and sweaty, like the boy behind the counter. Nothing ever tasted as sweet as those chocolate sodas.

  Mother had a chocolate malted. If she’d had anything else, we would’ve been shocked.

  “They always make me feel sick,” Mother told us. She never drank a chocolate malted without saying this. “They remind me of when I was your age. Every time I drank a malted, I felt as if I were going to throw up.”

  “And did you?” we asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Never.” Mother shook her head. “Not once.”

  We liked that. It made us proud. How many mothers could say that?

  On our way home, we ran into our mother’s friend Mrs. Beatty.

  “Darlings, how are you all?” Mrs. Beatty dressed like a movie star, all in red, with dangly earrings in the broad daylight and painted fingernails so long they curved under, like a bird’s claws. Mrs. Beatty was dazzling beyond belief, although even at eight, I suspected she might be a little silly.

  “And how are the darlings?” Mrs. Beatty bent down to look into our faces. She was so close, I could see myself in her eyes. She smelled absolutely delicious.

  “We got new school shoes,” Patsy said. “I hate mine. Nora likes hers.”

  I stared at the pavement. That’s what you think.

  “Bless you, my angels. What grades are we going into? Nora?”

  “Third,” I said, wondering why everyone asked me that.

  “Wonderful. And you, Patsy. What grade is it for little Patsy?”

  Patsy thought it over.

  “Fourth,” she said in a loud voice, not looking at me.

  I clapped my hand over my mouth, and Mrs. Beatty cried “Lovely! Lovely!” as if Patsy had said something very daring, very original. Her earrings did a mad dance against her cheeks as she promised to call our mother soon, after things quieted down.

  “What things?” I asked.

  “She’s always very busy,” Mother said, smiling. Then she said, “Patsy,” trying not to smile. “What am I going to do with you? You simply have to learn to tell the truth.”

  “Why?” said Patsy.

  Eight

  “It’s none of my business, Sam, but your tires are bald,” Baba said.

  “Better than my head, Baba,” Daddy replied. “You look smashing, darling,” he said to her.

  “Sam,” Baba said, looking pleased. “You always were a sweet talker.”

  Daddy? A sweet talker? Patsy and I exchanged looks. Adult dialogue can be very revealing. I’ve decided no one is precisely the person they seem.

  Most of Baba’s friends have had little tucks taken here and there, she said.

  “Tucks? Like sewing? With a needle and
thread, you mean?” I said.

  “When the face starts to sag, they have tucks taken,” Baba explained. “To make themselves look better. But I am as God made me,” she said proudly, lifting her head and retying her pink silk scarf. “A bit of color around the face distracts the eye and also conceals wrinkles in the neck.”

  “God made you a handsome woman and you remain one,” Daddy said. “Now let’s see about the portrait.”

  It was Sunday. After church we went out for brunch—a special treat. When we got home Dee Dulin had asked Daddy if she could borrow Mother’s portrait to hang in a one-man show she was having in a local art gallery, and Daddy had taken it down from its accustomed place. We all stood looking at the bare spot, which seemed stark and empty without it.

  “What do you think, girls?” Daddy had said. “Is it all right with you?”

  “It’s only a loan, right; not for keeps?” I said.

  “Only a loan,” Daddy said.

  We watched as Daddy put the portrait against the wall with great care, as if it were made of glass. “It’s a wonderful likeness,” he said softly, running his hand over Mother’s red shawl, her face.

  “This room could stand a coat of paint,” Baba said, hands on hips, lips pursed. “Gray would be nice, with a touch of green to it, perhaps. Gray’s a lovely soothing color.”

  “I like red. How about red?” I said.

  “No, yellow,” Patsy piped up. “Yellow’s a happy color.”

  “So’s red.”

  “Later, girls,” Daddy said.

  “It’s none of my business, Sam,” said Baba, “but you really should get someone in to wash the windows. The longer you let them go, the harder it is to get them clean.”

  “Maybe later,” Daddy said again.

  “And furthermore,” Baba said, “I know it’s none of …”

  “My business!” Patsy and I cried in unison.

  “Girls,” Daddy said sternly.

  Baba pulled a hurt face. “I only want to be of some help,” she said. “Why not let me call my little man, the one who’s so reasonable, and have him come out and give you an estimate, at least.”