Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories of Shirley Jackson (11 page)

I turned back to the table of contents. Another item caught my eye. It read: “Luncheon for mother-in-law and two friends.” I blinked, and giggled.

Another listing was “Dinner to be served to daughter’s young man,” and still another was “Family dinner, to serve fifteen.” Also, “Dinner for husband’s employer, and wife.” That one made me laugh out loud.

Then one listing caught my eye, and, unable to resist, I turned to it. It was called: “First dinner of married life,” and the instructions began: “Dimity, you take off that yellow organdy apron and put on the good practical one your mother sent you. Save the yellow one to serve dinner in. And don’t let him get the idea he doesn’t have to help do dishes.”

There was only one thing I could think of to do, and, after a minute, I knew how to do it. I went out into the kitchen and said softly, “Thanks, Mallie.”

P
ARTY OF
B
OYS

M
Y OLDER SON
, L
AURIE
, has a birthday early in October, so on good years he goes with his father to New York for the World Series; years when Brooklyn loses the pennant Laurie just has a birthday party at home. Toward the end of last summer, when it began to seem depressingly clear that Laurie would celebrate his twelfth birthday far away from Ebbets Field, he began a loving and detailed plan for the properest and gayest manner of celebrating a boy’s only twelfth birthday. He began by proposing, as the only reasonable foundation upon which a happy birthday might be built, that both his younger sisters spend that weekend with their grandmother in California. I said that the distance between Vermont, where we live, and California, made this idea untenable, but that I would guarantee that both girls would spend the entire day visiting friends locally. Laurie then suggested that he invite eighteen friends and they play baseball on the side lawn. I said the side lawn was not an athletic field, and anyway I would not feed eighteen of his friends unless they ate in the barn. Laurie sighed, and offered to compromise on twelve, and volleyball. I said that the side lawn was not an athletic field, and besides I was fairly sure it was going to rain. Laurie thought for a minute and then asked with enormous courtesy whether it would be all right if he just asked Robert over for the afternoon, and they could play chess?

I told him that our dining room could hold eight twelve-year-old boys comfortably, provided they didn’t run footraces or fence with the table knives—or perhaps, I suggested, he might like to have an evening party, with a little supper? In that case, I pointed out, I could make lots of sandwiches and a nice fruit punch, and he could invite as many as half a dozen boys and half a dozen gir—At that point Laurie left the room, remarking poignantly that sometimes he got to thinking that everyone in the world but him was crazy.

He finally decided that a Saturday afternoon movie was the thing, with supper afterward, and he invited his seven closest friends, all of whom could be depended upon to bring sensible presents, such as the latest popular records, and chemical retorts, and Tarzan books, which are very much in demand in Laurie’s set. It was particularly specified in the invitations that formal dress was not expected. The guests arrived by bicycle, neatly wrapped packages dangling from the handlebars. The packages were put on the dining room table, to be opened at supper, the bicycles were lined up by our back porch, and Laurie and his seven friends wrestled one another happily into my car, to be driven into town to see “The Mad Fiend from the Lost Planet,” and “Pride of the Rancho Grande,” and “Tattooed by the Ape Men,” and two serials and a cartoon, not to mention the news-reel and the coming attractions. I had cashed a check in the morning, and given Laurie enough money to pay eight admissions into the movie, with popcorn and a candy bar apiece, and I was to pick them up again after the movie.

My younger son, Barry, who is not quite three and regards his brother’s friends with vast admiration as a superior order of being, infinitely tall and wise and able to fix any number of small toys, accompanied us to town, peering worshipfully over the car seat at the birthday party, which had crushed itself mercilessly into the back half of my station wagon. Barry and I had plenty of room in the front seat, since no party member was prepared to admit himself effeminate enough to sit with us. The eight of them seemed considerably jammed together in back—every now and then a wildly waving foot, or an arm upraised in protest, showed in the rearview mirror—and I kept wondering all the way into town if they were not all secretly hoping that I would run into something.

“Chees,” came a voice from the back, which I was able to identify as Stuart’s, “chees, I sure would hate to miss this week’s serial. Remember—they were caught by the A-rabs?”

“Yeah, well, listen?” Oliver insisted. “You know they’re going to get away?”

“Well, if it was you was that guy, well, now, what would
you
do?”

“But hey, he
lied
, din’t he?”

“Yeah, but only because they said they were gonna shoot. I mean, what would
you
do?
Not
give up or something?”

“But sure, hey, because gosh—”

“But he
did
. You were there—he
did.”

“Well, if it was me, I mean that guy there, I wouldn’t of.”

“Hey, you guys.” It was Laurie, reminiscent. “Hey, remember
last
week? We sure heard from
that
usher, boy.”

“Boys,” I said. “Remember, no fighting. Behave like—”

“Jeeps,” Laurie said. “I forgot you were here.”

“I’m not,” I said testily. “Barry is driving.”

“I am driving,” Barry confirmed. “I am right now turning on the wipeshield winders.”

“Yeah, but.” The conversation continued after a cautious pause. “Suppose it
was
you. Would you?”

“Well.” This was Tommy, considering. “It’s like if you took something din’t belong to you. You wouldn’t just
give
it back, would you, if you
meant
to take it? Just because they said?”

“No,” said several voices at once. “But,” Willie said, “suppose you
had
to? I mean, with the cops and all?”

“Well,
then”
someone said. “If it was the cops.”

“But he
didn’t.”
Two or three of them spoke at once. “And that
girl,”
said someone.

There was a brief, disapproving silence. Then Joey’s voice rose. “If it was
me,”
Joey said, “if it was
me
, I’da done what was right.”

“Yeah, you would.” “Well, you sweet thing.” “I believe
that.”

I stopped the car in front of the theater. “Now, look, Laurie,” I said. “Be careful with that money, and don’t go running around town, and I’ll be back at four-thirty and don’t fill up on junk because dinner will be—”

“Sure, Ma, sure,” Laurie said. “My old lady,” he remarked generally. “She’s tipped.”

I bit my lip. “Have a nice time,” I said.

“Yeah.” They climbed out one after another, great feet stumbling, shoving and pushing; they had to go out the door next to Barry, and each one, struggling through, patted Barry on the head as he passed. Barry chuckled, I beamed nervously, trying to memorize hats and jackets to ensure returning our guests in the approximate order they came, and Laurie ordered everyone around. “Hey, wait,” he kept saying.

“Be careful,” I said involuntarily.

Laurie looked at me. “You’re
tipped,”
he said.

They crossed the street like the legions of Mars coming out of their flying saucer; halfway across, Laurie hesitated, thought, and turned back.

“Hey,” he said, coming to the car window, “I almost forgot. Get some old piece of junk for Joey, will you? Model car or something?”

“For Joey?”

“It’s his birthday, too. Hey, wait up.” And he turned and raced back across the street while I was still saying, “But why didn’t you tell me? I would have—”

I craned my neck out the car window, still asking, and watched them go into the movie, snatching at one another and clearly heading for the popcorn counter. Then, telling myself firmly that they would all probably grow up to be nice boys someday, I dug into my change purse for a penny for the parking meter, gathered Barry out of the car, and headed, still telling myself about how they would surely, surely be nice boys someday, for the toy shop and a piece of junk for Joey.

With the delayed reaction that I believe to be common to all mothers, I still feel toward Joey a mingled irritation and tolerance; he is six inches taller than the other boys and used to beat Laurie up every morning on the way to school. Although he is now a completely accepted member of Laurie’s group of friends, I cannot lose the uneasy feeling that, crossed, Joey is always apt to heave a rock at something, even though he always calls me “Ma’am,” and is one of the few boys who remembers to take off his hat when he comes into the house. I am not altogether successful at concealing my nervousness, so I make a great point of smiling largely at Joey when he comes into the house (he is, after all, two inches taller than I) and at P.T.A. meetings Oliver’s mother and Tommy’s mother and Willie’s mother and I tell one another that a boy like Joey is, after all, someone who needs
sympathy
, not punishment; that kind of mischief making, we tell one another, is only because Joey feels insecure. Joey lives with his grandmother because his parents are dead, and the day Joey’s older brother went off to reform school Willie’s mother called me and we told each other that if Joey would be made to feel that he was, after all, an accepted member of the group, he might yet grow up to be a credit to his old grandmother. We have all made a point of being very earnest about this, and of course no one can actually prove that it was Joey who dumped the cement into the school furnace, but all the same I could not help feeling slightly wild-eyed at the idea that Joey had birthdays like other children.

However, if Joey was not to receive an irrevocable setback in the process of reformation, I knew I had better get into action right away, so I settled Barry down next to a toy tractor and went into the toy shop phone booth and called Willie’s mother. She thought immediately that something had gone wrong with the birthday party and all the boys were coming over to her house, and I had to reassure her and then tell her that I had just heard that poor Joey had a birthday today, too, and none of us had known about it. She said good Lord, what a time to find out, and what was I planning to do, the poor child? I said I guessed I had no choice, the poor child, but to pick up a gift and an extra cake, since the one I had at home plainly said Happy Birthday to Laurie, and it would be next to impossible to add a postscript in pink icing which would include Joey. She said wait a minute, she was going to ice a cake for the church bake sale, and why didn’t she decorate it for Joey instead? She could give the bake sale the apple pie and pick up something for dessert when she dropped the cake off at my house. I said gratefully that that would just about save my life, because I had enough extra candles, and Joey would never know that his birthday celebration was a last-minute affair. She said the poor kid, she hated to see a kid go without a party on his birthday, and she was sure Helen and Sylvia and Jean would be just sick when they knew, so why not call them, and she’d leave the cake on the kitchen table.

Encouraged, I called Oliver’s mother and said did she know it was Joey’s birthday today, too, and she said that did it, that was all she needed on a day like this was turning out to be, and what on earth could we do? I said that I had just dropped the boys off at the movie, and was still in town, and if she wanted some small remembrance for Joey I would be glad to pick up something.

“Oh, fine, then,” she said. “Get him a book, maybe.”

“A book?” I said. “For Joey?”

“Oh, Lord,” she said. “A knife, then, and say it’s from Oliver and I’ll settle with you when I see you.”

I said I’d also get a nice card and sign it “Oliver” and she asked if the boys were all safely in the movie and I said well anyway they were
in
, and she said she was glad it was me feeding them tonight and not her.

Then I called Tommy’s mother, and
she
said that if I got a chance to get into the Boy’s Shop I might pick up a light sweater or half a dozen pairs of socks, because it was her opinion that the poor child had absolutely
no
clothes. That seemed like such a good idea that I suggested it to Stuart’s mother, who said what a time to find out, and all the boys always needed blue jeans anyway, and I could charge it to her account in the Boy’s Shop if I was beginning to run short of ready cash.

By the time I headed home, then, I had made six phone calls and had seven birthday presents for Joey and a cowboy suit for Barry, which I had somehow gotten myself talked into buying. The cake was sitting on the kitchen table when I got home, and it was a handsome thing, half again as large as Laurie’s, and reading “A very happy birthday to Joey.”

Fortunately the boys were having spaghetti for dinner and I had made it in the morning, so all I really had to do was butter lots of bread and make a plain salad. (“None of that junk you put on salads,” Laurie had said explicitly. “Just lettuce and sliced tomatoes and radishes, and no marshmallows or pineapple or junk.” “I never put marshmallows in a salad in my life,” I said indignantly. “Well, can’t ever tell when you’re going to start,” Laurie said pessimistically.) I set the table with care (“Now, look, don’t try to hand out little baskets of
candy
or something”), using plain paper napkins, ordinary glassware, my good silver, and my plain dark blue plates, hoping that Laurie would not regard the blue as an attempt at decorating the birthday table. With a certain cynical satisfaction I set a silver dish of salted nuts at each end of the table, a gesture I ordinarily make only at Thanksgiving, when the whole family is assembled. Laurie had conceded that it might not embarrass his friends overmuch if each one found a small favor at his place; he suggested beanshooters or water pistols, but I substituted yo-yos.