Monday I Love You (9 page)

“Hope your pal Ashley doesn't bear any resemblance to Leslie Howard,” Doris joked. “I mean, he's cute and all, but he's not exactly what you might call sexy.”

“Ashley's not my pal, Doris. I hate her. She's one of those perfect ones, the kind who looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Basically, though, she's a creep. A total rat.” I could feel myself getting upset all over again, just talking about her, saying her name. “The boys fall all over themselves when she walks by. She's head of everything, boss lady of the school. If you saw her, you'd know what I'm talking about. She's too much—clothes, figure, the works. Just too much.” I couldn't seem to stop talking.

Buster started making fussy noises, so I took him out of his high chair and let him crawl around.

“She does such mean things. She should be punished, but that kind never gets punished, I guess.”

Then, to my astonishment and chagrin, I burst into tears. Doris looked dismayed. “Oh sweetie, don't,” she said, patting me. “Don't. She's not worth it. Whatever she did to you, she's not worth getting yourself in a state about.”

“I know, I know,” I blubbered. “It's ridiculous. She's so bad, though. If I told you some of the things she did, you'd flip out, Doris. Truly. You'd absolutely flip out. It's not fair. People like her get it all. It's just not fair,” I wailed. Doris handed me a tissue. I blew my nose. Buster put his little hand on the cupboard door where Doris kept the cookies and said, “Please.” Clear as a bell it was. Please.

“Did you hear that!” Doris grinned. “The kid
can
talk. How about that!” Then both Doris and I clapped and carried on, and Doris put her fingers in her mouth and produced a piercing whistle, a whistle that could be heard for miles. Buster broke into tears.

“Oh Lord.” Doris picked him up and soothed him. “First you, now him, Grace. What goes on here anyway?”

“Don't worry, we'll be fine. Have a good time,” I said. “And drive carefully and don't do anything I wouldn't do.” People always said that, and it sounded sort of cute, I thought. But coming from me, it sounded dumb. I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

Doris put on her coat. “Lock the doors and turn the heat down when you go to bed,” she told me, “and don't put beans in your noses. My mother always told us that. So once when she was gone, I did put beans in my nose, just stuffed some right up there, and my sister had to call the doctor and there was hell to pay.”

I held Buster up to the window so he could watch her drive away. He waved at the car as it headed down the driveway and pulled out into the main road. I sang to him then, a little song I made up, and his little eyes were so bright and alert. I walked around the place, showing him things, telling him the names of stuff so he'd talk, really talk, soon and everyone would say how smart he was. I liked cuddling that little baby. He's so soft and warm. When I held him close and whispered secrets in his ear, he comforted me. I pretended he was my baby.

What harm did it do? I knew Doris wouldn't mind.

Besides, holding him eased the hate and the hurt a little. Not much, only a little.

13

It took me a while to come to grips with the fact that my parents had no social life, didn't seem to have any friends. I'd noticed other people's parents went places Saturday night—to the movies, maybe, or bowling, to a bar and grill, or perhaps dancing. The mother changed into her best clothes, dabbed perfume behind her ears while the father went to pick up the baby-sitter, or they left the kids alone if the oldest was old enough to keep the others from killing each other. There was a general exodus Saturday night, I'd observed, as I watched the red taillights go down the street, then turn right or left and disappear.

“Why don't you ever go out?”

“How come you don't have parties?”

“Why don't you have any fun?”

These were the questions I asked.

“Fun costs money,” my father explained.

“Parties are expensive and a lot of work,” said my mother, lips tucked neatly in upon each other.

Somewhere along in third grade, I think it was, we moved to a house on a street where all the houses resembled each other. Just as all the Schmitts resembled each other slightly. Something about the jaw line, the way the bushy eyebrows tilted up at the corners, lending a sinister air to the long, thin Schmitt faces.

I didn't resemble anybody. No one laid claim to my looks. No one took any responsibility.

All the houses on our street had windows a little too close together, as well as vestibules. I'd never heard of a vestibule before we moved to that house. My mother said, “I've always wanted a vestibule,” and my father paid two months' rent in advance. It was one of our better times.

A vestibule is a little room you go into when you open the front door. It's not a hall, it's a vestibule, and it has a closet so you can hang up your coat and kick off your galoshes in it before you go into the living room.

“A vestibule,” my mother told me, “is class. Real class.” I believed her. She knew about such things and I didn't.

After we'd lived there awhile, it occurred to me to visit our next-door neighbors.

“You'll notice no one came to call,” my mother said bitterly. “You'll notice there were no casseroles, no homemade pastries that first night. These are not people who welcome newcomers.”

I decided to do something about that. I'd noticed that a boy slightly older than me was riding his bicycle up and down his driveway next door. He never went out into the street. I didn't have a bicycle, but I had ridden one once or twice, so I decided to make the first move.

I went over and said hello.

“Hello,” I said. Either he was deaf or didn't have any manners. Or, most likely, didn't want to get to know me. He said nothing, just kept on going back and forth, back and forth. He was a thin boy with pale cheeks and flat eyes. He was not a friendly person.

“I live next door,” I said. “Can I ride your bike?”

He speeded up nervously, riding faster and faster, always stopping just short of the street.

“Don't you get bored doing that?” I asked. “Can I try? Give us a try. I only want to ride to the corner and back.”

The boy hit the brakes and almost toppled over the handlebars in his excitement and rage at what I'd said.

“Corner! Corner!” he hollered, getting red in the face. “I'm not allowed out of the yard on this thing. Not until I've mastered this contraption.”

That's what he said: “mastered this contraption.” Well, that should've warned me. But I hung around, sat on the grass, waiting for him to get tired. It took a while. At last, he got off his bike, wheeled it into the garage and laid it on its side and went in the back door. All this without a word.

Seizing oppportunity, I went to the door and knocked. A lady in white pants and a bright-pink top answered.

“Can I ride the bike?” I said. The lady's mouth and eyes made O's of surprise.

“Well, I never,” she said. I stood there and she stood there, neither of us giving any ground. Finally, with a litle shrug, she stood aside in a somewhat grudging way and I skinned past her. Their kitchen was like ours, only neater. There weren't dirty dishes hanging around, and the floor was shiny. The lady shook my hand without taking off her bright-pink rubber gloves. A couple of bright-pink rollers wobbled on her forehead, and I couldn't help noticing her toes. They were long toes, so long they hung over the ends of her sandals. Her toenails were painted the same bright pink as the other stuff.

The boy was nowhere in sight. Once I heard someone burp loudly out in the hall. The lady put her hand to her mouth daintily, but it wasn't her who'd burped. It was him. I'd bet on it.

“We're the Rowes,” she said. “What's your name?”

“My name is Grace Schmitt,” I told her. “My father's name is Frank. My mother's name is Mrs. Schmitt.” I didn't want to tell her my mother's name was Grace too. It embarrassed me, to tell the truth.

“I'm in the third grade. Perhaps you'd like to come over to our house and play cards some night.”

I figured somebody had to make the first move.

The lady bustled about without answering me, scrubbing away at the counter with a damp sponge, frowning as she wiped off the woodwork and the front of the refrigerator.

“You keep a very clean kitchen,” I said, wanting her to know I noticed. “Your husband must be very proud of you.”

The lady turned and said, “We are not a card-playing family. We have our church work, you see. As well as our crafts and community work. Our days are filled. I'm afraid not. Would you like a saltine?”

“Sure,” said I, trying to sort it all out. I'd never had a saltine, but I figured if I had one it would give me time to think of something to lure the Rowes over to our house so my parents would have some friends.

The lady passed an open box of saltines in front of my face and I took one. I saw a shadowy form wearing sneakers out in the hall, so I said, “Doesn't he want one too?”

The lady let out a tinkly little laugh. “Oh, we never eat between meals. What does your father do, little girl?”

“My name's Grace,” I said again, thinking she must not have heard me the first time. “He does lots of things. He's a croupier in Atlantic City, for one. Once he saw a man lose ten thousand dollars on one roll of the dice.” I loved to tell that story. It always got a reaction. Today was no exception. I watched the lady's eyebrows rise until they almost collided with the rollers bobbing on her forehead. “Right at the moment,” I went on, “my father's helping out at the body shop downtown. He's a very good body man,” I said proudly. “One of the best.”

At that moment, the boy came bounding into the room before I had a chance to tell about my mother waxing unwanted hair off people.

“Are you a Republican?” he shouted. From the way he was frowning and the way his fists were clenched, I knew he was looking for a fight.

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what a Republican was, but as I was on a friend-finding mission I might as well give him answers he obviously wanted.

“It's a good thing,” he said in an ominous way. “Do you get A's on your report card?” he shot at me.

I was willing to go just so far with the truth. I did have standards, after all.

“No,” I said, feeling virtuous. “Sometimes I get B's.”

“Mommy, tell her,” the boy commanded.

The lady reached out one of her rubber gloves and smoothed the boy's hair. “Bobby never gets less than an A,” she said with a trembly mouth. “He's our little scholar, aren't you, Bobby dear?”

“Okay, so hand over the five bucks,” Bobby ordered.

Much to my amazement, the lady went to her purse and took out a five-dollar bill. “A reward for work well done,” she cooed, placing the money in his palm tenderly, as if it'd been made of rare old china.

“They pay me a fiver every time I get all A's on my report card,” he told me, suddenly tough and with a sappy smirk on his face. “How much do you get?”

I mumbled something and said I had to go. The lady held open the kitchen door for me and didn't say, “Come again.” Which was all right with me because I wouldn't even if she had.

Later that night I told my mother and father I'd invited the people next door to come over. “They don't play cards. Their lives are full,” I said. “They go to church and do crafts and community work. What's a Republican?”

“The lowest of the low,” said my father.

“What are we?”

“Democrats,” he replied, his voice oiled with pride.

My mother turned on the TV and said, “I'll be glad when this election is over. I'm sick to death of the whole thing, and it's barely begun. All those speeches, all those promises. Hot air, that's all it is, just nothing but hot air. All that money they spend to get themselves elected. With all the poverty there is around us, it's a terrible thing. A disgrace.”

Two days later I saw the boy riding his bicycle back and forth in the driveway again. I went over and said, “We're not Republicans, we're Democrats. Republicans are the lowest of the low.”

He got off his bicycle, came over and punched me in the nose. It began to bleed profusely, and as intense as my pain was, my rage was more so. He took off for his house with me in hot pursuit. He'd had a head start, though, so he got inside before I caught up, and slammed the door in my face. I pounded on the door and rattled the doorknob and pushed against it, seeking revenge. But he'd already locked the door. I kept pounding and shouting. I could see them both standing there in the middle of their kitchen floor, listening, watching, waiting to see what I'd do. The lady had her arm protectively around the boy. I think I saw the five-dollar bill clutched in his hand, but I couldn't be sure.

The only thing I was sure of was that we'd never be friends. They didn't want to be friends with us because we weren't Republicans. And I didn't want to be friends with them for anything.

Even if they asked us over, I wouldn't go.

14

Buster loves to dance. I folded back the orange rug carefully and tucked it in a corner. It's Doris's pride and joy, and has to be handled with care. Then I fiddled with the radio, and when I found some nice slow music, I picked up Buster and we started out. We swooped around as if we were in a ballroom with waiters carrying trays of drinks, and women in diamond earrings and sequined gowns dancing with tall, handsome men wearing black silk suits and shirts with pleated fronts.

I don't know how to dance, as I said; but with Buster, it comes naturally. I lead, of course. He never steps on my feet, either.

“You're some snazzy dancer, kid,” I told him. “Light as a feather, too.” As we twirled around, faster and faster, he gave out little shouts of joy and pleasure. When I began to get dizzy, I stopped twirling, figuring if I was dizzy, he was too, and might barf all over me. Which he's been known to do.