Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself Read online

  “It hurts inside,” Ma Fanny said.

  “How about breasts … does it hurt when they start to grow?”

  “You shouldn’t be thinking about breasts at your age,” Mom said.

  “Why not? Some girls in my class have them already … and take a look at Andrea … she wears a bra … did you know that … and she’s just one year older than me.”

  “They don’t hurt, mumeshana …” Ma Fanny said. “They grow quietly, when they’re ready.”

  Mom cleared her throat. “Sally … go and wash off your arm before it starts to smell.”

  “But I can’t … then I won’t have good luck for a year.”

  Ma Fanny laughed. “All that counts is the bird picked you … nothing can stop your good luck now …”

  “Oh … I didn’t know that,” Sally said. She went to the kitchen to wash because Douglas was still locked in the bathroom and she didn’t want to mess with him.

  Sally and Andrea stood on line at Raymond’s Shoe Store. There were just nine more girls ahead of them. They’d been waiting for thirty-five minutes. Sally could feel the sweat trickling down her back. She thought of Douglas, swimming at the Roney Plaza, and of Shelby, holding her nose and sitting on the bottom of the Seagull Pool, and of the ocean, with the tide rushing in.

  “Boy, am I thirsty,” Andrea said.

  “Same here.”

  “I could really go for a tall glass of orange juice, couldn’t you?”

  “Make mine grape,” Sally said, licking her lips.

  “Oh … I always forget about you and the pulp.”

  Ten minutes later it was Andrea’s turn to try on Margaret O’Brien’s ballet shoes. She sat down and kicked off her sandals. Sally stood at her side. Would Andrea’s foot fit? Would she win the contest? Sally hoped not. She knew it was wrong to wish Andrea bad luck but she wanted to win so much. If she couldn’t win the contest then she certainly didn’t want Andrea to win.

  The shoe man held out the slipper. Andrea slid her foot in as far as it would go but the heel was still sticking out. “Oops …” the shoe man said. “It’s a little too small for you … sorry, sweetheart … next,” he called.

  “Right here,” Sally said.

  “Listen,” Andrea said. “It’s not really too small for me. Miss Beverly told us toe shoes should hug the foot … and if I just bend my toes a little …”

  “Really, sweetheart … take it from your Uncle Joe … it’s just not your size …”

  “You’re not my uncle,” Andrea said, standing up and pouting.

  She and Sally changed places. Sally knew exactly how Cinderella must have felt when it was her turn to try on the glass slipper. She closed her eyes for a minute. Thank you, bird . . thank you for choosing me to plop on. She took off her sandal and held out her foot, digging her fingernails into the upholstered arms of the chair. The shoe man held out Margaret’s pink slipper. It didn’t have a boxed toe, like Sally’s toe shoe. This toe was covered with satin, like a professional ballerina’s. She eased her foot into the shoe. It fit! She didn’t have to bend her toes or anything. Her whole foot went in easily. She smiled. But, wait … there was too much space around her foot. Maybe the shoe man wouldn’t notice. “It’s very comfortable,” Sally said, glancing at Andrea. Andrea looked concerned. Her lips were scrunched up and her brow was wrinkled. She doesn’t want me to win, Sally thought. She doesn’t want me to win any more than I wanted her to win.

  “Sorry, sweetheart …” the shoe man said to Sally. “It’s too wide for your narrow little foot.”

  “I could stuff the sides with lamb’s wool,” Sally said. “I usually do that anyway.”

  “Lamb’s wool is okay for the toe, sweetheart … but not for the rest of the foot … don’t look so glum … maybe you’ll win some other time … next,” he called and Sally knew it was over, that she had to put on her sandal and stand up and let someone else try on Margaret O’Brien’s toe slipper.

  She felt like crying. Some good luck that bird was bringing her! She couldn’t speak. If she did her voice would break and then nothing would stop the tears. And she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself like that blonde girl in the corner, bawling her eyes out.

  She and Andrea went outside. “Who wants a trip to Hollywood anyway?” Andrea asked. “All they let you eat there is parsley sandwiches.”

  “Says who?”

  “I read it in a movie magazine … they feed all the movie stars parsley sandwiches so they’ll stay skinny. Imagine no bologna or cupcakes or spaghetti …”

  “I don’t like spaghetti,” Sally said.

  “But you like bologna, don’t you?” Andrea said.

  “Yes … and cupcakes too.”

  “Well, then …”

  “That bird didn’t bring me good luck at all,” Sally told Ma Fanny. They were in the breakfast nook waiting for Douglas to return from the Chinese restaurant with a take-out supper.

  “How do you know it’s not good luck?” Ma Fanny asked.

  “I didn’t win the contest, did I?”

  “But in the long run that could be good luck.”

  “How?” Sally asked.

  “Suppose you won,” Ma Fanny said. “Suppose you went to Hollywood and while you were there the hotel burned down, God forbid …”

  “I don’t get it,” Sally said.

  “Think, mumeshana … think and you’ll understand.”

  Sally thought about what Ma Fanny had said but it still didn’t make any sense to her.

  Douglas came home with the food. Ma Fanny fixed the tea while Mom opened the containers—first the rice, then the noodles, and finally the chow mein. But when Mom saw the chow mein she screamed and put the lid back on its container.

  “What … what is it … what’s the matter …” they all asked at once.

  “A cockroach,” Mom said. “A cockroach right on top … sitting on the chow mein.” The color drained from her face.

  “Let me see that …” Douglas said. He opened the container slowly. “Hot damn! Look at that …” He held the container open for Sally and Ma Fanny to see.

  “Close it up, Douglas,” Mom said. “For God’s sake … close it up before he gets out …”

  “I’m taking it back,” Douglas said. “I’m taking it back and telling them what I think of their restaurant …”

  “No, don’t …” Mom said. “We’ll have tuna instead.”

  “That’s not the point,” Douglas said, his face turning more and more red. “We can’t let them get away with this … just because I’m only fourteen they can’t put a cockroach in my chow mein and get away with it!”

  He stormed out the door, carrying the container of chow mein.

  Mom called after him but Ma Fanny said, “Let him go, Louise … let him handle it himself.”

  “Ma Fanny …” Sally said.

  “What, lovey?”

  “Does it mean something special if you find a cockroach in your chow mein?”

  “Yes …”

  “What?”

  “It means the chow mein comes from a very dirty restaurant!”

  February 19, 1948

  Dear Doey,

  I am waiting and waiting for my good luck to begin. I hope it starts soon because I sure could use it.

  I hope you are feeling just fine. I am almost fine, except for the fungus on the bottoms of my feet. At first Mom said it came because I didn’t dry between my toes, but then she changed her mind and decided it came from walking barefoot on the rug in the livingroom. She says we don’t know who rented this place before us and what kinds of germs they may have left. Dr. Spear says my fungus came from the air. I believe him. He gave me a salve to rub into my feet three times a day and I have to wear white cotton socks until it is gone. Nobody, but nobody, wears socks to school here. I feel like a jerk!

  Did you hear about the rain? It came down in buckets, as Ma Fanny would say. The gutters were flooded in a few minutes and all the big kids walked home from school carrying their sh
oes. They had so much fun! I can’t wait to he a big kid. Mom almost killed Douglas though. She yelled that he would catch pneumonia or worse from getting his feet so wet. She made him soak them in a hot tub for an hour. He was so mad he didn’t talk to her for two days!

  Did you hear about Douglas’s friend? Her name is Darlene. Mom calls her family The Swells because they are very rich, maybe even millionaires, and they belong to the Roney Plaza instead of the Seagull Pool, like us. Don’t tell Douglas that I said this, but Darlene is fat. My friend Barbara and I saw her outside the high school one day, talking to Douglas. They are building a model airplane together. Darlene reads every issue of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics and she is giving Douglas a subscription to Model Airplane News for his birthday.

  I understand why you can’t come down for my birthday. It will be more fair if you come in-between mine and Douglas’s, like you said. I am disappointed but I will try to have fun anyway. I’ll miss you a lot at my party. Mom is taking me, Andrea, Barbara and Shelby to The Park Avenue Restaurant. I’m going to eat twenty bowls of whipped cream, at least! See you soon.

  Love and kisses and a big treatment,

  Your favorite and only daughter,

  Sally F.

  Besides the fungus and the fact that Daddy wouldn’t be down for her birthday, something else was bothering Sally—Peter Hornstein liked Jackie, the new girl in her class.

  Peter began to write notes to Sally.

  How come you don’t wear halters like Jackie?

  How come you don’t wear your hair like Jackie?

  How come you don’t have tiddly winks, like Jackie?

  This last note was the worst. All the boys in school called breasts tiddly winks and when Sally wore her pinafore with the open sides, they teased her all day. She was never going to wear it again! But Jackie didn’t have anything to show either. She was just as flat as Sally, maybe even flatter because she was so skinny.

  Peter was driving her crazy with his how come notes. Finally, Sally wrote one back to him. If you like Jackie so much how come you don’t write notes to her?

  He answered, How come you care?

  More and more Sally found herself daydreaming about kissing Peter instead of Georgia Blue Eyes.

  Besides the fungus and Daddy not coming down for her birthday and Peter liking Jackie, Sally was disturbed that Mr. Zavodsky was still walking around a free man. It was time to do something about that!

  Dear Chief of Police,

  You don’t know me but I am a detective from New Jersey. I have uncovered a very interesting case down here. I have discovered that Adolf Hitler is alive and has come to Miami Beach to retire. He is pretending to be an old Jewish man. He uses the name Zavodsky and lives at 1330 Pennsylvania Avenue. He is in disguise so don’t expect him to look just like his pictures. I know that you want evidence. Well, I’m working on it. Any day now I will be able to give you the exact details. In the meantime I just wanted you to know what’s going on. Do not put any other detectives on this case. If you do you might ruin …

  Andrea was knocking on the door, calling, “Sally … Sally …”

  “Hi,” Sally said, letting her in.

  “What’re you doing?” Andrea asked.

  “Writing a letter.”

  “To who?”

  “Oh … somebody you don’t know …”

  “Want to play potsy?”

  “Sure.” Sally put her letter in her keepsake box and she and Andrea went outside.

  The following Friday morning Sally woke up with a stomach ache. “I warned you yesterday that too much bologna would make you sick,” Mom said.

  “I only ate six pieces.”

  “That’s five pieces too many.”

  “I won’t do it again.”

  “Ma Fanny and I are supposed to go to a Hadassah meeting this afternoon,” Mom said.

  “I’ll be better by then.”

  “Don’t worry, tootsie,” Ma Fanny said. “I’d rather stay home with you any day.”

  “Oh no, Ma,” Mom told Ma Fanny. “If anybody has to stay home with her, it’s me. I know how much you’ve been looking forward to today’s lecture. She wouldn’t listen when I told her to stop eating that bologna … and she stuffed herself full of pickles … how many did you have, Sally … four, five …”

  “Just three,” Sally said.

  “But I’ll bet they were big dills, weren’t they?”

  “Pretty big.”

  “I certainly hope you’ve learned a lesson.”

  “I have … I have …” Every time Mom said bologna or pickles Sally felt worse.

  At noon Precious Redwine came to iron. When Precious heard that Mom was going to miss her meeting because of Sally’s stomach ache she said, “I’ve got eight kids at home, Mrs. Freedman … so you go on and get ready and I’ll watch Sally for you …”

  “Well, that’s very kind of you, Precious,” Mom said. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I feel better anyway,” Sally said. “They were just gas pains.”

  Mom touched Sally’s forehead three more times before she left with Ma Fanny, telling Precious, “If there’s an emergency I can be reached at Temple Beth-El, on the corner of Fourteenth Street.”

  “She’ll be just fine … don’t you worry,” Precious said.

  As soon as Mom and Ma Fanny left, Sally lay back on her day bed and made up a story inside her head …

  Esther Williams Finds a Sister

  Esther Williams is searching for a girl to play her younger sister in a new movie. She comes to Miami Beach but she can’t find anyone suitable at the Roney Plaza, so she tries the Seagull Pool. When she spots Sally, floating on her back, she says, That’s her … that’s the girl I want to play my little sister! We’ll teach her to swim just like me. I can tell she’s got real talent by the way she floats on her back. We’ll need a boy to play opposite her … someone with dark, flashing eyes.

  Oh, I know just the boy, Sally tells Esther Williams, and she introduces her to Peter Hornstein, who happens to be visiting at the Seagull Pool that very day. Then Sally and Peter fly off to Hollywood with Esther Williams and they have to practice kissing three times a week.

  Sally sighed.

  “What is it, sugar?” Precious Redwine asked, licking her finger, then touching it to the iron.

  “Nothing …” Sally said.

  The phone rang. Three short rings. Sally already knew that one long ring was Mrs. Purcell, who lived in their building, but it wasn’t much fun to listen in on her conversations because they were always about her headaches and backaches and hot flashes. And she knew the Daniels’ ring too. One long, one short, then another long. She’d listened to Bubbles and her boyfriend plenty of times. But this was the first time she’d heard three short rings. She picked up the receiver very quietly and covered the mouthpiece with one hand, while raising it to her ear with the other.

  “Hey, Zavodsky … that’s you?” It was a man’s voice.

  “That’s me, Simon,” Mr. Zavodsky answered.

  Sally sucked in her breath. She didn’t know he was on their party line too. What good luck! At last the bird plop was working.

  “So, how’s by you?” the man named Simon asked.

  “By me, it’s okay,” Mr. Zavodsky said.

  “By me, too.”

  “So … it’s all set for tonight?”

  “All set … just like I promised,” Simon said.

  “Good … so, you’ll come by about eight?” Mr. Zavodsky asked.

  “About eight sounds good. We’ll walk over from your place.”

  “You should please be careful walking,” Mr. Zavodsky said.

  “I’m not always careful?” Simon asked.

  “I should know?” Mr. Zavodsky asked him.

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, yourself.”

  Sally waited until she’d heard the click, then she replaced the receiver. It has to be a code, she thought. Y
es, a secret code! Otherwise it made no sense. And Simon was probably one of Hitler’s old cronies, from the war. And probably what they were planning for tonight at eight was somebody’s murder!

  “Why do you listen to other people on the telephone?” Precious Redwine asked.

  “I like to,” Sally told her.

  “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s not nice.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “I told you … I like to … I like to know what’s going on …”

  Precious Redwine laughed then—a big, deep laugh that came right out of her belly. “You’re a nosey little girl … you know that?”

  Sally nodded. “Please don’t tell on me.”

  “I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell …”

  “Tell what?” Sally asked.

  “That I’m going to sit down and have a little rest.”

  “It’s a deal,” Sally said.

  Precious lowered herself into the big chair in the livingroom, kicked off her shoes, and put her feet up on the footstool. “Oh my … that feels good … off my aching feet at last …”

  “You better not walk barefoot in here,” Sally said. “There might be a fungus in our rug.”

  “I’ve got tough old feet,” Precious said, closing her eyes.

  There were so many questions Sally wanted to ask Precious Redwine, starting with her beautiful name. And then she wanted to ask about drinking from the Colored water fountain and about riding in the back of the bus and about her eight kids and about how she learned to be such a good ironer and about how she touched her wet finger to the iron without burning herself and about which half of her was Seminole Indian … but while Sally was working up the nerve to speak, Precious fell asleep, and when she woke up, half an hour later, Sally had lost her nerve again.

  So Precious went back to her ironing and Sally went back to Esther Williams Finds a Sister, Part Two.

  “But I have to go out tonight,” Sally told her mother. “Just for a little while.”

  “No … you stayed home from school with a stomach ache so you can’t possibly go outside until tomorrow.”

  “But Mom … my stomach ache is all better. It was all better before you left for your Hadassah meeting.”