Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself Page 17

  Mom gave Sally a hug. “You’re so funny sometimes …”

  Later, while Mom was setting her hair, Sally asked, “How does a woman get pregnant, anyway?”

  “Oh, you know …” Mom said.

  “But I don’t …”

  “Well,” Mom began, “the husband plants the seed inside the wife …”

  “I know about that,” Sally said. “But how does he get the seed and where does he plant it?”

  “Well …” Mom said. She made three more pin curls before she spoke again. “I think you need a book to explain that part. Tomorrow I’ll go to the bookstore and see what they have on the subject.”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

  “Oh … you’re right. Well, I’ll go first thing Monday morning.”

  “But Mom … I want to know now!”

  “I can see that, Sally. But you’ll just have to wait until Monday.”

  “You mean you don’t know either?”

  “I know,” Mom said, “it’s just that I don’t know how to explain it to you … if Daddy were here he would, but I’m not very good at those things …”

  Dear Aunt Bette,

  Congratulions! I’m very glad to hear that Uncle Jack got the seed planted at last. It will be nice to have a baby cousin. I hope it’s a girl and that you name her Precious, which is what I would like my name to be. Monday, Mom is getting me a book explaining how you got the baby made. I’m really curious!

  Love and other indoor sports,

  Sally J. Freedman, your friend and relative.

  Monday morning, on her way to school, Sally called, “And Mom … don’t forget about that book!”

  That afternoon, Sally found a brown bag on her day bed. Inside was the book and a note from Mom saying, Don’t show this to Douglas!

  Andrea refused to leave her room. Mrs. Rubin was worried about her. She came to Sally’s house to discuss the situation with Mom.

  “Promise her a movie …” Mom suggested.

  “I’ve already tried that.”

  “A new dress?”

  “That, too …”

  “A record album?”

  “Even that …”

  “Hmmm … what about a sundae at Herschel’s every night for a week?”

  “I know what she needs,” Sally said, and Mom and Mrs. Rubin looked up, as if remembering for the first time that she was sitting at the table too.

  “What’s that?” Mrs. Rubin asked.

  “Something to love … like a kitten.”

  “What a nice idea,” Mrs. Rubin said. “I wonder if it would work?”

  “It will … I just know it,” Sally said. “And I’d like to be the one to give her the kitten.”

  “I must say, Sally … that’s very generous of you, considering the way Andrea’s been treating you this week.”

  “She had a right to be mad at me.”

  “Maybe so … but she’s carried it too far,” Mrs. Rubin said.

  “In a way I don’t blame her though,” Sally said.

  Sally and her mother went to the pet shop next to the movie theater, where The Outlaw, starring Jane Russell, was playing. “Can we go see it?” Sally asked.

  “No.”

  “Not today … maybe Friday night or Saturday, I mean …”

  “Absolutely not,” Mom said.

  “But why … it looks good …”

  “Never mind why.”

  “Because you can see down Jane Russell’s blouse when she bends over?” Sally asked.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Douglas … he’s going to see it.”

  “Over my dead body!”

  “Oh, please, Mom … don’t tell him I said anything about it … he’ll kill me.” Why did she have to go and open her big mouth? She’d promised Douglas she could keep his secret.

  “I won’t tell him how I found out,” Mom said.

  “Anyway, I don’t see what’s so bad about looking down Jane Russell’s blouse … when Vicki bends over you can do the same thing.”

  “Sally!”

  “Well, it’s true. That night I sat next to her at The Park Avenue Restaurant I could look down her dress and see everything.”

  “Sally!”

  “What?”

  “Stop talking that way.”

  “What way?”

  “You know very well what way!”

  Sally chose a ginger kitten for Andrea and Mom didn’t say one word about it having worms. Ma Fanny lined a basket with blue velvet and tied a matching blue ribbon on the handle. Sally put the kitten in the basket and went across the hall, to Andrea’s.

  Mrs. Rubin said, “She’s still in her room.”

  Sally walked through the livingroom, past the kitchen, to Andrea’s room. It was no bigger than the foyer closet in Sally’s house in New Jersey but at least it was all Andrea’s. Andrea was lying face down on her bed.

  “Hi … it’s me … Sally.” She put the basket on the floor. “I’m sorry about Georgia Blue Eyes … I should have told you before … and I’m sorry about Omar … I didn’t love him as much as you but I did love him.”

  “I know you did,” Andrea said, into her pillow.

  “Will you be my friend again?” Sally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good … I’ve got something to show you.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t see it that way.”

  Andrea rolled over and sat up. Sally was surprised at the way she looked, with dark circles under her eyes and her hair matted to the side of her face. Sally picked up the basket and put it on the bed, next to Andrea.

  Andrea looked into the basket. “Oh no …” She shook her head and began to cry.

  “But …”

  “Did they think I’d forget about him just like that?” She buried her face in her hands.

  “No,” Sally said, “and anyway, it was my idea, not theirs.”

  “Take it away,” Andrea cried. “Take it far, far away …”

  “You’re impossible, Andrea Rubin … you know that? You’re really impossible! It’s hard to even like you sometimes …” Sally picked up the basket and stomped out of Andrea’s room. She was shaking all over. She went home.

  Mom said, “What a shame … I guess we’ll have to take the kitten back.”

  “Please, Mom … can’t we keep him?” Sally asked.

  At first Mom didn’t answer and Sally took her silence to mean maybe. “Just feel how soft he is,” Sally said.

  Mom stroked the kitten. “He is soft, isn’t he?”

  “Yes … and I’d take care of him … really … you wouldn’t have to do a thing …”

  “I know, honey … but we can’t take a chance on a kitten … we have too many allergies …”

  “Name one person in this family who’s allergic to cats …”

  “It could be dangerous for Douglas.”

  “Baloney!” Sally said, holding back tears.

  “I’m sorry,” Mom said. “I really am.”

  “If you meant that you’d let me keep him.”

  “We shouldn’t have bought him in the first place … not without asking Andrea …”

  “But I wanted to surprise her.”

  “Sometimes surprises don’t work,” Mom said.

  They sat down to a dairy supper. “What’s this about going to see The Outlaw?” Mom asked Douglas.

  Sally put her spoon down. “Don’t look at me,” she said to Douglas, before he’d even glanced her way.

  “I want you to stay away from that movie,” Mom told him.

  “It’s a cowboy story,” Douglas said. “What’s wrong with cowboys all of a sudden?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why can’t I go?”

  “We both know the answer to that, Douglas!”

  “It’s not like I’ve never seen a breast … you know.”

  “Douglas!”

  “Suppose I want to be a doctor … I’m going to have to see plenty of them then.”

&nb
sp; “This has nothing to do with being a doctor,” Mom said.

  “You act like there’s something wrong with the human body.”

  “There’s a time and a place for everything.”

  “I think I’ll ask Dad about it when he calls on Sunday … I’ll bet he’ll let me go!”

  “Children …” Ma Fanny said, holding up a bowl, “have some more carrots … they’ll make you see in the dark.”

  “I can’t trust you with anything,” Douglas said to Sally, after supper. They were on the floor, playing with the kitten.

  “I didn’t tell on you … it just came out …”

  “You better learn how to keep secrets or you’re going to wind up with no friends.”

  “I have friends … I have Shelby and Barbara and Andr …”

  “Guess again.”

  Sally let the kitten nibble on her finger. “I’m sorry … from now on I’m going to try harder. I’m going to learn how to keep secrets if it kills me … really.”

  “This time it doesn’t even matter,” Douglas said, “because I’m going whether she likes it or not.”

  Sally nodded.

  The doorbell rang while Sally was getting ready for bed. She was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, when Mom came to get her. “It’s Andrea,” Mom said.

  Sally wiped her mouth with the corner of a towel and went into the livingroom.

  Andrea said, “I hear you have to take the kitten back.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I have another look?”

  “Help yourself.”

  The kitten was curled up in the basket, sound asleep. Andrea lifted him out and put her face next to his soft body. “Hello, you little darling … hello, you precious angel …” She looked up at Sally. “I think I’m going to call her Margaret O’Brien the Second, if that’s all right with you.”

  “But Andrea,” Sally said, suddenly laughing, “it’s a boy cat.”

  “Oh … in that case I’ll call him Margaret O’Brien the Second!” And she laughed with Sally.

  Aunt Bette wasn’t the only one pregnant. Two weeks later Andrea said, “Did you hear about Bubbles?”

  “No … what?”

  “She’s going to have a baby!”

  “But how can she … she’s not even married.”

  “You don’t have to be married,” Andrea said.

  “But my book says …”

  “Never mind what your book says … I’m telling you … you don’t have to be married … and Bubbles did it with a goy … so now Mr. and Mrs. Daniels are sitting shivah … pretending Bubbles is dead … and I think it’s horrible … she’s their only child … God should punish them for what they’re doing.”

  “If she’d done it with a Jewish boy would they be sitting shivah?”

  “No, silly … then they’d be making a wedding.”

  “I don’t get it,” Sally said.

  “It’s all very complicated.”

  Sally went home and told her mother, “My book was wrong. You don’t have to be married to get a baby.”

  “If you’re a nice girl you do.”

  “Isn’t Bubbles a nice girl?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  But everybody else in their house was talking about it. Sally listened to Mrs. Purcell on their party line. She said, “I’d do the same thing if, God forbid, one of my children ran off with a goy. Thank God I don’t have to worry … all three are married very well.”

  Ma Fanny and Andrea’s grandmother were talking about it. “And her with scarlet fever yet,” Andrea’s grandmother said.

  “A pox on them!” Ma Fanny said, pointing to the Daniels’ apartment. “Sitting shivah for Bubbles … meshuggeners!”

  Sally had never seen her so angry.

  “Fanny … don’t be so hard on them,” Andrea’s grandmother said. “Remember, they’re orthodox Jews … they’re doing what they feel is right.”

  “Orthodox, schmorthodox.”

  “Listen,” Andrea’s grandmother said, “plenty of goys disown their children for marrying Jews …”

  “Your child is your child,” Ma Fanny said, “no matter what … I could tell you plenty, but I won’t …”

  Sally wished she would.

  “So, you’ll make a donation through the temple?” Andrea’s grandmother asked.

  “Not a penny … not one cent … they should only rot in there,” Ma Fanny said, her face tightening.

  Mom and Mrs. Rubin and Andrea’s grandmother were going to pay a condolence call on the Daniels that evening. Ma Fanny refused to join them, even though Mom said, “They’re our neighbors … how will it look?”

  “They should only know what it’s like to really lose a child! Whatever they think, I couldn’t care less …”

  “What did you mean?” Sally asked Ma Fanny, after the others had left. Sally was sitting in the big chair, a hank of wool wrapped around her outstretched arms.

  Ma Fanny sat on the footstool, facing her, rolling a wool ball. “About what, sweetie pie?”

  Sally watched as the wool flew off her arms. “About losing a child … you sounded like you knew about that.”

  Ma Fanny nodded.

  “You lost a child?”

  She nodded again.

  “I never knew that,” Sally said.

  “It’s not something I advertise.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “A long time ago … before your mother was born … I had a baby boy and one day he died …” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that!”

  “From what?”

  “We never found out … he was only five months old … his name was Samuel …” She sighed. “Such a long time ago …”

  “Is it a secret?” Sally asked.

  “Not a secret … just something I don’t like to talk about.”

  “Thank you for telling me, Ma Fanny. I understand better now.”

  Ma Fanny cupped Sally’s chin in her hand. “You’re worth a million … you know that … more even …” She went back to winding her wool.

  Class 5B was having an election for King and Queen of Posture. The winners would go on to compete in the All-Fifth-Grade contest and the winners of that election would represent the entire fifth grade in the All-School contest. Barbara had nominated Sally, and Peter had seconded the motion, so Sally stood out in the corridor with the other five nominees, waiting, while the rest of the class voted.

  In a few minutes Miss Swetnick opened the door and said, “You can come back in now …”

  The winners’ names were written on the blackboard. Gordon and Beatrice, King and Queen of Posture of Class 5B. Sally tried to hide her disappointment. On her way back to her desk Harriet Goodman leaned over and said, “I didn’t vote for you … I’d never vote for you!”

  “I’d never vote for you, either,” Sally answered.

  She took her seat. Barbara whispered, “You got six votes … that’s pretty good … you came in third …”

  Third and last, Sally thought. But at least she hadn’t lost by just one vote. Then she’d have even more reason to hate Harriet. And, there was always next time. Maybe she’d do better then. There were so many contests in Miami Beach. The newspapers were full of them. Miss Bright Eyes, Miss Complexion, Miss Long Legs. Even Central Beach Elementary School had contests all the time. Girl of the Week, Tumbler of the Month, Smile of the Year. Maybe they’d have a Queen of Toenails contest, Sally thought. Yes, she could win that one. Then she’d get to be fifth-grade representative to the All-School-Queen of Toenails election. And if Harriet Goodman didn’t vote for her this time it wouldn’t matter because everybody else in the class would. She looked down at her feet and wiggled her toes. She did have nice toenails!

  “Sally …” Miss Swetnick said, “would you please take out your arithmetic book and open to page ninety-two.”

  When Sally got home from school she found Mr. Zavodsky sitting on the porch with another old man. This one had white hair, suntanned s
kin and wore a flowered cabana shirt. Simon! Yes, it had to be. They were sharing some kind of book—reading, pointing and laughing together. Mr. Zavodsky was so involved he didn’t offer her candy, didn’t even notice her.

  “Look …” Mr. Zavodsky said to Simon, tapping a page of his book. “Do you remember her?”

  “Do I remember her?” Simon answered. “She’s one I’ll never forget!”

  Their scrapbook of the war! Sally thought, running into the lobby and up the stairs. She tore a piece of paper from her notebook and scribbled:

  Dear Mr. Zavodsky,

  I have seen you with Simon. His cabana shirt and suntan may fool some people but not me. He is the monster who was in charge of Dachau! I know plenty about Dachau and what you and Simon did to the prisoners there. You will pay for laughing about it.

  I’ll copy this note over later, she thought. For now she folded it in half and put it in her keepsake box. She’d have to hurry. Andrea would be waiting to play potsy.

  Daddy made some money on one of Big Ted’s stock tips and came down to visit for five days in March, and again, over Easter vacation.

  Sally was curled up in his lap, running her middle finger up and down his arm. She felt happy and relaxed like Andrea’s kitten when he purred. “… and the recreation room is almost finished,” Daddy said. “All that’s left to do is the floor and the trimmings … what do you think of green and black tiles?”

  “Alice Ingram has red and black.” She wondered how long it would take to count all the hairs on his arm.

  “Everybody has red and black … that’s why I thought of green and black … but if you don’t like green …”

  “Oh no … green is nice …”

  “And green leather on the built-in seats …”

  “I like green a lot.”

  “And a green top on the bar …”

  “We can call it the Green Room,” Sally said.

  Daddy smiled at her.

  “Can I have a party in it right away … as soon as I get home?”

  “I think you should wait an hour or two.”

  “You know what I mean,” Sally said, laughing.

  “As soon as you want.”

  “And can I have boys, too?”

  “We better discuss that with your mother.”

  “Why … what’s wrong with having boys?”