It's Not the End of the World Read online

  I went up to the hideaway. The door was open. Jeff was lying on his bed with his eyes closed. Only his purple light was on. The whole room glowed.

  “Hey Jeff …” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you remember that Monday is Mom’s and Dad’s anniversary?”

  “So?”

  “Don’t you think we should do something?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No … I think it would be very nice to have a little party or something.”

  Jeff opened his eyes and sat up. “They’re getting divorced, Karen.”

  “So?”

  “So you don’t go around giving parties for people who’re getting divorced.”

  “Don’t you even want to sign my card?”

  “You bought a card?” Jeff asked.

  “Two,” I said, holding them up.

  I bought them yesterday. One for Mom and one for Daddy. They are both the same. There’s a picture of two bluebirds and it says TO A SWELL COUPLE. I’m going to mail them tomorrow morning because I want to make sure they are delivered on the twenty-sixth, and that’s Monday. I’m sure when they remember that it is their sixteenth anniversary they will call their lawyers and cancel the divorce.

  “Well,” I said to Jeff, “you want to sign them or not?”

  “You’re nuts!” Jeff said. “You can’t send them anniversary cards like there’s nothing wrong.”

  “Says who?”

  “You just can’t.”

  “Well, I’m going to. Amy’s signing them and so am I and I think you should too.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

  “This is your last chance to sign,” I told him.

  “Forget it!”

  “Okay, I will.” I turned and walked out of his room. Let him lie there forever—with his stupid purple light bulb!

  When Amy came up to bed I showed her the cards. She liked them a lot. I told her she could sign them and she chose a different color crayon for every letter in her name. And she didn’t just sign Amy—she signed Amy Denise Newman.

  On Saturday morning Mom said I could ask Debbie to sleep over if I wanted because she was going out to dinner with Aunt Ruth and Uncle Dan. “I don’t think we need Mrs. Hedley any more,” Mom said. “Jeff is old enough to be in charge.”

  “I thought you said if we give up Mrs. Hedley some other family will grab her.”

  “They probably will,” Mom said. “But it’s foolish to pay her when we can manage by ourselves.”

  Did Mr. Hague tell Mom to watch her money? Or doesn’t Daddy send enough for a baby sitter?

  Debbie came over in time for supper, which we made ourselves. We had hot dogs, potato chips and chocolate pudding for dessert. The only part of the night that wasn’t fun was telling Amy that she couldn’t sleep in my other bed. She cried and carried on but before Mom left she explained that Amy has her own room and that’s where she has to sleep from now on. I don’t think Amy ever told Mom that she is afraid we’ll be gone in the morning. Maybe I should be the one to tell my mother. I don’t know—Amy might not like it if I did. That is supposed to be our secret.

  Mom got all dressed up and I couldn’t help wondering if just Aunt Ruth and Uncle Dan were taking her to dinner or if maybe Henry Farnum was going along too. And I didn’t want to ask her about it in front of Debbie anyway. Mom looked very nice and she smelled delicious. I think she was wearing the perfume Daddy gave to her last Christmas.

  At ten o’clock Amy fell asleep in the den and Debbie and I carried her up to bed. We decided to leave her overhead light on all night. That way she might not get so scared if she woke up suddenly.

  At quarter to eleven the phone rang. Debbie and I were in my room. I thought it might be Mom, checking to see how everything was. So I went into my mother’s room and picked up the phone, but Jeff beat me to it on the kitchen extension. And it wasn’t my mother either. It was Mary Louise Rumberger! I put one hand over the mouthpiece and called to Debbie, “It’s Mary Louise …”

  Debbie came running. We shared the phone and listened. Imagine Mary Louise calling my brother at quarter to eleven at night! And they barely even talked. They just laughed very softly at each other.

  I could hardly wait for Monday night. I hoped Daddy would call as soon as he saw his mail.

  Then he and Mom would talk about the day they got married sixteen years ago and they’d laugh about Garfa catching chicken pox!

  Mom opened her mail as soon as she got home from work. I stood there watching her. After she read my card she did the craziest thing! She started to cry and she took me in her arms. She said, “Oh, Karen …” over and over again.

  Later Daddy called. Only he didn’t call to talk to Mom like I was hoping. He called to talk to me. He said, “Thanks, Karen … but from now on you have to remember we don’t celebrate our anniversary any more. Try not to think of April 26 as a special day.”

  Monday, April 26

  How can I not think about this day? It is special and it will always be special even if I am the only one who knows it!

  Nineteen

  Jeff has a broken toe. He has to wear a sneaker with a big hole cut in it. His toe is bandaged and he pulls an athletic sock over that foot to keep the rest of his toes warm. He broke it himself. He dropped a weight on his foot. Dr. Winters says he is lucky he didn’t do more damage. He uses a cane to walk around. I wonder what Mary Louise Rumberger thinks of broken toes? She probably feels very sorry for him. She calls him every single night now.

  Jeff doesn’t talk to any of us. Not to me or Amy or my mother. He is getting just like Petey Mansfield. They can turn themselves off like radios. I am starting to really hate him!

  Val invited me to sleep over Saturday night. I asked my mother if I could go. She said, “I don’t even know her, Karen. How can I let you sleep there overnight?”

  “Please, Mom! She’s very nice. So is her mother.” That was funny because I really don’t know Mrs. Lewis. I’ve seen her twice. She says hello, but that’s about it. She is the best-looking mother I have ever seen. “Daddy lives right upstairs,” I told Mom.

  “You’ll have to call him and see what he thinks,” Mom said.

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  I picked up the phone and dialed. “Hello Daddy? This is Karen.… I’m fine.… They’re okay too. Daddy, Val wants me to sleep over Saturday night.… Yes, I’m dying to but Mom won’t let me unless you say I can. Well, because she doesn’t know Val or Mrs. Lewis.… Okay, I’ll tell her you’re going to be home. Thanks a lot, Daddy. I’ll see you Saturday. Bye.”

  After that my mother said I could go.

  The next night my father called to invite Jeff and Amy to stay over at his apartment Saturday night. Amy said she couldn’t wait, but Jeff told Daddy he already made other plans. I’ll bet they have something to do with Mary Louise.

  On Saturday, before I left for Val’s, I made my mother promise to take good care of Mew and to feed her canned food in the morning. I think Mom would give Mew food from a box if she could get away with it.

  I picked Mew up and kissed her good-by. I am not allowed to kiss her. It has something to do with the possibility of her carrying germs. So I take her into the bathroom with me, lock the door and kiss her as much as I want to.

  Later, when Daddy called for us, me and Amy were waiting by the front door. As soon as we were in the car Amy said, “Jeff doesn’t like me any more.”

  My father said, “Oh?”

  “And he doesn’t like Karen either. He doesn’t like anybody. He’s so mean! He’s almost as mean as Mommy. She won’t get me a Talking Jessie Doll. The kind with the hair that grows.”

  “Your mother’s not mean, Amy,” Daddy said.

  “How do you know? You don’t live at home.”

  “Because I know your mother and if she doesn’t think you should have a Talking Jessie Doll right now she must have a good reason.”

  “She’s always leavi
ng us alone,” Amy said. “That’s mean, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t believe she leaves you alone,” Daddy said.

  “She doesn’t,” I told him. “We don’t use Mrs. Hedley any more, that’s all. Jeff is in charge when Mom goes out.”

  “That sounds reasonable to me,” Daddy said.

  Amy sulked the rest of the way to Daddy’s apartment.

  Twenty

  I rang Val’s bell. She let me in. I got there in time to meet her mother’s boyfriend, Seymour Chandler. He doesn’t really look anything like a boyfriend. He looks more like a grandfather to me. His hair is silver and he’s kind of fat. But Mrs. Lewis looked beautiful. I wouldn’t want to have a mother that good looking. I’d spend all my time worrying about how I was going to turn out compared to her. Not that Val is ugly. She’s okay. But she doesn’t look like her mother.

  Val introduced me to Mr. Chandler. She said, “Seymour, this is my friend Karen. Her father lives upstairs. He’s getting a divorce.” Then Val told me, “Seymour’s divorced too.”

  “That’s right,” Seymour said. “I am. Twice, as a matter of fact.” Then he laughed.

  Twice! I never even thought about getting divorced more than once. That must really be awful!

  “Well, girls … Seymour and I are leaving now. You have a nice time,” Mrs. Lewis told us. She leaned close to Val and kissed her good night. I noticed that her lips didn’t touch Val’s face. It was an air-kiss. “Go to sleep by eleven, Valerie.”

  “I will, mother,” Val said. She closed the door behind them and fastened the three extra locks on it.

  It must feel funny to see your own mother go out on dates.

  “Well …” Val said. “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. I usually watch TV on Saturday nights.”

  “TV ruins your mind,” Val said. “Let’s wash our hair.”

  “Mine’s not dirty,” I said. “I just washed it Monday night.”

  “Oh, come on, Karen. It’ll be fun. Then we can soak in my mother’s bubble bath. I always do that on Saturdays. Tell you what … I’ll wash your hair first, then you can do mine.”

  We went into the bathroom, where Val attached a rubber hose to the sink. “It’s like a beauty parlor. You’ll enjoy it,” she said.

  “Well … okay.”

  Val fixed up a chair for me and spread a towel under my neck so it wouldn’t hurt from leaning back so far. Then she went to work. I have never had such a good shampoo in my life. When I do it myself I don’t get out all the soap, because my hair is so thick. But Val got it squeaky clean. She even gave me a cream rinse so I wouldn’t get tangles. When that was done she wrapped my head in a big green towel.

  Then it was my turn to do Val. I didn’t do as good a job on her. I tried, but her hair is awfully long. She had to give me advice. She said, “Rinse behind my ears now. That’s it. Watch it, Karen … the water’s running down my face. Okay … now the cream rinse. Take two capfuls and rub it in all over. Good … rub some more in if that’s not enough. Okay … now give me another rinse. Careful … it’s going down my back.”

  Val wrapped her head in a towel like mine, then she ran the tub. She poured in three-quarters of a bottle of bubble bath. While the tub was filling we rubbed each other’s heads until they were damp. Val gave me a couple of barrettes to pin up my hair so it wouldn’t get all wet when I took my bath.

  She let the water run almost to the top of the tub and by then the bubbles were so thick you couldn’t see through them.

  I don’t feel funny getting undressed in front of Debbie, because I have known her forever. But I did feel strange in front of Val. She could tell too. She said, “If you want I won’t look until you’re in the tub. You can hide under all the bubbles.” Then she turned around and I took off my clothes, dropped them in a heap on the floor and stepped into the tub. When I did, some of the water ran over the side.

  Then Val got undressed and I didn’t look, even though she didn’t care if I did. More suds overflowed when she got into the tub, but Val didn’t pay any attention to that. She said, “When I grow up I’m going to be a nudist. People would get along better if they didn’t wear any clothes. Then they couldn’t pretend to be what they’re not.”

  “But you’d get cold in the winter,” I told her.

  “Possibly. Maybe I’ll move to a warmer climate.”

  That reminded me of Gary Owens. I wonder if there are nudists in Houston?

  We soaked in the tub for half an hour. Neither one of us used soap or a washcloth. I guess if you sit in bubble bath all that time you’re bound to get clean.

  When we finally came out of the tub Val put on her mother’s terry robe, which was about four inches too long. It dragged all over the wet bathroom floor. I got into my pajamas. We both smelled very nice. Then we brushed out each other’s hair.

  When that was done Val sat down on the closed toilet seat and rubbed some kind of oil all over her legs. “I have to shave my legs now,” she said.

  I don’t know anybody who shaves her legs yet. Debbie says she will when she’s fourteen or when her legs get hairy, whichever comes first.

  Val ran a silver razor over her legs. Zip zip zip. She reminded me of my father, shaving his face.

  I used to love to watch him. He’d always put a dab of shaving cream on my nose when I was little. “Don’t you ever cut yourself?” I asked Val.

  “Oh, sure. But nothing serious. I’ve had lots of practice. I’ve been shaving since September.”

  “Did your mother show you how?”

  “Nope. I learned myself. Want me to do yours?”

  “No,” I said. “My mother would kill me. She says the earlier you shave the more you have to keep shaving. And anyway, the hair on my legs is very light. See …” I held a leg up for Val to look at.

  “You’re lucky,” she said, inspecting it. “I’m a very hairy person.”

  I noticed that when we were in the tub but I didn’t tell Val.

  When she was done shaving I helped her clean up the bathroom. She took big handfuls of the suds that were left in the tub and threw them into the toilet. They made a sizzling sound. And even after she flushed three times there were still suds floating around. “I think I used a little too much bubble bath tonight,” Val said. By then it was almost ten o’clock.

  We went into Val’s room. She has a trundle bed. It looks like just one bed, but underneath there’s another one. It was already pulled out for me. I asked Val where she got the rug that’s shaped like a foot and she said she saw an ad for it in The New York Times and cut it out to show her mother. Then she got it for her birthday.

  “I put my new sheets on your bed,” Val said. “Do you like them?”

  They were pink-and-orange striped. “They’re really nice,” I said.

  “I thought you’d approve.” Val snuggled down under her covers.

  I’ll bet it’s lonely for her to spend every Saturday night all by herself. And Mrs. Lewis goes out during the week too. No wonder Val hopes Seymour will marry her mother. Then she won’t be alone so much.

  “Val …” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “I still don’t understand why you don’t see your father. Couldn’t you take a trip to San Francisco?”

  “No. I told you before … he doesn’t care anything about me.”

  “How can you say that?” I asked.

  “Because it’s true.”

  “Did your mother tell you?”

  “No. That’s one thing she won’t admit. She says he’s just busy.”

  “Then you don’t know if he really wants to see you or not.”

  “Oh, I know all right. I’ll show you,” Val said, reaching under her bed. She came up with her divorce book. She opened it and said, “Listen to this. ‘Fathers who live close by but do not visit—’ ”

  I interrupted. “But your father doesn’t live close by. He lives in San Francisco.”

  “Wait a minute,” Val said. “I’m not done readi
ng.” She started again. “ ‘Fathers who live close by but do not visit and fathers who live far away and hardly ever call or write either do not love their children at all, or they love them very little.’ ” She closed the book, with her finger marking her place, and looked at me.

  “It really says that?”

  “It does.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “Of course I do. It’s true. Why should I kid myself?” She opened the book again. “It says right here, ‘There is something very wrong with an unloving parent. He deserves pity as well as anger.’ I’ve gotten along without him for three years. I’ll get along without him forever! He was never very interested in me anyway.”

  “What does your mother say … besides the bad things?”

  “That he married her because she was pretty and he wanted to show her off, like a new coat or something. He never really loved her, she says.”

  “I think my parents loved each other when they got married. Their wedding pictures look so happy. But my mother says they were too young.”

  “How old was she?” Val asked.

  “Nineteen.”

  “You should never get married that young,” Val said.

  “I’m never getting married at all!” I told her.

  “I am,” she said.

  That surprised me. “You are?”

  “Yes. When I’m twenty-seven and I’m a successful scientist.”

  “You’re going to be a scientist?” I asked. “I thought you were going to be a nudist.”

  “One thing has nothing to do with the other. I’ll be both.”

  “What kind are you going to be? Scientist, I mean.”

  “I’m not sure. But I’m going to discover something important. I’ll be very famous and my father will want everyone to know that I’m his daughter. I’ll be very cool about the whole thing. I’ll admit that we’re related but I won’t say anything else.”

  “If you get married … will you ever get divorced?”

  “No. Never!”