And This Is Laura

by Ellen Conford

  “Yes? Oh, thank God! Is he all right? Where—he was what?”

  Jill and Douglas and my father and I jumped around the hallway like kangaroos running amok, hugging each other and yelling.

  “We’ll be right down to get him,” she shouted into the phone. “All right, put him on. Dennis? Dennis, we’ve been frantic about you! Why did you go off like that? Look, never mind, just stay with the policeman. Yes, I’m sure he’s a policeman. We’ll come and get you. Just—well, if you want to. Yes, it’s okay. No, he’s not a stranger, he’s a policeman. Yes, you can. Well, check his identification then. I’m telling you it’s okay. Put him back on.”

  “He wants to come home in the patrol car,” she said to us. “With the siren. But he’s not allowed to get in cars with strangers.” She shook her head hopelessly. My father sank into a chair.

  “Do you believe it?” he said. “Do you believe him? He’s not allowed to get in cars with strangers.” He put his hand to his forehead and just stayed that way for a while. We couldn’t tell whether he was laughing or crying.

  My mother got off the phone at last, and grabbed me around the waist, hugging me fiercely. “You were right,” she cried, spinning me around and kissing me wildly all over my face. “You were one hundred percent right, you—you psychic Einstein. He was fast asleep in front of the biggest color TV in Macy’s.”

  “But what took them so long?” I gasped, hugging her back.

  “My description,” she said wryly. “It never occurred to me that he might have dressed up before he left. The officer told me it would have been a lot easier to find him if we had told them he was wearing his pith helmet. They must have passed him fifty times, but they knew it couldn’t be the kid they were looking for, because surely they would have been told right off the bat if they were supposed to watch for a kid in a pith helmet.”

  “How many people, after all,” my father agreed weakly, “wear their pith helmets in February?”

  “And his Mets jacket,” my mother added. “In this weather! I hope he doesn’t catch pneumonia. Well, they had a completely wrong description of him. No wonder they couldn’t find him.”

  “Funny,” I mused. “I didn’t see the pith helmet.”

  “How about it, Douglas?” Jill demanded. “Is this proof enough for you? Laura found him, didn’t she?”

  “A good, logical guess,” he retorted, “like the cop said.”

  “You’re impossible!”

  “She didn’t,” he reminded us, “see the pith helmet.”

  “I give up,” Jill said in disgust. “Laura could predict the world would end tomorrow in an atomic war, and as we all went down in flames, you’d be saying, ‘She was wrong, she was wrong, they weren’t atom bombs, they were hydrogen bombs.’”

  A few moments later we heard a siren. My mother opened the front door. “I hear it, but I don’t see it yet.”

  “This kid,” Douglas remarked, “is getting some royal treatment for pulling a rotten trick.”

  “You’re right,” my mother said. She tried to look stern. “But I want to find out why he did it before I break his neck. Oh, will I be glad to see him!”

  We saw the flashing light of the patrol car as it turned down Woodbine Way. Our neighbors started to appear in their windows and at their front doors. As the car pulled up in our driveway the siren died away like a record slowing down to a moan.

  “Tell the neighbors he’s all right, Douglas,” my mother ordered, running out to the car. She snatched Dennis up in her arms and carried him into the house, leaving my father to thank the policeman who’d brought him.

  “Dennis Jay Hoffman, we were so worried about you we nearly died!” She yanked his pith helmet off and examined his face for any signs of injury.

  “And you must be freezing in that light jacket! What in the world got into you?”

  “Nothing,” said Dennis. He snuggled comfortably against her neck.

  “Nothing! Why did you go off on your own like that?”

  “I finished counting to a million and there was nothing else to do.”

  “Congratulations,” said my father.

  “Thank you,” replied Dennis.

  “Why didn’t you wait for me to take you to Roger’s?”

  “I did wait. I waited and waited, but you didn’t get finished and the channel tuner broke so I went myself.”

  “But you didn’t go to Roger’s. You went to the shopping center.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know how to go to Roger’s.”

  My mother looked at my father in despair.

  “At least he knows his own limitations,” he ventured.

  “Oh, Basil! Dennis, you are never, never to leave this house without telling me again! Do you understand me?”

  “Okay. Did you hear me coming in the police car with the siren?”

  “We heard you. The whole block heard you. Everyone was very worried about you, Dennis. You must never do that again.”

  “Okay. He put the flashing light on too. We went real fast. Right through red lights and everything.”

  “Are you hungry? You must be starved.”

  “No. I had ice cream and candy in the movies.”

  Douglas looked startled. He sat down heavily on the oak bench and frowned.

  I smiled modestly.

  “You’re amazing,” my father said, shaking his head. “Absolutely amazing.”

  “Thank you,” said Dennis.

  “I meant Laura,” my father said sternly.

  “Finally.” I heaved a contented sigh.

  My parents gave me a puzzled look. My mother put Dennis down and Jill took him off to the kitchen for some pizza—but not before giving Douglas a not-so-gentle poke in the chest.

  I wanted the lovely moment to last. When they didn’t say anything, I added, “I guess you’re kind of proud of me now.”

  “Fishing for compliments?” Douglas inquired.

  “Be quiet, Douglas,” my father said. “What do you mean, ‘finally’? What do you mean, ‘proud of you now’?”

  “Well, I mean, telling you where Dennis was—being psychic and all.” It sounded silly, my having to say it myself. They were supposed to be telling me this.

  “Oh, brother,” said Douglas in disgust. He went upstairs, shaking his head.

  “Laura,” my father began hesitantly, “I think your ESP is amazing—like I said before. But why should it make us proud of you?”

  “Because now I have a talent,” I said. “Like Jill and Douglas. Now there’s something I can do that you can be proud of me for.” I felt like I was going to cry. After all this time, after everything that had happened, was I still just Laura? Plain old ordinary Laura?

  I looked from one to the other of them desperately, waiting for them to tell me they thought I was special, wonderful, unique.

  “But why should we be proud of something we had nothing to do with?” asked my mother. “You’re the one who should be proud of yourself.”

  “But you’re proud of Jill and Douglas!” I was crying now. I couldn’t help it. They wouldn’t even pretend they were proud of me. Why couldn’t they lie, or fake it or something, when they could see how much I wanted them to think I was special?

  “Of course we’re proud of them,” my father said. “Because they’re our children and because they’re turning out to be good people.”

  “I mean, because they’re so talented,” I insisted between sobs.

  “Laura,” my mother said, “I’m glad Douglas likes music and has found something he’s good at. And I’m glad Jill likes to act and can do it well enough to get satisfaction from it. And I enjoy going to their concerts and plays and seeing them perform, because I know it makes them happy to be able to do these things. But that’s not what makes them special to me. And your ESP isn’t what makes you special to me. If Jill couldn’t bowl at all, and Douglas wasn’t captain of the debating team and you weren’t psychic, I’d still think you were all wonderful—because you’re my children. Even if no one
else in the whole world thought you were special, I would.”

  I kept my head down. All I could do was let the tears come. My mother went off to the bathroom and came back with a box of tissues.

  “Laura,” my father began. “Laura, listen. It’s not because of us that Douglas can play the piano. It was something in him. We had nothing to do with it, except that when we saw he seemed to be interested in music, we made piano lessons available to him. When Jill said she wanted to go bowling, we took her bowling. When she began to be interested in acting, she went and tried out for school plays and the drama club. But they discovered their own interests and abilities, and they developed them. They’re the ones who should take pride in what they can do.”

  My mother handed me a bunch of tissues.

  “It’s not what you can do that makes us proud of you,” she said. “It’s what you are. Do you think I’d be proud of a son who composed a symphony at the age of three but who liked to pull wings off flies in his spare time?”

  I giggled and shuddered at the same time.

  “Do you see what I mean?”

  I shook my head. “Not really.”

  “All right. Let’s make it more personal. Let’s take you. Which do you think would make us happier—if you were—oh, a mathematical genius, but spent your entire childhood bullying other children, or if you were a happy, well-adjusted kid who brightened up any room you walked into?”

  “Why couldn’t I be a well-adjusted mathematical genius?” I sniffled.

  When she didn’t answer, I looked up from my clump of wet tissues. Her forehead was furrowed in thought. My father was grinning.

  “She has a very logical mind, Maggie,” he said. “Why couldn’t she be both?”

  “Because this is my train of thought,” my mother retorted, “and you’re going to let me express it the way I want to.”

  “Train of thought,” said Douglas, loping down the stairs. “Express it. Express train.” He headed for the kitchen. “Very good, Mom,” he called back.

  She shook her head impatiently.

  “The point is that I love my children because they’re lovable, not because they can do things. The qualities that make you lovable have nothing to do with talent or genius. Why do you think your father loves me?” she asked suddenly.

  “I—I don’t know,” I stammered. I thought about it for a moment. “Because you’re you, I guess. That sounds stupid,” I muttered.

  “No it doesn’t! Do you think he would love me less if I didn’t write books? Do you think he would love me less if I hadn’t been in the movies?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Exactly! He doesn’t love me for what I can do, or what I can produce—that’s unimportant to him. He loves me for what I am. Me.”

  Douglas passed by again with a slice of pizza in each hand.

  “But your cooking helps,” he commented.

  “Scram, Douglas,” she growled.

  He took the stairs two at a time. “Just passing through.”

  “Do you see?”

  “I guess so.” I sighed. The tears had stopped. “You’re saying you love me even though I’m not talented. It’s just—well, maybe you don’t realize it, but it’s hard to be the only person in the whole family that nobody admires. That’s why I was hoping you’d be proud of me when I found out I was psychic. Then you wouldn’t just say, ‘And this is Laura.’ ”

  “What?” my father asked.

  “Never mind. It’s only—everybody in this whole family is exceptional except me. I mean, before I was psychic there wasn’t one thing that made me outstanding. And Jill and Douglas—and you—” I said, almost accusingly to my mother, “actually have two things. It’s not fair.” Even to me, that sounded childish. I started to cry again.

  “If you insist on judging yourself that way,” my father said, “even though you know how unimportant it is to us, you have two things now too. You’re psychic and you can act. And as you get older you’ll find more things that you’re good at. Your mother didn’t start to write books until she was thirty. Nobody knew when she was twelve that she was a budding author. Jill and Douglas are both older than you are. They’ve had more time to discover what their abilities are.”

  “Maybe Laura’s problem,” my mother suggested, “is that she’s good at too many things.”

  “What?” I was surprised out of my crying. I examined her face to see if she was putting me on.

  “Well, dear, even you have to admit you get practically straight A’s in everything.”

  “Oh, school.”

  “If you only got A’s in English, for instance,” she went on calmly, “then you’d figure English was your best subject. Even if you flunked everything else, you’d know you were really good at English. But since you get A’s in everything, somehow you’ve decided that means you’re good at nothing.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I grumbled.

  “I agree with you,” she said.

  “The whole point is,” my father said firmly, “that we are proud of you because of the fine person you’re turning out to be and you’re not finished yet, so there’s no way for you or anyone else to know what you’re going to be able to do in the future.”

  “You forget,” Jill said, carrying a drowsy Dennis past us, “that you’re talking to a psychic. Couldn’t help overhearing,” she added. “Why don’t you look into your future, Laura? You gave readings for everyone but yourself. Typical, isn’t it?” She grunted, staggering up the stairs under Dennis’s weight. “She’s so selfish and greedy and spoiled, that’s why we all can’t stand her.” Her voice trailed away as she disappeared into Dennis’s room.

  I couldn’t help smiling. At least I knew Jill appreciated me.

  “Are you feeling a little better now?” asked my father.

  “A little.” Actually I didn’t feel a great deal better, but I was tired from all that crying. And I didn’t think there was anything more they could say that would change the way I’d felt for so long.

  “I think I’ll go up and lie down awhile.”

  I trudged up the stairs and sank down on my bed. I really was exhausted. But Jill’s idea appealed to me. Why not look into my own future? Maybe I’d see something there which would change the whole way I felt about myself.

  I closed my eyes.

  I was looking at a playbill. At the top was printed: “LAURA: A PLAY IN THREE ACTS.”

  I seemed to be in a darkened theater. I looked down at the program again, and read, “ACT I: LAURA IS BORN.” The curtain rose and my mother walked onstage, carrying a baby in her arms. She was talking softly to it, and cuddling it as she made her way across the stage. I couldn’t hear any sounds, but she had her head close to the baby’s and her lips moved. She turned to face the audience, and held the baby up for everyone to see. She took a deep bow, and walked off.

  The curtain fell. I looked around at all the people in the theater and saw they were applauding. I still didn’t hear any sounds.

  The curtain rose. My program read, “ACT II: LAURA’S CHILDHOOD.” A little girl—me, I guess—skipped across the stage, trailed by a very small boy who could barely toddle after her. He must have been Dennis. She sat down in the center of the stage and the boy plopped down next to her. From either side of the wings appeared Jill and Douglas. They walked to center stage and positioned themselves formally behind me and Dennis. My father and mother emerged from backstage and took their places behind the children. They all stayed immobile for a moment, as if posing for a stiff family photograph. Then the little girl and boy stood up and the whole group bowed toward the audience.

  The curtain came down, and once again everyone applauded.

  I waited eagerly for the curtain to rise once more. It was taking a long time. Yet no one around me seemed restless or impatient. They just sat, with bland smiles on their faces, quietly waiting. I was the only one in the theater who was in a hurry for the third act to begin.

  Still nothing happened. The house lights di
dn’t go up, but neither did the curtain. Puzzled, I squinted down at the program. It read, “ACT III: TO BE CONTINUED.”

  I felt terribly confused. I began to turn the program every which way, looking for some clue as to what was going to happen. But all the rest of the print on it was blurred, unreadable. Frantically I turned the paper over and over, until I suddenly noticed something written in little letters right underneath “TO BE CONTINUED.” It was “By Laura. All in good time.”

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