by Keziah Frost
After all, what was the point? If a writer is to write with her ideal reader always in mind, Carlotta had to recognize that all along, her ideal reader had been her Club.
But the Club would never read her book. Once that awful woman came back to town, they would all be zip lining with Mabel. Well, perhaps not zip lining. But they would be doing whatever unexpected thing Mabel would come up with next. Their interest in Carlotta’s memoirs would fade away. And this caused Carlotta’s own interest to fade away.
Considering the nasty turn How Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth had taken, would she ever want them to read it? Was it a work she could be proud of? Yes, of course, it was beautifully written. A powerful book, in fact. But somewhere along the way, its power had become malignant. Carlotta was afraid of her own work.
She put her pen down at last, and watched the sun come up. Toutou climbed onto her lap and licked her face.
-80-
Now that Mabel was off on her road trip, Carlotta seized the opportunity to drop by Margaret’s condo with Queen and pay a visit, Myrtle be damned.
The feline did not darken Carlotta’s day. Queen reported that Myrtle was lying on Mrs. Birch’s bed, giving Queen “the old stink eye,” and apparently couldn’t be bothered to get up today to harass Carlotta. As Carlotta chatted with her old friend, she was aware that Queen had slipped from the bedroom where she had been conversing with Myrtle, into the kitchen where she seemed to be opening cabinets and the refrigerator.
“Queen?” called Carlotta. “Come here, dear. Is it nice to poke around in other people’s homes?”
Queen came to the doorway and narrowed her eyes at Carlotta. Instead of answering the question, she asked a question of her own.
“Did you know that I like ice cream?”
Carlotta informed Queen of the rudeness of such an inference, and then immediately rewarded her for it by suggesting to Margaret that they all go out for ice cream.
“Why not?” approved Margaret. “Who doesn’t like ice cream?”
Outside, the maple trees were brilliant in orange and red. White and yellow chrysanthemums bloomed in the white ceramic pots that lined the sidewalks downtown. High in the sky above them, geese flew in formation, calling signals to one another to stay together.
At Goofy’s Ice Cream Parlor, there were fanciful arrays of ice cream, and these included soy varieties. A strident-voiced woman ahead of them was giving the server a hard time. She wanted a taste of this flavor, and then that flavor, and made a disappointed face at each sample. She pessimistically selected a third flavor for her purchase, and then became indignant that the cones were so small. The teenage boy behind the counter shrugged and suggested that the woman could buy two cones.
“Oh yeah. Of course. More profit for you that way, huh?” grumbled the customer to the teenager.
As the glum woman stalked out of the shop clutching her displeasing cone, Carlotta, Margaret and Queen watched her with interest. Finally, Queen murmured aloud what all three had been thinking.
“Man. If you can’t even be happy when you are picking out an ice cream flavor, when can you be happy?”
Heartily approving the sentiment, Carlotta said, “Hush now. We don’t talk about people in public.”
“Right,” agreed Queen affably. “We talk about them in private.”
That evening Hope got a phone call from Aunt Margaret.
“That little girl of yours is just the cat’s meow. I’m still smiling about some of the things she said this afternoon.”
“Oh, Aunt Margaret, thank you so much!” Hope lowered her voice, so that Queen, who was working at her desk in her room, would not hear. “I’m so glad to hear good things about her.”
“Obviously, you are doing a wonderful job. She seems to be adjusting so well.”
“You don’t know how much it means to me to hear you say that. I sometimes wonder if I am doing such a good job. I’m finding this motherhood thing to be even harder than I expected it to be. Sometimes I don’t know how to handle things.”
“Oh, Hope! I still remember how hard it can be. As mothers, we have so many opportunities to disappoint ourselves.”
Hope laughed with relief.
“Good to know! I wonder: when will I start feeling like a real mother, instead of like a screw-up?”
“If you feel like a screw-up, I’d say you already feel like a real mother.”
“Aunt Margaret, you’re the best.”
An excerpt from Queen’s notebook:
Here are some things I have learned about life:
People are liers but some dont lie that much
Dont be supprised when people act like thereselfs
Some people have refigeraters full of food and they never get hungry.
I will leave blank spaces in case I learn more things
___________________________________
___________________________________
___________________________________
-81-
“I like your life,” said Queen to Carlotta. “When I’m an old lady, I’ll be just like you, but black. I’ll have a nice house, and lots of friends, and I’ll be writing books. It’s so cool that you are writing a book. Can I see it?”
Carlotta basked in the child’s admiration. They were sitting at her kitchen table where they had a view of the fall colors and gamboling squirrels.
“I would love to show you my book, Queen, but it needs quite a bit of revision first. You see, it took an awkward turn, and I was even thinking of giving up on it. But now I have decided that I just need to bend it back to being the book I want to write.”
Queen laughed. “Sounds like you’re fighting with your own book.”
Carlotta acknowledged that it felt that way to her.
“Be that as it may,” said Carlotta, “let’s get back to Charlotte’s Web.”
Queen pulled the novel toward her and ran her fingers across the illustration of the girl, the pig, and the spider web.
“As you read any novel, I want you to be aware of foreshadowing. At the beginning of Charlotte’s Web, the spider, Charlotte, explained to Wilbur the pig that all living things die. As the story progressed, you saw that Charlotte herself died. So that part at the beginning was what we call foreshadowing. It is a literary device. It’s something like a hint. The author is getting you ready for what is to come.”
“Did you ever know someone who died?” asked Queen.
Carlotta allowed herself to be interviewed by the little girl, who looked at her unblinking through her round glasses, focusing as if she were taking mental notes. Carlotta told Queen the briefest of facts about her son Charlie, who had died in a car accident with his wife eleven years ago. And her husband, Ed, who died many years before that.
“Were you sad?”
“Well, of course, we’re sad when someone we love dies.”
“Which was worse—your son dying or your husband?”
“Queen, do you know, these are very personal questions now.”
“Sorry. Did you know that Hope used to have a boyfriend? His name was Rudy. But she dumped that sucker’s ass, and she’s happier now.”
“Queen! Really! Language!”
Queen hesitated. “Oh, sorry again. That’s the way Hope said it. Dumped that sucker’s ass. That’s what she said.”
Queen folded her hands and became pensive. She said, “I never knew you went through so many hard things in your life.”
“Well, we all go through hard things in life. The challenge is to have ‘grace under pressure,’ as Ernest Hemingway said. You’ll read him when you’re older. But I don’t know that my life is any harder than average. Actually, Queen, I’d say you have gone through harder things than I have.”
Queen knitted her brow. “I don’t agree. At least everyone that I love is still alive.”
Carlotta had never encountered such a deep child.
Queen added, “It’s so sad, that all living things have to die.” She looked out at the autum
n leaves floating on the hazy breeze.
Carlotta felt a softening of her heart. What a sensitive child.
“Yes, it is sad,” she agreed, smiling tenderly at Queen.
“When you die,” said Queen, “can I have your jewelry?”
An excerpt from Queen’s notebook:
Foreshadowing. After I finish this book for forster kids I will write lots more I can just see a line of hardback books on a shelf with my name on them Queen Serafina Jones It looks lovely. I might write one called How to Start Your Own Country. I am foreshadowing that right here.
-82-
Hope phoned Carlotta seeking childrearing advice, and although it was pleasant to be asked for guidance, Carlotta was at a loss.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been responsible for managing children. I do remember that you were such an easy child, and so was Summer. Both of you responded to the ‘stink eye,’ as Queen calls it. You both wanted to behave. My boys, now, they were different. They created mayhem. But then, I had your Uncle Ed to help.” Carlotta paused, trying to remember. “Spanking was his idea of helping, as I recall. That’s what everyone did, when they didn’t know what else to do.”
“That’s primitive! I can’t understand why parents ever thought that was okay.”
“It seemed to work, though, at least in the short term. It brought instant results.”
“But doesn’t violence just teach them that might makes right?”
“‘Violence!’ Really, Hope. I wouldn’t call spanking a form of violence.”
“Of course it’s violent. What else do you call it when a person hits another person?”
“But spanking doesn’t count as one person hitting another, does it?”
“Doesn’t it? I’m sure you wouldn’t suggest I try spanking Queen?”
Carlotta was shocked at the image.
“Certainly not! Your Uncle Ed was a blustering bully. I’m sorry to tell you that about your uncle, and I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but it is the truth. No, in this day and age, there must be a better way than spanking! Leave the child her dignity, no matter what she’s done. Anyway, what has she done? I must say, she behaves perfectly when she’s with me.”
“She does? Wow. I wonder what that means. With me, it’s like she’s constantly testing and pushing. She defies me on a daily basis. I tell her it’s time to work on her math facts, and she yells at me to stop bossing her. I tell her to go to bed, and she won’t. She can be very sweet, too, sometimes, but she will not accept any direction whatsoever from me.”
Carlotta searched her mind for something that might be helpful. The way she raised her boys was not the way parents were raising children today. If she had it to do over…she stopped that thought in its tracks.
There are no do-overs. There is only the present moment. Queen’s childhood is here and now.
“Didn’t you say, before she ever came, that children test their foster parents? I believe you said they are testing to see if you’ll….” Carlotta paused, surprised at the knot that seemed to be forming in her throat. “To see if you’ll give up on them. Isn’t that what you said?”
Hope must not be allowed to become discouraged.
“Give her time, dear. She hasn’t been with you long. It’s only been one month! One month! It seems-- in a way-- like she’s been here always.”
Carlotta, receiving inspiration from she knew not where, put an air of authority into her voice, as if she were a radio psychologist: “I suggest that you stop directing, and simply propose things as possibilities, so that she can feel that she’s got some control over her life. Instead of, ‘It’s time to work on your math now,’ try, “Would you like to work on your math now, or shall we set a timer for twenty minutes, and you can start then?” I’ll bet you anything she’ll cooperate, just because you’re giving her the chance to feel she has some say-so.”
Carlotta added, “Queen doesn’t like to be managed. No right-thinking person does.”
-83-
On Friday, October fourteenth, Hope awoke at six-thirty in the morning to find her front yard full of pink flamingoes. She rubbed her eyes. They were still there. Wrapping her coat around her pajamas, she stepped outside. That’s when she saw the large black number: “50.” It was on sticks and facing the sidewalk.
Jenny, across the street, waved and called, “Happy fiftieth birthday, Hope!”
“Jenny! Did you do this?”
“Me? No! I didn’t even know it was your birthday!”
She and Jenny would wake up the whole neighborhood shouting across the street at each other this way. Hope pointed to her own door, pantomiming that she had to go.
Jenny, always one for trying to prolong conversations, trumpeted, “You look great—for fifty!” as Hope closed her door.
Through gritted teeth, Hope said to the door, “That’s because I’m forty-six.”
Queen was watching her.
“Are you mad?”
“Well, yeah, I’m mad, except I don’t know who to be mad at. Who would do such a thing? Everyone who knows me knows I don’t like to be the center of attention. And my birthday is in May. So this has to be a joke. But I don’t know anyone who would play a joke like this.”
“It wasn’t me,” assured Queen, her eyes wide.
“Of course not! Where would you have gotten the money? No, I know it wasn’t you.”
As Hope made oatmeal, she called out, “I’ve got it! I bet it was just a mistake! Wrong birthday, wrong age: of course, they just got the wrong lawn.”
The doorbell rang.
It was Flowers on Main, with a delivery: the biggest bouquet of daisies that Hope had ever seen.
The gift card read, “Happy birthday, from your admiring friend, Arnie.”
“It’s not a mistake! It’s Arnie!” exclaimed Hope. At first she smiled. It was nice to have a man make a big deal about her birthday. Even though it wasn’t her birthday. What a sweet thought. Her smile was short-lived.
“He thinks I’m fifty?”
Hope began to sneeze violently. Her nose began to run. Her eyes began to run. She shoved the flowers deep into the garbage and washed her hands.
Queen handed her a box of tissues and giggled. “You’re okay, aren’t you, Hope? Oh, those birds look ridiculous out there!”
After Hope took an antihistamine, they stood together at the window and looked at the flock of pink plastic flamingoes, hideous in the morning light. Hope’s allergic distress had already lessened. She began to laugh.
Suddenly Queen’s pleasure seemed to fade.
“I don’t know what’s so funny. Nothing funny about it. Uh-uh. It sure isn’t funny to me. I’d be mad if I were you. I sure would.”
In Mr. Fisher’s class, Queen’s head was bent over her math work, but her mind was on getting rid of Mr. Butler. Seems like instead of getting mad, Hope just thought the flamingoes and daisies were hilarious. That was not good. A lady starts laughing at something a man does, and pretty soon he’s moving in. He moves in, and that’s when the bad stuff starts. Queen had seen it all before.
What Queen needed was some advice from someone who knew everything about everybody. She wondered if that Madame Fifi was still on late-night television. Maybe she should sneak out of bed tonight to see. Hope always left her purse—with her credit card inside—on the dining room table. It was nice that Hope trusted her like that.
Red and orange leaves gusted around Hope’s feet as she walked, hugging her long sweater around her. Orange Halloween lights lit up the window displays of Butler’s Books. Inside, Arnie looked up with undisguised happiness at the sight of Hope.
She had left Liam at the controls of the Good Fortune Café to run over to the bookstore and thank Arnie for his gesture. While she was at it, she put him straight about her age.
“I didn’t think you were older than me,” he said. “I mean, you look like you’re twenty-two.”
Hope didn’t believe him, but nonetheless she flushed with pleasure, and he
gazed at her, enchanted.
“You know we graduated the same year,” said Hope.
“Right. But Queen insisted you were turning fifty today.”
“Wait. What? And she told you that today is my birthday?”
The light dawned on them both at the same time.
“Today is not your birthday, is it?”
Hope shook her head.
“And you do not like a whole bunch of stuff on your lawn.”
Hope laughed and shook her head. “But it was really nice of you, anyway.”
“Oh, wow. And…how do you feel about daisies? At least you liked the flowers, I hope.”
“I’m terribly allergic to daisies.”
Arnie was aghast.
“I am so, so sorry. You’re allergic? Are you all right?”
“Sure, I’m fine. I just had to take an antihistamine.”
“So this was a complete and total disaster.” Arnie covered his face and peeked at Hope through his fingers. “I have been punked by a nine-year-old.”
He looked so bewildered and embarrassed. And adorable, really. Why had Hope never realized how cute he was?
Looking into his kind hazel eyes, she began to laugh. She saw the relief in his face, and he began to laugh with her.
“But why?” asked Arnie. “Why would Queen set me up?”
Hope, still smiling, said, “I think she might feel threatened by you.”
“Threatened? By me? You’re kidding, right? What’s threatening about me?”
“Nothing! But see it from her point of view. She has all my attention now. And maybe her past experiences with men haven’t been so positive; I don’t really know. She just doesn’t want any more change in her life.”
Arnie nodded. “I get that.”
Hope knew he also felt encouraged that she was even talking about him changing things.