Bingo Brown's Guide to Romance

by Betsy Byars

  Her earrings jangled. And these were not the tasteful gypsy earrings Bingo had given her last Christmas. These earrings were as big as handcuffs.

  “—this is a home perm, but I don’t broadcast the fact. Most people think it’s natural.”

  “It sure looks natural.”

  Melissa turned the box over and checked the instructions. “Do you want body, waves, or curls?” She glanced sideways at her friend, but Bingo thought she looked beyond to where he stood behind Kibbles ’n Bits.

  “What do you have?”

  “Can’t you tell? Curls, obviously.”

  “I want curls, too.”

  This exchange caused Bingo’s doubts to return. Melissa—his Melissa—had naturally curly hair, didn’t she? He had seen it up close. Maybe there was some mousse involved, but …

  And! This Melissa didn’t sound like his Melissa. She sounded like somebody from out of state. It could be something she had picked up in Oklahoma, but Bingo didn’t know what an Oklahoman sounded like.

  Bingo thought he had caught the faint scent of ginger-snaps as she fluffed out her hair, however, and if so, then it was Melissa. No other girl smelled like gingersnaps.

  Bingo didn’t know what to believe. Burning questions rose as bitter as indigestion.

  Was it Melissa or a Melissa clone? Would Melissa come to town to buy health supplies without telling him? Could one girl have gotten that big in a year? Had he gotten bigger, too? And if he had gotten bigger, then how had she gotten even bigger? And—

  “Yo, Melissa!”

  It was Wentworth.

  Melissa turned. “Oh, hi.”

  “Remember that kid who used to be in our room at school?” Wentworth asked.

  “Which one?”

  “Named Bingo … had a lot of freckles?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Well, he came in the store looking for you.”

  “Did he? Well, he didn’t find me.” She smiled.

  Bingo’s heart leapt in his chest. It was Melissa. Those were her teeth, and no matter how the rest of her had grown, her teeth had remained blessedly the same.

  “I’ll check around if you want to see him,” Wentworth offered.

  Bingo got ready to step out.

  “Don’t bother.”

  Bingo found that he had already stepped out, but no one noticed. Melissa and her friend went through the checkout line and left the store. Wentworth followed.

  Bingo had to follow. He didn’t want to. He had to. Then he remembered his mom’s box of Rinso.

  As if he were being fast-forwarded, he made his way back to Health Supplies, got the Rinso, and returned to the express register.

  He gasped to the checkout girl, “I brought this box of soap into the store. See, I thought a girl I knew was in here and since I hadn’t seen the girl in a while—her name is Melissa—I was in a hurry to see her and I rushed in and I had just been to the laundromat, which is why I have this half-empty box of soap. Do you need to call security?”

  “Not really.”

  “Thank you.”

  She waved him on with a bored shrug.

  Bingo rushed out into the parking lot, but Melissa and her friend were not in sight. Neither was Wentworth. Bingo stood for a moment clutching his box of Rinso.

  He knew he didn’t have a moment to waste. He had to get his bike and immediately set out after them.

  He spun around, trying to remember where he had left his bicycle.

  Then he remembered the laundry. He gave a cry of anguish. If he didn’t start after Melissa immediately, he would be a troubled person for the rest of his life, always wondering why Melissa had come to town to buy health supplies, always dangling, suspended in the atmosphere of life, never able to get his feet on the ground.

  He saw this as the crossroads of life. If he took the road that led to Melissa, he would find the answer to life’s questions and happiness. If he took the road that led to the laundromat, he would find wet clothes.

  Bingo sighed.

  Slowly, painfully, he made his way to the King Koin. The only thing he had to be grateful for was that Wentworth had not waited to jeer at him.

  In the laundromat, he emptied the first washing machines he came to and put the clumps of wet clothes into the basket on his bicycle. Then he pedaled through the doors.

  He found himself pedaling faster as he crossed the parking lot.

  Maybe all was not lost. Maybe there was still a chance. He could ride up Main Street and, if she wasn’t there, take an immediate left onto Madison.

  He pedaled harder, bending over his handlebars, and then he stiffened. He braked so fast he left rubber on the sidewalk.

  He didn’t want to see Melissa now. And he certainly didn’t want Melissa to see him.

  Problem #3. Sustaining Romance.

  Suppose that you are forced, by family reversals, to carry a load of wet laundry on the back of your bicycle. And suppose that in the past you have presented yourself as a knowing, cool, gypsy-type lover. Will the sight of you with a load of unattractive wet laundry dampen this romantic picture as well as the flame of passion in her heart, or will it bring out her maternal instincts and a new depth to the flagging relationship previously …

  Bingo didn’t bother to answer the question. Once again, he took the long, painfully slow route home.

  Love Letters for Eternity

  DEAR MELISSA,

  Bingo was at home. HE sat at his desk, hunched over the much-creased sheet of notebook paper.

  His hands appeared to be steady, but the paper trembled, as if it had somehow absorbed the shock of the event in Health Supplies.

  Dear Melissa,

  Bingo tried to remember when he had written those two words—it had been at least three months ago, but he remembered the moment as clearly as if it had occurred yesterday.

  He had started the letter, thinking it was going to be just one of his usual outstanding letters, and then—and then the pen had begun to move across the paper on its own, as if by magic, and that was when Bingo had realized this was going to be a love letter for eternity, maybe even infinity.

  Bingo glanced back at his bed because he felt the need to lie down, but his bed was unmade. Not only that, but his mother had replaced his Smurf sheets with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which had been on sale.

  Bingo could barely sleep on the turtles, much less read a love letter for eternity on them.

  He glanced at his letter and read what he had written:

  Dear Melissa,

  He looked up at the ceiling.

  There was no need to continue reading the letter because he knew it by heart. The letter was that perfect.

  It was too perfect. Actually, how he wished it hadn’t been quite so perfect because then he wouldn’t have Xeroxed it.

  I have been thinking of you since breakfast. We only had Corn Pops because the baby had cried all night, and at first I thought my unsettled feeling had to do with an unsatisfactory breakfast.

  Then came the sentence that had told Bingo that this was going to be a letter for eternity.

  At nine-thirty I pedaled to Wendy’s for a sausage biscuit, and after I ate a sausage biscuit and fries, I was still hungry. Then I realized that my hunger was for you.

  The hunger of love, and this is truly the first time I have experienced it so intensely, is a unique experience, Melissa, and I sat in Wendy’s until the waitress wiped my table three times and gave me a funny look. Then I went home and had a small box of Cheerios and felt a little better.

  The letter went on in that heated manner for a full page. He had sent the letter off and waited anxiously for her reply. It wasn’t like Melissa not to answer immediately. For a letter like this, she should have called.

  And what a phone call it would have been!

  Her voice would have undergone that wonderful change, deepening with pleasure as she thanked him. Girls were fortunate to be able to deepen their voices so attractively, and a thank-you in a voice dee
p with pleasure was something a man could carry in his heart forever.

  At that time he had not, of course, been aware that he had sent the Xerox of the letter, or that she would be offended by it.

  He looked down and his eyes took in the letter’s closing.

  Hungrily yours,

  Bingo

  There was a knock on his window.

  “I’m busy, Wentworth,” he called without turning his head.

  “Did I lie?”

  Bingo decided to play it cool. “About what?”

  “About that girl.”

  “What girl?”

  “Melissa.”

  “Yes. Yes, I saw her.”

  “Then did I lie?”

  “No, Wentworth. Not this time.”

  “And I know something else about Melissa—but it’ll cost you.”

  From the living room his mom’s voice cut into his conversation. “Bingo!”

  “I’m busy,” he called back.

  If only everyone would leave him alone while he was in anguish. He couldn’t concentrate on his anguish while people kept interrupting. There was no respect for anguish anymore.

  “Bingo!”

  His mother was in the doorway now. She stood with the basket of wet clothes on her hip.

  Bingo did not want to have another conversation with his mother like the one he had just had. He had come in from the laundromat hot and flushed, as stunned as if life had hit him over the head with a baseball bat. And his mother had unfeelingly said—no, his mother had snapped—“Where’s the laundry?”

  “Oh, it’s still on my bicycle, I guess. Mom, the most terrible thing in the world happened!”

  “Well, bring in the clothes so I can dry them. Jamie is in his last clean diaper, aren’t you, snookums?”

  Jamie, on her shoulder, had begun to drool with excitement. He always did this whenever he saw Bingo because Bingo bounced him up and down better than anybody. Bingo didn’t have time to bounce him.

  “Mom! Mom, didn’t you hear me? The most terrible thing in the world has happened.”

  His mother had put one hand protectively on the baby. “What?”

  “Melissa’s back.”

  “Melissa?”

  “Yes, Mom, Melissa—at least I think it was Melissa. It was her shirt and teeth—I know that much.”

  “Melissa from Oklahoma?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, what’s terrible about that?”

  “Mom!”

  “Now you can save money on all those long-distance calls. I should think you’d be delighted to have Melissa back in town.”

  “Mom!”

  “Bring the laundry in and we can discuss it.”

  “Mom!”

  “Now.”

  So he had brought the laundry in, but by then she had started playing with the baby.

  “Look, Bingo, he can almost stand alone.”

  “Mom, here are the clothes. Do you want to discuss Melissa now?”

  “In a minute. Oh, look, he’s standing alone he’s standing alone he’s standing alone—oh, how long did he keep his balance? It was at least a minute, wasn’t it, Bingo?”

  “I didn’t time it.”

  “I’ve got to write that in his baby book. ‘Stood alone for one whole minute.’ You are the most wonderful baby in the world, yes, you are. You’re probably going to be in the Olympics.”

  Now, his mother was apparently feeling guilty—and rightly so—about her lack of interest. She had come to his room to make up. Now she would want to hear about Melissa—every single detail, only now he did not care to talk about it.

  Bingo gave her an aloof look. He was determined not to tell her one single detail of the trauma in Health Supplies, no matter how much she begged.

  “Mom, I would like to be alone. Certainly I no longer want to discuss my meeting with Melissa, which was not so much a meeting as a sighting. That’s all I can say. I am—I don’t know how to explain it—sort of caught on the roller coaster of life, and I don’t know if I will ever get off.”

  “Well, you better get off your roller coaster, and quick.”

  She shifted the basket of laundry from one hip to the other. And her next words did indeed bring the roller coaster of life to a screeching halt.

  “These are not our clothes.”

  Following Melissa

  “I HOPE FOR YOUR SAKE,” BINGO’S mother said over her shoulder, “that no one has made off with our laundry.”

  “I hope so, too,” Bingo said.

  He was sitting in the backseat of the car between the car seat containing Jamie and the basket containing a stranger’s load of wash. He was concentrating on making his mind a blank, because there was not one single thought in the entire world that would not bring him discomfort.

  His mother kept interrupting the process with a list of the valuable garments in the missing laundry.

  “You are aware,” she continued, “that all of Jamie’s diapers were in those loads.”

  “I am aware. You told me.”

  “As well as your father’s underwear.”

  “I know.”

  “And your father hates new underwear.”

  “Mom, no one is going to make off with Dad’s old underwear.”

  “Well, you made off with somebody’s old sheets.”

  “I was upset, Mom. I had just had the shock of my life.”

  Bingo turned to Jamie, who was playing with a set of plastic car keys, shaking them so enthusiastically Bingo had to blink his eyes for fear of being struck in the face.

  “So you said. I’ve had a shock myself today, but I am managing to go on in a reasonably intelligent way.”

  Bingo looked at his mom. “What kind of shock? Mom, you aren’t going to have another baby?”

  “Not that big a shock.”

  “Good. Does it have to do with work?”

  She shook her head.

  “Me? Is it something I’ve done?” Bingo broke off before she answered. “Mom!”

  “What?”

  “There she is! Mom!”

  “What? Who?”

  “There! See those two girls?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, the tall one’s Melissa.”

  “Want me to honk?”

  “No! No! Whatever you do, don’t honk!”

  Bingo ducked out of sight because his mother’s favorite part of the car was the horn, and she didn’t just go honk, like that. She went honk-honk-honk-hooooonk.

  He was not ready to have attention called to himself in that manner. He could not bear to have Melissa’s first glimpse of him in a year be of him riding in the backseat of a car with a baby and strange laundry. It was as bad as having her glimpse his face on top of a pyramid of dog food.

  “Go around the block, Mom, please.”

  “What for?”

  “Mom, I’ve got to see where Melissa and her friend go. I’ve got to!”

  “Well, you can’t see anything crouched down on the floor of the car.”

  “I’m not crouched on the floor of the car, Mom. Give me a break.”

  “I won’t go around the block. That takes too long.”

  “Mom!”

  “But I will pull into Wendy’s parking lot and wait until they pass by.”

  “Oh, all right. Mom, thanks.”

  “I don’t know why I’m doing this. If our clothes aren’t already stolen, they will be by the time we …”

  Her voice trailed off as she parked and cut off the engine. There was a silence.

  “What’s happening?” Bingo asked.

  “Nothing. Oh, I’ll announce it—like on football. They’re coming by. The tall one—are you sure that’s Melissa?”

  “Yes.”

  “The tall one is reading something off a box. I’ll roll down the window—wait, I’ll get out of the car and open up the trunk, like I’m checking the spare tire. That way I can hear exactly what they’re saying.”

  “Don’t get out of the car!”
>
  “Oh, all right.” She paused to listen. “They’re talking about a home permanent.”

  “They can’t still be talking about that. They were talking about that in the store an hour ago.”

  “Be quiet so I can hear.”

  “I don’t want you to hear. Mom, I just want to know where they go.”

  “Melissa just said something funny, and one of them sort of snorted like a horse.”

  “It wasn’t Melissa. Melissa doesn’t snort.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Are they gone? Can I look?”

  “No, they stopped. Wait! The short girl is looking across the street because there are two boys there. At last, some action. Apparently she knows the boys and wants to cross the street. But—here’s some good news—Melissa does not want to cross the street and pulls her back.”

  “Mom, are you making this up?”

  “No. If I were going to make something up, it would be a lot more interesting.”

  There was a pause, and then his mother said, “That’s it. They’ve gone. You can get up now.”

  Bingo raised his head. He could see the back of Melissa’s Declaration of Independence T-shirt as she and her friend moved out of sight.

  “So are you satisfied? Can we go retrieve our clothes?”

  “No, Mom, no! I’ve got to see where they’re going. That’s the whole point of this.”

  “Surely you don’t expect me to follow Melissa all over town.”

  “Mom, I won’t ever be able to find her! Maybe she’ll go back to Bixby and I’ll never see her at all. And … and I’m almost ready to face her now.”

  “If you’re so crazy to face her, get out of the car, catch up with her.”

  “Mom, please!”

  “I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “Mom, this is no time for deals. Melissa is walking out of my life forever!”

  “Here is the deal. We go to the laundromat. You get our clothes. And if, if they’re all there, we’ll come back and follow Melissa.”

  “She’ll be gone by then! Mom, please!”

  Bingo’s mother drove out of the parking lot. “Get down on the floor, we’re passing them,” she said.

  Bingo ducked just as his mother sounded the horn. “Mom, what did you do that for?”