by Nancy Star
“If Uncle Milton is such a crazy idiot,” Glory needled, “how come he’s a millionaire? That’s what he’s making from bugs, Solly. Millions.”
Charlie pounced. “Can we get one? Can me and Callie get an ant farm?”
Before Solly’s grunt of displeasure was fully disgorged, Glory had answered for both of them. “What a darling idea. You most certainly may.”
It took eight weeks for the farm to arrive and when it came Charlie was disappointed to discover that ants were not included. Instead, there was a coupon, and after he sent that in, another long wait. Now, of all nights, on Ginger’s thirteenth birthday, the contentious ants had arrived. “Take them to your room,” Ginger whispered to her brother. “Before the ant farm fight starts up again.”
But it was too late. Glory had heard the commotion and breezed in to join them. “Is that a tube of darling ants I see?”
Solly rolled his eyes and moved to the den.
“We’re bringing them upstairs,” Ginger announced. “Go,” she told her brother. He raced to the stairs with the ants, Callie and Mimi right behind him, but when Ginger tried to follow, Glory blocked her.
“Be a peach and put out glasses.” She tapped her chin with her finger, nail glistening with fresh polish. “Who shall I seat where?”
Ginger cautiously relaxed now that she saw Outside Glory had arrived. That’s how Ginger thought of her mother whenever company was coming. When it was just them, the family home alone, Inside Glory ruled the day.
The actual transformation of Inside to Outside was not pleasant to observe. It took about an hour with a makeup kit jammed with so many tools it no longer closed. For Ginger, the improvement in her mother had nothing to do with the change from ordinary-looking to movie-star beauty. She didn’t care one way or another whether her mother’s wavy hair framed her heart-shaped face, or that her lashes looked longer, or her eyes seemed a more striking shade of blue. But Outside Glory was so much easier to be around. With plain-faced Inside Glory, there was no telling what might set her off.
The doorbell rang. The Chinese food was here. Solly paid. Glory took the bag and proceeded to scoop the food out of the containers and into her best china bowls.
They were up to dessert—Scooter Pies with a birthday candle in each one, an idea Glory got from the newspaper and improved upon, she pointed out, by plating with doilies—when Mimi asked, “What happened to Ivan the Director man?”
Solly looked up from where he sat, stuck between Paul Clarke and young Thomas. In Glory’s final seating plan, his usual seat at the head of the table was assigned to the birthday girl. Ginger hadn’t been sure if she was supposed to accept his seat, but Solly nodded in a way that let her know she should. He nodded the same way a moment later when her mother presented her with a crown clearly meant for a young child. When she put it on, the silver headband dug into the skin behind her ears and the tinsel-fringed “Happy Birthday” sign shed glitter on her plate.
“Ivan’s coming,” Glory said. “His meeting in New York must have gone long.”
As Ginger scraped the glitter off her Scooter Pie, she watched her mother lean closer to Mr. Diggans, who had resumed telling a story in a voice too soft for anyone else to hear. Ginger took a bite of dessert and turned to her father, who was getting a lecture from Paul Clarke about the proper way to maintain shag carpets. Her father’s eyelids fluttered. He was falling asleep right at the table. “Dad?” she called over, but it was too late.
Glory had noticed. She stood up and clapped. “Okay. Adult time. How about you kids go upstairs. Show Thomas the ant farm, so he can see what a million-dollar idea looks like.”
They didn’t have to be asked twice.
They sat on the floor in a circle around the ant farm as if it were a campfire.
“Did you get any queens?” Thomas asked.
“You can’t buy queens,” Charlie explained and then made up the rest. “If you do, you get arrested. I wouldn’t want them anyway. When you have queens, there’s always war.”
Mimi stood up. “Call me if it goes nuclear.”
Ginger followed her into the hall. “Stop,” she hissed. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”
Ignoring her, Mimi sat on the floor and pressed her forehead against the banister to listen to whatever story Glory was concocting now.
But their mother had the ears of a predator. “Girls?”
Ginger covered Mimi’s mouth. Mimi pushed her hand away.
Glory went back to talking to her guests. “We actually met Milton Bradley once. Where was that, Solly? Was it the toy convention in Atlantic City?” Ginger and Mimi shook their heads. Their mother never went on business trips.
Solly changed the subject. “I think maybe Ivan the Director isn’t coming after all.”
“Who is this Ivan?” Mr. Diggans asked.
“He runs our theater group. Man’s a genius. A lifesaver. Saved my life, at least.” Glory proceeded to tell Mr. Diggans the story of her career derailment. Upstairs, perched beside the banister, Ginger and Mimi nodded at what was true and shook their heads at what was not. Always wanted to be an actress. They nodded. First day in New York, got a job on Broadway. They shook their heads. My bad luck, show closed that week. They shrugged. A show may have closed, but she wasn’t in it. Got a job as a personal shopper to support myself. Double nods. Sang in nightclubs on my days off. Ginger wasn’t sure but Mimi was. That part was made up.
“Quite a story.” Mr. Diggans sounded impressed. “How did the actress and the toy man come to meet?”
“Dancing,” Glory said and the girls nodded. “Solly was a cheek-to-cheek dream of a dancer, once upon a time. We considered a career together.” The girls shook their heads. “But Solly decided he wanted a future in toys. Must have had a premonition about his feet.”
“No one’s interested,” Solly said. “No one wants to hear.”
“Sure they do. The real kicker,” Glory confided, “is I didn’t go back to acting because we wanted to start a family and then—nothing happened. Who knew it would take so long to prime the pump. Once I got going, different story. Shot ’em out—one, two, three, and four.”
There was laughter and movement, and then Paul Clarke’s voice. “Early day tomorrow. For those who work.”
Mr. Diggans chuckled. “Touché.” The front door shut. “What’s big in toys these days, Sol?”
“Solly is quite the entrepreneur,” Glory said. “Has a real eye for fads.”
“It’s not me. It’s my four product testers upstairs. They’re the ones.”
“Not the older girls so much anymore,” Glory corrected him. “You know how that goes. One day they’re into toys. Next day, they’re into boys.”
“Eww,” Mimi protested before Ginger could stop her.
“Girls?” Glory called. “How about you put a hold on the eavesdropping and join the party. Bring everyone with you.” It was not a request.
When Ginger got to Charlie’s room, he was holding an eyedropper over the ant farm, telling another tall tale. “They can only get one drop a day. More than that, they’ll drown.”
Thomas stared, mesmerized. “How can that many ants share one measly drop of water?”
“Kidlings!” Glory called out.
Startled, Charlie’s fingers closed hard on the plastic bulb. They watched as the eyedropper spurted all its water into the tank at once.
“It’s okay,” Charlie told a stunned Callie. “I ordered special ants. Extra-thirsty ants. Guaranteed not to drown. Right, Gingie?”
Ginger nodded and led them downstairs. When they got to the living room, they saw their father grinning at the door and the guests heading out.
“Too late. Party’s over.” Glory breezed past Solly and followed the Clarkes outside.
Solly’s grin vanished. “What, you moving in with them now?”
Glory laughed gently—there was company, after all. “Did you forget? The All My Sons audition tomorrow? We’re going to get Casper a script.” She b
lew kisses into the room. “For your pockets,” she sang out. “Special kisses. Last forever.” The door clicked shut behind her.
Solly shuffled to the den and sank into his chair like a bad mood. Ginger herded everyone upstairs to get into pajamas. They reconvened in Charlie’s room, to make sure none of the ants had drowned while they were gone. So far so good, but they decided they’d better keep watch for a while, just to be sure.
A slam announced Glory’s return. It was Callie, rushing to get downstairs to share the news that the ants survived, who knocked over the farm, sand and ants spilling out in a rush.
“You go down,” Charlie told Ginger. “I’ll clean up.”
Ginger stared at the mess sinking into the forest of avocado-and-gold shag carpet.
“I’ll find them,” Charlie insisted. “I’ll find every ant. I swear.”
When Ginger and Mimi got to the den, Glory closed the journal on her lap and let out a weary sigh. Being interrupted was one of the better-known burdens of her life. “Yes?”
Ginger sat beside her. “Did you get Mr. Diggans his script?”
Her mother looked surprised at her interest. “Matter of fact, I did not. Building was locked.” She sighed again. “What I did get was news that Evelyn’s going out for my part. Imagine. I mean, yes, I can use a break from memorizing lines. It’s exhausting to get the lead every time. But we’re talking about Arthur Miller. The man deserves a certain standard. Evelyn is my best friend but projecting? Too polite. Not to mention Ann Deever is supposed to be a knockout. I’m not saying I’m a knockout, but at least I don’t have that little piggy nose.” She lifted the tip of her nose to demonstrate. “Right up the nostrils, you can’t help but look. She doesn’t even realize.” Ginger and Mimi nodded vigorously at the pity of it, a woman with no idea she had a piggy nose. Maybe they nodded too vigorously. “Where’s Callie?” Glory looked around. “Where’s your brother?”
Mimi turned them in without hesitation. “Cleaning up the mess.”
After the vacuum cleaner went off, they heard Glory’s bedroom door slam shut.
Ginger and Mimi found Charlie and Callie sitting, sullen, on the floor.
“She vacuumed up everything,” Charlie told them. “Even the ants.”
Callie lay down on her back and made like a dead ant, hands and legs in the air, tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth, eyes staring wide. She sat back up. “All gone.” Her watery eyes were rimmed with red.
“The ants will be fine,” Charlie assured her. “They’re just taking a nap.”
“In the vacuum cleaner?” she asked.
“You can get more,” Ginger consoled them.
“There’s millions outside,” Mimi said. She looked a little guilty, which Ginger thought was appropriate considering she was the one who spilled the beans about the knocked-over ant farm. “I’ll help you dig,” Mimi went on. “To China if you want.” She raced downstairs and might have gone out, right then, in the dark, but the phone rang. They all froze. A ringing phone always brought their mother. When she didn’t appear, Ginger ran into the kitchen and answered it.
It was Evelyn and she sounded upset. “Can you put your mother on the phone, honey?”
They crowded together to watch as Glory put the receiver to her ear. Her face went pale. “A widow maker? He’s gone? They called you?” She hung up, pressed her fingers to her temples, and silently climbed the stairs.
Solly went up after her but came back a minute later clutching the slim green Dramatists Guild edition of All My Sons in his stubby hand. “Your mother’s not well.” As Ginger followed him into the kitchen, he answered the question she hadn’t known to ask. “Ivan. The director. Heart attack. Crashed into a tree on his way over here. Dead.” He placed the toe of his oversized shoe on the step pedal of the trash can. The script landed with a thud. He moved to the den and turned up the volume on the TV.
One day in, and already Mimi’s prediction was true. Thirteen was an unlucky year. And not just for her. Ginger could feel it, bad luck coming for them all.
CHAPTER FOUR
For years, Ginger had started each term of Nurse Tangle’s Danger Class by opening the floor to parents and asking them to tell her their worries. It was from this survey of disquiet that she would create the semester’s curriculum. She came up with this approach after finally noticing how often parents walked into her class with something very specific in mind. All it took was one news cycle about Ebola to make “What to Do When Lightning Strikes” seem like a tone-deaf topic. In the end, the topic didn’t really matter. There were plenty of dangers to go around. As long as parents left her class with more information than they had when they arrived, Ginger was happy. But tonight she felt distracted, unsure that she’d be able to focus. Julia’s extended sleepover had gotten to her.
With her whiteboard and collapsible easel under her arm, Ginger made a quick detour to the high school nurse’s office. Her friend Lydia didn’t teach at the Adult School, but she had told Ginger she’d be in the building to proctor a CPR test for the babysitting club.
Though they were both school nurses, Lydia and Ginger had completely different areas of expertise. As an elementary school nurse, Ginger was proficient in nosebleeds and lice. High school nurse Lydia was the expert on eating disorders and bad boyfriends.
Ginger told Lydia her concerns. Julia was deceiving her. She wasn’t where she said she was. Her friend, Angie, was colluding in the lie. The friend’s mother was clueless.
Lydia shook her head. “I don’t buy it. If the sleepover was bogus, there’d be clues. It’s the saving grace of teenagers, how horrible they are at hiding their tracks. My opinion? She’s exactly where she says she is. Let it be and it will pass.”
As Ginger walked up the dim stairwell to the classroom, she tried to believe what Lydia said was true. But it didn’t feel true. Lydia might know teenagers, but Ginger knew guile.
She found her room—this term they’d assigned her 302—and opened the door. The funky odor hit her at once. She glanced at the board—algebra equations—and diagnosed math anxiety. Putting aside her Julia worries, she got busy, trying to open the windows that all turned out to be stuck, fanning the front and rear doors to move around the stuffy air, and locating the wastebasket, so at least she’d know where it was if the smell made someone sick.
By the time she set up her easel, her worries about Julia had crept back, like water finding its own level, to their pride of place. She put the whiteboard in position, and as parents tentatively entered, tried to ignore the growing urge to take out her phone and text Julia again.
She was writing down parent-fears on the whiteboard—“Dangers of Recess,” “Heroin in the High School”—when her phone vibrated. She took a quick look—it was her mother—and went back to making the list. The phone buzzed a second time just after the bell rang. She smiled as parents filed out past the whiteboard of warnings—“Candles and Fire!” “Common Household Poisons!”—and took the call. Glory. “Everything okay, Mom?”
“That’s the first thing out of your mouth? Everything okay is your hello?”
Deep breath. “It’s Tuesday night. I teach Tuesday nights, remember?” So much for the color-coded calendar she’d made to help her mother keep track of when she wasn’t available.
“Then why’d you pick up? Did you know there’s something you can jiggle on your phone so it doesn’t ring? Julia showed me. Ask her. I’m sure she’ll show you if you ask.”
“I picked up because my class just ended. Is everything okay?”
“Again with the worrying. I’m fine. You’re fine. Everybody’s fine. I ran out of Metamucil is all, and I know you go by the drugstore on your way home. I’m trying to save you an extra trip. I was planning to leave you a message. You don’t always have to answer.”
“I know,” Ginger said. “Okay. I’ll get you Metamucil.”
In the drugstore she replayed Lydia’s words in her head. Let it be and it will pass. It wasn’t bad advice. But the tric
ky thing about advice was how quickly it lost its power when the person who gave it wasn’t present. She thought about this as she dialed Julia’s cell. Was it true for her students? After she made them promise to always, always, always wear their helmets when they rode their bikes, after they nodded and repeated it back, did they walk out of her office and immediately forget what she’d said?
Julia’s voice mail kicked in and despite the voice in her head urging her to hang up, at the sound of the beep Ginger spoke. “Just calling to say hello.” That sounded ridiculous. “Just checking to see if you’re coming home tonight.” That sounded desperate. “I miss you, Jules.” That probably wasn’t good to say, either. She terminated the call and reminded herself, If Julia was lying, there’d be clues. But as she got in her car, she couldn’t help but think, What if there were clues and I missed them?
Glory swung open the door. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh.” Ginger hadn’t meant to come back now. She’d driven over on autopilot. Her mother could do this to her, turn her from a nurse with a no-nonsense attitude into a person with neither will nor resolve.
Glory cocked her head. “I could have sworn on a bible you told me a hundred times you don’t like to visit at night. Too tired, you always say.”
Her mother looked different—small things, but Ginger noticed. Her wispy white hair had escaped from its usually well-secured bun. Her porcelain skin had been overpowdered to a ghostly white. And though her eyes were still their usual fierce blue, her gaze was off, giving her the look of a slightly befuddled, retired dean.
“Something’s on your mind.” Her mother yanked the belt of her robe, pulling it tighter. “I can smell.”
“You can tell,” Ginger corrected her. “Are you sure you’re okay?” She handed over the drugstore bag. “They had two flavors. I didn’t know which you like, so I got both.”