by Lois Lowry
"Marriage, Mom," she explained patiently. "I renounced marriage. Not weddings!"
Dear SWM,
I know you have not gotten my last letter yet, and are probably not even over the flu, if you have it.
But I felt that it was important for you to know that I have renounced makeup and perfume and marriage.
I have not renounced romance or Humphrey Bogart movies or cruises in the Caribbean.
How do you feel about the question of filet mignon versus chicken? You're not a vegetarian or anything, are you? I wouldn't mind if you are a vegetarian because I am a very accepting person but I feel I must tell you that I really like pepperoni on my pizza. I know a place where you can get them half pepperoni and half mushroom, though, so we could get along pretty well even if you are a vegetarian. Like Jack Spratt and his wife, ha-ha.
I do hope you are well enough by now to get out to the mailbox. Bundle up real good.
Sincerely,
SWIFTY
(Solitary Wistful Impatient Female: Tall, Young)
4
"Do we get to wear high heels?" Daphne asked.
Anastasia groaned. "I hope not," she said. "I'm already taller than everybody in the whole world except Larry Bird."
Kirsten Halberg steered her little VW carefully into a small parking place in the crowded lot at the shopping mall. "Here we are," she said. "Lock the door on your side. I don't want my car stolen a month before my wedding."
Anastasia, Daphne, Meredith, and Sonya climbed out of the tiny car and stretched their legs. They locked the door on the passenger side and closed it tightly.
Kirsten turned and surveyed the four of them. "Now," she said, "let's get this straight. It's my wedding. So I get the final decision on stuff". Right?"
"Right." The girls all nodded.
"No high heels. Flats, okay? I don't want you guys tripping and stumbling down the aisle. That's decision one. Agreed?"
Anastasia nodded enthusiastically. Daphne, Meredith, and Sonya, who all wanted to wear high heels, made faces. But they nodded, too.
"And as for color—" Kirsten went on.
"Oh, please not pink," begged Sonya. "Not with my red hair. Anything but pink, please, Kirsten."
"Okay, not pink," Kirsten agreed.
"Please not green?" Daphne said. "Green makes me look weird."
Kirsten sighed. "Listen," she said, "I had blue in mind. Does anybody have any violent negative feelings about blue?"
Everyone was silent. Anastasia thought about blue. She thought about herself in a long blue dress. Walking down an aisle. With everyone looking, in awe and admiration.
Daphne interrupted her thoughts. "Can it be strapless?" Daphne asked.
Anastasia's fantasy changed. She had been envisioning herself wearing a long blue dress with tiny buttons up to a high lace collar. Now she tried to switch, in her mind, to strapless. But it didn't work. Strapless fell down. She had never been able to figure out what held strapless dresses up, anyway.
She pictured the four of them walking down the aisle, one by one, wearing blue strapless dresses. She pictured their new shoes tripping on the hems of the dresses. She pictured the tops of the dresses falling down. Right in church. One after the other.
She pictured the entire congregation falling out of their pews, doubled up, laughing.
She pictured photographers selling the photographs to People magazine.
"BOSTON WEDDING'S A COMPLETE BUST," the caption might say.
"Please not strapless," Anastasia said desperately. "Please not strapless. Because what if—"
A nearby car horn beeped. The girls were standing in an empty parking space that the driver of a black Ford Escort wanted to get into. He leaned from his window and called, "I don't care if it's strapless or topless or backless, just move it someplace else so I can park my car!"
"Come on," Kirsten said, and she led the way toward the store where they would choose their junior bridesmaid's dresses.
***
Two hours later all five of them crowded together in a booth at Friendly's, sipping milkshakes. In the empty booth behind them were stacked four large dress boxes and four matching shoeboxes.
"Okay," Kirsten said, "are we friends again?"
One by one they nodded glumly. It had not been an easy shopping expedition.
Kirsten turned to Daphne. "You understand why I said no to the slinky black velvet?"
Daphne was still sulking a little. "Yeah," she admitted reluctantly. "It really would've looked cool on me. But maybe not at a wedding. I see your point."
"Sonya?" Kirsten turned to Sonya, who was sucking disconsolately on her straw. "Your feelings aren't still hurt, are they? The saleslady was a jerk. You shouldn't take it personally."
Sonya set aside her half-finished milkshake. She was still glowering. "Well, she could have said 'plump.' I don't mind 'plump.' But I hate 'chubby.' Why did she have to say 'chubby'?" She sighed. "No," she said finally, "my feelings aren't still hurt. But I hope she gets run over on her way home from work."
"Meredith?" Kirsten spoke to her sister next. "Are you going to quit complaining?"
Meredith nodded. "Yeah," she said. "But I still don't see why you get to choose everything. It's always like that. At home you got to choose the wallpaper for the bathroom, and you got to choose the Christmas tree last year—I really wanted that one with long needles, but you picked out that wimpy-looking one because you felt sorry for it, remember? And—"
"Meredith," the other girls all said, laughing, "it's her wedding, remember?"
"And a few weeks from now," her sister pointed out, "I'll be gone, and you'll be like an only child. You'll get to choose all the wallpapers and Christmas trees from now on."
Meredith began to smile a little. "Yeah, I know," she acknowledged.
"Anastasia," Kirsten said, turning toward her in the booth, "you're the only one who hasn't been complaining or arguing or whining. Tell the truth, now. How do you feel about the dresses?"
Slowly Anastasia licked the milkshake mustache from her upper lip. She grinned.
"I adore them," she said fervently.
***
At home that evening, alone in her room, Anastasia tried on the pale blue flower-sprigged dress and the matching blue shoes.
She looked at herself in the wall mirror. The low round neck of the dress curved over her shoulders, and when she held back her thick hair she could see that the line of her neck was slender and graceful.
"What do you think, Frank?" Anastasia asked her goldfish. "Do you think I'll ever be beautiful? Do you think that maybe, with this dress, I'm starting to be beautiful?"
Frank Goldfish twirled in his bowl. A few bubbles moved slowly to the surface.
"I know, Frank, your standards are probably a little different," Anastasia said, watching him. "You'd probably prefer wet-look orange, wouldn't you?"
Peering intently into the bowl, Anastasia thought she could see Frank's lips form the word "Yup."
What do fish know, Anastasia thought. She turned away from the goldfish bowl, opened the door of her room, and headed downstairs to show her parents.
"Ready for the grand entrance?" she called as she neared the bottom of the stairs. Her mother and father were in the study watching This Old House on TV. Sam was playing on the floor with his Legos.
"I forgot to tell you when you got home, Anastasia," her mother called back. "You got a..."
Her voice trailed away as Anastasia entered the study with a dramatic swirl of her long skirt.
"Wow," her mother said.
Sam looked up with wide eyes and popped his thumb into his mouth.
"Shaza——" her father began, but then he remembered that Anastasia absolutely hated it when he said "Shazam."
"Sorry," Dr. Krupnik said. He searched for a different word. He was a university professor of literature and a published author, after all, so he was an expert on language and could always find just the right, the most appropriate, the absolutely most sophis
ticated word for any occasion.
"Stupendo!" he said at last.
Anastasia turned slowly so that they could admire the back of the dress with its bouffant sash. She lifted the hem so that they could admire her low-heeled pale blue shoes, each with its single pearl-buttoned strap.
"What did you forget to tell me, Mom?" she asked, smoothing her skirt.
"Oh." Anastasia's mother reached over to her husband's desk, picked up an envelope, and handed it to Anastasia. "Here you go, Swifty. You got a letter from your pen pal."
DEAR FRIEND:
I AM VERY SORRY TO RESPOND TO YOUR LETTER WITH THIS COMPUTER-WRITTEN FORM LETTER THAT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING FROM PUBLISHERS CLEARING HOUSE.
I ENJOYED READING ALL OF YOUR LETTERS, EVEN THOSE OF THE PERSON WHO HAS SO FAR WRITTEN TO ME THREE TIMES.
BUT THE PROBLEM IS THAT I HAVE RECEIVED, SO FAR, 416 LETTERS AS A RESULT OF THE AD I PUT IN THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS.
I CAN'T ANSWER THEM ALL INDIVIDUALLY SO I HAVE TO NARROW IT DOWN IN SOME WAY.
I HAVE TO ASK YOU EACH TO SEND ME A PHOTOGRAPH, IF YOU WOULDN'T MIND.
IF IT WOULD BE HELPFUL TO YOU, I WILL MENTION THAT I AM NOT INTERESTED IN PURSUING A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE WOMAN WHO RAISES SIAMESE CATS—I AM ALLERGIC TO CATS.
AND TO THE WOMAN WHO LIVES IN SITKA, ALASKA—YOU SOUND LIKE A REALLY TERRIFIC LADY, BUT FRANKLY THE DISTANCE IS TOO GREAT FOR ME.
I AM VERY INTERESTED IN THE PERSON WHO HAS HER OWN SLOOP.
BUT PLEASE SEND A PHOTOGRAPH. THEN WE CAN NARROW THINGS DOWN.
SINCERELY,
SEPTIMUS SMITH
5
Dear friend. Alone in her bedroom, Anastasia made a face when she read the beginning of the letter a second time. "Friend" was awfully impersonal. "Dear" made it a little better, of course, but still: "friend"? Come on.
416 wasn't that many. He could have written everyone's name in personally, she thought, even if he had to take a day off from work to do it.
She felt a little annoyed at—Anastasia looked at the signature again, to see SWM's name. She had thought of him as SWM for so long now that a different name felt oddly unfamiliar.
Especially a name like Septimus Smith.
Nothing wrong with Smith. But Septimus? What the heck kind of name was that?
Was he named after a month? Did he have brothers named Octimus and Novimus? Anastasia giggled.
Well, she decided, she would just have to get used to it.
Anastasia Krupnik-Smith, she said to herself.
Not too shabby.
Maybe, if she never got used to Septimus, she could call him by a nickname. Smitty was a nickname, sometimes, for Smith. Maybe she would call him Smitty, or something.
"Good evening," she said in a sophisticated voice to her goldfish, "I'm Anastasia Krupnik-Smith, and this is my husband, Smitty."
Frank Goldfish stared at her with a nonplussed look.
Whoops. For a minute there, she realized with an embarrassed giggle, she'd been thinking about marriage, something she had renounced.
Rereading the letter, Anastasia realized that he had singled her out, even if he had begun the letter badly, with "Dear friend." She decided to forgive him for "Dear friend" because farther along he had actually mentioned her specifically. Out of the 416 people who had sent letters, only one had sent three letters.
Obviously Septimus Smith was already just a little bit fascinated with Swifty.
She read on. Siamese cats. No prob. Anastasia hadn't had a cat for years, not since she was about six years old. Her father—just like Septimus Smith—was allergic to cats.
Sitka, Alaska? Too bad, lady, thought Anastasia. You're out of the running. Back to your dogsled and igloo—Septimus Smith isn't interested.
His address was New York City. Boston was only an hour away by plane. Heck, they could have what magazines like Cosmopolitan called a commuter marriage—
Whoops. She'd done it again. Forgotten that she had renounced marriage. Anastasia laughed self-consciously.
She read on.
He was very interested in the lady who had her own sloop. What the heck was a sloop?
Here was where the problem came. Although Septimus Smith had singled her out—"the person who has so far written to me three times"—he clearly was very interested in "the person who has her own sloop." He had come right out and said so.
Anastasia didn't know if she had her own sloop or not because she didn't know what a sloop was.
She looked around her room, thinking about the kind of stuff she had. She had neat wallpaper, with people riding old-fashioned bicycles. She had a terrific chair, which had once been in the study until its stuffing began coming out. Her parents had given it to her for her room, and she had covered the torn places in the upholstery by spreading a bright yellow beach towel over the chair.
She had fourteen interesting sweatshirts, which her mother said was a disgusting number of sweatshirts when one considered the people in Ethiopia, who had no sweatshirts at all.
She had a pretty good bike, down in the garage.
She had hundreds of books; a gift certificate from Benetton, saved ever since her birthday; a fantastic-looking goldfish; a pair of 14-karat gold earrings that had belonged to Aunt Rose (Uncle George had given them to Anastasia after Aunt Rose died, and Anastasia had not had the nerve to ask whether Aunt Rose had been wearing them when she died, but maybe it didn't matter); and she had boots from L. L. Bean.
She had programs from several Red Sox games, and one of them had Marty Barrett's autograph on it.
Anastasia realized, looking around, that she had a whole lot of valuable stuff.
But she had a feeling that she probably didn't have a sloop.
Also, she had a funny feeling about Septimus Smith's request for a photograph.
She sighed and wondered how to answer his letter.
BRRRRINNG!
The shrill sound of a bell startled her and made her jump.
Sam poked his head around Anastasia's door. He was smiling mischievously.
BRRRINNNG!
"Cut it out, Sam," Anastasia said. "Quit ringing that. I'm thinking. I have a very important letter to write."
Sam grinned and rang the bell he was holding a third time.
"CUT IT OUT, SAM!"
Anastasia started toward her brother and he scurried away. She followed him down the stairs. He continued ringing the little metal bell, looking back over his shoulder to make certain that Anastasia was still chasing him and still angry. There was nothing Sam liked better than to be chased by his sister.
On the first floor, he ducked into Mrs. Krupnik's studio, where she was working. Anastasia followed him.
"Mom, would you please make him stop that?" Anastasia asked angrily, glaring at her brother.
Mrs. Krupnik looked up from her drawing table, where she was working on some pen-and-ink sketches of the pudgy little farmer milking a cow who was wearing wedgies on all four hooves. "Stop what?" she asked. She peered down at Sam. "Sam, what is that in your hand?"
Sam held it up gleefully and pushed hard at the metal switch with his thumb.
BRRRINNNG!
Anastasia and her mother both winced.
"It's the bell off the handle of his tricycle," Anastasia explained, although her mother had recognized the sound. "He took Dad's screwdriver and managed to get it off the bike."
"Why did you do that, Sam?" his mother asked, genuinely curious.
"Because I want to be in a wedding, too," Sam explained.
Katherine Krupnik stared at him. He was wearing drooping jeans, a dirty sweatshirt with a picture of Goofy on it, and bright red sneakers. There were grape juice stains around his mouth.
"You want to be in a wedding," Mrs. Krupnik said, puzzled.
Anastasia sighed. "It's my fault. I was telling him all about Kirsten's wedding, and how I get to walk down the aisle in my beautiful dress and everything, and have my name in the newspaper, and he said he wanted to be a bridesmaid, and I told him—"
Sam interrupted. "She said I couldn't because I'm a boy, and a boy can't be a maid, and the only way a boy can be in a wedding is if he's a—"
Mrs. Krupnik nodded. "I get it," she said. "A boy has to be a—"
"Yeah," Anastasia said. "A boy can only be a—"
"Ringbearer!" they all said together.
BRRRRINNNG! Sam rang the bell again.
"Make him stop!" Anastasia wailed.
Mrs. Krupnik sighed and looked at the half-finished drawing on her paper. She began to wipe the ink off her pen with a piece of cloth. Then she looked at her children, who were glaring at each other.
"Sometimes," she said, almost to herself, "I wonder what my life would have been like if I'd opted for a full-time career instead of marriage."
"I'm doing just that, " Anastasia reminded her. "Renouncing marriage. By the way, Mom, do you know what a sloop is?"
Mrs. Krupnik screwed the lid tightly onto the jar of ink. "A sloop is a kind of boat," she said. She gazed fondly at Sam, who was sucking the thumb of his right hand while he turned the bell over in his left and examined its bottom.
"You know, Anastasia, you renounce a whole lot of good stuff when you renounce marriage," she said.
"Like what?"
"Well, just for starters, a wedding. Your dad and I had a really neat wedding."
Anastasia shrugged. "I get to be in other people's weddings. Like Kirsten Halberg's. I get to walk down the aisle and be in the newspaper and all that, and go to the reception and everything, but I don't have to write all those thank-you notes. Kirsten Halberg already has to say thank you for seven woks."
Sam looked up from his bell. "Wok, wok, wok, wok, wok, wok, wok," he said. "That's seven woks."
"And it's still four and a half weeks to her wedding. Can you imagine how many woks she may end up with? And have to write thank-you notes for?"
Mrs. Krupnik shuddered. "That certainly is something to be considered," she acknowledged. "Your dad and I didn't get a single wok when we got married. We got twelve pairs of silver candlesticks, though."
"I won't ever have that problem," Anastasia told her with satisfaction. "What do you mean, a boat? What kind of boat is a sloop?"