Leo the Lioness

by Constance C. Greene

  I had seen Carla last week. Last week she wasn’t getting married. She would have told me. I know she would have.

  “You didn’t know Dave and she were getting married and you know you didn’t,” Jen said. “They weren’t even engaged.”

  “Well, when you’ve gone steady as long as Carla and Dave have, it doesn’t exactly come as any big surprise,” I said.

  “My mother ran into Mrs. McAllister this morning and she told her they decided on the spur of the moment. You know what that means.”

  I felt like smacking her.

  “It doesn’t mean anything except that they probably want to get married before they go back to college.”

  I remembered my horoscope for that day: “Be sure to help good friends who are in trouble.”

  “She won’t be going back to college. Not in her condition,” Jen said, smirking.

  I would have hit her if we hadn’t been standing on such a public corner.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “Just exactly what you think it means. In the old days they used to call it a ‘shotgun wedding.’” Jen smiled at me.

  “You’re a nasty, foul-mouthed, rotten little stink,” I said. “To say things like that. Just because they decided to get married all of a sudden doesn’t mean anything. You’ve been seeing too many dirty movies.”

  “O.K., wise guy.” Jen’s face was red. She didn’t like being called “foul-mouthed.” “You know all the answers. But it’s true. You’ll see. What’s the big deal? Creep sakes, you act like Carla was some kind of saint or something. So she’s pregnant and had to get married. So what?”

  I turned and rode away from her. My heart felt as if it was going to pop right out of my chest and onto the pavement. I’d show her. I’d go right down to Moody’s and talk to Carla and get it all straightened out.

  Carla wasn’t at Moody’s.

  “She’s left us,” the fat-faced, ugly female behind the counter said. “I understand she’s getting married.” The sunlight caught her eyeglasses and I could’ve sworn she was winking at me.

  So then I rode my bike over to Carla’s. I had started this and I was going to finish it.

  I rang the bell and Carla answered. She looked pale, or maybe it was the dim light of the hall.

  “Tibb,” she said. “Come in.”

  “Hi, Carla. How’s by you?”

  Now that I was here, I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there.

  “Come on in,” she said again.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have a lot of errands to do for my mother.”

  “I was going to call you,” she said, “because I wanted you to know that Dave and I are getting married two weeks from Saturday. We want you and your family to come. It’s going to be a small wedding. You’ll get an invitation. Make sure John comes too. I specially want John to come.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I might be busy. I’ll have to have my mother let you know.”

  “All right,” she said, “but I hope you’ll be there.”

  I looked at her through the screen door.

  “What about college?” I asked. “Are you going to finish college?” I wanted to ask her, flat out. I wanted to say, “Carla, you don’t have to get married, do you?” But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

  “Eventually,” she said, and then I knew that what Jen had said was true. “We don’t know where we’ll be living or anything. We’ll have to see.”

  I backed down the steps. I could hardly see, the sun was so bright.

  “See you,” I said. Carla did not smile.

  I got on my bicycle and rode off. Then I came back. She was still standing there.

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Thank you, Tibb,” she said.

  I was all the way home before I remembered you’re supposed to congratulate the groom, not the bride.

  I went to look at myself in the mirror. I am even uglier than usual because I have so many freckles. I always get freckles in the summer. Even on my knees. Nina gets a wonderful tan. She gets a little browner every day. She puts a gallon or two of oil on and then she starts turning like a chicken on a spit, my father says, and she just gets tanner and tanner.

  I looked at myself a long time. I could not even cry.

  18.

  “I’m not going,” I said. “That’s all there is to it.” We had got the invitation to Carla’s wedding in the morning mail.

  My mother looked at me. “Why not?” she asked.

  “You know why not. I can’t stand going to weddings where the bride is pregnant.”

  “That’s a nasty thing to say,” my mother said.

  “It’s true, isn’t it? I don’t notice anyone denying it. Of all people, Carla, of all people. I can’t stand it. I absolutely can’t stand it.”

  “Look,” my mother said and she put her arm around me. “I know how you feel. I know what Carla has always meant to you. But you’ve got to stop setting yourself up as a judge of others, Tibb, you really do. Just think of how she feels, and her parents. Think of them, not of yourself. And it isn’t as if she and Dave weren’t in love. They are, and they would have got married anyway. It’s unfortunate that it had to happen this way.”

  “That’s a masterpiece of understatement,” I said. “I thought she was honest and good. And now she has to go and do this to me. She has betrayed me.”

  “No,” my mother said. “She has betrayed herself. If anyone. She has betrayed herself and her family. They are the ones, not you. And it’s not the end of the world, Tibb. I know it seems as if it is, but it’s not. If Carla and Dave make a good life for themselves and their children and are useful, happy human beings, then they have accomplished a good deal. You must look at it that way.”

  “That’s a lot of baloney,” I said.

  My mother took her arm away.

  “How would you feel if it was me or Nina. What then?” I asked her.

  “My heart would be broken,” my mother said. “But I hope I would try to understand. I’m not sure that I would be able to, but I would try.”

  I knew she meant what she said. She would try to understand if it happened to one of us. For some reason, that made me feel worse than before.

  If such a thing was possible.

  19.

  “I have never been to a wedding,” Jen said. “I expect you’ll have a terrific time. Everyone says that weddings are the most fun.”

  I had decided to go. I had thought about it after I went to bed last night and decided my mother was right. I should not judge other people. Carla would feel bad if I didn’t go. I knew she would. Besides, my morning horoscope said: “You can’t escape the responsibilities you have. Attend to them immediately or you may lose out.”

  I figured that in a way, Carla was my responsibility.

  “What’s so fun about weddings?” I asked Jen.

  “Well, for one thing, there’s pots of champagne and no one thinks anything of it if you get squiffy.”

  “Don’t be asinine,” I said. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of. Who wants to get squiffy anyhow?”

  “Niffy does.” Nina liked that. “Squiffy Niffy.”

  “Then, for another,” Jen said, as if she hadn’t heard, “you meet all kinds of people.” She didn’t like jokes made about her name. “And when I say ‘people’ you know what I mean, I trust?” She put on her inscrutable look, which only made her look as if she was going to burp. Jen is a very good burper. She can burp out something that sounds like “The Star-Spangled Banner” if you stretch your imagination a little.

  “When you say ‘people’ in that soppy way; you mean boys.”

  “Well, after all, Dave goes to college and he’s having some friends as ushers and all that. Dave is so good-looking,” Nina cooed.

  “If you like the type,” I said coldly. “Dave’s friends wouldn’t give you the time of day. They’re all as old as he is.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Nina smiled smugly. “A boy
in a car whistled at me yesterday and stopped and asked me if I wanted a ride and he must’ve been at least twenty.”

  “That’s it,” I said. “Start taking rides from strangers in cars and you’ll wind up sexually molested in a shallow grave.”

  “I didn’t take the ride, finkhead. I just said he asked me.”

  “What’d you do, run into the bushes screaming?”

  “Why don’t you stop cutting everybody up into little pieces?” Jen said.

  “I can’t stand phonies.” I got up and walked away. I would go to the wedding but that didn’t mean I’d enjoy it.

  Count was coming toward me across the grass and he had something in his mouth. He’d probably been raiding garbage cans for miles around. He has a bad reputation for raiding. He looked sheepish.

  If a dog can look sheepish, can a sheep look doggish? Hey. Pretty good. I laughed. I enjoy my own jokes. If Jen had still been the good egg she used to be, I would have told her this one. It was her type. But now she was nothing but a colossal bore, what with her “boys, boys, boys” routine. And if it wasn’t boys, it was “clothes, clothes, clothes.” I don’t see how we could ever have been best friends.

  Count had a gigantic bone. It was so big it looked as if it had belonged to a dinosaur. He rolled his eyes around. I think he was afraid to put it down. Some other dog might take it away from him.

  “You’re a clod,” I told him. He smiled at me. I swear he did. His mouth sort of stretched out on either side of the bone and he smiled. But he still didn’t let go.

  “You can’t trust humans,” I told him. “That’s one thing about you. I can trust you to always be my friend. You’re not going to get boy-crazy, like some people I could mention.”

  I sat down on our back steps and watched him and after a while Count let the bone drop and then he lay down and put one big paw on top of it and gnawed away.

  John came out to empty our garbage. He is still young enough to consider this a big deal. He considers it a treat. He’ll learn.

  “Hey, John, I’ve got a good one for you,” I said. He didn’t have his hat on for once and his face was pale from being under the brim all summer. His arms and legs were very tan, though. He was two-toned.

  “If a dog can look sheepish, can a sheep look doggish?”

  I waited. Sometimes John is a little slow to get things. I think it is because I expect too much of him. He is only seven, after all, and maybe my humor is too sophisticated for him.

  But then his face broke into wrinkles and he laughed the funny high laugh he has. I’m not absolutely sure he got it anyway, but he wouldn’t let on. He has too much pride.

  “I made it up,” I said.

  John nodded. “I thought so,” he said.

  “You’re my favorite brother, kid,” I told him.

  He smiled. He is missing two front teeth. On him it is very becoming. We went inside and I lined the pail for him. He does not do such a hot job of lining garbage pails.

  20.

  Today is my birthday. I am fourteen years old. I got a card from Carla in the mail, which I thought very nice of her, considering her wedding is two days away.

  My mother and father gave me a typewriter. That is what I wanted more than anything. My handwriting is execrable and this will help immeasurably. I am going to train myself in the touch system. I have already memorized the top row of keys and day by day I will memorize more until I have the whole keyboard in my head. Then I will tie a blindfold over my eyes and see how well I do. It should be an interesting experiment.

  Nina gave me a pair of earrings which are very nice. They are silver owls. I like them a lot. There is just one drawback. They are made for pierced ears. My ears are not pierced.

  Hers are.

  I have made it a rule never to let a cross word pass my lips on my natal day. I will stick to this rule.

  Jen gave me a belt with a lion’s head for a buckle, which I love. I also think it was nice of her, considering I have not called her “Niffy” once all summer.

  My grandmother gave me a check for twenty-five dollars and a copy of The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper. She said that I remind her of herself at my age. She was a romanticist too, she said, and James Fenimore Cooper was her favorite author.

  I do not consider myself a romanticist but that is neither here nor there.

  I have begun The Deerslayer. It is one of The Leatherstocking Tales, telling of life in early America. The leading character is a man named Natty Bumppo, who is noted for his honesty, probity, and integrity. I have not got very far along but already I feel rapport with him. He has also been pursued by quite a lot of girls, but he has never succumbed to the sins of the flesh.

  John gave me a lanyard.

  My mother asked me if I wanted a party. I said no. I do not know who I would ask. I certainly would not ask boys, and most of my friends, except for Jen, are still away somewhere. That is the worst of having a birthday on August fifteenth.

  I told her I would like to have just a small family party and maybe go to the movies afterward. If we could find a movie for family consumption, John could come along.

  My horoscope for today is: “Just possible that from a distance or through professional channels your big break to travel or express talents comes again as in April.”

  Well.

  In April I went on a trip to Washington, D.C., with my class and also in April I was in my class play. It was Cheaper by the Dozen, and I was one of the kids. I did not have a prominent role, only two lines, but still.

  People who laugh at horoscopes should take another look.

  21.

  I woke up early this morning. It is Carla’s wedding day. I had a dream last night. Carla was trapped in a well and was calling for help and I couldn’t reach her. Then she was dressed up in a bride’s dress and veil and walking down the aisle and when she got to the end there wasn’t anyone waiting. At no time was there any sign of Dave.

  Fortunately the sun is shining. It has been raining for almost a week and Mrs. McAllister must have been having a fit because they planned on having the reception outdoors and their living room isn’t all that big.

  We sent Carla and Dave some dessert plates. Each one has a different flower in the center. They are very pretty. I picked them out.

  I put some lemon juice on my freckles last night. I read somewhere that this would bleach them out. In the strong light of day it is obvious that this is a canard. I am going to wear a yellow dress I got for the dance after our graduation from eighth grade. It does not do much for me. Nothing does. I only wore it that once. The dance was one of those blasts where the girls stand around, the boys stand around, and only the clods who are going steady do any dancing. I do not know why I bothered going.

  By next summer the yellow dress will be too small for me so I might as well wear it to the wedding.

  No one will be looking at me anyway.

  Nina is in another catatonic state because she has a big zit on her chin. She woke up this morning and there it was. She ate a fried Swiss-cheese sandwich and drank a bottle of soda for lunch yesterday because our mother wasn’t home and she could have anything she wanted. That’s why she got the zit. She is trying to cover it up with layers of cosmetics but it is still there. Serves her right.

  John said he would not go to the wedding if he couldn’t wear his hat. My mother is trying to find a tactful way to solve this problem. I say, give the hat to Count and he will eat it. I have never known him to turn anything down. Put a little A-1 Sauce on it and he’ll never know the difference.

  My father had made plans to play golf when my mother reminded him about the wedding. He stomped around for a while, muttering about how if it wasn’t Carla, he’d go ahead with the golf. He has always liked Carla.

  I am going to wear dark glasses. That way nobody can see my eyes and if you can’t see a person’s eyes, you can’t possibly know what they are thinking. I do not want anyone to know what I am thinking.

  22.

&nb
sp; Nina popped her zit, my mother managed to hide John’s hat where he can’t find it, my father made another golf date for tomorrow, and my mother went to the hairdresser and came back looking very soignée indeed.

  I am a dream in my yellow dress. It makes me look sort of jaundiced, like Mary in The Secret Garden. Or maybe it’s a little leftover lemon juice on my patrician features.

  At any event, we finally all got into our car and drove to the church. I wanted to sit in back but my mother whispered to the usher and he put us up front. The usher who ushed us was one of Dave’s roommates at college. He was pretty nice-looking, if you go for the tall, athletic, broad-shouldered type. I myself prefer the intellectual ones. The ones with glasses and stooped shoulders which got that way because of the weight of the many books they have supported over the years.

  Nina, of course, was practically swooning as the usher offered her his arm. I felt like giving her a good goose right then and there but figured that might be out of order.

  I sat next to John. It was his first wedding too.

  “Where’s Carla?” he kept asking.

  The music began. Heads began to turn and all the old ladies sighed and the feathers on their hats agitated and there was the maid of honor, who was a sex symbol if I ever saw one. She was practically popping out of her dress. Her name is Nancy Tyler. She was a friend of Carla’s from high school. She was a nice girl and sometimes came over to our house while Carla was sitting with us.

  “Hi, Nancy!” John called.

  I put my hand over his mouth. “Hush,” I told him. “You’re not supposed to yell in church.”

  “Who’s yelling?” he yelled.

  Everyone looked at us. My mother moved away and pretended she was a total stranger.

  Then came the bridesmaids, two of them. They were also sex symbols. They were nice-looking girls. I knew Carla would be next. I didn’t turn my head. She had on a white dress and a white organdy kerchief tied under her chin. She was beautiful. She didn’t look to the left or to the right.

  Her father is considerably older than most fathers. He has white hair and carries himself very erect. I wondered what he was thinking about. I wondered if he wanted to punch Dave in the nose. Carla is his only child and he is very fond of her.