Summer Girls, Love Boys

by Norma Fox Mazer

  Coughing and humming, she cleans up the rest of the apartment, moving so fast she forgets she’s a fat old lady. Might very well be twenty, twenty-five years younger the way she’s feeling just then.

  By the time she hears Fred’s knock at the door, everything’s done. She gives a last look around, folds a newspaper, and puts it on the TV next to Teddy Blue. “Coming,” she calls. Everything looks fresh and nice. She’s certainly satisfied. The table is set for lunch and she’s wearing a fresh-ironed blouse over her slacks, and a green bead necklace. However, what with the heat and rushing around to clean, her feet got swollen, so she’s not wearing shoes. She hopes Fred doesn’t mind.

  That’s the first thing she says. “Do you mind bare feet?” And shows hers. They’re clean, he can see that.

  “Why, that’s Florida feet,” he says, and the joke starts things off just right.

  She admires the way he looks. He’s wearing a light blue shirt, neat trousers, sandals. “Well, come on in,” she says, even though he’s in already. Amazingly, this is the first time he’s been here. Every other day they’ve met on the street, gone to the playground to watch kids, or just walked around, talking.

  She leads him around the apartment, maybe showing off a little, you know, how she’s fixed everything just so—her pictures of the girls, her little knickknacks and things she’s gotten here and there. “All this is my own. Everything you see here I worked for,” she says, and thinks of those years working in stores and shops and factories. She didn’t quit till she was sixty-nine and Raff insisted. Sure, it’s a comfort not to have to get up in the morning, but sometimes she still misses working.

  “Just this guy here. I didn’t work for him.” She points to Teddy Blue. There’s a starched blue ribbon around his neck. He looks brand-new and he’s—what? Thirty-five, thirty-six years old? “That’s my little friend,” she says. “He’s a story and a half.”

  Fred smooths back his hair, which is slick and silver, just beautiful, and leans in toward her, all ready to listen. “You want the short version or the long of the short?” she says to make him laugh. Then she tells him about that day she and the girls went to the carnival on Bing Street. She’d been saving all her change in a glass jelly jar so as to give the girls a good time, give them every ride, and they just went helling from one thing to another. Couldn’t tell who was moving faster or enjoying herself more, her or the girls.

  Then she saw Teddy Blue in a shooting gallery and fell in love with him, just had to have him. She knew how to shoot, definitely did. Used to rat-hunt in the dump with her big brothers. She went all out for Teddy Blue. “Didn’t take me that many tries, either,” she can’t help boasting.

  Fred is very much surprised about the shooting, but she can see that everything she says is making him like her even more, maybe because she’s getting him to see her thirty, thirty-five years ago. The real fine part is that, as she talks, she sees herself all those years ago, pulling Raff and Vera around by the hands, and raring to go.

  “I’ll call you Annie Oakley from now on,” Fred says, and they’re both jolly when they sit down to lunch. It’s certainly nice to have someone to eat with. She doesn’t mind a bit! Good that he smokes. Nothing worse than being with one of those no-smokers, always waving their hands in the air, and pretending to cough to make you feel guilty for enjoying your little pleasure in life.

  “Isn’t it something that we never met before,” she says, not for the first time.

  “And I come up to visit my son every year,” he says, also not for the first time.

  “Today makes ten days,” Lillian says.

  “It does, indeed,” says Fred. “I noticed it on the calendar.”

  And with the greatest of pleasure they go over once again all the little details of the day they met. “It was hot,” Lillian says.

  “But raining,” Fred reminds her.

  “But not that much,” she says. “It didn’t keep me in.”

  “My good luck,” Fred says.

  She had been on the way to the Piggly-Wiggly market for a quart of milk. Fred—she didn’t know it was Fred then, of course, just noticed that he had quite a surprising red face—Fred stopped her and asked directions to the same market. And he was going to buy a quart of milk, too. That was some coincidence! “Just follow me,” she had said, but then, of course, they’d walked along together and discovered that every year he came up to visit his son, who lived right around the corner from Greene Street on 6 Elm Street. Well, here was another coincidence—her house number was 6 also. Naturally, they introduced themselves.

  In the Piggly-Wiggly she showed him the dairy case, they got in line together to check out, and he gave her the green stamps although she said maybe his daughter-in-law saved them. But he said he wanted Lillian to have them.

  The next day, what do you know, there he was right outside her building. Just happened to be walking past, he said. Only later told her he’d been walking past about half a dozen times, hoping she’d come out. They had a terrific laugh about that. And another one when she told that she’d been on the lookout for him, too! Every day after that they met to walk and talk. But they’re sure not talked out yet.

  “So you’ve always lived here on Greene Street?” he says.

  “All except for two years. And right here in this same apartment for fifty years.”

  “Well,” he says, “I and my wife never lived in one place more than five years.”

  Lillian shakes her head in amazement. “Is that right! And me fifty years in one place. I bet that could go in the Book of World Records. I’d be famous then.”

  “One of my grandsons is a little famous,” Fred says. “He’s a producer of TV documentaries. He got an Emmy one year for a show on wild horses.”

  “Isn’t that something!” Lillian certainly enjoys this news. She’ll have to remember to tell Raff.

  After lunch Lillian and Fred sit by the window, smoking and looking down at Greene Street together. “It’s a lively street,” Fred says.

  “Hardly ever a dull moment,” Lillian agrees.

  “There wouldn’t be around you,” he says. A siren wails. “Here comes the ambulance. You’ll be glad to hear the last of that. You don’t hear that where I am.”

  Lillian watches the ambulance turn into the hospital drive. She nudges Fred with her shoulder. “What do you think of this—my daughter is still rubbing it in that we met without being introduced.”

  He smiles. “Children have their own ideas.”

  Lillian nods. “Isn’t that the truth. Want another coffin nail?” She feels comfortable with Fred, just real comfortable.

  “This is a nice apartment,” he says, taking the cigarette. “You fixed it up, you have a touch.”

  “If I say so myself,” Lillian agrees with a modest smile. Must be he’s talking apartment to lead up to what’s on both their minds: when will she come down to Florida? He’s leaving tomorrow.

  Just as if he read her mind, he says, “It would be nice to have everything settled. I’m all packed, you know.”

  “Already!”

  “I don’t travel with that much. One suitcase. I wash my things out every night. You learn that when you’re a traveling salesman.”

  “I do the same,” Lillian says, “even though I never traveled.” She thinks of their socks and underpants hanging companionably next to each other over a shower bar. “You know,” she says, “this Florida thing is a big decision to make.” It certainly is a shame Fred needs to live in Florida for his heart. If he lived up here with his son, she and he could see each other, visit back and forth. And maybe some other things, too. She isn’t that old.

  “Florida is a beautiful state,” Fred says in a coaxing voice.

  “Oh, but the summers are awful,” Lillian says wisely.

  “Well, I have air conditioning, and right nearby is a nice swimming pool.”

  “I’m too fat to get into a bathing suit.”

  “I like the way you look. My wife was built
something like you, and she had a good sense of humor, too.”

  She doesn’t mind that he talks about his wife, and compares them. Shows he’s a sensitive person, a human being with feelings. She wonders, Would he want to sleep in separate beds? “Do you like a double bed or singles?” She comes right out with it.

  Oh, how he laughs, and blushes like a boy, right up to his ears. His red face gets redder still. “Double,” he says. Fine feelings are certainly coming over Lillian now.

  When he leaves later, Fred squeezes her hand and says, “I’ll come by in the morning. My plane goes at three.”

  Lillian nods. She promises that, by tomorrow, she’ll have a date picked for her departure. She kisses him on the cheek. Then they put their arms around each other and kiss a long kiss, full of many sweet and fine feelings.

  When Raff calls that evening, Lillian tells her, “I might be leaving in a month.”

  Raff is silent for a moment, then says, “You’re really going to do it?”

  “It certainly looks that way.”

  “Well, then, I wish you luck, Mother.”

  “Thank you, Rafferty.” It’s a dignified moment.

  In bed, Lillian lies awake for a long time thinking of all the things to be done. Will she store her furniture? No. Give it away. There isn’t much of it worth anything. But worn and shabby as her things are, it hurts to think of them falling into the hands of strangers. She can’t make up her mind what to do and falls asleep wondering if there’s a nice place to sit and chat with the young mothers where Fred lives.

  In the middle of the night Lillian wakes from a sound sleep and bolts out of bed as if someone on Greene Street—or Greene Street itself—is calling her. What was it? Why did she wake up?

  The street is quiet for a change. Light spills from the window of the bar, more light from the dimmed hospital. A couple, arm-in-arm, hurries down the street, heels clicking. Lillian watches them until they are out of sight, thinking of Florida, where she’s never been, and of Greene Street, which she’s hardly ever left.

  She’s unable to get back to sleep. Something feels unfinished. Hardly thinking about it, she gets dressed, puts on her shoes, and, for reasons unknown, takes Teddy Blue as she goes out the door and quietly down the stairs.

  She walks down Greene Street, Teddy Blue tucked under her arm, past the mostly dark houses, past the dimly lit hospital, past more houses, the welding shop, dark parked cars, a man walking a dog. They told you not to go out at night, especially the senior citizens, but how could she feel afraid on Greene Street? Past the bakery, the smell of new baked bread lingering, then on past the elementary school, the dark playground, the benches, and the fountain. Walking, just walking on Greene Street.

  The night air is cool and moist. She thinks of Vera, and it comes to her as if it had just happened that her grown-up baby daughter, her once little girl, her youngest, sweetest, and ever willfullest child, is dead. And Lenny is dead. And all her family are gone, her parents and her brothers. And Raff lives in New Jersey. And she’s old, seventy-two, old and fat and has nothing left in the world but Greene Street itself.

  She walks for a long time. It’s getting light in the sky when she goes slowly back up her steps. In the apartment she lies down with her clothes on, a hand on her forehead. Her heart is shaking and she wonders if she is going to die.

  Later she gets up and showers. How tired she is, how heavy-limbed. She squeezes toothpaste onto her brush. She is proud that she still has all her own teeth, but this morning she thinks not of that, but of the liver spots on the back of her hands.

  The sun is coming up hot again. When Fred knocks at the door, she moves slowly to open up. “Paper boy!” he says, holding out her newspaper. He looks fresh in his Florida shirt of many colors. She makes coffee and they sit by the window, where she tells him about her midnight walk.

  “Alone? You went alone?” He shakes his head.

  “Oh, I had Teddy Blue with me,” she says.

  “Your protector. I hope you’ll bring Teddy Blue along.”

  He is joking, but she says seriously, “I wouldn’t leave Teddy Blue behind.” She rubs the arm of her chair, the once velvet nap worn down from use. This is the chair into which she always sinks with a sigh, happy or sad, depending on her life events of the day, to watch out the window at Greene Street.

  Fred remarks that she seems quiet and after a while asks if she has settled on that departure date. Lillian shakes her head. “I still have to mull it over.” She leans out the window. Car horns honk; a motorcycle roars by. The air has lost its freshness, is woven thick with sound.

  “Cigarette?” Fred offers.

  “I’ll just take a puff of yours.” She then surprises herself by adding, “I might decide to give up the weed altogether.”

  “That would be all right with me,” he says, but he looks doubtful.

  She hands the cigarette back to him. Not to smoke would be as strange as being in Florida. Strange and foreign land. Would she die in Florida? Would she die of lung cancer? Or would she be one of the lucky ones who smoke and get away with it? She had always thought she would die on Greene Street, and maybe right in that same bed she’s slept in for fifty years.

  The morning goes by in little bumps and starts. “You have my address and phone number?” Fred says. She shows him where she’d written it down on a pad, right next to the phone. “And you’ll let me know your plans? This is a good time to fly, because the fare isn’t so expensive.”

  When it’s time for him to leave, Fred kisses her. She kisses him back and rubs her nose into his skin. He smells good—shaving lotion and a clean soapy smell. “Well, good-bye for now,” he says.

  “For now,” she echoes to his retreating back, and then she begins to feel again all the alarming symptoms of last night: a heavy, dull tiredness, and her heart shaking as if it wanted to burst out of her chest. “Oh,” she says. “Oh! I’m afraid my heart won’t stand it!” And in the moment of saying it she understands that to leave Greene Street, even for Fred, might very well break her heart.

  From Florida, Fred sends her postcards. She sends him funny stories clipped from the newspaper. They both look forward to his visit to his son the following year. From time to time he phones to ask if she has changed her mind. They smoke as they talk and cough at each other over the wire. It’s their hearts, Lillian says. His heart won’t let him live on Greene Street; hers won’t let her leave.

  “It’s our foolish hearts,” she says. The way she says it is like a song, and indeed there is a song called “Your Foolish Heart.” One day on the radio she hears an old recording of Jimmie Rodgers singing that song. Lovely, she thinks, letting the tears rise, oh, lovely the way he sings. Just makes you want to cry.

  For My Father Who Died, Etcetera

  I would like to write a poem

  For my father.

  This is the way it would start:

  For my father who died, etcetera.

  I would like to write a story

  About my father.

  This is the way it would start:

  This story is about my father

  Who lived an ordinary life.

  On a shelf I keep his glasses.

  Books held to his nose he read, he read.

  “I’m reading War and Peace,” he said.

  “It’s the fourth time.”

  He was a milkman, a breadman—

  “I’m a route man,” he said.

  World War Two, he worked in Alco—

  Fat times. $125 a week.

  “One-hundred-twenty-five dollars,” he said,

  “Let me see that check again.”

  He died choking for air

  Strangled in a hospital bed—

  Asbestosis.

  Shipyard workers get it,

  So do their families

  Sniffing the dust in their clothes.

  Hey, he was a route man

  How come he died like that?

  On the feeder, a cardinal, orange bill d
ipped in snow.

  “Look at that bird,” he said

  As if he saw more than a blood-colored blur,

  “Look at that bird, beautiful winter bird.”

  Once he pushed a broom

  In a little tin-roofed factory,

  Unpacked crates of asbestos.

  “Only a couple weeks,” he said,

  “Two, maybe three weeks.”

  He died choking for air.

  First of course he slowly got weaker—

  One day he fell down in the street.

  His sister had chemotherapy and died anyway.

  “I hope my hair doesn’t fall out,” he said.

  He died choking for air.

  “Get the ticket,” he said, “I’m taking the ship.”

  Months later I saw him—

  (It was a dream of course)

  I on a balcony, he below.

  “Excuse me, Dad” (I was polite)

  “Don’t want to hurt your feelings,

  “But you’re supposed to be dead.”

  About the Author

  Norma Fox Mazer (1931–2009) was an acclaimed author best known for her children’s and young adult literature. She earned numerous awards, including the Newbery Honor for After the Rain, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for Dear Bill, Remember Me?, and the Edgar Award for Taking Terri Mueller. Mazer was also honored with a National Book Award nomination for A Figure of Speech and inclusion in the notable-book lists of the American Library Association and the New York Times, among others.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1982 by Norma Fox Mazer

  Cover design by Connie Gabbert

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-7090-7