by Sandra Kring
When the last table was served, I thought we would be able to gobble up our snack and get out of there, but no dice. We had to wait until Mrs. Gaylor gave us a talk on how to eat in public—like we’d never done that before!—and while she yammered, everyone had to watch Brenda demonstrate what Mrs. Gaylor was saying.
It was all a bunch of twaddle, if you asked me, taking such little bites that a mouse would have starved to death before that cookie was gone. And putting our napkins on our laps to catch crumbs, even though when we picked it up to dab our mouths now and then—as Mrs. Gaylor said we were supposed to—every crumb we caught was going to get dumped on our laps or on the floor anyway.
By the time Mrs. Gaylor’s lesson and Brenda’s demonstration were over, our apple juice was warm as pee, and my belly was so hungry that I didn’t care who didn’t approve, I broke the cookie in half and shoved a whole half into my mouth. Brenda didn’t yell at me, though. In fact, she looked like she wanted to laugh, same way Charlie laughed when I burped.
I thought we could leave right after we ate, but no dice again. We couldn’t go until the Big Sisters stood up and recited something that was supposed to be the “code” of the Sunshine Sisters that we were all supposed to memorize. It was about being well behaved so that we could be proud of ourselves, and our families and our community could be proud of us, too. Something like that, anyway.
“Would you like me to jot the day and time of our first meeting down for you so you don’t forget?” Brenda asked when our meeting was over for real.
“No. I can remember anything that I make into a little song.” I tossed the time and date into a little ditty and sang it back to Brenda. “See? That’s how I remember important things.”
Humpty-Dumpty Charlie was waiting for me on the brick ledge where he still spent his recesses, my scooter propped against the bricks. “Thanks for watching my scooter. Did you take it for a spin?” Charlie shook his head. “Why not? I told you you could.” But he didn’t answer.
I handed Charlie my schoolbooks so I could use both hands to steer and off we went, Charlie walking so slow that I had to ride in circles around him or I would have tipped over.
“Why do you have to go to those meetings, anyway?” Charlie asked.
“Because I’ve got afflictions and no ma in my house,” I told him.
“I don’t have a ma, but I don’t have to go.”
“That’s because you’re a boy. This is just for girls.”
“Do I got afflictions?” Charlie asked.
“You’ve got plenty of them,” I told him, and poor Charlie grinned like having them was something to be proud of.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In one week’s time, I made good with Mrs. Carlton and with Jesus. I turned in my make-up work, including my paper on Moby-Dick. Okay, so maybe the most words I had on one blue line was six, as Mrs. Carlton pointed out, but it was enough to get me promoted to sixth grade. And I put the quarter Miss Tuckle gave me in the offering plate (holding it out first so that Miss Tuckle and Susie Miller could see me doing it), and left the other dime I owed Him on the altar upstairs, holding it out first so He’d see me doing it and know that we were squared up.
That week I had another Sunshine Sister meeting with Brenda, too. Charlie tagged along, just to wait outside and keep an eye on my scooter for me.
Boy, that Starlight! It didn’t matter how eager I was to learn how to be respectable, I forgot about everything but how much I loved that place the second I stepped inside.
Brenda led the way to the first concession stand while I followed behind her like a Charlie, my head gawking all over. “Ain’t this place something, Brenda? I’ll bet every time you step in here, you feel like somebody stole your breath all over again. That sure is how I feel.”
Brenda looked up for a second, like she was thinking on what I said and checking out the place at the same time, and then she said, “It is a cool place, isn’t it? I suppose sometimes I forget to really look at it because I’m so used to it.”
“I don’t think I’d ever get so used to the Starlight that I couldn’t see the magic in it anymore,” I said. And Brenda said that, somehow, she believed that was true.
The Starlight didn’t have matinees every week, and they weren’t going to have one this weekend. In fact, after the show that night, they weren’t going to have any shows for a long time, because they were converting the theater to one that showed movies some times, and live shows other times. “Wow, Brenda,” I said when she told me. “You mean with real first-class acts?”
“Yes,” Brenda said. “That’s what we’re hoping for.” Then Brenda explained how they were going to rip out some seats in the front row and build a big stage for the acts, and an orchestra pit for the musicians. Mrs. Bloom had bought the old furniture store next to the Starlight, so that when the live bands came, they’d have dressing rooms and a big room for dancers to warm up in. Wouldn’t you know it! I finally get an “in” to see some movies legal, and they were closing for what might be the whole summer. Still, Brenda and I needed to make the concession stand ready for the seven o’clock show that night.
I thought it would be a good idea to line the candy up according to how good they tasted. Like start with the Jujubes and the Good & Plenty on the best end, the candy bars in the middle, Big Hunk leading the way, and then the Milk Duds and Boston Baked Beans on the other end, because if you asked me, they were both duds. Brenda said that while that was a good idea, it would mess up the workers, who were used to the order the candy was in already and would be grabbing the wrong things when it got busy before the movie and at intermission, so I had to keep the same lineup.
While I sat on my knees putting candy away, Brenda opened a box filled with striped popcorn boxes, flat as envelopes. I got to my feet and picked one up. “I didn’t know these things came flat and you had to put them together. Look at that, they got tabs on them, just like paper dolls. Where does this one go?”
We talked about the movies we liked best as we made boxes. Brenda saw way more than me, so she mentioned ones I never saw, but highest on her list was The Wild One. “I heard about that movie. And I saw Mrs. Delaney and Mrs. Perkins gawking at Marlon Brando like he was as gorgeous as James Dean. Pop yells at me if I page through the magazines, even if I’m careful not to wrinkle the pages, but he didn’t yell at them.
“Holy cow, is James Dean dreamy or what? I’ll bet you’re in love with James Dean, too. Well, maybe not, because you’re in love with Leonard Gaylor, and I don’t think people can be in love with two people at one time, can they? To folks here in Mill Town, you and Leonard Gaylor are as famous of a couple as Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando all rolled into one—which must mean that he’s every bit as movie-star handsome as you are movie-star pretty. They talk highly about Leonard all the time,” I said. “Him having been the number one smartest person in his whole high school class, just like you, and the most valuable person on the basketball team, the debate team, and about every other team there is.” Brenda dropped her popcorn box and I picked it up because I was closer to the floor.
“Oh, I like Marlon Brando,” she said.
And I said, “He’s okay, but he’s not as dreamy as James Dean.”
That reminded me. “Hey,” I said, “do you remember last Christmas when you guys had a free matinee for kids and a Santa afterward who gave out free goodybags? Popcorn, peanuts in their shells, and that hard candy that looks like frozen ribbons? I didn’t get to go to that movie because you had to go with an adult, like always, and Teddy was working. My neighbors went, though. Jack—the meanest of the bunch—was first in line, and as soon as he got his goodybag, he slipped back in line behind his sister so he could con two bags out of Santa. I was at their house waiting for Jennifer and Jolene when they got back from the picture show, and when they were all bragging about getting those free bags, dumb Jack, who’s never been able to keep his yap shut, unzipped his coat and t
ook that second bag out so he could brag about how he’d gotten two and I didn’t even get one. His big brother Johnny came in the kitchen then and grabbed his cheater bag. He pulled a handful of popcorn out of it and said ‘Thanks, little brother,’ and Jack cussed, like he does when his ma isn’t around.
“I ended up getting a bag of candy anyway that day, because Johnny pulled a candy cane out and while he was snapping the hook part off with his teeth, he looked over at me and said, ‘You get a bag, too?’ And I said no. So he handed me the whole bag. ‘Compliments of Jack, the little thief,’ he said. Anyway, that was a real nice stash you Blooms gave away. And I’ll bet the movie was real good, too.”
Brenda frowned. “Well, this year I’ll see to it that you get your own bag, and that you get to see the movie.”
“That would be swell, Brenda. Can I sit in the front row, smack-dab in the middle?” I asked, knowing it would get Jack’s goat, since he makes Mrs. Jackson get to the theater practically the day before so he can get that seat.
And Brenda said, “You can sit anywhere you want.”
I fit the popcorn box I’d just put together into our stack of boxes that was growing as tall as the Eiffel Tower. “I’m gonna get up here so I can reach the stack easier,” I said, then hoisted myself up on the counter and started swaying my legs like a metronome, which is what our music teacher said that gadget is called that helps you keep time if you don’t practice with the radio. While I hummed and made boxes I answered a whole lot of Brenda’s questions about my ma, and Teddy, and school. But the whole time I was answering Brenda, I was thinking about how nice Johnny Jackson had always been to me, and how I wanted to marry him when I grew up. Course, I couldn’t get married for a long time, and in the meantime, I knew, I’d have to put up with Johnny having his share of girlfriends whether I liked it or not. Because like I heard Mrs. Delaney say to the butcher’s wife when she was complaining about how much grief her teenage son was giving her, “Well, Mary. Young men need to sow their wild oats before they settle down,” which I decided was another way of saying that they needed to have lots of girlfriends and drink lots of beer and drive their cars fast before they could get married, because that’s what Johnny was doing. And sometimes he sowed two or three oats in the same week. I knew this for a fact, because Mrs. Jackson was always yelling at Johnny about necking with some girl over at Bugsy’s Car Hop, or sometimes right in their driveway, where anybody could see. And once while Mrs. Jackson was outside, Johnny brought a girl through the front door and took her right up to his bedroom, and we saw them. Well, not Mrs. or Mr. Jackson, but the rest of us.
Me and Jennifer and Jolene were coming out of their room and saw her brothers outside Johnny’s door, looking through a crack, their cheeks all red and puffed out from trying not to make noise. Course, then we had to see what was going on, too, so Jolene shoved the boys out of the way. Jack would have slugged her good and shoved her back, but he knew she’d scream bloody murder and Mrs. Jackson would hear all the way in the backyard where she was hanging laundry. So we squirmed our way to the crack and there they were, Johnny and some girl lying face-to-face on his bed, kissing movie-star hard. I thought they were playing a game where the object was to try to shove each other off the bed without using their hands, because they had their hands up each other’s shirts and were only pushing with their hips. I decided they’d been playing it for a long time, too, because they were breathing real hard, like they just ran ten laps around a track. About the time the bed started squeaking, though, Joey whispered, “Holy crap, they’re gonna do the Juicy Jitterbug.” We didn’t get to see that part, though, because Johnny heard us and threw a shoe at the door to make us scatter.
Mrs. Jackson found out about it, too, and she screamed at Johnny, “Look what you’re teaching these kids! I’m going to tell your father!” And as Johnny was grabbing his keys off the counter and heading out the door, he said, “First you’d have to find him,” which didn’t make any sense since Mr. Jackson was sitting right in front of the TV where he always was when he wasn’t at work.
Back when I saw Johnny and that girl “petting”—which is what Joey said couples do before they do the Juicy Jitterbug—it only made me giggle behind my hand. But thinking about it while I made popcorn boxes made my insides get all tingly. Like when your foot wakes up after it falls asleep because you’ve been sitting on it too long. Something like that, only better. I blinked a couple of times, then said, “Hey Brenda, do my eyes look all goofy?”
She leaned over and examined my face. “No. Why?”
“I don’t know,” I said, even though I did. “I was just wondering.”
I thought for about two seconds, then said, “Brenda, as my Sunshine Sister, you’re supposed to teach me stuff I don’t know because you’re older and know more, right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, can I ask you anything at all?”
“I have a feeling you will,” Brenda said.
I wasn’t sure what that meant so I ignored it. “What does it feel like to be in love?”
“Are you in love?” she asked, and I think she wanted to smile again but didn’t, which was a good thing.
“Maybe. But I’m not sure. That’s why I’m asking. You know how in the movies, the leading lady’s eyes get that foggy look, like they might melt, when she’s in love? Well, that’s why I asked if my eyes looked weird, because if they did, then it might help me figure out if I’m in love or not.”
“You have beautiful blue eyes,” Brenda said. “Kind of a mix between a deep turquoise and navy.” She said this like I’d asked her what color my eyes were, which I hadn’t.
Brenda was standing close to where I was sitting, so I leaned forward. So far forward that I almost tipped off the counter. I looked hard into her eyes. Nice as they were, they looked pretty normal to me. Brenda looked away and got busy turning our giant stack of made boxes into two shorter ones.
“That’s just in the movies, Teaspoon,” she said. “They use special lighting to give eyes that soft look.”
“Oh,” I said. “Figures. Well, what about the weird tingling you get inside your belly… well, lower, too, I guess… when a boy you like looks at you or you remember him giving you a goodybag, or whacking his brothers for you? Does that mean you’re in love?”
“Could be,” Brenda said with a grin, then she got busy saying how we should only put together about ten more boxes, since extras would just be in the way after that night’s show. “You can fill up the straw dispensers next if you’d like. I’ll show you how.”
But I had one more question. “Brenda,” I said. “If you get a boyfriend, do you have to let him rub your balloons?”
“Balloons?” Brenda asked.
I patted my chest where my balloons were going to grow. “Yeah, these.”
Brenda’s lips bunched and her cheeks puffed out, because she was trying to hold some giggles inside. Then her eyes got that teasy kind of sparkle in them and she said, “Why are you asking? You afraid they’ll pop?” There was no locking her giggles in then. She laughed until her face turned popcorn-box-red and she was hanging on to the counter to hold herself up.
“It wasn’t that funny, wise guy,” I snapped.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she finally said, as she dabbed at her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that. In fact, we shouldn’t be saying any of this. Mrs. Gaylor wouldn’t exactly find any of these appropriate topics for Sunshine Sisters to discuss, so let’s change the subject.”
“Okay,” I said. “But too bad, because I really want to know. I’ll ask the Taxi Stand Ladies.”
“The Taxi Stand Ladies?” Brenda asked, and I reminded her that she’d met them. When I got done refreshing her memory, Brenda bunched her lips all over again, like maybe Mrs. Gaylor wouldn’t think the Taxi Stand Ladies were an appropriate topic for Sunshine Sisters to discuss, either, which had me wondering what was an appropriate topic for us to discuss? Then I thought of something that might be.
> “Hey, Brenda. I noticed that you talk real respectable, using words like appropriate and stuff, and not saying ain’t and gonna, like I do. You think you could help me learn to talk more respectable? Teddy sure would be happy if you did, and probably my next teacher, too. It drove Mrs. Carlton up the wall when I used those words. She’d get this little twitch on her face, right here,” I said, pointing to the spot right under my eye, above the bumpiest part of my cheekbone. “Anyway, maybe you could catch me when I use them and correct me.”
Brenda winced. “I think there’s enough correcting going on in this place,” she said. “How about if you just listen and catch yourself when you’re using them.”
One of the first things I learned as a Sunshine Sister was that respectable people act different around different people. Take Mrs. Bloom, for instance. Whenever I ran into her around town, there she was, walking ironing-board-straight, her feet gliding her along, her head moving side-to-side like a beauty queen going down the runway. She didn’t say Darlingggggggg when she met up with another fancy lady, like they did in the old movies they played on Channel 12 on Sunday afternoons, but every single word she said sounded like she was saying it as she talked about Brenda this, Brenda that. But when she was talking to Brenda and nobody else was around but me, there wasn’t any darlingggggggg in her voice at all.
I was still sitting on the counter, four metal straw dispensers lined up beside me, putting straws into the first one like Brenda showed me, when Mrs. Bloom came in, her purse and a First National Bank bag dangling from her arm. Her face looked like Mrs. Jackson’s when she came through the kitchen lugging a basket of laundry and stopped to peek at a pot of something cooking on the stove, while she yelled at Jack and Joey for roughhousing. Yep, that’s just how Mrs. Bloom looked—only her hair was fixed a whole lot nicer.
Mrs. Bloom gave Brenda a quick peck on the cheek, right in the middle of a sentence about “securing a band director,” and she didn’t even wait for Brenda to say anything back before she was telling her that they had a lot of details to go over. I think she was about to say what those details where, but instead, she stopped and blinked. “Brenda, why are you stocking the concession stand? This should have been done by the crew before they left last night.”