Before They Rode Horses

by Bonnie Bryant

  I think she believed it, too. After all, she knew my mother.

  “Wait a minute. This is supposed to be a story about good mothering,” said Deborah.

  “Have patience,” Lisa assured her. “But in the meantime, you can pick up a pointer or two about stuff not to do, okay?”

  “Okay,” Deborah said.

  III

  MISS MARTIN WAS the owner and sole instructor at The Martin Academy. I knew it was going to be trouble before I knew what the name was. Imagine, the very idea of a charm school, but when I heard what she called the place, I figured it was double trouble.

  Mother picked me up at school that first Tuesday and handed me a package.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “It’s your dress,” she said.

  I guess she figured I had to prove to Miss Martin that I was already charming before I got to the school. We stopped at a gas station and I went into the ladies’ room to change. What Mom hadn’t counted on was that this was a gas station and the last lady to use the bathroom had obviously had a problem with her car. The whole place was covered with dirty grease and, naturally, it got all over the dress; but it got on my school clothes worse, and there wasn’t time to go home, shower, and change, and I’m sure that being late to charm school is an invitation to a black mark by your name. I was covered with smudges of grease when I arrived at my first class.

  Miss Martin was unlike anybody I’d ever known before in my life. She was a small woman, thin and frail. It was the middle of the afternoon, and she was wearing a chiffon dress with a stole that she kept playing with. Sometimes she draped it over her head so that she looked like the girl who played the Virgin Mary in the Christmas pageant. At other times she let it flow over her shoulder so that she looked like somebody’s fairy godmother. She spoke quietly, in a soft Southern accent.

  “Girls,” she said when we all sat down. “I am goin’ to teach y’awl how to be ladies. Chahmin’ ladies. Now I know what y’awl ah thinkin’ out they-ah …” That’s really the way she talked, but I’m not going to try to imitate it anymore, so you’re on your own. Just remember that I had to listen to it for two hours that afternoon.

  “You’re wondering what charm really is, aren’t you?” Miss Martin asked.

  Naturally, you can imagine that was the last question in my mind. I wasn’t exactly on the edge of my seat for the answer.

  “Well,” Miss Martin said, “it’s easy. Charm is five things and five things only, one for each of the letters in the word: C-H-A-R-M.” She spelled it in case we didn’t know how. “Charm is Cleanliness, Health, Animation, Radiance, and Manners. Once you learn the essence of each of these qualities, you will be ready to go out into the world, demonstrating the finest qualities of the fair sex.”

  “Argh,” said Stevie.

  “Five weeks of this,” Lisa reminded her.

  “I think I’m having another contraction,” said Deborah.

  “I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach,” said Carole.

  Lisa continued her story.

  Of course, I was just thrilled that my dress and my white socks were all covered with monkey grease from the gas station. It was perfect for lesson one: Cleanliness. Miss Martin decided that I would be the center of attention because there was clearly so much room for improvement. I hated every second of it.

  We heard more than I want to tell you about the importance of well-trimmed fingernails—though she didn’t consider any of us old enough for colored nail polish. We heard about regular bathing. Every time she mentioned regular bathing, she glanced at me and her right eyebrow twitched upward. At first it hurt my feelings. Then I looked around at my classmates. I didn’t know any of them, but I knew one thing about them and they knew it about me. Each of us would rather have been almost anywhere in the world right then but at The Martin Academy, and that suddenly made it all right. In fact, it made it just a little bit fun—maybe too much fun. There was a girl with long red hair who was in trouble. At first I thought she was having a fit. Then I realized that’s exactly what it was. She was about to explode into giggles. She clapped her hand across her mouth and made the most horrendous sound.

  It startled Miss Martin. But not for long. That lady knew the essence of charm. “Elissa,” she said calmly. “Our final lesson will be on manners. I strongly suggest you pay extra attention on that day.”

  I’m not kidding. She really said that. At that moment, Elissa became my best friend at The Martin Academy. I could hardly wait to see her again next week at Health.

  By the end of the two-hour class, I don’t think I’d learned a thing I didn’t know except a lot of euphemisms Miss Martin liked to use for words she didn’t want to say. She didn’t say “period,” she said “that time of the month.” She didn’t say “bathroom,” she said “water closet” or “loo.” The toilet was a “commode.” She didn’t say “take a shower or bath,” she said “bathe.” When it came time to discuss underarm odor, she just pointed. She couldn’t even say “haircut.” She called it a “coiffure.”

  But one thing I knew for sure was that she was certainly committed to cleanliness. I’ve never seen anything wrong with it myself. My dress and hands might have been dirty, but my fingernails were clean as can be.

  At the end of the first class, I got my first certificate. It said “Most Improved.” I still have it, too.

  IV

  WE HAD ANOTHER rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon—the day after my first charm school class. I certainly wasn’t expecting that anything I’d heard from Miss Martin would help me at all, but I was wrong. She’d helped me a lot.

  As soon as I entered the part of the stage that was Scrooge’s bedroom and looked at Larry, sitting smugly on a bench, holding his script to “help” him remember his lines, I noticed his fingernails. There are clean fingernails and there are dirty fingernails. Larry’s were grimy and disgusting. Moreover, he hadn’t clipped them properly and they were ragged and uneven. Miss Martin wouldn’t like that one bit.

  I know it sounds a little silly, but it really did make a difference. I realized then that I had sort of let his obnoxiousness get to me and maybe I hadn’t been doing my best. Everybody knows that the Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t supposed to go through her scenes in a constant state of annoyance, and that’s what I’d been doing. I knew Ms. Stevens didn’t blame me, but I sort of blamed myself. When I saw his fingernails, it gave me an edge. Maybe he was obnoxious, but if he cared so little about himself that he couldn’t keep his fingernails clean, then I didn’t have to worry about him.

  I got to the point in the script when I take him back to himself as a lonely child at school. It’s sort of a turning point because that’s when he first recognizes how isolated he was.

  “The school is not quite deserted. A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still,” I said.

  Larry looked to the blank area of the stage where I pointed. That’s his cue to start crying.

  Instead, he said, “There’s nobody there.” One of Larry’s friends snickered. I bet he had dirty fingernails, too.

  “Ah, but the world can see the lonely child that was to become Ebenezer Scrooge,” I said. “He sits forlornly, wondering of his future, his dreams and desires, and having no way to see the bleak future that awaits him.”

  See, I figured that if Larry wasn’t going to do what needed to be done, I’d do it for him. Ms. Stevens caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. Larry just glared at me because he hadn’t been able to get my goat. All I could think of was how disgusting his fingernails were.

  I started wondering what my next class—Health—would bring.

  V

  AT THE START of the health class, we seemed to take up about where we’d left off.

  “Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow,” said Miss Martin.

  “Wait a minute! This isn’t supposed to be about horses!” said Deborah. Lisa handed her an ice chip and continued her story.

  We had a quick reminder ab
out glowing, and then we went on to a whole new subject: Posture. I know you’re not going to believe this because it’s so corny, but Miss Martin had us put books on our heads to walk around. Only, it wasn’t just any book, it was the book she’d written—and had published privately—that we would each get at the end of the course to remind us of all the things she was teaching us. It was a pretty thin book, so we each had to use two of them. It’s tricky to walk around with a book on your head, but downright hard when there are two, since they not only slip on your hair, but they slip on each other.

  This wasn’t new to me. In acting classes the year before, our teacher had taught us about posture and poise. We had to learn to be a presence onstage. In fact, we were supposed to imagine that there was a piece of space that was ours, that we carried with us wherever we went, and we were to fill that space and use it as we moved. That was a way to hold the attention of an audience.

  The result was that I was very good at posture. I stood straight, walked serenely, and held my space, holding everybody’s attention as I moved, just the way I’d learned a year before.

  “My dear,” said Miss Martin. “Surely you don’t mean to stand so tall.”

  I looked down. I looked up. I thought I was probably standing just about as tall as I was, which was about four feet nine inches.

  “Why, a girl of your stature who stands so ramrod straight is going to run the risk of being taller than the gentleman who catches her fancy. We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?”

  I’d never actually thought much about height and boys before, to tell you the truth. I just figured I’d grow to be the height I was going to grow to and that would be that. I actually liked the idea of being tall. I was tired of having to climb up on chairs to reach things. Miss Martin wasn’t in favor of height. Not at all. She thought it was unladylike to be more than about five feet four inches. That’s how tall my mother is, and I guessed that’s about where I’d end up, but I never worried about it.

  Miss Martin implied we should worry about it, especially if we stood tall the way I did. Poor Elissa. Her mother was five feet ten inches tall, and her father was over six feet. At ten years old, she was already over five feet and was doomed to a life of tallness. Miss Martin had a cure for that. She got Elissa to slump a little, pushing her hips forward and then curling her back so her shoulders came forward. It took about an inch off her, but while it might have been charming where Miss Martin came from, I doubt it was really healthy. For one thing, it would make for terrible balance in the saddle—Oops. I mean, if you needed to do something where balance counted, like, say, riding a—uh, bicycle. For another, it can’t have been any good for her spine.

  Anyway, with Miss Martin’s help, I learned not to stand so straight that I looked like a soldier, and Elissa learned to slouch so that her spine was going to go out of joint. That day, Elissa got the Most Improved certificate and I got a little button that said “Fast Learner.”

  We all had to smile, shake Miss Martin’s hand, and curtsy when she gave us our awards. It wasn’t easy—the smiling part, I mean.

  VI

  I WAS ABLE to put lesson number two to work every bit as quickly as number one. We were working on the part of the scene where the young Scrooge breaks up with his fiancée, Belle—

  “A beautiful name!” Stevie interrupted. Carole and Lisa giggled. Belle was the name of Stevie’s horse. Deborah just glared. Lisa continued.

  This is another point in the story where Scrooge gets all upset. He’s supposed to beg me to take him home and stop showing him all this painful stuff from his early years.

  “Spirit!” he read from his script. “Show me no more!”

  “One shadow more!” I say, meaning one more shadow from his past.

  Larry got that look in his eyes. I knew he was about to try to throw me off track and say something like, “What part of ‘no’ didn’t you understand?”

  He turned to face me, that look in his eyes. My mind flashed. Suddenly I felt as if I had two books on top of my head. I drew myself up to my tallest possible self and there I was, looking down at Larry Titus. It’s possible that I might not want to be taller than “uh gentleman who catches muh fay-uncy,” but that definitely didn’t include Larry Titus. I was only too happy to be taller than he was. He smirked. I glared.

  Then, just like it said in the script, I took his arms, held them to his sides, and led him to the next scene. He didn’t kick me. He just went with me. It was a little strange. In fact, while he walked next to me over to the next scene, the wicked twinkle in his eye seemed to melt and he smiled softly.

  “Larry! You’re supposed to try to cover your face!” Ms. Stevens called out. Larry did cover his face then, but not before I had seen that real, honest, true smile come across it—aimed directly at me!

  I’m not proud to say this, but I know I’m with friends and I can trust you and I think it’s important to be honest about the past, so I have to say it. Larry Titus got a crush on me. I don’t know if it was because I was charming, because I hated him, or because I was suddenly taller than he was, but it’s true. From that moment on, he was always totally nice to me.

  When the rehearsal was over, I gave him my button that said “Fast Learner.” I knew I was in trouble when he clutched it in his hands as if it were a precious prize, looked at it fondly, and then slipped it into his pocket. Big trouble, but I didn’t know how big the trouble was.

  By the next rehearsal, he’d memorized all of his lines. He said them all perfectly and never missed a cue. That was a relief, but the problem was that there was no meanness to it. He was sweet and kind to me and to everybody else. When he said things like, “If the poor people would rather die than go to poorhouses, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population,” he said it as if he really loved poor people and actually loved everybody—and for that matter all the creatures of the earth. He was all sweetness and light, no grump, no grouch, no Scrooge at all. It was a disaster.

  There was nothing anybody could do. The Ghost of Jacob Marley yelled at him. Ms. Stevens tutored him. Bob Cratchit begged him. But none of it worked. Larry couldn’t be mean and cantankerous anymore. It was as if Scrooge had had a weird personality transplant. Larry Titus spent all his time at every rehearsal smiling at me with these big brown goo-goo eyes of his. It was all I could do to keep from running out of the auditorium in horror.

  The following two Tuesdays came and went without any help for me from The Martin Academy. In Animation, Miss Martin wanted us to be bright and witty. She showed us how to draw attention to ourselves in a positive way. It seemed to me that I’d managed to do that very well already—just by being tall—and look where it had gotten me. Even though it wasn’t helpful, I loved that animation class because (a) Miss Martin never once mentioned bathing, and (b) because it was when she showed us what to do with scarves.

  I suppose you’ve always wondered what to do with a scarf. Now I’ll tell you: If you’re being animated, you fiddle with it. This was apparently what she was doing when she tossed her chiffon scarf over her head or across her front and over her shoulder so that it would flow. The message I got was that if you are in constant motion, people notice you. You can’t be fidgeting—that just makes people nervous. But an extended arm here or a tilted chin there, plus a “fetching scarf” flung over your shoulder, will surely get you the man of your dreams. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell her that I’d managed to become the girl-of-his-dreams to the boy-of-my-nightmares by listening in class and then doing the exact opposite.

  I, personally, found everything she did with the scarf totally irritating. In fact, it was so irritating to me that I was sure Larry would find it irritating, too. So I borrowed a chiffon scarf of my mother’s and tried fiddling with it in the same irritating manner. To tell you the truth, by that time I think I could have been chewing on my hair and Larry would have found it “chahmin’.” That’s how far gone he was. He seemed bedazzled by the scarf. I didn’t bring it ag
ain.

  The following week was Radiance. That was Miss Martin’s code word for makeup. Some of the girls were old enough to wear lipstick, but we all would be eventually, so it was kind of fun to have Miss Martin give us a complete lesson.

  She explained that the secret to good makeup was accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative, highlighting the weak and masking the overstated.

  I sat next to Elissa at the makeup table. There was a whole array of colors, like a painter’s palette, only they were all different shades of flesh tones. Miss Martin had hired a makeup specialist to give us this lesson. I have to tell you, it occurred to me that maybe she thought some of us were such beauty challenges that it would take a real professional to overcome “nature’s oversights.” That’s what she called it. I’m not kidding you. Miss Martin was one of a kind. At least I hope she was—I wouldn’t want to meet another of her kind.

  Anyway, Elissa and I were sitting in front of the mirror and the makeup lady came over. She smiled at Elissa, but her face sort of froze when she looked at me. I was sure she was saying, “Honey, we’ve got our work cut out here!”

  It took her about forty-five minutes to meet the challenge. In the end, she decided that a little bit of pink lipstick and some blusher was all I needed. I’ve got to tell you, it made me feel like a failure. She had a lot of fun highlighting Elissa’s “fine bone structure.” Me, I was a hopeless case.

  I wasn’t feeling too good when I left that lesson. It didn’t help when Miss Martin gave me another Most Improved. Shows you I had no radiance at all.

  VII

  BUT LESSON FIVE, that’s the one I remember the best. Manners. I’d been having manners drilled into me by my mother since I could walk. I’m a polite person. I’ve always been a polite person. I’m considerate, sensitive, and naturally kind. In case I hadn’t noticed that, it all became clear when Miss Martin told me that at the very start of the class. To be honest, she said it to all of us. She said she’d gotten to know us well over the previous four lessons, and she was convinced that that was true of all of us. It occurred to me then, even as an innocent ten-year-old, that she was buttering us up to sign up for her advanced charm class—a ten-week deal—but it wasn’t going to work for me. Five weeks of charm were all my mother could possibly force me into. Anyway, as I listened to Miss Martin tell us how wonderful we already were, I could see she was leading up to how much better we’d be.