Lizzie's Carefree Years

by Linda Byler

  So that was the end of the day for the men. No one felt like building a house after Jason fell, Uncle Eli saying it was time to go home.

  Dat and Mam sat weakly on rocking chairs, Mam holding Jason with great tenderness. Dat got him a cool drink of grape juice, which he downed in three big gulps. Then he touched the lump on his head, saying seriously, “I fell hard on my head from our new house!”

  Everyone laughed, the tension ebbing away, seeing him sit up and talk and remembering what had happened. He was going to be alright, which was such a relief to Lizzie that her knees felt shaky and weak; she crumpled on the couch, laughing unsteadily.

  By the time the evening was over, they only had leftover meat loaf sandwiches and grape juice for supper, because Mam was too tired to cook. Lizzie ate only a few bites, and drank lots of grape juice, because it was less fattening.

  That evening, when Emma set the alarm clock properly as she always did, climbed into bed, plumped her pillow, rolled over, and said, “G’night,” Lizzie didn’t answer. After a while, she said, “Emma.”

  “What?”

  “Do you think I’m fat?”

  “Ach, Lizzie, it’s mean to say someone is fat. I’m not thin, either.”

  There was silence as Lizzie stared wide-eyed into the darkness. It was not a nice thought, but Mam wasn’t very kind. How could she be so mean?

  “Emma?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Mam likes you a lot better than me, doesn’t she? I mean, she likes me as good as you can like a fat, lazy person, but she likes you a lot better, not just because you’re thin and you work harder, but she really, really, really likes you a whole pile more than me.”

  “Lizzie, now stop it. You know that’s not true.”

  Lizzie sat straight up. “Emma, I know what’s true and what isn’t. Don’t you try and tell me. Mam said I am overweight and lazy, so that’s exactly what she thinks of me. And I don’t care.”

  Lizzie plopped back down on her pillow, snorted, and twisted and arranged herself in a comfortable position, before she said, “G’night.”

  “Lizzie.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t go to sleep thinking that. Mam would never love one of her daughters more than the other. It’s just that you could help better since the twins are born. There is about three times as much work now as there was before they were born.”

  “See?”

  “See what?”

  “I tried to tell you. What do we want another baby for? And then she goes and has two.”

  “You think it’s her fault? God gave us those babies.”

  Lizzie snorted again, before her breathing became deep and even, and she dreamed there was a water balloon tied to her skirt.

  The squirrels were busy storing hickory nuts in the old oak tree along the fencerow beside the new house. The air was gray and cold, with dry leaves rattling crisply in the sharp air.

  There was a truck parked beside the new house that said “Robinson’s Flooring” and two men carried a roll of linoleum up the steps to the front door.

  Mam and Aunt Mary had been varnishing and sanding all week, doing doors, trimwork, and hardwood floors. The house was beautiful. Lizzie was so amazed at the smooth walls and the windows that you could lock so tightly that there was not a smidgen of air coming through any cracks.

  Emma had a room of her own now. It was painted blue, with blue linoleum on the floor. Lizzie and Mandy shared the front dormer room, looking out over the road toward the neighbor’s house. Their room was painted bright pink. That had been Lizzie’s idea, but after the paint was on, she sincerely wished she would not have picked that color. But they had it now and Mam was not going to change it, because they had chosen it themselves.

  After Jason had fallen, Lizzie did try to be more helpful. She also watched what she ate, especially when Mam was around. But it was hard. Often, when Mam was upstairs varnishing and Lizzie had to watch the twins, she ate two whoopie pies. Once, after Mam had made creamsticks, Lizzie ate four. Creamsticks were homemade doughnuts, but instead of being round with a hole in the middle, they were cut in an oblong shape. After they were deep-fried, Mam cut a long slit on the top, filled it with creamy vanilla icing, and put golden caramel frosting on the top. They were the very best thing in the world of desserts, and Mam didn’t make them very often, because they were so much work, with two different kinds of icing and all.

  So Lizzie learned quickly that it paid to be careful what she ate around Mam and Emma, but it didn’t matter if they were busy and couldn’t see her. Because painting, varnishing, going to school, and having two new babies was all extremely stressful, nothing made Lizzie feel better about her whole upside-down world than a a good whoopie pie or doughnut. It was so comforting.

  After everything was finished and the moving was over, she had also learned another valuable lesson. It was better to help Emma and Mam work while there was plenty of work to be done; then when she was finished they treated her with more respect.

  Mam did not lose her temper, and only once was Lizzie’s weight mentioned. That was when Mam saw an ad in a magazine for a new kind of diet soda. She looked at the ad, then gazed at Lizzie, who was nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie. She got up, showed her the ad, and asked kindly if it would help her reduce if she bought some for her.

  Lizzie shrugged her shoulders. “Does it taste good?”

  “Probably.”

  Lizzie didn’t say much. That evening she told Mandy she was very fortunate to be so thin.

  “You’re not fat.”

  “I am.”

  “Not to me, you’re not.”

  Lizzie sighed, content to know Mandy loved her. They were all settled in the new house, winter was coming, and they had a warm room upstairs, even in cold, windy weather. Lizzie supposed turning twelve wouldn’t be too bad, as long as she had Mandy and a few whoopie pies.

  chapter 13

  Ping-Pong

  They loved their new house. It was so spacious, with plenty of closets, cupboards, and places to store every-thing neatly. Mam even had a closet in the hallway upstairs, which she filled with clean sheets, pillowcases, quilts, and blankets.

  The new hardwood floor in the living room was so sleek and smooth, Lizzie could hardly keep from sliding on it. If you wore knee socks and ran across the kitchen, you could slide clear over to the other end of the living room. Mam caught them doing it once, and that was the end of that.

  Even the doors and the woodwork gleamed. Mam had done so much sanding and varnishing, her arms and shoulders were sore every evening for weeks. But now it seemed as if her efforts paid off, because everything looked so nice. The old green sofa stood at one end of the living room, and the blue platform rocker, Mam’s bureau, and library table along another wall, but it was still too empty. They just didn’t have enough furniture.

  So one evening Dat and Mam went to an auction in a faraway town with Uncle Eli. Emma was a bit nervous keeping the twins by herself, so Esther came to stay with them. Lizzie tried hard to stay awake, waiting to see what they bought. But she fell asleep before they came home, and was surprised to see a new sofa and matching chair, almost the same color as the old sofa. They had also bought a few end tables.

  It looked so different, much cozier now. Mam spread her large braided rug in front of the sofas. Lizzie and Mandy promptly sat on the new sofa, patting the pillows and smiling at Mam. It was a happy time, settling into the new house just as the weather turned cold. They didn’t have to worry about not having enough money now, which was so nice for Dat and Mam.

  The basement that had been their house was now just a basement. Everything they didn’t really need was stored down there—things like old chairs and tables, or dressers with broken drawers. There was a woodstove in the basement, too, that helped keep the floor warm upstairs.

  And one day, Mam was reading the newspaper, when she said, “Girls, listen to this: ‘Ping-pong table. In very good condition. One hundred dollars or best offer.
’”

  Lizzie looked up. “What’s a ping-pong table?”

  “Surely you know, Lizzie.”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s high time you girls learned. I’ll call this number and offer them seventy-five.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask Dat?” asked Emma, looking up from her crocheting.

  “Oh, he won’t mind. He loves to play ping-pong.” And with that, Mam was off to the phone, hurrying down the driveway to the neighbors across the street.

  “Boy!” Emma said, dryly.

  “I’ll say,” Lizzie agreed.

  “She really must want that ping-pong table.” Emma resumed her crocheting, her needle flashing in the glow of the gas lamp. She was crocheting an afghan in blue colors for her new room. Lizzie envied Emma’s abilities at sewing, embroidering, and now, crocheting, but she didn’t have the patience to sit with hand sewing like Emma did. It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried, especially embroidering. Mam loved to buy cute iron-on transfers of little houses or animals in cross stitch for the girls to embroider. Even Mandy was patiently instructed how to tie a knot at the end of the thread, how to thread the needle, and how to separate the strands of embroidery floss.

  Lizzie could never see any sense in the way they made embroidery thread. Why did they put all those strands together in one thick thread if you had to separate them anyway? Why couldn’t they put only two together? Because that was always her greatest frustration to begin with—separating those strands. You held a piece up and pulled it carefully apart, but it always tangled in the end, and no matter how you twisted and pulled, nine times out of ten, it was stuck in one hard little knot at the bottom.

  Mam told her over and over, if she would use shorter pieces of thread, it wouldn’t happen as often. But Lizzie never changed the length of her thread, because what was the use? If you used shorter threads, that’s all you got done—threading your needle.

  Then there was the matter of the lazy daisy stitch. Mam was a great teacher for things like that, and she slowly swung her thread up and out around, catching it at a certain angle, so that it made a perfect loop. If you made a bunch of those loops around a French knot, you had a perfect daisy. That was another source of irritation, that French knot. Who in the world was the inventor of that stitch? You could make a middle of a daisy a lot easier by just stitching over and over in one spot, but Mam said it didn’t look right—it was too sloppy.

  Lizzie couldn’t see the difference, so she never learned the French knot, which made Mam pull her mouth in a straight line and her nostrils flare, but she didn’t say anything. Lizzie knew she irritated Mam—she could tell by her nostrils—so she never enjoyed hand sewing too much. She always tried when Mam bought new patterns, but usually it ended up in the bottom of the sewing basket, only half finished, and Lizzie was outside somewhere, while Emma and Mandy completed theirs.

  Watching Emma crochet, Lizzie wished she could learn, too, but she sure wasn’t going to ask anyone to teach her. For one thing, she was thoroughly left-handed, and for another, she would tire of it too quickly.

  Mam hurried up the steps and into the kitchen, waving the paper with the telephone number on it. “We got it! They’ll deliver this evening! Net, paddles, and all! This will be a big surprise for Melvin!”

  Emma looked up and smiled. Lizzie asked Mam if it was fun, and Mandy said the basement was a mess. So they all hurried down to the basement to clean up, leaving plenty of space in the area that used to be the living room, for the new Ping-Pong table.

  When Dat came home for supper, Mam was flushed and beaming. She could never keep a secret very long, so before they had a chance to say anything, Mam blurted out, “Melvin, guess what?”

  Dat was washing up in the bathroom, but he peeped above the blue towel he was using to dry his face and said, “Now what?”

  “We’re getting a ping-pong table tonight!”

  “Hah-ah!” Dat said, in disbelief.

  “Oh, yes! They’re delivering it from close to Marion for seventy-five dollars and it was advertised in the local paper for a hundred!”

  Mam turned to the table with a steaming bowl of chicken stew and dumplings, while Emma poured water into the plastic drinking glasses.

  “Wonder if it’s any good?” Dat asked.

  “We’ll see. I’ll beat you good and proper, Melvin!” Mam said, her eyes twinkling.

  “If I remember right, Annie, I skunked you last time we played!” Dat told her, laughing.

  ‘Skunked?’ Lizzie thought. That had to be some childish game. Dat and Mam sure were acting simple about it. Skunked?

  “What do you mean, ‘skunked?’” she burst out.

  “Oh, that’s a term you use when one person has eleven points and the other has only one or two,” Mam said.

  “So . . . Dat was a lot better than you, right?” Lizzie asked.

  “Oh, it just happened. He can’t beat me like that all the time,” Mam assured her.

  They all sat still, “putting patties down,” or folding their hands on their laps as they bowed their heads in silent prayer, something they did before and after every meal, as all Amish people did. Lizzie was so busy thinking about ping-pong, she forgot to say her prayer, till Dat lifted his head. Then she said quickly, “Is it hard to learn?”

  “I’m sure you forgot to say your prayer, Lizzie,” Dat said soberly.

  “She never does hardly. She told me once,” Emma sniffed.

  “Emma, I do!”

  Everyone looked at Lizzie, but Mam was busy filling everyone’s plate with steaming chicken stew. There were large chunks of chicken, white cubes of soft potatoes, orange carrots, peas, and slivers of onion and celery floating in a thick, creamy sauce. There were specks of black pepper, and little soggy pieces of dark green parsley in it, too. But the best part of all was the mound of fluffy white dumpling on top. Mam plopped half of one on each plate, spooning gravy over it. Cold macaroni salad and thick slices of homemade bread with butter and peach jam completed their meal.

  Lizzie was so hungry and everything tasted wonderful, even the macaroni salad. Emma didn’t eat very much anymore, picking daintily at her dumpling with her fork. She didn’t eat any macaroni salad, saying it was too fattening with all that mayonnaise. Lizzie took a huge bite of dumpling and gravy, chewed thoroughly, and looked at Emma with narrowed eyes.

  “Mayonnaise isn’t fattening.”

  “It is.”

  “No, I know it isn’t.”

  “Lizzie!”

  “It isn’t.” Lizzie took a large spoonful of macaroni salad on her plate, her second helping, before taking a large bite.

  Mam watched her sideways, wondering when Lizzie would ever accept responsibility for her eating habits. She was getting to be quite overweight, and Mam wished many times she wouldn’t eat quite as much. There was such a thin line between hurting her feelings and helping her eat less and more healthful foods.

  “Lizzie, mayonnaise is one of the most fattening things you can eat,” Dat said.

  “Who said?”

  “I don’t know. I guess everybody just knows—it’s quite a common fact.”

  Mandy jumped up, opened the pantry door, and came back with a jar of mayonnaise. “One hundred calories for one tablespoon!” she announced. “See?”

  “That’s a lot of calories if you’re dieting,” Dat said.

  “I’m not on a diet!” Lizzie said loudly.

  “No doubt,” Emma muttered.

  “Mam, Emma is being mean,” Lizzie said.

  “Emma,” Mam said.

  So Lizzie ate a large piece of pumpkin pie for dessert, free of guilt, because it seemed as if Mam was on her side. That one piece was not quite enough, so when they were clearing the table, she ate another piece, only smaller, when Emma wasn’t looking. That left kind of a yucky sweet taste in her mouth, so when she took the pie back to the pantry, she got a handful of stick pretzels from the jar. After that she drank a large glass of water, and felt miserably full. She woul
d have to stop eating so much, she thought.

  They were not yet finished with the dishes when a pickup truck drove up the driveway and stopped. There was a dark green table with white lines around the outside and one straight up the middle propped up on the back.

  “It’s here!” Lizzie yelled.

  So Dat and Mam bustled out the door, down the steps, and helped unload that huge table, which came in two parts. There was a small green net to clamp on each side, two red paddles, and two blue ones. The paddles were round with a short wooden handle. The surface of the paddle was rubbery, with little dots all over it. Lizzie loved the feel of the smooth wooden handle, wondering if she would be good at this.

  After Dat wrote a check and thanked the English man who brought the table, he showed the girls how to hold the paddle properly. It was not at all as Lizzie had imagined. You had to hold the round, rubbery part in, and the wooden handle out.

  Mam had to give the twins their bath and settle them for the night, so Emma helped her while Dat fed the horses.

  Lizzie and Mandy tried to bat the little white plastic ball back and forth, but they hardly ever got it right. Usually, one bat and it didn’t go ever close to where they wanted it to go, until they were bent over laughing so hard. They would never learn, it seemed.

  But when Dat and Mam were both able to play, Lizzie was fascinated. The ball went back and forth almost faster than her eyes could follow. It flew low over the net, always hitting the table before being slammed straight back. Mam’s eyes sparkled, her arms flew fast, and her hand gripped the ping-pong paddle until her knuckles turned white, and her mouth was held in a steady line. She moved faster than Lizzie had ever seen her, with her feet almost dancing to keep up with Dat’s furious pace.

  Just when Lizzie was positive she could no longer take the suspense, Mam yelled, “Melvin!”