In the Country of Queens Read online

  Maury talked nonstop about how much fun he and Shirley would have if they went roller-skating later.

  “That’s a really good idea,” said Shirley.

  “Let’s change out of our school clothes and meet in the laundry room under your apartment. It’ll be much cooler down there than it is inside this boiling bus,” Maury said, wiping his sweaty forehead with the top of his hand. “I’m so thirsty.”

  “Me too,” said Shirley.

  Maury had no dandruff. He had a lot of auburn hair and a lot of auburn freckles and clean ears. He wore a plaid shirt with a tie that didn’t clash, ate tuna fish for lunch, and was a whiz at science if not at spelling. Boys had to wear ties to school. Shirley was glad she wasn’t a boy, although wearing a dress to school wasn’t so comfortable either. Shirley wished she could go to Sharon Levitt’s party with Maury tonight. She knew all about spin the bottle from Edie, but she herself had never played it. She was positive Maury would not wear a tie or smell like tuna fish at the party.

  When the bus arrived at Sparrowood Gardens, Shirley, holding her books with her left hand and her red-and-black lunchbox with her right, waited her turn to jump down off the wide metal steps. Bus fumes, lawn mower exhaust, freshly cut grass, and the smell of Mrs. Kaplan’s fish frying in Crisco welcomed her in the humid, buggy air as she landed on the sidewalk.

  Shirley was so happy to see the Sparrowood Gardens sign and to smell the Sparrowood Gardens smells that she smiled for the first time in hours.

  “See you later,” she and Maury said at almost the same time. They lived at different ends of the small development, which was made up of about thirty brick apartments surrounding a grassy court. Each two-story building housed four separate families—two upstairs, two downstairs—with gardens in the front. Beryl Abbie, who lived three garden apartments away from Shirley, hung back to watch the tired bus as it dragged its old elephant self up the hill to the next stop.

  Down the long driveway Shirley went, waving to Mrs. Farber walking her German shepherd, Candy, on the No Ball Playing field, where there were hundreds of mountains of fresh and decomposing dog droppings. Droppings that made Anna fly into a rage every time Shirley brought some home on her Keds, which she had done yesterday after playing baseball there using Maury’s brother’s glove.

  Shirley also waved to Luke, the maintenance person in charge of all of Sparrowood Gardens’ big and small problems. Luke was mowing the grass on the No Ball Playing field. He saluted her back. Shirley liked Luke. Everybody did.

  A Paganetti’s Sanitation truck dripped garbage juice on the street as it chewed up the contents of the big metal cans stored in the white-brick garbage house. Shirley wondered if Grandma had had any luck today picking through the cans for treasures. Shirley never cross-examined Grandma like her mother did. “Were you poking around in the garbage again, Mama?” Anna asked when she saw something new on the living room windowsill. Shirley felt sorry for Grandma whenever Anna went on one of her rampages. It was part of the bond Shirley and Grandma shared, sort of like the common denominator Mr. Merrill taught about in math. She and Grandma were both in the same world. But most of the time, Shirley thought, Anna was in a different one.

  “Not every vone is cut from the same cloth,” Grandma liked to say. “Not even two fingers on your hand are the same.”

  Shirley examined her fingers carefully and agreed that no two were the same. Smart Grandma. She had an un-ordinary saying for everything ordinary.

  It never ceased to amaze Shirley how brave Grandma and Grandpa had been to leave Russia and then Turkey on a crowded, smelly, rocking ship with their three little kids—Claire, Rosalie, and Anna—to come to America.

  If it weren’t for them, there would be no me, thought Shirley, and none of my cousins either: no Arlene or Esther Marks and no Laurel, Ruthie, Steve, Phillie, or Scott Barrett.

  Shirley made her way through the shady breezeway under another section of apartments. Mrs. Evangelista, one of Sparrowood Gardens’ Pigeon People—a group of elderly women who minded everyone’s business, usually from a sunny bench—was seated on a brown lawn chair, her ample rear sagging like Santa’s sack, across from a smoking Mrs. Steinman, another Pigeon Person, who looked like a skinny, barely active volcano. Their chairs left a narrow aisle for Shirley to pass through to the court and to her apartment.

  Shirley went up the two steps of her stoop. She stopped to lift the top part of the mailbox that said BURNS/BOTKIN on the front—Anna and Shirley were the Burns part, Grandma, the Botkin—and took out the mail. Mustard, the old dog who lived next door, barked. Mr. Bickerstaff, Mustard’s master, was away at work. Shirley had no idea what Mr. Bickerstaff did, except that when he walked Mustard he yanked too hard on the leash, which made Shirley gasp as if it were her own neck instead of Mustard’s.

  Grandma wasn’t home, but the door to the apartment-green-colored apartment was unlocked. Shirley smelled her mother’s stale Benson & Hedges cigarette smoke, Grandma’s fresh but fake lily-of-the-valley perfume, and biscuits. Shirley guessed that Grandma was visiting her friend Augusta P, who lived next door to Beryl Abbie. Grandma and Augusta liked to play gin rummy and talk about the good old days when they were girls.

  Shirley dropped her school stuff and the mail on the dinette table. There on the kitchen counter were freshly baked Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits with melted American cheese on top. She hungrily peeled the still-warm cheese, her favorite part, off one of the biscuits and ate it. Then she got herself an apple, a few Good & Plenty candies, and a spoonful of cherry vanilla ice cream from the freezer before going into the living room to check out Grandma’s windowsill. Only one new thing sat there today—a perfect palm-size white china dog with orange-painted paws and ears, yellow eyes, black freckles and nose, and a big orange smile. It joined Grandma’s other rescued things, including the one that Shirley was especially partial to: a woven metal picture frame with a big glass heart in the middle. The only thing missing was a picture.

  “You vouldn’t believe the things people put in the garbage,” Grandma had once told her.

  Shirley went into the bedroom she shared with her mother and moved her bicycle away from her closet door so she could get out her skates. She carried them by their leather straps to the dinette table.

  Then she called her mother at work.

  Anna’s loud voice when she answered the phone—“Mr. Joseph’s Emporium of Fine Old Things”—made Shirley feel as good as the warm, delicious cheese on top of the biscuits.

  “I’m home,” Shirley said.

  “Iloveyou,” said Anna, as though the three words were one.

  “I love you, too,” said Shirley, and hung up.

  Shirley tried not to give in to the bad part of her day. When Mr. Merrill had accused her of plagiarism, that did not make it true, she thought. Next year she would be in junior high and, thankfully, there would be no Mr. Merrill.

  Shirley noticed an envelope from Larry’s Taxicab Company positioned on top of the pile of mail. Why did Anna get those envelopes? Shirley wondered every time one arrived. Whenever she asked about them Anna always said, “Those envelopes have nothing to do with you, Shirley.” Shirley did know that her father, Donald Burns, used to drive a taxi. “Maybe he still does,” she said out loud, “but since I haven’t seen him in six years, I wouldn’t know.” There was that number six again.

  Father. Shirley liked that word, though Anna’s back went up like a cat’s on her guard whenever Shirley said it. Anna’s steadfast rule for the last six years had been to not call him anything. Certainly not Daddy or Dad or Pop or even Donald. And, heaven forbid, not Father. As if he had never existed. Of course, the very accepting Shirley Alice Burns accepted her mother’s decree without even a feeble why. No one messed with her mom, Hurricane Anna, as unpredictable as a fiercely raging storm. Someone should bring the Peace Corps to Sparrowood Gardens, Shirley thought.

  Shirley tried to remember the three of them when they were the Burns family—Anna, Donald, and Shirley�
�before Grandpa died and Grandma moved in with them. She and her parents had lived in a small house in Valley Meadow and her grandparents had lived in the Bronx. But what came to her mind instead were the photographs she knew well—of her one-, two-, and three-year-old self standing alone in front of the house, on the sidewalk with a ball, in the garden holding a child-size shovel—black-and-white photographs that Anna had tucked into Shirley’s album a long time ago. Shirley’s favorite was the one that Grandma had taken after Shirley and Anna had moved to Sparrowood Gardens. Without her father. When he had started his Wednesday-afternoon visits. While Anna was away at work. The photo was of her four-year-old self sitting on a bench outside their garden apartment, her father’s arm around her small shoulders. How lucky, Shirley thought, that she had that picture. For that reason, she kept it hidden behind the earlier ones, worried that Anna would tear it up if she knew where it was.

  Shirley had never asked why her father hadn’t moved to Sparrowood, too, although she constantly wondered. If only she knew where he was so she could tell him about Mr. Merrill accusing her of stealing someone’s words. Her father would understand completely; he would believe her; he would help her figure out what to do.

  Shirley looked again at the envelope from Larry’s Taxicab Company and felt empowered. Then she didn’t. “I should. I shouldn’t. I should. I shouldn’t,” she said as if she were pulling petals from a daisy. In the end, Shirley lifted the envelope off the pile. Very slowly and carefully, she began to unstick the flap without tearing it so she would be able to seal it back after she saw what was inside.

  At last the triangular part of the envelope came unstuck.

  Case #4017984 Donald Burns, deceased

  January 28, 1955

  Plaintiff: Anna Burns, wife

  Lawsuit filed against Defendant: Larry’s

  Taxicab Company

  Nathaniel Decker, Attorney

  Shirley didn’t understand most of what she had just read. So she read it again. She recalled that the word deceased had been on today’s spelling test. How awful. Shirley believed in some coincidences. They happened for a reason, Grandma said. This must be the reason.

  Then she realized in a panic that she needed to reseal the envelope right away. What if Grandma came home and found her reading her mother’s mail? The next thing that came crashing down on her was that Anna had never let on that Shirley’s father was dead. Did Grandma know? How about her favorite cousin and boy best friend, Phillie Barrett, who always told Shirley everything? Did he know, too? Who else knew? And why hadn’t anyone told her?

  Shirley sealed the envelope with a piece of Magic tape from the kitchen drawer since there was no adhesive left on the flap. She placed the envelope on top of the pile, then reconsidered and put it in the middle, hoping to draw less attention to it.

  Shirley went to the window to look out at the space where her father used to park his Chevy on Wednesdays. At least now she knew he would never again visit her on Wednesdays or on any other day. At least now she knew not to wish he were here so she could tell him about her Listening Post essay. At least now she knew. Shirley took in a long, slow breath. Then she let it out. She did not cry. She did squeeze the blue ball in her pocket till her knuckles turned white.

  Shirley had forgotten about Maury.

  But no one was there when she ran down the ramp to the laundry room.

  At least now she knew, Shirley thought again as she skated around and around on the smooth cement floor through the soapy water that leaked out from the bottom of one of the four washing machines. Sometimes Shirley liked to make wet circles or figure eights (she had tried sixes, but those were impossible) with the wheels of her skates. Other times, she pretended she was competing in the Roller Derby like the tough girls she watched on TV, elbowing their way around the track past the other girls. But not today. She didn’t feel so tough today.

  As Shirley coasted around the vertical pipe that held up the ceiling in the center of the room, she began to think that today might be a lucky day after all because now she knew the truth. Shirley crouched down low like a Roller Derby girl. She continued around and around like a tetherball, traveling the same distance from the pipe at every turn, her knees maintaining the momentum like it was second nature to her. Until Maury showed up.

  “Hey, Shirl,” he said. “How come you still have your school clothes on?”

  Shirley looked down at her dress. “I was really busy,” she answered, still thinking about her father and hoping that, one day, she wouldn’t be afraid to ask why no one had told her he died.

  Chapter 3

  IN THE PALACE OF LIGHT

  The next morning Shirley found herself, as she did every Saturday morning, in the apartment’s hobbit-size bathroom, where Anna ordered her to serve a thirty-minute sentence “to clean yourself out before ballet so you can dance as light and as airy as a bird.”

  Shirley’s ballet class began at noon.

  Shirley didn’t like it, of course, but she accepted the fact that on Saturday, much to her disappointment, her mother didn’t work at Mr. Joseph’s in Manhattan and was therefore home, where she could monitor Shirley’s bathroom activities like a CIA agent.

  Shirley heard Anna singing “You Made Me Love You” over the droning of the old Electrolux. Then she heard her drag a stepladder across the wooden floor to just outside the bathroom where an intricate cobweb lurked above the door. Shirley had blown on it on her way in to see how strong the spider was.

  “I’ll fix your wagon,” Anna threatened the spider.

  For heaven’s sake, Shirley thought, it’s no bigger than a caraway seed. But even tinier spiders scared Anna the way Mr. Bickerstaff scared Shirley when he yanked Mustard on the leash.

  Shirley’s elbow rattled the loose doorknob by accident.

  Anna pounced. “Don’t come out until you’ve done something, Shirley,” she commanded. “You can do it,” she added like a cheerleader with boundless enthusiasm for her team. Then finally, like a powerful mother superior, she warned, “I’ll need to inspect before you leave.”

  Shirley knew about mother superiors from Monica Callahan, a girl Shirley’s age who also lived in Sparrowood Gardens but who went to Our Lady Queen of Peace, a private school that Grandma said was supposed to make good girls out of bad ones. Fat chance, thought Shirley.

  “Concentrate, Shirley,” Anna advised as she dusted the photograph in the green leather frame on the dresser in the hall outside the bathroom door.

  The photograph was supposed to be of Shirley’s mother dancing with her father. Only her father had been skillfully scissored out, except for his right hand around her mother’s waist.

  Long ago when her Saturday-morning ritual began, the notion of wasting precious time in the bathroom had made Shirley’s stomach act up. But one day, sitting back and concentrating on the tiled wall in front of her, Shirley realized that she could play a game using those twenty-five pink tiles.

  Starting with the first tile, Shirley tried to find a sentence in which each syllable of each word landed on a different tile—with no tiles or syllables left over at the end. She sang every song she knew, tried every tongue twister and TV commercial. No luck. This exercise was definitely an exact science. Finally, after lots of singing (not too exuberantly or Anna would get suspicious), Shirley found her first winner—from Pinocchio, which happened to be her comfort movie even though it was definitely directed at kindergartners:

  Star light, star bright,

  First star I see to-night

  I wish I may I wish I might

  Have the wish I wish to-night.

  And it was parfait! (French for “perfect”—say: “par-fay”). Twenty-five syllables from start to finish with nothing left over at the end. From that time on, whenever Shirley took her Saturday seat in the bathroom, she delivered this poem to the Great Wall of Tiles before helping herself to a wish or two.

  Shirley’s first wish had always been to have her father back, but today she knew just ho
w impossible that wish was. Her father was dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. He was not just in absentia like Anna claimed he was whenever she asked—unless absentia meant “dead land,” which she knew it did not. I am fatherless for real, Shirley thought, though no one ever said I was. No one talked about it. No one said the word dead because it was not fun to say like doughnut or dog or Dastardly Dan.

  Steeped in reality and sensible as she was most of the time, Shirley summoned up her second wish, which couldn’t have been more different.

  “Since I can’t have my first wish,” she whispered, “then I respectfully wish wish wish wish wish wish that I could go to Lake Winnipesaukee with the Barretts this summer.” The Barretts, who lived about a mile away, were Aunt Rosalie and Uncle Rod and Shirley’s cousins, including Phillie. Every year, Shirley got a pretty postcard from the Happy Hacienda at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Last summer’s postcard said:

  Dear Shirley girl,

  This place is heaven. The sky and the water are the same color: azure. There is no rain in sight today. But who knows! Only mountains of trees in the distance that look like broccoli.

  Love,

  Aunt Rosalie, Uncle Rod, Laurel, Ruthie, Steve & Scott

  Of course, there was a separate postcard from Phillie:

  Hi S,

  I’m in a blue canoe on Lake Winni Pee. Wish you were, too.

  From P.B.

  Shirley especially liked Phillie’s postcard because it explained that Winnipesaukee meant “Smile of the Great Spirit.” She guessed everything was azure at Lake Winnipesaukee: the sky, the water, and even the canoes. She would wear her new azure bathing suit, which she would ask Anna for the next time they went shopping. She couldn’t pull the old skimpy one up any more to cover the top of her without exposing her cheeks on the bottom.