In the Country of Queens Page 4

  “See you in a while,” said Shirley. She held on to the handlebar with one hand while she opened the door to the outside with the other and bumped the bike down the two front steps. “Bye, Mustard!” Shirley called when the dog barked his greeting from inside his apartment.

  Shirley pedaled past the Pigeon People on the benches. Mrs. Evangelista and Mrs. Steinman sat among them. They smiled and waved benevolently, even though Shirley was positive they started blabbing about her as soon as they saw she was far enough away not to hear. But I have the equivalent of X-ray vision in my ears, thought Shirley, and I can hear every single word they say, including that remark I once heard: “Poor girl. Growing up without a father.”

  Shirley now realized that Grandma must have spilled the beans to them. But why didn’t she spill them to me? Shirley asked herself. All I can say is, they’re wrong. Aunt Rosalie is wrong, too. I am not a poor girl. I am, in fact, pretty rich.

  And here’s why, Shirley thought as she pedaled. There was still a whole hour before the Main Street Library closed and before Miss Chin, the librarian, went home. Shirley loved Miss Chin.

  Here is why else I am rich, Shirley mused as she rode. She was done with her Saturday bathroom and ballet duties for another week, she had a train set to share with Maury, she had a bike and a blue handball, and she had many more Saturdays to go to the library to borrow books. Especially the new ones that smelled so good, with their brand-new dust jackets, new paper, and new print.

  Shirley had read how Pippi Longstocking, the strongest girl in the world, handled her fatherless situation. Pippi was strong enough to pick up a horse and a cow and the muscle man at the circus without her father helping her, because he was in absentia, too—blown off the deck of a ship straight into the sea. And her father wasn’t around to warn her about dancing with scary people like robbers, so she danced with them because Pippi felt in her heart that they weren’t truly bad people. She made her own decisions.

  From now on, Shirley would try to be strong like Pippi. After all, hadn’t she carried that heavy-as-a-horse box with her trains all the way down from the top of the dresser by herself? Pippi said she would always come out on top. But the difference between Pippi and me, thought Shirley, is that she makes sure she comes out on top. And I don’t. Yet.

  Then Shirley thought about her mother. Anna could do whatever she wanted. However, she did not have a library card. She bought books and threw away the dust jackets because she thought dust jackets were dust collectors. But even if dust jackets were dusty, they were necessary so you could see what the book was about. A dust jacket had told her how Astrid Lindgren, who wrote Pippi Longstocking, had once been a girl like herself, except that she rode a horse instead of a bike because she lived in the country of Sweden, where there were dirt roads. I live in the country of Queens, thought Shirley, where there are asphalt roads. She had read all that good stuff on the dust jacket that no one could remove because it was on a library book and the library law said you must never remove the dust jacket. Or else.

  Actually, I am the richest person on earth by far, Shirley thought, because Grandma is my grandma. Grandma was the one who first took Shirley to the library to get a library card because, according to her, libraries were good inventions, like sewing machines and toilets.

  The Main Street Library did not have Russian books, so Grandma had to buy them from the Russian bookstore near Macy’s. Grandma’s books were paperbacks with no tempting dust jackets for Anna to confiscate and throw away when she cleaned. But Shirley suspected that Grandma also had hardcover books that she hid under the mattress of the open-up couch she slept on. Grandma, who had once told Shirley, “I only vare eyeglasses to look smart,” was smarter than anyone Shirley knew, with or without glasses.

  Shirley walked into the library and sat down at one of the round tables in the children’s section, inspired to write a letter. She took a piece of scrap paper and a tiny nub of a pencil from an old S&W green beans can sitting in the middle of the table and began:

  June 17, 1961

  Dear Astrid Lindgren,

  I wish Pippi Longstocking was my sister. She would tell me her secret to being brave, and I would show her how to be sensible and not walk backward when she could easily fall off a curb into traffic. (It’s good that there are no curbs where Pippi lives.) Thank you for Pippi. Is she made up or is she a real girl like you and me? Will her lost father be found? (Mine won’t.) Pippi is as sweet as the treats she gives her friends for no reason except that she likes them. Even bank robbers. Pippi Longstocking is a book for all ages. My grandma would like it if she could get it in Russian.

  Yours till the kitchen sinks, meaning forever, because our kitchen has a very strong foundation and will never sink.

  Shirley Alice Burns

  Shirley signed her name in her teeny-tiniest handwriting. I am just a small nobody next to the great Astrid Lindgren, who knows so much more about everything, including writing, than I do.

  Shirley put the letter in her shirt pocket, only to take it out a second later. She had no idea where to send it. So she approached Miss Chin’s desk.

  “Could you please send this letter to Astrid Lindgren in Sweden?” Shirley asked in a whisper.

  “I’ll try my best,” answered Miss Chin.

  “Thanks,” Shirley said, still whispering.

  Shirley selected her books, then walked over to the circulation desk, where she checked out Pippi Longstocking again and The Borrowers as well as Cheaper by the Dozen, which she’d seen on display in the junior high section. It was about a big family of kids and pets and a mother and father who did fun things together. This book was more appropriate for almost-twelve-year-olds, Shirley decided. But she would always love Pippi Longstocking best. Even when she was a hundred.

  After Shirley left the library, she pedaled down a street with neat attached houses that had gardens with rose bushes and small brick patios with metal rocking chairs. One day Anna, Grandma, and I will be rocking back and forth in metal chairs on our own brick patio in front of our own attached house, she thought.

  When she got back to Sparrowood Gardens, Shirley saw Grandma rummaging around inside the garbage house. She hoped that Anna hadn’t seen Grandma in there, for Grandma’s sake.

  By the time Shirley pulled her bike up the steps, through the screen door, and into the bedroom, then put her library books on her night table, Grandma was back. Shirley heard Anna singing in the shower.

  “There is only a little time before vee have to leave for Aunt Claire’s, my sunny child,” Grandma told Shirley as she rinsed an aqua-colored doll-size chair in the kitchen sink.

  Shirley knew that one of Grandma’s tiny found dolls would soon be sitting in that tiny chair, because empty chairs were just too sad to look at.

  Chapter 6

  PARDON MY FRENCH

  Shirley, Anna, and Grandma, all showered and coiffed and dressed in their Saturday-evening finest, started off on their walk to Aunt Claire’s attached house, about five blocks away. Grandma wore her newly sewn original creation—a dress with a pattern of turquoise and white polka dots. A kerchief to match was pulled over her bun and tied in back, above the familiar small orange-red earrings fastened to her big earlobes. Grandma was especially buoyant tonight.

  “Yesterday Rudolf Nureyev, the greatest Russian ballet dancer ever, decided to remain in Paris and not go back to Russia,” Grandma said, glowing with pride. “Just like me. I never want to go back to Russia either.”

  “I know,” said Anna. “He defected. It was all over the news. Rudy is very handsome.”

  Shirley thought it rather amusing that Anna was on a first-name basis with a famous ballet dancer.

  Grandma didn’t speak much about what she called her escape from Russia. She once told Shirley that her mother and father and most of her eleven brothers and sisters had been wiped out in the Russian Revolution of 1917, and that she and Grandpa Sam had lived in Turkey for a few years before coming to America. Shirley also knew that
Grandma never ate sardines to this day. “Vee vere forced to eat them every day on the crowded, freezing, dirty ship from Turkey, and I don’t vant to remember anything about the vorst time in my life.”

  Grandma, now taking measured strides, said it felt like she was walking barefoot—her snazzy new sandals from Macy’s were that comfortable.

  Anna wore her tightest, narrowest, blackest dress, also sewn by Grandma. She had her hair in an upsweep, as she called it, with a hundred bobby pins, and had generously dabbed herself behind each ear with the special-occasion perfume that Mr. Joseph had given her for her last birthday. Shirley had watched the dabbing.

  Anna is a fashion plate, Shirley thought, admiring her mother, who was a few steps ahead. I am not. Shirley was wearing her yellow-and-white skort—short enough to be shorts, but flouncy enough to be a skirt—and her poofy white blouse, both of which had also been bought at Macy’s. When Shirley walked, she sashayed a little; she liked what she was wearing, but she knew it was nowhere as chic (French for “stylish”—say: “sheek”) as her mother’s outfit.

  Shirley’s stomach fluttered with butterflies at the thought of seeing Phillie at Aunt Claire’s, but she dismissed that thought in favor of the thought of seeing Aunt Claire’s big black dog. Shirley had covered a small piece of hamburger from last night’s dinner in Saran Wrap and tucked it in the pocket of her skort.

  Aunt Claire was Anna’s oldest sister, Grandma’s oldest daughter. Both Aunt Claire’s dog and her best friend were French. One was a poodle; the other was a femme (French for “woman”—say: “fahm”). The dog’s name was Natalie; the woman’s name was Huguette (say: “eww-get”). Natalie and Huguette could have been sisters. They had perfect haircuts, perfect skin, perfect perfume, perfect manners, and perfect pedicures. The fact that Hal was not invited to Aunt Claire’s on Saturday nights made everything even more perfect. Or almost perfect—except for Phillie.

  Tonight when they greeted each other, Anna and Huguette (also in her tightest, narrowest, blackest dress) kissed the air instead of each other’s faces, maybe so they wouldn’t smear their lipstick, maybe because they didn’t really like each other. Shirley wasn’t sure. She noticed that Grandma was having none of that kissy-kissy Huguette stuff. Grandma shook Huguette’s perfect main (French for “hand”—say: “maaa,” like the bleat of a goat, for about half a second).

  When it was her turn to greet Huguette, Shirley said, “Bonsoir” (French for “Good evening”—say: “bone swahr”), hoping it would be enough. But Shirley got the air kissed around her, too, which was mortifying, especially since Phillie, who had a habit of popping up when she least expected him to, was watching and laughing behind Aunt Claire’s sofa. Shirley shot Phillie a dirty sneer.

  Phillie reacted with a soundless “What did I do?”

  Aunt Claire unknowingly cut short the awkward moment between her niece and nephew by asking Shirley to take Natalie outside for a walk. Aunt Claire’s dark, deep-set eyes reminded Shirley of two ominous caves that she was afraid to get too close to.

  “Please make sure Natalie does her big business,” no-nonsense Aunt Claire told her, “so that I won’t have to be bothered with that later.” To Phillie, Aunt Claire said, “Please make sure everyone at the table has a glass.”

  The other kids, Phillie’s sisters and brothers—Laurel, Ruthie, Steve, and Scott—got their “Please make sure” assignments from scary-eyed Aunt Claire, too, and as usual, Aunt Claire’s two princess daughters, Esther and Arlene, didn’t get any assignments. Uncle Bill, who was their dad and also a lawyer, told people what to do all day at work, but when he was home, he happily sat back while Aunt Claire ran the show.

  Shirley attached the rhinestone leash to Natalie’s rhinestone collar, and the two galloped gleefully down the street to the park. Shirley gave Natalie the chunk of hamburger when they got there. Then she gave her lots of time to sniff tree trunks, fire hydrants, and chain-link fences. Natalie snapped at flies and tried to roll in a pile of something vile. Shirley gently but firmly pulled her away.

  “You don’t really want to do that, do you, Natalie?” Shirley asked. Natalie looked up.

  I do, the dog implied.

  But Natalie respected Shirley’s reservations, and they moved on. When Natalie peed, she burned the healthy green grass on the side of the road almost instantly because it was still so hot out. But Natalie had no big business to do tonight. Maybe Natalie was afraid that if she stopped to squat, she’d miss out on a precious minute of fun with Shirley. So they ran some more, this time in a new place down a new hill, where Natalie sniffed and sprinkled and looked up at Shirley as if Shirley were the most important human in the world. Pretending to be Huguette, Shirley kissed the air on both sides of Natalie’s face, ending with a kiss to the top of her nose.

  Then, as Huguette liked to tell everyone but did not mean, Shirley told Natalie: “Je t’aime!” (French for “I love you”—say: “zhe tem”). But Shirley did mean it. The only thing Shirley loved about Huguette was the sound of her French, but her accent sounded no better than Mrs. Greif ’s even though Mrs. Greif was from Queens. Shirley smiled as she walked back up the hill with Natalie.

  When Shirley opened the door to Aunt Claire’s house, Aunt Claire, hands on hips, asked, “So did Natalie do her big business?”

  Shirley turned radish red and said nothing.

  Aunt Claire did an about-face and marched into the kitchen, muttering, “I’ll be walking that dog at midnight.”

  When Pippi Longstocking lied, Shirley recalled, she said she was allowed to because her mother was an angel and her father was lost at sea. My mother is not an angel, Shirley thought, but my father is kind of lost at sea, so maybe I could have half lied. But she knew she couldn’t have. Not in this lifetime.

  Aunt Rosalie led the discussion at the dinner table with talk about the Barretts’ upcoming trip to Lake Winnipesaukee. “Rod has his usual two-week vacation starting in the middle of July,” she said, her long, dangling earrings swinging back and forth. “We’ll be staying in a cabin at the Happy Hacienda again, which we were fortunate to get for the same price as last year because the place still has the same drippy faucets and leaky roof.”

  Aunt Rosalie laughed like a cartoon hyena: the hahahas had no spaces between them.

  “We can’t wait!” Aunt Rosalie told everyone. “The car is scheduled for a tune-up in a couple of weeks, and the kids will get their short summer haircuts after school is over.”

  Uncle Rod smiled at whatever Aunt Rosalie said. Shirley recognized that she and Uncle Rod were kindred spirits, content to be flies on the wall in any situation. If it weren’t for Uncle Rod, Shirley knew she would never have been to just about every place she’d been to in her entire life: the Bronx Zoo, Rockaway Beach, Montauk, Bear Mountain State Park, and scores of Howard Johnson restaurants up and down the Bronx River and Sawmill River Parkways. That was because Shirley and Anna and Grandma always had standing—or sitting—invitations to go on day trips with the Barretts.

  Uncle Rod waved his fingers in Shirley’s direction as if to say, How about this year you finally come with us to Winnipesaukee?

  It’s at the top of my list, Shirley wanted to tell him, but she merely waved back.

  “I want to go there now!” yelled Scott, sitting high in his seat thanks to two fat New York City telephone books.

  “Who asked you?” said Aunt Rosalie like she always did whenever a kid proposed something that she herself didn’t think of, or asked a question she didn’t feel like answering.

  The four other Barrett kids, Phillie included, enthusiastically agreed. “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”

  “Who asked you, too?” said Aunt Rosalie, getting happy giggles from each of her offspring because they knew their mother was only kidding.

  But instead of feeling scared that Aunt Rosalie might challenge her if she asked to go, too, Shirley sat upright, surprising herself. This may be my last chance, she thought, looking at Uncle Rod and feeling that maybe she could
do this after all. Shirley pictured the Smile of the Great Spirit as clear as day, beaming down on her all the way from Lake Winnipesaukee, drawing her toward the glorious mountains of New Hampshire.

  “Speak up now, Shirley Burns!” a voice said in her head.

  Shirley rotated the blue handball in her pocket six times for luck. But by the time she opened her mouth to speak, Aunt Claire had changed the subject to the upcoming wedding of her older daughter, Arlene. Flowers and music and dresses and guests. Blah. Blah. Blah. And Shirley completely lost her nerve.

  Shirley’s seat was next to Phillie’s like it was every Saturday. There was meatloaf tonight with a layer of mashed potatoes, hardboiled egg, and bacon in the middle. Phillie was left-handed and Shirley was right-handed, so she had to be careful not to let her elbow touch Phillie’s elbow. Usually when they bumped funny bones, they would laugh uncontrollably. There will be no laughing tonight, Shirley predicted as if she were the weather person on TV.

  “Ready for my bacon?” Phillie whispered, knowing how much Shirley detested any kind of eggs.

  Normally, she would be happy to trade for Phillie’s bacon. But not tonight. “No,” she said.

  Phillie wrinkled his eyebrows. “Who peed in your cornflakes?” he asked.

  “You,” Shirley answered, looking down at her plate as she picked out every last bit of egg and pushed it to the side.

  “When?” Phillie asked.

  Shirley didn’t answer.

  When it was time for dessert, Phillie tried to talk to her again. “Don’t drink the milk,” he said, clearly hoping Shirley would ask “Why?” the way she always did whenever they ate together. It was from a comedy routine they knew by heart from watching every single episode of the hilarious Little Rascals show on TV. But not this time.

  “Shut up,” Shirley said instead.

  So Phillie, ready and eager to spout the usual warning—“Because it’s spoiled”—was forced to keep the humor to himself.