In the Country of Queens Read online

  When Grandma arrived with the first course, baked whitefish with tomatoes and lemon slices and homemade rye bread, Hal stood up to display his good manners—which made his napkin slide off his lap and onto the floor. Then as he bent over to pick it up, a series of deafening motorcycle-like noises issued from behind him.

  Now in her chair across from Hal, Grandma said, “Pew!” She coughed subtly and turned her head sideways to hide her disgust, too polite to do anything more drastic, because, after all, Hal was their guest.

  Shirley couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open in disbelief. If I ever did that, she thought, Anna would banish me from the dinner table in two wags of a dog’s tail.

  Anna, who was now delicately placing her own napkin in her lap, tried to look as if nothing had happened.

  Shirley did not look at Hal while he was relating the events of his very busy day, which had started at the crack of dawn: shoes in a shoe store here, shoes in a shoe store there, a yellow polka-dot bikini on one mannequin, a muumuu on another.

  “I have keys to hundreds of stores, so I can work anytime I want,” Hal boasted. “Even on Sundays.”

  However, when Hal noticed that Shirley wasn’t paying attention, he let his fork fall with such drama that she was certain his cracked plate would shatter to pieces.

  “I’m tawkin’ to ya,” Hal said, glaring at Shirley as if she had just committed the crime of a lifetime.

  Shirley immediately looked up, fuchsia-faced, stomach rising and falling like a roller coaster, and realized that she was scared of him. Except when I’m in the Palace of Light, where I’m not afraid of anything or anyone, she thought. Shirley longed to go there right this second. She would take Mouse with her and never come out when Hal was around. Shirley could not bring herself to look at Hal as he continued his shoe stories. So she stared at his tie clip, sensing that the storm had passed without further incident.

  To keep his fancy silk tie out of Grandma’s Sunday dinners, Hal always wore a metal tie clip with the engraved letters YCDBSOYA. For the longest time, Shirley had tried to figure out what the letters stood for. But because she would only talk to Hal when it was absolutely necessary or when Anna was closely monitoring, Shirley could only guess. Today’s attempt was Yaks Can Die By Swallowing Oily Yellow Ants.

  Along with the shoes for Grandma, Anna, and Shirley, Hal had brought a new word, like he did every Sunday, a word that he had heard during the week whose meaning he did not know. Usually Shirley had never heard of the word and forgot it as soon as Hal said it. However, last week’s word, largesse, had stuck with her because it sounded French. As explained by Anna, it meant “generosity.”

  Shirley was now only slightly starving, having nibbled on some bread. She did not eat the fish because it had too many bones and too many eyes. The second course was going to be cucumber salad with Grandma’s yogurt and fresh dill, which Shirley loved. But the rule was that Grandma could not serve it until after the word challenge was over. Shirley’s stomach rumbled as she waited.

  “Mandacious,” announced Hal with authority.

  Who cares? Shirley thought.

  “Go to the devil’s mother,” mumbled Grandma in Russian.

  At first Shirley thought Hal had succeeded in impressing Anna. She seemed to love the word. But then Shirley could tell that Anna had something up her sleeve.

  “First of all, Hal,” said Anna, mixing sweetness with smugness, “the word is MENdacious, not MANdacious.”

  Hal opened his eyes wide with admiration.

  Anna, who liked to show off, too, was just warming up. “Mendacious is characteristic of someone who lies,” she said. Because Anna read so much in the bathroom at night, she knew a lot of big words.

  Hal applauded, while opposite him, Grandma concentrated on wiping the humidity off her eyeglasses and Shirley concentrated on the YCDBSOYA on Hal’s tie clip. She stifled a yawn so that Hal would not drop his fork again. But she couldn’t stifle several sneezes, which made Anna leave her chair and remove the vase of roses to the kitchen. It won’t matter, Shirley told herself, because it is Hal that I am allergic to, not the roses.

  Seizing the opportunity to escape for a few minutes while Anna and Hal only had eyes for each other, Shirley slipped off her seat. “I’ll be back in time for the second course,” she said, glad when no one answered. Shirley placed the Big Daddy Father’s Day card to the right of Hal’s elbow next to a small white box labeled For Hal in peacock blue, the contents undoubtedly obtained by Anna on layaway at Mr. Joseph’s.

  I do not want to be here when Hal opens that card, Shirley told herself. He will stare at me for six thousand seconds just to show Anna how profoundly touched he is by what she made me write. Shirley was careful not to let the screen door bang.

  “I don’t like Hal,” Shirley told Mouse under the rosebush. “And you wouldn’t either. Anna makes me include him in my prayers: God bless Anna, Hal, Grandma, Aunt Rosalie, Uncle Rod, Laurel, Ruthie, Steve, Phillie, Scott, Aunt Claire, Uncle Bill, Arlene, and Esther. But tonight, Mouse, I’m going to replace Hal’s name with yours.”

  When Shirley came back inside, Grandma had brought out the cucumber salad.

  “This tastes like nectar from the gods,” Hal told Grandma.

  That was another untruth because nectar was sweet and yogurt was sour. Shirley played with some toothpicks that Anna had placed in a ramekin next to Hal so he could clean his teeth at the table, which he liked to do even though Shirley and Grandma thought it was totally disgusting.

  Hal waited until after dessert—Grandma’s oozy peach pie with hot and sugary Lipton tea in glasses the way real Russians drank their tea—to open the card and present. It was a new silver money clip.

  Hal began to relight his cigar while Anna began to relate the minutiae of that long-ago day when they had first met as teenagers. “It’s fate that brought us together again, don’t you think?” Anna cooed.

  Grandma clicked her spoon around in her glass. Then she made especially loud sipping noises. Finally she said, “I need to get out of here,” in Russian, standing and pushing her chair away.

  Shirley smiled as she fiddled with the toothpicks, having nothing better to do till dinner was over.

  After a few minutes, Shirley thought she heard Hal say, “Shoiley, what do you think?”

  So she looked up. Hal looked down.

  The word ALLOWANCE had been spelled out in front of Shirley on the tablecloth with twenty-eight toothpicks.

  Shirley waited to get kicked under the table by Anna for being a smart aleck. She quickly pulled her sandaled feet with their squeezed pinkie toes under her chair just in case. But no kick came. The calm before another storm, Shirley figured.

  Hal removed the cigar from his mouth. He placed it in the Mr. Joseph ashtray, which Anna had brought to the table. He stared at Shirley for six thousand seconds. He peeled pie dough from his fingers. He wiped peaches from his rusty mustache. He took a sip of sweet tea. He swallowed. Hal’s bloodshot blue eyes never left Shirley’s eyes. His face turned to stone. Then, in an unexpected turn, Hal exploded into thunderous guffaws.

  Hal’s unusually pale head turned hot pink, the gold teeth all the way in the back showed out of his mouth, and Shirley could see his entire tongue for the first time ever. Hal’s nose ran; his eyes ran. The dishes and glasses shook on the table along with Hal’s jowls. When he leaned forward to get closer to Shirley, familiar shots rang out from somewhere between the seat of Hal’s pants and the seat of his seat.

  Shirley did not know what to make of the situation—until Anna, no longer able to contain herself, burst out laughing, too. Grandma appeared from the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about. She didn’t even crack a smile.

  Shirley did, but only after Hal reached into his pocket and pulled out two crisp one-dollar bills.

  “Thanks,” said Shirley.

  After that, Hal was in such good humor that he helped clear the table. But when he carried the dishes to the kitchen and put them on the
counter, he hit his head on the corner of a cabinet door Anna had left open when she’d brought out the jade ashtray for Hal’s cigar.

  “Oh, Hal, I’m so sorry,” said Anna at the sight of the Red Sea on Hal’s head.

  Anna stood there apologizing over and over like a broken record until Grandma had to tell her to stop, in Russian, of course, so Hal wouldn’t understand because Grandma had just called Anna a cow.

  Then Shirley ran to the Palace of Light for a Band-Aid to stick on Hal’s wound. And Hal, seeing stars, stuck his cigar lips on Shirley’s cheek, this time to express his gratitude for her quick and practical thinking.

  Don’t get any ideas, Hal, Shirley thought. It was the only thing I could do since my mother is a bubblehead. I still do not want you for my father.

  At twenty past six, Hal announced that he had to leave. “I would love to stay longer. You know you are my three most favorite girls, but You Can’t Do Business Sitting On Your Ass. So I have to get going.”

  To which Grandma replied, “Vat took you so long?” under the running water in the kitchen sink.

  To which Shirley thought, So that’s what it means, beginning to unbuckle her new sandals.

  To which Anna complained, “So soon?” as her lips met Hal’s, sounding more like a plunger, to Shirley, than a kiss.

  After Hal left, Anna dried the dishes, pots, and utensils that Grandma had just washed and Shirley turned her new shoebox into a diorama. She got some paper and drew a perfectly detailed Anna, Grandma, Shirley, and Hal; cut them out; and placed them around a paper table on paper chairs that she bent and attached to the floor of the shoebox with Magic tape. She then pasted paper pies that she colored Crayola peach to everyone’s paper plate except Hal’s. He got a paper mouse. As soon as Paper Hal realized there was a mouse on his plate, he jumped up, with Shirley’s help, tearing his paper self and his paper chair. With Shirley’s help also, a frantic Paper Anna shrieked, “Shirley, get this monster out of here!” Shirley laughed. Did Paper Anna mean Hal or the mouse?

  Chapter 11

  DIGGING DOWN DEEP

  It was warm and buggy and still pretty light out when, dishes done, food packed away, TV turned on for The Ed Sullivan Show at eight, Shirley went back outside. There would be no Big Daddy card till next Father’s Day. Shirley heard Mr. Bickerstaff’s venetian blinds rattle upstairs and saw Mustard’s face between the slats. “It’s only me,” she said. Mustard stood ready to protect Mr. Bickerstaff from all harm. But he didn’t bark because, no doubt, he’d recognized Shirley’s voice. Needless to say, Shirley was quite happy to have what was left of the day and Mouse all to herself.

  “I finally know that YCDBSOYA means ‘You Can’t Do Business Sitting On Your Ass,’” Shirley told Mouse after she lifted the top of the checkbook box. “I hate to admit it, but there is a lot of truth in Hal’s words. The best part was that I didn’t even have to ask him.

  “Speaking of asking,” Shirley went on, “I never asked if you minded if I pretend you’re my father. I hope not, because now I’m going to pretend for real.

  “There are a lot of things I need to get straight, and I think you can help me figure them out—like why Anna never told me you died, and why Grandma didn’t either. How long did they think they could keep me in the dark? After six years, I now know you are dead. There is a body and nothing else. Or is there something else?

  “Grandma says there is a reason for everything. I think I know why I reached for you when I saw you lying on the ground. It was like reaching for my father, who I miss so much. He wasn’t there, but you were.

  “So I guess the reason I am asking you to be a substitute for my dad for a while is that I have a lot of unfinished father matters to finish, and you won’t tell me to be quiet or switch the conversation to ballet or to the next guest star on The Ed Sullivan Show.

  “One thing is that I have never asked Anna why she felt the need to scissor you out of that photograph. If she intends for me to forget you, I will not.

  “And why did Aunt Rosalie say your heart was broken? Did someone break it? Or did it break from being old and worn out like that plate that gets more cracked every time Hal drops his fork on it? I will get to the bottom of that by hook or by crook, as Grandma says.

  “You have shown me that life doesn’t last forever. So I am going to make a list of things I need to do, not necessarily in the order that I will do them, because some things require a ton of courage, even for Pippi Longstocking, and might have to be moved to the bottom for another time.

  “Here goes:

  “First, I will tell Mr. Merrill tomorrow at school that he made a mistake by accusing me of something I didn’t do. (I’m putting this at the top of the list, despite the fact that it will require a ton of courage, since it is already almost tomorrow.)

  “Second, I will go to Lake Winnipesaukee and not to Breezy Bay Day Camp this summer.

  “Third, I will help Mr. Bickerstaff change his attitude toward Mustard, or I will adopt him (Mustard—not Mr. Bickerstaff).

  “Fourth, I will tell Anna that I hate being sent to the bathroom on Saturday mornings, taking ballet lessons, following the Safe-at-Home Doctrine, and pretending to like her friend Hal and calling him Big Daddy. (I will not be mendacious anymore and say that I like things when I don’t.)

  “Fifth, I will play spin the bottle and make sure Maury Gordon plays at the same time.

  “Sixth, I will continue to save for an attached house till I get one.”

  “Who are you talking to, Shirley?” Phillie asked, materializing out of nowhere, holding on to his bike and a flashlight. This time, Mustard did bark. “Grandma says that people who talk to themselves have money in the bank.”

  “Well, I do have money in the bank,” Shirley answered, jumping up. “For your information, Hal just gave me my allowance for this week. So Grandma is right as usual.”

  “You don’t usually talk to yourself,” said Phillie, sticking to the subject. He parked his bike. Then he and his black Converse sneakers and flashlight came closer. “I promise I won’t think you’re crazy if you tell me. No secrets, remember?”

  Shirley still wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell Phillie about Mouse, so she said, “What are you doing here anyway, Phillie?”

  “Father’s Day was done at my house, so I came over to beat you in poker or Monopoly or Scrabble. Or all three.”

  “That’ll be the day,” said Shirley.

  “I’m waiting,” said Phillie.

  With her mind now made up, Shirley said, “If you really want to know, I was talking to my father—who is being represented by a dead mouse.” Shirley stared Phillie straight in the eye to gauge his reaction. “If you say one bad thing, Phillip Barrett—even yuck—you better go home,” she warned. Then she showed him the checkbook box. “This is Mouse.”

  Phillie kneeled down on the warm, dark soil and clicked on his flashlight to get a good look. Without waiting for Shirley to explain further, he said, “I understand the whole, entire thing, Shirl. It’s what you have to do to fix yourself now that you’ve found out the truth about your dad. Like you always try to fix everything that’s broken. But the truth is that Mouse is going to start to smell soon,” he added, “like the meat in Mr. Emmett’s butcher shop did last year when it was really hot and all he had going was one single standing fan rotating on the sawdust floor.”

  “I do not want to bury him,” Shirley said with conviction, “if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  “Okay,” said Phillie, “then we need to think of something else.” Phillie looked up at Shirley. He pointed to two large ants crawling around Mouse’s left eye. “Those ants have lots of cousins,” he said, “who are all invited to the picnic. And this is only the beginning. In the summer a corpse turns into a skeleton really fast. I guess we can say this mouse is a corpse, too, since we don’t have your real father here.” Phillie stood up and started pacing, then said, “I am almost positive that I have a solution to the problem. I watched a whole program on
ce on Channel 13 about exactly this. Ready to hear about it?”

  “Of course I am,” said Shirley.

  Phillie, suddenly full of mischief, said, “I need to ask you something first.”

  “What?”

  “Why are baseball players so cool?”

  “Why?” Shirley asked, eager to get to the heart of the matter.

  “Because they have a lot of fans!” said Phillie.

  “Phillie!” said Shirley. “Cut the baloney.”

  “Okay,” said Phillie. “I’ll cut it. There’s this famous mummy called the Ice Man whose over 5,300-year-old body was discovered frozen solid. Everything about him was still perfect: his blood, his muscles, his teeth, his skull, his bones, his hair, and—can you believe it—even his heart. Everything! So my guess is that you’ll be able to keep your mummy mouse perfectly preserved also, until you are ready not to. And where will we do this, Phillie, you ask, since we do not live in the frozen tundra or at the Arctic Circle?”

  But Shirley didn’t need to ask. She had been hanging on every word and could now conclusively say with Phillie: “In the freezer!”

  * * *

  While Phillie watched a dog and monkey ride a pony on The Ed Sullivan Show with Grandma on the couch, and Anna talked on the phone to Aunt Claire, extending the cord to its fullest length so she could sit on a dinette chair, Shirley slipped into the kitchen to put the checkbook box in the freezer with the body of Mouse inside. She slid the box under a bag of Birds Eye frozen spinach.

  Shirley washed her hands like she’d seen Anna and Grandma do when they came back from the cemetery after Maury Gordon’s grandpa died last year—to keep death out of their apartment. Little do they know, thought Shirley, but death is definitely in our apartment. By invitation.

  After Phillie left to finish his Sam Houston biography that was due tomorrow at school, Shirley took his place on the couch. Grandma put down her knitting needles and patted the space under her arm so Shirley could burrow with her nose and rest her tired head on Grandma’s big pillow chest. The Ed Sullivan Show was over for this Sunday.