In the Country of Queens Read online

  “Vhy don’t vee bake, Shirley, my sunny child?” asked Grandma.

  Grandma and Shirley made a batch of Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits. Grandma didn’t mind when Shirley peeled the warm American cheese off the tops of three of them because she herself preferred the doughy middles. Even if Grandma preferred the warm cheese part like I do, she still wouldn’t mind, thought Shirley.

  “Whoever invented tea in a bag was vone smart cookie,” said Grandma at the table. “Maybe it vas Mr. Lipton.” Grandma dripped amber drops of honey and dunked the soft part of a buttermilk biscuit in Mr. Lipton’s clever invention.

  Then she sang a song she’d heard Bing Crosby sing on the radio. “Did you ever see a dream valking? Vell, I did. Did you ever hear a dream talking? Vell, I did.”

  And Shirley melted, like the cheese on top of the biscuits.

  “Let’s fit your sundress and your new shorts,” said Grandma. “You can pick out the buttons from the big jar.” Grandma was proud of the fact that she never used a paper pattern to cut out her designs. She did everything by instinct.

  Grandma sat with her short legs stretched out on the floor as stiff as her yardstick. The fan of straight pins in her mouth reminded Shirley of a porcupine. A soft, round porcupine in a yellow, red, pink, blue, and green dress with a painted rooster pin fastened to the center of the Belgian lace collar. When Grandma had pins in her mouth she had no choice but to hum, so this time Shirley sang the words to the “dream walking” song.

  When the pins holding up the hems of the shorts scratched Shirley’s thighs, she didn’t say Ouch! Chort! (Russian for “Damn!”) or Zut! (French for “Damn!”—say: “Suit!” but with a z).

  Who am I to grouse when Grandma’s doing all the work on a very boiling day, Shirley thought.

  “Thanks, Grandma,” she said, overflowing with love.

  Grandma spit the pins into her hand. “You’re very velcome,” she said. “Now please vould you stand still.”

  “I’m going to wear my new sundress and my new shorts when I go to Lake Winnipesaukee,” said Shirley. “When we go to Lake Winnipesaukee. I never saw you wear shorts, Grandma.”

  “I vear shorts,” she answered. “They’re under my dress. Look.” Grandma lifted up her dress to reveal a pair of long hot-pink underpants made of heavy cotton jersey.

  That was Grandma. She liked what she liked. And no one could change her mind.

  “Turn,” she said, tapping Shirley’s leg with four fingers.

  “So will you wear the blue-and-black bathing suit with the accordion skirt to Lake Winnipesaukee? Anna doesn’t know it yet, but I’m going to get a new bathing suit. By the way, I am not going to Breezy Bay Day Camp this summer. Or ever again.”

  Grandma stopped measuring. She stopped pinning. She spilled herself over onto her right side like a sack of flour. She propelled herself up. “Good for you, Shirley,” she said. “It’s time for you to stick up for yourself.” Then Grandma said, “I have something to tell you.”

  “What?” Shirley asked.

  “I vould like to go to Vinnipesaukee, too. But I vill be busy setting up my new apartment. I’m moving, my sunny child. I found a place, as big as a shoebox, but it vill be all mine. Vhat do you think of your grandma now, Shirley?” Grandma’s false teeth beamed pearly white as she smiled wide.

  “You’re moving?” asked Shirley, her heart pounding so fast in her chest that she thought it might come bursting out. “Why do you want to do that?

  “It’s time,” said Grandma. “You’re a big girl. You don’t need me to vatch vhat you’re doing every second like I used to. My lease starts on July first. I’ll be two blocks avay. That’s far enough and close enough, too.”

  Shirley suddenly wanted to be alone. Even away from Grandma. She rushed to her room and slammed the door. Tears stood in her eyes. “Why doesn’t anyone ever ask my opinion? Damn, chort, zut,” she said aloud. What next? she wondered.

  “Shirley, my sunny child, vhat’s the matter?” Grandma asked, knocking and then opening the door. “I’m only moving down the street. Come out and let’s have some lunch.”

  After Shirley finished a bowl of cold cucumber soup, some pumpernickel bread, and a frosty glass of apricot nectar that Grandma had just bought yesterday with a coupon at Smilen Brothers, she felt better.

  Then she told Grandma just about everything that was unfair in her life, crying so hard that Grandma said, “I can hardly understand vhat you are saying vhen you are crying like that.”

  So Shirley stopped crying and hiccupped instead.

  “I’m so sorry, Shirley, my sunny child,” Grandma said over and over.

  Finally, Shirley stopped hiccupping and tried again, more slowly. “It’s so hard having a mother un-invite you when someone invites you year after year on your dream trip because she wants to keep you away from everything risky. So she can monitor every move you make, like you’re a remote-control child, ordering you to stay in the bathroom, take ballet, go to baby day camp, eat soft-boiled eggs, and write a Father’s Day card to someone who makes you jump a mile when he drops his fork onto his plate on purpose if you don’t pay attention to his dumb shoe stories. Which leads me to what I have been wanting to ask you, Grandma.”

  “Vhat is it?” Grandma asked.

  “Why couldn’t I know when my father died? When you knew?”

  Strangely, Shirley perceived, Grandma did not look surprised.

  “I vill tell you, Shirley,” Grandma said. And then she looked as if she might change her mind and not tell. But Grandma did not change her mind that afternoon.

  She took off her glasses and cleaned them, sighing a moist cloud onto each lens. She turned the ring with the colored stones till the stones were on top. And slurped a mouthful of tea. She checked her watch and reached for one of her tiny tomato earrings.

  “I think you vill understand that I couldn’t tell you before because Anna did not vant you to know. She thought you vere very little for such big news. The truth is that I needed a place to live because I vas afraid to live alone vhen Grandpa died. Then vhen Anna said I could live vith her and vith you—to help vhen she had to go to vork after she told your father she didn’t vant to be together vith him anymore—I had to live by her rules. So I vas not free to tell you. But I vas so happy that I said okay. To everything.”

  “You were afraid to live alone before? But now you’re not?” Shirley asked.

  “That’s right,” said Grandma.

  “How come?” asked Shirley, caught off guard by Grandma’s revelation.

  “I think I understand the vorld better,” said Grandma. “And I’m too old for Anna’s rules.”

  “So am I,” said Shirley.

  And Grandma smiled.

  “Does Anna know you’re moving?” asked Shirley.

  “I think everyone in Sparrovood Gardens knows I’m moving. I told Augusta,” said Grandma. “It’s vhat Anna and I talked about last night.”

  “I’m proud of you, Grandma,” said Shirley.

  “Me too,” said Grandma.

  Chapter 14

  IN ABSENTIA

  That afternoon, Beryl Abbie ran all the way from the bus stop, the red ribbon attached to her skinny pigtail threatening to become unattached, to tell Shirley her big news.

  “Guess what, Shirley Burns?” Beryl Abbie asked, out of breath.

  “What?” asked Shirley, sitting outside on the stoop in front of their apartment, reading and re-reading her letter to Mr. Merrill that she had, in fact, decided to put in his school mailbox tomorrow. Shirley was sure she knew what Beryl Abbie couldn’t wait to share, but she would not spoil the younger girl’s surprise for all the one-dollar bills in Hal’s crummy pocket.

  “I sat next to Maury Gordon two times today on the bus!” Beryl Abbie shouted.

  “Lucky duck!” said Shirley. “How was it?”

  “We sang the whole way to school. And then we sang again coming home,” Beryl Abbie said. “Will you be absent again tomorrow?”

 
“Nope,” said Shirley. “I’m not sick anymore. And I have some important business to take care of. And French with Mrs. Greif. Sorry.”

  “Maybe we can sit three in a seat,” said Beryl Abbie.

  “Maybe,” said Shirley. Then she mumbled inaudibly, “When the moon turns green,” quoting what Anna said whenever Shirley asked to go to a party at Sharon Levitt’s house.

  Shirley went inside. She sat down at Anna’s desk and rewrote her letter—in pen this time. When she was finished, she folded it in three the long way, found a legal-size envelope in a drawer, printed Mr. Merrill and Official Business on the outside, and slipped the letter in. Shirley was about to lick the envelope when she remembered what Anna always said—“You get cancer from doing that”—so she wet her finger under the faucet instead.

  She put the envelope in her notebook to take to school tomorrow and went back outside, where she started to bounce her ball and watch for Anna to come walking up the street from the bus stop, home from work.

  When at last Shirley saw Anna, she stopped bouncing and ran to greet her. Anna’s smile was as bright as the sun when she saw Shirley. Everything else between them was forgotten, as it always was when they were back together again.

  “Hi, doll!” said Anna so loud that Shirley was positive the people in the next development—Arrowbrook Gardens, where Grandma was moving—could hear her. “How are you feeling?” Anna asked.

  “Much better,” said Shirley, cringing only slightly. She went to the other side of Anna to share the carrying of a huge square package that Anna said was a surprise.

  “Wait till you see what I bought!”

  The package said Buy Wise on the wrapping, so Shirley knew it was not another unnecessary purchase from Mr. Joseph’s. It was heavy and awkward to carry.

  “You could be an actress like Audrey Hepburn,” said Shirley, looking up proudly at Anna, then down at her meticulously polished red toes sticking out of the fronts of Hal’s gifted shoes, matching her lipstick. Anna’s Le langage des fleurs (“the language of the flowers”) dress, Shirley’s favorite, was perfectly pressed even after a long day. Anna was one of those mothers, Shirley knew, who would not be happy staying at home like Dale Rosenberger’s mother or Monica Callahan’s or Beryl Abbie’s.

  When they got inside, Shirley asked, “Can I open it now?” as Grandma and Anna gathered around to watch as if a blue-ribbon ceremony were about to take place in their living room.

  Phillie let the screen door bang as he joined the party. “What’s in the package?” he asked.

  “We’re about to find out,” said Shirley.

  “Wait till you see,” said Anna, looking at Phillie over her shoulder.

  “Wow!” said Shirley as she pulled off the brown paper.

  It was a brand-new white metal fan!

  “Let’s try it out!” said Anna, plugging it in.

  Shirley stood next to Phillie, who stood next to Grandma, who stood next to Anna, and felt the deliciously cool wind on her face.

  “We can move it from room to room all summer, you know,” said Anna. “Sleeping will be so much nicer.”

  “You should get one for your apartment,” Shirley told Grandma.

  “I vill,” said Grandma.

  “I came over to tell you that Grandma is moving,” Phillie whispered to Shirley. “But I see you already know.”

  Phillie watched Shirley eat a quick dinner of Grandma’s hard-as-a-hockey-puck hamburger with a scallion, cucumber, and tomato salad. The hamburger had been made earlier in the day so the kitchen would have a chance to cool off before nighttime. Shirley set aside a small piece of meat for Natalie.

  “Are you hungry, Phillie?” Grandma asked, although she knew the kids in Phillie’s family always ate by themselves at five so Aunt Rosalie could have a romantic dinner with Uncle Rod when he came home from work.

  “Nah,” said Phillie. “We had disgusting liver.”

  Shirley imagined herself at the dinner table with the Barrett kids, elbowing Phillie next to her because it was so hot, wiping her mouth with only half a napkin to save money, eating the last French fry for spite so none of the other kids would get it. Giving most of her liver to Porky, who ate anything—even liver—when Aunt Rosalie wasn’t looking. Wearing a polo shirt that said LAURELRUTHIESTEVESHIRLEYPHILLIESCOTT.

  “How about that fan!” said Anna, taking off her high heels and then spreading her long arms like wings in front of the slowly rotating starlike blade, her fingers as graceful and relaxed as if she were executing a pose at the Bolshoi Ballet.

  “Good invention,” said Grandma.

  “I’m ready to pick out my Aurora Road Race set,” Phillie told Shirley as she gulped her milk.

  * * *

  Phillie and Shirley rode their bikes to the Barretts’ house. Then they walked the eight blocks to the department store, which was open late on Tuesdays.

  “I make three dollars an hour now at Red’s,” said Phillie proudly. “I got a raise.” Phillie flashed his stash of cash, which he usually kept hidden from his brothers and sisters in an old Atlantic City saltwater taffy bank made of cardboard.

  Shirley couldn’t believe how much money a kid could make.

  When they got to the toy department, Phillie said, “I have enough money for two fancier cars than the ones that come with the set. One for me and one for you, Shirl.”

  “Thanks!” said Shirley, dazzled by all the choices.

  After studying each car through the plastic window of the package, Shirley opted for the sleek, sporty silver Corvette.

  “Did you ever see anything more beautiful than this?” asked Phillie, showing Shirley his selection: the Batmobile, the most expensive car Aurora made, at five dollars. Phillie hugged it to his chest.

  Shirley read the Road Race box while they waited on the checkout line:

  Down goes the green flag and they’re off—zooming along the straightaway at 150 scale mph! The ultimate in table-top racing: gives you twice the action in half the space. Lets you re-create any race course in the world.

  Phillie always knew what he wanted and worked hard to get it. Although he had never seen Hal’s YCDBSOYA tie clip, Shirley knew he would really like it. The old admiration for her favorite cousin filled her up till she thought she’d burst like the aluminum-foil Jiffy Pop container Aunt Rosalie once left for too long on the gas burner till the popcorn exploded all over the kitchen. Phillie never let grass grow under his feet, an expression Shirley had first heard when Anna tried to convince Grandma that Hal would make a good husband and father because he was not lazy.

  “Vhy don’t you look through my glasses,” Shirley remembered Grandma telling Anna. And they argued till the cows came home. Another of Anna’s favorite phrases.

  When they got to Phillie’s house, he and Shirley went down to the basement where Uncle Rod was sitting in his recliner. Uncle Rod and Phillie each had their own private enclaves down there away from the noise and chaos of upstairs.

  “Whatcha got?” Uncle Rod asked. Then he added, “Hi, Shirley, the best ballplayer I know next to Mickey Mantle!”

  Shirley stayed for a while to help Phillie set up the Road Race tracks on the long wooden table. When Shirley had to leave, she was happy knowing that Uncle Rod would finish the job with Phillie. It was getting dark, and tomorrow was a school day.

  “See ya, Shirl,” said Phillie. “Thanks for coming with me.”

  “See ya,” said Shirley. She gave Uncle Rod a big hug. “Wait till my cool Corvette leaves every one of your cars in the dust!” she told Phillie.

  * * *

  Grandma was outside on the bench with the Pigeon People when Shirley rode by on her bike. She heard Grandma say, “Sam used to buy me the biggest box of licorice from Blum’s in San Francisco. It had purple flowers on the outside.”

  “Isaac used to buy me Barricini’s,” bragged Augusta. “And I didn’t even like chocolate.”

  Shirley stopped to pet Mustard, who was sitting on his side of the stoop with Mr. Bicker
staff.

  “He likes you,” Mr. Bickerstaff told Shirley, offering her a Chiclet.

  “He likes you, too,” Shirley admitted, shaking a Chiclet out of the small yellow box. She bumped her bike up the steps and into their apartment, where Anna was watching Perry Mason, a show about lawyers, on TV.

  “I can’t smoke because the fan blows the ashes from the ashtray all over the place,” Anna said. “And I just broke my back dusting.”

  “Good,” said Shirley.

  * * *

  When Shirley got into bed that night, she noticed her bookmark was not where she’d left it in Cheaper by the Dozen. It took her a while to find the lost place by reading backward from where the bookmark had been randomly dropped in. Anna must have moved my library books when she was cleaning and the bookmark slipped out, Shirley thought, surprised at how unnerved she felt when she didn’t know what was going on in the story. You can’t just keep reading if you don’t know what came before.

  Then, not being able to concentrate, Shirley put down Cheaper by the Dozen and headed to the kitchen. Grandma was on the couch reading War and Peace, the Russian version of course. And Anna, Shirley noticed, was now in the bathroom. Shirley smelled cigarette smoke.

  It was a perfectly clear night to watch the low-flying airplanes turning toward LaGuardia. Red lights blinked a warning to other planes. Intense white lights remained steady like two huge eyes in the sky.

  “I’m going places, too,” Shirley said to Mouse before heading back to her room.

  Chapter 15

  TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

  When they got to school the next day, Shirley told Maury she had some private business to take care of in the office. “If you want, you can wait for me in the hall.”

  So that’s what Maury did while Shirley deposited the Official Business envelope in Mr. Merrill’s mail slot. Shirley had penciled in an infinitesimally small number 6 on the lower left corner of the envelope for luck. She didn’t know what time teachers usually got their mail, but she expected that she’d know when Mr. Merrill got his. Either he’ll be ripping mad, Shirley thought, or he’ll be contrite. That was one of the meaty words she’d saved; it meant he’d be sorry he’d accused her of plagiarism.