Anastasia on Her Own (12 page)

"Mike, you son-of-a-gun!" Annie bellowed. "You bleeping son-of-a-gun! Where have you been for the last umpteen years? Why didn't you ever write?"

Anastasia could see her father's startled eyes through the huge tangle of Annie's hug. No wonder he was startled, Anastasia thought. He had always described Annie as a gentle, quiet, sensitive soul—a waif with long, pale hair and a soft voice. Who on earth was this giant, booming stranger? And why was she calling him Mike? His name was Myron. Everyone called him Myron.

Dr. Krupnik extricated himself from Annie's arms and helped her take off the voluminous cape. Sam had appeared with a jar of peanuts in his hands. He stood silently and stared up at the woman. She was no smaller with the cape removed. She was enormous, both in height and width. She filled the hall. And her hair—the hair that Anastasia had heard described as long and pale—was a frizzy mass of bright red, almost orange, curls. Her eyelashes were long spikes of jet black. Monstrous earrings like doorknobs dangled from her ears, and her hands were cluttered with rings on every finger.

"I'd like you to meet my children," Dr. Krupnik said after he had hung her cape in the closet. "I'm sorry my wife is out of town.

"This is Anastasia," he said. "She's thirteen."

Annie swooped upon Anastasia. "What a bleeping horrible age, thirteen," she pronounced in her deep voice, grabbing Anastasia's hand and squashing it into the collection of rings. "Listen, kid, don't despair, thirteen doesn't last forever. Things will improve.

"Why don't you get her some bleeping contacts, Mike?" she bellowed. "You've got a kid here who looks like a bleeping
owl
with those glasses!"

"And this is Sam," Dr. Krupnik said, gesturing toward Sam, who was still clutching the jar of peanuts and staring at Annie with his mouth open.

"What does he have, premature acne?" Annie roared, laughing. She reached over and did the one thing Sam hated most in the world: She rubbed her hand through his curly hair. Sam took a step backward. "Hey, Sambo, you're okay," she said, "even if you do have leprosy or something god-awful."

"Sam is recovering from chicken pox," Dr. Krupnik explained, but Annie didn't seem to be listening.

For Anastasia, the "Sambo" had done it. She hated Annie. She hated anyone who said "Sambo." She wished she hadn't prepared a gourmet dinner. She wished she had stuck to her plan of hot dogs, eaten standing up.

Annie had burst into the living room, where Steve was still sitting on the couch. "ANOTHER ONE?" she brayed. "No wonder you never wrote, Mike; you spent all those years just turning out bleeping kids!"

"This is my daughter's friend, Steve Harvey," Dr. Krupnik said in a tense voice. "Steve, this is Annie O'Donnell."

Annie flung herself onto the couch beside Steve and roared with laughter. "I haven't heard that bleeping name for years!" she shrieked. "It's Annie Cummings now."

"Oh," said Anastasia's father politely. "I should have realized that you were married."

"Past tense," Annie said, and reached for some of the peanuts which Sam had poured carefully into the bowl. "Cummings came and went, but I kept his name. Before that I was Valdez. He came and went, too. And before that was, let's see, Wolf. Or maybe it was Fox: some nasty animal, anyway."

"You've been married three times?" Anastasia asked in amazement.

"But who's counting, right?" Annie chortled. "Lemme look at you, Mike." She peered across the room at Anastasia's father. "Got a bit of a pot, and you've lost your hair. Age takes its toll, right? Look at me, I'm forty bleeping pounds overweight!" While Anastasia watched in embarrassment, Annie grabbed two handfuls of her own stomach and shook it. She grinned. "Know what I call that? Love handles, that's what!"

Steve Harvey hadn't said a word. He hadn't even taken any more peanuts. He was simply staring. So was Sam. So was Myron Krupnik.

Anastasia took a deep breath. "Excuse me," she said. "I'm going to serve dinner."

***

They ate, as Anastasia had planned, by candlelight. The purple tablecloth glowed; the flowers gleamed in the center of the table. Sam sat politely, boosted up in his chair by books, and stirred the food on his plate with his fork. He picked out a few mushrooms, ate them, and left the rest.

Anastasia had lost her appetite. She ate a few bites of veal and wiped her mouth a lot with her napkin because she couldn't figure out what else to do with her hands.

Her father ate mechanically, smiling a lot, a frozen sort of smile. "It's very good, Anastasia," he said.

"Yeah," said Steve, and reached over to help himself to more.

"
Good?
" Annie bellowed. "It's bleeping fabulous! Did you cook this all by yourself, kid?" Anastasia nodded.

"Well, no question," said Annie with her mouth full, "you've got a bleeping genius here, Mike. And she'll be pretty sometime, too, if she just gets rid of those bleeping glasses and quits looking like a bleeping owl!"

Anastasia stared at her plate. From the corner of her eye, she saw Annie's huge arm reach over to take another helping of veal.

Suddenly Annie screeched. "WHAT THE BLEEP IS
THIS?
"

Anastasia looked over. Annie was poking her fork at a grayish mound on her plate with a look of disgust.

"It's veal marrow and knucklebones," Anastasia said in a loud, distinct voice. "I added them to give additional flavor. That's what
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
told me to do, and it wasn't easy. It took me a long time to figure out how to do it."

"Well, you're supposed to take it
out,
kiddo, before you serve the meal. Good thing I have a strong stomach. For a minute I thought it was a bleeping dead mouse or something." Annie picked it up with a fork and spoon and dropped it back into the serving dish.

Everyone was silent. Finally Steve said, "What's for dessert?"

Dessert?
Anastasia hadn't even thought about dessert. How on earth did people make dessert, too, when it took two days just to make
dinner?

Sam looked up. "I'll serve dessert," he announced. "I'm in charge of dessert." He climbed carefully down from his chair and headed for the kitchen. In a moment he was back. He walked around the table and politely handed each person a Popsicle.

"They're grape," Sam said. "Because the color scheme is purple."

I forgot to turn on the music, Anastasia thought after Steve had left. I forgot to turn on the romantic record. With slumped shoulders she went to the kitchen and surveyed the mess. Every pot they owned was in the sink. Dirty dishes were piled on the table. Popsicle wrappings were stuck to the plates. There were spilled peanuts on the floor. The pantyhose bag of veal marrow and knucklebones lay in a sagging, soggy pile beside a cup half-filled with coffee.

It was a horrible evening, she thought. Sam thought it was horrible—he had said so when she put him to bed. And Steve thought it was horrible—he had said so when she said good night to him at the door. He had also said, "Good night, Analgesia." The instant he was gone, Anastasia had run to the dictionary and looked it up before she forgot the word.

The dictionary had said, "Analgesia. Insensibility to pain."

What a lie. Anastasia was so sensitive to pain that she had been suffering the entire evening, and not just from the horrible earrings. And she was
still
suffering.

She wondered if her father thought it was a horrible evening. She couldn't tell because he had been so silent, just smiling that tense smile all through dinner.

Well, her father had
better
think it was horrible, because it was his horrible friend Annie who had made it so. She was
finally
leaving. Anastasia looked at her watch; it was almost midnight. Annie had stayed and stayed, bleating and bellowing and bleeping. Finally Dr. Krupnik had simply gone to the phone and called for a taxi. Now he was out there saying good night to Annie.

And he sure was taking his time about it, Anastasia thought angrily. At least an hour's worth of cleaning up lay ahead, and her father had promised to help with it.

She went out into the hall, and finally, after a moment, she heard the taxi door slam, and the taxi drove away. Her father came back into the house, looking exhausted.

"What took you so long?" Anastasia asked suspiciously.

"You saw what she was like," her father said irritably. "You don't think she could say good night
briefly,
do you?"

"Well, it's cold out there. You shouldn't have been out there all that time without a coat. You should have shoved her into the taxi and come back in."

Her father groaned.

"Your face is red, from the cold," Anastasia pointed out.

Then she looked more carefully. "It isn't from the cold," she said. "Your face is red because you're
blushing,
I think."

"It is not."

"It is
too.
Why are you blushing, Dad?" Anastasia wailed. "You didn't KISS her, did you?"

"No," he sighed. "She swooped at me, but I ducked. Maybe she kissed my shoulder. Maybe my shoulder is bright red, from her lipstick. But my face isn't red."

"Yes, it is. It's
bright red.
Come over here in the light."

Anastasia tilted a living room lamp shade and examined her father's face. "Do you feel okay?" she asked.

"No," he said, "I feel lousy. I felt lousy the minute she walked in the door, and I've been feeling lousy ever since. You'd feel lousy, too, if an old friend you remembered fondly had changed that much, and turned into something so grotesque."

Anastasia touched his forehead. "You're hot," she said. "Does your head hurt? Does your nose ache? Does your belly button feel too tight?"

"I hurt all over."

It can't be, Anastasia thought. Please, no. But she knew. She was absolutely certain.

"Dad," she said, "guess what. You have chicken pox."

"Mr. Fortunate-," Anastasia said wearily into the phone, "this is Anastasia Krupnik. I need twenty more boxes of baking soda."

"Good grief, Anastasia, you've cleaned me out! I'll have to get them from my supplier. Let's see, today's Saturday. Can you wait till Monday for them?"

She sighed. There were still a few boxes left, and Sam didn't seem to be itching anymore. "Okay," she told the grocer. "But Monday for sure? I'll really, really need them by Monday."

She turned away from the phone and looked at the kitchen, which was still in the same shape it had been when she had left everything the night before. But worse. Now the food, which had been soggy leftovers last night, had congealed on the plates. She would have to use steel wool to get the plates clean.

And her father, of course, couldn't help. He was in bed, miserable, feverish, and complaining.

I could make up a whole new set of Seven Dwarfs, thought Anastasia: Grouchy, Itchy, Boring, Hateful, Demanding ... It was an interesting project, but it was interrupted by the doorbell. Anastasia put down the greasy pan she was about to wash and went to the front door.

"Packages!" the mailman announced cheerfully. "Sign here."

Curiously, Anastasia signed the slip he gave her. Maybe her mother had sent some gifts from California.
That
would be nice. That would cheer her up, and take her mind off the horrible housekeeping problems. The entire bulletin board was flapping with schedules, but none of them seemed to apply to her situation now. The excitement of the dinner party was gone. Her interest in gourmet cooking was gone. Her father's availability as an adviser and helper was gone. Her interest in Steve Harvey was gone. Everything was gone except a houseful of dirty dishes, dirty laundry, dust balls under every bed, a week of untouched homework assignments, and upstairs her father calling feebly now and then for ginger ale, and announcing every five minutes that he thought he would probably die before sunset, even though the doctor had said it wasn't true.

Both packages were addressed to Anastasia, and she opened the first one, which was the larger of the two.

Sam came into the room. "What's that?" he asked, as Anastasia lifted something blue out of the box.