Leo the Lioness (3 page)

“Just thought you ought to know,” I said. “Forewarned is forearmed.”

“There you are.” Nina came slinking onto the porch. “I've been looking all over for you, Niffy,” and she looked at Jen and winked.

Just when Jen and I were getting to be friends again, Nina had to come along and spoil it.

“I have a couple of things I have to discuss with you, Niff,” Nina said. “In private.”

“I was just going,” I said.

“Don't go on my account,” Nina said in her absolutely stickiest voice.

“Gawd forbid,” I said, smiling.

“Gawd forbid,” I said again. It wasn't very good but it was the best I could do.

I heard them laughing in that awful way girls have when they have just said something very mean. I heard but I didn't turn around. I just went.

7.

I got on my bike and rode downtown. Most of the kids I know consider themselves too old and too sophisticated to still ride bikes, but I like to. There is a very free feeling, an abandonment, that comes when you whistle down a hill on a bike with your feet off the pedals. Especially if your brakes don't work.

I decided to go and see Carla McAllister. She works in Moody's bookstore on Main Street during the summers. She used to baby-sit for us a lot, for Nina and me and John, when she was just about the age I am now. She was the first baby-sitter we'd ever had who didn't treat us like fungus or turds or juvenile delinquents. I mean, she actually played games with us, read us stories, and let us put the ketchup bottle on the table, which is strictly against my mother's code of ethics. She also once drank some gin from my father's liquor closet because she had never tasted it and had always wanted to. I remember standing and watching her toss it down, gag, make a face, and spit the rest of it into the sink. Then she added some water to the bottle so they wouldn't know she had taken any. I thought that was pretty smart of her. My father complained for days that his martini tasted awfully weak. We never told, Nina and I. John couldn't talk at that time so he wasn't any problem. But we never breathed a word, which shows you how much we liked Carla.

Carla is a Capricorn. She was born the day after Christmas, which is a tough break. She's in college now, going into her third year. She is on a partial scholarship, as she is not only very pretty but exceptionally bright. I would say “brilliant,” but that is a word that is so misused as a rule that I shy away from it.

Even when she was my age Carla was pretty, which is a rare thing. I read somewhere that there is nothing so ugly as a thirteen-year-old girl and I am inclined to agree. But when Carla was that age, she was already good-looking. Boys used to call her up when she was sitting with us and we would listen in on the extension. If the boys had ever known, what with some of the things they said, they would've killed us. Once in a while some of the creeps, the older ones, would drive up to our house and try to get Carla to let them in. She never would. She could've. Nina and I would've remained silent on that too, but she wouldn't. She has a great deal of integrity. Except for the gin bit — and everyone is entitled to a single lapse — she has the highest integrity.

She must have had a lot of boys try to make out with her but she also must have had a great supply of little jokes to leave them laughing and keep them from feeling rejected because they always came back for more.

Carla is not only pretty and smart, she is also kind and good and witty and wise. She is practically everything a person would want to be himself. She is close to perfect.

The only imperfect thing about her is her choice of a boyfriend. For months now, almost a year, she has been going steady with Dave Venon. Lots of people happen to think that Dave is the answer to a maiden's prayer. He is tall and handsome and has a cleft chin, which is considered the penultimate word among many of my acquaintances. He is smart. He also is very sincere. I mean, you can almost see the sincerity shining out of his eyes, which are blue. There is nothing wrong with being sincere. It is just that when a person creates an aura of sincerity around himself, it gets to be a drag. Mostly because people noted for their sincerity are basically humorless. That doesn't mean they may not laugh a lot. Dave laughs a lot. But basically, he is humorless.

Also, I think his mouth is weak.

I had found out through discreet inquiry that he and Carla were still seeing each other. I did not say much about him to Carla because if she liked him, I figured he must have hidden virtues.

Dave has been a lifeguard at our town beach for three years. He looks terrific in his pith helmet, and what with his physique and his tan and the whistle he wears around his neck to call back people who go out too far, I guess he is a sight to stir the corpuscles. He just doesn't stir mine, that's all.

I would like to add, and this is a sign of my spiteful nature, that in all the years he has been the lifeguard, he has not rescued a single person. He has not saved a single person from drowning. There was one near-drowning last year but that happened to occur on his day off. I know it is not nice of me to bring this up and it is also not his fault but I just thought I would mention it.

He gazes inscrutably over the horizon a lot, but he has never rescued a soul.

8.

There were a couple of customers in the store when I went in so I looked through some of the books on display. There is a great deal of trash being published these days but there is also a great deal of worthwhile stuff. I like the atmosphere of a bookstore. You figure that people there are interested in things of the mind rather than in clothes or cosmetics or other material things. I would like to work in one when I get old enough.

Carla rang up a sale on the cash register and then she came over to me and put her hands on my shoulders. I was pleased to note that we were almost exactly the same height.

“You are a sight for sore eyes, Tibb,” she said. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

“I've been around,” I said. Carla is always glad to see me. That is another nice thing about her.

“How are your mother and father and John and Nina?” she asked. John has always been her favorite. John is that sort of person. He will go through life being people's favorite without even trying.

“They are fine, I guess. Nina is more of a pain than usual but that's par for the course. I have been feeling sort of down lately,” I told her, “and, as a matter of fact, if it weren't for John, I think I would throw in the towel.”

“Why? What's the matter?” Carla asked.

“Oh, everything and nothing,” I said. “You know how it is.”

Carla nodded. “It's your age. It's a tough one. I remember feeling the same way when I was your age.”

I was shocked. “Not you, Carla. I remember you then. You knew what the score was. Boys were after you and everything.”

“Let me tell you something,” Carla said. “There isn't a kid alive who doesn't go through agony of some sort growing up. And don't you forget it. Not one kid alive. It's just the degree of agony, that's all. It always seems as if the other guy has all the breaks, but that just isn't so. I guess it's a necessary evil. You have to go through this travail to prepare you for life, to toughen you up. Hopefully, you'll be a better person for it. Your character is being strengthened by leaps and bounds.”

“Oh, yeah?” I would have liked for her to go on talking, encouraging me. I liked the sound of her voice and the way she made me feel that I was a very important person. Then some old woman who must've had about a thousand grandchildren came in to buy books for them and she took out a list about a mile long and wanted Carla to give her a capsule comment on each book.

“I'll be over soon to see your family, Tibb,” Carla said. “Give them my best.”

I rode home and I felt very old and tired. Maybe because there's that big hill that was so much fun coming down. Going up it was almost more than I could handle.

A line from a poem by Christina Rossetti, who is practically my favorite poet although considered square by many people, if they've heard of her at all, goes: “Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end.”

That was me in a nutshell. The road was going to be uphill right to the end. I got off and pushed my bike the last half of the way home.

9.

When I got in, Nina was standing in the middle of the living room, her feet planted tragically.

“Mother,” she said, “you'll never guess what's happened.”

In addition to being an up-and-down-type personality, Nina is also, as are many Geminians, addicted to the drama. She says she would like to be an actress, but then I know so many girls her age who say the same thing that I do not think the world is big enough to handle all the would-be actresses.

“No,” said my mother, “I can't guess. What has?” My mother sounded kind of weary. On occasions she has been heard to say that she is too young and/or too old to be a mother. I suppose that once in a while being a mother gets to be a drag. You have to realize that parents were once kids and were not always parents. It is hard, I admit, but it leads to a greater understanding of their problems if you can forget your own for the nonce. “Nonce” is another of my favorite words.

“I have been invited to a dance,” Nina said, throwing her head back and stretching her neck. She has been stretching her neck for a couple of weeks now because she read an article about the desirability of having a swan neck and how you could make your neck longer by stretching it out every time you thought about it. It looks kind of peculiar but as long as she confines her exercises to the home, I guess it is all right.

“Oh,” said my mother. “By whom?” She gets very grammatical in times of stress, I have noticed. Any other time she would have said, “Who by?”

“By Charlotte Forbes, that's who.” Nina raised her voice. Charlotte Forbes is a pill in Nina's class at school. She is always talking about her clothes coming from Saks Fifth Avenue or one of those. As if anyone cared. I have even heard that Charlotte sews labels in her clothes that do not necessarily belong there. For instance, she took a label out of a blouse her rich aunt sent her from a fancy shop and sewed it into a blouse she had bought in a discount house. That should give you a very clear picture of Charlotte Forbes.

“You and Charlotte should make a dandy couple,” I said.

Nina gave me a look filled with such animosity that I was momentarily silenced.

“Explain,” my mother said.

“Charlotte's mother is giving her a dance,” Nina said.

“What for? So she can meet people?” I asked.

“Shut up!” Nina shouted.

“If you don't both behave you'll go to your rooms, big as you are,” my mother said.

She meant it so I shut up.

“Charlotte's birthday is in two weeks and she's giving her a birthday dance and we're all supposed to bring dates.”

The full horror of this struck both my mother and me at the same time. We sat silent. But it was not the end.

“And it is a formal. I will need a long dress,” Nina said in almost a whisper.

“Charlotte's mother has social aspirations,” my mother said after a bit.

“Charlotte's mother is absolutely the most terrific mother I have ever seen,” Nina said. “I wish I had a mother like Charlotte's mother. She is fluent in Spanish and she has four hairpieces.”

There was nothing more to be said. My mother patted her home-grown, genuine hair which grew out of her scalp, and was still. I picked my toenails and wished I was someplace else.

“Will you ask Dad tonight? About the dress? I have to know by tonight. Everyone else is going and if I can't go, I'll die. I won't be able to face any of my friends. You never let me do anything.”

I hope that when I am fifteen I will not turn out like Nina. I do not think I will but, on the other hand, you can never be sure of anything.

“Yes,” said my mother, “I will ask him.”

“Tonight? Promise? Tonight? I know what he'll say.” Nina started to pace. “I know exactly what he'll say. He'll say we can't possibly afford a long dress. He'll say I'm still growing, I'm too young to go to a dance in a long dress, I won't be able to walk in one, I'm growing up too fast. Why do parents always think their daughters are growing up too fast? Do they want them to stay in diapers forever?” Nina started to cry. “I hate parents,” she said. “I hate them.”

“That is perfectly natural,” I said. “Most kids hate their parents at one time or another. It is far better to let your hostility out than to keep it inside where it will only fester.”

My mother started to laugh. Sort of hysterically but she was at least laughing.

Nina cried louder.

“Don't get yourself into a catatonic state,” I said. “It's not worth it.”

“You —” she said, clenching her fists. “You are such a slob I can hardly believe you are my sister. What did I do to deserve you? Why don't you run away from home and go live on a farm with the cows and horses? They wouldn't be able to tell you apart.”

I happened to be smiling at myself in the mirror that morning, testing my personality quotient and also seeing how the new toothpaste was taking hold, when I thought I detected a certain resemblance between me and a horse. No special horse, just any one. Nothing you could put your finger on but, nevertheless, a resemblance.

Maybe Nina is more perceptive than I thought.

I pawed the ground with my feet and neighed. Jen and I used to practice neighing when we were small, and we were pretty good. We used to neigh happily and sadly and call to each other the way horses do. So now I neighed once or twice more. Nina started to cry again and my mother looked as if she had reached the end of her rope, a destination with which she is not unfamiliar.

“Go wash your face,” she said, “and you'll feel better.”