Saturday's Child (12 page)

Now there's never going to be a Perfect Record of writing in you every single day. That's been ruined for all time. And this terrible week has ruined my Perfect Chart for all year. I had wanted to write in you every single day for the rest of my life, and now I'll never be able to do that. I'm so sad about it. Forgive me, Diary. Try to understand.

Apologetically (spell?
)

Robin

Dear Diary
,

I know this time I missed two days but at least it's not a week even if I did skip by my own fault and not from losing a privilege. It's just not the same now I can't say I've never missed a day. It's not perfect anymore. But I still love you Diary. If I was allowed to I would show you to Roberta because then she could see from the earlier stuff I wrote in you that I had liked her all along for real and she wouldn't think I had joined in to help Benjy and Roger. But I'm not allowed to do that and I've “medaled enough” Mommie says. Besides, I haven't seen Roberta down by the tracks or playing in front of her little wood house since that day, and I don't know if she's hiding or moved away or maybe even died from being beat up by those dumb stupid idiot bullies upstairs I still hate them and always will. Mommie and Aunt Sally and Liz go on having coffee together but us kids don't play together
while they do it. So something good came out of the terrible week anyway. But I hope Roberta's not dead or hurt bad and Mommie says I have a tender heart but I should know better than to medal and she says she's sure Roberta is fine because nobody could run like that and be hurt. But Hamlet gets a mortal wound (which is the kind you die from) and goes on and fights more and even kills a few people and gives a long speech to the audience all between the time he gets hurt and the time he finally dies and while all this is happening he knows he's dying. It makes me worried about Roberta no matter what Mommie says. If her family moved away like Liz told Mommie they should, I'll never even know if Roger and Benjy gave Roberta a mortal wound. But Aunt Sally says there's nothing I can do. And she's right, because I'm not allowed to.

I don't want to write in you anymore right now, Diary, and I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings. Sometimes after Mommie has worked at the stocks that will make us rich she gets that line in her forehead she likes me to smooth out but not those times because she says it's nothing really she's just “deeppressed” (sp?). That means sort of sad like you sometimes get after the show is finished or when you go to an audition but they say they're looking for somebody younger or older or different. You sort of know what it is you're sad about but the sadness is bigger and spreads over lots of things. So I think it must be I'm deeppressed.

Robin

Dear Diary
,

I know I skipped again, about a month this time. But Mommie says I have a busy schedule and there are more important things to pay attention to and if I don't write in you every day it's OK. I hope you think so.

There's no big news that's happened anyway. It's not so cold, which is nice because I don't have to wear my leggings. I
hate
them but I'm not old enough to wear tights and we can't afford to have me catch a cold, not after the way I already got us all into trouble about my face.

The scratch is gone, which makes Pietro glad and Aunt Sally and everybody else. But I'm sorry because every time I looked in the mirror I could think how I gave Roger a bloody nose and how Roberta and me fought like the Amazons in the Greek myths even if Roberta might not ever know I was fighting on her side. Roger and Benjy just walk around free when I
think Roger at least should go to jail because he could have murdered Roberta you never know. I won't speak to him or Benjy and Mommie says that's OK even if it makes life hard for her with Liz.

So the only big news is that we had the cast party for a whole day out at Miss Wood's country house in Connecticut. (I know that's right because I looked it up. If I use the dictionary for words I'm not sure about maybe Mommie won't have to check in here for spelling mistakes.) She gives a cast party every year but it's always in the summer so we can go swimming in her pool. But last summer we never had it because Miss Wood's husband was sick with something. I think she poisons them maybe like the king was poisoned in
Hamlet
because they always seem to disappear. But Mommie says No they just get divorced but Aunt Sally says she wouldn't put it past Miss Wood to poison a person. Aunt Sally doesn't like Miss Wood, but she's always polite to her because Miss Wood is the Star even if I am more popular with our thousands of viewers and get the most fan mail of anybody, Miss Quinlan says.

So this year we couldn't have the cast party until now and it was too cold to swim in the pool which was OK with me because I don't know how to swim anyway and you never know you could drown like Ophelia. Miss Wood didn't want to wait till later in the year because she's going to do renovations (I looked it up!) and everything will be a mess.

But even if it was just early spring there was already heated water in the pool because Miss Wood likes to swim for her constitution (looked it up again!) which does not mean the Declaration of Independence, Diary, but her health, so she swims even in the cold spring and then runs inside fast. Miss Wood is a magnificent (Looked It Up) actress and she's been on the stage on Broadway and in London too and she sort of acts all the time even out there at her country house where she says she “lets her hair down.” (Not really, Diary, she keeps it pinned in a bun on top of her head like always. That's a saying that means she doesn't have to act at the country house, but I think she does at least when anybody else is there I bet even the husbands.) So when Mr. Gabrielson had so much booze he fell into the pool Miss Wood wasn't even worried about Ophelia (he can swim) but just stood there in her hostess gown looking at him through the big glass window that's like a wall by the pool and she put her hand up to her throat and her big blue eyes were open very wide and she sort of sang out (Miss
Wood
can
carry a tune and used to sing with Noel Coward who was very famous and is old now and maybe dead) anyway she sort of sang out “Frank! I am ap
pall
ed!” But everybody laughed and he climbed out and Jessie (that's Miss Wood's maid who is a Negro lady who smiles a lot but only when she thinks you're looking) she ran and got a towel for him and then he had another drink.

Dickie played pool (not the water kind but a game with sticks and balls on a table) all day inside with Johnny who is our assistant (spell? No, L.I.U.!) director who I love. He always calls me Hey Kid or Trooper or just Rob but never The Baby because he says years don't count and I'm the oldest one in the cast. That's nice because I get tired of always being the youngest. Miss Quinlan sat in the glass room but kept shouting to Dickie in the other room that if he was losing next week's pay he could go to hell before she'd plead for him again with Carol. (Carol is Miss Irwin's first name but
nobody
calls her that except only Miss Quinlan and Miss Wood and Mr. Nelson and the men from The Sponsors which is Maxwell House Coffee and Gaines Dog Food when they visit the Control Room on Air Day. Miss Irwin was somewhere in the house on the telephone a lot.)

Everybody was having a good time and Aunt Sally sat off to one side like she's always careful to do because you don't want anybody to think you're one of those awful stage mothers like other kids in the business have even though she's really a stage aunt. She drank lots of coffee and talked with Betty who's our script-girl lady and Helga who's the wardrobe lady. Helga comes from Hungary and got out before the communists (liu!) came, by the skin of her teeth she says. And Aunt Sally even said I could go for a walk along the forest path all by myself. Miss Wood told her it was “perfectly safe” and not to be “overprotective” (liu!) so what else could Aunt Sally do she had to let me go. I whispered to her that I'd bundle up and only go a little way and come right back, and I'd gone that path once together long ago on a walk with Miss Wood and a publicity photographer so Aunt Sally knew it really was OK and not in anything jungley but just a sort of field with trees back of the house and the pool.

And so Diary I had a whole walk in the country all by myself! It was
magnificent
. I saw a skunk! (But I didn't scare it I stood perfectly still until it went away so it didn't put out its smell.) I saw a brown rabbit for just a minute. The snow was all gone and there were different tiny flowers
beginning to peek up out of the dirt and I wanted to pick one but I didn't because you never know there could be poison ivy or something and then I'd get us all into trouble again. So I stuck to the path and looked up at the buds on the trees, and when I squeezed my eyes almost shut, the sun made sparkles (l.i.u.) like the air was a green color. There were lots of birds but you couldn't see them, only hear them. I wish I knew the names for flowers and trees and birds, like a library in my head. I stood like a statue and didn't move a muscle like you have to do when you're being fitted for a costume or if you're posing for a picture where they use a long exposure. But here I stood still just because I didn't want to scare off the birds or the forest or anything. I pretended to myself I was part of the forest, a tree or a wild creature (liu!) just being there. It felt so
real
. And except for the birds singing and the dry leaves left over from winter sort of Shhhing when they blew around in the green color air it was as quiet as the library. Even if Mr. Nelson does despair of me because he says I'm a hopeless city child (he grew up in someplace maybe Montana which is mostly not cities) Aunt Sally always tells him not to worry about me I'm doing fine. I sure was doing fine by myself on my walk in the country.

I kept to the path and remembered my promise and turned around after a while and came back. Well, to tell the truth, Diary, I would have gone on a little more, but I saw something funny through the trees up ahead and I knew I better not make the mistake of medaling. Pietro was there. He is our makeup man who fixed my scratch remember? He really grew up in Brooklyn but is called Pietro instead of Pete because it fits a makeup man better and besides he lived in Rome for three whole years. He is very funny and makes me laugh and calls me his little Garbo. (She is a movie actress who doesn't talk too much, not like me!, in fact she hardly talks at all but is very famous and not dead yet.) Pietro was there up ahead through the trees with Lee, who is Miss Wood's house-boy which means he takes care of her house like Jessie takes care of her self. I like Lee (who isn't a boy at all but old, about 25, and who sneaks me Cokes) and of course I really like Pietro so I was going to run up and say Hi to them. But I didn't. It was funny. Not funny ha ha but funny strange. Pietro was on his knees in front of Lee and Lee's pants were down around his ankles even his underpants. You could see Lee's bare bottom white in the sun against the brown tree stems or whatever they're called. Lee's head was sort of
thrown back and he made sounds like he was in pain. So right away I knew Lee had been bitten by a snake or some other poisonous thing and Pietro was trying to save his life by sucking out the venom (liu) like they tell you in first aid books and on TV. I knew Pietro would be very brave about saving somebody's life because he's gentle and tall and handsome. But I hoped he would remember you had to spit out the poison and not swallow any or you could die after you saved the other person.

Anyway, I knew better than to go medal. Besides if there were snakes in that part of the woods I sure didn't want them to bite me and they might because I am shorter than Pietro and nearer to the ground. When Mommie and I play tickle she sometimes acts like a giant and she growls in a loud voice “Ho! Tender baby flesh! Yum!” and I know Mommie is just playing so I laugh but I sure didn't want the snakes to think I was tender baby flesh because the snakes would not be playing. Also I didn't know if a person could suck out the poison from two people one after the other or die themselves so Pietro might not be able to save me and then what? I might die or ruin the cast party and get into trouble again.

So I just turned around very quiet like in the library and pretended I was an Indian walking through the woods in my moccasins (liu) without cracking a twig. I made it all the way back to the house without a sound.

It was a wonderful walk and Aunt Sally said she was proud of me. But when I whispered to her about the snake bite and how we should tell the others and call an ambulance because Pietro might not have got out all the poison you never know she said very fast No and not to mention it to anybody that she would take care of it and I should forget I'd ever seen Pietro and Lee in the woods at all. I tried to explain to her how important it was but then she gave me The Look and I didn't want her to tell Mommie because I'm trying to get back at least to
near
Perfect on the chart so I stopped because one of the things on the chart list is Not to Argue.

Aunt Sally was right because sure enough a little while later Lee and Pietro came back but not together and nobody even asked where they'd been. Lee didn't mention the snake bite and he looked OK. Pietro didn't mention it either, but Pietro would never brag and I guess he also made Lee not tell how brave he'd been. I think Pietro is a good man. He and Papa took me to the ballet once on a Saturday afternoon because they both know a lot of the dancers.

Anyway so that's the big news. Aunt Sally and me went back early by train even though we had drove out in one of the cars along with Helga and Betty. But the grownups were staying later and I felt sorry Aunt Sally couldn't stay with them because after all she is a grownup. But I had to be got back early and somebody had to take me and so of course it was her. We had a nice long train ride which I love because Aunt Sally reads the
Journal American
newspaper and I can just look out the window at things going by and think. You can't think much at home because there's always homework or the script or piano practice or sleep. But there's not much you can do on a train because it bounces too much to write your homework clear. You can always be running your lines over in your head to save time but sometimes you can just stop and think a little. So I looked out the window and thought and I guess I fell asleep because I woke up with my head on the windowsill which was all dirty and Aunt Sally said I was a filthy-faced baby and what was she going to do with me? I am
not
a baby but I knew then she wasn't mad at me, so I didn't complain when she took out a hankie and spit on it and rubbed my face. I wish she'd at least let me spit my own spit on the hankie if there has to be spit at all when there's no water around. That way I would be smelling my own spit while it dries instead of Aunt Sally's spit at least.