Star Shine (2 page)

They worked their way back to the hall, checking out the scene one more time.

“Daddy's disappeared.”

Jenny nodded. “I knew he would.” They went to find him. He had a room of his own in the basement. In it he kept his rocks and books and records. They found him sitting in his old black leather chair, reading.

“How's it going up there?” he said.

“Well,” said Mary, “it's still going. How come you didn't stick around?”

“They'll never miss me,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I'm not sure they know who I am. Besides”—he smiled at them—“your mother can handle that crowd with both hands tied behind her. She doesn't need me.”

“We missed you,” Jenny said.

“I'm perfectly happy right here, thanks, learning how to make a weather vane.” When their father wasn't studying rocks, he made things out of wood. Once, when they were very young, he'd made a huge salad bowl out of a beautiful piece of walnut, in which they'd given their new puppy a bath. That had more or less finished the bowl for salad.

He was a superior father in all ways, they thought. Superior to other people's fathers, that is.

Mary opened the door, and sounds of the party surged in.

“You were nice to miss me,” he told them.

“Sure,” they said, and went back upstairs.

CHAPTER THREE

Afterwards, eating potato salad in their room, the noise of the party still throbbing through the house, they talked it over.

“As I see it,” Jenny said, one hand on her hip, the other waving a fork, spewing mayonnaise on the rug, “he meant I look like a boy and you look like a girl.” She was talking about the freckle-faced man. Mary had turned thirteen in April. Jenny, the younger by eighteen months, would be twelve in October, and there was some truth to the statement.

“As I see it”—Jenny reiterated her favorite expression for this month—“he's a wimp. They're all wimps. And his teeth
were
funny.” Now she was on the man in the flashy pants. “Daddy wouldn't even wear pants like that to bed.”

“They're all actors,” Mary contradicted.

“Yeah,” Jenny croaked in her frog voice, “bad actors.” They collapsed upon one another, their loud, slow shouts of laughter making their stomachs ache and bringing tears to their eyes.

The door opened and their mother poked her head in. “Susan's on the phone,” she said crisply. “I told her we were having a party, but she said she simply had to talk to you. She gave the decided impression it was a matter of life and death. I called but you didn't answer so I had to come up.”

“Well,” said Jenny, “the noise
is
pretty ferocious.”

Their mother's face deepened in color. “It's a simply wonderful party,” she said, and closed the door.

Susan was a telephone freak. She called Mary eight or ten times a day, always sounding as if she were Paul Revere and had just hopped off her horse. Susan's mother had gone back to work at the bank in order to be part of the mainstream, Susan had told them importantly last week. Susan's father was a radio announcer at station WLLL, and he was also taking a cooking course nights at the high school. This week they were doing coq au vin.

“What's that?”

“Chicken.”

“Then why don't they call it chicken?”

“Because it's French chicken, dummy.” Susan often lost patience with Jenny.

“Oh, French.” Jenny raised her eyebrows as if that explained everything.

“It's a super party!” Mary cried into the phone. “They're all actors. Yeah, members of the Little Theater group. We had little meatballs and little franks. And dips. You would not
believe
all the dips.”

Jenny pulled down her pants and hung a moon at Mary, who turned her back and continued talking.

“Tell her I'm expecting an important phone call,” Jenny said. That's what their mother and father always said to get them off the line.

“Jenny says she's expecting an important phone call,” Mary told Susan. Susan said something that made Mary laugh. “Sue said to tell you, Jen, that Scott Borkowski already asked her to the junior prom so you might as well give up hope.” At this Mary went into peals of laughter. Scott Borkowski was captain of the soccer team. Their friend Tina said Scott Borkowski made her teeth ache, he was so adorable. Girls flopped in Scott Borkowski's path as if they'd been stricken by a sudden, mysterious virus. Jenny, who had recently seen an old Marx Brothers comedy on TV, called Scott Borkowski Harpo because he had a head of wild curls much like Harpo's. Jenny thought if she ever had a chance to talk to Scott Borkowski, she'd ask him if he played the harp.

“I bet Scott Borkowski has an IQ often,” Jenny said, but nobody listened.

Later, lying in bed, they listened to the sounds of car doors slamming, engines starting up. The party was, at last, over.

“I don't think she's young for her age, do you?” Jenny said.

“Well, she's thirty-nine.” Mary's voice was muffled, on its way to sleep. “That's not really old.”

“It's not?” Jenny thumped her pillow. Mary had already begun to snore. Mary denied she snored. Someday, when she got organized, Jenny planned to set up their father's tape recorder under Mary's bed to record the sounds of Mary snoring. Just to prove a point.

But she didn't have the energy tonight.

“If you ask me”—Jenny spoke into the dark—“it's plenty old.”

The days stretched out deliciously, waiting to be used up in pleasurable pursuits. Mary had a summer job sitting for the little Hirshman kids. Jenny would have liked to babysit, but “I don't like little kids that much,” she said.

“How much?” asked her father.

“Well, for instance, if they needed their diapers changed,” Jenny explained, “it might gross me out.”

“Why not put an ad in the paper saying, ‘Sitter available. Only toilet-trained kids need apply'?” he suggested.

“Cool.” Jenny wondered why she hadn't thought of that herself.

“Susan's mother's going to run us down to the seven o'clock movie,” Mary said. “You want to come?”

“I'm broke,” said Jenny, who was always broke.

“I'll lend you the money just this once. You get in for half, anyway.” At eleven, Jenny was the youngest in the crowd. She hated being youngest but had to admit it came in handy now and then.

“It's sort of like being a senior citizen,” Jenny said. “You get in for less.”

“I can hardly wait to be a senior citizen,” her father said. “I'll be rich.”

“Yeah, and old,” said Jenny.

“Beats being middle-aged and poor,” he told her.

Susan's mother was always late. They waited by the side of the road, punching down the heat bubbles in the tar with their bare feet. Presently Susan's mother pulled up with a squeal of brakes. They put on their sneakers and got in.

“Sorry to be late,” Susan's mother said. “I had piles of work. They want a whole bunch of figures in the morning. I'm going crazy,” she added happily. Susan's mother was a whiz at figures. She was earning big bucks at the bank, Susan had told them.

“What's your mother up to these days?” Susan's mother pulled out into traffic without checking to see if anything was coming. A horn blasted and a man with a clenched face swerved and lifted a fist threateningly at her.

“Not much,” Jenny said. It was always an adventure to ride with Susan's mother. She had been threatened by experts, but it never seemed to bother her.

“She is too,” Mary said indignantly. “She's very active in the Little Theater group. She had one of the leads in the play they did last year. Didn't you see her picture in the paper? Well, we went, and afterwards we went to the cast party backstage at the high school, and you should've seen my mother! She was like a star. Everyone crowded around her and made such a fuss, told her she was wonderful! Me and my father and Jenny couldn't believe it.” Mary was so excited, remembering, she got her pronouns mixed up.

“Yes, I remember seeing her picture,” Susan's mother said. “She had on so much makeup I hardly recognized her.”

“Well, my father said she was what he called a success
fou
. That's French for an extraordinarily great success,” Mary explained.

“Is that so?” Susan's mother said dryly.

“Anyway, we had a party for those Little Theater people last night. They are very fascinating people. My mother hopes to get the lead in their next play.”

“Oh, how devilish of her!” Susan's mother giggled. “Tell her I'll be in the front row opening night. What play are they doing?
King of Hearts
, I'll bet. Little Theater groups always do
King of Hearts
. I don't know why. It's a lousy play.”

In the back seat Jenny muttered things about people who didn't take actors seriously.

Afraid Susan's mother might hear, Mary said in a very loud voice, “How do you like working at the bank, Mrs. Clay?”

And Susan's mother, holding her hand over her ear, turned to look directly at Mary, thereby narrowly missing a rear-end collision with a Ford pickup truck in front of her. The black Lab riding in the bed of the truck set up an indignant flurry of barks, telling Susan's mother what he thought of her.

“Easy, Mary,” Susan's mother cautioned. “I can hear you, dear. No need to shout.”

CHAPTER FOUR

On their return from the movies, they found their mother sitting on their father's lap, nuzzling him behind the droopy curtain made by her hair. Their father looked perplexed. His long, thin hands lay dormant on either chair arm as he considered his next move. They were astounded and offended to find their parents in a pose of such intimacy. Suppose they'd brought Susan in with them? Or, worse yet, Tina. What then? How to explain such bizarre parental behavior?

“It would only be for a few weeks,” their mother was saying.

“What would only be for a few weeks?” Mary asked.

“Your mother, it seems, yearns for a career on the stage.” Their father's voice was noncommittal.

Their mother leaped from her perch and twined her arms around them like honeysuckle growing on the back fence. The scent of her perfume was as heavy as honeysuckle.

“The most exciting thing has happened!” she cried. “I've been offered a place in the Little Theater summer stock company. They're traveling up the coast in the van doing
Our Town, Auntie Mame
, and
Outward Bound
.” She leaned back to get a good look at their faces.

“Isn't that heaven!”

Before their very eyes, their mother seemed to grow younger, her face flushed as she tucked her hair behind her ears, her blue jeans tight as any tourniquet. She was one of them. She was their mother.

They remembered the woman at the party with the stretched face who'd said their mother was very young for her age, and a sharp stab of apprehension seized them.

“Are you going?” said Mary.

“That's a dumb question.” Jenny fought the urge to put her beloved thumb into her mouth. After a long struggle she'd given up sucking her thumb only last month. “Of course she's going.”

“Don't look so forlorn, darlings. It will only be for a little while. You and your father will manage fine without me.” Their mother reached out her arms to embrace them again, and Jenny darted out of reach.

“What will we eat? As I see it,” Jenny said, “we might starve.”

Mary stuck out her jaw. “Daddy can only do Western egg sandwiches, and I can only make meat loaf.” By her side, Jenny groaned softly. Mary's meat loaf was famous.

“You've got a nerve!” Mary looked as if she might cry. “You learn how to cook then. You could learn if you weren't so pigheaded.”

“Come now, you're my big girls.” Their mother couldn't stop moving. Back and forth she went, then around in circles. Smiles kept breaking out, and her cheeks were brilliant, her eyes glowing. “Don't you see, I'll never have another chance like this!” she cried. “It's the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me!”

“I thought we were the most exciting thing that ever happened to you,” Mary said in a low voice. “Us and Daddy.”

“Well, yes.” Their mother made herself stop moving while she considered this. “Of course. But think!” She flung wide her arms as if she'd just finished singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” “A stage career! Something I've wanted all my life. I've got to go. Don't you understand? I've got to go!”

Mary was silent, thinking, That's what I said last week when Susan and I wanted to go to New York City on the train. By ourselves. She sounds just like me. I've got to go, I've got to go. But I wound up not going.

“And as far as food goes, I'll freeze stuff. Tons of stuff.” One by one, their mother bent back her fingers, ticking off the food she'd planned to leave. “Chili, stew, pea soup, all your favorites. You'll be the best-fed family in town. You'll see. Besides”—she sent around one of her dazzling smiles—“it'll only be for a few weeks.” She had it all planned. They could see she was already in the van, barnstorming up the coast, radio turned up high, singing, laughing, on her way to the greasepaint and the roaring crowds.

“Lucky it's summer.” Their mother congratulated herself on her superb timing. “You won't have to worry about packing lunches, clean things for school, all that jazz.” Another thought occurred to her, another good reason for her going. “And just think! You won't have me around all the time, telling you what to do, what not to do. Won't that be fun?”

“Sure,” said Mary glumly.

“I guess,” said Jenny.

“If it weren't summer,” their father observed wryly, “I guess there'd be no summer stock and the matter wouldn't have arisen.”