Steph grabs a bundle of letters tied with pink ribbon and kisses them before holding them to her chest. “I’m in love with Nigel.”
“Nigel lives in England,” I remind her. “You’ve never even met him. He’s just your pen pal.”
“I know that. But we share our deepest secrets in our letters. We have a real bond.”
After I think about it for a minute, I decide it’s kind of smart to pick someone to love who lives all the way across the ocean. I mean, that way you’re in complete control of when you talk to him, and you only have to see him when you pick up his picture. It sounds pretty painless all the way around. I wish I’d signed up for the pen pal program at school the year before. But since I don’t have a pen pal, I have to choose someone I actually know.
We hear a lawnmower sputter to life. I walk to the window and peek through the blinds. Robert Taylor is mowing old Mrs. Kraft’s yard across the street. His t-shirt’s already off, and his brown shoulders are shiny with sweat. My heart does a little flip in my chest.
Maybe I’m already in love.
I know for sure I love the way Robert looks. His brown hair is streaked kind of blond in some places from working outside all summer. His tan makes his eyes shine like clear blue water, and his smile is big and bright. Yes, I love the way Robert looks, for sure. That’s a good enough place to start. Except that he’s a couple of years older than me.
“Okay,” I sigh. “Robert.”
“Robert Taylor?” Stephanie looks really surprised. She stands beside me and opens the blinds to look out at the street. “Hmm. Good choice, Mel.” She considers a little longer, then turns around and rests her hands on her hips. “Very good.”
Robert Taylor is almost sixteen and drives a motor scooter with sparkly blue paint. That makes him a little dangerous. All the other older boys drive jalopies they pretend are hot rods.
Not Robert. He zips around on his motorbike and mows lawns. On the days he does yard work, I ride my bicycle up and down the street so I can watch him. After he cuts a few swipes in a front yard, he’ll take off his white t-shirt and stuff it in the waistband of his jeans.
“Robert’s shoulders are so brown, his skin looks like a chocolate malt.” I didn’t think anyone but Steph could hear me, but Cherie came into the room making a big deal of licking her lips.
“Mmm, I’ll bet he tastes as good as a chocolate malt, too.” I think she just saw an old Marilyn Monroe movie because she puckers her mouth and nearly closes her eyes while pushing her boobies together with her arms. All of the drive-ins play those movies nonstop since Marilyn committed suicide a couple of weeks ago.
But Cherie made me think. How does a boy taste? How does Robert taste? Sweet, like chocolate malt, or salty and hot, like he looks right now as he mows the lawn? Thinking like that makes me want to touch my tongue to my arm and see what skin tastes like.
Of course, I don’t. Not in front of Steph and Cherie. Maybe later.
Deep inside, I know I only have a crush on Robert. Stephanie thinks love is just giggles and fun. Mama told me about real love, like when she met Daddy. And I’ve seen what it looks like, too. Like when Daddy stretches his arms around Mama’s big belly and holds her tight in his arms.
In the afternoon, we walk down to the corner store to get a Coke and look at the magazines. Stephanie’s hair is set on gigantic curlers, and she has one of her mom’s scarves tied around it. For some reason, that’s supposed to make it look okay to go out in public. When you see a woman with her hair like that, you know she’s going somewhere. Stephanie’s going to the movies with Cherie tonight. I’m not going anywhere, so my hair is in a ponytail, like always.
At the store, I take my Coke bottle and lean against the paperback bookrack and pick up the book I’d started reading the last time we were in the store. I go right to page fourteen, where I’d left off. The girl was just about to go in the office to see her boss about the big mess she’d made of some project she was working on. I wanted to get to the big kiss, the one on the cover of the book. I do like to read about love.
Stephanie sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the movie magazines and reads about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. She keeps flipping the pages back to the picture of Elizabeth Taylor dressed up like Cleopatra.
“Hellfire, look who’s coming in,” Stephanie whispers around the big wad of bubblegum in her mouth.
I just got to the good part, so I don’t even look up. “Who?”
“Oh, my God, he’s coming over here.” Steph sounds panicked. The curlers in her hair clack together as she stands up. “Sheesh!” She slips off toward the employee’s bathroom.
I don’t want to stop reading yet, and besides, she’ll be back in a minute. Whoever’s coming to find Steph can just wait.
“Hi, Mellie.”
That voice. It’s cool and thick, like ice cream in a bowl on a summer afternoon. Rich, like chocolate ice cream melting slowly from the heat.
I look up and see the tight white t-shirt. A shaky feeling rips through me, and my hands go all cold and clammy.
“Hey, Robert.” My voice hardly wavers at all. I can be cool.
I hope.
“Your mom wants me to give you a ride home. She needs you.”
“What’s wrong with Mama? It’s too early for the baby to come!”
“Slow down.” Robert sees I’m getting upset. “Nothing’s wrong with your mom. Birdie fell off her skates and hurt her arm.”
A big sigh of relief whooshes out of me, leaving my lungs feeling collapsed. “That’s all?”
“Melanie, your dad’s on his way home. They’re taking Birdie to the hospital.”
Now I feel scared again. “Really? She’s hurt that bad?”
“Let’s go. You can see for yourself.” Robert takes my hand and leads me out the door to his motor scooter.
Oh, my gosh, Robert’s holding my hand. I have to look down at our hands joined together to be sure it’s really happening. It’s not like
romantic
handholding, but gee, this is the first time a boy’s ever held my hand when nobody told him to. Where the heck is Stephanie? She’s got to see this.
Outside the store, Robert puts his extra helmet on my head, smashing my ponytail. The helmet is too big, and he pushes it back out of my eyes before snapping the strap on the side.
Thoughts whiz around in my brain as fast as the electrons and protons they showed us on the filmstrip in science class. Finally, I manage to say, “Why didn’t Mama send Caroline?”
Caroline is Robert’s older sister. She baby-sits for Birdie and me. Not that I need a babysitter anymore. And actually, I’m glad Robert is here. Glad in a breathless, heart-stopping kind of way.
“Caroline is working at Woolworth’s.” Robert throws his leg over the saddle seat on the scooter and pats the shiny plastic behind him. “Get on, squirt. I won’t bite.”
I climb on. Damn, where is Stephanie? She won’t believe this. The scooter roars to life, sending vibrations from my butt to the top of my head. I look back and see Stephanie’s face plastered to the dirty window of the store, right between the Winston and Marlboro signs. Her mouth is hanging open in shock.
When Robert tugs my arms around his waist, my mouth drops open to match Steph’s.
So many sensations sweep over me I can’t sort them out. I try to be like a sponge and soak them all up so I can think about them later. I want to remember what Robert’s hands feel like on mine, what his back feels like against my chest. Are my breasts even big enough for him to feel them against his back? I stare at his neck for a long minute to memorize the way his hair grows and the pattern of the four freckles behind his right ear. Then my nose bumps into his shoulder blade and all I can smell is white.
I know you can’t really smell a color, but some things do smell white or red or blue or brown. White smells like bleach, sunshine, baby powder or fresh milk. A scent so clean and bright that it makes you feel good, and makes everything seem right. That’s what Robert smells like.
I really hate that Birdie is hurt. But, riding with Robert is about the best thing that’s happened all summer. I make a promise to myself to be extra nice to her for a while.
When we get home, Daddy is carrying her out the front door with Mama rushing out behind them. She slams the door. Birdie whimpers. She has a bag of frozen peas tied around her arm with a dishtowel. I know she’s really hurt because she’s so quiet. I feel terrible. I slide off the motorbike and suddenly all of those wonderful feelings I experienced on the ride home vanish. I tug off Robert’s helmet and hand it to him before I rush toward the car, biting my lip to keep from crying. This is the first time any of us has been hurt bad enough to go to the hospital.
All of the awful things I’ve ever said or done to Birdie seem to sink to my stomach, making it heavy and sick.
“Mellie.” Mama puts both her hands on my cheeks and kisses my forehead. “You stay here, okay? Robert’s mother said you could have dinner with them if we’re very late. Mind your manners, you hear?”
NORAH
Birdie whimpers in the back seat and my heart just breaks. I wish I could climb into the back seat with her, but my baby belly is just too big. Poor darlin’. “I know it must hurt, sweetheart. We’ll be there soon and they’ll make you feel better.”
“Mama, I don’t want a shot.”
I glance at Clay. His cheek twitches with a half smile. “Sugar,” he says, “we don’t know what the doctors will do. But they might have to give you a shot.”
Birdie wails.
I mutter, “Now you’ve done it.”
Clay cuts a hard look at me. “What? They may have to give her a shot. She needs to prepare for it.”
Birdie wails again.
I rub my temples against a building headache. It’s so hot, I can barely breathe. “But you could have let the doctors tell her. She wouldn’t be screaming now.”
He reaches over and pats my hand. I’m surprised by how much I want to pull away from him. But then he’d ask what’s wrong, and I’d have to try to explain something I don’t even understand myself.
Clay tries to make me feel better. He tries to understand. But he just doesn’t know what it’s like for me.
Like today. I let Birdie do something so ordinary—roller skate in our own driveway—and I still can’t keep her safe.
And poor Mellie. I think she was about to cry. But Clay said it would be boring for her at the hospital.
I know he’s right. She would have been bored. But I think I would’ve wanted to be with my family when something like this happened. “We should have brought Mellie with us.”
“Why?”
“She’ll be worried.”
“Yes, and she would be worried at the hospital, too. She’s a big girl.”
I glare at Clay. “Yes, she’s a big girl, and we left her alone with a big boy.” Doesn’t he remember what it was like when we were young and left alone? For all his talk about letting Mellie grow up, he doesn’t realize that she’s grown-up enough to get into trouble. Trouble that we don’t even want to think about just now.
Clay laughs. “You’re worried about Robert? I’m sure he’s already taken off again on his motorscooter. She’ll be fine, Norah.”
How does he know that?
At least I locked the door. I don’t have to worry about Mellie and that boy being alone together in the house.
It seems like nothing will be fine, ever again. It must be the hormones making me antsy like this. But then, talking to that crazy Rachel Winston next door doesn’t help any.
Her husband’s a Navy pilot and I have no idea why they live in our neighborhood. They can afford a better house than they have, or even live on base like most of the pilots. The gossips—who I try not to listen to, but sometimes the gossip just rings true—say Bob Winston doesn’t want his wife living on base because there are too many men around. They also say he has alimony to pay to his first wife, so there’s not that much left over for a nicer house. But Rachel doesn’t do without anything that I can see.
She drives a Thunderbird that’s just a year old, she gets that prissy poodle groomed regularly, and her hair and nails are always done. I’m sure she doesn’t do any of that herself. The beauty shop must love her.
I don’t care about any of those things. I really don’t. But when she says stuff like, “
What a shame your poor baby won’t grow up,”
and “
I won’t have children in a world that’s on the edge of nuclear war,”
what can I think but that she’s crazy?
Except I have my own niggling doubts. After all, her husband is flying a lot of missions, so she probably knows things we civilians don’t. And the newspaper is full of stories about Khrushchev and the Russians.
I rub my temples again and let out a big breath. Birdie has finally quieted down.
Clay squeezes my hand. “It’ll be okay, honey. I promise.”
I wish he could make everything okay.
He pulls into the hospital parking area and takes a ticket from the parking attendant.
I turn in my seat and reach back to touch Birdie’s knee. “We’re here, sweetie.”
She whimpers. “I don’t want a shot, Mama.”
MELANIE