The Summer Before Read online

  I tried to imagine the conversation in which I would ask my father if I could try baby-sitting. "Dad," I would say, "Kristy asked me something last night."

  My father would look at me and see his little girl with her braids (which I wore at his insistence, not because I thought they were fashionable), sitting across from him in one of the outfits he had chosen for her, and say, "Yes?" (My father never, ever said "yeah.") "What did she ask you? "

  "She asked me if I could baby-sit with her at the Pikes' house."

  At this point, my imagination ground to a halt. What I hoped my father would then say I was, "How wonderful. What a very grown-up offer. I'm sure the job will go just fine." But what I was pretty sure he would actually say was, "Mary Anne, that's out of the question. You're not old enough to baby-sit." Which was a lame argument for a lawyer to make, considering that Kristy and I were the same age.

  I sighed, rolled over, and looked at the framed pictures of Alice in Wonderland characters and Humpty Dumpty that adomed my walls. What I wished for on my walls instead - wished for mightily - were a poster of New York City, a poster of Paris at night, and, well, maybe a poster of a kitten.

  I peered at my clock. Dad had probably already left for work. I yawned and made my way downstairs to the kitchen. As I had suspected, Dad was gone. A note from him was on the table, propped against a glass. It read:

  Good moming, sleepyhead! Happy first day of summer vacation! Please do the following: 1. Check in with me at the office before 9:30 and any time you leave the house. 2. Eat breakfast, and be sure it includes fruit and milk. 3. Eat a proper lunch. 4. Run the washing machine. 5. Take the ground beef out of the freezer so we can have hamburgers for supper.

  Love, Dad

  PS. Have fun.

  I thought the PS. looked rather hastily written, as if the true meaning of summer vacation had just occurred to Dad. Then I picked up the phone to let him know I was awake and alive. After that, I checked the locks on all our doors to make certain no one could sneak up on me while I was in the bathroom or not paying attention. Then I ate a fruit-and-milk-inclusive breakfast, and finally I got around to my current favorite activity: searching through my mother's past.

  My father didn't know I was doing this. He didn't have a clue that I'd been in our attic and found the box belonging to my mother. As far as Dad was concemed, the attic was the perfect hiding place for things he didn't want me to see, because I was afraid of its dark comers and creepy, secretive noises. But one day in April when Dad had been at work and I'd been at home with a cold, I had braved the attic in search of a quilt and had come across a cardboard carton labeled ALMA, which was my mother's name. I had reached for it very cautiously, afraid it might harbor mice or spiders, and had brought it all the way back to my bedroom before I dared to open it. When I did, I found it, thankfully, to be both mouse- and spider-free and, more important, to be packed - tightly - with items that had belonged to my mother.

  There were things from her childhood and things from her adolescence and things from her college years and even things from when she was pregnant with me. Which was fascinating, since apart from the fact that my father blessed my mother during grace before dinner every evening, we rarely mentioned her. The box held clues to my mother, and I was eager to leam as much as I could. But I felt I had to do so without Dad knowing about it. In fact, I had mentioned the box only to Kristy and had shown it to no one.

  My favorite things in the box were my mother's dolls. There were four of them, and they were medium-size - bigger than Barbies, smaller than American Girls. They weren't fancy, they weren't antiques, and they weren't valuable, except to me. To me, they were four keys to Alma Baker Spier.

  I lined up the dolls on my bed and undressed them, thinking that I should make each one a new outfit. I wondered what kind of clothes my mother might have made for them when she was little. Before I had any ideas, I was interrupted by the doorbell. I ran down the stairs, dressed in capri pants, a blouse, and sandals (all chosen for me by Dad, of course), and peered through the front window. I was forever afraid I'd find a stranger at the door, but the person on the stoop was Kristy.

  "Hi!" I greeted her. Kristy looked considerably more casual than I did, but then she was allowed to choose her own clothes, and sometimes she even got to wear hand-me-downs from Sam and Charlie, which was very cool. She said nothing about my blouse or floral pants, though, just barged inside and said, "Did you ask your father yet?"

  "About baby-sitting? No. He left for work before I got up. I'm going to talk to him at dinner tonight."

  "Well... all right. I told Mrs. Pike I'd call her today. So make sure you talk to your dad at dinner."

  "I will. I promise."

  "So what are you doing?"

  "Come upstairs and see,"` I replied.

  There were the four nude dolls, their clothes in a pile on the pillow.

  "You're playing dolls?" said Kristy, wrinkling her nose.

  "No. Fashion designer. l'm going to make new outfits for them."

  Kristy immediately looked bored. "Let's go outside," she said.

  "Don't you want to know where the dolls came from?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, they don't look familiar to you, do they?"

  "I don't know," said Kristy in a way that suggested that all dolls looked pretty much the same to her. "I guess not."

  "They were my mother's," I informed her. "They were in the box."

  "Oh! " The dolls might not have held any interest for Kristy, but my mother did. Kristy sat on the edge of the bed and pulled one of the dolls toward her. "Your mother must really have liked these if she kept them until she was a grown-up and married and everything."

  "I think she was saving them for me."

  "She probably always hoped she would have a girl. She must have been really happy when you were bom."

  I smiled. "So come on. Let's get sewing. All their clothes are dingy from being in that box for so long."

  "Let's get sewing?!" exclaimed Kristy. She stopped just short of saying, "Are you crazy?"

  "Please?" I begged.

  "I don't know how to sew."

  "I'll teach you."

  "Can I look through the box instead? While you sew?"

  I sat down on the bed and glanced at the box, which was between Kristy and me. I pulled it into my lap. "I - no. I mean, the box is sort of private."

  Kristy blushed. "Sorry." Then she said, "I have an idea. What if we take the dolls over to Claudia's? Maybe she could give you some suggestions for their new clothes."

  I hesitated. "Well, maybe." I hadn't told Claudia about the box or the dolls. And nobody knew exactly how much time I spent looking through it. But none of that mattered. Claud was awfully creative and certainly more sophisticated than Kristy and I. Even if I didn't always like her outfits, I had to admit that they were fashionable.

  I looked at the dolls, at their old clothes, at my pink-and-white ensemble, at Kristy in her blue jean cutoffs and SHS VARSITY SOCCER T-shirt, which apparently had once belonged to Charlie, and suddenly I said, "Okay. Let's go! But I have to call Dad first."

  "When is he going to let go of that rule, I wonder," said Kristy. "You'd think his rules would change as you grow up."

  I sighed. "He still sees me as three years old... Well, maybe six."

  "Either way, it's a problem," said Kristy.

  I gathered up the dolls, then phoned Dad at his office and told him Kristy and Iwere going across the street. We had just stepped onto the front stoop, my arms laden with the dolls, when we heard a car door slam and saw Claudia about to climb into her family's station wagon, her grandmother Mimi at the wheel.

  "Wow, look at Claudia," said Kristy breathily.

  Claudia was wearing willowy black pants, cinched at the waist with a drawstring, and a boldly pattemed summer shirt with ties that she was adjusting around her midriff. Her midriff would have been bare, but Claud had slithered into a lacy black tank top before she'd put on the shirt. On her
feet were delicate silvery sandals, and her hair, which was loooooong and thick, was held away from her face with two silver combs.

  "Wow," I echoed. "I don't think the dolls should dress like that."

  Claudia saw us as she slid into the front seat and waved.

  "Where are you going?" Kristy called to her.

  "Art class!" Claud called back. "See you later."

  Kristy and I tumed around. "Now I have to call my dad again and tell him I'm home after all," I said, and Kristy made a sympathetic face.

  Late that aftemoon, the laundry done and supper underway, I decided to set the table in the dining room instead of the one in the kitchen. It couldn't hurt, I thought, to butter up Dad with a fancy dinner before I broached the subject of baby-sitting. I placed flowers on the table and found our good napkins and place mats.

  "What's all this?" asked Dad when he walked through the door.

  "I just thought we'd have a nice dinner," I said.

  "To celebrate vacation?"

  "Um, yes."

  "Well, this is lovely."

  "The food's all ready," I told him. "Hamburgers and salad and peas." The peas were from a can, but whatever.

  I waited until my father was almost done eating before I said, as planned, "Dad, Kristy asked me something last night."

  "Did she? What did she ask?"

  I drew in a slow breath. "She wanted to know if I could baby-sit at the Pikes' with her. Next week."

  My father put his fork down and rested it carefully near the edge of his plate. "She wants you to baby-sit?"

  "With her."

  "l/Iary Anne, no. You are not old enough to baby-sit."

  I was ready to pounce. "I'm the same age as Kristy and she baby-sits."

  Dad paused, but only momentarily. "Kristy's had more experience than you. She has a little brother."

  "But how am I going to get experience if I don't start somewhere? And who," I went on, determined to keep the conversation going, "better to start with than an experienced sitter? We'll be sitting together."

  "No," said my father. "And as for you and Kristy being the same age, that may be true, but there are degrees of maturity to be considered."

  I remained calm. "Are you saying I'm immature? Because my teachers always say that I'm very conscientious. And mature. Ma-ture. They said so on my last report card. The one I just got. Remember?"

  "Well, that's true. Your teachers have always found you to be responsible and reliable."

  "Those would be good traits for a sitter, don't you think?"

  Dad had to agree that a good baby-sitter would be responsible and reliable.

  "I'm going to be in seventh grade this fall," I pointed out. "Kristy sits and Claudia sits. Couldn't I try it, too?"

  Dad mulled this over while I sat on my hands, the picture of control and assurance. At last he said, "All right. You may baby-sit with Kristy provided that you're home by nine, that you check in with me every half hour..." On and on. Dad made up quite a few rules on the spot.

  But I didn't care. I had been given permission to baby-sit! I couldn't wait to call Kristy.

  The moming was gloomy and wet and windy. I never minded a day like that, though. That was because one of my favorite places in the world was my bedroom. In my room I could entertain myself for weeks, maybe months, if I had enough art supplies. And Nancy Drew books. And junk food. So the weather didn't bother me.

  It didn't bother my older sister, Janine, either. Janine the Genius cared only about her summer school classes - unlike most normal fifteen-year-olds, she was taking summer school classes voluntarily, because she liked them. I once heard her say, "School is my world, math feeds my soul." So as long as Mimi could drive Janine to the community college (yes, she was already taking classes at college), my sister was content.

  On that damp late-June Monday, Janine was happily at school and I was happily in front of the easel in my bedroom. A bag of M&M's lay open at my elbow. I was trying to concentrate on the painting I was working on for art class, but what was really on my mind was my birthday which was coming up in less than two weeks.

  I needed to plan my party. And I wanted to do it on my own, without outside interference - in other words, without suggestions from my parents. We were going to have very different ideas about my party this year. For the past I-don't-know-how-many birthdays, I'd held a sleepover party inviting Kristy, Mary Anne, and three or four other girls. I knew that was what my parents expected I would do this year, too. Mom and Dad were creatures of habit, and my dad frequently said, "lf it ain't broke, don't fix it." (To which Janine would reply "I suppose that sometimes it's acceptable for one to use ain't as the collo- quial contraction for is not...." Blah, blah, blah. Before she'd finished the sentence, I'd stopped listening.)

  Anyway, I had a different - very different - idea for my party this year. I was dreaming of a boy-girl pool party. We didn't have a pool, but our next-door neighbors the Goldmans did. (Why is it you say "Goldmans" and not "Goldmen"? Oh, well.) The Goldmans were very generous and frequently offered us the use of their pool. So I was hoping that they might allow me to have an aftemoon party in their backyard. That wasn't the main hurdle, though. The main hurdle, party-wise, was the idea of inviting boys. Not that the Goldmans would care. No, it was my parents, and probably Janine and Mimi, too, who would have something to say about boys.

  I could hear it already.

  Dad: But, Claudia, you're only eleven.

  My response to this would be that I was eleven now, but I was tuming twelve.

  Mom: But you've always had a sleepover.

  Me: I can't have sleepovers forever.

  (I would refrain from saying "You don't have sleepovers on your birthday.")

  Mimi: Are you certain this is what you want to do, my Claudia?

  (Mimi's objections were always gentler than anyone else's.)

  Janine: But I haven't even had a boy-girl party.

  (I would really have to hold my tongue here if I didn't want to spoil my chances of being given permission.)

  I was so different from everyone else in my family. I mean, I knew everyone was different. That was what grown-ups always said, usually to make you feel better about something, like the fact that you'd gotten another bad grade. "Well, everyone is different, Claudia. You have your art ...." (My guidance counselor said this as she scanned my most recent report card.) But I happened to think I was more different from the rest of my family than they were from each other.

  Mom and Dad and Mimi and Janine were all prim and proper and conservative and serious. And then there was me. I wore outfits that left them scratching their heads, and I sat in my room and painted or gave myself new hairstyles while they worked or studied. My supreme lack of concem over my grades was nearly unfathomable to them (as unfathomable to them as Janine's interest in grammar was to me).

  So my desire to have a boy-girl swim party instead of a girls-only sleepover was going to come as -well, maybe not as a shock, since, after all, my family had lived with me for nearly twelve years. But it was going to be met with resistance.

  I put down my paintbrush and picked up a pen. Resistance or not, I intended to invite boys to my party. I decided to make up the guest list. I could show it to my parents when I told them about the party, in order to demonstrate how much preparation I'd already done. They would see that I was serious.

  I found a pad of paper and headed it: GEUST list. Then I wrote BOYS on one side of the paper and GRILS on the other. Under BOYS I scribbled Pete, Rick, Howie, Kurt, Damell. Under GRILS I wrote Dori, Emily, Polly, Kristy, Mary Anne.

  I was just thinking how much younger Kristy and Mary Anne seemed than everyone else on the list when I heard voices downstairs, and then Mimi called to me, "Claudia? Kristy and Mary Anne are here."

  I had barely enough time to shove the list in the desk drawer before Kristy, who was fast on her feet, appeared in my doorway. Mary Anne was right behind her, and her arms were full of dolls.

  "Hi!" said Krist
y and Mary Anne in unison.

  "Hey," I replied.

  "What are you doing? " asked Kristy.

  I gestured to the canvas on my easel.

  Mary Anne dropped the dolls on my bed and leaned in for a look. "Ooh, Claudia, that's beautiful," she said.

  "Thanks," I replied modestly. I was rather proud of my current painting, which was for art class and was of an imaginary landscape.

  "Where is that?" asked Kristy, studying the little cabin that was taking shape beside a stream.

  "ln my head," I answered, and Kristy laughed.

  I glanced at my bed. Four nude dolls now lay on it. "Um..." I couldn't think how to phrase my question. What I wanted to say was "What are those?" But I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Still, here we were, nipping at the heels of twelve, and Mary Anne had just brought four dolls into my room. Finally I said cautiously, pointing to the dolls, "I haven't seen those before."