The Future Homemakers of America. Laurie Graham

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      We had such a day. Never got to Cromer ’cause Ed had decided that would have took us too deep into Indian country. He said Betty was allowed to go to Hunstanton, so that’s where we went. I had lost the will to argue. Same stretch of water, far as I could make out. Audrey was navigating.

      I asked Kath if she minded about Cromer. She said she didn’t, and she sure didn’t look like a disappointed woman. Got her head tied up in a scarf Lois gave her, to cover where the permanent had gone a little wild, and she was wearing a pair a peep-toe sandals, bought with her beet-hoeing money.

      We got buckets and spades soon as we arrived, and Crystal ran on to the sands, started right in digging. She said she was building an air base for Sandie.

      It was a wide, wide shore. Kath asked a man selling newspapers where was the water and he said the tide was out, gave her a withering look. So we spread our blankets up against the sea wall and waited.

      Crystal was getting unwanted help from Sandie, trampling across the nice runways she had made.

      I said, ‘I thought you said it was for her?’

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘She’s too young for an air base. She’ll just wreck it.’

      So Gayle tried to distract Sandie and get the Gillis girls playing in the sand too, helping her to build Fort Jackson, but they were too busy torturing their dollies and calling them bad names. Deana banged Sherry’s doll against the wall in a blind fury. Then she bit its face and threw it back at Sherry.

      Betty was a little way off from us, laying out the picnic, all nice and dainty. ‘Play gentle, now,’ she kept calling.

      Kath was watching them. She said to me, ‘I suppose they play so nasty ’cause of what they’ve seen at home. They’ll have seen her getting a few weltings.’

      In some respects, Kath was ahead of her time.

      

      We had cold chicken and meatloaf sandwiches. Welch’s Grape Juice to help it down and Lois and Gayle never travelled far without some hard liquor. There was some kinda puppet show just along the sands, and Audrey and Kath and Gayle took the girls along there, give us five minutes’ peace. We could hear Crystal and Sandie squealing at the puppets from where we sat. Betty was tidying away the picnic. Lois was stretched out alongside of me.

      I said, ‘How’re you doing there, red-haired momma? You glad you come along?’

      ‘Yeah,’ she said. She still sounded kinda weary. ‘Sooner I drop this brat, the sooner I’ll be my sweet old self.’

      I said, ‘I can’t hardly wait.’ I looked her in the eye. I said, ‘Herb happy? About the baby?’

      ‘Herb’s always happy,’ she said, making herself a pillow out of sweaters.

      I said, ‘Then you’re a lucky woman.’

      She missed a beat. Then she propped herself up on her elbow. ‘Meaning?’ she said.

      I hadn’t realised till then how a thought, once you have thought it, can never be laid to rest. It may lay low, but any time it can pop right up again, put certain words in your mouth. ‘Meaning nothing,’ I said, but I was blushing at what I had remembered, and she saw.

      ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Anyway, four weeks and I’m outta here.’ She was going back to Astoria, Queens, staying with her cousin Irene till her time come. ‘Back to the world, Peg!’ she said. ‘Root-beer floats, yellow cabs, the Coney Island Steeple Chase…’

      I said, ‘You are going on a ride in your condition?’

      ‘Well…no,’ she said.

      I said, ‘And I thought Irene had roaches?’

      ‘Okay, roaches,’ she said. ‘But what about egg creams? I bid vanilla egg creams against roaches.’

      I said, ‘I guess there’s no point mentioning crime, vermin and high humidity?’

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘’Cause I’ll just come right back at you with hot corned beef and Radio City Music Hall.’

      I said, ‘It must be real hard to drag yourself away from us.’

      She was quiet. I could see the gang coming back from the puppet show.

      Kath and Gayle were showing off, seeing who could walk on their hands the longest time. That was something I never could get the hang of.

      ‘Well, I’m gonna miss you, Lo,’ I said, after a time.

      She turned away from me, but she grabbed my hand and took it with her. ‘Gonna miss you too,’ she said. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said Lois Moon had a tear in her eye.

      

      Somebody sighted the sea about two in the afternoon. It was just a strip of silver, far across the sands, but we set off to get a closer look at it. Betty stayed behind with her knitting and Lois was asleep. Kath carried Sandie on her shoulders.

      ‘Lois’ll have her work cut out,’ she said, ‘after that little baby comes along. I could give her a hand. When I’m not at the singling, I could push that little baby out in its pram, sit this one on the top. Give her five minutes.’

      I said, ‘She won’t be here, Kath. She’s going back Stateside to have her baby. Then the boys’ll get orders, some time in the fall, and we’ll be gone too.’ I heard my words fall, ruining her plans.

      ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘that’s right. I remember that, now.’

      Audrey was first to the water’s edge.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I was looking for the rocky shore that beats back the envious siege of watery Neptune? Is that anywhere hereabouts?’ Miss Scholastic Quiz Kid.

      That North Sea Ocean or whatever it was called was just creeping across the sand like it could hardly be bothered.

      ‘Is that it, then?’ Kath said. ‘That’s nothing much, is it? The way Harold Jex spoke, I thought that’d be something worth seeing.’

      The lagoon at Matagorda was the only thing I had to measure it by, but Audrey said it was a real apology for a shoreline. Still, I liked the smell of it. I liked the cool wet sand under my feet. Crystal was fascinated with some little squiggly lines she found. Audrey said they were worm-casts. Then Gayle showed Sherry how to walk on her hands, so Crystal had to have a go at that too. Kath held her legs in the air, till she found her balance, then she was off, her and Sherry giggling at what we looked like upside down.

      Kath said to Deana, ‘You want a try?’

      Deana said, ‘No. We’re not allowed. And if Sherry gets sick, then there’ll be trouble.’

      There was a band playing on the promenade and a little carousel we all rode on, and a stand selling crab claws. We just had so much fun. Looking back, years later, I realised that day was the last time ever we were together, all six of us.

      Lois СКАЧАТЬ