"I like to have something to do with my hands, too, while I'm thinking. Usually I knit. But I can see where peeling wallpaper would be okay, too." Her mother picked at a corner and pulled back a strip of the top layer. "What are you thinking about?"
One of the good things about Anastasia's mother was that she never laughed at you. Especially not at your problems. Anastasia always imagined Dear Abby bent double most of the day, laughing at people's problems and having to bite her tongue in order to keep a straight face while she wrote what sounded like a very serious answer.
But her mother was definitely not like that.
"I have a dumb problem," she said to her mother gloomily. "It's about Sam."
"About Sam? Has he been coloring in your notebook again? Or poking at Frank Goldfish? It's been at least six months since he's flushed anything down the toilet—I think the last time was my silver earrings, and that was just after Christmas..."
"No, no. It isn't anything that Sam has done. It's that ... well, you know how weird Sam is."
"Not weird, Anastasia. Unusual, maybe. Precocious."
Anastasia groaned. "Well, anyway, when we were still living in Cambridge before we moved, I was talking to Robert Giannini—who really is weird, by the way, I'm sorry, but there isn't any other word for Robert Giannini—and he asked me how my brother was. He's never seen Sam. And I was trying to describe Sam to Robert Giannini. And somehow, I haven't figured out how, I never will figure out how, Robert got the idea that Sam was deformed..."
"Deformed? Sam?"
"Yeah. It was because I was trying to explain how Sam grew at different rates, because that's what Dad told me, that his brain developed faster than some other parts of him. That's true, Mom. You know he talks like Einstein, but he still sucks his thumb and wears diapers..."
"Yes, but that's not deformed, Anastasia."
"I know that, and you know that. But for some reason Robert Giannini got the idea that poor old Sam is crippled..."
"Handicapped," corrected her mother.
"Okay, handicapped. And he started being very sad about it and telling me about his retarded cousin and asking if we had taken Sam to Children's Hospital and telling me about the March of Dimes..."
"Good grief."
"Mom, you know what? Robert Giannini was making premature assumptions."
"And you were letting him, Anastasia."
Anastasia sighed. "I know. But I don't know how it happened. And now, guess what."
"I'm not sure I want to guess what. You mean there's more?"
"Mom, Robert Giannini is going to ride his bike out here next Saturday."
Her mother groaned.
It was at this point, Anastasia was quite sure, that Dear Abby would take a deep breath in order to stop laughing and would write: "Dear Confused, It is very simple to solve this ridiculous problem. You must simply explain to your friend that it was a matter of poor communication, of misunderstanding, of premature assumptions. Tell him the truth about your brother. A real friend will understand."
But Anastasia's mother didn't say any of that. She didn't laugh. She just groaned.
"You want to hear a story about a terrible thing I did once?" she asked, looking embarrassed.
"Yeah." For some reason, when you had done something stupid, it always made you feel better to hear about stupid things that other people had done.
"Well, do you remember what my name was before I got married?"
"Sure. Katherine Klein."
"Well. When I was in art school, when I was oh, maybe nineteen, I had a terrific crush on a guy in one of my classes. One evening he asked me to go out and have a cup of coffee with him.
"Now, do you know that little framed print that's hanging in the hall, near the telephone? The one that's black and white, very abstract?"
"Sure. It looks like an ink blot. Like a psychiatrist would ask you what you see in it."
"Well, that's a copy of a painting by Franz Kline."
"Is he related to you?"
"No. That's the point. The name isn't even spelled the same. But Franz Kline was a very, very well-known expressionist painter. Now, we were all young art students, and we used to sit around talking for hours about painters. That's what this boy and I did that night. And somehow, in the course of the evening, he got the idea that I was Franz Kline's daughter."
"Mom! You didn't tell him that, did you?"
"Of course not. I just let him make the assumption. But I also didn't tell him that my father was Joseph Klein, insurance man, from Hartford, Connecticut. By the end of the evening, this boy thought that my home was in a loft in New York City, with my famous painter father."
"Good grief."
"Good grief is right. Because—as you know—there's a point at which you can say, 'Hey, no, you got it wrong.' But if you don't say it then, it gets harder and harder to say it, and you get in deeper and deeper."
"Did he ever find out the truth? Did he ever come visit you at your house?"
"No. He kept wanting to. He kept hinting that he wanted to, because of course he wanted to meet my father, or who he thought was my father. I kept making excuses."
"What happened?"
Anastasia's mother groaned, remembering. "Well, one thing that happened was that I flunked an important exam. Franz Kline died that year. It was in the New York Times, of course. So for two days I had to hide. I couldn't go to any classes—and missed an exam, so I got a failing grade—because of course I wanted this boy to think that I had gone home to the funeral and everything."
"That's terrible."
"Of course it's terrible. And it's something like your situation right now. What are you going to do when Robert comes next Saturday?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe we could talk Sam into lying in bed all day with a blanket over him."
"It's too hot. I already thought of that."
"I know."
"What?"
"Simple. Mrs. Stein and Sam really get along very well. I'll ask her if she can babysit on Saturday. Sam can go to her house for the day. But listen, Anastasia..."
"What?"
"Robert Giannini's not going to come visit often, is he?"
"No. Absolutely not. This is the last time. I can't stand him."
***
"Unfortunately," continued Anastasia in Chapter 2 of her novel, "just as the young girl began to live a new and well-adapted life, her past crimes began to catch up with her."
Then she crossed out the word crimes.
"...her past sins began to catch up with her," she wrote.
Then she crossed out the word sins and chewed on her pencil eraser.
Finally she wrote, "...her Past began to catch up with her, and to get tangled up with her Future."
10
"It's Anastasia again," Anastasia called, after she had rung Gertrustein's doorbell. "I've brought you something!"
"Hello there, Anastasia Again," said Gertrustein, when she opened the door. It was amazing how Gertrustein's disposition had changed in a short time. Anastasia remembered how grouchy she had been, the first time they had met. Now she answered the door cheerfully, always smiling.
It had to do with her hair, thought Anastasia. Now that her hair looked pretty, Gertrustein felt cheerful. Anastasia had noticed that she herself felt more cheerful now that she was washing her own hair twice a day with special shampoo for oily hair. She had been doing it ever since she had met Steve Harvey. The better her hair looked, the better she felt.
Now that was something worth sending into Psychology Today, instead of a dumb Giannini survey on joggers.
She would have to figure out, though, how people like her father figured into her theory. Her father was almost always cheerful even though he was bald.
"Hey, Mr. Stein is getting fat!" Anastasia peered into the goldfish bowl at the plump goldfish who stared back at her silently.
Gertrustein laughed. "I know. I think I'm feeding him too much. It's so nice to have someone to feed that I g
et carried away sometimes."
"Gertrustein," said Anastasia very seriously. "You absolutely have to make an effort to make some friends. You could invite friends over for dinner, or you could go to their house for dinner. It's not healthy to stay all shut up in your house, feeding too much to a goldfish."
But Gertrustein got a very stubborn look on her face. "I do not like people," she said, with dignity.
"Ridiculous. You're only pretending that because you're scared of them."
"What are you, some kind of social worker?"
"No. But I know what I'm talking about. Because look at me: when I moved here, I pretended that I wasn't going to like anyone in the suburbs. You know why? Because I was scared they wouldn't like me! And then I met you, and you like me ... you do like me, don't you?"
"Yes," said Gertrustein reluctantly.
"And then I met Steve, and Steve likes me, at least I think he does. And now I can't wait to meet more people. Steve's going to have a cookout at his house, and invite a lot of kids my age, and I'm really looking forward to it. It was all my imagination, that I didn't like people in the suburbs. And it's all your imagination, Gertrustein, and what you should do is..."
"You said you brought me something. What is it?" Gertrustein changed the subject.
"Oh, I almost forgot. Look!" Anastasia held up a piece of paper. "A gift certificate!"
Gertrustein took the paper and frowned at it.
"A lady came to the house," Anastasia explained, "to welcome my mother to town. She brought lots of free stuff that the town gives to new people. Two free passes to the movies—Steve and I are going to use those—and, let's see, my father gets a free oil change for the car at some gas station, and my mom gets a discount on a leg of lamb at the supermarket. We get dinner for four at some restaurant, if we go on a Tuesday night. And then there was this one, which Mom said I could give you, because she and I don't need it: a free permanent at the Clip 'n Curl Beauty Salon! If you get a permanent, your hair will look nice all the time, without my helping you put it in rollers."
Gertrustein looked dubious. "Well..." she said.
"Hah. I knew you'd say that. So I already called and made an appointment for you at the Clip 'n Curl. It's right next to the drugstore, close enough for you to walk, and your appointment is for ten o'clock Saturday morning."
"You're taking over my whole life, Anastasia Krupnik."
"No, I'm not. I'm just helping you get your life started. I'm sorry if it's rude to say this, Gertrustein, but I think your life ended when Mr. Stein—the man, not the goldfish—ran off with his mandolin player. And that was forty years ago!"
Gertrustein smiled suddenly. "You're right, Anastasia, but you're also wrong. My life ended when Edward Evans married the local nursery school teacher forty-seven years ago. Too late to start it up again now. But all right. I'll go and get a permanent at ten o'clock Saturday morning."
"Then you'll make new friends, and..."
"Hold on there. I will get a permanent. Then I will come home and feed my fish and watch TV. One thing at a time. I'm too old for any more changes."
"Good grief," said Anastasia suddenly. "I forgot something. Mom wanted you to babysit for Sam on Saturday. And it's really important. Maybe I should call and change that appointment..."
"No. Sam can come with me. I'll need the moral support."
The thought of someone who wears Pampers being moral support was a little startling to Anastasia, but it did seem to solve the problem.
And she was beginning to have another idea. Maybe it would be meddling in Gertrustein's life. On the other hand, she had already meddled in Gertrustein's life quite a bit, and it had seemed to work out okay. If this idea worked...
"I have to go someplace," she announced. "I'll see you later, Gertrustein."
She ran to the garage and wheeled out her bike.
***
Anastasia had already been to the small library. It was one of the first things she had done after they moved, finding the library and getting a library card.
In Cambridge, there had been a branch library not far from the Krupniks' apartment. Anastasia had been going to it since she was Sam's age: not by herself at that age, of course, but holding her mother's hand. Once, just before she moved, she had figured out that—if she had checked out eight books every week from the time she was two—she had taken more than four thousand books out of that library. That was a little puzzling, because the branch library was so small that she didn't think it had four thousand books. But her mother had pointed out that sometimes she took the same books over and over again.
In Cambridge, they knew her so well at the branch library that they called her Anastasia Again, the way Gertrustein was beginning to.
At this new library, they didn't know her at all, at least not yet, which was a little depressing. But they would. She had looked through their card catalogue and discovered they were missing some of her favorite books, so she was planning to write them a letter. One book that had been her favorite for years, in Cambridge, described all the symptoms of leprosy in great detail. She had checked it out regularly once every few months, just to be sure once again that she didn't have leprosy. Sometimes it was hard to tell, because one of the symptoms was itchy ear lobes. Every now and then Anastasia had itchy ear lobes. When she did, she always checked out the leprosy book so that she could read the other symptoms and be certain she didn't have them, too. Now that she lived in a town whose library didn't contain the leprosy book, she didn't know what she would do when her ear lobes itched. So she was going to mention that in her letter to the local library—politely, of course.
But right now she was headed, on her bike, for the building that she had noticed next door to the library. It was called the Senior Citizens Drop-in Center.
The door was open, and people looked up when she entered. It was probably pretty obvious, she realized, that she wasn't a Senior Citizen. Anastasia was not, in fact, a Senior Anything. She had dropped out of Girl Scouts as soon as she realized how awful she looked in a Girl Scout uniform, so she would never be a Senior Girl Scout. And she had given up on swimming lessons just after she passed Advanced Beginner, because it was such an effort not to sink. So she would never get her Senior Lifesaving badge.
Inside the door was a bulletin board, and Anastasia read announcements of painting classes, a trip to a flower show, a Great Books discussion group, lectures by a financial expert, and a course in gourmet cooking. There was also a notice of a lost cat named Boots, who was wearing a red flea collar; and there was a wedding announcement. The people who had gotten married were named Ida and Harry, so Anastasia knew that they were Senior Citizens. No one young was named Ida or Harry.
Most of the people in the Senior Citizens Drop-in Center had gray hair, except for one woman whose hair was bright orange and one man who had no hair at all. Some of them were playing cards, although they stopped when Anastasia came in and looked over at her, still holding their cards. "I said 'Four spades,'" one woman said, but the others didn't answer her. Two men were playing Ping-Pong, and they stopped, too, and looked at Anastasia. They were all pretty friendly looking, but they seemed surprised to see her there.
A young woman came out of the back room, saw Anastasia, and smiled.
"Hi there. I'm Fran McCormick, the director. Can I help you? Are you looking for someone?"
Anastasia introduced herself, and Fran McCormick shook her hand.
"I have a friend," said Anastasia, "who is a Senior Citizen."
"Oh? What's her name? I know everybody pretty well," said Fran McCormick.
"Well, her name is Gertru ... Gertrude Stein. But you wouldn't know her. She never goes out of her house except sometimes to take my little brother for a walk."
Everyone was listening. Even the card players had put their cards down, although the lady who had said "four spades" looked a little impatient. One of the Ping-Pong players suddenly hit the ball across the net, and it went past the other player, who wasn't payin
g attention. "Hah! Gotcha!" said the man who had hit the ball, smugly. Then he turned, too, to listen to Anastasia, and the little plastic ball rolled into a corner of the room.
Well. With so many people watching her now, Anastasia began to feel as if she was making a speech. She had never liked making speeches. When they had to give oral reports in school, she had never once gotten a grade better than a B-minus, because she became nervous and said "ah" too often.
"Well, ah, let me start over," she said, when she realized so many people were listening. "My friend Gertrude Stein lives next door to me, and she's a Senior Citizen. But she's lonely. She eats all by herself, so she only eats TV dinners, and except for me and my little brother, she doesn't have anyone to talk to, although she's interesting to talk to, and, ah, her goldfish is getting fat because she feeds him too much, and she does it just because it makes her feel good to feed somebody, even if it's only a goldfish..."
For a moment, Anastasia felt as if that had been a stupid thing to say. But then she noticed that the Senior Citizens were nodding, as if they understood. Probably some of them had goldfish, too.
"Well, why don't you send her down here to us?" asked the man who had hit the Ping-Pong ball.
"She wouldn't come. She'd be scared. Maybe it sounds stupid to be scared when you're all grown up, and even old, but..."
But they interrupted her, murmuring to each other and nodding again. They all seemed to understand about being scared, even if you were old.
"... and she pretends she's not scared, by being grouchy," Anastasia went on. They all nodded again.
"Let's send her an invitation to the square dance!" called out one of the card players.
"She'd throw it away. She'd say 'junk mail,' and throw it away," Anastasia explained.
"What do you suggest that we could do for her?" asked Fran McCormick.
"Well, since you're called a Drop-in Center," began Anastasia, "I thought maybe some of you could drop in on her. I could give you the address. It's not very far away."
But they all began shaking their heads.
"Not uninvited," said a tiny white-haired lady wearing a pink pants suit. "Really, that just isn't done. I wouldn't want anyone to drop in on me unexpectedly!"