"It's Anastasia again."
The door opened, and Gertrustein peered out. "Anastasia Again? It looks like Anastasia Krupnik to me! Hah!" The "hah" was a hiccuppy sort of laugh, which was more of a laugh than her dumb joke deserved, Anastasia thought.
"I brought you something. A goldfish."
Gertrustein looked at the goldfish and the goldfish bowl for a moment. Then she nodded and invited Anastasia inside. That was a relief. Anastasia had thought that she would have to
explain
about the goldfish. I guess when you get old, she thought, you get over being surprised by stuff. So when someone brings you a goldfish, you don't even ask why.
They put the goldfish bowl on a table in the living room next to a plastic vase of artificial flowers. Gertrustein leaned close to the bowl and watched intently as the fish swam in circles, flipping his tail. The little diver stood on the bottom of the bowl, tilted slightly, wearing his huge plastic helmet.
Suddenly Gertrustein began to laugh. Anastasia thought that was rude, to begin to laugh at a gift before you had even said thank you.
"What are you going to name your goldfish?" asked Anastasia politely, pretending not to notice that Gertrustein was laughing.
But she just laughed harder.
"My goldfish is named Frank," said Anastasia. "I don't know if yours is male or female, though."
Gertrustein looked at her, still chuckling. "It's male, of course. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. I'll name him Mr. Stein. He looks exactly like my husband. The same popeyes."
Anastasia glanced around the room for signs of a husband. At her house, there were always pipes lying in ashtrays or size-twelve sneakers in a corner. But there was no indication of a Mr. Stein.
"Where
is
your husband?" she asked.
"Oh, goodness. I haven't any idea. He's been gone for
forty years. He ran off with a lady mandolin player who wore bright blue shoes."
"Well," said Anastasia uneasily, "I'm very sorry he did that."
But Gertrustein was laughing again. "Oh, don't be. He looked like a goldfish, although I never realized it until this afternoon. I was
glad
when he ran off. I never should have married him."
"Why did you, then?"
"I was a spinster. Do you know what a spinster is?"
"Yeah. I think I'm going to be one, because I'm so tall, and everything. Boys don't like me, except one boy, and I don't like
him.
"
"Nonsense. Give yourself time. How old are you?"
"Twelve."
"Well, I was over
thirty,
and not married. Lived right in this house, the same house where I had been born. Lived here all alone because my parents were both dead by then. And along came Mr. Stein one day, selling cookware door to door..."
"Did you buy any?"
"Bought the whole batch. Still have it. It outlasted Mr. Stein."
"Excuse me, but why do you call him Mr. Stein? My mother calls my father Myron."
Gertrustein began to laugh so hard that the sofa on which they were sitting wiggled.
"His name was Lloyd," she sputtered. "Lloyd Stein. But I'll have to tell you what happened on our wedding night..."
Good grief. Anastasia liked reading about people's wedding nights in
Cosmopolitan
magazine or in Gothic novels. But she certainly didn't want to hear about a
real persons
wedding night.
Gertrustein took a deep breath so that she would stop laughing. Then she said, "The night that we were married, Mr. Stein said to me, 'Gertrude, are you familiar with the word which is spelled L-L-A-M-A?' I thought for a moment, and then I said, 'Of course. Llama. It's an animal with a sad, smiling sort of face.'"
Anastasia nodded. It was the same way she would have described a llama.
"Then he said, 'Gertrude, your description is correct, but your pronunciation is wrong. When a word begins with a double L, the double L is pronounced as Y. Therefore the correct way to say
llama
is, in fact
yama,
don't you see? Very few people know that,' he said. 'Well,' I told him, 'I certainly never knew that.'"
"I didn't either," said Anastasia.
"Then he told me, 'So you can see, of course, that the correct pronunciation of
Lloyd
is, actually,
Yoyd.
I would prefer that you pronounce my name correctly, now that we are man and wife. Please call me Yoyd from now on.'"
"Good grief," said Anastasia, beginning to giggle.
"Good grief indeed. How on earth can you call someone
Yoyd?
I wanted to hit him over his silly, pompous, popeyed head with one of the aluminum saucepans that he had sold me. I didn't, of course. But you can see that it was somewhat fortunate that the mandolin player came
along. In three years I had never called him by name. He hated laughter. And I could never have said Yoyd without laughing. When I had to speak to him at all, I called him Mr. Stein."
"A magazine that I read a lot would call that a Brief and Unfortunate Marriage."
"Yes. It was certainly a Brief and Unfortunate Marriage."
"Did you ever look up
llama
in the dictionary? To see if maybe he was right?"
"Of course not. Of course he wasn't right. He was an idiot with goldfish eyes."
"Well, I'm sorry that you married him."
"Me too. But it was understandable, I guess. I was over thirty, after all, and all alone. I liked his aluminum cookware. And the man I loved had married someone else."
Now
that
was romantic and interesting.
"What was
his
name?"
Gertrustein looked a little bit sad. "Edward Evans. We had grown up together. As a matter of fact, Anastasia, Edward lived in your house, when he was a boy."
It was always hard to imagine old people being
young.
Anastasia looked for a long time at Gertrustein and just couldn't see even the smallest fragments of a young face. Sam had been right; she really did look like a witch.
"I don't mean to be rude or anything," Anastasia said, "but you know, Gertrustein, you really would look much nicer if you would fix your hair differently."
Gertrustein held up her hands. They were twisted and
misshapen. "It's all I can do to hold a hairbrush," she explained. "My arthritis is so bad."
"Well," said Anastasia, "tomorrow, when you take Sam for a walk, why don't you walk down past the drugstore? And buy some curlers, and when you come back,
I'll
fix your hair for you!"
Gertrustein thought about that, frowning. "All right," she said, finally. "We'll give it a try, now that there is a new Mr. Stein in the house."
In his bowl, the new Mr. Stein gazed out with bulging eyes, swished his tail, and swooped around the plastic diver. Anastasia, who was an expert on goldfish emotions, could tell that he was quite happy.
***
"Mom, I have something important to talk to you about."
"How do you like the curtains so far?"
One of the new curtains was hanging at one window. The others were still spread out on the kitchen table beside the sewing machine.
"Fine. They look pretty good. Can you stop sewing for a minute?"
"Sure. What's on your mind?"
Anastasia sat down on one of the kitchen chairs, opposite her mother, and wrapped her feet around the rungs. "This is sort of embarrassing," she said. "Promise you won't tell anyone."
"Okay. I promise."
"Well, I feel sort of weird about this. I'm sorry, but
there isn't any word except weird for it. But I think I'm going to have to marry Robert Giannini."
Anastasia had always thought that it was only in books that people's mouths fell open in surprise. But her mother's mouth fell open in surprise.
"Anastasia! That's
impossible!
How could that be? You're only twelve years old! You can't possibly..."
"Mom," Anastasia said impatiently. "I didn't mean
now.
I mean
years
from now, after I finish college. But I might as well start getting used to the idea now. And that's what makes me feel weird. Because I can't
stand
Robert Giannini. I had sort of decided that maybe I could learn to like him, because I do like him a little bit sometimes. But I was just talking to Gertrustein, and she was telling me how she married someone she couldn't stand, although she liked his aluminum cookware, but she never did learn to like him, because he wanted her to call him Yoyd, and then he ran off with a mandolin player, and..."
"Hold on. Hold everything. I very rarely want a beer in the middle of the afternoon. But suddenly I want a beer. Can I get you something?"
"Are there any Popsicles?"
Her mother came back from the refrigerator with a can of beer and a green Popsicle. Anastasia peeled off the paper and began to lick the Popsicle carefully.
"Now, for starters. Why do you think you're going to have to marry Robert Giannini in ten or fifteen years?"
"Because he loves me. And he's the only boy who ever has or ever will. Now don't feel bad about this, Mom, because it isn't your fault, but I
am
a sort of freak. In fifth grade I was the tallest girl in the class, but the boys were taller, most of them. But in sixth grade I was the tallest
person
in the class. There weren't any boys as tall as me, and I was even taller than the teacher. By the time I finish high school, I will probably be one of the world's tallest human beings. I also have the world's most hideous hair, in case you haven't noticed.
"Now for some reason Robert Giannini doesn't seem to mind what I look like. He's the only male in the world who will ever feel that way, so probably I'm lucky to have found him. The trouble is, I think
he's
revolting. I hate his squeaky voice. And I hate it that he carries a dumb briefcase everywhere. I can't
stand
it that he wears a SeaWorld tee shirt. But I have to figure out how to adjust to those things if I'm going to marry him, because I certainly don't want to have a Brief and Unfortunate Marriage, for pete's sake..."
"Whoa. You're going much too fast for me, Anastasia. Wait a minute." Her mother sipped at the beer and looked puzzled. "First of all, what makes you so sure you want to get married at all? Lots of women never do and are perfectly happy."
"Would you be?"
"No, I like being married. But that doesn't mean that
you
have to."
Anastasia sucked on her Popsicle and thought for a long time. She thought about the time that her mother had had the flu and her father had taken cups of tea to
her and sat beside her bed, not minding that he might catch the flu, too.
Then she thought about what it would be like to be in bed with the flu if there were no one to bring cups of tea and sit beside your bed. It made her feel lonely, just thinking about it.
Then she thought about the day that Sam was born, and her father took her mother to the hospital and stayed there with her while Sam was being born, and when he came home, he was so excited that he couldn't remember if the baby weighed eight pounds and four ounces or four pounds and eight ounces; and she and her father smoked cigars to celebrate, only hers was a chocolate cigar.
She thought about what it would be like to have a baby if you weren't married, and nobody stayed with you while the baby was being born and smoked a cigar afterward to celebrate. It made her feel lonely.
She thought about not ever having a baby at all. That made her feel even lonelier.
"I really do want to get married someday," she said, finally.
"Okay," said her mother. "First of all, then, about Robert. I've never met him, but I'll take your word for it that some things about him right now are revolting. But he's how old? Twelve?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I didn't know your dad when he was twelve. But I'll bet you anything he had a squeaky voice. Robert's voice will change. He'll grow taller. And I can guarantee
you that within the next year, his mother will be using the Sea World tee shirt as a cleaning rag. Do you know what I was using as a cleaning rag just this very morning?"
"What?"
"A pink tee shirt with ruffles on the neck and daisies embroidered on the sleeves."
"Oh,
gross.
I'd forgotten that shirt."
"Well, you loved it when you were eight or nine. People's tastes change. Robert's will, too."
"Yeah, probably he won't even like
me
after a while." Anastasia caught the last piece of green Popsicle just before it slid off the stick. She fired the empty stick into the wastebasket with a long, arching basketball shot.
Her mother laughed. "Well, maybe not. But other boys will."
"Hah," said Anastasia gloomily.
"Hah. Trust me. I promise you that will be true. Did you just hear something? I thought I heard a buzzer."
"The doorbell. It's the first time anyone has rung the doorbell since we moved in! I'll get it."
The boy at the front door was the same boy that Anastasia had seen mowing a lawn down the street. She had walked past him twice, trying to get up the nerve to say hi. Now he was standing right here on the front porch, looking at her. He was looking
down
at her, because he was a little taller than she, and he was wearing cut-off jeans and a rugby shirt. He looked a little like Luke Sky-walker. When he said hi, she noticed his voice was a little squeaky, like Robert's.
His voice will change, she thought happily.
"Hi," she said.
"My name's Steve Harvey. I live down the street, and I saw that you guys moved in, and I wondered if you wanted your lawn mowed. I've got my lawn mower right outside."
"Well, I'll ask my mother, but I'm absolutely certain she'll say yes. She was just saying this morning that the grass needed to be cut." What she had said, actually, at breakfast, was, "Myron, we have to buy a lawn mower and cut this grass."
"My name is Anastasia Krupnik," she added, before she went to get her mother.
"What grade are you in?"
"I'll be in seventh."
"Me too. You'll probably be in my homeroom because they do it alphabetically."
"Oh. Well, it'll be nice to know someone in my homeroom before I start school."