Authors: Lila Perl
Mrs. Waite's eyes narrowed. “Oh, I see. Then you're on some kind of health-food diet? So that's why you're so slim. Well, my dear, I do admire your figure. Still, a person's got to have a cooked meal once in a while. . . .”
“Not really,” Inez broke in. “I don't think you'll find any scientific evidence to support that idea.”
“Well, I'd go on your diet in a minute if I thought it would really help my weight problem. But,” Mrs. Waite said playfully, “I don't think you're telling me the whole
story. I've seen you out on that bicycle of yours, my dear, bringing home the groceries and so forth.”
“Oh, have you?”
“Yes. But I suppose that's only temporary. Just until you get a car.”
Inez shook her head. “No. The truck works out very well for general transportation and for hauling Drew's . . . stuff. I think we'll hang on to it.”
I stifled a gasp. It was clear that Mom was heading for an all-out war with Mrs. Waite. And I couldn't do a single thing to stop her.
“Hang on to the truck?” Mrs. Waite asked.
“Um-hmmm,” Inez nodded.
“That garbage truck?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“Oh, well really. I . . . I must go.” Mrs. Waite's eyes scanned the living room. “I hope you get settled soon. Be sure to let me know if there's anything I can do. I'm always very busy. But still I try to be a good neighbor.”
“You know,” she said, shifting the red stewpot from one arm to the other, “it's funny, come to think of it. The people who've lived in this house have always been so . . . so different. Take Madame Cecilia, for example, the former tenant here. I tried to be a good neighbor to her, too. I often came over to bring her some of my good cookingâand I must say she
always
appreciated that. Of course, I didn't believe any of that spiritualist nonsense of hers. In
fact, I think it may have unsettled her mind in the end. She began to make some very odd friends, you know.”
Inez looked blank. “Oh?”
“Yes. She even took them in to live with her, here in this house. That's going a bit far, don't you think?”
“I really couldn't say. I don't know anything about it.”
“That's true. You don't. By the way, I understand you're painting the bedroom. Is it Madame Cecilia's room, the master bedroom, the one she always used? Because I just loved the color scheme in thereâthose cornflower-blue walls with those royal-blue velvet drapes. . . .”
“Yes, it's that room I'm painting,” Inez said.
“I suppose you're changing it to suit your own taste, yours and the professor's. But let me say this. If you should need any advice, any advice at all about decorating, I've got this marvelous decorator. . . .”
Mrs. Waite was really going too far this time. Didn't she ever know when to stop?
“I've already decided on the color scheme for that room,” Inez said impatiently. “It's going to be black and white.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Oh dear, that sounds very . . . how would you put it . . . artistic? I'm afraid I can't picture it at all.”
“It's, ah . . . different,” I put in hastily.
“Yes,” Mrs. Waite said, “I quite agree. Well, each to his own, I always say.” She went to the door very quickly,
calling out over her shoulder in a voice of mock cheeriness, “Good-bye now, I hope you're going to like it here.”
The moment Mrs. Waite was out the door, Mom scampered upstairs without a word. She must have gone right back on the stepladder, picked up her paint brush, and started work. I had followed much more slowly and when I came to the door of the bedroom I just stood in the doorway, looking around and trying to imagine the expression on Mrs. Waite's face if she'd been standing there beside me.
Madame Cecilia's cornflower-blue walls had been painted a dead chalky white by Inez. But since there were big cracks and other uneven places in the plaster, Inez had hit on the ingenious idea of painting big fat squirming black arrows up the walls. Some of the arrows were thicker and wigglier than others. But they all pointed upward from the floor to the ceiling and ended with their tips touching the ceiling.
Right now, Inez was painting the ceiling itself.
“Do you really have to paint it that color?” I asked.
“Black's not a color,” Inez said, without looking at me.
It was true all right. Inez was painting the bedroom ceiling black. Jet black. At first I'd thought her whole idea of painting the room was fun. Now I wasn't so sure.
“I don't think we made a very good impression on Mrs. Waite,” I commented.
“I don't think she made a very good impression on us,” Inez said, in an expressionless voice.
“She'd really think we were crazy if she could see this room.”
Inez merely grunted.
“Well, don't you think it's sort of creepy? I mean, those squirming black arrows all around and that solid black ceiling.”
Inez turned and stared at me in some surprise. “Oh come on, Sara. Where is it written that all bedrooms must be painted cornflower-blue?”
“Well, not cornflower-blue exactly. But isn't there something elseâsomething in between? Oh,
you
know what I mean.”
“Black's just right for a bedroom ceiling,” Inez crooned softly as she slapped on another brushful of paint. “Couldn't be more appropriate. âAs black as a night without moon or stars; as black as a dreamless sleep.' ”
I gave up and went back downstairs. There was no point in trying to talk to Inez when she got into one of her poetic moods.
Along about suppertime, Glenda phoned me. She sounded all excited.
“Listen, Sara, I had to wait until 4:30 to see my grade adviser. And I can't get my program changed until next week. They have to find a different French class
for me. So I
still
can't have lunch with you. Isn't that disgusting!”
I didn't answer. Everything that had happened in the cafeteria came back in a rush.
“There is one good thing, though,” Glenda went on. “Mary Lou Blenheim was in the office when I was there. She was getting permission to go home for lunch for the rest of the term. At least now you won't have to eat with
her
anymore.”
“I guess you heard what happened to Mary Lou today,” I said.
Glenda snickered. “Oh, sure. Everybody around school was talking about it.”
“Well,
I
think it was awful, don't you?”
“Oh, yes. Of course, I didn't see it. But it must have been terrible when it happened. Those two raw chicken feet lying there on that slice of bread. Were you right next to her when she opened the sandwich?”
“Of course. Glenda,” I said, slowly, “who do you think could have done it?” The suspicion that had come to my mind as I was leaving the cafeteria was really beginning to nag at me now.
There was a pause at the other end.
“Who knows? Anybody.” Glenda lowered her voice and quickly changed the subject. “By the way, Sara, my mother told me she was over at your place this afternoon. What happened?”
“What do you mean âwhat happened?' She brought over some beef stew. It looks good. In fact, I'm going to have it for dinner.”
“No. Other things. About some things your Mom said.”
“Like what?”
Glenda was whispering. “It's hard for me to talk right now.”
“Oh, well in that case I'd like to ask you about some things
your
Mom said.”
“Like what?”
“Like about the lamp that got broken over at your house on Friday,” I said, more than slightly irritated. “Did you tell her I was to blame?”
“Oh Sara. Never! What made you think that?”
“Well, I know I
was
in a way. If I hadn't tripped you by accident. . .”
“Uh-uh. I told her it was all my fault. I honestly did. In fact, I'm giving up three weeks of my allowance money to pay for having that lamp fixed. Sara, what kind of a friend do you think I am?”
That was a good question. What kind of friend was Glenda anyway? A jealous friend? A possessive friend? A sneaky friend? Or really a good friend?
“But you still didn't say what you told your mother about
how
it happened?”
“Oh . . .” Her voice dropped. “Like this . . . I was
showing you around the house and my arm accidentally brushed something off the table and then when I bent down to get it . . . you know.”
“But why, Glenda? I know you said you weren't supposed to open the front door without looking, but you could have said you did look first and it was this boy you knew. I mean, it really was this kid Roddy's fault, so why should you take the blame for him?”
“Look Sara,” Glenda said indignantly, “I don't squeal on people. Even on people like that. So forget it. It's okay. Really.”
Funny. That was exactly what Mary Lou had called Glendaâa squealer.
I was anxious to know what Glenda meant about “some things” my mother had said to her mother. But we didn't have a chance to talk about that until Wednesday afternoon after school.
We were sitting on the front steps of our house. Glenda leaned confidentially toward me and said, “Well, when Mom came back from your house yesterday, I could tell her feelings were hurt.”
“About what?”
“The beef stew she brought over. It seems your Mom told her right off that she and your Pop wouldn't be eating it.”
“I know. But I ate it and it was great. I'll be sure to
tell your Mom and thank her.”
“Oh, she'll like that,” Glenda said absently. “Another thing, though. She said your Mom acted kind of snippy. Did she?”
I sighed. “Well, Inez is like that sometimes. She doesn't mean anything by it. I guess she got upset because your Mom criticized a lot of things. Not directly. But in a sort of roundabout way. And I could tell it was annoying my Mom.”
“Like what things?”
“Oh you know. The way the house is fixed up inside, the junk my Pop collects for his sculpture, the garbage truck. Your Mom even thought my Pop was in the junk-collecting business to make extra money because he wasn't getting paid enough at the college!” We both spluttered into laughter at that one. “She said it when my Mom was out of the room, but I know Inez heard it.”
Glenda was shaking her head. “I guess maybe they won't be friends,” she nudged me with her shoulder, “like us.”
“I guess they won't.”
“Well, don't worry about it, Sara. Your family may be different, but I like the way you call your Mom and Dad by their first names. And it really must be adventurous, sleeping on mats on the floor and all that. Almost like camping out, instead of having everything so stiff and . . . and arranged. Like we do.”
I sat there thinking over what Glenda had just said. I suppose she meant it. But she didn't have to live in my house.
“Camping out and all that is fine,” I said. “But there comes a time, for me anyway, when I want to go
home
. So I'll be happy to change places with you any day, Glenda. You can come and live in my house and eat raw food and sit on the floor. And I'll go over to your place and take my chances on breaking lamps. Just think, if I were there I could be stuffing myself with chocolate cake made from secret recipes, beef stew, fried chicken, barbecued spare-ribs, and cherry-cheesecake ice cream!”
“That does it,” Glenda exclaimed. “I'm getting hungry. It's nearly suppertime anyway so why don't we go over to my house and cook M-burgers. I'm dying to try them.”
“Will it be okay?” I felt odd about going over there now that Glenda's mother was so upset about us Mayberrys. “I mean, with your mother not liking us very much.”
“Oh no,” Glenda said. “She likes
you
very much. Know what she said about you last night?”
“No. What?”
“She said you seemed so nice and normal she wonders what you're doing in that family.”
Oh no, I groaned inwardly to myself.
“That sounds like Mrs. Hinkle,” I said to Glenda.
“Who's Mrs. Hinkle?”
“Oh, just a lady. Well, our landlady in California if you want to know. She lives about three thousand miles away. But she and your Mom must have mental telepathy. Or something.”
P.S. I guess you're wondering what Glenda and I finally decided on for M-burgers
.
Mozzarella-burger That's the Italian cheese. You put a slice on a grilled hamburger and stick the whole thing under the broiler until the cheese melts and oozes and gets all golden-brown. When you bite into it, the cheese stretches into long, skinny strings, like bubble gum. You'll like it
.
S.M
.
It began to be more and more noticeable that people in Havenhurst were talking about us.