Rhonda the Rubber Woman Read online

  I dragged myself to the window and touched the white dotted Swiss curtains with the pink rickrack at the bottom. They used to be the curtains in Aunt Cora’s room at Grandma’s house. I started to cry. It didn’t seem right to give Eddie the white curtains with the pink rickrack. The tears made my cheeks burn. I wished Grandma was still alive. I wished I was sitting in her lap with her warm breath on my ear as we listened to Stella Dallas together and shelled peas.

  “Nancy,” my mom called from her room.

  “Yeah.” My voice cracked.

  “Make yourself some toast.”

  “I did,” I lied. I peeked into the tarnished mirror above the maple bureau. A tear was stuck on my cheek just above the scar. The doctor had said I was lucky because the biggest gash was on the side of my head, under my hair, where it wouldn’t show. It was strange, he said, as though I’d turned my head to avoid the gate but forgot to turn the sled.

  “Good. That’s good. You know what they say, feed a cold.”

  “Yeah.” I sniffed and tied up a quarter and two nickels in a hanky and stuffed it in my pocket. My arms ached and the air in the apartment seemed too thick. I wondered what the bus to Clinton to visit Aunt Cora would cost.

  “So come home from Pauline’s about four o’clock. I think Eddie should be all moved in by then.”

  I moved to the door to my mom’s room. She looked beautiful. She’d combed out her hair and put on Jergen’s face powder. They sold it at Doc’s underneath a sign that said, “Be His Pin-Up Girl. Start His Head A-Whirl … Wear the Shade Meant for You.” She was laying out a pink sweater and a gray and pink plaid skirt to wear.

  “So you want me to move my stuff into your room?” My breath sounded like it was coming through a rusty pipe.

  My mom looked at me, confused. She frowned and rubbed a fingernail, then looked back. “Nah. We can do it later. Bundle up now. Wear your scarf.”

  I didn’t even have time to get my jacket off at Pauline’s.

  “Why, Nancy, your face is red as a beet,” her mom said. “I think you have a fever.”

  “I don’t know.”

  She took my temperature and said it was 103 and I should go home to bed. “You shouldn’t be out in this Pennsylvania winter,” she announced, stern as a preacher. “You shouldn’t be spreading what you have around.”

  I trudged out and stood on the pavement, shivering. My mother would have a fit if I went home. I wandered over to the schoolyard and sat on a swing trying to imagine Eddie living at the apartment. The way my mom talked, he’d just be a boarder like Barney at Mrs. Styles’. He’d pay for his room to help out with the rent. Plenty of people took in roomers, she said. But then I thought about the sounds I heard my mom and Eddie make in the living room at night after I went to bed, and I knew Eddie wasn’t going to be a roomer like Barney.

  I tried to put it out of my mind. My shoulders ached, as though pushing the thoughts away was wearing me out. I grabbed the ropes of the swing, slumped down and closed my eyes. The world spun.

  Suddenly a voice broke the quiet. “Hey. Nancy Sayers.”

  I blinked with sticky eyes. It was Bobby Felker. Something fluttered inside my chest. I hadn’t expected anyone to be around the school on a Saturday, Bobby Felker of all people. He was so cute. Thirteen, two years older than me.

  “So what are you doing here all by yourself?” he asked.

  He took me so much by surprise I told the truth. Well, almost. “Oh, I was just at my friend Pauline’s and I felt a cold coming on. I’m on my way home.”

  “Boy, it sounds like you have a cold.” He pinched a thumb and a finger to the tip of his nose. “How aboud if I walk with you. I’m taking some war bond posters to Doc’s.”

  I giggled, surprised Bobby knew where I lived. I wondered what else he knew.

  “Sure,” I said. I was too weak and dizzy to think of a way out of it. Bobby had sandy hair that stuck up in cowlicks. He was thin and had a way of moving that reminded you of a dance. Plus when he smiled, you felt there was a whole other world somewhere.

  He unrolled a poster to give me a look. It said, “Autograph a Bomb for Tojo or Hitler,” and the picture showed a bomb on a parachute hitting the top of the world. Little orange bursts of fire were knocking Tojo, all teeth and glasses, off the world on one side and Hitler off on the other.

  I had wanted to help with the bond drive but you had to pledge to save for a bond yourself. You could buy a 25-cent savings stamp at school every week and paste it in a little book. “Just a $25 bond can buy a fragmentation bomb,” I had told my mom. “That’s what Miss Sandercock said. We’d only have to buy enough stamps to add up to $18.75, and in 10 years we’d get $25 back. It would be patriotic and a good investment, too. Miss Sandercock said so.”

  But my mother had said Miss Sandercock must think money grew on trees, so I helped out with the tin can drive instead.

  Bobby and I started toward Doc’s. The day was warming up. The bright sun made the crusty snowdrifts glisten like meringue. I sneezed and pulled my hanky out of my pocket.

  “So are you still playing the triangle?” Bobby asked, his mouth stretching into a grin. We’d been in Mr. Music’s class together. Mr. Music came every Thursday after school and anyone could sign up. Bobby had played the trombone. He was real good. I’d played the triangle. I was so-so.

  “No, I started junior high this year.” I giggled. Walking with Bobby Felker was making me giddy.

  “Junior high already?”

  “Yeah, I skipped a grade.”

  “Good for you.” Bobby stopped and gave me a smile as if we were a special couple walking together in the snow and the sun, as if we shared a secret. “You like it?”

  “Oh yeah.” Talking was hard. My throat felt as though it might close any minute, and my head was spinning. The main thing I liked about junior high was that it took me one year closer to being old enough to kiss Marysville goodbye.

  “Me too. There’s more to do. And lots of different kinds of people. Someone like you. You’re different than a lot of girls. I can see you’d like junior high.”

  I closed my eyes for a minute against the sun. I felt like it was burning into my brain. What did he mean, “different?” We were almost at Doc’s. Suddenly I got a terrible thought. What if Eddie was moving his stuff in when we got there? What if Bobby saw Eddie moving in to our apartment? I’d die of shame.

  I stopped. A shudder went down my legs. “I just remembered, my mom isn’t hobe. I’m so silly. I forgod. She’s at her girlfriend Mildred’s.”

  “Don’t you have a key?”

  “No.” My lips felt dry and cracked.

  “Jeez.”

  “I’ll just go back to the school and wade.”

  “Well, jeez, with that cold, I don’t know if you should.”

  “Oh, it’s okay.” Then suddenly the world started to spin even more. I grabbed Bobby’s arm.

  “Whoa,” he said. “You better wait in Doc’s.”

  I was too weak to argue. Bobby helped me across the street. Everything was a white, and gray, and yellow swirl, the snow and the pavement, the rays of the sun.

  “Let’s ring your bell just in case,” Bobby said. “Maybe your mom came back early.”

  I clutched at the door, too limp to even be embarrassed. What did it matter? He’d find out anyhow.

  Bobby rang the bell and we waited. There was no answer. Now I sat down on the stoop and dropped my head into my hands.

  He rang again. Still no answer. I was surprised. Where was my mother?

  “Let’s just try it one more time,” he said. “You never know. She could be on the phone.” He rang again, then he peered through the glass door at the stairs that led up to our apartment.

  “Oh, there’s someone. There’s a leg on the steps. Your mom is home after all,” he said, smiling, and giving my shoulder a squeeze. I felt the warmth of his hand through my jacket.

  But nobody came down, and when he looked again, he said the leg was gone.

&n
bsp; I got up and we both stared through the glass as though we were trying to see into the future. My mom was coming down the steps, after all. She still had her housecoat on and she was hunched over like a monkey with her arms across her chest. Her hair was tousled.

  I went stiff and my cheeks felt hot. Bobby looked at me, then we both quick turned away from one another. “Well, I’d better take these posters in to Doc,” he said and hurried off.

  My mom’s face was red and streaky, like she had rubbed off part of the Jergen’s face powder.

  “Nancy, what are you doing here?” She sounded cranky.

  “Pauline’s mom took my temperature. It’s 103,” I said.

  “Well, for goodness sake. Why would she do a thing like that?”

  “How come you didn’t answer the door?”

  “Oh, Eddie had his shoes off. I didn’t know who it was and he wanted to put his shoes back on.” I didn’t understand how it could take a person that long to put shoes on, not even Eddie. Plus why was my mom wearing her housecoat? Where was her pink sweater and pink and gray plaid skirt? For a minute I got a terrible thought but I put it out of my mind. Not during the day. People didn’t do it during the day except maybe gypsies.

  “Who was peeking in the door with you?”

  “A kid from school. He lives out in the R.D.”

  Her eyes widened. “I don’t like you running with kids from the R.D.”

  “I wasn’t running with anybody. He walked me home. Anyway, what’s wrong with the R.D.?”

  “I don’t trust R.D. people.”

  “Why not?” She wasn’t making any sense. Some of the best families lived out in the R.D.

  “Peeking in people’s doors.”

  I was too sick to argue. “I feel real dizzy,” I said.

  She scrunched her eyebrows and put on a sad look, turned around and started slowly back upstairs. She had a funny smell to her and I trudged behind her, miserable, not just from being sick but because I knew I’d let her down coming home. That’s why she was cranky, she just wasn’t saying it right. It was Bobby’s fault, showing up at the playground with his cute sand-colored cowlick, making me forget I didn’t want to come back to the apartment any more than my mother wanted me there. My cheeks became hotter still as I realized I’d made a fool of myself in some way I didn’t understand. I clutched the chipped wooden handrail and climbed.

  Eddie’s shirt was unbuttoned in front and he didn’t have an undershirt on. I could see dark curly hairs on his chest, like a scouring pad. They looked sweaty. I hadn’t ever seen a man’s chest up close before. It gave me the creeps. He grinned at me. I hated him.

  “Pauline’s mom sent Nancy home. She said she was too sick to play,” my mom explained. “I guess maybe her cold got worse.” She rubbed one of her hands over her mouth and chin. “She seemed fine when she left.”

  “Oh, too bad, kid.” Eddie’s grin faded. “I’d been figuring we could all go over to the firemen’s winter carnival at Pembroke Township tonight. I figured we could have a high old time—the three of us. Maybe you’ll be feeling better by tonight.”

  I didn’t say anything, just tottered toward my mom’s bedroom, but at the door, I got a shock. There was a pile of Eddie’s shirts on the chair, enough colors to be a box of Crayolas. A paper bag full of underpants sat on the floor. An old torn suitcase was open on the bed. What was going on? I edged in. Eddie was supposed to move into my room.

  He came in behind me. How could he do that? How could he walk right into the bedroom with me with no undershirt? He might as well try to dig underneath my skin. I felt so trapped I dropped to the floor, curled into a ball, and burst out crying.

  I heard Eddie walk away, every other footstep slamming. I heard him talk to my mom, but their voices were low, like a portable radio going dead; then they were in the hallway.

  “Go on,” Eddie said.

  “You do it.”

  “She’s your kid.”

  There was a long silence. I heard matches striking and smoke started to curl around the bedroom door like the devil’s finger. My mom began crying. My heart felt like it weighed a ton.

  A few minutes later she came in. “Ah, Nancy, Eddie says he can understand you’re feeling discombobulated. Having a cold. Having a temperature. He … ah … he says to tell you he can understand you being discombobulated.”

  I stared at my fists.

  She twisted a piece of her housecoat around her finger. “Why don’t you go rest on the sofa. Eddie will take his stuff into your room. He, ah, opened it up in here without thinking. The closet looked bigger here.”

  I moved my lips but no sound came out.

  I slept most of the weekend. I was glad because I didn’t have to talk to my mother or Eddie. My mom brought me some aspirin and chicken noodle soup. She rubbed Vicks on my chest and put butcher paper over it so I wouldn’t smear the bed. She brought in the portable radio and I listened to the Billboard Chart Hits. “Tangerine.” “Moonlight Becomes You.” “White Cliffs of Dover.” I listened to the news and President Roosevelt came on saying some companies didn’t like to hire women in jobs GIs left behind and that was wrong. He said we couldn’t afford that kind of prejudice. I thought good for him and wondered how old I had to be to get a job. I wondered which big cities had the most of them.

  On Sunday night, Eddie insisted we had to go to the winter carnival. “Hey, it’ll be good for you.”

  His car only sat two inside so I bundled up and climbed into the rumble seat. I scrunched down and thought about ways to get back at my mom as the black night air whipped at my head. I thought about getting pneumonia and dying. I saw people standing over my coffin saying what a terrible thing, my mom taking me out in the night air when I was sick, and now look. I thought about jumping out of the rumble seat in front of a coming car. I pictured my body in the street, broken like an old doll, with my mom standing over me shrieking, “It was my fault; I was a sinful mother. I brought her too much shame.” I edged to the driver’s side of the rumble seat, and stuck my head out, wondering what it would feel like to jump. Then all of a sudden a car zoomed around a corner toward us and I got so panicky, I threw myself down on the floor of the rumble seat and crouched there quivering as the bare branches of the winter trees raced by.

  The fair was inside a giant warehouse fixed up to look like summer, with paintings of trees and birds on sheets tacked up along the walls. There were popcorn and cotton candy stands and carnival games. A lot of the men were in shirt sleeves and vests. Some of the women wore slacks. Aunt Cora had said some big stores were opening slacks departments for women. I liked how they looked.

  “Evenin’, friend,” Eddie said to a man running a pitch penny concession.

  “Hey, Eddie, how you doin’?” The guy leaned over the roped-off square and winked. “Lotsa marks tonight. Everyone’s dyin’ for a carny by December.”

  “You betcha,” Eddie replied. “Hey, this here’s Georgia and her girl Nancy. Say hello.”

  “Well, hello,” the guy said, making googly eyes at my mom. “Eddie always did know how to pick ‘em.”

  My mother grinned, but by then Eddie was hot-footing it on to the next stand, calling out, “Hey, Mack, evenin’ to you.”

  “Eddie Jeffers, in the flesh.” The guy flashed his teeth.

  My mom nudged me. “Eddie’s really in his eminent” she said.

  “Hey, Georgia, Nance. Looky over here,” Eddie called. “Mack here carries my merchandise.” He pointed to ceramic dolls, “Only Mack calls it moichandise. He’s from New Joisey,” Eddie joked. There was a tooth missing in the corner of his mouth when he laughed wide.

  My mom padded behind Eddie, happy as a kid. I grumped along. Suddenly Eddie stopped.

  “You gotta see this,” he said, jerking his shoulder in the direction of something called the Mouse Game.

  We walked over to a flat wooden wheel with small numbered holes around the rim. The guy running the game spun the wheel, brought out a teeny cage, opened the door, an
d a mouse ran out. The mouse raced around and around until he finally ran into a hole.

  “The hole the mouse runs into, that’s the number wins,” Eddie explained. “Is that sumpthin’ or what?” His mustache stretched into a thin furry line across his face as he smiled.

  “Oh, isn’t that awful,” my mom said. “Poor little mouse.”

  “Nah, that ain’t no poor mouse. That’s a mouse gets a lot of treats, lotsa pieces of cheese.” He curled his hand around one side of his mouth. “I’ll let you gals in on a secret if you promise not to tell.”

  We nodded. I was curious despite myself.

  “You’d think there was no way to tell which hole the mouse is gonna run in, right?”

  We nodded again.

  “Well, you’re wrong.” Eddie hitched up his pants and stuck out his chest. He nudged us a little bit away from the crowd. “I ain’t sayin’ it’s happenin’ here,” he whispered, “but I seen it happen. Sometimes the guy running the game puts ammonia on the holes nobody bets on. He rubs his finger around the hole like he’s just cleaning the dust off but he’s really rubbing ammonia on it. Well, ammonia smells like another mouse to a mouse so the mouse runs in that hole.”

  “No!” My mom was shocked. So was I. I didn’t say peep, but I hated Eddie even more than before.

  I had bad dreams. I kept waking up, my heart pounding, my hair follicles feeling like needles in my scalp. Then toward morning I dreamed I was dancing with Bobby Felker on a stage with shimmering silver curtains. Mr. Music was playing “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” and I wasn’t all feet like in real life. I was light as dandelion fluff, and I wanted to dance forever.

  But when I woke up, it was a cold gray Monday and even though I still felt sick I had to go to school on account of my mom didn’t like me in the apartment alone. I gagged at the man smells in the bathroom. Shaving cream. Cologne. Man pee on the underside of the toilet seat.