Chapter 13
Shaded Acres had a radio in the common room, and before November was fully over, it seemed like every station was playing “White Christmas” at least once an hour.
Each time I heard it, I’d feel more homesick.
For the first time in my life, I would spend Christmas without my family, or anyone who loved me.
So there I was, listening to “White Christmas” and looking out the window at snow, wishing I could go back to Florida.
But everyone knows that that song isn’t really about missing snow.
A lot of girls at Shaded Acres had strong feelings about it.
Once, it caused a big fight, because one girl who didn’t want to hear it shut the radio off, and that made another girl mad.
A nurse came in and scolded us all, reminding us “White Christmas” was written for military men risking their lives and living in all kinds of discomfort, not a bunch of girls who were perfectly safe in a big old comfortable mansion right here in America.
We’d all be home soon enough, she said, and so when we heard that song, we shouldn’t think of ourselves and our own problems, but of our troops in Korea, who were truly in danger, and much less comfortable than we were.
She said nobody was thinking about them anymore, and true patriotism was dead, but her husband was over there, fighting communism for all of us and just trying to stay alive, while she was worried out of her mind and having Christmas with their kids without him.
And here we were thinking that song was about us.
Every day it was like the whole country had forgotten there was even a war going on at all.
“I didn’t forget,” I told her. I’d been following the news as best I could. I knew there was still plenty of fighting, and that Leonard might have been called back to Korea.
She gave me a quick, approving nod. “Then quit your crying,” she said.
—
A few days later, another nurse took me aside and asked if I wouldn’t mind missing the volunteer lesson so I could read the newspaper to the blind girl, Carol. She said that Carol had specifically asked for me.
This surprised me. I didn’t think Carol even knew who I was. I only saw her at lunch, as we were on different shifts for dinner. The most I’d spoken to her was when she asked for the butter. I’d said, “Here’s the butter,” and set the dish by her hand.
“She said you’re a good reader.” The nurse shrugged. “Excellent elocution, she said. She’s already out back.”
I frowned. “Outside?”
“It’s not so bad out. We’ve got an extra coat you can borrow.”
I didn’t like the idea of sitting outside, even wearing a borrowed coat.
But I said I’d do it, partly because it seemed coldhearted to say no to a blind girl, and partly because I was curious.
I couldn’t guess how Carol would know I was a good reader.
No one had ever said anything to me about my elocution, and I’d never had reason to think there was anything special about it.
The nurse gave me a long navy coat that smelled like mothballs and said sorry, that was the only one she had to lend out, and that I could come get it whenever I wanted.
She also gave me the Sunday edition of The New York Times.
I put on the coat and carried the paper out back, where it was cold enough for me to see my breath.
Carol was smoking a cigarette, sitting on one of two lawn chairs pulled up close to the house.
She wore a black coat with a fur collar, and she had a little fur hat that matched.
I said hello and asked if she still wanted me to read to her.
“Oh yes. Thank you. That would be quite lovely.” Her dark glasses obscured her eyes, but she turned her face to me and gestured to the empty chair.
I’d noticed earlier that Carol had a strange, staccato way of speaking, emphasizing different syllables than most people did.
It was how people in movies sometimes talked, though I’d never met anyone who talked this way in real life.
When I sat, she sniffed the air, then wrinkled her nose.
“It’s the coat,” I said. “I had to borrow one.”
“Poor you.” She reached over and moved two fingertips along the coat’s sleeve. “Well. You’ll be warm enough.”
To my surprise, I was. The chairs were wind-sheltered by a tall fence on one side and a cluster of pines on the other. I could still see my breath, but the sun was bright. A three-quarter moon sat high in the blue, so faint it was hard to see. I made my left hand into an L and raised it. Waning.
“Do you want me to read a particular section?” I asked. I worried she expected me to read the whole thing to her.
“Hmm.” She lifted her face to the sun. Her nose was long, regal looking. “I’d like to start with the food section. My mother told me there was something about l’Escoffier?”
I’d had enough French that I could figure out how l’Escoffier might be spelled, and after a minute of looking, I found the article.
It was about a group of people who called themselves the “l’Escoffier Group” and regularly got together at a hotel in New York so the members could discuss what kind of sherry went best with turtle soup, or if a fish soufflé should really be called a mousse.
That kind of thing. While I was reading, Carol tapped her cigarette into an ashtray resting on her belly.
I worried she’d burn her coat, but she didn’t.
When I finished, I asked if she’d like me to read her another article.
“Not just yet, dear. I need to digest that, so to speak.” She said dear like de-ah, the way Franklin Roosevelt would have said it. “Say, Nora, are you familiar with Escoffier?”
“I can tell it’s a verb,” I said. “Does it mean to scoff?” I really thought that might be it, like this group of food snobs met at the hotel to scoff at what regular people ate. Carol laughed and said Escoffier was the name of a famous French chef.
I decided I didn’t like her much. She seemed condescending, and I already felt low enough. I was glad to see she looked like she might be going into labor soon, and therefore leaving any day. That nice coat of hers was a maternity coat, and still, the buttons strained.
“Do you want me to read another food article?”
She took off her hat and scratched above her ear. She wore her hair very short, in what we called a shingle style. I suppose it was easy for her to take care of. “I can’t place your accent,” she said. “You almost sound…Midwestern? You’re not from anywhere close.”
I stayed quiet. We weren’t supposed to say where we’d come from, not even the state.
We’d all been warned that if any girl could correctly tell Mrs. Kilgore another girl’s last name or hometown, the tattling girl would get a cash reward, and the girl who’d been dumb enough to compromise her own privacy would be reported to whomever was footing her bill.
“I’m allowed to guess.” Carol sounded annoyed. “You’re just not allowed to tell me. I’m quite skilled at guessing. For example, your new roommate hasn’t said two words to me directly, but I’d bet my teeth she’s from Long Island.”
I had no idea if this was a good guess. I’d never been to Long Island, and my new roommate, Helen, had barely said two words to me, either.
She wore her blond hair in a long braid she left in even while sleeping, and she hardly looked pregnant yet.
When she first arrived, I tried being friendly, as I could see she was younger than I was, maybe sixteen.
But she stared at my belly with revulsion, and that was before she saw that the porcupine had grown big enough to force my belly button out a few inches, and it looked like the stem of a pumpkin.
The first time I had to change clothes in front of her, she saw the pumpkin stem, put her hand over her mouth, and literally gagged.
That made me feel great, let me tell you.
I almost said, Listen, Helen sweetheart, this is exactly where you yourself are headed, okay?
But of course she knew that already, which was why it probably scared her to look at me.
“I don’t care where Helen’s from.” I folded the newspaper section neatly. “She’s rude.”
Carol lit another cigarette. She had her own Zippo lighter with a flip top, and she needed no assistance with it. She told me later that she could see shadow and light, and she could of course feel heat.
“Go easy on her,” Carol said.
“What do you know about it?” I didn’t appreciate this unsolicited advice.
I’d put up with all kinds of unkind behavior from Helen, without ever being unkind back.
I looked at Carol, which I felt I could do freely, as she couldn’t see me looking at her.
Sanctimonious, I thought. Sanctimonious and condescending.
She leaned closer to my chair. She smelled like Mae, like cigarettes. “We’re alone, correct? No one else is out here?”
I looked around the backyard and told her we were.
“Your last roommate, Lucy. She’s an interesting one.” She was still leaning close. “You know, her baby’s father wanted to marry her. Vernell. That was his name. Vernell.”
“Where’d you hear that?” I asked. It seemed like a weird thing for her to make up. But I’d never once seen Lucy talking to Carol, or to anyone, really, besides that one nurse.
Carol waved away the question. “That’s what her mother wanted, too.
My God, she could really put the heat on, that woman.
She went on and on, saying it was her grandchild, that she should have a say.
She said Lucy didn’t belong here with so much white trash, meaning us!
Meaning even yours truly!” Carol leaned back her head and laughed.
“I’m from Greenwich, for God’s sake. Even our trash isn’t trash. ”
I said nothing to this, though I was of course aware Carol had just told me the name of her town. I didn’t want to interrupt her. I had no idea how she would know anything about Lucy’s mother.