All She Ever Wanted (6 page)

“Does anyone need crayons?” Mrs. Wayne asked. She approached my desk waving a carton of broken-down crayons that might have been new when George Washington was president. Our town was small enough for Mrs. Wayne to know that I was one of the kids who always needed to borrow the school’s crayons. She stopped beside me, holding the tattered box in one hand, groping for her bra strap with the other. This time May saved me.

“Here,” she said, pulling her glorious, brand-new, sixty-four-count box of Crayola crayons from her desk. “You can share mine.”

I decided it was going to be a wonderful year.

Being May Elizabeth Hayworth’s new best friend created a chain reaction of problems that started as soon as my mother learned of our friendship. “Hayworth!” she grumbled, making the name sound like a curse word. “I don’t want you associating with those stuck-up rich people. Stay away from her.”

My uncle Leonard—president, founder, and sole member of the Tri-County Communist party—was especially gloomy in his analysis. “Just because the Hayworths own the factory, they think they own the entire town and everyone in it. Nothing good can come of this liaison, Kathleen.

Whenever the proletariat tries to consort with the bourgeoisie, it’s the poor working man that always ends up exploited. These arrangements always favor the rich and are always to their advantage. Do you see how this underscores the need for a society in which the resources are evenly distributed and shared rather than—”

“May Elizabeth shares her crayons with me,” I said, rising to her defense. Uncle Leonard shook his head.

“I’m not impressed with such pseudo-generosity. In a true Communist society, the Hayworth girl would
give
the crayons away, dividing them equally among all the students.”

I quickly did the arithmetic in my head: There were sixty-four crayons in the box and twenty-six kids in my class, which meant we would each get two-and-a-half crayons. I’d be no better off in Uncle Leonard’s Communist society than I was using the school’s box of broken pieces. No, I liked things just the way they were. I sat beside May Elizabeth in class and she shared all her school supplies with me—her new best friend. On the playground, I was her guardian, keeping bullies like Danny Reeves at bay.

When I brought home an invitation to May’s birthday party in October, my mother was furious. “Absolutely not, Kathleen! You don’t belong with those people.”

Fortunately, my father was home from his wanderings for once, right when I needed him. He rushed to my rescue, like Superman saving Lois Lane. “Aw, they’re just kids, Eleanor. Don’t blame the Hayworth girl for her parents’shortcomings. Let them have their fun.” He turned to me, grinning. “Do you want to go to her party, Kathy?”

I had never been to a birthday party in my life—not even my own, or my brothers’or sister’s. Mommy might bake us a packaged cake if she remembered what day it was—and if she had enough powdered eggs on hand from welfare. I glanced at my mother and saw that she was fuming.

“Yes,” I answered softly, hoping Mommy wouldn’t hear me. “I want to go.”

“Then go you shall!” Daddy laughed and swept me up in his freckled arms. I loved him. No one could hug me the way Daddy could. Whenever Mommy hugged me it was quick and efficient, not warm and lingering like Daddy’s hugs. During those wonderful days when my father was home, I was Daddy’s girl, his princess.

My daddy was the kindest, gentlest man in the whole world and as happy-go-lucky as a circus clown. He would get right down on the floor and play with the boys and me, and we’d tickle each other and laugh until the tears ran. Daddy never lost his temper or spanked us, even when the boys deserved it, even when Daddy had been drinking. And he treated my mom like she was the queen of the world. Too bad he was away more often than he was home.

When I was old enough to ask Mom about his long absences, she told me that he was a long-distance truck driver. Later she changed her story and said he was a traveling salesman. I never asked what Daddy trucked or sold. My melancholy, Communist uncle lived with us whenever Daddy was away, staying with us for months at a time, so at least there was a man around the house.

Uncle Leonard was Mom’s older brother and Daddy’s best friend. He was very tall and stoop-shouldered with a droopy, bloodhound face and Brylcreemed black hair. He slept on our living room couch and stored his clothing in boxes stuffed behind it. He had hundreds of books, piled in stacks in every room of our house. The boys used them like bricks to build forts. Uncle Leonard spent his evenings sitting at our chrome dining table, scribbling manifestos on yellow, legal-size note pads. The stacks of his Communist rantings left no place for us to sit down and eat, but that didn’t matter; we never sat down for a meal anyway.

Our car belonged to Uncle Leonard and so did our TV, purchased secondhand, Mom said, so that he could watch the McCarthy hearings.

He watched the news every night, and I’m sure our neighbors two blocks away could hear Uncle Leonard arguing with Walter Cronkite. I’d learned to accept my uncle and his billowing cigars as part of the furnishings, but he made me mad that day when he put in his two-cents’worth about May Elizabeth’s birthday party.

“What about a present?” he asked. “A spoiled, bourgeois rich kid like her is going to expect a present—and a nice one, too.”

Daddy’s grin never wavered. “Then we’d better go shopping for one, right, Kathy?”

“Shopping!” Mom said with a huff. “You think the Hayworths are worth six more months, Donald?”

It seemed as though his smile faded slightly at her question, but he quickly recovered. “My Kathy is certainly worth it.”

I had no idea what they were talking about, but a few days before the party, Daddy loaded Poke, JT, and me into Uncle Leonard’s decaying 1950 Ford sedan and took us shopping. Not at Brinkley’s Drugstore in downtown Riverside, mind you; we drove all the way to Bensenville to shop at Woolworth’s. Daddy carried JT in his arms as we perused the aisles, looking for something May Elizabeth would like. He had Annie’s misshapen diaper bag slung over his shoulder, which seemed a little odd seeing as Annie had stayed home and three-year-old JT didn’t wear diapers. Besides, Daddy never would have volunteered to change a diaper even if JT had worn one. But there wasn’t time to ask questions. I quickly became distracted by so many choices.

“I don’t know what to buy her,” I moaned.

“Well, you’re her best friend,” Daddy coached. “Just pick something you would like to have, and she’s sure to like it, too.”

There were lots of things I liked. Daddy watched me gaze at packages of hair barrettes, a magic slate that you could draw on then lift to erase, a plastic doll bottle that seemed to magically empty when you tilted it upside down, and so much more. Poke lingered near the Davy Crockett stuff: coonskin caps, rubber tomahawks, and plastic six-shooters with holsters. I finally decided on a box of Play-Doh in four different colors for May Elizabeth’s present.

Once I’d made up my mind, Daddy led us to the nickel-and-dime counter and told us we could each have a quarter to spend. “I need to look at something for your mother,” he said, setting JT down beside Poke and me. Daddy disappeared, leaving us to contemplate the colorful array of ten-cent toys.

There were so many to choose from! Of course my brothers wanted everything in sight. They didn’t understand the value of a quarter and kept reaching their grubby fists into the bins and pulling out items as if Daddy had told them to buy one of each thing. I was exhausted from tugging toys out of their hands and telling them that all the plastic whistles and rubber soldiers and toy cars they were trying to stuff into their pockets cost more money than they were allowed, then listening to them scream in protest. The storeowner hovered close to the three of us, and I saw sweat form on his brow as he tried to make sure that everything the boys stuffed into their pockets made it out again.

Finally my father reappeared and took over, helping JT choose a rubber snake and Poke a plastic dagger. I had settled on a pop-bead necklace. Daddy lifted JT up on the counter while he paid for our treats and for a box of dusting powder that he had chosen for Mom. We were back in the car and on our way home before I realized that we had forgotten the very thing we’d come for: May Elizabeth’s birthday present.

“Daddy, stop! We forgot the present! Go back! We have to go back!”

“I didn’t forget it, honey,” he said, laughing. “It’s right here in the bag.”

“Where? Which bag?” I peered over the front seat, searching frantically. The only thing in the Woolworth’s bag was Mom’s dusting powder.

I didn’t see a box of Play-Doh anywhere. “Where is it, Daddy? Where?”

“It’s right here. …” Daddy slowed the car down a bit, driving with one hand while he fished Annie’s diaper bag off the floor and set it on the seat. Sure enough, May Elizabeth’s present was inside—and also the magic drawing slate and the plastic doll bottle that I’d admired, and a coonskin cap for each of the boys. I also saw a bottle of cologne for Mom to go with the dusting powder, and a shiny three-piece screwdriver set that I figured Daddy had bought for himself.

“Are all of these things for us?” I asked in surprise.

“You bet they are. Why should that Hayworth kid be the only one who gets presents?”

It felt like Christmas as I gave the boys their new hats and sat back to draw on my magic slate. The boys took turns annoying me with their furry raccoon tails. It wasn’t until later that afternoon that I began to wonder exactly when Daddy had paid for all of those surprises. He hadn’t put them on the counter when he’d stood in line at the cash register. And why had the clerk put everything in the diaper bag instead of in a Woolworth’s bag? I could have used some extra bags for my lunches.

I got such a funny feeling in my stomach the more I thought about it, that I finally had to go think about something else.

Chapter
6

C
ompared to our house, the Hayworths lived in a mansion. Uncle Leonard drove me there on the day of May Elizabeth’s party, and he started shaking his gloomy head as soon as he turned the car into her long, curving driveway. “Do you know how many proletariat apartments could be carved out of that bourgeois palace?” he asked.

I didn’t wait for him to finish calculating. I gave the car door a slam— you had to or it wouldn’t stay closed—and ran up the steps to ring the doorbell. The first thing I noticed when Mrs. Hayworth invited me inside was that everyone was dressed in fancy clothes. I felt bedraggled. The other girls all wore crinkly crinolines under their party dresses and ribbons in their Shirley Temple curls. My mousy brown hair hung in limp strands, and I was the only one wearing sneakers instead of patent leather shoes. My gift, wrapped in cheesy, dime-store paper, looked forlorn beside all the others trimmed with glitter and curling ribbons and shiny bows. Several times I noticed the adults looking at me, and I knew they were whispering about me behind their hands.

The food was wonderful. Mr. Hayworth cooked hot dogs on his charcoal grill beside the swimming pool, and he let me eat as many as I wanted. I ate four, on squishy white buns with mustard, catsup, and relish. I ate potato salad that day for the first time in my life, and hard-boiled eggs that May said had been “deviled,” and a heavenly treat she called ambrosia salad. There was a towering mold of Jell-O in striped layers and Pepsi-Cola to drink. The cake came from a bakery and had huge icing flowers on it and ten candles for May to blow out. She gave everyone a goody bag full of candy and a brand-new Hula-Hoop to take home as a present.

The house was very modern and clean, with thick carpets and a sunken living room with Danish-modern furniture. The only other house I’d ever been inside was Charley Grout’s house, next door, so May’s house seemed like something from a dream or a TV show. She had her own bedroom with a canopy bed, a fluffy comforter, hundreds of stuffed animals, dozens of dolls. Even her bathroom was all ruffly and clean, with a shining turquoise sink and toilet, and a mosaic-tile floor that was so spotless you could have eaten off it. I peeked under the princess doll that was sitting on the toilet tank and saw that she hid an extra roll of toilet paper beneath her ruffled skirt.

Later we played games like pin the tail on the donkey and musical chairs, but I didn’t win any prizes. I walked around in a daze all afternoon, the way Poke always did, just trying to take everything in. The party seemed to speed by so quickly that the next thing I knew, Mrs. Hayworth was driving me home.

“Would you like to come to Sunday school tomorrow with May Elizabeth and our family?” she asked as her Cadillac glided to a halt in front of my house.

“I guess so. …” That was my standard reply whenever I felt shy and didn’t know what else to say. Either that or “I don’t know…”

“Why don’t you ask your parents, okay? Sunday school starts at ninethirty. We’ll wait for you out front. You know where Park Street Church is, don’t you, honey?”

“Uh huh.” Mommy and Uncle Leonard would say that religion was a crutch for the weak-minded masses, but I really wanted to go. I wanted to be anywhere but home. “Thank you for inviting me to the party,” I remembered to say as I climbed from the car.

“You’re very welcome, honey. I hope you’ll come and visit us again.”

There is always a natural letdown whenever you return home from a party, but what I felt that afternoon when I walked up our sagging porch steps was much, much worse. I saw my house with new eyes and noticed for the first time how foul it smelled—like dirty diapers and too many cats. Our living room floors were made of bare plywood; the linoleum in the kitchen was stained and torn; the bathroom floor was rotting beneath our leaky toilet. All of our furniture sagged and reeked, and the picture on our black-and-white TV skipped so badly that you had to nod your head up and down like those dolls that ride in the rear windows of cars as you tried to watch a program. Our bedrooms didn’t even have beds, just mattresses on the floor. All four of us kids slept in the same room, Poke and JT on one mattress, Annie and me on the other.