I'm Not Your Other Half (7 page)

The only boy doing nothing had pimples and sagging socks and wasn't fourteen if he was a day, so I ended up talking to the children's librarian.

“What we need, Fraser,” said Miss Herschel, “is something that will really bring people in.”

I thought the library was jammed and the atmosphere would have been much more pleasant with
fewer
people, but perhaps I was just naturally antisocial after all this war reading. “Maybe if you offered something besides books,” I suggested.

I wasn't thinking about anything. I wasn't even thinking. I was just there, propped up by Miss Herschel's desk, killing time.

“Something besides books?” she repeated.

“I read about a library in New Hampshire that also loans toys. They have everything. Especially stuff that people would love to have but don't buy because they might not use it more than once. Giant stuffed giraffes or unusual board games. And standard stuff—wooden blocks, Teddy bears, Monopoly.”

“Fraser! What a wonderful idea!” she cried. “Look into this at once. Set aside war temporarily. Look up toy-lending libraries and see how they did it.”

We peacemongers are all happy to set aside war temporarily, so I dipped into the newspaper indexes to find out about toy lending.

It
was
a better topic than war—but only marginally. Because somehow, between the looking-up and the talking-about and the expanding-upon, old Fraser MacKendrick became the chief administrative officer of Toybrary.

I gave a speech to the P.T.A. and didn't die of fear and didn't forget any of the words, and in fact the Junior Women's Club asked me to talk to them too. I learned how to address groups, and how not to be afraid of an audience and how to convince them to donate to my cause. My father said, “Fraser, if you never learn any other skill in your entire life, you will get good jobs, because you'll be able to get money out of sticky club fingers.”

Toybrary was an astonishing success. Organizing Toybrary, establishing it, advertising it were as much fun as I had ever had in my life. But from there on in, it was down hill.

Miss Herschel was too busy to administer it. Annie surrendered to my appeals and helped, and then she convinced Susannah to pitch in too. Susannah was a help in a dim-witted sort of way, and the three of us operated Toybrary from three till eight, in overlapping shifts.

With appalling speed, Toybrary became just another dull routine in my week.

It was a bad season for local news (no wars in Chapman), and we were pounced upon by television, radio and newspaper. After you have been on morning talk shows, giving examples of the fine things our youth can accomplish, expounding on your imagination, community spirit and hard work, it's embarrassing to say the following week, “Actually this is boring and I quit.”

Nevertheless that's just what Susannah did. She began dating Matt, and although Matt would never be number one on my list—or even number fifty—he was certainly more interesting than a Barbie Doll swimming-pool set.

I stayed with Toybrary but I would wish that I was still just starting it; that was fun. Launching anything was always so much more interesting than actually doing it.

Then I'd wish that I had never gotten into Toybrary at all, that I had met some fantastic eighteen-year-old with brains, manners, a sense of humor, looks, build and a classic Corvette …

I sat at the Toybrary desk, my knees hunched near my chin, checking to be sure there were still dice in the Parcheesi game, and I thought, Five out of six isn't bad. I have to relax about Michael. I'm not some rigid type whose life can't expand to include new things. What kind of relationship am I going to have with him if I keep complaining and whining whenever he suggests something?

“Dropping out of Madrigals?” said Mrs. Ierardi. Her long thin face became longer and thinner. She regarded me as the Revolutionary troops must have looked at Benedict Arnold. “But Fraser, we need you. You're the best low alto we've got.”

Ordinarily I love compliments. This one upset me. “Really, it's a good time for this,” I said. “We've finished the winter concerts, and it's another five weeks before the spring concerts. Lots of time to audition more altos.”

Mrs. Ierardi frowned at me. “Fraser, you of all people need to stay in Madrigals. You lead a very intellectual life. Singing is one of the outlets you need.”

“I took up skiing, you know. And—and other things. I just don't have time for Madrigals any more. I'm sorry, Mrs. Ierardi. I'll miss it a lot. But I have to drop out.”

And Michael could not stand classical music. He refused to go to any more of Annie's concerts. He had not even managed to sit still through a tape of my last Madrigal concert. And he was free the two afternoons Madrigals practiced.

“I understand you have quite a firm relationship with the Hollander boy,” said Mrs. Ierardi.

It was like having someone dip into my head without permission. Gossip, I thought. Thin beady-eyed old gossip.

“Don't lose your head over him,” said Mrs. Ierardi.

“I am not losing my head,” I said, trying not to yell. “That sounds like some wimpy little cheerleader going haywire because some boy smiles at her.”

“Well?” said Mrs. Ierardi.

I could have kicked her.
“Well?”
As if Mrs. Ierardi, and all her gossipy teacher cronies, had decided that Fraser MacKendrick had “lost her head over the Hollander boy.”

“I'm too busy for Madrigals, Mrs. Ierardi,” I said.

“He ought to be able to give up a little for you,” she snapped. “This is not nineteen fifty-five. You don't have to rebuild your life to suit the whims of some boy.”

“I am not following Michael's whims. We're
both
giving up a lot. He's quitting Computer Club. And he was going to teach a class in game design, too. And I'm quitting Madrigals. We have to have the time.”

“And what are you going to do with that time?” demanded Mrs. Ierardi, as if it were her business. “Go sit at the Dairy Queen and have a sundae together? Kiss on the couch? You can do that any time. Don't surrender what counts, Fraser.”

“I'm just officially telling you I am no longer a member of the Madrigal Choir,” I said stiffly, and I walked out of the room, and I was shaking all over.

“You wouldn't believe how she talked to me,” I told Michael. We were not at the Dairy Queen. We would have been, but I felt self-conscious about choosing it after what Mrs. Ierardi had said. We were at McDonald's instead, having cheeseburgers, although I was in a chocolate-marshmallow-sundae mood. When you are angry, a cheeseburger is gone in three furious chomps. You need soft ice cream to slide gently down, wrapped in chocolate, to soothe your distressed throat.

“I would believe,” said Michael. “Mr. Duffy really threw it at me. He says anyone with a grain of responsibility wouldn't do this to him. I pointed out that Dick Biaggio agreed to take the class for me, and Dick knows how to write game programs as well as I do, but Mr. Duffy said that didn't matter. I was the one who agreed to teach the class and I was the one who drew up the curriculum and I was the one the kids signed up to study with and therefore I was the one who should be ashamed of myself. Putting my own selfish desires ahead of my commitments.”

“Sometimes I think they become teachers just so they can impose their beliefs on other people,” I said.

“Like my father,” agreed Michael, chewing on French fries and angrily grinding his teeth. “He's harping on college now. I'm a junior, I don't have to apply till next fall, but he says we have to visit at least a dozen colleges before I can possibly make a judgment on where to apply. Every weekend he wants to do this, Fraser. I mean, when would we get together?”

Visiting colleges! I could see broad grassy campuses—well, snowy, at this time of year, anyhow—dormitories, brick buildings, huge libraries, hundreds of college students rushing from class to class. Visiting a dozen of them. “That sounds like such fun, though,” I said. “I won't get to do that. I'll be going to State. My whole family went to State, and anyway, it's all we can afford.” The only activity my mother was still active in was the Alumni Association. Of course, I reflected, Dad was active in it too; probably she'd drop out of even that if he weren't involved.

“I don't want to do it,” said Michael definitively. “I want to be with you.”

I felt the way Katurah had felt when Michael leaned over her to kiss me.
You're suffocating me,
I thought. But that can't be. This is the way it works. My mother and father. Ben and Lynn. Price and Annie. Matt and Susannah. Even Mr. Hollander and Judith.

But Mr. Duffy doesn't think so. Mrs. Ierardi doesn't think so. So who's right? How do you do this, anyway? How far do you go? Forget sex. Sex is a pretty simple decision. Either you do it or you don't. But sharing. How much do you share?

We tossed our hamburger wrappers into the trash and walked out to Judith's car. It was very cold, but when Michael opened the door for me, I slipped into a greenhouse of heat from the sun shining through the windshield.

Don't think about it, I told myself.

“Kiss me,” said Michael, and I kissed him, and it was easy to think of nothing but that.

Annie was sitting in her bedroom window seat, framed between the gray of the sky and the cream of the walls. I was flopped on her bed.

Thank God for friendship, I thought. How terrible if our friendship had foundered on jealousy. If what was between Annie and me turned out to be a fad, like racketball or needlepoint, each a short season of pleasure and then rapid boredom. Because now I really do have something to talk about. Something I can't express to Michael or my mother or anyone but Annie. No one but Annie could understand.

I said, “What's the definition of a perfect couple, Annie?”

I've missed girls, I thought. You can go on being honest with them. But there's something about a boy friend. The more your lives entwine, the harder it is to be honest. The more tangled you get, the more complex your thoughts get. Is it because there's more room for hurt than with a girl?

“That's easy,” said Annie. “Price and I are a perfect couple. You and Michael. Look at these maroon legwarmers Price gave me for Christmas. I hate maroon. I don't have a single thing to go with maroon. I have to buy a whole new outfit just to put Price's legwarmers on.”

I lay down on her bed, with its old ragged cotton bedspread, and stared up at the ceiling. “Annie, do you ever feel—oh, I don't know—do you ever feel—”

“Why, Fraser MacKendrick, English virtuoso, at a loss for words! But to answer your indirect question, yes. I always feel these days. I feel Price's lips, hands, hair, chest—”

“I don't mean that, Annie. I'm serious. Really serious. I meant, is this what you had in mind? All those years we daydreamed?”

“Absolutely. It's perfect. All I have to do is coach Price in color combinations.” Her voice was warm, like the low notes on her violin. “The first time we kissed,” Annie told me, “I felt my entire life shift. Like an instrument changing keys.”

“But did you want it to shift that much?” I sat up. Annie sleeps in a flock of pillows. I gathered several of them in my arms, and spoke while I hugged them to me. “Annie, sometimes I don't even want to hear Michael's voice on the telephone.”

“How strange,” said Annie. “Does Michael have some dreadful flaw in his character that I haven't noticed?”

“No, no. He's wonderful. I think it's me.” I was desperate for Annie to understand. But she seemed so blank to me—so removed. As if Price counted, but her best friend, Fraser, that girl she used to play with on the back steps, was someone she only vaguely remembered.

“What about you? Your teeth are straight. Your figure is a model's dream. Your hair is satin honey.”

“Not my body, Annie. Not Michael's body either. I just sometimes feel overpowered.”

Annie laughed. “I love it. The cover of adult romances. Where the masterful man stands behind the delicate shoulder of the helpless girl and you can't decide if he's going to lead her astray or guide her into happiness ever after.”

There is nothing worse than trying to express a profound thought and having the other person not catch on. You feel stupid, and you feel angry, and what's worse, you really do feel helpless. Words aren't going to get you anywhere. “I'm not helpless, Annie. You don't understand. It just doesn't feel one hundred per cent right to me. I have all these doubts about it—about me, about Michael and me.”

“Oh, Fraser,” said Annie, and the irritation surfaced in her voice instead of mine. “There's no such thing as one hundred per cent right. The finest musical performance in the world could still be improved. The best paper ever written could still include more information. Michael is as close to perfection as boys come. You should be thrilled. It's so annoying to have you get so picky every time we turn around. What in the world is there for you to be discontented about?”

I got off the bed. Annie has two full-length mirrors, so she can see herself from any angle. I caught my expression in them. I looked fretful. Whining. Like the little kids at Toybrary when their mothers won't let them take out toys with 498 pieces.

“Your complexion is perfect,” said Annie. “Stop worrying.”

“It's not my complexion, Annie. It's life.”

“Believe me, Fraser, this life beats the one where we hung around a gazebo exchanging watermelons and pretended that life was splendid without boys.”

She began talking about Price, about their plans for the future, about college and marriage.

I felt like a child Kit Lipton's age. Still bogged down in roller skates, ballerina costumes, Barbie Dolls and bubble bath. It was Annie who had crossed the line into adulthood: into that pairing-off that everybody, from my mother to Lynn to Judith, strived for. I was still a child.