Looking for Me (7 page)

 

As that sweet coconut custard
slides across my tongue,
I know that we have the best big sister
of anyone.

There's this guy we call
Jimmy the Greek
who comes to the diner to eat
whenever I'm working there with Sylvia.

 

I'm lucky he's sweet on her,
because today
he brought me
a Shirley Temple doll.

 

It's the first time
I've ever gotten anything
so special that I can truly call
my own.

 

It almost makes me glad
I'm working
at the diner.

 

Almost.

When the soldiers and sailors
come to the diner
they give me coins
from faraway places
to add to my collection.

 

But today all my coins disappeared,
and I wanted Sol to disappear, too,
when I found out
that he put every one of them
in the pinball machine.

 

He says he didn't know
they were special.
“I've been saving those coins forever.
Those were mine,
and you had no right
to take them!” I screamed.

 

I'm awfully glad
that my Shirley Temple doll
is too big to fit
into a pinball machine.

But it won't be like last summer.

 

Mom will still hang the garden hose
over the clothesline
to make an outdoor shower
for us to run through
on the hottest days,

 

but Melvin won't be here
to hold my hand
and giggle
when the cool water sprays him.

 

And Dad will still take us
to the shore on Sundays,

 

but Melvin won't be here
to hold my hand and squeal
as we play chase with the waves
up and down the beach.

 

And we'll still stop
on our way home from the shore
for four-cent hot dogs at Hymer's,

 

but I won't be able
to wipe the mustard and sauerkraut
off his face and fingers and hair.
I won't be able to take his hand
to walk back to the car afterwards.

 

We never talk about Melvin much
anymore,
but I cry about him
every night in my pillow,
and in the day
my hand feels awfully empty.

I try to rush out after class
like I always do,
but today Miss Connelly
tells me to stay.

 

All I can think about
is how she's going to give me detention
for falling asleep in class again,
and how Dad is going to kill me
for being late to work.

 

But instead,
she asks me in a voice so gentle
it feels like a hug,
“Where do you race off to after school
every day?”

 

And suddenly the words
start pouring out of me like rain
and I find myself telling her
all about the burgers and diapers
and long days
and late nights
and crowded beds.

 

Then she says,
“I have seen what you can do
when your eyes are open, Edith.
You're a smart girl and a fast learner, too.
You should go to college someday.”

 

College? Smart? Fast learner?
No one has ever said words
like these to me.
No one.

 

But then I remember
the girl in my class with the big vocabulary,
and I say, “I don't think I'm so smart,
Miss Connelly.
I don't even know
what any of those big words mean
that Helen Krashinsky uses.”

 

“Neither does she,” Miss Connelly says
with a wink.

I am a bubble
blown full
with Miss Connelly's words,

 

floating out of the classroom,
bobbing across the grassy lot,
drifting by Levin's Bakery,

 

letting the breeze carry me to the diner.
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?”
Dad yells when I come in,

 

but I just float right by him.

But at least
I don't have to work the late shift tonight.
So I serve my last hot roast beef sandwich
and float home.

 

I glide into the parlor.
Do they notice my feet
aren't touching the ground?
“I'm going to college someday,”
I announce,
“and I'm going to be a teacher.”

 

Dad grunts.
“We don't have money for college,
and girls don't need to go anyways,”
he says.
“You'll work at the diner
until you get married.”

 

His words pierce me,
and I burst.

I go over to Bubby Etta's house
to tell her about my future,
the one I had for a little while,
until Dad smashed it into a million pieces.

 

And even her golden brown knishes
filled with creamy potato
that she's just taken out of the oven
don't help me feel any better.

 

But then she cradles my cheeks in her hands,
forcing my eyes to look straight into hers,
and says, “Don't worry,
bubbelah,
you
will
go to college,
and I will help you.”

 

I throw my arms around her
and squeeze her hard,
feeling as if she's just reached
into her shopping bag of gifts
and pulled my dreams out
whole again.

I'm having a late-night ironing talk
with Mom
when I tell her
what Miss Connelly said
about me being smart
and about college
and how Bubby said she'd help.
“That Miss Connelly is a sharp lady,”
Mom says.
Then she leaves the room
and comes back
with something cupped in her hand.
She opens my hand,
drops a wad of dollar bills into it,
and then closes it up tight,
holding her shushing finger
up to her lips.
“For college,” she says,
and goes back
to her ironing.

So I don't tell anyone
where I'm going,
and I take two quarters
(two days' wages)
that I've stashed away
and use them to pay the fare
each way
for two buses
and a trackless trolley.

 

It takes me
more than an hour
to get there,
but when I do,
it's better than I imagined—

 

tall brick buildings
with ivy clinging to them,
packed with classrooms and dormitories,
boys and girls
sitting on the grass
in small groups, chatting,
others hurrying down the walkways
hugging their books.

 

On the way home
I think about how it was definitely
worth two days' wages,
two buses,
and one trolley
to see Towson State Teachers College,
where someday
I'll be going to school.

Now I have a better answer
for Miss Connelly,
who wanted me to think about who I am
in my family.

 

Maybe I am one of Dad's work slaves,
and I'm still
the good little mother,
taking care of my sisters and brothers,
but I am definitely someone else, too.

 

I am the one
who will go to college someday
and become a teacher.

We're having a hot-enough-to-fry-eggs-on-
the-pavement
kind of heat wave,
and my whooping cough is so bad
it feels like someone's hammering
on my chest.

 

It's one in the morning
and I'm sitting on the front steps
coughing nonstop
when Dad comes home from
driving the cab.

 

“Come on, Edith,” he says.
“I'll take you for a ride to cool off”
He rolls all the windows down
and we ride around the neighborhood.

 

Just me and him.
And I'm not even going to tell him
that I feel a little sick to my stomach
riding in the back seat,

 

because I don't want anything
to spoil this night
when my dad
is actually being nice

 

and spending time
just with me.

In June I'll be finishing
at McGee Elementary,

 

but before I go on to junior high
I'm getting an award—
a student achievement award,
the very first in my family.

 

I wish Mom would come to the ceremony
at McGee,
but she doesn't leave the house much
anymore.

 

I wish Mom would come—
just for me.

It's late-night ironing time,
so Mom pulls the board
down from the wall,
stretching a blue blouse over it.

 

Drops of her tears fall on the shirt
along with the water she sprinkles
before she presses down the iron.

 

“What's wrong, Mom?” I ask.
“Just thinking about Melvin,” she says,
her voice catching on his name.

 

I wish I knew the right words to say
to help her iron
her sadness away.

Nobody in my family
has ever gotten a school award
and I'm afraid Mom's too sad to come
and I'm sure Dad doesn't even know
what grade I'm in.

 

So no one will come see me
get my student achievement award.
No one will clap
when the principal calls my name.
No one will swarm around me
with congratulations and hugs.

 

What should be my grandest day
will be my saddest
because at least Mom
would have been here,
all dressed in pride.
Mom would have been here
if Melvin hadn't died.

Eunice's family is here,
crowding her with hugs and kisses.
She pulls away, beaming,
and we seat ourselves
on the stage.
She's smiling and nodding
at her family of fans,
and I stare
at my hands
folded in my lap...

 

“Edith Paul,” the principal calls
in a deep, serious voice.
I walk to the podium
to receive my award,
and out of the blue
I hear an ocean of wild clapping
and whistling.

 

I look out at the audience
and see them in the back,
grinning and waving,
like a mirage—
Mom, both my
bubbies,
Aunt Ruth,
Sylvia, Daniel, Marian, and all the rest
of my brothers and sisters.

 

Even
my father.

I go back to McGee,
head down the hall,
find her in the classroom,
boxing up her books,
pulling artwork off the walls,
packing away our whole school year.

 

“Edith,” she says,
“I'm so glad you came by.”

 

Miss Connelly doesn't know
that I couldn't stay away,
that I wish she could be my teacher
forever.

 

“My mom's giving me money for college,”
I announce.
“That's great news,” she says,
stepping right up to me,
closing all the space between us
with a giant hug.

 

I wish Miss Connelly
could hold me like this
forever.

 

But I've learned
that there is no forever,
and when she lets go,
I turn to leave quickly
so she won't see
the wetness in my eyes.

 

She calls to me
as I walk out the door,
“Edith, when you're off at college someday,
I expect to hear from you.”

 

And I go,
knowing I'm on my way
to being so much more
than just plain Edith
who's number four.

I always knew that I would write the Paul family story one day.
Looking for Me
is a part of that story. My mom, Edith, is the eleven-year-old-turning-twelve narrator, so most of these incidents are based on her memories. Not everything happened exactly as I've written it. For the sake of the story, at times I had to change the roles and ages of some of the characters and fill in the blanks with my own imagination as to what might have taken place.

I collected these stories in my head at first, and later with a mini tape recorder switched on while I pumped my mother and my aunts and uncles for the stories of their childhood. Every adventure, mishap, tragedy, and delight in this book happened in one form or another and involved some member of my mom's enormous, rambunctious family. How do I know? With my relatives, there is no such thing as a quiet family gathering. When my mom and her brothers and sisters get together, they are unstoppable. It doesn't matter how many times we've heard them before, the stories flow until they flood the room. Since each of the brothers and sisters has a slightly different take on every story, like in the game of telephone, many of these tales, through their telling, have changed over the years.