Before They Rode Horses (5 page)

Anyway, it was decided.

“What was decided?” Stevie interjected.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you?”

“Yes, you did,” Carole said.

“Keep on going,” said Deborah.

Charm school. Yep, and I’m not kidding about it. My mother had enrolled me in charm school. She’d decided that since I was apparently a total flop as an actress, at least I could learn to be charming, and perhaps that way I could coax a good performance out of myself.

There was a stunned silence. Even Stevie didn’t know what to say about this revelation—for a few seconds, anyway. Then she exploded into hysterical giggles.

“I’ve always known there was something special—uh
, charming—
about you!” she snorted between waves of laughter.

Lisa tried to ignore the laughter. It wasn’t easy, especially when Carole started laughing, too. Even Deborah was chuckling.

“It wasn’t a big-deal course or anything.” Lisa said. “It was just five classes, given on Tuesday afternoons—like a half course.”

“Oh, so you’re only half charming!” Stevie hooted.

That remark made Lisa laugh. Carole never stopped. Deborah kept on laughing, but she rubbed her stomach again, too. Everybody looked at the clock. Fifteen minutes. No change. Lisa continued her story.

Mother had already signed me up before I got home, and it became clear that I’d never be able to talk her out of it. I begged, I cried, I promised everything in the world, but, like I said, it was already decided. The only thing I could do was to get her to promise me that in exchange I could do one thing, just one thing, I wanted to do. See, she already had me taking ballet and painting and piano. I like all
those things just fine, but I hadn’t chosen them any more than I had chosen charm school.

The worst part was that I had to get permission to leave the rehearsals early on Tuesdays. It wasn’t a gigantic deal because it was only fifteen minutes and I knew that wasn’t going to matter to Ms. Stevens, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her why it was that I needed to leave early.

“Is something wrong, Lisa?” she asked.

“Um, not really,” I said.

“I mean, is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

“Just the fifteen minutes on Tuesdays,” I said.

She smiled at me. It was one of those kind, sympathetic smiles you get from people who really want to poke into your business.

“The way Robby Kilpatrick leaves early on Fridays?” she asked.

I wanted to drop through the floor. Robby went to a psychiatrist and everybody knew it, but nobody talked about it. He’d been all messed up since his parents’ divorce and had started sucking his thumb in math class—not reading group, just math. It turned my stomach to have Ms. Stevens think that I was about to start sucking my thumb in class, but it didn’t turn my stomach any more than it would
have to have Ms. Stevens know I was being sent to charm school.

“Yes, Ms. Stevens, just like Robby leaves early on Fridays,” I said.

I think she believed it, too. After all, she knew my mother.

“Wait a minute. This is supposed to be a story about good mothering,” said Deborah.

“Have patience,” Lisa assured her. “But in the meantime, you can pick up a pointer or two about stuff not to do, okay?”

“Okay,” Deborah said.

III

M
ISS
M
ARTIN WAS
the owner and sole instructor at The Martin Academy. I knew it was going to be trouble before I knew what the name was. Imagine, the very idea of a charm school, but when I heard what she called the place, I figured it was double trouble.

Mother picked me up at school that first Tuesday and handed me a package.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s your dress,” she said.

I guess she figured I had to prove to Miss Martin that I was already charming before I got to the
school. We stopped at a gas station and I went into the ladies’ room to change. What Mom hadn’t counted on was that this was a gas station and the last lady to use the bathroom had obviously had a problem with her car. The whole place was covered with dirty grease and, naturally, it got all over the dress; but it got on my school clothes worse, and there wasn’t time to go home, shower, and change, and I’m sure that being late to charm school is an invitation to a black mark by your name. I was covered with smudges of grease when I arrived at my first class.

Miss Martin was unlike anybody I’d ever known before in my life. She was a small woman, thin and frail. It was the middle of the afternoon, and she was wearing a chiffon dress with a stole that she kept playing with. Sometimes she draped it over her head so that she looked like the girl who played the Virgin Mary in the Christmas pageant. At other times she let it flow over her shoulder so that she looked like somebody’s fairy godmother. She spoke quietly, in a soft Southern accent.

“Girls,” she said when we all sat down. “I am goin’ to teach y’awl how to be ladies. Chahmin’ ladies. Now I know what y’awl ah thinkin’ out they-ah …” That’s really the way she talked, but
I’m not going to try to imitate it anymore, so you’re on your own. Just remember that I had to listen to it for two hours that afternoon.

“You’re wondering what charm really is, aren’t you?” Miss Martin asked.

Naturally, you can imagine that was the last question in my mind. I wasn’t exactly on the edge of my seat for the answer.

“Well,” Miss Martin said, “it’s easy. Charm is five things and five things only, one for each of the letters in the word: C-H-A-R-M.” She spelled it in case we didn’t know how. “Charm is Cleanliness, Health, Animation, Radiance, and Manners. Once you learn the essence of each of these qualities, you will be ready to go out into the world, demonstrating the finest qualities of the fair sex.”

“Argh,” said Stevie.

“Five weeks of this,” Lisa reminded her.

“I think I’m having another contraction,” said Deborah.

“I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach,” said Carole.

Lisa continued her story.

Of course, I was just thrilled that my dress and my white socks were all covered with monkey grease from the gas station. It was perfect for lesson
one: Cleanliness. Miss Martin decided that I would be the center of attention because there was clearly so much room for improvement. I hated every second of it.

We heard more than I want to tell you about the importance of well-trimmed fingernails—though she didn’t consider any of us old enough for colored nail polish. We heard about regular bathing. Every time she mentioned regular bathing, she glanced at me and her right eyebrow twitched upward. At first it hurt my feelings. Then I looked around at my classmates. I didn’t know any of them, but I knew one thing about them and they knew it about me. Each of us would rather have been almost anywhere in the world right then but at The Martin Academy, and that suddenly made it all right. In fact, it made it just a little bit fun—maybe too much fun. There was a girl with long red hair who was in trouble. At first I thought she was having a fit. Then I realized that’s exactly what it was. She was about to explode into giggles. She clapped her hand across her mouth and made the most horrendous sound.

It startled Miss Martin. But not for long. That lady knew the essence of charm. “Elissa,” she said calmly. “Our final lesson will be on manners. I
strongly suggest you pay extra attention on that day.”

I’m not kidding. She really said that. At that moment, Elissa became my best friend at The Martin Academy. I could hardly wait to see her again next week at Health.

By the end of the two-hour class, I don’t think I’d learned a thing I didn’t know except a lot of euphemisms Miss Martin liked to use for words she didn’t want to say. She didn’t say “period,” she said “that time of the month.” She didn’t say “bathroom,” she said “water closet” or “loo.” The toilet was a “commode.” She didn’t say “take a shower or bath,” she said “bathe.” When it came time to discuss underarm odor, she just pointed. She couldn’t even say “haircut.” She called it a “coiffure.”

But one thing I knew for sure was that she was certainly committed to cleanliness. I’ve never seen anything wrong with it myself. My dress and hands might have been dirty, but my fingernails were clean as can be.

At the end of the first class, I got my first certificate. It said “Most Improved.” I still have it, too.

IV

W
E HAD ANOTHER
rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon—the day after my first charm school class. I certainly wasn’t expecting that anything I’d heard from Miss Martin would help me at all, but I was wrong. She’d helped me a lot.

As soon as I entered the part of the stage that was Scrooge’s bedroom and looked at Larry, sitting smugly on a bench, holding his script to “help” him remember his lines, I noticed his fingernails. There are clean fingernails and there are dirty fingernails. Larry’s were grimy and disgusting. Moreover, he hadn’t clipped them properly and they were ragged and uneven. Miss Martin wouldn’t like that one bit.

I know it sounds a little silly, but it really did make a difference. I realized then that I had sort of let his obnoxiousness get to me and maybe I hadn’t been doing my best. Everybody knows that the Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t supposed to go through her scenes in a constant state of annoyance, and that’s what I’d been doing. I knew Ms. Stevens didn’t blame me, but I sort of blamed myself. When I saw his fingernails, it gave me an edge. Maybe he was obnoxious, but if he cared so little about himself that he couldn’t keep his fingernails clean, then I didn’t have to worry about him.

I got to the point in the script when I take him back to himself as a lonely child at school. It’s sort of a turning point because that’s when he first recognizes how isolated he was.

“The school is not quite deserted. A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still,” I said.

Larry looked to the blank area of the stage where I pointed. That’s his cue to start crying.

Instead, he said, “There’s nobody there.” One of Larry’s friends snickered. I bet he had dirty fingernails, too.

“Ah, but the world can see the lonely child that was to become Ebenezer Scrooge,” I said. “He sits forlornly, wondering of his future, his dreams and desires, and having no way to see the bleak future that awaits him.”

See, I figured that if Larry wasn’t going to do what needed to be done, I’d do it for him. Ms. Stevens caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. Larry just glared at me because he hadn’t been able to get my goat. All I could think of was how disgusting his fingernails were.

I started wondering what my next class—Health—would bring.

V

A
T THE START
of the health class, we seemed to take up about where we’d left off.

“Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow,” said Miss Martin.

“Wait a minute! This isn’t supposed to be about horses!” said Deborah. Lisa handed her an ice chip and continued her story.

We had a quick reminder about glowing, and then we went on to a whole new subject: Posture. I know you’re not going to believe this because it’s so corny, but Miss Martin had us put books on our heads to walk around. Only, it wasn’t just any book, it was the book she’d written—and had published privately—that we would each get at the end of the course to remind us of all the things she was teaching us. It was a pretty thin book, so we each had to use two of them. It’s tricky to walk around with a book on your head, but downright hard when there are two, since they not only slip on your hair, but they slip on each other.

This wasn’t new to me. In acting classes the year before, our teacher had taught us about posture and poise. We had to learn to be a presence onstage. In fact, we were supposed to imagine that there was a piece of space that was ours, that we carried with us
wherever we went, and we were to fill that space and use it as we moved. That was a way to hold the attention of an audience.

The result was that I was very good at posture. I stood straight, walked serenely, and held my space, holding everybody’s attention as I moved, just the way I’d learned a year before.

“My dear,” said Miss Martin. “Surely you don’t mean to stand so tall.”

I looked down. I looked up. I thought I was probably standing just about as tall as I was, which was about four feet nine inches.

“Why, a girl of your stature who stands so ramrod straight is going to run the risk of being taller than the gentleman who catches her fancy. We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?”

I’d never actually thought much about height and boys before, to tell you the truth. I just figured I’d grow to be the height I was going to grow to and that would be that. I actually liked the idea of being tall. I was tired of having to climb up on chairs to reach things. Miss Martin wasn’t in favor of height. Not at all. She thought it was unladylike to be more than about five feet four inches. That’s how tall my mother is, and I guessed that’s about where I’d end up, but I never worried about it.

Miss Martin implied we should worry about it, especially if we stood tall the way I did. Poor Elissa. Her mother was five feet ten inches tall, and her father was over six feet. At ten years old, she was already over five feet and was doomed to a life of tallness. Miss Martin had a cure for that. She got Elissa to slump a little, pushing her hips forward and then curling her back so her shoulders came forward. It took about an inch off her, but while it might have been charming where Miss Martin came from, I doubt it was really healthy. For one thing, it would make for terrible balance in the saddle—Oops. I mean, if you needed to do something where balance counted, like, say, riding a—uh, bicycle. For another, it can’t have been any good for her spine.

Anyway, with Miss Martin’s help, I learned not to stand so straight that I looked like a soldier, and Elissa learned to slouch so that her spine was going to go out of joint. That day, Elissa got the Most Improved certificate and I got a little button that said “Fast Learner.”