The Loud Silence of Francine Green (3 page)

My paper dolls were movie stars. Doris Day, Mona Freeman, and Betty Grable each lived with her clothes in her own separate Sees candy box, the one-pound size. They had not only the dresses they came with but also special outfits I drew and colored, and socks, bathing suits, and pajamas I cut out of the Sears catalog.

I grinned as I packed up Doris, Mona, and Betty that next Sunday. We were about to meet new people and have glorious adventures.

After Mary Agnes led us in a Hail Mary, we all pulled out our paper dolls. "Doris Day? We don't play movie stars," Mary Agnes said. She handed me something that looked like a tiny black paper bathrobe. "Have her wear this. You can play she is Saint Rose of Lima." So Doris became the holy Saint Rose, and poor Mona Freeman had to be Saint Lucy and pluck out her own eyeballs.

I lasted only four Sundays before I began to make excuses not to go to Mary Agnes's. Paper dolls weren't nearly as much fun when they had to be made to pray and fast and act like saints. The last straw was when Betty Grable was torn apart by lions in a glorious martyrdom. I picked up the pieces and took poor Betty home, where she was miraculously healed through prayer and Scotch tape. The paper dolls and 1 stayed home on Sunday afternoons after that.

In the fifth grade Mary Agnes gave her paper dolls away for Lent, and she began putting all her spending money in the mission box for the pagan babies in deepest Africa. Sister
Saint Elmo said Mary Agnes's actions were perfect and admirable. I told Betty and Doris and Mona all about it as I colored new ball gowns for them.

All that remembering made me thirsty as I rode the bus home after school. I got off on Pico Boulevard and went into Petrov's Groceries and Fresh Meats. The store was dark and smelled of dust and overripe bananas. I pulled a bottle of Coke from the icy water of the cooler.

"You will rot your teeth, you young people and your Cokes," Mrs. Petrov said, shaking her finger at me from behind the counter.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Petrov, I brush." I took a big gulp of the Coke, so cool and bubbly and sweet going down. "How's Mr. Petrov today?" Mr. Petrov had a bad heart. He sat in the back of the store and listened to baseball on the radio while little Mrs. Petrov did all the work. Sometimes he'd take his chair out front and sit in the sunshine, eyes closed, eating cherry Popsicles and singing slow, sad songs in Russian.

As Mrs. Petrov took my nickel, she shook her head. "He is not well, not well at all."

I had another nickel in my pocket. I'd planned to put it in the mission box at school, but apparently I wasn't as perfect and admirable as some people, for I pulled it from my pocket and gave it to Mrs. Petrov. "I'll take a cherry Popsicle, too," I said.

I took the Popsicle outside. "Here, Mr. P," I said as I passed his chair. "This is for you from the missionaries in Africa."

He opened his eyes and looked puzzled as I handed him the Popsicle. But he nodded as he took it from me.

The next week
Sophie invited me over for dinner. "My father is cooking," she said. "Lamb chops a la shoe leather and lima beans. And martinis, but we don't get any of those."

"My father calls them martoonies," I told her.

"Oh nausea," she said.

Mr. Bowman shook my hand solemnly when I got there. He was very tall and thin, with long fingers like a piano player. His glasses, like Artie's, sat on the end of his nose. Tying an apron over his shirt and tie, he sang while he fried the lamb chops.

"
The Marriage of Figaro,
" Sophie whispered. "Opera."

"Sounds more like
The Murder of Figaro,
" I whispered back. She grinned and nodded as we sat down at the table.

"1 had to stay after school today," Sophie said before she even took one bite. Jeepers, 1 thought, was she asking for
trouble, dumping it on him right away like that? 1 tried to look invisible as I chewed.

Her father just sighed and finished his martini. "Why this time?"

"I merely asked Sister Basil a question. Just one question and she blew a gasket."

Mr. Bowman chewed slowly for a long time, probably trying to get the shoe leather soft enough to swallow. "And the question was?"

"She was talking about Maria somebody who should be a saint because she was martyred for refusing to act in what Sister called 'an unholy manner' with the farm boy. I asked her what she meant by unholy. Talking back? Missing Mass? Necking and petting? How unholy? She said never mind the details. We should just pray to be like the Blessed Maria. 'You mean get
murdered
?' I asked. She called me blasphemous and, zowie, after school. She said my curiosity and outspokenness were vicious habits."

"Sophie, my darling, you do not have to ask every question that occurs to you. Or say everything you think. Remember, patience, moderation, and self-control."

Was that all Mr. Bowman was going to say? Was Sophie in the clear? If I did something like that, I would be sent to my room until the year 2000!

"What about you, Francine?" Mr. Bowman was asking.

I gulped down a mouthful of lima beans. "Me? I didn't do anything."

"Of course not. I was merely asking about your day. I take it you were released at the normal time?"

I nodded. "It was fine. We collected almost a dollar for the pagan babies and did word problems in arithmetic," I said. "Sophie is real good at word problems."

"It must be her affinity for words of all kinds," Mr. Bowman said. "Especially 'fightin' words.'"

"Wonder where I get it," Sophie said, and took a big gulp of her milk.

After dinner Mr. Bowman picked up his newspaper while Sophie and I cleared the table. "I see in the
Times
that the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is meeting in New York," he said. "Nations working together for peace and protection. What do you girls think? Will that make us safer?"

I stood still with my stack of plates, speechless at the very thought of a grownup asking my opinion about anything more than "chocolate or vanilla?" but Sophie said, "It's a start, I guess, but I think it's all useless unless they ban the bomb."

"But Sophie, I'd say it's fear of Russia and communist nations in general that prompted the creation of NATO. I doubt they'll ban the very weapons they see as protecting us from Soviet aggression."

"Probably not," she said, pausing with her hands full of knives and forks, "but I'd feel a lot safer if people were out there fighting with sticks instead of bombs."

"You do have a point, my darling," Mr. Bowman said, laughing. "What do you have to say about international peace and security, Francine?"

Me? What? Did Mr. Bowman really care what I thought?
He had the same martini-and-cigarette smell my father had but otherwise was nothing like my father or indeed any other grownup I knew. Finally I managed to squeak out, "I think it would be a good idea."

Mr. Bowman nodded. "Indeed, Francine, indeed."

I walked home puzzled, as if I'd been in France or Poland or someplace where they spoke another language. I mean, dinner at my house last night went like this:

Scene: It's an ordinary family home. To the left is the dining room, elegant in brown wallpaper with gold roses and green leaves. The dining-room table is polished and gleaming. No one is eating there. No one ever eats there. At right is the kitchen-tan linoleum floor, tan cabinets, white curtains with a border of red cherries. Gathered around the kitchen table are a woman of middle years in gold-wire glasses, her fine brown hair in a sausage roll (Mother); her husband (Father) in blue tie and bifocals; a skinny boy of five in horn-rimmed glasses much too big for his little face (Artie); and his beautiful, sweet older sister (me, Francine, of course-20/20 vision). There is an empty chair because the oldest girl, a vicious hag of sixteen named Dolores, who needs glasses but pretends she doesn't, is being sent away from the table for wearing her hair rolled up in pin curls at dinner.

DOLORES
(stomping from the room):
You don't want my hair to be curly. You want me to be ugly. You want me to have stringy hair and never get married and stay here with you the rest of my life! I'd rather die.

FATHER
: Pass the meat.

MOTHER
(passing something vaguely meat-like to her husband):
Arthur drew a picture of a duck in school today, didn't you, Arthur?

ARTIE
(his mouth full):
Hmmumm.

MOTHER:
I think Arthur is very artistic. Maybe he should be taking art lessons.

FATHER:
How about another martooni, Lorraine?

FRANCINE
(silently):
Oh nausea.

MOTHER
(returning to the table with Father's martini):
How was school today, Francine?

FRANCINE:
Fine.

MOTHER:
And how is Sophie liking it?
francine
: Fine, I guess.
mother
: Why "I guess"?

FRANCINE:
I don't know. I assume she likes it okay. She's used to getting in trouble at school.

FATHER:
Trouble? What kind of trouble? I don't want you getting involved with troublemakers.

FRANCINE:
She kind of talked back to Sister Basil.

FATHER
(putting his martini down so hard it sloshes on the table):
"Kind of"? There is no "kind of" talking back. I don't want to hear about you doing that. You are not there to bother the holy sisters.

FRANCINE:
I know. But she only—

MOTHER:
That's enough, Francine.

FRANCINE
: I just—

FATHER:
Lower your voice, Francine.

FRANCINE
: I—

FATHER:
Francine, be quiet!

ARTIE
: Pass the meat.

Fade out

I tried to imagine my father asking what I thought about world events:

FATHER
(takes a deep puff of his cigarette. The smoke circles his head as he speaks):
Francine, my dear, what do you think about godless communists and their evil desires to take over the world? How best can we stop them?

FRANCINE:
Why, Father, I'm glad you asked. I am of the opinion that—

FATHER:
And what do you make of current efforts to promote peace in the world?

FRANCINE:
Well, Father, I—

FATHER:
Pass the meat.

My imagination just wasn't up to the task. Holy cow.

"
I want to go too,
" Artie said.

"No."

"Pleeeease?"

"Take him with you," my mother said, handing me three dollars for stamps. "You know how he loves the post office."

"The post office is a silly place to love."

"Never mind. Just take him. And if I hear you were unkind or let him get lost, there 11 be trouble."

Obviously I had no choice. Sophie should have painted "There is no free speech in this place" on our living-room floor. "Get a jacket," I said to Artie. "And wash—"

He jumped up. "I know. Wash my hands. Get rid of the Germans," he said.

"Germs, Artie."

"Germans," he repeated.

Artie and I left hand in hand for the post office. He had put on last year's Easter suit: short brown pants and jacket,
long brown socks, and a matching beanie. It was too small for him, but our mother made him wear it anyway because it cost $3.97 and wasn't worn out yet.

"It's a long walk," I told him. "Don't say I didn't warn you." He dropped my hand and raced ahead of me up the street.

Palm View Drive ended at the ivy-covered stucco wall of the Twentieth Century Fox studio, where movies got made and dreams came true. I walked past the studio every chance I got, hoping sometime to glimpse a movie star or, even better, the head of the studio, and he would discover me and I, Francine Green, would myself be a movie star. I knew I would love being an actress. I could pretend to be someone else entirely and not me, tongue-tied and empty-headed, at all. I had never seen a movie star or the head of the studio in all the years we'd lived on Palm View Drive, but it could still happen. I kissed my fingers and touched the wall for luck.

Artie and I turned onto Pico, where he let me catch up to him. "Why aren't we taking the bus?" he asked.

"Because I don't have nickels to throw away. Now stay close."

After three more blocks Artie began to drag his feet. After five blocks he began to whine, "Fran-
seeeeen,
don't go so fast." We slowed down.

Seven blocks into the walk, he stopped dead and said, "I don't want to go to the post office anymore. It's too far."

"Well, I'm not walking you all the way back home and then starting over again. It's only a little ways yet. Come on." I reached for his hand.

"No." He sat right down on the sidewalk.

"I'll tell you a story."

He looked up at me. "About a cowboy?"

"Yes, if you want."

He got up. I brushed the dirt off his pants and took his hand, and we started to walk again. "So, once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess who—"

"About a
cowboy,
Fran-
seeeeen.
"

"There was a beautiful princess," I repeated, "who loved a cowboy."

"No, no love stuff."

"Well, he'd have to love his horse."

"That's okay. Just no love stuff with princesses or girls."

"But that's how this story goes," I said. "You can't just change a story."

"Then tell another story. One about cowboys and horses and no girls."

"Never mind. We're here." And we were.

The post office was crowded. I stood in line, looking at the criminals on the wanted posters on the wall—mostly angry-faced men with mean eyes who needed shaves. I examined the photos closely, but I didn't recognize anyone. Perhaps they were not pursuing their lives of crime in Los Angeles. Artie, meanwhile, helped himself to a handful of change-of-address cards, peeked into the mailboxes, and got in everyone's way. The Rice Krispies in his pockets dribbled out onto the floor and snap-krackle-popped as people stepped on them.