The Velvet Room (15 page)

Robin started to introduce Dad, but somehow it didn’t seem right just to say Bridget. Dad was always particular about calling grownups
Mr.
and
Mrs.
She was stammering as Bridget came to the rescue. “Mrs. Gunther,” she said, “Bridget Gunther, but I’d be happy to have you call me Bridget, just as Robin does.”

“In that case,” Dad said, “you’ll have to call me Paul.” He nodded toward Robin. “Anyway, we’ve heard too much about each other to stand on ceremony.” Robin could see that they were going to get along fine.

The evening turned out better than Robin had hoped. Mama had made beef stew and corn bread and even an apricot pie. The pie was a little burned on one side where the oven still didn’t heat right, but otherwise it was a fine dinner. Bridget seemed to be having a wonderful time. Everyone was so busy talking and laughing that Robin didn’t have time to worry about the old bent silverware and the rummage-store plates.

After dinner they all sat around and talked. The others liked Bridget too. She didn’t get a bit excited when Cary showed her his tarantula in a jar. Instead she was interested, and told Cary some things about tarantulas that he hadn’t known before. Robin could see that Cary was impressed. Before long Shirley was leaning against Bridget’s chair, and as a rule Shirley wouldn’t go near a stranger —not on purpose anyway. Bridget even got Rudy to talk by asking his advice about her water pump, which wasn’t working quite right. Soon Rudy was telling her all about how a pump works.

But most of all, Dad and Bridget talked. Dad had always been interested in California’s history, and it turned out that Bridget was too. And Bridget asked a lot of questions about the work Dad was doing. She asked him about the kind of work he did in the mule barns and what his job had been like during apricot season. They talked about wildlife in California, too. That was really very interesting to listen to. Dad knew a lot of animal stories, and so did Bridget.

It was almost dark when Robin walked Bridget back to her cottage. On the way they talked about the Williams family. Robin was surprised to find out how much Bridget knew about them.

She even said, “Cary is very much like you, Robin. He has a quick and rebellious mind. He won’t settle for too ordinary an existence.” Robin was astonished that Bridget should have figured that out so quickly. She’d just begun to figure it out herself, and she’d been living with Cary for eight years. Until just a few weeks ago, he’d seemed only like a nuisance.

They were almost at the cottage when Robin said, “Do you think my father looks tired? He does to me. He looked just like that before he got sick the last time.”

Bridget didn’t answer right away, and when she did, she seemed to be speaking carefully. “Your father is an intelligent and capable man, Robin. He really should be doing work that is better suited to his abilities.”

“I know,” Robin interrupted eagerly. “Even back in Fresno, when we still had the dairy, Dad used to say sometimes that he wasn’t cut out to be a farmer. He wanted to study music and history, and be a teacher or something like that. But his father died, and then there was Mama and all the kids, so he never got to finish school. But I guess I’ve told you about all that.” She sighed. “The last time he was sick the doctor said he shouldn’t ever do heavy work again. But he has to, because it’s the only kind he can get.”

Bridget squeezed Robin’s hand comfortingly. “Well, it probably would be better if he didn’t have to lift bales of hay or tramp all day in the hot sun. But he’s happy to have a steady job, and that will help to keep him well. Happiness always helps a lot.”

Robin tried to tell herself that Bridget was right. Dad just couldn’t get sick now when things were so much better. But there was a corner of fear at the back of her mind that she just couldn’t get rid of.

The next Monday was the beginning of school. Robin was so excited that she felt a little bit sick. For the first time since third grade she was starting school on the first day, and really planning on being there all year.

Best of all, she was to be in seventh grade. The letter from the principal had said that although she was a little below grade in arithmetic she was very high in other subjects, so they had decided to let her try seventh. Rudy and Theda and Cary were all placed a year behind. Rudy was to be in the first year at Santa Luisa High, and Theda was in eighth grade. Cary, who had been to school only a few days at a time, would be in second. He was upset because he thought he should be in third, since he was eight. But Robin told him he’d done well to make second, considering how little he’d been to school.

That Monday morning as Robin stood waiting for the bus with all the other boys and girls from Las Palmeras, she couldn’t tell whether she was scared or happy. Whichever it was, she didn’t feel much like talking, so she just listened to Gwen, who was chattering away, just as she always did. At least part of Robin’s mind was listening to Gwen; the other part kept dashing off in one direction after another. Would she like Mrs. Jennings? How did the other boys and girls at Lincoln School feel about kids from Las Palmeras Village? Would it be a good year or bad? It was so important. A school year lasted such a long time.

The first day of school turned out to be both good and bad, but mostly good. And it was the same way with the days and weeks that followed. There were good times and bad ones. Mrs. Jennings, who was her homeroom teacher, was one of the good things. It seemed to Robin that almost from the first day Mrs. Jennings took a special interest in her. Later she began to suspect that Mrs. Jennings made everyone feel that way. She had a way of calling people up to her desk for little private chats while the rest of the class worked on an assignment.

When Mrs. Jennings discovered how Robin felt about books, she gave her a list of good books to read. Some of the books Robin already knew, but she’d never even heard of some of them. It was Mrs. Jennings who taught Robin to read a book from the outside in as well as from the inside out. Before that year Robin just jumped into every book she could get hold of and lived it. She had never thought of judging a book except by how it made her feel. If it made her feel good, she liked it; and if it made her feel bad or nothing much at all, she didn’t. But that year Robin learned to let a part of heir mind stand off and look at a book as she read. She learned that there were good writers and writers who weren’t so good; that some books were original, well written, and believable, and some were not. It seemed strange at first to criticize a book, because books had always seemed sacred; but it was exciting to learn to make a judgment on your own and back it up with reasons.

As far as school work went, it was a good year, the best Robin had ever had; but in other ways it was often a time of confusion and unhappiness. Sometimes it was like walking along the top of a wall with a bad fall waiting on either side.

She hadn’t been at Lincoln School very long before she found out that it did make a difference whether or not you were one of the “Santa Luisa kids.” In the seventh grade it was a quiet difference; no one called you names or refused to talk to you. In class and in the halls everyone was friendly. But at noontime, when everybody sat around in groups to eat lunch, all the kids who had grown up in Santa Luisa ate together. And the Village kids and others from farm labor families had their own groups. The Santa Luisa kids belonged to the school clubs and won all the elections; and for parties or anything outside of school the difference was even more important.

Because of Gwen, Robin was sort of in between. Gwen was important in the seventh grade at Lincoln School. And it wasn’t just because she was a McCurdy. There were others, like Laura Greenfield, whose families were well known but who were not important the way Gwen was. It was her bouncy good nature, her blond cuteness, and her cheerful impudence. Everybody liked Gwen — and Gwen liked Robin. And that didn’t change even when Gwen was back among all her old friends, as Robin had thought it might.

Gwen wasn’t the kind of person who paid attention to the way things had always been done. If she wanted Robin to eat with her gang, Robin did; and with a few exceptions, like Laura, no one seemed to mind.

Laura was the kind of girl who had always had everything and didn’t like any of it much. She was smart, but her grades weren’t very good. Robin thought it was because Laura used all her time and energy finding out people’s tender spots. She was an absolute genius when it came to knowing just what a person couldn’t stand to be teased about.

“Robin,” Laura would say in a sticky voice, “where’d you get that cute dress? Isn’t that the cutest dress? Don’t you like Robin’s dress? Where’d you get it, Robin?”

So Robin would have to say that the dress came from the Dollar Store. There was no use lying about it, because one just like it was hanging in the window of the store. Then Laura would say, “Oh really! Well, I’m going to have to tell my mother to shop for me at the Dollar Store. She always goes to the same old places like Olivia’s or Beauchamp’s.” Then Laura and one or two others would giggle. But Laura had to be careful not to let Gwen notice what she was doing. Lots of times Gwen didn’t notice. But when she did see what Laura was up to, she usually said something simple and right to the point, like, “Why don’t you shut up, Laura?” And Laura did.

At home at Las Palmeras there were good times and bad too. There were good times at the McCurdy’s. At least twice a week Robin spent the afternoon there, studying with Gwen. Besides practicing the piano, she helped Gwen with her English and history assignments; and Gwen, who was best at arithmetic, made Robin really learn the multiplication tables for the first time in her life. Sometimes, when they were studying, Carmela would bring up some hot chocolate, or Mrs. McCurdy would drop in to see how they were coming along.

When they were through studying, Robin would go home to the Village; but when winter came, it was dark by then, so Mr. McCurdy would walk partway with her or even drive her home in his car. Robin liked Mr. McCurdy, and she could tell that he liked her. On the way to the Village they always found interesting things to talk about. That is, Robin did most of the talking, but Mr. McCurdy had a way of getting her started. Next to Dad, Robin had never met a grownup who was so easy to talk to.

Of course, there were good times at Bridget’s too. Robin still staked Betty out every day and got up early to have time for a little visit with Bridget. Several times, in the evening, Dad walked over to the cottage for a visit and stayed to talk for a while. Bridget and Dad always had a lot to talk about. Dad said it was remarkable how much Bridget knew, considering how little she was able to get around. She took an interest in things that you wouldn’t expect her to care about.

That winter the bad times came when Gwen was busy with her family, or away on party invitations that, of course, did not include Robin. Then there were two whole weeks when Gwen was home with the flu. Without her, Robin didn’t seem to belong anywhere. Laura and her friends made it plain that Robin didn’t belong with the Santa Luisa gang, and the Village kids were just as bad when she tried to eat with them. Even Theresa, who had always been friendly, turned her back and said something about why didn’t she go back to the “reech keeds.” Sometimes, when she came home from school smarting from something Laura had said, or when someone from the Village called her “stuck up,” it seemed as if everything was just in miserable confusion.

There were other bad times when from behind a book she watched Dad sitting at the table in the cabin. His head would sink low over his cup of coffee, and his freckles would stand out sharply against the paleness of his skin. He would sit there as if he was just too tired to get up and go to bed. As Robin lay on her cot pretending to read, she would get angrier and angrier. She was angry at whatever it was that trapped people in jobs that weren’t good for them. She was angry at the tiny, ugly cabin that didn’t even have a decent chair for Dad to stretch out in, the way Mr. McCurdy stretched out in his big chair in front of the fireplace. She was even angry at Mama, who went on bustling cheerfully around without even noticing how tired to death Dad was getting.

But of course there was a way to make everything all right. There was always something she could do whenever there was too much worry or confusion or anger. There was the Velvet Room. Once in a while Robin was able to visit it by sneaking away right after school. A few other times she managed to go in the evening right after dinner, but she couldn’t stay long because it soon got dark. But it helped even when it wasn’t possible to go there. Just knowing it was there made all the things that seemed to be pressing in on her move back. The Velvet Room was the center of everything all that fall and winter — a quiet core in the middle of confusion, like the eye in the center of a storm.

C
HRISTMAS CAME AND WENT
. It was a good Christmas; at least it was much better than any the Williams family had had since they left Fresno. Bridget came to dinner on Christmas Day, and it was a real holiday meal. There was even a Christmas tree. Of course, it wasn’t a very big tree, and the decorations were only popcorn and tinsel from cigarette packages; but it was a real tree, and there were presents under it.