Veronica Ganz (9 page)

She jumped up from the bed, grabbed a magazine that lay on the dresser, flipped through the pages, and practically threw it into Veronica’s lap. “Look at that!” she said, accusingly.

There was a picture in the magazine of two girls about their own age. Both girls had long hair with ribbons in it, and both wore short plaid skirts and bright-colored knee socks that matched their sweaters. The older girl was standing up, reading a book, and the younger one lay stretched out on a fluffy, white rug, eating an apple and looking through an album of photographs. There were two beds in the room with fluffy pink bedspreads, and each bed had a canopy over it, covered with the same kind of ruffly pink material. There were two desks painted white, with two matching white chairs, and each desk had a lamp with a dainty pink shade. There was also a dressing table draped with deep rose-colored flounces, and topped by a heart-shaped mirror. The room had other pieces of furniture, too, all in pink and white.

Veronica looked at the picture, and then read the printing under it. “Feminine but Functional” it said, and went on to explain that even in cases where two girls had to share the same room, it was possible to make that room attractive, comfortable, and by careful attention to separation of room areas, privacy could also be assured.

Mary Rose looked at the picture over Veronica’s shoulder. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” she murmured.

“Uh huh,” Veronica agreed, “but you have to be rich to have a room like that.”

Mary Rose sat down on the bed next to Veronica. “Well, Papa has a lot of money. He’s rich, and if we lived with him we could have a room like that. Maybe we could even have our own rooms.” She pulled the magazine away from Veronica and studied the picture critically.

“It’s beautiful,” she said thoughtfully, “but I’m not sure pink is my color. Veronica, do you remember at the World’s Fair, that home-decorating pavilion?”

“No,” said Veronica.

“Well they gave out color charts to go with your personality. Wait, I’ll show you.”

Mary Rose had her papers and samples arranged in boxes stacked in the closet. She pulled out one box that was marked home decorating tips, opened it, and fished around inside until she found the folder she was looking for. On each page was a woman’s face with a color wheel next to it. Mary Rose flipped through the folder until she found a beautiful redheaded, blue-eyed face with a color wheel that had different shades of green and blue in it.

“She doesn’t look like you,” said Veronica.

“Well, she’s a grownup,” Mary Rose said eagerly. “But I’ve got a lot of red in my hair, and my eyes are blue.”

Veronica inspected Mary Rose’s face. Her eyes certainly were blue, although the lady in the folder had deep blue eyes while Mary Rose’s were pale. As for her hair, it was kind of blond and kind of brown, and the only red that Veronica could see was around Mary Rose’s eyes from all the crying she’d been doing.

“Your hair’s not red,” she said.

“It is so,” Mary Rose said passionately. “In the sun you can really see it, and it keeps growing redder all the time.” She looked down at the color wheel, and said decisively, “Blue and green are my colors but I like blue better.”

“I’ve got to do my homework,” Veronica said, standing up.

Mary Rose said, “I think what I’d really like is a bed that had a blue satin spread over a white organdy skirt, and maybe a dressing table with a matching organdy skirt with blue satin bows.”

Veronica picked up her books and walked to the door.

“An easy chair, painted a lighter blue, with matching upholstery,” Mary Rose was murmuring happily as Veronica left the room. She walked through the living room, past Stanley still at the window, and back into the kitchen.

Mama was through soaking her feet, and was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. Veronica sat down across from her, opened her French book, and began studying.

“What are you doing, Veronica?” Mama said, startled.

“Studying.”

“Studying?”

“Uh huh.”

“That’s nice,” Mama said approvingly.

“Avez-vous des livres?”
[“Have you the books?"]
Veronica intoned softly.
“Oui, monsieur, j’ai plus de livres que vous. Avez-vous
des crayons? Non, monsieur, je n’ai pas de crayons mais j’ai beaucoup de plumes. Avez-vous des chats? Oui, monsieur, j’ai quelque
—
”
["Yes, Sir, I have more books than you.  Do you have any pencils? No, Sir, I don't have any pencils  but I have lots of pens.  Do you have any cats? Yes, Sir, I have a few –
”
]

“What’s that you’re saying?”  Mama  asked.

“Oh, I’m just reading the lesson in the book.”

“Say it out loud,” Mama urged.

Veronica said,
“Avez-vous des chats? Oui, monsieur, j’ai quelques ch
ats.” ["Have you any cats? Yes, Sir, I have a few."]

“What does it mean?”

“It means,” Veronica explained, “ ‘Do you have any cats? Yes, sir, I have a few cats.’“

“My!” Mama was impressed. “Say something else.”

Veronica read,
“Avez-vous de l’argent? Oui, monsieur, mais j’ai peu d’argent.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means, ‘Do you have any money? Yes, sir, but I have a little bit of money.’“

Mama laughed. “It’s the same in every language,” she said, “but it’s wonderful the way you say it, Veronica. You sound like you really are French.”

“It’s easy,” Veronica said carelessly.

Mama said proudly, “I always knew you had a good head on your shoulders, Veronica. If you’d just settle down and pay attention in school, you could be as good as anybody else.”

Veronica began intoning the next phrase.
“Avez-vous du sucre?”
["Have you any sugar?"]

“No reason why you shouldn’t finish high school — I only wish I had. I want the three of you to finish school. And who knows, if we can afford it, maybe you could even go to college.”

“Oui, monsieur,”
[Yes, Sir."] Veronica murmured,
“j’ai trop de sucre.”
[I have lots of sugar."]

Mama looked at the clock. “Seven o’clock,” she said. “Ralph should be home soon. He’s talking to Mr. Reyes, the owner of that radio store next to ours. It’s going to be empty next month, and I told Ralph maybe we could rent it and expand the store. Business is pretty good now, and we could handle even more if we had more room.”

“Avez-vous des fleurs?”
["Have you any flowers?"]

“We could hire another man,” Mama said thoughtfully, “fix up the store, put in some new fixtures, paint it a nice color, and who knows, we just might make a go of it.” She smiled at Veronica. “If we had some money, maybe we could even get a piano, and let you and Mary Rose take music lessons. It’s a good thing for a girl to play the piano.”

“Oui, monsieur, j’ai plusieurs fleurs.”
[Yes, Sir, I have many flowers."]

“Just listen to the way you say that,” Mama said proudly. “Say that over again, that bit about do you have any money.”

“Avez-vous de l’argent?”
["Have you any money?"]
Veronica repeated.
“Oui, monsieur, mais j’ai peu d’argent.”
["Yes, Sir, but I have a little bit of money."]

Mama laughed again. She put her elbows on top of her newspaper and rested her face in her hands. “We just might make a go of it,” she said dreamily, and her blue eyes had a happy, faraway look. She looked just like Mary Rose over her color charts.

Veronica read the next phrase.
“Avez-vous des idées? Oui, monsieur, j’ai beaucoup des idées.”
[“Have you any ideas? Yes, Sir, I have lots of ideas."] I sure have, Veronica thought, smiling contentedly, plenty of ideas. Her eyes rested on her French book, but her ideas, in English, carried her off to an empty place filled only with the presence of Peter Wedemeyer. All alone there, they stood, the two of them, and as Veronica raised her clenched fist over Peter Wedemeyer’s face, Mama’s voice floated above them, “— and we’ll buy a new bed for Stanley.”

Chapter 9

“Les anges dans nos campagnes

Ont entonné l’hymne des cieux”

["The angels in our countryside

began singing the hymns of the heaven."]

sang Veronica with enthusiasm. In front of her, Reba Fleming’s red curls jiggled enticingly on her back, and Veronica resisted a powerful impulse to yank. Earlier, during that sappy country dance, while she and Paul Lucas were whirling around onstage, she had fought down a similarly powerful impulse to pick him up and fling him off the stage.

This was the second Friday of rehearsals for the French program that Veronica had attended. During the first, she had done all the necessary research, and today she was prepared to act. First there had been the dances, then the carols. Next would come the play,
The Elves and the Shoemaker,
or to say it in French,
Les Elfes et le Cordonnier,
in which Peter played the shoemaker, and in which she had no role, thank goodness. The last item on the program was “Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella,” or,
“Un Flambeau, Jeanette Isabella.”
The whole group was supposed to take part in that—there were twenty-three children who had offered themselves for the program—and they were supposed to move slowly across the darkened stage in single file, singing. On the day of the performance, they would carry lighted flashlights swathed in orange tissue paper to look like torches. Honestly, how nutty could you get!

But anyway, last week she had done the research, and today was the day. Veronica grinned contentedly and raised the volume of her singing. What a stir it had created when she turned up for the rehearsals last Friday! Madame Nusinoff tried to act like it was perfectly natural, but boy, was she ever surprised! Veronica could see that. She could also see how the kids were trying to figure it out. Lorraine Jacobs kept poking Frances Scanlon with her elbow, and motioning with her head in Veronica’s direction. She’d heard whispers and giggles, and figured they all had to do with her. When the rehearsals were over, Peter Wedemeyer had gone flying out of the auditorium ahead of everybody else, but she, instead of taking after him, had calmly remained in her seat until most of the kids had left. Nobody could tell him that she was chasing him that day. No sir, she’d been doing research that day, and today was the day.

“Et l’écho de nos montagnes

Redit ce chant mélodieux”

 ["And the echo of our 

Mountains repeated this melodious song."]

Veronica sang, and looked at the clock on the back wall of the auditorium. Four o’clock. Great! Right on time. The play would take about half an hour, and “Jeanette Isabella” about fifteen minutes. So give or take a few minutes here and there, by four forty-five the group would be out of the building and on its way home.

“No, no, no!” Madame Nusinoff said suddenly. She stopped playing the piano and stood up. “You’re all mumbling. The only one I can hear clearly is Veronica.” She smiled approvingly at Veronica, and Veronica grinned back. Buddy, buddy, that’s what she and Madame Nusinoff were. And after today, she wouldn’t be coming back. But she knew the songs all right. She’d memorized all of them. She wasn’t going to have Madame Nusinoff suspicious and throw her out before she was ready to go.

Madame Nusinoff made them sing
“Les Anges dans Nos Campagnes”
[The angels in our mountains] over again, and then that was that for the carols.

“All right now,” Madame Nusinoff said, “will the children in the play get onstage, and the rest of you come and sit down until the last number.”

Veronica raised her right hand high. She wanted everybody to see and hear her. Her left hand she held behind her with two fingers crossed.

“What  is  it,  Veronica?”  Madame  Nusinoff  said.

“I have to go to the dentist,” Veronica said in a loud voice. “My mother’s waiting for me.”

“Well,” Madame Nusinoff said, “you’ll miss the rehearsal for
‘Un Flambeau, Jeanette Isa
bella.’ ” [A Torch, Jeanette Isabella.]

“I studied the song,” Veronica said, “so I know it.”

“All right then,” said Madame Nusinoff. “Just make sure you don’t miss the rehearsal next Friday because it will be the last one before the performance.”

“Yes, ma’am, I will,” Veronica said, and uncrossed her fingers. She walked off the stage, picked up her coat and books, and without a look behind her hurried out of the auditorium. She tried to act as if she was in a big rush so that Peter would really figure she had to go to the dentist.

Down the stairs she raced, out into the yard, and through the gate. She knew just where she was going. Her plan was foolproof, and the climax was just forty-five minutes off — give or take a few minutes. She crossed the small street at 16th, and sat down on one of the benches in McKinley Square. The square was not, properly speaking, a square at all. It was more of a triangle, and from the crest of the triangle one had a complete view of the children coming from school. More important, the square and its surrounding territory were off school limits, so whatever she did to Peter Wedemever there could not be held against her by the school authorities. Peter would have to pass this way. The Franklin Avenue exit would be closed by this time. She’d checked that out too. Yes, she’d done her research last week, and it would not be long now.

“Un flambeau, Jeanette Isabella

Un flambeau, courrons au berceau”

["A torch, Jeanette Isabella,

A torch, we run to the cradle."

Veronica began singing. It really was a catchy tune. She put her books down on the bench, and rubbed her hands together. Boy it was cold! But that was a good thing, too, because aside from one old man who was reading his newspaper farther down the bench, she was the square’s only occupant. Even the policeman on duty after school to help the children cross the street had departed. Yes, sir, it was going to be one great day!

Up 16th Street came a horse pulling a wagon filled with apples, oranges, and grapefruits. The driver pulled on the reins, made a deep grunting noise, and the wagon stopped on one side of the square. Veronica watched the driver put down the reins and settle himself more comfortably on his seat on top of the wagon. He took a brown paper bag from behind him and began eating a sandwich. Veronica licked her lips. She was hungry, and she wondered what kind of a sandwich the man was eating. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out two pennies. Maybe she’d buy an apple. There was plenty of time before Peter arrived.