"I was looking for my shoe." Emily took the sneaker from her and loosened a knot in the lace. "Now, Gina, listen," she said. "We've got a play to give out in the county today, and we're leaving before you get back. When kindergarten's over, you walk home with the Berger girls and wait in the shop till we come. Mrs. Apple says she'll keep an eye on you."
"Why can't I stay home and go with you?"
"Summer will be here soon enough," Emily told her, "You'll be home all the time, come summer." She slipped the sneaker on Gina's foot and tied it. Gina's socks were already creased and soiled and falling down her ankles. Her blouse had egg on the front. Emily had known children like Gina when she was a child herself. They had a kind of extravagant squalor; there was something lush about the tumbled appearance of their clothing. She had always assumed their mothers were to blame, but now she knew better. Not half an hour ago Gina had been neat as a pin; Emily had made certain of it. She plucked a dust ball from Gina's hair, which was rich and thick-stranded like Leon's. "Come along," she told her. "You'll be late." She slung her purse on her shoulder and they left the apartment, clicking the latch very gently because Leon was still asleep. They walked down the stairs, where everyone's breakfast smells hung in the air- bacon, burned butter, the Conways' kippered herrings. They passed the door of the shop, which was- still dark, and stepped out into the street. It was a warm, sunny morning. The city looked freshly washed, with gold-lit buildings rising through a haze in the distance, women in spring dresses sweeping their stoops, green ivy flooding through the windows of an abandoned rowhouse. Gina hung on to Emily's hand and skipped and sang: Miss Lucy had a baby, She called it Tiny Tim, She put it in the bathtub To see if it could swim…
Emily said good morning to Mrs. Ellery, who was shaking out her dust mop, and to the ancient blind man whose daughter, or granddaughter it must have been, set him on his stoop every fair day with a grayish quilt wrapped around his legs. "Nice weather," Emily called, and the old man nodded, turning his sealed-looking eyelids toward the sun like a plant in the window. She stopped on the second corner to wait for the Berger girls. Helena Berger shooed them out the door-two little freckled redheads in plaid dresses. They ran ahead with Gina, and at the next intersection Emily had to call, "Stop! Wait!" She hurried up, out of breath, while they lurched and teetered on the edge of the curb. She held out her hands, and the younger Berger girl took one and Gina took the other. The Berger child was all bones; Emily felt a rush of love for Gina's warm, chubby fingers, which were slightly sticky in the creases. She waded across the street, embroiled in children, and turned them loose on the other side. They scattered ahead again, skipping disjointedly.
Miss Lucy called the doctor, Miss Lucy called the nurse, " Miss Lucy called the lady With the alligator purse…
Emily sensed a presence nearby, the shape of some one familiar, and she turned and found Morgan Gower loping along beside her. He tipped his battered green Army helmet and smiled. "Morgan," she said. "How come you're out so early?"
"I couldn't sleep past five o'clock this morning," he said. "There's too much excitement at the house." At Morgan's house there was always too much excitement. She'd never been there, but she pictured a bulging, seething box of a place-the roof straining off, the side seams splitting. "What is it this time?" she asked him.
"It's Brindle. My sister. Her sweetheart came back." Emily hadn't known his sister had a sweetheart. She shaded her eyes and called, "Children! Wait for me!" Then she said, "Did Kate get out of her leg cast yet?"
"Who?" he asked. "Oh, yes. Yes, that's all… but see, at seven or so last night, just at the end of supper, the doorbell rang and Bonny said, 'Brindle, go see who that is, will you?' since Brindle was nearest the door, so Brindle went and then…" They'd reached the intersection. Emily held out her hands and the children swarmed around her, knocking Morgan backward a pace. When she'd crossed to the other side and turned to look for him, he was picking up Ms helmet from the gutter, He polished it with his sleeve, sadly, and set it OB his head, It matched his splotchy camouflage jacket and his crumpled olive-drab jungle pants. He was always dressing for catastrophes that were unlikely to occur, she thought. "These are guaranteed, certified, snake-proof boots," he said now. He stopped to hold up one green foot. "I bought them at Sunny's Surplus."
"They're very nice," she said. "Children! Slow down, please."
"How come you have those other two girls?" Morgan asked. "I don't remember seeing them before."
"I'm trading off with their mother. She's walking Gina home today so that I can do a show."
"Well, it all seems so disorganized," Morgan said. "I come to you people for peace and quiet and I find this disorganization. Look at Gina: she hasn't even said hello to me."
"Oh, she will; you know she loves to see you. It's only that she's with friends."
"I prefer it when you both come and Gina walks between you, just the one of her. Where's Leon? Why isn't he here?"
"He's sleeping. He was out late last night, trying for a part in a play."
"It's too disorganized," Morgan said glumly. He stopped and peered down the front of his jacket. Then he reached inside and brought up a pack of cigarettes, "So Brindle goes to the door," he said, "and nothing more happens. There's nothing but silence. Well, we thought she might have faded off somewhere. Forgot where she was headed. Lost her way or something. You know Brindle. Or at least, you know about her: always in that bathrobe, moping. 'How was your day?' you ask, and she says, 'Day?' She acts surprised to hear there's been one. 'Go see where she's got to,' Bonny tells me. 'She's your sister; see what she's up to.' So I push away from the table and go to find her and there she is in the entrance hall being kissed by a total stranger. It's one of those long, deep, wrap-around kisses, like in the movies. I was uncertain what to do about it. It seemed rude to interrupt, but if I turned and left they'd no doubt hear the floorboards creak, so I just stood there flossing my teeth and the two of them went on kissing. Heavy-set man with slicked-down hair. Brindle in her bathrobe. Finally I ask, 'Was there something you, wanted?' Then they pulled apart and Brindle said, 'Ifs Robert Roberts, my childhood sweetheart. Don't you know him?'"
"Children!" Emily called. They'd reached another intersection. She ran ahead to take their hands. Morgan followed, muttering something. "'Known him all his life^ of course" was what it sounded like. "Knew him when he was a bit of a thing, corning to play roll-a-bat with Brindle in the alley. Called her 'Idiot. Dumbhead. Moron,' in that fond, insulting way that childhood sweethearts have…" The school loomed up, a gloomy building surrounded by cracked concrete, teeming with shabby children. Emily bent to kiss Gina goodbye. "Have a good day, honey," she said, and Morgan said, "How about old Morgan? No kiss for Uncle Morgan?" He bent over, and Gina threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "Come by after school and help me again with my yo-yo," she said.
"All right, sugar-pie."
"You promise?"
"Absolutely. Have I ever let you down?" When she ran off, he stood watching after her, smiling and tapping cigarette ashes across the toes of his boots. "Ah, yes. Ah, yes," he said. "What a darling, eh? I wish she'd stay this size forever."
"I hate that school," Emily said.
"Why! What could be wrong with it?"
"It's so crowded; classes are so big, and I doubt I'll ever feel safe letting her walk here alone. I'd like to send her someplace private. Leon's parents have offered to pay, but I don't know. I'd have to think how to bring it up with Leon."