Mrs. Oakley kissed Mary Martha on the forehead. “Hello, lamb.” Then she patted Jessie on the shoulder. “Hello, Jessie. My goodness, you’re getting big. Each time I see you, I truly swear you’ve grown another inch.”
Whenever Mrs. Oakley said this to her, which was at least once a week, Jessie felt highly complimented. Her own mother said, “Good Lord, do I have to buy you another pair of shoes already?” And her brother called her beanpole or toothpick or canary legs.
“I eat a lot,” Jessie said modestly. “So does my brother, Mike. My father says he should get double tax exemptions for us.”
As soon as she’d made the remark Jessie realized it was a mistake. Mary Martha nudged her in the side with her elbow, and Mrs. Oakley turned and walked away, her sharp heels leaving little dents in the waxed linoleum.
“You shouldn’t talk about fathers or taxes,” Mary Martha whispered. “But it’s O.K., because now we won’t have to tell her about your hands. She hates the sight of blood.”
“I’m not bleeding.”
“You might start.”
Charlie wrote the name and address on the inside cover of a book of matches: Jessie, 319 Jacaranda Road. He wasn’t sure yet what he intended to do with the information; it just seemed an important thing to have, like money in the bank. Perhaps he would find out Jessie’s last name and write a letter to her parents, warning them. Dear Mr. and Mrs. X: I have never written an anonymous letter before, but I cannot stand by and watch your daughter take such risks with her delicate bones. Children must be cherished, guarded against the terrible hazards of life, fed good nourishing meals so their bones will be padded and will not break coming into contact with the hard cruel earth. In the name of God, I beg you to protect your little girl...
(2)
For many years the Oakley house had stood by itself, a few miles west of the small city of San Félice, surrounded by lemon and walnut groves. Most of the groves were gone now, their places taken by subdivisions with fanciful names and low down payments. Into one of these tract houses, a few blocks away from the Oakleys, Jessie had moved a year ago with her family. The Brants had been living in an apartment in San Francisco and they were all delighted by the freedom of having their own private house and plot of land. Like most freedoms, it had its price. David Brant had been forced to renew his acquaintance with pliers and wrenches and fuse boxes, the children were expected to help with the housework, and Ellen Brant had taken over the garden. She bought a book on landscaping and another on Southern California flowers and shrubs, and set out to show the neighbors a thing or two.
Ellen Brant was inexperienced but obstinate. Some of the shrubs had been moved six or seven times and were half dead from too much attention and overfeeding. The creeping fig vine, intended to cover the chimney of the fireplace, refused to creep. The leaves of the jasmine yellowed and dropped from excess dampness, and Ellen, assuming their wilting was due to lack of water, turned on the sprinkling system. Bills from the nursery and the water department ran high but when Dave Brant complained about them Ellen pointed out that she was actually increasing the value of the property. In fact, she didn’t know or care much about property values; she simply enjoyed being out-of-doors with the sun warm on her face and the wind smelling mysteriously of the sea.
She was busy snipping dead blossoms off the rosebushes when Jessie arrived home at one o’clock.
Ellen stood up, squinting against the sun and brushing dirt off her denim shorts and bare knees. She was slim and very tanned, like Jessie, and her eyes were the same unusual shade of grayish green.
“What are you doing home so early?” she said, pushing a strand of moist hair off her forehead with the pruning shears. “By the way, you didn’t straighten up your room before you left. You know the rules, you helped us write them.”
It seemed to Jessie a good time to change the subject as dramatically as possible. “Mary Martha says I may be dying.”
“Really? Well, you wouldn’t want to be caught dead in a messy room, so up you go. Start moving, kiddo.”
“You don’t even believe me.”
“No.”
“I bet if Mary Martha went home and told her mother she was dying, there’d be a terrible fuss. I bet there’d be ambulances and doctors and nurses and people screaming—”
“If it will make you feel any better I’ll begin screaming right now.”
“No! I mean, somebody might hear you.”
“That’s the general purpose of screaming, isn’t it?” Ellen said with a smile. “Come on, let’s have it, old girl — what’s the matter?”
Jessie exhibited her hands. A dusting of cinnamon hadn’t improved their appearance but Ellen Brant showed neither surprise nor dismay. She’d been through the same thing with Jessie’s older brother, Mike, a dozen times or more.
She said, “I have the world’s climbingest children. Where’d you do this?”
“The jungle gym.”
“Well, you go in and fill the washbasin with warm water and start soaking your hands. I’ll be with you in a minute. I want to check my record book and see when you had your last tetanus booster shot.”
“It was the Fourth of July when I stepped on the stingray at East Beach.”
“I hope to heaven you’re not going to turn out to be accident-prone.”
“What’s that?”
“There were at least a thousand people on the beach that afternoon. Only you stepped on a stingray.”
Although Jessie knew this was not intended as a compliment, she couldn’t help taking it as such. Being the only one of a thousand people to step on a stingray seemed to her quite distinctive, the sort of thing that could never happen to someone like Mary Martha.
Half an hour later she was ensconced on the davenport in the living room, watching a television program and drinking chocolate milk. On her hands she wore a pair of her mother’s white gloves, which made her feel very sophisticated if she didn’t look too closely at the way they fitted.
The sliding glass door was partly open and she could see her mother out on the lawn talking to Virginia Arlington, who lived next door. Jessie was quite fond of Mrs. Arlington and called her Aunt Virginia, but she hoped both women would stay outside and not interrupt the television movie.
Virginia Arlington’s round pink face and plump white arms were moist with perspiration. As she talked she fanned herself with an advertisement she’d just picked up from the mailbox.
Even her voice sounded warm. “I saw Jessie coming home early and I was worried. Is anything the matter?”
“Not really. Her hands are sore from playing too long on the jungle gym.”
“Poor baby. She has so much energy she never knows when to stop. She’s like you, Ellen. You drive yourself too hard sometimes.”
“I manage to survive.” She dropped on her knees beside the rosebush again, hoping Virginia would take the hint and leave. She liked Virginia Arlington and appreciated her kindness and generosity, but there were times when Ellen preferred to work undisturbed and without someone reminding her she was driving herself too hard. Virginia had no children, and her husband, Howard, was away on business a great deal; she had a part- time gardener and a cleaning woman twice a week, and to open a can or the garage doors or the car windows, all she had to do was press a button. Ellen didn’t envy her neighbors. She knew that if their positions were reversed, she would be doing just as much as she did now and Virginia would be doing as little.