The One and Only. Valerie Tripp
in New York,” said Mom.
“Oh,” said Maryellen. Mom’s friends’ jobs sounded swank and fancy. She asked, “Are you sorry you’re not working now, Mom?”
“Ellie, my dear,” said Mom in a jokey way as she pulled a T-shirt down over Mikey’s head, “managing you kids is harder work than managing the assembly line was.”
“Be serious, Mom,” said Maryellen.
“I am!” said Mom. “I’m seriously proud of our family, and proud of doing a good job of running our house. This is my job right now, and I like it. But nothing is forever. When Mikey is in school all day, maybe I’ll go back to work.”
“But what work would you do?” asked Carolyn, who had wandered into the kitchen with Beverly.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Larkin. She looped a wisp of hair behind her ear. “I might work in an office, or be a saleslady in a store, or—”
“Or a movie star!” Beverly piped up.
Mrs. Larkin laughed. “I don’t think I’ll be a movie star,” she said, “though it would be nice to look glamorous, and to smell like perfume instead of peanut butter for a change.”
By now, everyone was ready to go. Mom handed some beach towels to Joan and said, “Okay, troops! Off you go to the beach. Be back by two, no later. Joan, keep an eye on the little ones. Vamoose!”
“Okay, Mom,” everyone said. “Bye!”
Davy joined the parade of Larkins walking to the beach, falling into step with Scooter and Maryellen. “What’s up, Doc?” Davy asked, pretending to be Bugs Bunny.
“I’m thinking about Mom,” said Maryellen, “and what her life was like when she had a job during the war. Guess what? It turns out that Mom was important! She was a line boss at the factory.”
“Wow!” said Davy. “Why’d she quit?”
“Lots of women quit working after the war,” said Carolyn, “so the returning soldiers could have jobs.”
“Mom shouldn’t have quit. She was famous,” Beverly sighed, “like a movie star.”
“Well, she wasn’t exactly a movie star, but she was the star of the factory back when Betty and Florence worked with her,” said Maryellen. “And now Mom’s life is about as exciting and glamorous as…as…”
“Scooter’s,” Davy finished for her.
“Yes,” sighed Maryellen. Her heart swelled with love and sympathy for Mom. Probably Mom felt sort of taken for granted. Maryellen knew how that felt. Surely Mom missed standing out and being admired, as she had been when she was an important boss at the factory. Maryellen made up her mind right then: I’m going to think of a way for Mom to impress her friends. Her next thought made her so excited, her heart skipped a little skip: And then Mom will be impressed with me.
Maryellen loved the ocean: its roar, its salty tang, and the huge blueness of it stretching all the way to the sky. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” she challenged Carolyn and Davy.
Legs pumping, arms waving, the three kids raced across the scorching sand. Maryellen plunged headfirst into an incoming wave. Swoosh! She had timed it just right, so that the wave lifted her up into the bright summery air. “Yahoo!” Maryellen hooted exuberantly.
In a second, Carolyn popped up next to Maryellen in the water. Davy popped up next.
“What took you guys so long?” asked Maryellen, grinning.
Carolyn was grinning, too. “All right,” she said. “You win, as usual.”
“I guess I’m the rotten egg,” said Davy. “But watch out—someday I’ll be faster than you.”
Maryellen doubted it. Davy was a pretty good runner, but Maryellen was fiercely determined when it came to running. She had had a sickness called polio when she was younger, and one leg was a little bit weaker than the other. Sometimes Maryellen worried that Mom babied her because of her leg. But Maryellen never let her leg slow her down.
It was fun to be at the beach with Davy and her brothers and sisters, but Maryellen missed Dad. He loved being at the beach, too, and always rode the waves with her. She floated in the water and looked back at the shore. Queen Beverly was building herself a sand castle under the beach umbrella. Tom and Mikey kept knocking her castle down, so after a little while, Davy got out of the water to help her by distracting them. “Hey, boys!” Davy shouted as he walked up the beach. “Let’s dig a hole to China.”
Joan was lying on a beach towel, reading as usual. Scooter snoozed next to her.
“Say, Joan,” Carolyn called. “Come on in—the water’s fine.”
Joan didn’t even take her eyes off her book. “No thanks,” she called back.
“I bet she doesn’t want to get her hair wet,” Carolyn said to Maryellen. “She has a tennis date with Jerry later.”
“Oooh, a date!” said Maryellen, instantly interested. Jerry was Joan’s boyfriend. He went to college and had a car. Maryellen thought Jerry was a dreamboat. He reminded her of David Nelson, a college boy on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, because he was so handsome. Even though she was still mad at Joan for the crabby, critical things she’d said that morning, Maryellen had to admit that pretty Joan and handsome Jerry were the perfect couple.
A brilliant thought came to her. If Joan married Jerry, she’d move out and go to live with him. Then she’d stop picking on Maryellen all the time—and Maryellen would have only Mom to win over about the All Girls Room.
Maryellen turned to Carolyn, who knew all about love and marriage because she was in high school, and asked, “Do you think Joan and Jerry will get married?”
“Well,” said Carolyn, lighting up, “millions of girls do get married after high school. And Joan and Jerry are already going steady. The next step is for Jerry to give Joan his fraternity pin. That means they’re engaged to be engaged. Then he gives her an engagement ring, and then comes the wedding.”
“Gee,” said Maryellen. “I didn’t realize there were so many steps. I was sort of hoping they’d get married soon.”
“Me too,” said Carolyn. “I love weddings! I wonder if Joan would let us be bridesmaids.”
“Maybe you and I could encourage Joan and Jerry,” said Maryellen.
“How?” asked Carolyn.
“Well, first of all, we could give Jerry a little nudge,” said Maryellen, “and tell him to hurry up and propose to Joan.”
“Yikes,” said Carolyn. “I’m too chicken to do that.”
“I’m not,” said Maryellen. “Jerry’s not scary.”
“It’s not Jerry I’m scared of,” said Carolyn. “It’s Joan. She’d skin us alive if she found out.”
“She doesn’t need to know,” said Maryellen. “We’ll just talk to Jerry sometime when Joan’s not around.”
Carolyn began to say, “Joan won’t—” But right then, Davy came splashing back into the water.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s do backward somersaults.”
“Okay!” said Maryellen and Carolyn, putting the topic of marriage aside.
The three kids curled up with their knees under their chins and used their arms to spin themselves around backward, swirling under the water and then up into the dazzling, sunny air. One of Maryellen’s favorite TV shows was a broadcast of the waterskiing and synchronized-swimming