“Okay, okay. Don’t worry. It means something nice happens by accident or coincidence. I had no reason to walk to the train station. Something made me turn in its direction, and I kept walking. I wasn’t even thinking about it. But when something wonderful happens spontaneously, something without any planning, you can call it serendipitous. Can you think of something serendipitous that happened to you?”
I shook my head.
“Nothing, ever?”
I shook my head.
“Well, now something has,” she said. “Something joyful for the both of us. Fewer pennies in the jar… Let’s eat. It should be cool enough to sink your teeth into it.”
I did start on my piece, and it was very good. She watched me eat and smiled.
“It’s good, isn’t it?”
I nodded. It was.
“I knew you were very hungry as soon as I saw you,” she said. “Did your father get you anything to eat on the train?”
“No, because I was sleeping,” I said, and kept eating.
“Just don’t eat too fast, or you’ll get a tummy ache. Little girls need to eat well, even better than little boys.”
She started to eat her piece.
“Why?”
“Didn’t your mother ever say that and then explain it?”
I shook my head.
“Girls do more than boys do. Girls, when they grow old enough, become mothers. Can you imagine men walking around with someone else inside them? They may have more muscles, but inside, they are fragile china moaning about every little pain.” She laughed. “I told my husband once that if men had to give birth, the world would have no people.”
She laughed again.
I don’t know why I decided to ask the question that Mama would tell me was very personal. She taught me that you had to know people better to ask them personal questions. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the little girl in the picture above the bed in the bedroom I had been shown.
“Did you ever have someone inside you?”
The strange woman stopped chewing. “Yes,” she said slowly. “But it was sad.”
Then her eyes widened, and she practically leaped out of her chair to open her purse. She took out a penny, showed it to me, and dropped it in the jar before sitting again quickly.
“Sorry. I promised less sadness, but sometimes it just sneaks in like a snake. When I was married and wanted someone inside me, I was too old to have a baby, but I didn’t listen to my doctor. My husband, Arthur, did not want us to have children anyway, so he was actually happy about it.”
“I saw a towel with an A on it in the bathroom, so I didn’t use it.”
She smiled. “You could have used it. That was Arthur’s towel. He liked his initials on everything he owned, including me.”
I widened my eyes.
“That’s a joke,” she said. “A sick one, but still a joke. Anyway, you are smart. You ask the right questions.” She leaned forward. “That’s how old the towels are, too, by the way. But they’re washed and ironed and kept in a nice-smelling closet. On Saturdays I do the house laundry, Saturday morning. You can help with that tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
Tomorrow still seemed like ages away, and I was still very confident Daddy would soon arrive and we’d leave.
“I bet your mother didn’t let you iron,” she said quickly. “She was probably afraid you’d burn yourself, but my mother made me iron even before I was your age. At first, it was heavy in my hand, but as time went by, I got stronger and stronger, and my mother gave me more to do, like wash the kitchen floor every night. And I’d do a very good job of it, too. I can remember that my mother was happy about that, not because she was proud of me but because she had less to do. My mother was lazy, a lazy Dazy. When I think about her now, my blood starts to boil. She made me into more like an old lady than a little girl. I don’t think I was ever a little girl, and… Oh.”
The way she stopped made me realize that I had paused chewing my second piece of pizza and had closed my eyes for a few seconds. Her voice was making me sleepy, I realized.
I forced my eyes open.
Had I done something wrong, something impolite?
“Of course, you’re tired, and here I am going on and on about my mother and house chores,” she said. “Just hearing about them can exhaust someone as young as you. Maybe you should lie down and rest. We can warm up the rest of the pizza when we want it, and we can have the ice cream later, too.”
“What about Daddy?” I said, looking toward the door again. “You said the stores were closed.”
“Oh, yes, a while ago.” She thought a moment. “But he certainly should have been here by now.”
“Where is he? Where could he go if the stores are closed?”
“Sometimes men stop in bars to get a quick refresher.”
“What’s that?”
“A little alcohol to give them courage,” she said. “Courage to live,” she added, sounding bitter. “My husband, Arthur, did until his ankles got too swollen. Drinking at home never did enough for him. He was a very unhappy man. He drank himself silly sometimes. Most people don’t have a magic jar for pennies, and the sadness makes them weak and small. But don’t worry. As soon as your father comes here looking for you, I’ll come get you.”
She stood up and came around the table, holding her hand out.
I didn’t like what she had said. Why would Daddy leave me at the station while he had a refresher?
“Guess what I have in the bathroom next to what will become the blue bedroom.”
“I don’t know,” I said sharply.
I was getting more annoyed about Daddy. Who cared about what was in the bathroom? I looked at the front door again. Lately, Daddy hadn’t come home for dinner, but Mama always put his plate and silverware and napkin on the table. It still would be there in the morning when he had his breakfast. The plate I had left for him here at the Umbrella Lady’s house stared me in the face.
Suddenly, I realized the Umbrella Lady was shaking her hand in front of my eyes, urging me to take it.
I stood up quickly. “Maybe we should go to see if Daddy’s having a refresher,” I said, stepping back. If she said no, I could run out and down the street. “You don’t have to come, too,” I said, even though I didn’t know where a refresher place might be.
“Oh, children can’t go to places like that, and there are simply too many of them for us to visit. We’d be out all night going from one to another—and what if your daddy came here and there was no one home? He might leave.”
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“Now, don’t be stubborn. You’re just being difficult because you’re tired. A tired child usually gets herself in trouble.”
“Daddy should have been here by now,” I insisted.
“Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Balloons without air.”
She shook her hand at me again, the anger dripping from her face. I took it, and she closed hers tightly around mine. Maybe she was afraid I would run out anyway. Was she going to reach for my hand every time I walked through her house and was close to one of the doors?
She was smiling again.
“In the bathroom, you have a brand-new toothbrush with brand-new delicious-tasting toothpaste,” she said, and took me directly to the bathroom to open the cabinet above the sink to show me. “And guess what else I had in the dresser in the bedroom that has to be painted,” she said, handing me the toothbrush.