A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [145]
MISS GARNDER
(Timidly.)
Frances?
FRANCIE
Please feel as free to speak to me as in the old days.
MISS GARNDER
Could I ask you to write, “To my friend, Muriel Garnder” above your signature?
FRANCIE
(After a barely perceptible pause.)
And why not?
(With a twisted smile.)
I’ve always written what you asked me to write.
(Writes inscription.)
MISS GARNDER
(Low whisper.)
Thank you.
FRANCIE
Miss Garnder…not that it matters, now…but would you grade this work…just for old times’ sake?
(Miss Garnder takes red pencil. Writes large “A Plus” on book.)
It was such a rosy dream that Francie started the next chapter in a fever of excitement. She’d write and write and get it done quickly so the dream could come true. She wrote:
“Parker,” Sherry Nola asked her personal maid, “what’s cook giving us for dinner tonight?”
“Breast of pheasant under glass, I believe, with hothouse asparagus and imported mushrooms and pineapple mousse, Miss Sherry.”
“It sounds horribly dull,” observed Sherry.
“Yes, Miss Sherry,” agreed the maid respectfully.
“You know, Parker, I’d like to indulge a whim of mine.”
“Your whims are the household’s commands.”
“I’d like to see a lot of simple desserts and choose my dinner from among them. Please bring me a dozen charlotte russe, some strawberry shortcake and a quart of ice cream—make it chocolate, a dozen lady fingers and a box of French chocolates.”
“Very good, Miss Sherry.”
A drop of water fell on the page. Francie looked up. No, the roof wasn’t leaking, it was merely her mouth watering. She was very, very hungry. She went to the stove and looked into the pot. It had a pale bone in it, surrounded by water. There was some bread in the bread box. It was a bit hard but better than nothing. She cut a slice and poured a cup of coffee and dipped the bread into the coffee to soften it. As she ate, she read what she had just written. She made an astonishing discovery.
“Look here, Francie Nolan,” she told herself, “in this story you’re writing exactly the same thing you wrote in those stories Miss Garnder didn’t like. Here, you’re writing that you’re very hungry. Only you’re writing it in a twisted roundabout silly way.”
Furious with the novel, she ripped the copy-book apart and stuffed it into the stove. When the flames began licking on it, her fury increased and she ran and got her box of manuscripts from under her bed. Carefully putting aside the four about her father, she crammed the rest of them into the stove. She was burning all her pretty “A” compositions. Sentences came out clearer for an instant before a sheet blackened and crumbled. A giant poplar, tall and high, serene and cool against the sky. Another: Softly the blue skies arch overhead. ’Tis a perfect October day. The end of another sentence…hollyhocks like distilled sunsets and larkspur like concentrate of heaven.
“I never saw a poplar and I read somewhere about the sky arching and I never saw those flowers except in a seed catalogue. And I got A’s because I was a good liar.” She poked the papers to make them burn faster. As they changed into ashes, she chanted, “I am burning ugliness. I am burning ugliness.” As the last flame died away, she announced dramatically to the water boiler, “There goes my writing career.”
All of a sudden, she was frightened and lonely. She wanted her father, she wanted her father. He couldn’t be dead, he just couldn’t be. In a little while, he’d come running up the stairs singing, “Molly Malone.” She’d open the door and he’d say, “Hello, Prima Donna.” And she’d say, “Papa, I had a terrible dream. I dreamed you were dead.” Then she’d tell him what Miss Garnder had said and he’d find the words to convince her that everything was all right. She waited, listening. Maybe it was a dream. But no, no dream lasted that long. It was real. Papa was gone forever.
She put her head down on the table and sobbed. “Mama doesn’t love me the way she loves Neeley,” she wept. “I tried and tried to make her love me. I sit close to her and go wherever she goes and do whatever she asks me to do.