A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [194]
“Don’t call each other names,” chided Katie absentmindedly.
“Did you know they changed Hamburg Avenue to Wilson Avenue?” asked Francie.
“War makes people do funny things,” sighed Katie.
“You going to tell Mama?” asked Neeley apprehensively.
“No. But you’re too young to go out with that kind of a girl. They say she’s wild,” said Francie.
“Who wants a tame girl?”
“I wouldn’t care, only you don’t know anything at all about—well—sex.”
“I know more than you, anyhow.” He put his hand on his hip and squealed in a lisping falsetto: “Oh, Mama! Will I have a baby if a man just kisses me? Will I, Mama? Will I?”
“Neeley! You listened that day!”
“Sure! I was right outside in the hall and heard every word.”
“Of all the low things….”
“You listen, too. Many’s the time I caught you when Mama and Sissy or Aunt Evy were talking and you were supposed to be asleep in bed.”
“That’s different. I have to find out things.”
“Check!”
“Francie! Francie! It’s seven o’clock. Get up!”
“What for?”
“You’ve got to be at work at eight-thirty.”
“Tell me something new, Mama.”
“You’re sixteen years old today.”
“Tell me something new. I’ve been sixteen for two years now.”
“You’ll have to be sixteen for another year, then.”
“I’ll probably be sixteen all my life.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“I wasn’t snooping,” said Katie indignantly. “I needed another nickel for the gas man and I thought you wouldn’t care. You look in my pocketbook for change many a time.”
“That’s different,” said Francie.
Katie held a small violet box in her hand. There were scented gold-tipped cigarettes in it. One was missing from the full box.
“Well, now you know the worst,” said Francie. “I smoked a Milo cigarette.”
“They smell nice anyway,” said Katie.
“Go ahead, Mama. Give me the lecture and get it over with.”
“With so many soldiers dying in France and all, the world’s not going to fall apart if you smoke a cigarette once in a while.”
“Gee, Mama, you take all the fun out of things—like not objecting to my black lace pants last year. Well, throw the cigarettes away.”
“I’ll do no such thing! I’ll scatter them in my bureau drawer. They’ll make my nightgowns smell nice.”
“I was thinking,” said Katie, “that instead of buying each other Christmas presents this year, that we put all the money together and buy a roasting chicken and a big cake from the bakery and a pound of good coffee and…”
“We have enough money for food,” protested Francie. “We don’t have to use our Christmas money.”
“I mean to give to the Tynmore girls for Christmas. No one takes lessons from them now—people say they’re behind the times. They don’t have enough to eat and Miss Lizzie’s been so good to us.”
“Well, all right,” consented Francie not very enthusiastically.
“Gee!” Neeley kicked the table leg viciously.
“Don’t worry, Neeley,” laughed Francie. “You’ll get a present. I’ll buy you fawn-colored spats this year.”
“Aw, shut up!”
“Don’t say ‘shut up’ to each other,” chided Katie absentmindedly.
“I want to ask your advice, Mama. There was this boy I met in summer school. He said he might write but he never has. I want to know would it look forward if I sent him a Christmas card?”
“Forward? Nonsense! Send the card if you feel like it. I hate all those flirty-birty games that women make up. Life’s too short. If you ever find a man you love, don’t waste time hanging your head and simpering. Go right up to him and say, ‘I love you. How about getting married?’ That is,” she added hastily with an apprehensive look at her daughter, “when you’re old enough to know your own mind.”
“I’ll send the card,” decided Francie.
“Mama, we decided, Neeley and I, that we’d like coffee instead of milk punch.”
“All right.” Katie put the brandy bottle back in the cupboard.
“And make the coffee very strong and hot and fill the cups with half coffee and half hot milk and we’ll toast 1918 in café au lait.”
“S’il vous plâit,” put in Neeley.
“Wee-wee-wee,” said Mama. “I know some French words, too.”
Katie held the coffeepot in one hand and the saucepan