The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [45]
During the first week she walked up and down the halls by herself and thought about this. She planned about being with some bunch almost as much as she thought of music. Those two ideas were in her head all the time. And finally she got the idea of the party.
She was strict with the invitations. No Grammar School kids and nobody under twelve years old. She just asked people between thirteen and fifteen. She knew everybody she invited good enough to speak to them in the halls--and when she didn’t know their names she asked to find out. She called up those who had a telephone, and the rest she invited at school.
On the telephone she always said the same thing. She let Bubber stick in his ear to listen. ‘This is Mick Kelly,’ she said.
If they didn’t understand the name she kept on until they got it.
I’m having a prom party at eight o’clock Saturday night and I’m inviting you now. I live at 103 Fourth Street, Apartment A.’ That Apartment A sounded swell on the telephone. Nearly everybody said they would be delighted. A couple of tough boys tried to be smarty and kept on asking her name over and over. One of them tried to act cute and said, ‘I don’t know you.’
She squelched him in a hurry: ‘You go eat grass!’ Outside of that wise guy there were ten boys and ten girls and she knew that they were all coming. This was a real party, and it would be better and different from any party she had ever gone to or heard about before.
Mick looked over the hall and dining-room one last time. By the hat rack she stopped before the picture of Old Dirty-Face.
This was a photo of her Mama’s grandfather. He was a major way back in the Civil War and had been killed in a battle.
Some kid once drew eyeglasses and a beard on his picture, and when the pencil marks were erased it left his face all dirty.
That was why she called him Old Dirty-Face. The picture was in the middle of a three-part frame. On both sides were pictures of his sons. They looked about Bubber’s age. They had on uniforms and their faces were surprised. They had been killed in battle also. A long time ago.
‘I’m going to take this down for the party. I think it looks common. Don’t you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bubber said. ‘Are we common, Mick?’
‘I’m not.’
She put the picture underneath the hat rack. The decoration was O.K. Mister Singer would be pleased when he came home. The rooms seemed very empty and quiet. The table was set for supper. And then after supper it would be time for the party. She went into the kitchen to see about the refreshments.
‘You think everything will be all right?’ she asked Portia.
Portia was making biscuits. The refreshments were on top of the stove. There were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate snaps and punch. The sandwiches were covered with a damp dishcloth. She peeped at them but didn’t take one.
‘I done told you forty times that everything going to be all right,’ Portia said. ‘Just soon as I come back from fixing supper at home I going to put on that white apron and serve the food real nice. Then I going to push off from here by nine-thirty.
This here is Saturday night and Highboy and Willie and me haves our plans, too.’
‘Sure,’ Mick said. ‘I just want you to help out till things sort of get started--you know.’
She gave in and took one of the sandwiches. Then she made Bubber stay with Portia and went into the middle room. The dress she would wear was laying out on the bed. Hazel and Etta had both been good about lending her their best clothes--considering that they weren’t supposed to come to the party.
There was Etta’s long blue crepe de chine evening dress and some white pumps and a rhinestone tiara for her hair. These clothes were really gorgeous. It was hard to imagine how she would look in them.
The late afternoon had come and the sun made long, yellow slants through the window. If she took two