What We Keep - Elizabeth Berg [53]
“Well, you went and nearly died right in Monroe’s Department Store.”
“Not hardly.”
“Mary Jo Bennet was there with Francine O’Connell. They walked right past us. I’m sure they saw you there on the floor. They probably thought you were having a fit or something.”
I said nothing. I would not apologize for being ill.
Sharla put her pillow over her stomach, shaped it into a mound. “Look at me, I’m pregnant.” Then, pulling the pillow off and throwing it to the floor, she sighed. “Do you want your toenails painted or something?”
“I’m too tired.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
True. “Okay.”
Sharla took the red nail polish out of our dresser drawer, shook the bottle. She sat down at the bottom of my bed, legs akimbo, and, using two fingers, lifted my foot by its big toe to put it in front of her. Then she wiped her fingers on the sheet.
“They’re clean,” I said.
“They’re your feet,” she answered.
Then, despite her disgust, she began painting my toenails carefully, her hand shaking a little with the effort. “Mrs. Spurlock had on pearls with her dress,” she said. “A pearl necklace and a pearl bracelet.”
“What color dress?”
“Pink.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. Pink and pearls. Beautiful.
The doorbell chimed again. I heard Jasmine’s voice, followed by several others. They were excited, congratulatory, soothing, confidential. High and female and interesting. The women would be perfumed and wearing high heels and attractive summer dresses in the colors of sherbet and roses. Some of them would have matching sweaters draped over their shoulders. Hair would be styled and sprayed, earrings screwed on straight. Nylon stockings would be shining and making their sandpapery sounds every time the women crossed their legs. I wanted to be down there. I was tired of being sick, now.
“Did you get to taste anything yet?”
“Just some nuts and mints. I’ll get the good stuff later.”
I waited. Sharla looked up. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll bring you some, too.”
I breathed out, satisfied. I didn’t want to eat anything. I just wanted to look at it.
I heard the stairs creak, and then there was Jasmine, standing in our bedroom. Her eyes widened. “Well, look at you,” she said. “Sick as a dog on a day like today.” She pulled a bag out from behind her back. “I wonder what’s in here.”
I smiled, scratched lazily at a mosquito bite.
“I just wonder.” She looked inside the bag. “Oh, yes. That’s a good thing. And oooh, that’s good, too.”
She handed the bag to Sharla. “Give her something every fifteen or twenty minutes,” she said.
“Starting now?”
Jasmine nodded.
Sharla pulled out a Photoplay, smiled at the cover, then at Jasmine.
Jasmine smiled back, kissed my forehead like a second mother, left the room.
“She’s never been to a Tupperware party,” Sharla said, leaning over my foot to finish painting the pinkie.
“Her real name is Carol,” I said.
Sharla looked up. “What? I think you’re talking crazy again. Do you feel sicker?”
I’d regretted saying what I did as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Now I welcomed this opportunity to escape from them. “Hoola-moola,” I said.
“Ginny?”
I rubbed my eyes. “I think I need to sleep.”
She groaned, put the top back on the nail polish. “Well, I have to stay here. Can I read your magazine?”
“Read it out loud.”
“But you said you wanted to sleep!”
“I can hear in my sleep.”
Sharla moved back onto her bed, stretched out. “Okay, this is the first story,” she said. “‘Where Rock Hudson goes, girls are sure to follow. And why not?’”
She continued to read aloud in her patient monotone. I closed my eyes, imagining life in Hollywood.
“Did you hear that?” she asked suddenly.
I opened my eyes.
“They’re doing ‘Two Things.’”
“Let’s go.”
I still felt weak, but duty called. Sharla and I tried never to miss the Two Things part of a Tupperware party. Next to the sight of the long table, loaded up with plastic containers for everything imaginable and draped with a dark tablecloth with “Tupperware Home Parties” embroidered on it, Two Things was the best part of the party. It was done as