Eloise went over to the light switch and flicked it off. But she stood for a long time in the doorway. Then, suddenly, she rushed, in the dark, over to the night table, banging her knee against the foot of the bed, but too full of purpose to feel pain. She picked up Ramona's glasses and, holding them in both hands, pressed them against her cheek.
Tears rolled down her face, wetting the lenses. "Poor Uncle Wiggily,"
she said over and over again. Finally, she put the glasses back on the night table, lenses down.
She stooped over, losing her balance, and began to tuck in the blankets of Ramona's bed. Ramona was awake. She was crying and had been crying. Eloise kissed her wetly on the mouth and wiped the hair out of her eyes and then left the room.
She went downstairs, staggering now very badly, and wakened Mary Jane.
"Wuzzat? Who? Huh?" said Mary Jane, sitting bolt upright on the couch.
"Mary Jane. Listen. Please," Eloise said, sobbing. "You remember our freshman year, and I had that brawn-and-yellow dress I bought in Boise, and Miriam Ball told me nobody wore those kind of dresses in New York, and I cried all night?" Eloise shook Mary Jane's arm. "I was a nice girl," she pleaded, "wasn't I?"
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Just Before the War with the Eskimos
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FIVE STRAIGHT SATURDAY MORNINGS, Ginnie Mannox had played tennis at the East Side Courts with Selena Graff, a classmate at Miss Basehoar's.
Ginnie openly considered Selena the biggest drip at Miss Basehoar's--a school ostensibly abounding with fair-sized drips--but at the same time she had never known anyone like Selena for bringing fresh cans of tennis balls. Selena's father made them or something. (At dinner one night, for the edification of the entire Mannox family, Ginnie had conjured up a vision of dinner over at the Graffs'; it involved a perfect servant coming around to everyone's left with, instead of a glass of tomato juice, a can of tennis balls.) But this business of dropping Selena off at her house after tennis and then getting stuck--every single time--for the whole cab fare was getting on Ginnie's nerves. After all, taking the taxi home from the courts instead of the bus had been Selena's idea. On the fifth Saturday, however, as the cab started north in York Avenue, Ginnie suddenly spoke up.
"Hey, Selena. . ."
"What?" asked Selena, who was busy feeling the floor of the cab with her hand. "I can't find the cover to my racket!" she moaned.
Despite the warm May weather, both girls were wearing topcoats over their shorts.
"You put it in your pocket," Ginnie said. "Hey, listen--"
"Oh, God! You've saved my life!"
"Listen," said Ginnie, who wanted no part of Selena's gratitude.
"What?"
Ginnie decided to come right out with it. The cab was nearly at Selena's street. "I don't feel like getting stuck for the whole cab fare again today," she said. "I'm no millionaire, ya know."
Selena looked first amazed, then hurt. "Don't I always pay half?" she asked innocently.
"No," said Ginnie flatly. "You paid half the first Saturday. Way in the beginning of last month. And since then not even once. I don't wanna be ratty, but I'm actually existing on four-fifty a week. And out of that I have to--"
"I always bring the tennis balls, don't I?" Selena asked unpleasantly.
Sometimes Ginnie felt like killing Selena. "Your father makes them or something," she said. "They don't cost you anything. I have to pay for every single little--"
"All right, all right," Selena said, loudly and with finality enough to give herself the upper hand. Looking bored, she went through the pockets of her coat. "I only have thirty-five cents," she said coldly.
"Is that enough?"
"No. I'm sorry, but you owe me a dollar sixty-five. I've been keeping track of every--"
"I'll have to go upstairs and get it from my mother. Can't it wait till Monday? I could bring it to gym with me if it'd make you happy."
Selena's attitude defied clemency.
"No," Ginnie said. "I have to go to the movies tonight. I need it."
In hostile silence, the girls stared out of opposite windows until the cab pulled up in front of Selena's apartment house. Then Selena, who was seated nearest the curb, let herself out. Just barely leaving the cab door open, she walked briskly and obliviously, like visiting Hollywood royalty, into the building. Ginnie, her face burning, paid the fare. She then collected her tennis things--racket, hand towel, and sun hat--and followed Selena. At fifteen, Ginnie was about five feet nine in her 9-B tennis shoes, and as she entered the lobby, her self-conscious rubber-soled awkwardness lent her a dangerous amateur quality. It made Selena prefer to watch the indicator dial over the elevator.
"That makes a dollar ninety you owe me," Ginnie said, striding up to the elevator.
Selena turned. "It may just interest you to know," she said, "that my mother is very ill."
"What's the matter with her?"
