Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny

Chapter 10

Georgie Dermody kept her spare rooms ready for company, clean sheets on the beds, aired and dusted. She enjoyed having kids in the house, and missed her own. They came home when they could, filling up the house with noise and strewing clothes around. Then when they were gone it was peaceful and lonely. They always cluttered up the kitchen, lounging around the big table where she was working now, so she had to step over their feet.

She lit the stove and took a container of lasagna sauce from the refrigerator. Look how motherly I’ve gotten, she thought idly, I’m even dragging home strays. I wasn’t so domestic when I was Jenny’s age. She grinned at the thought of her younger self in black stockings and a short black satin skirt.

Georgie had left home when she was seventeen, rented a cheap hotel room and gone to work as a cocktail waitress at the Red Cricket. There was nothing to keep her as her father had disappeared and her stepmother was glad to see the last of Georgie.

Georgie had been a natural blonde then. When her hair started to go dark later, she bleached it because Jack liked it better. She hated the bother of it, but she spent the time in the beauty parlor listening to the incredible chatter of other women; she got some good character studies that way.

Georgie sliced some cheese and put the lasagna on to boil, musing over the Red Cricket and the girl she had been then. When she thought of that bar she could still smell the sour liquor smell. She used to keep the change from her tips in her pocket beneath the frilly white apron, and the bills in her bra. No one knew she was under age. The Red Cricket was a rough place; she had to learn fast to take care of herself. Until she met Jack Dermody, there had not been a lot of joy in her life.

Georgie met Jack Dermody when he came in the bar one night, off duty. After that he came back regularly. He was tough and clean. She didn’t know he was a cop, and he didn’t know how old she was. She found out he was a cop when he asked her to act as an informant. She was very angry, she’d thought he was coming in because he liked her. But she got the information for him, then she made him take her to dinner.

After that she picked up whatever information she could, which was considerable; it was a rough part of town. And Jack Dermody got to be a habit. She was head over heels for him. In the process of informing for Jack, she found she liked the police department better than the bar. She liked it so much, she wanted to work for it. She went back to school in the daytime, but kept her job until the manager of the bar found out she was only seventeen, then fired her.

When Jack learned how old she was he didn’t see her for three weeks. Then he asked her to marry him.

Georgie drained the lasagna and began to layer it into a casserole with the sauce. She had told Jenny and Bingo to explore the house as they liked, but there hadn’t been a sound out of them since she had shown them their rooms and left them to get settled.

The late afternoon sun slanted through the kitchen window and she pulled the shade up to let more of it in. The black cat, who had been sleeping on a kitchen chair, rolled over so the sun was on his belly. The kitchen was yellow, with a braided rug under the big table. A police radio muttered softly on the drain-board. The kitchen faced the street and opened directly to the front hall. Across from it, the living room ran from the front of the house to the back, where its tall old windows looked down across the roofs of other houses to the city. Facing the city, too, was Georgie’s study. It was behind the kitchen, and intended for a dining room, but they ate in the kitchen, and she liked the view when she was working. Because the house sat on a hill, the back of the basement was above ground. Ben’s room was down there, a sprawling bachelor’s room that the three boys once shared.

Bingo’s and Jenny’s rooms were upstairs next to each other. Bingo’s was not large, but full of books and big enough for a desk, a day bed, and an old blue chair Georgie had bought at the Salvation Army when they were first married. Georgie never threw away a piece of furniture. She recovered it or painted it yellow or red or blue. The Dermody household was a hodgepodge of comfortable, mismatched pieces that suited her perfectly. Yellow was Georgie’s favorite color, it washed through the house like butter and sunshine.

Georgie finished layering the lasagna, put the casserole in the oven, and thought about the box of clothes she had left in Jenny’s closet. They were some outgrown things of Carol’s and Barbara’s for Jenny to go through in case she wanted any. “I hope she doesn’t think that’s charity,” Georgie said to the cat.

Jenny loved her room. There were two deep dormer windows, one with a cushioned seat built into it and one that held a desk. From both she could look at the tops of trees and the roofs of houses that wandered down the hill beyond to the city. When she turned back to the room it seemed to welcome her.

The bedspread had orange and yellow flowers, and the walls were yellow. Tall bookcases stood on either side of the bed and in them were books she knew and loved and others she did not know. The desk was painted blue. On it was a typewriter, a new yellow blotter, and a stack of clean paper.

The closet doors were covered with painted bulletin boards; she could see generations of thumbtack holes and faded squares where another girl had kept her treasures. This had been Carol’s room. The dresser was painted bright orange and there were pictures of birds hanging beside it. What was Carol like? She was married now. This was an old house, generations of girls must have dreamed in this room and planned their lives here. Jenny could see them around her like bright ghosts. Carol had dark hair like her own. Jenny could imagine a little girl with long dark braids dressed in a white slip kneeling on the window seat watching the afternoon shadows on the rooftops, she could see her curled in the window seat with a book in her lap, or a Carol Jenny’s age dressing for a party. She could almost see her reflection in the mirror behind her own. She could imagine other vague reflections then, girls who were already grown and married when it was Carol’s room.

Jenny’s reflection, framed by those bright ghosts, looked like a beggar in rags. A shabby, faded girl who did not belong there. Her wrinkled gray sweater and skirt made her hair look stringier; she looked like the girls she had seen shopping for clothes at the Salvation Army. She hated the way she looked, she hated her worn, faded clothes.

She attacked the box in the closet desperately; a red plaid dress lay on top. She pulled the box out into the room and began to lift out dresses, skirts, and sweaters. They were bright, they were riches that she needed. She hadn’t known how much she needed them.

She spread the beautiful clothes across the bed, and began to try them on. She posed before the mirror in the plaid dress. Then she scowled at her hair and snatched at it impatiently.

In the bottom of the box was a red turtle-neck sweater with a matching cap. She tried the cap on, then took it off and tied her hair into a pony tail, put on lipstick, and tilted the cap over one eye. She looked away from the mirror, then looked quickly back. And she saw Crystal. At least she saw something of Crystal; she opened her brown eyes wider and tried Crystal’s smile.

She stood in front of the mirror for a long time, practicing Crystal’s smile.

Then she tried on all the clothes again, one after the other. She felt greedy and wonderful. She put on the blue skirt and the red turtle-neck sweater, found her hairbrush, and began to transform her hair.

When she had finished, it was coiled on top of her head. She stood with her chin lifted, looking at herself sideways, and tried Crystal’s smile again. It came easily now. She was new. She was someone new. The colors of the room shone around her, the solid, beautiful furniture. Now it was truly her room. She pretended that she had always lived in this house, had sat upon that window seat when she was small and watched the city change from winter white to springtime—her childhood memories were all of this place, memories of light and laughter running through this house and this garden like wisps of sun-laden wind.

She smiled into the mirror. She was a grown-up Jenny in her own home, smiling into a mirror she had smiled into ever since she had been old enough to stand on tiptoe. She gave the mirror an amused, haughty look. Then she stared hard at herself and she saw the old comfortable Jenny once more, and she grinned. That was friendlier.

*

Bingo felt like a happy animal come home to its cave; his room was like a cave. It had three book-lined walls and the fourth wall was open to the world with windows from floor to ceiling. He could look down on rooftops, and beyond them to the city and the river. He could see the old apartment house they had lived in. It now looked like a tiny brick model. He thought of the evening that he and Jenny had stood in the snow and looked in the lighted windows of houses like this one. It made him feel strange. Here they were just as they had wished.

Bingo’s bed had a blue spread and when he first entered, there was a yellow cat asleep on it. Mrs. Dermody said his name was Sam. Bingo had petted him gently, but the cat slept so soundly that finally Bingo left him. Sam, in his own good time, woke and came to sit on Bingo’s desk where now he washed his face and observed Bingo closely. When Bingo petted him, he purred.

The red trunk stood at the foot of Bingo’s bed. He took out Papa’s books and stood them in a row on the desk. They seemed at home there. Sam smelled them with interest. “What do you smell?” Bingo asked.

Sam answered with a soft, singing mew.

“Maybe you’ll sleep on my bed tonight. I’ve never had a cat to sleep with.” Sam yawned and curled up under Bingo’s hand.

Jenny found them there, snug and happy. “How can you sit here with that wonderful smell? Do you think it’s spaghetti?”

Bingo sniffed. It smelled delicious. Then he looked at Jenny and whistled.

“You look terrific. What have you done?”

“It’s the sweater. Mrs. Dermody gave it to me.”

“But it’s your hair too. It—it’s like Crystal’s.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“It—” He studied her through his thick-rimmed glasses as he might study a piece of architecture. “Yes, as long as you’re the same inside.”

“I’m the same inside.” They pelted down the stairs with Sam at their heels, and laid the table for Georgie. At dinner they sat silent and uncomfortable under the eyes of the two Dermody men.

They were never uncomfortable around Lud. But then, no matter what your manners were or what you said, it didn’t matter with Lud. Here, even though they ate in the kitchen with the cats sleeping on an empty chair and the police radio going, Jenny and Bingo were as stiff as two boards.

*

It is Friday and our first night at the Dermodys. We had lasagna for dinner. It’s better even than spaghetti. We ate as slowly as we could and still it seemed to me we were wolfing it. Why do Jack and Ben Dermody make me feel so uncomfortable? Jack said that we should call them by their first names, that when people live together it’s silly to use last names. Tonight he had on faded Levi’s and an old shirt instead of his uniform, and that was better, but still he makes me a little uneasy. It’s as if he watches and watches you, as if everything you say becomes recorded forever in his mind like in a computer. It makes me feel very clumsy. I guess that’s part of being a cop, though. And maybe they see such a lot of horrible crimes, that their faces grow to be hard like that.

Jack gave me the biggest piece of pie. He said I needed fattening up, but he didn’t make me feel skinny and ugly, the way he said it. If I eat like that every day it’s bound to do something for my shape. I hope it all goes in the right places.

Ben Dermody is handsome and he knows it. At least it seemed to me he couldn’t be bothered talking to us.

*

Saturday: I’m full of twigs and heather. We found a park like the wild woods only two blocks from the house; it’s part of the same park where we went in the snow, but far away from there. It goes for miles, all woods and hills. How many kinds of trees there are, I lost count. Some have blossoms—white dogwood—I know that one. How glad I am tomorrow’s Sunday. I wish school were out forever.

And I wish we could stay here forever. But that’s unfair to Mama. I’ll just enjoy it while I can and not think about the future.

Still, I do think about it. I think about what I said to Mama, I’m sorry I hurt her. But I had to. I wonder, will Mama settle down when she gets out? Could we make a real home, with our own furniture and things? I kind of put Mama between the rock and the hard place, as Lud would say. If she doesn’t settle down, and I keep my word, then without us she won’t have any way to get welfare money. She’ll have to go to work. But if she stays here and gets a job, and we are together, she can collect welfare for us kids even if she works. She would be getting more, and if I know Mama she’ll think of that first off. She might try it even if she hates the idea of working.

But she’ll blame me for every time she comes home tired with her back hurting.

And if we have a place all together when Crystal is found, we’ll have a home for her—if she wants a home. She could be pregnant or on hard dope. I told myself I wasn’t going to think about it. It wasn’t my fault. She could have gone with Lud. Or she could have come to J.D.H.

*

Thursday: The boys in school are nicer here—or maybe I look better. They notice me. School’s not so bad. I’m not taking English. I took Junior English last year. I don’t want anyone telling me what to write just now, I know what I want to do. I can hardly wait to get at it.

And of all things, Bingo has found Willy Grimm. Was Bingo ever happy! I met them on the corner after school. Willy’s foster home is behind a bakery just up the street between here and school. Mr. Frazee runs the bakery and has five foster boys besides Willy. When Bingo told him where we were living, Willy said, “With a cop! Aw, Bunghole, there never was such a fish!” Bingo brought him home after school and Georgie asked him to dinner. Willy’s not afraid of Jack, he badgered him shamefully and made suggestive remarks to Georgie. But they only laughed at him.

Later Georgie told Bingo, “You can bring Willy home any time you like. You can be friends with him, but you are not to get into the messes that kid is going to get into. Just leave when that happens. You know how to stay out of trouble and I expect you to.” Bingo said, “I won’t get into trouble, Georgie.” I’m not sure I like someone else telling him what to do. Still, it makes him know that someone besides me cares what happens to him.

Georgie is going to let me read part of her new manuscript. That is a privilege, she hardly lets anyone into her study. She’s cross as a bear when she’s working and won’t be disturbed even if the house is burning down. But she said I could come in and read while she is typing fresh copy tomorrow evening. Georgie’s study has an old battered oak desk and the walls are covered with hooks and pictures and clippings. There are filing cabinets, and a big soft chair by the window.

*

When Jenny had finished reading Georgie’s manuscript she sat silently for a long time, still living in the book and seeing nothing else. Finally she laid the pages on Georgie’s desk and started to go away, so as not to disturb Georgie’s typing. But Georgie stopped her. “Well?”

“Oh, Georgie, it’s strong.”

“Thank you.”

“Will I ever know as much as you?”

“I’ve had a good many years to get it all together, haven’t I?”

“But it takes more than years, even I know that.”

“Maybe it does. But you have what it takes, you’re way ahead of what I was at sixteen. I didn’t even know I wanted to write.”

“But in other ways than writing I guess I’m sort of backward, though. When you were sixteen, Georgie, had you had a lot of dates?”

Georgie nodded. “And you haven’t?”

“Not one. Not ever.”

“There’s time. It’s pretty hard to make friends when you’re moving around.”

“Do you know how many cheap dumps I’ve lived in since Papa died? I’d never let a boy see those places—and Lud in his undershirt, belching. Besides, no boy was ever interested. Today though—the best-looking boy in Civics winked at me today,” she said with triumph.

“Well, I’d say that’s pretty good progress. But I never had a decent place to entertain a boy either. I met them on the street.”

Jenny considered this. “What was your family like, Georgie?”

“My father would disappear for months, and when I was sixteen he left for good. My stepmother hated me. You have more family than I ever had.”

“But when Mama packs us up and drags us away I feel like we’re not a family at all, like we’re just strangers pulling in different directions.”

“Maybe you’re more of a family than you think. Anyway, if you’re a writer a rough time as a child can only make you stronger. The very things that make you suffer now should make you more perceptive. You’re learning more about people than a protected child might, learning to listen to what people are down inside them. Nothing is ever wasted if you’re wise enough to look at it clearly. If you’re wise enough to use it.”

*

Georgie has made me think about myself in a new way. And yet it’s not new, really. Sometimes you know something you never thought about at all, and when someone says it you think, of course! Maybe I knew all the time that what happens to us goes into what I want to be as a writer. But now I can think about it better. Maybe now I can stand away and take a look at myself, at all of us. Georgie says you have to do that sometimes.

Georgie is going to teach me to drive.

Jack and Ben and Bingo and I played ball tonight in the street. They’re not so stern after all. It just takes longer to get to know them.