Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

“Well, you’re going to!” Grandma smiled at me. “I’ve told him all about you.”

  We stood in line waiting to shake hands with the rabbi. After a long time it was our turn. I was face to face with Rabbi Kellerman. He was kind of young and looked a little like Miles J. Benedict Jr. He wasn’t skinny though.

  Grandma whispered to me, “Shake hands, Margaret.”

  I held out my hand.

  “This is my granddaughter, Rabbi. The one I told you about … Margaret Simon.”

  The rabbi shook my hand. “Yes, of course. Margaret! Good Yom Tov.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  The rabbi laughed. “It means Happy New Year. That’s what we’re celebrating today.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, Happy New Year to you Rabbi.”

  “Did you enjoy our service?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “I just loved it.”

  “Good—good.” He pumped my hand up and down some more. “Come back any time. Get to know us, Margaret. Get to know us and God.”

  I had to go through the third degree when I got home.

  “Well,” my mother said. “How was it?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Did you like it?” she asked.

  “It was interesting,” I said.

  “Did you learn anything?” my father wanted to know.

  “Well,” I said. “In the first five rows there were eight brown hats and six black ones.”

  My father laughed. “When I was a kid I used to count feathers on hats.” Then we laughed together.

  Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. I’m really on my way now. By the end of the school year I’ll know all there is to know about religion. And before I start junior high I’ll know which one I am. Then I’ll be able to join the Y or the Center like everybody else.

  10

  Three things happened the first week in November. Laura Danker wore a sweater to school for the first time. Mr. Benedict’s eyes almost popped out of his head. Actually, I didn’t notice Mr. Benedict’s eyes, but Nancy told me. Freddy the Lobster noticed too. He asked me, “How come you don’t look like that in a sweater, Margaret?” Then he laughed hard and slapped his leg. Very funny, I thought. I wore sweaters every day since I had so many of them. All made expressly for me by Grandma. Even if I stuffed my bra with socks I still wouldn’t look like Laura Danker. I wondered if it was true that she went behind the A&P with Evan and Moose. Why would she do a stupid thing like that?

  What reminded me of Moose was that he cut our grass and cleaned up our leaves and said he’d be back in the spring. So unless I bumped into him at Nancy’s house I wouldn’t see him all winter. Not that he even knew I existed—I’d had to hide from him ever since that We must—we must incident. But I watched him secretly from my bedroom window.

  The second thing that happened was that I went to church with Janie Loomis. Janie and I had gotten pretty friendly. We were especially friendly in gym because Ruth, the girl who was second in line, was absent a lot. So Janie and I got to talk and once I came right out and asked her if she went to church.

  “When I have to,” she said.

  So I asked her if I could go with her some time just to see what it was like and she said, “Sure, how about Sunday?”

  So I went. The funniest thing was it was just like temple. Except it was all in English. But we read from a prayer book that didn’t make sense and the minister gave a sermon I couldn’t follow and I counted eight black hats, four red ones, six blue and two fur. At the end of the service everyone sang a hymn. Then we stood on line to shake hands with the minister. By then I was a pro at it.

  Janie introduced me. “This is my friend Margaret Simon. She’s no religion.”

  I almost fainted. What did Janie have to go and say that for? The minister looked at me like I was a freak. Then he smiled with an Aha—maybe-I’ll-win-her look.

  “Welcome to the First Presbyterian Church, Margaret. I hope you’ll come back again.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. I’ve been to church. I didn’t feel anything special in there God. Even though I wanted to. I’m sure it has nothing to do with you. Next time I’ll try harder.

  During this time I talked to Nancy every night. My father wanted to know why we had to phone each other so often when we were together in school all day. “What can you possibly have to discuss after only three hours?” he asked. I didn’t even try to explain. Lots of times we did our math homework over the phone. When we were done Nancy called Gretchen to check answers and I called Janie.

  The third thing that happened that week was the principal of our school announced over the loudspeaker that the PTA was giving a Thanksgiving square dance for the three sixth-grade classes. Mr. Benedict asked us if we knew how to square dance. Most of us didn’t.

  Nancy told the Four PTS’s the square dance was going to be really super. And she knew all about it because her mother was on the committee. She said we should all write down who we wanted to dance with and she’d see what she could do about it. It turned out that we all wanted Philip Leroy, so Nancy said, “Forget it—I’m no magician.”

  For the next two weeks our gym period was devoted to square-dancing lessons. Mr. Benedict said if we were being given this party the least we could do to show our appreciation was to learn to do the basic steps. We practiced with records and Mr. Benedict jumped around a lot, clapping his hands. When he had to demonstrate a step he used Laura Danker as his partner. He said it was because she was tall enough to reach his shoulder properly, but Nancy gave me a knowing look. Anyway, none of the boys in our class wanted to be Laura’s partner because they were all a lot smaller than her. Even Philip Leroy only came up to her chin, and he was the tallest.

  The problem with square-dance lessons was that most of the boys were a lot more interested in stepping on our feet than they were in learning how to dance. And a few of them were so good at it they could step on us in time to the music. Mostly, I concentrated on not getting my feet squashed.

  On the morning of the square dance I dressed in my new skirt and blouse.

  Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. I can’t wait until two o’clock God. That’s when our dance starts. Do you think I’ll get Philip Leroy for a partner? It’s not so much that I like him as a person God, but as a boy he’s very handsome. And I’d love to dance with him … just once or twice. Thank you God.

  The PTA decorated the gym. It was supposed to look like a barn, I think. There were two piles of hay and three scarecrows. And a big sign on the wall in yellow letters saying WELCOME TO THE SIXTH GRADE SQUARE DANCE … as if we didn’t know.

  I was glad my mother wasn’t a chaperone. It’s bad enough trying to act natural at a dance, but when your mother’s there it’s impossible. I know because Mrs. Wheeler was a chaperone and Nancy was a wreck. The chaperones were dressed funny, like farmers or something. I mean, Nancy’s mother wore dungarees, a plaid shirt and a big straw hat. I didn’t blame Nancy for pretending not to know her.

  We had a genuine square-dance caller. He was dressed up a lot like Mrs. Wheeler. He stood on the stage and told us what steps to do. He also worked the record player. He stamped his feet and jumped around and now and then I saw him mop his face off with a red handkerchief. Mr. Benedict kept telling us to get into the spirit of the party. “Relax and enjoy yourselves,” he said.

  The three sixth grades were supposed to mingle but the Four PTS’s stuck close together. We had to line up every time there was a new dance. The girls lined up on one side and the boys on the other. That’s how you got a partner. The only trouble was there were four more girls than boys, so whoever wound up last on line had to dance with another leftover girl. That only happened to me and Janie once, thank goodness!

  What we did was try to figure out who our partner was going to be in advance. Like, I knew when I was fourth in line that Norman Fishbein was going to be my partner because he was fourth in line on the boys’ side. So
I switched around fast because Norman Fishbein is the biggest drip in my class. Well, at least one of the biggest drips. Also, Freddy Barnett was to be avoided because all he would do was tease me about how come I didn’t look like Laura Danker in a sweater. But I noticed that once when he danced with her his face was so red he looked more like a lobster than he did when he was all sunburned.

  The girls shuffled around more than the boys because most of us wanted to get Philip Leroy for a partner. And finally I got him. This is how it happened. After everyone had a partner we had to make a square. My partner was Jay Hassler who was very polite and didn’t try to step on my foot once. Then the caller told us to switch partners with whoever was on our right side. Well, Philip Leroy was with Nancy on my right side, and Nancy was so mad she almost cried right in front of everyone. Even though I was thrilled to have Philip Leroy all to myself for a whole record, he was one of the foot steppers! And dancing with him made my hands sweat so bad I had to wipe them off on my new skirt.

  At four o’clock the chaperones served us punch and cookies and at quarter to five the dance was over and my mother picked me up in our new car. (My father gave in around Halloween when my mother explained that she couldn’t even get a quart of milk because she had no car. And that Margaret couldn’t possibly walk to and from school in bad weather and that bad weather would be coming very soon. My mother didn’t like my father’s suggestion that if she got up early and drove him to the station she could use his car all day long.) Our new car is a Chevy. It’s green.

  My mother was in a hurry to drive home from the square dance because she was in the middle of a new painting. It was a picture of a lot of different fruits in honor of Thanksgiving. My mother gives away a whole bunch of pictures every Christmas. My father thinks they wind up in other people’s attics.

  11

  By the first week in December we no longer used our secret names at PTS meetings. It was too confusing, Nancy said. Also, we just about gave up on our Boy Books. For one thing the names never changed. Nancy managed to shift hers around. It was easy for her—with eighteen boys. But Janie and Gretchen and I always listed Philip Leroy number one. There was no suspense about the whole thing. And I wondered, did they list Philip Leroy because they really liked him or were they doing what I did—making him number one because he was so good-looking. Maybe they were ashamed to write who they really liked too.

  The day that Gretchen finally got up the guts to sneak out her father’s anatomy book we met at my house, in my bedroom, with the door closed and a chair shoved in front of it. We sat on the floor in a circle with the book opened to the male body.

  “Do you suppose that’s what Philip Leroy looks like without his clothes on?” Janie asked.

  “Naturally, dope!” Nancy said. “He’s male, isn’t he?”

  “Look at all those veins and stuff,” Janie said.

  “Well, we all have them,” Gretchen said.

  “I think they’re ugly,” Janie said.

  “You better never be a doctor or a nurse,” Gretchen told her. “They have to look at this stuff all the time.”

  “Turn the page, Gretchen,” Nancy said.

  The next page was the male reproductive system.

  None of us said anything. We just looked until Nancy told us, “My brother looks like that.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “He walks around naked,” Nancy said.

  “My father used to walk around naked,” Gretchen said. “But lately he’s stopped doing it.”

  “My aunt went to a nudist colony last summer,” Janie said.

  “No kidding!” Nancy looked up.

  “She stayed a month,” Janie told us. “My mother didn’t talk to her for three weeks after that. She thought it was a disgrace. My aunt’s divorced.”

  “Because of the nudist colony?” I asked.

  “No,” Janie said. “She was divorced before she went.”

  “What do you suppose they do there?” Gretchen asked.

  “Just walk around naked is all. My aunt says it’s very peaceful. But I’ll never walk around naked in front of anybody!”

  “What about when you get married?” Gretchen asked.

  “Even then,” Janie insisted.

  “You’re a prude!” Nancy said.

  “I am not! It has nothing to do with being a prude.”

  “When you grow you’ll change your mind,” Nancy told her. “You’ll want everybody to see you. Like those girls in Playboy.”

  “What girls in Playboy?” Janie asked.

  “Didn’t you ever see a copy of Playboy?”

  “Where would I see it?” Janie asked.

  “My father gets it,” I said.

  “Do you have it around?” Nancy asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Well, get it!” Nancy told me.

  “Now?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” I said.

  “Listen, Margaret—Gretchen went to all the trouble of sneaking out her father’s medical book. The least you could do is show us Playboy.”

  So I opened my bedroom door and went downstairs, trying to remember where I had seen the latest issue. I didn’t want to ask my mother. Not that it was so wrong to show it to my friends. I mean, if it was so wrong my father shouldn’t get it at all, right? Although lately I think he’s been hiding it because it’s never in the magazine rack where it used to be. Finally, I found it in his night table drawer and I thought if my mother caught me and asked me what I was doing I’d say we were making booklets and I needed some old magazines to cut up. But she didn’t catch me.

  Nancy opened it right up to the naked girl in the middle. On the page before there was a story about her. It said Hillary Brite is eighteen years old.

  “Eighteen! That’s only six more years,” Nancy squealed.

  “But look at the size of her. They’re huge!” Janie said.

  “Do you suppose we’ll look like that at eighteen?” Gretchen asked.

  “If you ask me, I think there’s something wrong with her,” I said. “She looks out of proportion!”

  “Do you suppose that’s what Laura Danker looks like?” Janie asked.

  “No. Not yet,” Nancy said. “But she might at eighteen!”

  Our meeting ended with fifty rounds of “We must—we must—we must increase our bust!”

  12

  On December eleventh Grandma sailed on a three-week cruise to the Caribbean. She went every year. She had a bon voyage party in her room on the ship. This year I was allowed to go. My mother gave Grandma a green silk box to keep her jewelry safe. It was very nice—all lined in white velvet. Grandma said thank you and that all her jewelry was for “her Margaret” anyway so she had to take good care of it. Grandma’s always reminding me of how nobody lives forever and everything she has is for me and I hate it when she talks like that. She once told me she had her lawyer prepare her funeral instructions so things would go the way she planned. Such as, the kind of box she wants to be buried in and that she doesn’t want any speeches at all and that I should only come once or twice a year to see that her grave is looking nice and neat.

  We stayed on the ship half an hour and then Grandma kissed me good-by and promised to take me along with her one of these days.

  The next week my mother started to address her Christmas cards and for days at a time she was frantically busy with them. She doesn’t call them Christmas cards. Holiday greetings, she says. We don’t celebrate Christmas exactly. We give presents but my parents say that’s a traditional American custom. My father says my mother and her greeting cards have to do with her childhood. She sends them to people she grew up with and they send cards back to her. So once a year she finds out who married whom and who had what kids and stuff like that. Also, she sends one to her brother, whom I’ve never met. He lives in California.

  This year I discovered something really strange. I discovered that my mother was sending a Christmas card to her pa
rents in Ohio. I found out because I was looking through the pile of cards one day when I had a cold and stayed home from school. There it was—just like that. The envelope said Mr. and Mrs. Paul Hutchins, and that’s them. My grandparents! I didn’t mention anything about it to my mother. I had the feeling I wasn’t supposed to know.

  In school, Mr. Benedict was running around trying to find out what happened to the new choir robes. The whole school was putting on a Christmas-Hanukkah pageant for the parents and our sixth-grade class was the choir. We didn’t even have to try out. “Mr. Benedict’s class will be the choir,” the principal announced. We practiced singing every day with the music teacher. I thought by the time Christmas finally rolled around I wouldn’t have any voice left. We learned five Christmas carols and three Hanukkah songs—alto and soprano parts. Mostly the boys sang alto and the girls sang soprano. We’d been measured for our new choir robes right after Thanksgiving. The PTA decided the old ones were really worn out. Our new ones would be green instead of black. We all had to carry pencil-sized flashlights instead of candles.

  We practiced marching down the halls and into the auditorium singing “Adeste Fidelis” in English and Latin. We marched in two lines, boys and girls. And naturally in size places. I walked right behind Janie because Ruth had moved away. My partner turned out to be Norman Fishbein. I never looked at him. I just marched looking straight ahead singing very loud.

  A week before the pageant Alan Gordon told Mr. Benedict that he wasn’t going to sing the Christmas songs because it was against his religion. Then Lisa Murphy raised her hand and said that she wasn’t going to sing the Hanukkah songs because it was against her religion.

  Mr. Benedict explained that songs were for everyone and had nothing at all to do with religion, but the next day Alan brought in a note from home and from then on he marched but he didn’t sing. Lisa sang when we marched but she didn’t even move her lips during the Hanukkah songs.

  Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. I want you to know I’m giving a lot of thought to Christmas and Hanukkah this year. I’m trying to decide if one might be special for me. I’m really thinking hard God. But so far I haven’t come up with any answers.