Anastasia at Your Service

  "My fly was unzipped," he said after a while. "The whole hour. I didn't realize it until afterward."

  "Dad! That's terrible! Someone should have told you! That wasn't fair, for them to laugh!"

  But next thing she knew, Anastasia was laughing herself. So was her father. And her mother. Sam wasn't; he was busy trying to make an airplane out of a piece of lettuce.

  "Well," said her father, still chuckling. "I survived, just as your mother did."

  "I guess I will too, then," said Anastasia. "I'll survive being a maid."

  "What are you going to say to Mrs. Bellingham when you go to work tomorrow?"

  Anastasia thought. "I'll smile," she said, "and I'll say, 'Anastasia Atcher Service.'"

  ***

  But much later, as she was going to bed, she thought of something else. Not that she would say. But that she would do.

  4

  The worst part of the problem, Anastasia had realized, thinking about it the night before, was not the humiliation of being a maid. She could survive that, the way her mother and her father had survived their humiliations and had even been able to laugh about them afterward. Someday Anastasia would be able to tell her own children about the summer she was a maid, and she would be able to laugh about it.

  What she might not survive was being a maid in front of Daphne Bellingham, who would be her classmate in seventh grade this fall. That was the problem she would have to solve.

  And she had decided to solve it by going to work in disguise. She would disguise herself as a middle-aged woman.

  ***

  By ten in the morning, no one was at home except Anastasia. Her father was off teaching his summer school class, and her mother had taken Sam to visit the nursery school he would be going to in the fall.

  Dumb old Sam didn't understand about nursery schools. He thought that he was going to learn to read. He had insisted on going off with Volume One of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in his stroller with him. He wanted to learn to read the part about airplanes.

  Well, thought Anastasia with some satisfaction, maybe today Sam will be humiliated. Maybe the nursery school people would laugh.

  Anastasia went into her parents' bedroom and opened one of her mother's bureau drawers. She felt a little guilty, because she wasn't ordinarily a sneaky sort of person.

  But this was a very necessary part of her disguise.

  She took out one of her mother's bras. Then she went into the bathroom and put it on. Carefully she stuffed each side of it with Kleenex. Then she put on the white blouse that Mrs. Bellingham had told her to wear.

  But when she looked at herself in the mirror from different angles, she realized the Kleenex didn't work. It looked lumpy and gross.

  So she took the Kleenex out and threw it away.

  She thought for a minute and went back to her mother's bureau. This time she snitched two pairs of pantyhose.

  Back in the bathroom, she put a pair of pantyhose into each side of the bra. They were rounder, softer, more natural-looking than the Kleenex.

  But when she looked at herself sideways in the mirror, she groaned.

  It looked like Dolly Parton.

  Also, it made her feel funny. She couldn't even see her feet, because she had to look over the mountain of pantyhose. So she took them out and thought some more.

  After a few minutes, feeling even more guilty, because now she was going to owe her mother at least $1.49, she found a pair of scissors and cut one pair of pantyhose in half. She stuffed one rolled-up half into each side of the bra.

  Now she looked into the mirror and smiled. It was perfect. She walked around the bathroom a bit to make sure the pantyhose didn't come loose or shift around, but they seemed quite secure. Maybe because her blouse buttoned so tightly over them.

  Next, she opened the bathroom drawer where her mother kept make-up.

  She took out the mascara and took off her glasses in order to color her eyelashes.

  But she couldn't see without her glasses. Her face in the mirror was blurred.

  She put her glasses back on. Now she could see her eyelashes, but she couldn't reach them with the mascara.

  "Rats," said Anastasia to herself, and she sat down on the rim of the bathtub to think. How on earth did Helen Keller put on mascara?

  Braille.

  Anastasia took off her glasses, and put mascara on her eyelashes without looking. Then she put her glasses back on. It didn't look too bad.

  She darkened her eyebrows with an eyebrow pencil, reaching around the rims of her glasses. When she leaned forward toward the mirror, her pantyhose bosom bumped into the bathroom sink and squashed; but Anastasia noticed that it puffed right out again when she stood back. Much better than Kleenex.

  Finally, very carefully, she sprinkled Johnson's Baby Powder on her hair and smoothed it in with her hands. Then, with a rubber band and a handful of bobby pins, she twisted her hair into a bun and pinned it at the back of her head. Her light hair looked gray from the powder.

  She dabbed a little pink lipstick on her lips, straightened her blouse and skirt, and went to stand in front of the full-length mirror that was on the back of her parents' bedroom door.

  With grayish hair, dark eyebrows, pink lipstick, and the pantyhose bosom, she figured she looked about forty years old. From her mother's closet, she borrowed a large black leather pocketbook and hung it over her shoulder. Now she definitely looked forty years old. She could be elected President of the League of Women Voters without any trouble at all.

  It was twenty of eleven. Anastasia Krupnik, age forty, with the black pocketbook thumping against her hip, got on her bike and rode to Bellmeadow Farm.

  ***

  "Good," said Edna Fox at the back door, "you're right on time. There's lots to do. You can hang your purse in that closet there. You don't have a lot of money in it, do you? I'm not going to take the responsibility if ..."

  "No," said Anastasia, and rolled her eyes. Good grief. In debt for thirty dollars, working as a maid in order to pay back thirty whole dollars, and someone asks if you have a lot of money in your purse. If she had a lot of money, for Pete's sake, she'd pay it to Mrs. Bellingham for her crummy bockle, get on her bike, and be gone so fast they'd never know what had happened.

  Too bad she had to put her pocketbook in the closet. It was part of her middle-age disguise. Still, maids didn't usually carry their pocketbooks around while they served lunch, Anastasia realized.

  Edna Fox handed her an apron.

  Good grief, thought Anastasia. Yesterday's apron had covered her whole body. She didn't want to hide her pantyhose bosom. It would ruin the whole effect.

  But the apron was a tiny white one, one that tied around the waist and had no top to it. Good. She tied it carefully, with her back to Mrs. Fox, and to Rachel and Gloria, who were at the sink. She had to hold the bosom up with one hand while she arranged the waistband of the apron. The bra was a little loose. The bosom was a little lower than she would have liked. Still, maybe that would make her look even older. Anastasia had noticed that old ladies' bosoms began to be pretty low sometimes. Maybe she looked fifty instead of forty. Fifty was even better.

  "You look different," said Mrs. Fox. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm just wearing my hair differently today," said Anastasia. "I'm fine." But she realized that Mrs. Fox was looking at the bosom, not the hair.

  Well, tough. It was not, Anastasia thought, unheard of for a girl to grow quite quickly in that respect. Once, years ago, she had had a baby-sitter named Marcia, who practically overnight, for Pete's sake, had changed from flat-chested to—

  But Mrs. Fox interrupted her thoughts.

  "The company's all here," she said. "They're on the terrace, having cocktails. You can start taking trays of food to the dining room table."

  Anastasia carried a large silver platter of sliced turkey and ham into the dining room. Wide glass doors were opened onto the flagstone terrace, and she could see the people sitting there. She could see Mrs. Bellingham, h
er arch enemy, sitting in a wrought-iron chair that resembled a throne. Typical, thought Anastasia.

  She moved quietly to the side of the glass doors and stood where she was hidden by the folds of an opened drape. Peeking out, she found Daphne Bellingham, who was sitting on the stone steps, sipping a Coke and looking very bored.

  Anastasia had been secretly hoping that Daphne Bellingham would be very ugly, with crooked teeth and Troubled Skin. But she wasn't. She had short, curly blond hair, and tiny gold earrings in pierced ears. She wasn't beautiful. But she was kind of cute.

  Rats. Anastasia's parents wouldn't let her have her ears pierced. Not till she was thirteen, they said. She had tried to do it herself once, anyway, with a needle, but her hands kept getting sweaty and the needle slid around too much.

  Daphne Bellingham was wearing a yellow-and-white-striped jersey dress, and there was a funny little mark on it. Anastasia squinted at the mark. Of course. The dress had had an alligator on it once, and Daphne Bellingham had pulled the alligator off.

  Oh, rats. Daphne Bellingham was someone Anastasia would like.

  Anastasia kicked the carpeting angrily and went back to the kitchen for another tray of food.

  "Here," said Edna Fox, and put a large platter into Anastasia's hands. "Hors d'oeuvres. Pass these around, will you? Don't forget to serve the women first."

  "I know about stuff like that, Mrs. Fox," said Anastasia with an icy smile.

  The platter was filled with some of Anastasia's very favorite things. Deviled eggs. Artichoke leaves with little shrimp on them. Chicken wings. And Anastasia was starving. Her stomach rumbled. She hadn't eaten any breakfast at all because she'd been too busy planning her disguise.

  Going through the dining room to the terrace doors, she decided that she might faint if she didn't eat something. Not a chicken wing, because she would be left with the bone. Not an artichoke-and-shrimp, because she'd be left with the artichoke part that you didn't eat.

  She set the platter on the table for a minute, stuffed a deviled egg into her mouth, rearranged the other things to cover the empty space, and headed for the terrace.

  She held her mouth very carefully so that no one would notice there was half an egg inside it.

  "There you are, dear!" said Mrs. Bellingham in a loud voice. "I want to introduce you to everyone! This is Anastasia ... What was your last name again?"

  Anastasia swallowed the egg whole, and said, "Krupnik," in a strangling voice. Then she hiccuped.

  "Excuse me," she said, miserably.

  She could hear Daphne Bellingham giggle. Quickly she began passing the platter to the guests. She could hear Mrs. Bellingham rattling off everyone's names. My sister, Mrs. Aldrich Forbes. My daughter-in-law, Caroline Bellingham. My son, John Bellingham. Blah blah blah. Anastasia wasn't even listening. She was trying desperately to keep from hiccuping again. The deviled egg was lodged in her throat somewhere.

  "I especially want you to meet the birthday girl. This is my granddaughter, Daphne. Daphne, Anastasia is—"

  Anastasia knew exactly what she was going to say. Anastasia is going into the seventh grade. Couldn't Mrs. Bellingham see that it was all a mistake, that she was actually middle-aged?

  She hurriedly interrupted Daphne's grandmother and said, in her forty-year-old voice, around the remains of the deviled egg and a whole batch of potential hiccups, "I'm glad to meet you, Miss Bellingham. Would you like some hors d'oeuvres?"

  She leaned over to offer the platter to Daphne Bellingham. She could hear Daphne stifle a giggle. In a hideous, horrible instant of perception she knew what was happening, and it was too late to do anything about it.

  Her whole pantyhose bosom—both sides—was leaning into the platter. It was resting right on the hors d'oeuvres. There were deviled eggs stuck to the bottom side of it.

  The other people were talking. They hadn't noticed. But Daphne had. Daphne was almost choking on her Coke. Her shoulders were shaking.

  "Whoops!" said Daphne suddenly. "I spilled some Coke on my dress. Anastasia, would you come help me wash it off?"

  Mrs. Bellingham tsked-tsked. "Daphne, when will you outgrow that clumsiness? Give her a hand, Anastasia. There's cleaning fluid in the powder room if you need it."

  Anastasia put the platter of hors d'oeuvres down in the dining room. The tops of the eggs were a little mashed, but not too badly. You couldn't tell they'd been mashed by a bosom. She followed Daphne through the house to a powder room off the huge front hall. If she walked stiffly, you couldn't see the egg yolk on her front; it was all kind of on the underneath side.

  How on earth did Dolly Parton pass a plate of deviled eggs, she wondered grouchily.

  "Now then, Miss Bellingham," said Anastasia briskly, in her middle-aged maid's voice, when the two girls were inside the pretty blue-and-green powder room, "let me take care of that stain for you."

  Daphne Bellingham hooted with laughter. "Knock it off, Anastasia, whoever you are!" she said. "I didn't spill any Coke. I was just trying to rescue you. What on earth do you have stuffed inside your blouse: Kleenex? I did it once with Kleenex when I was trying to get some boy on the high school football team to notice me. But it didn't work. It looked really gross. All my friends laughed, and I ended up pulling it all out in the school library, back behind the reference shelves. I wadded it all up and left it hidden behind a volume of World's Great Scientists. What is that you have in there?"

  "Pantyhose," Anastasia confessed. "I was trying to look forty years old because I didn't want you to know I was going to be in seventh grade. Because your grandmother forced me to be a maid, and it was so embarrassing. Actually, it's even more embarrassing to end up with egg yolk all over my blouse."

  Daphne giggled. "Here, I can get the egg off. It's not as bad as you think. Take your blouse off a minute and I'll wash that part. Why on earth did my grandmother make you be a maid? She's such a creep."

  Anastasia gave her the blouse, stood there in her mother's bra, and told Daphne the whole story. The night before, it had made her cry. Now, it made her laugh.

  "I still owe her thirty dollars," she explained, at the end of the story. "I'll have to be her maid forever." For some reason, the thought of being a maid forever seemed very funny now. Daphne was laughing as she washed the egg smears off the blouse. Anastasia couldn't stop laughing. She was still hiccuping from the deviled egg she had swallowed whole; now she was choking with laughter as well, and tears were running down her face.

  "I could take the bosom off"—she giggled—"but what would I do with it? I'd have to carry it back in there. What if your grandmother saw me walking through the dining room with a bra full of pantyhose in my hand?"

  "Maybe she'd think it was a new hors d'oeuvre Mrs. Fox had dreamed up," Daphne suggested. "She's so dumb. Hey—you could just stuff it in one of the drawers here, and leave it. Like my Kleenex I left in the library. You and I could be the only two people in town who hide fake bosoms everywhere!"

  "No," Anastasia decided, even though she liked the idea of being Bosom Phantoms, "I can't, because it's my mother's bra. I have to sneak it back into her bureau. I guess I'll just leave it on for now." She took the damp blouse from Daphne and put it on.

  "Anastasia, your face!"

  "What's wrong with my face?" Anastasia looked in the mirror and groaned. The tears from laughing had made the mascara run down her cheeks, and she was smudged with black.

  "Here," said Daphne. "Take off your glasses and I'll wash your face. For heaven's sake, Anastasia, you need a nursemaid. Good thing I was here."

  "If you hadn't been here," Anastasia pointed out, "none of this would have happened, because I wouldn't have worn a disguise."

  She dried her face and put her glasses back on. "There. Now back to being a maid again."

  "You want a cigarette before we go back?" asked Daphne. "I know where my grandmother keeps them."

  "No," said Anastasia, startled. "I hate cigarettes."

  "Me too." Now Daphne giggled. "But I smoke them b
ecause it drives my parents up a wall. I'm practically a juvenile delinquent."

  "That's weird," said Anastasia. "I drive my parents up a wall all the time, but I do it accidentally. Why would you do it on purpose?"

  "Because of who my parents are, I guess."

  Anastasia had forgotten for a moment who Daphne was. Of course. She was Daphne Bellingham. "It must be really weird to be rich," she said. "My parents can't even afford a new refrigerator."

  "We're not rich," said Daphne.

  "Liar. How many rooms in this house—twenty-five? How many servants? How many Cadillacs?"

  "This is my grandmother's house," Daphne pointed out patiently. "My grandmother's rich. Super-rich. But don't you know who my father is?"

  "John Bellingham," said Anastasia. "Your grandmother introduced me. I was choking on an egg at the time, in case you didn't notice."

  "The Reverend John Bellingham," said Daphne, in an ostentatiously solemn voice. "Rector of the Congregational Church. Ministers are never rich. They're poor. They're also good. They never do anything bad. It is so incredibly boring, being a minister's kid."

  Anastasia thought about that for a minute. "My father doesn't do bad stuff either," she said. "But he's not boring."

  "Doesn't he ever swear?"

  "Well, he's not foul-mouthed or anything. But occasionally he swears. Like when I melted his Billie Holiday records."

  "See what I mean? If I melted my father's Billie Holiday records, he wouldn't swear. He'd forgive me or something."

  "Oh," said Anastasia. "My father has never forgiven me for that."

  "Does your father smoke?"

  "A pipe," said Anastasia.

  "See? My father doesn't smoke anything, ever. He's too good. Does your father ever get mad?"

  "Sure. So does my mom. They yell and stuff."

  "My parents don't. Not ever. They're nice, absolutely all the time. Can you imagine how boring that is?"

  Anastasia wasn't certain. Actually, it sounded sort of pleasant. But she nodded her head.

  "So," said Daphne, as if it were all quite logical, "I specialize in being practically a juvenile delinquent."