Anastasia at Your Service

  But she knew, even as she asked. It was Terrible News.

  "They shaved his head," said her mother in a sad voice.

  Her father sighed, and then started to laugh. "Good grief," he said. "That's not the end of the world. It'll grow back!"

  But Anastasia knew how her mother felt. She felt the same way. "Dad," she said unhappily, "you don't understand."

  She asked her mother fearfully, "How does he look?"

  Her mother's eyes were filled with tears. But she was biting her lip, too, and Anastasia could tell that she didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. So she did both. The tears ran down her cheeks. But she was chuckling when she answered the question.

  "He looks like Kojak," she said.

  8

  It was true. A miniature Kojak, wearing seersucker pajamas printed with pictures of Mickey Mouse.

  Anastasia flinched when she saw Sam. But she didn't say a word about his shaved head. She had decided, while riding her bike to the hospital, that she wouldn't, no matter how gross it looked.

  She remembered how terrible she had felt one morning, back when they lived in Cambridge, when her best friend, Jenny, had greeted her with "Hi, Anastasia! That's an awful mosquito bite on your forehead. It looks just like advanced acne."

  It really was only a mosquito bite. But after Jenny said that, Anastasia was self-conscious all day. She tried to comb her hair over her forehead. She sat with her hand over her forehead as much as possible, until her sixth-grade teacher asked whether she had a headache, and when she said no, told her that she looked like Balboa discovering the Pacific Ocean. And showed her a picture of Balboa, with his hand over his forehead, discovering the Pacific.

  Hah. Probably old Balboa had advanced acne.

  So Anastasia was always very careful not to point out anyone's physical flaws, because she knew from experience how awful it made them feel.

  So she said, "Hi there, Sam!" just as if he didn't look like Kojak at all.

  But to her surprise, Sam said, "Hi! You can call me Baldy!"

  Dumb old Sam. He wasn't old enough to be self-conscious yet.

  "Well," she said uncomfortably, "I guess I'll just call you Sam, the way I always do."

  Sam shrugged happily. "Okay. But Mrs. Flypaper calls me Baldy. Mrs. Flypaper says I look like Bald Eagle the Indian chief."

  Imaginary Mrs. Flypaper. Anastasia was still puzzled by that. What good was an imaginary companion who said you looked like Bald Eagle the Indian chief?

  Well, obviously it made Sam feel okay about the way he looked. What if, when she had had the mosquito bite on her forehead, and Jenny had made that obnoxious remark, Anastasia had had an imaginary companion—a Mrs. Flypaper—who had said, "Don't worry about it. It just looks like a mosquito bite. No big deal"?

  No. It wouldn't have worked for her. She needed a real friend to say that, not a made-up one.

  But if it worked for Sam, okay.

  "I'll bring you a feather next time I come, Sam, and we can make an Indian headdress for you."

  "Okay," said Sam cheerfully.

  "We really miss you at home."

  "Yeah," said Sam.

  "Last night when Mom was setting the table, she forgot and set four places. One for you."

  Sam giggled. "I eat on a tray. Sometimes Mrs. Flypaper comes when I'm eating."

  And makes you eat soft-boiled eggs, thought Anastasia. Weird.

  "Where does Mrs. Flypaper come from, Sam?"

  Sam looked puzzled. "I don't know."

  "When you come home on Monday, will Mrs. Flypaper come with you?"

  Sam looked startled. "No," he said. "Mrs. Flypaper lives here."

  Well, that made sense. Sam needed his imaginary companion only while he was in the hospital. Just like the shrink said.

  "Would you like me to read to you?"

  "Yeah. About airplanes."

  So Anastasia climbed up on the high hospital bed and read to Sam from one of the library books she had brought him. She skipped the Icarus section. She had a feeling that it would be dangerous to read it to him. Old dumb Sam, he might start trying to build a set of wings.

  After a while, Sam snuggled down in his pillow and fell asleep. Anastasia kissed the top of his bald Kojak head, whispered, "See you tomorrow, Bald Eagle," and tiptoed out of his room.

  ***

  She didn't have to be home for dinner for another hour, so Anastasia rode her bike to Daphne's house. Funny, she thought as she rode, how quickly this town had begun to feel like home. She rang her bicycle bell as she rode past the library, and waved in case Mr. Mason, the librarian, was looking out the window. He and she had become good friends, even though she thought he was overly strict about the number of books you could check out at a time.

  She rang her bell again, and waved again, as she passed the Senior Citizens' Center. Sometimes when she was bored at home, she stopped in there and played checkers or gin rummy with the senior citizens. They didn't seem to mind that she wasn't a senior citizen herself.

  She waved to Mr. Mastrolucci at the Gulf station where her father got gas. Then she waved to Gladys at the Clip n Curl Beauty Salon. For a while she had been mad at Gladys, because Gladys had refused to bleach Anastasia's hair platinum blond. But then she had realized that Gladys was right. Anastasia didn't really have a platinum blond face. Or figure. Maybe she would when she got older, especially if she got contact lenses and stopped being so skinny.

  She also waved at a lady she didn't even know, a lady who was walking a dumb-looking dog with droopy ears. The lady looked surprised. The dog didn't.

  Then she turned into Daphne's driveway, and there was Daphne, sitting on the front steps with a cat on her lap.

  "Hi, Daph! You said you'd call me, and you didn't! What are you doing?"

  "Picking fleas off the cat." She let go of the big gray cat, who looked relieved, jumped off Daphne's lap, and ran away into a thick clump of bushes. "I did call you. I called you this morning, and your mother said you were at work. And I called you this afternoon, and your father said you were at the hospital. Boy, your parents really keep track of you, Anastasia, like a couple of jailers."

  "No, they don't. They just like to know where I am. I like to know where they are, too. If you don't keep your eye on people, they fall out of windows and stuff."

  "How's your brother?"

  "He's okay. I read him a couple of books." Anastasia decided not to tell Daphne that Sam was bald all of a sudden. It seemed too personal. And Daphne might laugh.

  "Guess what? I did it," said Daphne.

  "Did what?"

  "Delivered the you-know-whats."

  "No kidding! How many?"

  "Twelve. That was all I took. My grandmother didn't notice they were gone, did she?"

  "She wasn't home this morning. She was out doing charity again, I guess. But Mrs. Fox didn't say anything. Anyway, they're all so busy cleaning the house and the dishes and the furniture and everything, they're not even thinking about the invitations. Who did you give them to?"

  "Everybody I told you I would."

  "The drunk who sleeps by the barber shop?"

  "Yep. He was sitting there on the sidewalk, nodding over a bottle of Gallo's rosé. I gave him one."

  "What did he do?"

  "He read it. Then he stood up, bowed, and said, 'My dear, I am decidedly honored.'" Daphne did a pretty good imitation of a staggery bow. Anastasia giggled.

  "How about the lady who carries the dog food around?"

  "Yeah. I found her sitting on a bench near the police station, mumbling to herself. I gave her the invitation, and she stuffed it into her bag and went on mumbling."

  "Probably she won't even read it."

  "Of course she will. I said to her, 'Aren't you even going to read it?' And she got all mad and yelled at me that of course she was going to read it, she always reads everything, she's read the complete works of Proust fourteen times, and when there's nothing else to read she reads the telephone book. Then she started mumbli
ng again."

  "Who else?"

  "The potheads in the park. I gave them two. And two to the deinstitutionalized psychotics."

  Anastasia counted. "That's six. Who got the other six?"

  "Well, then I walked over to the low-income housing. You know what my grandmother calls that housing project?"

  "What?"

  Daphne stood up, stuck her nose in the air, pinched her lips tight together, squinted her eyes, until she looked amazingly like Willa Bellingham, and said, in a throaty voice, "The Habitation of the Great Unwashed."

  "Daphne!" Anastasia was shocked. "That's terrible! Being low income doesn't mean being unwashed!"

  "It does to my grandmother. Unless you wash with imported lilac soap from England, you're unwashed. She says that every time we drive past that project: the Habitation of the Great Unwashed." She did her Willa Bellingham imitation again. Anastasia was impressed.

  "You know, Daph, you'd be a really good actress. I can't think of any professional actress who could do that imitation as well as you."

  "Bull. Jane Fonda could. Vanessa Redgrave could. Maybe Bo Derek couldn't, though."

  "Is there a Dramatic Club at school?"

  Daphne shrugged. "I suppose so. I'm only going into seventh grade, the same as you, so I don't know much about the junior high. But there was a Dramatic Club where I went to sixth grade."

  "I bet you got the lead in all the plays, didn't you?"

  Daphne made a face.

  "Didn't you?" asked Anastasia again.

  "No," said Daphne finally. "I didn't belong to the Dramatic Club."

  "Why not?"

  Daphne didn't say anything. She looked around, into the bushes where the cat had hidden. "Here, Scooter!" she called.

  "Daphne. Listen to me. You have to join the Dramatic Club in junior high, because you'll get the lead in everything. Then after you finish high school you can go to New York, to the Academy of Dramatic Arts or something, and then Hollywood will' find you, and you'll be a star. You'll win Oscars, and write your autobiography, and all that. I can tell you have a lot of talent. I bet not even Lily Tomlin could do that imitation of your grandmother. Honest. Now tell me why you wouldn't join the Dramatic Club!"

  Daphne stood up again, and looked down her nose at Anastasia. "Because it met after school," she said in a haughty voice. "And I was not available after school."

  "Why not?"

  Daphne's shoulders sagged, and she spoke in her own voice, but it sounded sad and angry. "I told you, Anastasia. I am a troublemaker. I was always in detention after school."

  She turned and went up the steps to her house. "It doesn't leave much time for extracurricular activities," she said sarcastically. Then she went inside and slammed the door.

  Boy, thought Anastasia, as she rode her bike home. I thought I was worried about Sam. But all he has is a depressed skull fracture. Daphne is really the one to worry about. Daphne has a depressed brain or something.

  9

  Anastasia was making pancakes. She often made pancakes for the family on Saturday mornings. But this Saturday it wasn't much fun, without Sam there. Sam liked pancakes shaped like rabbits or snowmen. Her parents didn't.

  "You want a snowman, Mom?" she asked, raising the bowl to pour the batter into the pan.

  "No, thanks. Just round will be fine."

  So Anastasia made a boring round pancake and served it to her mother.

  "Dad?" she asked. "How about a rabbit? I can really make good ears when the pan's nice and hot."

  But he made a face. "Frankly, your pancake rabbits make me cringe. They make me think I'm slicing the Easter bunny. Just do me a round one like the one you did for your mother."

  "I could put raisins in it," Anastasia suggested.

  But he made an even more hideous face. "Spare me the raisins. A round, plain, unadorned pancake, please."

  Adults were so boring about food. Anastasia wished for the millionth time that Sam were home. Sam even let her put food coloring in his milk.

  She served her father an enormous round pancake, made herself a halfhearted snowman, and sat down to eat.

  Boring, boring, boring Saturday morning. I bet breakfast isn't boring at Daphne's house, because Daphne can do those great imitations, Anastasia thought. If Daphne were here, my parents would be holding their sides from laughing, instead of just reading the newspaper.

  Anastasia decided to try doing an imitation. She decided to do a waitress routine, since she was making pancakes anyway.

  She chewed a wad of imaginary gum, and said, "Pancakes are on special today. Only a dollar sixty-nine. Can I give you folks another order of pancakes?"

  "No, thank you," said her mother, and folded the newspaper into quarters so that she could begin the crossword puzzle. "You could pour me some more coffee, though."

  "Me too," said her father without looking up from the paper, and pushed his cup over.

  Anastasia glowered and poured both of her parents some coffee.

  She chewed harder on the imaginary gum, scraped the frying pan noisily with the spatula, and said, in her waitress voice, "Tips sure are lousy in this here diner."

  Her father cleaned his glasses with a paper napkin. "Katherine," he said, "do you have page thirty-six? I need the rest of this article on the defense budget."

  "It's on the chair," said her mother, and pointed to the section that contained page thirty-six.

  Rats. It hadn't been a great waitress routine, but surely it had deserved some polite applause, at least.

  She decided to borrow Daphne's imitation of her grandmother. She knew that was funny.

  "Have you guys ever noticed," Anastasia asked casually, "that over on the other side of town there's a low-income housing project?"

  "Mmmmm," said her mother, filling in a word in the crossword puzzle. She looked at the word, frowned, and erased it.

  "Yes," said her father, as he turned a page of the paper. "I drive past it when I go to work. I've forgotten what it's called. Hazelnut Estates, or something."

  "No," said Anastasia's mother, looking up. "It's Hazelwood. Hazelwood Acres, I think, Myron."

  Perfect, thought Anastasia. If she had been writing dialogue for a play, she couldn't have written it any better, to lead up to her great line.

  "Actually," she said, "what it's called is"—and she drew up her shoulders very stiffly, pinched her mouth into a sour expression, and looked down her nose—"the Habitation of the Great Unwashed."

  But no one laughed. Both of her parents were looking at her. And there was an ominous silence.

  Her father, in the terrible voice he reserved for the most awful occasions, broke the silence by saying, "Did I just hear you say what I think I heard you say?"

  "Repeat that, please," said her mother, staring at her. "I want to be certain I heard you correctly, Anastasia."

  Good grief, thought Anastasia. Big trouble. She looked at her plate, where one bite of a pancake snowman still lay soggily in some syrup.

  "Thehabitationof thegreatunwashed," she finally repeated, mumbling miserably. "I was only—"

  "That," interrupted her father angrily, "is the stupidest, most uneducated, mindless, bigoted remark I have ever heard you say!"

  "But—" began Anastasia.

  "Snobbish," said her mother. "I can't believe it. You, of all people, turning into a snob!"

  "What I meant was—-"

  "What you said was 'unwashed.' Is that correct? Did I hear you correctly?" asked her father.

  "Yes." Anastasia sighed. "You heard me right. Unwashed. But I was only—"

  "Do you have any understanding of what low income means?" her father demanded.

  Anastasia looked him in the eye. Now she was mad. "Dad," she said, "I myself am low income. So far this week, at work, I earned forty dollars, out of which I had to pay thirty-five for a bockle, so that my take-home pay was five dollars. Plus the extremely low-income allowance that you give me. Don't talk to me about understanding poverty, for Pete's sake. I li
ve it."

  "And do you consider yourself 'unwashed'?" Her father said the word with distaste.

  "No. My jeans are unwashed, but—"

  "And do you consider poor to be synonymous with unclean?"

  Anastasia could see that she was doomed to lose a war she hadn't intended to start. "No," she said.

  "Or the underprivileged to be lacking in human dignity?"

  "No. Definitely not."

  Her mother had gone back to the crossword puzzle. "It was just a thoughtless remark, Myron," she said.

  Unfortunately her father didn't have a crossword puzzle, and he had apparently finished the article about the defense budget. He set the newspaper aside.

  "You haven't ever seen where I grew up, have you, Anastasia?"

  "You grew up in Boston," Anastasia said.

  "I grew up in Boston. I also grew up in poverty. My mother, my father, my four brothers and I all lived in a four-room apartment." Her father stood up and took his plate and coffee cup to the sink.

  Anastasia poked unhappily at the last bit of her soggy pancake. She didn't want it. But she didn't want to hear a lecture, either, about the millions of underprivileged people who aren't fortunate enough to have pancakes for breakfast. She gulped down the last bite.

  "The bathroom was down the hall," her father said. "We shared it with two other families." He rinsed his plate. Back at the table, her mother sighed and erased another mistake in the crossword puzzle.

  Anastasia carried her own plate to the sink and held it under the running water. Her father watched her, meaningfully.

  "We didn't have hot water," her father said. "My mother heated water on the stove."

  Ho-hum, thought Anastasia. But she nodded politely.

  "BUT WE WERE NOT UNWASHED!" said her father. "Can you get that through your head?"

  Not if you yell at me, thought Anastasia. All I get through my head if you yell at me is an Excedrin headache.

  But she nodded again. "Yessir," she said.

  Dr. Krupnik stroked his beard. He looked more cheerful all of a sudden. "You know what?" he said. "It's Saturday. And it's a beautiful day. Let's go for a ride, Anastasia. I'll show you where I lived when I was a kid."