Home Is the Place

  The first thing that sprang into Georgia Noble’s mind when she awoke on the Saturday before Halloween was that there was a good chance no one except the people in her own family and her new best friend, Ava, would know what her costume was.

  “You want to dress up as who?” Richard had asked two weeks earlier, when, over a supper of macaroni and cheese at the little kitchen table in the beach cottage, Georgia had announced her costume decision.

  “Buster Brown,” she had repeated. “And Henry can be Tige. Okay, Henry?”

  “Who’s Tige?” Henry wanted to know.

  “Good question,” said Richard, shaking his head.

  “Well, who are you going to be?” asked Georgia, glaring at her older brother.

  “A zombie. Everyone knows what a zombie is.”

  “Where on earth did you hear about Buster Brown and Tige?” Georgia’s mother asked her daughter.

  “From Nana Dana. She said when she was little she had shoes called Buster Browns, and inside there was a picture of a cartoon boy and his dog, Tige.”

  “Tige is a dog?” said Henry, suddenly interested. “I want to be a dog.”

  “Thank you,” said Georgia. “Anyway, Nana Dana said there was a song about Buster Brown and Tige. It went, ‘Does your shoe have a boy inside?’ and then ‘Does your shoe have a dog there, too?’ The song went on and on. We looked on the computer and Nana Dana showed me a picture of Buster Brown and Tige. And that’s who I think Henry and I should be for Halloween.”

  “Well, that’s certainly a very creative choice,” her father had commented.

  But now, on the day of Lewisport’s Halloween celebration, Georgia began to question her decision.

  “Maybe one of the judges will be really old,” Richard had said the day before. “You know, like in his fifties. Like Nana Dana. And he’ll know who Buster Brown and Tige are. Besides, you made good costumes.”

  Georgia had basked in this rare compliment from her brother and had felt a bit better. Now she sat up in her bed and listened for early morning sounds in the beach cottage.

  “We really must stop calling it the beach cottage,” her mother kept saying. “This is our home now, not a temporary vacation place.”

  It felt temporary, though, even after their furniture from New Jersey had arrived. Not that there was room for much of the furniture. The house in Princeton had been several times the size of the cottage. Most of their furniture had been sold along with the rambling house on Vandeventer Avenue. Georgia had been surprised when her mother had announced that they were moving, but not saddened. She loved the cottage and Lewisport and frankly didn’t care whether she went to school in New Jersey or in Maine. Leslie had already moved away. In February, Mrs. Jordan had packed up the house and driven Leslie and her brother right out of Princeton and all the way to Colorado for a fresh start.

  In June, just after school ended, the Nobles had left Princeton, too. Georgia knew that her father had not wanted to move. He had said that finding a teaching job in nearby Barnegat Point, where the kids from teeny Lewisport went to school, would be difficult, and he’d been right. September had rolled around, school had started, and Georgia’s father had no job. Maybe, Georgia thought, this was one reason the house still felt like a temporary place. Sure, her bed and dresser from her room on Vandeventer Avenue were set up in her room at the cottage. Sure, the Nobles had been living there for four months. Sure, Georgia and Richard were enrolled at Barnegat Point Elementary — the very same school her great-grandma Abby had once attended. But coming home from school every day to a house on the beach — and to a father who was hanging around in his jeans and a T-shirt — felt like vacation.

  Georgia peered behind the blinds at the yard outside her window. Her room at the back of the house had been added on ten years earlier, so there were now two bedrooms downstairs. A second bathroom had been added at the same time, this one off the upstairs bedroom. The cottage, Georgia felt, fit her family just fine. Although as Richard frequently pointed out, Georgia did not have to share her room with anyone. She had a room to herself while he had to share with Henry, who was such a baby.

  Georgia had just let the blinds fall back into place when she heard a rattling at her window. She pulled the blinds aside again and found herself facing a small fierce girl whose dark hair had been woven in two neat braids, tied with purple ribbons.

  “Ava!” she cried softly.

  Her best friend, Ava Norwood, grinned at her. “Get up! It’s almost six thirty. You don’t want to waste Saturday, do you?”

  Georgia did not want to waste Saturday. Saturdays on Blue Harbor Lane were much more interesting than Saturdays on Vandeventer Avenue. There was the ocean, for one thing, although at this time of year it was too cold to swim in. But that didn’t mean she and Ava couldn’t comb the sand for shells and pebbles to turn into jewelry.

  “We could become millionaires!” Ava had proclaimed when Georgia had shared her great idea.

  Georgia felt as if she had fit right into life in tiny Lewisport, belonging in the town as surely as if she’d been born there, as Ava had. She and Richard and Henry had been swallowed up by the gang of Blue Harbor Lane kids almost as soon as their car had pulled into the driveway. All day long they wandered up and down the short street, running in and out of one another’s houses, playing basketball and soccer, a noisy, sweaty bunch, until daylight faded and parents started calling the kids inside for baths and bed. The adults’ sole rule was that the kids — all of them — were forbidden to cross the street and venture onto the beach without a grown-up.

  To Georgia’s amazement, her mother — the same mother who hadn’t allowed her to go unaccompanied next door to Leslie’s house in Princeton — now seemed perfectly comfortable allowing her and Richard to roam the street, and beyond. “It’s safe here,” she’d said, looking fondly up and down the sunny strip of road. “A safe little world.”

  All the Blue Harbor Lane kids regularly walked to the end of the spit of land on which Lewisport sat and around the bend to what they called “town.”

  “When your great-grandma Abby was growing up here,” Georgia’s mother often said, “there was no town. Just a store.”

  “One store?” Georgia liked to say.

  “One store. A general store. You could buy everything there from flour to toys to underwear.”

  “Underpants?” Henry would shriek.

  “Yes, underpants. And almost anything else you could think of.”

  “Which store was it?” Georgia had asked once.

  Her mother had shaken her head. “It’s gone. Long gone. But it was where the coffee shop is now.”

  Georgia had a hard time imagining one lonely store on the street that was now lined with two small markets, a post office, a pharmacy, a stationery store, a doctor’s office, an ice-cream shop, a bicycle repair shop, a bookstore, a church, a gas station, a shoe store, and several businesses that Georgia found quite boring, such as a Laundromat and a bank. There was also a tattoo parlor — a source of great fascination — but that was where her mother had put her foot down. No child of hers was allowed in a tattoo parlor. Georgia didn’t care. She could go off with the other kids and roam to her heart’s content, as long as she checked in with her parents from time to time and didn’t stray from Blue Harbor Lane and the street through town.

  All summer long, Georgia and Ava, often joined by Penny and Talia, sisters who lived at one end of the lane, had entertained themselves busily. When they’d tired of basketball and soccer they’d raided the library in Barnegat Point for books about time travel and wizardry, which they read in a fort behind Ava’s house. They had taken diving lessons at the Y and then tap lessons at Miss Tabby’s Dance Studio. And they had begun their jewelry business, which so far had netted them nearly three and a half dollars apiece.

  It was when the girls were waiting to be picked up after their diving lesson one afternoon that Georgia had heard the sound of a music class in progress. She had peeped through a partially op
en door at the end of a hall and seen a boy strumming a guitar.

  “That’s what I want to do,” she had informed her friends. “I want to play the guitar.”

  Three weeks later she’d found herself sitting not in a class at the Y, but in the living room of a man named Mr. Elden, who gave private guitar lessons.

  “He’s the best music teacher in the area,” Ava’s mother had told the Nobles. “He teaches at the elementary school, too.”

  By September, Georgia had her own secondhand guitar, and it had become part of her life.

  “I just wish,” her mother had said more than once, “that Mr. Elden didn’t give lessons in his house. I’d feel much more comfortable if Georgia’s lessons were at the school.”

  “But I love Mr. Elden!” Georgia had cried.

  Her father had said, “Mr. Elden teaches kids from all over the county. We’re lucky he took Georgia on.”

  That was the end of the discussion.

  * * *

  Now on this October Saturday, the day of the Halloween celebration, Georgia thought of the lovely hours stretching ahead of her. She invited Ava inside, and they ate donuts and examined the Buster Brown and Tige costumes while the rest of the Nobles slowly awoke. They spent the morning with Penny and Talia, ate lunch at Ava’s house, asked Ava’s father to accompany them to the beach so they could find shells for their jewelry, and finally returned to Georgia’s house to look at the costumes one last time.

  “What do we get if we win the costume contest?” Henry asked Ava.

  Georgia was adjusting Tige’s paws.

  “Nothing,” Ava replied. “One of the judges just says, ‘And the winner is’ and then everybody gets to hear your name.”

  “Huh,” said Henry. “Okay.”

  “Kids!” called Georgia’s mother, and Georgia peeked into the living room where Mrs. Noble had set up her computer and was trying to write her next book — but having very little success. (“I hit a dry spell,” Georgia overheard her say to Ava’s mother.)

  “Yes?” said Georgia and her brothers.

  “Great-Grandma and Orrin will be here soon. Time to get ready to go to the community center.”

  Ava jumped to her feet. “See you later!” she called.

  Great-Grandma and Orrin arrived later in their ancient black car, the one that Georgia’s father sometimes called the Gas Guzzler and sometimes called the Behemoth.

  Georgia met them at the door. “Great-Grandma!” she cried, and wrapped her arms around the woman named Abigail Cora who had been born in this very house and who had grown up here, too. Georgia liked to imagine the women in her family as a set of nesting dolls. The outer doll, Great-Grandma, sheltering her daughter Dana, who sheltered her daughter, Francie, who sheltered the innermost doll, the tiny and whole Georgia Eleanor Goldberg Noble.

  “Hello, lovey,” said Great-Grandma. She shrugged out of her wool coat, which she handed to Orrin. Orrin was Great-Grandma’s husband, but not the father of her children. He was her second husband.

  “Orrin was the boy you used to play with when you were little?” Georgia had asked Great-Grandma at least a hundred times. “The one you fell in love with when you were in second grade?”

  “The very one,” Great-Grandma would reply, and she would tell Georgia stories about growing up on Blue Harbor Lane, of clamming and blueberry-picking with little Orrin Umhay in a time Georgia had difficulty imagining.

  Great-Grandma and Orrin sat on the couch by the front door and held hands while Georgia and Richard and Henry gave them a preview of their costumes.

  “A zombie. Very scary,” said Orrin seriously when Richard marched into the room.

  But when Georgia and Henry emerged from Georgia’s bedroom, Great-Grandma put her hand to her mouth and exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be! Buster Brown and Tige! I haven’t thought about them in years.”

  Georgia shot Richard a look that plainly said, “See? Great-Grandma knows who I am.” Richard pretended not to see her.

  Finally Georgia’s father said, “All right, everybody. Let’s get a move on.”

  “Do we get to ride in the Behemoth tonight?” asked Richard with great excitement.

  “There aren’t enough seat belts,” said Georgia’s mother. “Great-Grandma and Orrin will come in the van with us.”

  They pulled out onto Blue Harbor Lane, four adults, Buster Brown, Tige, and a zombie.

  The community center was crowded. Georgia saw her Blue Harbor Lane friends and their families, her second-grade teacher, Richard’s third-grade teacher, three of Henry’s preschool classmates, the owner of the gas station, the owners of the coffee shop, and Mr. Elden. She took Great-Grandma’s hand and they walked all around the room, exclaiming over the glowing pumpkins and wobbly scarecrows, sampling candy and cider, and trying their hands at the ring toss and penny pitch.

  “This reminds me of the carnivals my sister Rose and I used to go to when were little,” said Great-Grandma.

  “Did Orrin go, too?” asked Georgia. She glanced across the room at Orrin, who was giving Richard tips on the penny pitch.

  “Sometimes. His family didn’t have much money, though.” She paused. “Of course, neither did mine.”

  Again Georgia cast her mind back to Great-Grandma’s childhood days, the ones that seemed impossibly far away. She wondered if, when she was Great-Grandma’s age, this moment at the Halloween celebration would seem just as far away, or if it would be something she would remember clearly but would seem foreign to her own great-granddaughter.

  Georgia was still mulling over these questions of time when Mrs. Dean, the principal, announced that the parade would begin. Buster Brown, Tige, and dozens of other costumed Lewisport children walked slowly around the room while their parents and families and friends applauded.

  In the end, the panel of judges, some older and some younger, announced that the winner was a girl dressed as a teacup, which Georgia had to admit was an original idea. She had no idea whether anyone had recognized her or Henry, but she didn’t care. She stood among Ava and her great-grandma and Orrin and Mr. Elden and Penny and Talia, her hands sticky with candy corn, and decided this was the nicest Halloween she could remember.

  “Georgia! Georgia! Wake up! It’s pageant day!”

  Georgia came to with a jolt as Henry burst through her door and sprang onto the foot of her bed. He jumped up and down, bare feet jostling her collection of stuffed animals, as well as Noelle.

  “Henry, be careful!” exclaimed Georgia, sitting up and rescuing Noelle from where she’d been snoozing between a teddy bear wearing glasses and a garish purple turtle.

  “Sorry, Noelle,” said Henry contritely. He sat down and took the kitten from Georgia, pulling her into his lap. Then he exclaimed, “But it’s pageant day!”

  “I know.” Georgia smiled.

  “Aren’t you excited?”

  “Of course I am. Is Richard awake yet?”

  Henry shook his head. “But I’m awake and I’m excited!”

  There were still five days until Christmas, but today was going to be almost as good as Christmas itself.

  “What time are Great-Grandma and Orrin coming?” Henry wanted to know. Ever since he’d started kindergarten he had asked this question frequently, mostly to demonstrate that he was learning to tell time.

  “Five o’clock, I think.” Georgia took Noelle from her brother and held her in her lap, stroking her silky gray fur. She wished Nana Dana would visit at Christmas, too — would make the trip to Lewisport from her apartment in New York City — but her grandmother rarely visited Maine. Something to do with Great-Grandma, Georgia had deduced. No one would talk about whatever was wrong between Great-Grandma and Nana Dana, but there was something, something Georgia didn’t understand.

  “I can’t wait until five o’clock!” cried Henry.

  “You have to. Besides, we have a lot to do today.”

  Henry eyed her suspiciously. “We don’t have to help at Daddy’s store, do we?”

  “Nop
e.” Georgia knew that the Saturday before Christmas would be a big shopping day. The store her father had opened the previous spring, A Doll’s House, had gotten off to a slow start, but Mr. Noble kept saying, “The tourists will carry us through.” The tourists had arrived on Memorial Day and left by Labor Day and still the shop, which sold dollhouses and dollhouse dolls and furniture (and nothing else) was limping along. So Georgia’s father had set his hopes on holiday shoppers. Richard, Georgia, and even Henry (Mrs. Noble, too, when she wasn’t writing) had sometimes been drafted to help in the store, since Mr. Noble couldn’t afford to pay a clerk. But he had assured his children that today, the day of the pageant, they were off the hook.

  “Come on. Let’s look at the Christmas tree,” Georgia whispered to her brother. “But be quiet, because everyone else is still asleep.”

  They tiptoed to her doorway and looked at the tree in the corner of the living room. They had decorated it the night before and now the ornaments twinkled in the faint glow of the rising sun.

  “Turn on the lights!” Henry begged.

  Georgia plugged in the lights and the tree shimmered softly.

  “Maybe it will snow,” said Henry hopefully, peering across Blue Harbor Lane at the snow-free beach and the brightening sky.

  Georgia had checked the Weather Channel the night before. She knew there wasn’t any snow in the forecast. “We’d better write our letters to Santa this afternoon,” she said brightly. “Plus, we have to practice for the pageant.”

  Just like that, Henry turned his attention away from snow.

  * * *

  After breakfast that morning, Georgia retreated to her room and closed her door. She took her guitar from its case and sat on the edge of her bed. Her lessons with Mr. Elden were progressing well — she now took lessons at school in addition to private lessons — and when her Sunday school teacher at the Presbyterian church had begun planning the pageant, Georgia had been asked not to play a sheep or an angel, but to provide the background for the carols that would be sung.