Mark Dunn - We Five

It was the best job the girls had ever had. It sure beat working as bookkeepers and file clerks in the cramped front mezzanine office of Ramfield Wholesale Drugs and Sundries from whence they were— rescued would be the best way to describe it — by none other than the Reverend Lydia DeLash Comfort herself, when, upon a visit to the offices of that venerable Zenith concern to extract a sizeable contribution to the tabernacle’s building fund from the company’s circumstantially devout and philanthropic owner, Sister Lydia overheard the five singing “I Don’t Know Why I Love You But I Do” in the employee lunchroom and was struck statuary by the close harmonies wafting from the girls’ sweet lilting voices, and then was commensurately struck euphoric over the idea of having the five youthful female songbirds join her permanent choir (which had replaced the itinerant berobed and somewhat bedraggled quartet that had tagged along with Sister Lydia throughout her traveling ministry).

From the flat shared by Molly and her father above his dentist offices, it wasn’t too long a walk to the house in which Molly and Maggie’s friend Carrie and her mother lived. But they were late.

Both Mother and Daughter Hale were taking their breakfast on the front verandah. The colored cook and maid, Vitula, was home with a head cold, and Sylvia Hale, an inefficient time manager, was behind the clock. Eyeing that clock, Carrie suggested the two eat on the porch so she could watch the street and then be able to dash off when her friends came to collect her.

“Well, we certainly made a good thing out of Vitula’s unfortunate absence this morning,” said Mrs. Hale, shaking out her lap napkin at the little wicker tea table. “This is quite lovely.” Carrie agreed with a nod. For a moment, mother and daughter sat upon their marginally comfortable chintz chair cushions in silence and listened to the bright and chirpy sounds of their Floral Heights neighborhood as it rose and shone.

Finally, Sylvia said, “Finish your waffles, dear. You know what they say about breakfast being the most important meal of the day.”

“No, Mother, what do they say?” Carrie grinned. “I respect you for trying, Mother, but your waffles taste nothing like Vitula’s. But don’t fret. There’s always fresh fruit in the tabernacle offices. I’ll just grab a peach or something before rehearsal starts.”

“You have a smudge on your cheek,” said Mrs. Hale, rising to wipe it away. “You look as if you’ve been sleeping in the coal bin.” Out of the corner of her eye Sylvia Hale caught her neighbor, Mrs. Littlejohn, coming down the sidewalk, tethered to her Cairn Terrier, unimaginatively named Toto. Thinking Carrie’s mother was being especially friendly by standing up to greet her, Mrs. Littlejohn waved with wriggling fingers and called out, “Good morning, Sylvia! Good morning, Carrie! There was such beautiful music coming from your front parlor last night. Was that the two of you or the phonograph?”

“It must have been us,” returned Mrs. Hale. “I don’t think we touched the Victrola last night.”

“What a contrast to that perfectly awful jazz scritch-scratch that comes tumbling out of the Prowses’ house every time you turn around.” Mrs. Littlejohn’s eyes went to the house in question, which she’d just passed. It belonged to Professor Reginald Prowse — head of the astronomy department of Winnemac Agricultural and Mechanical College — and his new baby bride, Mirabella (or Bella, to those who were close). “How you can live next door to all that racket and all those bohemian goings-on without pulling out all your hair, I cannot possibly imagine.”

Mrs. Hale drew an index finger to her lips, and then, thinking the gesture required some buttressing, she said, “Keep your voice down, Deloria. It’s still early.”

“And wouldn’t that be a tragedy: depriving the professor and his flip-flapper wife of their beauty sleep, when this is exactly what they do to all the rest of us two or three times a week!”

Mrs. Littlejohn interpreted Sylvia Hale’s admonition as reason to come up the flag walk and address her neighbors on a more intimate basis upon the front steps. As the three spoke, the woman, who looked — it cannot be expressed otherwise — like a human-sized pear with legs, permitted, by slackened leash, her small terrier to trespass upon Mrs. Hale’s flowerbed and dig its paws into the ground, still moist and friable from the heavy watering it had received the evening before. The scruffy dog was to do this more than once, and each time it did, Mrs. Littlejohn tightened the lead and yanked the dog cruelly back to heel, and Carrie, who was watching the multiple acts of this painful little drama from her seat, involuntarily grabbed at her own throat in sympathy.

“Mattie Parcher tells me you’re starting your choir rehearsals today, Carrie. You must be so excited.”

Carrie nodded. “I am. It should be such fun.”

Mrs. Littlejohn gushed, “I’ve always known you Hales to be musical, but I thought the family talent was limited to the instrumental rather than the vocal. Sylvie, dear: wasn’t your husband — the man who ran away and left you nearly destitute — wasn’t he some sort of vaudeville musician?”

Mrs. Hale masked her displeasure over Mrs. Littlejohn’s having brought up such a sore topic with the veneer of amiable froth: “Why, Deloria Littlejohn, you are the worst person I know for getting things completely jumbled up. My husband did not leave Caroline and me ‘nearly destitute.’ I have always had income from my father’s real-estate holdings — never as much as I would like, but enough to keep the wolf far from the door. As for my husband’s profession, yes, he was in vaudeville and, yes, he played all manner of musical instruments. But he was not a performer per se. He was an impresario.”

Yank .

Carrie seized her throat. Was the little dog choking? Why was its tongue now protruding frog-like from its mouth?

Mrs. Hale proceeded: “Had Gordon remained in Zenith and retained all his wits, he would have been quite proud of Caroline. Singing in Sister Lydia’s choir! Just think of it. Sister Lydia ! I understand she searched far and wide for every single member of that chorus of angels. Isn’t that right, Caroline?”

Carrie removed her hand from her throat. “She was somewhat selective.”

Mrs. Littlejohn hum-sighed. Then she rhapsodized, “Who knew that such a beautiful songbird lived right on this very street?”

Yank .

Mrs. Hale seconded Mrs. Littlejohn’s observation with a knowing nod, her eyes closed, her fist gently thumping her equally proud maternal heart. “Well, I can’t say I’d known all along that Caroline was this talented, but it wasn’t as if I never entertained the possibility. My daughter excels at whatever she sets her mind to. Don’t you, darling?”

“I don’t know, Mother. I suppose I—”

Yank. Yelp .

Seizing her throat once more, Carrie said, “Molly and Maggie are late. They’re hardly ever late.”

“Perhaps they swung around to pick up Jane first,” suggested Sylvia with a superfluous swirl of her fork through the air.

“Well, that wouldn’t make any sense. Jane lives two blocks closer to the tabernacle. Coming for me after picking her up would require doubling back.” Carrie succeeded in saying this without the use of any hand movement at all.

“Well, I should be getting back,” said Mrs. Littlejohn with misfired relevance. “Home, that is. I have an early appointment at the salon. Mrs. Tubb is coming to pick me up. Do you know Mrs. Tubb — Hermione Tubb? She lives in that newer section of Floral Heights — she’s taking me to her beauty salon for my very first violet-ray facial treatment, and then if all my pores close up properly we’re having chop suey and seeing that new Betty Compson picture at the Grantham.” Mrs. Littlejohn gave her little dog one great, decisive tug with the leash. “Something has been in this bed, it appears. Perhaps the squirrels have buried nuts here. Goodbye, Sylvia. Goodbye, Carrie, and congratulations. We’re all so proud of you. I’m so fortunate to have the two of you for neighbors.” Mrs. Littlejohn glanced at the house next door and narrowed her eyes into coin slits. “Not at all like some people, who taint this block with absolute cacaphonia and the most appalling African rhythms, and dare to call it music. Whatever happened to Franz Lehár and Victor Herbert?”