Lois Lowry - The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline

I have died, thought Caroline, and gone to heaven. Shrimp cocktail. Even when her family went to dinner in a restaurant, which they did now and then for a special occasion, she could never order shrimp cocktail, because it always cost something like $6.00. She was allowed to order it only if she didn't have a main course.

Happily she speared her first shrimp, after waiting to be certain that Mrs. Baurichter had picked up her fork. Heaven.

"Tate," said Mr. Baurichter suddenly.

"What?" said Caroline with her mouth full. It was startling, to be called "Tate" by Stacy's father, who was wearing a three-piece suit and looked very distinguished. Sometimes Stacy called her "Tate," or some of her other friends, yelling across the school grounds: "Hey, Tate! Wait up!"

"Tate," he said again. Apparently he was only thinking about the name. "I don't think we know any Tates, do we, Helen?"

"I can't recall any," murmured Mrs. Baurichter.

"Of course there's the Tate Gallery," Mr. Baurichter said, wiping his mouth with the pale blue napkin. "Does your family have any connection with the Tate Gallery, in London, Caroline?"

"I don't think so," said Caroline.

"Did Stacy tell me you live on the West Side?"

"Yes. I take the crosstown bus to school," said Caroline politely.

Mrs. Baurichter wiped her mouth and placed her knife and fork on her plate. Caroline couldn't believe it. She had eaten only two shrimp. She was leaving shrimp uneaten. "You're fortunate to live on the West Side," said Mrs. Baurichter. "Many creative people live over there. Musicians, writers; I imagine you have many fascinating neighbors."

"A violin player lives in my building," Caroline told her.

"Really?" asked Mrs. Baurichter with interest. "Whom does he play with?"

Panic. Caroline thought as hard as she could about Mr. DeVito. As far as she knew, he was the only violin player at the Little Hungary Cafe.

"He's a soloist," she said finally.

"No one will ever measure up to Oistrakh," said Mr. Baurichter firmly. "At least not in the Sibelius Concerto."

"Well, it's all a matter of preference," said Mrs. Baurichter. "What does your father do, Caroline?"

"Well, ah, he's in sporting goods," Caroline said, and ate another shrimp.

"That's interesting," said Stacy's father. "I play a lot of squash, myself. Does your father—"

"He lives in Des Moines," Caroline explained hastily. "My parents are divorced, and I live with my mother. My mother works in a bank."

The maid came in and took away the shrimp plates. Caroline was the only one who had eaten all of her shrimp. Sadly she watched the uneaten shrimp disappear, heading for the kitchen. She hoped the maid would get to eat them.

Mr. Baurichter stood up, picked up the wine bottle, and added wine to his wife's glass and then his own. He made them just half full again.

"I find it remarkable," he said, "how many women are entering banking these days. It used to be a male-dominated profession, like law and medicine. Now the vice-president of my bank is a woman, and—"

"Mr. Baurichter," interrupted Caroline. Even though she knew it was rude to interrupt, she wanted to set the record straight. "My mother's only a bank teller. She's not really what you would call a banker. "

"Caroline's family doesn't have much money," Stacy explained matter-of-factly. "She and her brother both have full scholarships at school. And they're practically the smartest kids in the whole school, even though Caroline's lousy at math."

"Well, good for you, Caroline!" said Mr. Baurichter. "Tell me, do you have any idea what you want to be when you grow up?"

Most kids hated it when grownups asked that. But Caroline didn't mind. It sounded as if Mr. Baurichter was really interested.

"Yes," she said proudly. "I'm going to be a vertebrate paleontologist."

"KID DIGS PALEOLITHIC AGE," headlined Stacy.

"Actually," explained Caroline politely, "it's the Mesozoic Era that interests me most."

The maid brought in plates of steak. Sizzling, juicy, thick. Paradise, thought Caroline.

"Goodness," said Mrs. Baurichter, "you certainly live in the perfect place, then, over near the Museum of Natural History."

"Yes." Caroline grinned and picked up her steak knife. "I spend a lot of time there."

"You know," said Stacy suddenly, "even though you said all those creative people live on the West Side, we have a writer here in our own building. Harrison Ledyard."

Mrs. Baurichter groaned; a tasteful, quiet sort of groan.

"That man," she said, "is a complete bore."

The maid had appeared again and was coming around to each place. She was putting something down in front of each person. It was something weird. Caroline watched. Maybe it was some strange sort of decoration. Each one was a huge, fat, gray-green thing with what looked like leaves all over it. Looking out of the corner of her eye, Caroline saw that each of them—Mr. Baurichter, Mrs. Baurichter, and Stacy—was reaching for the thing. With their fingers.

"What do you mean, a bore?" asked Stacy. "I didn't even know you knew him."

"We went to a cocktail party at his apartment last week," her mother explained. Caroline watched in amazement as she removed a piece of the giant gray-green object, dipped it into a sauce, and then—yes—actually put it into her mouth. Stacy was doing the same thing. She was doing it as if it were no big deal; as if it were a casual, everyday event to eat a huge, gross, leafy thing.

Mrs. Baurichter went on. "He had a party to celebrate his marriage. So we went and met his new wife, who was actually rather charming—though somewhat out of her element, I think. She's from the Midwest. I'm sorry, Caroline, I know you said your father lives in Des Moines. I didn't mean to disparage the Midwest."

Caroline wasn't even listening. She chewed her steak slowly, watching them actually eat those nauseating things. And hers was still sitting there in front of her. She focused all her mental powers on it, willing it to disappear. But it stayed right there.

"But he is a crashing, colossal bore. Wouldn't you say so, Paul?"

Mr. Baurichter nodded his head in agreement. Caroline glanced at Stacy. Stacy had stopped eating altogether. No wonder, thought Caroline. She finally came to her senses and realized that she had been chewing on a repulsive object.

"We had to listen to him tell all about his work, which, frankly, was terribly dull, and then he told all about his courtship of this woman, which lasted, apparently, for years. He monopolized every bit of conversation at the party. I suppose we'll have to invite them here sometime, but—" Mrs. Baurichter continued to talk about Harrison Ledyard. Stacy was glowering.

Suddenly Caroline realized why. All those hours Stacy had spent wallowing through Ledyard's trash. She could simply have asked her parents; they knew Harrison Ledyard. They could have told her all about him. Poor Stacy. Life as an investigative reporter was filled with hazards and frustrations.

Finally Stacy shrugged and began to eat some more of the big round gray-green thing. Caroline looked at hers again. She looked away. She took another bite of steak.

"Hey, Caroline," said Stacy, "if you're too full to eat your artichoke, can I have it? I love artichokes."

Caroline smiled politely and passed the disgusting thing across the table to Stacy. Artichoke. So that's what it was called. She hoped her mother never discovered that they existed.

***

Later, after they had done their homework and gotten into their pajamas, Caroline and Stacy were lying on the beds in Stacy's room again. Miraculously, during dinner, a maid had come in and picked up Stacy's sweater, folded it, and put it into a drawer. Her backpack had been placed on her desk.