Four

We had tuna casserole for supper that night. Figures. My father was away on a business trip. We never have tuna casserole when he’s home.

When I complained, my mother said, “Your father works very hard. He deserves a good dinner.”

“That’s a very sexist remark,” I told her. “You work hard, I work hard. We also deserve a good dinner.”

“How about me?” Teddy shouted. “I work hard too. I deserve a good dinner just as much as you guys.”

When my mother went out of the room, I said, quietly, “What you deserve, Ted, is a big bowl of dog food. It’s chock full of nutrients and vitamins. Plus, it makes fur grow. You eat it, you’ll most likely be the furriest kid in the fourth grade.”

“Yeah.” Teddy drooped all over the table, as boneless as an octopus. “Only if I ate dog food, I’d probably only bark instead of talk.”

I looked cross-eyed at him and he barked loudly.

“Bath time, Teddy,” my mother said.

Teddy said woof woof to her.

“I bet you have fleas too, don’t you, sweetheart?” I whispered. In answer, Teddy wiped his snotty little nose on me and shouted woof woof while shaking himself madly and brushing off tons of fleas onto me.

“I’m calling Hubie!” Teddy cried, racing to the phone. After he barked at Hubie a while, Hubie must’ve hung up. Teddy banged the receiver down and rolled around, taking bites out of his own arm and barking up a storm.

“You should study to be a bone specialist,” I told him. “You have the head for it.”

That stopped him cold. His mouth dropped open and I heard the wheels in his head creaking as he tried to figure that one out. I went to my room, filled with the glow that comes from having had the last word.

The telephone rang. My mother got it on the second ring. Maybe it was my father calling, which he sometimes does when he’s out of town.

Suddenly I had to go to the bathroom. Doing math does that to me.

“It was Polly,” my mother said. “I told her you’d call her back when you finished your homework. She said it was a matter of life and death. I told her to put both of them on hold. She said she’d try Al.”

“What’d she want?”

“Oh, she said something about a tea dance. Her cousin or some relative. I’m not sure.” Vaguely she waved the crossword puzzle at me. “This one’s tough,” she said. “A five-letter word for coercion, ending in y.” She tapped her teeth with her pencil, a sure sign she doesn’t know the word. She always saves the puzzle for after supper. She claims her head is at its best then.

I finished my math, fast. Polly’s line was busy. So was Al’s. I knew it. They were talking to each other.

“I’m just going to Al’s for a sec,” I told my mother.

My mother frowned at me and from her expression I could tell she was far away. Good. I like her far away sometimes. I escaped.

I knocked twice. Al didn’t answer. I knew her mother was out for dinner, so I tried the door. It was unlocked. I slid into Al’s apartment.

“I’m here!” I hollered so she wouldn’t think I was a burglar.

“She’s here,” I heard her say. She was on the phone in her mother’s bedroom, probably with her shoes off so as not to get the bedspread dirty.

“Yeah,” Al said. “I’ll ask her. She just got here. She’s been running. She looks sort of wild eyed, like someone’s been after her. Sure. I’ll put her on. You can spring it on her yourself.” Al handed me the telephone.

“What’s up, Polly?” I said.

The receiver was warm, almost hot. They’d been chewing the fat for a long time.

“I’m sounding you out,” Polly said. “My cousin Harry—you know, the one I told you about who’s got one blue eye and one brown one—well, he goes to this boys’ academy on West Eightieth Street and they’re having a tea dance next month and he asked me to fix him up. Harry’s sort of shy, you see, and he doesn’t know any girls. He has a friend. The friend also wants to be fixed up. So I thought of you and Al.”

“What does ‘fix up’ mean?” I said.

“It means he wants a date,” Polly said.

“You mean a blind date?” I said. “Like what we were talking about on Sunday? Is that what you’re driving at?”

“Well,” said Polly, “I guess you could call it that. If you want.”

“What’s Harry got going for him besides one blue eye and one brown one?” I asked.

“Not a heck of a lot,” Polly said. “Except for his brain. He’s supersmart. His board scores are fab. He’s fifteen and already a junior. He skipped fifth grade, he was so smart.”

“How come you don’t go with him to this tea dance?” I said.

“I already asked her that,” Al said, pacing around the rug. “I can’t tea-dance. All I can do is disco.” And she discoed around, showing a lot of arm motion.

“The thing is,” Polly went on, “this tea dance is sponsored every year by the junior class and you can’t go if you don’t bring a date. Harry’s really uptight about it. He’s a nice guy, so I said I’d help him out. It only goes from four to six. That’s only two hours. You can handle two hours, can’t you?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Two hours can be an eternity. Like when you’re in the dentist’s chair, for instance.”

“Harry’s not the dentist, for Pete’s sake,” Polly said. “He’s perfectly O.K. I mean, he’s not peculiar or anything. Know what I mean?”

“No,” I said.

“Let me talk to her,” Al said, hand out for the phone.

“How tall is he?” Al asked Polly.

I put my ear as close to the receiver as I could and heard Polly say, “You already asked me that. I told you he’s no midget. He’s tall.”

“How tall?” Al wouldn’t let go. She had a thing about being taller than boys her age. Or older. One thing about Brian, she said. He was tall. He got a little taller every time she told me about him. I figured by now he must be about seven feet. And a great basketball player.

“I don’t know exactly.” Polly sounded as if she was losing her patience. “You want me to call him up and ask his mother to measure him against the wall?”

“Don’t get your knickers twisted,” Al said.

“Ask her how tall his friend is,” I said.

“How tall’s his friend?” Al asked.

“Hey, these guys aren’t trying to get into the army, for Pete’s sake!” I heard Polly say in a loud voice. “All they want is a date for a lousy tea dance.”

“How come you don’t go with the friend?” Al said.

I put my ear as close to the telephone as I could, but I couldn’t hear what Polly said.

“We’ll get back to you,” Al said. “We have to discuss the matter. What do you wear to a tea dance anyway? A formal? Heels? A tiara? What?”

Polly let out one of her super-duper Bronx cheers, one that made the rafters ring. Her father had taught her how. He takes Polly to see the Yankees play now and then. Polly has made an in-depth study of how to give a Bronx cheer. She’s very good at it.

“Ouch,” Al said, holding the receiver away from her ear. “That hurt. All right for you. Next time you call up, I’m putting you on hold.”

After she’d hung up, I said, “Does that mean we’d be blind dates?”

“You got me, lieutenant,” Al said. “All I know is it’s a tea dance and I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t even like tea. Probably we’d have to slop down gallons of tea and I don’t have a tea-dance dress or shoes or a hat. Or gloves.” She gave me a shot of her bilious eye. “I have a feeling deep in my heart that when you go to a tea dance, you wear gloves. You know my mother. She’s been trying to get me into a pair of white gloves as long as I can remember. I’ll tower over him. I know I will. Probably I’ll have to dance with him the entire time. Two whole hours. Probably no one will cut in or anything.”

“What does that mean?” I asked her.

“When a boy cuts in on you”—Al resumed pacing around the rug, staring at the ceiling—“it means he taps the shoulder of the boy you happen to be dancing with on account of he wants to dance with you himself. Then you change partners.” Al took a few deep breaths. She was starting to hyperventilate. She always hyperventilates when she’s nervous.

“So, when you’re fat and ugly and your hair is full of split ends, and no one wants to dance with you, including the kid you’re dancing with”—Al spread her hands wide—“you’re stuck with the same guy until the music stops.

“My mother told me that when she was young she always used to be cut in on quite a lot. She always tells me stuff like that. I wish she wouldn’t,” Al said.

“Why?” I said.

“Because I don’t want to know if she was cut in on and she was popular and all that junk,” Al said. “It makes me feel bad because she wants me to be cut in on and popular too and I won’t. Ever. Be popular, that is.”

“Don’t be a ninny,” I told her. “You will too. Remember what Mr. Richards said. He said we’d both be stunners someday. He knew what he was talking about. He was a very wise man. Hang in there.”

“Listen.” Al turned to me and her face was fierce. “Who cares. Look at it this way. The kid’s fifteen and already a junior. He doesn’t know any girls to ask to his tea dance, so he has to get his cousin to scrounge up a couple. That means he’s no hotshot or anything, right? No big deal.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said.

“And what’s more,” Al said, very glum, “probably he could be Napoleon in my epic poem when they make it into a movie on account of he’s the same size as Napoleon, which I happen to know is about five feet two inches tall.”

“I thought that role was going to Michael J. Fox,” I reminded her.

“Oh, it is, it is,” Al said. “But in case Michael J. has a bellyache or some other malady, this tea-dance guy, who is so short he only comes up to my sternum, could step into the role in a trice. He’s Napoleonesque, as they say.”

“Napoleon as a teenager, that is,” I said.

“Yeah. You got it. Napoleon as a teenager,” Al said. “And we all know nobody ever cut in on him, right?”