They lined up for dinner in alphabetical order in the front hall.
“Stand here,” Mrs. Deckle told Fern, sticking her between a short brunette with buck teeth and the girl with the haystack hair who’d run away from the nurse that afternoon.
“I’m Daisy,” Haystack Hair grinned. “That’s Flora.”
“I’m Fern,” Fern said.
“Fern,” Flora said. “Man, that is beautiful. She’s really getting to the bottom of the barrel with these names.”
“Do you have a dog?” Daisy asked.
“No,” Fern said.
“My parents are getting me a dog when I go home,” Daisy said. “I’m trying to figure out the best kind.”
“A beagle,” Flora said for what sounded like the millionth time. “Like Snoopy.”
“Beagles look sneaky,” Daisy said. “I don’t want a sneaky dog.”
“You may take your places,” Miss Wellwood called from the dining room door.
The girls trooped past her in silence—Briony, and Daisy, and Flora, and Hazel, and Rose, and all the other ones Fern didn’t know—Miss Wellwood’s garden of girls, marching around the dining room table.
The dining room was something else. The curtains were still drawn against the late-afternoon sun, but the chandelier glowed. A fancy birdcage with no birds stood in the corner, and a big fireplace with a brass peacock standing inside filled another wall. A massive china hutch stood against another wall displaying the Wellwood family silver, gleaming like it had been polished that morning.
A straw place mat marked each girl’s place, and a glass of milk and a plate of corned beef hash sat on every single one of them except for the one in front of Fern. The girls stopped behind their chairs, some of them rocking slightly in the heat, arms wrapped around their bellies, patting and stroking themselves absently, whispering to each other without moving their lips.
At one end of the table stood the swinging door to the kitchen, and next to it hung another portrait of Miss Wellwood’s father, standing beside his desk, one hand resting on an important book. Fern wondered how many portraits of her father Miss Wellwood owned.
“Six,” Hazel said in a low voice.
“Six?” Fern asked in the same low voice.
“Six portraits,” Flora whispered, joining in.
“Writing, touching a book,” Daisy recited in a whisper from Fern’s other side. “On a horse, with a patient.”
“Hand on his hip,” Hazel continued.
“And hard stare,” Flora finished.
Miss Wellwood took her place at the head of the table.
“Let us pray,” she said, and everyone bowed their heads.
Fern examined the ring of girls through half-closed eyes. Some of their bellies poked out like they were coming to say hello; others were slung low like they were about to fall on the floor. Some girls looked swollen and swaddled in dough; others barely looked pregnant at all. Most of them looked her age, but Flora and Daisy looked younger, and so did the girl standing next to Hazel. She was a tiny blond mouse with unbrushed hair, chewing a dirty fingernail. A livid strawberry birthmark covered the entire right side of her face, from her eyebrow to the corner of her mouth. She looked Midge’s age, and Fern wondered how a little kid like that got pregnant.
“Gracious God,” Miss Wellwood intoned from the head of the table. “We have sinned against Thee and are unworthy of Thy mercy; forgive our sins and make us ever mindful of the needs of others.”
The princess—Briony—and a girl with thick, curly black hair and burgundy lipstick stood on either side of Miss Wellwood, eyes squeezed shut, heads bowed.
“Bless us these gifts to Thy use and us to Thy service,” Miss Wellwood continued. “Through Jesus Christ our Lord…”
Then everyone said, “Amen.”
Fern started to sit, but no one else moved so she froze, knees half-bent.
“And let us give special thanks,” Miss Wellwood continued, “to Clementine, Laurel, and Jasmine for helping Hagar in the kitchen this evening and for setting the table.”
“Thank you,” everyone mumbled.
And still no one moved. Slowly, regally, Miss Wellwood lowered herself into her chair. The moment her bottom hit the seat, all the girls sat in a clatter of chair legs and conversation. Daisy sang across Fern to Flora.
“Now listen to a story about a man named Jed. He had a lot of hair but it wasn’t on his head.”
Flora burst into giggles and suddenly seemed so young.
“Behave,” Hazel told her, then winced, and shifted in her chair.
Girls passed CorningWare up and down the table, spooning out piles of yellow squash and lima beans. Fern noticed that each girl had a different number of fried eggs on her hash: Daisy had one, Hazel had two, Flora had none.
“Pass the rolls,” Myrtle said.
“Pass the rolls, please,” Miss Wellwood corrected.
“Pass the rolls, please,” Myrtle said. “Before I faint.”
Flora noticed Fern staring at her eggless plate.
“I’m on restriction,” Flora said. “Dr. Vincent says I can’t gain any more weight until the baby comes, so no eggs, no sugar in my coffee, no cookies, no cake, no nothing, just a bunch of lousy vitamin pills.”
“Oh,” Fern said.
“Hey, Holly took two rolls,” a girl complained from the other side of the table.
“She’s allowed to take two if she doesn’t have any butter,” Hazel said.
“Yeah, well she’s going to choke to death if she doesn’t slow down,” the first girl complained.
Fern looked at the little blond elf, who was tearing apart one roll while another waited on the edge of her plate.
“This is a dinner table, Holly,” Miss Wellwood said. “Not a barnyard.”
Holly stuffed half the roll in her mouth and tried to chew. Fern still didn’t have a plate. She looked around for a clue.
“What’s your sign?” a girl with frizzy brown hair across the table asked. She wore a leather thong tied around her forehead.
“Virgo?” Fern said.
“Then we’d better keep our distance,” the older girl sitting next to her said. She looked really old, maybe even twenty, and she had a tiny mouth. “Pisces.”
“There’s no static,” the girl with the frizzy hair and thong said. “If you learn to pick up what the other’s putting down, you become two beautiful sides of the same coin.”
“Who’s hogging the salt?” Myrtle asked.
“There will be no talk of astrology at my table,” Miss Wellwood said. “You’d be better served learning mathematics or home economics.”
“Astrology is based on some pretty heavy mathematics, Miss Wellwood,” the girl with the thong said.
“The Bible forbids it,” Miss Wellwood said. “And what the Lord forbids has no place here.”
“The Bible also says that if you give birth to a baby girl you’re unclean for sixty-six days,” Rose said. “Do you believe that?”
“If you’re going to be unpleasant you may go to your room,” Miss Wellwood said, picking up her water, not even glancing in Rose’s direction.
Rose shoved her chair back and stood.
“The Bible is a handbook teaching the violent oppression of Third World peoples,” she declared, then raised her fist in the Black Power salute and marched out of the room.
Miss Wellwood took a sip of her water. Fern got a feeling this happened on a pretty regular basis.
“Hey,” Myrtle said to the table. “What’s wrong with the hash? It doesn’t taste like anything.”
Fern jumped as the swinging door to the kitchen flew open and stopped a half inch from slamming into the wall. Through it stalked the darkest woman Fern had ever seen. She looked like she’d been carved from wood and polished until she gleamed, with sharp, razor-cut bangs slicing a line across her forehead, and a stare mean enough to curdle milk. Everyone got quiet as she carried a tray to Miss Wellwood and set it before her.
“Hey, Hagar,” Myrtle said, and even Fern knew you said “Hey” to this woman at your peril. “What’s wrong with the hash?”
“Nothing,” Hagar snapped. “I fix it the way they tell me.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t taste good,” Myrtle said. “Normally your cooking’s the best thing in this place.”
“At this table we engage in pleasant conversation,” Miss Wellwood said. “Not a critique of the cuisine. Thank you, Hagar.”
Hagar stormed back to the kitchen, and as she passed Myrtle she clipped her in the back of the head with an elbow.
“Ow!” Myrtle protested, but the door to the kitchen was already swinging back and forth and Hagar was gone. “I didn’t say it was bad,” Myrtle whined. “It just needs salt.”
Miss Wellwood clapped her hands and everyone jumped.
“Dr. Vincent would like your attention,” she said, then Fern startled again because somehow a tiny old man in a seersucker suit had materialized in the door to the hall.
He cleared his throat in a complicated process that had several stages. His veiny eggshell head was completely bald except for tufts of white hair behind each ear. He had an enormous nose and his neck hunched forward, making him look like a buzzard.
“Girls…” Dr. Vincent said, and his molasses-thick Southern accent gave it three syllables. “This afternoon Daisy again went toxic. This is the third girl in as many months to gorge herself on salty snacks and swell up like a tick. The consequences of this behavior are extremely dangerous both for you and for the babies, and so from this moment forth I declare: Enough. Until you learn self-discipline I’m taking all y’all off salt. No salt on your popcorn, no salted crackers, no bacon for breakfast, no salted peanuts, no chips. At the table, there shall be no salt and pepper. Henceforward it shall be pepper and pepper. Hagar has been instructed accordingly.”
Groans circled the table.
“My orders will stand—” Dr. Vincent continued, then raised his voice above the general discontent. “My orders will stand until I see an improvement in your attitudes and in your health. And this goes for all of you, even the ones who were allowed to eat salt in moderation.”
“But that’s not fair,” Myrtle said. “Daisy’s the one who went toxic. I can control myself.”
“If you could control yourself,” Dr. Vincent said, “you wouldn’t be here. Good evening.”
Miss Wellwood walked him to the front door, leaving a buzz of indignant conversation behind. Fern noticed that the plate Hagar had brought Miss Wellwood contained pork chops, mashed potatoes, and a small salt cellar.
“Thanks for nothing, Daisy,” Myrtle groused from the other side of the table.
“Leave me alone,” Daisy said. “I had to get a shot.”
“You got one last month,” Flora said to Myrtle. “So stick that in your Funk and Wagnalls.”
“Yeah, well,” Myrtle said. “I shouldn’t even be here in the first place.”
“Welcome to the nut hatch,” Hazel said to Fern.
Before Fern could reply, a plate smacked down in the middle of her place mat. Hagar stood behind her chair, simmering with anger. On the plate were two eggs and a scoop of hash.
“Thank you,” Fern said.
“I can stretch the hash,” Hagar snarled. “But I don’t know what I’m expected to do about the chicken.”
After dinner, Miss Wellwood took coffee in her office and everyone knew exactly where to go except Fern. Girls cleared the table, girls went to their rooms, girls went out back to smoke. Fern pressed herself against walls and hovered in doorways and whenever anyone looked at her she smiled, hoping they’d tell her what she should be doing, but they ignored her.
At seven thirty, Miss Wellwood left the Home and girls swirled up the stairs and slowly assembled in the Congregation Room—the “Cong”—where Fern found a folding chair to perch on in the back. With great ceremony, Briony switched on the TV, where Miss Kitty was flirting with Matt on Gunsmoke, and the whole house seemed to sigh and settle. Girls put their legs in each other’s laps and rubbed calamine lotion into their mosquito bites; others slipped off their shoes and got foot massages. Briony sat at a bridge table and monogrammed hankies. Jasmine talked to Iris about her baby’s sun sign.
“He’ll be a Leo,” she said. “Jackie Kennedy and Princess Margaret are Leos.”
“So was Mussolini,” Rose said.
The two girls ignored her. Flora and another girl opened the curtains and raised the windows and girls lit up. They called their cigarettes bippies.
Burn me a bippy, they said. Can I bum a bippy?
Soon a blue layer of cigarette smoke hung over their heads. Gunsmoke ended and a movie about Alec Guinness trying to write a play came on.
“I prefer more mature men,” the older blonde—Laurel—was saying to Daisy. “Like Paul Newman.”
“Donny Osmond is cuter,” Daisy said.
“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would not have been the same movie with Donny Osmond in it,” Laurel said. “Television actors are not serious people.”
Fern had been feeling out of place for hours, but she spoke this language. She decided to take a chance.
“Some television actors are good,” she said, leaning forward. “Did you see My Sweet Charlie? It was on TV and Patty Duke’s in it playing an unwed mother who runs away and hides out with a colored civil rights lawyer accused of murder.”
Flora, Laurel, and Daisy turned to her. Fern knew her mouth could get away from her, but these three actually looked interested.
“I know people think Patty Duke is square,” Fern continued, warming to her subject. “But she’s the youngest person to ever win an Oscar. She won Best Supporting Actress for The Miracle Worker when she was only fifteen. I was actually playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker for my school’s senior play. I’m not a senior, I’m a sophomore; I’m the first sophomore to ever play the lead in the senior play. Of course, the second I left, Mrs. Linton, who’s the club sponsor, she recast the part with Edith Clegg. She’s far too developed to play Helen Keller, but Mrs. Linton also sponsors the Future Homemakers of America, so what does she know?”
Everyone was staring at Fern now, and she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to talk about home, or hobbies, or her school, so she decided to wrap it up.
“Anyway,” she said, “that’s why I dig Patty Duke. It feels like if she can do it, then right on, so can I.”
There was a long silence while they digested this.
“What is this nut talking about?” Flora finally asked.
Fern wanted to die.
Nurse Kent called lights out and everyone trudged to the bathroom or their rooms and Fern went to hers. The tiny girl with the birthmark—Holly—turned out to sleep in the second bed. She smelled grubby and had dirty knees, which made her look even more like a child. She clutched her stuffed dog, whispering in its ear. Fern had been raised to be polite, so she introduced herself.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Fern. You’re Holly?”
The kid stared at her.
“She doesn’t talk,” Rose said.
“Why not?”
“Ask her.”
“Why don’t you talk?” Fern asked Holly, feeling like she was being set up.
Holly rolled her eyes and turned back to her stuffed dog. Rose snapped off the light and they settled into their creaking beds.
Fern was so lonely she couldn’t sleep. She lay on her side, staring at the churning lava lamp on the floor (which apparently belonged to Rose), listening to the rattle of the fan and the vast whirr of insects outside her window.
This wasn’t her bed. This wasn’t her room. These weren’t her sheets. They’d shown her a closet full of donated maternity clothes she could pick from, so now she wouldn’t even be wearing her own clothes anymore. The baby wriggled inside her stomach. This wasn’t her body. This wasn’t her life.
Back home, Midge and Chip would be getting ready for bed, and Dad would have his blueprints spread across the dining room table, working them with his slide rule, and Mom would be washing dishes, and Fern wanted everything to go back to—
A long, low foghorn sounded from the other side of the room. Fern couldn’t believe it, but there was nothing else it could be. It was Rose…passing gas. For a really long time. A really long time. Finally, it sputtered out.
“Sorry,” Rose said in the dark.
Fern hated this. She didn’t like being stuck with a girl who didn’t talk and carried a stuffed animal around, and Rose, who was rude and only talked about American imperialism and police brutality. Every second she was here she felt her real life slipping—
Another foghorn sounded, going on and on, climbing in pitch until Fern thought it couldn’t go any higher, then it stuttered to a stop.
“Pardon me,” Rose said.
“It’s okay,” Fern said, jaw tight.
This wasn’t her real life. Her real life was back in—
A squeaky one this time, high-pitched, like a mouse screaming.
“Oh, my,” Rose said.
Fern tried to recapture her train of thought. She knew her dad hated her but maybe she could call—
A long, flappy trumpet echoed off the walls.
“Now you’re doing it on purpose!” Fern wailed, her voice cracking.
Rose let go with another one, long and low that ended with a flippy flap.
“Oops,” she said.
Fern started to cry.