SPEAK UP

I don’t know what my mother does all day. Her day worker comes in at 7:30 five days a week. I get the bus for school at 7. It is a mystery to me. When I come home at 3, she is still napping in her room. I go in, tickle her stockinged toes. She softly kicks me away and rolls over for a few extra minutes in bed.

My homework is usually finished by five when my daddy comes upstairs for supper. Only Friday evening do we have dinner, with a clean white cloth and candles for the Sabbath. Mother lights the candles, says the necessary prayer and we eat. There is very little conversation.When Daddy is finished, we are all finished. He goes on the porch for a cigarette, comes in to listen to his favorite funny man on the radio, Jack Benny. Three nights a week I can’t even listen to the radio as Aunt Mildred and Uncle Moe come over to play Mah Jongg in the living room. Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong in this family. I’m not important. My parents don’t ask me many questions other than ‘Did you brush your teeth? Wash your hands? Change your underwear?’

On some Saturdays I walk thru the playground, past Northern High’s four towers to visit with my cousin, Gertie We are the same age, 13. Gertie has a wind up record player and lots of wax records. She has Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glen Miller, Bing Crosby and the latest Frank Sinatra. I don’t ever mind being the winder. Gertie and I dance together, jitterbug, bunny hop. Aunt Marie comes in, dances, claps the rhythm and sings. We have a lot of fun together.

This week Gert was allowed to invite two high school boys for lunch. She didn’t tell me. Aunt Marie suggests we all dance after we clear the dishes. My god, I get nervous, start to sweat. I never danced with a boy before, except my father. I sit on the sofa and watch them. It’s like when my family has supper, I’m invisible. I thank Aunt Marie for lunch, leave, cry all the way past the school towers, through the playground, into my house, my room. Loneliness crowds me into a corner.

Evening is not quite here. Mother must be playing Solitaire on the wide living room windowsill. She loves to watch the cars, our neighbors walking by. Something takes hold of me, sparks my courage and I interrupt her game. ‘Mother, why aren’t you more like Aunt Marie?’ I ask. She looks at me as if I am a monster from hell. ‘What do you mean, Betsy?’ ‘I mean you don’t talk to me. You don’t even know I have a boyfriend named Jimmy. Don’t get nervous, Mother. He has no idea I like him.’

‘Then what are you talking about? What has this to do with me not being like Aunt Marie?’ ‘Mother, you don’t talk to me, don’t know I’m growing up. The boys danced with Gertie and Aunt Marie- not me. She is a great dancer. Once I saw the top of her hose when she flipped over Sammy’s back. ‘ ’Miss Smartness, you don’t know much. Aunt Marie has problems. I don’t want you going there any more unless I am with you–and I won’t be. She’s a hussy!’

Daddy hears my story from Mother while we are having supper. He looks at me too much. ‘Daddy, wake up. You and Mother are old fashioned. Dancing is more than the fox trot, the two step.’ As usual, silence is his strength. ‘That’s enough. I heard you,’ and he goes into the living room to listen to Fibber Magee and Milly. Those he listens to, not me.

With no explanation, I tell Gertie I can’t come over Saturday. I play War with Mother, Solitaire solitarily. About noon a package comes to the door. Mother brings it in and tells me to get a screwdriver to help her slit the brown paper off the carton. I almost tell her to get it herself but hold my tongue. I pull the electric record player out of the box and almost faint with joy. There is a separate box enclosed that has twelve new jitterbug records and six slow ones. My parents are standing near the kitchen door, arms around each other, smiling, happy that I am happy.

Daddy walks over and makes what is a speech for him: ‘Betsy, Mother and I have decided you can invite two young men and Gertie for lunch next week (one of the guys can be Jimmy)–but we want to be able to peep in on your dancing once in a while. Then we can try some new steps in the kitchen. What do you say?’

‘Dad, I say Super!’