Page 9

Chapter 9

Zinnia got up almost as often to be sick as Fern did to pee. By the time a bleary-eyed Fern was coming back from the bathroom at four a.m. and Zinnia was stumping past her to rinse out their garbage can yet again, she felt like a familiar face.

Everything made Zinnia sick. The smell of ground beef or fried eggs, the smell of her own throw-up, and especially the smells of Lysol and Pine-Sol, which Fern thought for sure would get her excused from cleaning duties, but Dr. Vincent nipped that in the bud.

“He told me it’s all in my head,” Zinnia said, lying in her bed that Wednesday night, trying to move as little as possible. “He said I’m psychosexually immature, which prevents me from adapting to the mental stresses of pregnancy, so my body reacts by making me sick. He told me I’d get better when I want to get better.”

“He thinks you’re crazy?”

“He thinks all of us are crazy.”

And so, without a medical excuse, Zinnia got assigned to cleaning duties like the rest of them. Since Fern didn’t want to watch Zinnia lose her lunch all morning long, she let her lean out the bathroom window while she and Holly scrubbed sinks.

“No one here has a thing to read,” Zinnia said, leaning against the windowsill, head in the fresh air. “Briony only has books about wedding etiquette, and Laurel’s got three romances and they all have the same woman on the covers running from the same house.”

“You’ll learn more from live trees than dead ones,” Rose said from the door.

“I thought you were on strike?” Fern asked.

Rose walked to the window as mysteriously as possible and lit her bippy in an enigmatic way.

“I’m building ties to the working class,” she said.

She offered her bippy to Zinnia, who took a drag.

“According to my mother,” Zinnia said, “all I’m supposed to do while I’m here is practice solfège and think about what I’ve done. I’m not allowed to write Paul and I don’t sew and all the crossword puzzles in all those old magazines have already been done. I’m starting to see yellow wallpaper in every room.”

“Who’s Paul?” Fern asked.

“My baby’s father,” Zinnia said. “We’re getting married, but we’ve both got to graduate from high school first.”

“You’re not supposed to tell people that,” Fern said. “I mean, I don’t care, but it’s part of the rules.”

“Then I hope none of you fink,” Zinnia said.

“Right on,” Rose said, trying to slap Zinnia some skin.

Zinnia ignored her.

“There’s a bookmobile coming Monday,” Fern said. “But we’re only allowed one book each.”

“Well, there’s four of us,” Zinnia said. “Each of us could get a book the other three wanted to read.”

“Deal,” Fern said. “But I don’t think Holly can read.”

“Don’t underestimate Holly,” Rose said.

“Holly?” Fern asked. “Would you get a book from the bookmobile for us?”

Holly shrugged.

“That’s three books,” Zinnia said, and looked at Rose.

“You want to brainwash yourselves, that’s your business,” Rose said.

Zinnia didn’t say anything for a minute, then she grinned big.

“Be a righteous sister and get us a book?” she asked Rose.

And held out her hand for some skin.

“Deal,” Rose said, unable to resist. “Sister.”

Fern and Zinnia spent the weekend talking about what books they’d read and what they were going to check out and how Fern didn’t read enough black writers, and how Zinnia needed to read more Kurt Vonnegut, and the virtues of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight . For the first time in weeks, time seemed to be moving. Fern felt like she was hanging around with Hilda and Deb again.

When Mrs. Deckle rang her bell next Monday morning, Fern shot out of bed like she was starting a race. By the time four p.m. rolled around her leg was bouncing like a sewing machine needle and she had her eyes glued to the clock at the end of the classroom while a man with a crew cut from the Lutheran church delivered a lecture on the dangers of rock and roll.

“Dean Martin may be an Italian,” Crew Cut said. “But even he knows that unnatural forces are behind the rise of rock and roll.”

The clock said 4:32 p.m. Wasn’t the bookmobile supposed to be there?

Mrs. Deckle entered through the back door of the classroom and pointed to her watch. Crew Cut broke off.

“It has been called to my attention that’s all we have time for today. I believe—”

He was drowned out by the sound of chair legs scraping the floor and girls chattering.

“If you are visiting the traveling library,” Mrs. Deckle called, “line up in alphabetical order in the front hall.”

The line stretched from the side door outside Diane’s office, past the Pepto-Bismol waterfall, all the way to the downstairs powder room. Fern looked back along it for Zinnia, but she wasn’t there. Holly should be next to Ginger, and Rose should be next to Zinnia, but none of them were where they were supposed to be. Panic fluttered in Fern’s chest. The baby took the opportunity to stomp on her bladder.

“I’ll be right back, Mrs. Deckle,” she called, wincing in irritation as she pulled herself up the stairs.

She found Zinnia throwing up in the second-floor bathroom.

“I can’t make it,” she called weakly from inside a stall.

“The bookmobile’s not coming back for two weeks,” Fern said.

She got Zinnia washed up and on her feet. She found Holly in their room, rifling through Zinnia’s clothes, and she sent her downstairs after Zinnia. Rose was in the Cong playing Solitaire, and Fern had to remind her that she was doing Zinnia a solid before she’d come.

By the time she got them out the side door, girls were pushing their way back in, already finished with the bookmobile. Fern herded Zinnia, Rose, and Holly into the front yard, and stopped cold.

The bookmobile took her breath away.

Parked beneath the big live oak, its sides dappled with sunlight, it danced with color. It had been a school bus once but was now painted white with a giant rainbow running down its side and pop-art butterflies flying between purple trees vibrating with pink-and-orange auras. St. Johns Public Library was painted under the rainbow.

It looked like the circus, it looked like the carnival, it looked like nothing a public library would ever endorse. After seeing the same blah walls of the Home every day, the same pink carpet, the same pink doors, the same girls in the same brown and beige dresses, it looked like the most beautiful thing in the world.

By the time they reached it, Flora and Daisy were coming out, Stirring Stories for Girls dangling casually from Flora’s hand and When Debbie Dared in Daisy’s.

“You’ve got ten minutes,” Mrs. Deckle said from beside the rear door as Fern walked onto the floating metal step and entered the bookmobile’s dim interior.

It rocked on its tires as Rose, Zinnia, and Holly crowded in behind her.

“Two at a time,” Mrs. Deckle said as they pushed their way in. “Two at a…” Then she sighed. “Fine, do whatever you want.”

Fern’s eyes adjusted and her heart stopped beating. Light drifted down from two skylights and settled on the spines of books lining every surface. More books than Fern had even hoped for. Her eyes scanned their spines: The Cricket in Times Square , A Wrinkle in Time , Owls in the Family , The Wolves of Willoughby Chase .

So many stories and colors and characters and chaos. She felt like Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz when it went from black-and-white to color. She felt like Neva again.

Rose grabbed the first book off the shelf and poked Fern in the small of the back with it.

“I’ll take this one,” she said. “Can I go now?”

“Not yet,” Fern said. “Zinnia, you take the shelves on that side and I’ll take this one.”

“I need to sit down,” Zinnia groaned. “I’m not feeling well.”

Inside Fern, the baby squeezed her bladder again.

“Eight minutes,” Mrs. Deckle shouted through the door.

Holly grabbed a random book off the shelf and held it out: Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree .

“That’s not how this works,” Fern said, frustration giving her voice an edge. “We have to get the right books.”

“The right books are very important,” a voice said from the front of the bus.

Next to the driver’s seat a librarian’s desk faced them, shrunk to fit and bolted to the floor. Sitting behind it was a grandmother in a baby-blue rayon skirt suit. She wore her graying hair in a bun.

“I’m sorry,” Fern said. “We agreed on how to do this but now they’re messing everything up.”

“Reading the wrong book is almost worse than not reading any book at all,” the librarian said, coming out from behind her desk.

“Oh, good grief,” Rose moaned. “A philosophical librarian.”

“Girls,” Mrs. Deckle said, leaning into the doorway. “Six minutes.”

“You can’t give them ten?” the librarian asked.

She stood in front of Fern now, a short, solid woman with the figure of a brick. Fern saw a wart buried in one of her eyebrows. She looked like she attended church every Sunday and drank a lot of tea.

“No, I can’t,” Mrs. Deckle said, then squinted into the dim bus. “Are you new?”

“No, dear,” the librarian said. “I’m the same librarian as ever.”

“I thought you were a younger woman,” Mrs. Deckle said, then shrugged. “Well, it can’t be helped. Five minutes.”

She retreated outside. The librarian looked at the four pregnant girls squeezed into her bookmobile and smiled. The thought of this tiny woman driving this enormous tank made Fern smile back.

“I’m Miss Parcae,” the librarian said. “And since you four are on a schedule, why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”

“Something good,” Fern said. “And long. Really long books we haven’t read before.”

“I truly don’t feel well,” Zinnia moaned.

Miss Parcae’s hands flew over the shelves, fingers running across spines, pulling out one book, then another, turning to the other side of the bus, pulling out two more. “Here you are,” she said, handing them to Fern. “Before I write them down you’d better check with your watchdog.”

Mrs. Deckle rejected all four books.

In Cold Blood (“Completely inappropriate”), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (“Absolutely not!”), The Valley of the Dolls (“You must be joking”), The Andromeda Strain (“Not for someone your age”).

Embarrassed, Fern ducked back inside and returned the books to Miss Parcae.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “She won’t let us take these.”

Zinnia rested her forehead against her arms, leaning on the shelves, looking waxy. Holly whispered in Precious Pup’s ear, showing him the books on the shelves. Rose stood by the door and angrily stared off at nothing. None of them paid any attention to the books, or to Fern, or to the librarian.

“Three minutes,” Mrs. Deckle called.

“We’ll take anything,” Fern said.

“I think we can do better than that,” Miss Parcae replied, and returned to her shelves.

She went down the spines, lips pressed together in concentration, head tilted to one side. Fern felt the baby smash a foot into her bladder again and realized she needed to go to the bathroom. Now. Mrs. Deckle’s voice cut down the center of the bus.

“Two minutes, ladies!”

“Well, they’re not the longest books I have,” Miss Parcae said. “But I don’t think your chaperone will make you put them back.”

She held out copies of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler , The Old Man and the Sea , The Black Pearl , and To Kill a Mockingbird . Fern’s heart sank. She’d read all of them before.

Rose snatched The Old Man and the Sea and stormed out of the bookmobile. Zinnia took Frankweiler and stumbled out after Rose.

“Thirty seconds,” Mrs. Deckle called. “Don’t make me come in after you.”

Holly barely glanced at The Black Pearl as she took it from the librarian and left the bus. Fern looked down at To Kill a Mockingbird and felt true despair. The thought of being stuck with it for the next two weeks really felt like too much. Miss Parcae gave her that blank, beaming smile old ladies give when they’re extremely pleased with themselves. Fern pushed the book back at her.

“Thank you anyway,” she said. “I’ve already read it.”

The librarian’s smile faltered.

“Is there something you’d prefer?” she asked. She gestured to the books on either side of her. “I have all kinds.”

“I—” Fern opened her mouth, and then an impulse took over. “Do you have any books about babies?”

“Babies?” Miss Parcae asked, brow wrinkling.

“Having babies?” Fern asked, talking fast as the idea took shape in her mouth. “They won’t tell us anything real, so I thought you might have something nonfiction about what happens when you go to the hospital to have your baby?”

“Ah,” Miss Parcae said, her forehead smoothing as she understood. “No, dear. We don’t have any books like that, and if we did, we wouldn’t be allowed to give them to you.”

Of course not, Fern realized. She was stupid to have asked.

Her bladder gave a pinch. It felt more urgently full than usual. She needed to go before this turned into a big deal.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Maybe next time.”

“One moment,” the librarian said. “I think I might have something for you.”

She began to pull drawers out of her desk, fumbling through rubber bands and blank library cards, drawer after drawer. Fern bounced up and down on her toes.

“I really have to get going,” she said.

Miss Parcae continued searching.

“It’ll only be a moment, dear,” she said. Then she looked up at Fern, confused. “Are you having a fit?”

Fern managed to stop bouncing for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “My bladder is very full and I have to be excused now, please.”

Miss Parcae came over and stood far too close to Fern. Before she could back away, the librarian placed both hands on Fern’s stomach. Her hands felt different than Dr. Vincent’s. They were softer, lighter, more at home.

“Your baby needs to shift,” Miss Parcae said. “He’s sitting on your bladder. Look at me.”

Fern made eye contact. The librarian’s blue eyes looked too young for her face. They were dark around the edges and pale in the center. “Don’t move.”

Her hands snapped together like setting a broken bone. The bottom one pushed up against Fern’s belly and the top one swiped to the right hard. Something enormous changed places inside her.

“Ow!” Fern shouted automatically. “That hurt!”

Then she realized it didn’t. And she didn’t have to go to the bathroom anymore. Her bladder still felt full, but it was a dull ache, not a sharp stab. The muscles in her face forgot to hold their shape.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“Pishposh,” Miss Parcae said. “Any half-decent midwife could do the same.”

Fern vaguely knew what that was. Weren’t midwives mostly on farms?

Miss Parcae studied Fern for a moment, scanning her face from left to right.

“You’re a reader,” she said. “The other girls were in and out, but you wanted to make sure they got the right books. No one will tell you about having a baby, so you thought a book might help.”

“I really don’t need a book,” Fern said.

But Miss Parcae was already behind her desk again, and this time she found what she was looking for in the first drawer.

“I keep this for girls like you,” she said, holding out a paperback to Fern. “It might have some answers.”

Fern looked down at the cover. It was a cheap drugstore paperback, the kind you got for ninety-five cents, with pages so pulpy they gave you splinters. She read the title and immediately had a sinking feeling.

“This isn’t really my kind of thing,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She tried to push it away, but Miss Parcae pressed it to Fern’s stomach.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover, Fern,” she said.

“Who told you my name?” Fern asked.

“Your friend said it when she came in the door,” Miss Parcae said. “I may be old, but I do pay attention. I know it’s not your real name, Fern, just like I know that if you’re in a place like this and you’re looking for a book about having babies, no one’s told you one word about being a woman. This book will teach you everything you need. Don’t be scared.”

Fern took the book. Its spine was disappointingly thin.

“It’s not very long,” she said.

“It’s longer than it looks,” Miss Parcae said. “And if you don’t enjoy it, well, I’ll be back in two weeks and you can get something new. Now, if I were you, I’d hide that inside your dress.”

Fern did, pressing it to her side with one elbow as she passed Mrs. Deckle on her way back to the Home. She headed straight for the downstairs powder room, latched the door, and peed. Then she peeled the paperback away from her sweaty skin and looked at the cheap, disappointing cover again. She flipped to the table of contents. She read the first page. Then the second. Then the third. Then she read them again.

As she stood in the powder room, between the dripping sink and the toilet with its pink, fuzzy lid, the words of the book cut through the fog in her pregnant brain and something deep inside her body woke up.