Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye

Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye Page 4

"Bleccch," said Becky, making a face. "What're those for?"

Natalie looked archly at her mother. "You might as well tell them, Mom."

Kay Armstrong looked slightly embarrassed. "Well," she said. Then she poured herself some more coffee. "Want some?" They shook their heads.

"Well," she said, again. "I decided I would make some dandelion wine."

"Hey," said Gretchen. "That's neat. How do you make it?"

Kay Armstrong didn't say anything.

"Tell them all of it, Mom." Natalie laughed.

"I don't know how to make it," she confessed. "Let me start at the beginning. Last night, when I was just about to fall asleep—you know how you get these great ideas when you're just about to fall asleep?—it occurred to me that it would be terrific to make dandelion wine. Have either of you ever tasted dandelion wine?"

They shook their heads.

"Neither have I," said Kay Armstrong. "Nevertheless, it seemed like a marvelous fun thing to do, last night. But I remembered that there aren't any dandelions in our yard. Natalie's father is a fantastic gardener. Every spring he does magic things to the lawn, so that there are no broad-leafed weeds. That includes dandelions. Have you ever noticed that we have no broad-leafed weeds in our yard?"

Becky and Gretchen giggled. "No," they said.

"Well, take a look, when you go out. No broad-leafed weeds. Anyway, as I was lying there half-asleep, I remembered that the neighbors two doors away, the Gibsons, have terrible dandelions. Millions. Obviously they haven't conquered the broad-leafed weed problem. So I decided to use the Gibsons' dandelions.

"But the Gibsons are away this weekend. Their daughter is being married in Denver. No way to call and ask their permission."

She took another sip of coffee. "So I decided to steal their dandelions. I thought I would do it very early in the morning, when no one would see me in their yard.

"So I set my mental alarm clock for five o'clock. Do you girls know how to set a mental alarm clock?"

They shook their heads.

"Well, that's a different subject, but I'll tell you about it sometime. It has to do with self-hypnosis. Anyway, five o'clock came, and I woke up, and got out of bed very quietly, because I didn't want Alden to know what I was doing, in case he would have thought I was quite mad. Do you think I'm quite mad?"

"No," said Becky.

"Yes," said Natalie.

"Well, he half woke up anyway, and said, with his eyes closed, 'What time is it? Where are you going?' and I said, 'It's five o'clock, and I'm going to the bathroom,' and he said, 'You should have your kidneys x-rayed,' and then he turned over and was sound asleep again, and I got my bathrobe and went downstairs.

"I went over to the Gibsons' yard, through the O'Haras' back yard, wearing my bathrobe, and when I got there and stood in the middle of all those dandelions ... it was a great feeling, incidentally; the sun was just coming up, and the grass was damp, and their yard is bright yellow, it has so many dandelions; it was really exhilarating ... I realized I had nothing to put the dandelions in.

"So I took off my bathrobe and put it on the ground and began to fill it with dandelion blossoms. The whole thing was really lovely. I was wearing a white nightgown, and I think I must have looked like a painting by Renoir, bending over and picking flowers in the sunrise. It's a beautiful nightgown, by the way; would you call it translucent, Natalie?"

"No. Transparent."

"Perhaps. Well, there was no one around. So I filled up my bathrobe, and pulled the corners together and tied them, so that it was a nice bundle, and then it occurred to me to try balancing it on my head, you know, the way native women do in the South Seas?"

Becky and Gretchen were hysterical.

"Don't laugh." Kay Armstrong grinned. "I walked back home, through the O'Haras' yard, very carefully, with my bathrobe full of dandelion blossoms on my head. It was a nice exercise in posture, I think. Anyway, that's what I was doing when the milkman drove into our driveway and met me.

"I started to explain to him what I was doing, but I confess that I became a little embarrassed, because I was aware that my nightgown was slightly indecent, although I do think I'd call it translucent, Natalie—

"And of course I couldn't put my bathrobe on, because it was filled with dandelions—"

"And on your head," interrupted Gretchen.

"Don't be silly. Of course I took it off my head when I saw the milkman.

"I could see that he didn't have the slightest idea what I was talking about, so I thought I would just go into the house pleasantly without any further conversation. And I said, 'Have a nice day' to the milkman, and started to open the back door, but I had locked myself out.

"I had to ring the bell quite a while before Alden woke up and came down, and in the meantime the milkman didn't know whether to go or stay, so he stayed, and when Alden appeared at the door, there I was in my nightgown, holding my bundle of dandelions, and the milkman standing there looking stricken, as if he had walked into a lunatic asylum by mistake."

"What did Dr. Armstrong say?" asked Becky.

"He just stood there for a minute, and then finally said, 'Didn't you have to go to the bathroom?' The milkman fled." Kay Armstrong dissolved in laughter.

"Then later," she said, "I realized that I haven't any idea how to make dandelion wine. It didn't even seem a good idea, anymore. So I put all the dandelions in the sink, and two bumblebees flew out and stung me on the arm, which made me feel that the dandelions are decidedly hostile to the whole thing as well, and now—" she got up, went to the sink, and pressed a switch—"I am sending them all down the garbage disposal."

"'Sic transit gloria.'" Gretchen laughed.

"What does that mean?" asked Becky.

"It means I'm going to be sick, gloriously, from laughing."

"Nat," said Becky seriously, when they were in Natalie's bedroom later, "how can you not be satisfied with your mother?"

"I am," said Natalie. "It has nothing to do with that at all."

7

GRADUATION DAY was like every other Graduation Day. She had attended them for several years, had watched her friends stand there on the stage in their caps and gowns, the girls holding red roses, some of the kids collecting their awards, some of them wearing the special stoles that indicated particular honors. The school band, heavy on clarinets, playing the school song; the tears and smiles; the traditional flipping of tassels from one side to the other. The proud parents with their flashcubes popping. The speeches: they were the same, really, every year.

But because it was her graduation, because it was her father carefully focusing his camera to get what she knew from experience would be blurred snapshots of decapitated people, Natalie listened to the nervous voices of the three students chosen to speak, and tried to attach some meaning in their words to her own life.

Gretchen was one of the speakers. Her high grades had consistently led the class for years, and she had won the scholarships that would take her to Wellesley to study political science. Natalie grinned when Gretchen rose to speak, knowing that under the heavy graduation gown, her friend was wearing patched and faded denim shorts. It was a hot day; summer had really come, and was welcome.

"Commencement," Gretchen began, "means Beginning." Some of the students glanced at each other, and smiled. How many graduation speeches had started, "Commencement means Beginning"?

Natalie found her family in the crowd. Her father was solemn and attentive, wearing his best suit, and for once the ends of his stethoscope were not protruding from his breast pocket. Nancy was beside him, her hair curlier than usual from the humidity of the early June afternoon, her blue eyes darting here and there as she searched in the audience for her friends. Nancy wasn't listening, Natalie knew. It didn't matter, she thought. Next year, when Nancy graduates, someone will stand up here and say the same thing again: "Commencement means Beginning." Her mother, her face youthful and attractive, was listening, but she was watching Natalie, not Gretchen. Nat caught her eye and they winked at each other and grinned.

The Branford High School gym looked more austere than it ordinarily did. During basketball season, there was usually a huge, clumsily lettered sign that said "Be an Athletic Supporter" taped to the wall behind the far basket. That was gone. For the senior prom in May, the gym had been transformed by dim light, crepe-paper streamers, a mirrored revolving ball hanging from the center of the ceiling to catch the colored lights, and tables covered with pastel cloths had been arranged around the sides of the room. All those one-night bits of magic were gone, too.

So it was just a gym. Still, it seemed awesome, the whole atmosphere of graduation.

"But there are beginnings, perhaps," Gretchen was saying slowly, "that shouldn't be made at all." Natalie watched her and listened more closely.

"We must examine our own motives. Might we be embarking on quests beyond our capacity for understanding?

"We have become complacent here, as seniors. We've been the school leaders—the guys who know it all, have done it all. We're old enough now to be on our own. Some of us will be going to college, some off to full-time jobs, some to be married—" the graduates all grinned at Marcia Pickering, who blushed and polished her tiny diamond ring with one finger—"and to be honest, we, all of us, think we're pretty hot stuff right now.

"But we're very young. We shouldn't forget that. We shouldn't forget that there are doors not ready to be opened. That if we choose certain paths we may be unhappily surprised by where they lead. And we shouldn't forget that those who have helped and advised us till now—our parents, teachers, and others—are still here to give help, and advice, and, when we need it, sympathy and understanding.

"Most of you remember the movie Bambi. How Bambi stood at the edge of the forest and was frightened of the big, open meadow, as he had every reason to be. There were dangers there.

"We will all have to go into the dangerous and unknown places that await us. But we should be careful not to rush, not to move ahead without thinking. We should save each beginning until we are prepared to face everything it leads to

"If we do, each Commencement after this one will bring growth and meaning to our lives.

"Thank you."

Gretchen sat down, embarrassed by the applause, grateful to be finished. Natalie looked over at her, caught her eye, smiled, and gave her a thumbs-up sign.

Then the speeches were ended, the diplomas awarded, the tassels flipped, the school band prodded by the music director into a final march, and the graduates moved in double rows down the aisle and out of the wide door at the entrance to the gym. Natalie found her family in the crowd. She gave her rose to Nancy, hugged her parents, and threw a kiss across the front lawn to Paul, who was standing sheepishly in front of his father's Instamatic camera, saying "Cheese."

"Let's go home!" urged Nancy.

"Oh, wait, I want to see all my friends," said Natalie.

"Nat, let's go home. There are presents," said Nancy.