Miller's Valley - Anna Quindlen Page 0,55

Ruth said, taking the cake from me.

“When will you know?”

Her mouth was full; she looked like a squirrel storing nuts, like the sheet cake on the table wasn’t big enough to feed half the county, and another sheet cake in Ruth’s refrigerator because my mother had run out of room in hers, what with the Jell-O molds and the potato salad.

“Don’t get smart with me,” she finally said, a blob of frosting on her upper lip. I reached over and took it off with my finger.

“What am I going to do without you around?” she said, and she started to cry, really cry, like she had finally said out loud something that had been eating at her for a long time.

“I’ll only be two hours away,” I said. “I’ll be home all the time.”

“It won’t be the same,” she said, shoveling in some tearstained cake and licking the plastic fork.

From Ruth’s window the party looked fuzzy, like maybe it was a mirage, but with plenty of balloons. I could see my mother talking to Mrs. Farrell. “You invited a teacher to a party?” LaRhonda had said when she saw her. My mother and Mrs. Farrell had become friendly, united in their determination that I better myself. My mother was holding the gifts that my father had given her, a sweatshirt and a hat from the university. The state university took itself so seriously that all its stuff had a big S on it for State, as though there weren’t forty-nine others out there.

“Dad did the same thing when I graduated,” said Ed, who was standing by the cake when I went to get Ruth another piece. I think he was happy that I’d left him the only family valedictorian. “You’re too young to remember.”

“I remember.”

“Mom invited Mrs. Farrell?” he said, squinting.

“Wasn’t she your teacher?” I said.

“She was just starting out,” Ed said. “Maybe she’s a better teacher now.” I laughed, just a little. “What?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Where’s our brother?”

I shrugged. Steven was talking to Mrs. Farrell’s husband, who worked at a bank. I could see his face freezing while Steven talked. My mother put the State hat on Clifton, who started to strut a little bit, that way little kids do when they think they’re really something. I looked around and it was like I was seeing everything frozen into a still photograph, like I was seeing my whole life but in one of those shots you look at later and think, Yeah, that’s what it was like, once upon a time. Once upon a long time ago.

Time passed, and I had a chicken leg and some of my mother’s quick pickles, which were really just cucumber salad. I didn’t really care for bakery cake, but I had one of the homemade cookies Cissy brought with her, chocolate chunk and coconut. There were all those conversations you have at a party like that, about when I had to leave for school and what I thought the chances were for the football team, which any idiot knew you were supposed to say were good. Every once in a while one of the adults would stuff a bill in the patch pocket of my dress. My white patent heels got dusty, and finally I put them on the back steps and walked around barefoot, hoping my mother wouldn’t notice.

Some people started to leave, LaRhonda’s parents, Donald’s grandfather. He’d brought me a package from Donald. “He was trying his darndest to come, Mimi, but it’s real expensive, flying from out there, and it’s too far to drive,” he said. Inside the package was a lacquered jewelry box. When you opened it the blue fairy from Pinocchio popped up and “When You Wish Upon a Star” played, tinkly little notes you could barely hear over the sound of people talking in the yard. I knew that Donald had sent it because his grandmother had taken us to see Pinocchio when I was ten and Donald was eleven. LaRhonda hadn’t come with us that day, and afterward she made her mother take her, and spent two weeks saying it was the stupidest movie she’d ever seen. But Donald and I loved it. We both started to cry a little bit when Pinocchio died, and Donald’s grandmother had put her arm around me.

“What’s he think, you’re twelve?” said Steven, poking the blue fairy with his finger. I knew what he meant, but he was wrong. It was the perfect gift, and just the kind of thing the