FannieFlagg-WelcomeToTheWorldBabyGirl Read online

  "And let's see, what else do I have this morning ... Oh, I know ... I got a call from Poor Tot and her cat has kittens again and she says they are all ugly but one, so come on over, first come, first served... and in a minute I'm going to tell you how to clean your feather pillows, but first let's listen to Beatrice, our little blind songbird...."

  Twenty-five minutes later Neighbor Dorothy ends the show as she always does with "Well, I see by the old clock on the wall that it's time to go... it's always so pleasant to sit with you every morning and share a cup of coffee. You make our days so happy, so until we see you again, you'll be missed, so come back again tomorrow, won't you? This is Neighbor Dorothy and Mother Smith from our house to yours saying... have a good day...."

  That evening, Neighbor Dorothy and her family were sitting on the porch all eating a bowl of homemade peach ice cream that Doc had made on the back porch earlier. Including Princess Mary Margaret, who had her own bowl with her name on it.

  On summer nights almost every family in Elmwood Springs goes out to sit on their front porches after dinner, and wave to people as they walk on the sidewalk in front of the house, on their way to downtown to window-shop or coming home from the movies. All up and down the street you can hear people talking softly and see in the dark the little orange glow of cigarettes or the pipes being smoked by men.

  Bobby, happy and sunburned, with the smell of chlorine still strong hi his nostrils and his eyes all red from swimming underwater all day up at the pool, was so tired that he fell sound asleep in the swing while the grown-ups talked. Dorothy said to Doc, "You should have seen him when he finally came dragging in

  this afternoon; he'd been in the water so long he'd gone all pruney."

  Doc laughed. Anna Lee said, "Mother, I don't think you should let him go up there anymore. He does nothing but swim around underwater all day pinching people." Mother Smith spoke up: "Oh, let the boy have his childhood; he'll grow up soon enough."

  Just then Macky Warren and his fiancee, Norma, passed in front of the house. Norma had her little four-year-old cousin by the hand.

  Dorothy called out to them and waved. "Hey, how're you tonight?"

  They waved back. "Fine. We've just been up to the picture show."

  "What did you see?"

  Norma called out, "The Egg and I with Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray. It was a good one."

  "How long is it playing?"

  "One or two more days, be sure to see it."

  "We will," Neighbor Dorothy said.

  Macky called up to the porch, "How are you doing, Doc?"

  "Just fine," he said. He nodded at the little blond girl and said to Macky, "I see she's got you baby-sitting tonight. Well, you might as well get used to it, you'll be having some of your own soon."

  Macky smiled and nodded. "Yes, sir, good night."

  "Goodnight."

  After they had gone on, Dorothy sat back, looked over at Anna Lee, and sighed. "It seems like only yesterday when both my children were babies. Time ... how fast it passes.... Next thing I know Anna Lee will be married."

  "No, I won't," said Anna Lee.

  "Yes, you will, then you'll be gone and Bobby will be a grown man before we know it."

  They sat for a while and waved and spoke to a few more people walking by, and then Dorothy said, "Don't you wish you could just stop time? Keep it from moving forward, just stop it in its tracks?"

  "Mother," Anna Lee asked, "if you could stop time, when would you stop it?"

  Dorothy thought. "Oh, honey ... I guess if I could, I'd stop it right now, while I have all my family around me, on this very night." She looked over at her husband. "What about you, Doc? When would you stop it?"

  He took a puff of his pipe. "Now would be a good time. No wars. Everybody's healthy." He looked at Dorothy and smiled. "And before Momma loses her pretty figure."

  Dorothy laughed. "It's too late for that, Doc. What about you, Anna Lee?"

  Anna Lee sighed. A recent high school graduate, she had suddenly become very wise. "Oh, if I had only known then what I know now, I would have stopped it last year when I was still young."

  Dorothy smiled at her daughter, then asked, "When would you stop time, Mother Smith?"

  Mother Smith mused. "Well, I don't think I would. I think I'd just let it go on like it has been."

  "You would?"

  Mother Smith had been taken to the great World's Fair in St. Louis in 1904 when she was a small child and had looked forward to the future ever since. "Oh, yes. I'd hate to take a chance on missing something good that might be coming up, just around the corner, wouldn't you?"

  "I guess you're right, Mother Smith," Dorothy said, "we just have no idea of what the future holds, do we?"

  "No, we don't. Why, just imagine what life will be like twenty-five years from now."

  Anna Lee made a face. "I'll be an old woman with gray hair."

  Mother Smith laughed. "Maybe so, but I'll be long gone by then. At least you'll be around to see what's going on!"

  Book One

  TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

  Elmwood Springs, Missouri April i, 1973

  Norma Warren was a nervous wreck, waiting for Macky to come home and have his breakfast. She was about to burst with the news. He had only gone two blocks to take Aunt Elner a bag of birdseed. Aunt Elner had called at the crack of dawn and said her blue jays were practically knocking the house down because she had run out of seed. She loved poor old Aunt Elner; after all, she was deaf as a post. But why, of all mornings, did she have to pick this one to run out? Norma knew that Macky would get waylaid, stopping to yaya with everybody and their brother up and down the street. Usually she didn't mind but she did today. God knows where Macky could be at this point. Knowing him, he could be halfway across the county by now or up on somebody's roof or he could have gotten in a car with a perfect stranger, jabbering away about anything and everything. She sat there for a few more minutes and then gave up, put his breakfast in the stove to keep warm, and got the broom out and went onto the front porch and started sweeping, all the time looking for him and thinking how, later, she was going down to get one of those new beeper things and stick it on Macky.

  After a few minutes she could not stand it any longer. She went in the kitchen and called. The phone rang and rang, until finally Aunt Elner picked up.

  "Hello."

  "Aunt Elner, are you all right?"

  "I'm doing fine, honey," she said in a cheerful voice, "how are you?"

  "I'm fine, I was just worried, you took so long to answer the phone."

  "Oh, well, I was way out in the backyard and it took me a while to get back up to the house. Macky is helping me plant some sweet Williams in the border of my vegetable garden."

  Norma rolled her eyes but said sweetly, "Oh, I see. Well, no rush, but would you tell Macky when he gets through there to come straight on home and not to stop anywhere? His breakfast is getting cold. Could you do that?"

  "All right, honey, I'll tell him. Oh, and Norma, are you still on the line?"

  "Yes, Aunt Elner."

  "My blue jays say thank you kindly. Well, 'bye-'bye."

  "'Bye, Aunt Elner."

  Norma, a pretty brunette of forty-three, glanced at herself in the mirror over the sink and saw that her face was flushed with excitement.

  About twenty minutes later, after she had almost swept the paint off the front porch and swept halfway up the block, she spotted Macky on the horizon, nonchalantly strolling toward home, waving and How-are-youing to everybody he passed by, including two dogs and a cat. She called out and motioned frantically. "Macky, come on, hurry up!"

  Macky, a stocky, sandy-haired, friendly looking man, smiled happily and waved back. Norma ran back inside, took his plate out of the oven, put it down on the table, and got the coffeepot as the screen door slammed behind him.

  "Macky, get in here and sit down before I have a stroke."

  He sat down. "Hey, what's up, kiddo?"

  She poured his cof
fee, was back in her chair staring at him before he could take the first bite of his scrambled eggs.

  "Guess what?" she said.

  "What?"

  "You are not going to believe what happened."

  "What?"

  "You will never guess who called here in a million years."

  "Who?"

  "Not three minutes after you left, maybe not even that long-"

  "Who?"

  "Do you give up?"

  "Yes, who called?"

  "Are you ready?"

  "Yes, honey, I've been ready. Who?"

  Norma paused as a trumpet played a fanfare in her head and then, unable to contain herself any longer, she blurted out, "Baby Girl, that's who!"

  Macky was sufficiently surprised and put his fork down.

  "You're kidding?"

  "No, I am not kidding, she called not three minutes after you left."

  "Where was she?"

  "New York City and guess what: she's coming home."

  "She's coming here?"

  "Yes!"

  "Huh. Well, I'll be ... Did she say why?"

  "Well, she said she needed to get away from something or another. To tell you the truth, I was so excited I forgot what she said, but she said she had been under a lot of pressure at work and would it be all right for her to come visit."

  "What did you say?"

  "I said of course. I said, 'We've done nothing for years but tell you we want you to come home, would love to have you come. We've told you, this is your home, and whenever you want, don't stand on ceremony, just come on.' Haven't we said that I don't know how many times?"

  "Absolutely."

  Norma grabbed Macky's plate out from in front of him. "Here, let me heat up those eggs."

  "No, they're fine."

  "Are you sure ... No, let me stick them in for a few minutes. ..." She ran to the oven and put his plate in.

  "What else did she say?"

  Norma sat down and concentrated. "Well, she said hello, of course, how are you and all that, then she said she wanted to come for a little visit and would we be home. I said yes, of course, and she said for us not to go to any trouble or anything."

  Macky frowned. "Do you think she's all right? Does she need for me to go up there and get her? I can be on a plane and be there tomorrow if she needs me to. Did you tell her that?"

  "Yes, I told her you would be happy to come get her but she said no, she would make her arrangements, then let us know."

  "I would have been happy to go up there and get her."

  "Oh, I know you would but I didn't want to push at her. I was just so surprised she called at all-and when she said she wanted to visit, you could have knocked me over with a feather. You can imagine."

  "You don't think she's sick or anything?"

  Norma took his plate out again. "No, I don't think so. She sounded tired, maybe a little down-here, eat these now while they're hot-but she didn't sound sick."

  Macky picked up his fork. "I told her she was working herself to a frazzle, I told her to slow down. I said that all along, didn't I?"

  Norma nodded. "Yes, you did. You said she needed a vacation. You told her she was working too hard; when we were in New York you said it."

  Norma saw that Macky was having a difficult time cutting into his scrambled eggs.

  "Do you want me to fix you some more eggs?"

  Macky, who would eat anything, said, "No, these are fine."

  Norma reached for his plate. "It won't take me but a minute."

  "Norma, these are fine. I like well-done eggs. What about her job? How's that going?"

  "I don't know and I didn't ask. That's her business and it's up to her to tell us what she wants us to know. I'm not going to pick and pry at her. Oh, and the one thing she asked me not to do is let anybody know she is coming, particularly not the newspaper and all."

  "Oh, good Lord, no, if that bunch finds out she's here they'll be crawling up through the pipes trying to get to her."

  Norma agreed.

  "Is Baby Girl still seeing that guy with the initials, what's his name?"

  "I don't know and I didn't ask," Norma said, and added, "1C."

  "He didn't show me much."

  "Well, she likes him and that's all that matters. All I know is that she's coming home and I intend to do everything in my power to make sure she feels like she has some family in this world that loves her. She doesn't have any other relatives besides me and Aunt Elner. She must feel all alone. It just breaks my heart all these years she's been living from pillar to post, jerked here and there, with nobody that really cares. What if she really did get sick, Macky? Who would she have?"

  "She'd have us, honey, we told her that, and she must have believed it or she wouldn't have called."

  Norma reached for a paper napkin from the red plastic holder and blew her nose. "Do you think so?"

  "Of course I do. There's no use crying over it."

  "Oh, I know, I guess I got excited and I'm just so happy it was us she called. She trusts us."

  "Yes, I think she does. She give you any idea about when she was coming?"

  "No, I guess it could be as soon as tomorrow or the next day. Want some more coffee?"

  "Just a little."

  Norma gasped. "Oh my God."

  "What's the matter?" Macky looked concerned.

  "I just realized I don't know whether she drinks coffee or tea. Or what she likes for breakfast. I need to have everything here she likes, so I can have it just in case. Do you think we should go up to the bakery and buy a cake or do you think I should make one?"

  "Whatever, either way."

  "Edna's cakes are wonderful. I mean they are homemade, really.... But I don't know, maybe it would hurt her feelings to think I bought a cake and didn't go to the trouble to make one for her."

  "Honey, a cake is a cake. How would she know whether you made it or Edna Buntz made it?"

  "She'd see the box."

  "Take it out of the box and put it on a plate. They all taste the same to me."

  "To you, maybe, but don't forget her grandparents owned the bakery before Edna; she could tell. No, you're right, I'll make a cake. Good Lord, it's the least I can do. I mean, really. What room should we give her? Should we give her ours? It's the nicest."

  "No, honey. She wouldn't take it. Let's put her upstairs in Linda's old room. She'll have more privacy."

  "Yes, that's the quietest. I'll go up there later and make sure everything's OK, check out the bedding and all. We need to get those curtains washed and the rug cleaned for her. Thank God I'm getting my hair fixed this afternoon." She squinted at Macky. "You need to go up to Ed's and get a haircut yourself."

  "Now, Norma, she's not gonna care one way or another if I get a haircut or not."

  "Well, I will. We don't want to embarrass her, showing up at the airport looking like a couple of Elmer Fudds."

  Macky laughed.

  "I'm not kidding, Macky, she's used to being around sophisticated New Yorkers."

  "Well, I guess I do need to get the car washed. No joke."

  Norma looked at Macky with a pained expression. "Why didn't you let me get the house painted like I wanted to?"

  "Now, Norma, just calm down. She said not to make a fuss."

  "Yes, but I just can't help myself. I still can't believe it. Just think after all these years, Baby Girl is coming home!"

  New York City April 1, 7975

  When Dena Nordstrom opened her eyes she had that three-to-four-second grace period before she remembered who she was and where she was. Before her body announced its condition. And, as always after a night like last night, it started with a blinding, pounding headache, followed by a wave of nausea, and soon the agonizing cold sweats.

  Slowly, one by one, the events of the previous evening came back to her. The evening had started out the way it usually did when she agreed to have a drink with 1C. After cocktails they had gone on to the Copenhagen on Fifty-eighth for dinner, slugging down God kno
ws how many glasses of ice-cold aquavit and beer before and with the smorgasbord. She vaguely remembered insulting some Frenchman and walking over to the Brasserie for Irish coffee. She did recall that the sun was up by the time she got home, but at least she was in her own bed alone-J.C. had

  gone home, thank God. Then it hit her. J.C. What had she said to him? For all she knew they might very well be engaged again. And she'd have to think up a way to get out of it again. Always the same thing. He would say, "But you didn't seem drunk. I asked you if you were drunk and you swore up and down that you were stone-cold sober and knew exactly what you were saying." That was the problem. She never thought she was drunk and believed every word when she was saying it. Two weeks ago at a network party she had invited twenty people to her apartment for brunch the next day and then had to pay the doorman to tell each one that she had been called out of town because her grandmother had died. Not only could she not boil an egg, both her grandmothers had died years ago.

  Dena tried to get up but the pain throbbing in her temples was so intense she saw stars. She slowly eased out of bed sideways holding her head. The room was as dark as a tomb and as she opened the door the light she had left on in the hallway almost blinded her. She made it to the bathroom and held on to the sink to keep from spinning around. She turned on the cold water but could not bend over without her head killing her so she cupped her hands and splashed water upward, toward her face. Her hands were shaking as she took two Alka-Seltzers, three Bayer aspirins, and a Valium. All she needed now was an ice-cold Coca-Cola and she might live.

  She walked down the hall to the kitchen and when she got to the living room she stopped. J.C. was sound asleep on the couch.

  Dena tiptoed back down the hall to the bathroom and drank water from the tap. She took a cold washcloth for her head, went in and quietly locked her bedroom door, praying to a God she didn't believe in. Please make him wake up and go home . .. please. She got back in bed, turned her electric blanket up to high, and went back to sleep.

  It was around 11:00 A.M. when Dena woke again and needed more aspirin. Now her stomach was hot and burning, screaming for carbohydrates. She quietly unlocked the bedroom door, tiptoed down the hall, and looked in the living room. She was delighted. J.C. had left. Hooray. She called the Carnegie Deli across the street and ordered two grilled cheese sandwiches, french fries, a chocolate shake, and two packs of Viceroys. While waiting, she walked out on the terrace. It was a cold, brown, dank day. The air was stale and humid. Traffic was