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Rainbows & Fireworks
By Susan Beth Pfeffer OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1973 Susan Beth Pfeffer
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8273-3
CHAPTER 1
My mother took one look at the gatehouse and sneered. "People had no respect for servants in those days," she declared. "We'll be lucky if there's indoor plumbing."
"I'm going back to New York," I said.
My father, who is brave in such situations, said, "Come on. We might as well see if it's as miserable on the inside as it is on the out."
Mom opened the door with the key that Mrs. Donnell had sent her. The door squeaked. "The electricity should be on," she said. "Lydia said it would be."
"Try a light switch," Dad suggested.
Mom looked disgusted, but did as he said. The room was flooded with bright artificial light. It showed up all the spider webs and dust.
"It's awful," Meg said. Meg is my twin sister. We are not identical. The word for non-identical twins is fraternal, but that means brotherly, and we are nowhere near that affectionate. The best we manage is tolerance, and that only because we live in cramped quarters and if we didn't get along, it would be absolute hell. But for once I was in complete agreement with her. It was awful.
"There's a bathroom," Mom said, looking around the place. "And space for all of us, if we're careful."
"The piano's okay," I said. I always check the piano first.
"Unusual architectural style," my father said. "Early monstrous."
"This'll be your room," my mother said to Meg and me. "The movers put all your stuff in here, and who are we to argue?"
Meg and I looked at the room. It was bigger than our room in the city and overlooked what used to be a garden. Our old room had overlooked a brick wall. I missed the old view.
"Not much closet space," Meg said, but she was just talking to hear something said. We don't need much closet space.
"The kitchen's pretty nice," Dad said. "There's an icebox and everything."
"You're kidding," Mom said, and ran for the kitchen. "He's kidding," she called to us. "There's a refrigerator of sorts."
"I think I'm going to cry," I said.
"I don't see what you're complaining about," Meg said. "You'll be out of here before the rest of us."
"This move is harder on me than you," I said.
"Oh, shut up," my mother said. "There's nothing duller than listening to other people suffer. Think of this as an adventure."
"I hate adventures," I grumbled. Meg giggled.
"I think I hear something," Dad said. "The lord of the manor come to visit with the serfs."
"Lords of the manor never rode on motorcycles in my day," Mom said, as the motorcycle pulled to a stop in front of the gatehouse.
"Chariots aren't popular anymore, dear," Dad said, and opened the door.
"Oh, hello," the guy said, looking startled. I guess he thought he'd have to knock or something. "Aunt Lydia thought she heard you come, so she sent me to see."
"You must be Paul," Mom said. "Come in, if you don't mind the dust."
"Thank you," Paul said. He was tall and very thin and dark. "Aunt Lydia told me to invite you to dinner."
"That's nice of Lydia," Mom said. "We're not really dressed for anything elaborate, though."
"It won't be fancy," Paul assured her. "Just the family."
"What would we have for supper?" Dad asked Mom.
"Cold spaghetti and warm champagne," she replied.
"Tell Aunt Lydia we'd be delighted to join her for dinner," Dad said.
Paul smiled. "Do you know how to get to the house?" he asked.
"Just follow the yellow brick road," Mom said. "Now go, and let us get some unpacking done."
"Okay," Paul said, and then remembered his manners. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Just thank Lydia for us," she said. "We'll be down in a little while."
"Okay," Paul repeated, and left.
I looked at Meg. "There might be advantages to living here after all," she said.
"Great," Dad said. "Now we have a Cinderella on our hands. Okay, Daffy, get going if you want to make it to the ball tonight."
"I've told you not to call me Daffy," Meg grumbled, but went to our room. I followed her in, and we began to dust and sweep and move things around and do all the dull stuff required by unpacking.
There turned out to be no yellow brick road to follow. There was, however, a dirt road which we followed instead. It led, after a little bit, to a huge white house, surrounded by trees and flowers and lots and lots of lawn.
"'I dreamed last night I returned to Manderlay,'" Mom said.
"Nonsense," Dad said. "This is the outhouse. Placed at a discreet distance so as not to offend the aristocrats."
"Now don't feel defensive," Mom said, quite unnecessarily since we all felt defensive and there was nothing we could do about it.
"What do we do if there's a butler?" I asked, as we trudged our way through a mile's worth of lawn. At least that's what it felt like.
"Act like you know what you're doing," Mom replied. "I read someplace that a butler will leave you alone if you don't act scared."
"You can't fool a butler," Dad said, as we got to the door. "Butlers are the last true judges of social class."
We stood by the door for a moment, waiting for it to open without our help. "My stomach hurts," I said.
"We can still go back to New York," Dad said, looking hopefully at Mom.
"This is ridiculous," Mom said. "After all, it's just old dumb Lydia." She rang the bell.
We could hear chimes and a sound of shuffling feet. "We should have used the servants' entrance," my father was muttering, when someone opened the door. It looked like a maid.
"Uh, is Mrs. Donnell in?" Mom asked.
"Mrs. Reisman?" the maid asked.
"Yes," Mom answered. "The whole Reisman family."
"Please come in," the maid said. "Mrs. Donnell is expecting you."
"Well, that's something," Dad muttered. Mom kicked him gently on the ankle.
"Please wait a moment," the maid said. "I'll tell Mrs. Donnell that you're here."
"That won't be necessary, Ann," a woman said, and came into the hall where we were standing. "Jenny, it's marvelous to see you again." She offered her cheek to be kissed.
My mother rose to the occasion and kissed it. "Lydia," she said. "Wealth becomes you."
Mrs. Donnell giggled. It was a very high-pitched giggle, quite uncouth. "Oh, Jenny," she said, "you still haven't grown up."
Mom looked at her for a second, then roared with laughter. After that, they hugged and looked very happy and ordinary.
"Carl?" Mrs. Donnell asked, indicating Dad, who nodded. "It's great meeting you after all these years."
Dad said something about being pleased too, but he didn't look it. Dad's a socialist, and he never looks comfortable with rich people. Not that he knows that many to be uncomfortable with.
"And these must be the twins," she said, turning her attention to us.
"So they must," Mom said. "The tall one is Betsy, and the one hiding in the corner is Meg. Maybe if we coax them, they'll say hello for us."
"Hello," Meg said. I smiled politely, in no mood to be coaxed.
"They're lovely," Mrs. Donnell said. "You must be very proud of them."
"We are," Dad said. "But not because they're lovely."
Mrs. Donnell looked at him peculiarly. "Girls," she said, "why don't you join the others in the living room? Over there. The kids are dying to meet you."
Meg and I said something polite and went. There, in the living room, were the Donnell family children. Except for Paul, they looked moderately resentful.
"Hello," Meg said. Meg always manages social situations better than I do. "I'm Meg, and this is Betsy."
"Hello again," Paul said. "How was the unpacking?"
"Awful," Meg said. "Unpacking always is."
"May I try the piano?" I asked, seeing it in the corner. It was a beauty, a baby grand.
"Sure," a guy in an overstuffed white chair said.
"Oh," Paul said. "That's Greg Donnell over there, and standing by the window looking dramatic is his sister Eunice, and the one reclining on the sofa is their mutual sister Alys. Do you have that straight?"
"I think so," Meg said, and offered them one of her dazzling smiles. Actually, Meg is lovely. She looks like a Botticelli goddess which, fortunately for her, is a popular look these days. Long wavy golden hair, wide forehead, large pale blue eyes, a nose that's long but not too long, and a mouth perfectly capable of dazzling smiles. All set in a pale rose complexion. I am not lovely, although I look a bit like Meg. Everything on me is bigger, though. I'm not fat, just solid, and I wear my hair very short and curly. My arms and fingers are long, which is useful for the piano. I get a lot of power into my playing. Meg dates frequently, mostly college students. I don't date, although I suppose I could if I wanted to. My piano is much more important.
"It's flat," I said, trying out some Chopin on it. A good piece, too. It sounds a lot tougher than it is and tends to impress people who don't know anything about the piano. Everyone except Meg looked impressed. "I can fix it, though."
"You mean tune it?" Eunice asked. I disliked Eunice instantly. She looked like she was counting the days until her debut.
"Yeah," I said. "It's not that tough."
"Betsy has perfect pitch," Meg said. It sounded more like a defense than an explanation.
"I also have a set of piano tuning tools," I said. "They're at the gatehouse."
"How did you ever learn how to tune a piano?" Greg asked. I wasn't sure about disliking him. He seemed kind of harmless, like he was only effective in dinner clothes. He was dressed in a sports jacket and wide tie and slacks, as was Paul. Eunice was wearing a very pretty dress. I couldn't see what Alys had on since the couch blocked my view. Meg was wearing a very simple burgundy-colored dress, scoop necked in the front and gathered in at the waist. It was a cheap dress (money does not go to clothes in my family) but it looked good on her. I was wearing a peasant blouse and skirt and felt like a peasant. To make myself more comfortable, I started playing. I sight-read some music, very basic stuff. I grew tired of it rapidly and practiced the Mozart I'd been working on with Dr. Hershman, my music teacher. My former music teacher. My temporarily former music teacher.
"You can really play," Greg said, when I paused for a moment.
I nodded.
"I'm the one who has to have lessons," Alys grumbled. She sounded about twelve from her grumble. "Music and French."
"Stop complaining," Eunice said.
I felt embarrassed and looked at Meg, who looked embarrassed. We had already been hired by Mrs. Donnell to give Alys lessons in piano and French, in an effort to make a lady out of her and give us some pocket money. It was supposed to be a mutual favor, but I felt exploited before I even began. And knowing Meg, she was probably mortified at being reminded that she was an employee of sorts. Meg likes to feel in control of situations although she's never in control at home. Not that I am. We're supposed to have a participatory democracy, but it doesn't usually work out that way. In school, though, and with her friends, she manages to control pretty well. Meg's ambition, although she'd never admit it, is to be a benevolent despot.
"I don't think you should bother with the piano unless you really want to learn," I said, although I needed the money. Money's always slightly scarce in the family, but lately things have gotten worse. And of course, lately's just the time Dad decided he had to rescue his long-neglected talents. He and Mom are both writers, and they both started out full of standard young writer dreams—you know, Shakespeare and Hemingway, and all that. Except that Dad wanted to be Upton Sinclair or maybe Lincoln Steffens. Dad has a lot of the crusader in him. Anyway, he wrote a novel and Mom wrote a novel, and they were published, and they met and fell in love and got married, and starved for a while, since there was no money in novels unless they were best sellers. So to support themselves, Dad began writing pornography, and Mom wrote true-confession stories. When I was a kid and didn't wonder where the money came from, I was satisfied just knowing that they were writers. But when I was eleven I stumbled onto a box full of pornography and garbagy magazines, and demanded an explanation, which I received. I spent the afternoon reading from the collected works of Carl and Jenny Reisman. "Only Thirteen and the Mother of Quadruplets" was awful, but it was nowhere near as bad as Lust Weekend. For about a week, I refused to speak to my parents, out of a combination of righteousness and embarrassment. I didn't tell Meg, though, since I didn't think she was old enough to take the truth. Meg is seven minutes younger than I am, but in some ways she's a lot younger. Like refusing to be called Daffy. Two years ago when I was fourteen, I got upset about being called Bugs by my father, but I got over it. Meg never did. Anyway, I recovered from the shock, and Meg found out about it on her own a while later. She was considerably less shocked. Except for once, at school, when in a fit of honesty I told one of my teachers just what my parents were writing, their peculiar professions haven't caused any trouble until recently. Dad turned forty-five about three months ago, and that really shook him up. He's been researching stuff for a novel about the nineteenth century anarchist movement in America for years now, and he decided if he didn't start writing it soon, he might never, and that made him think. My mother, who had been working on a novel on and off for the past ten years, decided Dad was right to panic. But if he were going to write, he couldn't keep turning out the porno, which meant our expenses would have to be cut down drastically. And that meant moving out of New York, since prices there are skyrocketing, especially rents on four room apartments.
Meg and I were not ecstatic about moving, to put it mildly. I went on a hunger strike, and Meg kept threatening to run away to the East Village, which was pretty funny considering that was where we lived. Meg is a cautious person. Anyway, Mom sat us down and explained about how people had to have faith in other people and back them up and how much Dad needed this chance. She really made us feel guilty, which was exactly what she wanted. Meg and I each made our demands, and Mom and Dad agreed to our terms. So I checked with Dr. Hershman and asked him to recommend a temporary music teacher until I could get back to him, which he did. My second demand was that if it didn't work out, I would be allowed to return to New York and live with my aunt and uncle. Since my piano is as important to me as Dad's writing is to him, they agreed. Meg's demand was for a good university nearby, since she refused to give up taking language courses. Dr. Hershman recommended a teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, which was fine with Meg, too. So Mom wrote to her old friend Lydia Donnell, who lives in Donnell's Corners, Pennsylvania, to see if she could find out about an apartment for us. Mrs. Donnell said don't be silly, come live in our gatehouse, there's no one there, since who can afford so many servants these days. Mom laughed at that a lot. Mrs. Donnell had come from a very respectable family with no money, but a prestigious last name. She'd married Larry Donnell, whose family was old and rich, and Mom married Carl Reisman whose family, like Mom's, had recently come to America. Only Mom's family were German immigrants, escaping from Hitler. Dad's were good old-fashioned Russian peasant Jews, searching for the streets of gold. They found the streets of New York's Lower East Side instead. My mother's family lived uptown and sent Mom to Barnard, which is where she met Mrs. Donnell. Dad had started and finished at CCNY, with some time off for World War Two. He was a corporal for a while, but ended up a private.
"Children," Mrs. Donnell said to us, as we sat there morosely, "dinner's ready."
"All right," Greg said, and got up. I noticed as we walked to the dining room through a maze of Early American antiques that he had a slight limp. I decided I would ask Paul about that, if I ever had the chance.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Rainbows & Fireworks by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Copyright © 1973 Susan Beth Pfeffer. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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