Everything and More Read Free Page A

for the widow and $12.50 each for children below the age of eighteen.
    After Mr. Roth left, NolaBee lit her last Camel with tremulous hands. “Five hundred dollars—that’s more money than I’ve ever seen. But I reckon it won’t go much further than paying off what we owe at the hospital and the mortuary.” Her voice cracked on the final word, but she continued resolutely. “That fifty a month is half what your pa made, and we weren’t livin’ right lavish on
that.”
    “What about Greenward?” asked Marylin. Tears turned her huge, beautiful eyes greener. “Will we go back?”
    “Back?” Roy burst out with the combativeness that even in her worst hours she was unable to quench. “I’ve never been there. And neither have you.”
    “Your people live there,” said NolaBee, puffing smoke.
    “Swell,” Roy said. “Let’s go where we can personally kiss their pinkies when they donate their smelly old clothes.”
    “Lord, Lord, how I hate those hand-me-downs.” NolaBee sighed.
    Both daughters turned to her in surprise.
    “Well, that’s news,” Roy said.
    “What would you have had me do, little Miss Smart Mouth?” said NolaBee, affectionately tousling the reddish-brown curls. Then she coughed. “I couldn’t let your pa know how much I hated those old things. He felt bad enough as it was, not bein’ a millionaire financier.”
    Roy sniffed back a sob.
    NolaBee handed her a handkerchief. “We’re not going home until it’s a triumph,” she said. As punctuation, she tapped the long ash into her empty coffee cup.
    “Mama, we’re poorer than ever,” Marylin sighed.
    “I reckon we’re never going to let the family think your pa didn’t take real good care of us. I don’t want to hear a one of ’em ever saying, ‘Poor Chilton, he left his family poorly fixed,’”
    “What’ll we do?” Marylin asked.
    “Maybe win the Irish Sweepstakes,” said Roy.
    “I’ll think on it,” said NolaBee.
    *   *   *
    Two mornings later the sisters woke to find their mother sitting on Marylin’s cot. The air smelled smoky, as if she had been there a long time.
    “You look right young, Marylin,” she said.
    “Everybody says nineteen.” Marylin’s soft voice held a rare hint of testiness.
    “Like this, no more than fourteen,” NolaBee pronounced. “That’s what your age is now.”
    “I’ll be seventeen in August,” said Marylin.
    “You’ll be fifteen then. We’re moving to Beverly Hills.”
    “Beverly Hills!” Iron springs twanged as Roy jumped from the cot. “On what? The big loot from workmen’s comp?”
    “I’ll find work. We’ll manage.”
    “Why Beverly Hills?” asked Marylin apprehensively.
    “The movie people all live there. They have children in the high school.”
    “And the town’s sent out an SOS to recruit impoverished students?”
    “All right, Roy. I’ve had enough of your mouth.” NolaBee spoke tartly, but her hand rested gently on Roy’s pudgy waist. She understoodhow much the child was devastated by her father’s death. “When Beverly Hills High puts on a play, I reckon there’s scads of important studio folk there.”
    “Mama . . .” Marylin sank back into the mended pillowcase, her eyes glazed with horror.
    “Every place we’ve been, you’ve had the lead.”
    “I try hard, I don’t mind memorizing, but—”
    “You’re
good.”
    “Not in a place like Beverly Hills. Anyway, I’m nearly a senior—”
    “You’re fourteen,” NolaBee said inexorably.
    “No, Mama. Please—”
    “You need a right long time to let those big producers see you. Two extra years.”
    Marylin began to sob softly.
    Roy stared at the lovely bent head. And like an electric light suddenly going on, she understood a fact that had hitherto eluded her. Marylin paid a high price for her closeness with their mother. NolaBee, for all her vivid energy, lived by and through her beautiful daughter, vicariously sharing Marylin’s triumphs, accepting her accolades, weeping her