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By late afternoon Agnes was back to her old self, flitting about the apartment house, all excited about a luncheon she was going to attend on the weekend in honor of the contribution to the theater made by the Barrymores. She was full of stories about Ethel and John and claimed she had been in two productions with Lionel Barrymore. By evening the excitement centered on the impending arrival of the other student residents.
The next day the Beldock twins were the first to arrive. Agnes called Trisha and me down to meet them and their parents. I knew the twins were fourteen, but when Trisha said they were small, I had no idea how small. They were like cupie dolls, both standing less than five feet tall. But they were adorable with their button noses and small, round mouths. They had chestnut-brown eyes and hair the color of summer hay, which they had cut in an identical style at their shoulders and tied with pink ribbons. They wore identical pink and white dresses with saddle shoes. I was sure that for one to look at the other was the same as looking in the mirror. Even the dimples in their cheeks were in the exact same places.
I loved the way they anticipated each other's moves and often finished each other's sentences. Trisha had already told me that Samantha was called Sam and Beneatha was nicknamed Bethie by all their friends. They were both clarinet players and so good at it that they were already first seats in the orchestra.
But I found myself even more fascinated by their parents, a young, vibrant couple. The father was handsome with that all-American wholesome, devastatingly good-looking face and charming manner. He was at least six feet tall with a suntan that highlighted his silvery blue eyes. It was their mother from whom they had obviously inherited their small facial features and graceful hands. She had warm blue eyes and a tooth paste advertisement bright smile. I loved her mellow voice and the loving way she held and kissed the twins.
How I envied them their happy childhood. They looked like the perfect little family, always secure, always comfortable. When I lived with Momma and Daddy Longchamp, we had love in our home, but the strain of making enough to feed, clothe and shelter us kept Daddy Longchamp grouchy and sad most of the time, and all I could remember about Momma was her being sick or tired and defeated. And, of course, the family I had now was far from perfect.
What made some children lucky enough to be born to happy homes? Were we like seeds in the wind, some falling on fertile, rich earth, some scattered onto bone-dry land full of shadows and darkness, fighting their way toward every inch of sunlight? I wondered if someone first meeting me, someone like Mr. or Mrs. Beldock, could take one look at me and see how miserable I was inside, how poor my soil had been and still was.
Trisha and l helped the twins move into their room. They were full of stories about their summer.
"Oh Trisha," Sam said, "we're so happy . . ."
"To be back," Bethie concluded. "That's all we've been talking about."
"Our return to Bernhardt," Sam added, nodding. "And it's so much fun to meet someone new," she said, turning to me. I had to smile at the way they organized their things, one reminding the other what drawers each had last year and where each piece of clothing had been hung.
Trisha and I invited them into our room and spent the rest of the afternoon talking about music and movies and hairstyles.
Agnes was truly worried about her last student resident, Donald Rossi, because he didn't show up all day. Then at dinner, the door buzzer was heard and she got up from the table to greet him. He had been delivered by his father's chauffeur because his father, a famous comedian, was performing at some night-club in Boston. The chauffeur carried Donald's bags as far in as the entryway and then left. Agnes brought him in to meet us immediately.
Donald was a short, very plump fifteen-year-old with curly blond hair and freckles even on his nose. He had an oval-shaped face with remarkably rubbery lips that twisted through all sorts of contortions whenever he spoke, usually attempting to do some imitation of a famous movie star like James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson. I had never met anyone as forward and nervy the first time he was introduced to new people.
"I'm starving," he said and plopped himself down next to Arthur who acted as if someone with the plague had just been placed at the table. He cringed and pulled his chair as far to the left as he could.
"Wouldn't you like to bring your things to your room first, Donald?" Agnes asked him.
"Oh, they'll wait," he said. "But my stomach won't," he added and laughed. Then he looked at Arthur. "Looks like you let your suitcases come first all the time," he said and laughed at his own joke. Arthur shot a glance at me and then his face reddened. "That reminds me of a joke my father just told me," Donald said, stabbing a dinner roll with his fork quickly as if he thought it might run off the dish. "These two guys were starving to death in the desert when they come upon this dead camel. The first guy says, 'I'm dying for a camel sandwich but I can't get over the smell.' 'Smell?' the second guy says, 'I can't get over the hump.' " Once again, he roared at his own joke.
The twins gaped at him, both their mouths open the same way. Arthur sighed and shook his head.
"Oh dear, Donald," Agnes said, "I don't think the dinner table is the proper stage for that kind of humor, do you?"
Donald looked up from his plate of food. All through the telling of the joke, he had been dipping his serving spoon into one thing after another and dropping gobs of potatoes and vegetables on his dish. Now he was hacking off a chicken leg.
"Oh, you want food jokes, huh? All right," he said, pushing on. "There was this rotten apple at the bottom of the barrel, and this housewife comes along and starts digging down because she thinks she's going to get the best apples on the bottom, only she comes up with a handful of gook, see . . ."
"Excuse me, Donald," Agnes interrupted, "but dead camels and rotten fruits are not the sort of things we like to hear about when we're eating."
"Oh." He stuffed the roll into his mouth in one gulp and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "You know the one about this midget who dies and goes to heaven?" he began.
There didn't seem to be any way to stop him short of shooting him. I looked at Agnes. She took a deep breath and shook her head. Like it or not, our little student residency family had been formed. The twins had their room, Arthur had his, Donald, thank goodness, was the farthest down the corridor, and of course, Trisha and I had ours.
Before the week was out, Arthur and Donald had a bad argument when Donald continued to tease him about his weight. Agnes interceded and a fragile truce was declared, but it got so we didn't look forward to dinner as much as we had before because it was only a matter of time at most meals before snarling and snapping started between Arthur and Donald. It came again th
e week Donald had kitchen duty. Somehow he had gotten into the kitchen without Mrs. Liddy knowing it and skinned all the meat off a piece of chicken.
He served Arthur the bones with a teaspoon of potatoes and one pea. It was funny and Trisha and the twins started to laugh, but Arthur became enraged and left the table.
Agnes asked Donald to go up and apologize to him.
"There has always been peace in this house," she lectured. "We've always been a good cast and a good cast can't perform well if there is dissension."
"Hey, I'll do anything for show business," he said, flicking an imaginary cigar and leaning over like Groucho Marx. He was incorrigible, but he did go up to apologize. He returned soon after saying he didn't mind talking to a door if the door would at least squeak.
Later, when I met Arthur in the hallway alone, I advised him not to pay so much attention to Donald.
