Stop that Girl

by Elizabeth McKenzie

....There we are in Long Beach the fall I start fifth grade, when the nights have grown cooler and our gas wall-unit bangs out its stale-smelling heat, and we’re on the brink of changes so vast it’s hard to believe we don’t see them coming. One Saturday evening, we receive a new visitor in the form of Roy Ransom, a real-estate broker, a handsome talker with dimples, cowboy boots, and a rounded ruby ring that looks like a bloody eyeball. He brings a bouquet as big as a baby, and my mother holds it that way. He slips me a piece of Double Bubble. By the following week it’s a Slip ’N Slide. I suspect he appeals to that secret Wild West part of my mother, but it’s more. A few months later my mother tells me, “Roy’s taking us both out for a drive today, Ann. We’re going to see a house.”

I sit in the back seat of Roy’s Caddy as we leave Long Beach behind. We aim for the San Fernando Valley. “You mean we’re going to buy a house out here?” I ask Mom. We’re in the Encino Hills; compared with Long Beach it looks like paradise: huge ranch houses and big yards; rose bushes, hibiscus, banana trees, palms.

“Well, maybe,” my mother says, turning around in her seat like she has something to tell me. “We might buy a house—with Roy.”

“With Roy?”

“Yes. We might all live out here together.”

“Annie-girl, sound like a plan?” Roy says, eyeing me in his mirror.

I realize what they’re trying to tell me.

We pull up in front of a huge, shingled yellow house, as long as the entire row of bungalows in Long Beach. My mother looks stunned as we wander into the place. It has beamed ceilings, parquet floors, a kitchen with an island and a double range, a breakfast nook and bar, a family room, three bedrooms, three baths, two fireplaces and a den. They show me the room that would be mine—it has sheer pink curtains and wallpaper with ballerinas on it, something for a well-defined girl. When we finish inspecting the place, Roy Ransom says, “Hey, Annie, hit me right here! As hard as you can!” He is pointing at his stomach.

I don’t ask why. I just do it.

“I’m waiting,” he winks at my mother.

My hand hurts. I kick him in the shin.

A year later Mrs. Ransom has retired from petroleum work, pregnant. In the afternoons, she sews clothes and toys and bedding for the baby, placing them in the nursery-to-be, while I’m thinking of names. Percy is the one I’m rooting for....

Elizabeth McKenzie lives in Santa Cruz.