Anastasia at Your Service Read online

  Mrs. Bellingham. At last. And she was exactly as Anastasia had pictured her. Everything was going to be okay. Starting now, she could forget the drudgery of the emergency silver-polishing, and she and Mrs. Bellingham could get on with the business of Companionship. If she were older, Mrs. Bellingham would offer her a glass of sherry now. Probably she wouldn't offer sherry to someone who was twelve. But that was okay. Anastasia didn't like sherry anyway. She'd settle for some iced tea. Mrs. Fox had disappeared. Probably Mrs. Fox was getting the tea.

  Mrs. Bellingham lit a cigarette. Anastasia hoped she wouldn't offer her one. To be polite she would have to take it, but she really hated cigarettes.

  But Mrs. Bellingham snapped the silver cigarette case closed and inhaled her cigarette without offering one to Anastasia.

  "Well," said Mrs. Bellingham, "we didn't give you much time to break in, did we? Put you right to work!"

  Anastasia smiled. "I understand about emergencies, Mrs. Bellingham. Everybody has to pitch in. And I enjoyed getting to know the kitchen staff. That's important, I think." It was sort of a lie—she hadn't enjoyed Rachel and Gloria at all—but it seemed the right thing to say.

  "Indeed. Did Mrs. Fox tell you about the luncheon tomorrow?"

  "She told me that there was a party tomorrow."

  "A family lunch. My granddaughter's birthday."

  Anastasia smiled. That was wonderful, she thought. She could just write off the silver-polishing afternoon as a bad beginning. Tomorrow she would get to know the family. She would begin her Companion duties for real. Tonight she would have to think seriously about Conversation Topics. Not politics or religion, she knew. Literature, probably. Tonight she would review in her mind all the books she had ever read. Gone With the Wind was one of her favorites. She could talk to people at the luncheon about Gone With the Wind. Why Scarlett didn't marry Ashley Wilkes. Stuff like that.

  What a terrific job I have, thought Anastasia happily.

  "I would like you here promptly at eleven A.M.," said Mrs. Bellingham.

  Suddenly Anastasia thought of a problem. She had nothing to wear to a luncheon. She was already wearing her only decent dress, and it had smears of silver polish on it. What she needed was a Basic Black dress. Never in a million years would her mother take her out tonight to buy a Basic Black dress.

  She couldn't borrow a dress from Mrs. Bellingham. They weren't the same size. And their taste seemed to be a little different.

  "Do you have a dark skirt?" Mrs. Bellingham asked. She had read Anastasia's mind. What a terrific relationship they were going to have, Anastasia thought.

  "Yes," she said. "A dark blue denim wraparound."

  "Well, that will do, I guess. Wear it with a tailored white blouse. Those sandals you're wearing will be all right."

  A denim skirt and a white blouse didn't seem too terrific for an elegant luncheon. Maybe Mrs. Bellingham planned to lend her some jewelry, thought Anastasia.

  "Mrs. Fox will give you a white apron," said Mrs. Bellingham.

  A white apron? Anastasia had been thinking along the lines of a diamond necklace. Suddenly she had a strange feeling that things weren't exactly what she thought they were.

  Mrs. Bellingham inhaled her cigarette again. "The luncheon will be buffet," she said, "so you won't have to serve at the table. But be sure to empty ashtrays, keep water glasses filled, that sort of thing."

  Anastasia's vision of herself discussing Scarlett O'Hara with the guests at lunch faded and blurred.

  I'm the maid, she thought in despair, realizing the truth in a horrible sudden flash.

  Mrs. Bellingham was making some notes on a pad of paper. Anastasia stood there watching, stricken with disappointment. In her mind she began to compose a letter. She would write it tonight and deliver it in the morning. "Dear Mrs. Bellingham," it would say, "I have decided to go into another profession."

  "Now," said Mrs. Bellingham, looking up, "do you have any questions?"

  Yes, thought Anastasia angrily. What right did you have to answer an ad for a Companion, for Pete's sake, and then turn someone into a scullery maid, without even asking her? Who the heck do you think you are?

  She almost said those things aloud. "Yes," she began, in a firm voice. "What—"

  "Oh, of course," Mrs. Bellingham interrupted her. "Your wages. You will be paid two-fifty an hour, and since you arrived at two this afternoon..."

  Wait a minute, thought Anastasia, getting madder by the second. Two-fifty an hour? That's baby-sitting pay, for Pete's sake! I was thinking in terms of ten dollars an hour. I might be willing to settle for seven-fifty, but...

  Mrs. Bellingham was going on and on. "...so today you have earned five dollars. However..."

  And after the "however," she reached under her needlepoint and held up the mashed silver spoon. Anastasia's heart sank. Five hundred billion silver spoons in that kitchen, and Mrs. Bellingham was—she could hear it coming—going to charge her for that one spoon? Probably it cost at least five dollars, too. Her whole crummy afternoon's pay!

  "The price of this at Shreve's is thirty-five dollars," Mrs. Bellingham was going on.

  THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS? Anastasia couldn't believe it. It was too horrible to be happening to her. It was a nightmare.

  "So that debacle will cost you twelve more hours of work," Mrs. Bellingham said firmly. It was what she had been calculating on her notepad.

  A what? thought Anastasia. A bockle? She didn't even know what a bockle was. It looked like an ordinary silver spoon to her. Just her luck to put a bockle down the garbage disposal.

  She stood there numbly and said nothing. Surely Mrs. Bellingham was finished with her now. She couldn't possibly think of any more humiliations.

  Wrong. She could, and did. One more.

  "You're going into the seventh grade, I suppose?" Mrs. Bellingham asked.

  Anastasia nodded.

  "So is my granddaughter, Daphne," said Mrs. Bellingham pleasantly. "Tomorrow is her thirteenth birthday. So you'll have an opportunity to meet one of your classmates."

  It was worse than the thirty-five-dollar silver bockle. Much worse. It was the ultimate humiliation. She was going to meet one of her classmates—someone who might have been her friend, for Pete's sake, in a town where she knew practically no one—and she would be wearing an apron and refilling the water glasses.

  Anastasia cried as she rode her bike home. It was starting to rain, and the light drizzle mixed with the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Once, she thought bitterly—only a few hours ago—I thought that if it rained, the chauffeur would drive me home in a limousine.

  Her mother was in the kitchen when Anastasia came through the back door.

  "Meat loaf in an hour!" called her mother cheerfully. "How did your first day at work go?"

  Anastasia headed up the back stairs toward her room on the third floor.

  "Just fine!" she called down the stairs in a fake happy voice.

  In a million years—in a million billion years—she would never let anyone know.

  3

  Exactly one hour and twenty-seven minutes after she had vowed never to let anyone in the entire world know, ever, what a disaster her day had been, Anastasia burst into tears at the dinner table.

  Anastasia had not burst into tears at the dinner table for six and a half years. She could remember the last time, even though it was so long ago. She had had a big fight with her very best friend, Jenny MacCauley, that afternoon. Just before dinner, Jenny had called her on the phone and said, "You are no longer invited to my birthday party Saturday, nyah nyah."

  Anastasia had said, "Nyah nyah to you, too," and hung up. But she had burst into tears at the dinner table. She was in first grade then.

  But now she was almost thirteen. It was incredibly embarrassing to start to cry in public when you were almost thirteen. Even if the public was just your family.

  "Excuse me," said Sam very quickly, with a wide-eyed look, when Anastasia began to cry. "I have to go to the b
athroom, I think." And he climbed out of his highchair and left the dining room, still wearing his bib.

  Even through her sobs, Anastasia knew Sam was lying. Normally it took bribes and threats to get Sam to go to the bathroom. As bright as he was, Sam still liked to wear diapers. It was the one thing he was still babyish and dumb about. That, and his ragged security blanket.

  Her parents both stopped eating and stared at her in dismay.

  "Sweetheart, what's wrong?" asked her mother.

  Anastasia couldn't talk. She just kept crying.

  Her father left his chair, came around to Anastasia's side of the table, and put his arms around her. He rocked her back and forth.

  Through her tears, Anastasia could see Sam peeking at her from the dining room door. He had wrapped his security blanket around his hand and had his thumb in his mouth.

  "Make Sam stop staring at me," she said, weeping.

  "Sam Krupnik," said her mother sternly, "either come in here and sit down, or go away. Don't peek around the door like that."

  Sam scampered away.

  Finally Anastasia's sobs turned to gulps and deep breaths.

  "She made me wear an apron," she wailed, "not a cute apron like Dad wears when he grills steaks, but a flowered apron like a cleaning lady wears, and I was just like a maid, I had to stay in the kitchen with the maids, and I wasn't a Companion at all, I had to clean five billion pieces of silverware, and I didn't mean to but I dropped a bockle down the disposal, I thought it was just a spoon, but it wasn't, and she said it cost thirty-five dollars at Shreve's, and now I owe her thirty-five dollars, so I have to be a maid forever, and tomorrow I have to be a maid when her granddaughter is there, and her granddaughter is thirteen, she might have been my friend, for Pete's sake, and she didn't offer me a glass of sherry or anything—"

  "Whoa," said her father. "I'm confused. The granddaughter is thirteen and was supposed to offer you a glass of sherry?"

  "No! You're not listening!"

  "Well, can you talk a little more slowly?"

  Anastasia took a very deep breath. Her crying spell seemed to have ended. Thank goodness. Anastasia hated to cry. It made her look as if she had Troubled Skin, for Pete's sake, and she didn't. She had stringy hair and skinny legs, but she did not have, and never had had, Troubled Skin.

  She wiped her eyes and told the whole story, very slowly.

  "Holy Moley," said her father.

  "Dad," said Anastasia angrily. She hated it when her father said Holy Moley. It was left over from his childhood, or some weird thing.

  "Sorry," said her father apologetically. "It was what Billy Batson, the young reporter, used to say in comic books. When things were absolutely awful, he would say, 'Holy Moley!' Then he yelled, 'CAPTAIN MARVEL!' and he turned into Captain Marvel and could solve everything with his super powers."

  "Myron," said Mrs. Krupnik meaningfully. She had noticed Anastasia becoming more and more impatient.

  "No," Myron Krupnik went on, "maybe it wasn't Billy Batson who said Holy Moley. Maybe, come to think of it, it was Freddy Freeman, the crippled newsboy. He was in the same comic books."

  "Dad! Quit it!" Anastasia was almost beginning to cry again.

  "Well, it's just that I wish I could turn into Captain Marvel. It would be easier to solve your problem if I were Captain Marvel."

  "Daddy," said Sam, who had crept quietly back into the dining room, "I think you're Captain Marvel."

  His father lifted Sam onto his lap. "You know, Anastasia," he said, "that woman—what's her name again?"

  "Mrs. Bellingham."

  "Mrs. Bellingham. Right. You know, she really took advantage of you. You had described clearly on your advertisement exactly what kind of job you were looking for."

  "Right. Companion."

  "And she put you to work at something different, without asking your permission."

  "She put me right to work as a maid."

  "Yes, I think it's fair to say that. And under other circumstances you certainly would be justified in quitting."

  "What other circumstances?" asked Anastasia. "The circumstances are that she made me be a maid."

  "That's true. Unfortunately, you mashed something in the garbage disposal. I didn't exactly understand what you said it was."

  "A bockle."

  "Well, I don't know what that is. But let's assume that she was correct, that it was worth thirty-five dollars."

  "Why do we have to assume that? Maybe she was lying. Mom, would you call Shreve's? Ask Shreve's if a bockle really costs thirty-five dollars?"

  Her mother looked at her watch. "It's six-thirty. Shreve's is closed. Anyway, Anastasia, you said it was silver, didn't you?"

  "Yes. It was definitely silver. I know because I polished it. It looked like a spoon."

  "Well, if it was silver and came from Shreve's, it was thirty-five dollars. Frankly, Anastasia, you're lucky it wasn't a hundred and thirty-five dollars."

  Anastasia groaned.

  "So," said her father, "you do owe Mrs. Bellingham thirty-five dollars."

  "Only thirty," Anastasia pointed out angrily. "I worked five dollars' worth today."

  "Thirty, then. I don't suppose you have thirty dollars to pay her back, do you?"

  "Dad," said Anastasia wearily, "the reason I was looking for a job was because I am broke."

  Her father lifted Sam down from his lap. "Sam," he said, "climb up in your high chair and finish your dinner, will you?"

  Sam trotted around to his highchair, climbed in, and ate a bite of meat loaf. "I have four pennies," he said. "You can have my four pennies, Anastasia."

  "That's okay, Sam," said Anastasia. "Thanks, anyway."

  "Anastasia," said her father, "I feel sorry enough for you that if I had thirty extra dollars I would pay for the blasted bockle myself. But frankly, moving out here cost so much, what with having to buy a car and a lawn mower and everything, that I'm flat broke, too. Katherine, I don't suppose you..."

  "No," said Mrs. Krupnik sadly. "I won't get paid for these photography illustrations until I finish them. And I'm barely halfway through. I'm really sorry, Anastasia."

  "Oh, Mom. Dad. That's okay. I was the one who mashed the bockle. I guess I'm just going to have to keep working for old Bellingham."

  "Bellybutton." Sam giggled. "Old dumb Mrs. Bellybutton."

  Anastasia laughed. It was the first time she had laughed all day.

  "I'll just have to figure out a way to survive it. Being a maid, for Pete's sake. And tomorrow her granddaughter's going to be there. How humiliating. Has anything that humiliating ever happened to you guys?"

  Her parents thought.

  "Yes," her mother said finally. "A couple of years ago a publisher in New York called and asked if I was interested in illustrating a book about Houston rockets. They were paying a lot of money. I said sure, I thought I could do that very well. So they asked me to work up some sample drawings and bring them down to show to the author.

  "I was lying when I said I could do that very well. I didn't know anything at all about rockets. But I got a lot of books about rockets and missiles and the space industry. And I spent about a week making rough sketches of jets and guided missiles and engines and launching pads and satellites and various kinds of rockets. Then I put them all in my portfolio and went off to New York. I really thought they were pretty good."

  "What happened? Weren't they any good? Did the people laugh when they saw them?"

  "Well, we all met in a fancy room at the publishing company. A couple of editors and the art director and the author. They were all sitting around a mahogany table. I was wearing my tweed suit, I remember. I don't think I've worn that since," her mother said.

  "What happened?"

  "I opened my portfolio and took out all those sketches and spread them out on the table. I was really pretty proud of them. But there was a terrible silence."

  "Why? Why was there a terrible silence?"

  "And then one person started to laugh. Then another
. In a minute they were all laughing. They couldn't stop laughing. The fat one—the art director, I think it was—had tears rolling down his cheeks. Someone had to bring him a glass of water, because they were afraid he was going to have a heart attack from laughing."

  "Why were they laughing? You're a good artist, Mom!" Anastasia felt terribly sorry for her mother, being humiliated that way.

  Her mother began to laugh. "Because they were doing a book about a basketball team! The Houston Rockets is a basketball team!"

  "I knew that," said Sam. "I see them on TV."

  "Oh, Mom!" said Anastasia. "The rats! That wasn't fair! They should have told you! They shouldn't have laughed!"

  "Well," said her mother, "it was humiliating. But I survived it. They found someone else to do the basketball book. And they gave me a job doing a book about the astronauts."

  "How about you, Dad? Have you ever been humiliated?" Somehow it was making Anastasia feel better, knowing that other people had been humiliated.

  Her father blushed. You could always tell when he was blushing, because he was bald. When he blushed, the top of his head turned red.

  "Of course I have," he said with dignity. "No one lives to be forty-seven years old without being humiliated a few times."

  "What happened?"

  He was still blushing. "I don't want to talk about it," he said.

  "That's not fair. Mom told about hers. And I told you about what happened to me today."

  He groaned. "Promise you won't ever tell anyone."

  "I promise."

  Her father looked around the dining room to make sure there were no spies listening. He looked down at his plate for a minute, embarrassed. Then he looked up.

  "Last semester I gave an hour-long lecture on Social Comedy in Eighteenth-Century England. The students—there were eighty-seven students in the lecture hall—kept laughing."

  "But that was okay. You were lecturing about comedy," said Anastasia.

  "That wasn't why they were laughing." Her father began playing with his fork.

  "Why were they?"

  He leaned his elbows on the table and put his face into his hands. The top of his head was bright pink.