interrupted in a no-nonsense voice. “Carolyn’s plaid dress is perfectly fine for your first day of school. You don’t need anything new, except maybe some socks and underwear. But right now, I can’t even think about a shopping trip. I’ve got my hands full getting ready for Betty and Florence. Now come and help me gather up these sheets for the laundry.”
“Okay, Mom,” said Maryellen. She was disappointed, but even new underwear was better than nothing. And she knew better than to press her luck. Mom sounded unusually harried. As one of six children, Maryellen had long ago learned the sad but true lesson that parents had only a certain amount of patience and energy and attention to give, and you couldn’t use more than your share or your parents got mad. So she just quietly helped Mom with the sheets. She’d save the shopping conversation for later.
After lunch, Mrs. Larkin said, “Kids, I’ve got to scrub the kitchen floor. I need you out of my hair and out of the house for a while. So put on your swimsuits and go to the beach.” She turned to Davy, who had come over for lunch, and said, “Davy, ask your mom if you may go, too, if you like.”
The girls hurried off to put on their swimsuits. The Larkins lived in Daytona Beach, Florida, just a few blocks from the ocean. Maryellen felt lucky that on hot days like this one, she could go to the beach to swim and cool off.
Maryellen was ready in a flash, so she went back to the kitchen, where Mom was helping Mikey put on his bathing trunks. Maryellen saw an old photo that she’d never seen before on the kitchen table. The photo was of Mom and two smiling ladies standing in front of a factory. Maryellen immediately figured out that the two ladies were Betty and Florence. “Hey, Mom,” she asked as she looked at the photo, “what did you and Betty and Florence do at the factory?”
“Well, they worked on the assembly line, and I was the line manager,” said Mrs. Larkin.
“The manager?” repeated Maryellen. “You mean you were the boss of the whole assembly line?”
“I sure was,” said Mom, tying Mikey’s shoelaces.
Maryellen was stunned. She had never realized that Mom had had such an important job! And now Mom just stayed home and made life organized and smooth and pleasant for their family. “What do Betty and Florence do now?” Maryellen asked.
“They’re executive secretaries at an airline company in New York,” said Mom.
“Oh,” said Maryellen. Mom’s friends’ jobs sounded swank and fancy. She asked, “Are you sorry you’re not working now, Mom?”
“Ellie, my dear,” said Mom in a jokey way as she pulled a T-shirt down over Mikey’s head, “managing you kids is harder work than managing the assembly line was.”
“Be serious, Mom,” said Maryellen.
“I am!” said Mom. “I’m seriously proud of our family, and proud of doing a good job of running our house. This is my job right now, and I like it. But nothing is forever. When Mikey is in school all day, maybe I’ll go back to work.”
“But what work would you do?” asked Carolyn, who had wandered into the kitchen with Beverly.
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Larkin. She looped a wisp of hair behind her ear. “I might work in an office, or be a saleslady in a store, or—”
“Or a movie star!” Beverly piped up.
Mrs. Larkin laughed. “I don’t think I’ll be a movie star,” she said, “though it would be nice to look glamorous, and to smell like perfume instead of peanut butter for a change.”
By now, everyone was ready to go. Mom handed some beach towels to Joan and said, “Okay, troops! Off you go to the beach. Be back by two, no later. Joan, keep an eye on the little ones. Vamoose!”
“Okay, Mom,” everyone said. “Bye!”
Davy joined the parade of Larkins walking to the beach, falling into step with Scooter and Maryellen. “What’s up, Doc?” Davy asked, pretending to be Bugs Bunny.
“I’m thinking about Mom,” said Maryellen, “and what her life was like when she had a job during the war. Guess what? It turns out that Mom was important! She was a line boss at the factory.”
“Wow!” said Davy. “Why’d she quit?”
“Lots of women quit working after the war,” said Carolyn, “so the returning soldiers could have jobs.”
“Mom shouldn’t have quit. She was famous,” Beverly sighed, “like a movie star.”
“Well, she wasn’t exactly a movie star, but she was the star of the factory back when Betty and Florence worked with her,” said Maryellen. “And now Mom’s life is about as exciting and glamorous as…as…”
“Scooter’s,” Davy finished for her.
“Yes,” sighed Maryellen. Her heart swelled with love and sympathy for Mom. Probably Mom felt sort of taken for granted. Maryellen knew how that felt. Surely Mom missed standing out and being admired, as she had been when she was an important boss at the factory. Maryellen made up her mind right then: I’m going to think of a way for Mom to impress her friends. Her next thought made her so excited, her heart skipped a little skip: And then Mom will be impressed with me.
Maryellen loved the ocean: its roar, its salty tang, and the huge blueness of it stretching all the way to the sky. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” she challenged Carolyn and Davy.
Legs pumping, arms waving, the three kids raced across the scorching sand. Maryellen plunged headfirst into an incoming wave. Swoosh! She had timed it just right, so that the wave lifted her up into the bright summery air. “Yahoo!” Maryellen hooted exuberantly.
In a second, Carolyn popped up next to Maryellen in the water. Davy popped up next.
“What took you guys so long?” asked Maryellen, grinning.
Carolyn was grinning, too. “All right,” she said. “You win, as usual.”
“I guess I’m the rotten egg,” said Davy. “But watch out—someday I’ll be faster than you.”
Maryellen doubted it. Davy was a pretty good runner, but Maryellen was fiercely determined when it came to running. She had had a sickness called polio when she was younger, and one leg was a little bit weaker than the other. Sometimes Maryellen worried that Mom babied her because of her leg. But Maryellen never let her leg slow her down.
It was fun to be at the beach with Davy and her brothers and sisters, but Maryellen missed Dad. He loved being at the beach, too, and always rode the waves with her. She floated in the water and looked back at the shore. Queen Beverly was building herself a sand castle under the beach umbrella. Tom and Mikey kept knocking her castle down, so after a little while, Davy got out of the water to help her by distracting them. “Hey, boys!” Davy shouted as he walked up the beach. “Let’s dig a hole to China.”
Joan was lying on a beach towel, reading
