Chapter 27

My mother spent the rest of the weekend in sometimes heated discussion and negotiation with my father. They spoke, screamed and pleaded with each other, traveling, at various times, throughout every room in our house. My mother threw two cook pots and a large metal serving spoon at various stages in their negotiation. My father slammed several doors in the house, kicked three or four salvaged appliances in the basement, and swore fluently. He managed all this while nursing his wounded ego, and contemplating his next assault on my mother's unexpected resistance to his edicts. He was insisting that she close her dance studio and return to her full time housewife and mother duties. She was telling him that wasn't going to happen. This entire argument was being fought in the Hungarian language, the language they were each most comfortable in. They both knew they could say almost anything, as loud as they wished, because no one else would ever understand what they were saying.

By Sunday night, they had arrived at a compromise they could both live with. My mother would keep her business, my father would allow her to continue raising us children as she thought best, and she would stop yelling at him and keeping him from knowing even a single moment of peace. My mother always pretended to be subservient to my father. She was the perfect Hungarian housewife, right up until he told her to do something she didn't want to do. When that happened, she became a liberated American woman, willing and able to stand up and have her voice be heard. Luckily, my father wasn't even close to being as stubborn as she was. By eight thirty Sunday evening, peace once again reigned in our house.

Monday morning, right after my father left for work, my mother called Kate and me into the kitchen to explain to us exactly what my father had 'decided'. First, Kate wasn't allowed to go to any more sleepovers at anyone's house. No appeals for this, and, absolutely no exceptions would be allowed. There would be no one sleeping over at our house, and this included Clara too. Second, Clara was welcome to visit our house during the day and early evening, but she had to go home before Kate's bed time. Third, when Kate and Clara were 'studying' in Kate's bedroom, they had to keep the door locked so that no one could possibly disturb their 'studies'. Fourth, Kate and Clara couldn't 'study' when I was in the same room with them. Last, Kate and Clara were to try to make sure that all their 'studying' was done before my father came home at night. When he was at home, Kate's door had to be unlocked at all times.

Kate started in yelling about how unfair that was to her, and about how sleepovers were an important part of making and having friends in school. My mother wouldn't budge. Kate appealed to me for support for her request to be allowed to go out on sleepovers.

"Kate, don't you think that mom is being as cooperative as possible, trying really hard to be as understanding of your unusual friendship with Clara as she possibly can be?"

"What do I say when people ask me why I can't come to their parties now? I always go to sleepover birthday parties, we all do. I promise that nothing bad will happen." My mother spoke up.

"Katinka, you saw how difficult it was to get your father to even agree to this much. In sixteen years, we never went through what we have just been through. I never heard him so angry with me. You don't want to know what he would have us do with you. What I am asking you to give up is far less than he would demand of you. I can not ask him to allow more than this. He wouldn't do it anyway. Your papa is the head of this family. We cannot ignore what he says."

"For how long is this going to last? When can I do all the things my other friends get to do?"

"We have to wait and see. Not soon. Too much has happened for your papa to change his mind anytime soon."

"It isn't fair! I'm going to lose all of my school friends. Clara is going to go to those sleepovers without me."

"You don't know that, Kate. She might not want to be there if you can't go." I didn't believe that Clara would put Kate through that kind of distress. Clara was more loyal than that. If it had been Clara that couldn't go, and Kate had been allowed, I wasn't so sure this would be what Kate would decide. Kate would probably go.

"I'm going to ask Papa myself. He'll let me go."

"If you ask him, Clara won't be coming over to study with you. Papa doesn't know that I'm letting her come for that. If you ask your Papa to make changes in this decision, I will step away from it, and you will have to accept only what he allows you."

"Kate, you're doing it again. You better stop and think about what you might lose if you try to get more. This sounds a lot better than what I thought you'd get to do."

"You get to do whatever you want to, and I have to miss out on all the fun and parties with my friends. You don't care, not as long as you get all of your freedoms."

"Go ahead then, ask dad when he gets home. I bet you find out that he won't give you half as much as mom is trying to. Don't come crying to me when you're sitting on a plane heading to the old country."

Kate looked at me. She was mad. She knew mom and I were telling her the truth about dad, about what he'd say and do if she tried to get him to loosen mom's rules. I had no doubt what he'd say if he knew that mom was deliberately setting it up so that Clara and Kate would have some private time alone in Kate's room. I was surprised she had found it within herself to give in to them on this one particular area of their relationship. In the battle between her family's happiness and her religious convictions, she had bent more than a little, in order to shield Kate from the need to sneak around. This had to have come at a heavy price to her. I didn't see how Kate could fail to understand mom's sacrifice. Kate went back to her room to finish getting ready for school. I told my mother that I was pleased that she had made this compromise with her own beliefs for Kate's sake.

In school Monday morning, Denise was looking at me in every period where we had the same classes. I knew she believed that she couldn't be seen at school even talking to Karen or me. I saw Karen sitting by herself at lunchtime. I sat down, not too far from her and waited until she looked up from her food. Then, I waved to her. She didn't wave back, but she did smile.

Harriet came over to me in fifth period English and checked with me to make sure that I still planned to be her date at the dance. I told her that I'd be there in front of the auditorium before seven on Friday. She told me not to bother with getting her a corsage because her mother was getting her one already. I hadn't planned on getting her one, but I just nodded that I understood her. The more I thought about the dance, and about Harriet, the less I was looking forward to it. It was too late to make any drastic changes now though. I didn't want to rock the boat at home now. My parents needed a few quiet weeks to try to mend their own fences. They didn't need to find out anything else about what was going on with me as far as my reputation in school went. What they already knew had troubled them enough.

After school, when I opened my locker to change books for what I needed to take home with me, I found a note that had been shoved through the air vents on the locker door.

Larry, meet me where we met the last time. I need to see you about something. Wait for me if I'm late.

Denise XOXOXOX

I read the note quickly, then folded it up, putting it away in my back pocket. I hurried up to make sure that I had what I needed, closed my locker, and left the school. I didn't exactly hurry to get to the corner where Denise and I had met the last time, but I didn't dawdle or tarry either. It seemed like a long time since I'd had to cancel the Saturday rendezvous with Denise. I just hoped she wasn't meeting me to tell me that she had changed her mind, and didn't want to do it with me now. All of the X's and O's she had written under her name made me think that wasn't what she wanted to tell me.

Even though I was now sure that I loved Clara, and was thinking that we probably would get married someday, I didn't want to restrict myself to only one girl. I hadn't formulated any kind of restrictions that I wanted to place on Clara either. She had said several things to me that made me think she didn't mind the other dating I was doing. I wasn't sure about how I'd feel if she went out with another boy besides me. I didn't mind about her and Kate, or any other girls either.

When I got to the corner where I was supposed to meet Denise, she hadn't gotten there yet. I sat down on my History book and waited for her. I must have been there for about ten minutes before I saw her walking towards me. She was coming from a direction that meant she must have first walked most of the way to her house, and then cut back across to get to the intersection where I waited.

"I'm glad you waited. Sheila Farley insisted on walking home with me. I couldn't tell her that I was meeting someone. She'd blab it all over the school. She kept asking me about Karen, and about the dates I'd had with you. She even asked me if it was true about Tommy and me. I couldn't believe she'd have the nerve to even ask me a question like that. What did she think I'd say? Never mind about her though. I was so disappointed when you called me Friday night."

"I doubt that you were more disappointed than I was."

"Did you at least think about me over the weekend?"

"Did I? Only about forty times a day. I even dreamed about you last night."

"Was it a good dream?"

"Not nearly as good as the real thing would have been."

"I was all ready for Saturday. I don't know when we'll get another good chance like that."

"You mean I bought all those rubbers for nothing?"

"How many did you get?"

"Three I think. Plus, I already had one."

"Do you know any place where we could go that is private? We can't use my house because of Trudie being there."

"Kate is always home at my house. You can't still use your father's workshop?"

"Not when Trudie's home. She would come looking for me."

"I guess we just have to wait until we can figure something else out. You can't even go out to a movie with me?"

"I can't. People are already talking about us. They'd be sure that the rumors about us were true if they saw us out together. Tommy Lampkin had the nerve to ask me to go out with him. He called me last night, and invited me to go out to some stupid party he was going to next Sunday. I told him I wouldn't go out with him, not even if he were the only boy left in the whole world. Not after he's been talking about me like he has been."

"Do you ever go bike riding?"

"No, I haven't even been on my bike since I was about eleven, or maybe, twelve years old. Trudie rides hers sometime. I think both of my tires are flat."

"I don't have any other ideas. My mom is at the dance studio until five every day, but Kate gets home before I do. Wait a minute! I just remembered one place that we could go to. My Aunt is visiting family in Hungary until the end of the month. I can get the key to her apartment above the dance studio. We'd have to keep the noise down while we were up there. Could you tell your parents that you had to go somewhere to study with somebody?"

"When?"

"Tonight. I could meet you near the apartment at six. My mom would have left already. We could stay there for a couple hours at least, without anybody bothering us."

"Suppose someone sees us going in or coming out?"

"Hey, she's my Aunt. I'd tell them she was on vacation and I'm watering her plants for her. Nobody will say anything though. Kate and I go up there a lot when we're waiting for my mom to finish up the class after ours. I'd have the key anyway. People wouldn't think anything about it. If you want to do it, this is the best time, before she gets back."

"I wasn't thinking about today. I'm not sure I can be ready so quick. I was ready for Saturday, but it's different now."

"If you don't want to, I don't mind. I'm just glad I remembered that it was empty and available for me."

"Will you go there with someone else if I don't go with you?"

"Probably, and even if you do. There's another girl I like too."

"Karen?"

"No, besides her. This other girl wants to do it with me too."

"I'm not going to do it with you, not if you're going to be doing it with a lot of other girls too."

"One isn't a lot. You asked me anyway."

"I didn't ask you. We talked about it, and I told you I was interested in finding out if Karen told me the truth about how it felt."

"Okay. You don't have to do it if you don't want to. I'm not trying to make you do it. I just said we could if you wanted to, because I thought of a place to go. A private place. With a bed and a shower to clean up afterwards. I've only got four rubbers, and I'm not going back to the drug store to get any more. That woman made me really nervous when I bought them this time."