Chapter 6: The Delivery

The next day was Saturday and her father had gone to clear up some things at his office while her brother had his first football practice.

Cookie used this time alone to go through her closet and see what pitiful clothes she could set aside for her first day of school on Monday. Pershing had a dress code and the girls could wear only skirts or dresses to school with socks or stockings and proper shoes. The brown skirt and yellow sweater were the most presentable things she had and she'd already worn them on registration day. Everything else was in such awful condition and too short and way too snug around her hips now.

Cookie sat on her bed and almost cried but then she choked back her anguish and wiped away her tears, with the heels of her hands, and she scolded herself for being so vain. She would just have to make due with what she had and that was all there was to it.

Walking back to her closet, she heard the odd sound of a large truck that seemed to be idling just outside the house and then came the sound of knocking from down at the front door.

When Cookie ran down and answered it, she found two delivery men on the porch standing next to two very large cardboard boxes that were almost as tall as Cookie herself.

"These are addressed to a Cookie Mullins," the older man said, holding out a clip-board toward her.

"That's me," Cookie stated, in wonderment, as the man offered a pen with his other hand.

"Then sign here, by your printed name," he instructed.

Cookie signed the paper and the man asked, "Where do you want these, Miss?"

"Just in the living room, I guess," Cookie said, stepping back and watching the men lift the two boxes and bring them inside.

Once alone with them, Cookie looked the mysterious cardboard containers over, walking around them and seeing that their shipping labels had no return addresses and that they opened from the front like steamer trunks do.

Anxious and yet curious about what could be in them, Cookie ran to the kitchen and returned with a sharp knife to cut the retaining twine from both boxes. She then struggled to pull one of them open. Looking inside, she was surprised to discover that the mystery box contained clothes. Girls' clothes. School clothes. New clothes. Beautiful clothes. Lots of clothes. Some hanging on hangers from a wooden pole, across the center of the box, and some folded or still in packages at the bottom. The second trunk contained more of the same.

Her heart pounding in her chest and her spirit soaring past the ceiling, Cookie began to remove the clothing from the boxes and take inventory of what was there.

There were various skirts and tops and blouses and dresses and sweaters and vests and shorts and jackets and coats and gloves and hats and panties and slips and half-slips and even bathing suits (a one piece and a modest two piece). There were many pairs of shoes (flats and slight heels and slippers and canvas shoes and boots) and knee sox and ankle sox and even nylons and nightgowns and robes and bathing caps and all of it brand new and all of it with designer labels and all of it in her sizes. It was as if all of her overdue Christmases had come on one day and in late summer and for no reason at all.

Cookies eyes watered over and her cheeks became streaked with joyous tears as she stood there, jaw agape in open wonder, and took in the incredible sight set before her.

But, she suddenly wondered, who did this for her? Who were these from? Who would care and who would have spent this much money on her? Were all of these things from her father? Did her grandparents do this for her? Was it a gift from an aunt or an uncle, who took pity on her, maybe? Who? Who did this? Who would she thank, so very much, for all of this?

And, if her father hadn't sent this, what would he say about it when he got home? Was accepting it yet another trap for her? Another cruel joke? Would he smack her around and make her send it all back? And who would she send it back to? The boxes had no return address and the truck had been unmarked and the delivery men were long gone. Would it be somehow wicked of her to accept all of this? It was, after all, addressed to her.

Unsure of exactly what to do, Cookie was sure that she wasn't to leave a bunch of feminine clothing laying all over the living room and so she spent a good hour taking armloads of it up to her room and hanging it carefully in her closet and placing it, folded neatly, in the drawers of her dresser.

Her old clothes she brought down and placed in the empty boxes and then pulled and dragged them, with much effort, out the back door and over to the trash.