The pocketbook is blue, a dark hue more like a chemical spill than a sky. It has traveled with us from one apartment to another, withstanding every rushed exodus, every eviction. Always we find it nestled safely between sweaters and gloves my mother deems too thick and never wears. Mom has never said where she got it from, but I think her sister gave it to her. We regularly inherit cast-offs from family members who consider our house their personal Goodwill bin. It’s a long rectangular bag, the kind Rosalind Russell tucked under her arm as a girl reporter. But it’s unmistakably an accessory for a grownup, not something you’d gift to a girl turning eleven.
My invitation to Rachel Silverman’s birthday party landed on my desk late on Friday afternoon, tossed nonchalantly onto my math book, as if unintentional. Rachel had breezed by me, heading from the back of the room up the aisle to her own desk, her thick curly hair hiding her face as if she was working undercover. Until I saw my name, I thought the envelope was something she’d dropped, something I should return to her. I tucked it into my book bag, opened it on the way home, thrilled and shocked to be brought into her celebration. My sister June didn’t hesitate to enlighten me that, given its late arrival, the invitation likely resulted only from a cancellation. Mrs. Silverman is a stickler about her luncheon settings. I hope that isn’t true. She’s always nice to me. She’s given me a lift home from school more than once when it’s raining hard. And when Rachel was assigned as my science project partner, her mother invited me to the house to do the work. Even if my sister is right, I don’t care. I’ll be with Rachel and her friends from school, together in a room where they’re less likely to be whispering and giggling only to each other.
My mother holds the invitation card at arm’s length, perusing it like it’s a dreaded electricity bill. When she hands it back, she exchanges a look with my sister Alice, the kind grownups share when the matter at hand is dirty or unmentionable.
“Well,” she says, mostly to Alice. “Let’s see what we can come up with.”
What they come up with is the blue pocketbook. I squint at it in disbelief. My sister June tells me I look like my lunch is going to make a second appearance.
“She’ll love it,” Alice says.
“But … it’s so grownup,” I say.
“Exactly,” says Mom. “Every girl wants to feel like a grownup.”
For a moment I see that I shouldn’t go to the party. Parties aren’t for people like me, whose families can’t afford to buy gifts. But the moment passes as I let Alice and my mother convince me that the gift will stand out, that nobody needs yet another Barbie outfit or a board game to gather dust.
Still, I wish we could at least wrap the thing in proper wrapping paper. But we don’t have any. One of my brothers suggests using the funny papers. “Brilliant,” Alice declares, but for a time we can’t find any tape and my mom says a bit of glue will work just as well.
June finds the tape, thank god, runs it under the tap to get the gunk off. It still works. It was in the toolbox, which hasn’t been cleaned out since the dog threw up in it.
The walk to Rachel’s house is long, but at least it doesn’t rain the way the morning’s forecast predicted. The funny papers would have gotten soggy for sure. Mrs. Silverman opens the door, trilling me a welcome that seems sincere. I hold the gift low by my side, and see the other presents have been placed on a side table in the dining room. I wave a greeting to Rachel, slink toward the table with my gift, relieved I won’t have to hold it behind my back, as if it was something from an adult book store.
We have lunch first, a delicious salad with diced meat that I’m positive isn’t Spam. Nobody talks to me much at first, so I focus on chewing. But before long some of the girls speak to me about stuff, about homework, boys they like, teachers they don’t. We laugh sometimes and Rachel encourages some of them to share stories with me that I might not have heard. I see Mrs. Silverman glance at me now and then, mostly from across the room, as if trying to remain unobserved, as if she has some science project of her own underway.
We sing “Happy Birthday” and I keep my voice down once I realize that the raucous version my family favors isn’t the way it’s done here. Rachel is allowed to start opening her gifts before we finish our cake. She doesn’t seem that impressed by them, unable to repress a comment about a Barbie make-up case she already has. Her mother speaks her name in a tone subtle enough not to embarrass her, but Rachel gets the message, thanks the girl, as if the present is something she’s been longing for.
Mrs. Silverman slips my gift onto Rachel’s lap, beneath the table, so some of the girls may not have noticed the wrapping, but Sandra and Beth giggle, hands over their mouths, chocolate on fingertips. When Rachel unwraps the pocketbook, she’s silent, looks up at her mom, as if at a loss. But she doesn’t laugh and neither do any of the girls. Maybe it’s something about the way Mrs. Silverman takes the gift from Rachel, conceding this is something unlike the others, but in a way not to be mocked but treasured. “How lovely,” she says, glancing at me almost with a wink, as if only the two of us can appreciate how special this really is, this gift that got me through the gates.
~
Mary Ann McGuigan’s nonfiction has appeared in X‑R-A‑Y, The Rumpus, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. You’ll find her fiction in The Sun, Massachusetts Review, North American Review, and other journals. Her collection PIECES includes stories named for the Pushcart Prize and Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net. THAT VERY PLACE, a new collection, is due out in 2025. The Junior Library Guild and the New York Public Library rank Mary Ann’s young-adult novels as best books for teens. WHERE YOU BELONG was a finalist for the National Book Award. For more about her writing, visit www.maryannmcguigan.com.