Rhoda Faust, Rhoda Norman,
Mary Kellogg |
|
|
the mother
of my best friend. I spent a lot of time at their house.
I watched Mary handle Rhoda and her sister and two brothers (a major
handful, believe me!) without ever raising her voice, though I did
see her go up to her bedroom and lock them out a few times. But
Mary and Rhoda Norman let us smoke cigarettes in front of them (on
one special occasion) and talked about men in front of us. I was
enthralled.
The summer after high school Rhoda
and I spent three months blazing, playing chess, and getting into
Mary's hair. There was a very brief part of that summer that we
made some sort of pretense of working at the book shop, but I think
it wasn't long. I don't think Mary could stand it. She probably
paid us to stay away.
Then Rhoda and I both went off to
college. We wrote letters every now and again and kept up with each
other during summers. The summer after our freshman year we came
home to discover that Mary had hired Marigny Dupuy to work in the
shop. Rhoda had already met Marigny and hated her on sight, mostly
because Mary spoke so well of her and clearly liked her a lot. Also,
Marigny was on territory Rhoda perceived as hers.
So one day while we were out on a
blaze, Rhoda suggested we go over to the book shop and give Marigny
the business. We arrived at the shop with our toughest attitude
only to discover that the object of our attitude was intelligent
and funny, and though we didn't want to admit it right away, we
liked her. All that was left was to shed the tough we'd put on as
gracefully as possible. Marigny, because she is a nice person, made
it easy, and Rhoda and I formed another lasting friendship.Some
years later Rhoda asked Marigny to manage the Maple Street Children's
Book Shop, and I named my daughter after her. |
