“What about the hospital?”
“Please don’t whine.”
Gussie rephrased the question and asked it in a falsetto: “Nana, are we going to go to the hospital now?”
“I told you I’d take you, but not today.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Gussie banged around the apartment loudly for the next hour. During that time, she managed to knock over the hatstand in the front hall and spill half her grandmother’s lavender oil down the bathroom sink. Both accidents, of course. Then she refused to eat lunch, despite the fact that her grandmother was serving tuna fish sandwiches, which were a particular favorite of Gussie’s. When Esther had had enough, she sent Gussie to her room and told her to stay there until she could figure out how to be more pleasant. Gussie didn’t dare bellow as she stomped off to the sun porch but she did make sure she slammed the door with plenty of umph.
It was hard to be pleasant when so much was going wrong. Gussie swiped some of the treasures on her windowsill to the floor but she was careful to avoid upsetting the tiny ceramic animals that had come in the Cracker Jack boxes her grandfather kept leaving on her bed. There was an otter and a pig and a seal that balanced a ball on his nose. When she was satisfied with the mess, she threw herself onto the bed, grabbed hold of her Raggedy Ann doll, and studied the tiny wormholes in the beadboard ceiling.
After a half hour or so, there was a light knock on the door.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Anna said, peeking her head around the door.
Gussie was annoyed. People were always deciding what she should be doing.
“I don’t want to go for a walk. I want to go to the hospital.”
“Well, your grandmother wants you to go for a walk. She gave me some money and said we should go to the Pier to see the parakeets.” Anna jingled the coins in her hand, as evidence. When Gussie didn’t make a move, Anna said, “You probably don’t care for them. Or hot dogs?”
Gussie didn’t say anything, just went back to staring at the ceiling. For a dime, the parakeets at Steel Pier would hop up onto a stick, grab a fortune out of a fancy bird-sized castle, and saunter down a miniature boardwalk to deliver it. The offer was tempting but not nearly so tempting if she had to go with Anna.
Anna patted the edge of the door and made like she was about to close it. “I’ll go tell her you’re not interested.”
Gussie sat up in bed. “Wait!”
It was National Children’s Week in Atlantic City and everywhere hotels, restaurants, and stores had posted signs, welcoming children to the resort and advertising specials to their parents. There was a children’s parade and a sing-along on the beach and, yesterday, there had been a big fireworks spectacular for the Fourth of July. At the end of the week, one lucky kid was going to be named mayor of Atlantic City for a day. Gussie had begged her grandmother to let her register, particularly after she had spotted the spiffy badges all the children wore on their collars, but Esther explained that the program was only for children from out of town whose parents were staying in cooperating hotels.
Even without a badge, Gussie had to admit—only to herself, definitely not to Anna—that the day had turned around. She and Anna caught the second half of the sing-along, and when they stopped at a hot dog stand on the Boardwalk, the cashier gave Gussie a special Children’s Week button with their change. She didn’t and wouldn’t have asked Anna to help her pin the button to her lapel but Anna did it anyway.
“Let’s go in there,” Gussie said to Anna, her mouth stuffed with hot dog, as they walked past Couney’s Premature Baby Exhibit, across from Million Dollar Pier.
Anna looked at the hand-lettered sign on the window and at the tiny baby asleep in a little glass box in the window display. A poster, affixed to the door, claimed ONCE SEEN, NEVER FORGOTTEN.”
“You have to pay a fee to go in,” said Anna, counting the change in her hand. “You won’t have enough money to see the parakeets, too.”
“I know,” said Gussie, already pulling open the exhibit’s heavy glass door. “I’ve seen the parakeets a hundred times. Besides, they always tell girls the same thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You will have a large family.”
“What do they tell the boys?”
“Oh, you know. All the normal things. That they’ll be successful and earn tons of money and go on lots of adventures.”
Anna let out a small noise and helped her with the door, and as Gussie walked through it, she felt an odd surge of satisfaction, as if she had won something big and important.
Inside was a long room with a worn wooden floor, whitewashed walls, and a ceiling stenciled with green vines. A line of seven incubators, small glass boxes that sat on tall metal stands, lined one wall, and between each one sat a potted palm tree, as if the nurses, who walked back and forth in fitted white dresses and funny hats, were trying to convince the babies that they were living on a tropical island instead of in a Boardwalk amusement.
“The next lecture begins at three o’clock,” said an attendant, who exchanged the coins Anna handed her for a receipt and a leaflet.
A metal handrail prevented visitors from getting too close to the babies, which was unfortunate, as far as Gussie was concerned. She grabbed hold of the railing and hoisted herself into the air, leaning her body as far over the railing as she dared. From that vantage point, it was easier to
