The Truth About Mary Rose by Marilyn Sachs

Author:Marilyn Sachs
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Social Issues, Girls & Women, Childrens, Fiction, Coming of Age, Realistic, Ages 9-12
ISBN: 9781610847513
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 2013-05-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

I found two shoe boxes in the basement. One was filled with old checks, and the other with embroidery yarn. Both of them belonged to the Jacksons.

There were plenty of other boxes—boxes of papers, books, trophies, games, clothes, golf balls, rags, old shoes, and shoe polishes, hardware, Christmas ornaments, dishes, trays and one paint-by-number set. I looked through them all. From Monday night through Friday with time off for a weekend at Pam’s house, and from Monday until Wednesday morning, I spent nearly all my time down in the basement. I didn’t even watch TV with my grandmother.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to find,” my grandmother said. “It’s no treasure. Just some old magazine clippings.”

My mother said she hoped I found Mary Rose’s box. She said Mary Rose actually had about ten or fifteen boxes, filled with different kinds of things she collected.

“One of them had all sorts of ideas for interior decorating,” my mother told me. “You know she and I shared a bedroom. It was a little, dark room, and it looked out on the backyard with all the washlines. We had some old furniture, and poor Mary Rose was always trying to turn that room into something out of her box. One Christmas, she saved her money and bought a blue satin bedspread, and got Mama—your grandmother—to buy her matching curtains. She was so excited when she unwrapped them, and she laughed and chattered about how beautiful the room was going to be ...” My mother shook her head.

“Well, what happened, Mom?”

“We made the bed with the new bedspread, and hung up the new curtains. Mary Rose really straightened up the room that morning ... She swept and dusted and put fresh doilies on all the furniture to hide the scratches. Then we all had to go out of the room, and close the door, and come back in to see what it looked like when you came in from outside.”

“Go on, Mom, what did it look like?”

“It looked terrible!” said my mother, “worse than before. The furniture was so old and scratched, and the spread and the curtains were so new and brilliant ... So then she convinced Grandma to let her paint the furniture a baby-blue color ...” My mother began laughing. “What a mess!”

“But, Mom, what did it look like?”

“It must have been the wrong kind of paint. It chipped, and after a while, the spread got creased, and Stanley spilled a cup of Ovaltine on it.”

“You never told me that story before, Mom. How come?”

“I must have forgotten. But coming back to New York, and having you dig around for that box brings it all back, just like it was yesterday.”

“What was in her other boxes?”

“I can’t remember all of them. There was the one on interior decorating ... one on fashion ... one on make-up ... one on etiquette. Let me think ... there was one on hotels, you know, with bridal suites and beautiful rooms where rich and famous people stayed.

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