As the day progresses, Madeleine watches the felt animals on the bulletin board carefully.
“The following little girls will remain after three….”
Once or twice a week. Sometimes all of them, sometimes just some of them. What did those other girls do wrong today? Beautiful sad Diane Vogel, intelligent Joyce Nutt, and Grace Novotny. Not even Grace is capable of being a total reject all the time, yet she is always required to remain.
They line up at the back of the room where the coat hooks are. When it is Madeleine’s turn, she walks down the aisle and he looks at her in that unseeing way that makes her think, maybe I am just a pigment of his imagination. Auriel and Lisa don’t ask her about it any more, no one does. They are simply the little girls who are required to remain. The exercise group. No one in the class wonders what the exercise group is any more, it just is.
It’s easy to get home by twelve past three because Mr. March never keeps them more than ten minutes, so no one gets in trouble for being kept after three; because no one is late enough for their parents to notice.
“If you don’t tell them, I won’t,” says Mr. March. “Of course, that all depends on how well you do after three.”
That’s nice of him. Bad enough to get in trouble with your teacher, but who wants to get in more trouble with your parents?
A few weeks into school and it feels like months, the unstructured days of summer having given way to lessons and sports and Brownies. Madeleine and her friends are taking ballet, tap, jazz and highland dancing over at the rec centre, from a tall bony lady called Miss Jolly who looks exactly like a licorice Twizzler in her leotard. Miss Jolly laughs her toothy laugh at Madeleine’s most gracefully intended efforts. “You’re remarkably supple, Madeleine, but I’m not sure dance is your forte.” When she gets them to do the twist, Madeleine feigns a stomach ache. The thought of writhing sexily around with all the other little girls gives her a queasy after-three feeling.
The grown-up social whirl is likewise in full swing. There are cocktail parties on Friday nights and a do at the mess every Saturday. Madeleine’s parents have started curling Saturday mornings, and during the week the ladies get together for coffee parties and bridge parties. The latter are the best because they happen on school nights, and involve a cornucopia of snacks and baked goods that translate into treats the following day.
One Thursday evening in late September, Mimi hosts four tables of four players each and permits Madeleine to stay up and say hello to the ladies. Madeleine looks longingly at the crystal bowls of bridge mix on every card table, at the tiered plates of gooey Nanaimo bars and buttertarts. An orange sunset chiffon cake sits proudly on a pedestal dish, and there are hot and cold hors d’oeuvres — wiener bites, Swedish meatballs, pickled things on toothpicks. The living room is bright with laughter, conversational clusters throwing off sparks like the combination of cashmere and freshly washed hair; on the buffet, the silver service glitters along with tiny glasses of crème de menthe; lipstick adorns the rims of teacups, patent-leather purses are parked on the floor like miniature cars; it all mingles with the scent of perfume and cigarette smoke, to heady effect.
Madeleine is in her polo pajamas and quilted robe. “Hello Madeleine, sweetheart, how is school treating you?” Kind, elegant Mrs. Woodley. “It’s very good, thank you.” Mrs. McCarroll is over by the fireplace listening to Mrs. Lawson, who is patting her hand — Gordon’s mother is almost as inviting as Mrs. Boucher, a comfortable-looking woman. Mrs. Noonan is nice but a bit cross-eyed. Madeleine hears Mrs. Ridelle’s voice in the kitchen, “Come on, Betty, live a little!” She is shaking an aluminum Thermos. Johnny Mathis sings on the hi-fi about wanting to have children. Madeleine is mesmerized by the scene. If she stands perfectly still and unfocuses her eyes and ears, she can see and hear everything at once:
“… cheap at half the price—”
“… get out, really?!”
“… knows how to put on the dog—”
“… posted to Brussels—”
“… hasn’t joined.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“Sylvia Nolan, she still hasn’t joined the Wives’ Club.”
“… case of nerves—”
Sylvia Nolan. Marjorie’s mother, the one with headaches. Madeleine’s eyes dart about — is Mrs. Nolan here? Is she going to tell about the exercise group? Of course not. She still hasn’t joined the Wives’ Club. And what exactly is there to tell, anyhow? Suddenly Mrs. Baxter is there, beaming down at her — a big-boned woman with big-boned blonde hair and bold red lips. “You must be friends with my Cathy.” Madeleine half smiles, at a loss how to reply. Mrs. Nutt, a slim woman at Mrs. Baxter’s side, says quietly, “You’re in Joyce’s class, how do you like grade four, dear?” “Fine, thank you.” Mrs. Nutt takes her place at a card table and says something to Mrs. Vogel, who looks like Judy Garland — beautiful and on the verge of crying from happiness. Have Joyce Nutt and Diane Vogel told their mothers about the exercise group? Are Mrs. Nutt and Mrs. Vogel talking about it right now? Are they going to tell Madeleine’s mother?
“Madeleine.”
“Oui, maman.”
It’s bedtime. Mimi wraps a chocolate ladyfinger in a cocktail napkin and gives it to Madeleine, saying, “Now straight to bed, or the bonhomme sept heures will come and get you.”
Her mother has been to the beauty parlour today. Her hair is perfectly and simply formed, like her green and black sleeveless dress. Madeleine walks slowly upstairs, and watches Maman thread her way through the room and take the needle off the record. She turns, claps her hands twice and announces, “Allons, les femmes, let’s get down to business.” Everyone laughs and obeys. Madeleine lingers, her eyes on Mrs. Vogel and Mrs. Nutt, willing them to move to separate tables. They do. She is relieved that Mrs. Nolan is not here, but wonders at the absence of Mrs. Novotny. Then she recalls Marjorie’s words, “Her father’s just a corporal.” Mrs. Novotny isn’t an officer’s wife, so there would appear to be no danger that Maman will hear about the exercises from her.
“Madeleine, vite, vite. Bonne nuit, ma p’tite.”
“Do you know the capital of Borneo, little girl?”
Madeleine only tells her father the good stuff. She doesn’t mope in front of him any more. She doesn’t want him to think their plan isn’t working. It’s working. She is only ever a tortoise for a couple of days, then gets promoted back to dolphins. But never to hares. It would be sad for him to think he hadn’t fixed the problem. He has fixed it. And when she is with him, the after-three exercises become a very small and separate thing.
She helps him mow the lawn, with her hands next to his on the bar, and they discuss things over the roar of the motor. She tells him about the kids in her class — the bossy girls and the Philip Pinder boys and the rest except, of course, the exercise group — and he teaches her new words, “peer pressure” and “group dynamics.” He helps her write a speech on the topic of humour, laughter as the great “panacea.” She is mercilessly mocked in school for her use of such a big word, and responds by using it as frequently as possible, regardless of context. She and her father speculate as to why God allows war and cancer and the suffering of innocent dogs, they discuss what she will do when she grows up, going over the pros and cons of various professions — conducting what he calls a cost-benefit analysis. He asks where she wants to be in five years, they assess short-term versus long-term goals and how they can all lead to Ed Sullivan. One Saturday they pack a lunch and hike for miles on dirt roads far from the base, just the two of them with a Thermos of Nestlé’s Quik and a supply of peanut-butter sandwiches. Times like this become memories almost instantly, part of a gilded past that somehow coexists with the present. Remember-whens to look back on even as they are happening, bittersweet and aglow with sunshine fading to sepia — the late September dust suspended in the wake of a single passing car, leafy smell in the air, blue sky reflected in his sunglasses.