Read Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself for Free Online

a card table and played a few hands of Go Fish. Douglas won every time.
    “Are you glad we’re going to Florida?” Sally asked.
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “Same here.”
    Douglas reminded Sally of a grasshopper. His legs were growing very long and the shape of his face was long too, and thin, with big brown eyes. He had very nice hair, blonde and wavy, the kind Sally would have liked because then Mom wouldn’t have to set hers in rag curlers each night.
    “Did you know when I first got my kidney infection it burned when I pissed?”
    “It did?” Douglas was always trying to shock her with bad words.
    “Yeah … something awful … I wanted to climb the walls.”
    “You said funny things when you had your fever,” Sally told him.
    “Like what, for instance?”
    “Oh, I don’t remember exactly … a lot of mumbo-jumbo stuff …”
    “No kidding?”
    “Honest.”
    “Could you make anything out?” Douglas asked.
    “No … I didn’t get to listen that much … I was at school all day and then they wouldn’t let me in your room most of the time …” Sally took a sip of her Coke and promptly got the hiccups.
    “You shouldn’t drink that stuff.”
    “But I like it.”
    “Yeah … but you get the hiccups every single time.”
    “They’ll go away.”
    “I thought I was going to die,” Douglas said. “And I didn’t even care … that’s how bad I felt.”
    “I thought so too … for a little while.”
    “No kidding?”
    “Really.”
    “Were you sorry?”
    “Well, naturally … who’d want to be an only child?”
    “I figured you’d inherit my bicycle.”
    “Why would I even want your bicycle?”
    “It’s newer than yours … and bigger …”
    “So … I wouldn’t want you to die just because of that … don’t you think I have any feelings?” She hiccupped loudly and the bartender started to laugh.
    When they got back to their seats Mom was still dozing and Ma Fanny was reading
The Forward
,her Yiddish newspaper. Across the aisle and two seats ahead of them was a Negro woman with two little boys and a baby girl. The boys had been watching Sally all morning and now she took some cookies out of the basket and crossed the aisle, offering them to the children.
    “How nice,” their mother said. “Say,
thank you
, Kevin and Kenneth.”
    “Thank you Kevin and Kenneth,” they said at the same time, making Sally laugh. She wasn’t as interested in them as she was in the baby, who sat on her mother’s lap.
    “My name’s Sally Freedman and I’m going to Miami Beach because my brother, Douglas, who’s sitting right over there, has been sick with a kidney infection …”
    “Oh, that’s too bad. I’m Mrs. Williamson and this is Kevin and this is Kenneth.” She touched each boy on the head as she said his name. “We’re going to Miami, too. We’re going to visit our granny, who’s never seen Loreen.” She held up the baby.
    “She’s so cute,” Sally said. “How old is she?”
    “Eight months.”
    “Hi, Loreen …” Sally said. The baby smiled at her. “I think she likes me. Can I hold her?”
    “Sure … if you sit down. Kevin, come sit by me and we’ll let Sally hold Loreen for a while.”
    “You’ll be sorry,” Kevin said. “She makes pooeys.”
    “So did you when you were a baby,” his mother reminded him.
    Sally got comfortable with Loreen on her lap. As soon as she did the baby grabbed a fistful of her hair and tried to get it into her mouth.
    “No, no …” Sally said, forcing the baby’s fist open.
    “And she eats hair,” Kevin said. “That’s how dumb she is.”
    Loreen laughed and made gurgling noises.
    “She’s teething,” Mrs. Williamson said. “Here … give her this.” She passed a teething ring to Sally. Loreen put it in her mouth and went, “Ga-ga.”
    “That’s all she ever says,” Kenneth told Sally.
    Sally held Loreen until the baby fell asleep. Then she gave her back to Mrs. Williamson and went to