FOR EACH OTHER by Janet Lambert

Well, I have to say that these are not the best covers I've seen in the Lambert revue. And the characters on the cover, who I can only assume are Josie and Scott, look far older than they should. Although Josie's hair looks great in the paperback version!

But let's back up.

We are back with the Campbells! The parents are intellectuals, who can't manage money at all and think it is perfectly fine to dress their children in rags and raise them on an old Chinese junk. The oldest, Sandra, is probably 18 or so and she is a beauty. She has a devoted beau, Jay, who is hoping to get her to accept his proposal. Her being in Haiti and him being a college student in the states isn't as much of an impediment as you would think because he's filthy rich.  Josie is about 15 and full of fun. She is a "bloom where you are planted kind of gal, and she is blooming. They have a younger brother, Tenny, who just rolls with the punches like a champ. 

 As the book opens, Josie is hanging around imagining things when she meets day-tripper Scott Maitland. He is the whitest boy in all of Haiti. He wasn't supposed to visit the island, but he has been over protected and is rebelling, albeit somewhat ineffectually. 

I had intended to research Haiti's "bloody struggle to become a republic, its ups and downs through the years when it was preyed upon by different political groups, and ending with the dissension and intrigue in its present government." But I did not, because Janet summed it up there. And I'm in this for the interpersonal relationships, not the politics. 

But I will point out at one point when Josie is talking about how the wealthy Haitians send their kids to school in France, she says they do it "Because French is Haiti's national language and because - well, many of them are almost white, and they feel that we still draw a color line." Which is a delicate way to say it in 1959. She is quick to mention that Sandra has a Haitian friend who was offered a wonderful job in New York, so clearly it isn't a problem.

Well, Scott gets a wee bit stranded and is a wee bit annoying, but Josie tries to make the best out of it. She takes him to see a voodoo ritual which they view as pure entertainment, but Lambert has an insightful bit where Scott is all riled up from the voodoo and Josie knows that it is just the thrill of the unknown and he will come down shortly, and he does. 

Drama erupts when Josie is overheard saying what a dud Scott is, and he overhears it. And agrees. But they make up. The Simpsons, who own the hotel where everyone is staying, have their study broken into. Nothing much comes of it. 

Then all hell breaks loose and the Campbell kids, Scott and Jay are sent to the states on their own. Josie spends much of my goodwill by sneaking a bunch of kittens onto the plane.

They end up at Jay's parents' house and we learn that Scott had been ill, but also had an older bother who had died of polio, which was one of the reasons his parents were so overprotective. That and his propensity for getting stuck in island nations during a violent coup. 

Jay's mom tries to give them some dresses that cost the current equivalent of nearly $300! That seems quite excessive. Sandra won't take them because until she is married she will pay for her own dresses, or at least her parents will. 

Jay sweet talks Sandra into taking his grandmother's engagement ring so that they can get married soon and go to college together. They're BABIES!! Josie reads some stuff to Sandy that she wrote about their parents for when they get homesick and it smartens her up and she plans to return the ring in the morning. 

And it ends. 

Honestly.

That's it. 

I really liked the Haitian setting and the look at the difference Lambert displays between tourists and people who stay in the place long term. As a person who likes to stay somewhere long-term-ish, rather than do touristy things, I appreciated it. And there was some real tension in the kids getting out of the country. But the interpersonal stuff didn't grab me. We KNOW Sandy and Jay are going to end up together and now that Scott has declared Josie to be his person, there's probably going to be another set of soulmates to keep together. 

Although I just pulled the next Campbell installment FOREVER AND EVER off the shelf and apparently they are moving to Crawfordsville and will have some adventures there. So you never know if Scott will return, or be forgotten. I look forward to seeing how Janet describes Crawfordsville. I have been there a few times, sure, it is 60+ years after the books were written, but how much could it really have changed?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, but I thought it would have stuck with me more than it did. Maybe that's just the Campbells. The settings are so unusual that the stories don't have to be too compelling. Or maybe I am dying to get back to Patty and Ginger and their crazy teenage wilding. Or to see if maybe Bobby Parrish does the right thing and lets Keith have Susan. So much to find out!

GOING STEADY chapters 8-12

 

CHAPTER 8

All of a sudden there's a rash of clubs like this town has never seen. Patty is asked to join most of them, but she feel like she and two of her going steady friends, Jane and Phyllis, call themselves The Independent Three and think they are better than everyone else, even though "Spark plug called her 'a dope' and Tim had said she was 'pretty but stupid'." Ouch!

Well, tragedy strikes and Steve's appendix needs to come out and now Patty doesn't have a date for the hayride. (More shades of FIFTEEN! How convenient for teen fiction the appendix is.) She tries to get Ginger to find her a date, completely turning her back on the sanctity of the going steady as soon as it is inconvenient!

Doug and Mrs. Palmer have words about how spoiled Patty is wherein Douglas says to his mother, "I don't dig you." to mean he doesn't understand her.  Oh Janet, you're so hip! When she tries to comfort her daughter later, Patty tells her she isn't going steady anymore. Someone should tell Steve, once he is out of the near embrace of lady death!

CHAPTER 9

We switch to Bonnie's point of view as she heads to the drugstore to meet Douglas. She meets up with a friend, Madia, who is stalking her steady Bud. Bud is secretly dating Joan. Oh, it's a mess! After she and Doug watch the standoff, they start arguing about who is in the wrong. Janet gets in some anti-going-steady propaganda. Bonnie, as usual voices it. "These years are the last ones we'll have before we get responsibilities, so perhaps they ought to be kept free and full of fun." So wise.

When the kids get home, Mrs. Palmer is on hand to pound the lesson in further. " Going steady is a shaky bridge. It isn't anchored to marriage, or even to a recognized engagement. It's so awfully hard to walk on, especially if your companion decides to turn back and you're left along. You can't turn back when you're married." Oh dear, someone had best tell her about divorce!

Doug tries to write a letter of apology for being "a heel." But when he goes to call her, she is running down the hall of the house to apologize to him. Now THESE crazy kids just might make it work. 

CHAPTER 10

And now we are in Jane Palmer's head. She is bemoaning her lovestruck son and her daughter of whom she says, "If her grades weren't average, I'd swear she's a moron. And even so, I can't see where she finds time to study and. make good marks - dancing all afternoon, playing records and hanging on the telephone all evening, plus writing in her diary. That diary, by the way, is the worst piece of drivel I've ever read." Spying, Jane?  Not okay!

But as the Palmer parents discuss the state of their daughter, Mr. Palmer lays down some wisdom on why teens worry about stupid stuff. "Well, those are their problems. They can't worry about taxes - they haven't any. They haven't a washing machine to break down, either, or a big deal that has to go through if they're to meet their payroll. Girls have school, boys, other girls, clothes and parents to worry about. Boys, high school boys, like Doug, have all those, plus another big one to boot - how to get enough money to take a girl out." He's right, it IS harder for boys! Except the being a second class citizen thing for the girls. 

Then we shift to Bonnie and Doug who are helping Maida get over the duplicitous Bud by setting her up with the stalwart Boyd Freeman, self made man and student at Temple. There is some interesting stuff about the status difference between Maida, raised by her widowed mother and Bud's side-piece Joan, the banker's daughter. But mostly it's about mustering your wits and standing in your own defense. 

CHAPTER 11

On the way to school, Patty is nervous because she is now NOT going steady and feels like she is on the outs with her friends who Ginger describes as "a bunch of goony girls you never did like and who neck right in front of everyone." Oh my heavens, so salacious! 

As they leave their locker, Patty sees Tim and trues to figure out why she is so drawn to him, "He had fudgy hair, yes, and he wore slacks instead of cords, and was almost a junior. He made up nick-names like 'Ginger-cookie' and 'Merry Christmas', but he didn't know the difference between straight white teeth and ones with braces on them." So he's not...shallow?

After school, Patty and Ginger go to the treehouse which is where Ginger likes to sit when Patty is off being social. She eats cake and stalks Spark Plug. Ginger litters some wax paper, kind of going all AMERICAN BEAUTY with it. Patty realizes Ginger is warm for Spark Plug's form and tells her that he must think she's a square because she sits in a treehouse eating cake. 

Patty falls down the treehouse ladder and it brings the boys running. We learn that Patty will flirt with anything and Spark Plug's real name is Elston. When Tim and Patty go off to take care of her tree wounds she learns that he was sent away because he was going steady and my goodness, going steady is bad. Tim and Patty decide to be confidential friends and he says she has a lot of common sense. But I've read BOY WANTED already and I know that is completely untrue!

CHAPTER 12

It turns out that Patty has made the gossip column of the high school paper and it's AWESOME!! "What little freshman is rolling her big blue eyes in another direction now? And why doesn't the guy know enough to carry her books like his predecessor used to?  Sh! She's the little sister of a big shot, and the new fellah's a foreigner in these here parts. Give her time to train him." Doug says he wanted to scrap it, as the editor of the paper, but "other kids get razzed, why shouldn't [Patty]." He has no idea her social stock just rose a ton due to that mention.

Doug and Mrs. Palmer chat about the [minor] changes in Patty and consider it a victory over the evils of going steady. And yet the last sentence is Patty answering the phone, "Then she rolled over on her back and held her breath while she waited for Tim's answer." Same old Patty...

We will be back with these wacky teens after a trip to Haiti with the Campbells. See you there!

WE'RE GOING STEADY chapters 5-7

CHAPTER 5:

We're back and Patty's lipstick is on point. Dark enough to be interesting, but not so dark as to cause trouble. And Bonnie has taught her how to apply it so she doesn't look skanky. She meets Steve to walk to school and he sweet talks her. But she is pissed. She spent all day Sunday waiting for him to call and he was in Philly with his folks. She acts highhanded and then picks away at his cheerleading skills. Wow, Patty, way to drag a fella to his knees. They plan to meet for lunch.

After school, Patty and Ginger are at Ginger's and we hear of two people who will play a larger part in the Patty and Ginger saga - Spark Plug, Ginger's neighbor who is a motor-head junior grade with a carburetor where his heart will be and Mary Lou whose defining characteristic is that she is fat. And single. Yes, in this particular crowd I am definitely the Mary Lou.

Mary Lou is starting a club and having a slumber party to kick it off, but Patty can't join. It's a Girls Who Don't Go Steady club. Miss Maxwell, their homeroom and Latin teacher is sponsoring it. It's a movement! At this point we find out that the Palmers are Republicans and Ginger's parents are Democrats, but they're both Presbyterians (of COURSE they are!) so it's okay.

They have a fight about the "frumpy club" and as things are escalating, Tim comes to the door bearing flowers. Patty thinks it's a "date" but he's all like, "Who dates in the afternoon??" and says he saw Steve "hot-footing to the dancing joint" meaning the teen center, and assumed Patty would be there like the steady-going ball and chain she is. She haughtily says she doesn't go there every day and Ginger does not roll her eyes on the outside but they are opened wide in amazement of this bald faced lie. She invites Tim to Spark Plug's to work on the car. Patty goes home regretting her life choices. 

CHAPTER 6:

Patty heads home feeling unwanted only to find her brother and his girl being all weird and writing stuff. Douglas busts her chops about talking to Tim and she points out that he and Bonnie seem to have an open relationship. Oh Patty, you don't even understand what it is like to be on their level!

When Mrs. Palmer comes in, Bonnie goes bonkers telling her that Douglas has been offered a job writing editorials for the local paper. Doug tries to give Bonnie credit, but she won't take it because he is the MAN. But she says she imagines that someday they might "have permanent seats on a panel show." Which seems adorable. But the gender role stuff is so prevalent, "When I get going, I'll do a woman's column and leave the political and psychological end to him," she says of her own future journalism career. 

Apparently the Doug and Bonnie beat is the mind of the teenager. Doug has a column ready to go - "What the Young Fry Think About" and from the way Bonnie is acting it is not going to make Penny happy. However he has"some others ready. One on the importance of going out for sports, one on having a hobby, and a feminine slant on filling your time that Bonnie's working on." Is it just me or do these sound ripe for an MST3K makeover?

Patty leaves the room and Janet Lambert steps in, with Bonnie as her hip, young mouthpiece and gives a speech about how stupid going steady is. She nails it. "They're just out for the thrill." is as sexy as it gets, but the subtext is there. Doug informs his mother that the tack everyone should take is to press on Patty how important it is to be connected to Steve at the hip and Steve's essential dullness will take care of the rest. Along with some good old fashioned shunning. 

Mrs. Palmer - who surely has a rich full life outside her children's', but not in this book - talks with Patty in the kitchen about that old, fat Mary Lou's party. But there is no sympathy there. And what is worse, Steve has an itching issue so he might not be available for dates this weekend. Oh well, sickness and health, right Patty?

Finally Mary Lou calls, explains that the cool teachers are helping with the celibacy club, and it is going to be cool and exclusive, like a sorority! Patty is flummoxed and says, to her mother, "Something's wrong somewhere...Because Mary Lou's a square. Not much of one, but sort of. She's fun, but she's fat.  And Ginger has braces on her teeth. Not a single girl in our own special little crowd ever has real dates but me, so they're trying to make me think I'm wrong." And frankly, I am kind of impressed that Janet lets her main character be this much of a bitch. Her mother refuses to get drawn into her drama and you think that would be a clue. But Patty is just swirling in her own head. 

CHAPTER 7

Patty is hiding her disappointment at being left out by hanging out with Steve 24/7. Her parents miss her friends so much that when Ginger, Tim and Spark Plug show up on Sunday, they practically throw together a pop-up rave. They pull out records and give up two dollars worth of fruit for the cause! Then they decide to go to "the club" for dinner and leave the kids the house. Mrs. Palmer knows it will be trashed tomorrow but the cleaning woman will be coming so she can take care of it. You know, if it weren't for that dud, Patty. I might enjoy being Mrs. Palmer. 

There is good, wholesome, Sloppy-Joe-fueled fun going on. News of a hayride is bandied about and things are awkward for a minute until Ginger fixes is so that some steady-going girls are allowed to attend the GWDGS Club event, like missionary work. There is some gross talk about selling off girls to the highest bidder that is reminiscent of Jane Purdy's ill-fated kiss in FIFTEEN.

The Palmers come home and Patty is so excited about the hay ride. She nearly gets her dad to spring for some new pajamas, "the kind with silk slacks and a quilted silk jacket?" But her mom says Christmas is coming and the jammies can wait, but in the meantime Patty can borrow her read silk set for the slumber party after the hayride. 

Patty is ecstatic and calls her parents "cute" over and over and Mrs. Palmer thinks, "Please try to find some other work with which to express your feelings for us. Sometimes I think I'll scream if you call me 'cute' again." But she doesn't say it because she doesn't want to spoil Patty's happiness with criticism. I feel you, Mrs. Palmer. I really do!

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