#66: Maid Mary Anne
This book has a lot of foreshadowing about Dawn missing California. She’s talking about the weather, forlornly listening to the Beach Boys, missing her dad and Jeff, etc.
Mary Anne has the delicate soul of a weepy librarian, so she begins taking sewing lessons from Mrs. Towne, a widow and accomplished seamstress who lives on her street. On her first day of lessons, Mary Anne arrives to find Mrs. Towne on the kitchen floor, injured and passed out. She calls 911 and gets Mrs. Towne help; it turns out it’s a broken ankle and Mrs. Towne will be laid up for a while. Mary Anne offers to help as much as she can. She also begins teaching her own sewing class to a small group of baby-sitting charges.
The kids are really into quilts (???) so Mary Anne takes them to visit Mrs. Towne and look at her quilts. While there, she notices that Mrs. Towne’s house has fallen into some disarray, so she helps by washing the dishes and tidying the kitchen while the kids are occupied. Turns out that Mrs. Towne finds Mary Anne very helpful and they agree to a trade of sorts - Mary Anne will help Mrs. Towne around the house and Mrs. Towne will accept that as payment for the sewing lessons. Meanwhile, the kids in Mary Anne’s sewing class decide to make a garden-themed quilt as a get-well present for Mrs. Towne.
Unfortunately, Nicky Pike and Buddy Barrett both get made fun of for taking the sewing class. They’re called sissies, etc. and they both call Mary Anne to tell her they can’t take the class anymore. (This is reminiscent of Logan’s Story. Sexism in Stoneybrook - and America, tbh - is rampant!)
“Being a male chauvinist pig - or even a male chauvinist piglet - doesn’t earn any sympathy from me!” - Kristin Amanda Damn Thomas, page 134
Also unfortunately, Mrs. Towne begins to take advantage of Mary Anne’s willingness to help, calling her for favors on days when Mary Anne isn’t there for a lesson. On a day when Mary Anne and Logan are almost out the door to spend the day together swimming, hiking, and having a picnic, Mrs. Towne calls and needs Mary Anne to get some things off a high shelf and to shoo a wasp out of her kitchen - and Mary Anne derails her plans with Logan so they can go help Mrs. Towne. Logan isn’t too pleased and Mary Anne is starting to realize she’s in a little over her head. And she starts to get annoyed when Mrs. Towne calls Claudia’s during BSC meetings and Mary Anne has to leave to help her, like, grab a box from the basement - non-emergency-type things.
“Nice isn’t always good. Or unselfish. Or the right thing to do. Sometimes, it’s just the easiest thing to do.” - Mary Anne, page 137
Preach, Mary Anne. That is a lesson a lot of us have had to learn the hard way. Mary Anne decides to have a Talk with Mrs. Towne and tells her that even though she likes visiting, she can’t be “on call” - she has to have her own life. Mrs. Towne admits she’s been lonely, and she should probably hire a housekeeper. She and Mary Anne revert to their original arrangement of Mary Anne paying money for her lessons.
Nicky and Buddy come crawling back to the sewing class and admit the person teasing them is named Clarence Lawrence (again a link to Logan’s Story - his bully’s name is Clarence King). Nicky and Buddy have kind of realized that even if they stop sewing, Clarence will just tease them about something else - so they should just do what they want to do. This is a pretty good life philosophy - as long as you’re doing no harm, do whatever the hell you want.
