She was by far the most beautiful doll I’d ever seen. And she could talk.
“I hope Santa will bring me one for Christmas,” my friend Maryanne whispered. The two of us had our faces pressed up to the toy store window that separated us from the Chatty Cathy doll inside. “She’s the only thing I wrote down on my list.”
Chatty Cathy was on every young girl’s Santa list that Christmas. But I didn’t tell Maryanne what I knew for a fact: Santa wasn’t real. I remembered how disappointed I’d felt when a babysitter spilled the beans, and I didn’t want Maryanne to feel that way too. Knowing the truth about Santa did have one advantage, how-ever. It gave me the idea to search the house for presents that might be hidden away for me until Christmas morning. Between my parents and the relatives who lived with us in our Brooklyn brownstone, there was no shortage of places to look. In fact, deep in the back of Aunt Thecla’s closet I’d found my Chatty Cathy doll. Bingo! On Christmas morning, she would be mine. I could hardly wait. Until then, Chatty Cathy would remain my secret.
“What are y’all looking at?”
Maryanne and I didn’t even have to turn around to know who had come up behind us at the store window. No one else in our neighborhood had an accent like Jenna Lee’s. She and her family had only arrived from South Carolina a few months ago, without her father. I didn’t know the particulars, only that they had relocated under difficult circumstances. Her mother worked long hours as a waitress, which often left Jenna Lee to take care of her four younger sisters.
“We’re looking at Chatty Cathy,” Maryanne said. She moved aside to make space for Jenna Lee to see inside at the window.
“If you pull the string on her neck, she’ll talk to you,” I explained.
Jenna Lee wrapped her coat tightly around her. I could see it was far too thin for the New York winter.
“Chatty Cathy can say 11 things,” Maryanne went on. “Like ‘I love you’ and ‘Tell me a story.’”
“I ain’t never seen anything like her,” Jenna Lee said, stroking the glass window with one finger. “She would be nearly as good as having a real live friend like you two.”
“Maybe you’ll get one for Christmas,” said Maryanne.
Surely, that was impossible. Not as long as there was no Santa in the picture. If her mom had had any money to spare, Jenna Lee would have had more than the two dresses she rotated every day. When she came over to play dolls with me, she’d brought clothespins with eyes drawn on them. I elbowed Maryanne in the ribs, hoping she’d change the subject.
Maryanne didn’t take the hint. “What’s on your list for Santa this year?” she asked.
“We don’t make lists,” said Jenna Lee, her eyes never leaving Chatty Cathy’s face. “We’re grateful for whatever Santa leaves in our stockings. Last year I got five dollars to spend just on myself. I was real careful, so the money lasted a long time.” She wrinkled her brow. “I just hope Santa can find us this year.”
“Santa knows everything,” Maryanne assured her. I didn’t know the half of Jenna Lee’s family situation, but walking home, I thought about what Jenna Lee had said about being grateful. My aunt Thecla always said that’s what Christmas was all about: being grateful for what we have. It was easy to be grateful knowing I had a Chatty Cathy doll in her pink and orange box, just waiting for me to open her up on Christmas morning. I wondered if being grateful was hard for Jenna Lee.
That doll in the store window never left my mind in the coming weeks, busy as I was. I baked cookies with my mom and tried to keep Uncle Edmund’s taste tests to a minimum. I decorated the tree with my dad and wrapped presents with my grandmother and Aunt Thecla.
With family all around every minute of every day, I hardly had time to myself. It wasn’t until I was alone in bed at night that I imagined the conversations Chatty Cathy and I would have once she was mine.
On Christmas morning, we all gathered around the tree. I thought I’d burst with excitement. I scanned the brightly wrapped packages with my name on them, judging which one was the right size to hold the best doll I’d ever seen. Arms handed out presents this way and that. The adults were up and down in their seats. Cousins tumbled around on the floor. Aunt Thecla grabbed the discarded bows to save for next year. I could hardly hear myself think amid the laughter and oohs and ahhs. I unwrapped a new sweater, a set of Nancy Drew books, a Mousetrap game—but no Chatty Cathy.
Maybe it was mislabeled, I thought. Every time someone else opened a gift, I held my breath, looking for that pink and orange box Chatty Cathy came in. But it never appeared. Grandma got her new apron. Mom got a new saucepan. Aunt Thecla got yet another Bible. Everyone, it seemed, got what they wished for but me.
“All those presents made me hungry,” Uncle Edmund announced when the gifts were opened, the floor littered with wrapping paper. “Let’s all go eat!”
The rest of the family moved into the dining room for breakfast. I stayed behind, crawling around, looking for a package that had gotten lost. My doll had to be somewhere!
I was halfway under the sofa when the doorbell rang. Aunt Thecla answered it. Jenna Lee’s familiar accent rang out from the foyer. “Merry Christmas!” she said.
I pulled myself up and went to the door. “I know it’s early,” Jenna Lee was saying, “but I had to come show Jacquelyn what Santa brought me!”
Aunt Thecla clapped her hands. My heart leapt to my throat when I saw what Jenna Lee held in her arms. A Chatty Cathy doll. My Chatty Cathy doll. The one I had seen in Aunt Thecla’s closet. I was sure of it.
“Santa was really good to us,” Jenna Lee said, cuddling my doll in her arms. “And the owner of the restaurant where Mama works invited us for Christmas dinner.” She sighed. “A Christmas farewell dinner. We’re going back to South Carolina.” She stuck out her hand to me. “Thank you for being my friend, Jacquelyn. It’s been real nice knowing you.
”I knew I had to shake her hand, but what I wanted to do was grab that doll out of her arms. I would probably miss Jenna Lee eventually, but in this moment, I was just angry that she’d somehow stolen my doll.
We said goodbye, and Jenna Lee went home. I turned to Aunt Thecla. I didn’t care if she knew that I’d snooped in her closet. I had to know: What had happened to my doll?
Aunt Thecla ushered me into Grandma’s sewing room and shut the door. “I did buy that Chatty Cathy for you,” she admitted. “But two nights ago, I found out that Jenna Lee’s family is going to be separated for a while.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Isn’t she going home to South Carolina like she said?”
“Yes, but she and her siblings are going to live in different foster homes for a while. I thought Jenna Lee would need a friend to hold onto until her family is back together.”
Aunt Thecla with all her Bibles must have gotten an inspiration from God himself. “That was exactly what Jenna Lee said about Chatty Cathy,” I told Aunt Thecla. “That she would be like having a real friend, like me and Maryanne.”
Aunt Thecla looked up to the ceiling. “Thank you, Jesus,” she said. “Now let’s get back to the others. I smell those cinnamon rolls.”
My parents were teasing each other over Dad’s new Christmas sweater. Uncle Edmund and Grandma were singing. Everybody else helped themselves to breakfast. I stood quietly amid the chaos. Aunt Thecla stroked my hair. “If you really want that Chatty Cathy doll,” she said, “I’ll start saving for it.”
I looked at my family gathered around the table, laughing, eating, singing. I thought of Jenna Lee alone somewhere without her parents or any of her siblings and only Chatty Cathy to talk to. “I don’t need one,” I said. “I have all of you.”
I never did get a Chatty Cathy doll. But whenever I played with Maryanne’s, I wasn’t a bit jealous. If I could have given Chatty Cathy a twelfth thing to say, it would have been, “I’m grateful for all that I have.” Just like Jenna Lee.
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