Well, there is not much else news here. I know I haven’t written back very much, but I did want you to know how I finally turned out. I looked on the map where Missouri was, so you know I have thought of you. Also, I thought of you because I now have completed my move into all different makeup, and I know how you relied on me for tips. It is too long to tell you everything now, but trust me that I am more now on the side of elegant like Jackie. One tip I will pass on right away: Do not fall for lip gloss that has a taste like green apple. Neither you nor you-know-who will like it. Do you have a you-know-who? Or does your heart still weep for Jimmy? Sometimes that happens that your one love in life is a tragedy, and if it has happened to you, I am so sorry, it must be très, très painful. I have to go now.
Love,
Cherylanne
Jimmy. The gas station attendant I loved so much, even if he was ten years older than I and married too. I haven’t thought of him for a long time. Now when I do, I see that the pain I used to feel has transformed itself into something else, something kind of holy and put away. He was my first love and will always be, but in time I think there will be another. That is one lesson I finally learned from him.
I fold up Cherylanne’s letter, slide it under my pillow. Then I arrange my arms and legs just right for sleep. Sometimes when I do that, I think there is nothing wrong in the whole world. I think it is how my dogs feel, too, when they lie down and sigh loud out their noses.
IONCE HEARD SOMEONE SAY that it is a sin to wish for time to go faster, but that person has never sat in the living room of the Wexler house watching three boys try to kill each other. What we have here is Mark, Henry, and David rolled together in a ball in the middle of the floor. They are the Three Stooges, they said, and now no matter how hard I have tried I cannot stop them from yelling “Chowderhead!” and trying to poke one another’s eyes out, they just keep going. Everybody knows the Three Stooges are only kidding, but not these kids, they really mean it. I am flat-out exhausted and have finally collapsed on the couch to just watch them. When their mother comes home I will say there are David’s eyeballs, which your other son, Mark, popped out. I don’t care anymore.
And then, just like that, they stop. They just sit there looking at me like I am the entertainment lady with the whistle around her neck. I wish I could send them outside, but no, it’s raining hard.
“Are you finished?” I ask.
Nothing. Just Henry scratching a line of mosquito bites on his arm about six miles long. He is the littlest one, not only in age but also he’s just little. His ears stick out and he wears glasses and his hair stands up in back from a cowlick worse than mine. He is exactly between cute and tragic. If it were only Henry and me, we might have good time, but we have his two older brothers, who look like twins, but aren’t. They have the same dark hair and narrow eyes and mean expressions and heavy builds. They never look at you straight on, and they are always grinning a little like they have a secret from you. A secret like, Watch out if you sit down, because there is a good chance there will be a surprise if you do. I have already sat on the whoopee cushion, and when I did, they all did a little dance of congratulations to themselves, even Henry.
“Your mother will be home in an hour,” I say, and I can feel those sixty long minutes pressing down on me, taking away my breathing space. “We can play Crazy Eights or we can make cookies.”
Well, I have to say I have just surprised myself, saying the cookies part. I don’t really know if Mrs. Wexler would like me to do that. When I came, she was sitting at the kitchen table, painting her fingernails. Her hair was done nicely in a flip and sprayed to stay that way, and she was wearing a blue skirt and a fancy white blouse, white high-heel sandals, and pearl earrings. I thought she looked so nice to just go grocery shopping. It only goes to show you how having animals for sons can make you desperate enough to dress up like the queen of Sheba when all you’re doing is going to get more Oxydol. I am having girls, and then only one.
While Mrs. Wexler waited for her nails to dry, I sat at the kitchen table to listen to my instructions, which were basically to let them eat lunch whenever they were ready—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—and if it stopped raining to get them out of the house. Which I would do by myself, of course. Then Mrs. Wexler all of a sudden said, “Do you have a boyfriend, Katie?” I felt myself blush a little as I said no. “Well,” she said, “don’t be in any hurry.” She smiled a bitter smile and said, “I’ve been with my husband since junior high school. Isn’t that sweet.” Then she stopped smiling and just stared at me like I wasn’t there. But after a second she snapped out of it, leaped up, and grabbed her purse, yelled, “You boys behave!” and was gone. And her sons began their favorite game of all time; torture the baby-sitter.
But now, “Cookies! Cookies! Cookies!” they are yelling, and they are all jumping up and down. I hold up my hand and yell even louder than them, “ANYONE WHO IS JUMPING UP AND DOWN MAY NOT HELP WITH THE MAKING OF THE COOKIES, OR THE EATING OF THEM!”
Stop. Not one movement on the part of any of them, though I can see David and Mark looking at each other, trying to plan something using the language of the eyebrows. One eyebrow up. Should we? Two eyebrows down: No, better not. I have never been one to yell, but I can see now that there might be times when it’s good.
“Now,” I say, in the calm and knowing voice of a teacher. “Let’s go and see if we have what we need. Let’s find the ingredients.” I start for the kitchen. I am walking so straight and tall three books would stay balanced on top of my head. Only Henry follows me. Mark and David are standing frozen, pretending they are statues. I never saw kids so quick to make a dumb game out of everything.
“What kind shall we make?” I ask Henry, loudly, and just as I suspected, that gets the other two to come slamming into the kitchen. They would never let Henry decide anything.
“Chocolate chip!” David yells, and Mark yells, “Yeah, chocolate dootie!”
Now they are jumping around the kitchen and I am looking in the cupboards for chocolate chips and wishing I were at home, asleep, in the middle of the night. Lo and behold, there they are, chocolate chips, lying right beside a box of Minute Rice. I hope it’s okay to use them, but I don’t care if it isn’t. It’s use up the chips or have the mother come home to kids with no eyes and a baby-sitter dead from trying.
“ANYONE WHO DOES NOT SIT DOWN AT THE KITCHEN TABLE WILL BE EXPELLED FROM THE KITCHEN,” I say. And they sit down. They are actually quiet for about three seconds. And in those three seconds I see that Mark has big circles under his eyes, and it makes me all of a sudden kind of tender for him. I start to think that maybe I can get things to go smoother; it is all a matter of child psychology. When Mark reaches over and starts punching David, I try something. I say, “Mark, I think you would be good at the mashing butter part, you look like a very intelligent young man.” Bingo. He looks at me like I have anointed him king of the world. I have to hold my head down to keep my triumph in before Mark sees it and goes back to being a jerk.
FRIDAY MORNING. Tonight, kids will be going out on dates to the movies like crazy, but I will be going with Cynthia, as usual. I wonder sometimes what it really is that makes some kids popular and some kids losers. I wonder if you are born one way or another and, no matter what, you can never change it. I see those advice columns, and books like ’Twixt Twelve and Twenty, and they make it sound like all you have to do is sit down in front of your mirror and have a little talk with yourself, and presto, you are different. Happy and good-looking, with people drawn to you everywhere you go. First of all, I don’t even have a mirror in my room. I use the bathroom mirror. I can just see myself locking the door and standing in there to look into my own eyes, trying to change into a popular person, and there it would be, a knock on the door. My father, Are you about done in there?
Cherylanne once told me it matters a lot who you hang around with, that if you get seen with losers, people will just naturally think you’re one too. Which is why I was not
allowed to hang around with her except in the neighborhood; I couldn’t be with her in our school. At the time, it didn’t matter to me, I was just so glad to be with her sometimes. She was one of those really pretty girls who seem to just know so much, with so many beautiful things in her closet and about three hundred bottles of perfume. Now I understand more about her, and I am aware that she doesn’t know nearly as much as she thinks she does; in fact, she’s kind of stupid. But she might have been right about hanging around with losers; it only makes you worse.
But how can you get popular one day, when the day before you were not? It is not just clothes and makeup, although that helps. It is not good looks, although that helps even more. It is something else; it is that thing where people just want to have something of you, or be like you, you are just so interesting or something. I really don’t get it. Hands all around me reach in and pull out prizes; I come up empty every time; where did you find that?
But even losers have boyfriends—loser boyfriends, but boyfriends just the same. I wonder when my time of having a boyfriend will come, and no matter what Mrs. Wexler says, I wish it would be soon. It’s okay to go out with your girlfriend, but if you go on a Friday night you feel stupid in front of all the date people. Sometimes a couple right in front of you will start kissing, and then you feel bad to look at them, but you have to.
Fifteen more minutes until I have to leave for the Randolphs’. I sit at my desk and look through my drawer to kill some time. I have been thinking about this poetry, haiku. It is like a clean and sunny white room, nothing in it, so you can see the sun better. In the library was a whole book of it, which I did not bring home because I didn’t want even myself to know I wanted to try. But last night I got a clean new notebook, and on the cover I put a fake Japanese symbol. I made a kind of F with a box in it, and some furls around it. I did my first try at haiku, which is a perfect name for what it is. Now I open the notebook and read:
Sheets stuck to my legs
The top of my head on fire
Summer sits on me
Well. The only thing good is, it’s the right number of syllables. I don’t know why I thought it was good last night, when the truth is it’s really terrible. Whoa. It is a true embarrassment when you feel shy in front of your own self, and that is just exactly what I feel now. Still, I am willing to try again, because the thing about writing poetry is you can throw away lots of things and then all of a sudden you feel like your pen has turned golden. It might help to switch to winter, and also this time not think so much. I close my eyes tight for a moment, then open them and write.
White snow covers tan
It looks to me like crumb cake
Nourishment for eyes
Well, this is no better, and anyway, it’s almost time to go to work. When you’re a poet, you never get enough time to write poetry, so I might as well get used to it. Once a real poet came to school to talk to us. She was so exciting because she looked just like a beatnik with her long, black hair and such black rings around her eyes and also all black clothes and leather sandals like Jesus. She read us three poems that were so beautiful, and then it was time for questions. One kid asked what her real job was, and she said her real job was writing poems, but in order to afford her real job, she worked as a telephone operator. Which right away showed me to never think anything you see is the only thing it is. It made me sorry to think that someone who could write a poem that could give you the chills had to spend so many long hours a day saying, “Operator.” But in another way it made me happy to know that things can be so surprising. Like the waitress who gives you the hamburger might also be a painter. And Lana Turner, the sweater girl, who was serving up ice cream sodas in Hollywood when she got discovered. This is one of my favorite things to imagine: The man comes in and puts his hat down on the counter, and orders a root beer float. And then he watches Lana make it with his eyes sort of squinty. Suddenly he stands up and shouts, “Come with me, young lady! I’m going to make you a star!” And Lana takes off her apron and inside her fireworks of the heart are exploding. On her way out, she says, “Hey, Al? I quit.”
Sometimes I think, What if something like that ever happened to me? What would I do? Probably I would be afraid. Probably I would say to the man, “That’s okay, thanks anyway.” You have to be willing to take chances. You have to not be so afraid. That is the first step to getting anywhere.
After I comb my hair into the shortest ponytail in the universe, I rip the haikus I did into long shreds and put them in my waste-basket. This is also what I do with drawings I don’t like. Or ones that I shouldn’t have done in the first place. Once I drew breasts and a penis. You can bet I covered them over with scribbles before I ripped them up. The devil said, Why don’t you draw some breasts and a penis, huh? How would that be, to just draw two huge breasts and a big fat penis? The angel covered her mouth and gasped. Then she said, all smug, You wouldn’t do that, would you, Katie? But I did. The whole time I was drawing there was a spreading warmth inside me that started you know where. It was quite a shock. But it was a pleasure, too. The angel smacked her forehead. The devil raised his pitchfork and danced.
MR. RANDOLPH IS HOLDING MRS. RANDOLPH on her side and I am washing her back. This is while she is in bed, believe it or not, and so it requires a certain skill, like you have to be careful not to knock the pan of water into the bed. The pan is a big pan, like you boil spaghetti in, but now there’s water mixed with some bath oil. Rose-scented, which brings luxury to the chore. Mrs. Randolph’s back skin is so thin and movable. At first I was afraid to press very hard, but it actually feels good to her when you do. I thought that I would feel embarrassed to do this, but it turns out it’s fine. One reason is, they are both so nice, and another reason is, Mr. Randolph acts like it’s pure natural.
“So you’ll be going to a new school next year, is that right, Katie?” Mr. Randolph asks.
“What?” Mrs. Randolph says. “I didn’t hear that, dear.”
Mr. Randolph leans in close to Mrs. Randolph’s ear and says, “I asked Katie about the school she’ll be going to next year.”
“Oh, I see.”
Mr. Randolph looks at me and smiles and I smile back.
“And what did she say?” asks Mrs. Randolph, and I say, “I didn’t say anything yet. But I will be going to a new school, Miller High School.”
“Turn me back, will you, Henry? I can’t hear her.”
Mr. Randolph turns his wife over on her wet back and I tell her louder that I will be starting Miller High School. She nods. “High school. Well, that’s a big step.”
“I guess so,” I say.
She leans forward, “What was that?”
“Yes,” I say.
“You mustn’t be afraid, though.”
“No.”
“What subjects do you like?”
“English.”
“Ah, me, too. English was always my favorite.”
I smile, nod, then hold up the towel to remind her that we’re not quite finished back here.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she says. “I completely forgot. You’d think we were sitting on a bench and chatting in the park, wouldn’t you?” She laughs like she’s just heard a good joke.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Mr. Randolph turns her over again and I wipe her back dry, then put a little powder on her. It’s so funny, it’s like a baby, but way at the other end of life. Everything is a circle, if you think about it. Mrs. Randolph was doing fine until recently, and then she had a little stroke. She might get some better, but probably not a lot. Mr. Randolph’s face when he told me this was full of pain, yet he was smiling.
When we’re through bathing Mrs. Randolph, Mr. Randolph says, “I wonder if you could stay with her now while I run out to the grocery store. Would that be all right?”
“Yes, sir,” I say. And then, “Do you think she’d like to go outside?”
“Perhaps another time,” he says. “It’s awf
ully hot out today, and she doesn’t do well in the heat.”
“What?” Mrs. Randolph asks, and Mr. Randolph bends over her ear to repeat what he said.
“Oh, I can’t tolerate the heat,” she says. “Never could. I just wilt. But maybe you could read to me a bit.”
“Okay.” I wonder if I’ll have to yell the whole story. Mr. Randolph hands me a library book by someone called Taylor Caldwell. The title is The Listener, which is a very interesting title. Right away you want to know who is this listener, and what is he listening to? Mr. Randolph kisses Mrs. Randolph on the cheek, waves to me, and is gone.
I open to the place that’s marked, and start reading. It is someone just talking about their troubles.
“A little louder, dear,” Mrs. Randolph says, and there you are, the answer to the yelling part is yes.
I haven’t read but two or three pages when I look up and see that Mrs. Randolph is sleeping. And now that I’ve stopped yelling the story, I can also hear her snoring. It’s a ladylike snore, not too loud, just a ruffled kind of breathing. I close the book and put it on my lap, then look at her lying there, her hands folded across her stomach. She wears a blue stone ring, and it is loose on her finger, turned to the side. I think how easy it would be for someone to pluck that ring from her. She is just so vulnerable, like a baby bird in the nest. She also wears a man’s watch so that she can see the numbers, and the watch band is twisted and held with a rubber band to be smaller, so it won’t fall off. And that is all, except of course for the nightgown. I wonder if she misses her clothes, if she thinks sometimes about how she used to leap out of bed and just get dressed, easy as pie, and now that has gone from her. I can see how some old people get mean and bitter about their lives getting so small, but Mrs. Randolph doesn’t seem that way. I think maybe it’s because of Mr. Randolph, who takes such good care of her, and even now is buying her the brown bread she wanted because she wants to eat it with some beans for lunch. There is some old people food, for sure. I wonder, Don’t they ever just want sloppy joes?