Terrible Terrel

by Whoopi Goldberg

  Epatha turns to face Tiara Girl and is about to open her mouth when Ms. Debbé says, “Very good, ladies. We will decide the details later.”

  Epatha looks as if she might explode. “Chill, E.,” I say in a low voice. “She’s a stupid twerp. Not worth getting upset over.”

  “Class dismissed,” Ms. Debbé says quickly. I guess if Epatha and Tiara Girl are going to start socking each other, Ms. Debbé would rather they do it outside.

  We all tromp downstairs and grab our stuff. “You guys want to come over after school tomorrow?” Epatha asks as we head outside. Her family owns a restaurant, Bella Italia.

  “Sure,” Brenda says, and we all agree.

  Parents and other people waiting to pick up kids are standing around outside talking. I look around for Cheng, but I don’t see him. That’s weird—he’s tall, so he’s pretty hard to miss. And he never forgets to pick me up.

  “Terrel! Over here.”

  I see my dad waving. As I walk over, he says something to the lady standing next to him.

  “Hey, Dad. What are you doing here?” I ask. Dad picks me up on Saturdays, but not on Tuesdays.

  He clears his throat. “Oh, I…I got off work early, so I told Cheng I’d pick you up. That okay?” he asks, smiling at me.

  “’Course!” I say. I wave to my friends and start to walk away, but Dad doesn’t follow me. “Are you coming?”

  He says good-bye to the lady and takes a few quick steps to catch up with me. “How was class?” he asks.

  “Fine,” I say. “Same as always.”

  “And that’s good, right?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yup,” I say, grinning.

  “Do you know a girl named April?” Dad asks as we turn on to our street.

  “April?” I say, shifting my backpack to my other shoulder. “I don’t think so.”

  Dad waves to our neighbor Mr. Slotnik, who is peering out the window, as always. “There’s not an April in your ballet class?” he asks.

  I think about all the people in ballet. There are a few new kids, and I don’t know all their names yet. Maybe it’s one of them.

  Then I remember: Tiara Girl’s name is April. We just call her Tiara Girl so much that I forget.

  “Ewww!” I say. “Yes, I know an April. She’s horrible. She’s really snotty to us, and she wears this tiara all the time. All the time.” We start up our apartment stairs. “Why?” I ask.

  He looks a bit shocked by my reaction. “Uh, no reason,” he says. “I was just talking to her aunt outside class and wondered if you knew her.”

  I snort. “I wish I didn’t,” I say, dropping my backpack onto the chair.

  Dad takes off his coat and hangs it by the door. “Now, Terrel,” he says, “that’s not very nice. Maybe she’s one of those people who seems aloof until you get to know her.”

  I’m not sure what aloof means, but I am sure that getting to know Tiara Girl is never going to be on my to-do list. But Dad is very gentle, kind of like Jessica. He doesn’t ever seem to get angry at anybody, even us kids when we do stupid things. So explaining to him exactly how annoying Tiara Girl is would be pointless.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say, to get him off the subject.

  Dad drops me off at home, then says he’s going to run back to the office for a while.

  “I thought you said you got off work early,” I say.

  “Did I? I meant that I just took a little time off so I could pick you up from class,” he says.

  This makes no sense at all. Why would Dad take time off from work just to pick me up?

  Why do I get the feeling he’s not telling me everything?

  Chapter 4

  On Friday, Dad gets home just as I finish my math homework. He hangs his coat by the door, but on the wrong hook. I’ve very carefully labeled all the hooks with our names so we can keep track of where our coats are, especially since my brothers’ coats all look the same.

  “Dad.”

  He looks at his watch. His eyes dart around the room.

  “Dad,” I say again.

  He finally turns his head in my direction. “Yes, sweetheart?”

  I point toward the door. “Wrong hook.”

  He stares uncomprehendingly. Finally he sees what he’s done and moves his coat.

  “What are we having for dinner?” I ask. My stomach rumbles even though I had some Applesauce Surprise earlier; it’s colorful, but not very filling.

  I follow Dad into the kitchen. He’s walking really fast for some reason. Once we’re there, he pulls out a big pot and begins to fill it with water.

  “I’m going to make spaghetti for you and your brothers. But I won’t be eating with you. I have an appointment.” Dad starts opening and closing cupboards—first the top left, then the top right, then the bottom left, then the bottom right.

  “What are you looking for?” I say. “The spaghetti sauce is in the back of the top left cupboard. Spaghetti is in the middle drawer.”

  “Ah, yes,” he says, lunging for the drawer.

  He knows where the stuff is. He and I spent one afternoon last year working out exactly where everything should go, and it hasn’t changed since then. I wonder if our real dad was kidnapped by a UFO. Maybe this is some weird alien dad sent to spy on us or eat our brains. Maybe Dad really is losing it.

  The pot in the sink is overflowing. I run to turn off the tap. “Another appointment?” I ask. “What kind of appointment do you have at night?”

  Dad grunts as he lifts the pot of water and carries it to the stove. “Nothing important,” he says. “I’m just meeting someone.” He turns on the burner, then rushes out of the kitchen, tripping on Danny’s sneakers as he goes.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m mixing up the spaghetti and sauce on the stove. Edward is setting the table, and my other brothers are scattered all over the apartment. Dad has disappeared into his room, coming out only to help strain the spaghetti before disappearing again.

  As I stir, I smell something weird. Kind of like a pine forest—an extremely stinky pine forest.

  “How’s it coming?” asks Dad, who is right behind me. I sniff. He must have gone swimming in a pool of aftershave. I can barely breathe.

  I turn to face him. His newly cut hair is slicked to one side, and he’s wearing a dark red sweater I’ve never seen before. He usually wears normal button-down shirts and jeans, but now he’s wearing gray flannel pants. He looks like a kid whose mom has dressed him up for the school picture.

  “Uh…good,” I say, trying not to gag. I go over to the garbage can and pretend to throw something out so I can get a gulp of non-pine-forest air.

  Danny comes into the room, followed by Tai and Cheng. “Wow,” he says. “Looking good, Dad!” He gives Dad a thumbs-up, grabs a plate of spaghetti, and takes it to his room.

  Dad seems embarrassed but pleased. He glances at me, almost like he wants me to say he looks good, too. I give him a weak smile. I guess he looks okay, but he sure doesn’t smell good. I like his normal smell, which is just soap.

  “All right, kids,” he says. “I’ll be back by nine. I have my phone if you need me.” He checks his watch again, then races out the front door.

  “What the heck was that about?” I ask.

  Cheng and Tai exchange a quick look. “Nothing, T.,” Tai says. “He’s just meeting someone, that’s all.” He loads spaghetti onto his plate and then puts some on a plate for me.

  Then a horrible thought pops into my head. I’ll bet Dad got fired.

  If he was fired, that would explain why he could pick me up from ballet on Tuesday. He’d need the new clothes and haircut if he had to start looking for a new job. It would even explain his practicing his smiles in front of the mirror; everyone knows you have to make a good first impression. And he wouldn’t have told us because he wouldn’t have wanted us to be worried.

  The more I think about it, the more this makes sense. And I am worried. What’ll happen to us if Dad can’t find another job? I slowly chew on stran
ds of spaghetti. I wonder if I should say anything to my brothers. They probably haven’t figured it out yet. But I decide not to—not till I’m sure.

  Chapter 5

  “¿Qué pasa, Terrel?” Epatha asks. “What is up with you?”

  All the Sugar Plum Sisters—me, Epatha, Al, Brenda, Jerzey Mae, Jessica, and JoAnn—are sitting at our favorite booth in Bella Italia after ballet class on Saturday. We’re chomping our way through a basket of garlic breadsticks. All of us except Jerzey are drinking Bella Bombshells, Epatha’s invention. She makes them by mixing all the soda flavors together. Jerzey can’t deal with Bombshells, which do look kind of like swamp water, so she’s sipping lemon-lime soda delicately through a straw. Maybe I should have asked for that instead. My stomach feels a little funny, and I’m not sure pouring a Bombshell into it is a good idea.

  It takes me a minute to realize that Epatha has been talking to me. “What?” I ask.

  Epatha passes me a roll of candies—lime ones this time. I take one and suck on it without really tasting it.

  “You haven’t said a word all afternoon,” she says, tossing her bright purple scarf around her neck dramatically.

  Epatha’s mom comes over. “More breadsticks, girls?”

  “Yes, please,” says Al, passing her the empty basket.

  “Is something wrong, Terrel?” Jessica asks, her eyebrows wrinkled in concern.

  I shake my head. “My dad’s just acting weird, that’s all,” I say.

  Epatha laughs. “All dads act weird,” she says loudly so her dad will hear her. He’s over by the restaurant entrance, whistling as he scrawls the evening specials on the board. He stops whistling, shakes his fist at Epatha, then winks.

  “What do you mean, weird?” JoAnn asks.

  “He’s just kind of distracted,” I say. I don’t tell them about his hanging his coat on the wrong hook, because none of them except Jerzey Mae would understand how wrong that is.

  I take a breath, then say quickly, to get it over with, “I’m afraid he might have lost his job.”

  “What?” says JoAnn.

  “Oh, no,” says Jessica, putting her hand on my arm.

  I nod. “He had some appointment last night. I think it was a job interview. He got dressed up, and he stank like pine trees.”

  Epatha drops her breadstick melodramatically. “He was wearing cologne? Your dad?”

  I shrug. “Yeah. So?”

  Epatha raises her eyebrows knowingly. “He’s going out at night, wearing cologne; I know what’s going on,” she says. She bends forward and talks more softly, so we all have to lean forward to hear her. “He’s got himself a girlfriend.”

  “A what?” I yell. My friends back away. Jerzey Mae clutches her ears.

  “A girlfriend,” Epatha says again, in a matter-of-fact way.

  I shake my head so fast it feels like my hair will fall off. “No, no, no. Dads do not have girlfriends.”

  JoAnn takes another breadstick from the basket. “Some of them do.”

  “Mine doesn’t.”

  Jessica opens her mouth, closes it, then says hesitantly, “Terrel, it might be nice for your dad to have a girlfriend.” Jessica is very romantic. She writes poetry and stuff. So I’m not surprised she’d say something insane like this.

  “Yeah—it might be great,” Al says.

  What? I’d expect Al to have better sense. She just about had a heart attack when her mom went out on a date with the UPS delivery guy. “No, it would not be nice,” I say. “And it would not be great. It would be ridiculous. Ri-dic-u-lous,” I say, shredding my breadstick into teensy pieces.

  “But don’t you want him to get married again someday?” Jessica blurts out.

  I nearly choke on the lime candy that’s still in my mouth.

  “I mean, don’t you get tired of being the only girl in your family?” Jessica adds.

  Jerzey Mae nods, her pink-ribboned ponytails bobbing up and down. “And you could be in the wedding and wear a pink dress. And she would do some of the house things, so you wouldn’t have to help your dad so much. Like the grocery shopping—”

  “You know I like doing the grocery shopping!” I say. I’m annoyed that my friends don’t get how serious this is. My family doesn’t need anyone coming around and changing things. We’re fine just the way we are. After my mom died, we had all the change we could handle. I’ll be happy if nothing except my underwear changes for the rest of my life.

  I lower my voice a little. “And, no, it would not be nice for me to have another girl around,” I say. “I can run everything perfectly fine by myself.” I slam my cup down on the table.

  “Holy cow. Calm down, T.,” Epatha says. “You’re turning purple.”

  “Deep breaths, Terrel,” Brenda says. She wants to be a doctor when she grows up. I guess she knows enough not to talk backward during a possible medical emergency. “Easy. In. Out.”

  I breathe in and out slowly a few times. “He does not have a girlfriend. End of discussion.”

  The other girls look at each other. “Fine,” says Epatha. “But keep your eye out for signs.”

  I’m going to regret this, but I can’t help asking, “What do you mean, ‘signs’?”

  Epatha leans forward again. “If he’s dating someone, he’ll start worrying about how he looks. He’ll probably start dieting or lifting weights. That kind of thing,” she says.

  I snort. “Lift weights? Dad?” This idea is so funny that I laugh out loud. All of a sudden I realize I’ve been making a big deal out of nothing. “Okay. My dad starts pumping iron, you’ll be the first to know. Maybe he’ll win the Mr. Universe contest this year.”

  JoAnn and Al laugh.

  Epatha looks slightly offended. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she says, popping another lime candy into her mouth, and following that by taking another chomp on a breadstick. “Tastes good together,” she explains.

  “Lime and garlic?” Jerzey Mae says faintly, clutching her stomach as if she’s going to be sick.

  I slurp the last bit of my soda just as Cheng comes in to pick me up. “I’d better get home,” I say. “Gotta go see if Dad’s getting a face-lift or something.”

  JoAnn howls with laughter; Epatha rolls her eyes.

  As Cheng and I walk home, every once in a while my thoughts drift back to what Epatha said. But then I realize how silly I’m being. Epatha’s nuts. My dad dating? No way.

  Chapter 6

  “You’re what?” I holler.

  Dad and I are on the couch. I’m sitting cross-legged at one end, my back propped against the couch’s arm. Dad is next to me, turned so he can look straight at me. He clears his throat, then repeats what he just said.

  “I’m…I’ve been spending time with a really nice woman,” he says, a little faster this time, as if he wants to get it over with.

  “You mean, you’re…like…dating someone?”

  He nods.

  I can’t believe it. A few hours earlier, I was laughing my head off at Epatha’s dumb idea. Now it turns out she’s right.

  I stare at him. “You’re not getting a face-lift, are you?”

  “A what? Of course not. Why would I get a face-lift?” His hands rise to his face, as if he can’t control them. He bobs his head to one side, trying to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror on our wall. “Do you think I need a face-lift?” he asks.

  I don’t answer. “How long have you been…you know?” I ask. I don’t even want to say it.

  “We’ve known each other a few months now. Her name is Marjory.” His voice softens a little as he says her name. I want to throw up. “She’s really nice, Terrel. I think you’ll like her. And she would love to meet you. Do you think that would be all right?”

  My head’s swimming. It’s as if everything I depended on weren’t dependable at all anymore, as if the floor under me had turned to Jell-O and were all wobbly instead of strong and secure.

  I’m suddenly aware of how quiet it is in the living room. I can hea
r the sounds of Danny’s computer game coming from his bedroom, and Cheng’s music thumping through the ceiling.

  Dad’s waiting for me to answer. He looks uncomfortable. Well, fine. He should.

  I stall. “Does she have any kids?”

  He shakes his head. “But she has a niece who spends every Saturday with her.” He starts to say more but stops himself.

  I barely notice. Now I’m remembering the way Cheng looked at Tai when Dad came out of his room the night of his “appointment.”

  “The boys already know, don’t they?” I ask.

  He nods. “Cheng guessed. I asked them not to say anything to you until you and I could talk about it,” Dad says, “since you’re a bit younger than they are.”

  Now, this makes me mad. I run the whole house, and I’m the last to find out what’s going on? But underneath the mad, I’m mostly scared—scared that things might really change now.

  We sit for a minute in silence, until Dad moves closer and puts his arm around me. “Terrel, the fact that I’m dating—it doesn’t mean that I love you any less,” he says.

  My eyes prickle a little, so I blink hard and cross my arms over my chest.

  He continues. “Sometimes it’s just nice to have another grown-up to talk with.”

  I look for a good argument. “Danny’s twenty-two. He’s a grown-up, kind of. Why don’t you talk to him?”

  Dad smiles. “I’m not very interested in talking about weight lifting or computer games, I’m afraid.”

  He has a point. As if to illustrate this, we hear an explosion and a yowl of frustration from Danny’s room; Danny must have crashed his Super Freeway 3000 race car again.

  “You don’t need to worry,” Dad says. “Marjory and I are just getting to know each other. We aren’t going to run off and get married next week or anything.”

  “Get married?”

  “Or maybe ever,” he adds hastily. “We’re taking it slow. I think you’ll feel better after you meet her and see how nice she is. What do you say? Maybe we can all do something fun together.”