“There. As good as new,” she said. “Can you stand? Because if you can’t, I’ll carry you home. We need to get that wrist looked at. You might need a cast, but don’t worry—it’ll be cool. We’ll decorate with markers and get all your friends to sign it.”
I nodded. “I can stand on my own,” I said, doing so, remarkably calm, and holding my wrist gingerly at my side, with wads of tissue sticking to my wounds, watching in awe as my hero saved the day, right before my eyes.
Chapter6
The Thanksgiving Day
Parade
On the Friday before Thanksgiving,Hannah and I walk home from school with slow, cautious steps to avoid slipping on any black ice. My father was right—a freeze set in earlier this week, along with almost four inches of snow. It’s a conservative amount compared to what we deal with all winter long, and the inches usually melt quickly. But this year the cold lingered and held on, so while the main roads were cleared and salted for safety, the borders of the streets were still marked by hard clumps of snow packed with dirt and grime. Hannah and I pause frequently to point out half-melted snowmen trying desperately to keep a sense of composure, scattered across the lawns of the neighborhood like fallen comrades left behind in battle.
“Only three days of school next week,” Hannah reminds me. I nod as we navigate the sidewalk. The other objective of our leisurely walk is to kill as much time as possible so I can dodge the outing with my mother to Farmer Jack for our Thanksgiving Day food and ingredients. At this time of year, the grocery store reminds me of the slides we are shown in history class of Cold War–era Russia, with hundreds of people who look like peasants swarming the storefronts for the smallest wedge of bread, just one glass bottle of milk, a handful of fresh eggs—any piece of nourishment to keep them alive.
I shudder at the thought of the chaotic madhouse, and I wrap my ruby scarf tighter around my neck. We pass a man balancing on a ladder against his house, stringing Christmas lights from the gutters. “Isn’t it a little early for this?” I ask.
“You know how it is around here,” Hannah says. “Always those few houses that seem to put their lights up early and keep them up too long.”
I nod again. “You’re right. My dad is already dragging out the boxes of decorations from the basement. After Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s come like a blur.”
“So who’s going to be at your house for Thanksgiving?” Hannah asks, stepping over a patch of ice.
“I guess just about everyone,” I answer vaguely.
Thanksgiving has always been treated as our biggest family event of the year, even bigger than Christmas or birthdays. Since Aunt Marie died, our home has been base camp for the day, and the amount of food we make ends up cluttering every open space on our dining room table. The selection of ways to fill ourselves up is endless. A roasted turkey holds center court, the stuffing spilling out from the insides sliced open by my father. The dishes of cranberry sauce are always set in the gelatinous mold of the can, down to the ridges. Arranged around the outskirts of the table are dishes that require a bit more preparation—my mother’s baked carrots with freshly grated cheese melted on top, green beans with slivers of almonds added to make them slightly different from our usual weekday fare, and always a basket or two of warm crescent rolls made from dough popped out of an airtight can and brushed with melted butter while baking. Every year it is a race to see who will overindulge themselves first.
“What about Barry?”
“Yeah, Barry and his dad too. There was some talk about them going down to Florida to see Grandma Biddie, but my mom told me earlier this week that they’ve definitely pledged allegiance to our flag. She’s really proud of this, like it’s a personal victory for her in some sort of Thanksgiving Day war. I’m pretty sure it has more to do with the fact that my uncle Tim couldn’t get cheap enough flights at the last minute and less to do with my mother’s mashed potatoes.”
“Theyare truly incredible mashed potatoes, though.” Hannah speaks from personal experience—she has joined us for leftovers many times over the years.
“Good point. Still, can’t I just go to Florida with you?” I ask, praying for a surprise reprieve before she leaves tomorrow. We reach the corner where Hannah heads in one direction and I follow another.
“I wish you could. Don’t get me wrong—the beach is always nice. But my grandfather still asks me if I want to grab my sand bucket—my sand bucket, those exact words—and go hunt for shark’s teeth and shells. I don’t know why it’s so hard to understand I’m too old for that now.”
“Actually, it sounds kind of nice. I used to spend a lot of time with Grandma Biddie, doing the same thing on the beach down the road from her.” A snapshot appears in my head from a trip we took years ago, back when Peter was still just a growing bump in my mother’s stomach. My father had decided we needed one more getaway from the bitter weather between Christmas and New Year’s, before it would be too late for my mother to fly in her condition.
Betsi had come with us. As a Christmas present, Dad had flown her in from Toledo, where she was on break between her first and second semesters of college. My mother had told me psychology was “what you study when you want to help understand others and their problems.” I remember nodding as if I knew what she meant, and continuing to color in mySesame Street book, making Grover green even though I knew he was blue.
Betsi let me bury her on the beach during that trip. Back then her long hair was bottle-blond, piled high atop her head. I packed the sand tightly around her, then outlined her neck and chest with broken bits of shell, pressing the coral and white pieces deep.
“Don’t try and get away,” I told her.
“I won’t,” she said. And then, “Can you keep a secret?”
“What’s a secret?” I asked.
“It’s like when I tell you something that’s very special or important to me, but you can’t tell anyone else.”
“No one?” I said.
“No one,” she responded. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I told her, kneeling in the sand, the sun trying to work its way through the Coppertone on my back.
“I flunked out of school. I’m not going back,” she whispered, scanning my eyes for a response.
Instead of words, I responded by tracing an outline of where I thought Betsi’s body was hidden underneath the sand, all the way down to her feet, and back up toward her exposed face. Once I’d made the circuit, I finally spoke. “Can we go in the water now?”
She nodded. “Help dig me out?” I grabbed my bucket and shovel to free her.
I was only five years old.
“Presley.” It’s Hannah’s voice, and the snapshot evaporates. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere,” I say. “Have fun. And don’t forget to send me a postcard!” Hannah has a knack for finding the most out-of-date, ancient postcards in gift shops across the country. She raises her hand in acknowledgment as she starts to walk away, but then stops, turning to face me again.
“Hey, Presley. What about Betsi? Is she coming home?”
The sound of her name feels like a frigid slap of wind.
“That’s what I’ve been told,” I say, waving goodbye once more before I turn away, praying that my mother has already left for the store and taken Peter with her. Just to be safe, I take baby steps the remaining four blocks, counting each movement and adding one thousand to the end of every number until my driveway is in sight and, thankfully, vacant.
The morning after I confronted Betsi, she disappeared, leaving behind only scant traces of evidence that she had ever been in our home and in our lives again—one of her barrettes abandoned next to the bathroom sink, her disposable razor on the ledge of the tub, a carton of the vanilla-flavored creamer she used in her coffee still sitting in the fridge. I put the barrette and the razor in a Ziploc bag and held it over the kitchen garbage but changed my mind at the last minute, deciding to hide the bag in my closet, in a shoe box full of ribbons I’d won
over the years from various spelling bees and science fairs.
I checked the creamer’s expiration date: October 14, a day that had long since passed. I stood at the sink dumping the curdled cream down the drain, taking in the sour smell, letting it seep into my nose, my head, my memory.
As I did so, my mother walked into the kitchen, lifting her car keys off of one of the hooks by the phone. “Hey, Pres. I’m running a few things over to Betsi’s new place. She’s signing her lease right now. You want to come?”
“No, thanks,” I said, disposing of the empty carton.
“What’s that horrible smell?” my mother asked, scrunching her nose and wrinkling the skin under her eyes.
“Nothing. Just spoiled milk.”
When I looked up at her, she noticed the tears in my eyes.
“Presley! What’s wrong?” she asked, searching my face for more clues.
I bit my lip and swallowed my words.
“Oh, Pres. It’s okay. I know everything,” she said, pulling me into a hug. “And it’s okay. It’s perfectly normal to feel like this.”
“It is?” I asked, wondering how she knew and how she could remain so calm, collected, as if we were in church listening to the second reading according to Luke.
“Of course it is. But just because Betsi doesn’t live with us anymore doesn’t mean you’ll see her any less, or that she loves you any less. I know how much you look up to her, Pres. And Betsi knows it too.”
My body became a rigid board of wood as I started to back away from her.
“You sure you don’t want to come? Betsi would love to show you her new place.”
“No. I’m okay. Everything is fine now,” I said, wanting to believe it.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Mr. Underwood tries to trip up our math class with another pop quiz, but for once the problems are all easily solved with standard formulas and equations. The cafeteria serves up its best Thanksgiving Day–themed meal: thick, fat turkey slices covered in yellow gravy, outlined with ice-cream scoops of mashed potatoes and green beans floating in a baby pool of water.
With Hannah in Florida, it’s just me, Jill, and Karen at the table today. “That food looks dreadful,” Karen says, sounding a little like royalty. “How can you stand it?”
I stop midbite and shrug. “I dunno. It’s comforting?”
The girls look at me, waiting for more of an answer, but right now it’s all I have to offer.
Jill snorts. “Hey, Presley, there’s your boyfriend.”
I look up, expecting them to still be hammering away at what we now call the Chris Carroll Incident, but it’s Jack walking through the lunchroom, and he’s heading right toward our table.
“Ladies,” he says, nodding in the direction of my friends. “Sorry to interrupt, but you mind if I borrow Presley for a moment?”
Before either Karen or Jill can answer, Jack lifts my arm, but gently, guiding me away from their shocked stares and the puddle of yellow gravy I was trying to lose myself in.
“What are you doing?” I hiss through my teeth.
“Just trust me. Walk with me,” he says through his own forced smile.
“Where are we going?”
“Away from here,” he says, and the words are exactly what I need to hear.
Jack drives me to the edge of Balduck Park, beyond the rusted swing sets toward the edge of something we all grew up calling a lake. It’s really just a large, moldy pond that turns cold enough every winter to qualify as ice but isn’t nearly sturdy enough to skate on. We sit in his maroon Pontiac Grand Am, watching the ducks teeter on the barely frozen water, and I wonder why they are still here, trying to hold on to something that is already changing into something else.
“What are we doing?” I ask for what seems like the millionth time.
“We are taking a break.”
I wonder if the principal has called my parents. “What made you think I’d want to take a break with you?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” he argues.
“That wasn’t my choice.”
“Wasn’t it?” he asks, softer now. He’s right—I was grateful when he swooped in and took me away.
We sit in his car, staring at the ducks and watching the sun fall in between the barren branches of the elm trees that surround the water, listening to old Bruce Springsteen songs playing on a cassette that keeps looping back to the beginning. I wonder if he is going to try and make a move on me, but Jack remains perfectly still, his fingertips resting lightly on the knees of his weathered blue jeans, his car seat leaned back for more comfort and space. I am the one who finally edges in—first just a half inch, then another, then another—until I am close enough for my head to fall on his shoulder.
He doesn’t protest. We sit like this until the sun disappears into the faintest traces of pink and it’s once again time for Jack to take me back to a place I used to call home.
Later that Thanksgiving eve, Mom lobbies the rest of us to catch a movie and “get out of her hair,” but when Dad and Peter pick a sci-fi film, I decide to stay home. The kitchen is dark except for the halo of light shining down over the sink, where my mother stands scrubbing potatoes, softening them underneath a light stream of running water.
“Mom?”
“Hmm?”
“I wanted to talk to you about something.” My words are staccato, my voice rusty, as if I haven’t used it for days.
“Sure. Just give me a sec. I need to finish up these potatoes so I can get them in the oven and out of the way.”
“Can I help?” I ask, though I expect her to insist, per usual, that she prefers to work alone.
My mother canvasses the situation, her eyes scanning the stack of thick, sturdy Idaho potatoes. She sighs, pushing a lock of her hair from her eyes with her wrist. Then she glances at the clock and allows defeat to sink in, her shoulders falling, her head nodding slowly.
“Okay. Yes. Yes, you can. Will you start peeling these potatoes? Here, take this peeler and bowl over to the kitchen table.”
“But I can’t do them the way you do,” I argue, taken off guard, forgetting for a moment the big announcement I had been preparing to share. When my mother peels potatoes, it is serious business. They are left completely naked—not a scrap of skin on the tough ivory bodies.
“That’s okay. Actually, why don’t we leave some of the skins on? That’s how your grandmother used to make mashed potatoes when I was your age.”
“But that’s not how you usually do them,” I say.
“I know, but sometimes things taste better when you leave them closer to the way they were.”
I nod, even though I don’t believe a word she is saying.
“Here, let me show you.” She takes a scrubbed potato in one hand and holds it over the bowl, peeling sections away to form a sort of zebra potato. “The excess skins will boil off,” she explains in a voice that sounds fit for a professional cooking show. “Then, when we mash the potatoes, the skins will mix in, just bits and pieces but enough for you to taste.”
I try it with a fresh potato and make it look identical to her demonstration spud.
“See? You’ve got it! I really appreciate this, Pres. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come in to be my little helper.” My mother returns to her station at the sink, carving out the eyes from the potatoes before scrubbing them clean. “What did you want to talk to me about?” she asks.
There are at least twenty-seven potatoes that require my newfound handiwork.
“Nothing,” I say. “It can wait.”
Peter is oddly obsessed with parades, and on Thanksgiving morning, he hits the mother lode: the televised local parade held in downtown Detroit, followed by the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade broadcast from New York. I can understand the fascination with the Macy’s parade, because it is usually peppered with celebrities and singers. But the floats are more or less the same every year, and they’re all sponsored by this corporation or that. I walk into th
e family room, still in my pajamas, and spot Peter curled up on the couch watching the Big Bird float struggling to get by in what seems like a blizzard falling on the streets of New York City.
“Doesn’t this just bore you to death? It’s like one big commercial,” I comment, reminding him of my opinion even though he didn’t ask for it.
“Presley,” he says, scooping handfuls of Golden Grahams into his mouth from the box on his lap, “you’re missing the point.”
“And what’s that, exactly?” I ask, amused by Peter actually attempting to argue a point.
“The Macy’s parade isn’t about the biggest float or the best marching band. It’s all leading up to the most important thing—Santa Claus.”
“Santa Claus? Peter, are you saying you believe in Santa Claus again? Because I hate to break it to you, but that’s just some retired senior citizen getting paid to spend time in a red velvet suit and fake beard.”
“Of course I don’t believe in Santa Claus. Not like he’s a real person. Besides, it’s scientifically impossible to make it around the world to everyone’s house in one night,” Peter instructs.
“Thanks for the lesson, but I still don’t get it.”
“It’s not about whether Santa Claus is actually real. It’s about what he represents—the idea of the Christmas Spirit, this brief period of time when people believe that anything is possible, no matter how bleak things look or feel.”
I open my mouth to protest and then promptly clamp it shut, watching the North Bloomington High School marching band follow the carved path in the slush and snow with a jaunty version of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
The Girl I Wanted to Be: A Novel Page 10
