“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t leave my mother alone. She gets depressed and she hates being in the house alone.”
I was getting angry. “Chloe, damn it, I know it’s rough for your mother, but you’ve got to live too! You’ve got to get out of there, too, it’s not good for you, it isn’t fair—”
“Val!” she said loudly, choking a sob. “Don’t you understand anything? I don’t want to leave her alone!” Suddenly I heard the receiver clunk down. She’d hung up on me. Dumbfounded, I put down the phone.
The next morning I went up to the biology lab. I got there really early, and sat like a zombie on one of the desks staring at the large skeleton model standing in the corner. One of the hands had fallen off and been tied back on. Chloe and I had wanted to nab it to add to a morbid 3-D collage we’d been constructing at my house, but we’d never gotten around to it. It dangled precariously and I fixed my eyes on it, lost to the world, till the door opened. Miss Udry flipped on the light and jumped when she saw me.
“Hi!” she said, surprised.
“Hi.”
“What are you doing in here now? You should be at prayers.”
I grimaced. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“Me?” She smiled agreeably. “Sure. Just let me get undone here,” she said, taking off her sweater and rearranging a stack of papers on her desk. She came and sat down on a desk across from me.
“You certainly don’t fit in here,” I remarked. “You’re nothing like the other teachers. That’s a compliment, by the way.”
“Oh, come on. They’re not so bad once you get to know them. Just a little uptight.”
“A little!” I laughed. I caught a whiff of her perfume. I know that smell, I thought. From where? I inhaled deeply.
“Oh! You smell just like the hospital,” I exclaimed. She looked taken aback. “I mean one of the nurses,” I explained quickly. “She wore that perfume.”
“When were you in the hospital?”
“I wasn’t. My grandmother was, last fall. She died of cancer.”
“Your grandmother died of cancer last fall? Gee, I didn’t know that. You never mentioned it.”
“No,” I said, thinking back. It seemed so long ago. That whole time she was sick and after she died had become one long rainy interlude in my memory; little things like smelling someone’s perfume or seeing someone who wore her hair in a bun reminded me sharply of Grandma, and then it would fade again.
“I’m sorry,” Miss Udry said.
“Yeah. So am I.” I looked at my knees. How do I start this conversation?
“What’s on your mind?”
“I was wondering about gay people,” I said quickly. “Actually, I was wondering about regular—I mean, heterosexual people who think about things gay people do. Like a heterosexual guy thinking about another guy that way,” I said. What a muddle.
“Oh, you mean heterosexuals who have homosexual fantasies?”
That was easy enough! I thought, a little relieved. Does she know why I’m asking? She must.
“Yeah,” I continued. “I mean—is it sick?”
“Not at all. It’s normal, as a matter of fact”
“It is?”
“Sure. A lot of people probably do become sexually attracted to someone of their own sex at one time or another.”
Sexually attracted—so that’s what my daydreams mean, I thought.
“They do?” I said. “Then how come most people think gay people are sick?”
“Because it scares them,” she said simply.
“But then, are heterosexuals the way they are just because they’re trained to be by society?”
“Boy, that’s a heavy for eight-thirty in the morning! I can’t answer that. I don’t know.”
“Well,” I ventured. “Do you think it’s ‘unnatural’ to have fantasies like that?”
She looked at me quizzically. I held my breath waiting for her to admit she knew why I was asking. She paused for a moment, and then said, “I don’t know, Val. I guess you can’t judge people by their fantasies. People think all sorts of things.”
“Do you think people who are gay are unnatural?”
“Well, I do—no, I suppose they’re not—I don’t know, you know that? I really don’t know what to tell you.”
I sighed. “That’s okay. Nobody else does, either.” Someone peeped in the door, and Miss Udry motioned for them to wait outside. “Oh, it’s okay. I’ve got to go anyway.”
“Sure. Listen, come talk to me again, okay?” She put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay? You look a little green.”
“Oh, I always look a little green. It’s the uniform reflecting off my face.”
Miss Udry laughed. “Okay. Thanks for coming to see me.”
I beamed back at her. “Thanks for saying thanks.” Boy, and she never came out and asked why I wanted to know all this. By some silent agreement, we had discussed it without acknowledging it. Still, I thought, I don’t know any more than I did before. It was just like with Mom—talking theories was easy. But in the end, neither one of them had an answer.
I had study hall third period and went out to Carl Schurz Park. It was kind of a gray day and there weren’t too many people there, just a few people pushing baby carriages and strollers. This one little boy with strawberry-colored curls and big green eyes waved at me, and I smiled in spite of myself and waved back. It makes me feel so good when little kids wave at me; like they can tell I like them or something, which I do. Then I went to my usual spot on the promenade. There was a little boat with a dirty yellow sign saying SUNOCO going by, and I leaned on the railing to watch. I haven’t felt this lonely since the beginning of the year, I thought. I missed Chloe. Things weren’t as much fun without her. Even just running around school, cutting prayers, going to Third Avenue, didn’t have the allure she gave it. I should think she’d need me more than ever; I could sure use a nice loyal friend like me, I thought grumpily. I wonder how I’d act if my dad died. Would I lean on a friend? Maybe I’d run home and keep Mom company, like Chloe’s doing. Maybe you just want to be around your family when someone dies; come to think of it, I ran home right after school every day when Grandma died, even though it was depressing being there. Of course, I didn’t know Chloe then; but maybe I’d have done it anyway. Suddenly I felt a hand on my neck. I froze, and Chloe poked her head around over my shoulder, giving a ferocious, toothy smile.
“Hiya, dollface. Thought I’d find you here.” My heart leaped, but I said nothing. “I’m sorry about last night.”
“That’s okay.”
“I was upset.”
I looked closely at her face. Her eyes had dark circles under them, and she looked exhausted. “I know. You look like hell.”
She nodded.
“Chloe, listen, I didn’t mean to make you mad. I was only thinking of what would be best for you, you know?”
“I know.”
“I mean, I worry about you. You look so defeated all the time, and you never want to do anything or even just visit, and—” I stopped short, afraid I was going to cry.
“Oh, Val,” she said tenderly.
“And I miss you, that’s all. I know that sounds selfish. I wish I could make you feel better, but I know I can’t.”
“But you do make me feel better, just by being there,” she said, and looked down the promenade. “Val, what’s at the end of this?”
“I think a pier or something. Let’s go see.”
We began walking along the river together in silence. Suddenly Patty came onto the promenade from a small path up ahead and began walking in our direction. Chloe curled her lip in disgust.
“Hi, Val, hi, Chloe,” she said as she walked by, staring at us with an odd expression on her face.
“Boy,” Chloe said when Patty was beyond hearing distance, “ever since my father died everyone looks at me like I’ve got leukemia or something! You should see Olmsted, patting my head in the halls . . . I c
ould just puke!”
“Chloe, they’re just trying to be nice,” I said.
“Oh, yeah? Well, I don’t need their being nice. They act like they’re scared to death of me! You know how everyone’s always after us for being out of uniform and being late—well, now nobody says anything. I could come to school wearing purple feathers and they wouldn’t say a word, but before he died they’d have crucified me. Who needs their phony-baloney sympathy? I hate being felt sorry for.”
We walked on in silence. Would I want people to feel sorry for me if my father died? I thought. When I broke my leg in sixth grade, everyone made a big deal out of it and I relished every minute; I even kept using crutches three days after they took the cast off and pretended my leg was too weak to walk on. But I guess it’s different when your father dies.
“Listen, Val, when vacation starts, would you come sleep over at my house?”
My face lit up. “Sure. Sure I would!”
“See, I don’t want to leave my mother alone, but I don’t want to invite anyone over yet, you know? It’d just be depressing anyway.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, I’ll probably be away in June. I guess I didn’t tell you. I’m getting a mother’s-helper job.”
“Yeah? How?”
“Friends of the funeral-parlor people. The pay’ll probably be lousy, but I could use the money and maybe I’ll get to go someplace glamourous. So I’d have to come as soon as school is over,” I said, wanting to pin her down. “Chloe, you’re my best and only friend. You’re the greatest. You won’t get rid of me easily!”
She laughed, for the first time in ages, it seemed. “Okay. The second we get out of this godforsaken place.”
“Promise?”
“Absolutely-positively-no-doubt-about-it—is that how it goes?”
Should I tell her about Miss Udry? I wondered. But then I’d be assuming she felt that way about me, too, and if I was wrong she might be scared to death of me. Christ, she has enough on her mind, I thought, feeling guilty. I won’t say anything. I smiled at her, and she grabbed my arm and we began running toward the pier.
10
So the weeks went by and spring seemed to be over before it began. I went out once with Ian, the guy I met at the dance, to Central Park; if you want my advice, don’t sit in the grass there. I nearly sat in dog shit twice; I’d have died if I had! Ian didn’t talk very much the whole afternoon, but whenever I met a guy who didn’t say much, I told myself he was deep and it was up to me to rouse his sensitive soul. Usually there wasn’t anything to rouse, but I liked Ian anyway; I don’t have to marry him, I thought. He kissed me twice and tried sticking his tongue in my mouth, but it felt like a raw hotdog and I made him stop. I was glad he tried, though. I was a little nervous the whole time we were together and scared I’d say the wrong thing, but all in all it was a pleasant afternoon and we agreed to meet up in the Hamptons, which was where my job was going to be.
I was lonely, though; without Chloe, even going out with Ian seemed drab. It wasn’t the same telling Mom about things like that. I guess it sounds weird saying, “without Chloe,” because we saw each other every day. But between her running down to her father’s law firm after school and her not really listening or talking to me when I called her, I felt like she was gone. It’s hard to explain. It’s like I had a hole inside, and I kept waiting for her to come back so it would go away.
Then suddenly, bang, school was over. I couldn’t believe how quickly the time had gone by. I did well on all my exams, even French, but I think Marese was just being nice. She had developed a real soft spot for Chloe and me, her front-row pupils. People began bringing home their gym stuff, and Chloe forgot her locker combination. We had to get the janitor to break the lock, and then it took her three days to cart home all the junk she had accumulated. I told her she should take the things she wanted all at once and throw the rest out, so no one would steal anything, but she couldn’t part with any of it and pointed out that no one in their right mind would go through her locker looking for something to steal. When she said that, I had to agree. Finally we all cleaned out our cubbies, throwing out pages and pages of last-minute-panic notes we swallowed whole before exams and forgot the instant they were finished, and we hauled home piles of textbooks we’d probably stuff in some closet and forget about. I can’t throw out a book, even a math book. The posters some kids had put on the homeroom walls came down, leaving nothing but yellow tape marks, and the room seemed hollow and unfamiliar, as though it had forgotten us. I knew it would be strange to see someone from the class behind mine sitting at my desk in the fall.
Chloe asked me to sleep over after graduation. Graduation wasn’t any big thing for us, since we didn’t know any of the seniors. We had to march in uniform, sing two songs, and that was it. I felt a little sentimental when the whole school sang “Jerusalem,” but I was glad the year was over and I wasn’t a “new girl” anymore; in the fall I’ll be an old girl, I thought. I guess it’s not till you’ve been at a school for a whole year and can show a new girl where some classroom is that she can’t find that you feel like you belong.
It was early evening and pleasantly cool when we all piled out of the school building for the last time, and Mrs. Fox was waiting in the car to drive us home. She told us she was going out for the evening to her brother’s house, and Chloe pounded my knee happily with her fist.
After we all had dinner and Mrs. Fox left, Chloe and I made some popcorn and sat down in the den to watch Carousel. It was a sad movie, and I was depressed enough as it was; Chloe kept staring at her father’s chair in the corner of the room, sitting there expectantly in a half-reclined position. It seemed to me I’d never seen an emptier chair.
“How’s your beautiful-lady collection?” I said after a while, turning down the TV.
“Oh, nearly finished. I’m going to start on the collage after a few more cutting sessions.”
“That’s great. We should take each other’s pictures, then.”
“Oh, that reminds me—I wanted to show you a book I got.” She jumped up and ran out of the den, reappearing a moment later. “Photographs of France. Rodney gave it to me. It cost a mint.” She smiled, and sat down next to me on the couch. We looked at each picture for a long time, talking and pointing things out.
“Oh, Paris,” I sighed, looking at a street scene. “I’d love to go to Paris. And Rome. With you, of course,” I added. “You know, my grandmother wanted to be an artist.”
“Yeah?” Chloe said, looking interested.
“Yeah. Her father promised to send her to art school in Paris. Then he died, and she never went.”
“But that’s so tragic!” she exclaimed.
“I know. Maybe I’ll go instead. It’ll be my mission.” I sat back thoughtfully. “I really loved her, you know? I don’t think she knew how much I loved her. You know how some older people look like they’ve given up?” Chloe nodded. “She never did. Not ever. I never told her any of this stuff,” I said wistfully.
“That’s okay, Val,” Chloe said, touching my hand.
“No. It isn’t okay. You should—you should tell people things. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. People should be kind to each other, you know?” I gazed off hazily and focused on a spot on the wall. It kind of disturbed me that I’d been thinking about death so much. It hadn’t seemed real when Grandma died, but it became real as soon as I started thinking of things I wanted to tell her and then remembered I couldn’t. And then when Mr. Fox died, I realized Mom and Dad were going to die, too, something I never really believed before that. I bet Mom never thought her mother would die when she was my age, I thought. It really scared me, and I began thinking twice about things. Like if Dad wanted to talk to me and I didn’t have time I’d make time, thinking: Someday he’ll die and I’ll wish I could spend more time with him—only now I can choose, and then I won’t be able to. People might think I was sick to think that way, but I don’t think it’s morbid or anything. There’s nothing morbid about
death, it’s just a fact and people wish it wasn’t. So they don’t think about it in time. It isn’t even bad that if someone’s dying you’re nicer to them; it’s just that knowing it’s going to happen makes you more thoughtful. People are so dumb sometimes. Someone dies and they think of all the things they put off or never said and wish they had, and you’d think it would change them. But they just keep wishing the dead person were back so they could do things right, instead of paying attention to the people that aren’t dead yet.
“Val?” Chloe said awkwardly, bringing me back to earth. “I think you’re beautiful.”
“Oh, bunk. You don’t have to say that.”
“I don’t have to say anything.”
I smiled. I should tell her about my daydreams, I thought for the hundredth time. She won’t mind; I don’t think she will.
“Oh, I’m so depressed,” she moaned. “Hey, there’s some white wine in the fridge. Want some?”
“Sure, why not?”
She went and filled two jelly glasses and brought them in, handing me one of them. “This is good,” I said, after tasting it, and took a large sip. “It makes me feel warm all over.” We sprawled out on the rug with our jelly glasses, the television forgotten.
“Val, did I tell you about that lawyer? Remember, the one who used to make passes at me all the time when I went to see my father?”
“No, tell me.”
“Well, one night last week I was up there, and my mother had to leave early, so he offered to drive me home. He lives in Riverdale, too, and I really didn’t feel like taking the bus, so I said okay.”
“And?”
“He started complaining about his wife, and how she doesn’t understand him, and how miserable he is.”
“He’s married?”
“Yes. He went on and on.”
“That’s terrible.”
“He pulled over to the side of the road,” she went on. “He wanted to know if he could see me, and I didn’t know what to do! Here I was in this car with this married man who used to work with my father, and he was practically asking me to have an affair with him! Me!”
Hey, Dollface Page 9
