What Girls Learn

by Karin Cook

  • • •

  The only thing left in our old bedroom was my empty bookshelf. I stood there, with my knees locked for a long time, waiting for someone to come and get me. I could hear the travel of voices, car doors, and footsteps. Finally, Mama came up behind me and crossed her arms around my shoulders.

  “I’ll get you a new one,” she promised. “With new books and everything. Trust me. It’ll be like starting over.” I could feel the warmth of her body seep into my neck and back. “It’s time to go,” she said.

  I stayed very still, hoping to hold her there. I was tired of starting over. Trying to fit our entire lives into one car made it seem more like we were skipping town than actually moving. Together, we watched out the window as Nick pulled rope across each corner of the bunk beds. Every so often, he stopped to wipe the sweat off his face with his sleeve. Watching the way he took charge made my legs start to tremble a bit. I had never wanted a father the way Elizabeth did and Mama knew it.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said, stepping away from me. “Now go wait with your sister.”

  When he saw me, Nick paused in the front doorway, re-tucked his shirt, rolled up his sleeves, and walked to the kitchen sink. He ran water over his hands and face and then through his hair while Mama stood by with a paper towel. I had never seen someone wash like that, use so much water, in the kitchen. I walked past them and made my way out to the limo.

  “You don’t like him, do you?” Elizabeth asked after I’d settled in the seat next to her. Boxes were stacked all around us, even on the floor between the two rows of facing seats. The inside of the limo smelled of new upholstery.

  “He tries too hard.”

  We sat quietly and waited. I stared at Elizabeth’s slender feet, balanced now upon the stuff from this last house. We took less and less with us each time we moved. There had always been boyfriends, but none that threatened to become permanent. Mama called them dreamers, men who came in and out of our lives with ideas about family but no way to make it work. Nick seemed different. He’d come a long way to get us. He had plans. It made me nervous, how willing Mama was to follow him.

  “It’s better than not trying,” Elizabeth hazarded.

  I hated that she was so easily convinced, so quickly won over. Even the idea of moving didn’t seem to scare her. Elizabeth used every move as an opportunity to become someone else. She liked to imagine herself exotic, changing her hair by parting it on a different side or wearing more than the usual number of barrettes. She could reinvent herself, changing clothes and taking on so many new interests and habits that Mama called her a chameleon. First a gymnast and dancer, then a gum-chewing gossip and baby-sitter. The thing that amazed me about Elizabeth was that no matter how much she changed, she was always recognizable as herself.

  I was always the same.

  Mama and Nick emerged, flushed and giddy. I guessed that they had been kissing. Storing up for the trip. Nick planned to drive nonstop, almost a whole day, so we wouldn’t have to unload or risk theft. Mama had filled our school thermoses with black coffee.

  Some neighbors in bathrobes gathered on their lawns to watch us drive away. There was Mrs. Schafer in her usual lavender wrap, and her son, who must have been eight or nine and still never left her side. We had gotten to know so few people here, it didn’t matter what they thought. Mama pulled down her windshield visor and pretended not to notice. I couldn’t seem to get used to the fact that we could see out, but no one could see in. It made it easy to forget who we were. I tried to imagine that we were going somewhere fancy, that this was part of our everyday life. Then, I remembered the mattresses and bunk beds tied on top, and wanted to disappear.

  I didn’t cry. Not at first anyway. Not until Elizabeth began, the tip of her nose going red, her head drooped forward so the tears splashed on her legs. “All these places we’ll never see again,” she said to me softly. And then Mama, at the sight of Elizabeth, started in. Tears, like laughter, were contagious with us. Once one of us began crying, it never took very long before we all fell in, red-faced with swollen eyes, groping for hugs.

  “Don’t mind us,” Mama said, embarrassed in front of Nick. “We do this a lot.”

  I waited for him to seem uncomfortable, but instead he rustled under his seat and unearthed a box of tissues. Then he offered everybody a Peppermint Tic Tac.

  Getting to know Nick was slow.

  Elizabeth ran out of chatter and games by Charlotte, North Carolina. I kept my head buried in an atlas and spoke only to call out certain facts: the miles on the odometer, a state motto, the name of a state bird or tree. “Did you know that North Carolina was the twelfth state?” I quizzed. “That their bird is the cardinal? And that Virginia and North Carolina both have the flowering dogwood as the state flower?” With each question, Mama barely turned her head to acknowledge me, her attention so focused on Nick.

  Three or four times, Nick pulled over, stretched his arms high above his head, and walked along the shoulder of the highway. He stepped over the guard rail effortlessly, moving up the embankment and turning among the trees with his back to us.

  “It’s the coffee,” Mama explained.

  I watched him, a confident, but gentle-looking man, his step deliberate, his face calm. Nick and Mama had been corresponding with each other for a year after their first meeting. The phone calls had filled our normally quiet apartment late into the night. Mama even wrote her thoughts down on loose-leaf paper and mailed them off in plain envelopes with bright stamps. Letters came in return, too, sometimes three a week, which she wrapped in a ponytail holder and kept in her purse. This was the man of her dreams, she told us, the man she had been waiting for.

  “How can you be sure?” I asked, seeing him fully in the distance for the first time.

  “You just know,” she said.

  She had known right away, she told us, when she saw him on the dance floor at the wedding with the bride’s mother, dipping and twirling, making her laugh and feel special. Mama liked his generosity and told him so. A real gentleman, she called him, the two of them talking until the sun came up, Mama hesitant to even catch her flight home. “If it hadn’t been for you girls, I might’ve gotten in that car and gone North right then.”

  “Without us?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Of course not,” she said. “How could I go anywhere without you. You girls are my … everything.”

  By noon, we had eaten through both bags of snacks—squeezing the grapes out of their skins and scraping the peanut butter off each cracker. Nick pulled over at a rest stop to get gas and the fighting began. Elizabeth wanted McDonald’s; I wanted Burger King. Mama stiffened. It was an old fight, one that usually got settled with pizza or some neutral sandwich shop. She gave us a sideways glance. I could tell that she didn’t want Nick to see us bicker so soon.

  “Heads or tails,” Nick said, pulling a penny out of his pocket.

  “Huh?”

  “We’ll flip for it. Heads we’ll have Whoppers and chocolate shakes; tails, Chicken McNuggets and French fries.”

  His simplicity silenced us. As did his accuracy. Elizabeth and I exchanged a knowing glance. Nick understood something essential: Burger King made better shakes, McDonald’s better fries. I was surprised by his knowledge and wondered if maybe I could trust him.

  We watched as he rubbed the penny in his palm and took a few practice tosses. Leaving choice up to chance was disarming. We were accustomed to these decisions droning on and on, allowing time for each of us to create arguments, calling up past injustices with the skill and perseverance of a courtroom lawyer. This time there would be no logic. Only luck.

  Even Mama looked uneasy.

  Nick made room with his arms, spreading out in the seat, and blew into his cupped hand. Then, he tossed the penny into the air, catching it in his right hand and slapping it ceremoniously onto the back of his left. Elizabeth and I leaned into the frame of the window to witness the outcome.

  “Frances,” Nick said, “you do th
e honors.”

  Mama tipped Nick’s hand, like a lid, and shouted, “Heads.”

  We all looked around, unsure of what it meant. In the excitement of the toss, no one could remember the ground rules. And just as Elizabeth and I geared up to have it out over which was which, Nick offered a suggestion.

  “Why don’t we have both?”

  The car quieted. It wasn’t that this had never occurred to us before. But, something about his fairness was so staggering that it felt like a new idea.

  “Yeah,” Elizabeth said. “It won’t take long.” She looked at Mama and then Nick, fixing herself between them. “We can take the limo to the drive-in windows.”

  • • •

  Nick did not live on the beach as Elizabeth and I had been led to believe he might. It turned out that Long Island wasn’t even a real island. I had imagined palm trees and shells, miles of sand and rolling ocean. Like Sea Island, only colder. I’d had trouble reconciling my image of an island with my fantasies of heavy northern snows, but I prepared for each, simultaneously. I figured Long Island was off the coast of New York, a sister to the more famous Ellis Island. I loved the words “melting pot.” I’d seen pictures of the immigrants arriving off boats with trunks, their breath hot against the air. I was ready to explore these islands.

  It was morning when Nick exited off the expressway to turn east along Route 25A. Soon there were horse farms, villages with quaint shops, and eventually, water. In between there were car dealerships and long stretches of traffic. Nick, who had been quiet during the drive, began to talk excitedly, pointing out what crop was grown in one field, shouting “horse,” as we came upon some animals grazing, and promising the existence of an apple farm down a small road off to the left. Every unsightly spot, he excused as a development. Nick looked slightly wild, his eyes bulging and red from not sleeping, a faint shadow of stubble along his chin. His voice sounded raspy as he described places that he hoped Mama would like. There was a store for candles, one for monogram sweaters, even a store, he turned to look at us, that sold only fake mice dressed in costumes from around the world. He pointed in the direction of the train station. “In case you want to go to the city.”

  “He means New York City,” Mama said.

  We craned our necks in search of the train. Elizabeth had her hopes up, I could tell. While packing, Mama had promised us trips to visit the Statue of Liberty, the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center, and a store called Bloomingdale’s that we’d seen a catalog for. I had my doubts. What if Nick was just showing us the highlights to try and win us over? I decided to hold out for the facts. When Nick said, “Only ten minutes to go,” Mama sat up and began fixing her face in the mirror, licking her pinkie and wiping the smudged liner from the corners of her eyes.

  “Wait till you girls see Nick’s house,” she said, reaching over and touching his hand. He grabbed her fingers and held on. She tried to pull away and when he wouldn’t let her, she laughed and swatted at the air near him.

  “You’ve seen it?” I asked.

  “In pictures,” she said quickly, catching my eye. She always knew when I was testing her. “It’s beautiful. Two stories with windows everywhere and shutters. And the most charming yard. You just wait.”

  And it did seem beautiful when we pulled up, wooden shingles with forest green trim and a brick path curving toward the carved door with a brass knocker. A split rail fence set it apart from the square, white houses on either side. My stomach turned the way it always did before stepping into a new classroom.

  One thing about Nick that surprised me was that he was good for a promise. Back on the road—somewhere around Philadelphia—he told us we would each have our own room. To me, this had the potential of being a lie, a way to get us there. But he made good; the entire upstairs of his two-story house belonged to us. Once inside, Nick encouraged us to explore on our own. He was tired from the trip, sank down in an easy chair and rubbed the heels of his palms in his eye sockets. “Why don’t you go find your rooms?” he suggested.

  We raced up the stairs, battling to be first to make the discoveries. I could hear Mama urging Nick to turn to bed, to get some sleep. But the sounds of us running loose above must have given him a second wind. He climbed the stairs with Mama and joined us in the hall. Our names were written on index cards and tacked up on two of the bedroom doors. The excitement of having our own rooms quickly shifted to wonder. How had Nick made these decisions? On what basis? Elizabeth wanted to know how come I got the room with an outdoor landing and staircase.

  “Not many girls have this chance at privacy,” Mama said, surveying our rooms. She had always talked about privacy as if it was a necessity like a rain slicker or good shoes. At the same time it had been very difficult for us to have it. “It’s rare,” said Mama, “like the Torrey pine tree and some blood types.”

  Maybe now I could finally know what it was like to sleep by myself, to see what privacy felt like.

  It turns out my room had been Nick’s original office from when he started TransAlt, the first transportation company in Brooklawn. The new office was located in the garage. It was smaller than his business card led me to believe. From the landing I could see the TransAlt cars parked in the lot at the back of the driveway. My bedroom walls were painted in the company colors—forest green with rust trim. I could tell that Nick had recently moved some furniture out. For me, I guessed. There were tracks in the wood and no rug to cover them. The back wall was corked and filled with yellowing neighborhood maps and train schedules. Nick moved closer to me as I stared at a timetable for the Long Island Rail Road.

  “Thought you might want to see what’s what,” Nick said, “get situated, you know, find your way.” He lifted a green push-pin from the cork and speared the map at the bottom of Connally Drive. “You’re here,” he said.

  I leaned on the metal desk to get a closer look. It felt large and sturdy, like one for a teacher, with a lock on the top drawer and an extra key dangling on a ring. The cork on the wall gave off a musty smell that pricked the insides of my nostrils. There was nothing familiar anywhere in the room. I was used to this hollow newness. My stomach tightened as I imagined having to figure out where my things belonged. Usually, I’d be dividing the room in two, scoping out what side was mine. But not this time. I turned to Elizabeth, just to see her, to bring me back. She spun away from me and walked across the hall to her room.

  After Nick went to take a nap, Elizabeth and I followed Mama as she walked from one room to the next, imagining her way into the space. She liked to do this, to search for possibility, every time we moved. But, this time she did so quietly—with a respect for what was already there, how Nick chose to live. The house hadn’t looked large from the outside, but inside, it expanded. There were different rooms for different functions. The first floor had a den for watching TV, a dining room, a living room, and a big eat-in kitchen. Mama and Nick’s room was at the back, off the living room.

  There were no signs of neglect. Mama had moved us into places where men had lived alone, apartments where magazines took over chairs, lamp shades and curtains grew layers of dust, and mail went unsorted. Nick’s place was comfortable, but still orderly. It didn’t appear that he had straightened up just for us. Somehow, I could tell that he lived this way all the time: the calendar on his fridge was even turned to the right month.

  We put our coats on before going back out to the limo for the boxes. The air had a cold bite to it, like nothing I had ever felt down South; the yard and trees were already battered from winter. Elizabeth eyed the neighboring houses. She was looking for signs of other kids; she was always scouting for new friends.

  “Who lives there?” she asked, pointing to the house next door that had electric candles in the window left over from Christmas.

  “I don’t know,” Mama said. “I think it may be an older woman. There aren’t any other children on this block.” She looked at me, “I asked Nick about this already.”

  We unpacked the car quickly, leaving
the heavy stuff on top, and stacking the boxes along the slate path to the front door. It felt uncomfortable to be out in Nick’s yard without him. There seemed to be a great deal of activity at TransAlt. Every once in a while, a car flew backwards down the driveway, the driver pausing and tipping his head as he passed us.

  Just as Mama carried the last box from the car, a very blond woman stuck her head out the garage door and waved for us to come inside. Mama straightened herself in the window of the limo and called for us to follow her. When we walked in, the woman took off her earphones and extended her hand toward us. Her painted nails were so long that they curled inward toward her palms.

  “I’m Lainey,” she said, “the dispatcher. You gals are all we’ve heard about around here for months.”

  The way she said gals, with a twang, made me wonder for an instant whether she was making fun of us. But Mama didn’t bat an eye, just nodded and smiled. Lainey sat at a table in the center of the room amidst the various machines of the dispatching unit. The walls of the garage were lined with metal cabinets. The only warmth came from electric heaters which hummed in every corner, their coils burning red.

  “Looks like Nick’s taken to sleeping in the middle of the day,” Lainey teased.

  Mama smiled. “It was a long drive,” she said, her chin firm and high. I recognized this look. She was being polite. She seemed suddenly plain next to Lainey, who had big, frosted hair and greenish-blue eyeshadow.

  The CB crackled, sputtering numbers and codes. Lainey held her hand up in a stop motion while she responded to the calls. The furniture was Salvation Army old, brown plaid with burn marks and exposed stuffing. The chairs were arranged intimately in a circle. When the radio quieted again, Mama placed one hand on each of our shoulders and edged us forward.

  “These are my daughters,” she started …

  “Wait, let me guess,” Lainey said. She pointed first to me and then Elizabeth. “Tilden and Elizabeth, right? Who’s older?”

  “I am.”