Waiting for Normal

by Leslie Connor

  “Mommers!”

  “Merry Christmas to me!” She laughed and had to catch the chocolate before it fell out of her mouth.

  “You’re not funny!” I said. She slammed the bathroom door, then poked her head back out.

  “Why do you want to go up to Dwight’s so bad anyway? What’s so special? What are you chasing after?” she asked. I stood thinking about that just a little too long. Mommers slammed the door again and I heard her turn on the shower.

  “I’m not chasing after anything,” I mumbled to myself. “I’m waiting. Waiting for normal.” I shook a paper bag open and started to pack for my trip.

  chapter 34

  jingle all the way

  There was nothing normal about Christmas at the trailer. First, Mommers went out to see Pete—“just for a drink”—on Christmas Eve at about five o’clock. I didn’t see her again until she came in at nine on Christmas morning.

  “Merry, merry!” she piped. “Now, I just have to go in here a minute.” She walked into her bedroom with her coat still on. Through the half closed door, I heard her rummaging around in her closet. Then I heard the swish of wrapping paper and the snapping of tape.

  I put hot water on for cocoa. “Did you have breakfast?” I called.

  “I had a muffin at Pete’s,” she said.

  “I guess I knew that,” I mumbled.

  “Huh? Did you say something?”

  “No.” I had the Christmas parade on the TV and I stood by the stove waiting for the water, waiting for Mommers and waiting for the float that carried the big guy in the red suit. That was it. I was having a waiting Christmas.

  “Okay! Tah-dah!”

  I turned to see Mommers holding a small stack of hastily wrapped gifts. I pushed a smile out. “I have something for you, too,” I said.

  “You first! You first!” Mommers shoved the presents toward me.

  I opened a new sweater and stopped to admire it. She pushed the next package toward me. “Open it! Open it!” she squealed.

  “Okay, okay! Jeez, can we slow down?” I pulled a new notebook and a pen full of lime green ink out of the wrappings.

  “That’s a new vocab book,” Mommers said. “The other one must be full.”

  “Close,” I said.

  “Okay, okay. Here. Next one.”

  I froze, looking at her. “You’re trying to get out of here, aren’t you?” I said. “You haven’t even taken off your coat.”

  “Addie! No.” She looked away from me, then back again. She took off the coat, let it drop to the floor.

  “Then why are you hurrying me?”

  “This is Christmas! It’s exciting! Come on, Addie! Can you be excited?”

  “I suppose I can,” I said. The next gift was a box of seashell chocolates—bigger than the one the guys at Hose Company No. 6 had given me.

  “I won’t eat a single one,” Mommers promised. She lit a cigarette and blew a ring into the air. “Now, where’s my present?” She held out one hand and did a little wiggle.

  “It’s just something small,” I said as I handed her the package.

  “Ooh!” Mommers squealed as she tore into the wrapping. “My! What is this?” Her mouth was open in a happy grin.

  “It’s a paper shade,” I said. “For the famous naked light bulb.” I pointed up to the center of the kitchen where the bulb hung on its cord. “I got it at the Tibetan store up on Nott Street.”

  “Oh, good idea!” Mommers squealed. She held the shade up and flicked the little tassels with her fingers. “I’ve always hated that stinkin’ bare bulb, that antique chicken warmer!” She cackled a laugh. I grinned.

  Mommers glanced at the TV. The Christmas parade had ended. She picked up the remote and jabbed at the buttons. “All church services and choirs today,” Mommers growled. She deepened her voice and sang, “Holy! Holy! If only Dwight would spring for cable. Ha! That’ll never happen. He’s such a—” She made a rude noise. She picked up the remote again and aimed to kill.

  “Leave it on. It’s nice,” I said. Truth was, the trailer felt cozy to me and listening to the choirs made it more Christmassy. (Mommers had decided to skip the tree altogether.)

  She put on a solemn face and began mouthing the words along with the choir. She looked like she was yawning. She made her eyelids flutter wildly until she looked completely deranged.

  “Mommers,” I laughed. “Cut it out! Come on, what are we doing today?” I asked. “Can we make a big dinner together?”

  “Well, actually …” Mommers went into the kitchen and threw open the cupboards. “I was going to check and see what there is for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, all casual like.

  “You are leaving, aren’t you?”

  “Well, so are you!” Mommers put her hands on her hips. “You’re going to Dwight’s.”

  “I’m not going until tomorrow,” I said. “I can’t believe it. You’re leaving on Christmas. Is that why you told Dwight not to bring Brynna and Katie down on Christmas Day? Because you weren’t gonna be here?”

  “No! Listen to you grilling me, Addie! Pete and I are going for a sleigh ride up in Saratoga today. You know, like ‘jingle all the way’!” She pretended to hold the reins. When I didn’t respond she sagged and came toward me. “Aw, Addie, he planned it special. What was I gonna say?”

  “How about, ‘I have a twelve-year-old daughter. Can she come too?’”

  Mommers laughed. Then she stopped. “Addison, can’t you just understand? The trouble with Pete is he’s not a family guy. He doesn’t get the whole kid thing.” She paused. “But he will.” A grin spread across her face. “Wanna know how I know?” I watched her make a frame with her hands—a sort of heart shape. She lowered her hands to her belly and stopped there. She hummed a single line of “Rock-a-bye Baby.” “That’s how,” she whispered.

  My hair prickled up all over my head. My neck went hot, then icy. “Oh, Mommers! No!” I said. I shook my head. “Oh, I’m sorry to be saying that to you. But Mommers, this can’t be!”

  “It is,” she said flatly. She pulled her coat on and picked her gloves up off the table. “It’s going to be great. We haven’t had a baby around in so long.”

  “We don’t need a baby!” I was yelling now. “You …you shouldn’t have done this! You just said Pete is not a family guy. Who’s gonna—”

  “Mind your own business!” she hollered back. “I shouldn’t have told you. And I do not want Dwight or anyone knowing anything about this,” she warned. She grabbed my hat and tugged it onto her head. She jerked open the door and stepped outside. “Couldn’t you have just supported me?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Mommers huffed at me. “Oh, Merry stinkin’ Christmas!”

  Slam!

  chapter 35

  another thing to borrow

  I got myself up the hill to catch the bus to Lake George. Mommers had come home very late and was still sleeping. I’d left a note reminding her to take care of Piccolo for me, but I had loaded the food and water dishes just in case. I put my face near the cage door and whispered, “Bye, Pic, you little cutie, you. I’ll see you in a few days.” Whiskers twitched back at me.

  As the bus hummed up the Northway, I thought about Mommers and her baby. I wished she hadn’t told me. Instead, I thought of how she’d left Katie and Brynna and me. I pictured a new baby alone and waiting somewhere. My heart spilled. I didn’t care how much Mommers loved having babies. I couldn’t be happy about this one. I just couldn’t.

  By the time I got off the bus in Lake George, I was miserable. I even felt kind of sick, maybe from the ride. But Dwight and Hannah were there at the bus station, all smiles. I took in some fresh air and put on a grin. The Littles hopped up and down all over me like puppies. My paper bag suitcase tore open and we all had to carry my stuff to Hannah’s car in our hands.

  “Good thing about the gift,” Brynna said slyly. “You know which one?” she said to everyone but me. Her eyes twin
kled.

  Katie chimed in. “Oh you mean the …the . . .”

  “Shhhh! Don’t tell, Katie!”

  “It’s a purprise for you, Oddie,” Katie said, nodding at me.

  “She means surprise,” Brynna told me.

  “That’s right,” Dwight said. “We did do that one right, I guess.” He winked at Hannah.

  They had waited Christmas for me. I mean they had really waited Christmas. Everyone’s presents were still wrapped under the tree.

  “We only goed through stockings,” Katie said earnestly. “Be-cept yours, Oddie. We didn’t goed through yours.” She shook her head. “’Cause that’s yours.” I laughed. I had almost forgotten how funny she was.

  “You guys are the best!” I said. “And look at how pretty everything is!”

  Paper snowflakes dangled on nearly invisible threads through the entire room. There must have been fifty of them. I smelled chicken—I was pretty sure—roasting in the oven, and the doorways were decorated with pine boughs.

  “Blow! Blow!” Katie waved a magazine in the air and the flakes swayed.

  “Pretty cool,” I said.

  There were changes to the kitchen area—one wall of real cupboards, which, Dwight and Hannah explained through giggles, was the most romantic thing they could come up with to give each other for Christmas.

  “We’re pitiful!” Hannah said, leaning on Dwight.

  It’s finally Christmas, I thought.

  Katie dove under the tree and brought out a present and handed it to me.

  “I’m first?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Because you need it. You really, really need it,” said Brynna with a grin.

  “Help me out, then, you guys! Come on!” We tore open my gift—a totally sporty looking duffel bag—electric blue with black straps.

  “Oh, perfect!” I laughed now that I knew their joke.

  Brynna ran to get my loose clothes and started to put them in the bag. I watched her making decisions about where everything fit best. My jeans folded in thirds on the bottom of the bag. My new bikini unders rolled and tucked into the side pocket. Fresh Whisper and my hairbrush went perfectly into the end pocket. She took her time and worked seriously. I got it into my head that that had something to do with her having the Love of Learning.

  “That’s nice, Brynna,” I said. “Thanks.”

  After all the presents were opened, and after we ate our chicken dinner, Dwight and I washed dishes together.

  “Brynna’s really smart, isn’t she?” I said.

  “Sure, I guess she is. Why do you say so?” Dwight’s voice was soft and interested.

  “I just see it.” I shrugged. “It’s little things. Like how she knows all the numbers in Hannah’s cataloging system downstairs, and even the way she just packed my new duffel.”

  “Hmm.” Dwight thought for a second. “She likes to control things.” He grinned. Then he scrunched his brow. “She’s having a hard time, you know. We talked to a counselor about it.” I was surprised but I kept listening. “It’s confusing for her to be away from your mom. She remembers more than Katie does. You know what I mean?” He handed me a plate and I rinsed it. “And I don’t think she’s as resilient as you.”

  “Resilient?”

  “Yeah …bounce backish,” Dwight said, then he laughed at his own definition. I made a mental note to put that one in my new vocab book. It’d make a good first entry.

  “I guess I do bounce,” I said. “But see, that’s what I mean, Brynna is always thinking,” I said. “She’s so …so . . .”

  “Meticulous?” Dwight offered. (Another one for Webster’s.) “You’re right. She is.” He nodded and squeezed suds off the sponge onto the dishes in the sink.

  “But it seems like it hurts her. Maybe I bounce because I’m like that ‘no brain, no pain’ thing. Like if I was smarter . . .” I was suddenly aware that Dwight had stopped still and was staring at me.

  “Ya know, Addie …there’s nothing wrong with you, hon. You’re very smart. You know that, don’t you?”

  I shook my head. “No. School stuff is really hard for me. You remember.”

  “You bet I do. I went to all your school conferences. You have dyslexia.”

  “There’s a name for it? Dis-what?”

  “Dyslexia. It’s a learning disability.”

  “My spatial relationship stuff? The reading and writing?”

  “Yes. That’s part of it. But it’s all about how you learn, not how smart you are. You have to work harder and you have to work differently. But you do it. You make good grades and you play the . . .”

  I didn’t let him say it. “I think the teachers just get me through everything,” I said. “They just …give me the better grade or something.”

  “Who says?” Dwight looked all flustered. He turned from the sink to face me. “That’s what teaching is: getting kids through. What’s this about? Is this stuff coming from Mommers?”

  Mommers.

  Looking into Dwight’s eyes, I wanted to tell him about the boyfriend and the overnights and the baby. But in a split second I decided not to. Eventually, I was going to have to go home. Being at the inn was just a vacation, a party. In my real life, Mommers was all I really had.

  “Addie, you okay?”

  I blinked at him and swallowed. “Mommers just knows I didn’t get the Love of Learning.”

  “Love of learning? What, and she did?” Dwight laughed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” he said. He straightened up like he was making himself behave. “Addie, I’d say you have the love of learning as much as anybody does. Don’t let anyone tell you you aren’t smart enough or good enough? Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I don’t think it was that conversation with Dwight, and it wasn’t anything in particular that happened while I was there, but while I was at the inn I started feeling like a Tootsie Roll Pop. On the outside I was having a shiny, good, colorful time. But I could feel my chewy, gooey center squishing and squashing inside of me.

  Each day we did fun things: We went sledding on the hill in front of the inn. We built snowmen and gave them radish mouths and carrot noses. We listened to music and danced in the big, unfinished great room of the inn, where the new stone fireplace roared with its first blaze. I hung on to Dwight’s strong hand as he swung me around and around to the music, then sent me sliding across the new floor on my socks. I read a hundred books a day to Katie while Brynna mouthed all the words, which she had memorized. I sat in an old soft chair at night and braided Hannah’s hair while she sat on the floor between my feet. But I always felt weird—sad—at the end of every day. And all too quickly, we were out of days.

  The last night, we set the table together. I watched Katie folding napkins and Brynna marching in with the silverware. Hannah swished by in her oven mitts with the casserole dish and Dwight struck a match to light the candles. I froze the picture. This was the end. It’d all been mine but only for a while. I had borrowed it—like the flute—and tomorrow I’d have to return it. I knew then and there that I couldn’t keep on doing it forever. Something had to change.

  chapter 36

  loads of snow

  In January we had storms that spat down snow two and three feet at a time. At school we joked that we’d been closed every other day. But the Empty Acre never looked as good as it did wearing a fresh blanket of white. Good until the city started dumping truckload after truckload of secondhand snow there. They said the streets had become dangerously narrow. The banks were too high to see around. So for several days all of us on the corner of Freeman’s Bridge and Nott listened to the trucks come and go as they made use of the Empty Acre.

  I don’t think any of us would have minded the big change of scenery except that one day they poured a truckload of the dirty stuff practically on top of Soula’s home. I was coming back from the Heads and Roses with our busted laundry basket stabbing my hip when I heard Elliot hollering. He was outside in his shirtsleeves.

  “Can’t y
ou fill up the west corner first?” he wanted to know. “Come on, pal, you dumped that load practically on my friend’s home!” He threw his arms wide. “She’s got enough trouble! Can’t you leave her a little sunlight?” The trucker just waved a hand at Elliot and shrugged. He started to pull away but Elliot stopped him. “Come on,” he said over the noise of the truck’s engine. “At least cut her a hole.” But the driver indicated that he didn’t have a plow on the front.

  “Sorry, I just do what I’m told and collect my paycheck,” he called over the rattle of the engine. He pulled out onto Nott Street and headed away—probably to get more snow.

  I heard Elliot curse. He picked up snow in his bare hands, packed it and flung it at the mound the truck had left. That’s when I set my basket down on the step of the trailer and went across the street.

  “Hey, Elliot!”

  “Oh, hi, Addie.”

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “Eh.” He shrugged. “I’m cooling down, you could say.” He let out a little laugh.

  “How bad is it from the inside? The snow pile, I mean.”

  “Big dirty hill. Right in front of her windows,” he said grimly.

  We went inside together and made our way through to the Greenhouse. Looking out the window, I could see he was right. Soula was sitting in the papasan chair with a mug of chocolate. She smiled at me and winked.

  “Did you have to pry him off the front of the truck?” she asked. She gestured toward Elliot with her chin. “He’s very pit bull, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, cute.” Elliot nodded at her. “I was trying to look out for you,” he said.

  “My hero,” said Soula. “But you can’t fight the city, Elliot. Lookie here, I got me something I’ve never had before.” She swept a hand toward the window and the mound of snow beyond. “Welcome to my avalanche!”

  I laughed.

  Elliot said, “Oh, play it, Pollyanna! Like everybody wishes they had one of those in the yard!”