Joy School

by Elizabeth Berg

  After I have finished eating the candy bar, I rinse my hands, which of course is easy. Then I shave my legs very carefully, nick myself only on the ankle, where there is no chance for any shaver.

  When I get out of the tub, I put on my bathrobe, line up the makeup I’ll be using in the order that I’ll need it. It comes naturally to me now that you wait to get dressed until your makeup is done. I used to do it wrong, put on my good clothes and then take the chance of dropping stuff on them. I like the part when you are finished and you stand back and there is your madeup face all fancy, and you standing in your old bathrobe, which knows everything.

  Taylor has taught me how to do eyeliner. You spit on the black cake, swirl around the little paintbrush. Then you VERY CAREFULLY draw a line right above your eyelashes. It is dangerous but worth it. If she could see how I did it today, she’d nod and say, “Yeah.” Plus she gave me some Pan-Cake makeup, the stick kind, for my face. This is not working out so well. I just look greasy. I take some toilet paper, pat at it, but no, it still looks awful. I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong.

  “Katie?”

  It’s Ginger at the door.

  “Are you almost done in there?”

  No. “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Let me know.”

  I hear her walk away, hear the vacuum go on. But she’ll be back soon—polite, but in need. I can never get enough time in here. Cynthia has two bathrooms and that is exactly what we need. Now I will have to move to my bedroom and that will break the spell and nothing will come out right.

  I rub off the pan stick. I’ll just use some eyeliner and some lipstick. Maybe white, which is the latest. I have some of that from Taylor, too. She is the generous kind, who, if you say, oh that’s nice, she throws it at you, says, keep it. I have never seen a kid who seems not to care about so much.

  “I’m out,” I yell to Ginger, then go into my room. I’m wearing a red sweatshirt that looks good on me, and one necklace, and that is it for jewelry. I’ll have to wear my galoshes, but they can come off. I inspect my socks for holes. Not a one.

  “King me,” Jimmy says.

  “Man oh man,” I say. “You’re hot today.”

  “You’re not concentrating,” Jimmy says.

  “I am too.” Not on checkers, of course.

  Jimmy leans back in his chair, stretches, looks at his watch. “Wow, one o’clock!” I am flattered that so much time has gone by unbeknownst to him.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks.

  “No. Well. Some.”

  “Want some lunch?”

  “I don’t know.” Eating in front of him is not something I’m quite ready for. Sounds happen.

  He opens his sack lunch, pulls out a fat sandwich wrapped in waxed paper. “I’ll give you half,” he says.

  “No,” I say. “That’s okay. I have to go soon.”

  “Stay,” he says. “Eat some of this. It’s a big sandwich, I made it too big.” He made it! What oh what does his wife do, lie around in blue negligees reading articles in the movie magazines about Charlton Heston?

  I take half the sandwich. It’s ham and cheese. Find me one man who doesn’t like that. That is the man’s sandwich, and chicken salad is the woman’s.

  It’s a good thing I came to see Jimmy today, he would have been bored silly. The weather is keeping the cars off the road. It turned out to be a great storm, worse than they thought. Big fat flakes are coming down fast now. It looks like a paper factory blew up. But also it’s romantic. I wish I didn’t live so close. Then I could have the chance of being stranded here with him. Night would fall. I would lie on the floor close to him and I wouldn’t see him, I would only hear him breathing. One thing would lead to the other until we were kissing. He might say my name in my ear. Which maybe I should change to Katherine.

  “Katie?”

  I look up.

  He laughs. “I swear, I never saw such a daydreamer. What are you always thinking about?”

  I feel myself flushing, a disaster. “Nothing,” I say, and then, “Today is my birthday.”

  His mouth opens in surprise, he leans back in his chair. It matters to him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I shrug.

  “So you’re fifteen now!”

  Oh. Oh, yes, that’s right. I’m so glad he said that before I leaked out thirteen. I nod.

  “Well, happy birthday, Katie!”

  “Thank you.”

  “I feel badly that I don’t have a present for you.”

  “Well. We’re just new. It’s okay. It’s fun to be here, that’s a present.”

  “No.” He looks around the room, frowning. “Want a spark plug?”

  I smile. He has a smart sense of humor.

  “Wait, I do have something.” He reaches in his pocket, pulls out a flat stone, puts it in my hand. It’s a beautiful gray-green color, speckled, smooth as an egg.

  I look up at him.

  “It’s lucky,” he says. “Honest.”

  “How come?”

  “It just is. And it’s … Well, it’s kind of soothing. If I feel nervous about something, I rub it. I don’t know, it helps.” He shrugs. I think he’s starting to regret offering it to me.

  “I really like it,” I say, “but I don’t want to take it.”

  “Oh no,” he says. “Take it. I’d like for you to have it.” He puts it in my hand.

  I hear the low buzz of the fluorescent light above us. This could be the time when I should say something, make things move along. In my throat is the whole sentence, “I think I love you.”

  I look up at him and in his face is only a kind affection. Oh, he is twenty-three, he is twenty-three and I am stupid thirteen. His mother should have waited awhile to have him. I guess I will never get to meet his mother. I look down at the stone, close my hand around it. This is what I have.

  “I had a date Friday night,” I tell him. Make him jealous, I hear Cynthia saying.

  “Hey! Good for you!”

  Cynthia is an imbecile.

  “I have to go,” I say, standing. I didn’t know love could take your stomach up in its hands and squeeze it until it hurt.

  Jimmy stands too. “Now?”

  Hope. “Well…” Ask me to stay. Say, Oh, Katie …

  “I’m sorry, it’s okay. It was nice of you to stay so long. I’d have been pretty bored, otherwise.”

  “You have your books,” I say. I’d seen the pile on his desk.

  He looks at them. “Yeah, that’s right. I do like to read.”

  “What have you got?”

  “One is a mystery,” he says. “And one is a biography, about Lincoln. The other is called The Winter of Our Discontent. Do you like John Steinbeck?”

  I nod. He reads! Us in bed at night, both of our lamps on, both of us with books. “Listen to this,” I’d say, and he would say, “Nice. But listen to this.” His wrists, out a ways from his pajama sleeves.

  He grins, and I nearly throw up with longing.

  “You’re surprised that I read anything but auto mechanics, right?”

  “No.” Kind of.

  “Know what I wanted to do, Katie?”

  “What?”

  “Be a writer.”

  Well, I am going home to flat die.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Oh, you know. You get a family, you have to support them.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s … fine. It’s a little hard, now, that’s all. But it’s fine.”

  “I wish …” I say. I don’t know what I wish. I wish too much.

  “What?” he says, and in his face is a yearning, too.

  Unless I’m wrong.

  “I don’t know. I wish you could have whatever you wanted. All that you want.” My voice has gotten thick.

  He smiles at me and it is a new kind of look, a careful one mixed with a new knowledge. “Well. I wish that for you too, Katie.”

  “Okay.” Oh, I don’t even know what we’re talking about
. It is too full in me. I can’t even swallow against it. I start for the door.

  “So I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  I turn back, smile, nod. There it is, my birthday gift supreme.

  I feel sort of happy on the way home. I can’t wait to lie down and think, what was that? What was the whole, real conversation? Maybe things are moving along! If only that could be true, I would do so many good things to pay for it.

  Dear Katie,

  Well you will not believe the sentence you are going to read next. I am coming to visit you!!!! That is if it is all right with your father, of course. My mother told me the other day that I can come on the train over Christmas vacation and spend three days.

  You may wonder why.

  Well, here is the whole story. I have broken up with Todd. It was not my fault or Eric’s, who is that basketball boy I told you about. These things just happen when you are young, as my mother agrees. But Todd! He was all hurt and started rumors about me like you would not believe, such as I did things with him that I did not. Which I already told you, how I had decided on things in my head long before my body was put to the test. I don’t think I have to remind you about the morals I hold near and dear, plus once you are used merchandise there go all your plans for other things in your life. Anyway he was telling everyone these vile lies and I don’t know what is wrong with them, half the kids believed them and also ERIC believed it. There I soon was, alone. And with people talking. And no boys calling me except greasers. I warn you, Katie, this happened so fast and vicious. Well I was bent by grief into a shell of my former self. I thought I might have to enter the loony bin. But then thank God my mother said, Well, would it help you to just get away a little, why don’t you visit Katie? And I think it would help to have a change of scenery, plus I could see your boyfriend who I hope still is your boyfriend although from what I have been going through nothing would surprise me.

  Anyway, so write me back (or call me!!!!!) and let me know is it okay? I could come the weekend of the 16th. Naturally I would have to come home for the main part of the holidays. But by then I know that our friendship could help me.

  I have to say that I never thought this could happen to me and I would advise you in your life to be ever watchful.

  Love,

  Cherylanne

  P.S. How come you hardly write anymore?

  It is a Saturday morning. My father has just come back from the grocery store. I start unloading the bags. Good, I see he bought some Lay’s potato chips and they are exactly right, you cannot eat just one. Plus Hawaiian Punch, which shows he is in a good mood. Everybody wants to buy it because they get to say, “Hey, want a Hawaiian punch?”

  “I got a letter from Cherylanne,” I say. “She wants to know if she can come and visit here.”

  He pulls out a package of sardines. He eats those things. On soda crackers.

  “December 16th, for a few days. She’d come on the train.”

  He stops pulling out groceries, thinks a little. “I suppose that’s all right.”

  “So I’ll tell her yes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I call her?”

  He looks at me.

  “Or I could write.”

  “Why don’t you do that.”

  I finish putting away groceries, go back into my room. I am not so excited. I used to be under Cherylanne, but I just don’t think I am anymore.

  “Thirteen!” Nona says. She is sitting up today in a chair by her bed, her feet on a hassock, a plaid blanket over her lap.

  “Right. Thirteen.”

  “That’s-a big!”

  “I guess.”

  “Little woman.” Nona cackles softly, and I get a little nervous. Cynthia says if Nona laughs hard, she wets her pants. She says Nona has underwear that is much too big for her now, but she won’t part with them. She wears safety pins to keep them up. “They’re huge,” Cynthia said. “Like flags or something.”

  “It’s-a time for love, no?” Nona says, in her low, secret voice.

  This startles me. What does she know? What has Cynthia told her?

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess.”

  “I’m-a give you something,” Nona says, and from under her blanket she pulls out a battered black book. It looks like a diary. She opens it, reads a little, smiles, closes it again. Then she hands it to me.

  “You’re giving this to me?”

  “Happy birthday to you.”

  “But… This is your diary, isn’t it?”

  “It’s-a the book from love.”

  I open to the first page. It’s in Italian. “I can’t read it, Nona.”

  She shrugs. “What’s the difference? It’s-a to feel.”

  “Oh! Well. Thank you.” I am shy grateful. And I think I do feel something, already.

  Nona leans forward. “I had-a love.”

  I nod.

  “You know how it was? It was like-a trees. Oak and elm.” Her voice has been soft, like it was lost in memory, but now she stares at me, her eyes narrowed, and she makes a fist and pounds the side of her chair. “The roots, they bound-a together, but the trees, they are free. You know what it’s-a mean?”

  I nod, but I’m not sure. Cynthia told me that when her grandfather died, he’d been in the garden picking tomatoes. Nona looked through the window, saw him lying down and ran out and kicked him. She thought he was sleeping. She was yelling at him for being lazy and then when he didn’t move, she knelt down and saw. She held him in her arms, kept his straw hat on his head, rocked him for hours. And then she went to her room and didn’t come out except for the funeral. This went on for months. And then came the day when she came into the kitchen and put her apron back on. Fiercer.

  “You gotta have you tree. He’s-a gotta his. No?”

  “Yes.” I rub my hand gently over the cover of the diary. It’s old leather, softened and nearly touching back, the way that old leather will. I actually like it better than what Cynthia gave me, which is a best-friends necklace. I got one half of a heart, she got the other. Now I will have to wear it every day or she will say, all hurt, “What’s wrong?”

  “You gotta boyfriend?” Nona asks. Her eyes are watery, pleading.

  “Yes,” I say softly.

  “Ha!” she says. “I’m-a think right!”

  In bed that night, I turn the thin pages of Nona’s diary. I like that I can’t read it. This way, the story will change and change. I find places where she underlined, places where it looks like tears fell on the page. The diary whispers and whispers, sighs and sighs, and then, on one page, yells out loud. It’s huge writing, just three words but they are happy, you can tell, the writing is happy. Cynthia said Nona gave the diary to me so Mrs. O’Connell would never read it. She said Nona’s been giving lots of things away lately. She gave Cynthia all her jewelry, wrapped in a few of her man-sized handkerchiefs. We sat on Cynthia’s floor and took it out and put it all on. It was a lot. We put rings on our toes, necklaces on our ankles, draped bracelets from our ears. There was so much, we had to improvise. It was pretty amazing fun. We felt like forgiven thieves.

  I have outdone myself on the macaroni and cheese, if I do say so myself. Miss Woods said put it under the broiler for just a second and you have a crust all will admire. And she is right.

  Not that my father is admiring it. He is just eating as though he is reading the newspaper, but there is no newspaper.

  “What do you think of Ginger?” he asks.

  “Pardon?”

  “I said, what do you think of Ginger?”

  “I think she’s great!” Please don’t fire her, I’m thinking. And then I think, Oh. “Why?” I say.

  He looks at me, tongues off a tooth, shakes his head. “No reason. Just wondering.”

  “Don’t you like her?” Inside I get a dangerous feeling, like something growing bigger and bigger in there.

  “Yeah. I do like her. She does a fine job and … Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” I say. This conversation so
unds like idiots. The words we are saying, that sounds like idiots. The words we are meaning scare me to death. I’d forgotten about this, how he might find someone else. I just don’t know if it’s all right. The pain of missing my mother has been a dull and distant thing. Not anymore.

  “What do you think of my father?” I ask Ginger. It is Monday, and she’s made herself a cup of tea to have before she goes home. She made me Jell-O with peaches and I put mayonnaise on top of it like frosting, which I wouldn’t let just anyone see.

  She looks at me, smiles. “Well.”

  “No, for real,” I say.

  “Okay.” Her face grows serious. We are eyeball to eyeball. Woman to woman. I straighten in my seat. “I like him quite a bit, Katie. I think I’m in love with him.”

  “What about Wayne?”

  “Well… Wayne. You know, I like Wayne. But he’s…” She puts down her cup. “I have always liked a little danger in a man, Katie. That’s the truth. I can’t tell you why, or that it’s a good thing. But it’s the truth. I like a kind of… well, yes, that’s it, I like a kind of danger.”

  “Well, that is one thing he is.”

  “Yes, I know. But you know, your father has a great capacity for tenderness. He feels things, Katie.”

  I look down at my Jell-O. I know he does. And now I see I am not the only one who knows. It is a relief and a sorrow.

  We have come to this inside junction. I could get kind of mean now, let her know I’m going to fight this. But I’m tired. I think I’m ready. And last night, late, in those velvet hours when sleep is one-half there and the truth comes, I asked my mother, Was this all right? What she told me more or less is that there is room in life for more than we imagine.

  “He likes that dress you wore the other day,” I say.

  “The blue one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh,” she says, and I think she is starting to blush a little. “Well, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”