Entering Normal

by Anne Leclaire

She digs around the backseat until she retrieves a plastic grocery bag. “Here. We’ll wrap your arm in this. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he says in a bitty voice.

  Their waitress is dressed in just about the ugliest brown uniform on earth. A fluted cap sits on her head, one you wouldn’t catch Opal wearing in a million years. It looks exactly like the cup Dr. Wallace’s hygienist fills with mouthwash. The name badge identifies her as Tammy, which Opal flat out can’t believe. Tammy is her baptismal name: Tammy Raylee Gates. For a fact, she knows this coincidence has to be some kind of sign, but she’s too wiped from the morning to consider it right now. The only thing she knows is that of all the names on the planet, Tammy is the one she hates the most. Later, she will realize she should have gotten straight out of there the second she saw the woman’s name. How could she have ignored an obvious sign? The irony alone should have alerted her.

  “WHY’D YOU NAME ME AFTER HER?” SHE ASKED MELVA WHEN she was ten. “Tammy’s a stupid name.” Her mama turned vague, the way she did when she was avoiding unpleasantness and said, “Your Aunt Tammy is a good friend of mine.” Like that was a reason to saddle a kid with a name like that. And—technically—Tammy Roscoe wasn’t even her aunt.

  And wasn’t it just like Melva to do something really important like picking a daughter’s name with less attention than you’d use to name a dog. Opal herself can’t imagine saddling a child with a ditzy name like Tammy.

  She supposes it could have been worse. When she went into labor, her mama could have been watching TV, one of those afternoon soaps she’d cut off a foot before admitting she’s addicted to. Then later, when it came time to put a name on the birth certificate, she could have picked one from the show. One of those sappy, soap opera names. Opal could easily have been called Erica. Or Tiffany.

  Opal was thirteen when she knew for sure she had to change her name.

  “ARE YOU READY TO ORDER?”

  Opal tucks the breakfast menu back behind the napkin holder. What is called for here is some serious sugar. “Can we see the dessert menu?”

  The waitress looks at Opal and then Zack. “Aren’t we a little early for dessert?” she says, pushing the comment through a totally phony smile that doesn’t fool Opal for one minute.

  “No, we are not.” Like she cares what this waitress thinks. At least Opal doesn’t walk around with a paper cup stuck on her head.

  She orders the biggest sundae the place offers, with whipped cream and pecans. Zack gets a strawberry milkshake. How bad can that be? It has milk and fruit.

  “You know what?” Zack says to the waitress when she brings their order.

  “What?”

  “I cractured my arm.”

  “You did,” the waitress says. “You cractured it.” She thaws slightly and smiles at Opal like, Isn’t that so cute.

  “Fractured, Zack,” Opal says. “You fractured your arm, sugah.” She peels the paper sleeve from the straw and sticks it in his milk shake.

  “How did that happen?” Tammy asks.

  “He fell,” Opal says. Why the hell is this woman with a Dixie cup on her head questioning her? Just like the emergency room doctor. Routine questions, he’d said. As if anyone could even think she’d hurt Zack.

  “Mama?”

  “What, sugah?”

  “I feel funny.”

  “Here. Drink some milkshake.” They never did have breakfast.

  “I don’t feel good.”

  “Come on, bud,” she says. “Come sit by me.” She moves over, making room for him in her side of the booth. “Here. Try some of mine.” She scoops up some of the whipped cream.

  “I don’t feel good,” he says again. “I want to go home.”

  He does look pale. Opal signals for the waitress and gets the check. Seven dollars, plus tax. Jesus. What does the cream come from? Platinum cows?

  “Mama,” Zack whines.

  “Okay, bud. We’re going in a sec.” She roots though her purse for her wallet. Shit. Shit. Shit. The bill compartment is empty.

  “I don’t feel good.”

  She knows she has a ten. She saw it yesterday when she paid Zack’s preschool.

  “Mama?”

  It has to be there. Then she remembers. The box of eclairs, her impulsive donation to the fund for the young mother.

  “Mama?”

  “Just a minute, Zack.”

  She ferrets for change in the bottom of her bag, coming up with two quarters and a dime. She digs through gum wrappers, waddedup tissues, a hair brush, lipstick, a roll of breath mints, finds another dime.

  “Is there a problem?” Dixie cup stands over the table.

  This she doesn’t need. “I’m a little short.”

  The waitress waits, not smiling.

  “You take credit?”

  “No. Cash only. Or local checks. We’ll take a check.”

  Opal makes a pretense of looking for her checkbook, although she can see it plain as day sitting back on the dresser in her bedroom.

  “Wait here,” Dixie Cup says, like Opal is going to take off. “I’ll get the manager.”

  Immediately Opal can see he isn’t going to be any better. He leaps right in before Opal can get a word in edgewise. “There a problem here?”

  She knows how Melva would handle this. Her mama would fix her sweetest smile on the man and charm him into footing the bill. She has seen Melva do her act a kazillion times, but this is one behavior gene that missed her DNA. “I’m a little short,” she explains. “I was certain I had a ten.”

  “Mama?” Zack pulls on her arm.

  “Just a minute, sugah.”

  “You can’t pay?” He says this like, You’ve murdered your husband?

  Jesus. They’re talking seven dollars here. Not exactly the national debt. “I can. I just don’t have the cash with me. I live here. Over on Chestnut. Next to Rose and Ned Nelson.” Opal has noticed that people get real sympathetic when Rose’s name is mentioned, but if he’s heard of her neighbor, the manager doesn’t betray it.

  “How short are you?

  “Seven dollars.”

  “Mama?”

  “Seven dollars?” He says it like it’s seven hundred.

  “Yes.” Fuck. Like what? She’s trying to stiff them? “I’ll bring it back later.” She tries a smile that strains every muscle in her face. “Promise.”

  The man looks like he’s debating whether or not to call the police.

  “Hi, Opal.”

  There—bigger than life—is Ty Miller. All duded up in tight jeans, suede jacket, and cowboy boots.

  “Need help?” he asks.

  “No,” she says. This is one bad day going directly downhill to worse.

  “This woman can’t pay her bill,” the manager says, like it’s now public business.

  “Well, shoot,” Ty says. “No problem. Here. It’s taken care of.” He drops a ten dollar bill on the table.

  “Please,” Opal protests, but before she can say another word, Zack pushes out of the booth and vomits all over Ty’s high-heeled boots.

  Later Opal will play the whole day over and over. Zack’s accident. The doctor’s suspicions. Her lie about how he got hurt. The trip to the Creamery. No money for the check. Zack puking on Ty Miller. Each episode part of a larger, inevitable path that leads straight to a heart crushed flat.

  CHAPTER 11

  ROSE

  ROSE HAS HEARD THIS ALL BEFORE. HALFWAY INTO THE regular season and the Patriots have already lost four games. “Same old story,” Ned grumbles. “The quarterback can’t do it alone. You’ve got to have a running game.”

  She looks up from measuring coffee to see Willard Scott sending off birthday wishes. A face flashes on the screen—dried apple face, all wrinkles, nose, and chin—a face so old it’s impossible to tell whether it’s a man or a woman. Rose has observed how when a person gets really old, all gender drops away. She can’t imagine why anyone on earth would want to live to be one hundred anyway, robbed of everything, even gender. She c
ertainly doesn’t. A name—Katherine Waite, 103, Courtland, Kansas—scrolls beneath the withered face.

  Ned sets aside the newspaper. “It’s best if you don’t get mixed up with that one,” he says.

  She stares at him. Why on earth would she want to get involved with a stranger living in Kansas?

  “Her,” he says, jerking his head to indicate the house next door. “The fruitcake. I’m just saying, it’s wise to keep your distance.”

  “Oh,” she says and pours water through the Mr. Coffee machine. The itchy spot on her belly starts up, and she gives it a quick scratch.

  “Listen to me, Rose,” Ned continues. “I know her type. She’s the kind who makes a mess of her life and then expects other people to clean it up.”

  “I guess,” Rose says.

  “You guess? I told you the minute I saw her that she was nothing but trouble. Flouncing into the station asking to use our phone, spouting language that would make a trucker blush. A fruitcake.”

  “Yes,” Rose agrees. Beneath her dress and slip and panties, the spot glows, halfway between an itch and a burn. Lymph nodes. Chemo, she thinks. Would it be so bad? What does she really have to live for?

  “Dressing in clothes not fit for a twelve-year-old. She’s got Ty so turned around he doesn’t know a wrench from a pair of pliers.”

  Rose would just as soon not get started in on Tyrone Miller. She can’t figure out how Ned developed such a soft spot for him or why, in spite of his background, Ned took him on at the station, giving him a chance when no one else would.

  “Going to the hospital with her was one thing,” Ned continues, “but you have to stop it now, nip it in the bud. Next thing, she’ll have you baby-sitting. The best thing to do is just stay clear of her.”

  “You’re right,” she says. He doesn’t have to lecture her. Despite yesterday’s trip to Mercy Memorial, she has absolutely no intention of any further involvement with Opal Gates or her boy. The way lies just tripped off that girl’s tongue. Rose wouldn’t put anything past her.

  She scrambles Ned’s eggs, stirs them into the fry pan, cooking them until they are dry the way he likes them. Rubbery, to her taste. She prefers eggs fluffy and moist, but over the years has adjusted to eating them Ned’s way. It’s easier than cooking two batches. She spoons his breakfast onto a plate.

  “I feel sorry for the poor son of a bitch who married her.” Ned forks the eggs on a slice of toast and folds it into a sandwich, a habit that drives Rose crazy. “Any fool can see why he left her.”

  How can he be so sure Opal isn’t the one who wanted out of the relationship? And wouldn’t he go right through the roof to hear she isn’t even married? Rose can only imagine what he’d have to say if he knew how she lied for Opal at the hospital.

  “More coffee?” she asks.

  “Half a cup,” he says, holding out his mug, an oversized plastic cup, the interior discolored a deep nut brown. There is a toast crumb on the corner of his mouth. She wishes he would use his napkin. Thirty-six years of marriage and she still hasn’t gotten him to use a napkin.

  “You all right, Rosie?” he asks. There is unexpected concern in his voice, and he’s looking right at her. The paper lies neglected on the table. Rose allows herself one weak moment when she nearly tells him all that she has locked inside. Not just about yesterday and how she’d told the doctor she was there when the boy got hurt, but about the mole on her stomach and about what happened at the writing class, and most of all about how she had refused to let Todd use the car, sending him off with Jimmy to die in that accident. This weight lies so heavy in her heart she can’t even imagine the relief of setting it free. She very nearly sets it out on the table right then and there, spilling it like a blob of grease from one of the engines Ned is always repairing. Tell him and let him fix it. But the time for fixing things is long gone, and she allows the moment to pass.

  “I’m fine.”

  “What’s on your agenda today?” he asks.

  She imagines the day yawning ahead, but before she can manage a word he has turned his attention back to the sports pages.

  THROUGHOUT THE MORNING SHE HALF EXPECTS TO HEAR from Opal, and when the phone finally rings she picks it up without stopping to think. Ned doesn’t need to worry. She isn’t going to get further involved. She just wants to hear that the boy is all right.

  When she hears the voice on the other end of the wire, she nearly drops the phone.

  “Hello, Rose. This is Anderson Jeffrey. From the college.” As if she could have forgotten. As if she knows so many men he needs to identify himself. As if she has shamed herself in front of so many of those men.

  “Don’t hang up, Rose. Please, don’t hang up.” He is speaking in one long breath so that it sounds like “fromthecollegedonthanguprosepleasedonthangup.”

  “Yes?” She is surprised to hear how normal her voice sounds.

  “Hello, Rose,” he says, slower now that he sees she isn’t going to hang up.

  “Hello,” she parrots back, wondering how many times they are going to toss the greeting back and forth.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine. I’m fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” she says firmly.

  “I’m glad.” He waits, but she doesn’t offer more. “I need to talk with you,” he finally says. “Can we talk, Rose?”

  A memory—his lips on hers—cuts off all possibility of speech. Her stomach is itching like crazy, and she pushes her fingertips against the spot, presses hard.

  THE SECOND DAY OF CLASS, SHE SAT AT THE SAME DESK she had the first time, laid out her paper and pencil, got set to write out her grocery list. They were out of eggs, she knew. She planned on waiting until after class to tell him she was dropping out.

  “We’ll do more ‘hot writing,’ ” he told them, “but this time we’ll start with memory. Memory—this alluvial morass—is the territory of the writer.”

  Alluvial morass? Rose didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about, but a shiver of unease rippled through her.

  “Begin with this phrase: ‘I remember.’ And write a list of things.”

  “What?” She was so surprised by his directions that the question popped right out.

  Anderson Jeffrey looked straight at her and smiled. “I remember,” he repeated. “Make a list of all the things you remember.”

  A second ripple of anxiety took hold, but she carefully wrote I remember. The others in the room were scribbling noisily, but she thought a moment and finally put down picking strawberries with Momma. This memory—surfacing out of nowhere—gave her courage. Dad’s work shoes, she wrote next, amazed at how clearly she could see them. The creases across the instep, toes turned up, the mismatched laces. What a funny thing to remember after all these years. Tootsie, she wrote, thinking of the calico kitten she had as a child. Orange Popsicles. And then, before her mind had even grasped what was happening or could catch up with her hand, she wrote Todd. I remember Todd.

  Once her hand set that sentence to paper, it refused to stop.

  Her pen moved across that paper like she had been waiting five years to get this down. She wrote all about Todd and how she missed him and how one minute a person could be in your life, laughing and smiling and driving you crazy with their foolishness, and then the next, with no warning, they were gone. All the words you never got a chance to say would be locked up inside you, and whatever happened to words locked inside? Where did they go?

  Then she started writing about Todd’s friend Jimmy, who walked away from that crash with no more than a scratch. Really, a scratch. People said things like that, in exaggeration, but it was true. Jimmy had a small red scratch on his right arm, and Todd was dead. Today Jimmy was twenty-two and had two kids of his own. And then she wrote about how she hated Jimmy, and how Reverend Wills said it was a sin to hate and she needed to forgive. She said that she had reached forgiveness so as to please the Reverend and Ned, but the hate was still there. Sometimes she thought
it was the only thing that kept her alive, and so she put that down, too. She wrote how at the funeral she overheard someone say it was a miracle that Jimmy hadn’t died in the crash too, but it wasn’t a miracle to her.

  About this point in the writing, she knew she would have to burn that paper and everything she had committed to it. It wasn’t “hot writing”; it was scalding—jumping and rolling all of its own power, like the pot of water when she sterilized canning jars or Todd’s baby bottles when she prepared them for his formula, after she stopped nursing him.

  Then she wrote about secrets and regret. Frightful secrets. Grim regret. She wrote about how after the accident people had consoled her. It’s not your fault. You mustn’t blame yourself. But the terrible thing was it was her fault. She should have let Todd take her car, and then he wouldn’t have been in the truck with Jimmy Sommers. She would have to live with the pain and guilt of that for the rest of her life. She wrote about Todd’s birthday and how the first year after he died she waited all day for Ned to say something about it, to mention it, but he never did. He just went on like it was an ordinary day like any other, and she realized then he had forgotten. She wrote about how for a while she thought about leaving Ned even though she knew she was just fooling herself. To leave someone, you had to have someplace waiting for you.

  About this time in the writing, she became aware of Anderson Jeffrey standing by her. When she looked up, every eye in the room was focused on her. The professor had already collected the other papers and was reaching for hers. It never occurred to her he would want to take what they had written. Before she could object, she felt it gliding from her fingers to his.

  In the cab, on the way home, she tried to figure a way to get that paper back. One more week, she vowed. She would go back one more time so she could get that paper back.

  The following week, she planned on speaking to him after class. During the hour, she was careful to write about safe things, things like the history of Normal, things that wouldn’t need to be burned after she wrote them, things that didn’t come out of any alluvial morass.

  At the end of the class, before she could say a word, Anderson Jeffrey asked to see her. He led her to his office, a small room with a plain oak desk like the one in Doc Blessing’s office and a sofa so covered with stacks of papers and books that there wasn’t an inch free to sit on. Immediately she saw that he was the kind of person who wouldn’t keep a spare key to his car. The kind of man who automatically expected other people to take care of locked cars and dirty dishes. She wondered what he wanted and how soon she could leave, but he talked about her writing and what he called her raw talent. For an instant, something close to pleasure flickered inside, and she remembered her tenth grade teacher, Mrs. Finney, who had told her once that she was a “smart girl.” But then the warmth faded. She let him talk, not listening to the words, only the slightly hypnotic voice that matched his clean fingernails. “I’ll see you next week,” he said when he opened the door for her, letting his arm brush against hers. “Yes,” she answered, so grateful to escape she forgot to ask for her paper, forgot to tell him she wasn’t coming back. The next week in class he paid special attention to her, although she wasn’t the prettiest or the thinnest or, Lord knows, the youngest. And he asked her to come to his office again so they could discuss her writing, although she had no idea what in the world he could possibly find to say about it.