Durable Goods

by Elizabeth Berg

  Diane is suddenly serious. “This is bad, Dickie. Jesus. We can’t take her home like this.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “She doesn’t have to go home. Let’s take her out to dinner with us.”

  Diane looks at me, hands on hips. “You want to come?”

  I am their pet girl. They are having a good time with me. “I can make us dinner,” I say. “I’m a good cook.” A vision: us at the table, an embroidered cloth in place, pastel bowls of potatoes, corn, green beans, a square meat loaf, apple pie waiting on the side. Me saying, “Pass me another beer, will you?” and Dickie saying, “Damn, she is a good cook, Diane!” and Diane getting, oh, yes, just a teensy bit jealous. Diane is beautiful, but all she makes are brown-sugar sandwiches.

  “Let’s go to A&W,” Dickie says.

  Well, that’s fine, too, of course. My contentment is thick and lasting, like butter on bread. A&W is fine.

  By the time we arrive home, I am sober again. It is seven in the evening. Dickie and Diane let me off, then drive away. I regret their going, though I knew, of course, it would come to this. I stand by the side of the road, sighing. The sun is low in the sky, deep red.

  “Katie!” I hear Cherylanne calling me from her bedroom window. “Hey, Katie!” Then, as I get closer, “Where have you been?”

  I go into her house, climb the stairs slowly. She is waiting in her bedroom, dressed in a flowered bathrobe and her pink fuzzy slippers. She has silver clips on either side of her head, to make spit curls. There is a thin layer of cold cream on her face, making her appear slightly ill.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “Where have you been?” she answers.

  I lie down on her bed, stretch out luxuriously. “Drinking with Dickie and Diane. Drinking beer.”

  She stands still, then offers, as though offended, “I doubt it.”

  I shrug. “Doubt it. That’s where I’ve been. I had Lone Star beer. I bet you can smell it on my breath.”

  She steps closer, leans in, sniffs delicately. “All I smell is onions. You’d better eat some parsley right away.” That tip she got from watching Miss America, I know.

  “I don’t care if I smell like onions,” I say. “I like onions.”

  Cherylanne sits on her dresser stool, regards me carefully. “Did you really drink beer?”

  “Sure did.” I hold my arm up in the air, let my wrist flop, my fingers fall. Say I had some rings and bracelets on; I’d look like Cleopatra herself.

  “Huh. Well, I wouldn’t be so proud and mighty if I were you. It’s a dent in your character. It’s something, once you’ve done, there’s no going back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She turns to her mirror, fiddles with her clips. “You just can’t go back. Now you have gone and drunk alcohol.”

  “Well, la de dah.” I make a scared face. “I guess I’m going to hell now.”

  She stands up. “Since you are in such a bad mood, you can just leave. I had plenty to tell you. But now you can just forget it. Why don’t you just go drink some more?”

  I rise, languidly. “I think I will. I think I’ll have a big, fat whiskey.”

  Cherylanne is painting her toenails. Hard. She is trying to act like I’m not there. And here is some blessed and new strong thing: I don’t care.

  I come into the house, see him at the kitchen table. He is reading through a stack of official-looking papers. “Where you been?” he asks.

  “Cherylanne’s,” I say.

  “Doing what?” He doesn’t look up.

  I lean against the door jamb. “Oh, we went and tried clothes on at the PX. Then we played cards. I won every round. We ate some popcorn. And some cheese.”

  “Uh huh.” He turns a page. “Where’s your sister?”

  “Beats me. I haven’t seen her.”

  He looks up, something in his eyes, then changes his mind.

  “See you,” I say. I go up into my room, lie on my bed, stare at the ceiling. My brain is saying my name to itself. That is all. Just my name.

  When Diane comes home, he calls us into the kitchen, tells us to sit down. This could be anything. We sit straight, not looking at him or each other.

  “We’re moving,” he says.

  Now we look at each other. We have heard this many times, and yet I know that what we are both feeling is surprise. Each time, you learn a place forgetting that you must leave it. Each time, there is a pulling-away pain when it is time to go. I have been in so many classrooms, looking out the window and thinking about the others going on without me. Thinking that someone else will take my desk and I will be in a new one. I will stand before my-age strangers, kids jiggling their knees and smirking a little while the teacher lays her arm heavy and apologetic across my shoulders. “Class, this is Katherine. She’s our new girl.”

  “It’s Katie,” I will say.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s Katie,” I will say again, and the teacher will say, “Oh, well, I guess she likes to be called Katie.”

  I will be looked at, my shoes and my hair and my outfit and the line of my lips. Then I will be talked about outside at recess or in the halls between classes, in old, formed groups. “She, She, She …” is all I will hear for a while. Faces will close up when I appear, smiles will be thin and false. Oh, one person will be nice to me at first, someone who also doesn’t belong; and we will sit together at lunch, lonely, anyway, knowing we are temporary to each other. Then, eventually, I will find my place. It is too hard to do this so often. Really, it is too hard.

  Diane sighs, picks at her thumb. “Where are we going?”

  “St. Louis,” my father says. “Missouri.”

  I realize I don’t know where Missouri is. Somewhere in the middle. And there is nothing I can put to Missouri. I envision the people there, all adults, standing in a circle, in dark clothes, their mouths open a little. The men have their sleeves rolled up, and they look suspicious. The women are stupidly kind. The land is flat and all one color. I don’t know why this vision comes to me. I accept my own wrongness.

  “When?” I ask, and hear the lightness in my voice, the pain disguised.

  “Three weeks,” he says. Then he stands up. We are done.

  “There’s eight more weeks of school,” Diane says. “Can’t we finish? It’s my last year. I’m almost done.”

  “Three weeks,” he says. His shirt is open two buttons, and I see the defeated sag of the top of his T-shirt. The light from the kitchen hums, shines down on the bits of scalp you see between the stand-up hairs of his crew cut. There is a little perspiration there, slick and see-through. I am afraid, seeing so much of him.

  Diane swallows, looks left, then back at him. “Please?”

  “There’s nothing I can do,” he says. “What’s the difference? You’ll finish there.” He turns to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Diane says.

  “Into the living room. That all right with you?” His back is straight as he leaves, his tread heavy and certain. There is no touching a back like that, asking it to wait.

  After he is gone, Diane sits quietly, her face blank. Then she tells me, “Well, I’m not going.”

  “You have to.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You do, too!”

  She stands up. “No. I don’t.”

  She goes upstairs to her room and I follow. “Can I come in?”

  “What for?”

  “To talk.”

  “Not now, Katie.”

  “Okay.”

  I go into my room, look out the window. No stars, all clouds in the sky. I take in a deep breath, hold it, let it out. First, I’ll tell Cherylanne. She might cry. She thinks she looks pretty when she cries, she has told me. “I have a lovely laugh,” she said, “and I also look good when I cry. That is very unusual.”

  I put on my pajamas, sit on my bed with my poetry notebook. I write, “Oh,” and nothing else comes. I cover my face with my hands. I make almost no sounds, crying.
>
  On Monday morning, I go to Cherylanne’s house before school. She is seated before her mirror, making her hair into what she calls a Grecian ponytail. It is a bun toward the front, a ponytail in the back. When she has finished, she paralyzes it with hair spray. She centers her necklace, turns her face this way and that, bends over to pull up her nylons in the knee area. Then she stands, inspects her whole self. “Okay,” she says. “Ready.”

  “We’re moving,” I say.

  She stops, turns toward me. “You are?”

  I nod.

  “When?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “My Lord.” She reaches for her necklace. “Well. You can sit by me on the bus.” She regrets herself for a moment; I can see her thinking about how to take away what she has just given me. But she doesn’t take it back. And she lets me leave her room first. She is my friend; I have always known it. You can have a lot of shakiness on the outside and still know the inside is steady. Before we get off the bus, she removes her necklace and tells me I can wear it. I love that necklace. It is a gold heart, with rhinestones lined up coy along one side. Her name is engraved on it in fancy script. “You can keep it all day,” she says. “But now,” she bites her lip, mother to child, “this is real jewelry. Be careful.”

  I clasp the necklace behind my neck. I have seen princesses bow their head for the crown, nuns kneel down for the veil. This is better. The pendant lies in my new valley, between my coming breasts, shows them off a little. The weight of the necklace is heavy and good. It seems like borrowed things are always that way, better than your own. All day long I will reach for that necklace, I know. And all day long I will find it there. All you have to say is, “I’m leaving,” and mean it true, say it to someone who would rather you not go, and little fancy things will start happening to you, bang, bang, bang.

  Between math and geography, I tell Marilyn Mayfield, my in-school best friend, that I am moving. She covers her mouth, the outside edges of her eyes slant down, and she says, “Oh, no” in slow motion. Then she hugs me tight. She asks where I am going, and I tell her. She nods. And then we are done. There are lots of army kids at this school, and so the civilian kids, they know. What can you do? What can you say? You just keep on acting the same, even though there is a bright hard edge to things now. Sometimes I think it is like dying. I always think that, when I am getting ready to move; then I forget it; and then I always remember it when it comes time to move again.

  On Friday afternoon, Diane comes home with one of Dickie’s puppies and a large box that toilet paper came in. My mouth hangs open to let some happiness out. “You got one!” I say.

  “Help me,” Diane says, and I take the box from her.

  “Where should I put it?”

  She shrugs. “The kitchen, I guess. She’s used to that.”

  I put the box in the corner. There is newspaper on the bottom, and I am sorry for all the puppy has lost. “She should at least have a blanket,” I say.

  “She’s all right,” Diane says, lowering the puppy into the box, and she does seem to be. She has her dog-in-love look on. She sits expectantly in the middle of the box and then, suddenly, barks. It is such a pure and perfect sound, high and ringing slightly.

  “What’s her name?” I ask.

  “Bridgette.”

  I look at Diane, and she shrugs. “Dickie made me promise. He likes that name.”

  I pat the puppy’s head, pull her ears gently through my fingers. They are something like silk, but warm with lifeblood. “She looks like a Bridgette,” I say.

  “You want to feed her?” Diane asks.

  We are mixing baby cereal and milk with dry meal when my father comes in. He walks over to the box, looks in. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s a puppy,” Diane says.

  “What’s it doing here?”

  “Bridgette is her name,” I say. “Pick of the litter.”

  He doesn’t acknowledge me, looks instead at Diane, who says, with a kind of weariness, “She’s mine. I’m keeping her.”

  “The hell you are.”

  “Dad,” Diane says, “now is as good a time as any to tell you: I’m not moving with you. I want to stay here. I’ll finish school and find a job. Mary Jo Anderson said I can stay with them.”

  “You’re not staying with anyone. You’re coming with us. Now get rid of the dog. That’s the last thing I need.”

  “I’ll take care of her,” I say, but apparently I am invisible. There is something mounting between Diane and him, blocking the view of anything else.

  “I am keeping that dog,” Diane says. “And I am not going with you.” I see his color darken, his cheek begin moving in and out. I back out of the kitchen, go into my room, close the door. There is a lot of math homework. And reading in geography. I open my Nations of the World book, find the place. I hear Diane yell, “I am eighteen years old and you can not stop me. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to live with you! I don’t want to and I don’t have to!”

  Well, he hits her, of course, and now I hear it getting louder, the mess of him at her. She runs up the stairs and bursts into my room. He is right behind her. I keep my eyes on the book, start to read about exporting soybeans. “Stop it, stop it!” she screams. I look out of the corner of my eye and see him straddling her on my bedroom floor. He has her wrists pinned down and he says between his teeth, close into her face, “Don’t you ever, don’t you goddamn ever tell me what you will and won’t do!” She starts to slither away but he grabs her, slaps her, slaps her again, slaps her again. I read. Soybeans. Exported. Soybeans. Exported. I think I’d better be quiet with my breathing, and so I stop.

  I have been in bed for a long time, and the house is quiet. I will see if Diane is all right. And then I will feed the puppy. I don’t think anyone fed the puppy.

  I push Diane’s door open, whisper her name. Nothing. I walk over to her bed, reach out for her. She is not there. I snap on her light. The bed is made, the window beside it open. A breeze comes in, stops, starts again. Did she go out the window? I wonder.

  I sit on her bed. I do not think this is a regular sneak-out. I think she is gone. I wrap my arms around myself. I could go downstairs and look, but I already know: the puppy is gone, too.

  Now I am alone with him. And I don’t know anything. I go back into my bedroom, stare into the mirror. “Help me,” I say.

  Bubba comes to sit beside me when I am out on the porch after school. He nods his head as though we have been having a conversation. Then, “Yup,” he says. I wonder if he has lost his mind. Finally, “Hey, Bubba,” I say.

  “Hey, Katie.” He looks down at the ground, fuels up, turns toward me. “I heard y’all were moving.”

  “Yeah. To Missouri.”

  “Well, I just wanted to tell you, you know, it wasn’t you or nothing. I can’t stand my sister, is all. That’s why I was … you know.”

  I nod.

  “But you’re all right, Katie.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He stands up, socks his hand with his fist. “Okay. Well, I hope you like Montana.”

  “Missouri.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He walks away, his strides long and loping. Sod-buster walk, Cherylanne calls it.

  Cherylanne bangs the door shut, walks past Bubba without acknowledging him. “Gnats out, huh?” she asks and points at Bubba, makes big-eyes at me. She sits down, leans against me, sighs. “Your sister back yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s been over twenty-four hours.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, didn’t he call the MPs or anything?”

  I look at her. “He’s waiting.”

  “For what?”

  This is too hard to explain. And so I just say, “For her to come back.”

  “Oh.” Cherylanne rubs alongside of her neck, leans her head far back, and shakes her hair. A girl can add fullness simply by tossing her curls gently behind her. She rights her head, gives it one more shake, turn
s toward me. She really is quite pretty. She has a mole on her cheek in just the right place. “Want to eat over?” she asks.

  “Sure.” This is it, my normal life, evaporating.

  Belle passes me the fried chicken, slaps Bubba’s hand for taking a piece off the platter before I get it. “I’ll tell you something, Katie,” she says. “You’re really going to make something of yourself. Your mother and I both always said so.”

  I smile, shrug.

  “Oh, yes,” she says. “You mark my words.”

  From now on until the day I leave, I will be like the birthday girl.

  I need to talk to her. I go under the bed to call her. I close my eyes, try to bring back the vision I had last, the blue robe, the throne. She appears, but there is no throne. She is the only thing in a background of soft blackness. I think, well, now it’s Missouri, and she nods her head. I think, this will be a new place, where you’ve never been. She nods again, kindness. Out loud, I say, “That’s what bothers me, that you will never have been there.” And out loud, I hear her voice answer, “But I will still be with you.” I gasp, open my eyes, and see her still. She is floating above me. “Oh,” I say. “Is this real?”

  “I am only your mother and I love you,” she says.

  “Oh,” I say again. I am so afraid, I can’t move, even to blink. She reaches out a hand and lays it along my cheek. Her touch is cool and light.

  “You’ll be all right,” she says softly, and I feel tears come the way they always do when something is too true, when something is named by another that you felt only by yourself before. “You’ll be fine, Katie, I promise you.”

  I close my eyes and when I open them again she is gone. I climb out from under my bed, lie on top of it. I think, I will never tell anyone this. But I will know it for the rest of my life. I understand suddenly that everywhere in the world are people with secrets too much to be told: a man in China; a woman in India, bending down at the river; a baby too young to speak. I see that things get delivered, invisible and long-lasting and created for reasons felt but never said.