by Mary Campisi
A car door slams in the driveway. He’s home. His steel-toed work boots clunk up the steps, dragging against the cement. “Goddammit.” He flings the screen door wide and steps inside.
I paste a smile on my face and shove a napkin in Kay’s spot. “Hi.”
Nothing. Then to Kay, “Get me a glass. Four cubes.”
She jumps up, hot water bottle and all, and pulls out a glass, one of the ones with the design on the bottom, plunks four ice cubes in and hands it over. He takes it and disappears into the bathroom. When he returns a minute later, his glass is half-filled with a gold liquid. He tips his head back, takes a long swallow.
“Sonofabitch,” he mumbles, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Thought I was half-lit.” His silver gaze narrows on us. “I tripped over a goddamn board is all.”
Of course you did because you were half-lit. “Did you get hurt?” I ask, wondering when he started sneaking booze to work. He ignores my question, drains the glass and disappears into the bathroom again. No sound of water—great—he’s drinking it straight up.
“Aunt Irene fixed everything,” I say when he trudges back into the kitchen. “Porterhouse steaks, green bean casserole and parsley-buttered potatoes,” I rattle on like an idiot. “All your favorites.”
“Call me when it’s ready.” He pulls a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket, hacks twice and heads for the garage.
The sooner we get through dinner, the sooner I can start getting ready to meet Peter Donnelly. I place the steaks under the broiler and wait. How are you supposed to tell when they’re done anyway? Mom always made it look so easy. He likes them pink, a little blood. I watch the clock. Six minutes later I flip them over, wait another five, and poke a fork in the center of one. Blood. Still not ready yet. Three more minutes, another poke and a drizzle of blood. Two more. Enough.
He must be hungry tonight because he comes the first time I call him. We sit and say our grace. Frank is big on this even though he curses Father Torrence and the Catholic Church, calling them fakers and users.
“I put garlic salt on them, too,” I say, watching him cut into his steak.
Three slices and the meat splits open, tan and bloodless. He slams down his fork, face contorted in a purple rage, spit flying from his mouth. “It’s ruined!” Brown juice oozes from the center of the steak. “Medium rare means goddamn red, not brown!” He backhands the plate with his right hand and it skids across the green plastic tablecloth, smashes to the floor. “Ruined! You think money grows on trees?” He pounds his fist on the table, sloshing milk over the side of my glass. “You think we can just go buy another one, like they’re free?” He grabs the steak knife, pushes back the chair. “I’ll teach you the difference so you’ll never goddamn forget again.”
This is when I run, through the kitchen, up the stairs, taking them two at a time, tears slashing my vision.
“Get back here! Now!”
He is coming. His boots thud against the bottom step. I suck in air, run to the master bedroom. My mother’s closet door squeaks as I slide it open and slip inside. When I pull it shut, everything is black. I inch to the back, pushing aside skirts and dresses, stepping on shoes, to scrunch down in the far corner, all the way down, curling up, small, smaller, sipping air through my mouth. Being still, very still. He is banging things around, loud crashing noises in the other room. In my room? What is he doing? My shoulders shake, tears scald my face. Then everything is quiet. I bite my fingers to keep sound from escaping my lips. Where is he? This is what rabbits must feel like when the scent of the hunter flattens them to the earth, chokes their tiny lungs with fear. Scared as a rabbit.
Just when my breathing settles to half normal, the closet door flies open so fast I almost scream. My mouth is open, wide, as if I have tried to scream but nothing comes out.
“You in here, Sara? You trying to hide from your old man?” His breathing is heavy, his sweat suffocates me. “Nobody runs from Frank Polokovich.” He slashes at my mother’s clothes—shirts, dresses, slack outfits. “Nobody.” His brown boot kicks the floor, collides with shoe boxes. Then there is nothing.
“Jesus. Jesus.” There is a dull thud as something hits the floor. “I wouldn’t hurt you, Sara,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you.” And then he is gone.
I stay like this, eyes open, staring into the darkness, except for the one sliver of light peeking between a few shirts. Soon that turns black, too. I slump forward, beaten, alone. My mother’s White Linen perfume drifts to me from her clothes and wraps its familiar scent around my aching body. I bury my face in one of her skirts and cry.
Hours later, when the house is asleep and I have crawled into bed, stiff and exhausted, I remember Peter Donnelly has been waiting for me at Mini-Mart.
We do not speak about that night, at least, not in the way you’d imagine a normal family would. We talk around it—this is how we deal with the gaping holes in our family. I am as much to blame as Frank. I give him the opportunity to smooth it over like cream cheese on a Ritz. And as for Kay, well, she just pretends it never happened. He finds me the next day, sitting in the rocker on the front porch, reading about Anna Karenina’s angst over her lover. I flip a page. The screen door opens.
“Sara.”
I look up and wait.
“You shouldn’t have run from me last night.”
“You had a knife.”
His eyes are bloodshot, his face covered with yesterday’s stubble. “I’d never hurt you.”
You hurt me every time I look at you.
“You know that, don’t you?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Don’t run from me again.” It is all he says before he teeters down the steps, the backside of his pants wrinkled, his shoulders slumped forward.
I will not care, I tell myself. I will not.
Chapter 6
If you lie often enough, and well enough, eventually, you start to believe your own lies. Sometimes, you can’t tell truth from deceit. I worry about that. A lot. I finally went to confession last week and told Father Torrence about the lying, not the content, just the act itself. I can’t tell him Frank drinks a fifth of whiskey in two days, even though Uncle Stan says most priests are drinkers, especially the Irish ones. If I tell Father Torrence the truth, I will be betraying my family. So, I say my four Hail Mary’s and three Our Father’s and I continue to lie. But I am not the only one. Nina lies, too, every time anyone asks how her mother got a black eye or the welt on her cheek.
Nina and I aren’t the only ones who lie; lots of people do, kids mostly to protect their parents. Like Johnny Yallenz, whose mother, Gladys, has been seeing Mr. Moore, the television repairman, for the last ten years, even though there’s a Mr. Yallenz. Johnny makes excuses every time he sees Mr. Moore’s repair truck in front of his house, conveniently when Mrs. Yallenz is home and Mr. is not. The television tube blew yesterday. We’re thinking of getting another colored TV, a bigger one, or, the reception is fuzzy and Mr. Moore is checking it out. Lies, all of them.
When you’re a kid, you expect your parents to tell the truth. When they say Aunt Sue is having a baby and her husband is in the service and you’ve never heard anybody talk about the guy, don’t even know his name, you accept it because you’re just a kid. But when you slip into those teenage years you start to wonder why Aunt Tess says the guy’s name is Joe and Uncle Fred calls him Tom. And when Aunt Sue never moves out of that little bedroom in the back of her parent’s house, the one with the pink ruffled curtains and the white fluffy rug, then you do the math, and then you figure it out—Aunt Sue’s husband wasn’t a husband after all. And the more you figure out, the deeper the lies, the tighter the web, until you’re part of it, telling the same tales to your eight-year old cousin, Cindy, who’s asking the same questions you did before you figured out the truth.
So, when Jerry comes up to me in the backyard, and says Peter was looking for me last night and asks why I didn’t show up at Mini-Mart, I open m
y mouth and do it. I lie.
“You looked fine to me yesterday afternoon,” he says, his tall form casting a shadow over me.
I am kneeling in the grass, digging in my mother’s rosebushes, shoveling peat moss on top of brown soil. It is a ritual she performed every summer, once the blooms were wide open. Dressing them up from the bottom, she said. Now it is my ritual. I don’t look up. “I got a bad headache.”
“Peter was looking for you.”
“Was he?”
“Yeah. I didn’t even know you were supposed to be there.” Silence. “When did all that happen?” His tone says he doesn’t like it, that he is hurt.
I shrug. “Yesterday. In the car.”
“In the car? I didn’t hear anything.”
“It wasn’t really a big deal.” Lie.
“Huh.”
If I turn around right this minute, Jerry will be biting his lower lip, squinting as though he can actually figure out whatever is confusing him, but of course, he won’t be able to. Life confuses Jerry. He’s the kind of guy who will head to Penn State after graduation and study engineering or some equally boring field where his calculator and slide rule will be his best friends.
I scoop another shovel of peat moss from the bag and layer it on the left side of the yellow roses. The yellow ones were always Mom’s favorite. She said they stood for friendship and joy, but she thought they stood for hope, too. Maybe she was hoping he’d put down the bottle. She must be awfully disappointed.
Jerry clears his throat, moves to the side so he can see my face. His shadow shifts and the sun’s heat beats down on top of my head. “Anyway,” he says, “Peter’s not your type.”
I stop digging. “What does that mean?”
He shrugs his lanky shoulders, stares at his size 13 sneakers. “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem like somebody you’d go out with.”
“Who said anything about going out? He asked me to meet him at Mini-Mart, maybe hang out together for a little while. That’s it.”
“He’s not like the guys around here.”
“I know.” Thank God.
“He drives around with a flask under his seat. And he smokes, too.”
“Right.” Why can’t Jerry just accept the fact that I might be interested in a guy who isn’t from Norwood and who isn’t him?
“Honest.”
“So, if Peter Donnelly is drinking and smoking, what are you doing with him? Are you doing it, too?”
“No.” He lets out a disgusted sigh. “You should know better.”
I do know better. If there was even a whiff of alcohol on his breath, he’d have to answer to his father, six foot five, two hundred fifty pound State Trooper, Theodore Jedinski. And that’s why I know that as much as Jerry is telling the truth about not drinking or smoking himself, he is also lying about Peter doing it. “So, what were you doing with him in the car yesterday and why did you go last night?”
“I took a ride because we both had basketball practice.” He turns a shade of pink that has nothing to do with the sun, and says, “He’s a really popular guy and I thought you’d be impressed.”
“Don’t.” I sink back on my knees, pull off my gloves. “Please.”
“I know, I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“Can we just drop it?”
“Yeah, I think we should.”
“Good.” I smile at him, a peace offering.
His lips curve into a lopsided grin that holds, wobbles then fades flat. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I won’t.”
He stays a little while longer, holding the bag while I scoop out peat moss, helping me tamp it in place with his large, square, dependable hands. He can cover twice as much an area as I can. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. A chunk of brown hair sticks up at the back of his head like a giant comma with its tail chopped off. Beads of sweat cling to his upper lip and forearms as he works. He is so nice, so considerate, so sweet. And I am so not interested in him.
I tell Jerry I won’t get hurt and I mean it. So, when Peter Donnelly calls me later that afternoon, I let his soft, persuasive voice lure me to an eight o’clock meeting at Mini-Mart. Peter Donnelly wants to be with me, Sara Polokovich, the non-cheerleader, the brain. I can’t get him out of my head as I paint my nails shimmery pink, can’t stop thinking about the sun-streaked golden waves curling at the nape of his neck as I lather Herbal Essence into my hair. And as Three Dog Night sing Pieces of April, I hear his voice like the thrumming of a bass, see his slow, purposeful smile. By the time I pull on my faded jeans and tuck my tank top inside, I am half in love with him and we haven’t even spoken ten complete sentences.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror, touch my fingers to my lips. What would it feel like to kiss him? To run my fingers through his hair, hear him say my name? I smile then, the secret smile of a woman-child and laugh as I slip out the door.
Chapter 7
“I’m glad you decided to come tonight.” Peter’s white teeth gleam in the faint light of the A&P parking lot. We are one of eight cars, lined up side-by-side, radios blasting out synchronized versions of Aerosmith’s, Walk This Way. Peter motions with a flick of his hand when it is time to put the cars in gear, cruise down Main Street to the other side of town, loop into Mini-Mart and head back toward the A&P. This is our third round—idle, rev, go.
“I’m glad I came, too,” I say. Jerry’s jealousy is ridiculous. Peter Donnelly is sitting beside me with his arm casually slung on the back of my seat, wearing a navy pullover and English Leather after-shave. He’s not someone who hides a flask under the seat of his car. And if I have a chance later tonight, I’ll run my hand under the seat, where Jerry says Peter keeps a flask, and where of course, there will not be one.
“So”—he turns toward me, his fingers brushing the back of my hair—“what do you do around here for fun?”
“It’s not exactly Pittsburgh, is it?” I ask, avoiding the question.
“Norwood is,” he pauses, “different.”
“You mean weird?”
He laughs. “I’ve never seen a place where the policemen are the ones putting money in the parking meters.”
“That’s Officer Cranski. He can’t stand to ticket anybody so he carries around a baggie full of change.”
“Like I said—different.”
“Have you peeked in Bob the Barber’s yet?”
“No, you think I need a haircut?”
“No, your hair’s great. But the white-haired man with the handlebar mustache, that’s Bob Swanson. He’s also the mayor.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Swear. And the other barber, Ed, he’s a science teacher at the Elementary School and he’s married to Mayor Swanson’s sister, who’s the tax collector.”
“What is this place, All in the Family?”
“More like Green Acres.”
“But you can’t beat the Benny Deluxes,” he says.
“I’d give anything for a McDonald’s.”
“Yeah, well, I guess we always want what we can’t have, don’t we?”
He flashes that smile again and I am so lost. Here is one good thing in my life. I smile too, the first real one in sixty-four days.
“So, is the whole town so… knowledgeable?”
“You mean nosy?”
“Yeah. Nosy.”
“If you live here long enough, information kind of attaches itself to you, like a tick on a dog. You don’t even realize you know something until people start talking about it and then answers just pop into your head.”
Peter lifts a chunk of my hair, rubs it between his fingers and lets it fall. “Well, that can be useful. Especially, if you want to find out about someone, say for example I wanted to get the goods on this girl.” There is that smile again. “Maybe I want to know what’s she like, who she hang out with, stuff like that. I could find out everything”—he snaps his fingers—“just like that.”
&n
bsp; Not everything.
“Hey. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Since when is it so horrible to be pretty and smart?” His hand touches my hair, strokes it. “Do you really read ten books a month?”
“Who told you?”
“It’s true?” His eyes are on me like I’ve sprouted antennae.
“Only in the summer. It’s not that many during school.”
He leans in close. “How many is ‘not that many’?”
Now he’ll really think I’m a geek. “Five. But only three are classics, the other two are fun reading.”
“I haven’t read ten books in two years.” He shakes his head and grins. “Including comic books.”
“It gets pretty boring around here.”
“According to Mrs. McGill, your library card has more books charged to it than anyone else in Norwood.”
“She told you that?”
“Actually, she was trying to encourage me to check out a book. I had my kid brother in the library last week and when she saw me leaving empty handed, she started on the merits of reading, blah, blah, blah, and then your name came up.”
“I’ll bet you were thrilled.”
“Curious, actually. I wondered what kind of girl would spend her whole day reading, and why?”
“I…” I almost give him the same story about the town being so boring, which it is, but that’s not what pushes me to read so much. I open my mouth and the truth spills out, “It’s the only way I can get out of here. I’ve been writing to colleges since I was thirteen. I’ve got over one hundred and twenty-two packets of information from different schools. And I’m already reviewing for the SAT’s.”
“You hate this place that much?”
“The truth? Yes.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.”
“Thanks.” But this has nothing to do with her.
We sit there like that a while, Peter stroking my hair, me staring out the window, Chicago’s muted horns filling in the gaps with Saturday in the Park. “If you ever want to talk, I’m a good listener.”
