The Whole Stupid Way We Are

by N. Griffin

  Out of the Friendly, out of the Friendly. That day she and Granny joined when Dinah was five. Granny in her plastic glasses. Dinah’s forearms on Granny’s big soft thighs, buzzy singing overhead.

  She storms into her own house, trailing coat and mittens behind her.

  “Dinah Beach! Get back here right now!”

  Dinah does not get back there right now. She slams upstairs to her room, slams her door open then shut, winces as Beagie howls, and sits on her bed, chest heaving.

  “Get back down there and pick up your coat!” Mrs. Beach shouts up the stairs.

  Dinah doesn’t answer.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing!” Dinah stands and storms out of her room and down the stairs. She grabs up her coat and hangs it up very hard. “There! Happy?”

  “What’s the matter, Dinah!”

  Mitten, mitten, boot.

  “I’m out of the Friendly!”

  “Kicked out or by choice?” asks her mother.

  “Who cares!”

  Her coat falls back onto the floor as Dinah flings her boots down and slams back up to her room.

  She lies down on the floor, knees tented, her neck mashed against the baseboard. It’s uncomfortable but also good.

  How did it all get so crazy? This morning: normal Saturday (if you ignore the turkey debacle), looking ahead to the Friendly, games in the kitchen with Beagie. This evening: upended, anger waiting for her in the kitchen. Skint out of the Friendly and also so is she.

  What will her father say? He is not going to be pleased. What will happen with Bernadine? Will Dinah be fired as sexton?

  Beagie will still love her, but he’ll be the only one.

  It’s later that night, close to midnight. Skint rubs the side of his hand, sore and scraped raw. He’s in his living room, phone in his hand. He wants to call Dinah, but it’s too late. He doesn’t bother to turn on the light.

  In the corner by the kitchen door is a spoon, lying as if flung, as it was when he came in from the Friendly this evening. In the same positions, too, are an upturned bowl on the floor of the kitchen and chunks of cereal congealed on the tiles.

  Think about Dinah, or snow. Trees with whitened branches. Do not think about any other thing. Not now, not ever. Not the fact that, rationally speaking, there is no point to all of this, the biological accident of human beings. No explanation, no help, no justification good enough; no real reason for any single one of us to be around.

  Dinah calls Skint early the next morning.

  “Hello?” His voice is tight.

  “It’s only me.”

  “Are your parents up?”

  “Yes,” says Dinah. “Beagie woke everybody up singing.”

  “Have you talked to them yet?”

  “No,” says Dinah. “I told my mother I was out of the Friendly when I came home last night but not about why. I skipped dinner. I am hiding, kind of.”

  Skint exhales.

  “You are glad,” Dinah accuses him. Then: “Are you glad?”

  “Maybe. In the main,” says Skint. “Though I wouldn’t say my heart is especially glad at this particular moment.” He pauses. “So nobody called or anything? This morning?”

  “Not that I know of. I thought maybe someone did last night, but no one came up to yell at me, so probably not.” Dinah lies back against the wall and rests one ankle on her opposite knee and plays with a strip of rubber peeling up from the sole of her shoe. “I’m afraid to go downstairs, though,” she confesses.

  “I’m afraid to leave the house,” says Skint.

  Dinah rears herself up.

  “Why?” she says. “You sound all skittery. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” says Skint. “I’m fine.”

  “Don’t be scared my dad will blame you, Skint. He already thinks I’m the dumb one.”

  “Smart man,” says Skint.

  “Jerk,” says Dinah, and falls silent. “My idea,” she says sadly and squooshes down against the wall again. “I liked my idea.”

  “It was a great idea, Dinah B. In fact, I’m still going to do it. Or a part of it. Something for the Rural Routes.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to make them a parcel. Like you always want to do.”

  “Me, too, then! Me, too, please.”

  Skint doesn’t say anything.

  “What? Do you not want me to do it with you? Is it because I was thoughtless about them yesterday? Are you mad at me still?”

  “No, dorkface. Shut up.” He’s quiet. Then: “Of course we can do it together. We’ll put in food, maybe a blanket.”

  “I have a hat I’m almost finished crocheting,” says Dinah. “I can make another one and we can give them those.”

  “You and the crocheting,” says Skint. “Please tell me it’s not some kind of crazy old-timey bonnet.”

  “Shut up,” says Dinah. “It is more like a beanie. It is right up the lady Rural Route’s alley. And I’ll make the man a balaclava helmet.”

  “Great,” says Skint flatly.

  “We should include cookies in the parcel, too. As well as healthful things. It’d be terrible to get a parcel with only healthful things.”

  “What?” says Skint. “Your voice sounds a little compromised.”

  Dinah rears herself up to straighten out her neck. “Come over,” she says. “Right now. It’s Sunday, so they’ll be off at church soon and we can use the kitchen. We’ll bake for the Rural Routes.”

  Another pause.

  “Is everything okay?” Dinah asks. “Was there something bad in the news?”

  “Everything’s fine,” says Skint. “Shut up.”

  “You shut up. Come over, then.”

  “Fine,” says Skint. “I will. Why shouldn’t I.”

  “No reason at all,” says Dinah. “I keep telling you, my dad isn’t going to blame you.”

  They ring off.

  Yeep and yuck. Better go down. She’ll have to sooner or later.

  I paved the way for us to make cookies, but only by shouting for permission from upstairs,” says Dinah when she opens the front door for Skint a few minutes later. “I haven’t been brave enough to go in there yet.” She nods toward the kitchen.

  Skint looks awful. His eyes have circles under them and crusty things in the corners. She bets he hasn’t slept.

  “I’m just being dumb,” she says, taking his wrist. “Come on. Come eat breakfast foods with me.” And she leads him into the kitchen.

  Dinah’s father is stretched out on the kitchen floor with his hands over his eyes.

  “There is no hope,” he is saying hollowly to Dinah’s mother as they enter. “Every time I give the sopranos their starting note, Mrs. Wattle shakes her head and gives them another one that isn’t even in the same key and they follow her because she terrifies them with that scowl. And Ken Vaar can’t keep his hands off the thermostat because he feels there is a precise and narrow temperature band his vocal cords need in order to achieve the emotive depths for which he believes himself famous. The altos can’t carry a tune between them. And the basses! So loud they could signal the distant shores. We are an accidentally atonal collection of foghorns with a lunatic screamy woman leading us into the cliffs.”

  “Awful,” says Mrs. Beach, clutching a straining Beagie in her arms.

  “Good morning, Dad.” Bareface it, thinks Dinah. Test the waters with normalcy. “I’ll help. I’ll come sing. Extra loud, to drown them all out.”

  “If you ever,” says Mr. Beach, peeking at her through his fingers.

  “In fact,” Dinah continues, “I could start right now.”

  “Please don’t,” says Skint. Dinah fixes him with a look as beaky as an irritated egret’s and gazes down at her father on the floor.

  “Say hello to Skint, Dad.”

  Mr. Beach drops his hands from his face. “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah?”

  “Grr,” says Dinah, with slitty eyes.

  “Dinah Be
ach and Skint Gilbert,” says Mr. Beach, staring up at them, “if either of you ever repeats a word of what I have said on this kitchen floor, I will creep into your rooms in the night and steal your most-loved things and then jump on them.”

  “If you do that,” says Dinah, “I will call the police and have you brought up on burglary charges and then I will laugh when they put you in jail.”

  Skint stirs.

  “Good morning, Skint,” says Mr. Beach at last. “It’s nice to see you.”

  “It is,” says Dinah’s mother. “Hello, Skint.”

  “Good morning,” says Skint, and pats Beagie on the head. Dinah’s mother is very haggard-looking this morning, and there are splotches on her front from where Beagie must have barfed.

  “You smell awful, Mrs. Beach,” says Dinah.

  Her mother’s cheeks grow scarlet. “You are awful, Dinah.”

  “Dinah Beach!” Her father scowls and hauls himself creakily to his feet. “Give me the baby, Penny.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Dinah quickly. Better not to rack up debits in her character account before she even finds out if her parents have heard anything about the Friendly.

  She does not have to wait long. Mr. Beach sinks back into his seat with Beagie in his arms and looks firmly at Dinah and Skint.

  “I hear some hell was raised last night.”

  Skint starts.

  Dinah glances at him. What is up with him this morning? He is wound tighter than a top. He’s still worrying about if her parents hate him, the dork. Can’t he see how kindly her dad’s gaze falls on him the whole time? If anyone should be worried, it’s Dinah.

  “Did Bernadine tell you?”

  “No,” says Mrs. Beach. “Denise Dugan called just before you stormed in.”

  “Just now?” asks Skint. “She called just now?”

  “No,” says Mrs. Beach. “I meant just before Dinah stormed in last night.”

  Skint exhales a fraction.

  “It was my fault,” Dinah says firmly. “I was mouthy. But I don’t regret it!”

  Dinah’s dad looks stern. “Were you rude, Dinah Beach?”

  “It was my fault,” says Skint. “I escalated things. I interrupted and talked out of turn.”

  “Honestly, Skint,” says Mrs. Beach. “You are a saint.”

  Dinah and Skint look at her, astonished.

  “I mean it! I would have snapped ages ago!” cries Mrs. Beach. “Not to insult your girlfriend, Bill,” she says, smirking at Mr. Beach, “but Skint, I don’t how you ever put up with all of Bernadine’s nonsense about you helping out in that club. Have a biscuit.” Mrs. Beach passes the basket, but Skint shakes his head.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” he says.

  “Well, I, for one, think they need to feel your absence a bit,” Mrs. Beach continues. “See what you kids have done for them. You, Skint, in the face of all that loopy persecution. And you too, Dinah. I’m glad you’re standing firm. I support you both completely.”

  Dinah and Skint stare at one another. What the heck? This is nothing like what Dinah expected here in the kitchen this morning. Ms. Dugan mustn’t have said much at all, then, when she called, other than that the meeting was heated and that Dinah and Skint quit. The Beaches must think the whole thing came about because Skint and Dinah were fed up over the silencing of Skint.

  “It’s your battle to pick,” Mr. Beach agrees. “It’s sad, but I’m sure you thought through what it would mean to you to leave the group.”

  “My battle?” That’s a fine cop-out! Little does he know that it was her dad’s battle that they fought for him! “Don’t you even care? Don’t you want to hear how it all happened?”

  “No,” says her father. “Unless you think I need to.”

  Of course she thinks he needs to! What kind of answer is that? But Dinah is thrown by this turn of events and doesn’t quite know what to say. How come Ms. Dugan didn’t spill the whole of the beans? She must be protecting Bernadine, too. They’re all cowards! Mr. Beach ought to have to think about the whole food pantry awfulness and be made to feel guilty for not doing anything when he found out the first time, for just sitting around and letting things happen. Him and his “darling”s and his “it’s your battle to pick”s! It’s his fault they’re out of the Friendly!

  Scowling, Dinah meets Skint’s gaze. He looks wary but also puzzled. And her ghastly parents’ attention has already shifted.

  “As I was saying before your choir diatribe,” says Mrs. Beach, handing Beagie’s bowl of cereal to Mr. Beach, “poor old Mr. Ennethwaite didn’t know what to do with her, Bill. He hadn’t any idea how to take care of her at all. Poultices, can you imagine, some recipe from a hundred years ago—”

  Should Dinah say something? She looks again at Skint, who looks back at her blankly.

  “—and what she needed was a catheter, of course.”

  “Poor man,” says Mr. Beach.

  “Poor woman, too.” Mrs. Beach sighs. “Anyway. They got her to the hospital around three this morning, Gail said. Let’s hope it turns out well.” She turns to Skint. “How is your dad doing?”

  “Don’t forget we’re making cookies,” Dinah intercepts, but not quickly enough.

  “We miss him at the Center,” her mother continues. “He was always such a gentleman.”

  “He’s okay,” says Skint.

  “Is he? How is his language?”

  Dinah gives her mother the evil eye. “We need to get started, Mrs. Beach. When are you leaving?”

  “I always mean to call your mother,” says Mrs. Beach. “I should drop in sometime—”

  “He’s fine,” says Skint shortly. “Mrs. Beach, should Beagie be so close to the oven?”

  Beagie has escaped his father’s arms and is squatting in front of the glass oven door, greeting his own reflection like a lost and treasured friend.

  “Oh, Beagie-onimus,” cries Mrs. Beach. “It’s cooled down from the biscuits, but still! Bill,” she says scoldingly. She scoops the baby up and he roars with frustration, kicking until she sets him to stand on her sheepish husband’s lap.

  “Have a biscuit, Beagie,” says Dinah. But Beagie bashes the biscuit out of her hand and begins to sing instead as his father wrestles him into a holdable position.

  “Buh, buh, buh!”

  “He’s certainly his father’s son,” Mrs. Beach sighs.

  “His sister’s brother,” Dinah mutters.

  “More like his great-grandmother’s great-grandson, with that nasally little tone, isn’t that right?” says Mr. Beach to the baby. “You’re a Patty Beagan descendant, aren’t you, Beagie Bee?”

  “Oh,” says Skint. “I always wondered why someone would name a kid Beagan Beach.”

  “Why wouldn’t someone name a kid Beagan Beach?” Dinah and her father cry in unison.

  “No reason,” says Skint hastily.

  Beagie gently clocks his plush horse with a spoon, and Skint stares at Dinah’s dad staring at Beagie.

  The phone rings. Skint jumps. Mr. Beach picks it up.

  “Hello?” he says, taking Beagie and the phone out of the room. Dinah strains her ears toward them, hoping the caller is Bernadine. “Oh, hello, Reverend,” says Mr. Beach before he is out of earshot. Rats.

  Skint grabs her wrist. “We have to go buy ingredients,” he says. “Let’s get going.”

  “All right,” says Dinah. He’s all pressure-steamed again and ready to blow. This is not going to be much fun. “Calm the heck down! All we need is chocolate chips. We have everything else already. Let me get my coat and mittens.”

  “You’ll find your mittens on the floor where you flung them last night,” says Mrs. Beach. “Since we do not have maid service here.”

  Mr. Beach is in the doorway.

  “That was Reverend Michaels,” he says.

  Skint lets go of Dinah’s arm.

  Beagie, under his father’s arm, sticks out his feet and wiggles them as hard as he can. The sunlight fades from the room, and Beagie crows w
ith delight as the kitchen grows dim.

  “Look at you, Beagie.” Dinah smiles. “You have magic feet, don’t you? You’re making that sunshine disappear!” Beagie beams and babbles with joy.

  Mr. Beach shifts the baby’s weight to his hip. “The reverend thought he saw someone enter the church by the side door late last night,” he continues, “and the jamb on it is broken this morning. A strip of wood off the side where the lock holds.”

  “Whoa,” says Dinah.

  “Oh, no,” says Mrs. Beach. “The same kids again, do you think, Bill?” A group of senior boys did the same thing a year or so ago and drank beer in the vestry.

  “No, I don’t. Most of those kids aren’t around anymore; you know Ted and Jarvis are in the army, and the Corwin boy is away at college. No bottles this time either. And the reverend says he doesn’t think it was a burglary of any kind, either—nothing inside seems to have been taken.”

  “Maybe it was someone trying to get in out of the cold,” says Mrs. Beach.

  “Tchah,” says Dinah darkly. “It was shenanigans. And I bet I can guess whose.” Or draw up a short list, anyway, topped with the Vole and his sidekick, Harlan. It’s exactly the sort of thing they and their ilk would do, derivative and destructive at the same time. Dinah tries to look meaningly at Skint, but he is listening to her father and she can’t catch his eye.

  “Perhaps,” says Mr. Beach. “Anyway, I’m going to go over right now. Get this sorted before services.”

  “Poor Reverend Michaels,” says Mrs. Beach.

  “Yes,” says Dinah. Reverend Michaels is a nice man with thick glasses, cloudy-pated and slow of movement. “Why do people have to scare him? Can’t they bust into a barn or something if they have the urge to bust into someplace?”

  “Was he frightened, Bill?”

  “More rattled than frightened,” says Mr. Beach, setting Beagie on the floor. “I’ll be back.”

  “Come on, Dinah,” says Skint, punching her elbow. “We should go, too.”

  “Wait,” says Dinah. Her parents begin to plan about the timing and making of an artichoke dip for a potluck tonight with their book club, and under the cover of their words Dinah whispers, “I should quick talk to my dad. He’s going to have to deal with the Pantry thing sometime!”