Dreamsleeves

by Coleen Murtagh Paratore

  Callie claps her hands and runs to tell Beck the good news.

  Big deal, a pizza, who cares. I call the Red Front and order a large cheese pizza with sausage and mushrooms. Hopefully it will be ready when my father gets there and he won’t go to the bar while he’s waiting.

  In my parents’ room, Mom is rolling pink sponge curlers into her hair. She’s wearing a long purple dress. “I had to get the tents back out,” she says to me, smiling, referring to her maternity clothes. “And I was doing so well on my diet again.”

  Mom doesn’t look happy about going out to dinner. She looks tired, sad. I know she doesn’t like leaving us. I know she feels guilty about me having to babysit all the time. I know she worries about my father drinking and driving, but she goes along with it all to “keep the peace.”

  “Let us offer each other a sign of peace,” Father Reilly says at Sunday Mass now, it’s a new thing that the pope ordered, and we shake everyone’s hands in the pews around us saying, “Peace be with you”… “peace be with you”… “peace be with you.”

  “Hey, Frisky, peace be with you.” I lift Frisky into a pan, then go dump the stinky water out of his pool house, wipe it out, and refill it with fresh water. I plop him back in and shake in some turtle food flakes for dinner. Frisky swims around his palm tree and then crawls across his little bridge. I put my face real close to him so we can see eye to eye. He blinks. I touch his shell. “I wish you could talk.”

  My father is gone for forty-five minutes. When he comes back he’s carrying the box of pizza and a tray of Hot Dog Charlie’s — miniature hot dogs in little rolls smothered in meat sauce — and a bag of treats: orange soda and onion-garlic potato chips and Freihofer’s chocolate chip cookies.

  He lines all the stuff on the counter like a display. “Everything you like, A, right?” he says to me with a nod, expecting me to be all happy. I shrug and turn away. I’d rather have the money for a bathing suit. I’d rather be the one going out tonight with my friends. I wonder what Maizey’s doing? I wonder what Mike’s doing?

  I put a slice of pizza and one hot dog on each plate. I fold paper napkins and pour milk. “Come on, everybody, dinner’s ready,” I call.

  B, C, D, and I take our usual places around the gray-white speckled formica table with the old Christmas card folded under the left corner leg because it lost its little rubber bottom thingy and it’s shorter than the other legs now.

  My father looks up at the clock and huffs. “Come on, Mags, I’m starving,” he shouts to my mother. “What the heck you doing in there? You’re slow as mule, let’s go!”

  Mule, how mean. My mother is not. I lock eyes with Callie. I watch my father pour another drink. He takes out a chunk of cheddar cheese, opens a box of Ritz crackers, slices the cheese with a sharp knife.

  “Whatcha gonna put in our grilled cheese next time?” Beck asks me, trying admirably to make dinner conversation.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Any ideas?”

  “How ’bout hot dogs?” Dooley suggests, and Callie giggles.

  “What?” Dooley says, looking hurt. “That’d taste good.”

  I watch my father put mustard on his crackers and cheese. I probably got the cheese gene from him, but no way am I ever making him one of my famous sandwiches.

  My mom comes into the kitchen, smelling of her favorite cherry-almond Jergens lotion. Her hair looks fancy; she’s wearing lipstick. Her eyes take in all the food treats, the glass in my father’s hand, the newly opened liquor bottle, how much is already gone.

  My father finishes his drink. “Okay, finally, let’s go,” he says, putting the cheese back in the refrigerator, not saying my mother looks nice or anything.

  “Your hair looks pretty, Mommy,” Callie says.

  “Thanks, honey,” she says.

  “I like your red lips,” Callie says.

  My mother smiles.

  “Where are you going to dinner?” I ask.

  “Villa Valenti,” Dad says. “Come on, Mags. I’ll meet you in the car.” And he’s off out the door.

  My mother touches her stomach.

  “Are you feeling okay?” I ask. She nods and gives me a look like “don’t mention the baby.” I bet she doesn’t want to get the little ones all excited because then they’ll be asking “when it’s coming?” every day for the next five months and of course there’s always the chance something will go wrong. She wasn’t supposed to have any more.

  Mom kisses B, D, and C on their foreheads, rests her hand on Eddie’s head.

  “We should be home by eleven,” she says to me.

  The car horn beep-beep-beeps down in the driveway.

  My mother sighs. “Be good for A,” she says.

  After dinner, I clean up, then sweep the kitchen floor, twice, not a crumb in sight, and then put the broom and dustpan in the corner by the pantry.

  “Can we have a show, A?” Beck asks.

  “Sure, why not,” I say.

  “Yeah!” he yells, running to get the others.

  “Come on, big guy,” I say, to Eddie. “You are such a porky pudge ball.” I change him then put him in his high chair. I heat up his turkey noodle vegetable baby food jar in a pan of water on the stove. I feed him applesauce for dessert.

  B, C, and D line up on the couch, front row seats. I prop Eddie on the end.

  I strum my guitar and adjust a string.

  “Do ‘Raindrops’!” Callie shouts, my first audience request.

  “Okay,” I say, starting out with “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” by B. J. Thomas and then “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel.

  “Do ‘Proud Mary’!” Beck shouts and I nod, happy to keep my fans happy.

  When I start belting out “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, B, C, and D stand up on the couch, rocking their hips, and rolling their hands, singing “Rollin!… Rollin!… Rollin on a river.” Eddie kneels and claps.

  “You are excellent backup singers,” I say, applauding for them. “We could’ve been on The Ed Sullivan Show!” Beck pushes his fist up in victory, and they all plop back down on the couch, giggling. Dooley hugs Eddie.

  When it’s time for intermission, I put out the treats Dad bought — Wise onion-garlic potato chips, my favorite orange soda, and Freihofer’s chocolate chip cookies.

  “Not too many,” I tell Dooley as he reaches for another fist of the little round tan cookies the size of silver dollars. “You don’t want to get a tummy-ache.”

  For my second act I sing “I’ll Be There” and “ABC” by the Jackson Five — I love their music (Michael’s my favorite) — and then move on to some Beatles songs, finishing up with “Let It Be.”

  “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the show is over, time for bed. Brush your teeth and go pee,” I tell Beck and Callie. I make Dooley sit on his potty, “You’re a big boy now,” then help him into his race car pajamas.

  We say our prayers. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless Mommy and Daddy and Nana, and Papa and Uncle Mark in heaven, Amen.”

  I make sure all the little ones have their favorite luvies snug in their arms, Dooley’s got his favorite red Matchbox, too, and then I kiss them, “Sweet dreams.”

  It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday night. Now what?

  I kneel on the couch in my father’s favorite spot, looking down at the cars going by. There’s a bit of a breeze through the screen, good thing. The windowsill needs a cleaning. A fly buzzes, head bang-banging against the screen, trying to get out. A plane roars by overhead. I think about Nana out in California. “I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again …” my favorite Peter, Paul and Mary song.

  I go into my dad’s office. On his desk is the rock paperweight with “Best Dad” painted on it that I gave him for Father’s Day years ago, his customer order pad, a can of pens, a calendar, the packet of
HELLO MY NAME IS labels.

  Bored, bored, bored. I pour another glass of orange soda, eat another piece of pizza. In my bedroom I lift the bottom corner of my mattress and pull out my pink, yellow, and orange flowered diary, with the nearly cracked spine and the frayed gold ribbon that marks my spot, and then I take out the key from Jeffrey’s pocket and unlock the little gold clasp.

  Callie mumbles in her sleep, hope it’s a happy dream, her body snuggled toward the yellow plaster wall. I turn on my desk lamp, move the arm so an O of light shines just on my desk, and I sit down and begin to write.

  Dear Diary,

  So much to tell you. Where do I begin?

  I saw Mike Mancinello, who I’ll just call MM from now on, and he said hello to me! He is sooooo cute. I’ve known him my whole life but this is only the second time we really talked. The first was the last day of school when he said I could sit with him on the bus. If that doesn’t mean something, I don’t know what does!

  It hurt seeing Maizey and Snoop-Melon going to the country club. Please, God, don’t let her take Maizey away from me. Maizey is my best friend.

  Oh well, that’s all for now.

  A

  Callie laughs in her dream, good, and rolls over in her bunk. I lock my diary, stuff it back under the mattress, and put the key back in Jeffrey’s pocket.

  It’s nine thirty. Now what?

  I turn on the television and check out the three channels. A detective show, an old war movie, a comedy that isn’t making me laugh.

  My parents’ bedroom is off the living room. A little snooping might be fun. I open the top drawer of my mother’s dresser and fish around to see if there’s anything in there besides bras and slips and rubber girdles.

  Sure enough, there’s a book stuffed way back in the right-hand corner. I pull it out. On the cover is a handsome dark-haired man kissing a beautiful woman in a red gown. I open the book and leaf through the pages, read a few lines. Ooh, sexy, as Maizey would say. I close the book and put it back where it was. Next, I check out the far back left-hand corner. Gold again. There’s a black oblong-shaped case like you would keep eyeglasses in, except my mother doesn’t wear glasses. I open it.

  Cigarettes! Four long white ones and a few that have burnt tips like they were smoked a bit and then saved and a pack of matches from a restaurant called Dino’s where we go sometimes on very special occasions and I order baked scallops because I think “scallops” sounds so romantic.

  I read the brand name on one of the cigarettes. “Salem.” I take a whiff. Eeew.

  My mother reads romance novels?

  My mother smokes cigarettes?

  Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

  The phone rings. I snap the case shut, stuff it back where it was, close the drawer, and run to the phone in the dining room. Finally, Maizey.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi……A?

  It’s a boy!

  “It’s me, Mike……Mancinello.”

  Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, my heart pounds like a drum.

  “I hope it was okay to call you,” he says.

  “Sure,” I say. “That’s fine.”

  “What are you doing?” he says.

  “Nothing much,” I say, perching my butt on the armrest of the phone bench, feet on the seat, looking out the window, where I can quickly spot my father’s car if it pulls in the driveway. They won’t be home for a while yet. I can talk as long as I want. I feel a wave of happiness, free.

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  “Talking to you,” he says.

  We laugh.

  Finally, we think of some things to talk about. Television shows mostly. We talk for twenty-two minutes. I time it on my watch.

  When we say good-bye I run and pull my diary out again.

  PS My mother smokes and reads sexy novels. And MM called me!!!!!!!!! Who knew Saturday night could be such fun!!!

  At eleven thirty I get into bed. This isn’t good that they aren’t home yet. By now my father is probably mumbling his words and stumbling when he walks. My mother is trying to reason with him. “Come on, Roe, give me the keys.”

  Tomorrow we will all parade up the hill and into church like the perfect family. After dinner we’ll probably go for a ride to see our house. Oh, please let tomorrow be the Sunday it finally truly becomes “ours.”

  I think about going to confession with my father, seeing that lady write her wish on a slip of paper and put it in that silver box. Oh, if it was only that easy to make a dream come true … just write it on a slip of paper like that.

  People should share their dreams with other people, not hide them in a box.

  I sit up in bed.

  I think of Dad’s labels. HELLO MY NAME IS… Maybe people should write their dreams on stickers like that and wear them right on their sleeves for the whole world to see. Who knows … maybe the person you pass on the street or shake hands with, “peace be with you,” might be the exact perfect person to help you make your wish come true.

  People should wear their dreams on their sleeves.

  Yes! My body is shaking. I turn on the light, get my diary back out.

  “Dreamsleeves,” I write and stare at the word.

  Dreamsleeves.

  I smile. I like the sound of it.

  “Dreamsleeves, Dreamsleeves, Dreamsleeves.”

  Now what will I do with that?

  God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.

  — ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  Sunday morning I wake to the sound of my father puking in the bathroom. There’s a pause, then more awful retching.

  I almost feel sorry for him.

  They came in late last night, him shouting, my mother pleading with him to be quiet. “Shut up,” he said to her, “go to bed.” Then it was quiet. After a while, I peeked out my door. He was asleep on the living room couch.

  Back in bed, I held Flop, and then Jeffrey, and then my doll, Clarissa, tight, taking turns so no one got left out, lying awake for a long time listening, listening to make sure he was out for good.

  The next morning, in our Sunday best, we walk up the hill to church, Dad leading the way with Mom beside him pushing Eddie in his stroller, then me holding Dooley’s hand, then Beck and Callie side by side. There’s the old man in the brown suit and matching hat with the gray feather, almost looks like a seagull feather, hunched over praying. We pass by Maria and Leo Carroll. Maria reaches out to touch my arm and winks.

  We take our usual place up in the front right-hand corner. As we stand for the opening hymn, “Number 308,” I hear shuffling in the pew behind us as latecomers take a seat, and I turn around to look.

  Mike Mancinello! And that’s probably his mother and father! I didn’t know they belonged to this church. Mike smiles at me and I smile back, heart pounding. I swerve back around, hoping my father doesn’t notice.

  When we get to the Sign of Peace, thank goodness for this new part, Mike shakes my hand a bit longer then he should and I have to stifle a giggle. I shake his mom’s hand and his dad’s. I don’t dare look my father’s way.

  “Who was that boy in church, Aislinn?” Dad says to me when we get home.

  “What boy?”

  “That Italian one behind us.”

  I hate that my father said that. Why does he always have to make such a big deal over whether’s somebody’s Italian or Polish. We’re all American, right?

  “No boys, Aislinn,” my father squints at me, finger pointing. “Do you hear me? No daughter of mine’s going to go running around like some …”

  “Roe, stop,” my mother says.

  “I mean it,” my father says to me. “No boys till you’re seventeen.”

  “Seventeen!” I say, my voice screeching. “You said high school, Dad. I’ll be graduating by the time I’m seventeen….” But he’s off, slamming the door behind him.

  “Seventeen? Mom … come on!” Angry tears fill my eyes. My mother looks ghost pale, like she’s going to be sick, so I don
’t argue with her. It wouldn’t do any good anyway. She never stands up to him. Seventeen? That’s so unfair. It’s criminal. He has no right to treat me like this. I didn’t do anything wrong! All I did was shake a boy’s hand, in church even, and it’s part of the Mass, the pope said so!

  Later, when the little ones are napping, I escape up to the top of the hill to my Peely-Stick Shop. This is my house. I lay back on the soft mossy ground and stare up at the tiny sun-stars blinking in through the pine boughs and let the tears come.

  I just want to have a normal summer … go places with my friends … the park, the town pool, the movies … Is that too much to ask?

  I think about Dreamsleeves … the cool idea I had last night. Now it just seems stupid. Who’d ever want to help me anyway?

  I’m nobody. Just Aislinn O’Neill, a monkey-scrawny girl living in a jailhouse with a father who drinks and a mouse-afraid mother who won’t make him stop and too many babies all in a row … a girl so nervous about listening to make sure everyone’s safe at night that sometimes she wets the bed and wakes up smelling like pee in the morning and can’t get in the one bathroom to wash before school because her father’s got the door locked throwing up again with his “weak stomach” which is really the liquor from the night before gurgling up in his throat like a sewer and it was on one of those days in fourth grade that she couldn’t get in the bathroom that the new girl, Sue-Ellen Dandridge, pretty as Miss America comes to class and Sister Mary Alice seats her right behind me and an hour later the new girl starts sniff-sniffing the air around my back and says, “Oh my god, she smells like pee!” loud enough for the whole class to hear.

  In that moment when Sue-Ellen said that and the whole room clouded dark and I thought I’d faint from embarrassment, I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, “Jesus suffered and died on the cross for us, Aislinn. Can’t you bear this little burden for him? Just offer it up to Jesus.” And I thought I to myself, no, sorry, I can’t. I hate that girl.

  A bird chatters and another answers. I wipe my face and look around my Peely-Stick Shop, breathing in the pine scent, squeezing a tiny pinecone in my hand. “This too shall pass,” I tell myself. That’s another thing my mother always says.