The Usual Rules

by Joyce Maynard

  I don’t like this movie, Louie said. I want to change the channel.

  You should go to sleep, Louie, Amelia said. I think it’s nap time.

  I really think we need to take him home now, Wendy said. Amelia wasn’t paying attention to her. Travis was asking her if he’d seen her in an ad for the Gap.

  That’s you in the blue bikini top and the cutoffs on the billboard over on Forty-third Street, right? he asked her.

  I don’t think so, she told him. They haven’t put mine up yet.

  On the way home they bought Louie two Matchboxes: a snowplow and a ‘57 Thunderbird convertible. When they were back out on the street he said he wanted the Formula One racer instead, but Amelia said, That’s life.

  Her mother was already back when they got to the apartment. We just took him out for a treat, Wendy said. Amelia and I wanted to get him a couple of cars.

  Her mother, still in her dress-up clothes, looked like she wasn’t necessarily buying it but Louie was so tired, he just lay down on the couch and fell asleep.

  I myself never feel a need to put on eyeliner and mascara when I go out to Walgreens, her mother said.

  Was the choreography good? Wendy asked her. She knew Mark Morris was her mother’s favorite and if they could just get talking about that it would be a good idea.

  The man is a genius, she said. If I was twenty years younger, I’d do anything to dance in that company. I can’t imagine anything more rewarding.

  As opposed to being a mother. As opposed to living with them in this little apartment, heating up Josh’s casserole and scraping cheese off the grilled-cheese maker.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of wine, studying the program. There’s one dancer in his company that’s just two years younger than me, she said. Of course she’s been dancing with Mark Morris since she was twenty. It’s not like she sits at a desk Monday through Friday, typing up memos.

  Always before, even in the old days, when times were hard, Wendy had always seen her slim, light-footed mother as glamorous and beautiful. That afternoon, sitting there in her West Side Story dress with the belt that showed off her twenty-three-inch waist and her red leather high-heel boots that she’d resoled a couple of times, they were so old, her mother had looked a little sad and worn.

  Amelia had to go. You’d better take a cab home, Wendy’s mother said. I don’t like to see you going home on the subway after dark. She handed Amelia five dollars.

  I don’t mind the subway, Amelia said. But she took the money.

  That night, Louie woke up crying. By the time Wendy got to him Josh was there already.

  Chucky’s coming to get me, he said. And the boy with the rainbow braces.

  Who’s Chucky? Josh said. Is this someone from day care?

  He makes people’s arms come off, Louie said. They fall in the garbage disposal.

  Chucky’s not here, Louie, Josh said. He went away.

  I saw him, Louie said.

  Her mother was standing in the door to the room now, her hair wild and her bathrobe half on, half off. She stared straight at Wendy.

  You and Amelia took your brother to that boy’s house today, didn’t you?

  There was never any point lying to her mother.

  Once Wendy started thinking about all the things she regretted, she couldn’t stop. Riding Garrett’s bike in the hot, dry air of Davis, out along the flat expanse of wheat-lined highway, the pictures of her mother and her kept coming back to her, like buildings she passed along the road. Diner... gas station . . . avocado stand . . . fight with mother.

  She wanted to bring the other mother back. The one who stood there in the fitting room at Macy’s with her when they bought back-to-school clothes. We have to get you these pants, honey, she said. You just look so great in them.

  I have to warn you, she said, when Wendy put on the pink angora sweater. Every time you come near me in this, I’m likely to have to give you a hug.

  Then the shoe department—always her mother’s big weakness. I think we could get you a pair with heels this fall, what do you say? Your have such nice long legs. Let’s try on these boots just for fun.

  And after, in the little coffee shop they went to for cappuccino and a milk shake. What would I do if I didn’t have you for my daughter? If I spotted you here having a milk shake with some other woman, I’d have to kidnap you.

  All my life, this is what I wanted. A smart, funny, beautiful, wonderful daughter just like you to try on shoes with.

  Pedaling along the highway, sweat dripping down her neck, it was the other images that came to her: discount jewelry store . . . car dealership . . . health club . . . fight with mother. The horrible moments filled up her brain.

  There was the time when her mother announced they were driving some-place in New Jersey to see farm animals.

  Have you even noticed I’m not six years old anymore? Wendy said. Did it ever occur to you I might not want to spend every Sunday for the rest of my life driving around hick towns with you and Josh, sitting in the backseat with Louie, looking out for eighteen-wheelers and making cow noises?

  We do other things, too, her mother said. When we go to amusement parks and you ride on roller coasters, your brother mostly just watches. She didn’t sound mad as much as hurt.

  Oh, great. That’s really my idea of a perfect way to spend my Sunday afternoons. Going on rides with my mother’s husband.

  She had never called him that before.

  I thought you liked going on rides, her mother said. I thought our family day was important to you, too. You forget all those years we never had anyone to go out exploring with.

  Ease up, Jan, Josh said. Somewhere in there he’d come into the room. Now he put his arm around Wendy, but not too tightly.

  We’ve been a little selfish, he said. Just because we want to spend Sundays with Wendy doesn’t mean that’s what she wants to do. I’m probably the worst offender here.

  There were just so many years I missed out on, Wen, he said. I guess I was trying to make up for them.

  There, her mother said. You satisfied now? Here’s the guy you want so much to get away from. Your own father walks out on you flat, and along comes Josh, who hadn’t exactly been in desperate need of some seven-year-old daughter. He was having a pretty great life without us, as a matter of fact. And all he wants to do is spend as much time with you as he can. So you kick him in the teeth for it? This is the guy who sold his saxophone to buy you that bicycle.

  Stop it, Jan, he said. Wendy hardly ever heard him talk that way to her mother. You’re laying it on too hard. I didn’t even play my sax anymore.

  The point is, your coming along was the luckiest thing that ever happened to us and she’s complaining about it. You should have seen her father. Or the person who called himself her father.

  Kids are supposed to complain about their parents, he said. I should feel flattered. If our daughter started saying how thrilled she was to hang out with us all the time, we’d know she must be doing crack cocaine behind our backs. Either that or she was a hopeless loser.

  Our daughter.

  Tell you what, he said. Why don’t you bag the Friendly Farm picnic this afternoon? But keep next Sunday open, because there’s an amazing concert of Brazilian drummers up in Harlem, and I want you to hear them. You can bring Amelia if you want. You’ll be the only ones in your class cool enough to know about Oladum.

  They went to New Jersey without her. Amelia was busy that day, so Wendy stayed home and drew for a while, then watched a movie. By the end of the afternoon she was actually missing her family.

  When they got back around seven-thirty, it turned out they’d stopped at some flea market on the way home and bought her this great set of plastic Beatles figures with bobbing heads from the sixties. This was her Hard Day’s Night period.

  Mama said they were too expensive, but we got them anyway, said Louie.

  Hush up, Lou-man, Josh said.

  She set the figures on the table to stud
y them. They were wearing matching blue suits and ties with identical hairdos except that Ringo had the mustache. Louie bobbed their heads.

  I was a Paul girl, her mother said.

  You would, Josh told her. Wendy likes John the best, right?

  This was true.

  So, he said to her in a British accent. What do you call that haircut? They had only watched the movie together maybe seven times.

  Arthur, she said. Without missing a beat.

  Sometime back, more than a year maybe, her mother brought up the idea of Josh formally adopting her. We haven’t seen Garrett in a couple of years, she said to Josh. Just one crummy visit from his mother that time, to eat cucumber sandwiches and find out if I’ve made plans yet for Wendy’s coming-out party.

  I don’t need any legal formalities, Josh said. It’s enough knowing we’re a family.

  I’m just thinking about if something happened to me, her mother said. Not that I’m planning to cut out on you. But you never know. It’s a risky business being an executive secretary. You never know when I might trip on my dictaphone cord and break my neck. Or my boss might just flip out one day and start wildly flailing that putter he keeps in his office. I’d be first in the line of fire.

  I don’t want them to hit you with a golf club, Louie said.

  Mama’s just joking, Josh told him.

  You should be more careful, Janet, he said. That kid can pick up what we say from three rooms away, even with the Magic School Bus video going and his sister working on her scales full blast.

  Nothing bad’s going to happen to me, Louie, she said. I was just talking to Poppy about your sister.

  We’d have to serve Garrett some kind of papers, Josh said. I wouldn’t want to get him all riled up. It could start something.

  You don’t know Garrett, she said. He’s too fascinated with his own life to come tearing out here to fight for legal rights to his daughter. Try taking his truck away from him, that might be a different story. Touch his tackle box and you’re looking for trouble. Let him hear about some reggae festival and he’s there. But his daughter? I don’t think so.

  Still, he said, I’d just as soon not risk it. Besides, if anything ever happened to you, the rest of us would have to run off to Alaska and wait for the wolves to come get us.

  I don’t want to go to Alaska, said Louie.

  But it was Wendy who’d come out of her room then. I can’t believe you two, she said. Plotting behind my back to wipe my real father out of my life.

  I wasn’t plotting, her mother said. I was just trying to be practical and consider what would be best for you if anything ever happened to me. And it wasn’t Josh who was thinking any of this. It was me.

  You’ll never stop hating my father, Wendy said. Just because things didn’t work out with him, you expect me to hate him like you do. You want to erase him from my life because you erased him from yours.

  That’s not what your mother was saying, Josh said. But I think we should leave this topic alone. It wasn’t a good idea.

  Oh, fine. Never mind the part about sneaking off and signing all these legal documents to cancel out my real identity. We’ll just keep going the way things have been, pretending the first four years of my life never happened. She was holding her clarinet at the time. Now she was shaking it.

  Why don’t you imagine for a second what it would be like if you weren’t around all of a sudden, Josh, and some other guy came along and wanted to adopt Louie? He’s four years old, too. Seems to me you’re fairly important in his life. Don’t you think he’d mind if Roberto or Omar or mom’s boss or somebody decided to make him their kid?

  I never said it was a good idea, Josh said very quietly. Let’s just drop it, okay? I’m sorry. He turned back to stirring something on the stove.

  Oh, Wendy, her mother said. You break my heart.

  Twenty

  She was out on the highway somewhere. At a gas station, she found a pay phone and took out the calling card Josh had given her. It wasn’t even noon yet, but back in New York, Amelia might be home from school by now. This was their early day.

  What’s the matter? asked Amelia. You sound funny.

  I was just thinking about my mom. How mean I was to her.

  You weren’t mean, Amelia said. Nobody’s perfect.

  The dumb thing is, I’m way nicer to my dad out here and he hardly did anything for me up till now.

  That’s probably the point. He wasn’t around enough for you to get mad at. That’s how dads are. My mom says it’s totally unfair.

  But I was mean to Josh, too, she said.

  Well, Josh, sure, said Amelia. But the thing about Josh is, he’s kind of like a mom, too. In a guy version.

  She told Wendy about how her family was going to her aunt’s for Thanksgiving. The Saturday after that, she was going to a hockey game with Chief. Hockey, can you believe it? I told him I was crazy about hockey. Now I’ve got to read up on it on the Internet or something.

  What gets into you? Wendy asked her.

  I am such a total liar, she said. Sometimes I probably don’t even know myself what’s true.

  I know the feeling.

  The baby was crying again. So was Violet.

  I want to be a good mother, she said. I just can’t figure out how.

  He’s at a difficult stage, Wendy told her. He’s probably got colic or something. Maybe you should take him to a doctor.

  Maybe next week, she said.

  Walter Charles was very red and his voice sounded hoarse, like he’d been crying for a long time.

  I’m not sure you should wait till next week, said Wendy. He could have something wrong with him. I don’t think they charge you anything if you go to one of those clinics.

  I can’t, said Violet.

  What do you mean? Wendy said. I’d go with you.

  It’s not that, said Violet.

  Then what?

  This one time yesterday, when I was at the end of my rope and he just wouldn’t shut up, I hit him. It left a mark.

  Her mother had hit her once. Just a couple of months ago, in fact. After the letter came from her father.

  You are just so bitter, Wendy said. You can’t ever forgive him for one dumb thing he did a million years ago. Like you never screwed up.

  It wasn’t one dumb thing, her mother said. It was everything.

  Oh, right, I forgot, Wendy said. My father was the worst person who was ever born. You should have married Adolf Hitler instead. You should have married that guy who murdered all the little boys and ate them. That would have been better.

  Stop it, her mother said. Just go to your room before this gets any worse.

  That’s what you want, isn’t it? You think if I just go away, you won’t have to think about the truth. If I shut up, you can stick to your own nice easy version of the story, instead of having to consider the possibility that maybe my father wasn’t such a monster after all. You just turned him into one in your own sick, bitter brain, after all these years of hating and not forgiving him. It was too hard to believe the truth.

  You don’t know the half of it, her mother said. I could tell you a lot more, but I love you too much to hurt you that way.

  You think saying all this doesn’t hurt me? Telling me I’m not allowed to visit my own father? You’ve done an incredible job protecting me from how much you really hate my dad.

  Her mother had started to cry then. If you think it was easy, she said. Sometimes I’d hear him on the phone with you, telling you things, and want to scream, but I didn’t say anything. All that stuff he filled you with, about wishing he could be with you. Like I was the one who was keeping him from being a father to you. Like I’d put a fence around the entire borough of Brooklyn to keep him from coming here.

  No, you were just the one who listened in on our phone conversations, I guess, said Wendy. Her voice no longer yelling. Ice.

  You probably read my diary, too, right? The part where I talk about how pathetic it is—you finding some young
guy who follows you around like a dog, to make you feel like you’re so great after all. Instead of the bitter, angry, sick, controlling dried-up person you actually are.

  If Josh was there, he would have stopped them. But Josh was gone, with Louie. It was just the two of them now, and even if Wendy had wanted to stop, which she did, actually, she didn’t know how. She had grabbed hold of her mother’s shoulders.

  Wendy and her mother were close to the same size, and soon, she’d realized, she’d be bigger. She dug her fingernails into her mother’s skin. Thinking about it now, she could picture the marks.

  How can you do this? her mother said. She was balled up in her chair, with her hands over her face. How can you protect him and punish me? Do you have any idea of how hard it was for me to take care of everything on my own all those years?

  How could I not know? You reminded me enough.

  Wendy had been yelling so much, her voice was hoarse, but she couldn’t stop. She felt her heart pounding, saw the red, ugly, wrecked look of her mother’s face, twisted up with crying, and still she couldn’t stop.

  Maybe my father didn’t make all the sacrifices you did. But he doesn’t hold it over my head and make me feel guilty all the time, either. He’s happy just accepting me the way I am, without reminding me all the time how great he is and what a terrible person you are.

  Her voice was hoarse, but still she kept screaming.

  Which, incidentally, he never said one single time. Maybe that’s what real love is.

  Slap.

  Oh my God, she said. I can’t believe I did that.

  But you did, didn’t you?

  Violet, she said. The apartment smelled like fish sticks. That and cigarette butts and overflowing diaper pail.

  There are places you can go. People can help you. I’m not sure where, but we could find out.

  You don’t know anything, said Violet. If I told them what happened with Walter Charles, they’d take him away faster than my old boyfriend could hotwire a car. That’d be the last I ever saw of him.