by Carole Lazar
“So now you’re a mind reader too.”
“Am I wrong?”
“I don’t know what I’d have done,” he says. “We could never afford to have you quit your job and go to school full-time unless you agreed to sell this place, and I don’t think you’d have been prepared to do that.”
“What are you talking about?” she says. “I just did!”
“Because we had no choice. I know how much of yourself you put in to making this house what it is.”
“You did a lot of grunt work too,” Mom says.
“Yes, but it didn’t matter as much to me. I’m okay with selling, but I always knew it would break your heart to lose your home.”
“Who’s mind reading now? We just signed the papers, and, in case you haven’t noticed, my heart’s still beating just fine.”
She picks up her bag and grabs her keys off the table. She heads for the front door, and as she leaves she slams it a bit. Siobhan and I finally look at the TV. I turn up the volume. I have no idea what this show is about, but I suppose we have to watch it until the end so it won’t be totally obvious to Dad that we’ve been eavesdropping.
As soon as the show is over, I tell Siobhan we need to take the dog for a walk. We’re barely out the door when Siobhan says exactly what I have been thinking.
“When your mom and dad were talking about Amy, I thought they sounded really friendly.”
“I’d really rather not talk about it,” I say. Then I go ahead and talk about it. “It’s not like I really want them fighting all the time, but, in a way, it would be easier. When they have these good moments, it gets my hopes up.”
“But I don’t understand what they ended up fighting about,” says Siobhan.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I reply. This time, that’s all I say.
We walk along in silence. The dog sniffs and piddles every few feet. Walking in a new neighborhood is probably her idea of a great adventure. The street is very quiet. We don’t meet a single person.
“This is a dull neighborhood, isn’t it?” says Siobhan.
“Dull is good,” I say. “At least I feel safe here. At my mom’s place, I’m afraid to even walk the dog.”
We spend most of the rest of the night talking about Brandy.
Siobhan and I sleep in on Saturday morning, probably because we stayed up way too late last night. We toast bagels for breakfast. Dad’s planning to go grocery shopping this morning.
“Did Mom say when she’d be here?” I ask.
He looks confused. “She’s not coming here. I’ll take you home before dinner tomorrow.”
“Isn’t she coming to clean?”
“She doesn’t have to. It looks like we have a sale on the house.”
“Yeah, but how long till we move out?”
“Five weeks.”
I look at the kitchen floor. I spilled a bit of the cheese topping for the popcorn last night. I noticed earlier that the microwave is dirty inside. “So what’s going to happen till then?”
“Your mom wanted the place to look good so it would sell. If it’s sold, I think she’ll tell me what happens now is my mess and my problem.”
“We should clean up,” Siobhan says.
I can’t believe that I go along with her plan. We spend an hour cleaning. I hope my mom appreciates our efforts. This is just so her job.
Dad takes us with him to the mall when he goes grocery shopping. I tell Siobhan that Dad and I don’t know how to cook. We eat a lot of hot dogs, scrambled eggs, and macaroni dinners.
“Want me to show you how to make a Thai noodle salad?” she asks when we get to the store and start down the first aisle.
“Oh, Siobhan,” Dad says. “I’m not in to making a fuss over cooking.”
“No, really, Mr. Jensen, this recipe is dead easy.”
She makes him buy bean sprouts and water chestnuts. It’s almost noon when we finish. He keeps looking at his watch.
“Amy’s coming by at one. I imagine we’ll be out looking at apartments and houses most of the afternoon. What are you girls planning to do?”
“We could hang out at the mall,” Siobhan says, “and just go window-shopping.”
I have no money. How could that be fun? I go to say something, but she hits me in the ribs with her elbow.
“You sure that’s okay?” Dad asks.
“Do you have enough money for lunch?” Siobhan asks me.
Dad pulls out his wallet and hands me a ten-dollar bill.
“We’ll be home by four,” Siobhan says.
This seems like a really stupid plan to me. But going out for lunch makes sense. We hit the McDonald’s that’s just a block down the street. It still leaves us a lot of time to kill. What will we do?
“Shop!” says Siobhan.
“But I have no money!”
“I don’t either, but we can still shop. You just have to know how to do it.”
What do I know about shopping? I come from a family where my parents don’t even have a line of credit on their bank account.
We wander back to the mall. Siobhan wants to go into Mariposa.
“I guess we could look,” I say as we walk into the store.
“And try things on,” she adds. “That’s the best part. Don’t you ever imagine what it would be like to wear stuff you’d never be able to buy?”
I think of my mom’s lacy push-up bra.
“Sometimes,” I admit.
“So that’s what we do. We each pick something we like. Then we’ll go and try it on.”
She’s already flipping through a rack of dresses. She pulls out a polka-dotted sundress. The top part is like a skimpy halter and it ties behind the neck. The skirt starts right beneath the bra line and flares out gradually. I find the same dress in my size.
We go to the change rooms and share a stall. It’s hard to believe we’re trying on the same dress. Siobhan has tucked her bra straps down, and the top of the dress stretches smooth across her bust, showing off her curves. She even has cleavage. Then there’s me.
“Maybe if you wore a padded bra?”
“I don’t think it would fool anyone.”
The dress is just hanging from the ties that are knotted behind my neck. With no boobs to fill out the top, the dress looks like a sack.
“You could try jeans under it,” she says. “And a T-shirt too. Mariah has piles of these teen fashion magazines. Most of the models are thin like you, and they wear all these layers. That’s the style now.”
She’s just trying to make me feel better, but it doesn’t work.
“Mariah is lucky that Sister Alexis didn’t catch her with those magazines. Can’t you just imagine the lecture?”
“Oh, she didn’t bring them to school,” says Siobhan. “We were at her house.”
I feel like someone’s kicked me in the stomach. “I think I’ll just go get something else,” I say.
I walk out of the change room and hand the polka-dot sundress to the clerk. I go to the racks and pick up the first dress I find in my size. I don’t feel like doing this anymore. I just want to go home and be by myself.
When I get back to our change room, I strip again, then pull the dress on over my head and do up the belt.
“That’s better on you,” Siobhan says.
“Was Janelle at Mariah’s too?” I ask.
“What? Oh, you mean Wednesday when we were looking at the fashion magazines? No, it was just Mariah and me.”
“I see.”
Siobhan wouldn’t be hanging out with Mariah if I weren’t living in stupid old Langley and going to a public school named after some guy no one even remembers.
I look at Siobhan in the mirror. She’s still wearing the polka-dotted sundress.
“Doesn’t it make you sad to try on something that looks that good and then have to go put it back?”
“Kind of. But now let’s do something different.”
“What?”
She takes the dress off and puts it back on the hang
er. When we’ve given both dresses to the clerk, we go back to the racks and Siobhan tells me the rules. We have to see who can come up with the worst outfit, or at least the outfit that looks worst on us.
That’s much more fun. We’re back in the change room in minutes.
Siobhan has this denim thing that’s called a skirtall. The top is like the kind you see on the old farmer overalls, but the bottom’s a short skirt. The material is heavy. There’s a wide waistband outlined in orange thread. The skirt pockets add another horizontal line. The waistband, the pockets, and the short skirt make her hips look about ten feet wide. The bib, on the other hand, is narrow. It covers her boobs so you don’t even see that they’re there. The bib and the two fat straps that come up over her shoulders give her upper body a slim look, so overall she looks like a total pear. It makes me feel much better.
Then I have to try on my worst-looking outfit. I have a short plaid skirt with a wide pleated strip at the bottom. I put on a long floppy T-shirt and a sleeveless hoodie over that. You can’t tell what shape I am.
We step out of our change room to see ourselves in the big mirrors.
Siobhan points to my bare legs and laughs. “You need jeans with it too. Then you’ll look like the chair in my bedroom where I throw my clothes. No one will even be able to tell there’s a body in there.”
“Well, you should talk, you look like …”
We’re interrupted by the sales clerk. “Is there anything I can help you with?” She’s looking at me. “A smaller size in that maybe. I’ll see if we have it in a size two.” Then she looks at Siobhan. “That skirtall looks lovely on you, dear. It’s not everyone who can wear those.”
I think Siobhan’s going to burst. She quickly turns her back on the clerk and says something that’s probably supposed to be thanks, except that it comes out more like a croak.
The clerk goes out to find a smaller size for me, and Siobhan and I run back into our change room. Siobhan has her hands clamped over her mouth, trying to stifle her giggles.
I’m pulling off all the clothes I have on. She starts to unhook the big metal hooks on the straps of her skirtall.
“You’re not planning to put that back, are you, dear?” I say. “It looks so lovely on you.”
Then we both are laughing so hard we have to hang on to each other or we’ll fall over.
The clerk comes back with a smaller T-shirt for me. She doesn’t seem so friendly anymore.
“I think we maybe need to get out of here,” Siobhan says.
I think she’s right.
fifteen
I make dinner. No one who knows me would ever believe it. Siobhan just sits on the stool by the island and tells me what to do. She writes down the recipe so I can do it myself some other time too. I boil ramen noodles for three minutes and then drain them and let them cool. All I have to do is add veggies and slivered almonds and it’s a Thai noodle salad. For the dressing, I mix the flavor package from the noodles with some oil and vinegar. It’s very easy, but it tastes fancy. Dad’s impressed.
I ask him if he saw any interesting places when he was out with Amy this afternoon.
He just shrugs. “Nothing to get excited about.” Siobhan has called her mom and she’s allowed to come to mass with us tonight. I’ve told her about the choir. When Father Tony gets that youth group going in September, he says it will probably meet after the Saturday night mass, so Siobhan says she wants to scope out Father Tony, the choir, and any kids our age who might be there.
We get there early, which is maybe not such a great idea. Catholics don’t talk in church. We’re supposed to be praying, or at least being quiet so other people can pray. The trouble with being quiet is that it gives me time to think about all the things I’ve managed to forget while Siobhan and I have been together today. Things like Brandy. Things like my mom going out with Jake. Things like never being able to go back to Holy Name because my mom is probably going to need all her money for her own school fees. The longer I kneel there, the worse I feel. What have I done to deserve this? I’m not that bad a person.
I glance back over my shoulder. The light is on outside the confession room; the door is open. Maybe Father Tony has some ideas about what I can do about Brandy.
I lean over to Siobhan and whisper, “I’m going to go to confession.”
“Why? Do you think trying on clothes when we weren’t going to buy anything … do you think that’s a sin?”
I hadn’t even thought about that. I shake my head. “No, it’s more that I need some spiritual direction.”
Almost all the saints had spiritual directors, someone you can tell all your troubles to, and then they’re supposed to give you guidance. I could really use some guidance, especially about Brandy.
I walk to the confession room. When I go in, I can’t see Father Tony because he’s sitting behind a screen. That’s how it’s supposed to be. There’s a kneeler on my side of the screen, so if I didn’t want the priest to see me, I could just kneel there and then sneak out when I was finished and he’d never know it was me. At least that’s the theory. Grandma always goes behind the screen, even though she’s almost best friends with Father Mac. He must know her voice by now.
Most younger people don’t bother with the screen and instead talk face-to-face. I walk past the screen and sit in the chair that’s opposite Father Tony.
He makes the sign of the cross over me.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been …” I’m supposed to tell him how long it’s been since my last confession. Did I go during Lent? I must have. “About three months, I think …”
He doesn’t say anything. Usually the priest waits until the end.
“I accuse myself of the following sins.” I should have thought about this more. I haven’t done a proper examination of my conscience. I was mostly thinking of all my problems. “I do not love this girl Brandy as much as a Christian should. Actually, I don’t love her at all. I don’t even like her.” I pause.
Father Tony is looking down at his hands, which are folded in his lap. He’s still listening.
“I was very rude to my mom’s friend Gina, and to Mom too. I never understand that commandment. I know I’m supposed to honor my mother, but what if she’s planning to do something really bad?”
Maybe because I make it a question, this time he says something.
“Saint Augustine tells us we’re to hate the sin but love the sinner. I think it’s like that when we’re talking about respecting our parents. You honor your mother because she gave you life. That doesn’t mean you have to approve of everything she does.”
“Well, I certainly don’t approve of her going out with Jake next weekend. She’s a married woman. That’s a mortal sin. I do love her, you know. I don’t want her to go straight to hell.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Lucy. It isn’t a sin for her to go out with a friend, even if it’s a male friend.”
“Could I go to hell because I hate Brandy?”
“God isn’t quick to throw people into hell. Where do you get these ideas from anyway?”
“Grandma has a lot of old books. Have you read about the visions those kids saw in Fatima? All those flames and people screaming?”
“Yes, I’ve read it. But they were visions, you know, not the real thing. Let’s forget about hell for a bit and talk about Brandy.”
That’s about the same thing if you ask me. “What about her?” I ask.
“Well,” he says, “what is she like?”
“She’s much bigger than me, and she has black hair with blue streaks in it.”
“But what kind of a person is she?”
“Mean! She’s always pushing me around and calling me names. If she ever catches me alone, she’ll probably beat me up.”
“Has she said anything that might give a clue as to why she’s picking on you?”
“First time she laid eyes on me, she said I should go to the elementary school.”
He nods.
> “Then I asked the teacher about something in class, and after that, it got really bad. She thought I was sucking up to the teacher.”
“What sort of a student is Brandy?”
“A bad one. She doesn’t do her work half the time.”
“Do you think she might be jealous because you’re a good student?”
I don’t believe it for a minute, but I don’t want to sound rude. “I guess it’s possible,” I say.
“Maybe you could help her.”
I think there’s something to be said for the idea of letting priests get married. Maybe they should also have regular jobs, like some protestant ministers do. It would help them get a grip on reality. The problem with priests spending all their time praying and saying masses is that they haven’t a clue about what life is really about. I can’t believe this man is suggesting that I help Brandy with her homework.
“It’s not that I wouldn’t be willing, but there’s no way that’s going to happen.” What part of “she’ll probably beat me up” doesn’t he get?
“Is there anything more you have to confess, Lucy?”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“For your penance, say a prayer for Brandy each morning and night this coming week, and I want you to watch her closely. See if there’s any way you could show love toward her, even if you don’t feel it.”
Father Mac always gives me Hail Marys or Our Fathers to pray. What kind of a penance is this? “Yes, Father.”
“And now I absolve you of all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Go in the peace of Christ.”
When I get back to the pew, I kneel down to do the first part of my penance. I try to think of something to pray about for Brandy. My mind is blank at first. I wonder why God makes people mean like that. That is the clue, I think. God did make her, and He can’t want her to be the kind of person she is.
I bow my head and pray, “Our Father in heaven, look down with favor on your child Brandy. You’ve got to be able to do something with her.”
The choir is starting up for the opening hymn. I make the sign of the cross and stand up to sing with Siobhan and Dad.
