What We Keep

by Elizabeth Berg

  “It’s because he’s Dad,” Sharla said—coldly, I thought.

  My mother stood still for a moment, smiling. Then, “Well,” she said, “that’s very nice of you.”

  She went into the living room, and I heard her and my father talking under the blare of the television. The words got louder, then stopped abruptly; then I heard the faint click of my mother’s knitting needles. It came to me to put pop beads on my birthday list; I really wanted some of those. It was a relief, thinking of something so easy.

  I awakened several mornings later to the sound of Jasmine’s and my mother’s voices coming from the kitchen, then noticed a third voice as well—a boy’s. I thought it must be someone asking about mowing the lawn, or selling some utterly unwantable thing for the Boy Scouts, but the conversation was going on too long for that. I turned to ask Sharla if she knew who was downstairs, but found her bed empty. Then I heard the toilet flush, and she came back to bed, yawned. “What?” she said.

  “Who’s down there?”

  She shrugged.

  “Did you hear a boy’s voice?”

  “Well, yeah, they’re talking loud enough! I wanted to sleep some more, too. I was up really late last night.”

  “No, you weren’t.” We had gone to bed at the boring hour of ten o’clock.

  “Yes I was! I got up after you were already asleep. I was reading.”

  I checked her face; she was telling the truth. “Reading what?”

  She pulled a book from under her covers. It was Beautiful Joe, a book about a dog that Uncle Roy had brought with him last Thanksgiving, and which neither Sharla nor I had ever really looked at. Now, since Sharla was interested, so was I.

  “Is it good?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I cried.”

  “You did?”

  She nodded again.

  “Can I read it when you’re done?”

  “I am done.”

  I held out my hand.

  She pulled the book to her chest. “I might want to read it again.”

  “Well, just let me read it first.”

  “No, I might want to read it again right away.”

  I knew what I needed to do: feign disinterest. But I could not. “Just give it to me first. I read way faster than you. I’ll give it back in a day or two.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m just taking it.” I got up, started toward her bed.

  “MOOOOMMMMM!” Sharla yelled.

  I sat back down, slack-jawed. We had company!

  I heard the creak of the stairs; and then my mother, wearing a new red print housedress and her favorite yellow apron, came into our room. She said nothing. She didn’t need to. The expression on her face talked. She was wearing makeup, a rarity at this time of day; I saw the faint traces of rouge on her cheeks, and her lashes were longer, as they were when she used her mascara. That mascara came in a small, red lacquered box. There was a rectangular cake of mascara and a cunning little brush you used to apply it. I couldn’t imagine why my mother didn’t use it constantly. When I was old enough to use makeup, I intended to sleep in it.

  My mother put her hands on her hips. “Well?”

  “She started it,” I said.

  “We have a guest,” my mother answered. Her voice sounded different to me. Happier, I realized; that was the difference. Sharla and I were fighting, but she was still happy.

  “Who’s here?” I asked.

  “It’s Jasmine’s nephew, a very nice boy named Wayne.”

  Wayne! I had never met a boy named Wayne! The name seemed exotic to me, and slightly disgusting. Sissified. I liked plain names for boys: Bill. Tom. Pete. Whenever Sharla and I staged scenes featuring a male character, we used names like that. Wayne and I would not be able to be friends.

  “I want you two to get dressed,” my mother said. “Then come down and say hello. I’ll get breakfast started.”

  One thing I hated about company was the way your routine always had to get altered—I liked change only when I initiated it. I didn’t like getting dressed to eat breakfast; it made the food taste different. I liked not even washing my face or brushing my teeth first, if the truth be told. I liked to be as close to the sleep state as possible, then let the colors and smells and sights of breakfast foods be my wake-up, rather than the rude splash of water. I did this on school days, too—came down and ate breakfast first, then got dressed. Sharla was the opposite: when she came to the table on school mornings, she was ready to go, down to her hair ribbon being perfectly tied and her well-organized book bag lying at her feet like an obedient dog. She might eat breakfast without getting dressed in the summer, but only after she had washed her face, brushed her teeth, and combed her hair.

  “How can you drink orange juice when you just brushed your teeth?” I would often ask her, as though perhaps at some point my question would initiate change in her. “How can you be such a slob?” she would answer, hoping no doubt that her response might elicit the same in me. Neither of us changed, of course; and when we were at the breakfast table together, we sat eyeing each other with mutual disgust and superiority.

  My mother started to leave, then turned back. “I’ll expect you downstairs in ten minutes.”

  “Bathroom first,” Sharla said. I dressed while she was in there; then, when it was my turn, I went to wash resentfully. When I dried my face off, I noticed a piece of sleep clinging stubbornly to the corner of my right eye. I left it there, then brushed my teeth without toothpaste. So there. I sighed, sat for a moment on the closed lid of the toilet. It was only morning, and I was already in a bad mood.

  When we came into the kitchen, I saw a tall boy standing at the kitchen window, his back to us. “Well. Here are my girls,” my mother said. The boy turned around and I saw that he was the person in the picture Jasmine kept in her dresser drawer. I put my hand to my eye quickly, removed the sleep.

  My mother made her introductions. Wayne Meyers was his whole name. I said, “Hi,” waved loosely, and looked away. Sharla moved to sit in the chair closest to him. “How long are you here for?” she asked, in a tone of voice that I did not recognize. She was smiling prettily.

  “Two weeks.” He smiled back at her. I put him at about fourteen, but he spoke with the ease of an adult.

  “Well, come and sit down, Ginny,” Jasmine said, laughing, indicating the seat beside her. I sat, then stared at my knees. Wayne was an extremely handsome boy; he had no business at my breakfast table. I had no idea what to do next. I felt as though something had hold of my shoulders and was pushing down. Something else worked at my center, pulling at my insides like taffy.

  “Jasmine and I are going into town for a while,” my mother said. “We were hoping you could show Wayne around the neighborhood a bit.”

  I looked up. “Well.… There’s not much to show.” For the first time, I hated where I lived.

  “We could walk to the record store,” Sharla said brightly.

  “We could go out into the woods,” I said.

  There was a moment of weighted silence, and then Wayne said, “Why don’t we do both?”

  I saw my mother and Jasmine smile at each other. “Ready for some scrambled eggs?” my mother asked.

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I’m not hungry.” This was a lie, but I knew girls were supposed to have tiny appetites. Tiny appetites, small waists, friendly personalities, and no BO. Sharla said she wanted a lot to eat, however. She said she was starving. I looked out of the corner of my eye at Wayne. He was not shocked, or disgusted, or disappointed. He was sitting down, reaching for a piece of the toast that was already on the table.

  “Can we have bacon, too?” I asked. My mother tightened her apron around her waist. She was smiling a little, though I was sure she was unaware of this. She always smiled when she was feeding people; she loved doing it. Every time she baked, she’d tie small bundles of extras onto the mailbox for the carrier. She made the cakes that fetched the greatest sums at our school’s bake sales; they were famous for t
heir height, their rich flavors, and their whimsical decorations: fresh flowers, old jewelry, a paper doll wearing a tiny cloth apron, feet rooted in the frosting. She got a little nervous about going to dinner parties unless they were potlucks; at those times, she was always ready to go before my father was. It seemed her contribution was what made her valid.

  Now she laid strips of bacon in the frying pan, cracked eggs into a yellow bowl. She beat them vigorously, then came to the table with the coffeepot to refill Jasmine’s cup.

  “Thanks, Marion,” Jasmine said, and there was something in the rich tone of her voice that had me look quickly at her, then away. An image came to me: a hand pushing into folds of black velvet, a hidden discovery.

  I pulled my chair closer to the table, straightened my fork and knife, put my glass of orange juice directly over the knife, where it belonged. Then I put my hands in my lap to wait. Polite. Proper. “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

  “At work, silly,” my mother said. “You know that.”

  So I did. He was at work, missing the party. Not even knowing if he liked where he was or not.

  At five o’clock that evening, Sharla and I were seated at the kitchen table, shucking corn for dinner. I hated this job because I had once found a worm when I was doing it, and I was sure it would happen again. But my mother was frying chicken and the aroma made up for my discomfort. She used many spices for frying chicken, among them tarragon, ginger, and rosemary. But she always added things quickly, and so it was hard to see everything that she used. Once I asked her, but she wouldn’t tell me. She said, “Oh, it’s a secret. I couldn’t tell you all the ingredients. It wouldn’t turn out anymore if I did.” She seemed to be both joking and not; I did not pursue it. Sharla said our mother wouldn’t tell what went into many of her recipes because she didn’t know; she just made things up. I didn’t see why she couldn’t admit that, if it were true.

  After I cleaned the last ear of corn, I laid some of the whitish silk across the top of my head. “I am a sun-streaked blonde,” I said. “I am on the cover of Life.” No response, not from Sharla or my mother. I moved the silk to rest under my nose. “I am a man,” I said narrowly, through my pooched lips. They both looked at me, then away.

  I pulled the corn silk off my face. “I am a man in a circus,” I said loudly. “I train animals that would just as soon kill you both as look at you.”

  “Uh-huh,” my mother said, turning the chicken pieces carefully.

  “They would kill you if they would kill us,” Sharla said.

  “No,” I said, “they would not. Because I would know how to charm them, and they would love me.”

  “Huh, they would eat you first, because you’re so annoying,” Sharla said.

  She was mad at me. As far as I could figure, it was because Wayne had liked me better than her. Sharla had tried to show off at the record store, pretending to know more than she did. But Wayne noticed that she confused Fabian with Pat Boone, and she shut up after that, sulked all the way home.

  When we had all gone into the woods, Sharla had hung around listlessly for a while, then gone inside the house. At first, I felt guilty, imagining her lying on her bed, bored, holding her arm up in the air to watch the charms on her bracelet dangle. But then I forgot about her. The truth was, meeting Wayne had let me see that I was tired of Sharla’s company. I recognized in Wayne a kindred spirit. His gaze lingered on the things I found interesting, too: a bent-over woman wearing a print kerchief on her head and crossing the street with achy slowness; a shop window with merchandise arranged into the shape of a pyramid; a truck with a canvas flap blowing open as it took a corner. Wayne liked to read. He picked up a shiny penny he passed on the sidewalk, pronouncing it lucky, then gave it to me.

  In some ways, I could hardly stand being with him; it was too new and too much. But I also wanted to be nowhere else. I felt thirsty and thirsty; I felt hungry and hungry. I wanted to show him everything in my box hidden in the closet; I wanted to have a picnic with him; I hoped he’d try to kiss me on the mouth. I was ready, suddenly, to be kissed. My stomach ached mildly, then occasionally leaped up as though it were being poked. I guessed I had a boyfriend. I guessed, actually, that I was in love. I couldn’t stop smiling, though I had enough self-control not to show my teeth.

  I knew Sharla was very much taken with Wayne, too, but it didn’t matter: clearly, she was not his type. She only went for his looks. When he showed her a mockingbird, she barely looked, missing entirely the fabulous white bars on the wings. When he told a joke, her laughter sounded false. When he told her he was a magician, she did not inquire as to his repertoire; and when I did so, she listened only to be polite—I could tell by the fixed expression on her face. But for me, things were opening like a flower.

  We had eaten lunch at Woolworth’s. Wayne and I got patty melts and coffee—the latter after Wayne told the sleepy-eyed waitress that we both had hypothyroidism and needed to drink it to stay alive. Sharla, tight-lipped, ordered a tuna salad sandwich and milk. After the waitress left, Wayne and I had talked about her earrings, how they didn’t match—one was a gold knot, the other a blue rhinestone flower. We wondered if it could possibly have been intentional; then, why that might have been so. “Maybe she wants to get fired,” I said. “Maybe her boss is mean.”

  “Maybe she has two personalities,” Wayne said. “Two names. Two houses.”

  Sharla hadn’t noticed the earrings. At that point, it was clear to me—and to her, too, apparently, since she stopped trying to make any kind of conversation—that Wayne was all mine.

  So after we got home and Sharla went in the house, I had brought Wayne to our tepee, and he lay down in the center of it. I sat off to the side, cross-legged, in peaceful silence. Outside, buffalo roamed.

  Wayne closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, then raised himself up on one elbow to look at me. “You want to get married?” he asked.

  “I—what?”

  “Do you want to get married?”

  What did this mean, I wondered. “Are you kidding?”

  “No.” There was, in his blue eyes, a steadiness older than both of us. I felt as though my real name had at last been spoken, my self cracked open unto myself. There was something inside me—not quite developed, but there nonetheless: a potential, a bud of my coming self that he recognized, and it responded to him. I believed he had a kind of rightness and wisdom. Instinctively, I trusted him—without reason, without thought, without care.

  But married! “You mean, when we grow up?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “We can’t get married now; we’re too young.” I couldn’t believe I was saying words like these. It felt as if birds could fly down and pluck jewels from my mouth.

  “No, we aren’t,” Wayne said. “We’re just too young to use a minister. So we’ll do the ceremony ourselves.”

  I said nothing. My heart was stretched. I felt as though I were either going to start crying or laugh out loud.

  “It wouldn’t be a real marriage,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “It wouldn’t be legal, I mean.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “But … otherwise, it would be real.” He lay down again, closed his eyes. “You’re the one for me.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  He turned his head, looked at me. “Don’t you?”

  “I’m only twelve,” I said. “Well, soon I will be.”

  “Yes. I’m fifteen.”

  We stared at each other. I heard the faint drone of an airplane. A dog barked, then barked again; a car door slammed.

  Finally, I looked away, drew a faint line in the dirt, laid my hand on top of it.

  “We’ll have a ceremony tonight,” he said. “Meet me here at midnight.”

  Midnight! Well, there you had it. It was meant to be. I took my hand off the tentative line I’d made in the dirt, etched the line deeper, drew a circle around it. “Look,” I said, wanting s
omething.

  Wayne studied my drawing, nodded once; twice. Then he drew another line in the circle, parallel to mine, the same size exactly, and looked up at me. I nodded back slowly. A foreign word wanted out of my mouth. “Ahuna,” I said. “Ahuna,” he said back, then whispered, “Take nana.” And then neither of us moved for a long time.

  I was alive with love, generous because of it, and so I tried to make up to Sharla for taking the only available boy of the summer. “Want me to help you finish cleaning the corn?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  I took a fat ear from her, shucked it carefully. It was so easy to be wonderful to others when someone thought you were special. Ginny Meyers, I thought. I didn’t like the sound of it, really. But that was small, that was a very small thing, compared to the expanding personal universe inside my chest.

  My mother was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, looking out the window and daydreaming. “Hey, Mom,” I said. I didn’t like it when she daydreamed; it made her not continuously available to me. “Mom!”

  She startled, looked over at me. “What?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” She began washing the dishes that were piled in the sink.

  “It’s your birthday soon,” I said. “And then mine.”

  She smiled. “Yes, it is. Are you sure you want the same thing for dinner again?”

  In our family, you got to have anything you wanted to eat on your birthday. You got to not make your bed, to forgo all of your chores and lessons, in fact—I was living for the day my birthday fell on a dance class day. You also got to skip school if you wanted. Since my birthday fell in the summer, I got to skip any day of the school year. I always wanted to pick the first day, but never could. Therefore I usually picked the last. And, since age four, I had always picked the same thing for my dinner.

  “I want what I always have,” I said. I loved my mother’s enchiladas. I always got to eat one of mine when she had just wrapped them, before they were baked. “Can I eat all of mine raw this time?” I asked.