Define Normal

by Julie Anne Peters

  A short laugh escaped my lips.

  Jazz stopped ohming.

  I stared over her head. “I don’t want to talk about my mother.”

  Jazz’s eyes narrowed. “I keep trying to find things to talk about, but you keep changing the subject.” She sounded mad.

  “Me?” My spine fused. “You’re the one who doesn’t stay on the subject.”

  We both turned away. The air between us charged with electricity. Finally Jazz said, “I’m sorry I’m just in a crappy mood.” She unwound from her lotus and sprawled lengthwise across the table. “My mom and I had another fight this morning. She wouldn’t let me out of the house until I changed.”

  “Into that?” I blurted. She was wearing biker shorts, a halter top under the vest, and skull-and-crossbones earrings.

  Jazz clucked. “I changed at Ram’s.” She rolled over onto her side and propped her head up on an elbow. “She can’t accept who I am.”

  I said, “Maybe she just wants you to be more …” I couldn’t say what I was thinking, which was “normal.”

  “Like Janey?” Jazz finished. “I’m not Janey. I’m not perfect or special, okay?”

  Her voice sounded shaky and I saw tears in her eyes. For real. She hid her head and rolled onto her stomach. I didn’t know what to say. What do you say when someone’s about to experience an emotional breakdown? I wasn’t trained for this.

  But she didn’t break. She murmured, “Sometimes I wish I was more like Janey. Or you.”

  “No, you don’t,” I said.

  She lifted her head long enough to lock eyes.

  I added, “If you were me, you’d die before you’d ever be seen in public in that outfit.”

  Jazz snorted. “Jealous, huh?”

  “You know it,” I said.

  She turned over and sat up, cross-legged. “Maybe it’s not us. Maybe it’s our mothers. You want to trade?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You don’t want mine.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “You hate yours, too?”

  “Yes. I mean, no.” My head dropped. “Yes.”

  “Why, what’s she like?” Jazz slid over closer to me. “Tell me, is she a bitch?”

  “I … she …” My throat constricted. Quickly I gathered my stuff to leave. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about this.”

  Jazz ambushed me at the door. “Hey, Tone, I didn’t mean—”

  “I know.” I cut her off. “It’s just that—” The bell rang and we both jumped. Already? I checked my watch. Shouldering my book bag, I charged out the door. At the end of the hall, I glanced back to see Jazz standing stock-still, staring at me.

  Can you look forward to something and dread it at the same time? That’s how I felt about Friday’s session. It was sort of fun meeting with Jazz. It took my mind off… other things. At the same time I worried that we might pick up where we left off Wednesday. With mothers.

  My stomach roiled all morning just thinking about it. I had to take control. It was time to move on to step two: Restate the problem. Reflect it back to the person to make sure you understand. Jazz had told me her problem. She hated her mother. I could understand that.

  She was already there, in her chair, earplugs attached. Her fingers flew up and down the tabletop. It looked weird, as if her hands were possessed. She must’ve sensed my presence because she glanced up and freaked.

  “Are you having a seizure?” I said. “Should I call 911?”

  She grinned. Dropping the CD player in one jacket pocket, she removed something else from the other and held it out to me.

  “What’s this?” I took it.

  “A cell phone. Duh.”

  A cell phone? I’d never even held a cell phone. It was so light, so small. So warm from her body heat.

  In answer to my unspoken question, Jazz said, “My mother calls me about six times a day to check up on me. She says we need to stay connected.” Her lip curled.

  I handed back the phone.

  “Keep it,” Jazz said.

  “Oh, right. And what do I say if your mother calls?”

  “Tell her I’m not in. Better yet, tell her I’m busy shooting up.”

  I snickered and slid the phone across the table to her.

  Reluctantly she pocketed it.

  I said, “Let’s begin by—”

  “What’s the one thing in your life you most regret, Tone?” she asked, cutting me off.

  That was a weird question. For some reason I had an instant answer. “That I never learned to swim.” Where had that come from? I hadn’t thought about swimming since the summer before sixth grade when I was all hyped to spend two weeks at swim camp with Tamra. I couldn’t go, of course. Mom was sick again and needed me to take care of Chuckie. Tamra. That was it. She’d been on my mind lately.

  Jazz stared at me.

  I shrugged. “I always thought I should know how to swim in case one of my brothers fell into a lake or something.”

  Jazz made a face. “What lake? We’re like fifty miles from the nearest reservoir.”

  I felt stupid.

  Jazz said, “Why don’t you come over to my house tomorrow and I’ll teach you how to swim?”

  I scoffed. “Where? We’re like fifty miles from the nearest reservoir.”

  “I have a pool.”

  My eyes sprang out of their sockets, I’m sure. “In your backyard, you mean?”

  “No, in the kitchen.”

  Was she kidding? I held up two fingers, questioning.

  She widened her eyes at me. “It’s an indoor pool. Olympic-size. Plus,” she hurried on, “I’m a certified Red Cross lifeguard. That’s what I do in the summer, play lifeguard at my parents’ country club. You tell anyone and you’re dead meat.” She threatened me with a fist.

  “I won’t.” I wasn’t sure I believed it anyway. My mind reeled. More than anything, I wanted to believe. I wanted to learn how to swim. I wanted to go to Jazz’s house and see if she had an indoor Olympic-size swimming pool. “I can’t. I have to watch my brothers. I have … responsibilities.”

  “Be irresponsible for once. Or bring your brothers along.”

  “Could I?”

  “What? Be irresponsible or bring your brothers along?”

  There was a sharp rap on the door and we both jumped. The door opened. “What are you doing in here?” an angry voice demanded. A familiar voice.

  Jazz’s eyes went cold. “We’re doing a drug deal,” she said. “What’d you think?”

  I whipped my head around. “Mrs. Bartoli. Hi.”

  “Oh, hello, Antonia.” She looked from me to Jazz and back again. “Are you using this room? I have a meeting scheduled for after school and I need to set up the VCR.”

  “The room’s reserved,” Jazz said. “Come back later.”

  “Jazz.” I widened my eyes at her. “It’s okay, Mrs. Bartoli. We’re done.”

  I stood to leave. Jazz huffed, but followed me out. She and Mrs. Bartoli exchanged a look. Sheer revulsion. It was so palpable, you could almost taste the venom. “You’re such a suck-up,” Jazz said as she caught up to me at the end of the hall. Before I could protest, she handed me a piece of notebook paper.

  “What’s this?” It was a row of numbers scrawled in lipstick.

  Jazz recapped the lipstick tube. “My number,” she said. “Call me tonight and I’ll give you directions to the Luther family estate.”

  I slipped into Mom’s room after school and shut the door. “How are you feeling, Mom?” I asked softly, perching on the edge of the bed.

  “Not so good,” she said. She rolled over and curled into a ball.

  Do it, an inner voice commanded. “Mom, a friend asked if I could come over tomorrow. She said I could bring Chuckie and Michael, too.”

  I heard her sniff once, then her shoulders began to shake. When she sobbed like this, I didn’t know what to do. She hated it if I touched her, so I left, closing the door behind me. No way could I leave her. So much for irresponsible.

  Chapter 10
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  The next morning I dragged down to make breakfast, as usual. Shock. Mom was already in the kitchen. “Hello, honey.” She smiled at me. “What time are you going to your friend’s house?”

  My chin hit the linoleum, I’m sure.

  Mom added, “Don’t worry about Chuckie and Michael. I’m here. I thought we’d walk to the playground or something.”

  My heart leapt. A whole Saturday all to myself? Without thinking, I threw my arms around Mom and squeezed. She shrank back, but didn’t disintegrate.

  I rushed to the telephone and called Jazz. After I told her the good news, I thought of something. “Wait, I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Jazz said.

  “I don’t have a bathing suit.”

  “No problem,” she said. “I have tons of suits.” She gave me the directions to her house and I figured out the bus route. For once I was glad Mom was scared to drive, because she collected all the bus maps. I wrote down Jazz’s address and phone number to leave with her. Just in case.

  At the front door Mom wrapped her robe tighter and said, “Don’t be too late.”

  “I won’t.” Please, God, I prayed, make her be okay. Allday okay. “I’ll be home by dinner. I promise.”

  The number twelve bus screeched to the curb and I climbed on. The backseat was empty. A good omen. As the bus rumbled away, I didn’t even look back. Just forward, down the aisle and out the front window. Even though I had brought along an algebra assignment, I didn’t get it out. And for the first time ever the diesel fumes didn’t make me gag.

  Three blocks from home at Sinclair Boulevard a traffic jam slowed our progress. What’s going on? I wondered. I peered out the dingy side window and did a double take. Overnight, a new strip mall had risen from the old landfill. Where had I been? I rode the number twelve at least twice a month to take Chuckie to the library for storytime. Was I asleep the whole way? No, usually I worked on homework or zoned out while Chuckie played with his race cars on the seat. Another thing struck me: the streets were wet.

  I vaguely remembered asking Michael the night before why his socks were soaked, and his telling me his shoes had holes in them. He must’ve walked home in the rain. Instead of worrying about his getting a chill on top of the flu, I’d yelled about the socks. Oh, man.

  It’d be pretty muddy at the playground, I thought. But the boys wouldn’t mind. They’d have a blast. Of course, I’d probably end up doing three loads of laundry.

  My head lolled back against the seat. Sometimes I wished they would all disappear. Then I felt guilty for wishing it. Soon enough I’d leave for college. Three years from now, if I got into the accelerated program. Three years, if my savings lasted. Three years. It seemed like a lifetime. After I left, who’d take care of the boys? The guilt gushed back.

  “Stop it!” I ordered out loud. “They’re not your responsibility.”

  Everyone in the bus twisted around to look at me.

  I slid down in my seat, feigning invisibility.

  Anyway, I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t have to. Not today. Today I imagined myself in another time, another place. As Princess Antonia who lived in a palace. Just like the one on the corner.

  The bus screeched to a stop. My eyes strayed from the palace to the address Jazz had written down. Hey, this was it, the Luther estate. Hastily I gathered my things and jumped off the bus.

  Jazz wasn’t kidding. Or was she? It’d be just like her to make up some fake address, then howl hysterically with her punker pals about how she’d duped a ya-ya. I almost got back on the bus. Then something told me not to. To trust.

  There was a buzzer outside the gate. As soon as I pushed it, the houses enormous front door swung open. Jazz skipped down the driveway and flung wide the wrought-iron gate. “Entrez,” she said, making a swooping gesture with her arm. “Let’s party, girl.”

  Jazz wasn’t kidding either when she said she had tons of bathing suits. There were at least a dozen in her drawer, all different styles. “Try this bikini,” she said, looping a teeny-tiny bra over her pinkie.

  “I don’t think so.” Instinctively my arms encircled my body, warding off the imagined chill. “Don’t you have a one-piece?”

  “My lifesaving suits.” She pulled out another stack from a different drawer. “Blue, red, or green?”

  “Uh, green.”

  She tossed it to me. While I tried on the suit behind a Japanese screen in her bedroom, Jazz answered her ringing telephone. “No, not today,” she said. “I have company.” There was a pause. “None of your business, bat breath. Are you jealous?” she asked. Then she laughed. “Good.” The springs on her round bed squeaked as she flounced around.

  Her bedroom was gigantic. And gorgeous. The walls were papered with Japanese flowers, and there were closets everywhere. Walk-in. Plus mirrors, floor to ceiling. The only mirror I had was the cloudy one over my dresser, and I had to jump on the bed to see my bottom half.

  Jazz hung up as I slipped out shyly from behind the screen. “Girl,” she said. “You make me sick.”

  I tensed. “Why?”

  “You are so tall and skinny. I’m like totally, insanely jealous. You could be a supermodel.”

  I scoffed, “Yeah, right. So, where’re your parents?”

  Jazz grabbed a bikini and slipped around the screen. “Mommy dearest is at an art gallery opening, but she’ll be home around noon to rag on us. Papa is at the club. Playing racquetball or something else without meaning or value.” She walked out. “What? What are you staring at?”

  I quickly dropped my eyes. “I just never thought you were, you know, rich.”

  “Yeah. It’s a drag.”

  A sarcastic laugh escaped from my lips.

  “Really, I mean it. My parents are like, “We have to be proper. We must impress. Dress for dinnah. Sip your tea, dahling.’” She stuck out a pinkie. “It’s sickening.”

  I could handle it, I thought.

  “Well, come on.” Jazz yanked me by the wrist. “It’s time you learned how to sink or swim.”

  Sink or swim. Why did that scare me?

  Because swimming was scary, that’s why. Especially in the indoor, Olympic-size pool that we had all to ourselves. If we somehow got to the center, we’d never find our way out. At the deep end, Jazz dived in headfirst. I sat on the edge near the shallow end and swished my legs through the water. Goosebumps prickled my skin.

  Jazz stroked up to me. She stood and whipped her hair back off her face. “First, you need to lose your fear,” she said.

  How’d she know? My trembling lips? My ghostly pallor? Okay. I plunged in. And shriveled to a raisin.

  “Lie down,” Jazz said.

  I looked at her like she was the psychopath I’d always suspected.

  “I’ll hold you up.”

  She wasn’t displaying two fingers, unless they were hidden behind her back. I took a deep breath and fell over backward. Jazz held me while I floated. It was great. She even let me go and I stayed afloat. Then she showed me how to tread water. Pretty soon I was doing it myself. Treading water and falling into a back float. Jazz was a good teacher.

  We clung to the side and I practiced breathing. Once I forgot where we were in the breathing pattern—in, out, in, out—and swallowed a gallon of chlorine. I couldn’t stop coughing.

  Jazz slapped me on the back. “We better take a break,” she said.

  “No!” I choked and regained my breath. Tried to. “I’m okay. Let’s keep going.”

  “God, you’re obsessed,” she said.

  I was, too. It was as if my life depended on today. On learning how to swim.

  “Okay,” Jazz said. “Let’s take it out. Put everything together.”

  Sink or swim kept running through my head. Sink or swim. Sink or … suddenly everything went black.

  Chapter 11

  “Breathe deeply.” Jazz sat on her haunches over me, rubbing my legs. “Again. That’s good. Relax.”

  “What happened?” My voice sounded har
sh. My throat felt raw.

  “You blacked out. You started sinking and I had to save you.” Jazz turned away and hacked.

  I inhaled and exhaled. “Sorry.”

  She hacked again. She flopped back alongside me on the tile and said, “Good thing you are skinny. Otherwise they’d be scraping you off the bottom of the deep end. And me, too.”

  The skylights blurred as my eyes closed against the stinging.

  “You can thank me for saving your life now,” Jazz said.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say a word. A lump clogged my throat. Luckily, the sliding door opened and a cheery voice said, “There you are. Oh.” The voice changed. “You didn’t tell me you were having company over.”

  “I’m having company over,” Jazz said flatly.

  The woman sighed. “Hello, I’m Jasmine’s mother,” she said. “Marguerite Luther.” She stood over me, lips pursed, forcing a smile.

  Awkwardly I clambered to my feet. Still feeling dizzy, I stuck out my hand to shake. “I’m Antonia Dillon. Thank you for having me over. You have a lovely house, and a lovely pool.” I glanced down at Jazz, now sprawled out on the tile. “And a, uh, lovely daughter.”

  Mrs. Luther’s smile warmed. “And you have lovely manners.” To Jazz she said, “Your taste in friends is improving.”

  Jazz sniped, “She’s not my friend. We’re in peer counseling.

  I felt like crawling into the drain.

  Jazz met my eyes, then looked away. “I’m teaching Tone to drown with dignity.” She rolled over and, cupping both hands around her mouth, called to the empty pool, “Hey, girl. You drowning out there?” Her voice changed to mock me. “Why, yes, thank you. It’s quite lovely.”

  Jazz’s mother scorched her with a look. Pivoting on her high heels, Mrs. Luther clicked off across the tile toward the sliding glass doors. Over her shoulder she said, “Please don’t pollute the pool with any more dead bodies, darling. I just had it cleaned from the last time.” She exited.

  “Mother thinks she’s funny.” Jazz got up and tossed me a towel. “Next week we’ll concentrate more on putting everything together—without the sinking part.”

  Next week? I might not be able to come next week. “Could you show me now?”