After school, Bernie and I stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the nice lady in the neon pinafore to signal that it was safe to cross. Just before I stepped off the curb, however, my mother’s van pulled up alongside us.
“Did Sarah get on the bus already?” she asked by way of greeting.
As if in answer to her question, several buses rattled by, spewing exhaust.
“Oh hi, Julia.” At the sight of my mother, Bernie tried to return to reality. He once described for me in detail the Sandroheen queen. It came as no surprise that she was the spitting image of my mother. How did she earn such loyalty? From the time he was four, my mother gave Bernie free reign under our front porch. Rebeltown, as he called it, was Bernie’s favorite place to hang out. And his favorite visitor was Julia Donuthead. All the cowboys shot their guns in the air when she came around.
“I’ll give you guys a ride home,” she said, patting the front passenger seat. “Guests up front. Hop in, Bern.”
As soon as we were captive and fastened into our seats, she added: “But I still have to tell Sarah’s dad about tomorrow.”
Off we sped toward Sarah Kervick’s trailer, which was in just the opposite direction of our own tidy, safe, bungalow-style ranch. For Bernie, this was a delightful turn of events. He now had the promise of a long ride that would result in his arriving at home without the bother of obeying traffic signals or tripping over broken pavement.
I was less thrilled by the prospect of a visit to Sarah Kervick’s home. Everything about her home environment—from the trailer that sat crookedly on cinder blocks, to the assorted rusting auto parts that surrounded the cars Mr. Kervick was fixing up, to his attempts to get my mother to hook up the adults-only cable package “on the low,” to his unchained dogs—had a very bad effect on my blood pressure. Sarah always provided a measure of protection against these dangers, but she had taken the bus, so we were sure to arrive before her.
What to do? My mother and Bernie were already involved in a discussion of Jun Dun geography, so I figured I might as well sink into a pleasant contemplation of my own: how to calmly invite Glynnis Powell to sit with us at lunch without the noticeable redirection of blood flow to my craniofacial muscles. Surely our conversation topics, which ranged from medieval fantasy, to the physics of a rear-entry single-lutz skate jump, to the nutritional merits of eating fruit with or without the skin, would be more interesting to her than whatever piece of gossip the girls were gnawing on at her lunch table.
Under my breath, I tried out a few oh-so-casual openers that might lead elegantly to an invitation.
“Oh hello, Glynnis,” I might say as we filed out of health class together. “Wasn’t that a fascinating session on the toxicity of cigarettes?”
No. Bad form to bring up toxicity and then lunch. Begin again.
Manage to get to door frame at same time and say with surprise: “Glynnis. Hello! Where are you off to?” And, having memorized her schedule and knowing she will say “Spanish,” reply with a chipper, “Oh. Sí. Hasta la vista. En la cafetería?”
What if I raised my eyebrows slightly? Maybe a slight incline of the head? Was there a Spanish word for cafetorium?
I decided this was an excellent way to proceed because Glynnis could translate my line in her next class, saving us both the embarrassment of a simultaneous blush.
But my planning session was interrupted by the van’s bone-jarring arrival on what can only politely be called Sarah Kervick’s street (though the word street brings to mind pavement, curbs, and dividing lines, and this narrow dirt lane with potholes the size of bowling balls did not do that).
Bernie didn’t come back to earth until the car was parked and one of Sarah’s hounds had leapt up to press his face against the window, making a most unpleasant noise with his toenails on the passenger-side door. Pressing the latch on the glove compartment, Bernie pulled out a box of Thompson Treats: Specially Formulated Reward Behavior Dog Biscuits.
“He knows you’re here, Julia,” he said calmly, smiling up at her from underneath his bangs and handing over the box.
Thompson Treats had been developed by Pelican View’s own Trevor Thompson. My mother had heard him speak from the air-conditioning duct at the forty-second Chow Hound franchise, where she was at work installing cable lines so employees could watch Animal Planet in the break room. His talk was entitled “Positive Rewards, Positive Results.”
She leapt out of the car, box in hand, and out came the second, more timid, of Sarah’s dogs to sit and beg at the coveted spot by my mother’s right hand. One was named Pretzel and one Zero, though I could never remember which was which. Together, they stirred up a cloud of dust with their rears and tails as they sat, impatiently, eyes on my mother’s right hand, waiting for a Thompson Treat and a pat on the head.
Bernie jumped out of the van and joined the fracas. I preferred to remain in my place, though when Mr. Kervick appeared, wiping his oil-blackened hands on a grimy rag, I did crack my window.
Sometimes I try to imagine what my own father looks like. We have never met him. He just…well…provided the ingredients. I don’t know how to talk about this to people who don’t already know. Some people think a child who is the product of a mom and a sperm donor is just plain weird. If only they knew—there are millions of us in schools across America!
It’s like my mother wanted to make a cake and she went to the store to get some flour. While I might have chosen stone-ground, organic, whole-wheat pastry flour from a family-run cooperative in Wisconsin, she probably took whatever was closest to hand, even if it meant the on-sale store brand dangerously near its sell-by date.
“I wanted a healthy guy” is all she’ll tell me.
But my mother wanted a baby, not a cake. This required sperm, not flour. And since I bear very little resemblance to my mother in either looks or personality, she may have grabbed the container that advertised: “sensitive-intelligent-asymmetrical-immaculate male” in her rush to get the whole business over with. As she is repeatedly reminding me, what she wanted was: “normal-dog-loving-athletic sports fan.” But I can hardly be held responsible for my own genes, now can I?
Whatever I had in mind for my father had nothing in common with the man who was at this very moment standing across from my mother. He wore a denim work jacket over a stained muscle shirt. His lips seemed permanently clenched around an unfiltered cigarette; his balding head had been over-exposed to the sun for many a year. In short, the man was a walking bundle of risk factors for a variety of cancers, including skin, throat, lung, and stomach lining.
“Whatcha got today?” he asked, expertly keeping the cigarette in place while he talked. My mother was still kneeling, rewarding the dogs with her presence and scratching them behind the ears. She looked up at him.
“Just wanted to let you know, Sarah’s first competition is in three weeks.”
“That so?”
“There will be an exhibition the week before, sort of like a dress rehearsal. I know how much she wants you to come.”
“Might have to work,” he said, concentrating now on the oil between his fingers and digging in with the rag. In addition to fixing up cars and roofing during the summer, Sarah’s father did temp work at the door-panel factory over in Marshfield.
My mother set her box of Thompson Treats on the hood of the van and waited. She wanted an answer. She wasn’t going to let Mr. Kervick off the hook. Without treats in the immediate vicinity of their noses, the dogs whined and started jumping up on my mother. Bernie tried to distract them with an empty fist held just above their heads, but that made them jump higher and paw the air.
“Get on!” Mr. Kervick growled, swiping at them with his rag.
Was it the tone of his voice or the threat of a swat that drove them to run, ears back, tails tucked between their legs, into the shed where Mr. Kervick kept his tools?
My mother folded her arms. So much for positive rewards.
“Back in the car, Bern.” After Bernie had slammed the door
, she continued: “Well, I’ll have her Thursday after school, getting fitted for her skating costume…and a sandwich after, if it’s all right by you.”
Mr. Kervick had a hard time setting his eyes anywhere, and—I’d observed—he had a particularly hard time looking my mother in the eye.
But now he dropped his cigarette in the dirt and stepped in closer, lowering his voice. I couldn’t make out all he said, only the snatches: “You done a lot for Sarah, her not having a ma and all…” and “…take up work with my brother over in Muskegon…”
When he finished, he seemed to be waiting for her to say something. It was as if he’d doled out so many more words than usual, my mother owed him a few back. But she didn’t answer. She just shrugged her shoulders and got back in the van, closing the door, turning the key in the ignition, and placing her hands on the steering wheel, all with the slow, controlled movements that told me my mother was trying her best not to fly off the handle.
We passed Sarah’s bus in a cloud of dust on the way to the main road.
Finally, when we were back on pavement, my mother turned to Bernie: “‘We never stay in one place long.’ That’s what he said.” She continued, imitating Mr. Kervick’s raspy voice. “‘It might do ya to remember that.’”
“I’m sorry, Julia…” Bernie had been out of conversation range, lost among the tall grass of the Jun Dun Plain. “What were you saying?”
“Was that supposed to be a threat?” she asked him.
Before I could contribute a resounding “Yes!” from the backseat, my mother twisted the volume on the radio, and we were awash in the unsafe decibel levels of her favorite classic-rock station.
CHAPTER FOUR
Marked as an Unfortunate
As if this wasn’t enough extracurricular activity for one day, my mother and I set out after dinner to run a few errands. This included picking up her work boots from the repair shop and purchasing a dress.
Paul had invited my mother to the fish fry at the Lions Club on Friday night. He wanted her to wear a dress. This doesn’t seem odd unless you know my mother. As soon as she started paying her own way, Julia Donuthead stopped wearing dresses.
“I just don’t prefer them,” she’d respond when challenged. Her willingness to buy one now told me that things with Paul were taking a very serious turn.
As soon as I got in the van, I noticed something odd suctioned to the dashboard. It looked like a test tube.
“What is this?” I asked, pointing to it.
“What is what?” My mother pulled out into traffic.
“This.” I reached over and put her hand on it.
“Oh…um, nothing.” She pulled it off the dash with a thwock and stuffed it in her glove compartment. All while accelerating to forty-five miles per hour.
“I still saw it,” I said, waiting for the explanation.
“It’s a vase, all right, Detective Donuthead?”
“If it’s a vase, why doesn’t it have flowers in it?”
“I found you a community-service activity,” she announced as we turned into the parking lot of Alpine Shoe Repair.
I sighed. “Fine.” As with a number of things going on lately, no further explanation would be provided. “I thought I was supposed to find me a community-service job.”
After carefully considering my choices, I had decided that Sarah and I could stuff envelopes for the Land Conservancy. They had a nice renovated office on Main Street. The worst outcome I could think of was a paper cut, and it wouldn’t require much of Sarah’s concentration.
“I met up with Mack Putnam down at Perkins’ Drug Store, and he said Grace in the library could use some help reshelving the books. Her knees aren’t what they used to be, and the picture books are all down by the floor.”
“Are we speaking of Mrs. Boardman in the Pelican View Elementary library?”
“Right. Sorry. Mr. Putnam, your old principal, wants you to help Mrs. Boardman, your old librarian.”
“Library aide,” I corrected her. “But I can’t go back to Pelican View Elementary. I’m a sixth grader.”
We’d pulled into the department-store parking lot, and my mother unlocked the doors.
“Oh, Franklin, it’s not a hard job. It’s better than touching germy kids. There’s almost no possibility of being struck by lightning or held hostage at gunpoint. Just make my life easy for once and do it without the endless commentary, okay?”
“Well, I…” I could see she was dead serious. My mother gets very stressed out when she goes shopping. “Okay.”
“Now grit your teeth and help me find a dress.”
“Okay,” I said quietly, and I offered no commentary about the fact that while there is nothing statistically dangerous about the ladies’ section of a department store, I, too, feel uneasy when I’m in one. This may be due to bad memories of trying to keep track of my mother as she power walked through the store. Now that I could see above the racks, however, this was less of an issue.
As we headed to Misses’ Dresses, I realized the problem. Everywhere you looked, you were reminded of…well, women. Ladies’ pajamas, ladies’ workout wear, ladies’ lingerie.
I saw a man about my mother’s age looking similarly uncomfortable, pressed into one of those little chairs outside the dressing room. A woman came out in a pair of dress pants, lifted up the tails of her blouse and turned in a circle.
“How does this look from the back?” she said. “I’m going for professional. It’s an interview.”
I froze in place. Was she talking to me? This would be a difficult question to answer tactfully.
He mumbled something and I hurried along.
My mother was attacking the sale rack, pulling out one dress after the other and frowning. I began to search the next size up and pulled out a perfectly nice shirtdress in neutral brown.
“What about this?”
“Oh, please, Franklin. I don’t want to look like the lady at the license bureau. It’s a dance.”
“I thought it was a fish fry!”
“It’s a fish fry and a dance.”
“Is it…formal?” I asked, hoping not. If Paul had invited my mother to the prom for forty-somethings, things were even worse than they seemed.
“No.”
“Aren’t these the summer dresses?” I asked, fingering the material. “You’ll get goose bumps if you wear these in October, Mother. Goose bumps are not attractive on a woman your age. Maybe something wool…”
My mother had pulled out a black dress covered with sprays of pollen-producing wildflowers.
“You can’t wear that. It doesn’t have any sleeves.”
“Yes it does. They’re called cap sleeves.”
I eyed her suspiciously.
“Don’t look like that. We have InStyle in the break room at work.”
“Well…try it on then,” I urged her, against my better judgment. There was something to be said for just getting it over with.
I took my seat opposite the gentleman assigned to comment on how his wife fit into business attire.
He looked over at me and shrugged. “Tough duty, eh?”
I nodded. It was indeed.
“Tell you what, you take my wife and I’ll take your mom. That way things’ll go easier for us at home.”
At that very moment, his wife peeked out of the dressing room and proceeded to model another outfit.
“What in the Sam Hill…?”
“It’s called a ‘skort.’ It’s a cross between a skirt and shorts.” She walked farther away so that we could get a better look.
“Give me the damage,” she said, turning around.
The man across the aisle raised his eyebrows as if asking me to live up to my end of the bargain. I tried to formulate something positive, but the only phrase that came to mind was “elastic limit.” I was saved from further embarrassment by my mother’s appearance in the doorway. She walked past us barefoot and turned around.
The man in the opposite chair whistled softly
and said to his wife, “Do they have one of those in your size?”
The woman eyed my mother critically. She tugged on the dress, went around back, and finished zipping the zipper.
“Stand up straight and own it, honey,” the woman said.
“This dress fits you like a glove.”
My mother laughed and put her hands to her face, embarrassed. She had taken her hair out of its ponytail, and it fell down around her shoulders. Her long, muscled arms were still tan. The dress, tight along her rib cage, flared out and fell in soft folds just above her ankles.
There was something about the way she laughed, like a middle-school girl, and how she kept rising up on the balls of her feet that made me realize my mother was once young herself.
“Well, Franklin?” she asked.
I said the only thing that came to mind: “You look pretty.”
Paul’s pickup was parked smack in the middle of the driveway when we got home.
“Will this day never end?” I mumbled into the door as I stepped out of the van and braced myself for a clap on the shoulder.
“Hey, babe.” Paul, who’d been sitting on the doorstep, jumped up to greet us.
“Hey. I thought you were working tonight.”
“Got off a little early.”
I studied the tips of my shoes while they kissed.
“So?” My mother unlocked the front door and held it open for us. I hurried through. In his excitement to see my mother, Paul had forgotten his usual greeting to me.
“Well, I stopped by Bert’s Surplus to get some of that baling twine for all those pallets we got out back behind the ice rink, and I picked up an item for Franklin here.”
Since he was behind me, Paul’s hand clap caught me completely by surprise. I staggered into the hallway, trying to stay upright.
“Well, isn’t that funny? Because we were out getting something for you, too.”
Donutheart Page 3