Waiting for Normal

by Leslie Connor

  I ate my soup, peeking out the front window every once in a while to see if Mommers was coming. At six thirty, I rinsed my bowl and figured I’d better get ready. I took the world’s fastest shower, using most of the time to shave my armpits—very carefully. I stepped into the dress and yanked it up hard, hoping it would split in two. (It didn’t.) I tucked my bra straps down inside the ruffle.

  “Piccolo,” I said, stopping by her cage, “be glad you came to the world with fur.” She started a run on her wheel.

  I looked in the mirror. My shoulders looked naked. I remembered Helena’s idea about the sweater and decided to try it even if it would make Mommers mad. I looked through my own things, came up empty and headed for Mommers’ room. There was a white cardigan with pearly buttons in her drawer. I pushed my arms into the sweater. I wrestled the ruffle flat and got all the buttons closed. “Ha! Trapped it!” I said, and Piccolo stopped running to look at me.

  I went to the mirror once more. “This is all wrong,” I sighed. The flattened ruffle showed through the sweater and looked like some kind of strange roadkill. The sweater rode up too short on me because of the ruffle, which was trying to spring back to full fluff. I pulled down on the sweater hem so many times it began to lose shape. I knew I had Helena beat on the dorkiness scale no matter what her skirt looked like. And talk about itchy! With all that netting rubbing my skin, I felt like I was being sanded. On the other hand, I was happy to be covered up. “White on top, black on bottom.” I did a little side to side glance in the mirror and talked myself into thinking that I looked okay.

  I grabbed my Fresh Whisper and reached under the sweater—couldn’t let that ruffle out—and loaded my pits. I brushed my hair, then my teeth, and checked the clock. Six fifty. I shuffled into a pair of black plastic clogs, my only nonsneaker shoes.

  “We’ll have to fly to be there by seven now,” I told Pic. “And”—I raised a finger and grinned—“Mommers will be too late to make me change … if she ever shows. Gosh, she has to show.” I put my coat on and looked out the picture window. No sign of the blue car.

  At seven fifteen, I felt hotter than a prairie fire. I’d been buttoned up in all my layers for twenty long minutes. “Oh, Mommers! Come on! Come on!” I wriggled and clenched the handle of the flute case hard in my hand. Finally, it hit me, she wasn’t coming. I was going to miss the concert.

  The phone rang.

  “Addie?” Dwight spoke loudly, like he couldn’t hear well. In the background I could hear the members of the Stage Orchestra tuning their instruments. “Where are you?” he shouted.

  Well, think about that, Dwight, I thought to say.

  Where did you call? That’s what Mommers would have said to him. I bit my lip.

  “Mommers must have forgotten,” I said.

  “How the heck— Hold on,” he said. Dwight was talking to somebody. Hannah? No. He had Ms. Rivera there with him.

  “I should’ve walked,” I said, knowing it was too late now.

  “Addie, be ready! I’m coming!” I heard a click.

  Dwight came screeching up in front of the trailer minutes later and I hopped into Hannah’s car. (The truck was too small for everyone.) He flashed a white smile at me. “Hiya!”

  I grinned back. “Hiya,” I said.

  I assembled my flute in the car as we roared up Nott Street. I ran into the school at the backstage door, which was propped open for air, with Dwight on my heels. I peeked into the auditorium. The house lights were still up. I caught a look at a few faces in the front row.

  “Oh God!” I gasped. I backed out so fast I stepped on Dwight’s boots. “We have to leave!” I grabbed his arm.

  “What? Addie, come on. They waited for you!”

  Ms. Rivera was turned toward me, a nervous smile on her lips.

  “Dwight! I can’t,” I whispered. I dug my fingers into him.

  “Ow!”

  “We have to leave,” I said. I pulled him back out toward the parking lot. My heart pounded. I could hardly breathe. “It’s Mrs. Sylvester,” I said, still gripping his jacket. “She’s the music teacher from my old school. She’s here!”

  “So?” Dwight’s face was all twisted up. My bottom lip started to quiver.

  “The flute. She knows I never returned it. Dwight, I mean it. I can’t go in.”

  Dwight went inside just long enough to flag Ms. Rivera. I guess he told her to start the concert without me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said when he came back. I had already disassembled the flute and was snapping down the lid. The sound of our opening piece poured from the stage door. It was beautiful—and crushing. “I know you went to a lot of trouble to be here. And to get me here,” I choked.

  “No, no, no. Never mind that.” Dwight reached into his pocket, but since he was in his fancy clothes he didn’t have a handkerchief. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand and wiped my face first, then my nose. He pulled me inside his jacket and stood there hugging me. Hannah came around the building from the main entrance within minutes, one Little on each arm.

  “Are you guys all right?” she asked. She dropped my sisters’ hands and they ran to me.

  “Why you didn’t play, Oddie?” Katie wanted to know.

  “What happened?” Brynna stared at me. Poor Brynna. I wished she were still little like Katie. We couldn’t just blow her off anymore by telling her part of the truth or plunking a dish of ice cream in front of her.

  “The …the flute,” I lied. “I have a problem with the flute.”

  “Right,” said Dwight. “We need to do something about the flute.”

  Hannah and Brynna looked completely puzzled still.

  Dwight brought his hands together in a loud clap that I think startled even him. “Why don’t we go for a drive, look at Christmas lights, and we’ll end up over at Numbskull Dorry’s like we were planning.”

  “Yippee!” Katie’s happy breath made a cloud in the chilly air.

  “That way Mommers can still catch up with us there,” Dwight added.

  Mommers. I fumed at the mention of her. Anger roared up inside of me, then faded in a sick feeling.

  “Can you take me back to the trailer first?” I asked. “I want to change.”

  Mommers arrived at Numbskull Dorry’s Pretty Good Pub Food in a frantic flurry of swear words. Her hair was a mess, like tumbled hay. I watched her wide eyes narrow as she focused on me.

  “Where were you?” she fired at me. “I get to the concert expecting to see you on that stage and …Is this about the dress, Addison?” She stared at my clothes—jeans and a sweatshirt. I felt surprisingly calm. “Where is the dress?” she spat.

  The silence went long. Finally, Dwight stood up.

  “Come on, Denise. Been a few twists and turns tonight,” he said in a low and gentle voice.

  “Twists and turns— I’ll say,” I mumbled.

  “The concert,” Mommers said, looking at me. “What happened?”

  I shrugged.

  “We had a little problem with the flute,” Dwight said. He touched my shoulder. “Didn’t we, Addie, girl?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well …what? Is it broken? We’ll get it fixed,” Mommers said. She combed her hair out of her face with her fingers.

  “It’s not that simple,” I mumbled.

  “What are you telling me, Addison? Can’t somebody just tell me?”

  “Let’s get you a piece of pie, huh? Sit down.” Dwight offered Mommers a chair, his hand on her back. “By the way, this is Han—”

  Mommers threw Dwight off. He moved away from her.

  I looked around me. Hannah sat pulling her lips in between her teeth. Katie leaned close to Hannah, and Brynna sat twisting her napkin in her fingers while she stared into her lap.

  This is going nicely, I thought.

  I cleared my throat. “Mommers, I waited for you at the trailer,” I said, looking her in the eye. “I waited forever.”

  chapter 29

  the counting on part

>   Mommers stared back at me, not speaking. Hannah was making tiny throat clearing noises. She wrapped Katie with one arm. Her other hand was open over Brynna’s knee. Dwight waited. He did that a lot—waited like a circus guy who has the job of catching but the net was never big enough.

  Mommers and I stayed locked on each other. Then she did it—blinked, like a person waking. She dropped her head into her own hand, her thumb and finger pressing her temples. I knew that pose. That meant she was done with the angry stuff. I sat back in my chair, still watching her. She looked like a car out of gas on a hill.

  “Denise? Everything all right?” Dwight asked. Mommers slowly let herself into a chair. Her purse hit the floor at her side.

  “I’m just …just so …I don’t know …tired,” she said. “And I was worried. I couldn’t find you all.” She looked from person to person at the table. “None of you were at the school.”

  “Well, here we are,” Hannah said softly. “You’ve found us now.” Mommers looked at her—no particular expression. Hannah forced a smile and I thought I should pull her aside and tell her—tell her what? Not to bother?

  “You’re Hannah,” Mommers said, focusing now.

  “Yes. Nice to meet you,” Hannah said. Gentle smile.

  Mommers’ gaze seemed to trace the outline of Hannah and my little sisters as they leaned together. Katie’s pink fingers curled around a roll in Hannah’s sweater. Brynna rubbed her ear against Hannah like a cat passing a couch. I felt sorry for Mommers then. Those were her little girls.

  Katie broke the silence. “Mommers, I gotted the clown head ice cream.” She turned her bowl around to show Mommers. “See?”

  “Nice, sweetie.” Mommers’ voice was quiet. “And Brynna, honey, what did you get?”

  “It’s just a sundae.” Brynna dropped her head, started messing with her napkin again. Her fudge sundae puddled around the spoon in the dish.

  “You gonna finish? It looks like soup.” Mommers smiled. But Brynna wouldn’t look up. She just kept twisting that napkin.

  “We seed Christmas lights,” Katie piped.

  “Did you now? Any snowmen? Any reindeer?” Mommers asked.

  And so it went for the rest of the night. Katie kept everything light and sweet. But I wondered what would happen when she grew up—like Brynna. We’d be this whole family of napkin twisters.

  At home that night, I curled up in my bunk and felt terrible. I had missed the concert. I’d let everyone down. I wrapped my arms around my pillow and squeezed it hard. I’d been looking forward to December twelfth for weeks. Now it was over and there was no going back. No going back to the flute either, I decided.

  It’ll just happen again, I thought. Tonight will happen again.

  Not the concert, but something like it. Maybe there would not be a stolen flute again, but there could be another embarrassing dress. Or worse, a ride that never comes. I thought of how Ms. Rivera had waited for me, how the entire Stage Orchestra had waited—my friends! But I had run away when they were all counting on me. That was the thing that bothered me most: the counting on part.

  I socked my pillow. Even before that night there were other things. I’d quit taking books out of the school library in second grade because they always got lost in the house, lost in the mess. I had fixed that. Every week, when my class went to the library, I made sure I took too long to make my selection. Then there wasn’t time for me to check out any more books.

  “I used to be smarter!” I whispered in the dark. “I never should have taken that flute in the first place!” I made a plan before I went to sleep. The flute was going back where it belonged.

  chapter 30

  a frozen good-bye

  I came out of the shower the next morning and heard Mommers talking on the phone. “Maybe, Dwight. I’ll think about it. I’m not going to give you an answer now. And next time, don’t call so early on a Saturday!” She banged the phone into the cradle.

  “Sorry I wasn’t out to answer it,” I said, rubbing my hair with a towel.

  Mommers said nothing. She lit a cigarette and pulled her robe around her.

  “What did Dwight want?”

  “You.”

  “Really?”

  Mommers nodded. “For part of Christmas break.”

  “Oh.” I waited, then said, “Wouldn’t that be good? I mean if it’s just for part? Aren’t you and Pete going to be working?”

  “Like I told Dwight, I’ll think about it.”

  I dropped it there. She was in her “don’t press me” mood.

  “Hey, Mommers? What are you doing today?” I asked.

  “I’m leaving in an hour. I’ll be gone awhile. Why?”

  “Just wondered,” I said.

  As soon as Mommers drove away, I bundled into my winter coat, hat and mittens. I was in for a long, cold walk; the weather had turned. I knew I should have boots but I couldn’t squeeze into the pair I’d worn last year. My feet had grown into gunboats. I picked up the flute and started out the door. I guess it was about a mile—maybe a little more—to the bridge. The sidewalk was an obstacle course of brown, frozen snow and ice patches. At the crossings, I had to get pushy with the traffic. The flute case rattled at the handle and bumped on my hip as I trotted across the street. I was glad I hadn’t taken up the tuba.

  I got onto Freeman’s Bridge—the footpath—and started across. Down below, the mighty, muddy Mohawk River had started to freeze. Islands of white ice pushed their way slowly through the water, bumping the banks and getting caught in the flow again. They seemed to try themselves out in empty spots like a giant puzzle wanting to be finished. But except for the ice there wasn’t much life on the river in December. Looking down made me dizzy, especially at the center of the bridge. I liked being even just a few steps closer to one side or the other. I set my gaze ahead and listened to my own feet scraping across the steel until I padded onto the packed snow on the other side of the river. I was a secret agent about to make a drop. I swung the flute case in my hand. Nobody would know anything until Monday morning. I hoped I’d never hear anything about it again.

  I started to hum the music from the concert while I walked. I hummed all of “Around the World at Christmas Time.” Then I switched to the Russian folk piece called “Song of Winter.” On “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba,” I shimmied and slinked along, thinking of Helena and all our fun. I was going to miss being in the Stage Orchestra, but it was a relief to know that I’d be free of stolen property soon. I held the flute case out in front of me and let it lead me in a wavy pattern as I hummed. I danced past the turn that would’ve taken me up toward Grandio’s farm and kept on going. I did the entire holiday concert in humming, and then I started it again.

  Finally, I reached the intersection at Route 50. I had only to cross there, go a short ways on Borden Road and then turn into the school driveway. Easy.

  Right. Easy except for the road crew. Two yellow trucks were inching along the parking lot of my old school cleaning up the dirty snow.

  “Jeepers,” I said right out loud. “Ever hear of taking Saturday off?” The plows pushed scoop after scoop of frozen, filthy snow around two lampposts. I don’t think they noticed me. Up near the front entrance, a woman chopped at the ice with a shovel. She never looked up from her work.

  My plan was messed up. There was no way I could leave the flute at the front door now. I’d have to wait until they finished. So, I kept walking right onto the play yard. I sat on a swing that creaked in the cold air and kept watch on the driveway, waiting for the trucks to go.

  I started to shiver and my toes felt stingy inside my sneakers. The morning had gotten no warmer. “Leave already!” I complained. “Just leave!” My fingers cramped from holding the flute case. I’ll bet an hour went by. Felt like two. Finally, the two trucks bumped away, the woman’s shovel rattling around in the back of one. I hiked myself up to the front door of Borden School and set the flute down gently on the rubber mat. I started away, then turned back to look at the slim
black case.

  “It’s been awesome,” I said. I raised a hand and waved good-bye to music.

  chapter 31

  an unexpected meeting

  “Move, move, move!” I huffed into the air. I was talking to my own body. I shook my hands “ and pumped my elbows. All my hinges ached from the cold. “Exercise warms you,” I insisted. My breath came out in white clouds. So why wasn’t this working? I jogged along the school driveway out to the street begging my body to heat up. I thought of lunch for some crazy reason, maybe because it was lunchtime. Was there still turkey soup at the trailer? That would be good right now. I jogged up to Route 50. There I had to fight the traffic again. One thing about the city is that the drivers watch for pedestrians. But cross the bridge and you’re just a speck. There are no crossing lights even where the intersections are busy. I waited and waited while cars buzzed by me. I looked for a clearing and darted across the road. Someone laid on their horn and nearly honked me out of my shoes. I ignored that and jogged on.

  Again I heard the horn—same one, for sure. Okay, so whoever he was, he was heading the same way as me and got two chances to be rude. “Think I want to be walking out here in the freezing cold, buddy?” I was talking to myself again. I tried to pick up speed just to get closer to home. A big car pulled to the side of the road in front of me. It rolled into a narrow parking lot beyond me. I looked at the glowing taillights and squinted. There was something familiar about that car—

  “Addie! Come on, Addie!”

  I blinked. “Grandio! Hey, Grandio!” I waved, ran on my numb feet to the passenger’s door and pulled it open.

  “What the heck, girl? Didn’t you know it was me? Where you been?” he grumbled.

  I plunked myself down on the seat of the warm, warm, wonderful car. “Oh,” I sighed. “I just wasn’t expecting you. I’ve been walking, Grandio. Boy, have I been walking.”

  “Walking? It’s twenty two degrees out this afternoon, kiddo. And no boots! You must get all your sense from your mother.”