But that fantasy ended when I recognized the horrified expression on his face. He suddenly turned white, with the same look, probably of shame, that he’d had after Lillian, Rebecca and Aunt Sarah had caught him on the sofa with me, hand on butt.
He tried to continue reading, but it wasn’t the same as before. Somehow I’d thrown him completely off. He was quieter now, and he stammered through his own words. A couple of times he even lost his place. As he read the last few lines, he hardly moved his hands, and the final few times he said “Am I in your dream or are you in mine, Mrs. Fauntleroy?” it didn’t have the same effect at all.
“My God,” whispered Azra. “You must have made quite an impression on him.”
When he was finally finished everybody clapped, but it was just out of politeness. A few people turned back to me again, probably to see if I was happy about ruining Calvin’s poem. Calvin, on the other hand, didn’t even look in my direction as he plopped himself down next to Miss Halter Top, who kept staring at me. What was going through her mind?
Number nine, an angry-looking woman with a crew cut, stepped up to the microphone.
“What do you want to do, Floey?” Azra asked me. “After this one, there’s only one more and then you.”
But I just stared at Calvin and Miss Halter Top. I was paralyzed.
The blond girl said something to Calvin and then looked back at me. They whispered a few things back and forth, but Calvin still wouldn’t look at me. Finally, Miss Halter Top stood up and pushed her way through the tables toward me.
“Oh my God,” Azra whispered behind her hand. “They’re coming over here!”
A moment later, the girl was sitting at our table next to me. Behind her, Calvin looked really embarrassed.
Miss Halter Top looked me up and down. “So,” she said, “are you the little girl who threw herself at Calvin the other night?” I didn’t know what to say. She tilted her head. “Are you the little slut who tried so hard to steal my boyfriend? Was that you?”
Azra’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. I think she thought the girl might actually want to fight me. The idea had occurred to me, too.
“I … no,” I said. “I didn’t exactly throw myself at him. Is that what he said?”
The girl glared at me. “Oh, I can read between the lines.”
“Melanie, leave her alone,” Calvin said. “She’s only twelve.”
“Thirteen,” I corrected him.
She put her clenched fists on the table in front of her. “Why are you here tonight?”
Azra glanced nervously at me.
I stared back at this Melanie. “I was hoping to see Calvin again.”
“I knew it!” she said over her shoulder to him. “Well, you saw him, little girl. Now I think you’d better leave.”
Azra moved her chair back, but I shot her a look and she stayed put.
Calvin seemed really uncomfortable. “Come on, Mel … she didn’t do anything wrong.”
Melanie wasn’t bigger than me—we were probably about the same size—but I wondered if she had a lot of experience fighting people.
“Well, I’m not going to leave,” I said finally. “I’m going up to read. I wrote some poems.”
Miss Halter Top stared at me for a long time. I wondered if she was going to throw the table over and lunge at me.
At the front of the room, the angry crew-cut woman was saying something about daffodils.
“All right, then we’re leaving.” The girl stood up. “Coming, Calvin?”
“Aw, don’t be like that.…”
She didn’t wait—she headed toward the door. He hesitated, but after a moment he followed her. At the exit he turned back to me one last time and mouthed a single word. Sorry.
And then he was gone. As simple as that. I never even got the chance to tell him I liked his poem.
Then a strange mixture of emotions ran through me. First, I felt a gush of relief that I hadn’t been beaten up right in the middle of my first poetry reading. Next, I felt a brief moment of happiness because Miss Halter Top had actually been jealous. Soon after that feeling passed, though, all I felt was disappointment. How could Calvin let that girl treat him like that? And why hadn’t he been happy to see me?
What was wrong with him?
What was wrong with me?
Azra stared like she was in awe of me. “Floey, are you okay?”
But I was thinking about fairy tales. You know the kind of happily-ever-after love you find in stories? Well, there’s no such thing. It isn’t real. It never really happens.
“Come on,” I said to her. “Let’s go home.”
I heard somebody call out number eleven just as we stepped from the inside darkness of the café to the outside darkness of Thayer Street.
chaptersix: karma
or
in which i am oblivious to
the signs of sinister activity
going on around me
The next morning I read about karma, dukkha and impermanence. Zen teaches that karma is kind of like a reward system where you gain points when you do good deeds and lose them when you do anything bad. Dukkha, on the other hand, is chaos and suffering. It can strike anybody at any time, sometimes to make up for past bad karma and sometimes not. Impermanence is important too, because everything is always changing.
This is what I wrote in my diary:
Tuesday, July 1, 8:55 a.m.
Dear Florence,
I must either be suffering from bad karma or a heavy dose of dukkha. I can only hope it isn’t permanent.
I know what you’re thinking, Future Me. I’m a failure. I let myself down. I chickened out of doing the reading. I still have no boyfriend. Calvin turned out to be a loser and so did I. The New Floey will probably never exist. Instead, I’ll probably always stay the same old me: ordinary, invisible and pathetic. Even worse, I have to keep my promise to spend the entire day with my evil cousins.
Ma’s out playing doubles with Gary, so Richard told me to make him breakfast. Billy’s with him too. I guess they’re buddies now. Great. They demanded bacon and eggs. I wouldn’t have made it for them except I was thinking about that photograph and, well, that’s one problem I don’t need right now.
I know. You don’t have to say it.
I think I’ll go flush my head down the toilet.
Lillian’s postcards didn’t exactly help my mood. We got two of them that first week. The first card said they were drinking piña coladas in front of the ocean in Cozumel, the first stop in their four-week trip through Mexico. The picture showed a beautiful white beach with grass huts, palm trees and pale blue water. I was jealous. The second card was addressed just to me. The picture was of a row of muscle guys standing together at some kind of outdoor bar. It was a wall of huge, triangular tanned backs and little muscular butts in tiny, brightly colored swimsuits. Lillian had only written a short message: “See anything you’d like to put your hand on?” At the bottom, she’d written: “My best to Calvin! (Oh, and Wen, too!)”
Ha ha.
Tuesday, July 1, 11:45 a.m.
Dear Future Me,
Who are you? Have you done anything important? Anything wonderful? Are you a great artist, a famous photographer, maybe a great writer? Did you find a cure for cancer? I want to know. It must be nice that everybody around you knows you’re exceptionally gifted and amazing. You must be very happy.
Me? At this moment, I’m beginning to think Calvin was right: in the grand scheme of things some of us really are insignificant.
Especially me.
Richard and Billy spent a ridiculous amount of time playing at the computer. They’d sit there together for hours at a stretch. It was amazing how close they’d become in just a few days. Even when they dragged themselves away from the screen, Richard always seemed to hover around Billy. They played ball games on our street with some of Billy’s neighborhood friends. Since Billy was twice Richard’s size, they were like a planet and a moon, with Richard always somewhere in B
illy’s orbit.
Tish, on the other hand, didn’t play much with the boys. She preferred to hover around me. That Tuesday morning, for example, when I tried sitting alone in the backyard reading a book (Richard and Billy had anchored themselves to the computer again), she followed me. The way I figured it, I’d promised my mother I’d stay with my cousins all day, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t ignore them.
Actually, Frank Sinatra was the first one to follow me outside. As I went for the back door, he planted himself right in my way. “I don’t know why I should take you out,” I said to him, “after the way you betrayed me.” But he put on his cutest sad-eyed face. He’s a manipulative ferret. Outside, wearing his harness, he sniffed around in the warm grass a few feet from my lawn chair. “That’s right, traitor,” I said to him. “You better keep your distance.”
The ferret, of course, said nothing. But he didn’t look sorry.
Moments later Tish came out and stood in front of me. My plan to escape my cousins had failed. “Why are you wearing that?” she asked.
I’d decided not to give up on the New Floey and felt like I needed a new look, so I’d gone into one of my sister’s closets. She had a box of costumes from when she used to star in all the high school plays. I’d picked out a black fedora, like all the men wear in really old movies.
The New Interesting Floey Packer, I decided, wears an interesting hat.
“It’s a statement,” I said without looking up from my book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
She considered this and nodded.
I kept reading.
Tish settled herself into the chair next to me. “How many times do you think about sex every day?” she asked. She was reading the questions from a personality quiz in a magazine. “Is it (A) almost never, (B) one to three times, (C) more than three times but not all the time or (D) constantly?”
I tried ignoring her but she wouldn’t go away. She repeated the question.
“Can’t you see I’m reading?” I finally blurted out.
“Which one? I’m testing your Sexual Enthusiasm Level.”
“What? None of your business.”
“All right, I’ll tell you about me,” she said. Along with the magazine, she’d also brought out a box of mini donuts. She popped one into her mouth. “I’m C. I think about it a lot.”
“Okay,” I said. “A. I never think about it.”
“You’re a liar,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m putting you down for C.” She ate another donut in one bite.
“How can you eat those?”
“Why shouldn’t I? They’re good.”
“Don’t you realize donuts are almost one hundred percent saturated fat? For a person so obsessed with boys, I’m surprised you eat like that.”
“I don’t care,” she said with a shrug. “I’m a fabulous and talented person, and the fact that I’m overweight isn’t going to stop boys from flocking to me like moths to a light-bulb.” Then she smiled.
I glanced at the powder on her chubby fingers. If she continued this way, the girl could end up looking like a minivan. But she was so confident that I believed her—and still do even now.
Here I was trying to become fabulous at thirteen, while Tish was convinced she already was. And she was only ten.
“And I’m not obsessed,” she said. “Just preparing myself. Ready for question two?”
I looked back down at my book, but she didn’t seem to notice my lack of interest in her test.
“Which of the following animals most closely represents your last boyfriend?” She looked up. “We could use our most recent crushes instead.” Then she continued reading: “Is it (A) a pouncing tiger, (B) a cuddly teddy bear, (C) a scampering puppy or (D) a strutting peacock?”
I put my book down. “A scampering puppy? What kind of a boy is that supposed to mean?”
“Probably one who likes the girl to be in charge, like a mama’s boy.”
“What’s your answer?”
She put her pencil to her pudgy chin and considered. “I guess A, a pouncing tiger.”
“Really?”
“I think so. I don’t know for sure, but I bet I’d like a boy who gets right to the point. What about you? Remember, it has to be about your last boyfriend or crush.”
I almost said, “Too bad they don’t have (E) an oblivious sea slug or (F) an insufferable weasel,” but I didn’t.
Frank Sinatra rolled his eyes as if he’d heard my thoughts.
As decreed by my mother, each morning during my cousins’ stay I cleaned up their stuff. I did it as fast as possible, flying around the bedrooms picking up clothes and throwing them into the corners, shoving things under the beds and rushing the vacuum over the carpets. Usually, Richard’s room was a disaster. He would just throw his dirty socks, pajamas and other stuff wherever he happened to be the moment he didn’t need them anymore. But strangely, I thought, every now and then he made his bed—he wouldn’t tidy anything else, just the bed. It was no big deal and it only happened every few days, but it was odd. Each time, I’d wonder if he’d realized I wasn’t going to be his chef and his personal maid.
Tuesday, July 1, 12:40 p.m.
Wen called again. This time he just wanted to say hi and make sure I’m feeling better. We talked for almost forty-five minutes! He said they played music all day and his lips were starting to hurt. It was nice to talk to him, but kind of surprising, considering everything.
Hmmmm …
What’s that you’re asking, Floey of the Future? You want to know what’s on my mind? Is it that obvious? I guess I can never get anything by you, can I? You notice everything.
Okay, so maybe you can help me understand something.
It’s been two days in a row now, and Wen seems very very concerned about me. Is it my imagination, or does it seem, O my wise and enlightened future self, like these calls might be just a little bit more than mere friendly cheer-me-up conversations?
But that has to be just a crazy idea—me getting my hopes up, right? Why now? And what about Kim? Doesn’t he still have her right there with him?
I wish you could come back and tell me what’s going on here!
Still, no matter how you look at it, Wen is nicer than Calvin could ever be in his wildest dreams.
That afternoon, after I’d bicycled home from Gary’s studio (even though Wen no longer worked there, I’d decided to keep going—I actually liked fiddling with all the equipment), Richard and Billy and their friends completely stopped what they were doing just to watch me. One minute they were playing in the street, shouting and laughing, and the next minute they were quiet. It’s weird enough to have a crowd of people suddenly turn and stare at you, but when it’s a bunch of little boys it’s absolutely creepy.
I tried to ignore them and calmly got off my bike. Just as I was about to wheel it into its place under the stairs, Billy called out in that strange voice of his, “Are those things heavy to carry around?”
At first I didn’t know what he meant, but when I looked at him and followed his gaze to my tank top I understood. He was staring at my chest. I crossed my arms to cover myself.
“Pervert!” I said.
The other little boys snickered.
On top of spying on me from his window, was Billy going to turn all the neighborhood boys into crude little jerks?
I shoved the bike under the stairs and stomped inside.
Wednesday night, Gary took Richard and Tish out to a Pawtucket Red Sox game. He even told my mother she didn’t have to go. I think he just wanted to give her a break from taking care of my cousins.
“If your aunt Grace doesn’t appreciate the beauty of baseball, there’s no point in wasting the five bucks on a ticket,” he said, winking at the kids. “We’ll just go without her. Okey-doke?”
I had to hand it to him. He kept trying.
My mother gave him a little kiss on the cheek and his face went on red alert. It was sweet but sad.
Happily, nobody made a fuss
when I said I didn’t want to go.
So my mother rented Love Me Tender. My mother is a big Elvis Presley fan, so we sometimes rent his movies and watch them together. In this one, one of our favorites, Elvis marries his dead brother’s fiancée, only to find that his brother, who was away fighting in the Civil War, isn’t really dead—he comes back after the war expecting to marry his fiancée, who he still loves.
Another relationship shot to hell.
In the middle of the movie, I was thinking about how Gary kept doing nice things for my mother.
“Are you sure there’s nothing going on between you and Gary?” I asked.
She reached for another handful of popcorn. “No, we’re just friends.”
“Positive?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. I think he likes you, and not just as a friend.”
She shrugged but kept watching the TV. She didn’t normally talk about stuff like this with me. My mother is a very private person. In that way she’s the complete opposite of Lillian.
“Yes, I’m positive,” she said eventually. And then she raised one eyebrow. “Is this a subtle message? Don’t you see enough of Gary already? Do you want me to start writing him romantic notes?”
I studied her face. She was joking.
I had to laugh. I guess it really was a silly idea. My mother wasn’t interested in dating anybody, and even if she had been, I couldn’t imagine her with Gary. He was a nice guy and everything, but he just didn’t seem like her type—too newspaper-and-slippers, too bald, too predictable.
Plus, it’d just be too weird.
“No,” I said. “Actually, I think you’re smart to stay uninvolved.”
A little while later, out of nowhere she said, “I was thinking about Wen today.”
“Yes?” I asked, keeping my voice steady. Finally, she was going to ask about Wen and me. Still, I didn’t want to give anything away or make it too easy.
I Am the Wallpaper Page 6