Joy School

by Elizabeth Berg

  “I will.”

  “And tell your father … Well, just Happy Thanksgiving, I guess.” She looks at me a little too long and I see that she is thinking about him in the romantic way. Which I guess I had known but hadn’t known until now. Facts bump up against me like waves. How she has been fixing herself up more lately. How she leaves at night slowly.

  Huh. Him, as a plain man.

  Just as Ginger is going out the door, the phone rings. I get an alarmed feeling that it might be Jimmy, although I would also be happy. We had a good time, when I was there. He has a checkers game which we played, I won one, he won one, which of course leaves you with a very satisfied feeling. He said, “Come by again,” when I left, which was a relief, since that was his wife on the phone. They got married right out of high school, is about all he said. He kind of smiled, saying it. But their son is five years old. So figure it out. That man got trapped like a rat.

  “Hello?” I say, and I can actually feel my heart beating in my chest.

  “Hi! Where have you been?”

  Oh. It’s Cynthia.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I forgot to call you back.” She phones a few times a day, and if I don’t answer or call back right away, why call out the FBI.

  “It’s okay,” she says. And then there is a loud silence. This is one of those friendships where I’ll have to do all the talking.

  “How’s your grandma?” I say.

  “She and my mother are going at it right now. Nona got up last night and made three gallons of red sauce.”

  “What for?”

  Cynthia sighs. “Oh, you know, spaghetti, all that stuff. Calzones. Pizza.”

  “No, I mean, are you having a lot of people over?”

  “No. Nobody. Nona just loves to cook. It’s her only thing. My god, if people are coming over for dinner! Then she makes about two hundred gallons. She gets all excited. She rubs her hands together and says, ‘Ah, business, she’s-a pickin’ up!’”

  “So what’s wrong if she cooks?” I ask.

  “She has bad heart problems. Congestive failure. Sometimes she’s just not supposed to get up. Her legs are swollen up again like crazy. You should see them. If you poke them with your finger, the mark stays.”

  This is not something I would buy a ticket for.

  “She got up when everyone was sleeping. I don’t know, three in the morning or something, that’s how she does it. She’s really quiet, I have to say that. She lights a candle, cooks by that.”

  “Really?” Now this is something I would like to see. Cynthia’s grandmother, dressed in a robe and slippers, her hair wild and sticking out all over, stirring sauce by the light of a big white candle. Like a good witch. The skins of onions and garlic all over the kitchen counter. She would stir and stir, squint into the pot, sprinkle her spices in. I’ll bet she puts wine in, right from the bottle, I saw an Italian grandmother do that once in a movie. The bottle was in its own basket. Nona only uses her own spices, I remember Cynthia telling me that, that she grows spices in the summer. Plus tomatoes, which she cans. These are skills I don’t know anything about. I don’t think many people know how to can, although seniors in Miss Woods’s class do. I never saw basil growing. If Cynthia and I are still friends in the summer, that is one thing I would like to see: Nona’s garden, with things you can eat just growing for free. You want something? Just go out in the backyard and pick it. She has lettuce coming up from the dirt, raw peas.

  “She’s up there screaming now,” Cynthia says. “At my mother. Can’t you hear her?”

  I listen carefully. “No.”

  “I’ll hold the phone out,” Cynthia says. “Listen.”

  I listen again. “No,” I say. “I can’t hear.”

  Nothing.

  “Cynthia?” I say.

  Nothing.

  Well, look at this. “Cynthia!”

  “What?” she says. “Did you hear?”

  “No.” I’m getting tired of this conversation.

  “Oh well, you wouldn’t understand it anyway, it’s all Italian.”

  “Your mother speaks Italian?”

  “Oh yeah. Nona gets her mad enough, she’ll spout Italian all day long.”

  Well. A dent in Mrs. O’Connell.

  “Can you come over tomorrow?” Cynthia asks.

  “It’s Thanksgiving.”

  “I know. But before dinner.”

  “I don’t think so. My sister’s here and everything.”

  “Really? I didn’t know you had a sister. What’s she like?”

  The door opens, and I hear Diane’s voice. Then she is in the kitchen putting grocery bags on the counter. She waves at me but there is nothing in it, no life.

  “I’ll have to talk to you later,” I say.

  “Is she right there?” Cynthia asks, like we have secrets together against Diane.

  “No. I just have to go.”

  “But can you come over on Friday?”

  “I guess,” I say. “All right.”

  “I’ll teach you piano.”

  A brightening in me. “Okay.”

  My father comes in the kitchen, his face shut down. Well, here we are, back to the old days, just like that. I don’t know what it is between the two of them. It is like they are allergic to each other.

  “Hey,” I say.

  No one answers.

  “Need any help carrying things in?”

  “We got it all,” Dickie says. He looks like he is ready to blow up with uncomfortableness. I feel sorry for him. I wish I could tell him to go in my room, but that would be taking sides and my father would just get madder. When he is like this, he welcomes more to keep him going.

  “I’ll just go get the mail,” I say.

  My father starts putting groceries away. I pity the shelves he will slam the cans down onto.

  Diane goes into the living room and sits on the sofa. She is holding one hand with the other, rubbing her knuckles. I keep thinking, inside her is that little baby. Held right in her center. Surrounded by magic liquid. Listening for her body to tell it every single thing to do.

  Dickie comes in and sits beside her and it’s like he isn’t even there.

  “Hey, Dickie,” I say. “Want to get the mail with me?” It’s a country-type mailbox, out at the curb. It has a red flag to put up when you want to tell the mailman to stop and take something. I don’t know why we have a country mailbox when this is the suburbs, but who knows why they do what they do here? I could show Dickie how it works.

  “No thanks, Katie.”

  He wants to help Diane, but I can tell him he might as well give up right now.

  I go outside and it is such a relief to be out of that house. There is the sky, which has nothing to do with any of this. I’d thought we were going to make pies and it would be a little fun. I’d imagined my father and Dickie wearing aprons too, and it would be cute-funny, like when the men on TV cook and do things all wrong which only makes their wives say, Oh HONEY, and love them more. But no.

  Well, there is some mail, but it is all window mail. Bills. But then I see a small envelope, purple. I turn it over, feel so happy at the sight of a letter from Cherylanne. One thing she is still doing in her own way is being there, I have not lost her after all.

  I come inside, put the other mail on the kitchen table, go into my room and shut the door quietly. I use my scissors to open the envelope neatly. There are three pages!

  Dear Katie,

  Well, you have hit the jackpot this time. I cannot believe you have a nineteen-year-old boyfriend, older than mine!! I am not jealous, but I have to say aren’t you sort of young for this? And do you know what you are doing?? Don’t think I am being like your mother. Sorry. I mean like a parent. But you do have to be careful when they are sooooo much older. I have heard some stories which I will tell you another time. But of course there is also a lot of romance in May-December relationships, which is something I told you about a long time ago. Although then you did not get it.

 
Todd and I are as in love as we can be. We have not talked once about breaking up or even had one fight. All we do is plan, plan, plan for our next fun event. So everything is fine there. Although I have noticed someone else watching me and it is hard not to get a little interested. But I am not that kind. Eric Uppman is his name. A blond boy, plus center on the basketball team. Which is coming up.

  You had a lot of questions!!! I will answer as many as I can. I do know the answer to all of them, but we may need to do the installment plan, because I have a lot of homework, especially stupid history, which who cares about it.

  Number one. Soul kissing is just the same as French kissing, except when Negroes do it, it is soul. Soul and French are the same exact thing, which is you use tongues, which I am sure you have heard of. It is not as hard as it sounds, but maybe the first time you do it you might feel like vomiting. Which even I did, if you can imagine, but of course that was long ago. Anyway, first: RELAX!!! Just pretend beautiful Motsart piano music is in your head playing “Alone at Last.” And let your hair fall gently along your back because one thing is they like to put their hands in it. (Make sure it is COMBED and CLEAN and of course as always it is a good place to put perfume.) You will feel their tongue come in. Wait, first, make sure your mouth is soft and easy to open up. Do not keep it clamped together like they feel they need a can opener. They hate that and if you do it you can be sure the next day they will be telling their friends you are a prude. (You don’t want to be a prude. Also you don’t want to be easy. It takes some work to balance all this!!) But anyway, then you will feel their tongue come in your mouth sort of squirming around like a snake and a little spitty. This is the part where you might feel queasy but do NOT LET ON!! This is so important, Katie, especially with such an older guy. You have to move your tongue, too. Try just figure 8s. That move is a good one which they seem to enjoy.

  Two. Yes, you are right, you must let them stop kissing first. Or it could hurt their male ego. But of course you can breathe!! Otherwise, there would be plenty of dead girls lying around, ha ha! Just through your nose. You can do it easier than you think. I recommend practicing with a pillow.

  Katie, I have just looked at my watch and it is too late for me to finish. I will write more later. It is more interesting there now isn’t it???? See, I told you. I can’t believe he looks like Superman, is that really true or are you maybe exaggerating just a little bit?

  Now I must go and I am eager to hear how you do with Jimmy. Of course you are right NOT to tell your father, who would probably blow his brains out.

  Love,

  Cherylanne

  Maybe later Diane will feel better and I will ask her to check all the things that Cherylanne said. One thing about Diane is that when she’s in the mood to talk, she always tells me the truth. Unlike me, who has now begun to lie like crazy. I don’t know when it started, but it’s beginning to get out of control. Like those cans you buy in the joke shop and you open the lid and wham.

  I hear a knock on the door, look around for a place to hide the letter. That’s all I need is for him to see it. I slide it into my pillowcase, say, “Come in.”

  It’s Diane, her face an apology.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Come on, let’s walk the dog. Then we’ll come back and make some pies.”

  Well, she has rallied, as they say. Maybe she is already starting to be a mother because she can’t help herself, her body is taking over, and so she is thinking about someone else’s feelings. That’s what mothers do, is always get in back of the line. “No,” they say, holding up their hand, “I’m fine.”

  We go outside and I am hooking up Bridgette to her leash when I see another note in the bushes. I’m not sure whether I should tell Diane. But she sees it herself, and she walks over to it, pulls it out, shows me. “Well, what’s this?” she says, smiling. “Have you been getting love notes?”

  I shake my head, glance quickly across the street.

  “What’s wrong?” She looks at the note again, then back at me. The fun has all evaporated. “Can I read it?”

  I come up to her, say quietly, “It’s not a love note.”

  “Yeah, all right. Can I read it?”

  I shrug. I’ve wanted to tell her, but now I’m not so sure. For one thing, Diane is not quite Diane.

  She reads the note, hands it to me. In the usual print is this: WE KNOW WHERE YOU’VE BEEN AND WHAT YOU’VE BEEN DOING.

  “What the hell is this?” Diane asks. “What are they talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “The kids across the street put notes there. I don’t know what it means.” Jimmy, I’m thinking. They saw me with him. They know just how I feel about him. I feel like my privacy is a white place where they’ve wiped their dirty hands.

  Diane reads the note again, then crumples it and puts it in her pocket. We start walking, and she says, “What did the other notes say?”

  “They’re all different. Just… stuff.”

  “I wonder why they’re doing that.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t do anything.”

  Diane looks back down the street. “Is that the house? The white one right across from ours?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want to pay them a little visit?”

  “No.” I say this too fast. She doesn’t like what a coward I am. She got the adventure genes in the family.

  “Well, I think we should. Maybe a little later. Maybe around three A.M.”

  “I just ignore them.” Not true. I always feel really bad.

  Diane takes Bridgette’s leash from my hand, reins her in closer. “Sometimes, Katie, you need to take a little control of your own life. When it’s time to say stop, you need to say stop. It can happen when you first move somewhere that people like to give you a little test.”

  “Right.”

  “So you need to let them know who you are, that you’ll stand up for yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  We are walking exactly together. I feel better just because now she knows about the notes too. It’s really all I needed.

  “Diane?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you know your baby can hear you?”

  She looks over at me, and I see a glimmer of her old beauty in the line of her cheekbone, the blackness of her hair. “Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  She looks away. “Well, I hope he doesn’t hear too well. There sure hasn’t been anything good for him to hear.”

  I consider whether or not to tell her about the notebook of things about babies. I have given it a title: Facts About the Team of You and Your Baby. Probably there will be a better time later.

  Still, “Your baby doesn’t care what you say,” I tell her. “Anything is fine. He just loves you already. Your voice. Even your body sounds. Like your heart. That lub, dub, sound. It sounds like that, lub, dub. He loves that.”

  She sighs. “Oh, Katie.”

  “What?” Her look is like she has said turn the light on and I have started lifting up rugs to find the switch. Like I don’t get anything.

  “Forget it,” she says. “Nothing.”

  We stop talking. It looks like this walk will cheer up only one of us: Bridgette is happy as could be. Stones are a whole show to her. She sniffs each one like it’s breaking her heart to leave it; like later, when no one is interfering, she’ll come back and visit it the right way.

  Before I go to sleep, I think about making the pies and how it would have been different if my mother were here. Well, for one thing they would have turned out. And sometimes someone would have smiled. She would have had some music on, probably her Perry Como album. I like him, too. He seems like such a nice man and I understand he used to only be a barber.

  I close my eyes and think of my mother in an outfit where I get to touch everything. I like to do this. I make up outfits of my choice. Last time it was a dance dress I made up, a filmy white thing with rhinestones on the bodice, and thin, thin straps that are called spag
hetti. Tonight I make her wearing a blue fancy suit. A square, button jacket and a straight skirt. It’s a mohair suit. There is a scarf with it, tucked in rich at the neck. And a pin on her shoulder, a peacock pin with many jewels in the tail. “That’s a diamond,” she says, when I touch it. “That’s a ruby. That’s a sapphire.” When I ask are they real, she laughs and says yes of course, and that she is saving that pin for me when we meet up again. She is wearing a little round hat. Nylons and blue matching high heels. She is happy.

  So tomorrow is Thanksgiving. In everyone’s oven will be one dead turkey. I used to like taking walks on Thanksgiving afternoon, thinking you could walk up any sidewalk to any door and knock on it and when it opened, turkey smell. Even if the people don’t speak English. But now I have to say I am not much looking forward to Thanksgiving. Our table will be small and quiet. I don’t think a single person but me will want the wishbone.

  Friday afternoon, I am sitting in Father Compton’s church when I hear him coming up behind me. I can tell it’s him from the wheeze in his nose. I turn around and smile. I would like to have a word with him.

  He is a good kind of priest because he sees that, without my saying anything. He sits in the pew opposite me, nods. “How are you, Katie?” I’ve got all the time in the world, he is saying.

  “Okay.” Good, because I need to talk to you, I am saying.

  “Paying us a visit today?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He sits still, waits.

  I clear my throat, smile again. “Could I ask you something?”

  He nods, serious.

  “Okay. So … okay, I’ll just say it. Did you ever have a time in your life when you lied a lot?” Well, now there is a jump of fear in me because what if I am wrong about his character?

  But he just thinks for awhile, staring off over my shoulder. Then, looking back at me, “Yes.”

  I wait.

  He raises an eyebrow.

  I clench one fist, keep my mouth shut.

  “But you’re not here to talk about me, are you?” he finally says.

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, then.” He looks at his watch. “Would you like to come into my office and talk there for a little bit? It’s more private. And I have a box of chocolate-covered cherries someone gave me that I’ll never finish by myself.”