Joy School

by Elizabeth Berg

  I shiver a little like a breeze has gone down my neck. It’s from the pure relief of him. I say yes, I would like to go to his office. While I’m following him there, it comes to me that nobody gave him those chocolates. He bought them for himself, but he’s going to share with me. What they ought to do is make him pope. I sigh loudly, happy. He turns toward me, checks my face, then turns away again, continues his slow, bent-over walk toward his office. Yes, his back is saying. Right this way. The language of the body can be such a gentle thing.

  Riding my bike to Cynthia’s house, I think about what I told Father Compton. I don’t know if it was such a good idea. Although he was very nice all the way till the end, I wonder if after I left he didn’t close his door and lean against it, saying, “Boy!” Or maybe “Mother of God!” What he mostly said is that lying hurt people. Maybe not at first, but eventually it hurt people, especially the one telling the lie. He talked about a surface being eroded and how that changes the character of a thing and I looked into his eyes like I was listening really hard to all he was saying, and I was listening, but I also was thinking about how amazingly old he is and didn’t priests have a retirement rule? He said it really was true about oh what tangled webs we weave, that when you start lying, it just gets more and more complicated. I didn’t tell him exactly what I was lying about. I said I had exaggerated some things about a person I cared for. And that I had lied about my age. He said there was also a way of lying by not saying things, sins of omission. That was scary. I just nodded, didn’t say anything. I was thinking, what if he’s a mind reader. What if he knows everything, like when I imagined Frenching with Jimmy and how our looks at each other would be so soft when we were done kissing. One thing I need to find out is what do you do after the kiss, like does the girl put her head on his shoulder or what? And can you swallow?

  I never did get to ask Diane anything. I didn’t show her Cherylanne’s letter and I didn’t tell her about Jimmy. She seemed so taken up the whole time, so complicated about herself there was not really any room in her for anyone else. I don’t think things are going so good with her and Dickie. He is like a puppy and she is like the one saying, “I told you no animals!” She said she would write more often and I said I would too. Maybe on paper we can say some things. My father sort of hugged her when she left, but it was too late, it was like they were only hurting each other, touching. During Thanksgiving dinner, she told him about the baby and the words were like a package laid on the table that no one was about to open. My father looked at Dickie, then at Diane; he asked when it would be born and that was that. She and Dickie left this morning earlier than they said they would and I’ll bet the inside of that truck is solid quiet.

  When I left Father Compton’s office I said thank you and he asked did I feel better? I said yes. He said something they have in the Catholic religion is confession, where people can say all that they did in detail, and it is all forgiven. Cherylanne once warned me about this. She said Catholics try to capture you. I told Father Compton I knew about confession but that I didn’t exactly believe a man could forgive a person for all they did wrong, especially if it was not done to them. He said no, it was God doing the forgiving. I said Oh, but what I was thinking was well then why not take the direct route? I wish God were realer and would come to town once in awhile. I wish I could see His face, which I understand shines so hard you can’t look at it, but I wish I could look at it and say, Well, not to be rude, but could you just tell me exactly why some things happen? I could have just a short list of questions. And probably He could give me a heavenly explanation that I would say OH! to, and then feel so much better for the rest of my life. It would be no sweat for Him and it would mean so much to me. He is stingy, when you think about it.

  I hit a bump suddenly and my bottom bangs hard against the bicycle seat. I need to pay attention or I’ll end up falling, which would be pretty embarrassing. Of course it is pretty embarrassing anyway, being my age and riding a bike. To say nothing of freezing cold. If Jimmy wasn’t too busy, I’ll bet he would have given me a ride. I’m going to visit him again tomorrow. I’m using my new brush rollers tonight and I’m going to leave them in until morning even if they kill my head.

  Nona is in bed with a tattered cookbook. When Cynthia and I go in to say hello, she smiles at me and puts the book face down on her lap so she doesn’t lose her place. “Hey, it’s-a my girlfriend!” she says. “You are my girlfriend, right?”

  I shrug. “Okay.”

  “Come here!”

  I come closer, stand beside her.

  “Sit!” she says, patting the bed with her bent-up fingers.

  I sit down beside her. I smell Vicks VapoRub.

  She pulls the covers off her legs, scowls furiously at them. Her ankles are swollen, about twice the size they should be, and the swelling extends partway up her leg. “You see?” she says.

  I nod. It’s creepy, looking at her legs. It makes my fingers feel weak.

  “That’s-a the problem. Right there.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  She crooks her finger at me, and I lean in closer. “You know what’s-a whiskey?” she asks quietly.

  “Yes.” Nona has a little mustache. I never noticed before. It’s just a little at the corners, like bullfighter guys have sometimes.

  “You bring me some whiskey, I’m-a gonna pay you. Fifty dollar!”

  I smile.

  “Ha! That’s a lot, no?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You bring me some whiskey in a jar like-a perfume. I’m-a pay you.”

  I smile again, say nothing, look over at Cynthia, who is standing across the room, scratching her elbow and watching Nona’s television. I don’t think she can hear what’s going on.

  “I can’t get whiskey,” I tell Nona.

  She sits back, sighs.

  “I’m too young,” I say.

  She leans forward again. “No, no, no. Stupido, huh? You steal from-a you house. You got-a whiskey in you house!”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She stares at me. Blinks. “You gotta no whiskey?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Whatta you got?”

  “You mean liquor?”

  She nods. “Yeah, yeah, that’s-a right, liquor.” She sounds a little like a lady gangster.

  “I don’t think we have anything.” I really can’t remember ever seeing liquor in our house.

  “You look,” she says. “And if-a you find him …” She raises her eyebrows up and down. They are mostly white, but there are a few stray dark hairs from how she used to be.

  “Okay, I’ll look.”

  She squeezes her eyes shut, happy, pats my arm harder than you would think she could. “I like-a you friend!” she shouts at Cynthia. She is smiling so hard you can see where her teeth end. I have no idea why Nona likes me so much. But I believe her. And I like that she likes me. It makes you feel good when somebody who’s so mean to other people favors you.

  Cynthia smiles too, and in the curves of her cheeks I see the resemblance. It’s like a photo of the two of them, one over the other, and all of a sudden I have an idea of what Nona looked like as a girl. These yanks into someone’s personal past, that’s the kind of history I like. Not wars, but who was your grandmother and what did she dream of? Did she walk up stairs to where she lived and what did it smell like and what was she wearing and who were her neighbors?

  On the way to Cynthia’s bedroom, I tell her I need to pee. She shows me to a small bathroom that is, of all things, inside her mother’s bedroom! This is the most deluxe thing I have ever seen. If you want to go in the middle of the night, three steps from the bed and bingo, you are there. There is a lot of powder blue and lace in the bathroom, the faint smell of a good perfume in the air. The wallpaper is tiny blue flowers against a cream-colored background. It’s very nice. It makes me want to read in there. I might have a bathroom just like this someday. I appreciate Cynthia bringing me here. I guess she likes it, too, and s
he is wanting to say, “Here, look at this,” without really saying it.

  When I am finished and I reach for the toilet paper, I see that the roll is empty. “Cynthia?” I call softly.

  Nothing.

  “Cynthia?”

  “Yeah?” I hear, and it is about the most welcome sound I have ever heard.

  “I need some toilet paper,” I say. “There’s none in here.”

  “Okay,” she says, and then, “Mooommmm!”

  Well now, there. There is the most unwelcome sound. I feel my face getting warm, like a fever. I put my knees together, fold my hands in my naked lap.

  After awhile, I hear Cynthia’s mother outside the bathroom door. “Katie?” Her voice is kind of like a birdcall. Ta-wit! Ta-wit! This is my own joke, which I have just made up on the spot. I smile to myself, answer, “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Are you in there?”

  I roll my eyes so hard I’m scared she might hear it. This woman should be a display at a museum. Press this button to see something unbelievable.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you need some tissue, is that it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, all right. What I’m going to do is just throw some in, all right? And then you just reach out and grab it, how’s that?”

  I wait to see if she is going to tell me what to do after I get the tissue. But no, she must think that part I’ll be able to figure out all by myself.

  “Okay,” I call out. I think, I’m never coming here again, unless she’s gone. Want to come over? Cynthia will say and I’ll say sure, as long as your mother is in Timbuktu.

  The door opens a crack and I hear Cynthia’s mother say, “Now I’m not looking, okay?” And she throws in a roll of blue toilet tissue.

  “Got it?”

  The bathroom is small. Where does she think it might have gone?

  “Yes, I do. Thank you,” I listen to see if I can hear her walk away. I would like to finish up in peace. But I don’t hear anything. That’s the thing with wall-to-wall. Maybe I will not have that.

  When I come out of the bathroom I see Cynthia’s mother standing at her dresser, arms crossed. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  We pass each other and I am almost to Cynthia’s room when I hear her call me. I go back to the bathroom and she is standing beside the toilet-paper dispenser. “Oh, there you are,” she says, smiling like we are best friends. “I just wanted to tell you—I don’t know how you do it in your house, dear—but here, we put the tissue on so that it comes off the top of the roll. That way, you see, it’s easier to get to. And you can make a pretty little point out of the first sheet here.” She has actually folded the first square of tissue so it makes a V. “In your nicer hotels, you’ll see that,” she says. “That’s how you know.”

  She is such a pretty woman. And so even though I know she is wrong I look at her face and some part of me thinks she must be right. And that part of me feels ashamed.

  “Okay,” I tell her, and I go into Cynthia’s room. “Your mother is really crazy,” I tell her.

  “Why?”

  I think about trying to answer, but then say, “Never mind.” Maybe Cynthia just needs to spend more time with normal people. I will give her time, and soon she will be asking me, “What can I do about her?” We will try to come up with things, and that will make our friendship stronger. “A friend in trouble, and the friendship’s double,” Cherylanne used to say. She made it up herself. Which she also used to tell me every time she said it.

  I sit in Cynthia’s flowered chair, hold her pillows against my stomach tight. “Guess what?” I say.

  “What?”

  “I have a boyfriend.” The words are so delicious, like floating donuts.

  “You do? Who?”

  “Well,” I say. “He’s a little bit older, but we think it can work.” At the same time I say this, I have a vision of Father Compton smacking his forehead. I feel a little badly, but I have let this slip out and it’s too late to stop now.

  “What’s he look like?” Cynthia asks.

  Well. We’d better check the time. It could take hours just to do his blue, blue eyes.

  Taylor Sinn is in my gym class, too, and we have been made partners for counting each other’s sit-ups. We are doing those tests for the president to see if we are all too out of shape or what. I guess he is worried about us American youths and he thinks the Russian kids are all ready for the Olympics, just walking around restless in their streets, their fists hitting their palms, saying, “Lemme at ‘em.” Miss Sweet is delirious with joy because she gets to carry her clipboard from kid to kid, writing her brains out.

  I am holding Taylor’s ankles and she is doing sit-ups like it is no big deal and she could do them all day long. I am done with mine. I did sixteen, and cheated on half of them because I bent my knees, plus I did not exactly touch my elbows to them except when Miss Sweet walked over and stood by me. All I could see were her knees, which look athletic and which I truly hate. I would like to draw faces on them, two frowns. Taylor said she’d tell Miss Sweet I did fifty sit-ups if I wanted, who cared? I could get away with it, too, because it’s the honor system, the partner tells what the other girl did. But I said no, because really even to say sixteen was cheating and why push it? So Taylor is up to sixty and I am frankly getting bored counting. Her shirt is tucked into her gym shorts which is something you don’t see too often. On her first day she wore a belt, too, which Miss Sweet of course had a heart attack about and made her take it off IMMEDIATELY. It actually looked really good. If I did that there would be a dent with my belly hanging out above and below. I suppose I am what you would call a little chubby. Taylor’s stomach is flat, flat, flat. I don’t know how she does it. Although looking at her do all these sit-ups, maybe that’s how.

  “Do you do these at home?” I ask, at eighty-one.

  “Yeah.” Her gorgeous hair is tied back in a low ponytail today, a wide black ribbon on it. Also her outfit that she wore today is black, I saw it in English. She looked like she should be the teacher. No. She looked like she should be the rich mother, wearing gold hoop earrings, come to talk to the teacher about her child, who is a budding genius.

  “I’m going to stop at a hundred,” Taylor says. “This is boring as shit.”

  “Oh,” I say. Imagine having a choice about when to stop.

  “You look like a model,” I tell her.

  “I am.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah.”

  She is not even out of breath.

  “Like they take pictures of you?”

  “Yeah, I do that. And I do live modeling. For Steinbeck’s.”

  I know what she means. There is a wall in that fancy department store where they have all their models’ pictures hanging. All those girls look as if they can’t be real. But of course they are, and here is one of them and I am holding down her ankles.

  “I guess you have to look old to be a model,” I say.

  “You have to look like a model to be a model.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I mean.”

  “One hundred,” she says, leaning back on her elbows. “Right?”

  I don’t know. I quit counting. “Right,” I say.

  I go over to tell Miss Sweet the number, and she says, “Who did that?”

  “Taylor Sinn.”

  “Oh,” she says, looking over at her. “Okay.” She can tell by Taylor’s body that it is true. I can see right now that Miss Sweet would like Taylor to be her pet but I’ve got news for her. Taylor thinks the same thing about every teacher, no matter who they are. And it is not that she wishes she could be their pet.

  When I am dressed, Taylor comes to sit beside me on the locker-room bench. “What’s your name again?”

  “Katie.”

  “You ever go by Katherine?”

  I shake my head.

  “You should. It’s more you.”

  “Oh.” This feels like a compliment, but I�
��m not sure, it could be a joke. I smile like I get it either way.

  “You want to go to Woolworth’s after school?”

  “I have to ride the bus.”

  “I could give you a ride home. My sister drives. She comes to get me every day.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Yeah. She’s a junior. She’s at my old school. She models, too. You’ve probably seen her in the newspaper, maybe catalogs.”

  Well, two in one family. That is so amazing. I bet they have makeup like crazy. I bet they have a big drawer, just stuffed with every single thing. When they sit at the dinner table together, what can that be like? The two of them so beautiful, just sitting side by side and cutting their meat, their hair hanging down their backs.

  “I have to go somewhere today,” I say. “But I could go with you tomorrow.”

  “All right,” she says. And then, “I liked your paper that Mrs. Brady read to us in English. About ‘Birches.’ That was really good.”

  I smile, feel a bubble of happiness rising up in me that makes my mouth tight. I could be on the verge of having two friends, just like that. Plus Jimmy. This is the way things work sometimes, that good things get ideas from each other, say, Well now let’s go ahead and let her have it all.

  Jimmy is reading the newspaper at his desk and he takes a moment to look up when I come in. Then, “Hey!” he says. “Katie!” He leans back in his chair and smiles and I can see I was dead right about everything. Sometimes your brain will liven things up for you, make things a little exaggerated to keep up your interest in life, but not this time. He is just like I remembered and more.

  I am so glad he seems happy to see me. I never said I was coming. This was a surprise visit. I thought he might be glad to see me, but then the last little way before I got here I had to all of a sudden consider the alternative. And I had planned that if he looked annoyed I would say I’d been sent to buy something. Valvoline.

  “You’re not planning to skate today, are you? I think it’s way too warm.”