Joy School

by Elizabeth Berg

  Well, this is the snack el grande.

  “À la mode,” the waitress says slowly, writing in her pad. Her script is gigantic. I think she is not too bright. But she has the prettiest lips I ever saw. And under her hairnet, beautiful red hair. It’s funny how things get scattered around in different ways. Maybe she is a great singer, too.

  “Do you like to write?” Taylor asks.

  I jerk back to her and me. “I … What do you mean?”

  “Do you like to write? You know, stories.”

  “Oh. Yes. No. Not stories. I like to write … well, I write some poems sometimes.” I don’t know if I want to talk about this.

  “What are they about?”

  Now. A hand to the nest, over the eggs.

  “Oh, different things. Do you like to write?”

  “I’m working on a novel.”

  “You are?” Wait, it could be a joke.

  She nods, blows smoke out her nose like a dragon. I have never seen a kid do this.

  “Yeah, it’s about star-crossed lovers. They’ll die.” She picks a piece of something off her tongue, delicately, flicks it into the ashtray. I have a weird thought to pick it up and keep it.

  “Is it long?” I ask.

  “I’m up to page seventy-two.”

  I can’t imagine it. “Is it in a notebook?” It might be that we can’t help but be friends, as though destiny said, Okay, these two here.

  “I type novels,” Taylor says. “It’s in a box. Hidden. The sex scenes …”

  “Oh, I know,” I say.

  “You want to hear about it?” she asks.

  I nod.

  And then I don’t move again until our order comes. I take a sip of Coke and think steam might come out my ears. That Taylor has a big imagination and she’s not afraid to say anything.

  When we are through eating, I look at my watch. “We’d better go. You said your sister would be here at four-thirty, right?”

  “She’s here,” Taylor says, pointing out the plate-glass window at a girl walking rapidly toward us. Take Taylor, give her dark hair, make her even more beautiful, and voilà, there is Taylor’s sister. “This is Gwen,” Taylor says, when she is standing before us.

  Gwen holds out her hand and I shake it. I have never done this except with old-fashioned adults. It feels like we’re in a new club. Gwen is wearing a brown tweed coat like grown women wear. It is open casually at the throat, and a burnt-orange scarf is there, like a pool of silk.

  “Let’s go,” Taylor says. She takes three dollars from her fat wallet, puts it down on the table and I think, no wonder she didn’t care if I don’t have any money. She has a lot. Look how much she puts down for just a tip. She probably gets paid plenty for modeling. But then she doesn’t take the check up to the register, she puts it inside her math book.

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  “Let’s go.” Her face is stiff as a drawing.

  And one, two, three, we walk out. We are not even walking fast. We are walking like we are bored. Gwen is not saying “Taylor!” She is rummaging in her purse for her keys.

  Huh! I think.

  Behind us, the rattle of dishes, the voices of other customers, the distant sound of parakeets huddled miserably in their cages in the corner of the store. I sneak a look behind me and see our waitress on the other side of the room. By the time she gets to our table, we’ll be long gone. Wait, she will say. Where’s that check, didn’t I give them one? Will she panic? Will her stomach hurt? Will she cry?

  “Katie,” Taylor says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Okay.” I turn back around, walk languidly as summer out to the street.

  I sit in the back of Gwen’s car, a very clean white Chevrolet with blue seats. I tell them how to get to my house. I am in plain shock. I have just committed a crime. I shiver, then stop. I look out the window, at everybody else.

  • • •

  Ginger is in the kitchen and the smells coming from there could be sold for cash. I realize that I am stuffed as a hog and I am sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t remember Ginger when I ordered. I was carried on the wave of Taylor. I ate everything she did as though I had to. And she ate everything, period.

  “What are you making?” I ask.

  Ginger turns around, smiling. “Oh, Katie! Hello!” She wipes her hands on her apron. “Well, let’s see. Ham, scalloped potatoes, green beans and tomatoes. Dinner rolls, salad … Oh! And a lemon chess pie.”

  “Gosh.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Sure!”

  “We’ll eat at six.”

  Well, I have an hour to get drained.

  “You want to do me a favor?” Ginger asks.

  “Okay.”

  “Take the dogs out for a walk? They’re in the backyard. They could use some exercise.”

  That makes three of us.

  “Oh, someone called.”

  Jimmy. “Who?”

  “Ed … Edwardo?”

  “Oh. Okay.” He just wants math help. One thing about being in the dumbest class is I get to be the smartest. It’s really not so bad.

  I come outside, see Bridgette and Bones lying together like they are engaged. I hope I don’t have to call them both at the same time, I’ll feel like an idiot.

  I put the dogs’ leashes on, walk around the side of the house and head down the driveway. There is Greg, out by his mailbox. “Is that yours?” he asks, looking at Bones.

  I love that dog’s size now for sure. “Yes, he is,” I say, casually.

  “Oh.”

  I walk down the street and I know Greg’s eyes are on me and I know he is thinking one thing: Sorry. Sorry for all I did.

  Well, my life has picked up enough to forgive him. I let my back say it.

  Ginger is in the living room with Wayne, watching television. I am in the hall, on the phone with Cynthia. I have my legs up on the wall, which I can’t do when my father is home, even if I only have socks on my feet. “Wayne is so boring, I can’t believe it,” I say. “Plus he has a ducktail! You cannot be a grown fat man and have that! Anyway, it isn’t even in style anymore!”

  “Eeeuuuwwww,” Cynthia says.

  “The whole entire time during dinner, he hardly said one thing. Except did I like Sing Along with Mitch.”

  Cynthia screams so loud I have to pull the phone away from my ear. I am enjoying this conversation. I am sorry to say that sometimes it is just fun to be mean.

  “You know what?” Cynthia says.

  “What?”

  “It’s your birthday in a week.”

  She’s right. I’d forgotten. I wonder if my father will be home. He should be in Mexico by tomorrow, if he’s not there already. If he comes home pretty soon, he’ll be here in time.

  “Katie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yeah. I’d forgotten about my birthday.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No.”

  “I never forget when my birthday comes. I get about six billion presents. Don’t you?”

  “No.” I usually get some clothes, something practical, and then one luxury thing like a book. Although once I did get a charm bracelet.

  “Oh. Sorry. Well, I have a present for you. And so does Nona.”

  I smile. “Really?”

  “Yes, but you have to wait till the day. What about your boyfriend, will he give you something?”

  “He doesn’t know it’s my birthday.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Things are moving kind of slow.”

  “Well, tell him.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Tell him! And if you want to move things along, make him jealous.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve read it everywhere. But it’s true, you also see it in every movie. Like Frankie and Annette. What do you think works?”

  I hear Ginger calling me and I tell Cynt
hia I have to go. I haven’t done a bit of homework yet and it’s nine-thirty.

  I come into the living room, see Wayne putting his coat on. And his hat which if you can believe it has built-in earmuffs. They are in the up position, trying to hide, but give me a break.

  “I enjoyed meeting you, Katie,” Wayne says, his voice hearty as Santa Claus.

  “Me, too.”

  “I hope we’ll meet again soon!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Until then, farewell.”

  I guess he thinks he’s the Lone Ranger.

  “Right,” I say. “Farewell.” Later, when Ginger and I are in our pajamas, I will say, “You know, I think you could do a lot better.” I might tell her about Jimmy to give her an idea of what might come if she waits. I might.

  I can’t believe it, but I am on a real double date. At a drive-in. It is Friday night; I am in the backseat and Taylor is in the front. My date, Mike, does not count as much as Taylor’s date, John, because she force-fixed us up, she wouldn’t go unless I came. These boys are juniors from St. John’s, which is a fancy boys’ school. They have dances with Taylor’s old school, that’s how she met them. Mike has streaked blond hair, blue eyes, a good kind of white sweater, a faint smell of cologne. He has Weejuns on, and no socks. He is too old for me, and he is way too cute, but I am trying. I think he is happy we are at a dark drive-in where he does not have to say to anyone with his eyeballs, Hey, this was not my idea. When he first saw me, he did that flash look at his friend, like, Oh boy, later I’m going to kill you. But he is polite and so far it is not too bad.

  In the speaker the man is talking about tangy hot pizza that you can buy at the snack bar. And ice-cold Coca-Cola. It makes me hungry.

  “So do you like your school?” Mike says.

  I have a feeling I could answer “Blue scrambled eggs,” and he would just nod.

  “Yes,” I say. I don’t want to get into it.

  Previews begin and I can’t believe it, Taylor starts making out already. I have heard of this. But there it is.

  I can’t stop watching them at first. He has his hands in her hair, Cherylanne is exactly right, but then his hand starts moving down. I look out the window. Next to us, a father is yelling at his kids. “Don’t,” I can hear the wife saying. “Just leave them alone.”

  Then, just like that, I get full of sadness. I don’t know why.

  “Do you like Westerns?” Mike asks, and when I turn to answer him, his lips are over mine and his slick tongue is pushing into my mouth. I see an earthworm, churning the dirt.

  “Don’t!” I pull back, and wipe his warm spit from my face. He is sloppy.

  Taylor pulls away from John, looks over at us in the backseat. “What are you doing, Mikey?” she asks, smiling. “Be nice, now.”

  And then she turns to John. I don’t know her. I am deserted here.

  “I’m sorry,” Mike says, but his arm is still around me, pulling me toward him. I look down, smooth my skirt. When I look up, he is on me again.

  I open the car door.

  “Where are you going?” Taylor says, laughing a little.

  I don’t know.

  She gets out of the car, comes over to me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to be here,” I say. In my head, my bed with a book on it, covers folded back. A napkin, two of Ginger’s cookies.

  Taylor leans into the car. Her skirt is serious tight.

  “We need to go to the ladies’ room,” she says. “We’ll be right back.”

  “Put in your diaphragm,” John says, and starts laughing.

  Well, what does that mean? Put in a body part.

  We are not speaking, Taylor and I. I am setting the pace, and it is fast.

  When we get to the bathroom, Taylor takes me by the hand, pulls me into the corner. “What’s the matter?” she says. “Don’t you think he cute? God! He’s cute!”

  “I know.” I notice the concretey smell of urine, see the smeared kiss marks on the wall and the mirror from girls blotting their lipstick.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “Just because he’s cute doesn’t mean I want to do that. I don’t want to do that.”

  “Katie.”

  “What.”

  “You’re in a drive-in. What the hell did you expect?”

  Well. To watch a movie. Only now I know not to answer with that.

  “He should take some time,” I say.

  “So tell him.”

  I say nothing, watch a girl in a boy’s letter jacket rat her hair up high. She takes a can of hair spray from her gigantic purse, gives it a good squirt, stands back and turns her head this way and that. I am in the exact wrong place.

  “This is just for fun,” Taylor says. “It’s no big deal. It’s not like you’re going to marry the guy.”

  I say nothing.

  She stands in front of me, bends her knees so we are face to face. “You need this,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Making out! This is the time of your life to start learning this stuff. Just let him kiss you. It’s not so bad. How do you think you’re going to learn? Sometime it will be really important how you kiss, you don’t want to look like an idiot.”

  Maybe she’s right. I don’t know anything about good kissing. What will Jimmy think?

  “He won’t hurt you. And we won’t do this ever again if you don’t want to, all right?”

  She straightens up, sighs loud. The cord between us is stretched dangerous tight.

  “All right,” I say. “Fine.”

  We go back to the car. I sit with my back to the car next to us so they can’t see me. And then I close my eyes. It isn’t just kissing. He keeps trying to do other stuff. And everywhere on my body that he touches feels like wadded-up Kleenex he is throwing out the window. I am not really here. What’s left behind is only my lonely skeleton, not scary anymore on account of its sadness.

  When I get home, I see my father’s car in the driveway. He wasn’t supposed to be back until tomorrow. One reason I got to go out on a date is because Ginger was the one deciding. I hated the car I just got out of, but now I wish I could get back in it. Too late, it is long gone.

  I take in a breath, open the door. The dogs rush up to greet me. Good, Ginger is still here.

  He comes out into the living room, stands before me.

  “Dad!” I say. “How’s Diane?”

  “Where were you?”

  Behind him, the edge of Ginger. She is holding back, but she is watching. I wonder, did she get in trouble too?

  “I had a date. Mike Cassidy is his name, he goes to St. John’s. It was a double date, another girl came, Taylor, she’s new, too.”

  “And who told you you could go?”

  “Ginger. It’s Friday.”

  “Where did you go that you’re coming home this late? Where have you been?”

  “I… A drive-in.”

  His face hardens.

  “It’s a movie.”

  “I know exactly what a drive-in is.” He steps forward and his arm comes toward my face and I think please, not there, don’t do it there. But he is only holding my face in his hand, looking at it. “I know exactly what a drive-in is.”

  “Frank,” Ginger says. Frank! But he spins around and now he is on her. Oh, I remember this. Sometimes you are so scared you feel like laughing.

  “You don’t make decisions like this for my daughter!” He is talking between his teeth the way he does when he gets like this.

  She steps back.

  But then, when he turns to me again and grabs me, she steps forward one step, then another, then one more until she is beside him, taking his hand off my arm. “Stop it!” she yells. “What’s the matter with you!”

  Oh, the silence now. The brightness of the lamp by the sofa. The innocence of the magazine on the table.

  He looks at her, says nothing. Then he lets go of me, walks away. I hear his bedroom door slam.

  A long moment, and then G
inger says, “I’ll be here tonight, sleeping on the sofa. Right here in the living room.”

  “Okay.”

  I go into my room, close the door. I need to pee, but boy, I won’t.

  I take off my sweater and skirt, slide into bed with my slip on. I have gone too far. I have been thinking, this is my life. Well, not yet.

  I close my eyes, breathe out deep. What’s the matter with you! she said. Right out loud.

  Saturday, we take Ginger out to eat before we take her home. My father is not mad at her. He tells her to get dessert. They have a look pass between them when he drops her off, Bones bouncing behind her. “Thanks,” I told her, meaning one thing. “Thanks,” my father told her, meaning another.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, to both of us. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

  We talk about Diane for awhile on the way home. He is a little hurt she wouldn’t come home. But she was all right. Her body was. I myself am waiting for a letter from her. It could be a very long wait, I know.

  Today is my luxury day. One, it is my birthday, and even if you don’t get a lot of presents you still can’t help being excited, you walk around all day saying your new age to yourself. Two, there is no school on account of the weather. It’s only a couple of inches of snow so far, but on the radio they are all worked up. They give the forecast so often any normal person has memorized it. “I know,” lots of brains are thinking.

  My father will be coming home from work early, he called awhile ago. His job at this place is to recruit young men into the army, talk to the ones who are thinking they’ll volunteer about why that’s a great idea. I can’t imagine how he does it. What can he say? Here’s where you’ll live!!! Here’s what you’ll wear!!! I understand they can get their school paid for, maybe that’s a reason they sign up. As for me, I’d work somewhere, save up and pay for it myself so it was mine clean. I could tell those young men about the drill sergeants I heard so clearly outside my window where we used to live. Even in cold weather, when the storms were down. That might change their minds. Well, to each his own, my mother used to say, and I suppose she was right.

  Since there is no school, I can go to see Jimmy early, stay for hours. I am taking a bath first, and I have rollers in my hair so the steam can help set my curls. I have a Snickers candy bar to eat while I relax in the hot water, which is the heart of the luxury. The chocolate gets soft in just the right way, like it is relaxed, too.