Joy School

by Elizabeth Berg

  In a minute, she comes in, leans against the door-jamb, watching me. “I said that I would take responsibility for relaying the message to your father.”

  I pour a glass of milk, sit at the table, bite into my sandwich.

  “You got sent to the principal?”

  I chew and chew.

  “For talking back to a teacher?”

  Peanut-butter and jelly. It’s good.

  “Katie?”

  “What?”

  “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “If you want to tell my father, tell my father.”

  “I won’t tell your father.”

  I stare at her and my eyes start to cry, which is very odd since my insides are stone-cold concrete and do not care about one single thing.

  “You want to talk, honey? You want to tell me?” I nod, my throat gulping like a bullfrog.

  It is midnight and I am not even faintly tired. I am sitting at the window in my desk chair, wide awake and looking out at nothing. If I were a man I would go out right now and get a big bottle of whiskey and sit in a chair with my legs stuck out straight and get good and stinking drunk. I sigh, lean forward, put my elbows on the windowsill. There’s a little draft leaking through, the cold feels good against my face.

  Ginger was so nice. It seemed for awhile like her heart was breaking right with mine. But then she said there would be others. And she said you never know, you just never know when you will meet them. She said that the men she had cared most for in her life, why, it had been an accident that she met them. One she met taking out the garbage! At first I thought she meant she’d loved a garbage man, which I guess is fine, but she said, Oh no Stanley was walking his dog and I was taking out the garbage. What happened to Stanley I asked and she said, Well it just didn’t work out, which I guess means he dumped her. She said you wait, you’ll see, there is not just one person in the world to love, it would be terrible if that were true. I did not nod yes. I just don’t know. Life is full of surprises, Ginger said. That’s what makes it fun.

  I hear a yowling noise and see a cat at the door of Greg and Marsha’s house. I didn’t know they had a cat. I think, well, there is a surprise right there. Maybe this is a sign that she’s right.

  I am sitting in my room, ready for date number two. Double date number two. This time, Taylor and the boys are coming to the house to pick me up. It is Michael again, so I did not make him puke so bad after all and Taylor has told him none of that attack stuff anymore. We are going to eat. I don’t really know why you make a whole date out of eating, but everyone does. We are going to a place called Steak and Shake. You get the onion rings and the steak burger. It’s a hangout for kids who go to schools other than mine. Better kids, Taylor said. I got my makeup on just right, probably because I don’t really care how it goes on, this evening is not that.

  The doorbell rings, and I go out into the living room, introduce everyone. My father is not so bad. Not that he smiles or anything, but when Michael calls him Mr. he does not say, “Colonel.” But I know he is thinking it. You can tell by the way he feels his keys in his pocket that he is holding his rearing self back. “Be home on time,” he tells me.

  “I know.”

  “Have her back here on time,” he tells Michael.

  Well, what does he think, we are deaf?

  “Hey,” Taylor says. “Why don’t you come?”

  My father looks at her, smiles, shuts the door. She has a power, Taylor. She can snip the line, just like that.

  Well, this is it. The end of Taylor and me, because I cannot trust her. We are all of us in a dark place with no houses around. I would say we are not here to play canasta. No, we are parking. We have forty minutes before I have to be home. What better thing to do than to park? is what these three are thinking.

  “There was a young lady named Sinn,” John says.

  “Shut up, John,” Taylor says.

  “Who said ‘Let us do it again,’” he continues.

  “Shut up!” Taylor looks quick at me, then back at him.

  “‘And again, and again, and again and again—’”

  “Fuck you,” she says, and her head goes below the seat with his.

  I look out the window, see my own eyeliner face looking back. I have chosen door number one and the audience is saying “Awwwwwww!” Yes, this is the end of Taylor and me.

  Michael puts his hand on my shoulder. I kiss him for something to do.

  In awhile, he starts touching me again. “No,” I say.

  “All right, little girl,” he whispers. “I won’t touch you. Why don’t you touch me.”

  I swear I can feel my dinner rising in my throat.

  “Here,” he says. “It’s nice.” And he takes my hand and he puts it down his pants to a pile of weird flesh like the insides of a chicken. I yank my hand out and use it to slap him. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

  I am back at the pond because it was my place first and it still belongs to me. And it still is a soothing place, beautiful and safe, not saying anything about anything.

  The water is dark blue and cold-looking, ice only in rare spots at the edges. I look up at the Mobil station only once, to see if he is looking, which he is not.

  I use a stick to dig a hole in the earth, think, this is where the sadness goes. I dig it as deep as I can, then cover it up. I wave my hand over it, a slow circle. When I stand up, I check to see if it worked. Nope. My whole self is still heavy.

  I bring the stick back with me, use it to touch various things along the way. Magic. “There,” I whisper in my fairy voice to a fence post, a street sign. “There!” It is odd how when you feel like you have nothing, you can act like you have everything.

  I am at Nona’s funeral, sitting by Cynthia. I didn’t want to come, but it must be the height of rudeness to say no to an invitation like that. “Will you come to my grandmother’s funeral?” “Oh, sorry, I’m going bowling.”

  Mrs. O’Connell is actually quiet. She nodded at me when my father dropped me off at their house and that is it. She said nothing in the car on the way over. She is wearing a black outfit and a hat with a black veil. You can see diamond-shaped pieces of her grieving face. This is the first time I’ve met Cynthia’s father. He looks jolly, like he works in a candy store, but he doesn’t, he’s a banker.

  Cynthia has not cried, but she is so pale I’m afraid she’s going to faint. Nona is the star of the show, of course, lying up there in the open coffin, a rosary wrapped around her hands. It’s a pearly pink rosary with a gold crucifix, very pretty. I knelt by her when it was my turn in the reception line before the service started, and she looked so real. She looked like she was breathing, but of course that always happens, it’s just your own self moving and you transfer it over. Even looking at Nona lying in a coffin, I couldn’t believe such a fiery person was dead. They put makeup on her and did her hair puffed up. She looks real, but she doesn’t look normal. They should have buried her in an apron, surrounded her with spaghetti and tomatoes and garlic. Like the Egyptians, send her off with what she loves. I’ll tell you one thing, I never saw Nona with a rosary in her hands. I told Cynthia that and she said yes but Nona was very religious, she used to be the president of the Santa Lucia Society. “She kept the banner in her room for a long time,” Cynthia said. “It had a picture of St. Lucy with her eyes plucked out.”

  “Why?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it. Why would someone make a whole banner out of something like that. “Oh, Mrs. Whatever, your daughter has had her eyes plucked out!” “Oh no, well, let’s make a banner out of it!” Cynthia said St. Lucy’s eyes got plucked out because she was a virgin martyr. I have no idea what that means. Those Catholics have strange stories and they love those pictures that make you practically puke. Jesus with His heart all stuck out, for one. And nailed up on the cross, dribbles of blood running down so sickening you can hardly even feel sorry for Him. As if His mother, who was right there, wouldn’t have wiped it off.

  “N
ona used to be really active in the church,” Cynthia said. “People were all the time calling her or she was calling them. She had a phone caddy, you know, one of those flip-up ones, you put the arrow to the letter you want and it flips up? She had one of those, gold metal, and she used to lie in bed at night with that phone caddy talking in Italian real loud.” She smiled and then she looked sad because she remembered that this is it for Nona, no more phone calls, ever. I didn’t ask any more questions. It wasn’t really right of me to be acting like Brenda Starr, reporter. I was just there to be a friend to Cynthia in her time of sorrow. She listened to me when I told her about Jimmy. I told her and Cherylanne, but not Taylor. I thought Taylor would say, “Big deal. There’s more where that came from.” And that is so not true.

  The priest begins his sorrowful speech about Nona’s life. Mrs. O’Connell starts to cry real hard and there are tears rolling down Cynthia’s cheeks. I bite my lips a little, stare straight ahead. Under my shirt is my half of the best-friends necklace. I’m sorry I ever took it off. It offers something to you to have one of those.

  “Nona died,” I tell Father Compton.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. She was a friend of yours, really, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hard to loose two friends at once.”

  “Well, Jimmy was not my friend.” Now I am pure sorry I told him about Jimmy. He nodded all sympathetic but I can see that he did not really understand, either.

  I look right at him. “He was not my friend. I loved him.”

  “I know you did.”

  “No, see, you say that but what you are thinking is, puppy love.”

  “No. No, I am not. I am thinking that in the best kinds of love there is friendship, too.”

  Well, that is true. He has said a true thing and I have yelled at him for nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “It’s all right.”

  “Maybe I’ll come to Mass this Sunday.”

  His eyes change, but he says nothing.

  “When is it?”

  “I say the seven-thirty and the eleven o’clock.”

  “Well, seven-thirty is no good.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Nothing more. These Catholics are good, I have to hand it to them.

  Oh, all right, I think, but I don’t say anything. This way it’s not a promise.

  On the way home, I think, Wait. Maybe he meant Taylor when he said that about losing two friends and then I just dove into Jimmy and he didn’t say one word. Because he saw my need. He said silently, Well all right, child, that’s fine. I have piled up inside me quite a bit of gratefulness for him.

  Maybe Mass is interesting. I know one thing is they actually believe the priest is standing there with the host and, presto, it becomes Jesus Himself. And then they eat Him.

  Well, now here I am in my room with nothing to do again. Things have come back to that. It is Sunday and Cynthia is off with relatives. When someone dies, all you do for about a week is spend time with relatives and eat.

  Taylor called, did I want to come over? but she has just worn me out. I would like to think that sometime we could be friends again, but I don’t know. I think it was because of her that I stole this lipstick sample last week. I know it’s not as bad as what she does, but still. It’s crème caramel, a pretty light brown color. I keep it in my underwear drawer and every time I wear it it is a thrill. So I can see how I could move up on the stealing line. One day Taylor showed me some things she stole, shoes, records, books. And the next time I was in a department store I was looking at purses and I realized I could just put one over my shoulder and walk out. They would not catch me, I knew it. I got all dry in the mouth and trembly, like, okay, let’s go, do it. But I didn’t, I walked away. Taylor is a funny person who doesn’t see any right and any wrong and it is too strong to be around. I suppose someday she will be famous and people will say, “You quit hanging around with her? Why???” and I will say there is more to it than I can explain.

  I wrote to Diane this morning, even though she still has not sent me anything but a postcard saying she is moving to California. She didn’t say she and Dickie. I asked her in my letter, is he going with you or are you getting a divorce? Although I already know the answer. Their marriage was a little paper boat in the gutter that only sailed because there was a storm. Now that it is calm, Diane is looking at Dickie and saying never mind. And poor Dickie.

  Well what else is new, in the world of love, things never work out even. Even when people think they are even, they are not. Take my father and Ginger, who it looks like any day now are going to tell me they’re getting married and I will say, No kidding I have only known for about two hundred years. Ginger is the one who loves more. Even though my father has a great deal of affection for her, she loves more than he does.

  I have heard them at night in the living room. Ginger is worried about how will I feel, which is so nice of her but really it is not to do with me and I am already used to it, big deal.

  I stand up, do some toe touches. I am too fat to be a teenager. Although it does not matter, because I am done with the dating game. I met the one and he is gone. I guess he really is gone, now, too, three weeks are up. I know all my life no one will believe the trueness of this, that he was the only one for me. I saw everything about him. He was a tender man and so handsome you could die. You could say anything to him. He was interested in me, he thought I was interesting. Around him, everything bad about me was excused and everything good about me got held up. I have been on this earth long enough to know how hard it is to find all that in a man and I know I will never find it again and even if an exact copy of Jimmy came to me later like when I was twenty-three, no, it would not be right. Sometimes you just know things even though you are at a young age, and believe me, I do know. But from now on I will keep it to myself. People don’t believe you. I saw how Ginger tried to listen and believe me but behind her eyes she was making plans for me that I am not one bit interested in. I mean love plans, like who could be next. Well, I do not need love, I am just going to be a poet.

  I go into the living room, stare out the front window. Not one fun thing to look at. I have no idea why they have to make every single house look just the same. Why not build a house around a tree, so that smack in the middle of your living room, nature. Why not have round windows and crazy angle ones, walls of glass, rainbow colors painted everywhere? My house will have that. I will draw how it should go and they will build it and say, My, I never thought of that!

  Ginger and my father are out buying lamps for the house. Give me a break that I’m not supposed to know they’re getting married. You would have to be an imbecile not to see that. Well, I’ll get to have Bones. Me and Bridgette, she’ll have a stepbrother.

  I put on my coat. Sometimes when I do this I figure out where I want to go.

  The pond.

  I get some pieces of bread for the ducks, step outside. The snow is all gone. Now, with the sky for the ceiling, I am already better. They ought to let crazy people outside. It would help.

  This is my lucky day, there is a duck convention. I sit with my back to the station. I don’t want any memories to wreck how green the males’ feathers are. I throw a few crumbs and the ducks come swimming over, quacking away. I wonder if they are saying, Oh boy, bread, or Get the hell out of my way. Some stay in the water and others waddle onto the shore. I should have brought more bread. There aren’t a whole lot of things much finer in life than feeding ducks and now I will run out too soon.

  “Hi,” I hear.

  I quick turn around and it’s a good thing I’m sitting down. He is not gone. He is right here. Right there. How long?

  “Hi, Jimmy.”

  He walks the rest of the way toward me. “I’m glad to see you.”

  “… Oh.”

  “Can we talk a little?”

  “I thought you were moving.”

  “I am. Today’s my last day. I just got off work and saw you sittin
g down here.”

  “I’m feeding the ducks.”

  “Yeah, I see.”

  “I thought you were gone.”

  “Took a little longer than we thought.”

  He sits down, puts his arms on his knees, looks out at the water. “Pretty out, today. Not so cold.”

  One thing I do not need is the weather report. Plus looking at him is making me feel like crying. I stand up, brush the crumbs off my coat.

  “Well, nice to see you, I have to go.”

  He looks up at me.

  “See you,” I say.

  “Katie? Could you spare a minute? There are some things I really want to say to you.”

  I think of two fists, only one holding something. Pick.

  I sit back down, don’t look at him. But I can smell him. It is not cologne smell, it is just soap-and-water smell and it practically kills me dead.

  He takes in a breath, starts to say something, then stops. “Dang,” he says quietly.

  Inside, the tight bud of my heart starts to open again.

  “Well, look. I just want to tell you that I’m so … honored that you cared for me, Katie.”

  Here, the sting of tears. The body drives, the mind comes along.

  “That’s okay.”

  “No. You are such a fine person, and you know what? You’re just going to get better and better. Some day, when you are ready, some man is going to love you so much.”

  Well here comes the flood. I am crying and crying and crying. “I don’t want anyone else,” I say. “I am finished. I only wanted you. You are just the right one and there will never be—” I look at him fiercely. “I went out with someone else. And all he did was shove my hand down his pants!”

  I cannot believe I have said this. Jimmy is shocked. Well, what else can he be.

  I look down, wipe the tears from my face, draw a defiant X in the dirt.

  A raggedy silence.

  And then he says so gentle, “Katie?”

  How he says it is how I can look up at him.

  “I wish I could tell you. You know, when it happens that you really love someone—I know you think you won’t, I know you believe you will always love me, and Katie, I would be so happy to think that in some way you will, but you will love someone else again, too.”