“A dolphin for a dolphin,” Coach said, giving me one of his adorable grins.
“Looking good!” the beautiful Bella called from the stands. Compared to her, I felt like a giant dripping sponge. I wondered if she knew how perfect her life was. Even so, I’d had such a great day that I felt that somehow I was at a turning point, that my whole life, mine and Mommy’s, was going to get easier. . . .
But when I got home, Mommy told me that Poppy had pneumonia. “He’s pretty sick,” Mommy said. “Patty’s worried about him.” Even though Poppy flirted with all his nurses, Patty was the one who spent the most time with him. She was a large pink woman who always wore a pin that said: and you can call me your majesty.
“How sick?”
“She said we better come visit him soon.”
It’s hard for me to talk about Poppy without crying, because, first of all, he was the closest thing I ever had to a father, and also, because he was Poppy, and I loved him. When he’d gotten too sick and old to live by himself anymore, Mommy and I had talked a lot about having him move in with us, but in the end we’d decided that we couldn’t take care of him properly, and even though he could have had my room, he wouldn’t even be able to get up and down the stairs. Then we thought about moving closer to him, to Queens, but that didn’t seem like such a brilliant idea, either. In the end, it was Poppy himself who’d decided to move into the old-age home, which he called “Senility Camp” and where he had a whole group of nurses whom he flirted with nonstop.
“How soon?”
“I think we should go tomorrow,” Mommy said.
We found Poppy was waiting for us with an oxygen mask covering his nose, and watery eyes that looked like melting icebergs. He was skinny and frail, with brown and red bruises on his skinny arms.
“My two favorite girls,” he whispered.
I kissed him on the top of his bald, pink, bony head.
“How are you feeling, Poppy?”
“Lovely. Isn’t it a glorious day for a picnic? What do you say?”
“Poppy, you’re such a flirt,” Mommy said, squeezing his hand.
It made me so sad, seeing him like that. But even with an oxygen mask on and struggling to breathe, Poppy radiated a kind of happy, gentle sweetness. When I was little, and he still lived in the third-floor apartment where Burton had grown up, he’d let me play dress-up with my grandmother’s old things, and would then take me out for an ice-cream cone or a hamburger. And there we’d be, me in my grandmother’s ancient hats and silk nightgowns, sitting across from Poppy, in his bow ties (he always wore bow ties) and blazers.
Then Poppy began to cough, and another of Poppy’s nurses, Linda, came hurrying in to prop him up and adjust his oxygen mask.
We sat there for a little longer with him, until, around lunchtime, Poppy fell asleep. On the way out the door, Mommy made Linda promise that she’d call if Poppy took a turn for the worse.
It scared me, seeing him like that. Not because I thought that Poppy would last forever. Over the past few years he’d gone from sort of okay to really-not-so-okay, so I knew that it was only a matter of time until we got the saddest phone call of them all. It was more that, as we cruised past the rusting hulks of what had once been factories and through poor neighborhoods of old brick houses that looked bowed down by the force of the wind, I realized, as if for the first time, how truly alone Mommy and I were in the world, how little we had, outside of each other (and Hank), and how precarious life itself was. With Poppy gone, we’d be more alone than ever. If it weren’t for my swimming, well, I’m not sure I would have been able to see much of a future for myself — for myself and for Mommy — at all.
There was something, or rather someone, or rather two someones waiting for us when we got home. Actually, they were waiting for Mommy. Sitting on the front stoop, with their dad, were a brother and a sister who looked so alike that if the girl didn’t have longer hair I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart.
“Mrs. Brenner?” the father said, rising. “Hi. We spoke on the phone about my kids starting piano lessons with you?”
“Oh, no!” Mommy said, blushing all over. “I totally forgot! How late am I?”
“Oh, not so late,” the man said. The dude was huge — as if once upon a time, before he’d gone to blubber, he’d been a high school basketball player. He glanced at his watch. “Not so late,” he repeated.
“I am so sorry.”
“Listen. It happens.”
“I just don’t know what to say!”
“Forget about it. Life, right?”
“I guess you could say so.”
“You can say that again! Life! Oy. I could tell you stories!”
“Dad!” the boy said while Mommy’s blush faded and then rebloomed.
“Sorry,” the man said. “It seems like it’s my job to embarrass my kids.”
“Let’s talk after the lesson, okay?” Mommy said. Which, I couldn’t help but notice, they did. In the living room, which is just outside my room. Mainly they talked about setting up a regular schedule for lessons, but also, they touched on other stuff: raising children, and living in West Falls, and how many fancy coffee shops there were, and then, just like that, the dude said: “How about I take you out for a cup of joe sometime?”
“Do you even like that weirdo?” I asked her after the two kids and their hulking, huge dad had gone home.
“Oh, honey,” she said, “it’s been so long that a man asked me out that I couldn’t even tell you!”
“Does that mean you’re going to go out with him?”
She gave me a half smile, as if she herself didn’t know.
“Mommy!”
“I don’t know.”
She looked so uncomfortable that I felt bad for her — like she was a little kid and I’d been mean to her.
Justine and I were lying around her pink bedroom when Mama called me on my cell to say: “You’ve got to get home immediately! Your sister’s here!”
I groaned out loud. Hearing me, Justine’s cat, Skizz, pricked up his ears.
“What was that all about?” Justine said.
“Robot Girl’s home for Thanksgiving. For a full week. I’m not going to make it.”
I’d already told Justine about how RG was totally my parents’ favorite, about her straight As and how every college in America had wanted her, and even how Daddy was already planning for her to go the same law school he’d gone to.
“Seriously,” I said. “Do you know what it’s like, with all my eight hundred relatives sitting around the table eating turkey and treating Robot Girl like she’s a genius and I’m — I’m brainless. It’s this huge, big event at our house. The food. The decorations. And then all the cousins and aunts and uncles. I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.”
One thing I liked about Justine was she never took me very seriously. But at the same time, I knew that she totally got whatever I told her. Now she shrugged and said: “Let her be the perfect college brownnoser. What do you care?” And I was going to protest when she added: “And you don’t even want to go to Princeton, remember? You’re so much cooler than that. I mean, like the outfit you’ve got on now. How cool is that? If I were your sister and saw you looking so punk-cool-fifties-awesome-fab, I’d be so blinded by your sublime radiance of fabulosity that I’d get on the next train back to college.”
“Except that she totally erases me. Most of my relatives, when they think of me at all, think of me as second best.” I meant it, too. When RB was around, I was invisible, no matter what I was wearing.
Instead of responding in words, Justine started playing around on her MacBook, hushing me every time I asked her what she was doing, and finally saying: “Look at this, you big dum-dum.”
It was a black-and-white photo of a model wearing a dress with a wide, pleated skirt and a narrow, button-down bodice, with cap sleeves, obviously from yesteryear.
“So?”
“You look like this, chicken-brain.”
“But this girl’s white,” I said.
“That’s not the point. The point is, how can Robot Girl erase someone as out-there and funktabulous as you are?”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have an older sister.”
“I wish I did. I mean, do you have any clue what it’s like being an only child? It’s just me here. Me and Skizz. And we probably won’t have any kind of Thanksgiving at all, not with Dad out of town. Again. I don’t even mind so much. But poor Mom. She’s really upset.”
“Me and my stupid big mouth,” I said, realizing at once that I’d done it again. Because as I’d gotten to know her better, I’d realized that Justine didn’t have the world’s greatest home life. Not with moving around all the time, and her dad, whom I’d never even met, not once, never being home. At least my father cared.
“On the other hand,” Justine said, “I do have the Beckster right across the street.”
I could never tell Justine, but I secretly thought that Becka had the most fabulous fashion sense of just about anyone at school, like instead of being a high school sophomore like everyone else, she’d already been launched into some other, better, glamorous realm, where men and women did nothing all day but drink champagne and look incredible. I’d been in school with her since kindergarten, and she’d even had good fashion then, with pink velvet overalls that she wore with little lace-up boots, or corduroy dresses with butterflies on them. Looking back, it was clear that even then she’d been destined for high school cool. With her matching red bows and red Keds, and her mini cowboy boots worn with denim rompers, she’d been the most photogenic kid in all of West Falls, and had even appeared on the front page of the West Falls Gazette. (Wearing overalls and eating an apple.) No matter what, other kids copied her: Last year, she’d started wearing white jeans with sleeveless turtleneck summer pullovers, and suddenly, every girl in our grade had the same look. Then she got this amazing raincoat with velvet trim and a bow, and by the time March rolled around, six or seven other girls had something similar. Recently, though, she’d ditched that raincoat and started wearing another one, this kind of beat-up man’s raincoat, and voilà! Kids were already copying her. Sometimes she wore it with a fat belt tied around her middle, and other times with a man’s hat, or with silk scarves. No matter what or how, she looked amazing. So amazing that I wanted to blog about her amazing style — except, of course, that I still hadn’t launched my blog. And also, Justine hated her. And I hated writing. I wouldn’t even know how to start!
“You know that girl Polly?” Justine now said.
“Of course. Everyone knows Polly. She wins all those sports awards.”
“She’s my new lab partner.”
“No more John?” In his own way, John, too, was famous in our school — but he was famous for looking like a person who was planning to grow up to be a drug addict, or maybe a serial killer.
“Unfortunately, no,” she said as she stroked Skizz. “We’ve been tripled up. But you know what? The first time I met her? I was like: Nice house, no one home. Even worse, because I thought she was just plain rude. But she’s not, not at all. She’s really great.”
“I guess,” I said, “If you like people who can only talk about sports.”
“She’s not like that. She’s interesting.”
“If you say so.”
“What’s your problem with Polly?”
“She’s just, you know, totally into the jock thing,” I said, and even though I knew I was talking a load of nonsense, once the words were out of my mouth, I couldn’t stop: The Blabber Machine had taken over again, and I was in its grip like a babbling monkey. “She used to be different, but now that she’s the superjock of the world, it’s like she’s too important to so much as notice the great unwashed. Just wait. You’ll see.”
But I could tell when I looked at her that she didn’t see — or at least she didn’t see what I saw, which was that it would be just like Robot Girl all over again, when she decided she was too old and sophisticated to do things with me anymore. Polly was a practically a school legend. Who wouldn’t choose her over me?
The closer I got to my house, the more my head felt like it was being squeezed by an orange juicer. Of course it was true, what Justine had said: At least I had a family, which was more than a lot of people could say. Even so, I just kept feeling yuckier and yuckier, as if RG’s robotness had already pre-erased me. So what, you may ask, was the first thing Mama said when I let myself into the kitchen door? “Oh, there you are, honey. You know what I was thinking?”
“What?” I said as I took off my jacket and hung it on the peg in the hallway.
“I was thinking that, well, maybe Martha can give you some debate pointers while she’s here.”
Then RB herself appeared. And she said: “What on earth are you wearing?”
I looked down at myself. I was wearing a three-quarter-sleeve off-white button-down sweater with a rhinestone poodle pin and peg-leg jeans, an outfit I thought made me look a little like Mama Lee looked in old photographs.
“Your sister’s gotten into Mama Lee’s old wardrobe,” Mama said, shaking her head like there was a fly buzzing in her face.
“I can see that,” RB said, smirking. She herself was wearing a Princeton sweatshirt, jeans, and running shoes.
“It was like — like a miracle,” I started to explain. “Martha, you wouldn’t believe the things Mama Lee —”
But she literally turned her back on me, saying: “Statistics are going to kill me.”
“You’re in college now,” Mama said. “It’s supposed to be difficult.”
“And everyone is such a genius. Half my class is made up of valedictorians. And the other half were presidents of their high schools.”
“Goody, goody,” I mumbled.
“And the other half,” RG continued, “are multilingual. Or they’re classical musicians. Or both! It’s intimidating!”
“That’s three halves.” I snorted.
“You wouldn’t be there if you couldn’t handle it,” Mama said.
“I guess.”
“And, honey, you look great! I think college is good for you! Don’t you think so, too, Ann?”
RG looked like she always looked — like me, but taller, prettier, and with an actual figure. But she did look good, happy, like she had a wonderful secret. Her skin was perfect, and her big eyes shone.
“She looks just — dandy!” I said.
“And you look just — weird!” RB shot right back.
“Girls!” Mama said. Then, turning back to RB, she said: “Did Ann tell you? She’s following in your footsteps and doing Debate Team.”
“No way,” RG said.
“Yes way,” I said right before turning to flee to my room.
Two days later, the holiday arrived, and by four in the afternoon, the doorbell was ringing. “Martha! Ann!” Mama called from the kitchen. “That’s probably your grandmother! Would one of you get that?”
Except to help Mama with the preparations, I’d barely come out of my room at all that day, partly because — and I know it sounds dumb — but I just couldn’t decide what to wear. True, thanks to Mama Lee, I had a whole new look, but it was Thanksgiving, so I didn’t want to come down the stairs looking like I was going out to hit the clubs. (Yeah, right.) On the other hand, I just couldn’t bear to put on one of last year’s plain, tasteful, just-above-the-knee dresses, which didn’t even fit me so well anymore. I’d tried on pretty much every conceivable outfit in my closet until finally I decided on this amazing green velvet dress with big buttons covered in dark-green satin, a matching dark-green satin belt, and Mama Lee’s Lucite beads. I loved the dress not only because it fit me so well, but also because when I saw myself in it, it was as if I could almost see my future: as a person of note, like Mama Lee had been, like a person who could grow up to be something daring and wonderful, and not something staid and steady, like being a lawyer or an economist or some kind of business executive. Someone like Mama Lee had be
en: daring, and charming, and utterly magical. I couldn’t wait to see her face when she saw me in it! But when I went downstairs to answer the doorbell, she was so busy talking to RG that she barely glanced my way.
“Just let me look at you!” I could hear Mama Lee saying. Taking a step back so Mama Lee could admire her, RG looked like a walking advertisement for someone who’d been aiming for law school ever since she could potty. Her hair, parted on the side, was curled into a perfect flip, and she wore black silk pants with a matching black jacket over a blue silk shirt. “You’re all grown up,” Mama Lee said. “My, my, my.”
“My, my, my butt,” I whispered under my breath.
“And looking so fine! College must be agreeing with you.”
“It is. I love it.”
When the doorbell started ringing again, Martha gave me this look like: It’s your turn, brat. Within minutes, the house was filled with relatives saying hello and kissing and putting their coats in the coat closet and asking my father for legal advice (not really, it was more like a family joke) and making a big fuss over guess who.
“Isn’t she just a picture?” Mama Lee said, beaming.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Mama Lee!”
Finally she looked over at me and, seeing my dress, smiled a smile so big I felt like I could curl up in it and never come out. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you,” she said, “I brought you something. It’s over there in that bag in the corner. See?” Glancing through the little crowd of relatives who’d gathered in the foyer, I saw a Macy’s shopping bag next to the coat closet. “What is it?” I asked. But just then Mama came out of the kitchen, still wearing her apron, and telling everyone else to go to the dining room and find a seat, pulled me away, saying, “I’m having a little last-minute crisis and really need your help in the kitchen.” It wasn’t really a crisis, of course: It was some burned mashed potatoes. But it gave Mama time to scold me about my dress, telling me that Thanksgiving was no time look like I was playing dress-up. I loved my dress, though: I thought it was beautiful and elegant and mysterious. “But, Mama!” I began to protest, but she just hushed me and directed me to start ladling out the soup. By the time I’d finished helping Mama, there was only one place left at the table, between my eight-year-old cousin Scooter and a friend of my father’s who was going through a divorce and didn’t have anywhere else to go for Thanksgiving. Across from me were Mama’s aunt Ruth, my cousin Ashley, and Dad’s divorced friend’s friend who was visiting him from, like, Poland or somewhere. Mama Lee and RG were sitting side by side at the far other end of the table.
Tales From My Closet Page 10