Contents
Title Page
Praise
Epigraph
Part I: Earthly Comfort
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Part II: In the Reign of Pamela
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Part III: The Doubled Moon
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
About the Author
Other Titles
Copyright
Praise for NORMA FOX MAZER’S When She Was Good
“A delicately wrought piece of fiction. When She Was Good often sounds like nonfiction…. Not too good to be true, but too bad to be false. It is written with a stinging clarity and conviction.”
— The New York Times Book Review
“A heart-wrenching novel. The author poetically evokes a poignant, honest image of rebirth and self-reliance. Readers who wince at the heroine’s abuse and rejection will find solace in her slow-but-steady emergence into a kinder world.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
“This isn’t the first time Mazer has dealt with relationships between sisters, but this book is more intricately structured and far more brutal. Its language is at once fierce and unpretentious, and it has greater emotional depth than most YA novels.”
— Booklist, starred review
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
SLJ Best Book
ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice
“We are adaptable creatures.
It’s the source of our earthly comfort and …
of our silent rage.”
– Michael Cunningham: A Home at the End of the World
I didn’t believe Pamela would ever die. She was too big, too mad, too furious for anything so shabby and easy as death. And for a few moments as she lay on the floor that day, I thought it was one of her jokes. The playing-dead joke. I thought that at any moment she would spring up, seize me by the hair, and drag me around the room. It wouldn’t be the first time, but this time it would be deserved, my own fault, the way she always said it was. Punishment for standing there, for watching her, for letting it happen. For saying out loud, “Well, Pamela; are you going to do it? Are you going to die?”
As a little girl, I would often chant and sing two words, which I had decided were magic words. These words were happy home, and how I came by them I don’t know, but I believed if I said and sang them often enough, it would change things — take away Mother’s sadness and make Pamela nice and even turn Father cheerful. And then I would be happy.
Eventually it became clear to me that this would not happen; yet, in some part of myself, I went on believing, not in chanting words, but in magical possibilities — I think that’s the way to put it. How else explain my belief that what I wanted might be out of sight now, but was possibly only a grasp beyond whatever moment I was in? How else explain how I revived that belief time after time? How else understand that I sensed this phantom thing, happiness, as something real — like a fabulous painting or statue that existed in the world, hidden from me now, but only waiting for me to come upon it? I believed this could happen any time. In an instant, the change could occur, the gift be mine. So, despite everything, I went on waiting to be happy.
I think, now, that Mother was also waiting. Day after day she lived her life and never complained, but I saw her sometimes staring out the window. I saw her sometimes crying.
* * *
It’s four years since Mother died, and it still matters to me how she feels about things. I don’t want her to be unhappy with me — if the dead can be happy or unhappy. I don’t know about that, but I’ve always felt that she’s somewhere nearby. In the case of Mother, I believe in the soul’s life.
Would Mother forgive me? I would like to hear her speak once more, to hear her say it. What bothers me is that I can’t remember the sound of her voice. I remember other things: how the bones poked through the skin of her hands; how she held her elbows as if weighing them, held them like some good little thing she would keep to herself. Even in the heat of summer, she’d be like that, arms crossed, as if hugging herself. And I remember her saying, “Be a good girl, Em.”
Every morning she said that. Standing in the doorway of the trailer, hugging her elbows, watching Pamela and me as we left to walk to the Corners for the school bus. Her words following us down the road. “Em, be a good girl. Pamela, you, too. You hear me girls?”
And every morning, Pamela: “Shut up, Ma.”
And Mother, leaning out the door: “Take care of each other.”
And Pamela: “Shut your stupid face, Ma.”
And my feet scuffing the sand, and Mother’s voice, “Em, take care of your sister, take care of Pamela.”
And Pamela: “Ma, that’s stupid. I’m the older one, I take care of her.”
And Mother: “You hear me, Em? Be a good girl, Em.”
Mr. Penniman has eyes like the eyes of certain dogs, either very nice dogs or scary dogs, I can’t decide which. Stupid bitch, Pamela says in my head. Thinking about dogs in this place! “Well, dear, have you made up your mind?” Mr. Penniman says. He leads the way among the coffins in the crowded room. Each one has its own bench and glitters at me like a huge jeweled chest.
“Now how about this one, dear? Copper handles.”
“How much?” I say.
“I don’t want you to worry about money.”
I nod. I know what he is doing, of course: he is selling me something like any salesman. It’s disgusting, but still I like the way he is looking at me, and I can’t help wondering if he thinks I’m pretty. I’m probably just as disgusting as he is.
“This model here, Miss Thurkill, is my personal favorite. We call it the Skylark.”
He stands close to me. He has a basket of dark skin under each eye, and smelly breath, but his deep voice is lovely. I hope my breath is fresh. I can smell my underarm sweat. I like that smell. Fool, Pamela rages in my ear. Frucking idiot. First dogs, now smells? You’ll never change.
“Lovely deep blue satin lining, dear,” Mr. Penniman says. “A very popular item. One of my satisfied customers told me, ‘That lining is the color of the sky on a sunny day, Mr. Penniman.’”
I think about leaning against his chest. He could pet my head, make the choice for me. I could go to sleep right there, standing up. I love to sleep. The year Mother died, I loved it so much I slept all the time.
“And she said, ‘I know my husband is happy I’m choosing something beautiful for his final resting place.’ Did your sister enjoy nature, Miss Thurkill?”
“Sometimes she watched nature shows on TV.”
“Get the best, dear.” His hands touch the wood, caress it. “No veneers. One hundred percent natural. You won’t regret it,” he says. “My advice to the bereaved is to think long-term.”
The BEREAVED, Pamela says. What kind of idiot
word is that? Now she’s not so mad. I can hear her laughing. She liked the big goofy words people used so they didn’t have to say the little hard words. My hand goes to my breast. The bruise where the frying pan hit me is still tender.
“Miss Thurkill, special touches like the color of the lining are, psychologically speaking, important. I’ve been in this business a long time and, frankly, I know that doing things the right way sets the heart at ease.”
He looks at me with his dog’s eyes. Friendly eyes. That’s it — I’m sure of it — his eyes are friendly.
“Life is long,’’ he says. His voice rumbles through his chest. “The moment is short. Everyone’s time comes. There is a season. A time to live, a time to die.”
“I heard that on the radio,” I say. “They were singing it. It could be the special song of funeral directors.”
He doesn’t give me even a tiny smile in return. He looks down, as if I did something crude: farted the way Pamela did, anywhere, anytime. It’s natural, she’d say, what the hell is wrong with that? You telling me you don’t fart?
Mr. Penniman smooths down his tie, which has red, white, and blue stripes. If I say it’s a patriotic tie, he won’t smile at that, either. Of course it’s not very funny, just a tiny remark. I could tell him one of Pamela’s jokes. What’s yellow and smells like carrots? Bunny farts. It’s a stupid joke: she liked anything about farts. Even if it wasn’t a stupid joke, he wouldn’t laugh. It’s his job to be serious.
It was the same with me and Pamela. Not that living with her was a job, but of course I couldn’t just laugh anytime I felt like it. I had to be mindful of the expressions on my face and the thoughts in my head. Thoughts were always a problem. There were too many times she walked into my head and stood there and saw what I was thinking. My solution was not to think anything, if possible.
I wonder if Mr. Penniman ever had sex in a coffin. It’s not really an original thought. I saw it in a vampire movie we’d rented. Pamela was offended; she said it was dirty stuff for a family movie. She got mad and threw her dinner at the wall. I’d made spaghetti with tomato sauce. “Did you hear that, Em?” I got the cleanser and a sponge and began cleaning the wall. “Did you hear the dirty stuff they said?” she screamed.
She, herself, usually never said anything worse than “bitch” or “damn.” Other words she changed. She said “creezus jist” and “farsehole.” She made up her mind to do that after we left the trailer and the country. The trailer stood alone in a bit of woods, back from the road that ran like an arrow to Lake Ontario. Only fishermen traveled the road, throwing up billows of dust as they sped toward the lake. When Pamela and I moved down to Syracuse, she said we had to mind our manners — funny coming from her — and she changed the way she said certain words. “Sheeeet,” she said now, and “huck it.” It sounds nicer, she told me, and just right for city living, and she didn’t see why everyone couldn’t speak the same way.
Once she heard a guest on the Phil Donahue show say “intercourse,” and she was so irritated she butted her behind into the TV and knocked it over.
“Which one will it be, dear?” Mr. Penniman says. “Now is the time to pave the way for ease of mind and peace in your soul. Have you made your decision?”
My eyes are aching, as if they’ve been boiled like eggs. Why can’t we just dig a big hole and put Pamela in it? A nice square hole, with the sides scraped down straight and neat. Like putting her in a bed, hands folded across her chest, legs straight, eyes closed. She would look peaceful. And I wouldn’t have to make any decisions.
Mr. Penniman is stroking the coffin with the blue satin lining. It has a blue satin pillow too. “Buying the best for Sister will soothe the grief.” He strokes the silky pillow. “Shall we go for this one?”
I like that pillow. I would like to have it for my own. I could put my cheek against it at night and go to sleep and not think about anything, just feel the softness.
“Well, dear?”
I shake my head. Never in all the world could I afford that. I hope he doesn’t try to make me buy it. I look out the window. There’s wet fog hanging in the trees like gray rags. Pamela hated this month: she said March was filthy, even the rain was filthy. Once, in a good mood, she made up a song. “I’m marching because I hate March!” She went around the room, pumping her arms up and down, singing that over and over. I marched with her and sang too, and we laughed and laughed.
Really, though, I’m fond of March; I like it in a special way, because it’s like no other month. March is March. It’s like nothing except itself. It’s muddy and it’s foggy and it’s awful, and you can never mistake it for any other month.
“Dear. We must come to a decision.”
I feel a cough coming, but no decision. I press my hand flat against my throat, but the cough starts anyway, a dry choky thing. Just stop stop stop STOP. You’re doing that frucking cough to make me crazy.
“I am not. I’m not,” I protest.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Penniman says.
“I have to have the cheapest one,” I get out.
“Ahh.” His eyes are doors closing.
He swivels away from me, walks toward his office, and I follow. I’ve disappointed him. He’s spent all this time with me, and there’s not going to be a good sale. At least he didn’t yell.
No one has yelled at me for two days. Ever since. I’m no longer used to such quiet. Morning and night, quiet, so quiet. Even the furniture is quiet. It was quiet that way in the country when we all lived together. Mother used to say, “It’s too quiet here!” We were a mile off the paved road. There wasn’t even a sign for our road, but everyone around called it the Killenhorn Road for the family that owned the gravel pit. They had let Father put his trailer on the land years ago, even before Pamela was born. Or maybe not. Maybe he just did it, and they didn’t care. We didn’t take up much space. It was just us and our trailer on a rise over the stream.
Sometimes, in good weather, Mother would go outside at night and walk up and down the road. I can see her, arms crossed, kicking at the sand. I can see myself standing by an open window, watching and listening. Sometimes she would speak to herself or cry out. Once she cried, “Help!” And another time I heard her say, “It’s quiet as the grave here!”
“Are you talking to yourself?” Father would come and stand in the doorway. “What are you doing, Veronica?”
“Nothing. Walking.”
“Come inside. You’ll get sick.”
“No, no, I’m fine.”
Up and down she’d go. In the spring, the peepers clattered. I miss the peepers in the city. In the summer, it was cicadas, a sound like electric wires. In the winter, nothing but wind and fat cakes of snow everywhere. Mother never went out in winter, except to go to work. It was spring and summer when she paced the road. When she said, “It’s quiet as the grave around here. What am I doing in this place, with no one except the frogs and the bugs?” When I stood by my window, watching her, thinking, Mother, I’m here. I’m here too.
Quiet as the grave, that’s the apartment. But it’s not a grave. There’s no one dead in it now. Unless I am. It could be that I’m dead and don’t know it. Shut up! You are never going to make it without me, you pathetic loony.
On TV, a few years ago, I saw pictures of an earthquake in Chile. First, the buildings — which looked solid enough to last forever — fell. They fell in every direction, spraying and crumbling. They fell like paper. Like dust. Like toys. Everything was falling. Streets caved in, swallowing the world. Bricks and sticks and cars and refrigerators and people disappeared. There was dust everywhere. A strange silence. Then the cries of people. What must they have been saying? Then the rescuers, the sound of sirens, the dazed survivors rubbing at the spot where their hearts were supposed to be.
“What will be the form of payment?” Mr. Penniman sits at his desk. He pats his tie from top to bottom. “Cash, check, or charge card?”
I open my purse. Inside is the white bank envelope. I count out
the bills slowly. I don’t want to give him this money, but I do, and then the envelope is thin.
“Now what have we missed?” His voice is friendly again. “Do you have someone for the service? I recommend Kevin Fletcher. Nondenominational, does a super job. You’d never guess he didn’t know the deceased intimately.” He makes a note on a pad. “Will the coffin be open during the service, dear?”
My head heats up in two paths of fire. Suddenly I understand that Pamela is going to be put in a box, and it will make her furious. She will rise up, she will burst out, she will curse me and take me by the throat and pull me into the box with her. My heart stabs at my ribs. I know this can’t be true, but what if it is? “I want the box locked,” I say.
“A lock is not available on the model you’ve chosen. But, Miss Thurkill!” Mr. Penniman smiles at last, thrilled with his joke. “Don’t worry! No one that I know of has ever gotten out.”
“Today the sun is shining and the leaves are pretty and shiny,” I wrote in the journal I kept for eighth grade English. I always tried to write nice things, pretty things. “Today, I found a salamander, it was red as the sunset…. The birch trees are like dancing girls in the wind.”
I never wrote about Pamela or Mother and Father or the trailer. I knew Mrs. Karyl would not like to read about such stuff. She was tall and had a bird’s nest of thick black hair. She read poetry to us and as she talked, she pushed her pencil into her nest of hair: in and out, in and out. That gesture fascinated me and I imitated it whenever I was alone, poking a pencil into my own thick black hair.
When She Was Good (9780545361910) Page 1