When She Was Good (9780545361910)

by Mazer, Norma Fox

  * * *

  “Hello,” I say, and stand up. “Hello, Louise.” I’ve been sitting on the landing for an hour, waiting for her to come down the stairs.

  She walks by me without a word.

  I go down the stairs behind her and into the lobby. “I would like to talk to you,” I say to her back. She goes outside. I do too. “I don’t want to be a pest,” I say.

  She looks at me. “But you are.” Her eyes are like little blue plates with fine lines etched all around the perimeters.

  “I’m working,” I say. “I found a job. A wonderful job. I was looking for a long time.”

  “What are you doing?” she says. “Are you following me again?”

  “No. I just want to talk to you. Can I talk to you?”

  “Why?”

  “I like you,” I stammer.

  “You don’t know me. And if you did, you’d know I’m not that likeable. I’m not that nice a person.” Her face seems to tighten and shrink; her cheekbones look polished. It reminds me of something, but I can’t remember what. “I don’t know what you’ve got in your mind about me,” she says. “Maybe you’re looking for a mother. Is that it? Where’s your mother? What’s the matter with her?”

  “She’s … gone.”

  “That’s too bad, but let me tell you something. Don’t look to me to be your mother substitute.” Her voice is tight, sharp, clear. “I haven’t done that well in the mother department. I have two daughters, and they both live as far from me as they can get. They don’t like me, and you won’t, either.”

  “I will,” I say. “I do.”

  “No, you’re wrong. You’re foolish and wrong! Can I put it to you any plainer than that? One of my daughters I haven’t heard from in a year. Okay? The other one calls me every two or three months. She tells me the news she thinks fit for my ears and hangs up. She never asks me anything. Not interested. So forget me. Because I’m not interested, either.”

  I look at her. “I still like you,” I say. And I walk away.

  Mr. Becker buys and sells used TVs, microwaves, CD players, stoves, and refrigerators. Every inch of the two floors of his tiny straight-up building are jammed with appliances and boxes and signs. BEST BUY IN THE WORLD. BECKER CAN BE TRUSTED. My office is a desk in a corner of the room near a window looking out on the street.

  Just as he said the first day, two or three times a week he dictates a letter, which I take in “shorthand,” and then type on the word processer. I use my own code. “Ubplno” stands for “You will be pleased to know.” I make up new ones all the time.

  I answer the phone, of course. “Becker’s Best Buys! Good morning! This is Em.” I take messages and give out information about models and prices from the big book he keeps on his desk.

  I sweep and dust and sometimes I do little errands for him on my lunch hour, buy things for his kids or pick up the morning newspaper. I know I’m supposed to mind doing that, but I don’t. I don’t mind doing anything for Mr. Becker.

  I also cut out the Becker ads he runs in the Friday and Sunday papers and paste them into a scrapbook. Sometimes I wait on customers, and I tell them they can count on Mr. Becker’s word. Every morning around ten o’clock I go across the street and buy a container of coffee and two cinnamon doughnuts for Mr. Becker. And at the end of the week, he thanks me for being such a terrific worker and gives me my pay. I don’t want this job to ever end.

  On the way home from work, I stop to watch a softball game in a school field. The girl at bat has dark hair pulled back in a stiff ponytail. She stamps her feet, bites her lip with small sharp teeth. The sky is that common radiant blue of early spring. The pitcher loops the ball toward the batter and she hits it hard into the outfield. Everyone yells as she runs toward first base. “Go, go, go!” they yell. She slides into second base on her belly. “Saaafe,” the umpire, a tall man, bellows, stretching out his arms.

  I stand by the wire fence for a long time, watching the game, watching especially the dark-haired girl. Me, I think, me in another life.

  * * *

  On the way home from work, I look into the window of a diner, an old railroad car, and see St. Toothbrush sitting at the counter. I’m sure it’s him, although all I can see is his broad bent back. I go to the corner, and then I turn around and go back.

  In the diner I sit down on a stool next to him.

  He’s got a cup of coffee and a newspaper, and he’s making little concentrated grunts at whatever it is he’s reading.

  “What can I get you, honey?” the counterman says.

  “Coffee.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Warren looks up. His round, brown, baby eyes are set deep in the soft flesh of his face. “Hey, this is nice, meeting you again. Where’d you come from?”

  “I’m on my way home from work.”

  The counterman brings my coffee. “Anything else?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “They have great pie here,” Warren says. “The apple pie is the best.”

  “Homemade,” the counterman says.

  “Do you have elderberry?” I ask.

  “It’s too early. Not in season yet. We have apple, peach, cherry, banana cream.”

  “Apple,” I say.

  “And one for me too,” Warren says.

  We sit there and eat pie and talk.

  Afterward he walks home with me and says goodbye and then comes back and asks for my phone number. “Is it all right if I call you?” he asks. “I mean, is it all right?”

  * * *

  On the way home from work, I stop in the market and buy fresh fish. At home, I make myself a perfect supper. Fish, salad, bread. Vanilla ice cream for dessert. I set the table, but then I don’t sit down. I take my plate and stand by the window with it. And watch the phone, waiting for it to ring.

  All day the windows of my office stream with rain. When I say good-bye to Mr. Becker, rain is still falling in long gray sheets, and the streets are slick and shiny. I walk fast, huddling into my sweater and looking over my shoulder for the bus. I don’t have an umbrella. I need a lot of things I’m putting off buying until I’ve caught up with the rent payments. My feet are soaked in a moment, and halfway home the sole of my left shoe comes loose, flapping with every step I take. At a corner, a car passes too close, sending a flaring skirt of water over my legs. It’s too much, and I duck into a store for shelter.

  It’s dry and warm. A heater hums somewhere. There’s a peculiar smell in the air, something between old cellars and mustard. I’ve stepped into a thrift shop crowded with racks of clothes and bins of hats and sheets and toys. I walk down an aisle and stop in front of a shelf full of shoes. Red, black, green, purple, even silver. A pair of humbly ordinary white sneakers catches my eye.

  “Try them on, darling!” A blonde woman sitting on a couch in the middle of an aisle winks at me. She’s wrapped in something loose and gold colored. It looks like a pair of old drapes. “Go ahead!” she urges.

  I don’t really want to buy someone else’s discarded shoes. She moves over to make room on the couch for me, takes the sneakers and inspects them. “These look good,” she says. “Almost new, darling! Come on now, give them a try. You need something,” she adds, looking at my feet.

  The sneakers fit as if they were made for me.

  “I knew it,” she says triumphantly. “I’ve got an eye.”

  I laugh. “I guess you do.”

  We sit there talking, both of us hoping the rain will stop. When I finally leave with the sneakers in a plastic bag, the rain is coming down as hard as ever. I’ve barely gone two steps when I recognize the woman striding in front of me holding up a big green umbrella. Louise. I don’t know what to do — stay behind, go ahead, speak, or just pretend she’s not there. I remember exactly her words the last time we spoke. Not interested. And how I couldn’t let it be, how I had to keep trying. Almost begging. I still like you.

  I lag behind, but at the corner the light is red, a
nd we both stop. The wind comes up and blows the umbrella sharply at me. “Oh, sorry!” Louise says, turning, and then she sees who she’s talking to. Her blue eyes narrow in weary exasperation, as if I’ve planned this, and in them I see displeasure, irritation, how very little she thinks of me. She pulls the umbrella closer to her shoulder, an ordinary gesture, but in it is Louise’s dismissal of me. That’s when I understand fully that I’m nothing to her but an annoying, clinging, beseeching burr.

  I grab the plastic bag closer to my chest and nearly leap away from her and what I see in her eyes. I have the small satisfaction of seeing a look of surprise cross her face, and then I’m past her, springing down the street, running, leaving her behind. My shoes squish through puddles, the loose sole flaps, my hair falls in my face, but nothing bothers me. I’m weightless, moving through air, traveling without even touching the pavement. Pride, like a tiny engine on each ankle, carries me forward. No, I think. No. No. I’m thinking No so hard I don’t see the taxi rounding the corner, heading straight for me. The blast of his horn sends me leaping for the curb, and he passes in a huge spray of water. I’m safe, but soaked again.

  Behind me, I hear a voice. “You jerk!” It’s Louise, shouting at the retreating cab. “He would have rolled right over you,” she says. She holds the green umbrella over me. “He drenched you.”

  I push a wet bunch of hair behind my ears. “I’m fine,” I say, and I walk away.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” she calls, “don’t be so stiff-necked.” I hear her running behind me. “You’ll come down with pneumonia,” she says, catching up to me. “Look at you, you’re like a drowned cat. Get under this!”

  We walk along without speaking, the umbrella bobbing like a green roof over us. I don’t know what charitable impulse grabbed Louise, but as soon as we get to our building, I’m leaving. I’m not forgetting my No. I’ve said yes and yes and yes and yes too often and too long. Thanks, Louise, and good-bye. That’s what I’ll say.

  “Listen, uh —” Louise breaks the silence. “I was a little harsh with you the other day. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t care anyway.”

  She glances at me. “You don’t have to be polite. I know I was obnoxious. I can get that way. I apologize.”

  I don’t say anything, and she doesn’t, either. And that’s the way it is until we get to the building. There, in the lobby, William is holding down his usual place on the bench. “Oh, there’s Em,” he greets us. “There’s Em. There’s Em and Louise,” he sings out.

  Hearing our names joined that way, I can’t help glancing at Louise. “Hello, William,” I say.

  “Hello, Em! Hello, Louise! Are you happy today?”

  “I’m wet today, William,” Louise says.

  William roars with laughter. “That’s a good one, Louise. That’s funny, Louise. ‘I’m wet today, William.’” He hugs himself, rocking. “Em, that’s funny, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is, William.” I open the door to the stairs.

  “We’re two wet girls,” Louise says, folding the umbrella. “Louise and Em are both wet, William.’’ She’s never used my name before.

  She walks toward the door. I hold it open for her, and we go up the stairs together.

  Pamela wakes up from her nap fighting mad, says her head hurts, hurts like bitter hell. She sits in her chair and watches TV, and the picture is wavering damn TV just when you want it fix it how long you going to make me wait and now she’s really upset. A bitter sweat smell comes off her. Ever since I came back from Vermont she refuses to shower more than once a week. She says water takes away her strength.

  I work at the TV, jiggling the box, moving the antenna this way and that. Aren’t you done yet come on hurry up I need something to take my mind off. I’m doing it, Pamela, doing it as fast as I can.

  She sits forward on her chair, tapping her fingers against the iron frying pan, the one in which I’ll make her an omelette as soon as I get the TV working. Bitch you’re trying to make me feel crazy get it fixed or I don’t know what I’ll do I’m telling you my head — she bites her lip, moans. Blood runs down her chin.

  I’m doing it, Pamela, doing it, honestly, hold on. Don’t tell me to hold on don’t say that to me not me damn damn. She sobs and slams the pan against her leg.

  Pamela, don’t do tha —

  She throws the pan at me. It hits me in the breast.

  I cry out. Can’t help it. And she slides off her chair, just slides right down it and sprawls on the floor on her back.

  Pamela?

  Her mouth is open, but she doesn’t answer. Just lies there.

  I crouch near her, holding my breast. There’s a thump on the floor. Mr. Foster, mad about the noise. Automatically, I thump back.

  I move away, watch Pamela, wait for her to get up and come after me. I push the iron pan out of her reach and plan my escape. The bathroom, I think: it still has a lock.

  Her left eye is fixed on me. She’s up to one of her tricks, all right. She’s watching me.

  What? I say. What do you want?

  Her foot twitches, and I wait.

  The clock in the kitchen ticking.

  Her eye fixed on me. Her mouth opening and shutting.

  The TV blurring in waves of color.

  Truck horns outside like ships at sea, like the hoarse voices of giants, like prehistoric animals calling each other.

  A breeze blowing the curtains.

  Her eye.

  The sun going down. The room growing cool. Heat clicking in the pipes.

  She doesn’t move. Saliva drips from the corner of her mouth and makes a puddle on the floor.

  In the darkness, I dial 911.

  * * *

  How long did it take me to call? Hours. Coldhearted, murderous hours.

  Although when I look at the clock, it is minutes that have passed. I see minutes, not hours.

  Can I believe myself?

  * * *

  At first I thought it was a trick. Then I saw it wasn’t. The drool from the corner of her mouth convinced me. Seven minutes or seventeen or seventy had passed. They had gone and they would never come back.

  * * *

  I stand on the spot. Stand where she fell. Where she fell. That day. Where she lay, looking up. Lay that day. Lay looking up, not speaking. Unable to speak. Unable to scream. To move. To beg. To curse.

  Unable.

  I stand there. Stand on the spot, as if on her. Stand there and don’t move, and remember. Remember it all. And say, Pamela, I’m sorry.

  I am.

  Sorry, and not sorry. Sorry she’s dead. Not sorry she’s not here.

  * * *

  She toppled off her chair and slid to the floor. I have thought of it so many times. That is exactly what happened. Threw the pan. Toppled and slid. Fast, sudden. Just like that. Thump. Bump. And Mr. Foster, on the fourth floor, pounding with his broom on his ceiling. And me waiting for Pamela to jerk upright and scream Shut up old fart piss off —

  But she never got up.

  Every summer, there came a weekend when Mother and I walked a mile or so to the abandoned railroad tracks to pick elderberries. We filled our empty coffee tins with the tiny black berries that grew abundantly along the thin bending branches. Mother said it was something she remembered doing with her own mother.

  At home we sorted through the berries, cleaning out leaves and stems. They stained my hands and tongue and teeth purple. They were full of tiny seeds. And — “Sour,” I said, every year, as I tasted.

  “Who asked you to eat them raw?” Mother said in reply every year. We were both happy in those moments. “You watch me now, Em. I’m going to fix them up.”

  She stirred cup after cup of sugar into the boiling pot of berries and scalded a dozen little jars and spread out the red rubber rings. When she was done, we had sweet jam for the rest of the year to spread on our toast each morning. And, oh, it was so good.

  About the Author

  NORMA FOX MAZER (1931–2009) gr
ew up in Glens Falls, New York, in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Norma was praised for her portrayal of characters with realistic problems and relationships that pull them out of struggles. Her books have received many awards, including a finalist for the National Book Award, a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, the Christopher Medal, a Newbery Honor, and The Edgar.

  Copyright © 1997 by Norma Fox Mazer

  All rights reserved. Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, the LANTERN LOGO, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

  Mazer, Norma Fox, 1931–

  When she was good / by Norma Fox Mazer.

  p. cm.

  Summary: The death of her abusive, manipulative older sister prompts seventeen-year-old Em to remember their life together, with their parents and then later on their own.

  ISBN 0-590-13506-6

  [1. Sisters — Fiction. 2. Family Violence — Fiction. 3. Emotional problems — Fiction. 4. Family problems — Fiction.] I. Title

  PZ7.M47398Ear 1997

  [Fic] — DC20 96-35532

  Book design by Elizabeth B. Parisi

  Cover photographs by Malerie Mader (top) and Heather Hannoura (bottom)

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-36191-0

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.