Book Read Free

Sure Signs of Crazy

Page 5

by Karen Harrington


  “You don’t make me upset, Sarah,” he said. “You are my curious girl.”

  I helped him clean up the glass and the ice cubes. I smelled it just to see what Jim Beam was all about. It reminded me of cough syrup.

  That day, I tried to stop being a curious girl in public. I became curious in private. I went through his things when he wasn’t home or was sleeping.

  That’s when I saw the shoe box.

  It was on the top shelf, pushed to the back corner of his closet. When I opened it, I discovered what detectives might call an item of interest.

  Dear Jane,

  I know we talk on the phone some and in e-mails, but I never hear you laugh. I wish I knew what made you laugh. What does make you laugh? Oh, what a horrible letter this is. Look how many times I’ve written the word ‘laugh’? Well, I don’t mind admitting it HERE because no one ever reads all my unsent letters—but I’ve been drinking. Yes, it’s true. Mother has done her best to rehabilitate me, and mostly it has worked. Well, really, it is Sarah I do it for. But sometimes, it’s the only way I can sleep. I am weak. I am a weak, weak man.

  The letter ended, with no closing, no “Love, Tom” or anything. Maybe he had fallen asleep.

  You see, this is what happens when you get only a couple of cards a year from a person you don’t understand. Someone ends up spilling a drink or crying or both, and you get nowhere.

  Chapter 12

  I wonder if they would notice if I vanished.

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s have another drink.”

  Since I can’t disappear completely, I push the window screen out, climb outside, and replace the screen like a criminal. I know how to cover my tracks. Then I’m up on the dead tree stump in our front yard. This stump is only about three feet high, but at least I am off the ground. You wouldn’t think things look that different from this height, but they do. I would love to be this tall in real life. It would give me an edge to see things coming before they got close.

  The best I can hope for is to wait things out until that last good week in Houston. I will admire my grandmother’s earrings, talk her into letting me get my ears pierced just as she is beginning to like me again.

  I look back at our house. My grandmother’s nose is up to the window glass. I look away but can still feel her stare. I would bet ten dollars they are having the same conversation they had the last time my grandparents came to Garland.

  “That dead tree stump is an eyesore, Tom. Can’t you get rid of it?”

  “The owners have to take care of it. Plus, she likes standing up there.”

  “You mean she’s done this sort of thing before?”

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “It’s odd.”

  I would hate it if they took down my stump.

  Still, I try to imagine what I look like to my grandmother. Standing on a tree stump for no reason is definitely in her category of “things frowned upon.” Things frowned upon is big with my grandmother.

  Maybe I should ask them to take a picture someday to see if I look like a total dork. Even if I do, I’m trying hard not to care. I’ve been twelve for about ten minutes, but I know this: I am different from the rest of this family, and it makes them nervous. Maybe they are waiting for signs of crazy, too.

  I leap from the stump and swing back through the door. I make an extra effort to say something nice to my grandmother to get things rolling my way. This should improve my chances for pierced ears. I look down at what I’m wearing.

  “Well, I can’t go someplace nice in this.” I note the pleased look on her face. She’s thinking, It’s as if Sarah read my mind! “I’ll go put on something else.”

  I feel her smile warm my back as I walk down the hall to my room. Now that I am twelve, I wonder how I should change this room. The truth is that it never went with my eleven-year-old self, either. It’s still a sight of pure embarrassment to me, which is why I haven’t had any friends over except Lisa, and then all she does is say, “Let’s ask your dad to take us to the mall.”

  If you want to know, my room looks like Pepto-Bismol threw up inside it. Nothing left untouched. Pink walls. Pink throw rug. Nubby pink bedspread. Pink lamp shade. My dad thinks this is what a girl wants. I almost told him how awful it was when he opened the door almost two years ago and introduced me to my new room, but then he handed me my first cell phone.

  Also pink.

  What could I do?

  The closet is the one place inside my weird room most like me. Small and private. It is some pale white color that changes depending on the time of day and the light from the window. When I sit inside my closet, I imagine I’m watching the girl who used to live here. In my mind, she is a blond, happy girl who reads and makes beaded bracelets with her friends’ names on them. She is a girl who likes pink.

  I also have a large black box at the back of my closet.

  Another girl might think the box is full of junk, but for me, it is full of memories. Every time we move, I have to rethink what’s important, what will fit inside this box. Some things have to be thrown out, and the rest I have to keep in my mind. There’s a ticket stub to the first real movie my dad took me to, The Polar Express. A postcard from my aunt Mariah with a giant picture of the Texas coast on the front. A picture I cut out of a magazine of a beagle puppy, the kind of dog you know you could tell all your secrets to. A bottle cap Gramps gave me, or, really, pretended to take out of my ear. I sometimes keep my fake diary in this box because it is the most obvious place.

  And of course, I also have her cards. A small stack tied with a black ribbon.

  If this were Dad’s closet, I’d stuff all these cards in the holes in the walls. The holes are the exact size of a fist. Last time I checked, there were three.

  I look through my clothes and pick out a white shirt and capri pants. I brush my hair back behind my ears, put on my new sparkly headband. My grandma is sure to see my earlobes. They practically scream nakedness.

  Dad, Gramps, and Grandma are sitting in the peach-colored, semicircle booth at La Norte Tex Mex with me sandwiched in the center. This is my favorite booth in my favorite restaurant. They have Christmas lights up all year and weird wooden cat, pig, and bird figures on the walls. My grandmother says it’s too over-the-top, and I always wonder, Over the top of what? It’s hard to have a bad time in a place with this many colors. Plus, free chips and salsa as soon as you sit down. You could just eat chips and run out of the place without ever paying, but we never do.

  The waitress brings our drinks and takes our orders. Sour-cream enchiladas with double rice and no beans, thank you very much.

  “So, Sarah,” Dad says. Here it comes. Here comes somebody else’s idea of a fun summer for Sarah Nelson. I have to remind myself that Dad is not used to having fun and doesn’t care if others despair for happiness, which is my favorite line from The Valiant Rake. Someone is often despairing about something in that book.

  “Remember Charlotte Reynolds? She’s home from college and wants you to call her.”

  Of course I remember Charlotte.

  I love Charlotte. She was the first girl to point out that my toenails should always be painted, even in winter. Also, last year she left me a stack of magazines and books as tall as a three-year-old. Magazines I would never ask my father to get for me.

  And the books Charlotte gave me were the best kind. Paperbacks with the edges worn smooth and a bunch of pages dog-eared and sections highlighted in yellow. They were all her favorite stories from high school, she said, telling me to read To Kill a Mockingbird first, which, of course, I did. It was the second time I’d read it.

  The other great thing about Charlotte is she has a brother who delivers pizza. That is a real plus if your dad forgets to buy food. They both live right across the street from us when they’re not away at college. When she was home for Christmas, we spent one whole afternoon reading, a box of cold pizza on the coffee table for our eating co
nvenience.

  “Yes, I remember Charlotte,” I say, wondering why I didn’t already know she was home and does she have a different car?

  “I talked to her, and she’s looking forward to seeing you this summer.”

  Seeing me where, exactly? Will she be in Houston? “That’s nice.”

  “Charlotte has to study a lot over the summer. She’ll be home a lot,” he says. “Well, I asked her if she wouldn’t mind you staying at her house during the day. You know, just until I get home from work.”

  This is unbelievable! I don’t have to go to my grandparents’ house. I am getting a reprieve, which I’ve actually seen happen only in the movies.

  reprieve n.: a respite from impending punishment

  I feel my body relax. It’s as if I’ve been holding my breath for a week and someone finally said, It’s okay, you can let it go.

  At home, I let myself daydream about the summer. In a few short days I’d get to hang out with Charlotte, plan my time around what I wanted to do. I am getting ready to write about these new developments in my real diary when Dad knocks on my door.

  “So, we’re all set, then?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  He hugs me and I let him. I’ve outgrown the long hugs he likes to give. But how can I refuse him now? I hug him back tighter, and I swear I can feel the corners of his mouth go up. Mine do, too. When he lets go of me, he puts the unhappy-face golf ball in my palm and closes my fingers around it.

  “Can I come in?”

  Grandma just helps herself on in before we can say anything.

  Grandma sits down on my bed and hands me a small purple gift bag.

  “Happy birthday,” she says. “You look like you could use this, and even if you can’t, you can start training.”

  I pull out a bra. It’s pink, of course, and hideous.

  “Just as I thought,” Grandma says.

  Not only does she hold the bra to my chest, but she does it in front of my dad. I am about to despair of ever showing my face to the world again. When I look over at him, I see him staring at my dresser.

  When they leave my room, I look at the green composition book sitting there, the envelope from my mother next to it. Why did I leave that out in the open?

  After they are gone, I hide everything. The composition book. The envelope. The new pink bra. The next family to rent this house will find all of it in an unusual place and wonder what kind of strange family lived here.

  I know I do.

  Chapter 13

  Charlotte’s perfection makes our dumpy sofa look extra dumpy.

  She sits with her legs crossed at the ankles and her hands in her lap over a white flowing skirt, looking calm and ladylike. There’s something flawless and different about Charlotte. Of course, she is twenty and you would hope a person would have achieved perfection by that age. Compared with me, she is store-bought and I’m homemade. Whenever I got nervous in school last year, I would say to myself, “How would Charlotte act now?” and do whatever came to mind, which was usually pretending I didn’t care.

  This was some of the best advice I have given myself, I can tell you.

  “Hi,” I say to her.

  Charlotte says, “So, I need to go to the grocery store. Want to come?”

  See what I mean? I haven’t seen her for months, but we are already going shopping like two best friends.

  I throw a look to my dad, who says, “Of course. You girls have fun.”

  “I’ll get you some Funyuns.”

  “The big package, please. I have papers to grade.” He winks at me then. Whenever he has a thick chunk of student papers, he always likes to have a bag of chips nearby. He says it actually makes the bad papers read better, but I think this is just an excuse to eat Funyuns.

  I skip across the street and slide into Charlotte’s car, which is about as low to the ground as a car can be without actually touching the street. She turns up the volume on the radio and rolls down the windows. This is just how I like it.

  I watch her in profile as she drives with confidence, the way I will one day soon. Even just seeing one side of her face, you know Charlotte is beautiful. She has the qualities magazines say go into a pretty face. Smooth skin, green eyes, and a great smile set off by pink lip gloss that never gets stuck on her teeth. To me, she is the kind of girl a handsome farmer would spot across a field and want to be his wife just by looking at her. Well, maybe I’ve seen too many Westerns, but I swear that’s how she looks. She also doesn’t ask me a ton of questions, which is a real plus.

  At a stoplight, she says, “I don’t even know where to get Funyuns.”

  “Sometimes you have to go to the dollar store.”

  “I’m not going there.”

  Charlotte is sophisticated. I shouldn’t have mentioned the dollar store. I am a dork. I love the dollar store because my allowance doesn’t run out and there is always something you’d never think existed on the planet, like a coin purse made out of a sock.

  “I have to make two casseroles today, and I need your help.”

  This is something else I love about Charlotte. She doesn’t wonder if I can help. She just assumes I can.

  “Who died?” I ask.

  “What? Nobody died.”

  “I thought casseroles were the official food of grieving. Or if something bad happens.”

  “Turns out they are also the official food of hungry young men. Or at least the one I’m in love with.”

  Love?

  This is news with a capital N. I have a million questions because I have not yet fallen in love. As soon as Jimmy Leighton notices me, it should happen right away. But there are things I need to know. Is there a moment where you know someone and it’s normal and then he picks up the book you dropped from your backpack and—boom—five minutes later you are in love? And when do you know you should start moving in for a kiss like they do in movies? Who is supposed to turn their head so noses don’t get smashed?

  It’s superloud inside my head right now, so I just play it cool and say, “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “Do you like boys yet?” Charlotte asks. “Or are you at the age where you still think boys are smelly and stupid?”

  “It depends on their age, I guess,” I say. “But most boys I know are plain weird.” Except for Jimmy Leighton. He is weird in a good way.

  The truth is, I do notice boys, and I am curious about what they think, what their rooms look like, and, of course, the kissing part. I know the basic things about them: They are crazy to see even a piece of a girl’s underwear; when they get on the bus, they talk loud; they get in trouble for stupid things, like writing Visit Pen Island on the blackboard; and, when they skateboard through my neighborhood, they look fearless. Sometimes I wonder if Simon would be like them. He would be a skateboarder, for sure.

  “Well, one day you will learn all about it,” she says. “For now, take my word on it. It’s extraordinary.”

  Charlotte is the kind of person who can use the word extraordinary just like that. Most people save this word to describe a bad storm or a painting at the museum, but no, she can say it in Garland on a hot day. I let the muscles of my mouth form the word without making a sound. I try it on to see if it fits. Why, these chips are just extraordinary!

  No, that sounds wrong. I’ll have to wait for love to talk like her.

  “Don’t you want to know everything about him?”

  “Do you know everything about him?” I ask.

  “I know a lot of things about him,” she says. “The important things.”

  I want her to write a list of them for me right now. I put my hands under my legs and dig my nails into the seat so I won’t say anything stupid.

  “He works at Wilson’s Western Wear at the mall, and he likes King Ranch casserole, which is our particular mission today. We are going to figure out how to make one.”

  Well, this is why I love Charlotte. We both know that occupation and favorite foods are important facts to know about a person. I am all of a
sudden wondering about Casserole Man and how he must think Charlotte is extraordinary, too, and what this might mean to my blissful, grandparent-free summer. Somewhere during my private thinking, we arrive at the grocery store.

  Charlotte is out of the car and three steps ahead of me before I know it. I run to catch up with her, and one of my flip-flops comes off in the parking lot. I feel her eyes scanning me, and I try my best to look natural. I follow her into the store and think about how Charlotte might help me persuade Dad to let me get my ears pierced. They should be pierced before I have a real kiss from a boy.

  During the school year, Lisa and I had a boy party. We had to be secretive. If we had said to her mother, “Hey, we want to have a boy party,” well, that would have put an end to parties for the rest of our lives. We had three girls and three boys at her house. Her mother made popcorn and ordered pizzas. All of us would stay inside for a while or go and take walks outside. Outside seemed a mile from Lisa’s mother. I imagined her thinking, Oh, those kids are just getting some fresh air, looking at the constellations. They aren’t doing anything else.

  But maybe her mother didn’t care what we were doing outside. Or maybe her mother had been eleven years old once and remembered what it felt like to never have been kissed. The kissing-pact stuff came up then. Lisa and her brilliant idea.

  For a long time, it seemed to me like it’s just two parts of the body touching and why should it be any different than knuckles or knees? We stole some of the romance novels Lisa’s mother kept under her bed and learned how it could be more, though I had to go to the dictionary and Google a few times for more explanation. If you believe the paperbacks, a strange feeling makes a person want to kiss another person.

  In the romance novels, the person usually gets that kind of feeling when it’s raining or when she sees a shirtless guy hiding behind her bedroom curtains. And for some reason Lisa and I could never figure out, the woman isn’t afraid of the stranger. If it were me, it would be 911 city.

 

‹ Prev