Kissing Doorknobs

by Terry Spencer Hesser

  I burst out laughing. “I’m Tara Sullivan.”

  “I know. I’m Donna DeLuca.”

  “I know.”

  By that time we were walking home together in the rain. Actually, we were kind of running. I was so involved with her that I forgot to count the cracks! That omission would make me anxious later that night, but still, I wouldn’t go back.

  “How can you smoke after Holy Communion?” I asked.

  “What is that? Like a commandment? ’Thou shalt not smoke after receiving the body of Christ?’ ” She was not nearly as serious as I was about anything.

  “You’re not old enough, so it’s illegal.”

  “Give me the commandment.”

  “‘Honor thy father and thy mother’?”

  “Hey, if I’m not shooting heroin and getting pregnant from aliens, I’m honoring them more than they deserve.” We both laughed and laughed. I wondered what her parents were like that she felt that way about them. My mother slapped me for praying too much and shook the saliva out of me at a carnival, yet I’d do anything to keep her safe.

  12

  Fun

  For the first couple of months after we met, I practically lived at Donna’s house. In the process, I discovered that her parents were mostly absent. Donna and her sister, who was never home either, had the entire top floor of an old A-frame to themselves. On hot nights, we used to crawl out the window, sit on the roof and make wishes. I mostly wished that we wouldn’t fall down and that my parents were still alive and wouldn’t get a divorce. Donna mostly wished for mystical things like world peace and a cool boyfriend with a motorcycle. She knew about my quirks. I told her almost all my crazy thoughts. Even the ones about my mother and God and unbaptized abortions. She didn’t seem to mind. In return, I didn’t mind that half of her truths were imagined, and I never called her on the lies she told.

  Under a beautiful August moon, she turned to me and said, “Twinkie, you keep me outta jail and I’ll keep you outta the loony bin.”

  “Deal!” I said, and then hugged her.

  She never stopped smoking when she was with me.

  Oddly enough, I began to stop counting and praying when I was with her. Maybe it was because I had real things to worry about, like her smoking and lies. Whatever it was that she did for me, for the next few months, I had fun!

  In matching orange bikinis, we went to the pool nearly every day to enjoy the attention our budding bodies were creating. Donna’s breasts were full, like breasts on a statue of Venus. Mine were on the small side of medium. She swam and dove and splashed in the pool. I sort of held my breath and waded through what I sensed was a giant puddle of germs. Despite the warnings, we were both good at tanning and got really brown, which made our teeth look even whiter. We were beautiful and we knew it.

  Donna was like a guy magnet. I lived in her orbit. However, I didn’t have to be told not to have sex. Having guys put their tongues in my mouth and contaminate my saliva with theirs didn’t hold much appeal for me.

  I often hung out with Donna and some guy. A third wheel, to be sure. The only ones who ever seemed to mind were the guys, and they were revolving. A different one each week or month, depending on Donna’s whims. I was constant.

  I had no idea why. But after all that praying, counting and worrying and my horror at not being able to control my mother’s thoughts, it all seemed to stop. I fully expected it to return, but in the meantime, I enjoyed my parole by sitting on the shallow side of the pool and watching Donna and some guy splash each other with chlorinated germs in the deep end.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Count.”

  I looked up to see Keesha and Anna looking down at me.

  “Hi!” I said happily, even though I didn’t like Keesha’s tone.

  “Hi? Hi?” said Anna. “You told us you didn’t want to go out of the house anymore.”

  “I didn’t! That was true.”

  “Was?”

  “Yeah.” I felt defensive and confused. I didn’t want to hurt my friends, but I could see it was too late.

  “Maybe she meant she didn’t want to go out of her house with us. Like she didn’t want to walk to school with us or to catechism with me.” Keesha’s voice was mean.

  “That’s not it, you guys! Really.”

  “Well, what is it, then?” said Anna.

  “It’s hard to explain …,” I began.

  “Don’t bother,” said Anna, and knocked me into the water. When I got out, they were on the other side of the pool practicing their dives. They didn’t even glance at me. When Donna came back, we lay in the sun and she tried to cheer me up.

  “Hey, if I were you I’d rather be with me than with them. You’ve just got good taste is all.”

  I was silent for a while.

  “Donna?” I finally asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Why do you like to be with me? I mean, I’m kinda odd. And I know it. And you know it. But you’re popular. You could hang out with anyone, so why me?”

  Donna sat up and seemed to consider my question. “I think you’re funny. And smart. And caring. I like the way your trippy brain works. It’s interesting. If you want to take weird head trips and leave this planet behind, why should I care? I’d like to be able to get lost in my head the way you do.”

  When school started in September, Donna and I were still inseparable. Although we went to different schools, we got together for homework and gossip at night, shopped all day on Saturdays and spent Sundays with whichever of our families was doing something fun.

  Sometimes we took the el into Chicago to shop. It made me feel very sophisticated to be taking the el alone with Donna. We were free from our town, free from our neighbors and free from anyone who knew us. It was exciting.

  Once downtown, we were like bright threads sailing through a fabric consisting of thousands of other bodies in motion. We line-danced from store to store, in and out of revolving doors, up and down dozens of escalators. Alone. Unsupervised. Kid heaven.

  “Ever hock anything?” Donna asked me.

  “What’s that?”

  “Pinch—shoplift—stea-”

  “Shhh!” I covered her mouth with my hand and looked around. When I finally met her eyes again, I must have looked frantic. She laughed. I laughed.

  “Forget it,” she said. But of course I couldn’t forget it. Once I knew she was stealing, I was obsessed with the idea. I’d watch her carefully as she’d casually try a headband on her head and leave it there. Or slip a trinket up her sleeve or into her pocket without ever changing her expression. Then, before I knew it, I was doing it too. Just like that. To see how it felt. To see what happened. Which only proves that if I could steal, anybody can do anything.

  I wasn’t a very advanced thief. Just lipstick, blush, a tube of mascara. But when we walked out of that store, I was dizzy with excitement. I kept waiting for someone to come out, put handcuffs on my wrists, call my parents and arrange a july trial. I saw myself crying the mascara, blush and lipstick off my ashamed face on the stand. But nothing happened. No one came. I was free. I was exhilarated. I felt power.

  Then I saw a reflection of myself in the store window. I didn’t look any different, but I had changed. I was now a thief. Yet it didn’t show. What else was I that didn’t show? What about all the people behind me? What were they that didn’t show? Were they thieves, murderers and child molesters? Or were they hardworking, trustworthy people trying to be good?

  I looked at Donna and she knew what I was going to do in an instant.

  “No!” she cried out from behind me, but my decision was made. I walked back into the store and up to the security guard at the door.

  “Here. It’s yours. Or theirs. Lipstick. Blush. Mascara. I hocked it. And I’ve come back for my punishment.” Before I knew it, I was sitting in a tiny room with Donna, two policemen who worked for the store and the store manager. They let me go. No arrest. No trial. It was all over in less than fifteen minutes. Less time than it too
k me to confess my sin to poor, bored Father O’Malley, who I believe was almost glad to hear that I finally had a sin worth confessing.

  13

  Speechless

  For the most part, in eighth grade, I was normal. Or at least I acted more normal. I certainly felt more normal. My grades improved. And absence must have made my mother’s heart grow fonder, because our relationship had improved dramatically and she seemed genuinely happy during the infrequent times when we were together.

  Although the nickname “Count” stayed with me, I rarely counted cracks or prayed anymore. I thought Donna had changed my life. Even my parents had to admit that despite Donna’s “wildness,” she had proved to be a positive influence on my behavior problems.

  Unfortunately, though, with a group of kids from her school whom I didn’t like, Donna was in the process of changing herself with occasional drug use, and I was helpless to stop her.

  Kristin, Keesha, Anna and I were still tense with each other, but we usually ate lunch together anyway, mostly out of habit. And something about an argument between Anna and Wendy. Anyway, Keesha, Anna and I ate. Kristin mostly played with some celery and looked in a compact mirror. I didn’t care too much,though, because I had Donna to look forward to after school, if she wasn’t getting high.

  By Christmas I had a part in the school play. A small part. Actually, I played a candelabra. All I had to do was hold two unlit candles in the air for an hour while wearing a white sheet draped with a garland, but at the end I had a line: “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

  During the performance, I waited in agony to say my line. For an hour and a half, I stood on the stage watching kids who were born to be accountants, computer analysts and mimes acting their hearts out. Each line was more painful than the last. Parents groaned at their own children’s performances. Each blackout resulted in a standing ovation; the audience hoped the play was over.

  As I looked across the auditorium at the faces of my parents, my sister, Donna, her family and hundreds of others, I suddenly felt a chill run up my spine. Donna looked odd. Judging from her red eyes and faraway expression, she had obviously smoked something more powerful than Kool cigarettes before the performance. I was worried about her. The night before, she had lain under our Christmas tree and claimed that she was trapped in a yellow tree light.

  “At least your world is bright yellow,” I’d said. “I’ve spent years trapped in my head … and its contents are a lot less cheerful than that bulb.” She’d laughed hysterically. I knew better than to lecture her.

  I looked at the audience again. My parents looked hopeful that I’d be able to pull this off. My sister seemed interested in the play. Donna and her parents looked bored. My grandparents looked nervous. Suddenly I remembered a story that my grandma told about when she and my mother did an amateur night together. My grandma played the piano and my mom was supposed to sing. But when the curtain went up, they became paralyzed. My gram missed more notes than she hit and my poor mom couldn’t get a breath out, let alone a song. Maybe I inherited all my crazy stuff.

  I was hot, my arms ached and I was bored. I looked from Donna’s dreamy expression to Kristin’s tiny body and nervous twitchy expression. I wondered what her life must be like now that her mother was getting divorced again and she was in a makeup ad that ran in magazines around the world. I had less of a relationship with Kristin than with Anna and Keesha. I felt a stab of longing. I wanted to be in my room with the three of them, looking at magazines. I wondered what they wanted out of life. Then I wondered what I wanted. Then I wondered what other people thought of me as a result of my quirks.

  I looked at my music teacher. I knew she thought I was shy. Actually, I usually just wasn’t listening.

  My parents were hopeful that I was over the worst of whatever it was. I hoped so too.

  Suddenly, in the middle of my Christmas play, surrounded by people I had known all my life, I felt completely alone. I got scared. I squeezed my eyes shut and realized that I was afraid of growing up, of going to high school, of getting lost, of not being able to breathe.

  I looked from right to left and then from left to right. I did it again. And again. Obeying an urge, I was performing an outlandish ritual, onstage, in front of everyone, and they didn’t know it. I hoped. My heart was pounding with anxiety. My arms ached from holding the stupid candles in the air for so long. The tyrants in my head were returning with the force of an army. Please don’t make me have to pray! I don’t want my mother to drag me off this stage and kill me here in front of everyone!

  The image of Sisyphus rolling that giant stone uphill for eternity popped into my head. What did he do to deserve that? What did I do to deserve this? This play seemed to be taking an eternity.

  Mercifully, the curtain slowly descended behind me on the stage. The play was ending. I was standing alone before the audience. My heart was beating like a snare drum. This was it. My moment in the sun. Or was it the son. Sun. Son. Sun. Son.

  The spotlight illuminated me. Sun. The candles looked as if they were lit. Sun! All eyes were on me. Mute and tinsel-laden me. I didn’t utter a sound. I couldn’t utter a sound. The tyrants in my head forbade it.

  I was humiliated. I concentrated hard on not crying. After a moment, my mother stood up and applauded as if she had just seen the best performance of her life. Everyone else followed enthusiastically. I was mortified. Keesha was at my side with her arm around me, giving me silent support. I didn’t cry, but for the second time I felt her pity and wanted to get away from it. Luckily, when I came home nobody said anything about the play or my nonperformance. Donna had a date that night with a guy she’d met buying cigarettes at the bowling alley.

  14

  Warrior Angels

  Although Donna and I were totally too old, we spent the afternoon of Christmas Day making angel patterns all over my backyard by lying on our backs in the snow and swooshing our arms and legs. Inhaling frosty air through a giant piece of peppermint stick, I studied the cloud-decorated sky and listened to the crusty whooshes of our angel music. With Donna by my side, my family tucked safely inside the house and new forest-green Doc Martens on my feet, I felt almost happy—which made me reflexively nervous.

  “Do you believe in God?” I asked Donna while digging my elbows deeper into the snow. I looked at a cloud that changed from a woman’s profile into a dragon,

  “Oh, you’re not gonna start that trip again, are you?”

  “What trip?”

  “That praying trip?”

  “No!” I said quickly. And then, “At least—” But before I could finish my thought Donna chimed in.

  “‘I hope not.’” Then she added, “Well, if you do it again, try not to be so annoying this time.”

  “Okay,” I said. Then I thought about how much I loved Christmas. I loved the comfort and safety promised by Christ’s birth. I loved the trees, the snow angels, ’The Little Drummer Boy.” I loved midnight Mass with the intense colors and more intense music. I loved the incense and the hope. And then I loved coming home and opening presents, getting as many new clothes as possible. I loved my new Doc Martens. I loved two weeks off school. I loved Donna and my parents and—

  “I believe in God,” said Donna solemnly. She stood up to check out her angel. Although I couldn’t really say why, I was bathed in relief to hear that she believed in God. “And goddesses,” she added smugly.

  “Which ones?”

  “All of them … and then some.”

  I thought about her statement. I imagined Roman and Greek gods and goddesses nailed to alabaster crosses. I imagined singing “O Holy Night” in Latin and Greek, dancing down the aisles of the church. Donna interrupted my reverie by throwing a snowball in my face and laughing hysterically.

  “Come on,” she commanded. “I need a smoke.”

  Carefully we stepped between the angels and sat down on the other side of the garage so that my parents couldn’t see Donna smoking, even though they knew she did
it and could always smell it on her breath. When she’d finally got her cigarette lit in the wind, I watched her inhale a long drag. I thought about how close we’d become in the short time I’d known her. How much she meant to me. How comfortable she made me feel in spite of the risks she was always taking.

  “Great boots,” she said, looking at my new Docs.

  “Thanks.”

  “Christmas present?”

  “Duh!”

  “So what are you so quiet about today?” Donna managed to exhale words along with carbon monoxide and a thousand other poisons.

  I coughed and shrugged.

  “People die from breathing secondary smoke,” I said.

  Donna looked thoughtful. “Too bad I don’t get to pick which ones.” We laughed and I went back to cloud-watching, but I knew she was watching my face. “I get nervous when you’re quiet for too long. You aren’t counting snowflakes or something, are you?”

  “No. I’m counting the months I’ve known you.”

  She smiled, and in those few seconds she looked like her mother. She hated her mother, but I didn’t really know why. Part of me thought she hated her mother because she was afraid that if she didn’t hate her she too might end up married to someone named Hal and taking medicine for bouts of depression.

  “I’m also worried about you taking drugs.”

  Donna didn’t respond. The wind picked up and we shivered.

  “I don’t complain when you leave the planet behind, do I?” she asked, and I thought about how she saw it.

  “Did you really let a doctor poke a needle into your eye zillions of times?”

  She looked startled. “I had a tumor,” she said dryly. “The doctor removed it. And yes, he gave me drugs.”

  “Is that why you wore the sunglasses?”

  “Duh.”

  “Girrrllzzz!” my mother called from the back door.

  “We’re back here, Mom,” I said, glancing at Donna’s cigarette.

  “Din-nerr.”