“Actually, I have a few things you can add to your list of grievances. Mom doesn’t like your friends, she’s worried about your grades, says you have to attend summer school, and that you came home drunk.”
“That’s such bullshit!”
“And she’s sent me on a mission to turn you back into the sweet little girl she gave birth to,” I add.
Louise flashes me a hostile look that basically demands to know, Whose side are you on? “It’s all because that attendance asshole Dick Collier called Mom and Dad after he caught me hanging out with some friends in the parking lot during gym class.”
“I have to agree with you that this is one case where Dick isn’t just a nickname,” I admit wholeheartedly. “But it doesn’t sound as if that’s everything.”
“My friends just happen to be cool, that’s all. They’re older and they have cars. And that way we can get out of this hick town.”
Yes, it’s obvious Louise isn’t going to be bicycling anywhere in that outfit.
“Well, Louise, I think Mom has a point about college guys. It’s a slightly different scene.”
“Oh, fuck you! Just because you graduated early and go to college you think you’re some big shot and want to give me all kinds of older sister crap. Puh-leeze, Hallie, I remember when you were the local juvenile delinquent being accused of robbery, truancy, underage gambling, and God knows what else! Not to mention those lunatics you live with, including the high school geek.”
I deduce from her remark that despite Brandt’s starting to look and sound normal, a perceived behavioral and social gap still remains between him and most of the adolescent world.
From the way Louise turns away from me in a huff it’s obvious that she’d like to storm out of the room in order to finish making her point. But since she’s grounded and not allowed to leave the house, exiting will only lead her directly into the grubby hands of the little kids and possible assignments of table setting or laundry folding. So she turns to her computer and pretends that I don’t exist.
That talk went really well, I think. Maybe I should be studying international diplomacy rather than graphic arts. I flop down on my old bed, pull Darlene’s stuffed Tigger to my chest, and fall into a deep sleep. In my dream Tigger becomes the perfect boyfriend—devoted, considerate, and incapable of sending mixed messages, giving ultimatums, or playing mind games.
Chapter Ten
WHEN I AWAKE DARLENE IS POKING ME IN THE STOMACH WITH a baton and the red and white plastic streamers flying off the ends scrape across my face. She hits a portable CD player and a loud march fills the room. I’m treated to her entire twirling routine, which concludes with a toss that puts a dent in the ceiling and almost takes out the overhead fixture.
I clap my hands in appreciation. Louise is now cleaning out her drawers, acting as if both Darlene and I have ceased to inhabit the land of the living.
Darlene grabs my hand and lisps, “Hallie, come thee the doll houthe that me and Franthie built.” I assume she means Dad built it and they play with it.
Some dark grammar force buried deep within my DNA leaps to the surface and corrects her. “It’s Francie and I.”
Louise gives me a disgusted look as if I have indeed turned into one of them. I shrug and go back downstairs, convinced that I’ve officially passed the torch to the new black sheep of the family, or at least to the sheep with the most black clothes and makeup.
Back on the first floor I observe that Mom has re-covered the couches in something that’s not so much fabric as the indestructible material you find on seats in commuter trains. And the new floor covering has the distinct coarseness of indoor/outdoor carpeting, or better yet, Astroturf.
Mom is busy preparing dinner and appears relieved that I was upstairs so long. “How did everything go?” she asks, wiping her wet hands on her apron. Mom possesses the eternal hopefulness of a full-time wife and mother and perennially pregnant woman.
“Not that great. Let me think about it.” Frankly, I’m stymied. Perhaps Officer Rich has a line on some sort of scared-straight program through the county jail system. At the end of the day he’s a good guy and doesn’t always assume the worst about teenagers, like so many grown-ups around here do. When I ran away he even offered to let me sleep in the jailhouse so I wouldn’t freeze to death.
I hold baby Lillian while Mom sets the table and experience this weird moment where I feel as if I’m looking into my own eyes. Mom’s maternal radar system picks up on this and she says, “She looks exactly like you did at that age. Look at that mop of strawberry-blond hair!”
“You mean apricot,” I say. “Just think of the third-degree sunburns and lime green freckles she has to look forward to.”
“Oh, Hallie! Why do you always act as if your coloring is some sort of handicap, when it’s so much more interesting than blond hair with blue eyes or dark hair with dark eyes.”
“Interesting, huh,” I say doubtfully. “Maybe Lillian and I can start a support group for the differently hued.”
Five-year-old Francie has come up from the basement and clings to my jeans, beaming up a big gap-toothed grin and trying to show me everything she’s ever drawn.
To Francie I’m more like a fun aunt who occasionally comes to visit and performs card tricks. She doesn’t remember back to when I lived at home—all the fighting and the doors slamming. And even I have to admit that I didn’t exactly find the little kids very amusing back then. However, now that I’m a visitor who can escape at any time, and no longer an inmate, I think they’re pretty cute.
“Isn’t she a little young to be losing her teeth?” I ask Mom, though I’m no expert on child development.
Mom shakes her head. “She knocked the front two out while trying to ride Darlene’s bike last week. The dentist said the only thing to do is wait for her adult teeth to come in and that we’re lucky it wasn’t those.”
Dad walks in, still as square and sturdy-looking as ever, just like whatever house or car he inhabits. But it also appears as if he could use some sleep. I’d say about a year’s worth. First he kisses Mom on the lips. Then there’s that awkward moment where neither of us are sure if we should hug and kiss. Dad isn’t emotionally withdrawn. In fact, he’s very affectionate until you’re ten—lots of piggyback rides, kisses, and tickling. However, after his daughters are in training bras Dad doesn’t want to be perceived as being involved in anything unChristian. So now it’s a quick self-conscious hug and a drive-by kiss. With the boys he transitions to handshakes when they start school so it doesn’t appear as if his sons have been raised to be soft or unmanly.
“You look terrific!” Dad announces with a proud smile. This translates to: You’re wearing little or no makeup and you’re not drunk or pregnant. Also, Dad prefers long hair on girls. Only I don’t keep mine long to make him happy but rather so that I can braid my unwieldy mane or pull it back into a ponytail. Ever since reading The Elephant Man in ninth grade I’ve been convinced that an escaped zoo lion frightened my mother while she was pregnant with me.
“Congratulations on the new baby,” I say.
“Well, why wouldn’t I want lots more children just like my Eric and Hallie?”
What a difference going to college instead of a casino makes. I’d transitioned from reprobate relation to the family hall of fame, right up there with my knightly older brother, Eric, Sir Football Head, who can do no wrong.
“We’re driving down to Indiana next weekend to watch Eric play in the end-of-year game that raises money for local charities. Why don’t you come along? He’d love to see you.”
No way! A half-hour visit with the family is one thing. A ten-hour car trip is another altogether. If there were a scholarship offered for playing license-plate bingo, believe me, I would have applied for it. And having people at rest areas stare at your ten-member family exiting a station wagon like circus clowns pouring out of a Volkswagen gets old pretty fast.
“As much as I’d love to, I’m pretty sure that I have to work.” Dad never minds if
you skip something for a job, unless of course what you’re ditching is church or schoolwork. “In fact, that reminds me, I’d better get going. The Stockton’s yard is a total mess. And they gave me a nice raise.”
Dad beams. His favorite words are: scholarship, raise, perfect attendance, and it’s not broken.
I say good-bye to everyone, promising the little kids that I’ll come back to visit soon and play Old Maid with them.
Out in the front yard Teddy and Davy are tossing a Nerf football, though Davy is too small to catch it and has to chase the ball down after every throw. “It’s never too early to think about sports scholarships. If not football there’s always swimming. Or cross-country,” I encourage them. Teddy is still skinny as a fishing pole. He throws the ball at my head but I catch it and then run over and tickle him until he collapses onto the ground. Davy piles in, shrieking with delight.
It’d be fun to hang out with them, but I know Bernard will be biting his cuticles off if I’m not home in plenty of time for tonight’s mission. Backing out of the driveway I notice that Teddy is wearing one of Eric’s old football jerseys and recall how I always made fun of my older brother’s devotion to being a jock. And now the joke is certainly on me. Not only does Eric get free tuition and board, but his football scholarship even gives him an allowance for books.
Mom and Dad give me $2,000 a semester, and that’s a lot for them. But tuition is $24,000 a year, not including books and art supplies. It’s another $5,000 for housing. Second semester I’d moved to an off-campus share because it was half the cost of dorm living. It also put the “off” in “off-campus.” With so little parking near the main buildings it’s basically a one-mile hike to class or the art rooms. And without the meal plan, we tended to subsist on pizza, Ramen noodles, care packages from Suzy’s mom, who owns a restaurant, and Bernard’s weekend brunches.
Obviously I can’t ask my folks for more money. They have another six kids to educate—whoops, make that seven soon—and tuition is only going up, up, and up. In fact, if you can’t be really rich, then you’re better off being really poor. Because if you’re in the middle, like my family, then you get screwed—no breaks and hardly any financial aid. The aid office conveniently counts our home as a “liquid asset,” fully expecting Mom and Dad to sell our house that’s worth about seventy thousand dollars, turn that over to the college in order to cover partial tuition for one child, and then move to a public park with their six younger kids. What they give instead are big fat student loans that cause you to graduate a hundred thousand dollars in debt. Meantime, entry-level jobs for graphic designers are hard to find, especially without a résumé full of internships. But if you’re working during vacation, then you don’t exactly have time for internships.
Now I understand why Dad gets so cranky when the bills pour in—car payments, mortgage payments, insurance premiums. And that doesn’t start to take into account food, clothing, sippy cups, and school supplies.
Maybe it’s time to reconsider my bookie pal Cappy’s proposal regarding the rebate shop, even if I just set it up and then when school starts again in the fall he finds someone else to take over. Living clean hasn’t done a thing for my solvency. What was going through my head when I passed on his offer to make a hundred grand a year, honestly? Or dishonestly, such as the case may be. And whatever was I thinking when I kept avoiding losing my virginity throughout the school year? Did my parents’ and Sunday school teachers’ hammering away about sin during my formative years suddenly take hold? Because if so, there’s still time to consider Pastor Costello’s invitation to be a counselor at Bible camp this summer. Sure, the pay isn’t so good, but there’s lots of Bible bingo for those bitten by the gambling bug, and plenty of nice Christian boys who won’t lay a hand on a girl, even if it’s just to slap a mosquito.
It’s official. I’m losing my mind. It’s definitely time to talk to Cappy.
Chapter Eleven
DRIVING DOWN MAIN STREET YOU DON’T CROSS A RAILROAD track to reach the run-down section of town, but go over a bridge built above a trickle of a creek. A few blocks along on the left is where Cappy maintains his “downtown office.” It’s actually a small room at the back of Bob’s Billiard Parlor. Cappy’s “suburban satellite” is next to the starting gate at the racetrack a few miles out of town, which is where I’d first met him.
Learning poker from the janitor in elementary school had quickly led to studying the odds for other games, like blackjack, and then when I saw a horse race on TV and the winner was a long shot paying fifty bucks on a two-dollar bet, I started riding my bike to the track at age twelve. Of course, it was illegal for me to place a bet, and so I had to find a guy who didn’t look like he’d mind helping a kid get ahead in the world, and that patron of the underaged happened to be Cappy, a regular fixture during the racing season. By the time I was fifteen and could see over the counter, the people working at the betting windows no longer bothered turning me away, and Cappy decided that I’d learned enough about the business to act as his assistant in exchange for some tips on how to play the odds rather than the horses.
It’s not hard for me to find a parking spot in front of Bob’s Billiards during the daytime. This particular dilapidated block is primarily home to a long wooden storefront that used to sell farm implements in the first half of the 1900s. The old building is falling apart but somehow the owner rents space to a start-up software company and a guy with a recording studio. Bob’s is across the street, next to Nolan’s Irish Pub, which isn’t the kind of place young people gather to socialize on weekends so much as where a married woman might search for her husband if she hasn’t seen him for a few days. When my mom refers to the “iffy” part of town, this is exactly where she’s talking about.
From the street, Bob’s Billiards looks as if it went out of business about ten years ago, when Old Bob died, and shortly afterward Middle Bob became Robert and moved to Los Angeles to design costumes for TV shows. Only, Young Bob, who is just a few years older than I am, keeps the place going without new investment, aside from refelting the pool tables and changing the lightbulbs. Though changing the lightbulbs is rather important, being that Bob’s is open to the public but closed to the sunlight. Otherwise the players don’t seem to care how chipped the paint is or how many tiles the ceiling is missing, and so Bob the Younger is able to scratch out a living by renting tables to individuals, pool leagues, and tournament organizers.
And then there’s the trickle of rent from Cappy, whose office is in the rear, one door past the men’s restroom. Though there’s nothing inside there that the police would be interested in—just a bunch of yellowed sports pages and stacks of old horse-racing news. According to Cappy his bookmaking business isn’t illegal so much as extralegal, in that the cops would have to work extra hard making any sort of charges stick to him. Then there’s the fact that another guy would pop up in his place overnight, and not a local who everyone knows and trusts, at least as far as it goes.
Cappy offers the popular service of allowing people to bet on horse races and sporting events by making a phone call. He accepts customers who may not have credit elsewhere and offers complete confidentiality to those citizens who may desire to keep their wagering quiet (or as Cappy prefers to say, “be able to surprise their families when they win”). He can also steer a person to a clean poker game in most any city in the US or Canada. And I have reason to believe there are a few other dilemmas that Cappy can solve for a client willing to pay his service fee, though I’d rather not know about them. In fact, Cappy doesn’t even like to be referred to as a bookie. He describes himself as a “problem solver,” which in his eyes is more akin to being a management consultant or a social worker. And from the way Cappy set his son up with a car dealership and put his daughter through medical school, it would appear that he’s solved a lot of problems in his day.
Knocking gently on the closed door I call out, “Cappy, are you in there?”
“Come in,” says a youthful voice from
inside.
Using my shoulder I force open the warped wooden door, which always sticks when the humidity is bad. Cappy’s place is cramped, poorly lit, and reeks from a toxic mixture of day-old cigar smoke and month-old tacos. The décor consists of dark green walls plastered with newspaper clippings featuring some of the greatest upsets in betting history, particularly those that had also served to help the proprietor separate a large number of wagerers from their wallets.
I’m surprised to see his grandson Auggie sitting at the rusty metal desk. I’m surprised for two reasons. This first is that Cappy has always vowed that no one in his family will ever go into The Business, which I of course take to mean the problem-solving business. And the second is that the last time I saw Auggie was about three years ago, when he was visiting from Dayton and tagging along behind Cappy at the racetrack like a worshipful puppy dog. Only back then he was sporting a Catholic schoolboy uniform with an ugly blue plaid tie, silver braces with green and black rubber bands on his teeth, and wire-frame glasses, all topped off with a crew cut. And although Auggie was a grade ahead of me in school at the time, he looked about twelve instead of fifteen.
When Auggie stands to greet me it becomes apparent that he hasn’t grown much taller, since we’re about the same height now, but otherwise he’s filled out in all the right places. And the crew cut has turned into gorgeous dark brown shoulder-length hair that hangs loose about his face. Auggie’s soft brown eyes are set deep in strong arches and he looks up at me quizzically from underneath thick lashes, as if trying to determine how we might be acquainted with each other. Around his neck is a leather-and-bead necklace that I like, but most guys around here would be afraid to wear something so blatantly unisex. In his Creed T-shirt from the My Own Prison concert tour, tan cargo pants, and black leather sandals, I find the overall effect to be that Auggie is not only cute but also cool.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m Hallie Palmer. We met once at the racetrack a few years ago.”
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