Pretending Normal

by Mary Campisi

  “Thanks.”

  “Sara—”

  “Hey, Peter! How’s it goin’?” A big, hairy face fills Peter’s window. There’s no mistaking that hawk-like nose, those beady eyes. Rudy Minnoni. His mother, Evangeline, runs Minnoni’s Diner on Main Street. Rumor has it that while her sister, Clementine, flips pancakes and fries up steaks, Evangeline services out-of-towners in the back room, hunters from Ohio and New York mostly. And the only Mr. Minnoni anyone has ever heard of is Evangeline’s father.

  “Hey, Rudy. You know Sara Polokovich, right?”

  I press myself into the corner of the car, trying to avoid Rudy’s eyes, which are slicing over my hair, my chest, my legs.

  “I know Sara Polokovich.”

  God, I think I’m going to puke.

  “But not as well as I’d like to.”

  “Lay off, Rudy.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean nothing by it. I just came to see if you wanted a cold one?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Aw, come on.” He pokes his fuzzy head further into the car. “How ‘bout you, Sara? You want a cold one?”

  “Jerk.” Peter revs the engine twice, puts the car in gear and takes off, spewing gravel and dust behind us.

  “I guess you really didn’t want a drink,” I say, my gaze fixed on a wild Rudy, waving two cans in the air.

  “If you want a drink, I’ll get you one.” His words are clipped, his face tense.

  “It’s no big deal. I’m fine.”

  He ignores me and turns into Mini-Mart. “I’ll be right back.”

  Why is he so angry? Because of Rudy Minnoni? Jerry’s words fall out of nowhere. He drives around with a flask under his seat. I glance toward Mini-Mart and can just make out the top of Peter’s blond head. I lean over and run my hand under his seat. Nothing but a few Bazooka Bubble Gum wrappers and a toothpick. I lean back against the seat, close my eyes, and smile. Jerry is so wrong.

  “Hey, sleepyhead, wake up.”

  Peter is watching me, his lips curved up at the corners, his voice silky-soft once again. “If word gets out that you fell asleep on our first date, I’ll be doomed forever.”

  “I doubt it,” I say. Nothing will doom someone with looks and charm like Peter.

  “Here.” He holds out a Pepsi and an open bag of pretzel rods. “When I was a kid I used to pretend these were cigarettes. My kid brother and I would walk around the house puffing on them.” He laughs. “They’d get all soft and gross looking, but we didn’t care.” He reaches in the bag, pulls out two, hands me one. “Try it, I guarantee you’ll get hooked.”

  “Thanks.” I take a bite, chew. So, I’ll bet the twenty dollars stashed under my mattress that this is Jerry’s idea of Peter ‘smoking.’ Not a lie, but not exactly, the truth, either. Not unless you count it a crime to use your imagination.

  “Sorry about what happened back there with Rudy.” Peter takes a swig of Pepsi. “He can be an animal sometimes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For getting me out of there.”

  “Any time,” he whispers back, closing his fingers over mine. “Any time.”

  ***

  Peter isn’t like any of the guys in Norwood. Even his name is different. It isn’t Pete, or Petey, or Little Pete, or any of the fifty zillion variations a small town gives its own, as though a Christian name is only proper on a birth certificate. The town decides the common name, either through lineage, event, or character trait. Paul Deeley is called Munch because he lost all his teeth to gum disease at eighteen and prefers to keep his dentures in his pocket rather than his mouth. Little Jack Parone, son of Big Jack Parone weighed in at two eighty-five on his twenty-first birthday. Sally Tristel got the nickname Happy Feet fifteen years ago when she danced on the bar of The Time Bomb one Saturday night after a few too many 7&7’s. People get named for things they do, how they look, where they fall in birth order, and it sticks, no matter how many years pass.

  But Peter Donnelly has a clean slate. No past with the people of Norwood, no one to pull out a chair and start telling tales about his grandfather way back when. I wish I could start over, without a history, without Frank. We don’t talk about our families. We meet at Mini-Mart, sometimes at the A&P and he never questions why I don’t want him to come to my house. Maybe he knows, maybe he guesses, or maybe he has his own reasons.

  I did hear something about his mother the other day. Suzanne is her name and she’s from Atlanta. One of the ladies at Church, Mrs. Archinove, whose daughter lives three doors down from the Donnelly’s, said she’s only seen Mrs. Donnelly come outside twice since they moved in two months ago. She was wearing this long pink chiffon gown the first time, Mrs. Archinove said, with high-heeled fancy shoes, you know, the ones with the fur. Pink, they were. And the other time, she had on a satin robe with her hair piled high and diamonds covering her neck and ears. How do you make meat loaf dressed like that?

  Peter and I live our lives inside his Chevelle. Our world exists between four doors, a windshield, and black vinyl seats. There’s a Rolling Stones tongue taped next to the light on the inside roof. When we are in the back seat on Juniper Hill and a car passes, I blink my eyes open and flashes of headlight catch the silver rim of the Stones tongue—thick red lips flicker, then fade. Peter doesn’t notice this. He is on top of me, his hard body pressing against mine, his mouth wet and greedy on my neck. The first time he kisses me we are sitting in his car outside Mini-Mart.

  “One Pepsi for my lady,” he says, holding out a can. I reach for it, but he pulls it away, a lazy smile sliding across his lips. “Is that any way to say thank you?”

  “Thank you?”

  “Surely”—his smile spreads, he leans forward a little, rests his arm on the back seat of the car—“you can do better than that.”

  It is the thrumming beneath his words that tells me what he wants. I answer with my lips, a soft gentle brush against his. Then I pull away. He reaches out, wraps a hand around my hair and pulls me back. Or do I move on my own? It doesn’t matter, nothing matters but the incredible, urgent need to feel his mouth on mine.

  When the kiss ends, he slaps the can in my hands and jerks the Chevelle into gear and peels out. Sweet Emotion blares on the radio. We don’t speak but I know where he’s going. When we crest Juniper Hill, I wonder if we’ll see Mrs. Yallenz and Mr. Moore. People say they sneak up here when Mr. Yallenz goes to bed. I don’t care. All I can think about is Peter. Does this make me a slut? What if he wants to put his tongue in my mouth? What if he wants to touch my breasts? Outside my shirt? Should I let him? Inside? Should I let him? What if he wants to suck on my neck, give me a hickey? What if, what if, what if?

  In the end, he doesn’t try to put his tongue in my mouth. He saves that for the next time. And he doesn’t try to touch my breasts inside or outside of my shirt. That’s the time after that. And the hickey, well, that’s wedged somewhere in between.

  At night, I lie in bed, Kay’s soft breaths beside me, and burn for Peter. Life has been reduced to the three hours a day we can be together, inside his Chevelle. Alone. I wonder if tomorrow he will pull my tongue inside his mouth, suck on it, run his fingers down my belly and touch me… there. And I wonder if I will let him.

  Chapter 8

  “Hey, watcha doin’?”

  I jump and a handful of green beans fly across the table. “Kay!”

  “Gotcha.” She laughs, gathering up the beans from the plastic tablecloth. “So,” she says, plopping into a chair, “what’s with you and Peter Donnelly?”

  “Huh?”

  She shakes her head, pinches off the ends of a bean. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

  I say nothing. I don’t want to tell her about Peter and me. And I certainly won’t tell him. They don’t need to know. They will ruin everything.

  “I heard you went to Juniper Hill.”

  “It’s a lie.”

  She shrugs, tilts her head to one side. “That’s what I heard.”
r />   “You heard wrong.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  She flicks her long hair behind her ear and I want to reach over and pull it out by the roots. “We’re friends.”

  “Right.” She tosses a bean in the colander, settles her hands on the armrests of the captain’s chair. “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Her smile stretches across her face, a smug little flip of the lips that says she knows things and she wants me to know she knows them, too.

  “What?”

  She meets my gaze straight on, her blue-gray eyes suddenly much older than thirteen. “I’ll bet Dad doesn’t know.”

  I snap three beans in half, wait.

  Kay taps a fingernail on the edge of the plastic tablecloth. “I was wondering if I could borrow your red tank top tonight”—she pauses—“and the blue one, for tomorrow.”

  She knows the red one still has the price tags on and I’ve only worn the blue one twice. She knows also that I will say yes because I can’t say no. “Fine. But don’t you dare get them messed up or you’ll buy me new ones.”

  “Fine.”

  The conversation fades then, stamps out to nothing, as it usually does when Kay has said all she’s going to say. She pushes back her chair and sprints upstairs, probably to take my red and blue tank tops. I sit in silence long after the last bean hits the side of the metal colander with a dull ping.

  ***

  There are four African Violets sitting on the window ledge in the kitchen—one purple, three pinks. The purple is bloomed out and fading, its flowers transparent as tissue paper. The largest pink is smothered with blooms, the two smaller ones, packed tight with buds. They are the offshoots of the mother pink, started from a single leaf, stuck in dirt and covered with Saran wrap and a rubber band. Mom could never throw out anything that breathed life, not even a violet leaf. So now, here I am, watering her violets, willing them to stay alive. I wonder sometimes if my mother’s disappointment in Frank went past the drinking, past the lies and pretending to an earlier time, when they were just two people trying to make a marriage work and the bottle didn’t get in the way. Or did the bottle get in the way because of the disappointment?

  Is that why she turned spy, sneaking around corners, sifting through trash, waiting to snare him with his own bottle? She found enough of them, locked in the red cabinet in the garage, stuffed under the toilet paper in the bathroom cupboard, tucked behind the kitchen curtain. But then she put them all back and never said a word.

  Why did you do that, Mom?

  Did you love him too much? Or did you hate him too much?

  Maybe you loved him and you hated him. Not me.

  I just hate him.

  It wasn’t always this way. We used to go camping at Mellow Park, roast hot dogs until they sizzled black, fry potatoes in a cast iron skillet, and poke marshmallows on sticks, the tips whittled to sharp points. We would pitch a tent and huddle under layers of blankets, me and Kay and Mom and Frank, listening to night sounds—crickets, owls, raccoons. I was never afraid because he was there. At sunrise, we would grab our fishing poles while Mom slept and head to the lake. Sometimes, we got lucky and caught a trout, sometimes we just ended up with jumbles of broken line. I can still taste the pan-fried crispness of the trout, sprinkled with his special seasoning. Outdoor cooking is a man’s business, Frank used to say.

  But that was before. Before, he fixed my bike, threw the softball around in the backyard, showed me how to hold a football by the laces.

  Why did you have to screw it all up?

  Why can’t you just disappear… die? I wish that at night, when it’s dark and I’m staring at the glimmer of moon slicing the ceiling. Die. I will probably go to hell for these thoughts, but what the hell, I’m already there.

  I’ve been in hell for three years, since the morning I caught him in the kitchen next to the orange fiberglass curtains that frame our backyard. All because of those stupid boots. He wasn’t expecting me, but then, I wasn’t expecting him either.

  “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in school?” His brown jacket hung open over his work clothes.

  I pretended not to notice the bottle peeking from behind the curtain. “I… forgot my boots.” I hurried to the back door, grabbed the boots.

  “I was just closing the window.”

  “Okay.”

  “Somebody left it open.”

  “Maybe it was Kay.”

  “Damn that girl.” He shifted his weight and I couldn’t see the bottle anymore. “When she starts paying the gas bill she’ll remember to close the window.”

  And just like that, Kay became the guilty one.

  ***

  “I think he’s going to give me his class ring.” I am sitting on an old bedspread in the backyard wrapped in night and the scent of roses. “I don’t know for sure, but he told me to try it on the other day, just to see how much bigger his fingers were than mine.” I smile into the night. “But I think he wanted me to feel what it would be like, and I think he wanted to see, too. It’s really big. I would need a huge wad of yarn to make it fit. I’ve been thinking about what color I’d use. Just in case.” I circle my left middle finger—this is where I would wear his ring, right next to my wedding ring finger. “What do you think about pink? I really like him, Mom”—I hesitate—“I mean, I really like him.”

  Two nights later, I am in the backyard again, sprawled on the bedspread, near the old willow tree that’s been here since I was born. Nina is with me. We whisper into the blackness; our very own outdoor confessional.

  “So, did you do anything with him yet?” Nina’s voice thrums with curiosity.

  “Shh. You want everybody in Norwood to hear you?”

  “Sorry.” She drops to a whisper, “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “You and Peter, you know… have you done anything?”

  “We’ve kissed.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Have you done it?”

  “No.”

  “I heard Suzette Williams has. And so has Barb Koslenski. And Loretta Delaro.”

  “Loretta?”

  “Yeah, good old ‘sit in the first pew at Mass’, Loretta.”

  “With who?”

  “Moose Anstrom.”

  “Gross.”

  “Hmm. So, what about you? Tell me.”

  “We just kiss and stuff.”

  “I know that; it’s the ‘stuff’ I want to hear about.”

  “Nina—”

  “I won’t tell a soul. Promise.”

  When I say nothing, she blurts out, “God, you let him touch your boobs, didn’t you?”

  “No.” Lie.

  “Come on, Sara. We’re best friends. We tell each other everything, don’t we?”

  Not everything. “Peter’s not like other guys.”

  “He’s still a guy.”

  “He’s different.”

  “People only say that when they’re in love. God, did you tell him you love him?”

  Not yet.

  “Sara? Once you say it, they expect sex. You know that, don’t you? Don’t say it, okay? You haven’t said it yet, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Don’t.” Then, “Listen. Did you hear that?” A low moaning weeps into the blackness.

  “Maybe there’s a raccoon caught in one of Mr. Peterson’s traps.”

  “It sounds human,” Nina whispers, her fingernails gouging my arm.

  The pitch surges, splits the night wide open with spurts of pain.

  “What should we do?”

  I fumble around for Nina’s flashlight. “I’m going to see what’s going on.” I flick the switch and a glimmer of light shoots through the yard.

  “I’ll wait here in case you need me to run for help,” Nina says, her voice small.

  The moaning drags me toward the blackberry bushes at the edge of our property. The branches are thick and prickly and it’s hard to see. “Who’s there?” I jerk the fla
shlight between the tiny gaps in the brush.

  “No… no…”

  “Conchetta? What happened?” Conchetta Andolotti is partially hidden under branches of blackberry bush, her white shirt smudged black, her face stained with tears and dirt. The single braid she always wears is now a thick, black snarl. “Conchetta?”

  “No.” She drags her head from side to side, coating her face with more dirt.

  “What is it?” Nina is behind me now. “Conchetta?”

  Conchetta Andolotti has never been our friend. Who can be friends with a girl who packs garlic slivers between her salami sandwiches and wears old lady Playtex bras? Nina says she’s a Roma tomato with hairy pits. I say she’s a walking bruise because the only colors she ever wears are black and blue. But here she is, sprawled under our blackberry bush, her wide body shriveling with grief. “Conchetta?” I kneel next to her, swing the flashlight in the smear of dirt near her head.

  She grabs my hand, claws her nails into my skin. “Help me, Sara. Please.” The single word drags itself through the dirt, twists around my throat.

  “Okay, but come on, get up out of the dirt.” I hand Nina the flashlight and help Conchetta to her knees, almost falling to the ground myself. She’s a big girl, not fat but broad and full. Like Nina says, a Roma tomato. Nina shoots a tiny path of light in front of us and we edge our way toward the willow. Conchetta shuffles like a sleepwalker behind me, mute, fingers digging into my flesh. “Here,” I say when we reach the bedspread. “Sit down.”

  She shrinks to the ground, dragging me with her. Nina flips off the flashlight and we are in darkness again, the world inked out around us. Black is my favorite color. It is the color of truth.

  “We’re good listeners,” Nina’s voice floats over us.

  Conchetta grips my arm tighter. “They say I must go live with my Aunt Rosarina once I graduate from school. She is crippled with arthritis and uses a walker. They say I must help her cook and clean and tend her garden. That it is my duty.” Her voice cracks. “They say I should forget these silly ideas about college because I will never go, I will never become a teacher.” And then, softly, “I will never leave Norwood.”