Pretending Normal

by Mary Campisi

  “That about sums it up.”

  Chapter 14

  I can’t avoid Jerry Jedinski forever. He’ll find me, poke around the truth, listen to my story, poke a little more and draw his own conclusions, right or wrong. What am I going to tell him? Maybe nothing, maybe I’ll wait and see what he tells me. It has been nine days since Peter and I broke up, enough time for Jerry to catch the scoop floating around, distorted and re-worked most likely, but a story, nonetheless.

  I haven’t seen much of him since Peter and I got together. When he is around, Jerry stays in his driveway, his gaze fixed on the white net with the black rim. If I call to him, he’ll half-turn, wave, then pivot back for a quick jump shot. After the shot, which he makes ninety-eight percent of the time, he’ll sneak a peak in my direction to see if I noticed, as if to say, See, see what I can do? I don’t need you.

  Twinges of guilt prick me, ooze regret. Jerry’s a really great guy. Kind, considerate, attentive. Drug-free. But he’s just a friend and no matter how I twist it, he is still just Jerry. I’m sorry he’s more faithful than Jester, the only dog I ever owned, who got killed by a truck when I was thirteen. And I’m sorry his little sister, Ginny, squealed about the picture of me he has pinned to the bulletin board in his bedroom. Sorry, too, that I know he times his basketball practice to the exact minute I will be in the backyard, sunbathing in my two-piece.

  But most of all, I am sorry he is the one who introduced me to Peter that day when I was walking home from the A&P after buying Kay’s Kotex. In some bizarre way, it feels like I betrayed Jerry, choosing Peter instead. Jerry comes to me the next day, all six foot three of him sauntering across the lawn like a giraffe trying to grow into its body. It is late afternoon and I am stretched out on a blanket near my mother’s rosebushes, reading War and Peace.

  “Hey,” he says.

  I shield my eyes with my hand. “Hey.”

  He fishes his hands around in his back pockets, kicks the grass with the toe of his sneaker. “What you been up to?”

  I shrug. “Not much.”

  “Ready for school?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Yeah, me too, I guess. These last couple weeks will fly.”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is going to be a busy year for me. Coach thinks I’ll get recruited by Pitt and Duquesne. Maybe Marquette or St. Bonaventure, too.”

  “Wow. That’s really great. I’m happy for you.”

  He nods, pushes his glasses back in place with his index finger. “Coach says if I have another season like the last one, I could get a full ride.”

  “I hope you do. I’ll come watch you.”

  “Really?” His face turns a dull red.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I pluck at the blanket, making small peaks with the fabric and wait. A lawn mower drones in the background, fills the quiet of the day with its steady monotony. Jerry kicks another tuft of grass with the toe of his sneaker. I construct another yellow blanket peak. And still I wait.

  “Sara?”

  “Yes?” I jerk my head up.

  “How can you read that stuff?” He points to War and Peace.

  “It’s a classic.”

  “It’s four inches thick.”

  I laugh. “I can’t shoot a basketball. I need books like these to get me a scholarship.”

  “Is U Penn still your first choice?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was thinking about looking there, but,”—he scratches his head—“I don’t think my grades are high enough to get in, which means they won’t be high enough to stay in.”

  “Do what’s best for you, Jerry.”

  He nods and clears his throat. “I heard about you and Peter.”

  And here it is, slapped in my face. “I thought you would.” I twist the blanket peak between my fingers.

  “Word has it he broke up with you to take out Kelly Jordan.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say. I hate the sound of that.

  “Is it true?” Jerry asks.

  “What?”

  “Did he dump you for Kelly Jordan?”

  I shrug. “Does it matter? It’s over.”

  He looks away. “It matters to me.”

  “I guess it was kind of mutual.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m glad. Not because of me or anything,” he says, his words tripping over one another in an awkward rush. “It’s just that he’s not good for you.”

  “Why do you say that?” Maybe he does know about Peter, after all.

  Jerry’s soft gray eyes shine behind his glasses. “This is hard, Sara. I know you really liked the guy.”

  “So tell me what you know about Peter.”

  “Remember when I told you he hid a flask under his seat and that he smoked, too?”

  I nod, remembering also that I was certain Jerry was a liar.

  “There’s more. Last Saturday, there was a party. Beer, pot, you know the kind. I heard he was invited and he brought a ton of pills.”

  I stare at my little finger, the long, gentle sloping of nail, pale pink with a half-moon at the base. Peter said I had the hands of a pianist.

  “They say he’s a pusher, Sara. They say he’s the one. Rudy Minnoni just runs beer. It’s Peter who’s behind the drugs. And they say his mother’s nuts, like loony-farm nuts. Parades around the house all dressed up from head to toe, but never goes anywhere. Some say she tried to kill herself once. After her baby girl died.” He lowers his voice. “With a knife. Peter found her. Blood everywhere.” He pauses, looks at me. “I heard she’s always drunk, like every day and that’s why Dr. Donnelly has to keep moving around so people won’t find out about her. You think that’s true? You think she tried to kill herself?”

  I can’t speak. The words are glued to the roof of my mouth. Maybe Frank is right. Maybe there are a lot of people walking around who are already dead, and maybe Suzanne Donnelly is one of them.

  ***

  It is early Sunday afternoon and Nina and I have promised Conchetta a manicure. I’ve got cotton balls and cuticle oil stuffed in my purse. Nina has three Revlon polishes and a topcoat, all of which she promises are hers. We’re meeting at Nina’s in five minutes and I’m going to be late. I race downstairs and am halfway out the door when Frank calls me from the garage.

  “Sara! Come here a minute.”

  Shit. “Yes?” I peek my head in the garage.

  “Isn’t she a beauty?” He runs his sausage-size fingers over the car’s newly polished back fender. “Your mother always loved this car. I bought it when we were first married.” It is a 1957 Chevrolet, white and red, with a new carburetor and a radio that hasn’t worked since 1972. One of these days, he says he’s going to fix it.

  “Nothing beats the smell of a new car, you know that?” He pats the rear bumper. “Every time you get into it, the newness hits you in the face and makes you smile.” His eyes glaze, meet mine. “I remember the day I bought this baby. We couldn’t afford a car like this, not with my pay back then, but your mother wanted me to have it, said not to wait, because things change, situations change. People change.” He laughs. “That’s what she said, ‘people change’. You should have seen us back then, Sara, riding around town in this baby. We were some lookers, your Mother and I.”

  Now, I am really going to be late getting to Nina’s. Shit, shit, shit.

  “She was a beautiful woman.”

  “I know.”

  “All that brown hair, the color of maple syrup… and those eyes,” he goes on, lost in his own memories. “Like a Hershey’s candy bar.”

  “I’m going now, okay?”

  “She had a smile, too.”

  “I’ll be at Nina’s. See you in a little while.” I ease out the door.

  “And that laugh...” He is still staring at the cloth in his hand, thinking I am sure of my mother, how she was, how they were together, and perhaps it is easier to think of their past, remember what they were, not what they beca
me.

  Chapter 15

  Maria Tegretti has the life I want, a life hundreds of miles away from Norwood. Her latest letter to Nina is the only thing that keeps me from collapsing into bed and not getting out again. Hope is stamped on the pages of flowered stationery, covered with curlicue writing and heart-dotted periods.

  “Maria says she’s really sorry about your Mom.” Nina and I are stretched out on the old bedspread next to the rosebushes.

  “How did she find out?” I ask, settling my gaze on the blueness of the sky. How can there be such beauty in such a sad world?

  “Mom called her.”

  “Maria got a phone?”

  “It’s the neighbor lady’s but she lets Maria call for emergencies.”

  “Oh.”

  “She told Mom that with your brains, you could go to Temple or even U Penn. Wouldn’t that be something, if we ended up in Philly with Maria?”

  Nina doesn’t care that her sister didn’t include her in the brains comment, because she’ll be the first to tell you college isn’t on her ‘to do’ list. But she’s smart in ways most of us aren’t. She can figure a person out just by watching the way he walks, or how he scratches his chin. And she doesn’t have to hear the words to know what he’s thinking. It’s all there in his eyes. Nina always knows.

  “We could move to Philly when we graduate,” she says. “You could go to U Penn and I’d get a job with Maria at the newspaper. Couldn’t you see me as a newspaper reporter? Maria says they always need people who can find a story, and look at her, from the mail room to reporter in four months. Of course, the looks and boobs help.”

  “Nina!”

  “What? Check out Cosmopolitan or even Redbook. That’s what it’s all about, especially the boobs.”

  “You think Maria got moved to reporter because of her boobs?”

  “No, I said it helped. Anyway, who cares? I’m going to have to work extra hard because I don’t have boobs or looks.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  She scowls. “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s my best friend lying to me.” Nina lifts her shirt, exposes a junior cotton bra. “See.” She flings the shirt down over her chest. “Anyway, I’m going to order a padded one from Sears.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah, and one for Conchetta, too, not padded, obviously. God, she needs to get rid of that old Playtex thing. Do you really think it was her Grandma’s?”

  “Stop. What else did Maria have to say?”

  “Well, she went to dinner with Fernando on Tuesday, the movies with Edward on Wednesday, coffee with Charles on Thursday, and there was one more… Simon, that’s it. She went dancing with Simon on Saturday.”

  “Which one does she like best?”

  “She likes them all.” Nina laughs. “The old man would croak if he knew. He had a fit when she went to the Prom with Danny Morelli and came home at five after midnight. Just think, Sara, in a few more years, we’ll be out of here, and then we can do anything we want.”

  “Read the letter to me again,” I say, laying my head against the softness of the old bedspread. My eyes drift shut, my breath relaxes. “Read slow, so I can pretend I’m already there...”

  “Hey, tell your dad thanks for yesterday.”

  Nina knows I don’t like to talk about Frank. “What did he do now?” I keep my eyes closed so she can’t see how much I don’t want to hear this.

  “He picked up my mom on route three twenty-one and gave her a ride home.”

  “Did her car break down?”

  “No, that asshole father of mine got pissed and booted her out of the car, left her six miles from Norwood. Can you imagine? I am so royally pissed at him.” She lets out a long breath, “Thank God for your dad.”

  Thank God?

  “I guess he gave her twenty bucks and told her to call him if she gets stuck again. He tried to talk her into taking us kids and leaving for Aunt Florence’s, even said he’d drive her, but she said no.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, and then he said if she got another black eye, he was going to kick the shit out of Leo Tegretti.”

  “Now that I believe.”

  ***

  T-Rex enters our lives with a yip, a yelp, and a puddle in the middle of the kitchen floor. Who would have thought Frank would let another dog in the house after Jester got run over? But he does, and not only that, he’s the one who brings him home.

  “The janitor found him sleeping in one of the sorting bins,” he says. “They were going to call the pound. Look at the ugly bastard. They would have gassed him.”

  T-Rex, a name Frank dubbed him because the dog’s ears and head make up seventy-five percent of his tan body and his teeth another ten, looks like a mix of Bassett hound, bulldog, and poodle. Frank’s right—he’s ugly.

  Aren’t dogs supposed to be the best judges of people? Then why is T-Rex obsessed with following Frank everywhere, even the bathroom? Aunt Irene avoids T-Rex. She says he smells and is ‘displeasing’ to look at. He does have the head of a kickball screwed to the body of an empty paper towel roll and the dinosaur teeth are a little intimidating, but after a while, his ugliness is kind of cute. Aunt Irene doesn’t think so.

  She’s just arrived, bringing a tray of baked ziti, lasagna, and stuffed pork chops. Yesterday, Uncle Stan delivered a batch of chili, fried chicken and a Tupperware container of potato salad. They continue to put food in our stomachs, filling us up, but we have never felt emptier.

  “Is that animal in the house?” she asks from the front porch.

  “No, he’s in the garage. Do you want me to get anything out of the car?” I ask.

  “Actually, yes. I got you and Kay a little something. There are two packages on the back seat, would you bring them in?” Today she is wearing a green sleeveless top and a bright pink skirt… a watermelon with breasts.

  “Sure, be right back.” I am hoping the ‘somethings’ are not more wide hair bands with ladybugs and bumblebees, like the ones she gave us the other day. But when I sift through the folds of pink and yellow tissue paper to expose the gift, I wish it were another hair band. Instead, there’s an orange and green scarf dotted with fuchsia butterflies.

  “Kay’s is the same pattern but in yellow and red with powder blue butterflies. Yours is more sophisticated,” she says, lowering her voice.

  “Thank you, Aunt Irene.”

  “You are so welcome, sweetheart.” She flings her arms around my waist, pulls me close. “There’s so much more where that came from. We’re going to get through this, you’ll see.” She sniffs. “We’ll all get through this.” Then, she releases me. “Is your father here?”

  “He’s in the garage.”

  “Hmm.” It is such a small sound, almost like she’s clearing her throat, but I hear the distaste. He thinks she’s a silly piece of cotton candy and she calls him a rude, intolerable beast.

  She adjusts the shoulder strap of her pink purse and draws in a breath. “Why didn’t you tell me about the knife?”

  “What knife?”

  She arches a perfect brow. “The one your father chased you up the stairs with.”

  Damn Kay. “He didn’t mean it,” I say. “It was a mistake.”

  “The kind of mistake people make when they drink too much?” She runs a hand over my hair, not waiting for an answer, “I’ll be back in a little while.”

  I watch her pink sandals step over the cracked cement and disappear into the garage. This is not going to be good. They haven’t had a civilized conversation in eight months, not since she accused him of treating Mom like a sheet of used toilet paper. That’s when he threw her out of the house, but Mom gave it right back to him, said if he tried to keep her sister from coming here, she’d pack us up for the weekend, go to Irene’s. He backed down then, and he’s been decent about taking her food since the funeral, probably because of us.

  I have to know what they’re saying, so I sneak behind the garage, between the evergreen bushes, and listen at the open
window.

  “I know about the knife, Frank.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The one you tried to attack Sara with, I know about it.”

  “It was just a misunderstanding. Sara knows I’d never hurt her.”

  “Well Kay, doesn’t. She’s scared to death of you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Come on, Frank, be honest. You can’t take care of them. Let them come with Stan and me.”

  “Like hell. They’re mine and they’re not going anywhere.” These last words slur, bump into one another.

  “Stan and I talked it over. The girls should come and stay with us for a while.” Pause. “Just until you get yourself together.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Helen would have wanted it this way.”

  “What the hell do you know what Helen would have wanted? Helen never let anybody know what she wanted, never even told me she was having problems, just kept pushing herself, like some goddamn martyr… and look what it got her.” His voice cracks. “Dead. Fucking dead. Dammit, she should have told me. What are you staring at?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Nobody blames you for anything, Frank.”

  “Everybody blames me for everything… every fucking thing.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, an idiot?”

  I have to see what’s going on inside. There’s a stack of cinder blocks lined along the edge of the garage so I move a few on top of each other and climb up. My nose reaches the bottom of the window, just enough to see through the mud-streaked glass. They are close, three feet apart, the sun shining on the back of Aunt Irene’s Clairol #27 head.

  “Answer me.” He steps closer, raises his fist. “Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?”

  “Nobody blames you, it was God’s will.”

  “God’s will?” he barks. “God had nothing to do with it.”

  She clears her throat and says, “I’ve come to talk about the girls.”

  “You mean, my girls?”

  She nods her cotton-candy head. “You’ve been under a lot of stress.”