Pretending Normal

by Mary Campisi

  “Save the sympathy.” He snatches a glass from his workbench and swallows.

  “You have a problem.”

  “I don’t have any problem.”

  “Helen told me if you buy a fifth on Monday night it’s done by Wednesday before dinner.”

  There it is, cold and flat, between them. He jerks his head around, lifts his glass, drains it. “I don’t need it,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I like it.”

  “Maybe a little too much.”

  “Get the hell out of here.”

  “Not until I talk to you. The girls need a role model, a mother”—she pauses—“someone who can help them grow into healthy, well-adjusted young women.”

  He sloshes more Cutty Sark into his glass, takes another swig, then another.

  “Stan and I have been talking and we think since you’ve been under so much stress, with Helen’s death and all, that maybe—”

  “No.”

  “At least until—”

  “I said no.”

  “You can’t take care of those girls. Not when you’re drunk half the time.”

  “Get out.”

  “Can’t you see—”

  “I said get out.”

  “There are laws to protect children from unfit parents, laws that can take them away from you.”

  He slams the glass down on the bench. “I’ll kill anybody who tries to take my girls from me. Now get out and don’t come back here again.”

  Her pink sandals are planted firmly on the cement. “You can’t do this, Frank.”

  He pivots, grabs his shotgun and has it cocked and aimed at her head in less than five seconds. “Get the hell out.”

  “Okay, take it easy. I’m leaving.” She inches back. “I’m leaving now.” This is when T-Rex bares his dinosaur teeth and starts growling. The pink sandals speed up, fast, faster, until she’s backed right out of the garage, taking with her any chance of our escape.

  We don’t mention Aunt Irene again after that day, at least not in front of him. He only brings her name up one time. It is the next evening, at dinner.

  “Did your aunt send that?”

  He’s looking at the tray of lasagna in the middle of the table. “Yes,” I say.

  “Throw it out.”

  “Throw it out?” I ask.

  “The whole damn thing, dish and all… and get rid of whatever else she sent, too.”

  “Then what do you want to eat?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t care. Anything but that garbage. She never could cook. Her food makes me want to puke.”

  This, from the same man who ate all the fried chicken and potato salad two nights ago?

  “Your aunt needs a break.” He’s already getting up from his chair. “Coming here’s been too much for her.” His lips curve into an odd quirk of a half-smile. “Looks like it’s just you girls and your old man.”

  Kay and I paste smiles on our faces, hold them there until he leaves the room, then let them crack and split open. “What the hell was that about?” Kay asks.

  I want to punch something, or someone, anything.

  “Sara? What’s going on?”

  “Why did you have to open your big mouth about the knife?”

  “I was scared. I tried to keep quiet, but I needed to tell someone.”

  “You shouldn’t have said anything. He’s not going to hurt us.”

  “I’m miserable here,” Kay whines. “I’m dying.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You shut up.” She grabs a fork and digs into a lasagna square smothered with cheese.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper. “He said to throw it out.”

  “Just one more bite.” She shovels a large piece into her mouth. “Mmmm.” Before she finishes chewing, she’s after another bite.

  “Kay, stop. He could come back and check.”

  “I’m hungry,” she says around a mouthful of lasagna. “He’s crazy.” She makes a face at me. “So are you. Here. Try,” she whispers, holding her fork in front of my mouth.

  “We have to throw it out.” I eye the lasagna. Kay dives into the dish again, scoops up sausage, cheese and macaroni. “Just one bite.” I lean forward and she plops it on my tongue.

  “Sara!”

  Chapter 16

  He’s coming! Frank lumbers down each step, closing in on us. I swallow and almost choke on a chunk of sausage. “Get out the bologna,” I whisper to Kay. “And the leftover potatoes. Hurry.” I grab the pan of lasagna, cut in perfect squares with a gouged-out middle, and bolt to the trash can.

  “Sara!” He’s on the landing, only one small room separating us.

  “Yes?” I fling open the lid and shove squares of lasagna into the ten-gallon garbage can.

  “You cooking tonight, Kay?”

  He is standing in the doorway, his bulky frame snuffing out light from the next room.

  She shakes her head and busies herself with removing the shriveled skin from a potato. “I’m just helping, Sara.”

  “Good girl,” he says, stepping into the kitchen. He pats her shoulder and moves toward me.

  “Here”—he grabs the lasagna pan—“I told you to throw the whole damn thing out.” He stuffs the pan in the garbage can and the lid swings back and forth. There is a dark smear of sauce on it with crumbs of sausage buried in the middle.

  “I couldn’t eat it anymore,” he says, his voice low, persuasive.

  “I know.” You are such a liar.

  “She wasn’t half the cook your mother was.”

  …such a goddamn liar. I stare at the sauce on the garbage lid. “I know.”

  “We’ll be okay, the three of us,” he says.

  “Sure.” Why did she have to die?

  “We’ll be just fine.”

  “I know.” Why couldn’t it have been you, Frank?

  He throws an arm around me, hauls me against his side, alcohol and sweat smacking me in the face. I try to hold my breath, turn my head away, but he has me tight against him and there is nothing I can do but suck in sips of air through my mouth. We stand next to the garbage can, his big arm pinning me to him like a grizzly bear swatting its young against its shoulder.

  “Sara?” Kay looks from Frank to me, back to Frank again. “What should I do with the potatoes?”

  He releases his arm, I step away. “Start cutting them into small squares,” I say. “I’ll help.”

  “I’ll be in the garage,” this from Frank. “Call me when it’s time to eat.”

  “Okay.” I step back so he can get to the door. I am looking down at his boots, brown, the only ones he ever wears, except for his work shoes that are black with a steel toe. These are big and clunky, with scuffs on the side. I follow the boots past me and out the door, trying to picture a pair of polished wing-tips in their place.

  The harsh sound of metal on wood startles me. Kay is heaving the butcher knife into the cutting board, minus the potato. “What are you doing?” I grab her wrist and take the knife. The board is scarred with hundreds of old scratches, most just brushing the surface, a few gouging deeper. But Kay’s savagery has left fresh, crisscrosses in the board. “What are you doing?”

  “He is such an asshole,” she whispers, her eyes fixed on the shiny tip of the blade.

  “He’s messed up.”

  She turns to me. “Cracked up, is more like it.”

  I shrug, open the second drawer to my right and pull out a paring knife.

  “Bologna and potatoes.” She wrinkles her nose. “Gross.”

  “Here.” I grab the package of bologna and hold it out to her. “Unwrap this and give me four slices.”

  “Yuk. I hate bologna.”

  “So, pick it out.” I am tired of her feeling sorry for herself.

  She unwraps the plastic from the bologna and pulls out four slices. “We aren’t going to get any more food from Aunt Irene? Are you really going to ditch all of it, even the stuff in the freezer?”

  “Looks like it.”

>   “God. We’re doomed to fried potatoes and eggs. I’ll never make it.”

  “Shut up, Kay,” I say, slamming the knife on the cutting board. “Just shut up and get me six eggs.”

  She flings her hair over her right shoulder and stomps to the fridge. “I hate eggs,” she mutters.

  “So pick them out.” Kay doesn’t say another word to me for the rest of the night. After the dinner dishes are done, she puts the drainboard away, hangs up her dishtowel and excuses herself to our room.

  “Kay, okay?” Frank asks.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  We are sitting in the dark on the front porch because he says he wants to talk to me. He’s in the recliner, I’m in the rocker, squeaking back and forth. The rest of the night is quiet, nothing but an occasional car passing by and the clink of ice in our glasses. Grape juice for me, Cutty Sark for him.

  “She seemed a little moody.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is it that time of the month for her?”

  He’s asking about her period?

  “I just need to know,” he says before I can answer him. “So you girls have the right kinds of things you need.”

  “It could be her time.” I know it’s not, but what should I tell him, the truth? She can’t stand your guts and you make her sick?

  People lie all the time. I used to think it was such a huge, mortal sin, but not anymore. Now, it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, not if it saves someone from having his feelings hurt. Take old Mrs. Webster, down the street. Her Christmas cookies are so hard you have to soak them in milk, wait until they’re soggy, then hold a spoon underneath and shove pieces in your mouth. But we tell her they’re the best cookies we’ve ever tasted.

  “Do your old man a favor, kiddo?”

  “Sure.”

  Ice clinking again. “Take this and fill it up to the spur”—he holds out his glass—“four cubes, hit of water.”

  I take the glass and disappear inside. The ritual is burned in my memory even when I have no recollection of remembering it—Cutty Sark to the spur, four cubes, splash of water. When did I know this? In the kitchen, I reach for the whiskey, unscrew the cap and pour three splashes until the amber liquid rides to the edge of the design Frank calls a spur. Then I plunk four ice cubes in and squirt water over the top.

  “That’s my girl,” he says when I step back onto the indoor-outdoor carpet. The orange dot from his Camel glows in the blackness, directing me to him. “Do you want a sip?”

  “No. I think I’ll go in now. I’m tired.”

  “Gotta kiss for your old man?”

  I brush my lips against his stubbled cheek, the smell of Cutty Sark hanging between us.

  Then I am gone, the screen door closing quietly behind me.

  ***

  “Sara? Yoo hoo, Sara?”

  I look up from my book, page four hundred twenty-eight of An American Tragedy, and squint against the bright sun. “Mrs. Peterson?”

  “Can you come here, dear? I have something for you.”

  “Hold on a minute.” I flip the book over and sit up, adjusting the top of my two- piece bathing suit. It is navy with white piping, not as low cut as a bikini, but low enough to make Jerry miss a jump shot when he sees Kay and me come outside. We are lying in the sun on an old green bedspread with yellow daffodils, our bodies slathered in baby oil, our hair comb-dipped with lemon juice. T-Rex is sprawled under the willow, his chain wrapped around the trunk, not that he even needs to be tied up because he sleeps all day, waiting for Frank to come home.

  I step over Kay’s feet and head across the lawn. Malvern and Howard Peterson have been our neighbors since we moved into the house fifteen years ago. Malvern is a husky Swedish woman with a ruddy complexion and golden white hair tossed into a fat bun on top of her head. Everything about her is big—her hands, her feet, her body, her heart.

  She’s forever baking and cooking—shiny, round loaves of sourdough bread for the neighbors, steamy pots of chicken soup with spaetzels for the sick, baked ham smothered in brown sugar and pineapple for the mourning. The day before the funeral, she sent us ham with homemade applesauce and a spice cake.

  “Ah, Sara,” she says, holding out her arms, her gray eyes wet, “come here, child.”

  I fall into her then, letting her fold me in the warmth of her fleshy body, mindless of her large breasts pressing into the right side of my face, squishing my nose and cheek flat. My shoulders start to shake, small tremors running through me, until I pull away, swipe at my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m all smelly and sweaty… and my hair stinks like lemons.”

  Tears fall down Mrs. Peterson’s pink powdered cheeks but she doesn’t try to wipe them away. “It’s all right,” she says, in a soft, warm voice that reminds me of butter melting on one of her sourdough loaves.

  I glance across the yard at the blanket where Kay is lying, stomach down, head turned away. Chicago’s muted trumpets drift out of the transistor radio beside her. It is safe to show a glimmer of the fear pounding in my blood, safe because Kay won’t see, won’t know I am just as miserable as she is, just as afraid of our future.

  Mrs. Peterson takes my hand and says, “Come with me, Sara.” I follow her up the back steps of the house, the light green shingles peeled and cracking. Inside, it is dark, and smells like vanilla and the liniment Mr. Peterson uses for his ‘lumbago.’ She leads me to the parlor, a room she reserves for special guests and where she keeps her ‘better furniture.’ It is filled with an ivory sofa, inlaid with a pattern of puffy, stitched flowers and two matching chairs, both padded with short, squat wooden legs. There are hand-crocheted doilies on all of the arms, and an afghan perched along the back of the sofa, edged in cream and filled with the palest pink.

  “I’m all oily,” I say again, still holding her hand, standing in the middle of the room.

  “So, I’ll get you a towel. I’ll be back in one minute.” She raises a fleshy finger, looks down at her ample form and chuckles. “Perhaps two.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” I say. “Upstairs? Corner closet?”

  She nods, her eyes misting again. “Such a good girl. And smart.”

  “I’ll be right back.” I race up the stairs, the steps creaking behind me and grab an old faded blue towel from the closet.

  “Such a good girl,” Mrs. Peterson says again as I smooth the towel over the cream fabric and sit on the sofa next to her.

  I try to smile. “Thank you.”

  “Your mother, she was a beautiful woman.”

  I nod. I will not cry.

  “And kind.” She sniffs. “The good Lord sent an angel to us when he brought her here.” She takes my hand and covers her warm fingers around mine. “Mr. Peterson was very sick one night when your mother and father first moved to the house. You were a baby, so tiny. I remember.” Her white-blond bun bobs up and down as her voice drifts low and the years peel away. “It was winter, cold, and so much snow. Mr. Peterson couldn’t get out of bed. He had a fever and stomach pains, but he wouldn’t call Dr. Mitzger.” She smiles. “Mr. Peterson is a very stubborn man. So, what could I do? I hollered, I cried, I prayed, and then I remembered Mrs. Angoni said my new neighbor, Helen Polokovich, was a nurse. I went to your mother, begging her to please come and see my Howard before he took his last breath.” Her face is wet with tears. “She came, just like that. Handed you over to your father, put on her coat, and came to see him.”

  “And didn’t he have appendicitis?” I’ve heard snatches of the story, pieced together over the years from neighbors and Frank.

  “He did. Your mother saved him. Dr. Mitzger said another day and it could have burst, and then…”

  “I’m glad she helped him.”

  “And your father”—she shakes her head again—“he’s a good man, but…”

  I slump forward a little, staring at one of the doilies on the chair. Fine, intricate detail, all woven together… like life. One wrong stitch, one mistake and it stands out.

  Mrs. Peterson
lets out a long breath. “It is the drink that will destroy him.” She casts me a sympathetic look, nods. “Yes, dear, we suspected a long time ago, but your mother, she never said a word, bless her heart, she never let on. But now, with her gone, who knows what will happen?”

  The smell of lemon juice clings to my skull. “I know.” What else is there to say? Mrs. Peterson, help us?

  “Your Aunt Irene called me today.”

  “She did?”

  “She said your father won’t let her see you girls. No visits, no phone calls.”

  “I know.”

  “She wanted me to tell you and your sister that she’s thinking about you and that she loves you.”

  “Okay.”

  “And to be patient. She is trying to find a way out of this mess.”

  I twist a strand of hair around my finger, tight, tighter, until it hurts. “Okay.”

  “You come to me, Sara. Anytime. If you need something, you come to me and Mr. Peterson.”

  I nod.

  “Okay.” She nods back. “Now”—she squeezes my hand—“come and have some apple strudel and a glass of milk.”

  Chapter 17

  “What are you reading now?” Ms. O’Grady and I are traveling down Route 321 toward Arnold’s Tastee Freeze in her Caprice Classic. We’ve sorted, pitched, packed, and labeled everything in the O’Grady basement and tomorrow we’re going to start hauling more things to the Salvation Army and then we’ll set prices for the garage sale, which is scheduled for next Thursday.

  “I’ve got about twenty more pages left in An American Tragedy, then I think I’ll read Crime and Punishment.”

  “I know you don’t think anything under three hundred pages is worthwhile, but I’d like you to read Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men, and Tolstoy’s, The Death of Ivan Illych. They’ll take about three hours to read and a lifetime to understand.”

  “Okay.”

  “Remind me to give them to you tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.”

  People stare at us when Ms. O’Grady and I are together, walking down the street, eating ice cream cones or sipping Pepsi and Orange Crush as if to say, Sara, what are you doing with her?

  Ms. O’Grady ignores their looks but I don’t. I stare back. She’s good enough to teach their kids to drive or type or diagnose an azalea bush that’s dying in their front flower bed. But has she ever been invited to a Garden Club meeting?