When We First Met

by Norma Fox Mazer

  “Hour and a half. I’ll come see you every weekend.”

  “Or I’ll come see you.” She handed him the rubber band for her first braid and began work on the second. They were sitting that way on the bunk bed, leaning in toward each other, he winding the rubber band around her braid, she plaiting the rest of her hair, when her mother walked in. She stared at Rob, then walked out.

  Chapter 19

  “You called me, Mom?” Jenny stood in the doorway of her mother’s room.

  “Why is he here?”

  “Mom, I—” She took her mother’s arm, searching for the right words. Mom, please try to understand. Yes, Gail has been dead for two years. Yes, Rob’s mother was the cause of her death. But it’s been two years, Mom, more than two years, and I’m young and alive and can’t stifle my feelings forever.

  “Mom, can’t we—what happened is the past. Can’t we forget it and—”

  Her mother recoiled as if Jenny’s hand were on fire. “Forget? Is that what you think, Jenny?” She rubbed her arm. “Is that what you’ve done? Forgotten your sister? People forget too many things, too quickly, too easily. Forget? That is the most unkind thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  A dull feeling came over Jenny. She remembered how, years ago, she and her mother had so often looked at each other without comprehension or sympathy, brown eyes meeting brown eyes, so much felt, so little said, too much misunderstood. Once, her mother had slapped her. She remembered her outrage and then her confusion as, in the moment of the slap, her mother’s eyes pleaded with her for understanding.

  She sighed, oppressed by the memory. Was anything ever forgotten? No, she hadn’t forgotten Gail. But she blamed herself for remembering too well the bad parts: the bickering, the taunts, and fights.

  “I want him to leave,” her mother said. “This is my house!”

  “We’ll both be going in a few minutes,” Jenny said.

  In her room Ethel was showing Rob a picture she had drawn in school. “This is my family.”

  Rob looked up at Jenny. “Ethel and I are getting to know each other. She’s promised to give me some piano lessons.”

  “Yes?” Jenny said distractedly. “Well, guess what? You’re not welcome in my house.”

  “Look—if it’s causing you trouble, I’ll wait outside.”

  “No, don’t! This is my house, also. Please!”

  “Calm down, Jenny,” he said quietly. “It’s okay.”

  “You’re always getting excited,” Ethel said.

  “Me? Are you kidding, Eth? I’m cool as a cucumber.” She pushed her feet into her sneakers.

  Her mother entered the room. “Here,” she said, “here.” She thrust a yellowing newspaper clipping into Rob’s hand.

  “What is that?” Jenny sat down on the bunk bed. “Where did this come from?” she said, looking at the photo. “I didn’t know you had this.”

  The picture showed a car askew in a field, its front end crumpled like paper. Nearby, a bike lay on its side with what seemed to be a large cloth on the ground next to it. In the foreground, four men, faces blurred, had been caught in purposeful mid-stride.

  Underneath the picture, the caption read, “Rescue workers arrive after foreign car at left collided in the rain with bicycle in foreground. Gail Pennoyer, 16, injured in the collision, is in critical condition at the Upstate Medical Center.”

  “Mom, why did you keep this?” Jenny said.

  “What is it?” Ethel said. “What is it? Can I see it?” No one answered her.

  “Mrs. Pennoyer—” Rob began.

  Jenny’s mother averted her head, her hand went up as if to protect herself. “Don’t say anything. I just want you to understand. You mustn’t come to this house. It’s not you, it’s not personal, but I can’t—you can’t, you mustn’t.”

  “All right,” Rob said after a moment. “I won’t come here again, Mrs. Pennoyer.”

  “Why not?” Ethel said. “Why won’t you come here again?”

  “Ethel, go and get your laundry ready,” her mother said. Then to Jenny: “I want you to stop seeing him. Just stop.”

  Jenny didn’t reply. She shoved comb, wallet, keys, and a sweater into her knapsack.

  “Your sneakers are untied,” her mother said.

  “I want them untied. I choose to have them untied.”

  Outside she and Rob hardly looked at each other until they were in the car and pulling away from Pittmann Street. “Jen”—he reached for her hand—“that was pretty bad. God, seeing that photo—”

  “Did you look at it?” she said. “I didn’t want to look at it.”

  “I made myself. I thought it would be cowardly if I didn’t.”

  “That was your mother’s car.”

  “It was a little French car. They towed it to the junkyard. I think she only got a hundred bucks for it.” He stopped. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”

  “Yes, it was.” She sank back against the seat.

  After a couple of minutes he said, “Are you mad at me?”

  She brushed her hand across her forehead. “Mad? Oh, no …” An enormous weariness had seized her. Her arms and legs were leaden. “Right now, I don’t know how I feel,” she said. But in fact, she felt so much she could hardly hold it all inside. Seeing the picture of the death car and Gail’s bicycle had hit her hard.

  She watched the passing streets.

  Gradually she noticed that daffodils were in bloom everywhere, wonderful clumps of gold in even the smallest, meanest yards. Her spirits rose in rebellion against the leaden, deathly feeling that had her by the throat. She had held so much back with her mother. She had held her tongue, held her words, choked on her feelings to avoid a fight, to avoid hurting her mother. But how futile! Wasn’t it clear that as long as she continued to see Rob she couldn’t avoid hurting her mother?

  Rob kept glancing at her. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m getting okay. Give me time.”

  He put his arm around her, drove with one hand.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said presently, “I refuse to be depressed. Let’s do everything we said we would. Have fun shopping, eat lunch at a really nice place, and then a movie later.” She bent over and tied her sneaker laces.

  “I want them that way,” Rob mimicked. “I want them untied.”

  Jenny raised her eyebrows. “For your information, untied shoelaces—as Mrs. Tedesco would say—are undoubtedly symbolic. Highly symbolic,” she said in Mrs. Tedesco’s nasal chirp. “And if you can’t relate to that obvious fact—”

  Rob laughed obligingly. They were both working at being cheerful. In the mall they bought tee shirts for Rob and socks for Jenny, then took the escalator up to The Happy House, where they compared tastes in dishes, linen, and crystal.

  “Everything is so bloody expensive,” Jenny said. “I don’t see how people afford anything.”

  “If we started buying stuff now …” Rob said.

  “A hope chest?” What would she put in a hope chest? Wishes and what-ifs instead of linens and towels? Not wanting to, she thought again of the picture her mother had kept, that scene she had only imagined: Gail’s bike twisted, the car in the field. Rob’s mother might have been sitting inside the car when the picture was taken, stunned, shocked into sobriety. Or maybe the police had already come, already taken her away. Had she spent the night in jail?

  As they got off the escalator on the first floor, Rob said, “Look where we landed.” They were outside The Candy Consortium. “Let’s get us some jellybeans.”

  “They stick in your teeth.”

  “But they’re pretty.”

  “Chocolate tastes better.”

  “Jellybeans last longer.”

  “Yes?” the woman behind the counter said. “You want something?” Like the walls, she was all in white, a candy nurse.

  “We haven’t made up our minds yet,” Jenny said.

  “If you really want chocolate, we’ll get it,” Rob said.

  “No, no, jell
ybeans are fine.”

  “We’ll have a quarter pound of chocolate,” he said to the clerk.

  “Make that jellybeans, please,” Jenny said.

  “Which one?” she asked.

  “Jellybeans,” Jenny said.

  “Chocolate,” Rob said.

  The clerk snorted. Rob and Jenny looked at each other and snickered, and Jenny realized that without even trying they were having a good time together. But at almost the same moment her mind clicked out her mother’s words. I want you to stop seeing him. Just stop.

  She came home to a darkened house, her mother in her room. “Mom’s got a headache,” Ethel said. She had set the table. “You’re supposed to make supper. I’m hungry.”

  “So why didn’t you eat? You’re big enough to make yourself some food.”

  “I’m not supposed to eat between meals.”

  “Oh, Eth!” Such a sober little citizen. “Break the rules once in a while,” Jenny said, giving her a piece of bread and jam.

  She went to her mother’s room and tapped lightly on the door. The room was dark, her mother in bed with a white cloth across her forehead. “Mom? Can I get you something?”

  “Go away, Jenny,” her mother said. “You were with him all day, weren’t you?”

  A muscle twitched in Jenny’s cheek. “Yes.”

  Her mother lifted her head, holding the cloth with one hand. “I showed you the picture,” she said. “I showed you the picture! I thought you’d understand.”

  Jenny sagged against the door. I do understand. Believe it or not, I know how you feel. You don’t like Rob because of whose son he is. But why can’t you understand that I love him? Doesn’t that count for anything? Why can’t you understand how I feel?

  “You’re young. I don’t want to hurt you.” Her mother spoke in such a low voice that Jenny strained to hear her. “I’ve tried, I’ve really tried. I tell myself: Amelia, leave her alone. She’s young. Don’t think about it. I tell myself that, and then I wake up in the middle of the night and I think about Gail. And I think about his mother, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it that you’re with him. It’s as if Gail doesn’t matter anymore.” She rolled over onto her side, her back to Jenny.

  Jenny stood helplessly, her eyes stinging. All afternoon she and Rob had giggled relentlessly as if saying to each other, Look what a good time we’re having! They had gone to a movie; she hardly remembered any of it, the title was something like Wreck or Salvage, only that there had been innumerable scenes of car chases: speeding cars leaping over police barriers, hurtling over bridges, and smashing into concrete abutments and brick walls. When they emerged into the light her head throbbed, she felt disembodied, and her ears were numb from the sounds of screeching metal and exploding cars.

  After a moment, when her mother didn’t say anything else, Jenny went back to the kitchen. Automatically she opened a can of mushroom soup, boiled potatoes, and tore up lettuce for a salad. Her father wouldn’t be home until around ten o’clock, and Frankie was out, so it was just her and Ethel.

  She poured milk for Ethel and sat down with her. Ethel mashed her potatoes with a fork and her hand. “Pass me the butter, Jenny. We went to the fire station yesterday. It was a field trip.”

  “That’s nice.” Jenny stirred her spoon around in the soup plate.

  Ethel ate fast, drank her soup, and finished her milk. “They let us go up on the fire engines. They let us go upstairs where they sleep. Someone almost fell down the hole with the pole in it.”

  “That’s nice.” The movie kept coming back to her. Stupid movie! Why had they continued to sit through it? They should have walked out. People had screamed in the theater. She had screamed once, too. She felt that same scream rising in her throat. I should break up with Rob. The thought sent her out of her chair. She spilled her soup into the sink and filled a bowl with strawberry ice cream for Ethel. “You want marshmallow gunk on it?” There was a painful dryness in her eyes. It’s no good. Stop seeing him. You’re hurting Mom too much. She set the bowl of ice cream in front of Ethel.

  “Don’t you want some?” Ethel’s voice was subdued. Jenny shook her head. “Are you sick, too?”

  “No.”

  “Why aren’t you talking to me then? You said it was good somebody almost fell down the hole in the fire station.”

  “I did? I must have been … Ethel, I’m sorry. I’m—thinking.” Was that what she was doing? Thinking? Or was it feeling, reacting, admitting something she had been denying for weeks? Admitting that she was paying too high a price—making others pay too high a price—for her happiness?

  Later she gave Ethel a warm bath, scrubbing her with a loofah and then doing finger plays with her. “Eeencie weencie spider went up the water spout,” they sang together, twisting their hands into the air. “Down came the rain and washed the spider out …”

  Chapter 20

  “You have reached a disconnected number,” a nasal, recorded voice informed Jenny. “Please check with your operator.”

  Jenny dialed again, her fingers large and clumsy. This time Rob’s mother answered. “Montanas’.”

  She could still hang up. Wait till tomorrow. Say what had to be said when she saw him in school. Wasn’t it cowardly to do things this way? Hit and run on the phone. Hello, Rob. Me, Jenny. It’s all over now, we’re not going to see each other anymore. Then put down the phone, go to her room, and never come out again.

  “Hello? Hello—”

  “May I speak to Rob?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Ah, Frances,” Jenny improvised, not wanting to get into a conversation with his mother. But how stupid. What difference did it make now?

  “Just a moment, Frances. Rob? Telephone, honey, it’s Frances.”

  “Who?” she heard him yell.

  “Frances. Come on.” She sounded weary.

  A moment later Rob came on, gave a puzzled hello.

  “Hello,” Jenny said, “it’s me.”

  “It’s you?”

  “Yes—Frances.”

  “Frances! I’d know your voice anywhere, Frances. Well. This is a treat, a real treat. Do you know this is the first time in ages you’ve called me?”

  “I know.”

  “And here I thought you had trouble remembering my phone number, Frances.”

  His joviality alarmed her. She had somthing serious, awful, to say to him. But how to begin? Where? With what? Had there been a moment she could fix on? A single moment when it had come to her that her mother, her father, Frankie—all of them—had been right? That all along she had been self-absorbed, had thought only of herself: her feelings, her pleasure, her life. The truth had come on her in a series of small shocks. It wasn’t her mother’s headache, it wasn’t the picture of the mangled bike, nor was it her father’s angry reading of the Dear Abby column. It was none of these things alone, but all of them added together.

  “How are you?” Rob said. “To what do I owe the great pleasure of this rare phone call, Frances?”

  “I—just—I have to talk to you—”

  “Your voice sounds funny.”

  “Yes … I—” Was he receiving her message? Rob, we can’t go on. We’re not going to see each other again. Perhaps it would all happen soundlessly. He would know, simply know … and hang up. And that would be the end.

  “Are you getting a cold or something?” he said

  “No.” Rob, no more. No more us.

  “You sound so funny,” he said again. “Did something happen?”

  A scene from the movie yesterday came back to her: a green car rushing headlong toward destruction. The filmmakers had photographed it so that the car seemed to be hurtling off the screen straight into the audience. Involuntarily she had screamed and clutched Rob’s arm. Now she felt that same uncontrollable jolt in her stomach, the scream in the back of her throat.

  “I don’t want to talk anymore,” she said abruptly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Wait! What’s the matter? I
know something—”

  “I can’t talk. I can’t talk right now.”

  “Do you want me to come over?”

  “No.” She almost hated him for making this so difficult. Wasn’t he supposed to be tuned into her wavelength? Hadn’t they talked about ESP and the times they’d thought of the very same things at the very same moment? Where was all that inner understanding, that unspoken communication now? But most of all she hated herself for being a coward. Say it. But she couldn’t squeeze the words out of her rigid throat.

  After she hung up she walked up Jericho Hill, over to the park, and through all the familiar streets, until it was dark and she was tired; then she went home.

  She told him the next day at noon. She said it immediately and briefly. “I’m not going to see you anymore.” She was very cold and seemed to have no emotions.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. He was even smiling.

  She said it again. “I’m not going to see you anymore. I can’t do this to my family.” He just looked at her. She gave him back the white china elephant with pink feet. Then he believed her.

  Chapter 21

  “Okay, girls, you ready for us?” A group of men from the contruction site across the street, all wearing yellow hard hats, were in Hamburger Heaven.

  The rush had started. Women from the rope factory, high school kids, mothers, and children, all the hungry mouths waiting to be fed.

  “Thank you, come again, and have a nice day.” Jenny pushed a tray full of food toward two girls. “Yes. May I help you?” she said automatically to the next person, looked up, and it was Rob. Instantly her throat dried out, her heart pounded, her palms got sweaty. All the classic symptoms, she thought.

  “Did you mean it?” he said.

  She nodded, stiff-necked, a hard, tight gesture.

  “You’re breaking us up?”

  Another nod.

  “Would you mind telling me why?”

  “I told you, Rob—”

  “Tell me again.” He leaned toward her, smiling. No, not a smile, though his teeth showed. His face tightened as his lips drew back, making him look almost wolfish, fierce. An expression she had never seen.