“I like the sports page,” I say, even though this is not so true.
“You’re a good skater.”
I look down. “No, I’m not.”
“Well, you’re beginning, I know. But you have a very graceful way about you.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do! And listen, I know a lot about skating.”
“You do?”
“Well, hockey. I know about hockey. Played it in high school.” He looks out the window at the pond. “Huh. Years ago, now.”
“How old are you?” I ask. Disaster can make a person bold.
“I’m twenty-three. How about you?”
“Fifteen,” I say.
He looks more closely at me.
“Well, in a few weeks I will be.” It is true that in a few weeks I’ll be thirteen. My birthday is in December, the gyp month for birthdays.
He smiles. “I see.”
His teeth are white like a toothpaste commercial. Whew! my insides are saying.
“Well,” I say. “I’d better go.”
“I don’t think you should walk home. You’re still awful cold, aren’t you?”
I had forgotten, but yes, I am.
“How far away is your house?”
“Just two blocks. I can make it.”
“I’ll give you a ride,” he says, standing up.
“You can’t do that.”
“Sure, I can.”
“Somebody might come.”
“They can wait.”
“Won’t you get in trouble with your boss?”
“I’m the manager,” he says, just as plain as could be, not bragging one bit. He gathers up my things, throws a bunch of keys up in the air and catches them. You can tell athletic people just from how they do things like that. I’ll bet he was captain of the hockey team at least. I think of him being in high school, and it makes my stomach jump a little. Him walking down the hall, books at his hip, sweater sleeves pushed up. Every girl in the school just wishing.
“Let’s go,” he says, and I go outside, which feels so much warmer to me now. He locks the door to the office, goes over to a big tow truck, opens the door for me. I am dying inside of a multitude of things. Like, how do I look climbing in? In front of this man who is so tall and handsome. And opening the door for me like we are going out to dine in a French restaurant. Let’s, he’d said, as if we were a couple.
We talk some on the way home, but it’s such a short ride we can’t get too deep. Mostly it’s directions. I sneak a few looks at him. He is really handsome, he is killer handsome. Like those men you see in magazines that you say oh sure I’d like to see someone who really looks like that. Well, here he is. When I get out, I say, “Thanks for everything. I’ll bring this back tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there,” he says, and this shocks me, that he has been there for a while, and that he will be there tomorrow, just like that.
Ginger tells me to take a warm bath, she’ll dry my clothes. This is what I mean about her. Plus she made oatmeal raisin cookies and what I predict is that when I get out of the bathtub she will have three or four out on a little plate for me, with a glass of milk and a napkin folded triangle style. When I am done in the tub, I come out to the kitchen in my towel to check. Bingo. And she’s off running the vacuum, not hovering nearby to hear how great she is. Or to say anything about the dumbness of people skating on thin ice.
I go into my room, change into pajamas. I’m done with clothes for today. I put Jimmy’s uniform under my pillow. Later I will touch it to help me take out the memory of all that happened today. You need time for that kind of thing. The kind of time where you know you are not going to be interrupted, so that the shy thoughts will say, Oh well fine, I guess it’s all right to come out now.
In home ec, we are making pudding. I have to admit that now I am interested. Because I didn’t know you don’t have to use the little boxes from the store, you can actually make your own from scratch. The magic ingredient is cornstarch. Miss Woods held up the yellow box and she kept pointing to it with her manicured finger like it was a prize being given away on TV. She said a little speech about all cornstarch could do, and it ended with you can even use it on a baby’s butt to protect it from diaper rash. So I will write that in the notebook for Diane. I have six pages so far of things I’ve learned. Including that babies can hear inside there before they are born! I would bet one hundred dollars that Diane does not know that. I will need to show her the book where I found it, and even then she will stand there doubting, with her hand on her hip. I can hardly believe that tomorrow I will see her.
I am making chocolate pudding, but on the other stoves they’re making butterscotch and vanilla. I like butterscotch best, but you have to take your assignment. I am doing the stirring part, which of course you do alone. My teammates are at one of the tables smashing graham crackers to make a piecrust and talking low enough that I can’t hear them. Just a day or so ago this would have made me feel lonely but now I welcome the time to let my head think of my own things.
I stare at the gingham curtains Miss Woods has hanging at the windows. They are hung in what she calls the gay way. She says, “The cook’s domain should say to all who enter, ‘Welcome and be happy!’” She told us the trick that if you should ever live in a place where the kitchen doesn’t have windows, why, no problem, just put the curtains on the wall and it will give you psychological pleasure. I stare at the curtains and remember again, in slow-motion detail, Jimmy taking my skates off. Jimmy standing up and saying, “Let’s go.” Last night I lay in bed with his uniform over me. It had a slight smell of oil and man, mixed together. It didn’t smell bad, it smelled personal. I realized that in just those few minutes I had developed a full crush. But different this time. Before, when I knew that I was starting to love a boy, it was like a yip in my heart. Now that it’s a man, it feels like a fan unfolding. Or like when they show the flowers on those science shows, where you can see them open. Like that. Or a shy woman coming into the room with just that one person, the door closed behind them, and she takes off her scarf and there is her hair, golden as could be, and she never even knew. The heart of myself has always been something just wanting so bad. I have had an empty center, black as a basement, but also knowing about light, and waiting. Young as I am, I know now that everything is about to come. Jimmy will be the place for me to learn the real happiness. He will be my Joy School. My joy. Mine.
“Katie,” Miss Woods says in my ear. “You’re burning the bottom.” I startle, look into my saucepan. She is right. I scrape the bottom, and black flecks float up. This will not work so well for Heavenly Cloud Pie. “I’ll help you fix it,” Miss Woods says quietly. She is being nice because she thinks I’m just bad at pudding. She doesn’t know I wasn’t paying attention at all for awhile. And I am not about to set the record straight. I nod okay.
Miss Woods steps away from me, claps her hands to get everyone’s attention. Sometimes she thinks she’s teaching nursery school. “All right now, girls,” she says. “We’re getting to the most exciting part of all!” You would think we were on a safari and she is about to show us a live rhino. For Miss Woods, the high parts of something are very easy to get to. She is one of those types you know will always be happy and you can’t help but feel jealous of them even while you look at them strangely.
When I get home, I see Jimmy’s uniform on the kitchen table, washed and folded. It’s Ginger’s and my secret and she is holding up her end even more than she has to. I tell her thank you very much.
“It was no problem,” she says. “I was doing a load anyway.”
“Still,” I say.
“I probably don’t have to tell you this, Katie, but don’t try skating today.”
“Oh, I’m not. I’m just bringing the uniform back.”
“Cynthia called, just before you came home. I told her you’d call her back.”
Well, not now. This is one rule about mixing boys and girls, that a date always comes first. Ch
erylanne told me, “Any girl who is a true friend knows that she must support you in your pursuit of romance.” The day she told me that we were in her room, and she was sitting at the edge of her bed, hanging her head way over and massaging her scalp to get the blood to go to the ends of her hair shafts. This was to cure her split ends which she, with a shock, had discovered during study hall that day. Well, of course I don’t have a date exactly. Not like going to the movies. But he is expecting me. It is a little thrilling to think about what he might be doing, waiting for me. Like is he looking at the clock and wondering, Now what exactly did she look like again?
“I’ll call her when I get back,” I say. I hope that will be twenty seconds before my father gets home. I hope my whole free time will be taken up with Jimmy. I wonder what his last name is. And middle.
I go into the bathroom, take a look at myself. I might need to get a blunt cut, but of course I can’t do that now. I comb my hair, arrange my bangs by ratting them a little. There is a cowlick off to the side of my bangs and arranging them is not always easy. But today I do pretty well. I put on a little pink lipstick. Then I take it off. Then I put it on again. I stand back from the mirror to watch my mouth while I talk. “Hello,” I say. “Here’s your uniform back.” Yes. The lipstick is good. “Sure,” I tell the mirror. “I can stay.”
He is out gassing up a car when I get there. I raise my hand, wave.
“Hi!” he says. “How are you? Warmer?” At first I don’t know what he means but then I remember that of course that is how we met, I was near frozen to death.
“Yes, I’m fine now.” I hold the uniform out. “I brought it back.”
“Great. Thanks.”
He takes the nozzle out of the gas tank, starts cleaning the windshield. Well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I thought this would all work out naturally. But now I only feel stupid, like a person shoved out onto the bare stage before the show begins. Naked.
“Want to put it in the office for me?”
Now I feel better. I have a thing to do. I’ll wait in there.
Just as I get inside, another car pulls up. I look at the clock. If this were one of those old-time plays, I’d say the fates were conspiring against us. I watch Jimmy finish cleaning the windshield. It’s a red Cadillac he’s working on, and a fat man wearing a hat is sitting behind the wheel and watching him. One thing about people who own fancy cars is they are sort of crazy when it comes to them. They are so particular, like the car is the only one in the world, when if you go down to the lot, you will see six or seven more lined up. I wish it would have been a little, dirty car with a relaxed person inside, so Jimmy could finish faster. Although now I do have some time to get ready.
I take off my coat, sit in his chair, slant my legs to the side. This is how you’re supposed to do it, but it’s hard to stay that way. Once when I was doing it, my leg started shaking so I had to quick improvise to the crossed-leg position even though that is how prostitutes sit.
I get up to lean against the wall, my hands clasped in front of me. Then I move my hands behind me, lean against them. That’s better. It looks more natural. Plus older. My skirt is hanging perfectly over my nylons. There is nothing spilled on my sweater. I take out one hand from behind my back, use it to find the clasp on my pearl solitaire necklace, make sure it’s at the very back of my neck. It’s a cultured pearl, real. If you rub it on your teeth you can feel the sand from where it used to live.
I hear the sound of the outside bell, look out the window. Another car has pulled into the station! I feel so mad at the driver. It is a woman, staring at herself in the rearview mirror like she has forgotten that what she should be doing is watching to make sure she’s ready to pull right up when the person ahead of her is done.
I get out of my pose, go over to look at what’s in the candy machine. I like everything there except the peanut-butter crackers. I pick the order of what I would eat. First place goes to Nestlé’s Crunch. Last place to Tootsie Roll.
So there is a hot-beverage machine in here and a candy machine. If there were a sudden blizzard, you would be fine. Really, you could live here, just hang up some curtains and there you are. There is a bathroom and a telephone. He has a hot plate in the back, I saw it when I changed, with some cans of soup by it. Bean and Bacon, which is my favorite also. You could use a mattress on the floor at night.
I look outside again. Jimmy is turned away from me, leaning over an engine. Say you pointed to anything there and said, “What’s that?” I’m sure he would know. Even if it were something under something else. There are more or less ten years between us. That is nothing, if you really think about it. After I finished high school, nobody would say a word. And it would be a neat thing, like when he was forty-three, I would be thirty-three. “How old are you?” Twenty-seven. “And your husband?” Thirty-seven. Easy.
The pay phone rings, which makes me jump. I lean out the door. “Jimmy? The phone is ringing!” I could be calling him in to our apartment.
“Could you answer it, please?”
“Me?” I point to myself like a dope, wreck the whole thing.
“Just say ‘Mobil Oil’ and ask them to hold on.”
I pick up the receiver. “Mobil Oil,” I say. “May I help you?” I am so nervous for many reasons.
“… Hello?” a woman’s voice says.
“Mobil Oil,” I say, louder. “Can I help you?”
“Is Jimmy there?” she says. I hear a kid yelling in the background. I believe he is saying “Mine” but it is hard to tell since the sound is so long and drawn out. It sounds like someone falling from a cliff.
“Just a minute, please.” I’m not sure what to do with the phone. There is no hall table to lay it on. I let it down gradually, leave it hanging there, and go to the door again. “Hey, Jimmy!” I have to yell, but I do it in as dainty a way as I can. “It’s for you.”
“All right. Tell them just a minute.”
Well, it is the team of us.
“I did.”
“Okay. Be right there.”
I hear noise coming from the phone and I go to stand closer so I can hear. Some entertainment has suddenly arrived.
“What did I tell you?” I hear the woman yelling. “Huh? What did I tell you?” There is a silence and then the kid starts bawling loud. She either hit him or took something away from him. “Damn it!” she says. Her voice is like a rope unraveling.
I move away from the phone. Something has just occurred to me that hits like a sock to the stomach. She could be his wife. There could be pans on their stove, her making his dinner. They could have their wedding album out on the coffee table and look at it often and fondly.
He is coming in now, smiling at me so friendly, and there is no wedding ring on his left hand. And in that moment I decide, I don’t care if he is married. I’m staying. It is every woman for herself.
I am sitting in my room thinking I have never seen anyone change so fast as Diane has. She is the kind of person who always looked so done and you never saw her doing it. She had things on her dresser: emery boards, bobby pins, Aqua-Net, makeup, perfume, scarves and barrettes to wear in her hair; but you never saw her using anything and she always looked so good. But now! When I first saw her, I didn’t know where to look. In the bad way. Her nails were almost all broken off, and she had not cut them all short, which you are supposed to do if two or more get broken. She had one ring finger long, and on the other hand the thumb; all the rest were broken off short. Her hair was tied back in a low ponytail, not shiny. No makeup except the black rings of eyeliner. I tried to look like I didn’t notice anything, but she knew. It was a hurt in her face, saying, “Yes, I know.” She had gained some weight, too. I wouldn’t say you could call her fat, but she was not the same in that department either. It was not pregnant weight, which according to what I learned you would not see yet anyway; what Diane told me last time we spoke is she is three months. At three months the morning sickness should be thinking about leaving. But if no
t, eat soda crackers before you even get up to pee.
Dickie looked absolutely the same. Same clothes, same hairdo, same slow grin. I can’t say that my father was polite to him, but he didn’t kick him out, which is how he used to treat him. There is a bedroom made up for them in the living room out of the sofa. They are out now, buying the groceries we need, for tomorrow. The frank truth is I need some time to get used to how Diane looks, which is why I decided not to go along. My father took them in his car, Dickie is plenty tired of driving. His truck is parked out front. It is the same, too.
I come out into the kitchen, find Ginger hanging up her apron. She is ready to go home for the long weekend. “I wish you could eat Thanksgiving dinner here,” I say.
“Do you?” This makes her happy. It’s a good thing to let people know how much you like them. It’s strange but true that people usually forget to do that, but then when you see how the littlest compliment can make a person sit up lively you say to yourself, oh yeah.
I sit at the kitchen table. “What will you be doing tomorrow?”
“Oh,” she turns around, wipes the sink out with a sponge even though it is already clean. “I’ll be making dinner. Wayne will be coming with his family. His parents and his two sisters.” She is tired already, just talking about it. Behind the veil of her niceness, you can see the other feelings.
“Well, we’ll save leftovers here for you.”
“Thanks. On Monday, we’ll have turkey sandwiches when you come home from school, how’s that?”
Now I am a little nervous. Dickie eats a lot. The turkey might be plumb gone by Monday. I really meant just that we’d be thinking of her. “Well,” I say. “Or pie, something like that.”
“Right.” She looks at her watch. It’s a cheap silver one, gaps in the links. I wish I could buy her a new one. I know for Christmas I’m getting her a book. A hardback. “I have to go, Katie. Please tell Diane and Dickie that I enjoyed meeting them.”