“No. I just had some time and I was going this way. I thought I’d come and visit.”
“Good.”
And now, blam, I cannot think of one thing to say. I have thought so much about all the things I want to tell him, but that was when I was imagining us in the middle of our relationship, when we are used to kissing. I can’t even look at his mouth now, which is how far we are from the real thing.
“How was school?” he asks.
Well, there. A subject. I start to tell him and before I get the first sentence out, he pulls up a chair for me. I am welcome here. I sit down like a lady, watch his face while I talk. He really listens, and he laughs out loud a lot, especially when I tell him about home ec. Today Miss Woods slipped on vegetable oil. “Imagine if I were a guest in your home!” she yelled at the girl who had spilled it.
“And how was your day?” I ask.
His face changes. “Not much to it, I’m afraid.”
I wait.
He looks at me, widens his eyes, smiles. His hands are in his pockets, fists balled up. I think he is a little embarrassed and this hurts my feelings on his behalf.
“Well,” I say. “What did you have for breakfast?”
He laughs. “Coffee.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah, that’s all.” He looks out the window. “If I want breakfast, I get it out.”
“But you’re married.” Oh, if it were me. Golden pancakes stacked up high, butter melting into the real maple syrup. A blue-and-white-checked napkin tucked into his ironed shirt. A little flower in a little vase. The newspaper folded by his fork, but he wouldn’t read it because we would be in love and talking to beat the band.
“Hey,” he says, suddenly. “You want to see something?”
I nod.
A car pulls in and Jimmy gets up to go outside. “Wait here,” he says. And I think, Oh don’t worry. I’ll wait. For about forever.
What he shows me is a car under a sheet that is in one of the bays of the garage. He pulls off the cover and there it is, a little white sports car. A convertible. There is a little cage over the headlights and the grill looks like shark teeth.
“What is it?”
“A fifty-four,” he says, speaking like we are in a giant cathedral.
“That’s the kind of car?”
He looks at me. “It’s a ’Vette!”
I stare at him.
“A Corvette! A Blue Flame Six!”
“Oh. Right.”
“You’ve never seen a Corvette?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you probably haven’t seen one of these.” He walks around the car, opens the passenger door. “Want to sit in it?”
“All right.” I get in, and he closes the door behind me. It’s so low and round in here. It was probably a good deal, it only has plastic for windows on the side.
He gets in, puts his hands on the steering wheel. He has a smile I’ll bet he’s not aware of. We are in the French countryside, on our way to a picnic with wine and cheese and du chocolat.
“Should we go for a ride?” I ask.
He looks at me like I have said, “Can I kill you?”
“Not in the winter!”
“Oh.”
“Katie, this car … You want to treat something like this with the utmost respect.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s … Well, it’s one of the first ones, for one thing. They only made three hundred in 1953. Made a little over 3,500 of these.”
“Right.”
One thing I admire is a man who has a handle on the facts. Tomorrow I will get a book out of the library so I can say my own things about cars back to him. And I’ll write down what he said about this one. ‘Vette, I think to myself. It sounds nice, kind of exciting, too. “Does your wife like to ride in here?” I ask.
There, a curtain again over his eyes. “She doesn’t know I have it. She doesn’t like cars. She’d kill me if she knew about this one.”
“Well,” I say. “I love it.” And starting right now, I really do. “Does the radio work?” I say. Later, I will say, “Can I see the engine?” and that will give me about two thousand points, I know it.
I am sitting in my room doing homework when I hear a rustle outside. I go to the window and see Greg out in the dark, his arm stuck in the bushes. I am so tired of this. Why isn’t he? I open the window and he jumps back, looks up at me. His eyes are like a rabbit’s in the headlights. “Why don’t you just hand it to me?” I say. “It’ll save us both some work.”
He is so embarrassed, I swear I can feel the heat of his face from here.
“What?” he says. “I don’t have anything.”
“It’s the note I’m talking about. You know, the one in your hand? With all the misspellings?”
He starts to leave, and I say, “I think that’s enough now. If you do this again, I’ll need to do something about it. And believe me, I am a creative person.” My inside parts are looking at each other like, What???? They are flat amazed that I am saying these things. I feel split in two, with the new self saying, Step back, Jack; and the old self saying, Yikes. But the main feeling is just plain good. I am changing for the better right on the spot, right in front of myself, like the chrysalis who had no idea, who was resigned to the cocoon until he got the wings.
“Go to hell,” Greg says, stomping off, but the air has left that boy’s balloon. He won’t do this anymore, that’s all his “go to hell” means. He will go home now and wonder what to do with the note and feel like a jerk. He will shrug around inside himself and finally watch TV or something, but it will keep nudging him, this little defeat; and I’m glad.
I close the window, sit down on my bed. I can’t believe what I just found in me. But I think I know who put it there. When you have a big love, it’s like a powerful blanket, laid down on your land, warming you and protecting you. Something like that. I get out my poetry notebook. History can wait. Today two kids fell asleep in Mr. Spurlock’s class and he didn’t even notice until one started snoring.
I am dreaming that I am late for class. The bell is ringing and ringing and I am standing still in the hall like I am paralyzed. Then it comes to me that it’s the phone I’m hearing. I start to get out of bed, but then hear my father answering it. There is a long pause. I open my door, see his back. He is wearing underwear and a T-shirt; he didn’t take the time to put a robe on. His arms are crossed; he is using his head to hold the phone. I guess he’s cold. I think about getting his robe for him, but he might get embarrassed. I’ll just wait. I look at my clock: 1:30. Who would be calling now? Whoever it is, they don’t know my father. Or maybe this is an emergency. It’s funny, the first thing I think is, Oh, that would be interesting, an emergency, I wonder what it is. And then I get ashamed of myself. And then I think, Diane.
I come out into the hall. “Dad?”
He doesn’t move.
“Dad?”
He turns around, holds up a finger. “Get me my robe,” he says quietly, still listening.
I get his robe off the end of his bed, bring it to him. After he puts it on, I go to sit on the floor in front of him to see if I can tell what’s going on. “Are you talking to Diane?” I say.
He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. “Katie, just wait. No. It’s Dickie.” Then, into the phone, “Well, I’ll be there. I’ll leave in just a little while.”
Some quiet, his face working on something.
“No, I think I should. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll call you from the road for directions when I get closer.”
He hangs up, sighs, looks at me. “She lost the baby.”
Oh, this soft punch, right to the center. I miss that baby I never met, and I feel so sorry for Diane. She must be lying pale on the pillow, empty and still.
“Is she okay?”
“Well, she’s in some goddamn Mexican hospital.”
I think of a Mexican nurse, straightening with the insult. He doesn’t know about Mexican h
ospitals. “Are they bad?”
“They’re not here,” he scoffs.
“But are they bad?”
“Katie, listen to me now. I’m going to get her, and bring her home. And I’m going to call Ginger right now to come and stay with you. All right?”
I nod. It’s too late. Ginger’s asleep. The buses don’t run now. But he is on the phone, dialing her number.
“Go to your room,” he says.
Now, why?
But I go.
I get under my covers, think, how did that baby look? Why did it leave? I wonder if Diane’s stomach hurts, if she is crying. I would guess not. I would guess she is staring straight ahead. Dickie will come in and say, “Your father’s coming to take you home.” She will say, “The hell he is.” I could save my father a trip. I know she will never come back with him. Whatever pain she has about this baby she will just add to my father’s pile. It’s how the two of them are together, and I for one have given up hoping it will ever change.
My door opens, and my father says, “I’ve got to go pick Ginger up. I’ll be back.”
“Can I come?”
“No. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep now!”
He stands there for a moment, the light from the hall outlining him like he is an alien. Then, “Fine,” he says. “Put on your coat. I want to get moving.”
Well, so do I. That’s why I asked to come.
Ginger lives in a little house on a narrow street. It’s a white house with window boxes, empty now, but waiting. There is a small porch in front with a wicker rocker on it, a mailbox hanging a little crooked at the side of her door. A deep yellow light is on to say welcome.
We pull up to the curb, and a dog starts barking. I didn’t know Ginger had a dog. He’s a big one, too; I see his head at the window.
We get out of the car and ring the doorbell and now the dog really goes berserk, barking hoarsely and hurling himself at the door like he thinks he’s the star of a cop show.
“Bones!” Ginger yells. “Stop that!”
Bones! Well, now that is one dog’s name I have never heard before.
She opens the door, yanks at Bones’s collar. “Come on in,” she says. “I’ll be ready in a minute. Don’t worry about him—he’s all talk.”
The dog is a skinny one, who looks like he has a lot of Great Dane in him. I see where he got his name. His ribs look like he is wearing them as a vest.
“I just got him a couple of weeks ago,” Ginger says. “Poor thing, you should have seen him.”
I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but he is nothing to write home about now.
“I’ll get his leash,” she says, “and then we can go.”
Oh, of course. She has to bring the dog, she won’t be back for a few days. Well, I’m going to be sitting in the front seat on the way home, that’s for sure. Bones does not seem exactly pleased to make my acquaintance. He is sniffing me, but he has planted himself far enough away that he has to stretch out his neck to do so. This is a dog’s way of saying, “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Hey,” I say to him, friendly. “I got a dog.”
He is sniffing one place in particular on my hand. Probably it’s Bridgette he smells, and probably he’s saying to me, “No kidding.”
I take a look at Ginger’s living room, off to the side of the hall. She is not a wealthy woman, I can tell. But she has fixed up what she has so comfortably it makes you want to stay there awhile. There is a jewel-colored afghan draped over the back of an old sofa, books neatly lined up in the cases along the walls, plants along the top shelf. She has a lot of books. I can see from here that they’re nearly all paperbacks so they don’t look quite as pretty as what you see in magazine pictures, but they do their job just fine, which is to make you feel satisfied. It’s a cozy thing to know you have so many books, that you can at any moment walk over and browse in your own house.
There are some pictures on the wall, mostly flowers, it looks like, and the white curtains at the window are clean and ruffled. She has a rug with giant roses on it, a rocking chair with yellow corduroy cushions. There is another chair completely covered by a spread, so I guess its show-off days are over. I can see a little of the kitchen from here, too: it has a black-and-white-checked floor, which is something I have always admired.
“I’m sorry,” Ginger says, coming out into the hallway, pulling on her coat. “I’d put his leash in a different place—I couldn’t find it.”
Bones turns, sees the leash in Ginger’s hand and becomes excited all over again. “No, no,” Ginger says. “We’re not going for a walk.”
Now his ears perk up and his eyes are like cartoon characters when the money sign comes into them.
“No,” Ginger says, laughing.
But she has put Bones’s leash on and he has his own ideas. He is dragging her to the door. I mean dragging. Her loafers are planted firm, but she is sliding along like the floor is greased. This is like a comedy show about a happy family.
I look at my father. He is smiling, standing there holding Ginger’s suitcase. It seems like we have both almost forgotten what we came here for. But then he takes the leash from Ginger, snaps it smartly and the dog stops pulling. This is the thing about strong people: you can mostly be scared of them but sometimes the way they are makes you feel safe.
Ginger makes the most delicious French toast for my breakfast. It is so fancy, cut into triangles, one lying just a little on top of the other, and it has cinnamon sugar sprinkled on it exactly even. And she squeezed real oranges for my juice! I actually like the can kind better, where things don’t clang into your front teeth, but this does taste good and it looks pretty. She folded my napkin, put it neatly under my fork. I guess she thinks this is the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, moved to Missouri.
“I’m going to Woolworth’s with a friend after school today,” I tell her. “But I’ll be home before dinner.”
“Is it Cynthia you’re going with?” Ginger is wearing a pink terry-cloth robe, no makeup. One funny thing is she looks better without it. I have never seen that before. Her face is softer, like Doris Day in love.
“No, I’m going with a girl named Taylor,” I say. “She’s new, too.”
Of course, Taylor is new in a way that is the opposite of me. Everyone wants to know Taylor. Everyone is respectful curious. She is aloof, which I guess they like, because they just keep coming back for more. I suppose I like it too. It’s like a contest then, who can be the one that she decides to be nice to. What’s exciting is that it seems I actually have a chance of winning. I have thought about why. And what I have decided is that the chink that is in Taylor has to do with how much she can feel a thing. She is often moved by what she reads, I know that, I can tell. And she can probably tell that I am, too. When she heard what I said about that poem “Birches” some bored and beautiful part of her said, Well, wait. Maybe here. Maybe there is something here. And maybe there is. I have dressed the best I can, in my navy A-line and a matching sweater. My flip is good. I’m getting used to rollers. I do it for Jimmy but it serves other purposes too. I keep thinking of him as Jimmy even though last time he reminded me again, in a very gentle way, that it is Jim. I think he is wanting some dignity and I am wanting him to be younger. But I will try to remember to call him what he wants until he understands how much love I am putting into “Jimmy.”
“Katie?” I hear Ginger say.
“Yeah?”
“Is that all right with you?”
“Is what all right?”
She smiles. “I thought you looked a little far away. What are you thinking about?” The sun catches the edge of the spatula she is holding. There is no more cheerful sight than the sun at breakfast time, touching down on all your ordinary things. It is like Walt Disney himself has sprinkled his dust in your kitchen.
“I don’t know, nothing.”
She turns back to the pan, flips another piece of French toast. “Well, what I asked you was, is it all right with you if Wayne
comes to dinner with us.”
“I don’t know. I guess so.” I’m not sure. My father’s not here to ask. I don’t know if you just go ahead and have a party when he’s gone.
“Would it make you uncomfortable?”
“Me? No.”
“All right, then. Plan on dinner at six. Your friend can come too, if you’d like.”
“That’s okay,” I say. One thing I know is that I’ll be worn out by four-thirty or five. I’ll need a break. When it’s new and important, you have to rest in between times. And anyway, even when I like a person there is a weariness that comes. I can be with someone and everything is fine and then all of a sudden it can wash over me like a sickness, that I need the quiet of my own self. I need to unload my head and look at what I’ve got in there so far. See it. Think what it means. I always need to come back to being alone for awhile. I guess I sort of got used to it when I was younger and now it is mixed in my character like eggs in a cake. Sometimes I wonder, does this mean I’ll have to be a nun or something?
After school, Cynthia comes up to me. “Can you come over?” Her eyes are bright.
“Not today,” I say. “I’m going to Woolworth’s with Taylor Sinn.”
“You are?”
“Yes.” Now that awful gap part, where she is waiting for me to say, You come too.
I look at my watch. “In fact, I’m late. So I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay.” Her voice is from when she was a little girl. I walk away and then do the wrong thing, which is turn back and see her standing there, her books all stacked up neat, her hair sticking out wrong on one side, which it always does.
“I’ll call you tonight.”
She smiles. “Okay!” Well, there. I feel like Clara Barton, nurse.
“Get the patty melt,” Taylor says, lighting a cigarette. “That’s what I’m getting.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you like them? They’re my favorite.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have that much money. I thought we would just get Cokes.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Taylor says, and then, to the tired waitress, “Two patty melts, extra fries, two Cokes, two apple pies à la mode.”