“I’m Miss DeGrassi.”
“I am Valerie Quinn.” The woman was tall and slender, with brown hair, but this Mrs. Quinn didn’t stink or slur her words. She was dressed in a white turtleneck, white slacks, red pumps, and she wore her hair pulled back from her bare face.
“How often do you disinfect the desks?” Mrs. Quinn said.
“I’m sure the janitor does it regularly.”
“You’re sure? How are you sure? Do you see the janitor do it? Or do you just assume that he does it?”
Lisa started to say, “I trust that the janitor is doing his job,” but she never got to finish.
Later, when she told the story, she found there was no way to exaggerate it for more laughs.
“It has to be every day. Every day. Say it with me: the desks have to be disinfected every day. Children are germy. They are covered in germs. These, these, these sweet little angels—” At that point in the story, Lisa swept her arm around her audience, one finger pointed accusingly at them, always aware that she would never master Valerie Quinn’s contemptuous gesture. “—are disgusting disease factories. These little angels are going to the bathroom and not washing their hands. They are bringing their germs back to this classroom and smearing them over every surface.”
The diatribe lasted until the cafeteria lady sent Mr. Bunder, the PE teacher, to see why Lisa’s students were late to lunch. He found them in the thrall of Mrs. Quinn’s unrelenting account of their hygiene failures.
Mr. Bunder was able to convince her to come down to the front office, where she unloaded on the principal and the janitor and the school nurse, too. When it was over, Mr. Bunder sacrificed his planning hour to keep Lisa’s students in the gym, while Lisa went back to her room to recover. Alone, she sat at her desk and cried. When she lifted her head, she found Wavonna sitting on the bench under the coat rack, reading a book. She had been there all along, while her mother rampaged.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” Lisa said. Without looking up, Wavonna nodded. It made Lisa wish there were something worth calling Child Protective Services over. A suspicious bruise, an appearance of malnutrition, anything to get that little girl away from her crazy mother.
Mr. Bunder’s take on the situation was slightly different. After having Wavy in his PE classes for two months, he suggested having a kid like that would make you bonkers. “Which came first? The crazy chicken or the crazy egg?” he said.
In November, things got better. Maybe it was the influence of Wavonna’s father, who started dropping her off and picking her up most days. That was the same time she started writing Wavy on her papers instead of Wavonna.
When the crazy mother and the Hell’s Angels father failed to show up for parent-teacher conferences, Lisa mailed a letter to the house. Then she called, but no one answered.
Finally, she did what she’d been too cowardly to do in the first place. At the end of the day, she walked Wavy out to where Mr. Quinn waited on his motorcycle, his hands resting on ape hanger handlebars. With his leather jacket hanging open, Lisa could see sweat stains under the arms of his greasy T-shirt. He was huge and meaty, and if Wavy hadn’t been there, Lisa might have backed down from her intention to confront him.
“Hi! I’m Miss DeGrassi. I’m Wavy’s teacher.”
He nodded.
“I was sorry we didn’t see you and Mrs. Quinn at open house, but I’d like to meet with you to talk about how Wavy’s doing. I sent a letter about conferences. Maybe you didn’t get it?”
“Uh, sorry,” he said.
“Maybe you could come in right now? It would only take a few minutes.”
He looked at Wavy, and Lisa had the weirdest feeling he was waiting for instructions. All the lights were on but nobody was home?
Wavy nodded.
“Okay,” he said.
In her classroom, Lisa kept two adult chairs for parent conferences, but even they seemed too small for him. As big as he was, he hardly seemed old enough to have an eight-year-old daughter, but Lisa had learned her lesson on that subject. Grandfathers who turned out to be fathers. A mother so young, Lisa mistook her for a student’s older sister. Mr. Quinn looked young, sitting across from her like a kid who’d been called to the principal’s office.
“Wavonna—Wavy is already over the big hurdles in third grade: multiplication and learning to write longhand.”
Lisa had kept back a sample of Wavy’s penmanship to show him, a little essay she’d written about the Voyager 1 and 2 launches. He looked at it long enough to read it, but didn’t say anything.
“But she’s still not participating in PE class. I was wondering if we could find a way to encourage her.”
Mr. Quinn shifted in his chair and said, “What’s PE?”
“Gym class. They call it Physical Education now. PE for short.”
“Oh.”
“The other thing that concerns me is Wavy’s speech. You don’t have to decide today, but I want you to think about having Wavy meet with the school’s speech therapist. It won’t cost anything. It’s part of the district’s services that are provided to all students and I really think—”
“I don’t need a speech therapist,” Wavy said.
Until then Lisa had heard Wavy say exactly three things: “Don’t,” “No,” and “Asshole,” which earned her a trip to the office, where the principal butted his head against her indifference to punishment.
“Oh,” Lisa said.
At a look from Wavy, Mr. Quinn stood up, his wallet chain rattling against his leg.
“That it?” he said.
“Um, thank you for coming in.”
After that, Lisa gave up. No wonder Wavy didn’t talk. Her role models were a crazy woman who wouldn’t shut up and a man who barely spoke. What could you do with a child who had that at home?
7
KELLEN
November 1977
At the bike shop in Garringer, Marilyn came around the counter with a big smile and said, “Oh my god, where did this angel come from? I didn’t know you had a little girl.”
“She’s not my little girl,” I said.
“Who is she then? Who’s little angel are you? That hair is just baby fine, isn’t it?”
Marilyn reached out to touch Wavy’s hair, so I shifted to block her.
“She needs a helmet,” I said.
Sitting there with that teacher thinking I was Liam, I realized it was plain reckless to let Wavy ride without a helmet. Never mind Liam, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I wrecked and got Wavy’s brains scrambled.
Marilyn brought out three kids helmets. A plain black one, a blue and white striped one, and a pink one.
“I bet I know which one you’d like,” Marilyn said.
Yeah, like hell Wavy wanted a pink helmet. She pointed at the black helmet, which was just a small version of a Daytona with a visor. It fit her, so that was a done deal.
While Marilyn rang up the helmet, Wavy walked down the boot aisle, running her fingertip across the toes. Her old snow boots looked cheap and worn out, so I said, “See any you like?” She nodded.
Marilyn stuck right with us, kept trying to get close to Wavy. The way Wavy looked, all sweet and blond, people were probably all the time trying to paw her. A lot of times I’d almost go to touch her hair before I remembered not to. The way I figured it, she’d let me know when it was okay.
To keep Marilyn from touching her, I had to get down on my knee to adjust the shoe sizer against Wavy’s toe.
She smiled at me, her cheeks a little pink. I could see what she was thinking.
“I’m not a shoe salesman,” I said.
That made her smile bigger, almost showed her teeth.
“So she’s not your daughter?” Marilyn said.
“No, she’s not my daughter.” What was I supposed to say? She’s my bike bitch? Not everything has a simple answer. I said, “She’s a friend of mine.”
Wavy picked a pair of boy’s square-toed boots. Good leather to last her for a while.
They were a little big, but watching her walk across the store, half strutting, half stomping, I could tell she liked them.
“You’ll have room to grow,” I said.
She nodded.
Wavy wore her new boots out of the store, left her ratty old ones there. She looked happy. Actually waited for me to help her up on the bike, even though she didn’t need it.
“I need to put in another set of foot pegs. Put ’em up high enough for you, so you don’t have to put your feet on the bike frame,” I said.
She’d looked happy before, but she grinned when I mentioned the pegs. That was worth all the weird looks from Marilyn, to get not one or two smiles out of Wavy, but a smile that lasted the whole ride back from Garringer.
At the farmhouse, I figured we’d read or play games until dinner time, but no sooner did I turn off the bike than Val opened the kitchen door. It shocked the hell out of me. I’d only seen Val out of bed a couple times and there she was with her hair done, wearing clothes and shoes.
“Where have you been, Vonnie? You should have been home from school hours ago,” she said.
Wavy stood on the bottom step, but she didn’t move. I didn’t know what to do.
“Get in here before you catch cold,” Val said. “Now!”
Finally, I got off the bike and then Wavy started up the stairs. When she got to the door, Val said, “Give Kellen his helmet.”
When Wavy didn’t, Val took it away from her. By then, I’d come up the steps and Val handed it to me, smacking it into my palm hard enough to sting.
“She’s supposed to ride the bus, Kellen.”
If she’d gave me a few seconds, I woulda said, “It’s her helmet,” but before I could, Val slammed the door in my face.
8
WAVY
May 1978
All winter Kellen was in charge of grocery shopping. I liked it that way, because he bought exactly what I wrote down. If I wrote “3 cans green beans,” he brought back three cans of green beans. Not one, not ten, not a bag full of things Donal wouldn’t eat. That was what Mama did: bring home cream of mushroom soup when I wrote down “cream of celery.” Grandma’s recipe book didn’t have anything that called for cream of mushroom. Mama couldn’t be trusted and neither could Ricki. She always lost the grocery list and Mama said she was one of Liam’s dirty whores.
When Kellen brought me home from school on Wednesday, I wrote a grocery list out of Grandma’s book. The recipe had Grandma’s fingerprints stained in hamburger blood.
“You’re making something good, I bet. What is this?” Kellen said. He propped his hands on the table, reading the list.
“Meatloaf. For you.”
“Oh, hey, I wasn’t fishing for an invitation.”
“For you,” I said.
In two weeks, school would be over for the summer, and Kellen wouldn’t have a reason to come to the house, except that he liked to eat. If I cooked, he might keep coming to sit at the table with me and let me watch him eat.
While I waited for him to get groceries, I cleaned and set the table. Grandma’s book had pictures showing where forks and spoons went. Water glasses, wineglasses. That’s where Kellen’s beer bottle went.
He came back smelling like the road and sweat. I wanted to bury my face in his shirt and smell him, the way I did when he wrecked, but I wasn’t brave enough, and he was carrying bags of food and scary news.
“I saw Liam on the road in. He wanted to know what I was getting. So I told him, and he said, ‘Is Val making her Mom’s green olive meatloaf?’”
All the happiness crumpled up in my chest like a wad of tin foil. I shook my head. Not at Kellen, but to make it not true.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to tell him. He says he’s coming to dinner at six.”
I laid the potatoes out on the table and petted them like little animals. They were dirty, but good potatoes. Small enough for me to hold them in my hands to peel. Kellen thought of those things.
“What do you want me to do?” he said.
“Stay.”
Going into Mama’s room, I didn’t want to touch her, but she was already awake.
“What is it, baby? Who’s here?”
“Liam not to be trusted,” I whispered.
“Liam’s here?” Mama sat up, her hair all knots and sticking out.
“Coming.”
“He’s coming here? When?”
Mama looked at her alarm clock, but it only flashed twelve, because she never set it after thunderstorms.
“How long until he comes?”
I held up two fingers.
“Two hours. I can get ready. Is there shampoo? And don’t be weird when he’s here. Call him Daddy, okay. Just say, ‘Hi, Daddy.’ Okay, baby? Will you do that for Mama?”
Call him Daddy, when she was the one who said I wasn’t supposed to call him that. She said he was not to be trusted.
Back in the kitchen, Kellen stood next to the table. I said, “Stay,” and he stayed.
He didn’t fuss like Mama. Sometimes he asked me about what I was doing, like why I put bread in the bottom of the meatloaf pan. I liked that he asked and didn’t get upset if I didn’t answer.
He said, “Can I do anything to help?” and he did what I asked. He fed Donal, kept him out of the way when I opened the oven door, and put him in his room before dinner. So he would be safe. Donal was two, I knew that, but I didn’t know his birthday. We never had presents or cake for him, but I didn’t remember having presents or cake until I went to live with Aunt Brenda. Now that Donal could walk by himself, it was harder to keep him safe. At least pretty soon he would be big enough to take care of himself. Next year.
Once the potatoes were cooked, Kellen mashed them, and he never got tired and had to rest like I did. All ten pounds of potatoes mashed at once.
While Kellen mashed, I prayed. Let Liam not come. Make Liam stay away. He always said he would do something and then never did it. When I was little, he said he would take me to the zoo. He never did. So let him stay away. Stay away.
Kellen turned the meatloaf out of the pan on the platter, and then he understood what the bread was for. It soaks up the grease. I laid the carrots around the meatloaf and Kellen put the potatoes in a bowl. The table looked perfect when Mama came out of the bathroom. Her hair fell in shiny brown curls over the shoulders of her silky red kimono. She was so pretty, but her face pinched up when she saw the food and Kellen.
“What’s this?” she said.
“Wavy made dinner,” Kellen said.
“Where’s Liam? She said he was coming at six.”
“It’s six now. She made meatloaf.”
It didn’t matter how much I prayed for Liam to stay away, if Mama was going to say his name without the protection. She made him come, whistling as he walked across the porch. Smiling as he walked in without knocking.
“This looks good, Val. When Kellen said you were making your mom’s special meatloaf, I said, ‘I have to get some of that.’” The whole time Liam talked he was creeping down on Mama, his hand sneaking on her neck. She gave him her special smile, going softer. The way candles are softer than lightbulbs.
Liam pulled out Mama’s chair for her, and then he looked around the table. Counting. Four plates.
“You staying for dinner, Kellen?”
“Yeah. She invited me.”
Then Liam smiled the smile that meant he was not to be trusted.
“Oh, Kellen gives you a hand with things, does he, Val?”
Mama pouted. “You never come around. I guess I need someone to take care of things, since you can’t be bothered.”
“Why should I be bothered when you don’t even wash your hair?”
“I washed my hair.”
“First time in a long goddamn time. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Mama cried while Kellen put food on the plates. Liam frowned. He didn’t like watching Kellen serve dinner. As much as I didn’t like Liam eating the dinner I cooked.
?
??Does Val make you a lot of nice meals while I’m off taking care of the business that puts food on the table?” Liam said.
“Wavy invited me.” Kellen took a bite of meatloaf.
“Oh, Wavy invited you?” Liam said.
Kellen finished chewing before he said, “Yeah.”
For a while, nobody said anything. Kellen kept eating. Potatoes went into his mouth and the fork came out shiny. I loved the way he ate. I wanted to eat like that.
“That’s a load of crap,” Liam said.
“I invited Kellen.” I thought the words might burn my tongue, but seeing Liam’s stupid mouth hang open was worth it. Sometimes he forgot that I didn’t talk. Not that I couldn’t talk. He blinked and ate some meatloaf.
“This is really good, Val. You’re as good a cook as your mother.”
Mama smiled. She wanted any nice words, even if she didn’t deserve them.
“We just about got everything ready for Myrtle Beach,” Liam said.
“You’re going this year?” Mama said.
“Yeah, baby. We’ll take the bikes down. Take some product to sell. A little business, a little pleasure.”
“I know your kind of business.” Mama made an ugly face.
Kellen swallowed quick and said, “Which bike you riding down?”
“Eat your dinner, Vonnie,” Liam said.
Safer to nod, even if it was a lie. I should have nodded, but I stared at my plate.
“I said eat your dinner.”
I hated being afraid, but I picked up my fork. I moved a bite of mashed potatoes away from the mountain. Kellen bought real butter, not margarine. I could never get the lumps out, but he’d mashed the potatoes creamy smooth. They were beautiful.
“So, you’re leaving tomorrow?” Kellen was talking to Liam but he sent a message to me: Just take a bite.
“Yeah. You’re ready to go tomorrow, right?”
I tried to send Kellen a message: Don’t go. I think he got it, because he squinted hard.
“I didn’t know I was going,” he said.
“Shit, yeah. I told you, buy out Old Man Cutcheon and you’ll have a long line of guys wanting you to work on their bikes. You and me can do some other business that way, too. You don’t want that?”