Joy School (3 page)

I am washing out my cereal bowl when the phone rings. I answer it quickly and there is my sister, Diane. It is such a miracle to hear her. I haven’t heard her voice
since we moved here nearly six months ago. I hold the receiver so still, like she could fall out of it if I’m not careful. I feel tears start in my eyes, I’m so glad to hear her. “Where are you?” I say.

“Mexico. I’m still here. But listen, I’m coming to visit you!”

“You are?” I will have to wake him up to give her directions.

“Yes. For Thanksgiving.”

“And Dickie?”

“Yeah, he’ll come. He’ll bring me.” I hear the hidden sigh in her voice. She always seems to run into sadness. But when you hear that sound in her voice, if you ask her what’s wrong she will say, What do you mean? It’s private to her.

I’ve wanted to talk to her so often and now I can’t think of anything to say. I just keep thinking, this is so expensive, this call is going so far, we’d better say something important. LONG DISTANCE is walking around in my brain.

“Katie?”

“Yeah?”

“Pay attention now, I don’t have much time. I’ll write, and then Dad can send me directions for how to get there.”

“Okay.”

“I’m pregnant.”

The air in me falls out. I hold the phone tighter. I
don’t know what to say. Now she’s really going to be in trouble.
Pregnant
. The word sounds like the thing it is. I am thinking, for some reason, of one grape, held in the air between somebody’s two fingers.

“Are you there?” she asks. She’s laughing a little.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“I’m pregnant, I said. I’m married, too.”

“Oh.”

“But… don’t tell Dad yet, okay?”

Well, I don’t know.

“Don’t tell him. I want to do it.”

“All right.”

“Just say I’ll be coming.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll be there the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We’ll make some pies. I miss you, Katie.”

“Me, too.”

When we hang up, I have an odd feeling that I made the whole thing up. But the receiver is warm. I have been on the phone. At my feet, my dog, Bridgette, is sitting and looking up at me. When I look down at her, she wags her tail. She wants out. I feel frozen. But Bridgette is squirming alive. I find her leash and put it on her. All she needs is to hear that little snapping sound and she turns around in circles like she’s dancing a polka.

When I get outside, I look across the street and see the living-room blinds move. I don’t think it’s the parents,
I don’t think they’d be interested in watching. It’s the kids. They’re fourteen, and they’re twins, Greg and Marsha. I believe they are relatives of the devil. I have never met anyone so deliberately mean for no reason. I didn’t do anything but move here. I met them when we first came, like you have to, I have never asked them for anything, and they hate me. They leave notes in the bush outside my bedroom window. It started out with things like “Why don’t you go back to Texas, cowgirl?” but now they have graduated to every swearword they know. I haven’t told anyone. What good would it do? They wouldn’t say, Oh, sorry, want to hang around with us now? The worst thing is, I read those notes, every time. I know what’s going to be in them, but every time I open them and read them. I think about the hand, writing those notes, wearing a ring that it picked out. The notes are always in print, like script would be too nice.

I look away from the blinds, then back again, straight at them. I feel some strength just because Diane is coming. If they mess with her, she’ll wind them around the telephone pole, tie them there with their arms. Plus I can tell Diane what they’ve done. Her, I can tell. I told Cherylanne, but I haven’t heard back from her in a long time. I don’t think she’s exactly forgotten me, but if you said “Katie” to her she’d probably say, “Excuse me?”

I start walking Bridgette, figure in my head how long
till Thanksgiving. Not long. Nineteen days. Not even one month. When I get home, I’ll make a countdown sheet. And maybe my father will be up and I’ll say, Guess what? He’ll be glad, too, though he probably won’t show it. He’ll hold it back, it will only be in his face in a kind of stiffness. But he’ll be glad. And I’ll tell Ginger. All of a sudden, I have plans again. I’ll write Cherylanne about how Diane was, all about how she looked and acted—Cherylanne always was interested in Diane because Diane paid no attention to her. I’ll bet Diane is still so pretty, but with a pregnant stomach. I hope she’s being careful. I think the skin over the baby is the really thin type. I think these blue lines run through it, that feed the baby. I don’t see how, though. There’s so much I need to find out now. I can have a project, keep some notes in a folder to show her when she gets here. A yellow one, for cheerfulness. I may find out things Diane never knew and she will be grateful. She may ask to keep the folder and I will let her. I’m going to be an aunt. Aunt Katie, I say to myself, but then I have to change it to Aunt Katherine. Which I like. I may put my hair in a bun when I’m around that baby. Plus I have some pearl clip-ons that from far away look exactly like pierced.

When I come in, my father is up, standing at the stove with his arms crossed, watching the coffee perk. He can’t go by the smell, like my mother did. He has to
watch the color. He has his blue plaid robe on, and his feet are bare. This is his morning outfit. He sleeps in a T-shirt and his boxer underpants and then he puts on his robe to come out and make coffee. You can see his Adam’s apple, and how white and hairy his legs are. He kind of looks sad and too open, like a plucked chicken.

“She go?” he asks me, meaning the dog.

“Yup.”

“All right.”

He sits at the table, opens the paper.

“Did you hear the phone ring this morning?” I ask.

“No.” He doesn’t look up. He will in a minute.

“It was Diane. She’s coming to visit.”

Bingo. He looks up and closes the paper.

“When?”

“Thanksgiving.”

“Where is she?”

“Still in Mexico. Dickie’s coming, too.”

His face still, thinking. He looks away from me, nods. Then he looks back down at the paper. His tongue is doing something inside his mouth.

“Are you glad?”

“Yeah. I’m glad.” Still with the paper.

“I need to go to the grocery store. I’m making us Italian spaghetti tonight.”

“All right.”

I cross my legs, swing my foot, watch him reading. “I don’t really like it here so far,” I say.

“We haven’t been here that long.”

“Yes, but I still don’t. Other places were much friendlier. The people here, they aren’t friendly. The kids.”

He goes over to ther coffeepot, checks the color, turns off the flame, fills his cup. He takes a sip, looks over at me. “Wait awhile before you decide,” he says. “See how you feel after a few months.”

In my mind, there is a huge white calendar, big black numbers. You’d need a crane to lift the page.

I hear a thunking sound at my feet. Bridgette’s bone. And then she lies beside it, sighs happy out her nose. There are ways of not needing much. I pet her by the curly hair at the back of her neck. She’s a little like a cocker, with a lot of mystery thrown in. “Good girl,” I say. “You’re good. You just like your bone, don’t you? Yes, you just like that bone.”

“Katie,” my father says.

I look up. “Yes?”

Nothing. Oh. He just means, Quiet, I’m trying to read. “You’re a good girl,” I tell Bridgette, whispering. “Yes, you are.”

T
he next Wednesday, after school, I find a letter on my desk.

I put the letter in my underwear drawer. Cherylanne’s pile is pitiful low. Two letters and one postcard.
I go out into the kitchen, where Ginger is cleaning the sink. “You know that envelope you put on my desk?” I say.

She turns around, and the rag she is holding drips two pure drops onto the floor. “Yes?” she says, and then, noticing the drips, turns quickly back to the sink, throws the rag in there. Then she wipes her hands on her apron. She has on a green shift under that, with some geometry shapes on it. Plus her hair is fixed up, bouffant style with some curls over her cheeks. She must have a date tonight. Sometimes she’ll go right from work. Her boyfriend’s name is Wayne, but I can tell she doesn’t think that much of him. She is never excited when they’re going out. It’s more of a second-prize feeling.

“That was a long letter from my best friend in Texas. Cherylanne.”

“Oh. That’s a nice name. Cherylanne. I like that.”

“Well,” I say, casual so she’ll know it’s true, “She was very popular. She still is.”

“Nice to have a friend like that.”

“Yes.” I look over the fruit bowl, select an apple. “But now I have friends here.”

Ginger smiles. “I’m glad. When do I get to meet some of them?”

“Well, so far it’s really only one. But more are on the way.”

“Who is the one?”

“Her name is Cynthia O’Connell. I can ride my bike
to her house. Which I am going to do now. But I’ll bring her here next time, if you want.”

“That would be nice. I’d like to meet her.”

I go back to my room, sit on my bed. Well, it’s official, now. I have kind of broken up with Cherylanne, telling Ginger about my new friend. I would have always had Cherylanne first, but she just couldn’t write back. I wasn’t her real friend, anyway. She was too old. Now I have found a friend my own age. I have to admit that I don’t like her as much as Cherylanne. At least not yet. She’s different. Not as interesting or kind of lit-up, like Cherylanne was. But maybe that’s good, and as I get to know her better I will collect things about her, and she will become the one I tell things to. I squeeze out some tears for Cherylanne and then I go to get my bike.

Outside, Greg is on his lawn, throwing a football to some friend of his. Marsha is sitting on the steps, eating marshmallows out of the bag. Something she doesn’t know about me is that is one of my favorite things, too. You can toast them over the stove on a fork, you don’t need a campfire. I don’t think either of them will say anything with Greg’s friend there. But I am wrong. “Hey, dipshit!” Greg yells.

“Greg!”
Marsha says. What she means is, “Yeah, get her, let’s have some more fun.” But I guess she has a crush on the friend so she is acting like oh my delicate self is so offended by this tough talk.

I don’t say anything. Last time they made fun of the
dog. I wished so hard she would attack them but all she did was wag her tail and strain at the leash for them to pet her. I tried to send thoughts down into her but no, she liked them.