Notes From a Liar and Her Dog (13 page)

“Are you a new teacher?” my mom asks.

“I’ve been teaching for two years.”

“That’s not a very long time.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Look, I know you’re trying to help Antonia, but I can’t help thinking you’re going about it the wrong way,” my mom says.

I look at my mom. I can see how hard she’s trying to control herself.

“You may be right. But I’ve made a promise to your daughter that if she takes care of this vet bill problem, she will be able to continue with the zoo program, and I’d like to be able to keep that commitment. But I think she needs your help to resolve some of these issues.”

“Why are you sticking your neck out for her?”

“Because I like her,” Just Carol says.

My lips smile. I feel a warm flush come over me. For a second I’m afraid I might cry. I wonder if Kate heard this. I hope she did. I hope she tells Elizabeth about it, too.

My mother looks at me as if she’s trying to understand why. She’s quiet for a minute, then she nods. Her head barely moves. “I do fine with the other two,”
she says softly. “I’ve never been called on the carpet about them.”

“Mrs. MacPherson, please, I’m not calling you on the carpet. It’s just that we have a problem, and I think we need to address it.”

“With Antonia everything is a problem.”

“Antonia, why don’t you go upstairs. I want to talk to your mom for a minute, alone,” Just Carol says.

I shake my head no in an exaggerated way. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I whisper.

“I do,” Just Carol says. There’s an edge to the way she says this. Like if you touched her words, they would give you a paper cut. I go upstairs.

Kate is sitting on the top step. “You’re not supposed to take Pistachio in the living room,” Kate says. She has her notebook in her hand as if she has already recorded this. “And I don’t see how you could get in trouble in art. How can you do
art
wrong?”

“I didn’t get in trouble in art,” I say.

“What did you do, then?” She leans forward. Her mouth open. Her blue eyes glowing.

“None of your business,” I say as I close the door of my room.

N
ow I’m dialing Just Carol’s number wanting her to answer for once, instead of the recording I’ve heard so often. Nope, it’s the recorded voice again. I hang up without leaving a message and then I sit, staring at nothing. If I don’t care about her one way or the other, why do I call her so much?

My mother is in the garage. She is opening old packed boxes. I hear the blade of her scissors cut the brown tape, then the rip of cardboard as she pulls open the flaps. She is checking to see if she still wants what’s inside. I go in the living room to put on a CD and drown the sound out. Your Highness beats me to it. Neither of us can stand the sound of my mom cleaning the garage, because we know it means she thinks we’ll be moving soon. We remember the last time and the time before that.

Now it’s almost time for my father to call. He is supposed to phone at 7:30. I check the clock in the kitchen. It’s 7:15 every time I look. Finally it moves—7:18. The phone rings. I get the downstairs extension. Elizabeth rips it out of my hand.

“Dad!” I hear Elizabeth say as I run for the upstairs phone. “You’re not looking for a job in Philadelphia, are you?”

“What about hello? Don’t we usually start with that?”

“Antonia called Leebson in Atlanta. They said you weren’t working there anymore.”

“Oh, she did, did she.”

“Yes, I did,” I say.

“Hello, Antonia.”

“Dad. We have to stay
here
, you know. You can’t get a job in Pennsylvania.”

“No hello. No how are you. You girls are a tough crowd, I’m telling you. But in answer to your question, No, I’m not looking for a job in Philadelphia. Happy now?”

“Why’d you leave?” Elizabeth asks.

“I gave my notice at Leebson because it was time. I had planned to stay there until they found a replacement, but my crazy ex-boss, Dave, got so upset he told me to pack my desk and get out. It’s just as well. It wasn’t the right place for me. This is a very positive move.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask.

“You didn’t give me time.”

“Fine, Dad, but we’re not moving,” Elizabeth says.

“Boy, are you two feisty today. Settle down, okay? There’s nothing to worry about.”

“But where are you going to work now?” Elizabeth asks.

“Elizabeth, it’s been seventy-two hours—eighty
maybe—since I left the last job. I don’t know yet where I’m going to be working. But I’m not planning on moving you to Siberia, I promise. Of course, I’ll try to stay in northern California. I know you girls like it there and so does your mother.”

“You’ll
try
?” I say.

“Yes, I’ll try. Now put your mom on. I’m tired of getting the third degree.”

“You have to do better than that,” Elizabeth says.

“ELIZABETH! Don’t talk to me that way! Now get your mom, please!”

I put the phone down. I don’t want to hear any more. Elizabeth comes upstairs. Kate follows. She has heard what happened, but she doesn’t totally get it. She still trusts my parents in a way Elizabeth and I do not.

I don’t know what Elizabeth and I thought we’d get from talking to my dad. But whatever it is, we didn’t get it. We waited for nothing. No information. Zip.

We sit down in the doorways of our rooms. This is neutral zone. Elizabeth rolls a pink rubber ball to me. I roll it to Kate. Kate rolls it to Elizabeth. We listen to my mom speak to my dad on the phone—a distant talking sound, rising and falling. It stops after a few minutes. Fewer than normal.

We are like zombies hypnotized by that ball, rolling it back and forth. Back and forth. After a while, my mother walks by with a load of laundry. I’m happy to see this. The laundry is an ordinary chore, nothing to do with moving.

My mom steps over Elizabeth, then stops. It’s unheard of for the three of us to be doing something together.
My mother seems to notice this. “So, what are you playing?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Elizabeth says. Elizabeth’s head is rocking as if she’s keeping beat to a song that only she hears. She does this when she’s upset. My mother watches Elizabeth. She waits for more. Elizabeth is staring at the ball as if stopping it with her hand and rolling it to me requires all her concentration. “We’re playing with a pink ball,” she replies.

“I can see that,” my mom says as she sets a stack of neatly folded laundry on Elizabeth’s bed.

My mom comes out of Elizabeth’s room and goes into Kate’s. When she passes by again, Elizabeth says, “We don’t want to move.”

“Your dad didn’t say we were moving,” my mom says, running her manicured nails through her neatly curled blond hair.

“He’s got to get a new job now. You know what that means,” Elizabeth says. She is still concentrating on the ball. Her head is down, her blond ballerina bun is up. Usually Elizabeth is pretty neat, too, but today her hair is falling out of her bun and she is wearing sweat shorts with holes in them. Her fair skin is blotchy, like it gets when she’s been crying.

“There are plenty of jobs around here, you know,” my mom says. She tries to say this in a matter-of-fact way. But the words wobble when they come out.

“See,” Kate says. “Didn’t I tell you?”

Elizabeth rolls her eyes.

“There always are plenty of jobs, but Dad never takes them. He takes the ones that mean we have to
move one thousand miles or more and miss my performances,” Elizabeth whispers, staring hard at the ground.

“What?” my mother asks.

“There is no way I can leave, Mom. You know that,” Elizabeth says, loud now, so my mother can hear. Elizabeth has the ball and she’s bouncing it low and hard like a basketball dribble. “I absolutely can’t. I’m going to be in
The Nutcracker
this year. Don’t you even remember that?”

“For goodness’ sakes…no one is asking you to give up
The Nutcracker.
Didn’t your dad say he’d try to find a job here? What else can he do?” my mother asks. This is her I-don’t-want-to-hear-any-more-about-it tone of voice. It’s surprising to hear her speak this way to Elizabeth. I am happy to hear it…thrilled, actually. But then I start thinking about Harrison and Mr. Emerson and Just Carol and all the things I’ll lose if we move and the happiness fades away.

“Why are you cleaning out the garage, then?” I ask.

“Because it’s dirty,” my mother says.

“You’re not going to get us up in the middle of the night, are you?” Elizabeth asks. Her voice is soft now. She is scared.

“Elizabeth, I don’t know where you get these ideas. It was a vacation. We got you up in the middle of the night because we were driving across the desert and it was too hot to go in the day. What has gotten into you?” she asks, picking up her empty plastic laundry basket. She shakes her head and mutters, “You’re starting to sound like Antonia.”

“What?” Elizabeth asks.

“Never mind,” my mother says, and then she is gone down the stairs.

“I am not going to leave,” Elizabeth says when we hear the kitchen door swing behind my mother.

“I’m not going to leave, either,” I say.

“They can’t make us,” Elizabeth announces. Refusing to do things is unusual for Elizabeth. Generally, she gets what she wants in a sneakier way.

“Sure they can. They can make us do anything they want,” I say. I have had a lot more experience with disobedience. This is my area of expertise.

“We could run away,” Elizabeth says, her blue eyes all lit up in her blotchy face.

I snort. “Elizabeth, they don’t have street shelters with pink canopy beds, you know.”

“Shut up, Ant,” Elizabeth says.

I’m surprised to hear her call me Ant. It makes me happy, even if it is preceded by “shut up.” I look at her. I have never seen her so unhappy. She is rocking back and forth and tears are spilling over her eyelids and running down her cheeks.

I bite my lip. I’m not quite sure what to do now. It seems weird for Elizabeth and me to both be mad at our mom.

“Antonia, did you leave this mess down here?” my mom calls up the stairs.

“Better go down.” Elizabeth nods toward Mom.

Usually, Elizabeth and Kate love when I get in trouble. They eat it up. Right after my mother gets mad at me, they run around helping her do chores for a while
just to prove how much better they are than me. But today, Elizabeth doesn’t seem to want me to be in trouble.

“I didn’t leave the mess,” I tell Elizabeth.

“Yes, you did. It’s from when you brushed Pistachio.”

“Oh. Maybe I did.” I smile.

“Antonia!” my mother calls louder this time.

I shake my head and get up.

Elizabeth has the ball stopped with one hand. “She doesn’t hate you as much as you think she does, you know,” Elizabeth says.

I am surprised to hear Elizabeth say this. She has never said anything like it before. In fact, usually she says just the opposite.

“But you sure do make her mad. Especially when you tell her that she isn’t your real mother. Man oh man. You might as well pour gasoline on her and strike a match.”

“Well, she isn’t,” I say.

“Oh, come on, Ant. Just because you don’t like our mom doesn’t mean you can make up a new one.” She shakes her head.

“She’s your mom. She isn’t mine. For one thing, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t look at all like her,” I say.

“Not now, but she looked like you when she was a kid, before she got her nose fixed and her hair permed and dyed.”

When Elizabeth says this, I feel a sharp pain in my chest.

“No, she didn’t,” I say, but it’s too late, because suddenly I see a photo in my mind. It is in Aunt Mindy’s house, on the dresser in Aunt Mindy’s bedroom. The picture is of Aunt Mindy and my mom when they were little girls. They are wearing matching dresses with white sailor collars. They are both petting a big orange cat. Aunt Mindy looks like herself, only younger. My mom looks like me.

Dear Real Mom
,

Okay, so you aren’t real. Okay, so I’ve known this all along. Big deal. I’m going to believe in you just the same. Because I am not Mrs. MacPherson’s daughter. I’m not. Lots of people look alike and they aren’t related. They do. And Pistachio isn’t their dog, either. I know this for a fact.

Sincerely
,

Ant and Pistachio

E
very day for the past two weeks I’ve been going home to get Pistachio and then walking to the vet’s office to work. Mostly I clean the kennels in the back. I use this stinky green stuff and a big yellow scrub brush. It isn’t fun. Especially since they take the dogs and cats away, so I don’t even get to pet them or talk to them or anything. The vet has made it clear I’m being punished. She doesn’t like me. I don’t like her, either, but the receptionist with the fluffy white dog is very nice. I can tell she doesn’t think what I did was all that bad. I’ll bet she believes in the Hippopotamus oath, too.

At least the vet lady lets me bring Pistachio. I made a bed for him out of an old blue blanket, but he hardly ever lies in it because of all the smells. He just can’t get enough of smelling other dogs’ stink. The only thing he doesn’t like is the smelly green soap. When I squirt it in the bucket, he curls his lip and shakes his head and backs away. I don’t blame him. I hate it, too. It makes me feel as if I’m about to sneeze. Like I say “Aah aah aah,” but never “Choo.”

The other things I hate are the creepy purple pamphlets. They are in the brochure rack along with some other colored papers about fleas and heartworm and housebreaking. Or they were, anyway. Now the purple pamphlets are in the Dumpster underneath a big load of dog poop. That is where they belong. They are trash. Worse than trash, really. On the cover is a picture of a sad old golden retriever and a badly drawn clock. The words are printed in computer handwriting. They say: “Is it time to euthanize?” What they really mean is: “Are you ready to butcher your best friend?” Only if they said that and had a picture of a person there, they’d get arrested.

That clock really gets me. It reminds me of the homework pages Kate got when she was in first grade. The ones where she had to draw in the hands of the clock to show: breakfast time, lunchtime, dinnertime. And now: slaughter time.