Pretending Normal (20 page)

“Okay, then
we’re going.”

Nina is supposed to know what I’m thinking even if I don’t say a word.
Maybe she does, maybe that’s why she’s forcing me to play Peeping Tom, so I can see how much Peter never cared about me.

“Nina, how do you know where this place is?”
Conchetta’s flashlight shoots a path in front of her.

“My old man came here a few times looking for Maria.
My Mom made me come because I think she was worried about what might happen if he actually found her here.”

“With her boyfriend?”

Conchetta is so naive.

“Danny Morelli,” Nina says.
“They were crazy about each other all through high school but the old man broke it up. Danny went to Temple for medicine, I think. Anyway, she’s got so many other guys, I bet she doesn’t even remember his name.”

I’ll bet she does
.

“My old man always came the back way so nobody could see him.
Everybody else takes the main road because of the potholes. You can really screw up your alignment if you land in one and then how do you explain that to your parents?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be here.” Conchetta’s conscience is finally kicking in.

“Of course, we should. Come Monday morning, you’ll have a whole new who’s messing around with who. Right, Sara?”

I shrug.
“Sure.”

The three of us walk another two miles before we see Juniper Hill, which isn’t really a hill at all but a half-acre of cleared field, probably used for target practice years ago.

“Look,” Nina whispers, once we are crouching along the edge of a huge bush. “There’s Andrew Jensen’s mustang… and Kitty Lyndstrom’s father’s Bonneville… and Johnny Mennick’s Caprice… and…” She continues her countdown, rattling off names, providing tidbits for Conchetta’s benefit.

Peter’s Chevelle isn’t here.

“What the…?” Nina’s voice is decibels above a whisper. “That’s Jay’s Vega.”

Jay as in Jay Galeston, the guy Nina danced with all night at the Teen Center, the one who followed her to Benny’s Hot Dog Deluxe
—the one she continues to deny having any interest in.

“Are you sure?”
Conchetta strains her neck toward the Vega.

“Of course, I’m sure.
I know Jay Galeston’s car, that bastard.” And then she is running past the bushes, toward the Vega, yelling, “You bastard! You no good, cheating asshole!” Car doors fly open, lights go on, and everyone stares at the crazy girl beating on the passenger door of the dark Vega.

The driver side swings open and a tall, wiry figure jumps out, “Stop it!
What the fuck’s the matter with you?”

“You’re not Jay.”
Nina’s voice wobbles with relief as she stares at Steven Galeston, Jay’s older brother. “You’re not Jay.”

“No, I’m not Jay.
Who the fuck are you, you lunatic?”

“I'm Jay’s… girlfriend.”

News to me, news to Nina, too, I’ll bet.

***

When Rudy Minnoni opens his locker after seventh period class one Friday afternoon, he’s showered with thirty-two wads of unwrapped Kotex and a sign that says, ‘LEAVE HER ALONE!’

No one admits the deed, though there’s much speculation as to whom
the
her
could be. Some guess it’s Christy McConnell, the ex-girlfriend who dumped him last month, others say it’s Jenny Winnond, the ninth grader he’s been seen with lately, or even Jeff Borinski, Norwood’s star running back, who caught Rudy talking to his kid sister, Shawna, and threatened to smash his fuzzy head in.

But it’s none of them.

I know this because I know who it is.

Nina, Conchetta, and I are walking home from school that afternoon, when Nina says, “What do you think about that asshole, Rudy Minnoni?
I heard he got a detention for saying ‘fuck’ when the Kotex hit him in the head.”

I laugh.
“I wish I could have seen it.”

“I wish I knew who did it so I could send them a thank you.”

“You really can’t think of anyone who would do that?” Conchetta asks. 

“Everybody would want to do it, but I don’t know who
would have enough balls to actually
do
it. Maybe Jeff Borinksi, he’s a pretty tough guy.”

“That’s who I was thinking,” I say.
“He was really pissed when he saw Shawna talking to Rudy.”

“I don’t think so,” Conchetta’s voice is quiet, certain.

“Really? Who do you think did it?”

She flips her dark hair behind her ears and a gold hoop glints in the sun.
“Someone who’s tired of seeing him hurt a friend.”

“But I don’t even think
he
knows who did it,” Nina says.

“Good, then he’ll have to treat everyone nicer or be humiliated again.”

“God, do you think the red on the Kotex was paint or real blood?” Nina asks.

“Neither, it was permanent marker,” Conchetta says, the seam of her lips slipping into a smile.

“What the…?”

“You?”
I stare at Conchetta.

The smile spreads, warm, confident.
“I’ve been planning this since the day he came after you in the hall.”

“Oh my God, I do not believe this!” Nina lets out a howl.

“And if he bothers Sara again, it will be four boxes of Kotex
and
belts.”

And this, I would say, completes the transformation of Conchetta Louise Andolotti.

No man should lose his dignity. I have been thinking about this since the letter came. Dignity is such a fragile thing, so easily seized or surrendered if one isn’t careful. Frank doesn’t have much left, and maybe when the final shreds have disappeared, so will he.

It is a warm, breezy Saturday, six days after Frank’s discharge from Beechmont Hospital.
Half the town is clustered at the Norwood High football game and the other half is scrubbing toilets and kitchen floors before Mass. I am one of the scrubbers because I will do anything to avoid seeing Peter watch Kelly Jordan jump up and down in her too tight cheerleading outfit and big hair. Frank has been in the garage since mid-morning and now, two hours later, he wobbles into the kitchen.

“Come with your old man for a ride, Sara?”

“Where do you want to go?”

He throws back his head, laughs.
“Well, sure as hell not the mill.” He laughs again, but the sound is hollow. “The State Store.” He holds up his glass. “I’m about empty.”

“Okay.”
Even this is better than the football stadium.

“Let’s take the Chevy today.”

I follow him to the garage, say a quick prayer that his brain won’t mix up ‘reverse’ and ‘drive’ and get in the Chevy. It takes three tries to back out of the garage and another two to make it down the drive. “Your mother loved this car.”

I don’t answer because I am too busy willing the car to stay straight.

“She loved to ride in this car. Did I tell you she’s the one who told me to buy it? She said not to wait for the perfect time because perfect never comes.” He chuckles. “Your mother was a smart one. Think about it, Sara. Perfect never comes. All you get is”—he searches for a word—“well, all you get is what you get. That’s it.”

We are on Main Street and I concentrate hard as he pulls into a double space. “I’ll be right back.”
He heaves himself out of the Chevy and heads for The State Store.

Just then Kay’s friend, Tracy, comes out of Benny’s Hot Dog Deluxe.
I miss Kay. I have a zillion questions for her but most of all I want to know if she’s happy. I wonder if Aunt Irene finally feels like a real mother, and if she talked Kay into wearing matching shirts and headbands. I wonder too, if they feel like a family.

When Frank comes out of The State Store he’s carrying the trademark, brown bag tucked under his arm. “Bought myself a little treat today,” he says, sliding into the car
. “Call it a retirement gift.” He lifts a blue velvet sack with a gold cord out of the paper bag. “Crown Royal.” He raises his hand in a mini salute. “The best.”

Thirty-three years reduced to a bottle in a blue velvet sack.
My eyes start to sting and I look away. When we arrive home and the Chevy is safely tucked in the garage, Frank looks at me and says, “You’re a good girl, Sara. You’re gonna be all right.”

I don’t see him again until dusk.
Actually, it’s the sound I hear first—maniacal bursts bombarding me from the backyard, guttural, but for the unmistakable grief locked in them. I rush to the window and there is Frank hacking at my mother’s rosebushes with a hatchet, bellowing with each strike. Blooms, stems, and leaves fly in the air, scatter to the ground, one after the other, sliced to their brutal death.

When the last bloom is felled, and all that remains are jagged clumps of brown, he drops the hatchet and sinks to the ground, his big shoulders heaving, the yelling diminished to a desperate moan.
And it is then that I see the truth amid the crumpled destruction of petals, stems, and leaves. He loved her. I lay awake long after Frank falls into bed and think that maybe we are not so different after all.

When the night is black and the moon drifts overhead, I crawl out of bed and sneak outside to the clumps that were once my mother’s rosebushes.
Thorns from the thick stems snag my ankles, drag bloody lines across my calves, bleeding out my pain. Even my old Keds are attacked and jabbed through their cloth sides. I reach down and grope in the wet grass, gingerly scooping up chunks of rose, stem, and thorn. Later I will sift through the debris for the petals.

Kay will need these.
So will I.

From the silver dusting of
the moon, I spot a rose attached to a half-broken stem clinging to the base of the bush. I snap it from the bush, lift its face to my nose and inhale the sweetness that reminds me of my mother.

“He loved you, Mom,” I whisper into the bloom.
“He still loves you.”

***

Nina and I are going to see
Rocky
this afternoon. Her cousin, Vinney, is driving us to Allsburg to see it since the Norwood Theatre doesn’t open for another three weeks. Old man Skeet McCray owns the Theatre and the Drive-In and he doesn’t care how many teenage girls are in love with Sylvester Stallone, they have to wait until McCray sloughs off the rest of his B movies to the Drive-In crowd.

Nina has been planning this trip for two weeks
. We have the same poster of Stallone taped to our bedroom wall, the one where he’s leaning in the doorway, in a T-shirt and big muscles. Conchetta loves this picture. She wanted to go but Mr. and Mrs
.
Andolotti think Sylvester Stallone is too
revealing
even if he is Italian.

Frank calls me to the garage as I’m getting ready to leave and pulls a ten dollar bill out of his pocket.
“Here, take this for your movie. Celebrate your old man’s retirement.”

“Thanks.”
I clutch the bill in my hand.

“Got a kiss for your old man?”

The kiss is devoured by the smell of alcohol, sweat, and years of less than perfect. “Thanks, Dad,” I say and then I am running to Nina’s.

It isn’t until after we are in our seats, me, Nina, and Vinney, waiting for Sylvester Stallone and
Rocky
to fill the big screen that I realize something.

I called Frank
Dad
.

***

At first I don’t hear the noise.

I’ve said good
-bye to Nina and am thinking about heating up leftover spaghetti and meatballs for dinner… maybe tomorrow we’ll have Porterhouse steaks… he’ll like that. I am almost to the garage when I hear the low rumble of the Chevy’s motor from inside the garage.

Dad?

I run to the garage door, push it open and am engulfed by plumes of pale, gray smoke clouding the garage, crowding around the Chevy like a net.
My lungs fill with smoke and sucked-out oxygen as I cough and fight to breathe.

And the horrible thing for these poor sons of bitches is when some do-gooder shuts off the engine and opens the door, thinking he’s trying to save a life when all he’s doing is prolonging a death
…
His words float to me on puffs of smoke, filling my throat. Tears burn my face, grief and guilt scalding me, promising to choke the last breath of life from me, as though I am in the seat beside him.

I back away, close the garage door and try to block out the murderous sound of the Chevy’s engine and the sight of my father behind the steering wheel, head thrown back, eyes closed.
Ten seconds, twenty…

I can’t do it
!
I push open the garage door, coughing and choking my way to the car.
I’m coming, Dad!
I lift the handle, pull hard but it’s locked.
Damn you, open the door!