Pretending Normal (9 page)

“What do you think?”

“Yes.”
I try to break down the barrier in those blue eyes. “Yes, he was.” I say the words louder, pouring more conviction on them.

“Rudy’s an asshole, stay away from him.”
Then, “Do I look like a pusher?”

I shake my head no.

“Okay then.” He brushes his mouth over mine. “Let’s get out of here. How about a double dip at Benny’s?”

“
Sounds great.”

He smiles then, that meandering curve of lips that starts a slow burn in my belly and makes him the Peter I know.
“Come on”—he takes my hand—“let’s go.”

When we reach
Benny’s the parking lot is packed. “Do you want to get takeout?”

“Sure.”
After what’s just happened, I need to be alone with him, not surrounded by half of Norwood.

“Sara?”
He pulls into a parking spot and shuts off the engine. “I’ve been trying to find the right time to ask you something.” He turns to me, brushes his fingers along my cheek, “Maybe what happened a little while ago was a good thing because it made me realize how much you mean to me.” He takes my hand, presses it to his lips. “I really care about you, Sara. Very much.”

“I feel the same way.”

“And I’d like you to wear this.” He removes his class ring and slides it on my third finger. “A little big”—he grins—“but it looks great on you.”

I finger the blue stone in the center of the
ring. It’s from West River High School in Pittsburgh. Not Norwood. “Thank you,” I say in a voice that sounds giddy and gravelly, at the same time.

“You’re very welcome
.” He leans in, kisses me. “You’re the only girl who’s ever worn that.” I open my mouth and let his tongue fill me. “Sara,” he breathes, easing the edge of my tank top from my jean shorts. “You’re the only one who ever will.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and press myself against him, sucking his tongue with long, even strokes.
“Stop.” He pulls away, his breath heavy, filling the space between us. “You’re driving me crazy.”

“
Am I?”

“You’
re a witch, you know that?” He touches my neck. “Later,” he says in a raspy voice.

“Later,” I repeat, my own voice low, husky.

“I’m going to get the double dip and fries. You sit here and think nice thoughts, like what you’re going to wear to Homecoming.”

“That’s months away, and besides, I haven’t even been asked.”

“I asked when I gave you that,” he says, pointing to his ring.

“Okay then.”

“Okay then.”

Peter disappears into Benny’s and I lean back against the
seat, close my eyes, my skin still tingling.
I love him.

A buzzing inside the car startles me and I jerk my eyes open, swatting at the noise.
A yellow jacket darts back and forth under Peter’s steering wheel. I flip off my sandal and start swinging, the buzzing escalating with each swat, until
whap.
No more buzz. I lean over Peter’s seat, searching for the bee when I catch sight of a piece of plastic sticking out from under the mat on Peter’s side.

Will it be a Ho
-Ho or a Twinkie wrapper? I reach over and tug on the plastic. It’s a little pouch like the one in Kay’s purse. My lungs clog up, my head and heart pounding hard enough to explode as I finger the black capsules through the plastic.

Then I yank back the mat
and see the faint bulge in the floor with a narrow slit running along the length of the carpet. I poke a finger inside and pull out wads of plastic—yellow pills, white pills, blue pills, green and black capsules. So many lies.
Were we a lie, too?
I grab a fistful of packets and am half out the door when Peter calls my name.

“Sara?
Where are you going?”

He
stands there, holding a cardboard carrier filled with a double dip and fries, and looking so innocent… no normal. But now I know he’s only pretending normal.

“Sara!”
He sets the carrier on the roof of the Chevelle and rushes toward me. “For God’s sake, what’s wrong?”

It is impossible to blink him into focus, because my eyes are too wet. I blink again and then one more time, until I can almost make out his face, can almost hone in on those turquoise eyes.
“Lies,” my voice is flat. “All lies.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rudy was right. You’re a pusher.” I hurl the packets at him, mindless of the cars around us. “You’re a goddamn pusher!”

“I can explain
—”

“With another lie?”

“Get in the car.” He opens the door, forces me in and gets in the driver’s side. But not before he scoops up the packets on the ground. “I didn’t lie to you, Sara.” His words are brittle as he meets my gaze. “You lied to yourself. You’re the one who said I wasn’t a pusher.”

“You let me believe in you.”
My world is spinning black. “Let me trust you, let me… let me care about you.”

He bends down and grabs a packet of pills.
“This,” he says, holding it in the flat of his palm, “is about business, not us. You and I, us, have nothing to do with this.”

“You really thought it wouldn’t matter,” I whisper.

“I thought you would think it mattered,” he says.
“That’s why I wasn’t ready to tell you yet.”

“When would you have told me?”

He shrugs. “Later. When we were a little tighter.”

“How could you?”

“Grow up, Sara.
This is
not
about us. Can’t you see?” His eyes glitter. “I’m providing a service, giving them what they want, that’s all. And my old man’s got lots of them. And they’re safe.”

“Safe?”

He blows out a disgusted sigh. “They’re only uppers and downers. It’s not like I’m pushing PCP or LSD.”

“Well good for you.
Maybe you should get a medal for
only
selling uppers and downers.”

“I knew you’d be like this.”

“What do you expect?” There is a scream in my lungs fighting to explode. “I find out my boyfriend’s a pusher and I should say ‘Great? No big deal?’”

“Look
, I’m still just me.”

“No
.” I try to bring his face into focus again, but the tears keep everything hazy. At least I will be spared the crispness of remembering. “Why me? You could have had anybody, and most of them wouldn’t have cared about any of this.”

“I didn’t want just anybody, Sara.
I wanted the girl no guy could seem to get.”

“Well you can’t have me.”

“You’re just going to walk away? You’re going to go back home and play little Suzie Homemaker to that drunken father of yours?”

“How do you know about my father?”

“I figured it out the second time I saw him coming out of The State Store at eleven in the morning.”

“You shouldn’t talk, Peter.
You”—I point at him, give him a smile that isn’t a smile, but a cruel twist of the lips meant to hurt the way I am hurting—“should not talk.” I hurl his ring at him, then I am out the door, running, half-hoping to hear the duel exhaust of the Chevelle idling beside me, with Peter’s voice calling my name, telling me it is all a big mistake.

W
hen I reach my front porch and double up against the wrought iron railing, I press my hand to the pain in my left side and suck in great gulps of air. The road behind me is empty. I make my way to the backyard, half-stumbling, half-running, to the rosebushes where I collapse on the soft lawn, belly first, grabbing tufts of grass in my hands, and let the tears come.

Surprises come when you least expect them. That’s why they’re called surprises, right?
Or maybe they’re called that because you don’t really expect them at all—they just sort of pop out when you’re looking the other way. So, it
surprises
me when Frank calls me into the garage one afternoon and says, “Peck O’Grady needs your help.”

He is sitting on the edge of his stool, an old cut-up T-shirt balled in
one hand—he says they buff out the best—and looking at me like I should have
anticipated
the announcement.

“What does she need?”

“Help cleaning out the basement, and yard work. Hunt hurt her back and can’t lift anything, but don’t worry”—he snorts—“she’ll be supervising.”

The last family I want to work for is the O’Grady’s.
Nina went to their house once to collect money for the American Heart Association, and Mr. O’Grady made her stand in the doorway for ten minutes while he read every word of fine print on those bi-fold flyers you’re supposed to hand out to all donors. Like anyone other than Mr. O’Grady ever read them. And, Nina said his feet were stuffed in lamb’s wool and smelled like rotten cabbage. Gross.

“When does she want me to start?”
As if I have a choice.

“I told her you’d be over tomorrow morning, around nine.”

“Fine.”

“She said come see her
when you turn sixteen and she’ll teach you to drive.” When I don’t answer, he adds, “Unless you’re not interested.”

“Oh, no,” I say.
“I’m… that’s great.” I just don’t want to smell cabbage feet.

He salutes me with his glass
, and I hear the clink of ice, watch his adam’s apple move as he swallows, a long steady pull, draining the Cutty Sark to less than one third.

“Thank you,” I manage.
 

His mouth lifts at the corners and he holds out his arm.
“Come here, kiddo.”

It
is odd and uncomfortable as he pulls me against his chest, his voice scratchy. “That’s my girl. Your old man will take care of you.” He smells of car paste and Cutty Sark laced with Camel’s. “You know that, don’t you?”

I nod.
“Sure.”

“Good.”
He squeezes my right arm, releases me, his hand dropping to his side. For one insane half-second, I want him to hug me to him again, tell me he loves me, like a real father would do, and that he is going to try very hard to stop screwing up. Instead, he clears his throat and I inch back farther, and farther still, until the distance between us is safe. He doesn’t seem to notice the awkwardness that brushes over us, past us, as we settle our faces back into place. “You know I’d teach you myself if I wasn’t working all day.”

“I know.”

“By the time I got home, it would be four o’clock. That’s just too damn late.”

“It’s okay.”

He looks up at me then, his silver eyes bright. “It’s not like I’m not going to pay Peck to teach you. She charges three fifty a shot.”

“Thank you.”

“Ten times on the road, that’s thirty-five dollars.”

“I appreciate it.”

He scratches his head. “That’s not even counting car insurance.” His fingers move down to the stubble on the side of his cheek. “I’d sure as hell save a lot of money if I made you wait until you’re twenty.”

He is going to change his mind
.
I look away. Why can’t just one thing go right for me?

“Sara?”

“Yes?” I drag my gaze to his, narrowing my eyes so he won’t see the tears.

“What the hell.
Peck will be a good teacher.”

“Thank you,” I say.
And mean it.

He smiles then, and his voice is rough.
“You get that license and we’ll take this baby out.” He pats the hood of the Chevy. “I’ll let you drive, too.”

“That would be great.”

“Peck can show you the road and teach you the basics, but I’ll
give you the lessons people forget, the simple ones that can cost your life.” He waits for me to nod, then goes on, “Take something as simple as a car in a garage. No big deal, right? Right. Unless, the car is on and the garage door is closed.” He picks up his glass, takes a quick swig. “Then what happens?”

“You get carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“You die,” he corrects. “When you say it the way you do, it sounds like all you have to do is take a pill or get to an emergency room and you’ll be fine.” He waves a beefy finger at me. “The truth is, you die. Too late for the hospital. By the time somebody finds you, you’re dead.”

“That’s horrible.”

He shrugs. “If you don’t mean to do it, it is. But some people want to die that way. They go to sleep and then they’re dead.”

How can he talk about people killing themselves
as though it were acceptable, even natural? “I’m sorry, I still think it’s horrible,” I say.

“It’s only horrible if you don’t mean to do it and it happens by mistake.
But for the ones who want to be done, it’s peaceful, like falling asleep, except you wake up in a different place.” A faint smile hovers on his lips. “For those people it’s the living that’s a bitch, not the dying. 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.”