Test Pattern (22 page)

“AIEEEE!” Pete screams as scalding chicken soup rains down on him like a monsoon from hell. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Cassie stampedes down the stairs from her room. “What happened? What happened?”

“Ice. I’ll get ice.” Lorena dashes into the kitchen and wrestles cubes from the ice tray into a bowl. She almost trips over Cassie, who is blocking her way back into the living room.

“No!” Cassie yells. “Keep away from him. If you don’t, I’ll … I’ll call the police.”

Lorena shoves her way past Cassie. Ignoring Pete’s protests, sherubs ice cubes over his burned face and arm, mashing noodles beneath the rapidly melting cubes in her frenzy.

“Look what you did!” Pete pokes at the cast, which has turned to mush where the soup soaked in. The sheets are soggy with soup, sloppy with noodles, several of which are wiggling through Pete’s curly black hair. The room smells like chicken.

Cassie watches the cleanup from the stairs, pressing her forehead against the banister railing until two vertical lines are imprinted on the skin. Lorena glances furtively at her as she helps Pete to a chair and changes the sheet on his bed. She doesn’t speak. Neither does Pete, aside from an occasional moan when he shifts his weight in the chair.

He is shiny with the butter Lorena smears onto the burned areas, basting him like a turkey. His face gleams in the afternoon sunlight. Now and then he nods when Cassie asks at intervals, “You okay, Dad?” He doesn’t look at Lorena as she wipes up noodles from the rug on her hands and knees.

The cleanup is complete. Pete is propped up on the couch, glaring at
The Brighter Day,
which Lorena has turned on despite his protests. She sticks a straw into a Ballantine and hands it to him, then clumps upstairs to fling herself on the bed.

Suddenly overcome by an image of herself and Binky lying on this very spot in happier days—limbs entwined, bra unsnapped, stockings degartered and unrolled—Lorena breaks into sobs she muffles with her pillow. She tries to conjure up the comforting figure of Mama Hansen, but all she gets is a naked, hat-free Binky. Exhausted by the effort to think good thoughts, she gives in and allows Binky to dominate her fantasy. At its heaving, breathless conclusion, she falls into a deep and dreamless sleep. All this penance is wearing her out.

M
OM TRIED TO kill Dad. Death by soup. It’s like on test-pattern TV where people kill their husbands or wives so they can do sex with somebody else. I asked Molly if maybe I should warn Dad or tell the police even if it meant telling on my own mother. But Mr. Finkelstein heard me and said, “No, don’t do that. Accidents happen. If you say something, it’ll just upset your mom and dad.” I bet anything Mr. Finkelstein would feel different if I told him about the mailman thing. I bet he would help me rescue Dad.

Maybe Mr. Finkelstein is right. Maybe Dad doesn’t need saving, maybe it was just an accident. Still, I can’t help myself, I have this weird feeling like something bad’s going to happen to him unless I do something. And then it would all be my fault.

Sometimes I dream that I’m flying. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. People see me and say, “Look—up in the sky!

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s
Cassie Palmer.'”
In my dream I have a cape and I fly around and rescue people.

I don’t think you really need a cape to do that because Wonder Woman doesn’t have one, but she does have those big cuffs on her arms that bounce bullets off. I guess you have to wear something unusual like a cape or cuffs if you want to be a hero, or else you just look like anybody else. If you’re not dressed right, people might not let you save them.

DAD’S LYING ON his bed in the living room, so we watch TV until he falls asleep. Usually that doesn’t happen until
What’s My Line
or
Your Hit Parade,
but tonight right in the middle of
Our Miss Brooks,
one of my favorite, favorite shows, I hear Dad snore.

“Bedtime,” Mom announces.

“Why? It’s
summer.”
I hear the kids outside playing hide-and-seek in the court, Ginny Sue squealing like she does when she gets caught. “Well, can I go out and play?”

Mom looks down at her hands, studies them with this worried look like she just grew extra fingers. “I thought this might be a good time for a little mother-daughter chat.”

Uh-oh.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and put on your jammies,” she says.
Jammies?
She hasn’t said “jammies” since I was six. “And then,” she adds, “we can get all cozy and talk.”

Oh boy. I can’t wait. Mom’s idea of a cozy talk is like the time she handed me the book on menstruation, a box of Junior Kotex and what she called a sanitary belt, and said if I had any questions, just ask her. So I did. I held up the belt and asked, “How does this work?” and she said, “I’ll explain when you need it.” If it wasn’t for Molly, I’d still be waiting for an answer.

So I go upstairs and put on my pajamas and brush my teeth and when I come out of the bathroom there’s Mom, sitting on the edge of my bed, studying those extra fingers again.

She gives a little cough, like she’s going to give a speech. And then she does: “I just want you to know that things will be different from now on.” She doesn’t look at me, starts picking at a hangnail. “Sometimes people make mistakes. But that doesn’t mean they’re bad people. Or that they’re not sorry about what they did.”

I don’t say anything. She goes on: “So what you have to do, when that happens, is kind of … forget the bad things and remember the good things. Forgive and forget. That’s what you have to do.” And then she looks at me, her eyes all fluttery and damp.

Why doesn’t she just say it? Say, “I was doing sex with the mailman and you caught me and now I’m scared you’re going to tell.” I almost blurt that out, but then I think, What if she really means it? Maybe she’s not just faking. Maybe she really is sorry. Maybe all her taking care of Dad is for real and we can just go back to being a regular family. I almost forget what that was like, being regular, not thinking about stuff like mailmen and hospitals, just being like we were before, Mom and me talking without crying, and Dad when he used to laugh.

So what I say is, “Well-l-l, okay. Long as you don’t try to hurt Dad again.”

“What?” she squeaks.

“Yeah. Don’t burn him with soup. Or think about other ways to get rid of him.”

“Where did you get
that
from?” She’s standing up now, the old Mom again, frazzled as ever. “What gets into your head? I swear, you
are
just as crazy as Lula.” And she stomps back downstairs.

I’m as crazy as Lula? How crazy is that? I don’t remember Aunt Lula, all I know is the stories about her, how she made up things, saw things that weren’t really there.

Well, I’m
not
like Lula. I know the things I see are real.

But then I wonder: Did Lula think so, too?

*   *   *

I WAKE UP with the moon in my face. It’s full and fat outside my window and lights up the whole outdoors. Long shadows stretch like goblin fingers over grass as white and silent as snow. It’s late, so late that the crickets have stopped singing.

Mom’s asleep. Her door is closed. There’s no light underneath, so I know she’s not up. I slide off my bed and feel the cool wood floor under my feet as I tiptoe down the stairs, cringing at each creak.

Dad is snoring away on his living-room bed. I turn on the test pattern but it doesn’t wake him up like I hope it will. If he wakes up, I’ll make him watch till he sees the shows I tried to tell him about. Then he’ll know that I’m not crazy like Lula.

The test pattern is sharp and crisp in black-and-white, starts to spin like a pinwheel, and then, like always, it fades. The lines blur, it gets all fuzzy, and I get that tingly pins-and-needles feeling. I tried to explain the feeling once to Mr. Finkelstein but I couldn’t describe it. It’s like I know something is about to happen, something that I never saw before.

Tonight what comes on is a foot. A foot in a boot, a fat, funny-looking boot stepping on ground that’s covered in powder. Then the man whose boot it is says, “That’s one small step for man,” only his steps aren’t little, they’re boingy giant steps, like he’s jumping on a trampoline. He’s dressed like a spaceman with a big bubble helmet, just like another man who climbs out the door of their rocket ship. They both boing around in this desert-looking place, then they stick a flag in it.

I’ve seen lots of rocket ships on test-pattern TV. They’re much better than that dinky Polaris on
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
on regular TV. The best is this neat rocket ship called the
Enterprise,
which has girl space cadets, too. One of the crew is from another planet. You can tell because he’s got pointy ears which the regular guys on the ship don’t even seem to notice.

I wanted to be a space cadet until I saw this rocket that took off like the others but then it made a big puffy Y in the sky and crashed. That’s when I changed my mind about wanting to travel to the stars.

But these guys that I’m looking at are really up there somewhere, boinging around, looking at the constellations up close. I know Dad would like this because he knows so much about the stars.

“Whazzat?” It’s Dad. His voice is all slurry because he just woke up. He looks at me like he’s not sure I’m really here.

“Look, Dad,” I say, pointing to the guys who are still boinging around. “Spacemen. Just like Tom Corbett, only better, realer.”

“Wha?” He leans on his good elbow, squints at the TV.

“Spacemen, Dad. Up in the stars!”

“Turn that thing off,” he grumbles, flopping back on his pillow. “Wakin’ me up with that damn test pattern, that’s all I need.”

“You never believe anything I say.” I’m so mad. So mad I add, “I bet you wouldn’t believe me if I told you why Mom tried to kill you.”

“You’ve been watching too much TV.”

“But, Dad …”

He gets all red, reaches down, and throws his bedroom slipper at the TV screen. “
Turn it off.
And get your butt up to bed!”

I snap off the TV and go upstairs. I wish I had Molly’s parents. They listen to her. I even heard Mrs. Finkelstein tell Molly she loved her. When I told Molly nobody ever told me that, she said, Well, you know they love you because that’s what parents do. I said that
being
loved isn’t the same as
feeling
loved, but I don’t think she understood.

I get in bed and study the ceiling. It looks like the powdery ground the spaceman’s boot stepped on. If I look real hard, I can even see footprints.

P
ETE IS SITTING up, parked under a TV tray in the stifling living room. A fan whines fretfully as it swivels in a corner. Summer explodes in bright sunshine outside, but inside it’s clammy and dark. Pete has refused to go outdoors since a neighbor innocently asked him how he happened to fall. His entertainment is limited to radio, television, and meals, the most recent of which Lorena is placing before him.

“What’s this?” He pokes a finger into the intestinal entanglement slithering over the sides of a soup bowl.

“Chef Boyardee.” Lorena is all smiles as she tucks a paper napkin under his chin.

“Looks like guts.” He rips the napkin away, balls it up. “I like sandwiches for lunch. You know that.” His chin is rumpled in a pout.

Lorena bites her lip, holds her breath. Waits for him to mention chicken noodle soup. He doesn’t, so she ventures, “I thought we’d try something different.” She offers him a hesitant smile.

She doesn’t want to spoil her mood. She just got back from Maybelle’s and her new hairdo has given her a new outlook. The sedate style reflects her desire to emulate the serene maturity of Mama Hansen. Lorena willingly credits Maybelle for her transformation.

“Hon,” Maybelle had said as she snipped away the last wilted spiral of the poodle cut until all that was left was a skull-hugging cap of hair the color of Ovaltine, “I unnerstand how you feel, with your hubby home alla the time now. You gotta get practical. What with emptying pee bottles and all, you don’t wanna have to fuss with your hair.” She flattened Lorena’s bangs in a C-shape that stuck to her forehead, then whipped off the plastic cape, scattering clipped wisps of curls across the green linoleum floor. “Now,” she pronounced, “you look serious.”

Good-bye Mitzi Gaynor. Hello Margaret Truman.

But Pete hasn’t noticed her new hairdo. His focus is on lunch. “I’m dripping with sweat and she’s feeding me spaghetti,” he mutters as he prods the congealed clump of noodles with his fork. “Don’t you have any bologna?” he calls out to Lorena, who is already on the kitchen phone, dialing up Delia to report on her new haircut.

“I threw it out,” she calls back. “It was turning blue. Oh, hi, Delia,” she says into the phone. “It’s the new Me.”

“Blue?” he yells. “Why do we have blue bologna?”

“Wait a sec,” she says to Delia. She puts her hand over the mouthpiece, yells to Pete, “We don’t. I threw it out.” Back to Delia. “It’s real chic, very … serious. You know. Like Mama Hansen.”

“GET. ME. SOME. REAL. FOOD!” Pete bellows.

Lorena puts a hand over her outside ear so she can hear Delia.
“Roman Holiday
? I’m dying to see it, sure, I can get away. Cassie can watch Pete for a couple of hours. I’m not in prison, for God’s sake. Although"—her voice recedes to a whisper—"it sure feels like it sometimes.”

“Lorena!”

“Be right there, sweetheart,” she warbles. To Delia, “See what I mean? But this, too, shall—”

“Goddammit,”
she hears, followed by a crash.

“Callyaback.” She throws the phone back on its hook, runs into the living room.

A wriggling glob of spaghetti is stuck to the wall over the TV. Shards of tomato-speckled bowl are scattered beneath it like blood offerings. Pete’s face is as twisted as a wrung-out rag, his throwing arm, still bandaged from the soup burn, extended in a follow-through. “I said,” he says, his voice low and threatening, “to get me some real food.”