Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel (16 page)
Read Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel Online
Authors: Maria Semple
Tags: #Fiction / Humorous, #Contemporary Women, #Humorous, #Family Life, #Fiction, #Fiction / Family Life, #Fiction / Contemporary Women
“Huh?” Kennedy said.
“You’ve never been here, have you?” Mom asked Kennedy, then turned to me. “And you don’t remember, do you?” I shook my head. “We put this on the windowsill.” She propped the card against the glass. “And we put a pencil next to it. While the restaurant revolves, everyone will write something, so when it comes back around, you’ll have a card full of birthday wishes.”
“That’s so cool!” Kennedy said at the same time that I said, “That’s no fair!”
“We can come here for your birthday next year, I promise,” Mom said.
The birthday card slowly left us, and, oh, we had so much fun. We did the one thing that Kennedy and I always do when we’re with Mom, which is talk about Youth Group. Mom was raised Catholic and became an atheist in college, so she completely freaked out when I started going to Youth Group. But I only went because it was Kennedy’s idea. Kennedy’s mom spends half her life at Costco, so they have these huge bags of candy bars and drums of licorice at home. Plus, they have a giant TV with every cable channel, which means I spent a lot of time at Kennedy’s house eating candy and watching
Friends
. But then one day Kennedy started thinking she was fat and wanted to go on a diet, and she was, like, “Bee, you can’t eat licorice because I don’t want to get fat.” Kennedy is totally crazy like that, and we always have the craziest conversations. So she made this huge declaration that we weren’t allowed to go to her house anymore
because it makes her fat and instead we had to go to Youth Group. She called it her “Youth Group diet.”
I kept it secret from Mom as long as I could, but when she found out she was furious because she thought I was going to turn into a Jesus freak. But Luke and his wife, Mae, who run Youth Group, aren’t into that at all. Well, OK, they’re a little into that. But their Bible talk lasts only, like, fifteen minutes, and when they’re done we have two hours to watch TV and play games. I kind of feel sorry for Luke and Mae because they’re all excited to have half of Galer Street coming over on Fridays. But they have no idea there’s nowhere else to go because Friday is the one day there’s no sports or extracurriculars, and all we really want to do is watch TV.
Still, Mom hates Youth Group, which Kennedy thinks is the most hilarious thing in the world. “Hey, Bee’s Mom,” Kennedy said. That’s what she calls Mom. “Have you ever heard of poop in the stew?”
“Poop in the stew?” Mom said.
“We learned about it in Youth Group,” Kennedy said. “Luke and Mae did a puppet show about drugs. And the donkey was, like, ‘Well, just one little puff of marijuana can’t hurt.’ But the lamb said, ‘Life is stew, and pot is poop. If someone stirred even a teeny-tiny bit of poop in the stew, would you really want to eat it?’ ”
“And those featherheads wonder why people are fleeing the church? Puppet shows for teenagers—” Before Mom could totally go off, I grabbed Kennedy’s hand.
“Let’s go to the bathroom again,” I said. The bathroom is in the part of the restaurant that doesn’t revolve, so when you return, your table isn’t where you left it. That time, we were walking back, all like, “Where did our table go?” and we finally spotted Mom.
Dad was there, too. He was wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a parka, and he still had his Microsoft badge around his neck. Some things you just know. And I just knew Dad had found out about the mudslide.
“Your dad is here!” Kennedy said. “I can’t believe he came to my birthday party. That is so nice.” I tried to stop Kennedy, but she squirmed away and bolted over.
“Those blackberries were the only thing holding up the hillside,” Dad was saying. “You knew that, Bernadette. Why on earth would you denude an entire hillside in the middle of the wettest winter on record?”
“How did you find out?” Mom said. “Let me guess. Your admin is pouring poison in your ears.”
“Keep Soo-Lin out of this,” Dad said. “She’s the only reason it’s even feasible for me to leave for three weeks.”
“If you’re interested in the truth,” Mom said, “I had the blackberries removed in accordance with the specifications of Bugs Meany.”
“Bugs Meany from
Encyclopedia Brown
?” Kennedy said. “That’s so awesome!”
“Will you stop treating this as a joke?” Dad told Mom. “I look at you, Bernadette, and I’m scared. You won’t talk to me. You won’t go to a doctor. You’re better than this.”
“Dad,” I said, “stop freaking out.”
“Yeah, really,” Kennedy said. “Happy birthday to me.”
There was a moment of quiet, then me and Kennedy burst into giggles. “I’m, like, happy birthday to me,” Kennedy said, which triggered another fit of laughter.
“The Griffins’ house caved in,” Dad said to Mom. “They’re living at a hotel. Is this something we’re going to have to pay for?”
“Mudslides are considered an act of God, so the Griffins’ insurance covers it.”
It was like Dad was a crazy person who had come into the Space Needle waving a loaded gun, and then he turned it on me. “Why didn’t
you
tell me, Bee?”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly.
“Goody, goody gumdrops!” Kennedy said. “Here comes my birthday card!” She grabbed my arm really hard and squeezed it.
“Could you please take some Ritalin and shut up?” I said.
“Bee!” Dad snapped. “What did you just say? You don’t talk to people like that.”
“It’s OK,” Mom told Dad. “It’s how they talk to each other.”
“No, it’s not!” He turned to Kennedy. “Kennedy, I need to apologize for my daughter.”
“For what?” she asked. “Here comes my card!”
“Dad,” I said. “Why do you even care? You don’t even like Kennedy.”
“He doesn’t?” Kennedy said.
“Of course I like you, Kennedy. Bee, how could say such a thing? What’s going on with this family? I just came here to have a conversation.”
“You came here to yell at Mom,” I said. “Audrey Griffin yelled at her already. You weren’t even there. It was horrible.”
“Get it, get it!” Kennedy climbed over me and grabbed her birthday card.
“It’s not about yelling at Mom—” Dad became flustered. “This is a conversation between me and your mother. It was my mistake to interrupt Kennedy’s birthday dinner. I didn’t know when I’d have the time otherwise.”
“Because you’re always working,” I mumbled.
“What’s that?” Dad demanded.
“Nothing.”
“I’m working for
you,
and for
Mom,
and because the work I’m doing has the potential to help millions of people. I’m working
especially
long hours now so I can take you to Antarctica.”
“Oh, no!” Kennedy shrieked. “I hate this thing.” She was about to rip up her card, but I grabbed it out of her hand. It was full of patches of different writing. There were a few “Happy Birthday”s. But mostly the card was covered with things like “Jesus is our savior. Remember our Lord Jesus died for our sins.” Plus passages from the Bible. I started laughing. And then Kennedy started crying, which she does sometimes. Really, the thing to do is just let it pass.
Mom snatched the card. “Don’t worry, Kennedy,” she said. “I’m going to go hunt down those Jesus freaks.”
“No, you are not,” Dad said to Mom.
“Do it,” Kennedy said, suddenly perky. “I want to watch.”
“Yeah, Mom, I want to watch, too!”
“I’m leaving,” Dad said. “Nobody cares, nobody listens, nobody wants me here. Happy birthday, Kennedy. Good-bye, Bee. Bernadette, go ahead, embarrass yourself, attack people who have actually found some meaning in their lives. We’ll continue this when you get home.”
When we drove up to the house, the light in their bedroom was on. Mom headed straight out to the Petit Trianon. I went inside. The floorboards above me creaked. It was Dad, getting out of bed, walking to the top of the stairs.
“Girls,” he called down. “Is that you?”
I held my breath. A whole minute passed. Dad walked back to the bedroom, then to the bathroom. The toilet flushed. I grabbed Ice Cream by her flabby neck and we slept with Mom out in the Petit Trianon.
And Mom didn’t hunt down the Jesus freaks at the restaurant. But she did write, “IT’S A CHILD’S BIRTHDAY. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?” and set it on the window, and as we left, it started to go around.
*
HURSDAY
, D
ECEMBER
16
From: Gwen Goodyear
To: Audrey Griffin
Good morning, Audrey. I checked with Kate Webb, and she does remember Bernadette and Elgin Branch requesting to be opted out of all Galer Street emails back when Bee first enrolled. I double-checked myself and indeed they are not on any of the lists we currently employ.
On another topic, I’m glad to see you’re settled and that your Internet connection is working. Per my last three unanswered emails, Mr. Levy feels it’s imperative that we sit down and have a talk about Kyle. I can work around your schedule.
Kindly,
Gwen
*
That morning in homeroom, we were doing vocabulary lightning round, where Mr. Levy throws out a word and points to someone and they have to use that word in a sentence. Mr. Levy said, “Sheathe,” and pointed at Kyle. And Kyle said, “Sheathe my dick.” We have never laughed so hard. That is
so
why Mr. Levy wanted to have a conference with Audrey Griffin. Because even though it was totally funny, I can also see why it’s kind of bad.
*
From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
To: Audrey Griffin
I have chosen to disregard the tone of your previous nasty-gram and chalk it up to the stress of your living conditions. Audrey, you have Elgie all wrong.
This morning, I got on the Connector at my usual stop and settled into a seat in the back. Elgie boarded a few stops later, looking like he hadn’t slept. He lit up when he saw me. (I think he’d forgotten I’d signed us up for the same Connector.)
Did you know he’s from a prominent family in Philadelphia? Not that he would come out and say such a thing. But as a boy, he spent all his summers in Europe. I was embarrassed to admit that I’d never left the United States.
“We’ll have to change that, won’t we?” he said.
Don’t jump to any conclusions, Audrey! He said that rhetorically. It’s not like he’s planning on taking me on a trip to Europe or anything.
He went to boarding school. (On that topic, it seems you and I were simply misinformed. People like me and you, who were born in Seattle and went to the UW, we lack the… I don’t want to use the word
sophistication
… but we lack the
something
to understand this broader worldview.)
When Elgie asked about me, I was flustered because I’ve led such a dull life. The only thing I could think of that is remotely interesting is how my father went blind when I was seven and that I had to take care of him.
“No kidding,” Elgie said. “So you communicated in sign language?”
“Only when I was feeling cruel,” I retorted. Elgie was confused. “He was
blind
,” I said, “not deaf.”
We both broke up laughing. Someone quipped, “What is this, the Belltown Connector?” It’s an inside joke—the Belltown Connector is notoriously raucous, much more so than the Queen Anne Connector. So it was a combination of Get-A-Room and a reference to what fun they have on the Belltown Connector. I’m not sure my explanation helps you get the humor. Maybe you had to be there.
We turned to the subject of work. Elgie was anxious about the amount of time he was taking off for Christmas.
“You keep calling it a month,” I said. “It’s twenty-seven days. Twelve of which are Christmas vacation, when Microsoft clears out anyway. Six days are weekends. You have five travel days, where you’ll be in hotels with Internet access, I checked. That leaves you out of touch for a total of nine. That’s like having a bad flu.”
“Wow,”
he said. “I can actually breathe.”
“Your only mistake was telling the team you were leaving in the first place. I could have covered for you, and nobody would have known.”
“I told them before you came along,” he said.
“Then you’re forgiven.”
Most wonderful was that by the time we arrived, Elgie’s spirits were buoyed. Which made me happy, too.
*
Audrey and Warren,
A disturbing allegation has been presented to me regarding Kyle. A parent came to me a month ago with an accusation that Kyle had been selling drugs to students in the hallways. I refused to believe it, for your sake as much as Kyle’s.
Yesterday, however, another parent found twenty pills in her child’s
backpack. These pills have been identified as OxyContin. Under questioning, the student pointed to Kyle as the source. The student has been allowed to continue classes for the next week, with the understanding he/she will receive treatment over winter break. I need to speak to you and Warren immediately.
Kindly,
Gwen Goodyear
*
From: Audrey Griffin
To: Gwen Goodyear
You’re going to have to do better than that if you wish to implicate Kyle in a Galer Street drug ring. Warren is curious about how a legal prescription for Vicodin written to
me
, which I asked Kyle to carry because
I was on crutches due to an injury sustained on your campus—
something I never considered holding Galer Street liable for, even though the statute of limitations gives me plenty of time to change my mind—has anything to do with twenty OxyContin? Was my name on those pills too?
Speaking of Warren, he’s looking into the legality of letting a student who’s a known drug abuser finish out the semester. Isn’t that a threat to the other students? I’m asking out of curiosity.
If you’re so hell-bent on placing blame, I suggest you look in the mirror.
*
From: Audrey Griffin
To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
Excuse me for not responding sooner. But it has taken me an hour to pull my jaw off the floor. I’m spending Christmas in a hotel and you’re
lauding my tormentor? Last time I checked my calendar, it was the middle of December, not April first.
