All Alone in the Universe (5 page)

Finally, I thought. Finally.

Trying to keep my face calm, I waited for Mrs. Flaiber‧s answer.

“Saturday,” she said. “But early. So probably Maureen should stay over Friday night.”

What for? I thought giddily. So she can wave good-bye?

“That way she‧ll be sure to get up in time,” Mrs. Flaiber went on. She threw a quick grin over her shoulder at Maureen. Maureen and Glenna grinned at each other. “We‧ll just roll you out of bed and into the car, Maureen!” said Mrs. Flaiber in a jolly way.

A tide of comprehension rushed in all around me, separating my little island from the shore where the three of them stood, getting into the car to drive away.

“Where are you going?” I couldn‧t help asking.

Apparently they could still hear my voice, although it sounded far away, even to me. At least Mrs. Flaiber could.

“Borth Lake!” she answered. “We have a camp up there! We decided to let Glenna take along a friend this year! We‧ll be sitting on each other‧s laps, but we figure, the more the merrier!”

I don‧t know what else she said, but all the sentences had exclamation points at the end. The water rose over my island and lapped around my ankles. I pressed my fingers into my knees, then lifted them and watched the yellow-white spots disappear. Maureen‧s knees were right next to mine. There was her hand on the car seat, with the fingernails bitten down below the nubs, as familiar to me as my own. I looked out the window at whatever was passing by. I felt mean and small, like something wadded up. Weightless, like something that doesn‧t even matter.

Mrs. Flaiber‧s voice chorbled merrily away, cramming the air with colorful pictures of capsizing row-boats and dinners of fish fried with their heads still on and the eyeballs looking right at you. I could hear Glenna telling Maureen that Borth Lake was the seventh largest man-made lake in the state.

“Really?” I heard myself say. “That is so interesting.”

Suddenly it seemed to me that if I didn‧t get out of the car, I might completely disappear, and I said, “Mrs. Flaiber, can you let me off here?”

All three heads turned my way, and the abrupt quiet told me that I had probably interrupted someone.

“I just remembered,” I said. “There‧s something I have to do. For my mom. I have to pick something up for her.”

“Where do you need to go?” she asked. “We can take you there and wait while you run inside.”

“No, no-that‧s okay,” I said. “Actually I feel like walking.”

“Are you sure?” she said, pulling adroitly over to the curb.

“Yep,” I said. “Thanks. See you guys later. Have fun on your vacation.”

Then, looking right into Maureen‧s eyes, I said, “Call me when you get back.”

I tried to keep my voice steady, but my eyes were shooting out messages and questions and SOS‧s. I saw them reach her eyes and spark there in a flash of surprise. She turned to Mrs. Flaiber and Glenna and said, “I‧m going to get out here, too.”

She was out of the car and closing the door before Glenna could follow. She leaned her head inside to say good-bye. Glenna and her mother wore the startled expression of fish twitching in the bottom of a rowboat or fried on plates. Mrs. Flaiber turned forward, and the car moved slowly back into traffic, crunching pebbles and grit musically beneath its tires.

I was surprised, too. A rush of exhilaration went through me. Maybe Maureen just hadn‧t seen what was happening, what Glenna was doing. Maybe I just needed to tell her. She dropped her beat-up tennis shoes onto the sidewalk and slid her toes inside.

“Are you mad?” she asked.

I just needed to explain it to her. Make her see. That was all. “Not mad,” I said. Then I said it, what was in my heart:

“I just miss when we were friends.”

I waited for her to get it.

“We‧re still friends,” she said, standing on one foot to pull the back of her shoe up over her heel. She looked at me as if I had said something really humorous. “You goof,” she said. “Hey, let‧s go down by the river.”

She started off across the spongy, shimmering parking lot of the Seldem Plaza, leading the way through the canyons of wavy heat made by the parked cars. I followed her, like maybe I had my whole life. But wanting only to keep on doing that.

“You know what I mean,” I said. A few shades less certain, though, that she would. “I miss the way we used to be friends. Before Glenna.”

It crossed my mind that to anyone who happened to see us there, we would look the same as we always had. Debbie and Maureen. There they are. “Frick and Frack,” my dad said. We would look the same. Did that mean something?

“You should give Glenna a chance,” said Maureen. “She tries to be nice to you.”

We moved through a short tent of shade next to the AS-P and then the scrubby weeds that are the native flora of Seldem, the kind that can grow up through concrete as long as it‧s not the middle part that cars drive over all the time. The kinds of scratchy weeds that grow about ten inches high, then branch out and blossom forth in stiff, itchy exploded seedpods.

“Glenna doesn‧t want to be my friend,” I said. “Glenna wants to be
your
friend. Glenna would be happy if I disappeared from the face of the earth in a puff of smoke.”

We looked at each other. We both knew it was sort of true, and we smiled a little bit the way you can smile at something that is true when it is said out loud for the first time. It was a relief, in a way, to know that Maureen saw that part of it. For the moment that seemed enough. Going further seemed dangerous, like stepping off a cliff. Because I could also tell that Maureen wasn‧t going to be deciding right then and there to dump Glenna. She didn‧t see why she should.

I realize now that Maureen saw something in Glenna that I could not see. (I leave it to her biographers, or maybe to microbiologists, to discover what that is.) Not that I was trying too hard.

Anyhow, it felt safer then to leave that topic behind and take this bit of time with Maureen any way I could get it To add it to the little pile of proofs that I hoped would add up to some charm that could eventually ward off Glenna.

So we squeezed between the dusty bushes to get to the riverbank, where we sank our feet into the silty mud, and sat on the low, bouncing branch of a big old tree that leaned out over the water. We crossed our legs like yogis and tried to balance there with our eyes closed. The shallow part of the river flowed along steadily, but in no hurry, about a foot below our branch, greenish brown, the color of a dollar bill. We opened our eyes and dangled our feet, making whirls and eddies form around them, talking about whatever, one thing or another. The sun must have been moving along up above the trees because the patches of sunlight shifted bit by bit over the moving surface of the water, lighting up patches of our shoulders and legs and the tops of our heads. In a way it was the best afternoon of summer. But it was also like a prediction from the oracle at Delphi; it could mean practically anything.

 

six

 

 

W
HILE MAUREEN AND
G
LENNA WERE AWAY AT
B
ORTH
L
AKE,
I believed in the afternoon at the river. I believed it meant something that Maureen had gotten out of the Flaibers’ car. She had promised she would call when she got back. So I knew that she would. Maybe they had stayed a few extra days. Then there would be unpacking. That takes time. And probably the Bercks would be doing some family-type activities. I knew she would call.

Here are some things you can do while you are waiting for a phone call:

I. Take a wine bottle that is empty. Mateus has the best shape. Or another kind of bottle, or a jar, if your parents don‧t ever drink wine. Which mine don‧t, but Fran gave me some bottles. You rip masking tape into a gezillion tiny pieces with ragged edges and cover the bottle with them. (See diagram.) Then, with a rag, you put brown shoe polish over the whole thing. Wipe most of it off. When it dries, paint varnish on it. It will look old, like an antique. You can use it for flowers or as a candleholder.

 

Suitable for a gift!

2. Smash a windshield. No,
wait,.
I don‧t mean like a vandal! You will need parental assistance for this. My aunt Alice told us how. You get thewindshield from a junkyard, and you paint one side of it with all different colors. Let it dry. Wrap it in a large towel or a blanket, and smash it to smithereens with a sledgehammer. Probably your dad will have to do it The driveway is a good place. Then glue the pieces to the outside of a big goblet from Jim‧s Bargain Store, with the painted side in. Don‧t cut yourself! Put grout (like in a bathroom) between the pieces and wipe the surface of the glass bits clean. When the grout is dry, paint it gold. Presto-another candleholder! When you light the candle, it looks like stained glass. You will have enough little pieces of colored glass to make a dozen of these.

3. So, if you think you now have enough candleholders, find an old wooden cigar box Paint it a nice color. On the lid glue a picture from a magazine. Organically Grown clothing (with the beautiful woman and the deer) or Herbal Essence shampoo ads are good. (“Why do you want your hair to smell like grass?” my dad wants to know.) Varnish over it Inside, on the bottom, glue a piece of felt. Call it a jewelry box.

You have now made fourteen Christmas presents, and it‧s only August While you‧re in the Christmas spirit:

4. Blow up a balloon, and knot it Wrap a ton of thread around it and tape the end Dip the whole thing in sugar water with starch in it, and let it dry. Then pop the balloon. The threads stiffen in the round shape, and they make good Christmas ornaments, especially if you hang them near a colored light they have a glittery glow.

 

If you‧re lucky, a couple of days have gone by.

If you‧re not lucky, it‧s only time to watch
Hollywood Squares.

Chrisanne and Tesey and a couple of their friends dragged me along with them up to the pool. They were funny and nice, and they acted as if they were so glad I was there.

Then Chrisanne suggested to my mom that the three of us go on a shopping trip downtown and maybe even have lunch in Horne‧s Tearoom. My mom said, “Sure.”

So there we were, driving along and listening to the radio, when my mother decided, right out of nowhere, to pick up a hitchhiker. “Good Lord, look at that god-awful stringy hair,” she said. Then she pulled over to the side of the road to pick him up.

She told Chrisanne to get in the backseat with me and invited him right into our car. He stooped over to look inside, with his sign that said
DOWN TOWN
and a wooden box, and asked, “You heading downtown?”

“Yes, we are,” my mother said. “Where do you need to go?”

“Krepp Arcade,” he said, “but anywhere downtown is fine.” He climbed in.

“We‧re going right by there,” said Mom. “We can take you to your doorstep.”

You would have thought, the way they talked, that he was some long-lost friend. They talked about the weather, his shoeshine business in the Krepp Arcade, his family, how hard it was to get rides hitchhiking, where we all lived, and was he still in school (he wasn‧t).

Chrisanne and I were mystified. Neither of us remembered Mom ever picking up a hitchhiker before, and we wondered how she had decided on this one. He didn‧t seem like her type. Kind of grubby. On the shaggy side. He had bad grammar. And when he turned toward us, it was hard not to look at the purple blotches spread across his face like a map of islands. Chrisanne and I sat there in our dresses, hands in our laps. This guy was crudding up the niceness of our day. We were glad when he got out.

“Good luck!” my mother said. Chrisanne and I exchanged glances. We both were thinking, Good riddance.

“Thanks!” He smiled. His smile was friendly. We waved and smiled, too. Some of his presence seemed to linger behind in the front seat.

“I might as well stay back here till we park, Mom,” Chrisanne said.

“He has a hard life,” my mother said. “A hard life ahead of him.”

“What happened to his face?” I asked her.

“A birthmark” she said, “like the one on your arm.”

 

I turned my arm over and looked at the underside. My own blotches are small, calm, and inconspicuous at room temperature. When I am hot, they get reddish; when I am cold, they turn bluish purple. Most of the time I forget about them, until someone says, “What is that on your arm?” Sometimes they say it in a really rude way, as if it were leprosy or something, and I try to come up with some withering retort, but I usually can‧t.

“Oh,” I said to my mom. Now I felt bad that I hadn‧t been friendlier. I was polite, but barely. I wanted another chance. “He seemed nice,” I said.

“Yes, he was a nice boy,” said my mom. “Though you‧d never know it to look at him.”

Chrisanne wasn‧t paying attention to us. She had found a little runner in her nylons and was painting clear nail polish around it.

As we walked into Home‧s, college girls in Bobbie Brooks outfits wanted to spray our wrists with perfume. The air itself seemed to be scented, and amid the polished old woodwork and the shining brass and the sparkling glass counters and chandeliers, the rich fabrics and the bustling escalators, remnants of the hitchhiker drifted lightly away. But later, when we waddled back to the car loaded up with paper shopping bags, his ghost seemed to be waiting there in the front seat. And even though he was gone the minute Chrisanne sat down, it started me thinking. Not so much about the hitchhiker as about my mother. Because usually I think I know what she thinks. It‧s not hard to know; she expresses strong opinions in a forceful way on many subjects and after a while you can imagine what her opinion will be on a person or his/her actions. From committing crimes (which is definitely wrong) to choosing sandals with straps between the toes (not wrong exactly, but shows poor judgment). I would have thought that a high school dropout with greasy hair, hitchhiking, would be someone who had made at least three bad decisions and would have to face the consequences without any help from us. Yet sometimes she reaches out with warmth and kindness to the most unlikely people. Without making a big deal about it, as if anyone with half a brain would have done the same thing. I keep trying to figure out how she chooses.

What was it, for example, about the hitchhiker?

I think that in a way my mother is like a proper, immaculately kept house with a secret mark made on the fence by hoboes, to tell other hoboes that a woman lives here who will feed you. If you work. And some people can look at my mother‧s composed face and see the secret signs of welcome.

Bobby Prbyczka could see them. He had been coming to our house in the morning since June, to have coffee with my mother. I guess he saw her sitting there one day, in her lawn chair on the front porch, and invited himself on up.

“Any coffee left in that pot, Mrs. Pelbry?” he said.

She filled a green mug with milk and splashed some coffee in, for color. After that he came almost every day.

Mom liked it that he came, in the way that people like it when dogs or cats come right up and nuzzle them and want to be petted. She also liked it in the way that first-grade teachers, one of which she is, like six-year-olds, which Bobby was. But mostly she liked it just because Bobby was Bobby, a skinny little boy with shiny, happy blue eyes. Bobby‧s scrawny legs dangled out of hugely wide, but very short, shorts, and a small shirt stretched around his small chest. His hair was colorless like sand, but in the morning sun each tiny crew-cut hair glowed golden white, his happy eyes sparkled blue, and he was brown with summer. He spoke in an unexpected voice, booming and hoarse, saying words that were unexpectedly polite and grownup-sounding.

“Looks like another hot one, don‧t it, Mrs. Pelbry?” he would say.

Or, “I see you‧re painting your gutters. That‧s a very attractive color.”

Or, “Did you‧re see the fireworks up at Birdvale last night? Spectacular, lust spectacular.”

“He cracks me up,” my mom would say after he left, but while he was there, she was serious and attentive. Their conversations floated up through my window as I lay in bed, waking up, and I listened. I couldn‧t really help it.

“How are Mr. Pelbry and the girls?” Bobby started off one morning, as usual.

“They‧re fine, thank you,” my mother answered. “And how is everyone in your family?”

“Fine,” said Bobby. “Just fine.”

He paused.

“Well, my brother Jerome, he ain‧t fine. He‧s got poison ivy all over his whole body. Even including his eyelids. They‧re swelled shut.”

“Oh, dear,” said my mom. “Where did he get it?”

“Down the woods, I guess,” said Bobby. “He don‧t know what poison ivy looks like. I know what it looks like; it has three leaves.”

“Leaves of three, let it be,” said my mom.

Bobby laughed. “You must know a lot of poems from being a teacher,” he said.

“And then my one other brother, Anthony,” he went on, “he was riding his bike yesterday, and he rode off the edge of a loading dock over at that old factory building in Hesmont. He landed on his head and had to get eighteen stitches.”