Define "Normal" (4 page)

“Just kidding. God, Antonia, you take everything so seriously. Wait.” She held up a hand. “Don’t get mad. Look, from now on if I’m joking, I’ll hold up two fingers.” She demonstrated with the first two fingers of her right hand. “Like, peace, man.”

“And what if you have to go poopie?” Why’d I say that? Probably because two fingers is Chuckie’s signal.

Jazz exploded in laughter. She hiccuped so hard she bounced right off Dr. DiLeo’s desk. “You are so bode, Tone. There’s hope for you yet.” She held up two fingers.

What’d that mean? Before I could ask, the bell rang. As I opened the door to leave, Jazz breezed by and socked me on the shoulder. “See ya Friday,” she said.

I missed three problems on my algebra test.
Three problems.
Mrs. Bartoli arched an eyebrow when she handed it back Friday morning. A big fat C pulsated from the top of the page. I’d never gotten a C in my life. Jazz maybe,
but not me. For a long time, I just sat there and stared at the grade. While Mrs. Bartoli worked the problems on the board, my mind went numb. My whole body went numb. A C? A C meant average. A C meant failure.

After class, Mrs. Bartoli stopped me at the door. “Antonia, is something wrong?” she asked.

“I got a C,” I replied.

“I know,” she said. “And you never handed in the problems from page one sixty-five.”

My eyes widened. “I didn’t?”

Mrs. Bartoli furrowed her brow. “I’m worried about you, Antonia. This isn’t like you.”

No kidding. I’d had Mrs. Bartoli last year for beginning algebra, so she knew I was a straight-A student.

“I’m just tired,” I said. “I have a lot of stuff on my mind.”

“I’ve noticed that. Maybe you should talk to a counselor. I hear Dr. DiLeo—”

“It won’t happen again,” I said, cutting her off. I had to get out of there fast. “I’ll do an extra page of problems tonight. Bye,” I said and ran.

Jazz sat on top of the conference table, legs crossed Indian style. Her eyes were closed and her hands rested on her thighs, palms up. “Ohmmm,” she said, or something like that.

“If you’re sick, we can skip today’s session.” My heart raced hopefully.

“Ohmmm,” she droned again. Without opening her eyes, Jazz said, “Join me.”

Was she nuts?

She twisted her head and cracked an eyelid. “Come on. Why not?”

Why not? Because after the age of two, there is an unwritten rule that says you are not to sit on tables. You are not to sit on tables and hum. We’d get busted if anyone walked in. Besides, it looked stupid.

“Ohmmm,” she intoned.

So far the day was a total loss. I felt tense as a tightrope, and I wasn’t getting anywhere with my list of questions. So why not? Setting my backpack on the chair, I used the seat as a step up.

My legs didn’t cooperate when I commanded them to form a pretzel like Jazz’s. They were too long and stiff. It was unnatural. Jazz reached over and tucked my ankles over my thighs. “It’s called the lotus position,” she said.

“Maybe on you. Ow.” I stretched my skirt down over my knees.

“Ohmmm,” Jazz intoned again.

Was I supposed to
ohmmm?

Jazz whispered, “Close your eyes. Relax completely. Hold your palms up, thumb and index finger touching, and start your mantra.”

My mantra?

“Ohmmm,” she droned.

“Ohmmm,” I droned. Then again. “Ohmmm.” I couldn’t help it. I started to giggle.

Jazz twisted her head and smirked. “My mother read that parents should spend quality time with their children. One way is to sign up for organized activities together. This month we’re taking meditation to free the mind. Last month it was Rolfing. Have you ever Rolfed, Tone?”

“Only after the school’s shepherd’s pie,” I said.

She laughed. She laughed so hard she lost her lotus. When she finally sobered, she said, “My father’s in on the torture, too. He took me to the driving range. Talk about mindfree.”

I smiled. To me it sounded like heaven. “Belly dancing.”

“What?” Jazz turned to me.

Did I say that out loud? “I, uh, remember once my mom and I took this belly-dancing class at the rec center. She made me practice with her at home in the living room. It was hilarious. I was terrible, but she was pretty good.”

“Your mom sounds cool. Think she’d teach me to belly dance?”

My throat caught. “That was a long time ago. She probably doesn’t remember. What’s the problem with spending time with your parents?” I asked.

She just looked at me. Then she sighed and said, “The problem is they don’t pick anything I want to do.”

Ah. Like drug dealing? Body piercing? “Maybe you could get matching tattoos,” I suggested.

Jazz jabbed me. “I’ll tell them my peer counselor advised it.”

“Oh, please.”

“So.” She swiveled on her rear to face me. “Who do you hang with?” She hugged her knees.

Hang with? I hadn’t been convicted of a major crime yet, so no cell mates. “What do you mean?”

“You know, friends. Girlfriends, boyfriends.”

Hey, that was one of the questions on my list. Maybe this was working. “Can we get off the table now?” I asked —pleaded with my eyes.

Jazz flung herself to the floor. I slid down after her. Once we were settled in our seats, Jazz removed her boots and flopped her bare feet up on the table. “Well?” she said, leaning back. “Are you going to answer my question?”

Scraping my stare away from her striped toenails, I thought, Why do I always end up answering my own questions? Rummaging in my backpack for my folder, I replied, “You wouldn’t know my friends.”

“Try me.”

I met her eyes. “Okay. Lindy Meeks.”

“Yeah, I know Lindz. I thought she moved.”

Did she? I hadn’t talked to her since before Christmas break. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen her around for the last couple of months.

“Tamra Dundee-Kelso,” I said.

Jazz frowned. “I don’t know her.”

“See?” How could she? Tamra was my friend in elementary school. She didn’t even go to Oberon.

“Is that it?” Jazz asked.

“No.”

But it was. I mean, there were a few people I talked to in class, if necessary. There was math club. But only four people had joined, and even though we met twice a week, we mostly played math games. You can’t have personal discussions when your mind is on math. Anyway, I’d quit math club in November.

Every once in a while Mrs. Bartoli ate lunch with me. I couldn’t name her. “Who do you hang with?” I said instead.

Jazz counted on her fingers. “D.J. Eakers, a.k.a. the Eeks; Animal Montrose; Martina Romero; Cam “the Ram’ Ramsey. Marisa Fabrero, except she has a death wish, so I try to stay out of her way.” Jazz paused to take a breath.

“What do you mean, she has a death wish?”

Jazz’s nose wrinkled. “She smokes. Not just cigarettes either, which are poison enough.”

That surprised me. “Don’t you smoke?”

“You think I’m crazy? Oh, yeah, you do. Psycho, wasn’t it?”

My face burned.

She went on, “My grandma Ruth died of lung cancer. If you ever saw anyone die that way, you’d never light up. Do you smoke?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Because if you did, I just couldn’t respect you, Tone.”

I met her eyes. No mocking gleam; she was serious. “What do you and your friends do? When you hang?”

Jazz shrugged. “You know, we steal and lie, set fire to small children.” She blinked at me. Almost in disgust, she held up two fingers. “We just hang. You know, hang.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Here, there. Ram’s old man built a wood shed in their yard before he split. We fixed it up.”

“You mean like Gang Central?”

Jazz laughed. “Right. Gang Central. Anyway, we meet there. Figure stuff out.”

“Like what?” I was on a roll now. Pretty soon she’d confess to some major felony. Then her problem would be revealed.

“Like how to present ourselves next week. What to wear, how to do our hair, makeup. We experiment with different looks. Or we talk about deep stuff, like how come Ram’s mom started drinking again. And what he’s going to do so he doesn’t have to quit school and support her, since she just stays home and boozes all day Or what authority figures we can torment this week. Last week we hung around the bank building by the mall. Talk about shanking out the suits. The security guards made us move, so we camped out at Walgre
en’s. No one cronked, which was a drag. Then we tried to use the earphones at CDeez Happen until the manager told us to split.”

Was that it? No drug deals? No gang bangs?

Jazz snapped her fingers. “Oh, yeah. And afterward we went to the park and set fire to small children.” Jazz looked at me. She held up two fingers.

“I know you’re kidding,” I said. At least, I hoped she was.

Chapter 7

F
or dinner Sunday night I made eggs and bacon. Couldn’t let the bacon go to waste. It was the worst idea I ever had. The sizzle and smell of bacon brought back memories. Memories of Sundays when we were all together. The old days. The good days. Tears blurred my vision, and I blinked them back. So what? Forget it, I battled my brain. Those days were long gone. We’d never have another family Sunday.

My eyes strayed to the calendar on the refrigerator as my vision cleared. Today’s date was blacked out with magic marker. March 19. Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary.

A shiver raced up my spine. I turned off the stove, charged upstairs, and flung open Mom’s door. She was a lump again, but I could see the sheets rise and fall. My heart restarted.

I wanted to rush over and crawl into bed with her, the way I used to when I was little. When nightmares would wake me up in the middle of the night and I’d run to my parents’ room.

You’re not little now, a voice in my head said. Besides, there’s only her and it wouldn’t be the same. The nightmares didn’t scare me anymore. Not as much as waking up.

While the boys watched TV, I took a shower then lay on my bed, memorizing my book talk for lit class tomorrow. The book was
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle,
which I had liked better the first time I read it, in sixth grade. The only part I could really get into was the ending where Charlotte runs away from her family.

My mind wandered and pretty soon I was thinking about Jazz. I couldn’t figure her out. Yeah, sure, she was a psycho. She admitted that. But she didn’t seem all that troubled. Maybe the trouble was me. I was a poor peer counselor.

No, I didn’t want to believe that. That would mean failure. I couldn’t fail. I wouldn’t. And I couldn’t let Dr. DiLeo down.

But Jazz was so manipulative. She was probably using me. Showing up to put in her time. For some reason, I didn’t think that was true. But it wouldn’t be the first time I’d been made fun of. Tamra told me once we were called the ya-ya girls by everyone in school. I didn’t know what she meant. What’s a ya-ya? All I knew was I had responsibilities. People counted on me. People expected me to do the right thing. I had goals and ideals, too. Straight A’s were more than an achievement; they were a necessity. They were my escape, the onl
y way I could graduate early and go to college. If all my college money wasn’t used up paying bills.

My temper flared. How could Mom use
my
money? It was so unfair. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to think about Jazz either.

Tamra. My friend.

Springing to my feet, I raced down the stairs to the telephone in the kitchen. It was still early, quarter to eight. Tamra’d probably be doing homework. It’d been a while since I’d talked to her, so I had to look up her number. After two rings, someone picked up. “Hello?”

The voice sounded familiar. “Hello, is this Shelley?”

There was silence on the other end.

“Hello?” I said again.

“Who’s this?”

Maybe it wasn’t Tamra’s older sister. Maybe it was … “Tamra?”

“Yeah.”

“Hi, it’s Antonia. You sound more like Shelley every day.”

Silence again. Tamra said, “I guess you haven’t heard. Shelley’s … dead.”

“What?” My heart stopped. “When? What happened? How did she die?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Tamra said quietly. “Anyway, it’s old news.”

“When did it happen?” I asked.

“Like the beginning of last summer.”

“Last summer? Why didn’t you call me?”

“I did.” Her voice rose in response to mine. “You were at the library or something. I left a message with your mom.”

My mom? She never told me. “I never got it, Tamra. I swear.”

“I wondered why you didn’t call me back.”

I didn’t know what to say. Shelley dead? Almost a year ago? Where was I? Had I been out of touch that long? My whole body sagged, inside and out. I should’ve been there for Tamra. She had always been there for me when I needed her. Especially three years ago, when everything happened with Dad. I finally said, “Are you okay?” Dumb, Antonia. Of course she’s not okay.

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “It was ages ago. Not that it isn’t still hard sometimes … “ She exhaled. “You know. So, how are you?”

“Good,” I said. “Except—”

She waited. “What?”

I couldn’t burden her with my problems. They were insignificant compared to what she must’ve gone through. She idolized Shelley So did I. Shelley was cool. “Nothing,” I finally mumbled.

“How’s school?” Tamra asked. “Still getting straight A’s? Still a ya-ya?”

“Yeah.” I let out a short laugh. “How “bout you?”

“Noooo. I actually got a B in biology last term. Mr. Meklevick, the toad. It’s harder here at St. Anne’s. I wish I were going to Oberon. Or you could’ve gone to St. Anne’s.”

“Me too.” The conversation stalled.

“Well, I better go,” Tamra said. “My friends are here to practice pom-pom routines. We’re trying out for the spirit squad next month. Hey, you still in gymnastics? You’d make it for sure.”

“No,” I said. “I had to quit.”

There was a flurry of activity in the background, someone giggling, calling for Tamra. “I’m coming,” Tamra hollered. To me she said, “It was good talking to you, Antonia. Did you call for a reason?”

“Uh, no,” I replied. “Just to talk.”

“Oh,” she said.

After a long moment, I said, “Well, good luck. In the tryouts.”