The Cat Ate My Gymsuit (12 page)

“Marcy, can’t I help you with anything?” My mother sticks her head into my room.

“No thanks. I can do it myself,” I say for the eighty-millionth time.

She walks in. “Here. I addressed some envelopes for you with our address and put stamps on them. That’ll make it easier for you to keep in touch.”

“Look, I promise, I’ll write. You didn’t have to do that.” Sometimes they act as if I’m three years old, instead of fourteen and eleven twelfths.

She puts the stationery in my suitcase. “It’s the first time you’ve ever been away for such a long period of time. I’m going to miss you.”

I continue to iron. I know I’m going to miss her too, but I really want to get away, be on my own. I really want to get out of the house since I’m always kind of tense in it.

She keeps right on talking. “I wish I’d had the chance to go away to camp when I was your age. You’re so lucky, being part of a creative arts camp, with Ms. Finney as the director.”

I nod. I’ve thought about little else since I got the letter from Ms. Finney asking if I’d like to fill a last-minute vacancy and be a counselor-in-training, a
CIT, at the camp. I’ve missed her so much. She’s the best teacher I ever had, one of the few who really cared about kids. She quit after a big fight with the school administration. We wrote for a while, but I hadn’t heard from her for months. Then one day I came home and there was this letter asking if I’d like to work on the camp newspaper and assist in the creative writing program. I was in shock, so excited I thought I’d die of joy. Overwhelmed.

My father, however, was underwhelmed. It took a long time to convince him I should go. He’s always afraid I’m going to be too radical or something. He hated Ms. Finney when she was my teacher. Finally my mother and I convinced him it would look good on my college applications, and it would be better to go than to sit around the house all summer, bored out of my mind.

My mother sits on my bed. “My little girl, going away for the entire summer. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Maybe you and Dad won’t argue so much with me gone. Isn’t he always saying you two’d never fight if it weren’t for me?”

She sighs. “Marcy, come on. Let up a little. He’s
had a rough time lately. He’s been trying since we all went for counseling. You’re the one who won’t give him a chance. Why don’t you try to forget the past and live in the present?”

“He wasn’t trying last night when he screamed at me for coming in late. That’s not the past, is it?”

She sighs again. If they ever hold an Olympics sighing marathon, my mother’d win, lungs down. “He wouldn’t yell if he didn’t love you. It’s just his way. He was very worried. Last night, after we went to bed, he told me he’ll miss you.”

“Sure.” I refuse to listen to the same thing one more time. “If he loved me, he could find better ways to show it. Why did he say the things he did about how I’d be good comic relief for the campers and how I think ‘taking a hike’ means running out in the middle of an argument.”

“Marcy, you’re being a bit unfair. He thinks of camps as places for sports, being outdoors. You know those activities aren’t high on your list of favorite things.” She starts to repack my suitcase, neatening it up. “He just likes to tease. That’s the way he tries to show affection. You have no sense of perspective about him. There’s nothing he can do that’s
right in your eyes. You expect perfection from people.”

“Well, so does he. How come when I bring home a test with a grade of ninety-seven, he asks what happened to the other three points instead of saying I did well?”

“You should try to understand him before it’s too late and you feel sorry.”

The same old story. Now I’m supposed to feel guilty.

Ever since my father had a heart attack when school began this year, I get scared he’s going to die. Sometimes I wish he were dead, I hate him so much. But there’s also a part of me that really does love him. My mother should only know how many nights I stay up late worrying and trying to concentrate on keeping him alive.

My mother gets up. “I’m going downstairs now. If you need anything, call.”

After she leaves, I continue to iron.

I hate ironing almost as much as I hate taking gym, and that’s a lot. Last year I had to take two gym classes to fulfill requirements and make up the one I’d flunked. Ironing and gym should be outlawed.
Once my mother began working, we all had to chip in and help out more in the house. The words “permanent press” took on a whole new meaning in my life after that.

I wish I were already at camp. Maybe I can get enough experience there so I can become an editor on the school paper, instead of just a reporter. Then I can get into a good college, study literature, live my own life, and become a writer. I don’t care if my father says most writers don’t make enough money to support themselves. I want to be a writer anyway.

And I have a goal for camp, a major goal. This summer, I’ve decided, I’m going to try to be a grown-up, so I’ll be able to take care of myself. There’s not much that happens that’s really earth shattering when you’re my age. You’ve just got to go on living, trying to get through every day. If my life were a novel, it would be one without much plot, just character development. So what I really want to do is develop my character, to try to grow up so that when I’m an adult, I’ll be ready for anything.

There’s a knock on my door. “Marcy, it’s me. Stuart. I want to come in.”

He opens the door after I say it’s all right. My little
brother’s eight years old, and he still looks like a baby. At least he’s gotten over his abnormal fixation with Wolf, a teddy bear he used to fill with orange pits. Now he’s got this thing about becoming a football player. He wears his football helmet all the time, even to bed. I hope that someone invents a shampoo that can penetrate plastic before his head begins to fungus.

Once he’s in my room, he yells, “Lewis has the ball, sports fans, and he’s heading into his own territory . . .” Stuart dashes around the room. “No one can touch him. His feet are golden.”

He jumps onto my bed. “They try to close in.” He jumps off and crawls under the ironing board.

“Hi, Stuart.”

He throws his arms forward and touches my feet with the football. “A touchdown, sports fans. Lewis does it again.”

I humor him and yell out a cheer that the kids at school do during pep rallies, being careful that the hot iron doesn’t fall on his helmet or on my bare foot.

Stuart gets up, dusts himself off, bows, and says, “Thank you. Thank you.”

I grin at him. “So what’s new?”

“Why can’t I go to camp with you?” he asks for the zillionth time. “Just iron a name tag on me and pretend I’m a stuffed animal.”

“You know why. I’ve got to work there, lead my own life.”

He crouches into position and yells, “Hike.”

“Not that kind of hiking, Stuart. It’s a camp for the arts, not for sports.”

“But your name’s not Art and you are a good sport.”

I tap on his helmet. “You’re very silly.”

“I know, but you like me this way.” He stands up. “Marcy, it’s not fair. You get to do everything first, just ’cause you’re the oldest.”

“You’re getting on my nerves,” I say.

“I’m supposed to get on your nerves. That’s what little brothers are for.” He grins. “Well, I tried. If I start bugging everyone now, by next summer they’ll send me to a camp too.” He throws his football into the air, yells, “It’s another great interception for Lewis and he’s off.” He races out of the door.

Quiet. Finally.

Sure I get to do things first, but I have to do all of
the fighting to get what I want. Then once I’m all done, he gets things at an earlier age. Being the oldest isn’t easy.

I finish packing, fold the ironing board, and take it out to the closet.

My father’s coming down the hallway. “Marcy, let me help you with that.”

“I can do it myself,” I say, thinking about how he shouldn’t put any strain on his heart.

He frowns. “You never give me a chance to do anything for you.”

There’s no way to win.

I say nothing.

He says, “Take good care of yourself at camp. Your mother and I won’t be around to watch out for you.”

I nod, holding the ironing board between us, feeling like a lion tamer who’s losing control.

“Just be careful,” he continues. “Don’t try any funny-looking cigarettes or do anything that would make your mother and me unhappy.”

I wish he could tell me he loves me, instead of making me feel as if I’m going to screw everything up. I don’t even smoke anything. Why can’t he trust me?

He leans around the ironing board, kisses me on the forehead, and walks quickly away.

I stare at him as he goes down the steps.

He calls up to me. “Don’t forget to set your alarm for six a.m. I want to get an early start.”

I don’t have to be there until eleven or twelve. The drive from New Jersey to upstate New York should take three hours, at the most. He always makes everyone leave early, to miss the traffic. We always end up hanging around. It’s so embarrassing.

I shove the ironing board into the closet. It tilts down, hitting me on the head. As I push it back and shut the door, I want to cry—not because I got hurt by the board but because I have a father who just doesn’t understand me.

Back in my room, in my own bed for the last time until the end of summer, I feel very strange. This time tomorrow I’ll be on my own. Trying to be grown up. Not knowing anyone but Ms. Finney. Being a CIT without ever even having been a camper. Not having a boyfriend back home to tell the other counselors about. Missing the summer parties back here and the friends I’ve made. All of a sudden I’m nervous, not sure I’m doing the right thing. I can’t
believe it. I’m getting homesick before I even leave, homesick for a place I’ve always said I couldn’t wait to leave.

In order to fall asleep, I attempt counting sheep. But it’s no use. Not only am I wide awake, but all of the sheep have name tags sewn into their wool and they all know how to act more adult than I do.

Cassie Stephens is dealing with a lot: She’s got asthma. She’s running for freshperson class president. World War III is waged daily in her home. Cassie’s not really sure how it started, but eating pistachio nuts always makes her feel better. No matter how weird it sounds, those little red nuts are just the prescription for Cassie’s troubles.

“Funny, well-characterized, and loaded with popular appeal.”

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