Dreamsleeves (8 page)

M
om sends me to Garbowski's grocery store, just about the same time she sent me that other morning. This gives me an idea.

I put on my favorite blue-pink-and-green tie-dye shirt and my fringed shorts. I wish I could buy a pair of the really short “hot pants” that are in this summer but my dad would never go for that. I give my hair an extra few brushes and squirt the fancy perfume my aunt Bitsy sent me for Christmas. It's much more sophisticated than the Love's Baby Soft I usually wear.

I wonder, did Aunt Bitsy have her baby? I wish Nana would write. “Here you go, Frisky.” I sprinkle in some breakfast, touch his rough shell. “See ya later!”

Checking my reflection in the mirror, I decide I need some lipstick.

In my parents' bedroom, I lift Mom's lipstick tube and makeup compact off the tray on her dresser. I notice her silver-trimmed hand mirror has dust on it, like she hasn't picked it up and looked at herself lately. Passing by Dad's office, I grab one of the labels from his desk. I quick jot
meet Mike
on it and stick it in my pocket.

Outside, I walk down the steps past Nana's drooping flowers (sorry, I'll water you today, promise) and sit on the bench outside her kitchen door. I open the compact, dab on some blush, and give myself pretty lips. Then I stick my dream on my sleeve and grab my bike from behind the garbage cans.

Checking my watch,
perfect timing
, I take the same route as before, and
kazaam shazam
, sure enough, just as I turn onto First Street, there he is, Mike Mancinello, biking toward me, looking all David Cassidy beautiful.

Quickly I rip the dream from my sleeve and crumple it in my shorts pocket. I stop pedaling, touch down my sneaker soles to the ground, and make believe I'm adjusting my rearview mirror.

“Hi, A,” Mike says.

“Oh … hi, Mike,” I say, looking up, eyebrows raised as if I'm surprised to see him. I adjust my mirror again.

“Where you going?” he says.

“To the store.”

“Oh.”

“Where are you going?” I say.

“Home.”

“Oh.”
Think of something to say, A.
Mike looks nervous, too.

“I didn't know you belong to St. Michael's,” I say.

“We usually go to St. Joseph's,” he says, “but we were too late for that Mass.”

“Oh,” I say, “St. Joseph's is nice.”

“I guess so,” he says. “Church is church, right?”

“I guess so,” I say.

There's a long pause.

“Are you going to Sue-Ellen's pool party?” he blurts out.

“Yes!” My heart beats faster.

“Right on,” he says, face lighting up happy.

“Are you going?” I say.
Please say yes, please say yes
.

“I think Sue-Ellen's sort of stuck-up,” he says, “but if you're going, I'll go.”

My heart is banging like the washing machine against the refrigerator in our kitchen when it's too chock-full of laundry. I'm surprised Mike can't hear it!

“Were those your parents you were with in church?” I say. “They look nice.”

“Yeah, I'll keep them,” Mike says. “My dad's okay, but my mom can be brutal.”

“Really,” I say, “how?”

“She knows I want to try out for JV football and there's a training camp my friends are all going to in August but my mom won't let me go. She says it costs too much, but I know she's really hoping I won't make the team. She read in the paper how some kid broke his neck playing football and she's afraid that will happen to me.”

“Oh,” I say. “She's protective, huh?”

“No,” Mike says. “She's crazy. There's just no reasoning with my mother when she gets these wacky ideas in her head.”

“Try this,” I say. I tell him about Dreamsleeves.

He laughs. “That's wacky, too. But I like it. Can't hurt, right? Where do I get one of those labels?”

I tell him you can buy them at Woolworth's or Two Guys, but “you could just write your wish on a piece of paper and tape or pin it on.”

He laughs, not at me, with me. “You're funny,” he says. “But cute. I'll call you and let you know if it works. Can't hurt to try, right? What've I got to lose?”

“That's the spirit,” I say. “Good luck.”

I put my right foot on the pedal and push off.

“Hey, A,” Mike shouts after me.

I turn around. “Yes?”

“Maybe we can hang out together at Sue-Ellen's pool party.”

“Sure,” I say, shrugging my shoulders all nonchalantly like it's no big deal.

“Right on,” he says. “I'll call you.” He pedals off like he's in a race.

Hooray! I'm so happy I could burst out singing right here in public, but as I bike away fear rises like the river after a heavy rain …
What was I thinking? No, no, no. You can't call me. What if my father answers? No!

I turn to yell and tell Mike not to call, but he's already gone.

M
y dad is kneeling on the gold-green tweed couch in the living room looking out the window at the cars going by down below. He's not doing anything except looking at those cars, not talking, not drinking, just looking. Maybe even daydreaming? I move forward so I can see the side of his face. He always looks so peaceful when he's looking out that window at the cars going by.

I wish I had the courage to say “penny for your thoughts?” but I don't. I never do. My father and I don't talk about thoughts or dreams or anything important. The last time I remember us having a real heart-to-heart conversation was when he told me about another baby brother going to Limbo. That was six years ago.

Frisky is trying to climb out of his pool house again. “No, Frisky, you can't.” I pick him up, hold him in my hand. His little scaly feet tickle. I set him down under his palm tree. Sprinkle in some food. “There you go, little guy.”

Frisky's pool house sits on an old bar stool we brought up from the basement when we moved up here. It's right inside the door by our bunk beds. Once, the little ones were racing around playing tag — they really have no other place to run in the winter — and the stool got knocked over and Frisky scurried off. It took me hours to find him. Good thing I did, because turtles can't survive for long without water.

My parents are talking in the kitchen. I pause by the refrigerator to listen.

“Roe, please,” Mom says. “Where's the new baby going to sleep? As it is we've got Beck and Dooley bunked up in a room with one tiny dresser. Eddie's in a crib in the dining room. He should be moving into a bed. Please make an offer on the house be —”

“I've got it under control, Maggie,” my father says in an angry voice.

“How much more money do we need?” Mom says.

“That's none of your business,” Dad says.

“What, Roe? It is too my business. I …”

“
I
run this family,” my father says. “You barely make enough to buy groceries.”

“But, Roe …”

“I've gotta go,” Dad says, and leaves.

My mother uses the phone in my father's office. I hear her crying. I'm not sure who she's talking to. “Another mouth to feed … kids cramped in like animals … drinking all of our money down the drain.” She sobs. “But even if we had the money, he'll never leave his mother…. She'll make him feel guilty, he'll never go…. Roe is all she's got left here now that Mark's gone….” My mom sniffles. “All these years he kept promising we'd get our own house….
We're never going to get that house
.”

I feel like a boxer punched me in the stomach.
Can this be true?

My mother gets dressed for work. Her face is flushed red and there's sweat on her forehead. “Are you okay, Mom?” I say.

“I'm counting the days to our vacation,” she says.

We go to my aunt Flo and uncle Tommy's camp the first week in August.

Me? I'm counting the days to Sue-Ellen's party. “Mom?”

“Yes?

“Dad said I could go to Maizey's camp the weekend of July twenty-third.”

“He did?” She sounds surprised. “That's great, A. You deserve some fun.”

A cicada drones outside the window. “It's going to be another hot one,” Mom says. “Please get the hose out later and give the little ones a rain shower.”

 

“Whadaya puttin' in there today?” Callie asks as I start making the grilled cheese sandwiches.

“I don't know yet,” I say. “Got any ideas?”

“Chocolate,” she says, and starts laughing. She offers me up a plastic yellow Easter egg full of M&M's. The Easter bunny (Mom) hides so many eggs every year somebody's always finding one in a closet or under a bed, sometimes two holidays later.

“It was under the couch,” C says, and she and Beck double over giggling.

Cheese and chocolate, hmmm
, I consider. “Hey, why not? You only live once.”

“Can I pour the milk?” B asks.

“It's ‘may I,' and yes, sir, you may. Just be sure you don't spill it.”

“May I set the table?” C says.

“Yes, miss, you may,” I say. “Thank you.”

After everyone eats and goes down for their naps, I will put on my new bathing suit, slather up with Johnson's Baby Oil with a few drops of red iodine mixed in for color, and climb up the ladder to the black-tarred porch roof to start working on my tropical island tan. It's a gorgeous sunny day, not a cloud in the sky.

A tropical tan is such an important mission that I have sacrificed my one and only Beatles album cover to make a sun reflector. I slit along the top and bottom of the album, unfolding it out like an open magazine, and then I covered it with aluminum foil. When I hold it under my chin, the sun will reflect off the foil and tan me, probably just as good as any country club pool, although I have no experience in the matter.

The phone rings. I turn down the burner on the frying pan and go to answer it.

“Hello?” I say.

“Hi, A.”

I freeze. It's Mike.

“Hello, Aislinn? It's me, Mike.”

Speak, now
.

“Mike Mancinello.”

“I know, Mike. Hi.”

“You said it was okay to call you, right?”

“Yes. That's fine. But just call me during the day.”

“Sure, whatever,” he says.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“Talking to you,” he says, and laughs.

Beck is standing by the phone bench, staring at me. “Is it ready?” he says, meaning the sandwiches.

I swag my head back and forth and mouth “no,” shooing him away with my hand.

“What are you doing?” Mike says.

“Talking to you,” I say and we laugh. I look out the window at the cars going by.

“What else?” he says.

“Making lunch.”

“Sounds good. I'm hungry. What are you having?”

“Grilled cheese.”

“That's my favorite. I'll be right over.”

A chill runs through me. “No!” I say in a sharp, loud voice.
You can never come over. My father would kill me and you, too.

“Whoa … just joking,” Mike says. “Take it easy. I already ate.”

I laugh.

Callie is pulling on my leg. “A, they're burning!”

Oh, no
. “I've gotta go, Mike, sorry. Thanks for calling.”

Out in the kitchen, there's smoke. When I take the lid off the frying pan, a cloud puffs up and there's an awful smell. I turn off the burner, flip the sandwiches with the spatula. The bread is sizzling, charcoal black. I try scraping off the crud with the sharp silver knife, but the sandwiches are ruined beyond repair.

Beck is at the table starting to pour our milk. He knocks over a glass. The glass rolls across the table and crashes on the floor. Scared by the sound, Beck lets the gallon slip from his hands and the milk rushes across the table and over the sides like Niagara Falls.
Oh, no, what a mess.

“Dummy!” I scream. “What's the matter with you?”

Beck is stunned, eyes bugging wide like I'm an alien from outer space who just shot him with a laser gun. I wish I could take back my words, but it's too late.

Beck runs to his room and slams the door shut. I follow him.

“Beck, I'm sorry. Honey, I'm sorry.” I try to gently peel his hands away from his ears as he lies facedown on his bunk, his whole body shuddering.

“Get away from me,” he screams into his pillow. “I hate you, A. Go away.”

I trudge back to the kitchen and mop up the white lake under the table. I squeeze the smelly mop out in the sink. I scrape the black coal off of the frying pan with a Brillo pad, rinse it out, and start all over again, slicing a slab of butter in the pan to melt.

Callie is sitting, elbows on table, fists clenched to her jaws, watching me. I know she wants to say she hates me, too, hurting her best friend Beck's feelings like that, but she's also hungry and so she keeps quiet.

This time I grill the sandwiches perfectly, dotting the little round chocolates on the cheese, popping on the top layers, turning once, twice, three times until they are nicely browned. I cut the sandwiches into triangles to teach Dooley that shape.

“Lunch, Beck,” I call in my kindest voice, but he doesn't come.

Callie eats her sandwich without comment.

“Triangles for you today, D,” I say.

Dooley doesn't look at me. He is punishing me, too.

When I sit to feed Eddie his bottle, he wraps his hand around my little finger. At least that's something. You can always count on babies to love you no matter what. Maybe that's why my father likes babies so much. They just love you anyway.

After I wash the dishes, I go to B's room, to try to make peace again, but he is sound asleep, his sweaty head leaning into his Lambie-Poo stuffed animal, his bat and baseball by his side. I wrap his sandwich in foil and leave it on a plate on his nightstand.

When all the little ones are asleep, I put on my new bathing suit, slather on the oil, and climb up and out on the roof. The sky is cornflower blue. A plane roars loudly over my head, leaving a wispy white tail behind it. The sun starts cooking me right away. The blond hair will have to wait. We don't have any lemons.

Later, I do a Dreamsleeves label and stick it on my shirt:

Beck, I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

When B sees it, he immediately reads his name. “What's the rest of it say?” he asks me. I point and sound out each word for him.

“All right,” he says, “but three strikes and you're out.”

I hug him. “Thanks, B. Come on, slugger. Let's go play some ball.”

“Me, too,” Callie says, “me, too.”