I wasn’t sure why it had taken Mr. Woodson so much thought to give me more homework or how he thought it was any different from the work he already assigned. But I liked that he had thought about me. And I liked the way he smelled up close, like talcum powder.
He held out his hand. “Why don’t you let me hold on to those chewables? I’d be awfully upset if you got sick from them.”
I passed him the bottle. “I couldn’t get the cap off anyway.”
Walking home from school that day, a crowd of boys stayed right at my heels, calling me names.
“Batty!”
“Out of her mind!”
“Bananas!”
“Cracked!”
“A real nutjob!”
I crossed the street, and when I reached the other side, I turned to them with my hands on my hips. “You act like a bunch of children,” I yelled. “Are you proud of your shallow lives?”
There was hysterical laughter, but it stayed on that side of the street so I felt I’d made my point. I jogged to catch up to Phil, who was further along the walk home.
“I see you’re making friends, as usual,” he said. At least he was talking to me again.
“They’re stupid,” I said.
“Maybe. They can be stupid and right at the same time, Nutjob.”
“So be it.”
I imagined how we looked from farther away—me and a sixth grader, walking side by side. That would show those boys.
When we got to our house, I continued on to Hope’s. It was a Friday and I was ready to accept an apology from her. Maybe I’d tell her what I’d figured out about Dad, though I’d keep the visits with Momma private.
Her father seemed surprised to see me. He called for Hope, and when she came to the door, she asked, “What?”
I reached into my book bag and handed her a crumpled paper filled with song lyrics. “It’s the words to ‘Afternoon Delight.’ Whenever Phil’s out of the house, I listen to his radio until this song comes on. Here, take it. I got all the words.”
We sat on the front porch together while she read the lyrics. “It’s not ‘Thinking of he’s working on an apple tight,’” she said. “That makes no sense.”
“I guess. I’ll listen to it again.”
Hope had a purse now, and like the older girls at
my
school, needed to carry it with her at all times, even if she was just sitting on the porch. We said nothing to each other as she took each item out of her purse and inspected it: a bottle of nail polish, Bonne Bell Lip Smackers, a small Snoopy notebook, and a very fat ballpoint pen that had a dozen different colors of ink in it.
“Can I see this?” I asked, pointing to a keychain viewer with the words “Spring Break in Ocean City” attached to the strap of her purse.
After she unhooked it, I held it up to the sunlight to see a picture of Hope and three other girls I didn’t know, huddled together in colorful towels with the beach behind them. Somehow, during our time apart, I assumed she was moping and waiting for me to forgive her.
The screen door opened and the one-handed lady stepped onto the front steps. “Almost ready?”
“I’m ready,” Hope said. When the screen door closed again, I waited for a burst of giggles about the stump, but she simply handed back the lyrics. “Here. I have to go to pick out a clarinet for orchestra.”
She popped the top off her Lip Smackers and rubbed back and forth over her mouth until she smelled like strawberries. I was about to ask, “Can I come, too?” when I realized what she meant was I should go home.
I gave back the keychain viewer with her new friends inside of it, and she worked at attaching it to the strap of her purse without saying good-bye. As I walked away, I noticed a sign on the edge of her lawn that said for sale. How did I miss seeing that before, and why didn’t she tell me?
By the time I’d reached my house, my jaw hurt from pressing my teeth together too tight. Phil was by Dad’s car, trimming the hedge that lined the driveway. My shoulder bumped him as I walked past.
“What’s
your
problem?” he asked.
“Leave me alone.”
“Dad wants us to help in the yard,” he said.
“What’ll he do if I
don’t
help him?
Kill
me?”
I
’
D PERFECTED WAYS TO
wake myself in the middle of the night. With my door shut, I arranged the sharp objects in my bed—soccer trophy, salad tongs, hole puncher. I set a pitcher filled with water on the nightstand. Before bed, I would gulp it down, and after I was asleep, if my bladder didn’t wake me, I’d eventually turn over and stab myself. Sometimes, however, I wet the bed instead of waking up, and I’d head to school, bruised, red-eyed, and with wet hair from a last-minute shower.
I was consumed with thoughts of being with her again, wanting to hear her praise and to have her tell me I was a poet and more mature than others my age. The world outside the blue-lit room—away from Momma and our secret talks—just felt so ordinary.
Sometimes I kept something from our visits so I could feel like I had her with me: eyelash curlers, a sock that had slipped off her foot, a damp washcloth covered in makeup and smelling of Noxzema, worn so thin that I could see my fingers
through it. I kept these objects hidden among my things: her washcloth in my sock drawer, her book on my shelf. I needed her there.
I made my way to the kitchen, intent on finding the pyramid cheese grater. It had worked well before. It woke me immediately, cutting right through my nightgown and leaving a scrape on my side. More and more, Dad noticed the disappearance of these objects, so I had to return them after each use, and then steal them all over again.
I stopped in the doorway of the kitchen—its counters crowded with mixing bowls and measuring cups. Phil was by the sink, pouring oil, while Dad stood behind him, shoulders hunched. “Watch it. Not so fast,” he said.
Phil stiffened, and oil dribbled down the side of the bottle.
“Oh, come on!” Dad said, and handed him a dishtowel. “Quick! Before it drips to the floor!”
“What’s everyone doing?” I asked with my back to the drawer I needed to open.
“Baking a cake,” Dad said.
“Oh, right. Happy birthday, Phil.”
He was concentrating too hard on carrying the cake mix to the oven to give an answer.
“Careful,” Dad reminded him, and Phil tensed up again.
You could look at my brother’s face and already see all the places he’d have creases when he got old. I wondered sometimes if Dad knew that telling him to stand so straight and act so grown-up wasn’t making him popular at school. Phil reminded me of the palace guards in London that we learned about in social studies, the ones in the bearskin hats who didn’t smile or react to anything at all. When he was teased about his silver tooth—and he was teased every day—he didn’t change his expression
or the pace that he walked. He didn’t cry or shout back. Once a boy followed him so closely chanting “metal mouth” that he stepped on the back of Phil’s sneaker. And when the shoe came off, he simply picked it up and continued on his way, so serious and controlled, like there was no kid left in him.
“You dripped,” Dad told Phil, who didn’t argue. They both hurried for the sponge, and that was all the distraction I needed to grab the cheese grater from the drawer and slip away.
Phil’s birthday, since Dad was in charge of it, had none of the decorations, games, or guests that would make it feel like a celebration. Just a cake after dinner with twelve lit candles, and singing that ended after the first verse because we all got embarrassed.
I forgot to give Phil a present, but Dad said the set of barbells was from both of us, and wouldn’t he look a little sturdier if he used them each day? His big present would come when Dad had time to schedule an appointment with the dentist. Now that Phil was twelve, the silver cap could be replaced with porcelain.
Later, while Dad instructed Phil in the art of building muscles, I cut a quarter of the cake, put it on a paper towel, and, unable to wait any longer, snuck away to the secret room.
“Ta-da!” I whispered as I unlocked the door. “I brought birthday cake!”
She seemed surprised, unable to speak. I closed the door slowly so it wouldn’t make a noise, worrying I’d hurt her by reminding her of the life she was missing.
“I wanted you to have some,” I said, putting the cake between us. The television was on, and for once there was an actual show on the screen, featuring a very short brown man with his much larger wife.
Momma began to sing quietly over top of the TV show—her voice cracking as if she might cry. “Happy birthday to you …”
She thought it was
my
birthday.
She continued singing. “I have presents for you …”
At first I believed she’d forgotten my birthday was in June, always the final party of the school year, and one of the last things we did together in the old house. Then I realized she didn’t know what time of year it was or how much time had gone by. How could she? There were no windows, no clocks, no calendars.
“Okay,” she announced, her voice getting bolder. “Close your eyes!”
I only squinted, first distracted by pictures on the TV—an argument or a love scene, it was hard to tell—and then by the surprise of Momma pushing off the arm of the couch. I hadn’t seen her stand since I first discovered her in the basement. Her hair was matted in back, and her legs seemed weak and cramped as she walked to the closet and searched through a heap on the floor.
When she came back, her hands were full. “Now open.” And she brought out gifts, one by one: a hairbrush with orange hairs in it, a lipstick that was practically new, and a necklace with a gold letter M on it. She did not yell at me when I accidentally smeared frosting on the brush.
“It’s a perfect birthday,” I said. “Now it is, anyway.”
“You don’t need all of those hats and noise blowers, do you? To tell you the truth,” she said, “I never did like parties and holidays for the very reason of decorations.”
“You didn’t like the decorations you made?”
“There was always so much competition between the
mothers—so much time and money spent trying to get the decorations just right,” she said as she put perfume on my wrists and then clasped the necklace around my neck. “And why? Why was that so important to us to have theme parties, or cookies shaped like snowmen, or a red, white, and blue cake on the Fourth of July? Isn’t that ridiculous, the things we spent our time on?”
I nodded my head, as if I didn’t like those things.
“You didn’t understand this before, but you’re old enough now.”
I nodded again.
“Imagine you dream of the things you might become—maybe a doll maker or a singer or you just want to travel one way to another country and see what it’s like to live there. And at some point, you notice years have gone by, years of spending your days doing these trivial things you aren’t even interested in. And you wonder,
What happened to your dreams? What happened to the you who might have been?
”
My eyes widened. Momma never said anything I expected her to say. She played with my hair—brushing it from the ends, never pulling.
“I was picked to write a very special book report,” I finally told her. “I’m the only one in my class who got this assignment, and I can choose any book I want.”
“That’s because your teacher understands how special you are.” And she reached for a book. “Your teacher will love this.”
She handed me a book with worn and dog-eared pages, and I read the title:
The Feminine Mystique.
“He will?”
“Yes, and it will be perfect for a report. You can skip right
to the chapter called ‘The Forfeited Self.’ It’s what we’ve been talking about. Of course, you should read ‘The Comfortable Concentration Camp,’ too. Unless …” Momma rummaged through the books by the couch. She slowed when she found the book of magnolias and tap roots.
“That one’s great, too,” I said quickly. “But I think this other one will be just right. I’m too excited about it to switch now.”
Her smile was triumphant. “We’re just the same,” she said. “We’re the best of friends because we understand each other.”
I didn’t understand her at all, but I wanted to. Mostly I was glad for the way she saw more in me than was actually there. She started to make small braids, just near my face, keeping the rest long, working so gently until suddenly she froze. I did, too. There was a noise in the distance. My father’s footsteps? We sat there, saying nothing. We did not talk about my father or our fear of him. We didn’t have to. We did not talk about what he’d done to her because our time was so cozy. I wouldn’t dare bring up anything that would upset her.
When the noise stopped, we waited a little longer still. Then Momma breathed out again and her fingers finished another braid. “It’s pretty like this,” she said after she’d wound an elastic band to the end of it. And the next time I prepared to see her, I knew I’d be conscious of my hair. I’d think,
Will she like this?
Momma smiled at the cake between us, then used her hands to split it in half. We giggled, eating with our fingers, proud that we followed different rules. We could eat with our hands. We could eat until we groaned in pain. We could lick our fingers to get clean.
“I’m sorry our birthday party has to be so short,” Momma said, tasting the last of the frosting on her fingers.
“I’m just glad we could spend my birthday together.” Something fluttered in my stomach whenever I said things that weren’t true—pretending it was my birthday, pretending I was okay leaving so soon—but these were good lies to tell. They would make my mother happy. She leaned in and held my shoulders, squeezing so tight my arms hurt where we were touching.
My brother, bare-chested, pumped his weights at the top of stairs. “Where did you go?” he asked, not moving out of the way.
“I don’t know.”
“I know where you were,” he said. “Somewhere pigging out on my cake.”
I smiled and held up the butter knife, glad if taking the blame right away kept him from knowing I had Momma’s lipstick and hairbrush inside my sleeve, and her book behind my back.