Girl Unmoored (11 page)

“She’s best friends with Jenny Pratt now and they hate me.”

My dad folded the paper, clasped his fingers together, and looked at me. “Well, that’s just not right, is it? What did you ever do to her?”

I shrugged. “You don’t have to do anything for some people to hate you, Dad,” I said. “Look at Chad and Mike. People throw things through their window just because they’re gay.”

My dad considered me. “
Homosexual,
Apron. That’s the proper word.
Gay
is slang. Along with a host of other words, some of which were written on their window.”

I nodded. I started to tell him that I had been there when the rock smashed it, but caught myself. “Dad,” I said quietly. “Why do people hate them anyway? They’re not hurting anyone.”

My dad sat back and crossed his arms. “
Men vereor they quis they operor non agnosco.
The age-old reason, Apron. Men fear what they do not understand.”

“Do you hate them?” I’d heard him joking with Mr. Haffenreffer before, about how they’d had to share a bed in a motel once so they lifted up the dresser and put it down between them.

“No. I don’t hate them.”

“Mrs. Perry does. She hates them. And Eeebs, he does too. But I don’t think Mr. Perry does.”

My dad’s face tightened up. “Listen, kiddo, I’m sorry about Rennie. I don’t think I can fix that one for you. Maybe it’s time we all move on.”

It was the same thing Rennie had said. Time to be friends with someone else.

“But what if you don’t want to?” I asked.

“Sometimes it’s not up to you, is it?”

He squeezed my hand and disappeared behind the news again.

I went to the sink and washed my bowl. Then I got out the saltines and crushed a few onto the counter. They were M’s favorite crackers.

I left through the back door.

Outside, it wasn’t raining exactly, just sort of spritzing on my face every second. I walked around the house and into the garage for my pogo stick. Then I bounced up to Mrs. Weller’s driveway to see if Mike’s truck was there. It wasn’t. Her orange love bug was though.

I knocked on her door and prayed she didn’t have blood on her anywhere.

All clear, but her George Washington face was as cranky as ever.

“Yes?”

“Hi, Mrs. Weller.”

“Are you selling today?” she looked behind me for the wagon.

“No. I just came over to see if Mike was coming by anytime soon.”

She sneered at me. “Mike’s in the hospital.”

I shook my head because I thought she said Mike was in the hospital. “He
works
near the hospital,” I told Mrs. Weller carefully.

“I didn’t say that,” she snapped. “I said he’s
in
the hospital. You need one of these.” She pointed to her hearing aid.

“What happened? Is he okay?”

Mrs. Weller smacked her lips together. “You kids,” she said. “You all watch too much damn television and now you can’t HEAR right,” she yelled. “What I said was, Mike’s not sick. His little queer friend, Chad, is.”

I kept the TV on low in case Mike’s truck drove into Mrs. Weller’s driveway.
Mrs. Weller knew nothing else about Chad, not even which hospital he was in. “I’m not sure they let queers into Maine Med,” she said before shutting the door so close to my face my eyelashes blew back. “He might be at Mercy.”

Finally, I let my fingers do the walking and called Scent Appeal
.
After three rings, Chad’s voice said, “Hello. You’ve reached Scent Appeal. Floral arrangements for every occasion.”

I left a message, then heard a car bumping down the road.

Just like I thought, my dad bought M an answering machine and a million things for that little whatever. I helped them get everything out of the car and up the stairs. At dinner, they yakked on and on about cribs and strollers while I pushed my Hungry Jack instant mashed potatoes around and thought up more jokes to tell Chad.
What bird sings the saddest song?

“Apron. The Boss has to go.”

“What?” I dropped my fork. “No way.”

“Margie feels, no,
we
feel that if some of the feces gets near Margie, she could get sick, Apron. Really sick.”

I glared at M. She stood and picked up my dad’s plate.

“But she doesn’t even have to go near him. She doesn’t even have to
see
him. He can live in my room from now on.
Dad
,” I told him quietly, “Mom gave him to me.”

He looked at me with drooping eyes and whispered, “She’s afraid of him, Apron.”

“Then
she
can leave,” I whispered back, with a growl in it.

My dad almost got mad, but then he leaned forward and put his hand on top of mine. “We’ve already decided.”

A bluebird. A bluebird
sings the saddest song.

I pulled my hand away. “Where’s he supposed to go?”

My dad sat back. “I don’t know, Apron. Anywhere but here.”

Which was exactly where I was going.

I stood and headed for the door, but stopped when I heard a pan crash. “Oopsies,” M said, squatting down to pick it up.

My dad stood to help, but I walked out.

Later, when my dad was in his office and M was upstairs glued to more reruns of
The Love Boat
, I went back into the kitchen. Soaking pans and crumbly counter tops were everywhere. Still, I took some paper towels, wet them into little blobs and dropped them all around the stove. Then I picked up the phone.

It took years for Grandma Bramhall to answer.

“Hi, dearie,” she said, but carefully.

“Are you okay, Grandma Bramhall? I’m so sorry.”

I could hear a lawn mower in the background, which meant she was sitting in her screened-in back porch, surrounded by the plastic green frogs she had lined up in certain directions for good luck. “Yes, dearie, I’m fine.”

But you could tell she was waiting for me to tell her why I hit her.

“My hand just flung out like that. I was trying to take my bracelet off and it just snapped.”

“Really, dearie, I’m fine. The hospital was very relaxing and I needed a little tune-up anyway. And those paramedics were just divine.” I heard the lawnmower move farther away so she must have walked into the kitchen.

“They got married anyway.”

“They did?”

“Yup.” I told her how M wouldn’t take off her dress until they did.

“That little tart,” she said, throwing something that sounded like ice into a glass. “I should have known when she wouldn’t take that damn dress off in the emergency room, not even a heart attack would slow her down.”

“You had a heart attack?”

“Well, no.”

She asked me what I was doing tomorrow: did I want to go to church with her and then out on Mr. John’s lobster boat for a picnic?

“Grandma Bramhall?” I asked, twirling myself all the way up into the phone cord.

“Was that yes or no, Apron?” You could hear the lawnmower behind her again. Our phones were all stuck to walls, but she could go anywhere with hers, even to her pool if she wanted to. “I couldn’t hear you.”

I untwirled an inch. “Do you think I can come live with you?”

For a second, the only noise was the lawnmower.

Then I heard Grandma Bramhall’s shoes clicking up the stairs.

“Oh, dearie, wouldn’t that just be the monkey’s uncle?” I heard a squeak and water running. “Now listen, did I tell you about the cruise that Mr. John is taking me on?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Apron? I’m starting a nice hot bath. You sure you won’t come tomorrow?”

I spun myself out of the phone cord.

“I’ll pick you up at nine forty-five?”

I said no, thank you, I had a lot of homework.

“All right. But we still have a Handy’s brunch date, with or without the bride and groom. Preferably without. Next Saturday, then?”

I didn’t say yes or no, just something in between.

But Grandma Bramhall wasn’t even listening. “I’ll tell you all about the cruise,” she said.

After we hung up, I stared at the phone and swallowed the piece of my heart that was lodged in my throat now. She was my last chance.

Nobody talked about The Boss, who was still in the pantry, and all my dad and M did the next day was walk around the guest room deciding where the little whatever’s crib should go and what color they should paint its room.
While they were up there, I took a used tea bag out of the garbage, put it in an empty mug and left it on the living room table. M was the only one who drank tea around here.

Upstairs, I stayed on my bed, studying different stages of a cell’s life and wishing I were one of them. Cells could never be lonely, all they had to do was divide themselves up. We had lab on Monday and Johnny Berman and I were already assigned to be partners. I had decided I was going to wear my pink short-sleeved button-down with Rennie’s lace undershirt that she left at my house once. A few times last week, I’d caught Johnny staring at me when Ms. Frane wasn’t looking, the drill in my belly button happened every time.

Later, I rode my bike to the Foreside Market.

My forehead was dripping sweat by the time I got there. It smelled awful at the deli, like
Mr. Clean
mixed in with things that used to have eyes. But even if you didn’t live in Falmouth Foreside, you would probably come all the way here to get your Italian sandwiches, which are the best in Maine. A few people were waiting for their order so I squished by them, and heard my name. When I turned around, Mrs. Perry was watching me.

“Hi, Apron,” she smiled, her tight curl tucked perfectly under each ear. I was almost as tall as she was now.

“Hi, Mrs. Perry.”

“Getting lunch?”

“Not really.” Except standing there smelling the green peppers and vinegar, you couldn’t help but want an Italian of your own.

“Well, we heard the good news,” she leaned into me and whispered.

“You did?”

“A teensie weensie bit of good news?”

I kept my face blank.

“Marguerite’s having a baby?”

I hadn’t told Rennie anything about M and her little whatever.

“Apron?” Mrs. Perry dropped her smile. “Oh gosh. You did know that, right?”

I nodded. She said, “Phew,” and, “For a minute there.” Then she gave me a weak hug and her big curl smooshed into my cheek and you could smell cigarettes in her hair. “Good for your dad,” she said. “Life goes on then, doesn’t it?”

When she was done hugging me, I stepped back so she couldn’t do it again. “How did you find out?”

Mrs. Perry threw an arm up and said, “Well, let’s see. Rennie’s grandmother told me, and, well, you know how those ladies can talk.”

“Does Rennie know?”

“Of course, Apron,” she said. “She’s already suggested some names to Margie. Good old-fashion American names.”

“But Rennie never called me,” I said shaking my head. She never called.

“Margie called us, honey. To tell us herself. And besides, Rennie said you’ve been too busy with school-work to come over. Sure I can’t get you something for lunch? We’re off to the boat show today, did Rennie tell you?”

My hair melted. Rennie was a traitor, all right. Just like Judas. Next, she’d probably tell M where I would be on Thursday.

“Love,” Ms. Frane said, throwing her hands up and looking out the window.
“Is in the air.”

What we were talking about was our last English assignment of the year: free verse poetry. “You can write about any kind that you want, but the topic is: Love. What does it mean to you?”

Someone burped.

“Now. There are many kinds of love,” Ms. Frane said in a big smile. With the sun hitting the blackboard behind her, it looked like it had been bleached by mistake.

Anne Potts dropped her pencil.

Monday mornings we were like caged monkeys, Ms. Frane said, scratching our ears and picking our teeth. “Love for your family, your friends, games, sports, or even
romantic
love.”

The boys groaned at that, and Sherman Howl said, “This stinks,” loud enough for Ms. Frane to hear. Rennie and Jenny Pratt looked at each other with their hands over their mouths. You could tell they were whispering about Seth Chambers, how much they loved him and he loved them, when, really, he didn’t know they were alive.

Ms. Frane wrote,
Love: What Does It Mean To You
? on the board and started writing out examples of free verse poetry.

Johnny Berman was absent; I’d worn the lace undershirt for nothing.

Sherman Howl and Mark Lippett stood and put their hands over each other’s mouth and pretended to kiss. Ms. Frane didn’t even turn around when she said, “Sherman and Mark, sit back in your seats by the time I count to three.”

They made it.

“If love means kissing another boy to you, that’s fine.”

Everyone said, “Yuck,” but I didn’t, even though it was pretty weird when you thought about it lip by lip. I tried not to imagine Mike and Chad kissing, but it was impossible not to, so I thought about Mike kissing me instead.

“Just remember,” Ms. Frane said leaning onto her desk. “I’ll be showing them to your parents at conferences next week.” The boys straightened up in their seats after that. But I slumped down. I still hadn’t given the reminder slip to my dad. It was for Thursday at 10:15, which he wasn’t going to be able to make anyway. Love didn’t mean missing work.

Jenny Pratt got called to read the example.