Who Do You Love (5 page)

Andy counted each ring of the church bell and was surprised that it was only three o'clock. He walked to the closet, planning to put on his shoes and go outside again, when he heard a key in the door. He froze, head down, as his mother stormed into the room, home from work four hours early. Her blond hair, which had been gathered into a high ponytail that morning, was falling down, tendrils hanging against her cheeks, and her hands moved in angry jerks as she unzipped her coat, fake shearling, with the white lining already turning yellow, and tossed it on the couch.

Andy hurried to hang it up. Lori stood there, unmoving, just looking at him. All the stylists at Roll of the Dye had to wear black, which for Lori meant black jeans and either a black blouse or a black jersey top, always tight, always unbuttoned or cut low enough to show the smooth skin of her chest and the tops of her breasts.
Aspirational,
Andy had heard her call it, which meant that she had to look pretty so the women who came to the salon would want to look like her and that even the old ones or the fat ones would think that they could if they let Lori do their hair.

“I got a call from Sister Henry,” she began, her voice deceptively soft. He saw how her hands gripped the edge of the couch and how her skin had gone pale with red splotches underneath her makeup. “What happened with Ryan Peterman?”

From his spot in front of the closet, Andy said nothing.

“This is the second time this year,” his mom said. “One more fight and they'll expel you.”

Andy didn't answer. In September, Darryl Patrick had called Andy an Oreo, black on the outside, white on the inside, “except you don't even look black.” That wasn't exactly an insult, but he'd fought Darryl anyway, in the playground after lunch, and when his mom had asked what had happened Andy had just said, “He started it,” and had refused to tell her anything else.

“Andy?” Lori asked. “Andy, what are we going to do about this?”

Andy put his hand in his pocket and crossed his fingers, hoping that if he kept quiet she'd let it go, but Lori kept on.

“What were you fighting about?” Andy didn't answer. His mom kept right on going. “Because you didn't want to wear his old coat,” she said. Andy gave a tiny nod. She sighed, lifting her hair off her face, then letting it drop. “Honey, I told you. If I could buy you a brand-new coat, I would. I'd buy you a hundred coats if I had the money.”

No, you wouldn't,
he thought. The pit of his stomach felt cramped, and his face felt like it was on fire.
If you had the money you'd go to Atlantic City and play roulette with your friends.

“And now,” she said, “I've got to call the Petermans and apologize.” She stomped into the bedroom, locking the door behind her, except the door was a cheap, sad thing, like everything in this cheap, sad place, and Andy could hear what she was saying.
That shouldn't have mattered,
and
A jacket is a jacket, Andy wears hand-me-downs all the time, this wasn't any different.
Then there was a pause, and then Lori said,
Oh, no, I couldn't .
.
.
No, really, it's not necessary .
.
.
No, Andy can't be rewarded for this, he needs to understand that what he did was wrong
. Then a lot of
uh-huh
s and
I see
s and then, finally, a
thank-you.
He stood behind the kitchen table, waiting, one leg jiggling until he pressed down hard to make it stop. Finally his mother emerged.

“What happened?” he asked. He'd gotten a scraped cheek and a black eye in the fight. Lori reached across the table and touched his face.

“The Petermans understood why you were embarrassed,” she said. “Ryan wants to use some of his allowance money to get a coat for you.”

“Oh, no,” Andy said. He was horrified. The only thing worse than wearing Ryan's old coat would be wearing a new coat that Ryan had bought especially for Andy. That was when Lori put her hands against her eyes and started to cry; not the big, showy sobs she sometimes did, but just sitting there silently while tears rolled down her face.

Andy hated when she cried. It made him want to run out of the house and onto the street and sprint, all-out, until he was as far away from her as he could get. He made himself stand up and pat her shoulder. “It's okay,” he said. When he tried to hug her, it was like trying to put his arms around a bundle of sticks. She didn't move to help him, didn't do anything except sit there and cry. He leaned down, resting his cheek on her head, smelling shampoo and hair spray and Jergens lotion, the cigarette that she'd smoked on the walk from the train to the house and the Tic Tac she'd sucked to cover it up. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I promise I won't get in any more fights.” He patted her shoulder some more, and brought her a glass of water that she didn't touch. Outside, he heard a bus wheeze by, and voices, two ladies talking about getting their Christmas shopping done.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. Lori shook her head.

“But you get something,” she said. “There's money in my wallet.” She moved her hands away from his face, trying to smile. “You're a growing boy.”

He wouldn't take her money. Not on that night. Instead, he took down the envelope on the top shelf of the closet where he kept his own savings, the two dollars he got for feeding Mrs
.
Green's cats on weekends when she went to visit her mother in Virginia and the five that Mrs. Cleary had given him for teaching Dylan Cleary how to ride a bike, the quarters and fifty-cent pieces that he'd collected for shoveling neighbors' steps and sidewalks in the winter. The money was supposed to be for a bike. He'd been saving up since Miles had gotten a mountain bike the year before. He took out ten dollars, ordered a pizza with mushrooms, his mother's favorite, and gave the guy a dollar tip when he came.

“Thank you,” she said, when he set the box on the table. Her voice was low and toneless. Her hair was down, hanging in her face. When he was little he'd thought that his mom was as pretty as a movie star, or as any of the models from the hair magazines that she'd bring home from work, but now he could see how much of her beauty depended on makeup—pencils that made her eyes look farther apart than they were, liners that made her lips not look so thin. Her hair wasn't even blond, not really. She colored it because it was really what she called “mouse brown.” He didn't care. Even with her face washed clean and her roots showing and her eyelashes wispy and pale without mascara, even though her eyes were a little close together and her lips were too thin, he still thought that she was beautiful.

He put out plates and napkins, but Lori only nibbled half a slice of pizza before going to her bedroom, leaving Andy alone with the TV.

He watched Jim Gardner on the local news, then Peter Jennings. He solved two puzzles on
Wheel of Fortune
and a whole row of sports questions on
Jeopardy
. At eight o'clock,
The Cosby Show
was on. Theo was getting bad grades in school. Andy ate four slices of pizza while Cliff and Clair talked it over. He imagined living in a big house with nice furniture and colorful art on the walls and a mom and a dad who worried about your grades (his own mom barely glanced at his report card, never noticed his A in math or the
Needs Improvement
he'd received for Conduct). Theo Huxtable would never have to wear a coat that some other kid had paid for. Theo's mom would understand, without having to be told, why he would rather not have any coat at all.

That night, on the pullout couch, Andy thought about how sometimes his mom would call a “love you” over her shoulder before she went to her bedroom and he took the cushions, still warm from her body, off the couch to make up his bed, or she'd say it in the morning before he left for school, and she'd kiss him, leaving lipstick on his cheek. A few times he could remember her telling him that he was her baby, her one and only.

But if she loved him, why didn't she ever get him new things? Why did she let him spend three months wearing sneakers that were held together with duct tape? Why didn't she listen when she brought home Toughskins from the church clothing swap and he tried to tell her that none of the kids wore Toughskins, they all wore Levi's? He'd explain, and then she'd say the thing she always said: “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.”

Andy rolled over, flipping his pillow to the cool side. One of his feet was jiggling, making the bed's frame squeak. Miles Stratton's mother put notes in Miles's lunch. Sometimes Miles would read them out loud in a shrill falsetto while the other kids in the lunchroom laughed.
I am so glad to be your mother,
he'd said.
You make me proud every day.
Once, when Miles wasn't looking, Andy had pulled one of the notes out of the trash. There was a little bit of tuna fish on its corner. He'd cleaned it off as best he could, then folded it up in his own backpack. Sometimes he would read it and pretend his own mom had put it there.
I love that you are an enthusiastic reader,
Mrs. Stratton had written. It was funny, because Miles wasn't really an enthusiastic reader. Neither was Andy. Still, he kept the note, and imagined that it was from his mom.

On Saturday, the day after the jacket fight, Andy got up early, put on his heaviest sweatshirt, and went running. Then he walked home, with his hood up and his hands in the kangaroo pocket, wishing he had money for hot chocolate and a doughnut. It was a chilly day, the slate-gray sky spitting snow, but everyone he saw seemed happy, bundled up in hats and mittens, carrying shopping bags. Tiny white lights twinkled from windows, green wreaths with red bows hung on doors. The Strattons had a Christmas tree that Andy could see through the window, topped with a papier-mâché angel that Miles's sister, Melissa, had made. The angel had a gold tinsel crown, and Andy knew that under her white dress, between her legs, there was some gold tinsel pubic hair that Miles had snipped from the crown and glued there. Lori never bought a tree. “Too messy,” she'd said, even though last year Mr. Sills had dragged one to their door, a pine tree, all bundled up in plastic netting and smelling like a forest, and said he'd set it up for them and, after New Year's, haul it away.

Back at home, he cleaned the bathroom, even though it wasn't his turn. He was sprawled on the couch, flipping through the Batman comics that Miles had lent him, when he heard a knock on the door.

Andy grabbed the cordless phone so he could call 911 if he had to. Making sure the safety chain was in place, he cracked the door open a few inches and peeked out. A heavyset woman whose short hair was dyed a flat shade of brown was standing on the front step, with an anxious expression on her face and snowflakes melting on her cheeks. A tall, red-faced man in a shiny green satin Eagles jacket was beside her. These were his grandparents, Lori's mom and dad. He hadn't seen them in almost exactly a year. Now here they were, with their arms full of gifts.

“Andy?” said his grandma, in a high, trembling voice.
Andy's
stomach clenched.

“Merry Christmas,” said his grandfather. “How about letting us come out of the cold?”

“We brought you cocoa,” said his grandma, and held up a cup from Wawa for Andy to see. “And some little things for you and your mom.”

“I can't,” said Andy, pushing the words through numb lips, and even though he felt sad, the words came out sounding angry.
My house, my rules,
Lori had told him, over and over.
I never want them to darken my door again.
The last time her parents had come over was for dinner on Christmas Eve the year before, and there had been a terrible fight, with his mom shrieking
Get out of my house,
and Grandma dragging Andy into the bedroom, putting her hands over his ears. But of course he'd heard all of it, the sound of the turkey platter crashing into the wall and her father saying the n-word, and saying that Lori should learn to keep her legs shut, saying
You made your bed, now see how you like lying in it
.

When he was little, like in nursery school, his grandparents were around a lot. His grandma would spend a Saturday with him while his mother worked, or sometimes he would stay at their house in Haddonfield for a whole weekend. His grandma would take him to her favorite bakery in South Philadelphia, where the ladies behind the counter, all dressed in white like nurses, would give him cookies with sprinkles and say things like “What a cutie!” and “Look at those lashes.”

“Is he yours?” one of the ladies had once asked, and his grandma's face had tightened as she pulled Andy against her and said in a cold voice, “Of course he's mine.”

Once, she'd brought him to Center City, to see the light show at Wanamaker's and to sit on Santa's lap. Another Christmas his grandfather gave him hockey skates, then took him to a rink. Andy had watched the other skaters, then wobbled around the rink once, going slowly, getting a feel for the ice, and before long he'd been zipping around the rink, his arms swinging easily and his blades crisscrossing in long, smooth strokes, with his grandfather waving every time he whizzed past. But then they'd stopped coming as often, and Lori's face would get that scary, masklike look when he asked about Grandma and Grandpa. The skates had gone into the closet and stayed there until one day they'd disappeared.

The only time he could count on seeing his grandparents was at Christmas. Every year they would go to their house in Haddonfield for a feast: turkey and ham and lasagna, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes and green bean casserole with crunchy fried onions on top, rolls and biscuits and corn bread and three kinds of pie and cannoli from the bakery:
the old neighborhood,
his grandma called it. Andy would get to see Uncle Paul, his mother's brother, and his wife, Aunt Denise, and their little girls, Jessica and Heather, who'd be wearing matching party dresses with sashes and poufy skirts, and his mom would bring home a shopping bag filled with leftovers that they'd eat for a week.