She Got Up Off the Couch Page 7

  I had my hand on the book but I wasn’t moving, because Mrs. M. and Lindy were chattering away and Melinda was pregnant. It wasn’t as if it should have surprised me; she’d wanted a baby ever since she got married. She’d made a nursery in her little house right away, painting a big smiling yellow sun on the wall so it would be the first thing the baby saw in the morning. She had sewn white eyelet curtains, and even set up a crib. She had made a room so irresistible no baby floating in the heavens could resist it. And one had seen her, and flown down.

  I was happy for her and slightly sick at the same time. There was the pregnancy situation, which was mysterious and a tad ghastly, and there was A New Thing where there had only been my sister and me before. She called us War Buddies. She said we shared the same memories of the Trenches. I had exactly one sister and so did she, a mathematical situation that seemed to suit us both fine. Yes, I was a Nuisance and Pesty but the preschooler Jesus knew I could keep a secret. Not without a price, but I could hold on to information anyway. There had been the time she was babysitting me and we decided to walk over to the trailer where Rick was living at the edge of the park (this is when they were dating), an entirely forbidden thing to do, and Melinda told me if I’d wait outside on the rickety wire steps and not tell Mom and Dad she’d buy me a new jump rope. I was a great jump-roper. I forced her to toss in a little doll I’d seen and we sealed the deal and not one word was uttered by me. I got the whole package, even though she wasn’t in there but a couple minutes.

  We left from school together and Melinda seemed very happy. “So,” she said, “do you want a boy or a girl? A nephew or a niece?”

  I shrugged, slipped the Judy Blume novel out from under my shirt where I’d stolen it. “I don’t care.”

  “You’re such a gigantic turd,” Melinda said, looking away from me.

  “Youare.”

  Melinda was one of those pregnant women who don’t complain and don’t get weird and don’t suffer the sort of psychosis that makes some mothers want to slice out their babies to save them from their own baby evil. She was relaxed and philosophical, and as time passed I became quite fixated on watching for the baby to turn or kick or hiccup, anything to suggest there was a person in there. It was gross, for sure, but also quite interesting.

  Rick called us when Lindy went into labor and we drove to the hospital in New Castle without singing; everyone was nervous. All of Mom and Dad’s children had been born in the same hospital. It was early December and bitterly cold; Dad drove with care on the snowy roads. In the waiting room my dad paced and smoked as if this were a Cary Grant film, and Mom worked on a sweater and made friends with other people passing through. I stared at the clock. Everything seemed really festive, like we’d all found ourselves in the middle of a natural disaster — trapped in a cabin in a blizzard, or riding out a tornado in a shelter.

  If I had been asked, before Melinda had a baby, if I knew what love was, I would have said sure. I would have said I lovedThe Beverly Hillbillies and Glen Campbell. I loved Mountain Dew. I really really loved my bicycle and Julie’s horse Angel, and other things involving transportation, like riding in the back of Dad’s truck, or lifting up my shirt on a steaming hot day in my sister’s new green Impala, then letting my back stick to the vinyl seat. Then peeeeel my skin off the seat and let the wind blow it. Then lean back and get sweaty again. Then peeeeeel.

  There was even evidence I loved my parents, and I sure felt something for my sister, although sometimes it was a palm itching to hit her. Then the double doors leading to the delivery room opened, and Rick walked out with my nephew Josh in a blue blanket, and it turned out I’d been right about disaster, because that’s what happened to me as soon as I looked at the baby’s face. There’s no other way to describe that sort of love. Even if I’d been warned, I’d have gotten it wrong, I wouldn’t have understood. My passion for him was like a cartoon anvil falling on my cartoon head.

  Mom and I were walking to church. I was thinking about Josh, about whether Melinda had dressed him warmly enough and whether he had taken up any new habits since I’d seen him the night before. Mom was saying, “And a special offering was taken up just to send you. The Meeting is paying for you to go.”

  “I’m sorry. Are you talking?”

  “Yes. Church camp. The Meeting is paying for you to go.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, kicking a big rock and hurting my toe. “They can just get their money back, because I ain’t going.”

  “Don’t say ain’t. Yes, you are going.”

  My mom had made me do some entirely objectionable things in the past, things that made me spitting mad. I’d been forced to wear dresses, and take one bite of spinach, and wash my hair. But she’d never insisted on anything that scared me, until now.

  We stopped on the corner of Charles and Jefferson, right at Reed and Mary Ball’s house, and looked both ways. Nothing was coming.

  “I cannot possibly go to church camp, and I won’t go to church camp, and if you try to force me I’ll go down to the woods at the edge of the park where you say there might be bad men and I will hop a freight train with them.”

  She took my hand as we crossed the street, out of habit. I pulled it away. “You’ll love camp. There’s a beautiful lake there, and cabins, and you can play games and sleep in the woods. You love all that stuff.”

  I stopped with my hand on the door to the Mooreland Friends Church. “No, I certainly do not. Not anymore. I can’t abide any of those things you just named.”

  We walked inside quietly, and my eyes automatically scanned the pews for Melinda and her little family. Not so long ago I only wanted to sit with Andy Hicks and Laurie Lee. But everything had changed. I stepped over Onis Hatcher, a very fat old woman with a bright pink scalp, as if she wasn’t there. Melinda was holding Josh against her shoulder. She dressed him like every day was picture day, and on this Sunday he was wearing a knitted white jumpsuit with a hood that made him look like a lamb. The hood even had ears. I felt something in my stomach, something like joy mixed up with blind panic. “Give him to me,” I whispered, and Lindy handed him over. His neck smelled like baby lotion and his suit smelled like Dreft. He was so perfect he could have been a baby in a painting, or on the face of money. No way was Mother going to make me go spend a week (seven days!) with a bunch of strange Christians I didn’t know and didn’t in my whole life ever want to know. No way was she going to make me leave a helpless baby. Melinda was a great mom and all, she really understood the whole lamb-suit concept, but I felt, deep in my heart, that the only thing that stood between Josh and tragedy was my constant attention. He was five months old. He gurgled, blew a spit bubble, raised a little fist, and hit me in the collarbone. He loved me best; it was perfectly clear.

  Not only did I have to go to church camp, I’d ended up getting placed in the teenager week, because my own age group was full. I wasn’t sure the news could get worse. Maybe if Mom had said, “And oh, by the way, crazy Edythe from across the street will be there whistling and banging on an out-of-tune piano. And you’ll be eating rabid boar and hominy,” maybe then I would have been more scared. I’d seen some teenagers in my day, and it hadn’t been pretty. The only person there I would know was an older Hicks boy, Robin, who was nice just like all the Hickses, and very nice to me, but I feared he might hold a secret grudge, because once when we were playing Hot Potato in the backyard I threw the Hot Potato with maybe just slightly too much enthusiasm and broke one of his front teeth in half. I’m talking about one of his big, front, permanent teeth. Broke it right in two. And neither he nor any of the other Hickses had ever acted like they were mad at me about it. It seemed to be just another accident.

  The rules at church camp were simple enough. Girls had to wear a T-shirt over their bathing suits while swimming in the lake, even if the suit was a one-piece. Everyone had to bring a Bible. Days were devoted to activities; afternoons were Bible study; after dinner was chapel. Every night. Church every night. The boys’ camp was di
vided from the girls’ by a wide trail, called the Mason-Dixon Line, and by the counselors’ cabins. Campers committing serious infractions would be asked to scrub the pier with a toothbrush, which didn’t sound so pacifist to me and which Melinda had been forced to do when she herself was a camper. My family already had ahistory on that pier.

  Three weeks later, early on a Saturday morning, I sat on the floor of the living room, packing and repacking my few belongings in my Army backpack. My sister had lent me her number one favorite T-shirt for modest swimming. It was white and had Mickey Mouse on the front (the older, skinny Mickey Mouse who still looked something like a rodent). I had my little pink New Testament, which I had no intention of opening. I had my nose plugs; a bottle of Chigarid; a bottle of Campho-Phenique; a small can of Off!; my cowboy pajamas; a couple changes of clothes; and a towel. Mom was going to make me take a toothbrush, even though there was no point. I thought I might burst into tears at any moment. I knew that just down the street Josh was waking up, smearing breakfast everywhere and making his new “oooooo” sound, wondering where his auntie was. He probably believed I’d taken up with some other, lesser child.

  Mom came in and saw me sitting on the floor, bereft.

  “I’ve got some things for you to take with you,” she said, holding a stack of clothes and a thin white bag.

  “What are those?” I asked, pointing to the clothes. They looked suspicious and degrading.

  “Well, you have to wear a skirt to chapel every night, and —”

  “WHAT?”

  “And panty hose. It’s a rule.”

  I fell straight back on the floor, bonking my head so hard I saw stars. “You hate me.”

  “Sit up. You know I don’t hate you, I love you. Now. I borrowed these skirts and blouses, some of them might be a little big…”

  I tried to make my heart speed up and kill me, the way rabbits could.

  “…so I’ve sent some safety pins. Just gather up the extra.”

  Down the street Melinda was saying, “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a perfect cereal eater?” And Josh was smacking his hands up and down on his high-chair tray, slinging squashy rice and bananas everywhere, gleefully.

  “Andpanty hose ?” I said, now very close to tears. “Have I done something?” I quickly corrected myself. “Something new, I mean?”

  “The panty hose are also not going to fit, unfortunately,” Mom said, tucking them in my backpack. “Just pull them all the way up and roll the tops down as best you can. And you’ll need to take your saddle oxfords for church, not just your sandals. Oh” — Mom held out the white paper bag — “and here’s the other thing.”

  “What is it,” I asked, not even as a question.

  “It’s stationery. There are stamps on the envelopes already, so all you have to do is write to us and mail it. Do you know our address?”

  I sighed. For heaven’s sake, she acted as if I’d been in a terrible car accident. “Yes, jeez. Are you really going to make me do this?”

  “Make you write letters?”

  “No, make me go far away to this bad place! Are you really going to make me go?”

  “Sweetheart,” Mom began, sitting down on the edge of the couch. “This experience will be like lots of other things in life: you’ll be reluctant at first, and then you’ll discover you’re having a wonderful time, and as the years go by you’ll look back on it with great fondness.”

  “Does that mean youare going to make me go?”

  Mom pulled out her big gun, as mottoes went, and she had a million. She generally saved it to the end. “Happiness is a decision. You decide how happy or unhappy you’re going to be.”

  I stood up and grabbed my backpack by the strap. I marched out to the truck where Dad was sitting waiting for us. He had his arm out the window and a cup of coffee in his hands, as if he were already on the way. I climbed up on my box next to him.

  “Ready to go, Zip?” he asked, starting the truck.

  “Yes, but I’ve decided to be unhappy about it.”

  “Ah. Been talking to your mom, I guess.”

  Mom came out and got in the truck with us. “Okay, let’s go!” she said, cheerfully. “Shall we sing on this trip?”

  There were five girls in my cabin besides me, all of them between fifteen and seventeen. At first they thought I might make an excellent mascot. One said she had a little sister at home, and she’d be happy to teach me how to apply makeup. I made a vomit face, politely. Within about seven minutes, all the girls had realized I was not going to be the sort of little sister any of them had ever wanted, and took to ignoring me.

  I lay on my upper bunk while the girls arrived one by one. There was nothing to do until lunchtime. I’d already looked at the allegedly beautiful lake (it was a lake; I’d seen plenty), and the pier I was undoubtedly going to have to scrub with a toothbrush (intimidating), the dining hall (institutional), the chapel (rustic, the end of the world). Lunchtime. Melinda would feed baby Josh and put him down for a nap in his little yellow nursery room with the sunny face painted on the wall. My stomach started to ache. What if she put him too close to his stuffed bear? What if she forgot to wind his mobile?What if she set the house on fire again?

  I sat up on my bunk and put my head between my knees and took deep breaths. The girls were chattering with one another. It seemed they all had very dramatic problems that they took dead seriously. None of them mentioned babies or burning houses. Rich Girl’s parents hadn’t accompanied her to camp, they’d had herflown to some rinky-dink airport in she didn’t evenknow what town and then driven here by a stranger whosmelled. One girl had a boyfriend who hadn’t called her since he’d gotten to his grandparents’ house in Nevada,and she’d had to have surgery on her knees because she’d already worn them out with sports. This girl had taken to using something called dry shampoo while she was recovering in the hospital, and now she used it all the time. It came in a can like hair spray. Sports Girl bent over so her head was upside-down and demonstrated. Her long straight blond hair fell nearly to the floor. She sprayed her scalp with the aerosol, which looked a little powdery, then flipped her hair up and brushed it with the same sort of black-bristle brush my sister used. My sister, Melinda. It was summer, I reminded myself. She wouldn’t be using the Franklin stove when the temperature was 88 degrees. The third girl felt herself to be under an inhuman amount of strain, because she played on her school’s volleyball team, but was also in 4-H, and would probably be the valedictorian of her class. Valedictorian made vague reference to a boyfriend who pressured her. The other girls all nodded in agreement. The fourth girl was, even by my modest standards, so physically tragic she couldn’t possibly know what boyfriend pressure felt like. She wasn’t allowed to wear makeup, she said, and even I could see she desperately needed it. In fact, she probably needed surgery. She had almost no eyebrows and no eyelashes, so she appeared startled and desperate. Her hair was brown and frizzy; she had terrible acne, and her teeth were yellow. I watched the girls very subtly shift away from Ugly, acting at first as if she were one of them, as if they were interested in her, and then as if she were invisible.

  And then the last girl entered, late and out of breath, all apologies. “Hi, I’m Claire,” she said, but from the expressions of the other campers, Cher might as well have introduced herself. “I just got here, which bunk is left, oh — good, I’ll just take that one. What a drive, I thought I’d never make it, I hate getting up in the morning. Hi, who are you?”

  The girls presented themselves one by one, reminding Claire that they’d been at camp with her for the past three years.

  “And who are you?” she asked, popping her head up over the top of my bunk and giving me what by all accounts was a winning smile.

  “You can call me Zippy,” I said, studying her. Her dark brown hair was shiny and like liquid, chin-length, and was pulled off her face with a rolled-up red bandanna. The effect made her look casual, even woodsy, and efficient. Her skin was flawless and tanned, and her eyes were
the warmest chocolate color I’d ever seen. She had narrow, fine eyebrows;full lips;and teeth so straight they could have come from a Chrissy doll. The little red shirt and white shorts she wore made everything about Claire clear: she was fully baked.

  “Well, hello, Zippy. I guess we’re bunkmates.”

  “I reckon so.”

  Claire looked at the other campers, pointed back at me with her thumb. “Shereckons. ” They all laughed, not wholly at my expense.

  Claire moved her suitcases over beside her bunk and flopped down dramatically. “Jesus H. Lord!” she said. “I’ve got cramps somethingawful. ”

  I leaned over my bunk to see what was wrong with her. Sometimes after riding my bike all day I got charley horses in my legs that made me light-headed.

  The other girls in the cabin all fluttered around Claire like hens. “Poor you!”

  “Do you need some aspirin?”

  “Did you bring a heating pad?”

  “Would you like me to bring your lunch back to you?”

  Claire looked at Ugly with a wide-eyed vulnerability. “Would you? How sweet you all are! Lunch would be great, and aspirin if you’ve got it. Oh, and if they serve Coke with lunch bring me one but if it’s milk forget it. Unless it’s chocolate milk.”

  Ugly dashed over to her suitcase and ripped a page out of a diary with an orange sherbet-colored cover (which bore the titleAll About Me ) and began writing with a little pencil. She took Claire’s order as if we were all at Bill’s diner in New Castle on fried chicken night. I watched the proceedings with a raised eyebrow.