Dreamsleeves (11 page)

D
reamsleeves worked for Beck.

One of Dad's customers had a family conflict and couldn't use his box seats at the Yankees game. Dad took Beck, just the two of them.

When they got back from New York City late last night, I swear Beck looked like he was ten years old, not a “little one” anymore.

He taped the ticket stub and popcorn box and Yankees pennant on the wall by his bed, proof to him that dreams come true.

And we finally got a postcard from Nana!

“Greetings from San Francisco” with a picture of a cable car.

I rush to tell everyone the good news.

“I want to make the baby a picture,” Callie says, and I get out paper and pencils and crayons for the little ones. I write my aunt Bitsy a congratulations letter and send a letter to Nana, too.

Sue-Ellen's pool party is Saturday.

The good news is that I think I can still go to “Maizey's camp” for the weekend. I reminded Dad and he said he “didn't see why not.”

The bad news is that Dad is drinking more, coming home earlier and earlier from work. If he doesn't make calls, he doesn't get commissions, and that means no house. I refuse to believe that dream won't come true. And if it's not the money, but
Nana
that's holding him back, I will talk to Nana when she gets home. I'll wear that dream on my sleeve. Nana is so proud of this house she raised her family in. My mother deserves to raise her family in her own house, too, and six kids need more than two bedrooms.

I wonder what Nana will think of the “little writer's house.” Back when Nana and Papa were building their American Dream, clearing the land and constructing this house, before they got their plumbing installed, they used the outhouse for a toilet, like in “the old country.” There's a quarter moon cut out near the top of the door to let the light in.

My father has been working hard to change the outhouse into a writer's house. He sawed out a square and installed a window. He stuffed rolls of pink insulation up and down and overhead, put up new walls and painted them, hired an electrician to install a light. He covered the old stink hole with a long piece of wood, then nailed wood around to make a desk, bought a new chair, and in what I thought was a very elegant touch, he hung a brass knocker engraved with an
M
, for Maggie, on the door.

Dad also hung a picture on the wall. It's a photo of Mom and Dad, the night of their senior prom. She's wearing a gown and a corsage. He's in a suit and tie with a boutonniere. They are wearing crowns, just named King and Queen of the Prom. Mom is showing off the diamond ring on her finger. They would be married six months later.

“What do you think?” Dad says to me on the morning of Mom's birthday, as he's polishing the brass knocker.

“It's nice,” I say.

“Go get her typewriter and papers before she wakes up,” Dad says, and I do.

I make Mom her favorite breakfast, two eggs over easy on rye toast with pineapple juice and coffee. B, C, and D give her the cards I helped them make in school. I give her the present I made up in my shop — a flower vase made out of a plastic laundry detergent bottle, with other chips of plastic glued on like a mosaic.

“Happy Birthday, Mom.”

“You made this, A?” she says. “I love it.”

I go to Nana's garden and pick Mom a bouquet, set the vase in the center of the kitchen table. “Beautiful,” Mom says, “thank you, honey.”

Dad comes into the kitchen all freshly washed up and in a blue shirt that makes his blue eyes look even bluer. “Are you ready for your present, Your Majesty Maggie?” my dad says, holding up his arm for her to take.

“What's this?” Mom says, even though I know she knows Dad's finally ready to show her what he's been working on all this time. She's seen the purchases and heard the drilling and hammering.

“Oh, wait,” Dad says. He whispers something to Callie and she runs off, coming back seconds later with the ballet princess crown she got for her birthday.

“Here, Dad, here,” Callie says, so proud to be helping.

My father sticks the crown on my mother's head, pushing the ends into her thick brown hair so it stays. The little ones watch in awe.

“You look beautiful, Mommy,” Callie says.

Dad escorts Mom down the steps and up the hill past our school shed, me behind him carrying E, followed by B, C, and D.

My mother smiles at the knocker. “Thank you, Roe,” she says.

Dad opens the door for her. “Go ahead, Your Majesty. It's all yours.”

There sits my mother's typewriter over the spot where the toilet used to be. I guess the GANE will be like my mother's garden, her story springing up from the old manure underneath. I sniff in. It still smells bad, but I would never say that. The window is open and there's a breeze coming in. Perhaps over time the fresh air will work. And there are the lilac bushes, too.

There's an envelope in the typewriter. “MY OWN MAGGIE MAGPIE,” it says.

My mom opens it. A birthday card from my father. She reads the inscription, looks at him, and smiles with a look of total love. She sees the photograph he nailed on the wall, walks to it, peers in, her eyes filling with tears.

“I love you, Magpie,” my father says, kissing her forehead, hugging her.

“I love you, too, Roe,” she says, kissing him on the lips.

“Oooh, mushy,” Beck says. Callie giggles.

“Come on, let's do something,” Dad says. “It's a beautiful day.”

“How about a drive to Crystal Lake,” Mom says. “I'd love to go for a swim.”

“Can we stop at Jack's for lunch, Dad?” Beck says.

“Ask your mother,” Dad says. “It's her birthday. Whatever she says, goes.”

When my family starts down the hill to the house, I stay behind for a minute. I stare at the photograph of my parents. They look so beautiful, so happy. That was the year they won three dance contests. Mom always says it was Dad who deserved the ribbons. “He just swept me off my feet,” she says.

Their senior prom. Six months later they would have a fairy-tale wedding, a honeymoon in Niagara Falls. They would live in the basement of his parents' house, “just for a year or so” until Dad made enough money to get them “a place of their own.” Dad would make a ton of money and drive a new Cadillac every year and buy my mother a house in the country with apple trees and a stream running by and she was going to go to college and write the Greatest American Novel Ever, and then they had me.
Sigh
.

Funny how they named me a name that means “dream,” because I am very surely convinced that having me was the beginning of the end of their dreams.

One kid, two kids, three kids, four …

and every year my father drinking more.

This morning I heard the telltale clink of ice cubes in a glass in the kitchen before I even got out of bed. My father drank this
morning
, before he left for work.

So now my dad drinks all day long. Morning, noon, and night.

I mention this to Mom, but she just shakes her head and sighs, looking so beaten down. Things were happy for a while after her birthday but then the arguing started again. We haven't visited our house in the country. I'm afraid it says
SOLD
by now.

My mother has put on a lot of weight, even more than I remember with Dooley and Eddie. Her face is bloated and she's always sweating. Her ankles are as fat as thighs. Mom moves through the house like she's sleepwalking, like a zombie from that horror movie I once saw, her eyes sparkless, faraway, sadder than I've ever seen her.

She wakes up — goes to work — comes home — makes dinner — bathes the little ones — tucks them in — goes to bed, only to get up the same time the next morning to do it all over again. She doesn't go up to her writer's house. She isn't writing at all.

Dooley has graduated to real underwear now, no more training pants. He studies Beck's every move, determined to be a big boy, too.

After dinner Mom asks if I've seen Dooley. We search for him everywhere. “Dooley? Dooley?” The kitchen door opens. Dad walks in with Dooley in his arms.

“Don't you ever, ever try that again,” Dad is yelling at D as he spanks him.

Dooley is screaming, “I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm sorry!”

“Please don't hit him, Roe,” my mother pleads.

“He was racing those stupid little cars outside,” my father says.

“But … I … I … I …” Dooley tries to talk between his sobs. “I thought … I … I … I saw my red one….”

“He was almost down to the sidewalk!” my father yells at my mom.

“You could have gotten hit by a truck and killed,” he screams at Dooley. He spanks him again and throws him on his bunk bed. “Stay there!” He shuts Dooley's door, pours a drink in the kitchen.

We all feel so bad for Dooley, but we don't dare go in there right now.

Later I see Callie sitting on D's bed, rubbing his back.

“I know how much you miss your car,” she says. “Come on, I'll help you make a dream. It worked for Beck, remember? He got to go to the baseball game.”

My father has another drink and another drink.

We all try to stay out of his way.

Nobody talks. Nobody says a word. Nobody wants to make him madder.

When I say good night to Dooley, I see a
HELLO MY NAME IS
label with a little red car drawn on it stuck on his pajama sleeve. As soon as I get some money, I'm going to buy Dooley a red car identical to the one he lost and say, “Hey! Look what I found down by the curb!”

My father's snoring on the living room couch, a full drink on the table.

I take the drink and dump it down the sink, put the empty glass back on the table.

 

The next day, my aunt Mary from Saratoga — who we usually only see at Christmas because my dad says all my “een” cousins are “noisy as a bunch of cats” and my aunt Mary “never shuts her mouth” — stops by unexpectedly with a quart of fresh, plump strawberries.

“Oh, thank you, Aunt Mary,” I say. “Come on in.”

Maybe I will talk to her, tell her how bad the drinking is getting. We aren't really close, hardly ever even talk to her, just at Christmas really, but she's family and …

“I have a doctor's appointment in Troy,” Aunt Mary says. “I need to get glasses. Glasses. Can you believe it, Aislinn? At my age. I didn't think I'd need glasses until I was at least …”

Tell her, A, go ahead …

“Aunt Mary?”

“Yes, dear?”

Dooley walks out from his nap. “Well, look at you,” Aunt Mary says, scooping him up for a hug. “You're growing like a weed. Oh my gosh, look at the time.” She sets Dooley down, pats his head. “I'm going to be late, gotta run.”

“Aunt Mary … can I talk to you sometime?”

“Sure thing, honey buns,” Aunt Mary says. “Your mother's got my number. How is she doing anyway? She sounded so down the last time she called. You gotta take good care of her, A, with the new baby on the way and all. I tell your uncle Devon all the time how it's a crying shame Mags has to work. Raising five kids and another job, too.”

Aunt Mary kisses my cheek. “Give your mom my love. Enjoy the strawberries! Hope to see you before Christmas!”

When the little ones are down for a nap, I make strawberry shortcake, my father's second-favorite dessert. His favorite is warm apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese on top. I'm trying desperately to stay in my father's best graces, keeping the house spotless clean, getting all the laundry done, giving the little ones their baths after dinner — anything and everything I can think of to keep him from getting mad and taking back my permission to go to “Maizey's camp.”

When my mother gets home from work, she says I can go out for a while. My father is at a sales meeting in Utica and won't be home till late.

I dial Maizey's number. “She and Sue-Ellen went to the park,” Mrs. Hogan says.

“I'm going to the park,” I tell my mother.

As I'm walking down the steps to my bike, I hear Mom yell, “Where do you think you're going, buster? Get back in here, Dooley.”

I laugh. Dooley. That boy is fearless. Did he forget that spanking already?

Maizey and Sue-Ellen are on the swings — Maize-n-A's swings. They are wearing almost identical Mexican peasant blouses and hip-hugger jeans with embroidery around the bottom. I'm wondering where Maizey got the money for new clothes. She usually only gets new things at the holidays and her birthday, like me.

Maize and Snoop-Melon are talking and laughing, pumping their legs back and forth, trying to see who can go higher, just the way Maize and I always did.

My stomach flip-flops. I start to turn away.

“Hey, Aislinn,” Sue-Ellen calls. “Come here!”

They stop pumping. Sue-Ellen drags her Keds sneaker along the ground to slow herself down and Maizey follows her lead. I walk toward them.

“Do you want to be in?” Sue-Ellen shouts in a voice that sounds like a challenge.

“In what?” I say.

“The club,” she says.

“What club?”

“We're all turning into teenagers,” Sue-Ellen explains, “me first, and when you're a teenager you're either
in
or
out
.”

“In or out of what?” I demand, exasperated.

“Popularity, of course,” Sue-Ellen says with a laugh. “My sister, Angela, who's in college now in Connecticut explained it to me. When you get to high school, everybody gets sorted out. You are either
in
or you're
out
. It's all decided by Halloween.”

“We are going to be cheerleaders,” Maizey says.

“For Halloween?” I ask, only half-joking.

“No, dummy, for real,” Sue-Ellen says. “Cheerleaders are always in the coolest clique.” She says this as if it's set in stone like a Commandment. “You need to make the team in eighth grade if you want a shot at the freshman squad.”

“And how do you know all this?” I say.

Sue-Ellen laughs. “Well,
my mother
was the head cheerleader in high school. Her team went to the nationals senior year. My sister, Angela, was a head cheerleader, too. She taught me some great moves. I bet you girls haven't ever seen the …”

“Show A a cheer, Sue,” Maizey interrupts, all excited.

Not needing a second request, “Sue” hip-sway-struts over to the grass. She rolls up the bottoms of her jeans, flicks back her hair, hands on her hips, starting position. And then she belts out a cheer, moving back and forth in perfect rhythm, shaking imaginary pom-poms in her hands. She ends with a dramatic soar, arms and legs stretched out into a great big jubilant X in the air.

“Isn't she great, A?” Maizey says, all goofy-faced like Snoop-Melon is her hero.

“Yeah,” I say, “great.”

“Sue-Ellen's been teaching me,” Maize says, “so I'll be all set for auditions.”

My stomach feels pom-pom pummeled. Maizey and I were going to be practicing together. But I probably wouldn't make the team anyway. Even if I did, I couldn't go to after-school practices. In September Mom goes back to working the night shift, four to eleven, and then the new baby's coming … who else will take care of the little ones? And besides, I couldn't go to the games anyway. The games are nights and weekends, and my father would never let me go … I was stupid to even think …

“I guess I could teach you, too,” Sue-Ellen says to me, in a surprising display of kindness. But when her eyes take in my clothes and hair, I realize it is pity she's feeling.

“No, thanks,” I say.

“My mother's judging,” Sue-Ellen blurts out. “When the gym teacher heard what a great cheerleader my mother was, she asked if she would be on the panel.”

“Good for you,” I say, kicking a stone as I turn back to my bike.

“What's your problem?” Sue-Ellen says, hands on hips. “I was just trying to help.”

“I don't need your help,” I blurt out in a mean voice, wishing instantly that I could snatch those words right back.

Sue-Ellen looks like I slapped her, like nobody has ever talked to her that way before. Then a chilly smile spreads across her face.

“Don't come to my party, then,” she says, shrugging her shoulders.

“I'm sorry,” I say, feeling sick. I look at Maizey. She looks at the ground.

I can't stand this snotty girl, but this is my one chance to see Mike all summer.
Are you stupid, A? What's the matter with you? Get down on your knees, beg, plead.
“Really, Sue-Ellen,” my voice cracks. “I'm sorry.”

“Save your sorries,” Sue-Ellen says, tossing back her beautiful hair. “You are out. Got it?
Out
.”

I look at Maizey. She stares at me, her face a jumble of emotions.

“Let's go, Maize,” Sue-Ellen says, “we'll be late for the barbecue. Daddy's grilling steaks today.”

I turn and bike home crying, Snoop-Melon's one word taunting over and over.

Out. Out. Out.