The Cat Ate My Gymsuit (8 page)

“Yeah. I don’t think he’s the kind to fall madly in love, but I think you and he can be friends.”

“You don’t think he can fall in love?”

“Marcy, you’re weird. First you’re afraid that he doesn’t like you and then you wonder whether he can fall in love.”

I blushed. Can I help it if I get confused easily?

I told Nancy that I was nervous because everyone was going to be dancing and all I knew was tap and ballet, and that wasn’t “in” at parties. So Nancy and I practiced all afternoon.

When I got home, I practiced all the dance steps in front of the mirror. My mother walked in and tried to do them too. Sometimes I wish she’d act her age.

Dinner went pretty well. My father seemed happy because we had bought clothes.

“See,” he said, hugging my mother. “My family can get nice things because I work so hard.”

The phone rang. My father answered it and called out, “Marcy, it’s your Romeo.” I was so embarrassed that I didn’t want to go to the phone. But I had to.

“Hi.”

“Hi, Juliet.”

“Oh, Joel, I’m sorry. My father thinks he’s funny.”

“I’ll live. So will you. What did you do today?”

“Some shopping . . .and then I saw Nancy.”

“I talked to some of the kids today. It’s hard to get everything together now that school’s cancelled. Listen. Tomorrow, I’ll pick you up at 8. O.K.?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Well, listen, I’ll see you later.”

“O.K. Bye.”

As I put down the receiver, I looked up and saw my father.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Marcy, we never talk anymore. Let’s talk now.”

“Daddy. I have to practice my dancing.”

“This will only take a few minutes.”

So we sat down in the living room and he started. I could tell that he was going to try to stay calm. And he did try. He hardly raised his voice. It sounded as if he’d rehearsed it.

He said, “I realize you’re growing up and have to start making your own decisions. But I don’t approve of you not saying the Pledge. And I don’t think you should support Miss Finney.”

“
Ms.
Finney,” I said.

“All right,
Ms.
Finney, if you insist.”

I stopped chewing my nails long enough to explain to him that while I did support Ms. Finney, I still said the Pledge.

He said that he hadn’t realized that. Still, he disagreed with my support of Ms. Finney.

“You’ve got to learn to stick with the majority, to play the game. And Marcy, now that you are going out, I want you to remember to be a good girl. You must protect your good name.”

I laughed. He sat there, looking uncomfortable and chewing on his cigar.

“Dad, I promise not to elope before I’m sixteen, bring home another mouth to feed, join a motorcycle gang, or mug little old ladies.”

He raised his voice a little. “Stop acting like a smart aleck. Can’t you understand? I just want my family to be happy.”

I said, “O.K., but don’t worry about me.”

Then he said, “I’m glad we’ve talked.” Then he shook my hand. He shook my hand. A hug would have been nicer, but that was better than nothing, and he hadn’t yelled too loud.

My mother walked in. “How would you both like some ice cream?”

“No thanks, Mom. I’m going to go upstairs.”

I spent the rest of the evening washing my face with special anti-acne soap, brushing my hair, and looking in the mirror to see if giving up the bowl of ice cream had made me skinny.

T
he next day, I had to babysit. My parents were going shopping and I had to take care of Stuart and his bear. Sometimes I feel that my parents should claim Wolf on their income tax.

I took him over to the playground, swung him for a while, and then ran him around on the merry-go-round until we both got dizzy. Wolf, of course, never gets dizzy. According to Stuart, that’s because he’s so healthy from the orange pits.

We sat down on a bench.

“Stuart, are you happy?”

“What?”

“Are you happy?”

He nodded his head up and down.

“Why?”

“I love you.”

I hugged him. “Are you always happy?”

He just looked at me.

“Stuart, do you think you’re happy because you’re just a little kid and don’t know any better?”

No answer yet.

I could see that my question wasn’t going to get answered. What can you expect from a four-year-old, the wisdom of Moses?

“Stuart, do you love Wolf?”

“Yes.”

“Mommy?”

“Yes.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes.”

“What makes you cry?”

“When I fall down.”

“What else?”

“When you cry.”

“Anything else?”

“When Daddy yells.”

“Do you love Daddy?”

“Yes.”

Sometimes I wish I were four years old.

“Marcy.”

“Yes.”

“I’m hungry.”

So I took him home and made him a peanut butter and ham sandwich. That’s what he wanted, and I figured that since it was so easy to make him happy, I should do it. He’ll learn soon enough what sad is. He’d just finished it when we heard the car drive up.

“It’s Mommy and Daddy,” he yelled.

Rushing outside, he grabbed hold of my mother’s legs and said, “I miss you.”

Nice. The kid doesn’t cry or anything all day and then he acts like it wasn’t any good.

“What did you get me?”

Great. He sometimes thinks the whole word is like a quiz show.

My mother laughed and said, “Come inside. I’ll show you.”

Everyone came in. Stuart. My mother. And my father.

“Hi, honey. How did it go?”

“Fine, Mom. We went to the playground.”

She picked out two bags. “One for Stuart and one for you.”

We ripped open the bags. Stuart got a pair of mittens, and I got a floppy hat.

“Oh, Mom, I love it.”

“The saleslady said all the girls are wearing them, and it’ll draw attention to your face.”

All of a sudden I felt horrible. Why did she always worry about what everybody else is wearing, and why’d she have to remind me that I have to do stuff to draw attention from the neck up because the rest of me is so glunky?

My father looked at me and said, “Don’t you start getting oversensitive, young lady. Your mother wanted to make you happy. Now be happy.”

I had to laugh.

We all started to laugh. Stuart had taken the hat and put it on Wolf.

Then we put the packages away, and Mom and I started making dinner. Stuart, Wolf, and Dad headed for the TV.

“Marcy, I bought the hat for you because I liked it and thought you would like it. Do I always talk about how everybody else dresses?”

“Yeah, you do. Ms. Finney says that clothes can be an artistic expression of the individual. Mom, I don’t want to look like everybody else, even if I could.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s safer being like everyone else.”

“Mom, are you happy?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you happy?”

“I don’t think about that much. I’m happy when you are happy. You are very important to me.”

“Do you love Daddy?”

“Yes, Marcy, I do. I don’t always agree with him, but he’s very good to me.”

“He’s not very good to me.”

“Please. Don’t say that. Daddy loves you very much. He just doesn’t know how to show it.”

“Am I adopted?”

“No, of course not. What a silly question. Marcy, he’s your father and I’m your mother. We both love you.”

I finished setting the table, and we all sat down to eat. All of a sudden, it dawned on me that it really
was the night of Nancy’s party. It was my very first date. I was kind of calm and frightened to death at the same time.

Once dinner was over, I rushed upstairs to get ready. I spent fifteen minutes brushing my teeth and another ten searching for pimples. I thought that I found one and then realized that it was a blot from my felt-tip pen. An orange pimple would have been a little strange, even for me. So I washed my face.

Getting dressed was a real trip. I got nervous about the color of the outfit. Purple was a pretty color, but what if I looked like a large grape in it? I was sure that everyone at the party was going to say “Joel, who is that grape you’re dragging around?” Or “Marcy, Halloween is over.” When I put on the earrings, necklace, and ring, I felt better. I mean, grapes don’t wear jewelry. People would know it was me.

My mother came into the room. She started gushing about how nice I looked, how I was growing up, and how my clothes did express my personality.

The doorbell rang. My mother wanted me to wait a while to make an entrance. I rushed down the steps, trying to get to the front door before my father got there.

I didn’t make it. My father and Joel were standing there looking at each other. I walked over and said, “Hi. I’ll get my coat and we can leave.”

But it wasn’t that easy. My mother came down the steps, making the entrance that I didn’t make, and said, “Well, hello, Joel. Why don’t we all go sit in the living room and talk for a while?”

I thought I would die right there. But I didn’t, so we all went into the living room. It was horrible. My father kept chomping on his smelly cigar and asking Joel what his plans for the future were. My mother kept gushing about how nice I looked. Stuart wandered in and asked Joel if he was going to marry me. Joel just sat there, smiling and trying to say nice things.

I couldn’t say anything. I just sat there, trying not to have a nervous breakdown and wishing that a tornado would strike or that some machine would come out of the sky to rescue us. I was positive that I was developing an ulcer.

Finally I stood up and said, “We’d better go. Nancy’s expecting me to help her out.”

So everybody stood up and walked over to the door. I felt as if we were leaving for a trip to Mars. All
we needed were reporters around, asking questions like “Ms. Lewis, how does it feel to be going out on your first date?” and “Mr. Anderson, has it been a life-long ambition of yours to go out with a grape?” My father told us to get home early, and my mother kept picking imaginary lint off my coat.

We finally got out the door and started down the street. Then I looked at Joel to tell him how sorry I was about the scene at the house. Instead, we both laughed.

B
y the time we got to Nancy’s house, my stomach had calmed down. Ringing the bell, we heard someone running up to the door. It was Nancy, looking absolutely beautiful in a long skirt and a short top. On me it would have looked like a lot of rubber bands above a tent placed on a volleyball.

Standing behind Nancy was this fantastic-looking guy, the kind you always see in ads for aftershave lotion. I had never been that near to anyone who looked like him. Nancy introduced us. It was her
boyfriend, Phil. I’d seen him around but had never talked to him. He smiled and said, “Nancy’s been telling me what’s happening. Wish we had as much excitement at that stupid high school. Maybe it’ll get more interesting next year, when you get there.”

Joel said, “Why don’t all of you at the high school get involved? It’s something that could happen there too.”

Phil and Joel got really involved in the discussion, and so did Nancy and I. We finally headed down to the rec room, all of us carrying plates of food. The place was mobbed.

Some of the kids were dancing. I kept trying to remember all the things Nancy had taught me. Then Joel turned to me, saying, “Listen, Marcy. I’m a lousy dancer. So let’s go talk.”

We went over to a couch and sat down. Everyone was either dancing or standing around eating food. I didn’t know how to begin talking. I’d talked to him before, but somehow this was different. And he wasn’t saying anything either. So I sat there, looking at the dancers and smiling as if I were having a fantastic time.

All of a sudden, a pretzel flew across the room
and hit the wall right behind us. We looked around the room.

It was Andy Moore. He’s always getting sent to the principal’s office because he shoots straw wrappers at everyone in the cafeteria. He waved at us, and we waved back.

Joel began, “That Andy is really dumb. He’ll do anything for attention.”

I said, “Ms. Finney says that we’ve got to try to understand people, maybe not like them, but try to understand.”

He thought for a minute. “Yeah. I guess so, but sometimes it’s hard. I wish Ms. Finney was still around.”

“So do I. Nancy’s mother ran into her at the grocery story. She said Ms. Finney’s going to fight.”

He stared ahead, and then looked down at his hands. “I’m glad. She’s one of the few people I can talk to. It’s kind of hard. My father’s a neat guy and I can talk to him. But my grandmother doesn’t understand much, and she lives with us.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“My parents are divorced. She lives in Denver. She’s remarried. I don’t like her.”

It seemed hard for Joel to talk about it, so I didn’t ask any questions.

But he continued, “My dad’s a lawyer. Gets involved in a lot of controversial cases. He gave up corporate law to start his own practice. My mother got upset and said that he should stay where the money was and not always be defending weirdos. But they’re not all weirdos. Some are poor and need help. He’s really a good guy.”

“So she moved?”

“Yeah. She likes things to be easy. And she didn’t like a lot of my father’s friends . . .too radical, she said. So one day she decided to divorce my father. She wanted to take me with her, but I didn’t want to go. She cried a lot and said she’d go to court to get me, but I told her that I hated her and refused to go.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that she’d let me stay with Dad until she got resettled and then send for me.”

“Oh, Joel, when’s that going to happen,” I said, feeling panic. What if Joel had to move away? Joel and Ms. Finney gone. I couldn’t stand it.

“It won’t. One day we got a letter saying that she was getting married to a school principal. I had to go out to Denver to visit her. That’s where she’s teaching
and where she met him. He’s just like Mr. Stone. I can’t believe there are two of them. Anyway, I went out there and was so bad that the principal didn’t want me, and she went along with him. I hate her. I really do. I’m glad she gave up after a while.”