Define Normal Page 4

  My temper flared. How could Mom use my money? It was so unfair. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to think about Jazz either.

  Tamra. My friend.

  Springing to my feet, I raced down the stairs to the telephone in the kitchen. It was still early, quarter to eight. Tamra’d probably be doing homework. It’d been a while since I’d talked to her, so I had to look up her number. After two rings, someone picked up. “Hello?”

  The voice sounded familiar. “Hello, is this Shelley?”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Hello?” I said again.

  “Who’s this?”

  Maybe it wasn’t Tamra’s older sister. Maybe it was … “Tamra?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hi, it’s Antonia. You sound more like Shelley every day.”

  Silence again. Tamra said, “I guess you haven’t heard. Shelley’s … dead.”

  “What?” My heart stopped. “When? What happened? How did she die?”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it,” Tamra said quietly. “Anyway, it’s old news.”

  “When did it happen?” I asked.

  “Like the beginning of last summer.”

  “Last summer? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I did.” Her voice rose in response to mine. “You were at the library or something. I left a message with your mom.”

  My mom? She never told me. “I never got it, Tamra. I swear.”

  “I wondered why you didn’t call me back.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Shelley dead? Almost a year ago? Where was I? Had I been out of touch that long? My whole body sagged, inside and out. I should’ve been there for Tamra. She had always been there for me when I needed her. Especially three years ago, when everything happened with Dad. I finally said, “Are you okay?” Dumb, Antonia. Of course she’s not okay.

  “Yeah, sure,” she said. “It was ages ago. Not that it isn’t still hard sometimes … “ She exhaled. “You know. So, how are you?”

  “Good,” I said. “Except—”

  She waited. “What?”

  I couldn’t burden her with my problems. They were insignificant compared to what she must’ve gone through. She idolized Shelley So did I. Shelley was cool. “Nothing,” I finally mumbled.

  “How’s school?” Tamra asked. “Still getting straight A’s? Still a ya-ya?”

  “Yeah.” I let out a short laugh. “How “bout you?”

  “Noooo. I actually got a B in biology last term. Mr. Meklevick, the toad. It’s harder here at St. Anne’s. I wish I were going to Oberon. Or you could’ve gone to St. Anne’s.”

  “Me too.” The conversation stalled.

  “Well, I better go,” Tamra said. “My friends are here to practice pom-pom routines. We’re trying out for the spirit squad next month. Hey, you still in gymnastics? You’d make it for sure.”

  “No,” I said. “I had to quit.”

  There was a flurry of activity in the background, someone giggling, calling for Tamra. “I’m coming,” Tamra hollered. To me she said, “It was good talking to you, Antonia. Did you call for a reason?”

  “Uh, no,” I replied. “Just to talk.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  After a long moment, I said, “Well, good luck. In the tryouts.”

  “Thanks. Hey, I’ll call you sometime. Okay?”

  “Sure, okay,” I said to the buzzing phone in my hand.

  “Antonia?” Chuckie stood in front of me, tugging on my bathrobe. “Antonia,” he whined. “I don’t feel so goo—” He didn’t even get out the last word before he threw up all over my bare feet.

  “What are you doing?” Michael grabbed the pay phone out of my hand.

  “I’m calling Mrs. Marsh,” I told him. “They won’t let us leave the hospital without someone signing a release form.”

  “You sign it,” he said.

  I just looked at him. “I can’t. It has to be an adult. What’s wrong with calling Mrs. Marsh?”

  Michael shoved his hands into his pockets. “She’s been asking questions again. About Mom.”

  I hung up the phone.

  Now what was I going to do? When Chuckie’s temperature reached a hundred and five, the only thing I could think of was to take him to the emergency room. I couldn’t even wake up Mom. She must’ve taken sleeping pills or something.

  The doctor said Chuckie was going to be okay, that he just had a flu bug that was going around, but now we were stuck here.

  “Michael, go get us a soda,” I said, digging out two quarters from my billfold. “I’ll think of something.”

  On my way back to Chuckie’s bedside, I ran into the nurse coming out of his room. Before she could ask, I said, “My mom’s on her way. She was real worried when she got home from work and we weren’t there. She should be here any minute.”

  The nurse nodded. “He’s asleep now,” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder at Chuckie. “The doctor gave him something for the fever and vomiting. He should be fine.”

  Michael appeared at my side with a can of Dr Pepper. He took a swig.

  The nurse added, “Why don’t you two wait out in the lounge? You’ll be more comfortable.”

  “I’d better stay here,” I said.

  “Me too,” Michael said.

  She frowned at Michael. “I’m afraid we have rules—”

  Just then a gurney wheeled by. Someone shouted, “Motor vehicle accident. There’s two more in transport. Call a trauma code, stat.”

  The nurse raced down the hall. Instinctively I pulled Michael close.

  “Quit it.” Michael pushed me away. “You’re squishing me.”

  There was lots of commotion at the end of the hall. Everyone was busy. Perfect, I thought, running into Chuckie’s room.

  Throwing off his blanket, I lifted Chuckie up and said, “Come on, Michael. We’re going home.”

  Chapter 8

  “You look dead,” Jazz said as she climbed up onto the conference table and assumed the lotus position. Today she’d smeared black goo under her eyes and wore all black clothing, which matched her lipstick and nails. Talk about looking dead.

  “It’s been a rough week,” I said.

  “Tell me about it,” Jazz replied.

  When neither of us spoke, I looked up at her. “I mean it,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  I shook my head. The silence grew. Jazz stared down at me. It was making me uncomfortable. Just to fill the void, I said, “Okay, since you asked. I spent almost all night Sunday in the emergency room. Then I had to stay home Monday and Tuesday with Chuckie, so I missed handing in another algebra assignment and a history review. I found out my friend Tamra’s sister died—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jazz waved her arms. Her eyes bugged out. “Let’s start over. Why were you in the emergency room?”

  A weary sigh escaped my lips. “My little brother Chuckie got sick. He had a temperature of a hundred and five and he was throwing up all over the place.”

  “Eeooh.” Jazz stuck out her tongue stud. “Is he all right?”

  “Yeah. It’s just the flu. He doesn’t feel all that great yet, but I sent him to day care today. I couldn’t miss any more school. Now Michael will probably get sick. And me.” I laid my head on my backpack. A headache threatened to implode my brain.

  Jazz slid off the table and walked around behind me. Her fingers dug into my shoulders. “Ouch!” I flinched.

  “Relax,” she said. “You’re so tense. I’ll give you a massage. The Jazz Luther special, only thirty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents.”

  “No, that’s okay.” I elbowed her away.

  “Just put your head down. It’s free.”

  I didn’t have the strength to argue. At first it hurt, her fingers piercing my shoulders like stilettos, then the pain eased to a dull ache, until at last her hands felt wonderful. My head stopped threatening eruption. “Where’d you learn to do that?” I asked.

  �
��I told you. Rolfing.” She added in a mutter, “I never thought I’d actually use it.”

  “Maybe you could teach me,” I murmured.

  “Sure,” she said. “Anytime. You know, you do feel like you have a temperature. If you’re going to barf, hold up three fingers, okay? This outfit cost a fortune at Goodwill.”

  I smiled under my arms. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Tell me about Tamra’s sister,” she added.

  I tensed again. Her fingers dug in.

  After a long, deep breath I said, “She died last summer. Tamra called to tell me and Mom didn’t give me the message.” She probably wasn’t lucid enough to write it down, I didn’t say.

  “Typical,” Jazz muttered. “How’d she die?”

  “I don’t know. Tamra wouldn’t tell me.”

  Jazz said, “Probably committed suicide.”

  My head shot up. “No way.” I twisted around.

  She shrugged. “You never know.”

  “I do know.” I twisted back. “Shelley wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t sick or depressed or anything. She was perfectly normal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I turned around again. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”

  “I mean, what’s your definition of “normal’?” she said.

  I clucked my tongue. “You know, normal. Happy, healthy. Someone with friends and family. Shelley had all kinds of friends. She was really popular.”

  “So if you’re not popular, you’re not normal?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Did I?

  Jazz added, “I have friends and family. So I guess I’m normal.”

  I sighed. “There’s more,” I said. “You have goals and dreams. Things you want to do with your life. You value life. You don’t waste it.” I met Jazz’s eyes. “You don’t waste yourself.”

  She shrugged. “I’d agree with that. I’m just saying you never know people. Not really.” Her fingers dug in again.

  I wriggled out of her grasp and she resumed her seat. Her eyes held mine for a long moment before staring off over my shoulder. “I had a friend in sixth grade who shot himself in the head,” she said. “Everyone thought it was an accident, except me. I know he did it on purpose. I could’ve stopped him, too. I sort of sensed things weren’t right. If only I’d called him when he quit hanging out with us. If only I’d been a better friend.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “You didn’t shoot him.”

  She met my eyes. “I might as well have.” Her head dropped. “We’re all responsible. We might as well have put the gun in his hand and pulled the trigger.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “You can’t feel responsible for everyone in the world. You can’t.”

  Her head raised and her eyes widened. “Really?”

  I widened my eyes back. “Really.” Then, more softly, I repeated it. “Really.”

  “Why did you have to quit math club?” Jazz asked.

  “What?” Where’d that come from?

  “You said you had to quit math club. How come?”

  I didn’t remember telling her anything about math club. “It meets after school. I can’t stay.”

  “Why not?”

  How did we get on this? It wasn’t a subject I cared to discuss. Maybe if I didn’t answer, she’d take the hint.

  “Well?” she said.

  Or not. With an exasperated sigh, I said, “I have to babysit my brothers, okay?”

  “Why you? I thought you said Chuckie was in day care.”

  “He is. But they drop him off at four o’clock.”

  “Where’s your mom?” Jazz reached down and pulled a compact out of the back pocket of her pants, which wasn’t easy since they were skintight. “Forget that. Stupid question.” She flipped the top open and examined her face in the mirror. “Working, right?” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “Like most normal parents,” she muttered. Clipping the compact closed, she added, “I wish I had brothers.”

  “You are psycho,” I said.

  She made a face, her interpretation of a psycho, which was pretty close. I had to smile. “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”

  Jazz said, “I mean it. My parents might not get on my case so bad if there was someone else they could rag on.”

  “Maybe if you weren’t so punk, they wouldn’t get on your case.”

  Jazz narrowed her eyes at me. “If I weren’t so “punk,’ as you put it, I wouldn’t be me.”

  I shrugged, but felt rebuffed. Hadn’t we been over this?

  Jazz retrieved a tube of lipstick from the other pocket. Carefully, meticulously, she spread the black cream on her lips. In the mirror, she pressed her lips together. Then she spread some lipstick under her eyes. With her index finger, she rubbed it in.

  “Does that stuff come off?” I asked.

  “I hope not.” She grinned. “You want some?” She held it out to me.

  I recoiled. “No, thanks.”

  “Come on, try it. It comes off. I promise.” She waggled the tube at me.

  I licked my lips. I looked at her. It was so ugly, so awful, so tempting. I took the tube.

  Jazz held up the mirror. “Wait,” she said. She yanked out a Kleenex and wiped off the tip of the lipstick. “I don’t want you to get AIDS.”

  At my expression of horror, she laughed and held up two fingers.

  I sneered back. Exhaling a deep breath, I touched the lipstick to my lips. It felt slimy and warm. I’d never put on lipstick before.

  “Press a little harder,” Jazz said. Her own lips contorted while I spread it on thick.

  I studied myself in the mirror. A slow smile crept across my face.

  “Bode,” Jazz said. “Bode and bad.”

  “Okay,” I told her. “Give me the Kleenex.”

  “Didn’t I mention?” she said. “You need turpentine to take it off.”

  She didn’t hold up two fingers. I could’ve killed her. She whooped with laughter.

  All afternoon I had to hide my gray lips behind my hand. At least at home no one noticed. My lips matched the color of everyone else’s, since they’d all come down with the flu.

  Chapter 9

  We had Thursday and Friday off for teacher in-service days, thank goodness. I felt lousy and I couldn’t afford to miss any more school. I couldn’t afford to be sick either, since there was so much to do around the house. At least by Sunday we were all feeling better. Even Mom, who got up, took a shower, and got dressed. When she bounded down the stairs and into the living room, she said, “Let’s go on a picnic.”

  “Yeah!” Chuckie clapped his chubby hands.

  Michael stopped channel surfing. He looked at me. I knew what he was thinking. “That sounds good,” I said to Mom, slipping a bookmark in my library book and setting it on the coffee table. “We could have it in the backyard.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mom said. “We’ll go to Cherokee Reservoir. Like we always do.”

  Michael’s jaw dropped.

  I just sat there, stunned.

  Mom padded to the kitchen. We all followed. “Antonia, you go find the cooler. I’ll fix us some sandwiches.”

  Twenty minutes later we were headed out to the car. The passenger door was a little hard to open. It might’ve been rusted shut, it’d been so long. While I put on Chuckie’s seat belt in the backseat, Michael strapped himself in. When his eyes met mine, he smiled. Then he turned on his Gameboy.

  I smiled, too. I couldn’t believe we were really going. I buckled up and waited. And waited. My eyes strayed over to Mom.

  Her right hand, still holding the car key in the ignition, started to shake. She released the key and gripped the steering wheel. Her knuckles turned white.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t do this.” Her door opened and she slid out. As she walked briskly back to the house, hugging herself, Michael threw his Gameboy over the seat back and said, “I knew it.”

  I knew it, too. What had I be
en thinking?

  For some unknown reason I was looking forward to Wednesday’s counseling session. Maybe because I felt I was making some progress with Jazz. She seemed to open up whenever we talked about friends or family. If I could keep her on the subject, we might make a major breakthrough. Like getting past step one.

  The last question on my list was “Tell me about your parents.”

  “What parents?” Jazz uncapped her black lipstick and spread it on thick. Then she offered it to me.

  I shook my head. “I know you have parents. Quality time? Remember?”

  “Oh, them,” she said flatly.

  “What do they do?” I asked.

  “Consume.” She dropped the lipstick tube in her vest pocket.

  I exhaled exasperation. “You know what I mean. For a living.”

  “I have no idea.” She batted those mascara-caked eyelashes at me. “What do yours do?”

  My eyes dropped. “We’re not here to talk about my parents.”

  “If you don’t have to talk about yours, I don’t have to talk about mine.”

  “Fine,” I said. Dr. DiLeo’s words came back to me: If you share your feelings, she’ll share hers. I took a long breath. “Okay. My father is a roofer. At least, he was.”

  “That’s cool,” she said. “He serves the needs of the people. That has redeeming social value. What do you mean, he wa—” She stopped.

  This was dangerous ground. I had to change the focus. “What about your mother?” I said quickly. “Does she work?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Jazz replied. “She works at making my life a living hell.”

  It was useless. She was never going to open up to me. I closed my folder.

  Jazz said, “I hate my mother. In case you haven’t guessed.”

  My eyes met hers.

  “Don’t look so shocked,” she said. “The feeling’s mutual.” She climbed onto the table and assumed the lotus position. “Ohmmm,” she droned. “I suppose your mother’s perfect, like you.”