Everything Is Fine. (5 page)

“Sure,” I say, and she tells me which to pull and which not to pull.

As we’re working she is breathing very loud, and then she starts humming this song that I know but I couldn’t remember what
it was from.

“What’s that from?” I ask, and my knees are all wet and muddy now, but I like how it feels.

“What, hon?” she says.

“That song.”

“Oh, that’s from TV. Fred Meyer commercial.”

“Oh yeah,” I say. Then I start humming it too.

When we’ve been pulling the weeds for so long and the back of my neck feels hot so I think it might be sunburned, which is
not good, Norma says, “Wait here,” and she goes in the house.

I wait and I just sit there.

I look at Colby, who is sitting on the front of the boat now. He acts like he’s not looking at me but I know he is, and I
say, “Colby.”

He adjusts his glasses and looks down the road — not at me.

“Colby,” I say, louder.

He starts looking at something on his arm.

That’s when Norma brings out three big lemonades on a fancy metal tray plus a bag of Chips Ahoy.

Now Colby is looking.

Norma says, “Come sit over here.”

And I go sit with her at her white table that’s on her front porch and she gives me some wipes for my hands and then we eat.

Colby jumps off the Dean Machine and starts digging something in his front yard.

We watch.

“Cute boy,” Norma says.

I say, “Uh-huh.”

Then I say, “Are you kissing Mr. Grobin?”

“No,” she says.

I say “Oh.”

Then she says, “You kissing that boy?”

“No,” I say.

“Oh,” she says.

Then I say, “Did you get that other lemonade for him?”

“No,” she says.

“Good,” I say.

We watch him some more. He’s digging and digging and not looking over here.

Then Norma says, “Heard from your dad?”

And that’s when I remember the phone call, and I also remember that I was going to have Norma help even before the phone call,
so I say, “No. I haven’t heard from him.”

She nods.

“Have you heard from your dad?” I ask her just to be fair.

Norma pops a cookie in her mouth and looks at me. “Yes. But he’s dead.”

I think about that for awhile and I like that she said it.

Then I say, “Can you help me and my mom?”

“Probably,” she says.

And then we don’t talk for four minutes.

Norma would never call the government on us.

N
ORMA IN A TANK TOP
: oils on canvas

We used to have a black Range Rover.

That was back when there were flowers in the yard and Dad put in a new sprinkler system.

One time last fall, Mom got out of bed in the middle of the night.

I didn’t hear her.

Dad didn’t hear her.

No one heard her.

Until she did it.

She took Dad’s softball bat — the aluminum one he uses for batting practice — she took it out of the shed from the backyard.

Then she went to the carport, and me and Dad, we still didn’t know because we were asleep.

But then, we woke up.

We woke up because it was so loud — smashing and crashing and breaking and screaming, and it filled the whole neighborhood
because we only have a carport.

Dad was always going to build a garage but he hadn’t done it yet so lights were on all over the neighborhood, and the Deans
and Norma and Mr. Grobin and the new family and even Mrs. Cronk, who is dead now because she was old, everyone came out in
their pajamas.

We ran outside and Dad tried to stop her.

I just stood there.

And she wouldn’t stop.

“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.” She was saying it over and over again and the bat made dents and smashed
the windshield and the lights and the grill and all over. Dad tried to get to her, but she said, “You get away from me. You
get the hell away from me.”

And she held the bat like she was going to hit him.

I put my hands over my ears and just stood there.

Mrs. Dean said, “Roxie, it’s okay.” And she was standing behind Dad and her hair was in curlers. “Roxie, put the bat down.”
Mrs. Dean always got involved.

Dad was still trying to get close but my mom wouldn’t let him.

“I hate you.” She said it this time to Dad, loud. “I hate you” — that was to Mrs. Dean. “I hate you,” she said to the air,
even louder. And then — Dad says she didn’t mean it but I know and she knows she did — she looked at me and she said, “And
I hate you.” When she said it, she said it soft and she was crying.

I took a breath and looked at her. My mom and her eyes.

And then she was doing it again, hitting and hitting and hitting the car.

Dad got her then. He put his arms around her and Mr. Dean took the bat. Mom was sobbing and a police car pulled up and the
rest I don’t know.

I don’t know because I went inside and I got in the closet.

A tow truck took the car the next day.

I said, “Where are they taking it?”

He said, “To auction. We’re not keeping that car anymore.”

I said, “Oh.”

Mrs. Dean comes out of her house on Monday in yoga pants and a tight T-shirt.

“Go get dressed, Mazzy,” she says.

I am sitting in the sprinklers. “For what?”

“I told you we were going to have a little girl time.”

Her hair is pulled in a tight ponytail and I like the headband she has on.

“I can’t go,” I say.

“Why not?”

“I have to work around the house.”

She just stands there and I just sit there.

“Mazzy, go get dressed.”

It is weird to have Mrs. Dean talk to me like that.

“I am dressed.”

She starts tapping her toe like she does sometimes with Colby.

I look down at the black bikini top without the oranges and my cutoffs.

“Why can’t I wear these?”

“Because we’re going to a yoga class and then we’re going to run some errands. You can’t wear cutoffs to yoga, plus you’re
soaking wet.”

“Why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Why can’t I wear cutoffs to yoga?”

She shifts her weight and she looks different — not so much makeup.

“Because they don’t stretch. You have to stretch in yoga.”

“Oh,” I say.

“Go,” she says.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because my mom said I couldn’t.”

Mrs. Dean looks at the house.

“Did she really say that?”

I shrug.

“Go get changed, Mazzy. Your mom would want you to go. She just doesn’t know it.”

I start to get up but then I say, “Is Colby coming?”

“No. He has to fix the bathroom with his dad. Now get going. We have to pick up Dixie and we’re going to be late.”

Dixie.

Dixie is coming and not just Mrs. Dean.

I do a karate chop at Mrs. Dean and run inside.

I keep all my clothes in Mom’s room so that she can see what I wear.

She likes to see and tell me if I look okay.

Sometimes I wear her clothes and she almost says, “Oh, that looks good, baby.” Or “Umm, that’s a bit too tight.”

We used to go shopping before.

Mom was a good shopper because she was so classy.

And we would not just go to the Gap or Old Navy like other girls in my class.

We went to boutiques and outdoor markets and places other people would never know.

Me and Mom and Olivia.

She even bought Dad clothes like the pink shirt he wore to the funeral with his olive silk tie.

We found the shirt at a shop called Soel, and Mom was laughing. “Do you think Daddy would like this?”

I was holding Olivia and Mom was going through a stack of clothes.

“Can you imagine him in a pink shirt?”

I couldn’t but I knew he would wear it. He wore anything Mom bought and he won best dressed at the station three years in
a row.

“What do you think, Maz?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

She pulled her hair back and picked through other shirts and I stood mostly against the wall so people could get past me.

I liked to watch Mom and her neck and how she held her body.

Olivia wouldn’t fuss when we were at stores, either. She knew.

The two of us were watching the most beautiful person in the world.

“What about this one?” She held up a striped oxford.

“I like it.”

“No, too boring,” she said, and picked up the pink again.

I should have thought it was too boring. Way too boring.

Olivia fell asleep against my chest, so I just stood there and watched her.

My mom with her neck and her eyes and her smile.

I want to be like her someday.

Just like her.

I still want to even if I have to be in bed.

Now I dress in her room.

I have all my clothes in there, plus I have hers.

I used to try to keep it organized in stacks and rows and boxes, but there were too many clothes and Dad still has most of
his stuff there.

So there are just piles and piles.

Her lotions on the vanity.

Her purses hung on the doorknob.

Her shoes strewn across the floor.

I have everything all in there — in case she wants to help me.

Colby tells me he’s only attracted to vampires.

“You are?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because they want to suck blood.”

“So.”

“So that’s sexy.”

“Like your girlfriend Sexy?”

And Colby looks mad because he knows I know his girlfriend is really his cousin Ruthanne who used to babysit me.

When I am finally ready, Mrs. Dean is sitting in her car in the driveway.

I’m wearing my mom’s black leggings and one of my dad’s T-shirts plus the oranges.

“Mazzy, you can’t wear those.”

“What?”

“Well, you can’t wear that shirt and you can’t wear whatever is underneath the shirt.”

I look at her.

She looks at me.

She’s not my mom.

“Don’t you have a tank top or a T-shirt that fits?”

“No.”

She sighs and says, “Okay, get in.”

I get in her car, which is a Honda Civic with a spoiler.

When the Deans first brought the car home, they invited us to come look at it.

Mom thought that was so funny.

“I can’t believe she bought that. I really can’t.”

Dad said it’s a very practical car and Mom said she’d rather die than drive a car like that.

“Die, Roxie?”

We were sitting at dinner and me and Dad were almost done eating, but Mom had barely touched her salmon.

Olivia was in the high chair throwing applesauce.

“Yes, die.” She laughed. “Mazzy, if I ever buy a Honda Civic, kill me.”

I think about that as we drive down Ninth.

Mrs. Dean has no style.

My mom does.

I do not need a tighter T-shirt.

Mom would have told me if I did.

Mrs. Dean is talking about the weather and how fun summer is and what she used to do when she was a girl my age.

I am watching the houses go by and a boy is peeing in the gutter.

I look at Mrs. Dean — she’s talking about junior high and her favorite class.

More houses and a girl jogging and three old ladies standing in a circle.

One of the ladies looks like she’s crying.

I try to watch but it’s so fast.

I take off my seatbelt and turn all the way around to watch.

“Mazzy? What are you doing?” Mrs. Dean says. “Sit down.”

I turn back around and sit.

She looks over at me. “You’re going to be okay. You’re just going to have to grow up a little.”

Blah blah.

Colby started acting weird at the end of the school year.

Like in PE when we had to do square dancing and the boys got to pick partners.

He didn’t pick me even though I know he wanted to.

I got picked third from last and it was too bad for the boys who didn’t pick me because I am very coordinated. People just
don’t know that.

Now Colby just wears his football pads.

And now he thinks everything is stupid.

Like snakes.

I wish we didn’t have to go back to school.

I wish it could stay summer forever.

Summer with my mom not in bed.

First you get a mat.

Then you sit on the mat.

Then a lady comes out and says, “Let’s start in Child’s Pose.”

Then all the people around who are mostly women but there are three men and one of the men is already sweating and one of
the men has a bald head and wears a headband and the other one I can’t see because he’s right behind me, all of these people
get on their knees and then put their heads on the floor.

Mrs. Dean is lying on the floor too.

I’m still sitting.

“Mazzy,” she whispers, “just follow me.” And then she puts her head on the mat between her knees.

But I don’t do it. I just sit.

The lady in front says, “Set your practice. Take time to see yourself. What do you want to achieve today?”