True To Form (6 page)

“Katie?” a woman's voice says.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Hi! I'd like to verify that you're Katie Nash of 1617 Melrose Drive, St. Louis. Is that right?”

“Yes,” I say, in a mouse voice.

“Well, congratulations! Now, hold on for a second for Freddy, and remember to keep your radio down, okay?”

“Okay.”

“We'll have you on the air in just a minute.”

Oh my God, my insides are saying, but I can't give in. One minute, kid, the next minute, famous. I knew something big would happen this summer, I knew it. I sit straight up and look only at Cynthia's walls because if I look at her, forget it.

I hear Freddy doing a commercial in the background plus on the radio, but he is ahead of himself on the phone. I wonder if something is wrong. But then, “Hi, there, Katie!” Fab Freddy says. It's him, I know his voice, it is the real Fab Freddy on the telephone with me.

“Hello,” I say back and feel like smacking myself on the head for how I sound. Then, “Hi,” I say, like he did—all casual and friendly.

“Congratulations!” he says. “You're our winner!”

“Yes,” I say, “thank you.”

“Are you excited?”

“Yes, sir.” Then, “Wow!” I add.

“So! Where in the world are we sending you, Katie Nash?”

“Oh! . . . Um, to Texas?”

“Texas,
Welllllll, where at in Texas? San Antonio, I'll bet! Suck down some of those margaritas, down by that ol' green river!” Then he makes a bunch of high Mexican sounds, with lots of yips and rolling Rs. “Is that where you're headed, darlin'?”

“No, sir. I'm going to Ford Hood.”

“To what?”

“Fort Hood?”

“Fort
Hood!
And where is that, Katie?”

“It's in Killeen.”

“Ah ha! . . . And where is Killeen?” He says
Killeen
like he's saying
Xmqtriwzxm.

“Well, kind of in the heart. In the heart of Texas.”

“The stars are bright,”
Freddy sings.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well now, what in the world made you pick
Fort Hood
, Katie?”

Now the air hangs so heavy and I realize I could have said New York City. Or Paris, France! But I say, “I used to live there, and I want to see a friend.”

“Okay!” Freddy says. “Well, you're on your way, kiddo! Have a great time, and what radio station is the best in the world?”

Well, I have no idea.

“Katie?” Freddy says.

“Yes, sir?”

“What radio station is the best in the world?”

“KOOL!”
Cynthia is whispering.
“KOOL!”

Oh.

“KOOL,”
I say.

“You got it!” Freddy says. “And now, in your honor, let's listen to
Travelin' Man!”

And he is gone. The woman comes back on the phone to tell me she'll be sending me an airplane ticket as soon as she gets my parents' permission—they'll need to call her at the station. I say okay and hang up the phone.

And then I just sit there. I want to replay everything that just happened and never forget it.

“You won!” Cynthia says. “Wow! I didn't even know you entered!”

“I know,” I say. “I didn't tell you. I didn't tell anyone.”

“Uh-oh,” Cynthia says. And I know what she means. I see myself saying, “Hey, Dad, I won a free trip to Texas!” And him, a fork on the way to his mouth, stopped in midair, What did you say? His prelude to no.

S
ATURDAY NIGHT AND
I
AM
at the kitchen table with the Wexler boys, who are finally being quiet because I told them I can do card tricks. Really, I only know two, but so far it is enough to keep them happy. Each one wants to have it done to him only, and the others can't watch—they have to sit there with their eyes shut. Fine with me. A sip of RC cola, a dip into the chips, and do the trick again—that is my job for the rest of the evening. In half an hour, they have to go to bed. I don't care whether they sleep on not; my duties are done once they are sent to bed. I can watch TV and read Mrs. Wexler's magazines, even though they are not really for me; they are mainly about how to cook chicken in marinade or gardening. Sometimes there is a short story that's good, like about a reporter who thinks she will never fall in love, but does.

Mr. and Mrs. Wexler went out to a movie and he seemed all happy about it, and she seemed like they were going to work on a chain gang. I like Mr. Wexler so much. He's always in a good mood and he always gives me an extra dollar when he pays me. He has the bluest eyes. He goes bowling every week, and he has his own bag and a bowling shirt with
Buddy
written on it in turquoise blue embroidery. There's a picture on the shirt of two bowling pins getting knocked sky high, and the bowling ball is winking.

“How did you
do
that?” Mark asks, about my four kings trick, and I shrug and say, “It's magic.”

And now they have to shuffle around because once again it's David's turn, and he has announced that this time, he's going to figure out how I do it. One thing about magic, if you know how to do it, people like you, at least while you're doing the trick. But naturally David doesn't figure it out, and then it's Henry's turn, while David and Mark play smash the chip into a thousand pieces and then suck it up off the table like a vacuum cleaner. Mrs. Wexler buys cheap potato chips called by the store's name, which is always the giveaway. I wish she would get Lays or Ripple Chips plus some Dr Pepper. But she has not asked me for my opinion.

“I'll bet you don't know
one
thing, though,” Henry says, after David has once again not figured out the trick and now is pretend-banging his head on the table.

“What's that?” I say, eating another crummy chip. She could at least get barbecue.

Henry straightens in his seat. “Okay. What is the last number?”

“The last number of what?” I say.

“The last number in the world.”

I stare at him, and David puts his head in his hands like his dog died and says, “Oh, no, Henry, not that again.”

Henry pays no attention to his brother. He stares at me, and says, “Any number you say, I just add one, and it never
stops.”
He looks a little sad.

“Well, infinity,” I say.

“What?”

“Infinity.” I say again. “That's what you say when you mean it goes on and on, there is no end.”

He stares at me. His glasses are so thick.

“There's a symbol for it,” I say. “Give me a pencil and I'll show you.”

All three boys rush for one of the kitchen drawers. Everything is a contest. I forgot you have to say for one of them to do things or
they fight over it. Amazingly, Henry wins, and he hands me the pencil and I draw the symbol on a napkin.

They all crowd around like it's the baby with three heads.

“That's it?” Mark asks, and David says, “Dope, that's an eight!”

“It is not,” I say.

“It is so, just an eight lying down!”

“But that's it. That's the symbol for infinity.”

They all look at me, and I say, once again, “It is! You can look it up!”

“I wouldn't make that the symbol if I were them,” Henry says. “It is just an eight lying down.”

I look at my watch. “All right. You have ten minutes before bed. Each of you, make a new symbol for infinity.”

And I am baby-sitter of the year, because don't they hop to it. David makes an arrow with curlicues on it. Mark makes a circle in a circle in a circle, which I must admit is pretty good. And Henry makes an asterisk. “That is already a symbol,” I tell him, “and it does not stand for infinity.”

He looks up at me and I see a blue vein running up his neck that reminds me that he is a human being and it is a miracle how blood keeps us alive and how all our organs are always working without us paying any attention. “It is already a symbol,” I say again. I am sorry to disappoint him, but I think he should know.

“A symbol for what?” he asks.

“It's an asterisk,” I say, “and—” Henry starts laughing.

“What's so funny?” I ask, and he says, “Asterisk. It's a dirty word.”

He acts like this is pure hysterical, but I know it's because he's tired; when kids get tired they can start acting like nothing at all is the funniest thing in the world.

“It is not dirty,” I say, “it is an asterisk, and it signifies ‘something missing.' ”

“Not tonight,” Henry says. “Tonight it means the last number.”
“Okay,” I say, and look at my watch again. Hallelujah, I have made it. It is time for them to go to sleep and me to take off my shoes and rest my feet on the coffee table while I decide: magazine or television. If I lived in my own house, it would be luxury time like that all the time. Magazine, I might decide, and then I would go and get some
good
potato chips to eat while I read it.

I tuck them all in, David and Mark in the bunk beds in one room, which smells like socks, and Henry in his bed in the real little room that he has alone that smells like apples, I don't know why. Model airplanes hang from his ceiling, and he has an old brown bear with no eyes that he sleeps with but he won't pick it up in front of me. I like to tuck Henry in, because he isn't embarrassed; he likes when I pull the sheet up under his chin. Tonight he gets the bonus that I sit on the bed beside him like a real mother. “Good night,” I say, and he rubs his eyes and yawns and it makes for this little hurt of pleasure inside me like when you see baby kittens sitting there blinking in the sun, they just have no idea.

S
UNDAY NIGHT, WE ARE EATING
dinner, when I all of a sudden take in a deep breath and bring it up. “Dad? I entered this contest on the radio, and guess what, I won!”

“You won what?” he says, and then gestures with his chin toward the bread, which means Ginger should pass it to him.

“I won a trip.”

He stops buttering his bread. “To where?”

“To Texas. On an airplane. Well, I could have gone anywhere I wanted, but I picked Fort Hood. Now I can go back and visit Cherylanne!”

He looks at Ginger, whose blank and innocent face is like her shrugging her shoulders and saying, Don't ask me.

“You're not going on any trip,” he says.

I look at Ginger, who is looking into her plate.
Not my business.
He is not angry, but he could get that way if I push.

But I have to. Very quietly, I say, “Why not?”

He looks up and I sit still.

“You don't need to be taking a trip that far away by yourself.” Forkful of meat loaf, chew, chew. Shakes his head. “No.”

“Would this all have been free?” Ginger asks. It's like under the table, we are holding hands.

“What did I
say?”
he yells, and that's it, game over, no winner.

“May I be excused?” I say, and I don't wait for an answer before
I go to my room and close the door. I sit at the edge of my bed and start crying. I should have known that he would never go for this. Cynthia knew, and she's not even his daughter. I hold a pillow to my middle, rock back and forth. What if this is the only time I ever win anything, and now I can't even go. I think of how I would have been high in the sky looking out the little round window. How I would have come to Cherylanne's house like a celebrity. How we would have gone to her room like old times and talked and gone to the swimming pool again. And then I stop thinking about it, because this dream has been ground out like one of his cigarettes in his beanbag ashtray. I don't think it's right for a parent to have so much control over another person's whole life, even if they are a kid. Some things you could at least talk about. Other families do that. On
Father Knows Best
, he would let Princess go. Probably not Kitten, but I am much older than she is. Now I will have to call Fab Freddy and say I can't go:
Hello, this is Katie Nash, and I am still a baby who can't do anything. Just give the prize to someone else, thank you.

I start to look at a
Seventeen
that I've already read three hundred times when I hear him calling me. I crack open my door, yell, “Yes, sir?”

“Dishes,” he says.

You would think when you have had your dream smashed you at least could forget about dishes. But no. I start down the hall and I hear Ginger say, “Never mind, Katie, I'll do them.”

I hear the deep voice of my father start to say something, and then the fast, light words of Ginger. She will take care of him; I am free. I go back to my bedroom and close my door again and get the faint hope that maybe she can talk him into letting me go. I think of Diane, wonder what she's doing right this minute out there in California. It is five o'clock. Maybe she is on the bus, on her way home from the office where she is a typist, and men are looking at her; they always look at her, because she's so beautiful. If they are, I
know what she might do. Sometimes when some guy was staring at her, she would say, “Take a picture, it lasts longer.” Another thing she used to say is, “Take a good look while you've got a chance; prices go up tomorrow.” Men would laugh then, but it was an unsure laugh, and in their eyes would be some hatred.

It is such a strange and dark secret that Diane is hardly ever in touch with us. We have only been to see her once, my father and I, and we all slept in the living room because she has what they call a studio apartment. She had so few dishes in the cupboard, two or three plates, two glasses, only one cup. A set of silverware for four, so thin and light it bent in your hand if you pressed down too hard. Weeds grew out in the front yard of the corner apartment building where she lives, but, it being California, they were pretty weeds. We didn't do much there—took a walk around the city of Sacramento, went out to a little restaurant where nobody talked much, we just ate some Mexican food, cheese enchiladas. When we left, my father tried to give Diane some money, but she wouldn't take it. “I don't need it, I'm fine,” she kept saying, but then at the end, she did take it. My father tried to hug her good-bye, which he learned from Ginger, but Diane only stiffened like he was hurting her. I guess he was.