How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [60]
Helena kicked off her sneakers. “I love Japan so far. And I did most of my homework on the plane, so I don’t have a thing to worry about.”
I frowned. “There must not have been much work.”
“No joke. Can I be homeschooled? I mean, that was nearly two weeks’ worth of work. What am I spending all that time at school for?” Helena took a piece of gum out of her Hello Kitty denim backpack, handing me a piece.
“Sure. If you can find someone to homeschool you.” I yawned despite myself, flipping through the airline magazine.
“I can homeschool myself.” She smiled. High cheekbones, like Mom’s, irises outlined with darker brown so they glowed in the sun, a perfect slim nose like her father’s. When she and Craig were together, you knew immediately they were related.
CRAIG AND I HAD MET in English class, his eyes catching mine as we filed in on the first day of junior year. His eyes were so blue, his irises ringed with black, that they seemed to glow.
Freshman and sophomore years, I was quiet. Unnoticed unless someone needed help with their English paper or calculus problem. The only bad marks I got were for not raising my hand. At last, in junior year, I’d gotten a salon perm and contacts. I began to smile at people. My skirts got short and my baby fat disappeared. Boys finally saw me.
Craig slid into the desk next to mine and gave me his trademark half-grin, the one that got him elected Cutest Sophomore in the yearbook. “Hey,” he said.
I blushed. “Hey.”
Craig leaned forward, sandy blond hair falling over his forehead. “I’m a real idiot in English. I hear you’re smart. Think you can help me?”
I looked straight ahead, afraid I was going to be shy again, but somehow I wasn’t. “Sure, but the class just started. Don’t you want to see how hard it is first?”
He laughed. “Believe me, I know how hard it is.” I blushed.
My previous experience with love had been with the New Kids on the Block posters in my locker. This guy, who played football and baseball and oozed testosterone, was all too real. I was floored.
Craig waited for me at the door, walked me to my locker, talked to me more in his bantering guyspeak. He followed me like a lovesick duckling, not caring about his popular status. People called to him, waved from every sideline. I felt like a star. Just like that, I was in his circle. Sneaking out at night to meet his friends at Sunset Cliffs beach to smoke pot and drink beer, Craig pushing his motorcycle for blocks so my parents wouldn’t hear. He kissed me for the first time at that beach, wrapped me up in a blanket he had brought, in between sandstone cliffs where his friends couldn’t see. I did worse in school and he did better. And then we started at State, still bound at the hip.
Marriage happened even though Craig’s parents advised degrees first. “Living together first wouldn’t be the worst idea ever,” his mother told us. “Share expenses, see if you can get along.”
I blanched. My parents weren’t nearly so liberal.
“You live with him, no married, you kill Daddy!” Mom shouted at me when I brought it up. “We stop pay college if do that!”
I went back to Craig with the news. “If we’re going to get married, we might as well get married now.”
“Why not?” Craig agreed. Craig used to agree to everything I said.
My father looked sad when I told him. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t marry so young,” he said. I waited for guidance, but that was all.
Mom was furious. “I send college find man, not marry boy drag through high school!”
“But you told me we had to get married!”
“No. Say you no can live with. Not same.” She squinted at me. “Why, you have get married?”
“I am not pregnant. You told me that living with him was wrong, but I want to be with him. I give up. There’s no pleasing you.”
The disintegration of my marriage came about not with flying fists, alcoholism, felonies, or anything