Love Invents Us - Amy Bloom [18]
I was getting used to Benjie being naked. I didn’t even care when he left the bathroom door open while he brushed his teeth and peed.
I pulled the covers over him.
“Sit with me,” he said. “I’m scared of the dark.”
“Come on,” I said. I wanted to watch TV.
“I am. You have to sit with me. Max does when she’s not here.”
“Usually it’s your father?” I liked the idea of Mr. Stone’s being a great father.
“No. Her. Because she’s here. You know, she sleeps in here.” He pointed to the twin bed on the other side of the room.
“Your mother sleeps in here?”
“Yeah. Is that weird?”
“No. Maybe she sleeps in here because you’re scared of the dark. To keep you company.”
“Maybe,” he said, and he yawned.
“You can fall asleep now, you’re all right. Good night, Benjie.”
“Dobrounots, milacku.”
“Dobrounots, you doughnut.”
Scandalize My Name
“Let’s have a look-see at that right hand,” Mrs. Hill said, eyes on the ceiling.
“Vivian said absolutely no more pork rinds.”
I was fifteen, and in our two years we had one ambulance ride, two angina attacks, and more than a few sponge baths between us. After Pride and Prejudice, we alternated between the tabloids and the poetry of Mr. Paul Dunbar.
“Do you see Vivian on the premises?”
“Come on, Mrs. Hill, it’s not good for you.” There was no other adult I could talk to like that. My mother never did anything that wasn’t good for her, my father’s arteries were of no interest to me, and Mr. Stone, who knew something about everything, made it clear that we could talk about me but not about him.
“Who dropped you off? I heard a car door.” Mrs. Hill liked to think that her hearing was extra sharp to make up for her eyesight.
“Mr. Stone.” Very proud.
“Who’s that?”
“He’s my English teacher this year.”
“Why’s he dropping you off here?”
Mrs. Hill was always faintly accusatory. I shrugged, which I knew she couldn’t see but would feel, and started peeling carrots.
“Elizabeth, am I talking to myself? Are you in some kind of trouble at school?”
“No, I’m not. I imagine he dropped me off here because I was going here.” I spoke very slowly and clearly, to show her how stupid she was being.
“How old a man is this Mr. Who?”
“Mr. Stone. How should I know? Old. Do you want these carrots pureed or in circles, to go with peas or something?”
“He drives you home a lot?”
I sliced the carrots into inedible oversized chunks and went into her bedroom to gather up the laundry. She would sit and wait for me to come back. Her legs hurt too much for her to follow me around pestering me.
“Has your mother met him?”
Not on a bet.
“Your legs are getting long.”
I shrugged again.
“You stopped wearing your glasses. How come?”
“Contacts.” I loved my contacts. I loved the sharp world and I loved my eyes, edged in black eyeliner. I had scratched my corneas twice because I couldn’t bear to take the lenses out, except to sleep.
Mr. Stone dropped me off on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and after that, I tried to shut the car door softly, grabbing it with both hands to keep it from slamming, and as soon as I walked through the door Mrs. Hill would say, “Fool,” as though she were speaking to someone else.
Charlotte Macklin was the school social worker, and if she had heard Mrs. Hill, she would have felt better about me, She thought no one gave a damn that I spent all my study halls in Mr. Stone’s office and was frequently seen getting into his car after school. Mrs. Macklin knew, even if no one else did, that although it did not violate any school rule, it undermined morale for students and teachers to see a ninth-grade girl sitting behind the desk of the English department chairman, sipping coffee out of his thermos, showing her boot bottoms to the passing world. Mr. Stone had already heard from her, but I didn’t know that then. Mrs. Macklin looked at me knowingly as I skated past, her pale blue eyes narrow with concern, her handkerchief twisting into damp white loops. She sent me three notes, inviting me to a self-esteem group, to a girls-with-divorcing-parents group, and