What We Keep - Elizabeth Berg [50]
“I’ll be Ave Maria,” I said. “Ave Maria Cody.”
“Good,” Wayne said. “That’s nice.”
I had once wanted to name a doll Ave Maria, for the undulant beauty of the syllables. Sharla said I could not, that it didn’t make sense. I wasn’t sure what sense “Sharla” or “Ginny” made, but I changed the doll’s name to Nancy; then promptly hated it and finally beheaded it, stuffed it in the garbage amid potato peelings and broccoli stalks. It felt good to resurrect an idea I once thought was valuable, to have it so easily accepted by someone.
Wayne stood, then pulled me up beside him, and put his arms around me. “Before all the stars in the heavens, I take you, Ave Maria, for my wife.”
I was silent for a long time. Then I said, “Before all the trees in the forest, I take you, Buffalo Bill, for my husband.” We kissed. Newly.
“Want to sleep out here with me all night?” he asked.
I didn’t know. But now that we were married, I no longer had a choice, did I? I went into the tepee and lay down. Wayne lay next to me, one arm around me. I felt uncomfortable, but I was afraid to move. He was my husband now. This was how we slept. I could tell when Wayne fell asleep: his breathing grew deep and even; and though he remained next to me, I could feel him move away. I felt lonely and my hip hurt from lying on my side so long against the hard ground. I thought of Sharla, loose-limbed and relaxed, her mouth open slightly, dreaming deeply in the bedroom we had shared since I was born. I could feel the gauzy pull of sleep, but I could not relax into it. I was worried about getting caught. I was worried about where my mother was. I wanted a drink of water. I wanted to know that if I had to go to the bathroom, I could. But I stayed in the teepee until the light started to break, waking Wayne up; then we snuck back into our houses.
Sharla’s arm hung over the bed, her bracelet showing. I covered it with her sheet, then lay down on my own bed, heavy with secrets.
I awakened with a thin line of pain across my forehead and at the top of my eyes. Sharla was lying on her made bed, reading American Girl. “Well, finally!” she said, when she saw me sit up.
“What time is it?” My voice was thick, lazy.
“It’s not even morning anymore. I already had lunch.”
I scratched my knee, yawned. “What did you have?”
“Pinwheel cookies and some Fritos.”
I stopped scratching. “Where’s Mom?”
“At the grocery store. She has the Tupperware party tonight. Even though it’s her birthday.”
“Oh yeah.”
“We need to make her a card. And this morning Dad gave us money to buy something—we have to do that this afternoon, Ginny.”
“Okay.” I hated buying birthday presents with Sharla; I wanted to give my own ideas, free and clear. But this was the way we always did it—our father would give us ten dollars, and we had to agree on something, usually from Monroe’s. Last year, in addition to the usual pastel stationery and two embroidered hankies, we had gotten her a limp silk-flower corsage. I’d thought it useless, but in fact my mother often wore it. This year I thought we should get her a magazine subscription of her own to Good Housekeeping. Mrs. O’Donnell used to give her her old copies; now my mother’s supply had been cut off. But I needed to find a way to have Sharla think it was her idea.
“Only two weeks till your birthday,” Sharla said.
“I know.”
“I got you your present already.”
“You did? When?”
“The other day. You didn’t know.”
I stayed silent, thinking. I had always made it my business to know when people bought my presents.
“You don’t pay as much attention as you used to,” Sharla said, as though she’d heard my thoughts.
“Yes, I do.” My head throbbed. I lay back down.
“I mean to me, you don’t pay as much attention to me.”
“Sharla?”
“What.”
“Am I hot?”
“How should I know?”
“No, I mean … I feel like I have a fever.”
She came to sit beside me, put her hand to my forehead. “You’re