Ordinary Life by Elizabeth Berg Read Free Book Online Page B

backseat to stare at the constant blue sky through the rear window. Sometimes I hear my father ask my mother to rub his shoulders and neck, which embarrasses me. I hear them talk adult talk, tell stories with endings I don’t understand. Sometimes I pretend I am asleep and hope that they will talk about me, and often they do. They tell each other tales of various achievements of mine, or they express admiration for what they insist are my good looks, or they recount things I’ve said that they found amusing. I must be careful not to smile with them.
    I like the monotonous drone of the tires on the pavement, the containment in one small space of everything I need in my life. I will be safe forever—I can tell by the simple sight of the back of my parents’ heads. They are up: alert, careful, and making the right decisions. I can stare into the sky until I sleep for real, worryless.
    When we arrived at my house, my mother saw Joey first. He was coming down the sidewalk from school. “Well, that’s Joey, isn’t it?” she asked.
    “Sure is.” I called to him to help me unload groceries.
    Joey greeted his grandmother hesitantly. He was uncomfortable around my mother lately because he found her newly unreliable. At thirteen, his fear of embarrassment was acute, and he knew that at any given moment my mother might do something to make him quite uncomfortable—astounded, even. “She’s wacked out now,” he’d recently said, petulantly, and I had angrily sent him to his room. Later, I sat on his bed and apologized. “I feel bad for her,” I’d said. “It makes me really angry to hear you talk about her that way.”
    He sat at his desk and spun his globe around. “But all I meant is that she’s
changed
,” he said. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
    They are going out for the evening to someplace very special. My father wears a suit and looks proper but boring. My mother, though, wears her white formal that lives in a zippered plastic bag in her closet. It has what I believe are diamonds all across the bodice. I have spent much time standing in my mothers closet so that I may be close to such a wondrous thing. Once, I unzipped the bag to rub my hand against the diamonds.
    My mother comes down our long staircase with the dress floating around her as though it is alive, and with her hair in a French twist. She is wearing rouge tonight. I stare at her, my mouth dry with admiration. I want to tell her how wonderful she looks. “Here comes the bride,” I say. She touches my cheek, and I smell her perfume. “Thank you,” she says. Her voice is so gay, so full of life. At parties she is always in some large group of people, making them laugh, making them like her. When I am introduced to my mother’s friends, they tell me they hope I’ll be just like her. I stare up at them while I shake their big adult hands, muted by my fervent longing—can’t they see?—to do just that.
    Joey took three bags and my mother told him how strong he was. He shrugged. “They’re light.”
    Inside, while I unpacked the bags, my mother and Joey sat at the kitchen table together. “You look pretty good, Gram,” Joey said. “How’ve you been?”
    “Well, I’ve been just fine,” she told him. “Of course, I can’t do what I used to do.”
    He looked down at the table. “No.”
    “But I get along. I’m here for dinner,” she added.
    “Oh yeah? That’s nice.”
    My mother opened her purse and took out a tube of lipstick. She pursed her lips and applied it slowly It was wildly off the mark. Then, staring straight ahead, she began to sing and to keep time by slapping the table gently with the palm of her hand. I saw Joey shift his weight uncomfortably on his chair. “Well,” he said, “I’ve got a lot of homework.” He was begging me, in his way.
    “Go ahead up to your room,” I told him. “We’ll see you at dinner.”
    Joey is three, and having a tantrum. He doesn’t want to leave my mother’s house. “No!” he