11.
A ROOMFUL OF WIND-UP TOYS
Friday, August 16, 1935
The next day when I come in from the parade grounds, my mom pounces on me. “Hi, sweetheart,” she says. I take a step back.
She waits for me to look inside the icebox, check the breadbox, open the cake plate, and mop up the stray crumbs.
“Last piece is yours,” she offers.
I’m wolfing it down on the way to my room when she starts in. “You know I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. Natalie would really appreciate a visit. She’s been asking about you.”
“She’s coming home next month, right?”
“Look.” She puts her hands up, her nostrils flare. “I know you have a lot going on, what with your baseball and your friends here on the island.”
“And she doesn’t have anything,” I mumble.
“I didn’t say that, Moose.”
“You don’t have to,” I tell her.
My dad comes out of his room. He takes one look at us and seems to recognize trouble is brewing. “Did I miss something here?”
My mom and I look at him.
“When are you going to visit your sister?” he asks, guessing what we are discussing and automatically taking my mom’s side. He pours himself a glass of lemonade. “She misses you, Moose.”
“It hasn’t been that long.” I already feel cornered.
“No, it hasn’t,” my father agrees. “But we would like you to visit.”
How do I tell my parents I don’t like to go to Nat’s schools? The teachers talk to guys my age like they’re toddlers. And the kids never stop moving and swaying like a room full of wind-up toys each with its own weird rotation.
It could be me in there. Locked up that way.
I got lucky. Natalie didn’t.
But it’s more than that. I risked everything for the Esther P. Marinoff School. It has to be perfect. I can’t stand it if it’s not.
If only I could tell them what I’ve done for Natalie. If only they knew. Then they’d be sorry for making me feel like a heel just because I don’t want to visit this one stupid time.
Since Nat’s been gone, my mom goes up to the Officers’ Club and plays the piano every night. She spends the time she isn’t teaching playing music or cards with Mrs. Mattaman and Bea Trixle and Mrs. Caconi. My mom never even knew how to play bridge, and now she talks my father’s ear off about it. And me? I come and go as I please. I never have to think about anyone but myself.
“I’ll go, Mom, okay? You know I will.”
“I appreciate that. Your dad and I both do. More than you know. And Natalie . . . ”
“Cut it out, Mom,” I say more firmly than I planned. “I said I’d go, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispers. “Okay.”