Joy School by Elizabeth Berg Page B

she decides to be nice to. What’s exciting is that it seems I actually have a chance of winning. I have thought about why. And what I have decided is that the chink that is in Taylor has to do with how much she can feel a thing. She is often moved by what she reads, I know that, I can tell. And she can probably tell that I am, too. When she heard what I said about that poem “Birches” some bored and beautiful part of her said, Well, wait. Maybe here. Maybe there is something here. And maybe there is. I have dressed the best I can, in my navy A-line and a matching sweater. My flip is good. I’m getting used to rollers. I do it for Jimmy but it serves other purposes too. I keep thinking of him as Jimmy even though last time he reminded me again, in a very gentle way, that it is Jim. I think he is wanting some dignity and I am wanting him to be younger. But I will try to remember to call him what he wants until he understands how much love I am putting into “Jimmy.”
    “Katie?” I hear Ginger say.
    “Yeah?”
    “Is that all right with you?”
    “Is what all right?”
    She smiles. “I thought you looked a little far away. What are you thinking about?” The sun catches the edge of the spatula she is holding. There is no morecheerful sight than the sun at breakfast time, touching down on all your ordinary things. It is like Walt Disney himself has sprinkled his dust in your kitchen.
    “I don’t know, nothing.”
    She turns back to the pan, flips another piece of French toast. “Well, what I asked you was, is it all right with you if Wayne comes to dinner with us.”
    “I don’t know. I guess so.” I’m not sure. My father’s not here to ask. I don’t know if you just go ahead and have a party when he’s gone.
    “Would it make you uncomfortable?”
    “Me? No.”
    “All right, then. Plan on dinner at six. Your friend can come too, if you’d like.”
    “That’s okay,” I say. One thing I know is that I’ll be worn out by four-thirty or five. I’ll need a break. When it’s new and important, you have to rest in between times. And anyway, even when I like a person there is a weariness that comes. I can be with someone and everything is fine and then all of a sudden it can wash over me like a sickness, that I need the quiet of my own self. I need to unload my head and look at what I’ve got in there so far. See it. Think what it means. I always need to come back to being alone for awhile. I guess I sort of got used to it when I was younger and now it is mixed in my character like eggs in a cake. Sometimes I wonder, does this mean I’ll have to be a nun or something?
    After school, Cynthia comes up to me. “Can you come over?” Her eyes are bright.
    “Not today,” I say. “I’m going to Woolworth’s with Taylor Sinn.”
    “You are?”
    “Yes.” Now that awful gap part, where she is waiting for me to say, You come too.
    I look at my watch. “In fact, I’m late. So I’ll talk to you later.”
    “Okay.” Her voice is from when she was a little girl. I walk away and then do the wrong thing, which is turn back and see her standing there, her books all stacked up neat, her hair sticking out wrong on one side, which it always does.
    “I’ll call you tonight.”
    She smiles. “Okay!” Well, there. I feel like Clara Barton, nurse.
    “Get the patty melt,” Taylor says, lighting a cigarette. “That’s what I’m getting.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Don’t you like them? They’re my favorite.”
    “Yeah, but I don’t have that much money. I thought we would just get Cokes.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” Taylor says, and then, to the tired waitress, “Two patty melts, extra fries, two Cokes, two apple pies à la mode.”
    Well, this is the snack
el grande
.
    “À la mode,” the waitress says slowly, writing in her pad. Her script is gigantic. I think she is not too bright. But she has the prettiest lips I ever saw. And under her hairnet, beautiful red hair. It’s funny how