Please Ignore Vera Dietz(13)
Author: A.S. King

“We putting it in the living room again this year?”

He looks from the kitchen into the dark and unused living room. Times like these, I think we both realize that the house is too big for just the two of us. Times like these, I can see how much Dad loved Mom and how much we both miss her. It’s as if we left the living room there, dark and empty, like a parent leaves a child’s room after they die.

“I was thinking we could change tradition and stick it in the den. What do you think?”

“Cool.”

“Good.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” I say. “When I’m done, we’ll put on some of that corny Christmas music you like.”

In the shower, I note that I’m reshaping. Again. I thought this was supposed to be over by now. It’s not like I can ask Dad about it. I bet if I did, he’d suggest meditation or come out with some Zen koan to counteract it. (“Breasts grow. Breasts shrink. The farmer still plants corn in rows.”) Just getting him to buy the right brand of tampons is difficult enough. I don’t have any girlfriends to talk to, so I don’t know how other people deal with things like this, but I think it’s about time I told Dad that I’ll buy my own. I make enough money. A few bucks a month won’t eat too far into my college savings. Part of me feels bad for cutting him out, though. I still remember the day I got my period, and how he looked at me with proud eyes, hugged me, and then drove me to the drugstore down in the Pagoda Mall.

Thinking of this reminds me of Charlie and the day I had to change my tampon while we were hiking Big Blue—the six-mile-long extension of the blue trail. It was only two years ago. I was sixteen.

We were halfway up Big Blue when I asked him to hold on for a second and ducked behind a tree.

“It really must suck,” he said.

“What?”

“You know—bleeding.”

Geez. What a thing to say. “You get used to it. Not like I can make it go away, right?”

“I guess.”

I took the used one, flung it deep into the brush, and ripped the wrapper off the new one.

“Does it hurt? You know. Putting it in?”

“No,” I answered, now feeling awkward about the whole thing. He must have felt funny, too, because he got quiet. Then he sighed.

“My dad won’t let my mom use them,” he confessed—which was probably the weirdest confession I ever heard.

“That’s weird.”

“He says it’s like her ha**ng s*x with another person.”

“That’s gross. He’s f**ked-up, Charlie,” I said, standing up, trying to un-hear what he just said while I pulled my jeans up.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I mean, you don’t think I just got some kick out of that, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“Well, do you think wiping your ass with toilet paper is like having sex?”

“Ew. No.”

“Well, it’s the same thing. Your poor mom. Geez. Why does he think he has any right to tell her how to deal with her period?”

“That’s just how he is,” he said, and I knew we both knew that already, so I buttoned up and came out from behind the tree and continued up the trail, realizing that Charlie’s dad was ten times worse than I already thought he was.

“Where’d we put the spike last year?” Dad asks from the bottom of the stairs when he hears me open the bathroom door. The spike is the funky 1960s green thing we put on top of the tree instead of an angel or a star. My mother hated the spike, so Dad makes a huge deal out of it every time we decorate.

“With the lights, I think.”

“I can’t find it.”

“I’ll be down in a minute,” I say, inspecting my Jenny Flick penny welt in the bathroom mirror. It’s less swollen today, but the bruise is red-blue and dark.

I dry my hair and put on a pair of sweats. Saturdays are better now than they ever were before. Working full-time has given me an appreciation for days off—sweatpants and slippers and skipping breakfast.

When I get downstairs, Dad is untangling the lights and making three straight lines from the socket across the den floor. He’s knocked over his stack of self-help books, and they lie like shallow steps between the couch and the radiator. I watch him secretly from the kitchen, where he’s left a blueberry muffin for me on a small plate. I see what my mother saw in him. He’s handsome, smart, and fit, which is a miracle in this part of the world, where everyone is spilling over their edges. His only flaw seems to be linked to being cheap, which really isn’t that bad of a thing. So what if he buys the discounted cans of dented tomatoes at the grocery store? So what if he wears socks until they’ve got holes in them? He’s raising me while my mother is off in some flashy hooker town with some retired bigwig doctor who likes to play poker. He’s reading self-help books and learning new things about himself and the world. Only last week he learned how to make vegetarian lasagna and tried a new dish at the Chinese place. Back in October, I got him to try pineapple on his pizza, and got him hooked on Walt Whitman. What’s not to love about that? As far as I’m concerned, Mom must be an idiot. If it were me, I’d marry him in a heartbeat. But I don’t mean that in a gross way.

“You know, I think you’re cool, Vera,” he says out of the blue.

“Why?” I ask, blueberry muffin crumbs shooting out of my mouth.

“I can tell you’re really growing up since you listened to me and got a job.”

Forget everything I just said. Clearly, the man is an idiot.

CHRISTMAS BREAK

Christmas was all about clothes, mostly. A card with $100 in it. Three vintage Funkadelic albums—with the original record sleeves. Dad says I’m old enough for the lyrics, as if I hadn’t already looked them up on the Internet. Dad tells me a few more times, between my holiday shifts at Pagoda and his new meditation routine, that he thinks I’m cool. He says, “You know, most kids these days are getting drunk and screwing boys. I’m so glad I raised you right,” which makes me feel partly like never drinking again so I can continue to make him happy, and partly paranoid that he looked under my driver’s seat and found my stash.

PART TWO

NEW YEAR’S EVE

Marie brought in two drivers from day shift, every part-timer we’ve got who would come in, and three extra pizza makers—including ex-cheerleader-turned-food-service-worker Jill, who can’t stop making suggestive remarks about me and James.