Calf Read online

  “Where’d you get this?” Tammy asked.

  Steffi and Kirin skipped down the hall, past Hugh’s room where he was quietly playing with Legos, and Tammy and Gretchen followed them into her mother’s and Nick’s bedroom.

  Nick had an old dresser he had owned before he lived with them. It was short and fat and painted dark blue, but it had been painted other colors before that and on the edges you could see little scrapes of green and orange. Steffi unlatched the top part from where it sat up on a diagonal and lowered it down so it looked like an old-fashioned desk. On top was a bowl of change, some shoe polish, and a jar of Vaseline. In the hutch part there were narrow shelves on either side and in the center was a tiny door, like the door to a mouse’s house. Steffi opened the mouse door and there were even tinier shelves inside and one skinny drawer on the bottom. Steffi pulled the skinny drawer open and in it were Nick’s silver dog tags on a chain with his name, SCHRANKER, NICHOLAS P., stamped on them.

  “In there,” Steffi said.

  Tammy put the pictures in the drawer. Steffi turned them over.

  “They were like that,” she said.

  Then Steffi showed Tammy and Gretchen something else. She pulled out a white handkerchief that was stuffed in one of the little shelves and reached her pink stubby hand way in the back. She dragged something forward along the wood and when she pulled out her hand she was holding Nick’s gun gently between her fingers. Nick had shown it to Tammy and Steffi when he first moved in. He said under no circumstances were they allowed to touch it. If they touched it at all, he would know and they would get in big trouble. He went through the same long speech adults always give kids in school about how a gun is not a toy, blah, blah, blah, like kids are stupid. He said he would’ve thrown the gun away since there were kids in the house now, but it had belonged to a buddy of his who had died in Vietnam, and it was the only thing he had to help him remember his friend.

  Steffi and Kirin smiled at Tammy and Gretchen and their eyes twinkled like they were really proud of themselves. Nick hadn’t told Tammy and Steffi where he kept the gun; Steffi and Kirin had found it on their own. Steffi didn’t even slide it all the way out of the shelf. She didn’t even say a word. She just pulled it out halfway, enough so Tammy and Gretchen could see it, then slid it back in place and stuffed the handkerchief in front of it. She backtracked her way out of the desk, closing the drawer, shutting the mouse door, and flipping the desk part back up. She turned the brass latch that held it together and then she and Kirin scampered downstairs to make Kool-Aid.

  Gretchen said she had to go home.

  Tammy went back into her room alone and pulled her Polaroid camera down from the shelf above her desk. She had only taken two pictures since she moved to DC—one of her dad and one on the day after John Lennon died when she tried to take a picture of the TV news, but it came out all blurry.

  There were ten pictures in a packet of film. Tammy turned the camera over and looked at the tiny window that tells how many pictures are left.

  Only two.

  Tammy wanted to yell, but her throat clenched up and silenced her. They had used her camera without asking. They hadn’t even replaced her film. They had just left it like that. And now Tammy couldn’t ask for it back or she would get in trouble. They would know she and Steffi had been snooping in their room and they would know she and Steffi had seen the pictures. And now Gretchen knew about it too. The whole thing was gross. Tammy was mad that she had slept through them sneaking into her room. They must have snuck in twice: once to take the camera, and once to put it back. And Tammy had slept through the whole thing. Now Tammy would never get her film back. She would have to live with only two pictures left. They probably thought they could use it since they had given her the camera as a present. They should have never given her the camera. She should have saved up for a long time and bought it herself. Tammy guessed they didn’t think of it as stealing.

  Tammy thought she should hide her camera. Who knew if they would do it again? Although they probably wouldn’t if there were only two pictures left. But still, Tammy thought she should hide it. She opened her closet door and put the camera on a shelf behind her sleeping bag. The closet was at the foot of her bed. If they tried to come in and take it while she was asleep, she would definitely wake up.

  Steffi and Kirin were watching TV in the adults-only living room, being really obvious about breaking the rules. Tammy didn’t want to sit in the downstairs, off-limits living room with the two of them and she didn’t want to stay upstairs with the naked pictures. She didn’t want to sit in the stupid kids’ TV room, which was full of Hugh’s stupid toys. She wished there was a place she could go where she could be alone and where no one would bother her and no one would make fun of her. Sometimes when they got the Sunday paper, Tammy would flip through the back of Parade magazine where they had ads for sleep-away camps and boarding schools. Tammy thought it would be nice to go to boarding school and sleep there and have a built-in set of friends. She had once cut out an ad for a summer camp and asked her mother if she could go. Her mother had looked at the small square of paper and said, “I don’t think so, Tammy. I don’t think it’s your type of place.” When Tammy said it was, her mother said, “I’m sorry, I know you think it is, but it’s not.”

  GRETCHEN WAS HAVING a birthday party and she was inviting boys. Tammy hadn’t been to a party with boys since she was a little kid, and even then it was usually only one boy or somebody’s brother. She decided not to tell her mother and Nick about the boys because she wasn’t sure what they would say and she didn’t want them to say she couldn’t go.

  Gretchen was actually having two birthday parties, one the day before her birthday and a slumber party on her actual birthday. The one the day before her birthday was the one with boys. It was also a dress-up party, Gretchen said. Tammy decided to dress up as a hobo for the party. She tied a bandana to a stick and wore an old polka-dot shirt of Nick’s, his army boots, and his old army jacket, which was green and had Schranker written on the chest pocket.

  Tammy drew on her face with a black eyeliner pencil to make it look like she had a beard. Then she clomped down the stairs in the combat boots to see if her mother or Nick would drive her to the party. She knew they probably wouldn’t. They would say it’s close enough for her to walk. They didn’t care if it was dark out or if she was scared or if at school they told kids not to stand too close to the curb while they were waiting for the light to change because a girl from the Catholic junior high got pushed into a car and kidnapped.

  Her mother and Nick were watching TV in the adults-only living room. When Tammy made it to the bottom step, her mother glanced over and opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Finally she laughed a little bit and said, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to Gretchen’s. Can you drive me?”

  Tammy braced herself for the usual “You can walk” from Nick. Her mother let out another laugh, kind of like a hiccup, and said, “That’s tomorrow. Gretchen’s party is tomorrow.” Tammy said, “No, it’s tonight, the dress-up party is tonight, and the sleepover is tomorrow.”

  Tammy’s mother looked up at Nick, smiled and nodded, and it looked like the two of them were communicating with ESP. Nick shrugged his shoulders and exhaled heavily into his mustache.

  “I’ll just walk, I guess,” Tammy said. She knew she shouldn’t have asked for a ride. She knew they were nicer if she didn’t ask them for anything. She put on her coat, even though she was already wearing the army coat. She didn’t want to get in trouble for not wearing a coat.

  “Tammy,” her mother said, “you told us she was having a birthday party.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You only told us about one party.”

  “No I didn’t.” Her mother and Nick always did this. They always claimed Tammy didn’t tell them something when she did. Or they claimed she waited too long, until the last minute, which she didn’t. They often gave permission for something and then
forgot about it and said, no, they didn’t give permission for that, they would never give permission for that, Tammy just wanted them to give permission for that and so she heard what she wanted to hear, but they didn’t actually say it. Tammy never bought that excuse, but they said it in such a way she couldn’t argue with them without getting into more trouble. Tammy knew she was pretty smart. Sure, she forgot stuff, just like everyone forgot stuff sometimes, but she never thought she heard something that wasn’t said just because she wanted to hear it.

  “Tammy, all you told us was that she was having a birthday party.”

  “No I didn’t. I said there was a dress-up party tonight with everyone from school and she’s having a slumber party tomorrow.”

  “That’s not what you told us.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “You told us it was tomorrow,” Nick butted in. “You didn’t give us all the information. You weren’t specific.”

  “Yes I was!”

  “Tammy!” Nick didn’t exactly yell, but he raised his pointer finger at the same time as his eyebrows, which translated into a “watch it.” A “watch it” translated into a “shut up or you’re in big trouble.” Tammy felt her bottom lip start to tremble the way Hugh’s did when he was about to cry. Hugh’s lip did that all the time, but Tammy knew it looked ridiculous on someone like herself who was almost eleven years old.

  “Tammy,” her mother put on a Nice Mom voice, “I’m sorry, but we’ve had a misunderstanding. Unfortunately, Nick and I are going out tonight and you’re going to have to stay here.”

  “What!?”

  “I’m sorry, but you weren’t specific about all the parties. Nick and I have tickets. We already paid for them.”

  Tammy felt this was so unfair. She wanted to yell that to them, but she knew she would just dig herself in deeper. They were always doing stuff like this and Tammy had to go along with it or she would get in trouble for simply having an opinion that was different from theirs.

  Tammy knew she should just shut up, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “Why can’t Steffi watch Hugh?”

  When her mother and Nick went out at night, Tammy and Steffi were both in charge of watching Hugh. Tammy was older, but she wasn’t officially the one in charge. Hugh rarely did what Tammy told him to. He paid more attention to Steffi because she was nicer and babied him. He was supposed to go to bed earlier than Tammy and Steffi, but when Tammy told him to go to bed he would say, “You’re not the boss.”

  Her mother said Tammy was the oldest and she needed to be home. Tammy thought this was dumb because it wasn’t like she was in charge of Steffi, and Steffi watched Hugh in the afternoons by herself all the time. Nick yelled in, “That’s not the point, Tammy!” Her mother said she was sorry about the misunderstanding, but sometimes things like this happen and you just have to deal with them.

  Tammy stomped upstairs to her room. She stomped on purpose and she hoped the combat boots left marks.

  She flopped onto her bed and started reading Deenie by Judy Blume about a girl who wants to be a model, but she gets scoliosis. Tammy’s mother used to come up to her room and sit on the edge of her bed after they had an argument and now she never did. Lots of times Tammy felt a need to talk to her, but she never got her alone for long without someone barging in and interrupting them. When Nick came along, her mother started acting more and more like him. Tammy didn’t notice it when Nick first moved in. She was younger then and she just kind of went along with things.

  Steffi and Kirin ran through Tammy’s room. Kirin had been hanging out since after school and stayed over for dinner because Friday was pizza night. Sometimes it felt like Kirin was over twenty-four hours a day.

  Steffi turned on her clock radio to Q107.

  “Turn your damn radio down,” Tammy said.

  “I’m allowed to play it and you shouldn’t curse,” Steffi said. She was always so pleased with herself. It was just like when they had to get dressed up for something and Steffi would put on some perfect frilly dress that matched her pink puffy cheeks. Tammy hated dressing up. She hated wearing dresses. Last year her mother had bought her a pants suit to wear to a funeral, but Tammy didn’t like wearing that either. It itched.

  “Turn it down, goddamn it!” Tammy was yelling now. She had stuck her face into the window of the separator door. There was a pane of glass missing and she yelled right through it.

  “Shut up!” Steffi said.

  “She has to turn it up because you’re yelling so loud,” Kirin piped in. Kirin had the same smarty-pants attitude.

  “I have to yell because your radio’s so goddamn loud!”

  “You certainly like to say ‘goddamn,’” Kirin said.

  Steffi and Kirin took the mustard-colored blanket off of Steffi’s bed and held it up over the separator door so that it blocked the window. Kirin got Scotch tape from Steffi’s desk and they started taping it in place. It was hard for them to do. The blanket kept falling down and it was hard to hold it up with tape.

  “You’re not allowed to do this,” Tammy said as her view slowly turned into a wall of yellow lint.

  “Yes I am,” Steffi said.

  “No you’re not.”

  “Nobody said I couldn’t and you can’t say whether I can or not.”

  Tammy started yelling. She didn’t know what. She was just yelling at them. Steffi dragged her desk chair over to tape the upper corners of the blanket to the separator door window. The next thing Tammy knew, Nick was in her room.

  “She’s blocking the window,” Tammy complained.

  “You don’t need to be looking in her room all the time,” Nick said with his finger in her face. He had a thick mustache and his eyebrows ran together underneath the long bangs that hung down over his forehead. “You’re not too old to be spanked,” he said in a low voice so that only Tammy could hear it.

  Nick turned to Steffi and said her friend had to leave. They weren’t allowed to have friends over at night if no grown-ups were home. To top it all off, Nick said he would give Kirin a ride.

  Tammy shut herself in the bathroom. It was the only place she could be alone. She sat down on the bath rug and stared at the hexagon tiles on the floor. Near the pipe where the heat came up, the tiles were starting to crumble away. A few were cracked and the cracked part was coming up. Sometimes they left little dust bits on the bath rug, which was an ugly green bath rug—the same color green as the coffee table that Nick had from before he lived with them, and the same color green as his army jacket that Tammy was still wearing. They had a lot of things in that color green. One of the boys in Tammy’s class had pointed to the green Tupperware container full of tuna noodle casserole she had brought on potluck day and called it shit green. He told everyone she made shit-green casserole. Only Mrs. William ate it.

  After Tammy heard the front door shut, she left the bathroom and went downstairs to the kids’ TV room. The TV in there was big and old. Nick had it before he lived with them. It had a thick black line that ran along the bottom of the screen when it was turned on. Tammy and Steffi thought this was because Nick had dropped it when they moved. Tammy was secretly saving up her money to buy her own TV to watch in her room—just a small one, probably black and white—that way she could watch whatever she wanted. She could even watch TV in bed.

  In the kids’ TV room, there were two discarded armchairs that looked like giant cubes with seat cushions cut out. The chairs used to be in the living room before they got the shit-brown couch. Tammy always sat on the left, and Steffi always sat on the right. The chairs were pushed together and jutting out from Tammy’s chair was a red bench with a vinyl-cushioned top. The seat of the bench lifted up and it was full of dress-up clothes, old things their mother didn’t wear anymore: frilly see-through nightgowns, bridesmaid dresses, and high-heeled shoes covered in gold foil. Hugh would sit on top of the bench, or he would lie on top so he could see the TV. When Tammy came downstairs, Steffi and Hugh were already watching some boring show. Hugh wa
s sitting in Tammy’s chair, but he moved to the bench when Tammy came in. Even Steffi wouldn’t back him up if he tried to claim Tammy’s chair.

  “It’s not Halloween, silly,” Steffi said.

  “Shut up,” Tammy said, but she mumbled it and her heart wasn’t into it. Steffi probably didn’t hear it. It was a wasted “shut up.”

  Tammy was looking at the screen, not really paying attention. She was slumped way down in her chair with her torso parallel to the floor and her head propped up just enough to see the TV. Her arms were folded across her chest covering up the Schranker tag on her jacket. Her knees reached far out in front of her body and she thought she could probably touch the TV with her foot. She lifted up her left combat boot and placed it squarely on the screen.