Chapter 13 Goodfellas #4
Though we were on a sidewalk, it was reminiscent of the way you walk and talk on the fairway.
You’re staring straight ahead, mostly, and it’s companionable in large measure because you don’t have to make eye contact.
Plus, I was eating an ice-cream cone, one of the foods you study as you consume it, which meant I had another thing to focus on other than Olivia Foster.
But I hadn’t forgotten that a question of some importance to her was looming, and so I had my guard up.
I knew I couldn’t distract, divert, or derail this girl with talk of the glamour of ninth grade or the size of the high school lockers. And, finally, her question came.
“I know you can’t talk about the lawsuit,” she said.
“No, I can’t.”
“But here’s what I’m wondering: Are you mad at my dad?”
“You dad?” I hadn’t expected this. “Why would I be mad at your father?”
“Because, well, he told on you.”
A part of me smiled inside. This really was a goodfella sort of thing: she was asking me if I was pissed off at her dad for ratting me out.
“You mean me and Theo Catton.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Winnie and Geoff’s dad.”
I hated it when I was reminded of Theo’s two kids, and how I had broken up their family. Each of them was a walking testimony to what a terrible person I was. “They must hate me,” I admitted.
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do.”
Becca chimed in, “Winnie’s old enough to get it, and she’s more pissed off at her dad than she is at you.
Some days she’s fine. But some days she’s not.
Those days, she’s kind of a mess, always throwing tantrums about one thing or another.
There was a while after Mrs. Catton kicked out Mr. Catton when she couldn’t get out of bed in the morning—kind of like your mom, Olivia—and Winnie had to fry eggs in the morning before school and make her and Geoff their lunches.
But one time, she took the raw eggs and instead of breaking them into the frying pan, she just hurled them like baseballs into the kitchen walls.
All dozen of them in the carton. That’s what I mean about how she can go mental sometimes.
But Mrs. Catton is better now, so I guess Winnie is, too. Right, Olivia?”
“Yup. Pretty much back to normal over there,” Olivia agreed. “So: Are you mad at my dad?”
We reached the library and sat around one of the stone tables in the shade on the terrace, surrounded by large hydrangeas, their great, bulbous flowers already turning from white to pink.
I popped into my mouth the last of my ice-cream cone.
“No,” I answered. “Not at all. I could never be mad at him. Especially…”
“What?”
“Especially after all he lost.”
“My brother.”
“Yes. Kenny.”
“But still.”
“Your dad did the right thing,” I said, though I hadn’t believed that at the time.
I would have preferred that he’d just left Theo and me alone because our affair was likely going to end anyway that previous summer.
But I no longer felt that way, because had Theo not been outed by Kenny’s father, we all know that he would have indulged his proclivities on another young girl from Tallmadge right after me and another young girl right after her.
“I’m okay. I am,” I continued, which was far from true, but I honestly didn’t realize what a mess I was—and wouldn’t have shared this truth with a fourteen-year-old girl, even if I had known.
“Okay, my turn: Can I ask you something?”
“I don’t care,” said Olivia. Becca looked back and forth between us, and was, I had come to realize, Olivia’s sidekick. This gave me a jolt of happiness. Kenny’s sister was such an alpha that a Tallmadge kid with roots as deep as mine, Becca, was Robin to Olivia’s Batman.
“Tell me about your brother,” I said.
“What about him?”
“I just never really knew him, and I wish I had. I liked him.”
“I was looking through his yearbook after he died,” said Olivia, not precisely answering my question. “I think you and Marie Morris were the only senior girls to sign it. You both signed right by your senior photos.”
I nodded. I had no idea how many yearbooks I’d signed, but it was lots.
When I thought hard, I had a dim recollection of signing Kenny’s during one free period in the cafeteria, and I felt despicable that I had forgotten the details.
He had started caddying on weekends that spring, and so I had made a golf joke about how getting to June was like reaching the nineteenth hole.
And then, fearing it had sounded too much like we were both middle-aged alcoholics, I’d added something like Good luck next year!
Great to survive AP History with you. Soooooo many wars!
“Did he like caddying—you know, as summer jobs go?” I asked. “Did he like golf?”
“He didn’t mind caddying. He could read, and he was always tan. And he was outside.”
“He did seem to read a lot at the club—you know, between loops. What were his favorite books?”
“I don’t know. But you should see his room. There are still stacks of novels in his bookcases. My dad cleaned up a couple piles on the floor, but mostly by just jamming them onto the shelves.”
“His room is still his room?”
“Oh yeah,” Becca jumped in. “Olivia’s mom doesn’t want to touch it.”
“Yet,” said Olivia, defending her mother.
“I get it,” I said. “I can’t blame her.”
“She says she’s just not ready,” Olivia explained, embarrassment creeping into her voice. “And my dad’s fine with that. I mean, what’s the rush?”
“No rush I can think of,” I said. Then, without thinking, I asked, “Can I see it?”
“His bedroom?”
I nodded.
Olivia looked down at her lap and then up at me. “Sure,” she agreed. “Why not?”