Читать книгу Tully - Paullina Simons - Страница 10

After Tully and Julie left, Jennifer sighed and went upstairs into her parents’ bedroom. Her mother, just out of the shower, was sitting on the bed, one hand on a towel, one on her cigarette.

Jennifer said, ‘Ma, did you know that Marlboro just patented a waterproof cigarette?’

‘Don’t start with me, Jen,’ said Lynn Mandolini.

‘I’m serious. I’ve seen the commercial. “Why not enjoy two pleasures at once? Wash your hair and inhale nicotine at the same time. You’ve always wanted to do it, and now you can. It costs a bit more, but it’s worth it.”’

‘Are you quite done?’ asked Lynn. Jennifer smiled.

No mother and daughter could have looked less alike. It was a running joke in the Mandolini household that Jennifer, Lynn and Tony’s only child, must have been born to a Norwegian family who got tired of all those fjords and came to landlocked Topeka, only to get tired of baby Jennifer. ‘But Mom, Dad,’ Jennifer would say. ‘Didn’t you tell me you found me in a cornfield where the sun made my hair blond?’

Jennifer was a tall, blond, busty girl, who had always battled with weight. At eighteen, she was still winning; just. But she had the kind of body that with time and kids and plenty of good cooking might get heavy around the middle. Big breasts, small behind, thin legs. She was the only one on the cheerleading squad with a chest larger than 34B. Tully was usually merciless when she described the mammary attributes of the rest of the team when compared with Jennifer, and Jennifer all too frequently had to point out that Tully herself fell into the 34B category. ‘Yes, but I don’t go around parading my tits in a low-cut costume while I dance,’ Tully would say. At this, Jennifer would raise her eyebrows, widen her eyes, and stare mutely at Tully, who’d say, ‘All right, all right. But never on a football field, and only very rarely with a pom-pom.’

Jennifer’s mother was as dark and thin as Jennifer was fair and robust, outwardly anxious as Jennifer was outwardly calm, elegant as Jennifer was casual.

‘Everything ready?’

‘More or less,’ replied Jennifer. ‘Tully ate all the dip.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Lynn smiled. Then, ‘You must be happy Tully was allowed to come tonight.’

Tully and Jack. Yes. I’m not unhappy. ‘Sure,’ Jennifer said. ‘It’s been a long time.’

‘How’s she doing?’

‘Okay. Her guidance counselor’s giving her a hard time.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Lynn said absentmindedly. ‘Why?’

Jennifer did not want to talk about Tully at the moment. ‘Oh, you know,’ she said, rolling her eyes, a gesture she borrowed directly from Tully. ‘Guidance counselors.’ She plodded back downstairs into the living room, where all the furniture had been moved to the walls. Jennifer sat down on the carpet. Her thoughts ran to the calculus quiz she had failed earlier in the week and told no one about; thoughts ran to the calc quiz and passed onto cheerleader practice on Monday. Here the thoughts stopped. Jen, a cheerleader! The valedictorian of her middle school, a former president of the chess and math clubs, a cheerleader! Well, at least she wasn’t a very good cheerleader. It seemed every time she threw her pom-poms up, they fell to the ground instead of into her hands. She got up off the floor and lumbered into the kitchen.

Her mother came up close to her and touched Jennifer lightly on the cheek with her floured fingers. ‘My baby. My eighteen-year-old, grown-up, big, big baby.’

‘Mom, please,’ said Jennifer.

Lynn smiled and hugged her. Jennifer smelled Marlboro and mint, and did not pull away.

‘Are you enjoying your senior year?’ Lynn asked.

‘For sure,’ said Jennifer, remembering her father’s exact same question three days after senior year began. At least Mom waited a few weeks, Jennifer thought, patting her mother gently on the back.

Lynn let go of Jennifer and went to look for her bag. ‘What’s the matter, Mom?’ Jennifer said. ‘Too long without a cigarette?’

‘Don’t be fresh.’ Lynn lit up.

Jennifer silently sidled after her mother, watching her make pigs in a blanket and sprinkle a little cinnamon on the apple strudel. Jennifer loved apple strudel. She walked over to the counter and broke a piece off the end.

‘Jenny Lynn, you stop that now,’ said her mother. ‘Go upstairs and get ready, will you?’

Jennifer went back into the living room instead. She was a little sorry her dad wasn’t going to make it to the party. Tony Mandolini, assistant store manager at J C Penny, always worked till ten on Saturday nights, and after work tonight, he said, he would rather disappear to his mother-in-law’s than face Sunset Court with thirty howling kids. He promised Jennifer a great present tomorrow when she woke up. Jennifer already knew what it was; she heard her parents talking one evening.

I hope I can gush effectively, she thought. Hope I can satisfy them with my gushing.

She looked outside the living room window onto Sunset Court. Sunset Court. Sun-Set Court. Jennifer had always liked the sound of that. Sunset Court. Unlike Tully, who said she hated the name of her own street, Grove Street, and told everyone she lived in ‘the Grove.’ Please drive me to the Grove, Tully would say. The Grove.

‘Jen, phone!’

She picked up. ‘How’s my birthday girl?’ boomed a familiar jolly voice. ‘Couldn’t be better, Dad,’ she said. Maybe a little better. ‘Ma, it’s daddy,’ she called across the house, relieved he didn’t want to talk to her again. This was the fourth time he had called today, each time greeting Jennifer with a resounding ‘How’s my birthday girl?’

Jennifer went back to arranging the records. Bee Gees, Eagles, Stones, Dead, Van Halen. The Grease soundtrack, the Beatles. A little lone Garfunkel. Pink Floyd. As she worked, her face was soft, her gaze blinkless, her body outwardly relaxed, nearly motionless. But inside her head there was a relentless noise, and to shut it out she started counting her records and then counting sheep. One sheep, two sheep, three sheep…two hundred and fifty sheep think of nothing but sheep. Calm, she thought, calm.