The Fat Girl Read Online Free

Jenkins had her stereo there too, so she could listen to her opera records while she worked. All of the kids did their homework in the kitchen, and books, papers, and pencils mingled with the pots and pans. The living room looked like the dining room, and the dining room table was generally too crowded with Norma’s pots to allow anybody to eat there without a great effort. None of the children ever seemed to stay in his or her own bedroom.
    “Carmen wanders around at night and usually ends up sleeping on the couch. And Joey usually sleeps either in Lucia’s room or mine. He’s afraid of vampires and can’t sleep by himself,” Norma told me.
    Joey was the youngest, seven years old, and the only boy. There were two sisters between him and Norma—Carmen, who was fifteen, and Lucia, who was twelve.
    “Your mother should try to make him sleep in his own room,” I said.
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s got to get over it.”
    “Why?”
    “Well—kids will make fun of him. He’s a boy, and he doesn’t want to be a sissy.”
    Norma was looking at me and smiling. There was a sore, jealous place in my stomach. “I used to be afraid of the dark,” I told her.
    “And?”
    “My mother—she made me get over it.” It was a long time ago, but I could still remember her voice outside the closed door, saying over and over again, “Stay in your room, Jeff. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” And me, pleading, “Just don’t lock it, and I’ll stay inside. Please, Mom, don’t lock the door.”
    “How?”
    “She put a lock on the outside of the door to stop me from coming out and waking her up.”
    Norma stopped smiling. She patted my hand. “Poor Jeff,” she said.
    “No, no!” I protested. “She never used it. She just showed me it was there, and it worked. Honestly, Norma, she’s not like that. I did get over it, and I’m not afraid anymore.”
    “Everybody’s afraid of something,” Norma said. “It’s not so terrible to be afraid.”
    Sometimes the noise in Norma’s house was deafening. Arguments could start in an upstairs bathroom, crackle down the stairs into the living room, explode in the dining room, and echo all through the house. There would be Mrs. Jenkins’ opera stars screeching away in the kitchen, Mr. Jenkins’ TV set going full blast in the upstairs den, Joey’s cars and trucks hurtling through the house, while Carmen, who took ballet lessons and looked like a pale green-gold water goddess, danced in all of the rooms.
    “My mother named each of us for an opera,” Norma said, making a face. “I mean each of us girls. I think I got off easy.”
    “How about Joey? Who is he named for?”
    “Joe DiMaggio.”
    “Is that an opera?”
    “Come on, Jeff. You know Joe DiMaggio was a famous ballplayer for the Yankees. My father’s crazy about baseball. My mother wanted to call him Giovanni after Mozart’s opera, but my father insisted on Joe.”
    I loved Norma’s house, loved being lost in the litter that overflowed everywhere. My own house was so neat and orderly, a person always stood out. Here, I never felt the spotlight on me—I blended into the clutter. Sometimes my own training was too much for me though, and I found myself straightening crooked pictures on the wall, hanging up Norma’s jacket when she flung it on the floor, and mopping up ancient milk spills under the kitchen table.
    It wasn’t always easy to find a quiet, private place in Norma’s house. And often it was fun being with the others, listening to Norma’s old Maria Callas records, looking over Mr. Jenkins’ historic collection of baseball cards, or playing Dungeons & Dragons with Lucia and her friends.
    But the best times were with Norma. We’d climb upstairs to her messy room filled with years of pots, and turn out the cat or the dog or Joey, and sit down on her unmade bed and hold each other and kiss and touch and be in love. We never went all the way. What was the hurry? I knew there were going to be years and