Read Online The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Berg
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she’s dizzy after a ride at the state fair, he’ll sit things out with her on a bench with his arm around her for as long as it takes. Once, he burned a tick off 60
t h e d a y i a t e w h a t e v e r i w a n t e d her head with a lighted cigarette. He put the cigarette to the tick’s butt, and the thing backed right out. When she drives somewhere with him, he lets her turn the steering wheel. He sent her a bottle of Friendship Garden perfume for her tenth birthday, when no one else thought to give her perfume, which she loves. He knows her secret, and keeps it.
Janey often has night terrors, where she wakes up from a sound sleep with her heart racing and her breathing all but impossible. The idea of her own death seems to assume wretched form, and it sits on her chest, pries open her eyes, and mashes foreheads with her. The walls close in and the ceiling lowers. Darkness deepens. She does not hear but feels the words:
you will be no more.
Sometimes it lasts only a minute or so, and she falls back asleep. Other times, it lasts longer. When it used to happen, she would cry and whisper, “Please.” But last time her family came to North Dakota, Janey and her grandfather were for some reason alone in his house, and she told him about it. She said, “Sometimes I wake up at night, and I’m so scared of dying.” She laughed a little, embarrassed.
Bampo said, “Oh, that’s an awful thing. What do you do about it?”
“Nothing.” She swallowed hugely.
“You don’t tell your parents?”
“I can’t.” She looked down. “I don’t want to.”
She expected that he would argue against this, tell her she should awaken them so that they might comfort her.
But he didn’t say that. Instead, he said, “Well, next time it happens, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go F u l l C o u n t
61
very quietly into the kitchen and turn on the light and sit at the table and eat an orange. Will you do that for me?”
She nodded solemnly. She thought it could work. She could see herself at the kitchen table in her pajamas, swinging her legs, peeling an orange, the scent rising up for the cure. She could hear the low hum of the overhead light burning steady and bright, chasing away the shadows and illuminating the cheerful Mixmaster, the long line of her mother’s cookbooks on the counter.
And indeed Bampo’s suggestion did work. When Janey awakens now with that particular kind of panic, she goes each time to the kitchen and turns on a light. Once they were out of oranges, but an apple did the trick. It wasn’t the fruit anyway, Janey had decided. It was the getting up.
So, yes, her grandfather treasures her: she holds it in the teacup of her heart. But there are other good things in North Dakota. Janey has cousins there whom she really likes; they are like brothers and sisters. Her parents always stay with her grandparents, and Janey stays with Aunt Peggy and Uncle Jim. They have five children, three boys and two girls—her parents’ siblings all have large families, her family is an anomaly; she doesn’t know why.
Janey spends time with the girl cousins who are her age, but she also spends time with the boys, and she prefers this, it seems a privilege; boys do not otherwise seem to like her. They seem, in fact, to like her less and less. Boys and girls from her school go roller-skating together and then to Boogie’s for hamburgers, or they meet at the movies, and sit together. But then they just go their separate ways right afterward, and their eyes seem empty of the near memory of one another, so Janey doesn’t think she’s missing all that much. She believes she’ll catch up soon. She hopes so.
62
t h e d a y i a t e w h a t e v e r i w a n t e d Janey especially likes her cousin Michael, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Jim’s oldest, and her cousin Richie, who is the oldest of Aunt Ruth and Uncle Henry, who live nearby.
Michael is a year older than she, and Richie only three months older, and they
t h e d a y i a t e w h a t e v e r i w a n t e d her head with a lighted cigarette. He put the cigarette to the tick’s butt, and the thing backed right out. When she drives somewhere with him, he lets her turn the steering wheel. He sent her a bottle of Friendship Garden perfume for her tenth birthday, when no one else thought to give her perfume, which she loves. He knows her secret, and keeps it.
Janey often has night terrors, where she wakes up from a sound sleep with her heart racing and her breathing all but impossible. The idea of her own death seems to assume wretched form, and it sits on her chest, pries open her eyes, and mashes foreheads with her. The walls close in and the ceiling lowers. Darkness deepens. She does not hear but feels the words:
you will be no more.
Sometimes it lasts only a minute or so, and she falls back asleep. Other times, it lasts longer. When it used to happen, she would cry and whisper, “Please.” But last time her family came to North Dakota, Janey and her grandfather were for some reason alone in his house, and she told him about it. She said, “Sometimes I wake up at night, and I’m so scared of dying.” She laughed a little, embarrassed.
Bampo said, “Oh, that’s an awful thing. What do you do about it?”
“Nothing.” She swallowed hugely.
“You don’t tell your parents?”
“I can’t.” She looked down. “I don’t want to.”
She expected that he would argue against this, tell her she should awaken them so that they might comfort her.
But he didn’t say that. Instead, he said, “Well, next time it happens, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go F u l l C o u n t
61
very quietly into the kitchen and turn on the light and sit at the table and eat an orange. Will you do that for me?”
She nodded solemnly. She thought it could work. She could see herself at the kitchen table in her pajamas, swinging her legs, peeling an orange, the scent rising up for the cure. She could hear the low hum of the overhead light burning steady and bright, chasing away the shadows and illuminating the cheerful Mixmaster, the long line of her mother’s cookbooks on the counter.
And indeed Bampo’s suggestion did work. When Janey awakens now with that particular kind of panic, she goes each time to the kitchen and turns on a light. Once they were out of oranges, but an apple did the trick. It wasn’t the fruit anyway, Janey had decided. It was the getting up.
So, yes, her grandfather treasures her: she holds it in the teacup of her heart. But there are other good things in North Dakota. Janey has cousins there whom she really likes; they are like brothers and sisters. Her parents always stay with her grandparents, and Janey stays with Aunt Peggy and Uncle Jim. They have five children, three boys and two girls—her parents’ siblings all have large families, her family is an anomaly; she doesn’t know why.
Janey spends time with the girl cousins who are her age, but she also spends time with the boys, and she prefers this, it seems a privilege; boys do not otherwise seem to like her. They seem, in fact, to like her less and less. Boys and girls from her school go roller-skating together and then to Boogie’s for hamburgers, or they meet at the movies, and sit together. But then they just go their separate ways right afterward, and their eyes seem empty of the near memory of one another, so Janey doesn’t think she’s missing all that much. She believes she’ll catch up soon. She hopes so.
62
t h e d a y i a t e w h a t e v e r i w a n t e d Janey especially likes her cousin Michael, Aunt Peggy and Uncle Jim’s oldest, and her cousin Richie, who is the oldest of Aunt Ruth and Uncle Henry, who live nearby.
Michael is a year older than she, and Richie only three months older, and they
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