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Barsanti, The Real Stories
Renata Barsanti
101 Stadium Drive
Chapel Hill, NC, 27514
Where the Real Stories Hide
When they read about Adam and Eve in Church, do you ever just want to yell out and tell Eve not to eat the fruit?
That’s how I feel. I’m sitting in one of those hard benches, trying to be still but shifting enough that my butt doesn’t fall asleep, and the old lady who’s reading gives every word more syllables than it needs. And even though her voice is the same kind of soothing as rain plunking on a roof and the clouds are so thick that the stained glass windows aren’t doing their job of keeping everyone awake with sunlight, I want to jump up without worrying about hiking my dress down and yell at Eve for what she did, because who even needs fruit?
I’m one hundred percent sure that if I had been in her position, I would have just eaten something else, like steak, if there were cows in paradise. Which there had to be, because I eat at the Paradise Burger all the time, and I figure that’s where they get their inspiration. I would have said, “no, you dumb snake, I don’t like fruit nor do I like snakes so you can just keep this apple all to yourself.”
One of my teachers in high school told the class that the fruit in the Bible was probably a metaphor for sex, but I don’t believe that. I’m sure Adam was great and all, but I can see someone sinning for an apple way more than I can see her doing it for some fruitloop guy that’s naked all the time. Eve must have known that there would be some kind of consequence, but instead, she went and made us all have sinner genes and then made childbirth awful. My mom can attest to that, except sometimes I think she’s exaggerating just to get us to stay away from boys, because how could there ever be that much gunk coming out of your privates?
So all in all, I kind of wish God had made me back when he made them too, so I could have followed Eve around and smacked her on the hand whenever she tried to pick fruit from the knowledge tree. I think I would have been really good at that, kind of like a bodyguard to protect her from sin. I tell you, there aren’t many things that I can do right on this earth, but that would certainly have been one of them.
My sister Jenny fusses at me after the service about fidgeting, and it drives me nuts, because I’m the older sister. But this is how it’s always been, just because she’s an honor student and I barely made it out of high school. What’s really annoying is that she seems to think that I want to be just like her even though I most definitely do not.
Besides, I finally have aone-up on her, which is money. She complains all the time about needing scholarships, and sometimes, I can’t help but say “maybe you should get a job like me” and she gets so mad that she either yells at me “after college, you’ll see!” or she runs and tells Mom, who then gives me a talking-to. I don’t see why Mom gets mad at me for that, though, because Jenny calls me names all the time and picks on me for not being the sharpest tool in the shed or the brightest crayon in the box. I don’t appreciate being teased for something I can’t fix, but when I tease her for something she can change, I get in trouble. Sometimes I wonder if she hates me so much because I got more attention when we were little, because I had tutors and Mom helped me extra. I would think she’d have gotten over it when she started getting all kinds of awards for being smart, though, so I guess I just don’t understand her.
Then again, Mom isn’t my biggest fan either. I’m pretty sure she loves me, but she’s always gotten really frustrated about things that are hard for me, like math and manners. I keep asking her if I can move out,but she gets all teary-eyed and asks me things like “what are you going to eat?” and I say “grilled cheese,” because I’m good at making that. And she says “how are you going to get to work?” and I say “I could try harder to pass the driving test,” and usually by this point she’s crying. I guess it’s kind of depressing to have your 24-year-old still living in the house when your 18-year-old is fixing to move out. I know she just worries about me a lot, but sometimes that gets in the way, and I keep telling her she should redirect it to something like global warming or the war effort, except there is no war at the moment, so maybe some other country’s war effort. And then she should help me move out, because I know I can do it.
So today I let Jenny’s words sail right over my head like the birds that used to fly around the elementary school playground waiting for one of us to drop a Cheeto. Instead, I look around the churchyard, reading all the graves a bunch of times and watching old people gush at each other and hoping the clouds don’t burst open. And suddenly, my bored, not-paying-attention eyes land on this guy who’s talking to the pastor. He’s tall and probably kind of muscley except I can’t be sure because he’s dressed respectably, which is a good sign in a guy. His shirt is checkered and he turns and sees me staring, and boy, let me tell you about that smile. It looks like moonlight on the lake downtown, all shiny and white.
I notice that I’ve probably been looking too long when off to a corner of my mind I realize that “why can’t you just sit still for one damn minute” turns into “Samantha” (it’s Sam) “why aren’t you listening? Is there anything at all going on in that brain of yours?” and so I snap back and roll my eyes and say “of course there is” and push this man to the back of my thoughts.
I can’t get him to stay there, so when I see him heading for the table with the lemonade and cookies, I do my best to convince Jenny that I’m dying of hunger and don’t know what to do. That way, she’ll suggest going there and be okay with it, because she’ll feel smart for coming up with a solution, even though that’s what I was thinking in the first place.
So I hurry and get there just in time to reach for a flowery paper cup as he’s doing the same so that our hands touch a teensy bit and I have to apologize to his face. He smiles again and I get nervous so that I can feel it in my stomach.
“I’m John,” he says and his voice sounds smooth and warm, just like the three-tablespoons-of-sugar coffee I like to drink.
“Sam.” He reaches for my hand and shakes it all jerky-like. That’s good, I figure, a man with a firm handshake, but I wonder if any more shaking might crunch my bones.
“Nice to meet you,” he winks, which seems kind of uncalled for but I figure he’s one of those people who does that all the time and I really like it. I take in breaths that make my lungs tickle because he’s still looking at me, not looking away uncomfortably, and he seems pretty sincere, and I try not to be red. Of course, nothing gets past Jenny, so she picks on me the whole ride home, but my happy tells me to ignore her.
The moment we get there, I tell Mom I need to go talk to Grandma and hurry over to her house, which is only a few minutes’ walk from ours. It’s all in good neighborhoods, too, with pointy fences and houses with porches. I think that’s why Mom lets me go by myself.
She opens the door with her hair loose, gray wispiness all escaping. She gives me a soft, not-too-squeezy hug. We sit in the shade of her porch and I tell her everything.
Grandma’s always had a soft spot for me, because she was never the best student either. That means she understands me way more than Mom and Jenny. I learned that one day when I got upset in school because I was having a hard time reading a book that felt like it had too many pages and big words that made me trip with my brain. I’d gotten so frustrated in class that my teacher had sent me out of the classroom, and everyone had laughed, and I came home crying so hard that not even fresh lemonade could snap me out of it.
I told Grandma what had happened, and she got mad. I’d never seen her like that before, her wrinkles all bunched together while she muttered things that sounded mean and also possibly demonic about they think they know what smart is. She pulled a wrinkly Kleenex out of her purse, blotted my cheeks, and pulled me out of the house.
We drove downtown and went inside a café, but we stopped before we even made it to the counter. She pointed at the bulletin board next to the door. “You listening, Sam? This is where the real stories hide,” she said. “You don’t need to be able to read big fat books to get the real stories, the important ones.”
I followed her finger to a flyer. Lost dog. Responds to Annie. Beloved pet, please call if you see her! I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if I understood. She pointed to a couple other flyers, but I kept seeing people out of the corner of my eye sipping coffee and reading books even bigger than the one in class, so we moved on.
We did the same thing at the market.
Babysitter needed, four kids ages 5-12.
Ron’s Lawns, keeping yards tidy for five years. Price negotiable.
And then we drove to the hospital, where the boards had papers with studies on them and phone numbers dangling at the bottom.
Needed for study: Mothers who smoked during pregnancy. Compensation available.
That’s when I finally started to understand, because I’d heard my mom say that maybe that’s why I am like I am, because she smoked a lot when I was in her belly, even though the doctors said that there’s no way to know and that plenty of moms do the same thing and have babies that aren’t like me. I figured that there was a story tucked into the flyer itself, of the people who wanted to study moms, and a story in each of the slips that had been taken, and Grandma was right: it didn’t take much to find them.We drove home quieter than usual, but it was a good quiet.
These days I tell Grandma everything, right down to what kind of Poptart I have for breakfast and whether or not my room is clean. She listens and nods in all the right places. Now, I tell her about John from church and how nice he looked, and how he made me feel tingly like there were sparklers in my belly, the ones they bring to the church picnic on the Fourth of July.
And you know what she tells me? “Go for it, sweet pea.”
My mouth falls open, because I was expecting her to tell me to stay away from boys.
“You’re a grown girl, there’s nothing wrong with that.” She twists her wedding ring around on her finger, the one she still wears even though Grandpa died when I was ten. “You deserve a good man. And he would be lucky to have you.”
I start to plan what I’m going to wear to next Sunday’s church before I even get home, because I know I need to make a good impression. I practice my smile in the mirror until I’m convinced that the teeth-to-lip ratio is just right and I put on my highest, pinkest heels to walk around until I don’t teeter-totter anymore.
But then, later that afternoon, I’m working my evening shift at Walgreens, changing all of the sale labels to get ready for next week. I’ve just gotten to the point where my “yes ma’am,” happy-to-be-there motivation starts to fizzle out when I hear that voice, the one like sweet coffee, from what I guess is the next aisle. I almost drop the stack of tags I’m holding as I fling myself another aisle down, hoping to postpone seeing him.
I’m not ready for this. I’m wearing my scratchy light blue uniform polo that I didn’t realize I shouldn’t wash with a new pair of dark jeans, so it’s actually kind of grayish blue now, and I didn’t feel like doing my laundry this weekend so my khakis have a mustard stain from last week’s barbecue above the right knee. I am in no shape to see him, and my stomach does somersaults like I used to do before I dropped out of kiddie gymnastics.
“Sam, is that you?” There he is, right next to me, his basket full of junk food, all Coke and Lays and M&M’s, even though I know for a fact that none of them are on sale. He is most definitely my kind of man.
“Oh, hi, I didn’t see you there, how are you, I mean since church and all?” My words feel bubbly and I’m not sure whether they sound as good to him as they do to me.
“I’ve been fine,” I try not to gawk too much. “This is my friend Jeremy.” He gestures at the guy next to him who I haven’t even noticed, and he’s even more muscular than John, his skin just a little dark so that it reminds me of a chocolate milkshake. I recognize him from church, but I’m pretty sure he’s one of the people that only come on holidays. He nods, not saying anything.
“Nice to meet you,” I gush.
Kind of suddenly, and still without saying anything to me, Jeremy claps him on the back and walks away, and John’s eyes get all warm, light moving through them just like it spreads through glow sticks right after you crack them. “I know this might seem kind of soon,” he says, rubbing his arm. “but…would you like to go out with me?”
My mouth falls open and my insides squeal. I want to say something, but the sound gets trapped and bounces around inside me right along with the rest of my organs. I know I’ve smiled at him a lot, and I wore one of my nicer dresses to church today, and to think these things are suddenly paying off makes me extra happy.
“You know…just dinner sometime?” His cheeks are dotted with pink and I know it’s nothing compared to how red I must be. I take deep breaths and I’m so excited that I say yes, yes, of course, definitely, when, tomorrow at five, that’s perfect, can’t wait.
When I tell my mom she cries tears that turn happy once Jenny assures her that she saw him at church and he seemed very very nice and I’m not even annoyed that she has a say in the matter. We decide to go dress shopping the next morning, which is usually not my forte, because who likes trying on clothes? It makes me mad when Mom wants me to turn around so she can make sure stuff fits, because I’m capable of knowing that without her help.
This time actually goes well because I like the first dress I see. It’s this pinkish-orangish color that I love because of a teacher I had in fourth grade who always wore lipstick that was the same color. Her name was Mrs. Meyer, and at first I hated her, because she always made me stay after class and sometimes during recess. But she was always nice, and I realized that she was making me stay just to be sure I understood what we were learning so that I could keep up with the class. Even better, sometimes she would help me get ahead.
She was the best teacher I ever had. On the last day of school, she gave me the “most motivated student” award, and I remember how tightly she hugged me when she handed it to me. She said, “Sam, I just know you’re going to go places. Thanks for being an amazing student” and it made me cry, because school was always so hard and no teacher, not even a family member, had ever said anything like that to me. I still have the certificate. I keep it in my box of special things, with the pictures of me and grandpa and the yoyo I won at Chuckie Cheese’s and the mini shampoo bottles I collect from hotels. I haven’t seen Mrs. Meyer since the last day of class, but I think about her all the time.
And that’s why I think the dress is perfect, because it reminds me so much of her, and I figure it must be good luck. It even fits nicely, tight around the top but flowy on the bottom so it poofs out when I spin and hangs all nice and flattering when I don’t.
That night, Jenny does my make-up and hair. She doesn’t clamp my ear with the hair straightener like last time, thank heavens.Instead, she styles each poof of brown carefully. She blots my face and paints my lips and uses the eyeliner stick that’s funny because it’s basically a colored pencil. My grandmother watches and smiles in a way that makes my nervousness fade.