Terri couldn’t take her eyes off the picture. She had wondered for some time now if she looked at all like her mother. She and her father were both dark-haired, and they both had a small blotchy birthmark, like an amoeba, on their right shoulder, but otherwise—no, they really didn’t look alike.
If only she had a picture of her mother. Not that it would make a difference, but she would feel different. It would be so nice to think—no, to know, and be able to say, “My hair is just like my mother’s!” Or, “I have my mother’s eyes.”
“This is my cousin Basil,” Shaundra said, pointing to another snapshot. Five people sitting on folding wooden chairs set up on a sidewalk, with five more people standing behind them. “This is my Uncle Norm, here’s my Aunt Trudy, she’s a sweetie pie, Uncle Julius, Aunt Connie, so nice . . . See him, that’s Wendell, their son, he’s a little retarded.”
Terri tried to imagine having so much family, so many relatives, and all different. Some just babies, some old, one retarded, but yet all of them part of you. Maybe, she thought, it would be like going to a banquet, seeing a huge table covered with so many bowls of food you knew you could never eat it all, yet you’d want to taste everything.
“You’ll have to show me your family pictures when I come over to your house,” Shaundra said.
Terri tipped her glass and drank the last of the banana shake. What family pictures? They didn’t even have an album. Her father carried a few school pictures of her in his wallet and that was it, except for the framed picture of her and Phil from when she was a baby. She was fat and smiling, her tongue sticking out, and her father, his cheek pressed against her cheek, had his eyes nearly closed, a big happy smile on his face.
“My father doesn’t like cameras,” Terri said. “It’s really funny how they bug him. We hardly ever take pictures.”
“Lucky,” Shaundra said. “In this family they’re always snapping away. ‘Smile!’ Someone is always whipping out a camera. ‘Smile!’ Why do you have to smile when you look at a camera? I only smile when I feel like it.”
“When you’re feeling good,” Terri agreed.
“No, sometimes I don’t even smile then. Just when I feel like it. When I want to, that’s when I smile.” And she smiled at Terri.
A few minutes later, Shaundra’s two younger brothers, Barry and Gary, came in. “Would you believe it?” Shaundra said. “Barry and Gary! My parents must have been out to lunch when they named them.”
“Who’s your friend, Shaundra?” Barry said, looking into her room. He was a sturdy boy of about eleven, with red, red cheeks.
“Shoo!” Shaundra said.
“I’m Terri,” Terri said.
“Hi, Terri. You look nice. What are you doing with an animal like my sister?”
“Go!” Shaundra screamed.
Gary looked over his brother’s shoulder. He had a thin face and big round eyes like Shaundra’s.
“Let’s get out of here,” Shaundra said.
They walked over to the elementary school and sat on the monkey bars. “Wait till my mother comes home,” Shaundra said, digging her hands into her hair. “She’ll tell me I should have hung around and watched the Barry and Gary brats. Watched them do what? Wreck the house?”
They sat there talking. Shaundra was impressed with all the places Terri had lived. “I’ve never been anywhere.”
“When your mother wants to take a trip, get her to go to Niagara Falls.”
“What for, a honeymoon? Don’t answer! I’m trying to get over making everything into a joke. It’s my worst fault. What’s yours?”
“Oh . . .” Terri thought about it. “Maybe not always showing people how much I like them, when I do like them.”
Shaundra nodded. “Did you love Niagara Falls the most of all the places you’ve lived?”
“It was one of the best because of the Falls. And also, Mrs. Secundo, our landlady. We lived right in her house with her. We had two rooms to ourselves, and we shared the rest of the house.” She told Shaundra about Elvira Secundo, who was sixty-eight and always wore a long green cardigan that said SWEET SONIA in white lettering over the breast pocket. “She bought the sweater at the Goodwill Store.”
“Oh, that’s sad,” Shaundra said.
“I know, but it wasn’t, really. She said she liked it because it was warm as a blanket. I mean, she really loved that sweater, that’s why it wasn’t sad.”
“Maybe,” Shaundra said, doubtfully. “I feel sorry for old people. It must be horrible to be old.”
“I think old people are beautiful. Mrs. Secundo had so many wrinkles in her face, but she had all her own teeth. Whenever Daddy did something for her, she would take his hand and say, “That’s good, little boy, that’s good.’”
“Tell me more! Listening to you is like listening to a story.”
Terri was flattered and told Shaundra how any place they ever lived, she and her father would fix up things. At Mrs. Secundo’s they had grouted the bathroom tiles, built shelves, and even cut a new window in her kitchen to bring in more light.
“You did it, too?” Shaundra said.
“Well, naturally, Daddy did most of the work, but I was his helper. I used to just fetch Daddy’s tools, but now I can do different things. A lot of times I do the measuring for a job, and I can hammer and saw pretty good.”
“You could be a carpenter!” Shaundra said. “That’s won—oh, look, Terri. Check out that guy over there playing basketball. Woo woo, he’s taking off his shirt. Hi, Sweetie! Come on over here. I want to talk to you.”
“He heard you,” Terri said, straight-faced.
“He did!” Shaundra gasped. “You creep, he did not! Do you have a boyfriend, Terri?”
“No.”
“I bet you like someone, though?”
Terri nodded, trying not to laugh.
“Who is he? Tell me who he is. I’ll rate him for you.”
“Well ... I don’t want him to know.”
“I won’t tell,” Shaundra said. “I may talk a lot, but I know how to keep a secret. Give me a clue.”
“He plays in the band.”
“What else?”
“He has a wristwatch with a stretch band and wears sneakers without socks.”
“Why, now I’d know him anywhere. Just tell me a few more little details. Why don’t you start with his name?”
“Uh, well, it’s George—”
“George? What instrument does he play?”
“Uh, well, the oboe.”
“George Torrance? Him, Terri? He’s so skinny and he has greasy hair.”
“No, he doesn’t. Anyway, that’s superficial, Shaundra. His eyes are beautiful. Don’t you think his eyes are beautiful?”
“How can you tell behind those glasses? Listen, you just can’t get anything going with George because what if you married—Terri Torrance?”
“I’ll put off the wedding plans,” Terri said. “What about you? Do you have a boyfriend?”