I'm Normally Perfect (re-upload)

Chapter One

Beethoven's 9th muffled the heavy tread outside my bedroom door. I bent my head over the papers in front of me and scribbled furiously. The door swung open and Mother stood in the doorway, 'Ya sure are takin' long enough—ain't ya done with that thang yet?' When Mother wanted something done the speed of light was a mite slow.

'Oh, y-yes ma'am, here.' I slid the application to the college she'd chosen for me from beneath the papers I was working on and held it out to her. 'Did y-you know that NCU was recently voted the number-one p-party school in the nation?'

'So? No one would invite yoo t' a party, anyway.' She stabbed her finger in the direction of the form I was filling in, 'Whut's that?'

I'd promised myself I'd be nonchalant when this moment arrived, but when she was standing over me like Death in an Ingmar Bergman film I could only whisper, 'O-Oxford.'

'Speak up!'

'It's a u-university in E-England.'

She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, 'I know whut it is, smartass.' Exhaling smoke, 'Why are yoo applyin' t' a college in Angland?' She said it like it was a Russian salt mine. 

'You know Mrs G-Gamble? My English teacher?' 

'The Yankee one. Whut about 'er?' She exhaled smoke from the side of her mouth. 

'We w-were talking about c-colleges the other day.' 

She narrowed her eyes, 'Why?' 

'I was helping h-her do something after school.' I waited to see if that would be ok.

'Yeah. And? Finish the damn story; I swair yer so goddamn slow. They keep tellin' me yer a genius, but I don't know whare the hell they get that from.' 

I rushed on, 'And s-she asked if I was looking into c-colleges yet and I told her I was applying to NCU. She a-asked where e-else and I said that that was all. She f-felt that I sh-should consider some a-alternative choices, as well, and got an application for me.'

Mother feigned being impressed, 'Whale, ain't we cultured? "She felt I should consider some alternative choices, as well."' She muttered, 'That Yankee-ass accent of yours...' Mother had taken it personally when I'd purposely got rid of my twang two years before. Her mother had moved her from Texas to rural North Carolina when she was small—being divorced was still a scandal then. 

Observing me critically from the corner of one eye, she took another drag and exhaled through her nose—she looked like the bull in Bugs Bunny cartoons. 'I guess it won' hert for ya to apply. When they turn ya down maybe id'll teach ya a lesson abou' tryin' t' be better than ya are.' She took the envelope for NCU and turned to leave. At the door she turned back to me and pointed to the Oxford packet, 'An' don' think I'm payin' t' send that thing over thare.' 

'Yes, ma'am.' Having achieved my goal of irritating Mother, I put the application in a drawer. In a few weeks I'd tell Mrs Gamble I didn't hear back from them. Though I hated to lie to her I didn't have the money to send it over. I wouldn't have got in anyway. 

Several days later I was happily working at my typewriter on a story about an orphan girl who was trapped in a library—when I heard my grandmother's voice in the living room. I stopped clacking away in time to hear Mother. 

'Then she wen' off an' applied t' some g.d. school in Angland.' 

Noni—that's what I called grandma—inquired delightedly in her genteel tone, 'Is that so? Which school in particular?' 

'Oxferd. Can ya baleave that?' 

'I think that's a wonderful idea. Has she heard from them yet?'