
Torquere Press www.torquerepress.com
Copyright ©2008 by Lena Prodan
First published in www.prizmbooks.com, 2008
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"Hanging yourself is a lot harder than it seems."
"Is it?" Eric murmured.
"It is. Rope. Chair. Neck. Basic, right? Almost Zen in simplicity---"
"What do you know about Zen?" he asked.
"I read shit. But like I said, deceptively simple in theory, but in execution?"
"Execution. Hah." Eric laughed like someone punched his gut.
Thunderstorms the night before had made the July air muggier than usual. Even the shade under the dark wood gazebo roof was suffocating. Eric and I lay on top of one of the picnic tables which were bolted to the concrete foundation with heavy chains, as if someone might try to carry it away.
While we waited for the acid to kick in, we stared out at the thick woods that surrounded the gazebo. If anyone came down the narrow trail, we'd hear them long before they saw us. It was the perfect place to hide from the Military Police and get stoned.
I sat up, putting my feet on the bench near the dog. She perked up, her tiny white ears erect, but closed her eyes again when she saw I wasn't going anywhere. "The thing that pisses me off is that other kids die all the time from the stupidest things, but MENSA girl here somehow couldn't manage it."
"Hmm." His long fingers rested on his deeply tanned stomach above a swirled patch of hair so blond it was white.
On the far side of the trees, a lawnmower droned. I could smell the cut grass. My eyes stung.
"Apparently, the job of hangman involves a lot more than blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life and a Henry Ford 'any color, as long as it's black' approach to fashion. There are variables. Distance and velocity of drop, position of the knot, type of rope, weight of the subject..."
"Now that you mention it, yeah. I can see that," Eric said.
"Stuff I never thought to take into account. Math stuff."
"There you go." He flicked away a sweat bee that hovered over his nose.
I flopped back onto the picnic table and stared at the underside of the gazebo roof. "Math. It figures, right? There are formulas. Did you know that? I can't find them anywhere, of course, but those hangmen had mathematical formulas to calculate it all out."
"Even if you had the formulas---."
"Shut up."
Eric was right though. Math was my bête noire. I groaned. "I was doomed to fail." Failure meaning that I walked away from that attempt with only a nasty rope burn and private humiliation to show for it.
He cradled his head in the crook of my arm, his sun-bleached hair tickling my elbow. His fingers intertwined with mine.
Eric wasn't my boyfriend. We had no interest in each other that way, which was why we could touch without things getting awkward. There were times I wished we could be like everyone else. It would have made life so much easier.
"You don't know how weird this is for me. Same school two years in a row. That hasn't happened since third grade," I told him.
Every summer, I peeled off my old skin and become someone else. The identities came and went, fluid. Some I liked more than others, but there was no way to hold on to what I had been. I moved on, the identity stayed behind. I had no control over what I'd be the next time. That depended on what other people decided I was. It was all about perception, not reality. Besides, there was nothing to be gained by telling people what I truly was, because what I truly was ... I didn't have a word for it. For me.
"I'm going to graduate from Park Hills High School. The horror. The horror." I was still in my Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now phase, as if the connection between the two were a secret I alone understood.
"You gotta graduate from somewhere."
It was my fault I got stuck in that version of myself. When we moved to Ohio, I ignored the tags people tried to stick on me instead of gratefully hiding behind them. Maybe I was like a chameleon that had been put in front of plaid one too many times. No matter how well I blended on the outside, I knew I didn't belong anywhere. That time I didn't try.
"One year as the oddball artsy student was fine, but I don't know if I can survive being myself a second year in a row."
Eric understood that. He couldn't risk being himself, ever. "You're fucked." He sure had a way of summing up a situation.
"Too late to fly under the radar." I pressed my hands to the table and felt the layers of carved initials under my palms. "If only I could will myself to disappear. Melt into the ground like an orange popsicle in the sun."
"You talk like you're tripping."
I smacked him. "You know I don't talk when I'm stoned. If I did, then you'd hear some seriously fucked up shit. Oh! Forgot to mention. Saw the new kid this morning. His name is Sean. He has the lewdest lips."
"Are you sure you're not tripping?"
"Windowpane takes longer to kick in than blotter. Be patient."
"What if we're already tripping and don't know it?" Eric asked.
"Now who sounds stoned? Wait until you see him. Walking sex. The dad is white, but Sean's got to be part Japanese or Filipino or something. I didn't see the mom."
"Hmm." That was an interested 'Hmm,' no matter how non-committal Eric tried to make it sound.
"Best part? I saw a guitar case. I told Sean he should join Tony's garage band."
Tony lived in the other half of my duplex. Members of his band were always moving out, collateral damage of military life.
Eric and I left off talking for a while. I kept waiting to realize things were getting weird, but reality wasn't looping and the trees refused to melt.
The dog stood up, walked a circle on the bench, and settled back down into another nap.
Eric squeezed my fingers. "Where did you do it?"
I stared at him.
"Hang yourself."
"Garage."
"No. I mean, where were you living? Not here."
Once he realized how casually I'd take my opportunities, without threats, without dramatic gestures or bad poetry, Eric started asking, in an indirect way, if I'd tried anything lately. Maybe he was worried about being the one to find me. I didn't blame him. Dead bodies were gross.
"California. I remember because it was the bicentennial year. I was eleven."
"But why?"
I talked about suicide all the time. That was the first time anyone asked me why, though. I had to think a bit before answering. Eric and I were closer than I'd ever been to anyone, but there were things that were hard to say to him because he was a boy and because I'd never talked about such things with anyone. In my parent's house, we didn't talk about our bodies. It was as if we were floating brains, trapped in something too disgusting to ever mention.
How to explain it? "When I was ten, on the day of my tenth birthday, my period started. Up until that moment, I believed that somehow, if I prayed hard enough, God would let me be a boy. After that? I knew my life was over."
I bit my lip, remembering how insanely hysterical I'd been, how humiliatingly ignorant. If it hadn't been for a neighbor teen who calmly gave me the run-down on what she aptly called 'the curse,' I would have never known why I woke up with blood on my panties that morning. Mom still hadn't brought up the subject, and I was almost eighteen.
"I was stupid. I really believed, you know? And I prayed hard every day. No matter what else I was tempted to ask for, I only ever asked God to spare me from being a girl. The preachers promised. They said that with prayer and faith, through the mercy of God, prayers would be answered."
Eric waited, knowing I'd say more.
"If I wasn't such a fucking pussy about pain, I'd take a big knife and cut out every part of my body that's female, dump it in the trash where it belongs, and only leave the real parts behind."
Eric said, "Jesus."
I wiped tears from the corners of my eyes. I hated crying. "The day I tried to hang myself, I told Mom that I wanted to be a boy." I took a shaky breath. "She told me that I'd be happy as a girl if I wasn't so fat and ugly."
He flinched. "She didn't say that."
"I'm translating."
"She didn't say that."
I tried to explain. "You know how families have their own languages?"
He shook his head.
"They do. Like when your dad says he's voting for a team instead of rooting for them. You have code words that everyone in your house understands that make no sense to outsiders, like the way you all act terrified when anyone says Arizona, and then you laugh."
"We had a really bad vacation there once."
"But see, you don't have to tell each other; you just use the code. Your own language."
He nodded like he understood, but I had no idea if he did.
"What I'm saying is that if I told you the exact words Mom used, you'd think I was exaggerating or that what she said wasn't all that bad, so I translated it for you. She didn't say I was fat and ugly, but that's exactly what she meant."
He'd seen Mom work me over too many times to deny it.
"I had to know why God betrayed me. That's all I thought about. You know how in the Old Testament, when someone had a problem with God, they shook their fist at the sky and demanded that God come down to talk it out? They told him flat out that he was wrong. And God listened. I tried screaming at Him for months. He didn't answer. So I figured I'd go up and bang on His door until He couldn't ignore me anymore."
"But suicides can't get into heaven."
I smirked. "One pearly gate, one guard. I figured I'd wait until Peter was distracted by other souls and climb the fence. How hard could it be? I have all eternity to find a way in."
"You're insane." But he laughed.
"Could be."
"How many times have you killed yourself?"
I grinned up at the gazebo roof. "Successfully?"
He curled on his side, rough, sunburned lips pressed to my long, tangled hair. "Yep."
"Well, you know. I'm working on it."
On Wright-Patterson's main base, the houses were eighty-year old, red brick colonials with pristine white trim. The Americana prettiness of it seduced me despite how deeply I wanted to hate it, like Disneyland. Peonies, hollyhocks and lilacs thrived in the well-tended gardens. A tunnel of oaks shaded the streets in summer and covered the ground with scarlet leaves in autumn.
We didn't live there. Pop was only a half-bird, a Lieutenant Colonel, so we were stuck in frumpy taupe off-base military housing. Rank, family size, seniority---none of it mattered in the off-base subdivision. Every officer was assigned a three bedroom, two bathroom, two story, half of a duplex. Every unit had one tree, a maple, plunked in the exact middle of a square front lawn, and two squat evergreen shrubs to mark the boundaries of the unfenced back yards. Flowers were optional, but not encouraged.
Mowing the yards that sloped down the hillside was my only source of spending money, other than the ten-dollar bills Grandma tucked into my birthday cards. The grass grew fast in the summer. I had to mow it twice a week just to keep it under control. That didn't bug me since I got paid for it, but every time I did our lawn, resentment seared through my brain. Pop charged me for the mower's gas, because, "You have to learn some time how the real world works," and didn't pay me to mow our lawn, because somehow I owed it to him.
The grass was really too wet to cut that morning, but Pop made it clear he wanted it done, probably because the subdivision's conformity narc taped a note on our front door, reminding us that the Base Commander expected our lawn to have a regulation crew cut. It might have been a myth, but every military kid believed that our fathers could be temporarily demoted if the MPs caught us doing something wrong. A cut in rank meant a cut in pay, and it hurt any chance at future promotions. I doubted a mere wild lawn could get Pop busted down to Major, and with less than a year to go before his retirement, there was no chance he'd make full Colonel, but he sure acted as if his entire military career hinged on the length of our grass.
I didn't get far with the mower before it clogged. Welts rose on my arms and my eyes stung as I pulled the moist, heavy clippings from the catcher. Grass wasn't my worst allergy, but it was annoying enough.
When I yanked on the starter, the motor still wouldn't turn over. I pushed the mower on its side, shoved my hair behind my ears, and squatted down to get a closer look.
The week before, we'd gone to Chicago for a rare vacation. Pop took me to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was heaven. They had early steam-age machines where the works were exposed, and I could push buttons and watch the harmonious motion of gears like planets orbiting the sun.
The moment that stayed in my heart was when I first caught sight of a huge brass and wrought-iron skeleton dial clock on the museum wall. A pendulum swept out arcs, portions of a circle, but that circle measured time, which was linear. Inside the exposed clockworks, cogs turned, moving the hands around the dial. Cogs and pendulums. Arcs and degrees. Motion and time. Filled with wonder and awe at the pure brilliance of humans, I understood at last how pilgrims could be moved to kiss the foot of a statue.
Machines were predictable. They always did the same thing. This gear always turned that driveshaft. A lawnmower didn't wake you up in the middle of the night and claim that it'd always been a blender, and that you were the insane one for ever thinking it cut grass.
The lawn mower wasn't beautiful in the same way that clock was, but I liked poking around its guts just the same. The simplicity was the thing that fascinated me. No matter how complicated a machine seemed to be, underneath it was a study in minimalism. A few gears and maybe a belt transformed linear motion into circular and sometimes back again. Simple as that. The elegant poetry of engineering.
Fixing the mower was like that---simple. Grass was packed so tightly under the blade of the mower that it couldn't spin. I carefully cleared it out.
"Don't chop your hand off," Eric called out.
I was about to say something snarky to him, but swallowed it when I saw Sean beside him on the sidewalk. Sean bumped his guitar case with his knees, impatient to move on.
It wasn't that I'd forgotten how hot Sean was. It was just that I hoped my imagination added to his aura. No such luck. He was like a creature from a completely different plane of existence who was slumming with us mere mortals. My nerves crackled, jumping like a leg-humping dog. I didn't want him under my skin like that.
Sean ambled next door to the Foster's garage. The door was open and Tony Foster, Lane, and Mark were already there, butchering Led Zeppelin's Black Dog.
I didn't expect Eric to hang around while I finished mowing the lawn, but it seemed abrupt how he left, not even saying he was glad I was back.
After I set the bags of clippings at the curb, I followed the guys into the Foster's garage. Pop ranted constantly about their garage, which was so jammed with boxes that they couldn't park their cars inside. Nothing drove Pop crazier than people who wouldn't live according to his strict rules. Of course, I adored them more because of the fits they gave him.
Eric sat on the clothes washer. I took my usual place on top of the dryer, next to a precarious stack of cardboard boxes that looked like they hadn't been unpacked for several moves. Lane's drum set sat on a greasy square of burnt orange carpet. Extension cords snaked from the outlets to amps and guitars. Thank God, the guys finally stopped desecrating Zep and switched to playing AC/DC. Even Mark could handle those elementary chord progressions.
Tony stood in the middle of the garage with his eyes screwed shut, a mike clutched in his hands as he screeched falsetto lyrics. His guitar was a prop. I rarely saw him play it. Short, with thick glasses and a half-assed moustache, Tony wasn't anyone's idea of a rock star, but he was the only one of us who could sing.
Sean pouted down at his bass, his eyes hidden by his straight black hair. The bass was slung low, so that his long fingers seemed to pluck at his groin as well as the strings. He was short, thin---scrawny, really---but the flare cut of his ripped jeans made his thin thighs look like they went on forever. He glanced up. He had restless eyes that went with the aura of pressurized energy flowing off him. I imagined him jumping on his mattress, practicing Van Halen leaps, until his mom shouted up the stairs to knock it off.
That mouth of his was a little too big for his narrow, Asian featured face, but oh, on him, it worked. I was wrong to call Sean walking sex. Even standing still, he was un-fucking-believable, but I couldn't figure out why. I shoved my hair back behind my ears and cupped my chin in the palm of my hand while I studied him. There was nothing there that appealed to me, except that, as I picked grass clippings off my calves, I was incredibly aware of exactly where he stood, how he moved, and what he said.
Tony's mom came out of their house with a pile of laundry. "Excuse me, kids," she said as she shoved clothes into the wash. When she stood up, she frowned at the grass sticking to my hands. "Oh honey, you know that just makes your asthma kick in. There has to be a better way to earn spending money."
I shrugged.
"Do you at least carry your inhaler with you?" When I didn't say anything, she sighed and patted my hand. "Just be careful, okay? Asthma can kill, you know."
Promises, promises.
She gave me one of those sad smiles before she went back into the house.
Eric and I usually talked through the jam sessions. We heckled the band; we teased each other. I was relieved when he didn't say anything that time. Some hopelessly transparent question about Sean was bound to slip out of my mouth if I spoke. For a while, Eric picked at his fingernails and then dug at the sole of his sneakers. Mostly, he watched the band out of the corner of his eye.
When Eric picked me up for our youth group meeting at the base chapel, I wasn't surprised to see Sean in the car. I wasn't happy about it either.
Like every other time I'd seen Sean, my body went on full alert. I kept hoping he'd say something to break the spell, but he just peered out at the world through his hair, kept his mouth shut, and stayed interesting.
Eric was the only one who seemed able to get Sean to talk. At least, I assumed they talked, because they were together all the time. Military kids made friends quickly, so it didn't surprise me, but it was no reason for Eric to ignore me. I tried hanging with Eric and Sean, but as soon as I got near, they startled, as if caught at something.
There was nothing to do but let it run its course. Sean had new-guy glamour and I couldn't compete with that. Eventually though, Eric would piss him off, or he'd bore Eric, and things would get back to normal. Or so I thought, but Sean was in my place in the passenger's seat when Eric pulled the tiny blue Honda into our driveway, so I had to sit in the back with Eric's dad.
Eric's dad was a big guy. Thick, solid muscle on a huge frame, like a recruiting poster for the middle-aged Marines. Like Eric, he was one of those rare blonds who tanned dark. His bristly haircut, flattened nose, and huge hands hinted at a past as a boxer. He smiled an apology as his long legs pushed into my space.
As Eric backed out of my driveway, I said, "We have to talk about school."
Sean made a face. "You're killing summer."
Since I didn't expect to stay at Park Hills, I put no real thought into my senior year schedule. They handed me a sheet, I filled it out with whatever and gave it back. Classes were starting in three weeks though, and I had to fix my mistake. After a major panic attack, I found the carbon of my first semester schedule smashed into the bottom of my backpack.
In the car, I smoothed my class schedule over my knee. "Okay, I have calculus first period."
"No good. Switch physics to first, and calc to last period," Eric said. "Are you taking World Lit, or American Lit two?"
"I don't know. Whatever you're taking."
Sean scratched his scalp. "You two take every class together?"
Eric paused and peered down the railroad tracks before crossing them. He only drove like that when his dad was in the car. Otherwise, he took curves on two wheels. "Just the important ones. I'm not great at writing. She is. History too. She fixes my essays so I can get a better grade."
"There's no rule against it," I assured Eric's dad. "I do some editing." Truthfully, I wrote the essay and then Eric transcribed it in his hand.
His dad nodded.
I dug my knees into the back of the driver's seat, hoping that Eric took the hint to stop talking about our arrangement. What we did to help my math scores wasn't exactly cheating, but I didn't want to admit to that either. I took the test, then I handed it back to Eric and he circled where I made my first mistake on each problem. Some days, every problem had a light pencil mark on the first step. If we were lucky, I could pass it back to him a second time without getting caught. I did my own work though.
Eric glanced at me in the rear view mirror. "World Lit or American? Do I need to change my schedule?"
I tugged on the driver's seat to pull forward. "If American Lit two is anything like one, then it's a waste of time. I got hold of Harvard's suggested reading list. Hardly anything on that list was required reading in our American Lit one. Hemingway? No. Twain? No. Poe---well, we read one of his poems, but none of his stories. Steinbeck? Oh, thank God for small miracles. I mean, we read John Jakes' The Bastard. What's next? The Betsy or The Other Side of Midnight?"
"Is Harold Robbins even an American writer?" Eric asked.
"But you get my point? These stupid Ohioans are making it so we can't compete with kids from decent states when we try to get into college." I slouched back against the seat. "I have a lot of reading to do."
Sean twisted around to look back at me. "You're going to read the entire list?"
"I'm a fast reader. I have all year. I've read some of them on my own, and I'll try to hit the important ones."
Sean made a face. "Save time. Read Cliff Notes."
"No. I want to read them."
Eric's dad didn't get involved. I liked that about him. He sat back and listened when Eric and I got on a roll, but he rarely said anything. Pop would have sermonized the entire drive.
Sean said, "Well, I can tell you right now that the moral of Catcher In The Rye is that if you're a stupid rebel without a cause, your parents will put you in a mental hospital."
"That isn't true," I told him. "That one I read on my own. It's about a manic depressive whose parents and teachers won't admit it because mental illness is too déclassé for rich people."
Sean shrugged. "Fine, but if you want an A on your term paper, you have to write that rebel-without-a-clue shit. That's what they want to hear."
I sneaked a glance at Eric's dad. He pretended he didn't hear the word shit. Or maybe he didn't care.
"But it's wrong," I told Sean.
"But that's what gets an A."
It was perverse of me, but I loved that we were fighting. Hopefully that hid my obsession with him. "Don't teachers ever read the books they assign? If they did, they'd know that Catcher in the Rye is about a mentally ill kid whose parents ignore all the signs."
Sean pushed buttons on the radio.
Eric relaxed his leg so that his knee touched Sean's. Sean stared out the window. He didn't move his leg away. They talked, but kept it low so that I couldn't join in.
We pulled up to the main gate of the base. The MP saluted the car, not the driver. Eric's father returned the salute from the back seat. Eric rolled forward slowly, only accelerating when the MP went inside his hut.
Young men in blue Air Force uniforms walked in formation down the sidewalk on base. Eric coasted, staying behind them.
"Eric!" his dad barked.
Eric jumped.
"The base speed limit isn't that slow, son."
Eric sped up.
His dad took a deep breath that swelled his barrel chest. "So, what colleges have you applied to?" he asked me.
I sighed forever, one of my greatest talents. "Mom ordered me to apply to Harvard."
His eyes widened. "Good school."
"I guess."
"I think Eric told me that your Mom went away again."
"No. We were on vacation, together. We went to Chicago. I'd love to go to school there."
"Eric is applying to MIT. That's close to Harvard, right?"
Hell if I knew.
"You don't seem excited. Harvard is a great school. If you go to school in Chicago, you two will be miles apart."
Eric's dad hardly ever talked to me. A word here or there to acknowledge my existence, but we'd never had a conversation. Why we had to start then was beyond me. I exhaled and tried not to make it sound like a sigh. "They asked for references. People who've known me for years. No one knows me."
"There must be somebody."
I ran my fingernail along the seam of my shorts. "Well, Pop hangs out with those Nazi rocket scientists that I've known since I was a kid. You think I'm joking? The Army nabbed these German guys at the end of World War II and brought them back to the US for government missile projects. I think they called it Operation Paperclip. The Russians were grabbing every Nazi scientist they could too, trying to get hold of German weapons knowledge."
"I think I heard of that," he said slowly.
That wasn't what he wanted to talk about. I could see it in his eyes. I knew better than to talk to people like that, but he heard enough of my conversations with Eric that my weirdness shouldn't have surprised him.
"I can just imagine how great it will look on my application when all my references are from Nazis."
Eric's dad nudged me with his elbow. "Harvard might like that."
I cracked a little smile for him.
"I'll be glad to give you a reference. But have you thought of MIT? You could be there. With Eric."
"Math isn't my thing. He could tell you."
"You could be study buddies, like you are now."
"No amount of tutoring is going to help. I get As in math by sheer force of will. But all I'm doing is parroting back formulas. I have no idea what it means. Eric understands the concepts behind it. To me, formulas are random manipulations of numbers for no explicable reason. The answers mean nothing to me. They're just more numbers. I'll never get it."
We turned into the parking lot for the white clapboard chapel. Supposedly it was non-denominational, but the white spire and foursquare building made it clear that the de facto religion of the military was fundamentalist Christianity. Sure, I knew Catholics and Jews in uniform, but I'd never met one above the rank of Major.
Eric and Sean got out of the car without waiting for me.
Before I could get out, Eric's dad said, "There are other good schools up there. Near to MIT. I'll write any recommendation you need." It was the first time I'd seen an adult with desperation in his eyes. "You could see Eric on weekends."
"That would be nice, I suppose."
"Wouldn't it?" His smile cranked up voltage. "A man with a degree from MIT can write his own ticket. Computers are the future."
I nodded.
We watched the boys walk across the lawn to the fellowship hall. Their shoulders brushed. Eric grinned at Sean. They laughed.
His dad said, "Would you like to go to see a movie with Eric? My treat. He can have the car any night you two want to go."
I got out of the car fast and ducked through the kids hanging out at the door of the fellowship hall. Sean, Eric, and I were the only three in the youth group that went to Park Hills. Everyone else lived on base and attended the rival high school.
Sean and Eric sat together on the back row of folding chairs. They each had a leg propped up on a chair in the next row. Eric had his hand cupped over his mouth and he bent toward Sean as he whispered. I took the chair next to Eric. Whatever they were talking about, they didn't share it with me.
The base chaplain stood behind a portable pulpit on a small stage. A quilt of Bible scenes hung on the wall behind him. "Okay, quiet everyone. Let's begin."
The conversations continued.
"Okay, I know it's been all summer since you've seen each other, and we have a few new people, but it's time to pay attention."
Sean snorted.
The chaplain put his hand over his heart and turned to the flags propped up in the corner. "I pledge allegiance..."
We reluctantly got to our feet and mumbled along.
"Let us bow our heads..."
Baptists could suck the fun out of anything. Would it have killed them to skip the prayers just once? But I guessed they wanted to make sure every moment of joy in our lives carried the taint of guilt.
When the Chaplain finally wound down to the end of his rambling prayer, we gave him exhausted amens and dropped back down into our seats.
"I went through the suggestions made at the end of last year. Of the useable comments." The Chaplain glared over his reading glasses at the boys. "There was one I thought I'd bring to the group for a vote. How do you feel about a hiking trip along the Appalachian trail?"
I almost choked. That was my suggestion.
"How long of a trip?" one of the girls from the main base asked.
"Two weeks."
"Where's the Appalachian Trial?" one of the boys asked.
"In Appalachia, dumb ass," someone told him.
"Now group, we agreed we weren't going to use that kind of language." 'We,' meaning that the chaplain decided that. The rest of us kept at it.
I curled my fingers under the edge of the cool metal seat. It was a go-for-broke wish, one I didn't expect anyone to take seriously when I wrote it on the questionnaire. Heck, I expected to be living in a different state by then, and if it happened at all, the trip would be for other people, not for me. Sure, the youth group took weekend camping trips, and we hiked, but the kids who were into it like me had long since moved away.
The Chaplain pulled down a map like the kind they had in school, revealing the US. He tapped the east coast. "The trail runs from Georgia to Maine."
"I'm not hiking that far," a boy grumbled. "Why don't we go to Hawaii for two weeks?"
Oh sure, as if that were a possibility.
The chaplain tapped on the map again. "We'd only have enough time to do part of the trail. I've looked into it, and the section through Virginia looks like our best bet. I have handouts with information. I'd like you all to think about this, and talk it over with your parents. If we decide to do this, we have to start training. That means lots of weekend camping, and practice with fully loaded backpacks. This is a trail for experienced hikers only."
I watched the other kids. They didn't seem interested. I wanted to tell them how great it would be, but didn't dare show my enthusiasm. I brutally shot down their lame suggestions and expected them to do the same to anything I supported.
Sean shoved his hands into his pockets. "Might be fun."
Eric leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. He regarded Sean for a bit, glanced at me, and slouched back against his seat. "I'm in."
Three votes for. It was enough support to give me a glimmer of hope. If I could only sway them. I listened to the complaints drone on for a while, and then cautiously argued for the trip.
Two weeks in the woods! Two weeks away from my parents; two weeks in relative seclusion; two weeks God couldn't escape me.
Slowly, the vote turned to my side. It was hard to keep the grin off my face. I'd been dreaming of that hike for years, and it looked as if it would happen.
We sat on lawn chairs by Tony's old Impala at the SkyPorn Drive-In Theater. As usual, there were a few cars spread out over the deeply rutted dirt parking lot. Broken sound boxes dangled from posts. Near the warped back fence, there was a small, dingy snack shack and bathrooms I wouldn't go into even on a double-dog dare.
The features that week were Swedish SeXXX and Teddy Bare. I wasn't sure which one was playing when Tony and I pulled into the lot and let the rest of the guys out of the trunk. On screen, a woman wearing Mary-Ann piggy-tails sprawled on a pile of hay with her thighs spread wide. A twenty-foot long dick lunged at her. Her voice was garbled in the speaker near the car, but we always made up our own dialog anyway.
"I'm almost sure your father didn't mean this when he told you to take me to a movie," I told Eric as he lit the camp stove.
Lane popped open the cooler and took out the hot dogs. "Nice night," he said as he looked up.
The sky was clear, a big improvement over the thunderheads the week before, but the light from the movie made it hard to see the fainter stars.
Mark slapped mosquitoes from his arms. "They fucking fly for miles just to bite me."
"That's because you're so sweet." Lane pinched Mark's cheek and got punched for it.
"Pass the SC," Tony called out.
The fifth of Southern Comfort got passed down the row.
There were four other cars at the drive-in, parked as far part as possible. When they got bored, the guys wandered over and peered into the fogged windows. Management never said a word to us. Then again, management didn't seem to care that five guys spilled out of the trunk when we only paid for two tickets, or about our cookouts, the noise, the drinking, or the pipe we kept going in the back seat of the car. We were regular customers.
It was Sean's first trip to the Skyporn with us. He stared up at the screen, mouth open. I couldn't tell if it was the movie or the drugs that overwhelmed him.
Eric balanced a wire coat hanger on the edge of the camp stove. He nudged my elbow and nodded to the Impala.
I staggered after him to the back seat of the car. Southern Comfort was always a mistake.
Eric dug into his pocket for the foil wrapped cube. He pinched the corner off a chunk of blonde hash, put it in the bowl of his pipe, and took long draws as he lit it. He passed it to me. I took my hit, held the smoke in my lungs, and passed the pipe to Sean.
"It's not as easy to drown as you might think," I said after I coughed out the smoke.
"Almost Zen," Eric said. His lips twitched a little.
I nudged him with my shoulder. "Shut up."
The caramel scent of hash filled the car.
Sean passed me the pipe. "How can you drown yourself?"
The metal burned my fingers, but I took my hit. "I didn't start out to. We were in San Diego, at the North Island Naval R&R facilities. I went for a swim in the ocean. The wind came up and the water got kind of cloudy, so I started to swim in. I'm a decent swimmer."
Eric nudged my hand. I gave him the lighter. He held the flame down to the bowl of the pipe.
"After I'd been swimming a while, I treaded water to see where I was. I was down the beach and further away from shore. I figured my direction got screwed up by the waves, so I started swimming again, only with my head up that time so I could see where I was going. Didn't take long to realize I was caught in a rip tide. And then I thought, if I don't do anything, if I don't fight it, this is like the easiest death ever, right? All I have to do is let it take me. And somewhere out there, it'll pull me under."
Sean hummed the ominous theme music from Jaws.
"Yeah, I was a little worried about sharks, but whatever works, right? So I swam away from shore to speed things up a little."
Eric handed the pipe to me. I passed it on to Sean.
"By then, the waves were really slamming me, and I kept thinking, next one, while I'm under, I'll just breathe in the water, fill my lungs. Only the next wave knocked me around, and no matter how hard I tried, my body would not let me open my mouth while my head was under. I was getting really pissed. And then, someone grabbed me."
On the screen, a mustachioed, hairy blond man threw off his jeans but kept on his cowboy hat. The scene had changed to a depressingly stark bedroom somewhere.
"It was this marine. Or so I'm guessing from the hazy green tattoo on his shoulder. Dark crew cut. Muscles forever. He didn't hold me the way you're supposed to hold a drowning person. He clutched me to his chest and swam hugging me. I would have tried to get away, but he kept babbling about how he almost didn't see me. He was so scared that I was gonna die. I knew that, if I tried to get away, he'd kill himself to save me, so I let him be the hero. We got close enough to wade through the surf, but he was still hanging on to me, like he knew. He kept asking if I was okay. I hung onto his neck. I could feel his dick. It was warm, even though he was soft. He kept saying that he almost didn't see me, if he'd looked the wrong way for a second, he would have missed me. That's what scared him the most, I think, what a quirk of fate it was that he saw my head bobbing between the swells. He still looked worried, and I couldn't bear it, so I hugged him harder and told him, 'I'm okay now, I'm okay.' We kind of held on to each other, and then the lifeguard went out on the balcony of the blue lifeguard stand and ran up the riptide flag and shouted for everyone to get out of the water. My marine burst out laughing, but then he was crying for real."
"Pussy," Sean said.
"I dare you to say that to his face, douche bag. He could have flattened your scrawny ass."
The woman on screen was making oh-oh-oh sounds she didn't mean. The actors switched positions. The man with the moustache jerked his dick. The guys listened to me, but they watched the hazy outline of the movie through the fogged windshield. Sean wet his lips.
"We trudged through the deep sand back over to my parents. The marine tried to talk to them, but they blew him off. He squeezed my shoulder and left. They had no clue."
Eric nuzzled against my cheek. I hoped that meant we were getting along again. I was missing him even when he was around, because he kept a mental distance I didn't know how to get around. In the dark back seat of Tony's Impala, with our heads together, it felt like we were finally back to being friends.
Sean leaned across my lap, as if seeing what Eric was doing. I thought, if he tries to touch any girl parts of my body, I'll rip his fucking hand off. He kissed me, lightly, and then his lips slid off mine and onto Eric's mouth.
Eric went tense. He leaned closer to Sean. Their mouths were inches from mine. I tried to melt back into the seat. Sean put his hand on my thigh, but not as if I were there. I liked it that way, being invisible. He pushed up to Eric's mouth. Between my thighs was moist and hot, and I throbbed in places I refused to touch.
I'd never seen people kiss like that, not in movies, not even in the hallways between classes. They breathed hard through their noses. The crush of their lips was messy and wet and hard.
They sprang apart when we heard the door open.
"You guys gonna bogart that all night?" Tony asked. "We shared our pot."
"Sure." Eric shoved the pipe at him.
Sean climbed clumsily out of the car. I could smell a scent coming off my body, thicker than hash smoke. Eric balled his hands into fists on his thighs, tugged on the legs of his jeans, and balled up his hands again. He couldn't hold still.
Tony gave us a look. "Whatever you two do, don't mess up my car." He closed the door.
Eric exhaled.
Scenes flickered on the screen. Soft light alternated with flashes of dark.
"Did..." I had to say something. It was already unreal.
Eric bolted for the bathroom, leaving me alone in the back seat of the car. I didn't want the other guys to smell me and get ideas, so I climbed out and found an empty lawn chair.
"That was quick," Tony smirked.
Eric came back, but sat next to Lane. I stared up at the screen and wondered why they didn't ever show something really hot in those movies, like two boys kissing, instead of all that boring fucking. Sean took sips of Southern Comfort that made him wince and passed out before the last movie ended.
Mom's interest in me came in unpredictable waves. For long periods, I could have been a ghost in the house. Then she'd stare as if I'd popped in from another dimension. Being ignored had advantages. Invisibility was safe. Nothing good ever came from having her attention.
It was the middle of the night when she shook me awake. Time meant nothing if she had something on her mind.
"Are you taking typing this semester?"
"Typing?" In my groggy state, I wondered if she meant a section from my biology class, but I took that my sophomore year.
"I told you to take typing."
It was the first I heard of it. I rubbed my eyes against the harsh halo of light and tried to shake off sleep. "No. I mean, I didn't know I was supposed to sign up for it."
"Everyone needs to know how to type. Do you think you can just run around doing anything you want?"
Did she dream things and think they were real? I honestly thought so sometimes.
She paced my small bedroom. "Who told you that you could put posters on the walls?"
"Um."
She yanked down my David Bowie poster. "Do you see that? Do you see?" I squinted at the wall. A patch of paint pulled free with the tape, but if she'd eased it down instead of yanking, that probably wouldn't have happened. "Now we'll have to paint this entire room."
"I'll do it."
"Yes, you will."
Her fingers extended to pull up the poster inch by inch until it waded under her curved talons. She glanced around my room. It wasn't a mess, but it wasn't clean either.
She paced more, turning tight circles between the dresser and my bed. Her lips moved, but I didn't hear words. Her knuckles were white, as if she feared Bowie could fly out of her hands.
"This is unacceptable. Unacceptable," she said. "Why do you insist on making everything so difficult?"
I got out of bed, ready to do anything she wanted if only she'd stop.
She pulled open the top drawer of my dresser and scooped my notebooks into it. It took a couple good slams to get the notebooks and pens to settle enough to close the drawer.
My flannel shirt was on the floor. I hung it up. School books went into my backpack. Boots into my closet.
Her lips trembled. "I can't stand it," she whispered. "You torment me like this. You have no heart."
"Mom."
"Heartless. So focused on yourself. Do you ever think of other people? Ever?"
"Yes. Please, Mom, it's the middle of the night."
"All you do is use people." She sat on my bed, the poster still clamped in her hand. "I'm concerned about you. You're too fat. You'll never get a decent job. People will think you're stupid. They'll see you as a slob, and you're too smart for that, honey."
I couldn't keep up. Her night talks were always like that, jumping from one topic to another. Her thoughts were as unfocused as her eyes. By then, I was so raw that I just wanted it to stop.
She shook her head. "I love you. I'm just trying to help."
"I know." I sat beside her and tried to put my arms around her but she leaned away until only my fingertips could reach her. "I love you too," I told her. That was the horrible part---I meant it.
"Oh, never mind." She pulled away from me and dropped my mangled Bowie poster on the floor. "Well, it's late. I'm going back to bed."
The blitzkrieg attack was over. As always, it hit suddenly, left me in shock, and ended before my mind even registered the devastation. She went to sleep. I spent the night sitting on the edge of my bed, reliving every word.
I missed the first week of school. There was no way I could leave my bedroom. It started the way it always did---with me admitting I was a hopeless fuck-up. I couldn't stand to be inside my fat body, but I was trapped in there with my thoughts, and my thoughts wouldn't shut down long enough to let me sleep. I was exhausted. It was as if a gray film coated the world and muted everything that was interesting or good or meaningful, and I would never connect to them again. For that week, I didn't eat, didn't bathe, didn't do anything. Just thinking about getting out of bed made me cover my face and cry.
My parents never knocked on my door. Some days, they'd yell out that dinner was ready, but they never demanded I join them. Only the dog would have anything to do with me. She perched at the foot of my bed and watched me with worried eyes. When a new gush of warm tears trickled down my face, she crept up to lick my hand.
When I finally forced myself to leave my bedroom on Sunday, the first thing I did was take a shower. Using my fingernails, I scraped the gray off my skin until the pink tracks merged into a solid burn.
Eight days without being brushed did a number on my hair. The sweat and oil made it look wet at the scalp, but the ends were dry and wild. No matter how much conditioner I poured on it, the huge tangle at the nape of my neck wouldn't brush out, so I gathered it into a ponytail and cut as close to my skull as I could, sawing through my hair with the dulled scissor blades.
Electric guitar chords whaa-whaaed and drumbeats bounced off the houses, so I knew the guys were hanging out next door. It was an effort to drag myself that far, but I had to get away from my stinking room.
Tony saw me first. He laughed. "Oh man."
I seriously did not give a shit. At least I could feel air on my neck.
Eric sat on the washer. Sean was in my place on the dryer, his bass in his lap. I wasn't sure where to go. Every other inch of the garage was stuffed with boxes, bikes, and abandoned sporting equipment.
My legs were too weak to hold me up much longer. That was the part I hated most, how the weakness lingered after I scraped off the gray.
Mrs. Foster brought cold drinks out to the guys. She wore the collar of her pink Izod shirt up, just like the guys did, but she was sorority girl perfect enough to pull off that look. I must have looked really bad, because she came right over to me. "Are you okay?" She reached for me with both hands. "You're so pale. Oh!" She'd touched the back of my head, where my hair bristled. "What happened to your beautiful hair?"
"Cut it."
"Well, yes, but honey! Why?"
"I couldn't get the knots out."
She pulled me into the house. "Let's see if we can just trim it up a bit, okay? I cut Tony's hair, so I know what I'm doing."
As if that was a concern.
I didn't know why, but I let her put me in a kitchen chair and drape a towel around my shoulders. I clutched the ends in a fist.
"Would you like a soda?"
"No thank you, ma'am."
"Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie." She bent down to look into my eyes. "How about an otter pop?" She wasn't going to give up until I accepted something from her.
"Sure."
She rummaged through the freezer. "Oh, those boys ... They leave empty boxes in the freezer. It would take them all of two seconds to---oh, here's one. Is blue okay?"
I had no idea what flavor blue was, but I said, "Yes. Thank you," and tried to sound like I meant it.
She frowned and stared at my hair. "I'm sorry. I can't save much of the length here."
"I don't care." The otter pop had an odd chemical flavor. So that's what blue tasted like. I sucked on the tip, the cold numbing my tongue until I could stand it.
"Oh dear." Another dark lock dropped on the linoleum. "I'm afraid ... I hate to do this, but do you mind if I use the razor? It's so short here in the back, and I can't cover it, so all I can do is even it out."
"Shave it all off." I wanted to look like I was fresh from basic training.
Her laugh was nervous. "I won't have to go that far."
I tipped the otter pop's plastic sleeve and sucked the blue syrup from the bottom.
When she stopped cutting, I had a close buzz to the top of my ears, and thick, layered hair above that.
"You look like a punker," Tony said when he came into the kitchen from the garage. "Nice blue lips."
His mom fussed with my bangs. "Be nice. She looks cute. It was the best I could do."
Tony picked up the otter pop box from the top of the trash can. "We're out? Mom," he whined.
I checked my hair in the mirror behind their dining table.
"It'll grow out," she assured me as she fluffed my bangs some more.
My lips were blue like a corpse's. I stuck my tongue out at my reflection, first just the tip, and then like Gene Simmons of Kiss. I kept staring, because it was the first time I'd seen anything that looked like real me in a mirror.
"Is it okay?" Mrs. Foster fluffed my bangs again.
"It's wonderful," I told her. "I love it." And I meant it, too. I looked like a boy.
Monday morning, even though the temperature was in the high eighties, I dressed in jeans, hiking boots with red laces left untied, a Blue Oyster Cult concert t-shirt, and an unbuttoned flannel shirt. They cranked up the air conditioning so high in the school building that everyone got sinus headaches. Anyone wearing shorts risked pneumonia.
Eric and I usually shared a seat on the bus, but he pushed me back when I tried to sit next to him.
"What the fuck is your problem?" He knew I didn't like being touched. All he had to do was say something.
Sean shoved me from behind into the seat and slid in next to me so that the three of us were crammed together. Eric kept pushing at my shoulder.
I smacked him. "Knock it off." The year before, Eric sprawled across the seat to save room for me. I missed one week of school and suddenly he couldn't stand to have me near. Or maybe ... I glanced from Sean to Eric. I'd never seen two people working so hard not to look at each other. Oh. It was suddenly so obvious. Man, was I being slow. "Switch places with me," I said to Sean. Eric looked hopeful.
"Naw. Fine where I am," Sean said.
"Come on, switch." I shoved him toward the aisle so that I could slide over.
The bus driver shut the door and stomped back toward us. "If you boys don't stop horsing around, I'll make you walk to school. Got it?"
Sean said, "Yes."
Eric huffed and turned to the window.
"What about you?" The driver scowled down at me.
"Yes, sir," I whispered. He thought I was a boy. I touched my hair for good luck.
Unlike every other year of school, I knew which bus to ride, where the classrooms were, what to wear, and how the school functioned. I almost---almost---dared to feel as if it was my school, but that was dangerous. Nothing provoked the wrath of the fates like thinking of a place as home, so I tried to fool them by pretending I had a case of really strong déjà vu.
Like me, a lot of kids missed the first days of school. Teachers didn't want to be there that week and administration was overwhelmed, so I didn't miss anything important. They tried to make up for it all on Monday though, so by lunch, I was exhausted.
Bulletin boards around the cafeteria announced the first dance of the year, a band competition, class elections, and, almost apologetically, a football game on Friday night.
When I came out of the lunch line, I couldn't see the guys. About thirty tables were set in a grid under sputtering florescent lights. The socials, an elite mix of class presidents, cheerleaders, and the popular, were in their usual spot. The grits, poor kids who were destined to drop out or head for vocational school, clung tight to their little slice of territory. Between chorus and marching band, almost half the student body was in the music program, and they owned the center block of the cafeteria. The remainders, like the drama club and military kids, staked out space where they could.
Finally, I spotted Mark at the back corner table, a spot highly coveted for its easy access to the smoke hole, and for anyone ditching class, the woods.
I plopped down at the table across from Sean and Eric. Sean stole tater tots from my tray and popped them in his mouth with a big grin. I sneered at him.
"The bus driver called you a boy," he snickered.
"Bite my cock."
He jerked back, eyes wide.
That cracked up Lane. "One thing you gotta get used to, man, we don't party with girls. She can put a world of hurt on you, so don't fuck with her."
That was a big, fat lie, but I liked it, so I showed Sean an evil grin. Amazingly, he dropped eye contact. Eric's glare slid from Sean to me and back again.
"Great table," I said. "Who'd you have to kill?"
Mark and Tony giggled. "The football team."
Sure enough, the football team huddled at a table near the center of the cafeteria. The drummers from the marching band taunted them about the score of last Friday's game.
I didn't want to dig in my backpack for my schedule, so I asked Eric, "What classroom is World Lit in?" It was a weird little fart in my otherwise phenomenal memory, but I couldn't remember the classroom numbers from my schedule no matter how long I stared at the sheet. Phone numbers and street names were also elusive. I could describe the entire drive from the school to our house in detail, give every landmark, warn where the cops hid with radar guns, detail every turn, but I couldn't tell anyone the names of the streets, or even my address.
Eric said, "Don't know," and turned back to Sean.
"Don't we have it right after lunch?" Oh God, was I forgetting classes too? I reached for my backpack.
He turned back to me. "I switched to American Lit."
"Why? I thought we agreed to take World Lit."
"I changed my mind."
"I can't change my classes now, Eric. I mean, I could, but it's a huge hassle, and the school secretary hates me."
"Don't change it."
He was so damn cold. I peered into my backpack and stirred stuff around while I tried to figure out what his problem was. "Fine. It's your grade, not mine." It took all my concentration to say that without a wobble in my voice.
"So," Sean drawled, "do you guys go to Rocky Horror every weekend?"
A stab of jealousy ripped through me. "You guys went to Rocky Horror without me?" Eric and I were Riff-Raff and Magenta, always together.
"You wouldn't come out of your room. Besides, you chopped off your hair."
I blinked and blinked until the welling tears subsided. "You could have asked."
Sean was suddenly very interested. "You guys dress up?"
"Eric didn't?" How could my world change so much in one fucking week? Maybe the fates had dropped me into another universe and the déjà vu joke was on me.
Eric mumbled, "It's stupid."
My mouth opened.
Sean put his elbows on the faux wood grain table. "That's awesome. I should pick a character."
"You can be Magenta," I snapped. "I'm dressing as Brad next time. Even if it is stupid."
"I can't believe they show it in a porn theater."
I grinned. "Yeah, be careful where you sit."
"You guys spend an awful lot of time at the pornos, don't you?"
I'd never thought of it that way.
It wasn't like Sean to be so casually chatty with me. I kept expecting a slam to follow each comment, but he was being nice.
Lane said, "But we don't watch the porn movies at the Rocky Horror theater. They card. Bastards."
"Plus, we'd have to pay to get in," Mark reminded him.
"What character should I be?" Sean asked me. "Eric should be that blond guy, the one in the gold shorts."
I never thought of it before, but Eric had the tanned body and sun-bleached hair for it. "You mean Rocky?"
"Is that his name? And I should be the doctor, the guy with the lips."
"Frankenfurter?" My eyebrows went up. Oh my. Rocky and Frakenfurter. Cool. I was so excited for Eric, even if he was being a grumpy dickhead. "Would you really wear fishnets and a corset?" That took balls. In Ohio, it took a touch of insanity too. I hoped Sean knew how to throw a solid punch.
"Can you help me put a costume together? You'll go with us next time, right? In costume?" Sean asked.
My little heart went pitty-pat, and other parts of me throbbed too. I wondered if he'd let me lace up the corset. "I wouldn't miss it."
Eric punched his lunch sack into a tight ball.
Depending on the school, P.E. could be tolerable or hell. I was in a hell year. Instead of playing volleyball or basketball when the daytime temperatures dropped below forty, we suited up for soccer. Brilliance. None of us had cleats and the practice field was a swamp from days of heavy rains.
My class warily eyed the mud pit in the middle of the field as the P.E. teacher stepped over puddles on the sideline. "Okay, who here has played before?" she asked.
I waited before tentatively raising my hand. I saw another hand go up. We were the only two.
"You're the captains. Pick your teams."
The other girl holding up her hand had to be new to the school. There was no way I would have missed her in the hallways. By the time we headed back into the locker room, I'd already memorized every gesture, every expression, every second I'd been on the field with her, and yet I sneaked a few more peeks to make sure I had it right.
Blue eyes, loopy brown curls cropped short, a slight tilt at the tip of her nose, and freckles across her cheeks like the Milky Way scattered across the night sky. On the soccer field, even though she was petite, she got such a look of grim determination on her face that the other girls let her have the ball. I was bigger and heavier, and about as athletic as an upside-down turtle, but there was something about her that made me want to play. I challenged her whenever she went for the ball, just so that we could crash together. Every slam left me wanting more.
Back in the locker room, I stripped quickly, tossing my muddy socks and shorts onto the bench, and scuttled into the shower before anyone could see me naked.
She clutched a towel to her chest and hurried across the concrete floor as I had, even though she was slim and short and perfect.
There were privacy curtains in the showers, but they billowed as the spray hit them. I didn't want to get caught looking, but I stole glances at her stall as I soaped my hair.
For once, I was glad I wasn't a boy on the outside. No one could tell when a girl had a hard-on that tingled between her legs. If I had been a boy, I wouldn't have been able to see the dimples at the small of her back just above the swell of her hips, or the way her neck curved when she tipped back her head into the spray.
She closed her eyes and let the suds rinse off her face. My throat clamped down so tight I couldn't have drawn a breath if I wanted to. The planets came to a shuddering stop in their orbits and time so kindly paused for a couple seconds just for me to soak in longing so fierce that the pain was almost a relief, because that's how I knew it was real. Then it was over---she shook water from her hair and I exhaled and the universe shuddered back into motion. I wished I had the balls to rub one off at school.
Her name was Amanda. She ate lunch with the grits. We had no other classes together. The only time I saw her was when she stripped down for P.E. or when she got dressed after her shower. It was a fucking conspiracy.
Amanda. Amanda. Amanda.
I walked down hallways at school with my books crushed closed to my chest, my head ducked so that my blush-burned cheeks could press against the slick surface of my physics textbook.
Since I'd cut my hair, vicious whispers of 'dyke' ambushed me in the hallways between classes. I pretended I didn't hear it. Sometimes I worried that there was something really wrong with me. I wasn't supposed to feel that way about a girl. Everyone said so. But I kept forgiving myself anyway.
I slammed between misery and buoyant joy every hour of every day. It was like worrying a tooth not ready to be pulled out of my gums, painful, but exquisitely so. I knew I was being an idiot, but then I'd secretly smile to myself and huddle behind my wall of print and exhale her name against the books.
Amanda.
It took me two weeks to work up to saying, "Good game," to her.
Amanda pulled a pilled sweater on. When her head popped through the neck, she grinned, showing crooked teeth. "Yeah."
My heartbeat crowded words out of my throat. I stood there, suspended between thought and action. She waited, expecting me to say more. I grabbed my books and bolted for my next class.
Amanda was a secret. I didn't even dare think about her while I ate dinner, or on the bus. Late at night, though, I'd snake my hand between my thighs and let my heart open. I remembered everything she said, how she said it, the way she picked polish off her gnawed nails ... everything.
P.E. was driving me nuts. I felt as if everyone suspected me, so I tried not to get caught watching her. I couldn't talk to her at lunch. The distance between our table and the grit's was only a three-foot aisle, but it might as well have been miles. If I was ever going to talk to her, I knew I had to see her outside of school.
I called Eric, curling up on the sofa and cupping my hand over the receiver even though Mom and Pop weren't in the room.
"What?" Eric snapped.
There were a thousand things I needed to discuss with him, but they dissipated with that one word. "Um..."
"I'm busy."
I should have said, "I need to talk to you," but I was too angry to admit it.
"Is this important?"
"Not anymore," I told him, and hung up.
Think. MENSA girl, think.
It was so obvious. I'd ask her out on a date. But I couldn't make it sound like a date-date, just something innocent like friends hanging out. The only place I could afford to take her was the movies, so that part was simple.
Timing was everything. I didn't want the other girls in our PE class to hear me ask, and I couldn't speak while Amanda was wet and naked, so a week later, while we dumped the equipment back into the locker, I blurted, "Would you like to catch a movie?"
"Which one?"
As Sean mentioned, the only movie theaters I went to regularly were the SkyPorn Drive-In and the seedy porno palace where we watched Rocky Horror. Titles came readily to mind, but I bowed my head and tried to think of movies normal people went to see. "You pick."
She grinned. By then, I knew the exact alignment of her crooked teeth, and the left-hand corkscrew of the thick brown curl that dangled before her eyes. Still, I couldn't stop wanting to look at her more.
We closed the equipment locker and headed for the showers. I turned my back to her as I stripped down.
"Which theater do you want to go to? The ones here in town suck, but Shaker Heights has a multiplex. Do you have a car?" she asked when we stepped behind our privacy curtains in the showers.
Well, fuck. Another thing I didn't think about. Harsh water pelted my face as I stood there, soap in hand, trying to think my way around that problem. Suds foamed around my toes on the slick floor tile.
"I'm taking driver's ed next semester. I don't have a license yet." And probably never would, because I refused to let my parents know that I'd decided to learn how to drive.
"Maybe my mom could drive, if my brother doesn't need the car for work. You want to go this weekend?" She peeked out from behind the brown curtain. I grabbed the one near me and hid my body from her.
Obviously, I hadn't thought out anything beyond asking her, because I wasn't prepared for her questions. "I can't. I'm going camping."
"Camping?" She made a face.
"It's fun. We have a great time."
"Don't sound fun." She looked a little pissed off when she yanked the curtain back into place. We didn't talk again. Next time I asked her out, I'd have the details in place first.
Reading Mom's moods was part observation and part intuition, but it was all survival skill. From the set of her shoulders and the way her mouth squeezed into a tight line that almost hid her lips, it was obviously a tip-toe through the minefield kind of day. I could never be sure why she was angry, but that hardly mattered. The wrong clothes, the wrong sound, even pouring too much milk in a glass---anything could refocus her fury onto me.
"One more accident, and that animal is going to sleep out in a doghouse," Mom snapped.
Thank God, it was the dog. I should have felt bad, but instead it was all relief. I liked the dog more for pissing off Mom, but wouldn't dare even wink at her as she skulked under the table.
"I have some good news." Why-oh-why I voluntarily put myself in the line of fire, I never knew. Temporary insanity. Maybe I felt bad for the dog. "I mailed my application to Harvard yesterday. Hans and Pieter wrote recommendations for me, and Eric's father did too." I hated myself for feeling a flutter of excitement.
Coffee splashed out of Mom's mug when she slammed it down. "Harvard? You realize that's a rich kid's school."
Pop pushed back his chair. "Don't expect us to support trips to Martha's Vineyard with your new friends."
"What's Martha's Vineyards?" I asked. Yet another thing I was supposed to know that I didn't. We moved so much that there were gaps in my education. I knew about some of them---fractions were a special slice of hell for me---but new proofs of my ignorance constantly cropped up.
Mom's body vibrated with agitation. Her voice had that hysterical pitch that made me shrink back. "You better get a full scholarship. What were you thinking? That you could go live the high life? College is for finding a job, not living in a dream world."
"But ... It wasn't my idea. You told me to apply there."
Mom's mouth clamped down tight. "I most certainly did not."
I looked to Pop, my eyes wide. He'd heard that conversation. He'd heard her order me to do it, heard me protest that I didn't want to go there. Why didn't he say anything?
"Yes, you did, Mom."
"I'm sick of your constant lies."
"I'm not lying! You sat right there and told me that I had to. Right there!" I was on my feet, my heart pounding.
"I said no such thing." So smug, so fucking smug.
"Oh! That's it. I can't believe I fell for one of your mind games again. I should have known! You always do this to me!"
Pop grabbed my arm and shoved me against the wall. My head hit it with a hard thud.
"If you ever raise your voice to your mother again, I will beat you within an inch of your life. Got it?"
Go ahead, old man. Quit threatening and just do it. Beat me within an inch of my life, and I'll crawl that last inch to death on my own. And then I win.
The dog ran around us, barking her head off.
Pop and I huffed. Adrenaline cranked through my body. Mom smirked and sipped her coffee. Pop let go of my arm. Bruises bloomed where his fingers had been.
Sharp throbbing spread through my skull. I trudged upstairs so that my parents wouldn't have the satisfaction of seeing my winces. I sprawled over my bed and stared up at my Blondie poster. Her mouth was too fucking amazing for words, even better than Sean's. Too bad she was blonde and so damn skinny. My head throbbed in time with my heartbeat. Nauseated, I closed my eyes.
Next door, Mr. Foster sang opera in their shower. He didn't seem to know many of the lyrics, because he repeated the same lines over and over, and hummed others until he turned off the water. I wondered what he looked like naked, and what it would be like to fuck him, maybe right there in the shower. Then I decided I didn't want to know.
The dog jumped up on the bed beside me and tentatively licked my hand. I patted her head. Poor thing. Someone should have let her run away from us years ago.
Harvard. I should have known it was just another of Mom's cruel jokes. Even though I didn't want to go, I couldn't help feeling as if they'd taken something good away from me.
Why did I always fall for her fucking games? For a MENSA girl, I was damn slow to learn some lessons. She always made me regret trusting her. She was probably downstairs, smiling her private smile, chuckling over her triumph.
I couldn't stand to be in the house with her another second, so I grabbed my backpack, loaded it, put on my new hiking boots, and went downstairs with the dog.
"I'm going for a hike."
No one said anything.
"Would you like to get out of here too?" I asked the dog. She wagged her tail.
It was habit to head for the gazebo. The guys were there, smoking.
"Oh, it's you," Lane said as he pulled a pipe out of his pocket. "Want a hit?"
I let the dog's leash drop so that she could sniff around the bushes.
"What's with the backpack?" Tony asked.
"Practicing for our hiking trip. You guys should be too," I told Sean and Eric.
Sean leaned back on his elbows. "It's months away."
"Don't blame me if you get blisters the first day," I warned him. "You should be breaking in your boots now."
He shrugged.
I walked over to Lane and put out my hand. "Give me one hit before I go."
"I'm moving," Lane said.
"Aw. Shit. Lucky you. Where?"
"Ramstein AFB, in Germany."
"We were stationed there once," Sean said. "Couple years ago."
"I was born there," Mark told us.
I asked Lane, "How long before you ship out?"
"Two weeks."
"Wow," I said again.
"We have to find a new drummer," Tony complained.
I found the end of the dog's leash and tugged on it until she came out of the woods. "Guess I'll see you around, or I won't," I told Lane. There wasn't much more I could think of to say. We didn't bother with promises to stay in touch, because it would be lying. We didn't cry or hug. We simply accepted that fact of military life.
Autumn was the best time of year to be in Ohio. Once the heat broke, the skies cleared and the air had a crisp edge to it. Brilliant orange and crimson leaves clung to the trees but would soon fall.
The church youth group was on its third weekend hike, but it was the first that included an overnight. By June, everyone would be used to hiking ten miles a day in rough terrain with fully loaded packs, know how to set up camp, and have basic outdoor skills.
The trail through the southern Ohio woods followed gently rolling hills. Five miles in, there was a campsite, so we wouldn't have to rough it. We set off as a group. An hour later, we hiked in small clusters. My boots were broken in, and I was already used to the weight of my pack, so I could have been at the front of the trail, but Sean and Eric lagged behind and I wanted to walk with them. The slower I went though, the further they held back, until I lost sight of everyone and trudged on alone.
In a way, I was grateful for the solitude. Alone, I could stop to notice stark tree trunks and a forest floor of fallen leaves, the damp mineral scent of earth, and the way the sunlight shot through the bristly branches of a pine tree to spotlight mushrooms growing on the side of a fallen tree.
Nothing existed alone in the woods. Insects, birds, plants, and animals were bound together, a universe of a million species becoming one living thing.
It reminded me that God Is.
It always surprised me that deep down, I truly believed in God. Not Jesus. God with no other Gods before him.
I was an Old Testament believer. Not judgment and retribution, but the part where everyone had a personal relationship with God. Then the New Testament was invented and Jesus was put between us and God, and then the priests got into the act, and suddenly every time we needed God, he was on another line, but one of his self-appointed acolytes would be glad to help themselves to our souls. Sometimes, I wondered if God missed us as much as we missed him. Out in the woods though, there were no priests, and I always circumvented the Jesus thing. It was a spirit to spirit connection. God was in the soil, he was in the plants, he was in the sky, and I worshipped him with an open heart. It was raw, but it was holy.
It was a shame, really, that he chose to betray me when I needed him most. We could have been so close.
I adjusted my pack and continued down the trail.
While we ate dinner, everyone huddled around the campfire and turned their backs to the woods. Twilight seemed to rise from under thick bushes and creep to the treetops.
Our tents were in a semicircle around a stone fire pit. Like a miniature Stonehenge, boulders with flattened tops were placed in an outer ring for us to sit on.
Even though I'd left space for Eric to sit beside me, he squatted on a low boulder near the other kids. Sean was surrounded by the girls. Watching them was like seeing a nature show on TV---flirting rituals of the high school girl in the wild. Flick, a lock of long blonde hair would go over the shoulder. Whisper. Giggle. Inane, breathless question. I was so glad Amanda wasn't like that.
As the girls flirted, Sean glanced at Eric or me, showed us a hapless smile, and ignored them. They ate up his contempt. After a while, though, watching them make fools of themselves over him got old. My butt got cold and sore, so I took my plate over to the wash tubs.
Surprisingly, Sean followed me.
"Having fun?" I asked.
He glanced back at the pack. "They're okay."
"I meant hiking."
"Sure you did. Jealous?"
I flicked water at him from the tub. "Dream on."
He grinned and flicked more back. We escalated from drops to waves to tsunamis. He scooped up a handful of suds and chased me past the tents. I was laughing so hard that he easily pinned me against a tree outside the clearing, but I held his hands at the wrists so that he couldn't smear the foam across my face. His skin puckered under my thumbs and fingers.
We bumped together, his chest against mine, his groin pinning me down. All I could see were his eyes, and how suddenly his smile changed into a completely different expression. I stopped squirming; he didn't.
The suds were forgotten. He fought himself more than my hold, twisting and grinding against me, his chest rising with each rattling inhale. I held him tight, our arms spread, and let him go, go, go.
"That's enough!" The chaplain's wife screeched when she saw him humping against my thigh. "Get back over here, immediately."
The girls, who questioned me endlessly about Sean on the drive out, watched me with squint-eyed Baptist indignation as we went back to the picnic table. I could almost hear their thoughts. How dare I jump from my assigned role as fat gal-pal to a threat without even being pretty? They leaned close to whisper their outrage.
"Shit." Sean stared down at the front of his jeans and then pressed against the picnic table.
"No one can tell," I lied for him, lied because the color spreading across his face made my chest ache. Guys weren't proud of their hard-ons? I put my hand on his arm. "Really. It's getting dark. No one can see."
The look he gave me made me wince. He wanted to believe, wanted me to save his dignity, and I was probably the last person in the world he wanted to have to trust.
"Shooting star!" I called out and pointed to the sky.
Everyone looked up, even Sean.
That was all I could think of.
Sleeping in the big tent that night with the other girls and the chaplain's wife wasn't my idea of fun. It was like being stuck on an island with a bunch of starving cannibals. They smiled to my face, but as soon as my back was turned, they ate me alive.
"What's with her hair?"
Underneath their flannel shirts, they wore pastel concert tees from bands like Air Supply and the Commodores. My shirts were black. The Ramones and Kinks didn't do pink, and neither did I.
The girls set their sleeping bags close so that they could gossip. There was a definite line between my bag and theirs even though we were crammed into the tight space. The chaplain's wife set her bag across the tent's entrance.
In unison, the girls glanced over their shoulders at me. "Slut." It came out in a stage whisper that the chaplain's wife chose to ignore, or they had her tacit approval.
"That must be how she got him."
"I thought she was a dyke."
Their words were like tiny paper cuts, stinging, but not fatal.
Would they have been kinder if I told them that it wasn't really like that? Sean and I rarely got along.
A couple hours later, the girls drifted off to sleep, or at least they stopped whispering. The blonde one was half out of her bedroll, one arm lifted over her head. If I hadn't known what she was like when awake, I would have been mesmerized.
Trying to sleep was useless. All I could think about was how many times I'd viciously attacked Sean to hide how much I wanted him to pay attention to me. Conscience was God's way of saying, "I expected more from you. I gave you a heart, I gave you empathy. Use it."
I had to be outside so that I could bargain with God for my sleep.
"Where are you going?" The chaplain's wife asked. She spooked me. I thought she was asleep too.
"Bathroom."
"Take a flashlight, wear shoes, and don't be long."
"I won't linger in the latrines," I assured her.
She settled back into her sleeping bag.
Instead of peeing, I sat by the campfire. I raked the glowing lumps of wood closer together and added two big logs. The scent of burning wood was fitting incense for the woods, God's true temple. By morning, the logs would be gutted, their insides holding just enough heat to cook breakfast.
I stretched out my legs and stared up at the sky. Stars. Everywhere, stars. Other people saw pictures in them, constellations. Copernicus, my hero, saw equations. I saw connection---to people on the other side of the world, to people who died a thousand years ago, and to people who wouldn't be born for a thousand more years all saw the same stars I did. I wondered if Amanda ever looked at the stars.
When I was on vacation in Chicago with my parents, there was a Pre-Copernican orrery in the museum. A gleaming sun sat in the center, surrounded by brass rings of increasing size that represented the orbits of the planets. When the cogs and wheels inside the orrery turned, the planets moved along their circular orbits. It was complicated. Back then, they thought they knew everything, but Copernicus proved them wrong. The truth was much simpler, and obvious, but I guess everything was obvious once you had the right answer.
Even though it was wrong, I wanted touch the orrery because it was so beautiful. The guard yelled at me when I got too close though. I wondered what would have happened if my fingertips would have brushed it.
In the woods, the stars above me were still beyond my touch, but I could gaze at them and feel the same awe.
Here's my promise, I told God. I can't apologize to Sean for the past, it would be too humiliating, but in the future, I swear I will be nicer to him.
I didn't need to hear God's voice in my head. His spirit was there. I could feel his energy, not tame, not majestic, but wild and edging on dangerous. Night wind stung my cheeks, and I felt chastened, but forgiven.
There was one contraband cigarette in my pocket. Miraculously, it survived the day unbroken. I held it to the low blue flames at the base of the logs and lit it.
The wood crackled and burning embers rode thermals high above the fire before winking out. Pine needles curled away from the heat, turned black, and then were ash. Smoke billowed low to the ground.
The two-man tent Sean and Eric shared was pushed back from the others. I heard a low moan. Sound was tricky in the woods, but I hoped it came from them. I listened with all my concentration for a long time, but there were no other sounds except quiet snoring.
Lucky guys. I pictured Sean sprawled out, thin arms and legs taking more than his share of the tent. Eric too, unable to restrain his boy energy, expanding into Sean's space, until their bodies flowed together and there was no more Sean, or Eric, but only a creature called "them" that wrapped and tangled and touched in the dark, and in their sweaty boy dreams.
Sean and I were on KP duty the following morning. While the others shivered around the dying fire, we went to the picnic tables to set up the wash basins.
"We always get stuck with this," Sean grumbled.
"I noticed that too."
He glanced at the chaplain. "What would happen if we just didn't do it?"
"Maybe we wouldn't get to go on the big trip. Come on, it's not that bad."
He added soap to the middle basin. "This would be a lot more fun if we didn't have all these stupid rules."
"Sure. Let's talk about fun when you wake up in the middle of the night with a black bear tearing through your food in search of marshmallows," I reminded him.
I went to the campfire and lifted the heavy pot of boiling water. After a couple staggering steps, I had to set it down. Sean sauntered over and lifted it for me. He nodded and then looked away. That was as much thanks as I'd get for distracting everyone the night before, but we were both too embarrassed to bring it up again anyway.
He struggled across the camp with the pot. We had to lift it together to fill the wash tubs.
"God, this hot water feels good," I said as I worked up the suds. "First time my hands have been warm since last night."
Sean put his hands into the water with mine, gingerly at first, and then submerging them all the way. He smiled. "Yeah. Feels good."
Eric stomped over and shoved his flatware into the soapy water. The tines of his fork stabbed the back of my hand. He dumped one of the big carving knives into the water. It sank under the suds. "Maybe you'll get lucky and you'll slice your wrists on that," he told me.
"It's not as simple as you might think, asshole," I told him.
"How hard can it be? Knife, wrist. You have everything you need."
"What crawled up your butt?" Sean asked him.
I hated Eric then. He had no idea how much ritual was involved. He made suicide sound cheap and meaningless. He had no right to mock a spiritual act. "You're being so helpful, Eric. So let me ask, which arm do you think I should do first? The weak one or the dominant one?" I pushed my sleeves back and showed him my forearms. He stepped back, his smirk fading. "And when I go to do the second arm, how do I keep a firm hold on the knife when blood is everywhere and the handle is slick and my hand is going numb? The worst part though---what if I don't cut deep enough and I survive? Would you be as helpful then? Would you take up the knife and finish the job for me?"
"Jesus." Sean looked like he was going to be sick. "You've really thought about this."
"Of course I have." What had I ever done to make Sean think I wasn't serious?
"You think too much about death," he said.
"You could be right. Maybe I should stop analyzing every little step and just do it." But there was still the pain issue. Slicing my wrists would probably work, but ouch!
"No! I mean you shouldn't think about it at all."
"Why not? What do you think, Eric, should I just..." I fished the knife out of the water and pointed the tip of the blade to my wrist.
Eric knocked the tip away but left the knife in my hand. "She's not serious. She's all talk, no action," he told Sean.
"Go away," Sean whispered. "Jerk."
Eric flinched. Then his face changed, as if a curtain pulled across his eyes.
"Just leave us alone," Sean told him.
Eric stomped off to the campfire.
Sean peeled my fingers off the handle and set the knife on the far side of his tub. "I'll never get used to you two. Never," he muttered.
Thanksgiving week, one of Pop's aunts from the old country died. South Georgia should have been a straight shot down I-75, but since Mom's family lived sort of on the way to the funeral, we detoured through the Smoky Mountains into Northern Georgia for an overnight visit.
Pop gripped the steering wheel as the draft of passing trucks buffeted our tiny Toyota on the highway winding through the southern Appalachians. The dog stood on my lap when I put my hand out the window and let it ride currents. Mom slapped her map down and told me to cut it out.
The damn dog didn't sit once the entire drive. Instead, she ran from window to window across the back seat, her thick toenails digging into the flesh of my thighs.
With the windows shut tight, the air inside the car seemed to get heavier with each mile. I downed another Actifed with warm Coke to help my lungs. Breathing didn't come easier and the bitter pill put an urgent edge on my nausea.
By the time we crossed into Georgia, bile burned the back of my throat. The twisting, dipping mountain roads didn't help. Even though I had my trusty bucket clenched between my knees, I wasn't allowed to vomit in the car, so I held it back.
As it got harder to keep it down, I leaned far out the window and checked for cars coming the opposite direction. I kind of hoped one would drive so close on the narrow road that it could sheer off my head in passing. Nice and quick. The turns and hills kept oncoming traffic hidden until the last moment though. White lines blurred underneath me. My stomach let go. When I was done, I collapsed back against the seat.
Pop's dark eyes glared at me from the rear view mirror. "If any of that got on my car, you're washing it off."
Exhausted, I nodded. Even though the stink was in my nose, I felt much better. I should have puked on Tennessee.
The dog leapt over the front seat. She panted by the air vents on the dashboard. When nothing came out, she cast glances at me, probably wondering what she'd ever done to deserve living with us.
Mom's family lived on the southernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains, where thick woods and steep granite hills made farming near impossible. Once, their small town thrived on wealthy travelers headed for Tallulah Gorge. The water and tourists dried up when the government dammed the river back in 1910, and the region had yet to recover.
As we drove over the bridge near the gorge, I wondered what it was like to grow up in one place. Imagine having history with people that went back more than a few months. Imagine knowing the hills and woods as well as the cracks in the sidewalk downtown. Longing for it hurt, and it was an ache I always felt there.
We turned off State Route 441 onto the bumpy driveway to my Grandparent's house. Gravel crunched under the tires. Pop grunted every time a rock pinged against the undercarriage. The car hove into deep ruts as we passed tall, thin pines.
Like most of the houses in the hills, Grandma's was made of river stone and dark brown wood. Stone pillars lifted the house several feet off the ground to adjust for the slope. Hemlocks crowded close to the house, sweeping big branches over the low roof.
Aunt Rosalind stood on the covered front porch. She fiddled with the top button of her sweater set, as if it bugged her but she didn't dare tear it away. More than once, I had wished I was her daughter. Her husband was a Southern Baptist preacher, though. I was sure I'd never survive the scrutiny a preacher's kid had to endure, although they usually turned out to be regular devils.
Aunt Rosalind always had soft smiles for me. Even though I rarely saw her, she remembered that green was my favorite color and that I hated ice cream---things Mom didn't know. Most of all, I liked the way Aunt Rosalind trusted me. When my parents tried to keep her problems with chronic depression a secret, she was the one who took me for a walk and explained.
"Secrets end up doing more harm than the truth," she told me as we stood under the crabapple tree. "That's why God forbids us to lie." She'd pushed the bangs out of my eyes and gave me one of those sad smiles.
Pop wasn't happy to see her though. "I thought I made it clear we didn't want to see your sister," he said to Mom.
"They haven't seen any of us in three years. Of course the entire family turned out."
"Next time, remind your mother that we don't approve of drug addicts."
Mom slapped her map against her thighs. "My parents can invite anyone they want into their own house."
Skin peeled from the back of my legs when I climbed out of the car.
Behind Aunt Rosalind, I could see through the screen door into the house. If I'd been up on the porch, I could have seen straight through to the back porch. All four sides of the house had doors directly across from each other. The breezeway was open to invite air to circulate through the house, an elegant technological solution---cheap, simple, and efficient.
Pop grabbed suitcases and stomped up the stairs to the porch. I followed, walking carefully on a thick layer of slippery magnolia leaves. The dog made a dash for the woods.
Before I could follow him into the house, Pop said, "Go fetch that dog." That translated to, "Get lost." Fine by me.
"Your cousins can help you," Aunt Rosalind called out from the porch.
"Thanks, but I'm fine on my own."
"Don't get lost, honey," she said.
I waved to her as I set off past a decaying shed that leaned under the weight of rampant morning glories. The vine was still green, as if it refused to believe it was almost winter. The chicken coop that sat beside the shed was even more tenuous, as if a strong wind could collapse it into pile of rotting wood and rusty nails.
Since I was in no hurry to get back to my grandparent's house, I took the trail down to the crick where there was a small waterfall. The state route curved past at the top of the ridge and I could hear cars whooshing past while I waded in the chilly knee-high water. Some cars hadn't been so lucky making the turn. Rusting bumpers and smaller parts littered the steep hillside leading down to the shaded pool. I carefully stalked between the ferns in my bare feet, more afraid of hidden metal shrapnel than the ringworm the adults constantly warned me about.
Once my feet throbbed from the chilly water, and my toes wrinkled, I pulled on my shoes and set out again. It was true that I didn't know the woods well, but I made sure I caught glimpses of the highway through the trees so I could find my way back to it.
There were a few trees showing brilliant fall colors, but the forest was mostly pine. The motes drifting through the slanted sunlight made my eyes water and my nose swell shut inside, leaving me gasping for breath. Still, it was one of the few places I felt at peace with myself.
On the underside of a leaf, I spied a tiny, light brown bat. I stood quietly and looked it over for a bit, amazed at how small it was. It was one of those perfect moments where time moved at a leisurely pace and there was no one around to ruin it for me. Every second made me feel more connected, as if I might actually belong there.
Further up the hill, I saw a crumbling stone hearth and a chimney not much taller than I was. I poked around, searching for other traces of the people who used to live there. Deep under the forest loam, I found the outline of the cabin. It paced out around fourteen by twelve, the size of our living room in the base housing.
For a while, I sat on the hearth and enjoying my quiet, perfect happiness and the beauty of God's creation surrounding me. It must have been wonderful, living so far away from other people. Maybe I could do that too. Escape into the mountains. Stop playing the chameleon to fit in. With no one around to see me, I could be myself all the time.
Not far from the ruins, I saw a low, rusted iron fence. I went over to see what it was for. The ornate wrought iron didn't even come up to my knees. Then I saw the weathered headstones that jutted out of the ground. From afar, they'd blended into the underbrush. Wooden markers lay hidden under ferns in the private cemetery. The few stone ones were almost unreadable, but three of them bore death dates within the same week. Diphtheria, cholera, or some other old-time sickness had swept through that family, taking them swiftly. Yet someone had buried them. Maybe that's why the cabin was abandoned. Or maybe the last survivor hung on, tending the graves and the garden year after year in solitude.
Hoping to find out more about the family who had once lived there, because almost everyone in that county was related to me through blood or marriage, I cleared away the forest debris from fallen gravestones. A cloud of fine dust rose in air, making me sneeze. Then I felt a sharp pain on my forearm.
A bee stumbled toward my wrist, trailing guts out its butt. The curled base of the stinger in my arm was clear, and I could see the gold venom draining down as the end pulsed. Fascinated and grossed out, I flicked it out of my arm. The dying bee fell to the forest floor.
Each breath hurt more than the one before. My tongue filled my mouth and my chest tightened. I rose, leaned against a tree, and looked at my arm again. It was deep pink and swollen so that my fingers tingled, feeling as if they'd burst under the skin. I closed my eyes and gulped for air. Should have been carrying my inhaler.
Far off, I could hear water making its way through the gorge and the wind. Animals moved through the underbrush like I wasn't there anymore. Those sounds helped me concentrate on each breath and try to recapture the comforting feeling of God surrounding me. He wouldn't do anything helpful, of course, like loosening the invisible boa constrictor that seemed to wrap around my ribs, but he would at least witness my pain. He was really good at that---watching me hurt and not doing anything about it.
It felt like hours before I could catch a decent breath, but it might have only been minutes. Pain did funny things to time.
I checked the sun. It was already low and night came quickly in the hills. It was time to head back to my grandparents' house. Even though I couldn't see it through the trees, I knew the highway was downhill. The sound of passing traffic guided me to the edge of the woods.
The dog was there, sniffing saplings along the narrow, crumbling shoulder.
"Had enough freedom?" I asked. I showed her my arm. It wasn't as swollen as before, but it was still mottled pink. "Bee sting. It's your fault, you know."
She tilted her head and looked as concerned as a dog could. I patted her head. "I don't blame you for running away though."
By that time, it was solid dark. We trudged up the long dirt road from the highway, guided by the lights of the house. The back porch of the house was packed with family. There were more cars on the lawn. I crept around to the side door. No one sat on those narrow stone steps. I ran water from a hose into my cupped hand for the dog to drink, and then I washed my face and hands.
I held the screen door with my hand flat against the hinges as I opened it, and closed it softly so that it wouldn't slam.
"Quiet," I warned the dog.
The house smelled of ham and buttermilk-fried okra. I could picture Grandma's kitchen table crowded with covered dishes, carried there by the women of the family. Maybe there was a chess pie with a real butter crust for dessert.
Voices carried from the back porch. Uncle Dewey was telling one of his stories. We'd all heard those tales a hundred times, but no one complained. I could hear the guffaws at the right places, and imagined the slow nods of heads during the telling. When he was done, another uncle would lean forward and start in on another story. That's how every family gathering there was. We laughed until tears ran down our cheeks and we begged them to stop, but when they did, someone would always ask for another tale. I couldn't think of a better way to pass the evening than sitting under the stars and listening to their outrageous tall tales of tricky raccoons and hound dogs with more sense than most people.
I slipped down the breezeway into the back bedroom. Aunt Rosalind's suitcases were pushed under the bed. They were empty. I pulled open the drawers of the dresser. The dusty antique scent made me sneeze. I cupped my hand over my nose and waited for someone to fling open the door. I listened for the creak of someone walking down the hallway. Hearing nothing, I quickly searched the drawers.
Aunt Rosalind's pills were under a slip in the top drawer. Elavil. I wasn't sure what it did, but it had to be better than anything we had in our medicine cabinet at home. Guessing from Aunt Rosalind's drowsy eyes and dreamer's smile, Elavil was a barbiturate of some type. Score!
She didn't have many tablets, so I calculated my odds. Too many gone, and she'd notice. Not enough, and I'd fail again. The label on the bottle warned against taking the pills with alcohol. That made me grin. I silently thanked the pharmacy for the hint. All I had to do was find some alcohol to wash the pills down, but I wasn't in any hurry.
We left Grandma's in the middle of the night and headed for Pop's family farm. By sunrise, I could see the new towers of Atlanta rising above the kudzu-choked trees. I counted freeway exits for streets named Peachtree.
By noon, the scenery was nothing but red dirt plowed in straight furrows reaching to the horizon, interrupted by small towns that were little more than a gas station and a Foster's Freeze.
Before we even turned off the rural highway onto the long dirt driveway to the farm, the stink of chickens hung in the heavy air. We passed five low metal huts where the chickens were kept in tight rows of cages. By the time we parked in front of the old, three-story farmhouse with a Mansard roof, syrupy mucus coated my throat.
As we got out of the car, Pop's family ran out of the house to encase us in hugs. Even Bunica, Pop's grandmother, hobbled out in her housecoat. Mom and Pop froze as they were embraced, as if being sniffed by hungry predators.
Some nights, I dreamed that they weren't my real parents, and that a loving couple would show up at the door, apologize profusely for subjecting me to those two, and whisk me away to some place else. Anywhere else. I could adapt to almost anything.
On our rare visits, Grandma usually led the charge out of the house, squeezed the breath out of me, and asked so many questions that I couldn't begin to answer one before she asked the next. She'd drag me into the house and have a cool glass of iced tea in my hand before Pop got the luggage out of the trunk. That time, she stood back with her arm draped over the slumped shoulders of my cousin Sheri.
Sheri was my doppelganger, although not so much an evil twin as an unfortunate one. We had the same stocky peasant build, same mud brown hair, same squinty brown eyes and double chins, but as the eldest grandchild, I was the automatic favorite. Sheri had never been able to overcome my four month advantage. Yet something had clearly changed.
"You're lucky you got here! We almost left for the funeral without you. What a shame that would have been," Bunica teased Pop.
Pop glowered down at her.
"Come on, come on. Get inside. You just have time to change." She might have been tiny, but Bunica shoved Pop hard enough to make him stumble.
The farmhouse was too hot and smelled of seawater. It usually reeked of poisonously sweet lilies. Everyone talked over everyone else, laughing and helping carry our suitcases up the stairs, as if it were an ordinary visit. When I thought about it, though, I realized I'd never spent a Thanksgiving, Christmas, or even Easter with any of my relatives. We only came for funerals.
The noise and confusion sent the dog into a skulking panic. She paced circles until her leash bound my calves together.
Tata, my great-grandfather, winked a milky eye at me. He crossed over the braided rug on the parlor floor, barely lifting his feet, until he got close to me. He pressed a root beer candy into my hand then leaned on his cane and bent down to pet the dog. She cringed back.
"Be nice," I scolded her.
He laughed and tried to pat her head, but she easily dodged his palsied grasp.
"Sorry, Tata. She's not used to so many people. Do I smell fish?" I hoped it was fish. Twice before, that I remembered, there had been a body in a coffin on the dining room table, surrounded by wilted flowers. Such a charming old world custom.
Tata's voice was raspy, faded. Back in Romania, he'd been a country bumpkin. In Georgia he still was, but his heavy accent made him seem exotic. Somehow, that didn't seem to carry over to the rest of us. "Your Aunt Ana brought crabs from Florida. Crabs tonight, chicken tomorrow, Prunc." At least when he called me baby, he didn't pinch my cheek.
"Chicken?" I asked. "Isn't turkey more traditional for Thanksgiving?"
"Why buy turkey when we have a barn full of chickens? Wasted money! As soon as a layer stops earning her keep," he said, drawing his finger across his throat and cackling, "chicken dinner."
Sweat trickled down my spine. It was too damn hot in the house. They were in the middle of a heat wave but were running the heater too. Old people could never keep warm.
Tata fixed his gaze on me. "When we come back from the funeral, you will come out to the barns with us."
"But---I'm allergic to feathers, to chickens."
He tapped the floor with his cane. "Never admit weakness. Your enemies will use it to destroy you." He grasped my wrist harder than a man his age should have been able to. His hand was mottled, red stains like bruises and dark freckles on gray skin that pulled tight over bone and ropey blue veins. "We all earn our keep here, even you. Nothing is for free."
I tugged, trying to get away from his grasp. The dog growled, but Tata didn't hear her or he wasn't scared. My chest was getting tighter by the moment.
"You will help us collect the eggs."
"Okay," I said as I twisted my arm away. The dog followed me when I ran up the two flights of stairs to the attic room. I flung open my suitcase, found my inhaler, and puffed in the medicine. Slowly, the grip around my ribs eased.
At dinner, Grandma and Bunica carried an old enameled pot between them into the dining room and dumped it over. Piles of red boiled crabs scattered across the newspapers on the table. All conversation stopped for a brief blessing. As soon as the prayer was over, everyone grabbed mallets and slammed them down on the crabs.
Tata, well into his nineties by then, barely had the teeth to eat anymore, but he didn't seem to need food. He talked through every meal. Down at our end of the table, we couldn't hear his whispering voice over the mallet blows. Sheri and I sat together at the end of the table. Age was rank in our clan and we were at the bottom.
Pop's family weren't prolific breeders, but the family made up for it with size and noise. Wide butts spilled over the sides of the wooden dining room chairs.
Mom closed her eyes and turned her head as shell shards flew across the table and my aunt sucked crab juices from a claw. Mom's lips compressed into a thin line. She shot Pop hard looks.
Pop gave his plate a dour glare as Bunica slid a slice of fried mamaliga---the culinary cousin of grits and polenta---onto his plate. "We're leaving right after dinner tomorrow," he announced.
I'd never heard such silence in the farmhouse before. Tata's milky eyes narrowed on Pop.
Pop put his forearms on the table. "We have to get back home."
"You stay," Tata said.
"Poppa," Pop appealed to his father, but my grandfather only stared at the pile of crabs in front of him, clearly embarrassed by Pop's behavior.
"You can leave Friday morning," Tata told Pop. That was that.
Mom fumed, but even Pop knew better than to defy his grandfather. He'd already stepped way out of line. Pop avoided Mom's glare. She clenched her fork in a white-knuckled grip.
Even though there were no chickens inside the house, it felt as if I were being held face-down into a feather pillow. I fought back the tickling in my throat but finally had to clear it. "Uh hum."
Mom's chair hit the wall behind her. "Would you cut that out! I'm sick of your noises!" she screamed at me.
Bunica reached up to pat Mom's shoulder. "Sit. Sit."
Mom shook off Bunica's blue-veined hand and dropped back down into her seat. "Use your inhaler."
"I can't again. Not for another three hours." If I hit it more than I should, I got really hyper.
"Then take another Actifed," Mom snapped at me.
I felt as if everyone in the family stared at us. Not just once, but twice, we'd dared interrupt Tata's sermonizing. The rest of the family probably didn't know whether to be horrified or impressed.
Tata's pink tongue ran over his lips. "---those bastards at the water district are..."
He said more after that, but I'd drifted off into daydreams about Amanda and wondered if she missed me in P.E. Maybe she asked if anyone knew where I was, or looked for me in the hallways between classes. Maybe someone told her I was at a funeral, and maybe she was sad for me.
"Uh hum." I cleared my throat again.
Mom glared at me. I sipped my iced tea and hoped she couldn't read my mind. I didn't think she could, but to be safe, I tucked away thoughts of Amanda into the floating part of my heart and forced my mind back to the farmhouse.
Tata droned on. Around the table, everyone had a glazed look in their eyes, as if we were all taking refuge in our private worlds. I glanced at Sheri and tried to figure out why Grandma kept fussing over her. Grandma even gave up her seat near the head of the table to sit beside Sheri.
The few glimpses I caught of Sheri's face through her curtain of hair made me wonder if she'd been ill. She had dark circles under her eyes. Sickness would explain why, in the overbearing heat inside the house, Sheri wore a thick, long sleeved shirt.
It wasn't fair. Grandma rarely got to see me. She saw Sheri every day. Couldn't she spare an hour for me? I wanted to tell her things, secrets I'd kept bottled up just for her. I couldn't tell her about Amanda, absolutely not, but I needed a sympathetic ear.
Grandma reached over and stroked Sheri's stringy hair. I wouldn't have touched it. Sheri smelled as if she were on her period---metallic and overripe in the heat. I wondered how long it had been since she'd gotten into a shower.
Once upon a time, Sheri and I got along well enough. It wasn't that we had much in common, other than blood, but we used to be friends by necessity---natural allies in a house full of grownups.
After dinner, Sheri and I used to crawl under the dining table. Once the adults thought we'd fallen asleep, family secrets came out. People who were dead thirty years lived on in scandalous stories---children abandoned in Europe as the Germany Army advanced, the reluctant bride who used to dance on tavern tables, and the murder that made Tata flee Romania. Sheri and I clutched hands, our eyes open wide at the casual brutality of those tales.
As the night wore on, and the light filtering through the lace tablecloth became a soft gold glow, the stories took a turn to the fantastic. Tata began his creepy tales of the frovoliki---a type of vampire. In those stories, the frovoliki were never elegant, sexy hunters like they were in the movies. Our vampires were rustic. Not a Count among them. They were family gone feral, who wanted to drain the life from us and to see us in the grave. They knew our weaknesses and used them to lure us outside or to trick their way into the house.
The hair on my arms used to rise and I would strain to hear beyond the old farm house. I figured that Great Aunt Ecotrina was the one who'd turn out to be frovoliki. Despite her cheap wig and the tangerine lipstick that bled down the creases surrounding her withered lips, she'd borne a strong resemblance to Nosferatu.
I expected to hear her call for me.
"Prunc, all you have to do is open the kitchen door and let your Great Auntie in. I'll give you this Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream pie. Your favorite."
Imagine my relief when I overheard Bunica tell Grandma, "Ecotrina's dead now, and she's not coming back." Thank goodness. In the new world, the dead had stayed buried.
Later, the conversation would lapse into Romanian. The adults would yawn and hint about how late it was, but even Grandpa couldn't leave the table until Tata stood. Sheri and I would fall asleep for real then, lulled by the musical language we didn't understand as it was spoken in the deep, rumbling voices of the old world men. Because we were small then, someone would carry us up to the attic bedroom and tuck us into a big brass bed.
As teenagers, Sheri and I were forced to sit with the adults long after dinner and coffee were gone. Even if we could have slipped under the table, our tenuous friendship had long since turned to indifference, and by that visit, to wary jealousy. I doubted she would have clasped my hands for comfort.
We shifted in our hard wooden chairs as Tata droned on, and on, and on. In the hallway by the stairs, the springs of the grandfather clock wound, ready to count off another quarter hour.
The tickle in my throat got worse. Small sips of tea helped, but it wouldn't go away. "Uh hum."
Sheri played with the dead man's fingers---the feathery, inedible gray gills of a crab---until her mother pushed the shattered shells across the table. Sheri reached again. The sleeve of her shirt pulled up. There were two thin pink scars across her wrist.
I bowed my head and fought down the weird mixture of jealousy, anger, and awe I suddenly felt for her. All that time, I'd accused her of being merely ordinary, when in reality, she was so much more. I wanted to curl up under the table with her and hold her wrists in my hands like holy relics. If she'd let me, I'd brush my fingers across those razor scars and feel the rise and fall of her skin. I wanted to kneel at her feet and ask her about her rituals and God. She was closer to it than I'd ever come. But Sheri was hidden behind her hair, like a prophet who'd taken a vow of silence. I saw then that she wasn't coming between me and Grandma; Grandma was keeping the rest of the world away from Sheri.
We returned to Ohio on Friday, driving the entire way from Southern Georgia in one hellishly long day. Even the dog was too exhausted to pace the entire trip. The temperatures dropped the further north we drove. At a gas station outside Lexington, Kentucky, I pulled on a sweater and jacket. There was snow on the ground in Cincinnati. Trees along the interstate glowed in the moonlight as ice clung to their bare limbs.
Early Saturday morning, we pulled into our driveway. Multi-colored Christmas lights blinked in the Foster's windows. Our side of the duplex was solemnly dark.
The first thought on my mind when I woke the next morning was a cigarette. I dressed in my hiking gear, slipped my backpack on over my coat, and clipped the leash to the dog's collar.
Mom and Pop sipped coffee at the kitchen table.
"Where are you going?" Pop asked.
"Hiking around the hills. Taking the dog for her walk."
"No. We're going to Hans' for lunch."
"But I'm busy." Inside my pocket, my fingers curled around my lighter. I met Pop's dark eyes and didn't back down. "There's no reason for me to go."
"Listen, smartie, do you like having a roof over your head? Do like your new backpack? Your sub-zero sleeping bag? Those new hiking boots? Guess where it all comes from? My job. When I retire in June, they'll kick us out of this house. If you think we can live off my retirement pay, you're sadly mistaken. It'll barely cover rent."
I held my ground.
He rose. "I don't suppose you've noticed the hundreds of people out of work in this town, because you're too busy gallivanting around like the world owes you everything, but I have to keep a roof over our heads. Those men have the pull to get me a job teaching at the University. I've worked too hard and too long for this to let you ruin it. So you're coming." His finger jabbed at the space between us, punctuating his words.
"They won't care if I don't come."
He moved toward me. The dog looked up; the whites of her eyes showed. I bent down and unhooked the leash. My backpack shifted, so I grabbed at the shoulder strap. It tugged out of my hand. Pop was pulling the pack off me.
Mom put the coffee cups into the sink and grabbed her purse. She went past us, out the door, as if nothing were happening.
Pop shoved at my shoulder. "Out."
I followed Mom outside, but folded my arms across my chest when I got to the car. "I still don't see why I have to go."
"Because I said so." Pop's voice boomed. He held to door open and pointed to the back seat.
The Foster's garage was open. I could hear guitars, so I knew the guys were inside.
"Why don't you try asking me for once instead of ordering me around? This isn't the military," I yelled. I knew I was being stupid, but couldn't stop. "Being in the same room with those people makes me sick. Have you ever listened to them? They're proud of what they did, the Holocaust. Bunch of murderers. They're so smug, because they got away with it, and given the chance, they'd do it again. Makes me want to puke!"
The music from the garage stopped.
Sensing that we had an audience, Pop got into my face and told me through clenched teeth, "Get in the damn car. Now!"
My knees shook, but I held my ground.
Pop shoved me toward the car. I stumbled and slammed my cheek against the edge of the door. My face went numb, but I could feel glorious hurt about to bloom in scarlet shards under my eye. Fracture lines seemed to branch through my skull like cracking ice on a pond. I stood there blinking, waiting for the barrier between me and pain to shatter.
For a moment, a brief fraction of a second, Pop almost looked worried. Then he bumped my wrist with his. "What are you going to do?" he demanded. "Huh? Huh?" Each "huh" was accompanied by another smack of our forearms, harder every time. "Huh? Huh? You gonna cry like a little baby? Huh? Huh?"
Well, yes. As soon as time, which was held in suspense by shock, unfroze, I planned to wail like a banshee. Until he said that.
"You gonna cry? Little baby? Huh? Boo-hoo. Let's see you cry."
I drew a long breath in through my nose and wished God would strike him dead. Burn in hell, old man. Burn.
Satisfied that he'd shamed me out of a scene, Pop said, "Get in the car."
Time caught up and pain rushed to fill the vacuum. How could throbbing hurt so much? I collapsed into the back seat.
Pop slammed the door shut and got into the car. Mom sat rigid in the front passenger seat, staring ahead as if there were nothing to see.
Tony must have gone inside to tell his Mom that Pop and I were fighting, because she ran out onto their lawn. Tony stood beside her, his hands darting as he talked. His mother's expression didn't change, but the weight of the world seemed to settle on the corners of her eyes.
Pop pulled out of the driveway, his hands clutched tight around the steering wheel.
Mrs. Foster asked, "Are you okay?"
Just knowing that someone cared enough to ask was huge. Smiling hurt, so I touched the window with my fingertips and nodded. When she was out of sight, my fingers curled to my palm and I turned away from the window.
As soon as we walked into Hans' townhouse, his wife tsked over my face. "That looks like it hurts."
Pop rushed into an explanation before I could. "She slipped and fell into the car door. Hee hee. Must have been a patch of ice on the driveway. Ha ha. They're so clumsy at this age. Hee hee hee."
Could he have been more obviously guilty of something? But no one called him on it.
Pop's other friends, Pieter and Fredric, struggled out of deep, cushy chairs when we came in, while Hans posed by the fireplace. They all shook hands.
Pieter always wore a bow tie and a sweater. Like my Grandfather, he smelled of cherry tobacco, but where my family was big, robust peasant stock, Pieter looked like he belonged in a portrait gallery in a museum.
The leather patch at the elbow of Fredric's tweed jacket was coming unstitched, but he always seemed on the verge of chaos, with his distracted genius air and rumpled clothes. That was camouflage. He looked harmless, even endearing, as he blithely chatted about his efforts to design rockets to deliver military payloads and ordinance, as if he were merely pondering a Rubik's Cube, and not inventing more efficient death.
"May I have some ice?" I asked Hans' wife. "A glass of ice water would be great."
"It's bad for your stomach," she warned, but she gave me one anyway.
As I slumped at her table, fingers clutched in my short hair, I pressed the cold glass against my cheek and closed my eyes.
"We've just come back from Frankfurt," Hans told us as everyone took their places at the table. His bare forehead shone, as if he waxed the skin from his thick eyebrows to his kinky brown hair. He pulled the foil from a bottle of wine. "Real German Riesling, not the Liebfraumilch swill they sell to Americans." As always, Hans poured glasses for Mom, Pop, and me. I would have preferred a genuine German beer, but I was willing to get drunk on anything.
Pop pronounced it, "Wonderful," and refilled his glass. "How was your trip?"
Hans settled into his chair. "Well, you know. It wasn't like it was. There are no Germans working in the restaurants anymore."
"Scandalous," his wife shouted from the kitchen.
"How can any honest worker get a job when those Turks sneak into the country and work for nothing? They get paid under the table. None of them pay taxes, and then they demand social benefits!"
Hans' wife stood in the doorway to the kitchen. "Do you know, the waiter brought my plate out, and I could see his thumb near my food. Disgusting. With that dark skin, how can you be sure those people are clean? I sent it back to the kitchen. It turned my stomach."
I knew how she felt. She turned my stomach.
Pieter said, "It didn't used to be that way. Now, all you see in Munich are foreigners. It used to be that you could walk the streets and only see Germans."
Gee, could that be because they rounded up everyone else and slaughtered them?
Pop caught my eye and gave me a harsh look. I guess he knew what I was thinking.
"So, you're enrolling at our University?" Frederic asked me.
It was the first I'd heard about it. I looked to Pop.
"Free tuition when your father comes to work with us," Pieter said.
That explained everything.
Hans smiled up at his wife as she set a plate of chops and spaetzle before him. "Will you be taking engineering?" he asked me.
God, I hoped not.
"She's taking computer science," Pop said.
That was bad enough.
"Just as well, I have some female students in my classes. They aren't very good, but the school insists."
Not for the first time, I wished I was a math whiz. I would have loved to ace Hans' class, leaving him dazed and awed. Unfortunately, all I could do was confirm his bias against women.
"I'd like to teach," I told them, as if anyone were interested in what I wanted to do. "History, or English."
The uncles politely chuckled, as if I'd said something embarrassing.
"Teach?" Mom made a face. "This from the girl who used to tell people she was born in Disneyland." She smirked as the uncles chuckled. "We told her she was born in Dixieland, but she kept saying Disneyland."
"I was three," I said quietly. If God loved me at all, he would have let me drop dead on the spot rather than have to endure another one of her humiliation scenes. She loved to pull me into the kitchen when she had some lady over for coffee, and I'd have to stand there and stare at my shoes as Mom told each cute little story about how stupid I was until the guest's laughter turned to uneasy chuckles and then uncomfortable squirming. My value as entertainment over, I'd finally be dismissed.
"Sometimes, I think the MENSA people switched her test sheet with someone smart." Satisfied that I was ready to flee the room and stick my head in the oven---appropriate, considering who our hosts were---Mom said, "Teaching is a dead end profession for people who can't do anything else. You're going to major in computers."
"Teachers are nothing," Hans said.
Pieter tapped his pipe on the edge of the table. When he caught my eye, he winked. "Of course, we're all professors. Teachers, if you will." None of the other uncles seemed as amused as he was by that.
"Who's hungry? Pass your plates," Hans said.
As we ate the heavy lunch, their talk turned to politics. I hid behind my glass of wine, hoping Pop didn't notice that Pieter constantly refilled it.
"The Soviets were behind Sadat's assassination last month, I'm sure of it," Pieter said. "They're trying to divert our attention."
Hans snorted. "Everyone knows that you can't win in Afghanistan. Mark my words, the Soviets will tuck their tails and run eventually."
"But what about the Middle East?" Pieter interrupted. "Sadat was the voice of sanity. Who knows who the Egyptians will put in power next."
Hans' hands fluttered. "Tempest in a teapot. It'll die down. How can anyone who prays seven times a day get anything done? This Muslim fundamentalism is just a fad, and like all fads, it will pass."
"I disagree. I think the Middle East is fermenting on hate. The entire region will collapse into sectarian wars and the U.S. will be forced to intervene."
War? As angry as I was with him, fear for Pop welled up inside my chest. Maybe it was the wine. I glanced across the table at him. He suddenly seemed fragile to me. It would be absurd to put a middle-aged rocket scientist on the front line, but I'd seen enough military thinking to fear their weird logic.
"Do you really think there could be war, Pieter?" I asked.
They seemed surprised that I'd spoken. "Uncle Pieter," he corrected me. "Ja, I do."
A chill stabbed through my heart.
"Ah---let them slaughter each other. It has nothing to do with the U.S., or Europe. It's a local issue." Hans lifted a bottle. "More wine?"
Even though Hans and Fredrick dismissed his warnings, Pieter's words stayed with me. Hadn't every war already been fought? Wasn't everything decided? Still, news I heard about Lebanon and Iran made me think Pieter had a better grasp of reality.
Over the next couple weeks, people on base seemed watchful. To the outside world, nothing changed, but I felt a shift in the collective military-think. The atmosphere was like a coiling snake.
It was stupid, but I felt responsible for keeping Pop safe, if only I could figure out how.
I wasn't the only one who sensed it. Eric helped his dad change the oil in their car and lived to tell about it. Sean talked his father into a fishing trip. Tony and Mr. Foster, who were always close, made pilgrimages to the hardware store, moved Lane's abandoned drum set out of the way, and built a plywood skateboard ramp in the garage. I wanted to have the same kind of connection to Pop, as if that were the key to protecting him. I tried talking to him at the dinner table, but my attempts to interrupt his soliloquies only got me a hostile glare, a grunt, and then he rambled on as if I hadn't spoken.
Out in the garage, in a dusty cardboard box that hadn't been opened for three moves, I found a chess set he gave me one Christmas. I cleaned it off, brought it into the house, and set up the board on the coffee table.
Pop was watching a football game. He jumped from the couch, grunted and blocked imaginary players, as if he could help his team from our living room. At commercials, his gaze slid to the board. I sat on the floor with my back to the TV and read the rule book.
Ah! White went first. I should have turned the board so that he was white. I picked a pawn and cautiously slid it forward one square. He reached down, barely breaking his eye contact with the TV, and moved one of his pieces.
Chess had never been my game, but in the long pauses, as I watched the knights and bishops take their victims, it began to make sense. The point wasn't seeing what was in front of me; it was to visualize moves ahead to what would be. Cause and effect. Cogs and gears. Pop moved a piece I hadn't considered. The future shifted. New model, new possibilities.
For three days, we played after dinner. Then the set disappeared. I thought maybe Mom put it away, but I searched the house and couldn't find it. I took the hint and went back to spending my evenings at the gazebo.
The Base Exchange had been remodeled back in the 1960s but hadn't been restocked or cleaned since then. The low ceilings and dim lighting always made me want to hold my breath until I got out of there. Despite the dingy interior, I shopped there because I could always hitch a ride with someone headed to the base. It was impossible to go there and not run into people I knew. Because of that, when I decided I wanted to start wearing men's underwear, I walked to the K-Mart to buy them.
A sidewalk ran the length of the base housing, but stopped at the end of the tract. Beyond that, there was only a thin trail through the snow along the rural highway. A plow packed a waist high bank in the shoulder, so I walked on the highway. A car drove by close, the pitch of the horn changing as it sped past.
Compared to the Base Exchange, the K-Mart was huge and well-lit, with tons of stuff to buy. I grabbed a couple flannel shirts as I lingered in the men's department, waiting for the other shoppers to move away so that I could scuttle over to the back wall where the men's underwear hung in plastic packages. As soon as they were gone, I ducked behind the last rack and tried to decipher the codes.
Was I a jockeys kind of boy, or would I like briefs? Briefs looked like Grandpa underwear. And then there were the sizes. I was tempted to tear open a package and see what they looked like, but that seemed wrong. Someone was coming. I grabbed a package, hid it under the flannel shirts, and dashed into the aisle where I might have been innocently shopping for shampoo or a dust mop.
I gulped a few times and hoped the heat in my face would cool before I got to the checkout. I was light on my feet, though, because I'd gotten away with it. Almost.
Amanda and her mother got in line behind me at the checkout. I knew she was there, but kept my back to her while I strained to hear anything she might say. I clutched my pack of Fruit of the Loom briefs to my chest while my brain ran calculations like one of those UNIVAC supercomputers.
If a teenager in Lane 5 is buying something she'd rather keep private, so she switches to Lane 3 at 4:50 PM, with her heart beating at one hundred miles per hour ... If I stayed where I was, what were the odds that Amanda would see what I bought and get so disgusted with me that she never spoke to me again? But if I claimed I'd forgotten something and left the line, would I get through a different checkout in time to oh-so-casually bump into her at the door? Hero's death or coward's way out? Lane 3 was looking good.
"Next," the cashier sighed.
My hand sweated against the slick plastic package under the flannel shirts.
Amanda touched my back. "Hey."
Pinned between a display of candy bars and the girl who made me forget how to talk, I hoped humiliation could be fatal. Strike me dead now, please.
"Oh, hey," I said.
Amanda's mom stood between us. Everything about her was tiny. Hands like a child's clutched their cart; a lit cigarette tucked between her fingers. She wore a McDonald's uniform with shiny spots on the polyester pants.
"You're next," Amanda reminded me.
I shoved my stuff onto the counter and stared at my hiking boots, not even looking at the cashier as I handed her the wadded bills from my pocket. She called after me to take my receipt, but I was already headed out the door.
Halfway across the parking lot, I heard a car pull up behind me. Amanda shouted, "Hey!"
I didn't want to look back, but people behind her Mom's car were laying on the horns, so I went over to their faded orange Pinto.
"Where you going?" Amanda asked.
"Walking to our house."
"You live on base, right?"
I nodded, but said, "The off-base housing."
"I'm late to work, but I can drive you as far as our apartment," Amanda's mom offered.
Amanda didn't have much of an accent, but her mom was pure Kentucky. It as too geeky of me, but I suddenly understood exactly what Truman Capote meant in The Grass Harp when he called someone a hard Kentucky woman. I could see her life hadn't been easy, and from the look of her eyes, she didn't expect it to ever get any better. "Can't be late for my shift, so make up your mind," she said.
"That would be wonderful. Thank you, ma'am." I got into their car, dragging my feet through a pile of discarded McNugget boxes.
The town we lived in was small, but I'd never seen Amanda's long, low apartment building. There were four units. A Big Wheel and toddler's push toy lay on the snow outside the apartments.
Big men wearing greasy jeans watched Amanda and me walk to the door.
"Wanna come in?" Amanda asked.
Like I wanted to stay outside with those men. "Yeah. Thanks." I clutched my K-Mart bag.
Amanda shoved aside the busted screen door and unlocked the door. Both windows were covered with aluminum foil. To the left of the door was a small kitchen. Plates were stacked in the cracked sink. The rest of the room was taken by a fold-out couch. Amanda's brother sprawled on the tangled sheets. He looked a lot like Amanda's mother, with the smallest hands I'd every seen on a boy. "Where's Ma?" he asked without looking away from the TV.
"Work."
"I need the car," he told us, as if we could do something about it.
"She got six hours today."
"I only got four. Guess I'll walk over and get it." He turned the volume up.
Amanda pulled me past the couch and through one of the two doors on the back wall. "When he leaves, we can watch TV or somethin'." She plopped down on the double bed that filled the room.
There was nowhere else to sit, so I got onto the bed with her. She pulled off her shoes and threw them into the open closet. I recognized Amanda's school clothes hanging on the far side of the rail. Another McDonald's uniform and petite dresses hung in the middle. At the far end were jeans, concert tees, and an Arby's uniform.
"Who were those guys outside?" I asked.
She stared at me for a long time. "Don't look at 'em too long, don't talk to 'em, walk around 'em. And don't ever go inside an apartment with one of them, even if you're doing a deal."
She dumped her K-Mart bag onto the bed. "Want something to read?" She had the latest issues of People and Cosmo, and a romance novel.
Before I answered, she sprawled on her stomach and flipped open People to a spread on Brooke Shields. "I wish I looked like her."
Wasn't that what we were all supposed to say?
"So, you just moved to town, or were you going to Baker High before?" I cautiously lay beside her, feeling the mattress through the thin blanket. The bed smelled of boy.
She kept turning pages, but I knew she wasn't reading. "We moved here because of my dad."
"Oh?"
"He lives with his new wife and other kids in a big house on the other side of town. Gots a power boat, a new truck, a huge satellite dish in the backyard ... We moved here so Ma could take him to court for the child support he owes us."
Righteous anger flushed under my skin and gripped my throat. It couldn't be that easy for him to get away with it. "Can't the courts do something?"
"Pfft. The judge in Indiana said Mom must be one of those harpy feminists to hunt Dad all over the country trying to get money out of him. Said Indiana didn't have to enforce some Kentucky law. Judge didn't say nothing when Dad said Mom got herself pregnant and tricked him into the wedding." She turned back to her magazine. "The courts don't care. Every time we catch up to him, he just moves. We never seen a dime."
I was still choking on my anger. Maybe the courts didn't care, but I did. I'd do something about it. I never thought much about what I'd do when I got out of school, because I never expected to live that long, but in an instant, I decided I'd go to law school so I could help Amanda get revenge on her dad. I wanted to make him live in a crappy apartment in the worst part of town and make his new family have to live off the wages of a part time job at McDonald's while Amanda, her mom, and brother, lived in her father's big house. I wanted his other kids to see what he'd done to their half sister and brother, and I wanted them to learn how to hate their father for it.
Once I had my plan, the tightness in my chest eased. Little smiles flickered across my lips. I wanted to tell Amanda, but I also wanted to keep a secret so that I could surprise her. I could imagine how happy she'd be.
Smug and content, I opened the Cosmo. It must have been written in secret code, because I couldn't understand any of it. Each word was clear, but they wouldn't stick in my mind. Amanda was on the bed. She was next to me. There were no other girls, no suspicious teachers, no distractions. I flipped magazine pages, oblivious to the bright make-up ads, only aware that we were alone.
As she read, I let my elbow move over close to hers, and then relaxed my thigh so that our jeans touched. She filled out a crossword. I leaned closer, watching her soft pink lips moving as she read each clue.
"Do you know who starred as Colonel Henry Blake in the movie version of M\*A\*S\*H?" she asked.
Mentally, I'd filled out the entire puzzle by then, but I shrugged.
The deep brown of her hair was intertwined with honey and amber strands. She even had two shades of freckles.
What I would have given to be a boy right then. To slide my thigh between hers and feel the moist heat of the inside of her thigh burning through my clothes. My hands would be respectful, touching only in wonder as if she were a foreign country and I could learn the customs by feeling the soil. I wanted her girlness to slide against my skin but not take it into myself. I wanted to slowly hump against her thigh, delicately so that maybe she wouldn't notice, and she'd keep chewing on the end of her pencil. I wouldn't whip it out. I wouldn't be so crude. I'd leave it in my pants and not use her, but want her, and let her know that it was an act of worship. Just bump---and feel the contact through my jeans until the tingle faded and then bump again and enjoy the rush.
More than anything, I wanted to tell her that I liked her, and I wanted her to understand want those words meant. I wanted to offer prayers to her against her lips. If only I could tell her that she was pretty and not freak her out.
The door slammed open. Amanda didn't move, but I jumped off the bed, afraid that her brother would yell at me for pressing against her.
"Get out. Gotta dress for work," he told us.
I grabbed bags and magazines. Amanda sauntered past her brother, plopped down on the fold out couch, and kept working on her crossword. I wanted to turn off the TV, but didn't.
Her brother came out of the bedroom in the Arby's uniform.
"Hey, grab me something for dinner. I'm starving," Amanda shouted as he headed out the door.
"I can't. Any food we're supposed to dump gets sprayed with Lysol now."
"Shit. Then ask Ma if she can swipe something." She turned to me. "You want some McDonald's?"
I shook my head as another lump settled in my chest. I had to save her from that life.
"If I see her when I take the car, I'll ask," her brother said as he headed out.
Amanda's gaze slid sideways to the door and she waited for a while after it closed to kneel on the mattress. She pulled a bag of peanut M&Ms out of her bag and tore it open. "At least I got these. Want some?"
"No. Thank you. It's okay. I'm supposed to be on a diet."
She shook the bag at me. "Me too, but it looks like oatmeal for dinner again, and I'm sick of it. Come on. These're good."
I took three. No matter how long I chewed, I could barely choke them down.
First semester finals were only two weeks away, but Sean, Eric, Tony, and I already had a bad case of senioritis. Instead of making heroic last minute efforts to pull up our grades, we shrugged and went to a Black Sabbath concert.
Sometimes I wondered why I met up with the guys every night. It felt as if we'd had the same conversation a hundred times before. We were all at the Black Sabbath concert. We saw the same things and heard the same music, but for days following the show, Tony, Sean, and Mark wanted to discuss it in excruciating detail as if we hadn't.
The hand holding the dog's leash was numb from the cold and my teeth chattered uncontrollably. She didn't seem to mind, but I felt guilty for taking the dog out to walk when we rarely went far. It wasn't as if Mom or Pop ever questioned me about where I went or how I spent my time, but just in case, I always took the dog along as an excuse.
The MPs patrolled past us a fourth time, slowing down to a crawl while they glared at us. We got the message. Teenagers spooked people, especially when boys---and one wanna-be---gathered in a sullen, bored mob, so we headed to the gazebo in the woods where the sight of us wouldn't offend anyone.
It was one of those nights when the air was like a knife. There were too many clouds to see the stars, but the moon, low and fat on the horizon, glowed through the haze.
Most of the guys sat on top of the picnic table. I leaned against one of the posts and let the dog inspect the bushes for a while. When she was satisfied, she looked up at me, expectant. I put her inside my coat and zipped it up so that only her face was exposed.
"I'm freezing my ass off," Tony grumbled.
Lighters flickered, and the sweet scent of pot wafted through the air.
In case we didn't hear him the first time, Tony said, "It's too damn cold."
Mark huddled into his down coat, the high neck pulled up over his mouth to muffle his voice. "My parents are out of town."
He was right to be cautious. With the walls between the duplexes so thin, we had to be careful not to piss off the neighbors. They might call the MPs.
We made our way up the other hill to Mark's place. As soon as we were inside, Lane put Rush's Moving Pictures on the stereo. Mark's parents had cable TV, so we watched a boxing match and passed around bags of chips. I gave some to the dog so that she'd be happy on my lap.
I went out through the sliding glass doors a few times to smoke cigarettes I bummed off the guys. It was weird, how right I felt while I was smoking, as if whatever was off-kilter inside my brain aligned, and for those brief moments I was a normal human being. Afterwards, I felt worse. So I smoked another one.
Much later, when the TV was off and Mark's house got quiet, I tip-toed through the rooms. Sean was on the floor of Mark's room, passed out in a nest of crumpled clothes. I crouched down to roll him onto his side. The death of Led Zeppelin's drummer was still fresh in my mind and no friend of mine was going to choke to death on his own vomit.
A sound behind me made me look up. Eric stood in the doorway, a blanket in his hand, a dark scowl on his face. I shoved past him and went downstairs.
There was a part of the night that used to belong solely to Eric and me. It came after the others fell asleep. HBO showed short movies like Bambi meets Godzilla. Pink Floyd, Rush, and AC/DC records went back into their sleeves. We'd put on Oingo Boingo, The Pretenders, Sex Pistols, or Dead Kennedys and quietly slam dance against each other until we collapsed, laughing and bruised, onto the floor.
We hadn't done that since summer. Still, out of habit, I put on Only a Lad and bounced on the balls of my feet, but it wasn't the same. I went through the first floor of the duplex and turned off all the lights except the one in the bathroom. My nerves were strung out and edgy. I decided it was the music. I was in no mood for it. I flipped through albums, put a few on, but yanked away the stylus after only a few bars. Everything I loved grated.
What I needed was "alone in the dark" music. Led Zeppelin III called to me, so I put on Since I've Been Loving You, stretched out on the couch, and closed my eyes. The dog jumped up and lay beside me.
The room smelled of beer. Beer and boys. I pulled my coat to my nose and drew in deep breaths. Underneath the stink of cigarettes was the comforting scent of campfire.
Someone crept down the stairs. I could feel the dog get tense, but then she waggled her butt, so I figured it was Eric. He was the only one still awake, but I had no reason to talk with him anymore.
He stood somewhere near the edge of the room until the song ended. Then he came over to the couch and bumped the cushion with his knee. "I want to ask you something." When I didn't answer, he said, "I know you're awake."
Eric jumped back when I sat up fast and headed out through the sliding glass door, dragging the dog with me. It wasn't long before I heard the door open and shut again. He jogged to catch up with me.
"Want to go to the winter formal? Dad told me I had to ask you," he gasped as he slowed down to a walk beside me.
My breath came out in puffs. "Since you asked so nice, no." I kept walking.
He didn't say anything, but he followed me down the hill, through the park, and up our hill.
An MP cruiser slowed as it passed us. At the corner, it stopped. The officer rolled down his window. "What are you boys up to this time of night?"
"Headed home, sir," I told him.
It was funny calling the MP sir. He couldn't have been much older than us. His face had that unfinished look to it, like he wasn't done growing into a man.
"Come here."
I trudged over. Eric stayed behind me. The MP shone his flashlight into our eyes.
"You been drinking?"
"No, Sir." I was so glad I passed on the beer.
"Let me smell your breath."
The scent of stale cigarettes seemed to disappoint him.
"How about you?" He shone the light at Eric.
Fighting or not, there was no way I'd let a cop catch Eric with beer-breath, so I stayed between them. Eric leaned down for the MP, but was far enough away that the yeasty smell didn't carry.
"Well, you shouldn't be out this time of night. Curfew was hours ago. I could take you in for that."
"We're on our way home, sir. That's allowed, even under curfew," I reminded him.
"You getting smart with me, boy?"
I bit my tongue and shook my head.
"Where do you live?"
Eric gave the MP his duplex numbers. As usual, when faced with a test involving numbers, my mind went blank. So I nodded toward Eric and said, "I live next door to him." A drop of clear, watery snot hung inside my nose and threatened to fall. I wiped it away with the back of my hand.
The MP sat in his car while he decided how much he wanted to hassle us. His patrol was boring as hell and we were the only people awake for him to talk to. It was a lonely night for everyone, I guessed.
"Sir, I really do have to get my dog home," I said. I picked her up and hoped she looked pathetic enough to convince him. She licked my hand.
He sighed.
"Well, you boys get on home to bed now."
I put the dog down. Eric said, "Yes, sir." The cruiser rolled away from us.
"Come on, go to the dance with me," Eric whined.
"What? Are we suddenly friends again? I don't think so."
"I still help you with your math tests."
"You've been a total shit to me."
"Let's see how well you do without my help," he called out as I walked away.
"Bite my cock, douche."
Eric, Sean, Tony, Mark and I slumped across the living room floor at the Foster's. While the guys debated the greatness of Rush's Hemispheres album versus the utter sellout of Moving Pictures, I studied the cover of The Pretenders' latest album and daydreamed of Chrissie Hynde in a leather cat suit like Mrs. Peel from the Avengers. I wondered if she cracked the whip when she sang The Adulteress.
Mrs. Foster brought a bowl of popcorn out and set it on the coffee table for us.
Sean perched on the arm of the couch next to me. "You going to the Christmas service at the base chapel?" he asked.
"I guess so, even though Mom's at her sister's again."
"Oh dear. She's been away a lot this year," Mrs. Foster said. "Are things okay? I saw her at the Base Exchange last week. She seemed a little ... distracted. Tense."
"She always gets like that just before she leaves. She cracked a plate at dinner the other night and cried about it for hours, even though she always hated that set. The worst part is when she can't sleep. She wakes me up to talk."
"I've heard." Mrs. Foster didn't look to happy about that. I hated being woken in the middle of the night too, so I could understand. "The walls between our units are pretty thin. Sometimes it's like being in the same room with you."
Had she heard me crying? How embarrassing.
"Honey, if you ever need to---" She glanced at Sean, but he didn't seem to be listening. "I don't like to speak ill of anyone, and I understand how hard it is to be a parent, but couldn't she discuss those things with you during the day?"
I sat up, scowling. Heat flushed through my face. "It's just the way she does things."
"Yes, I've heard the way she does things," Mrs. Foster said.
"Mom can't sleep when things bug her. You have no idea how hard it is for her, having to drop everything and go to her sister's house."
"Yes. Well..." Mrs. Foster picked up empty soda cans and took them to the kitchen.
Sean reclined across the couch, sprawling into my space. "I've heard that your mom is nuts."
"Shut up."
He shrugged. "I'm just saying."
"Fuck you."
I slammed the Foster's door when I left. Where did they get the right to say shit like that? They barely even knew my parents.
Pop and I let Christmas slide. We didn't put up a tree or wrap presents. Christmas morning, Pop handed me a couple bags from the mall. All the receipts were there. As usual, Mom bought clothes for the girl she wished she had, in the size she wanted me to wear.
Pop picked out his own gift, paid for it, wrapped it. I was never invited to be part of it. Every birthday and Christmas, he thanked me for the gifts. It used to strike me as funny. That morning, I finally translated the message. I wasn't needed, and when I was gone, they wouldn't miss me.
After church, Eric's parents invited us over for dinner. Pop and I had no plans, but I was in no mood to spend a day with Eric. I tried to turn them down, but Pop heard "turkey" and his eyes lit up.
When we showed up at their place, Eric's two younger sisters opened the front door. They giggled and ran for the living room, leaving us standing in the entryway. The smell of turkey and caramelized onions carried on a rush of warm air. I decided that I could put up with Eric until dinner was over.
"Haven't seen you around here much lately," Eric's dad said as he took my coat.
"Not much reason to."
He nudged Pop's elbow. "These kids. Every little disagreement is the end of the world, huh? They'll make up in no time, and whatever it was, they'll forget, right?"
I glanced at Eric in hopes of getting a clue. He stared at the TV as if he'd never seen Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and friends fight the Bumble before. Bastard.
Pop went into the kitchen. I saw the real tree and recoiled. Under the heavy scent of turkey and stuffing, it was there, that resinous smell. Pine trees were my second worst non-food allergy.
"Eric, aren't you going to give her the present?"
Eric stomped over to their Christmas tree, found a box, and stomped back over to me. He slapped a small box into my hand. I hadn't gotten him anything.
"Well, open it," his dad said.
I tore off the wrapping. Gold was, what, eight hundred dollars an ounce? I hoped the chain and cross were plated.
"Put it on her, Eric."
Eric stood behind me to do the clasp. His dad's hands mimed the moves like a puppet master. Kneeling at our feet, mesmerized, his sisters watched.
His dad clapped his hands together. "I told you she'd love it."
The room felt smaller by the second. It was too hot, and the strong smell of dinner seemed to make it lie heavy in my lungs. "I'm sorry, but I think I need to take a walk. I'm allergic to pine."
Eric's mother bustled out of the kitchen. "Allergic? Oh my." She put a hand to her cheek. "Is it bad?"
My eyes were already swollen. "I can live with it. Have to, this time of year. It's everywhere."
"Oh, but ... Mack, carry the tree out into the garage."
"No need to do that. I'll be fine. Really. I just need to take a little walk and clear out my sinuses."
"She needs to learn that the world doesn't revolve around her," Pop called out from the kitchen. "Leave the tree where it is. She'll just have to get used to it."
Eric's mom stood at the kitchen doorway, trying to decide what to do. She wanted to move the tree for me, but everyone told her not to. Pots on her stove gurgled and steamed. Pop hovered over them, salt shaker in his hand. Torn between her cooking and me, she decided to save her food from Pop. "Dinner will be ready in half an hour. You have time for a quick walk," she told me.
"I'll be back soon."
"Go with her, son, but don't take too long." Eric's dad herded us to the door, grinning so smug, as if he knew everything.
"I'll be fine alone."
"Eric will go with you."
I grabbed my coat and was well down the block before Eric caught up. We walked in angry silence to the gazebo.
Eric rolled a slim joint. He climbed onto the picnic table.
I took off the necklace and hurled it at him. "I am not your fucking girlfriend, no matter what you tell your dad."
"I never told him that."
"You sure let him think it."
Eric stared at his hands.
"Oh fuck it! I'm sick of this. You can have him."
His head jerked up. "Who?"
"Sean."
"I don't know..."
"Shut up. Don't act like this isn't all about Sean, because it is. He's all yours."
Eric's face twisted into harsh lines. "You're all over him. 'He has the lewdest lips.' You practically drool when you see him."
"Okay, I'll admit I want to fuck him, but date? Please. I don't want his hands anywhere on me, and I definitely don't want to have to talk to him. I just want to fuck him hard and then kick him the hell out of my bed so I can roll over and sleep."
"Sure."
"Fuck you."
Eric looked up at the gazebo roof for a long time. "God. I wish he would. Fuck me." He ran his hands up and down his thighs. "He's driving me nuts."
It took a while for me to control my temper enough to sit next to him on the table and ask, "So, you two doing anything?"
His shoulders slumped. "Nothing since that kiss at the drive-in."
"Damn. Sorry. I thought for sure you guys were getting it on during our camping trips. You keep lagging behind everyone else on the trail, and you're alone in that tent."
"I wish. I was over at his house one day, and we were sitting on his bed, and he was playing his bass, and ... Nothing. I kept thinking something was going to happen, like he kept touching my arm and sitting right next to me, but nothing happened."
"Cock tease." I took a long draw on my cigarette and exhaled slow.
"Uh-huh." Eric handed me the joint. "He's always asking where you are. Every time I mention going to Rocky Horror, he asks if you're coming along. When I say no, he won't go. It's like he's obsessed with you."
"Hah! He hates me. You know that. I can't talk to him for two minutes before the insults start flying. He's not smart enough for me. He's not smart enough for you."
"But he's hot."
I flicked my cigarette into the snow and flapped my coat to help dissipate the smell of smoke.
Eric said, "Um, I know you're probably still mad at me, but I want to ask a favor."
My eyebrows rose. "Pretending to be your girlfriend is a pretty fucking big favor already."
"I got a C in American Lit."
I winced. "B minus in calculus. Thank God for partial credit."
"I need to take a guaranteed-A English course next semester, or I'm in trouble. Take English Lit II with me." Eric stared down at his hands again, working the gold chain between his fingers.
"Ode to a Grecian Urn and Paradise Lost? No thanks. I'm enrolled in the second half of World Lit. I'll take Ibsen's plays any day over Canterbury Tales."
"Isn't Ibsen's stuff supposed to be dark?"
I mimed putting a gun to my temple and pulling the trigger. "Hedda Gabler shoots herself. It's a perfect ending."
Eric stared at me for a long time. "That's not funny."
"I don't think it's meant to be a comedy."
He stilled frowned as he ground the last of the joint between his fingers. "We better get back."
"You know, this could work out. Sean will go out with you if I'm there, right?" I asked.
"I guess," Eric drawled. He didn't seem to like where my thoughts were headed.
"So your dad will think we're dating, and you get to spend time with Sean. It's perfect for you."
"You don't want him?"
"Sean isn't interested in me."
Eric got pissy again. "You looked like you were getting along real good on the camping trip."
"Actually, he was embarrassed about that. That's what we were talking about when you came over and stabbed my hand with your fork. I was being nice to him because, well, I haven't been, and I felt bad about it. Lately, I've been trying not to put him down so much."
"I noticed."
I bumped against Eric's shoulder and grinned. "If it makes you happier, I can start being mean to him again. Because I've been holding back some really devastating lines."
"No. Don't start that up again. Please."
I scratched my back. "Thank God you're talking to me again. You can keep up with the conversation. Sean gets confused too easily. Whoosh! Right over his head. Do you have any idea how tiring it is to have to define every other word I use? I lose my place in the idea I was trying to get across. I told you, he's not smart enough for me. Not by a long shot. So he's all yours."
"If only."
He got down from the table. The necklace dangled from his fingertips. I swiped it from his hand and put it back on.
"By the way, there's someone I want you to check out at school. A girl."
"Oh?" A bit of a smile tugged at the corners of Eric's mouth.
"Her name is Amanda." And suddenly, I was blushing, and couldn't meet his gaze. "Do you think---do you think it's really evil to like a girl? I mean like-like, not just friends?"
"You're asking me?"
"Don't you ever worry that you're going to hell?" I asked.
"This town is hell."
"Yeah, but ... God, I'm so fucked up." I tugged at my hair.
"Yep." He started up the trail but stopped to wait for me. "I don't worry about going to hell. I worry about someone finding out. That would be real hell."
As usual, he summed up the situation perfectly.
We hiked back toward his duplex.
"So ... Amanda?" he asked.
Once the secret was uncorked, I couldn't keep any of it inside me. I talked quickly, leaving him no space to wedge a word between mine as I went on and on about everything Amanda.
I think Eric's dad was happier about the truce between Eric and me than we were. He pestered me until I accepted an invitation to dinner at the Officer's Club. I put him off as long as I could, but by mid-February, I ran out of excuses. As if that wasn't enough meddling, he also made us commit to a date. Our plans probably weren't what he had in mind, though.
"So, Friday's the big date? Valentines Day!" Eric's dad kept looking over his shoulder at us as he drove to the Officer's Club. "What movie are you going to see?"
"Amanda wanted to see---"
Eric smacked my leg. "Wrath of Kahn."
"Ah, so you're a Trekkie?" his father asked me.
We were really going to see Porky's, something we'd never admit to our parents. "Yeah. Sure. I mean, yes, Sir."
"Kaaaaahn." His dad chuckled. Eric rolled his eyes.
The Officer's Club, like much of the main base, was a red brick colonial with white columns. It was the military's answer to a country club, complete with golf course, swimming pool, and tennis courts.
Eric and I walked far behind his parents as we went into the club. I was in a skirt, a huge concession to their dress code, but the grand entrance and huge foyer made me shrink back.
"Am I dressed okay?" I whispered as we crossed the Persian rugs.
Eric had on a sport jacket that didn't cover his boney wrists. His deep blue tie was yanked to the side and the collar of his white shirt was up.
"You look fine," he told me.
"You're prettier."
He smirked.
His dad's voice boomed across the foyer. "What are you two lovebirds whispering about now?"
People turned to look at us. Eric shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and I glared at my shoes.
"What drug is your dad on?" I whispered.
"Denial," Eric said before he rushed across the carpet to the host's stand.
The dining room was big, with chandeliers and white linens covering each table. It was a long, narrow room. Every table had a view of the golf course. The swimming pool was covered with a blue tarp for the winter. Nets sagged across the tennis courts.
The hostess led us to a table for four in the center of the room. A spotlight seemed to make it glow. Eric's dad pulled back a chair for his wife, and cleared his throat. Eric popped up from his chair and pulled mine out for me.
The lineup of forks and spoons didn't faze me a bit. Although they spent weeks teaching table manners at cotillion---one of Mom's many attempts to turn me into a girl---it came down to the simple rule that you used the flatware furthest from your plate. Confidence made anything look right. Menus, however, were another matter. My usual method was to pick the second least expensive entrée, but my menu had no prices. Was prime rib usually less than New York strip? How did the price of a salmon dinner compare to beef? I turned it over and hoped to find a kid's menu. No such luck.
"Would you like an appetizer?" Eric's dad asked me.
No one in my family ordered appetizers.
"We always have shrimp cocktail. Would you like one?"
I wasn't sure if I was allowed to have cocktails. Under the table, I tugged at the hem of my skirt. Why did I let Eric talk me into dinner with his parents? He was supposed to be kissing my ass, but there I was, suffering for his sake.
Eric's dad forced a chuckle that was too loud for the room. "Have one! I won't take no for an answer. It's a family tradition."
You owe me. You owe me huge for this! I sent thought waves across the table to Eric. He must have received the message, because he hid behind his menu. I kicked his ankle. "What are you ordering?" I asked him.
"The bamboo box."
The menu described it as stacked boxes of steamed veggies with various dipping sauces and dumplings. The only dumplings I ever ate were my grandmother's. They were gut bombs. "You're kidding, right?"
Eric set down his menu. "The chef here is a vegetarian. He always has great vegetarian entrées."
"But they serve meat."
"Do you think he cooks all the meals here by himself? Besides, how long would he last at a military club if he didn't serve beef? Get the bamboo box. You'll like it. Trust me. It's almost Zen."
That time when I kicked him, I made sure it hurt.
The waiter poured Eric's water in a slow trickle while he eyed Eric's lanky frame. Eric's glance flitted from his napkin-covered lap to the waiter's face.
"So, big date Friday." Every time Eric's father spoke, it was like a cannon going off. Eric and I cringed. "Who is this couple you're doubling with?" he asked.
I bit my lip and let Eric answer that one. The waiter dumped ice and water into my glass. It splashed across the tablecloth.
Eric watched the waiter stomp away before answering. "Sean and a girl from school."
"Has Sean been seeing her long?" Eric's mom asked.
I didn't think Sean had ever met Amanda. "No."
"Is she nice? Sean is such a nice boy. Those Oriental kids always are," she said. "It's their culture."
My eyes widened. Who did she think we were talking about? Sean, the foul-mouthed, demon-tempered, sex God bass player, or some house coolie from a Charlie Chan movie?
"Uh, yeah. I like her a lot," I said.
Eric's eyes narrowed down to slits, so I shut up.
His dad asked, "So, have you heard from Harvard yet?"
I set my water glass down with absolute precision, making sure that it went exactly on the wet ring on the tablecloth. "I withdrew my application."
He slumped. "Oh. Have you applied to other schools in Massachusetts?"
"Mack, she doesn't want to talk about it. Can't you see? It's all right, hon. There are plenty of other colleges." Eric's mom put a hand on my shoulder.
The waiter reached in front of me and put a glass rimmed by shrimp on top of my plate. Shrimp and cocktail sauce, not a real cocktail. I never felt so stupid in my life. The waiter was so busy eyeing Eric that the base of the glass crashed against Eric's plate. Eric grabbed for it, his hand wrapping around the waiter's. They shared a sheepish grin and let go, but not quickly.
"So, Eric," his dad said loudly.
Eric tore his gaze from the waiter. "What?"
"Uh, don't bring the car back from your date with an empty tank."
The waiter set down the rest of the appetizers and scuttled away.
Eric's dad clapped his hands together and rubbed them. "Don't these look great! Everyone dig in!"
"Aren't you going to eat, hon?" Eric's mom asked me.
Shrimp was one of my favorites, but I hadn't had it in a long time. All I could think about was how outraged Pop would be at the expense.
"It's good," she said.
There was nothing I hated more than proving I was an idiot, so I watched them to see how it was done. They picked up shrimp by the tail, dipped it in the sauce, and bit them off close to the hard shell. I copied, carefully cupping my hand under the pink curl as I brought it to my mouth.
Oh, it was good. The horseradish in the sauce burned the inside of my nose. Heavenly. It made me cough though, so I took a sip of my water.
The drink wouldn't go down my throat. The muscles of my neck were tight. I tried to swallow the water in my mouth, but I couldn't. I put my cloth napkin up to my mouth and spat it all out, and then tried to take a breath.
It was like that time I almost drowned---tried to drown---only that time, instead of refusing to let me breathe in water, my throat wouldn't let me have air.
I coughed harder, covering my heated face with the napkin. In cotillion, they never discussed the polite way to suffocate. My lips burned. I tried not to let Eric's parents hear me fighting for breath. I thought maybe I could stagger to the bathroom.
Eric popped a shrimp in his mouth and grinned at me, but his smile slid away and he got a weird look on his face.
I shook my head, begging him not to rat me out.
"Fuck!"
"Eric!" His mom was shocked.
He was out of his chair, reaching for me. "She's choking!"
I expected it to hurt as I fell forward into the table, but before my face hit the edge, the universe jolted to a stop.
I'll never know if it was real or not, but I could have sworn Pop paced outside the doorway of a white room, scowling and mumbling.
I tried to beg the nurse not to invite him past the threshold, but something hard was in my throat and I couldn't talk.
She nodded and said, "Come on in."
"You just had to make a scene in front of all those officers," he said through clenched teeth. "Idiot."
Friday night following the shrimp incident, Sean, Eric and I tried to escape from the foyer of Eric's duplex, but his mom wouldn't stop fussing over me.
"Are you sure you're okay to go?" she asked.
Talking hurt like a son of a bitch, so I nodded. Mom and Pop didn't say anything when I left the house. Why did Eric's Mom have to make a fuss?
"We need to get going," Sean said. He reached for the door.
"I can't believe I made you eat that shrimp!" she blurted.
I winced. If I'd known I'd go into anaphylactic shock from eating it, I wouldn't have put it in my mouth.
She looked so sad, so guilty, as she twisted her fingers. "First the Christmas tree, and now this. How can you forgive me? Your lips were blue! I thought you were dead. Good thing that nurse was having dinner at the club." Then she ambushed me, dragging me close into her arms. It wasn't one of those stiff body, pat-pat, let-me-go-NOW hugs my parents gave me, but a real mom hug, all encompassing, rocking, with soothing circles across my back.
I glared at Eric.
"Mom, you're making us late!"
She reluctantly released me.
Sean yanked open the door. I bolted after him.
When we got to Amanda's apartment building, Eric leaned over the steering wheel and squinted at the burly men standing by a motorcycle outside. "Are you sure?"
"Don't stare at them! They'll come over."
"I'm not looking. Get her quick."
The drug dealer in the Charlie Daniels Band t-shirt paused with his beer halfway to his mouth when I got out of Eric's car, only his eyes moving to track me. The skin on my back tightened, as if protecting against their silent stares when I passed across the dead strip of lawn.
Amanda flashed a smile when she opened the door. "Hi! Just a second." She disappeared into the bedroom.
The couch creaked when I leaned against it, so I sat on the end of the pullout bed and watched TV. Amanda went into the bathroom. I smoothed the rumpled sheet and tried to figure out which side of the mattress was Amanda's. Both pillows smelled like cigarette smoke.
"Okay. Let's go."
She'd put on makeup. Too bad. It made her look like all the other grit girls---a smear of green on her eyelids, wet pink oozing over her lips, eyelashes stiff. For some reason, she'd put on a short skirt with rows of ruffles, pink leg warmers, and a pair of short white boots. She was going to freeze her ass off.
When I held the car door open for Amanda, Eric snapped, "What took so long?" He had sisters. He should have known what girls were like.
At the theater, the guys bought their own movie tickets, but when I got up to the window, I held up two fingers. The night was going to kill my stash of lawn mowing earnings, but Amanda's quiet thank you made it worth it.
Inside the lobby, Amanda leaned against a pinball machine while Sean played. With the last of my money, I got a huge tub of popcorn and a drink big enough for us to share. Then I bought some red licorice, just in case.
Seating inside the theater was like one of those logic puzzles from an IQ test.
1) There were four seats in a row at a movie theater.
2) I wanted to sit in the back alone with Amanda.
3) Eric wanted to sit next to Sean, probably also alone in the back row, in the dark.
4) Sean wanted someone to sit between him and Eric.
5) Amanda pretended not to care, but she tilted her head and tried to catch Sean's eye with flirty glances.
How should they be seated so that each gets their heart's desire?
Logic puzzles were in the same category as math to me, so I made a command decision and took the fourth seat from the aisle, leaving them to work the rest of it out. Sean sat between Eric and Amanda, but leaned toward Amanda through the movie.
When the movie was over, Amanda and Sean walked out of the theater together. They repeated dialog from every scene. I was surprised how much of the movie they remembered. My mind left the theater and went somewhere else during that hour, to dreams of when we wouldn't need the boys, of sitting close in a dark theater, my arm brushing against hers, maybe holding her hand.
I cringed as Amanda and Sean tried to talk over each other, drawing disapproving glares from adults in the parking lot. I thought the movie was okay, but I was used to porn flicks at the drive-in, so nothing about it shocked me enough to seem funny. Eric seemed to feel the same way. He stalked beside me, silent.
"Red vine?" I offered him one from the pack.
He ripped the licorice with his front teeth and glared at Amanda.
Amanda clutched Sean's arm.
I glanced around. We were far enough away from everyone that we could talk in private, and Sean and Amanda weren't paying attention to us anyway, but I still lowered my voice. "Sean's into you. I swear. He kissed you, remember. But I want some time to figure out if Amanda likes me the way I like her."
"Looks like she's into boys."
It felt as if raw streaks ran down the inside of my throat, as if it were ripping apart every time I spoke. Still, I waved his thoughts away, dismissing them. "Everyone wants to fuck Sean. That doesn't count. Look at her. I mean, ignore the makeup and clothes. She's---you know---like me."
"Hmmm."
Amanda blew on her cupped hands and shivered. "Hey, it's freezing out here! Hurry up and unlock the door."
Eric gave me an unreadable look, his eyes weary, before jogging over to his dad's car.
For weeks, I begged Amanda to come along on our church group's next hiking trip.
"I'll borrow gear for you. I have a lot of stuff that I don't use anymore."
"It isn't that."
"You'll have fun," I told her. "It's great."
She finally said, "Okay, okay. I'll go. Now quit talking about it."
Early Saturday morning, as we waited in the gravel parking lot at the trailhead, I rocked up on my toes and bounced. Even my car sickness couldn't kill my mood.
The herbal scent of the woods made me want to plunge ahead, but everyone else moved in slow motion. They perched on their packs or leaned against the cars while the chaplain and his wife finished their coffee.
"This part is boring," I warned Amanda, "but once we get started, you'll see how great it is."
"Oh, sure. What's the great part? The dirt, or the bugs?" She tugged at the shoulder straps of the backpack. Most of the heavy stuff was in my pack, but she couldn't seem to get used to the weight.
"You won't have to cook. You don't even have to set up a tent. All you have to do is walk." I stepped closer to adjust the straps for her.
On the ride to the trail, we'd been squished together in the back seat of the car. Where her legs had pressed against mine was strangely cool. I brushed my hand over it several times, trying to calm my hyper-aware nerve endings.
She squinted at the stand of saplings at the edge of the parking lot. "How far?"
"Eight miles, but not all at once. We can rest when you get tired." I ran my hand under the shoulder strap, smoothing a twist. "Is that better?"
Her boney shoulders hunched. "I guess."
Sean dusted off the seat of his jeans and bent down for his pack. Amanda held her breath as he put his arms through the straps, exposing his belly button and a dark trail of hair that disappeared into his jeans.
The chaplain dropped his paper cup into the metal drum by the park map. "Okay, everyone, let's go."
People groaned and took their time getting to their feet. Impatient, I set out on the shady dirt path. Crusty patches of snow remained under the pines.
Most of the trails we'd taken before were long, but easy. Ohio didn't have any real mountains, but the terrain close to the border with West Virginia was pretty rugged. We only had a few months left to get into shape for our big trip and each time we went out, we had to meet a bigger challenge.
My plan was to let the others move ahead of us so that Amanda and I could be alone on the trail. Amanda didn't get it. She walked with Sean for a while, and then with the other girls. Out of pity, or maybe because Sean wouldn't stay with him, Eric trudged along with me.
A couple hours in, we paused as a group before a steep vertical climb. It was probably only thirty feet before the trail leveled off again, but the earth was scraped raw, exposing roots and boulders. Climbing it was rough, sweaty work even in the cool spring air. When I got to the top, every breath was sharp.
Amanda was one of the last to make the climb. I peeled off my pack and went to offer her my hand for the last couple feet. She glared at me and let the chaplain yank her up.
Maybe a hard trial wasn't the best way to introduce her to hiking, but I knew once she got to camp and had a chance to take in the beauty of the woods, she'd be happy that she came along.
After that last climb, the trail leveled off. We passed through a high meadow where the snow melt ran clear in wide streams over new grass. The air smelled sweet, like hay.
Past the meadow, we were back into the woods again. One at a time, we crossed over a small waterfall. A fallen tree was the bridge. It was wide, but the bark was slippery and the log curved, so we had to be careful. Each of us walked slowly and used our arms to balance like tightrope walkers. Amanda's face went white when she looked down, and for a moment I thought she'd turn back. I held my breath and willed her across. She finally made it over, but half an hour later she still looked shaken.
Our campsite was a large clearing with a fire pit. As we came off the trail, the chaplain's wife assigned our duties. Sean and I exchanged gleeful grins as last two stragglers wandered into camp and got stuck on KP.
Amanda had an excuse, since she'd never gone camping before, but the other girls acted every time as if pitching the tent were simply beyond them. I put it up myself while they gossiped.
"If you're not doing anything, go gather kindling for the fire," the chaplain told them.
Suddenly, everyone knew how to thread the tent poles through the canvas loops.
There wasn't much else for me to do after that. Since there was no water at the campsite, the boys had to hike back to the waterfall and fill pots. Someone else got the fire going.
"So, what? We just sit around?" Amanda asked.
"Yeah. Just rest. They'll start cooking dinner soon."
"I'm starved."
"Food tastes so much better cooked over a campfire." I found a long stick and poked at the fire.
Amanda made a face. "If you like the flavor of smoke."
"I love it! Weeks after we get home, I can still smell it on my jacket."
"Great."
I grinned out at the forest around us. "Isn't it?"
"I'm missing Dallas."
How could she even think of TV? "You can watch the rerun."
Amanda set her plate of chili mac on the ground by her feet. "But next week, I won't know what's going on. I hate missing episodes."
One of the other girls nodded. "I made Mom swear to tape it for me."
"We don't have a VCR," Amanda told her.
"You have to get one. I tape General Hospital every day and watch it as soon as I get home from school."
"All My Children is better," another girl said.
They debated the various daytime shows. Once upon a time, I'd been hooked on Dark Shadows, but Mom caught me watching it and from then on I wasn't allowed to turn on the TV during the day. Normally, I didn't care, but it pissed me off that I couldn't join in the conversation with Amanda.
Eric left Sean and came to sit beside me. "How's it going?"
I whispered, "I think she's getting to like this."
Eric watched Amanda for a bit. "Hmmm."
Amanda turned away from her conversation and leaned toward me. She cast a furtive glance around the campfire. "I've been holding it all day. Where can I go?"
"Follow me." I picked up a flashlight and lead her to a narrow trail. Away from the fire, it was cold. We zipped our jackets. Amanda hugged her arms tight around her body. "If you're cold, put on another layer."
"I'm already wearing everything I packed except my nightgown."
"Nightgown? You won't need that here. We sleep in our clothes."
"I don't like that."
"You're going to freeze in regular pjs," I warned her. "We can switch sleeping bags. My new one is much warmer. Okay?"
In the dark, even easy trails seemed treacherous, so we took our time on the short walk. I didn't mind. It was time alone with her.
Amanda stumbled. "How far is it?"
"Not much more."
"This is stupid. Why is it so far from the camp?"
That seemed self-explanatory, but I let her discover the answer for herself.
"Oh, what's that smell ... You're kidding!"
I shone a light on the latrine door.
"No way."
I grinned. "We're lucky. Some hikes, we don't even have this."
"So, what? You don't go the entire time you're in the woods?"
"You take a little shovel, go behind a tree, dig a hole..."
"That's disgusting."
"You've been squatting to pee all day."
She snatched the flashlight from my hand. "Totally disgusting." The latrine door slammed shut. Beams of light shone out the screened gaps near the roof, and I was in the dark.
When we turned in for the night, Amanda couldn't get comfortable. "Things are poking me."
I had hoped we could have our own two-person tent, but we were stuck sleeping with the rest of the girls. They grumbled as I pulled the foam pad from under my sleeping bag and gave it to Amanda. "Here, you can have mine too."
She put it under her sleeping bag and lay back down.
"How's that?" I asked.
She grumbled and wriggled. "There's a reason why beds were invented."
"There's nothing better than being out in the woods. Did you notice all the stars?"
"I could have seen it at home."
"Not if you were watching TV. I love it here." I sat cross-legged on top of my sleeping bag. "Can't you feel it?" My mind raced around, trying to fit words to the feelings welling up and spilling out of me. "There's so much more here."
Amanda gasped and flicked a tiny moth off her forearm. "Oh yeah, so much more." She turned her back to me and yanked the sleeping bag up to her ears.
I had a vision of the perfect future for us. After I went to law school and helped her get the money her father owed her, we'd buy a couple acres somewhere in the mountains. We'd build a cabin and live off the land. Yeah, that sounded good. I wasn't up to hunting, but I could fish. We'd farm just enough to feed ourselves. Before the industrial age, everyone lived like that. If they could, we could too. I could figure it out. I'd find books to show me how. I'd do all the work. She wouldn't have to do anything.
Maybe we'd talk Eric and Sean into living with us. Away from the rest of the world, we could live the way we wanted to, our own little family. I could love Amanda and Eric, and fuck Sean when Eric didn't need him. Maybe Sean wouldn't mind that I didn't love him, at least not the way I loved the others. It'd be just sex between us, but it would be better that way. I hoped Amanda would understand the way I was about boys.
I laughed at myself. A short, quiet bark while I shook my head. I kept forgetting that craving boys was supposed to be the normal thing. I was always getting that turned around.
As everyone fell into fitful sleep, I spooned as close to Amanda as I dared, breathed in the sharp girl-sweat smell of her, and dreamed of lush mountain glens.
My guidance counselor had a small office past the low wood divider that kept students separated from the school administrators. I didn't visit her often. Guidance was for planning the future, and I never expected to live past high school. It was beginning to look as if I might, so I figured I'd better drop by and see if she had any ideas.
I had to move a bunch of files to sit down. "Where would you like these?"
Even though the clutter in her office seemed disorganized, she must have had a system, because she pulled her fingers through her unkempt curls until she decided on the right stack. "They go here. So, what's up? You've chosen your school by now, right?" Her eyebrows furrowed.
"Pop got a job at University. They're giving me full tuition as part of his benefits package."
She relaxed. "That's a fine school. Have you chosen your major?"
"Pop told me I have to major in computer science."
"That's the field to go into."
"It's in the math department. I'm no good at math."
She pulled open a drawer in the filing cabinet, found what she was looking for, and flipped open a file. A lock of her hair dropped over her eyes. She shoved it back on the wrong side, making her part zigzag. "Your grades are solid. Mostly As."
Was she going to believe me or my report cards? "That's luck, not skill."
"Oh, don't be so modest."
"I need to know what to do."
"Try computers for a semester or two. Who knows? You might like it. And if it doesn't work out, change majors. Everyone does."
"I don't have a choice."
Her expression said it all. It wasn't her job to invent a future for me.
"I want to go to law school. How do I do that?" I asked.
"You get your undergraduate degree, and then apply to a law school."
That sounded stupid. "Why can't I just go right into law?"
"That's the way it's done."
"But it's a waste of time. I don't need another degree. I need a law degree." My heart sank. Four years, and then how many more? By then, Amanda would be an adult, and I couldn't go after her father for child support. I slumped in the chair. "I'm going to fail. I can't do computers. Too much math. And when I fail, that's it, no more college. I'll never get into law school."
She patted my clasped hands. "If you don't feel you're ready for college, there are other options. Have you ever thought of joining the military?"
I glowered as I left her office, but realized, to be fair, I had no idea what I wanted her to say. I didn't even know the right question. Or maybe I did. Was it too late to change the future I never expected to have, or was I stuck? How on earth was she supposed to answer that?
I knew, as I stood in Eric's living room wearing a pink prom dress and high heels, that I would never, ever understand girls. How could anyone have fun when every piece of clothes scratched and pinched? Between my thighs was already moist, and not in a good way. Did girls honestly enjoy the torture? Or was dressing up some sort of weird double-dog dare to prove how macho they were?
Sean and Eric wore matching powder blue tuxedos. I envied their suits and wished I could have rented a classic black one. Even their shiny rented shoes looked more comfortable than what I had on my feet.
"Give her the corsage, Eric."
Eric took the plastic container from his mom and handed it to me.
"No, pin it on her." His dad took the box from me and handed it back to Eric.
I knew that, inside, Eric was cracking up at the absurd little game as much as I was. He opened the box and looked at the back of the flowers. "It doesn't have a pin."
"It goes on her wrist, Mack," his mom explained.
I stuck my hand out. Eric fumbled around with the thick elastic band and slipped it onto my wrist. The greenery around the roses scratched. As soon as we were in the limo, that thing was coming off.
Eric's sisters bounced around the room in an orgy of feminine bliss. There was no way I'd show it, but I was excited too. Maybe after we left the dance, and it was just the four of us, I'd drop my chameleon camouflage and let Amanda see how I felt about her. I daydreamed about it for weeks. One simple, frank gaze, and all would be clear, and then maybe, finally, a kiss. I wouldn't push her for more. That was enough.
"Oh, aren't you pretty," Sean teased me.
I smacked him. "Shut up."
"Oh! Let me get a picture of you two!" Eric's mother squealed.
"Destroy all evidence," I whispered to Eric.
"Blackmail photos," Sean smirked.
"That threat works both ways," I reminded him.
Sean patted the frills on his shirt. "Missy told me to wear blue."
"Missy?" I looked from Sean to Eric and back again. "Who the hell is Missy?"
"Missy Little. You know her."
Yeah, I knew her. Buck teeth, brown frizzy hair. She was probably the nicest girl in school, genuinely kind to everyone, smart, and because of her good heart, popular. But what did she have to do with our perfect prom night plans?
I couldn't ask, because Eric's father was in the living room with us. Eric stared at the floor. I could tell he was angry, though, because his neck was flushed.
The plan was that I'd pretend to go with Eric, and Amanda would pretend to go with Sean, just like every other double date we went on the past couple months. Sure, Sean and Amanda seemed a little slow getting the idea who the real couples were. Sean had to have a clue though. He sure flirted with Eric enough.
"Oh, don't you all look so nice!" Eric's mother said for the thousandth time. "Now get close. Come on Sean, you too. Oh," she put the camera down, "it's too bad your date isn't here."
Eric fidgeted. "Take the picture, Mom. The limo is waiting."
The limo was Eric's dad's idea, but it worked perfectly with our plans. That was, until Sean mentioned Missy Little. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Smile."
In the instant picture, only Sean had a real smile. Eric and I were morose.
"One more."
"Mom."
As soon as she took it, we headed for the door.
"Don't be out too late," his dad called out.
"We're going to the after-prom party," Eric reminded him. We weren't, but it was a good excuse to stay out all night. "But we're coming back here to change after the dance." He tugged at his huge bowtie.
As soon as we were safely in the back of the limo, and the partition was up, I scowled at Sean. "Missy Little? What the fuck?"
"I wanted to bring a date."
Sean wasn't the brightest kid, but I couldn't believe he was that clueless. "What about Amanda?"
"What about her?"
"You idiot. Why did you have to complicate things with a fifth person?"
"I wanted to bring a date, not just go with friends."
I slammed back against the seat and peeled the corsage off my wrist. All my perfectly planned cogs and wheels would have turned in unison, but he had to throw a wrench into the works. I could almost hear the evening grinding to a halt.
Eric touched my hand. When I looked at him, he shook his head, and then pushed all the buttons on the console between us.
We picked up Amanda first. The drug dealers weren't around, thank goodness. Four fewer people to witness my staggering walk in heels.
Her mom answered the door. She looked past me, exhaled cigarette smoke into my hair, and then shifted a suspicious gaze back to me. "Where's Sean?"
"In the limo, waiting."
"Go fetch him. I want a picture."
I went back out to the limo. "Come on, guys. Her mom wants pictures. Sean, don't mention Missy."
The guys groaned, but followed me back to the apartment. They'd never been inside. I'd grown used to the threadbare carpet and filthy kitchen, but I was embarrassed for Amanda that Sean and Eric had to see it.
For once, the pullout bed was put away. We huddled together on the sagging couch while Amanda's mom flitted between the bedroom and bathroom. Eric tugged at his tie. Sean's eyes darted around the room, as if thinking, Where's the rest of it? No one can live in a place this small.
Finally, Amanda made her grand entrance. Her hair was piled on top of her head in stiff curls, and her eyelids were smeared with heavy swathes of blue shadow. She looked a bit like one of those dolls old ladies hid the spare roll of toilet paper under, but I wouldn't tell her that.
Amanda's mom didn't put down her cigarette as she snapped pictures of us. I watched it burn down dangerously close to her knuckles. She took one last drag and ground it out in the overflowing ashtray. "All right. You get on to that dance," she told as us she lit another cigarette.
Poor Missy Little. She had no idea what she was in for when she accepted Sean's invitation to the prom. After we picked her up, she and Sean sat opposite Eric, Amanda, and me. Eric glared; I crossed my arms and gave her hard looks; Amanda was nearly in tears. Missy tried to make chirpy conversation. Sean seemed oblivious to the bad vibes.
As soon as we got to the school, Sean pulled Missy to the long line for photos that wound outside the teacher's lounge. Amanda, Eric and I headed into the cafeteria.
"Oh!" Amanda stopped suddenly at the entrance. "Doesn't it look wonderful? It's like a tropical paradise."
Eric and I exchanged mortified glances behind her back. No amount of tissue paper and plastic palm trees could make that cafeteria into paradise. A mirrored ball hung from the florescent light fixtures, but didn't spin. The food line was draped with a huge tropical sunset backdrop to hide the counter. In front of it, two high-backed wicker peacock chairs awaited the Prom King and Queen.
Some couples danced, but the rest gathered in groups and spoke in hushed, excited voices. People pushed past us into the cafeteria while we waited for Amanda to get over the enchantment.
She turned to us. "So, why is Missy with Sean? I thought he was my date."
I winced.
Eric took her arm. "He's an asshole. I'll be your date tonight."
"But..." She glanced at me.
"We'll share," I said. "It's not like Eric and I are dating. We're strictly friends." I had imagined telling her that at a better time, when we were alone, and close.
Eric pulled her toward the dance floor. "Come on. Dance with me."
I found a seat against the back wall and watched them slow dance. Amanda put her arms up around Eric's neck and hugged him close. They rocked in a tight circle. Every time Eric faced me, he spit locks of her shellacked hair out of his mouth.
Through the evening, Eric hardly left the dance floor, which was okay by him. I took the fast dances with him. It took everything I had to stay upright on my heels.
During a long set of disco, which everyone groaned about, I got worried about Amanda sitting alone, but I saw her out on the floor with a grit boy. Later, when it was her turn to slow dance with Eric, I saw her slow dancing with the same guy.
"I need a break anyway," Eric admitted.
We headed for the refreshment tables.
"This didn't work out exactly like we planned," I said.
Eric poured a glass of bright red punch and handed it to me. "It wasn't as if we'd get away with dancing with them."
"No."
"But we could have hung out together. Sean's acting like he doesn't know us." Eric sipped from his cup and winced. "This is pretty bad. I could go for a beer."
"We should have dropped acid."
He watched the dancers. "I'm about ready to leave."
"You know, me too. Sean deserves to be ditched. Let me find Amanda."
"Last I saw her, she was slow dancing with some guy."
"Yeah. Thank God she isn't sulking over Sean. He's such a jerk." I set my punch down on the table.
Eric pointed toward the door to the smoke hole. "I'll take the left flank, you take the right."
I circled the dance floor three times before I gave up. "Maybe she's in the bathroom," I told Eric when we met beside the wicker thrones.
The bathroom was packed. Girls stood around the mirrors, spackling on thicker layers of makeup. The sound of deep sobbing came from the last stall.
"Amanda?" I tapped on the door.
There was no answer. I peeked through the gap between the door and the wall. It wasn't Amanda, so I went back out into the cafeteria. Then I couldn't find Eric anywhere. I moved through the dance floor to get to Sean. He lifted his head from Missy's shoulder.
"Have you seen Eric?" I asked.
"Not in a while."
"Fuck. We're leaving as soon as we can find Amanda."
They stopped moving. "What do you mean, you're leaving? They haven't even named the King and Queen," Sean said.
As if watching two socials have their popularity confirmed was the most important issue of the night for me. "We're bored." I glared at him so he'd know it was his fault.
Someone put his hand on my arm. I turned around. "Dance one slow dance with me," Eric said. I didn't want to, but he didn't give me much of a choice. He nuzzled against my cheek. "Mmm. You smell like ... nothing. Just soap. Thank God. Amanda's perfume was killing me."
I sniffed his lapels. "Did you go get stoned? You smell like smoke. God, I could use a cigarette."
"I checked out the smoke hole while I was looking for Amanda."
"Did you find her?"
"Um, yeah. We can leave anytime," he said.
"Which means?"
The music switched to a fast dance, but Eric held on to me. "She dumped you." He looked away. "She was with that guy, and I don't think she'll be back."
I quit moving. I heard every word he said. I understood what he meant. And yet, my brain couldn't work around it.
Maybe Eric was afraid I'd run to the smoke hole and cause a scene, because he gripped tight. "She thinks you're just a friend. She likes boys."
I pushed his hand away. "I get it. Don't make a big case out of it, okay?"
I knew he was right. She'd never shown any interest in me. Not when I slept over at her place, not in all those times I'd taken her out. That didn't make it hurt less. A big ache welled up in my chest.
No matter what I did, how I dressed, how I acted, how I felt, nothing would change the outside of me into a boy, or the inside of me to a girl.
Every smile on my classmates' faces seemed to be mocking me. My cheeks got hot and I wanted to melt away. Nothing was worse than humiliation, even if Eric was the only one who really knew how stupid I'd been.
Eric rested his chin on the top of my head as we swayed together. A year back, he couldn't have done that. I slid my fingers under the slick lapel of his rented tux. We stood there, barely pretending to dance, through several songs. "I'm sorry about Amanda," he said as he eased his hug.
"Forget it. It doesn't matter." But it did. It mattered a lot. "Were they making out?"
He groaned. "Do you really want to know?"
I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes. "Worse?"
He nodded.
"Fucking in the smoke hole? What, up against the brick wall? And risk mussing her hair?"
"Nothing can harm that helmet she's wearing."
Despite how horrible I felt, I laughed. He seemed relieved that I wasn't having a breakdown over it. When I got home, I planned on kicking a few things, and maybe beating myself up for being so stupid over her for so long. She read Cosmo, for Christ's sake, and couldn't even complete the crossword in People without help. Sure, she looked outdoorsy, but deep down, she was just another grit girly-girl.
Eric shuddered. "I wish I hadn't seen that. I'm scarred for life."
He was scarred? My heart was a mass of raw ache. "Can we leave now? I told Sean we were going." I felt tears rising and fought them down. I didn't want to be another girl crying her eyes out in a bathroom stall on prom night.
"Fine by me."
Sean showed up with Missy trailing behind him. He touched Eric's arm and said, "Stay for a little longer." Eric looked to me. "Please," Sean said. His dark eyes never left Eric's face.
Eric turned to me. His expression was unreadable. I wanted to go, to hide, but we were friends, and there was still hope that at least one of us would have a happy prom.
"Okay," I said, but I mouthed, "You owe me."
We formed a little square and the four of us danced as a group. Sean aimed his slinky moves at Eric. They loosened their ties, tossed away their jackets, and showed our scandalized classmates how sexy boys could dance. I bounced on the balls of my feet and wished they'd play at least one punk song. Missy held up the skirt of her frothy dress with both hands and stepped side to side while sort of bobbing her shoulders off the beat. She waited for Sean to look her way. Poor clueless thing. She was simply a prop in a play she'd never begin to understand. I almost felt sorry for her.
We closed down the dance, leaving only after they flicked on the florescent lights. The cafeteria looked even more pathetic, with streamers dragging from the walls and crepe flowers trampled on the floor.
When we piled back into the limo, Missy dropped broad hints about the after-prom party. We ignored her. Sean didn't even walk her to her door when we got to her house. What an ass.
As the limo pulled away from Missy's house, Sean wedged in close to me. I shifted closer to Eric. Eric sighed and stared up at the roof.
"So, that was fun," Sean said.
I didn't remember Eric or me saying anything the entire ride home.
The limo dropped off all three of us at Eric's place.
Sean rocked on his heels as we stood in the driveway. "So, are we still going out?"
Eric's eyebrow rose as he glanced at me.
I pulled off my shoes. "I have to get out of these pantyhose."
We left it at that.
Once home, I quickly changed into jeans and a T-shirt and went to the gazebo. I was the first one there. Eric came along ten minutes later.
He showed me a baggy. "Thai stick. Opiated."
"Light it."
We sat on top of the picnic table and passed the joint he rolled. The smoke was sweetly herbal, but had a flat, metallic aftertaste.
"Prom night disasters," I said between hits. The ache hadn't gone away.
"Yeah, well, what were the odds that it would turn out the way we wanted it to?"
"Slim to none. I'm an idiot."
Eric didn't correct me. We let time slip without saying much. Moonlight glowed so brightly in the sky so that the stars paled in comparison. It was probably a romantic night, for someone else.
I sniffled a bit, but Eric had the decency to act like he didn't hear me.
He shook his head and laughed. "Missy Little."
"Amanda was worse." I clasped my hands to my chest and batted my eyelashes. "Oh, doesn't the cafeteria look beautiful. Like a tropical paradise." My voice trembled still and was thick with tears.
"The sad thing is, they don't know how horrible that was," Eric said.
"We've got to get out of this town."
"Amen to that. Pass the joint, will ya." He took a deep drag, held it in his lungs, and exhaled slowly. "Wait. Do you hear something?"
I listened. Someone was coming. I quickly lit a cigarette and waved pot fumes out of the air. Sean stepped into the gazebo. "Oh, it's just you." I quit fanning.
He put his hands on his hips, then crossed them over his chest, and then settled for hiding them in his jacket pockets. For the dance, his hair had been brushed out of his eyes, but he let it fall over his face again. Sean's shoulders were hunched, as if he expected us to yell at him.
Sean climbed onto the picnic table with us. "Thanks for telling me you'd be out here. I asked."
"We figured you'd know." Eric passed him the joint.
Just like that, Eric forgave him. I admired the way the guys could let it go so easily. Part of it was growing up as a military kid. Friends were temporary luxuries, so there was no time to waste on hard feelings and feuds. No matter how much someone used you or drove you nuts, you only had to endure it a year, maybe two. Still, I would have given Sean a lot more shit than that before forgiving him.
"Good stuff," Sean said. He held up the joint, as if inspecting a cigar. "You know what's better? You exhale the smoke into someone's mouth, so you both get high off the same hit." He put the joint to his lips, inhaled, and turned to us.
I shook my head. "I'm as stoned as I wanna be for now."
Sean leaned across me. Eric met him halfway over my lap. Sean exhaled into Eric's mouth. Curls of smoke escaped from the corners of their lips. Eric drew it into his lungs.
"Now blow it back into my mouth," Sean said quietly. His lips brushed Eric's, and I wondered if anyone would ever whisper words against my lips. I used the back of my hand to wipe a fat tear from my cheek.
Eric gazed into Sean's eyes as he slowly released his held breath.
Then they were kissing. Sean put his hand on the back of Eric's head, his tongue stabbing at Eric. I tried to scoot back so that I wasn't between them, but Sean grabbed my wrist. He mashed my hand against his groin.
Time looped in weird fits and starts. They seemed to be kissing forever. Hands groped under shirts.
I slid from between them and moved away a little at a time until I was in the deep shadows at the far end of the gazebo where the moonlight didn't reach. The guys seemed to forget me. I was holding my breath for Eric, wishing for him, wanting it for him, because at least one of us deserved something perfect. Watching them sent tight pulses between my legs.
Sean's fingers untangled from Eric's blond hair. His chest rose and fell with each deep breath.
For that moment, they were pure happiness, all sheepish grins and perfect peace. They hadn't broken eye contact.
Eric tried to pull Sean into a kiss without taking a hit from the joint, but Sean pushed him away with both hands.
I could feel the moment rushing to an end and wanted to capture it for them, to tell them it would never be the same again, but it was already fading, already gone.
When he saw me standing so far away, Sean jumped off the picnic table. I didn't understand why, but I could swear he was humiliated, as if we'd tricked him. Then his eyes got mean.
"Get away from me!" He shoved at Eric again and shouldered past him. He got in my face. I turned away because I didn't want to see fear that raw. "You two are sick. I'm not a faggot like you! Fucking queers!" He stormed off through the trees.
I'd felt it from the inside, so I knew the expression on Eric's face---heartbreak, shock, and absolute devastation. Think, MENSA girl, think. What's the right thing to say? Do I touch him? Hug him? I had no instincts for that kind of thing.
Eric pinched the tip of his nose. I thought he might be crying. He cast at glance at me and then looked away. After an eternity, he tossed his hair and shook out his arms, like a dog coming out of a bath.
"Sean's a fucking jerk," I said. "He kissed you first, both times. Why did he get so freaked out when you tried to kiss him?"
Eric struck a pose, hand on hip, chin held high. His other hand flopped in mid-air, and he lisped, "Because he's not a faggot. He kisses boys and sticks his tongue in their mouths and puts his hands under their shirts, but he's not the fag, I am."
My hand flew to my open mouth. "Oh God, you did not say that!"
"I'm a faggot." Eric drew the word out, making it sound even more absurd. He had to be aching inside, but if he wanted me to laugh with him, I would, so I giggled.
Eric sat down on the picnic table and opened the baggie of pot. "Want to smoke another one, faggot?"
"Who you calling a faggot, faggot?"
"You, faggot."
We got a bad case of the giggles. Every time I sobered up, one look at Eric made me lose it again. By the time the second joint crumbled to ash, my stomach hurt. Our giggles came in shorter bursts and died quicker.
Eric tucked his shirt back into his jeans and made his collar stand up just so. I flicked my cigarette onto the cement under the table.
He sighed and put his head on my shoulder. I sighed and stared out into the woods. We were pros at being lonely together.
"You can't go with me this time," I told the dog. She stood at our front door, wagging her tail. As I bent down, the sleeping bag at the top of my pack crushed against the back of my head. "It's too long of a walk for you."
Of course she didn't understand. All she knew was that I was leaving, and she wanted out too.
I patted her and then gently pushed her aside. "I promise, when I get back, I'll take you on a short walk."
Even though the guys teased me about it, I kept training for the big hiking trip. There was no way I'd let blisters or a sore back ruin my two weeks on the Appalachian Trail.
For a long time, hiking the trail was the one thing I wanted to do before I died. I don't know why I was convinced I'd find God and confront him out there, but it was a fixed idea I couldn't shake. All I knew was that I needed to do something to change my life, and hiking the Appalachian Trail seemed like a grand enough gesture to deliver me from my fate.
As I trudged along though, doubts nagged at me. When I came back from hiking, nothing else would be miraculously solved. I'd have the same parents, the same life, the same dreaded major to face in college. And even if I were to face God in the woods, I knew he wouldn't magically turn me into a boy.
I tried to stop thinking because I was getting depressed, but my mind wouldn't shut off. When I failed my college courses---and I knew I was going to fail---would the University blame Pop? I'd heard that they posted grades in the hallways in college, so that everyone could see who got Fs. I'd be lucky if they let me come back the second semester.
Most of the college-bound seniors at my high school went for weekend visits to the schools they chose. I'd never even been on the University campus, but then again, I didn't pick the school.
I stopped in my tracks. Oh God, I was going to be living in the dorms. All those girls. I'd have to really watch myself, because if the school found out how I felt about girls, they'd kick my ass to the curb for sure.
It was all so fucking hopeless.
When I started my hike that morning, I had no real destination in mind. I figured I'd walk for about an hour, simply going wherever my feet lead me, and then head back home. My feet led me to Fairborn's turn-of-the-century downtown.
I passed the small mercantile that had been open since Ohio was a territory. Hitching posts were sunk into the cracked sidewalk in front of the door. I could see the candy case near the big brass register. Beyond that, an old lady stooped to pick up skeins of yarn that had spilled across the creaky wooden floor. Orange fish darted in algae-caked aquariums along the back wall.
Next to the mercantile were several shuttered storefronts, and then an insurance agency that had been founded by the family of one of my classmates. When he graduated, he was going to work for his father, selling insurance. It didn't sound interesting or fun to me, but at least he knew what to do with his life. Eric had his shit together. Everyone else I knew who was headed to college seemed to have a clear idea of where they were going, who they wanted to be, and how to get there. Me? I had no idea what I was doing. That much I did know. I was completely unprepared for real life. Maybe my high school counselor was right; maybe I wasn't ready for college.
I didn't feel like walking back home. My pack pulled down on my shoulders, and short bursts of pain spread from the small of my back. Either I wasn't wearing the pack right, or the weight wasn't distributed. I sank down on a bus bench and started unpacking my stuff.
A bus stopped for me. I stuffed things back into my pack, ignoring the offered ride. The doors hissed closed and the bus pulled away.
When I looked up, I saw the storefront across the street. It was like a sign from God. The military recruiting center. I pulled my pack back on, jaywalked across the street, and went inside.
The reception area of the recruiting center was tiny. Three metal folding chairs sat with their backs to the plate glass window and faced a wood panel wall covered with posters of square-jawed, beef-fed youths in crisp uniforms. In all my years in the military, I had yet to see anyone who looked like that. Even the recruiter looked more like a tired basset hound than the Aryan ideal.
He glanced up at me when I came in, but continued to sigh over a folder on his desk. He wore Army green. I hesitated, because as an Air Force brat, I'd been trained to think of Army and Marines as mere muscle. Air Force was the place for intelligent people. Still, I sat down and put my backpack on the floor near my feet.
After several minutes, the recruiter finally decided to acknowledge me. He didn't say anything, but he looked me over and frowned.
"I wanted to talk to someone about enlisting. In the Air Force," I added quickly.
He gestured to the chair in front of his desk. I'd expected we'd talk in the back room, but I dragged my pack over and sat down. Behind him was a picture of Ronald Reagan and a US flag.
"All branches of the armed forces have fitness requirements."
I sucked in my stomach, but nothing moved.
"How tall are you? What do you weigh?"
I told him. "But I can lose weight," I added as he frowned over the height and weight charts.
We talked a little. Every mark he made in his folder made me sink down further in the chair. Even though he wasn't doing anything when I walked in, he made it clear that he felt I was wasting his time.
He put his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands together. "Are you a lesbian?"
"What?"
Those basset hound eyes flicked from my crew cut to my flannel shirt.
"I asked if you are a homosexual." He said the word quickly, as if he couldn't get it out of his mouth fast enough.
"I like boys too," I said meekly. My face had gone from warm to blazing.
"Let me be frank with you. The armed forces do not accept deviants into service."
That had to be a new rule, because I knew an awful lot of borderline freaks in uniform, unless they didn't count conspiracy theorists, wife-beaters, alcoholics, gun fanatics, or rabid evangelicals as deviants. Besides, the officers I knew accused every woman in uniform of being a dyke. Did that only happen once the uniform was on? I didn't think so.
I opened my mouth, and then shut it. I wanted to argue, to defend myself, but why? He had all the power, and he didn't want me. I wanted to melt, just disappear. I was so hot from embarrassment that I was sweating.
I put on my backpack and scuttled out onto Broad Street. As I walked, I stared down at the sidewalk and hoped no one I knew saw me, because I was sure that a visible cloud of shame clung to me. By the time I passed the mercantile, I was in tears.
I'd never seen Eric so pissed. "We've spent our entire lives tying to get away from this, and you enlisted?" He paced and shot me hard looks as I sat on the picnic table under the gazebo.
"It was temporary insanity. Don't worry, it passed. I only tried to enlist. They don't want me."
"But why try?
I flung my arms wide. "What else can I do? Damn it! Everything is ending. You're leaving for MIT. School is almost over. As soon as Pop retires, we have to move out of base housing. My parents rented a one-bedroom apartment near the college. No mistaking that message. They made sure there was no room for me. I have to find somewhere to go, Eric. You tell me. Where am I supposed to go? The military is all I know."
Eric gave me a withering glance.
"They turned me down anyway," I told him.
"There is a God."
"Of course there's a God. He just doesn't give a shit about me. Otherwise, he'd help me find my way."
Eric climbed onto the picnic table next to me. "Why'd they turn you down?"
"Too fat, for one thing. But that was just the recruiter's opening shot."
"What was his real reason?"
"He asked if I was a lesbian."
"No!"
If I'd thought about it before I went in, I would have let my hair grow out from the fresh buzz cut, and maybe I wouldn't have worn my jeans, flannel shirt, and hiking boots. It was probably okay to look like that after you joined, but not before.
"He just came out and asked that? Blurted it out?" Eric asked.
"I told him I like boys too, but he didn't like that either. What I don't understand is why they care. I could do any job they trained me to do. Why do they care who I date? It's not like I'd be giving secrets to Russian spies, because no one is going to trust a grunt with important information anyway. And you can't blackmail someone who has nothing to hide. I'd be perfect cannon fodder. I don't care if someone shoots me. Hell, I'd welcome it. Order me to march into crossfire, and I'll do it. Jump out of planes? Sign me up. Commando raids on enemy targets with no backup? I'm there."
Eric ran his hands up and down his thighs. I guessed I was making him uncomfortable.
"I'm perfect for the military. I wouldn't complain about moving all the time. Early morning surprise inspections and dawn-to-dusk chores? I already live like that. My entire life is following orders from my commanding officer, and I'm rarely insubordinate."
"Hah."
"Okay, so I mouth off to Pop, but I behave around other adults." I put my hand to my mouth. "Oh shit! You don't think the recruiter will tell people what I said, do you?"
"Did he know who you were?"
"Yeah. He had my name. Fuck, Eric, what if Pop gets demoted because of me? He won't get the same retirement pay if he's reduced in grade. He'll hate me forever."
Eric looked me in the eye. "Do you care?"
"Yes!"
"Then you're a better person than I am. If I were you, I'd be screwing your parents over every way I could."
"You would not."
He relaxed from his pose. "You're right, but you should."
I flopped down on the table. "I am so screwed."
He swatted my feet. "You are not. You've been accepted to a college. Go there. Decide what you really want to do with your life, and then go do it. Think about living for once instead of death. You're MENSA girl, remember? Someone as smart as you should be able to come up with a plan. You have that first year of college to get your shit together. Use it."
"How come everyone else seems to know what to do? What am I missing? If it's so simple, why can't I figure it out?"
"Because you never tried."
He was pissing me off. "I'm trying now."
Eric and I sat in the front seat of his car as we rode to our youth group meeting. Eric's father and Sean sat in back.
Sean still hung with us, but he mostly talked to Mark and Tony. He acted as if he were angry at Eric and me, even though we were the ones who had the right to be pissed off. Fucking jerk. His newest thing was fag jokes. We didn't say anything, but we didn't laugh either.
Tony and Mark knew something was up, but no one would tell them why we were fighting, so they played the role of demilitarized zone. We'd all seen it before. Eventually tension broke, or someone moved. Until then, everyone kept their heads down and waited for the fighting to end.
At the base chapel, Eric and I sat in the back row of folding chairs. Sean went to sit with the girls from the other high school. Their smiles were smug, as if they'd won Sean over to their side. Fine. They could have him.
The chaplain spoke for a long time with his wife in low voices. Our last camping trip had been a rainy, miserable experience. From the way groups gathered in tight circles, it was clear that tempers sparked that weekend still simmered.
"Okay. Your attention please," the chaplain said.
We kept talking.
"Listen up! I have some important news."
Conversations slowly died.
"Due to some disturbing reports, we're afraid that we have to cancel the Appalachian Trail hike."
The bottom dropped out of my guts. "What kind of news, sir?"
"Two hikers were brutally murdered on the trail."
Was there any murder that wasn't brutal? Wasn't brutality a given? "When did it happen?" I asked. I hadn't heard anything.
"Last week." I didn't like the way he looked at me, as if I'd done something wrong by asking.
"Where?" I asked.
He gripped the papers in his hand. "In Virginia."
Everything was slipping away from me. I had to save it. "Can't we hike a different section?"
"We're not going."
"But what are the chances that the murderer will happen to be in the same part of the trail we are? There are thousands of miles of trail. He can't be everywhere." My voice got louder, as if it could fill the room and push out their doubts. It wasn't fair. I'd worked all year for that trip. People were murdered in Ohio all the time, but no one suggested we leave the state.
"We are not going. None of your parents would allow you to be out there alone---"
I stood. "Alone? There are twenty of us!" I pointed to the other kids, who wouldn't look at me.
"A murderer is running loose."
"My parents wouldn't care."
"This isn't a discussion. The trip is cancelled." He turned his gaze from me. "We have another plan. We've organized a weekend trip to a Bible camp in Michigan, and we'll have a day trip to King's Island amusement park."
Everyone cheered except me.
"Bible camp?" I muttered. I crossed my arms and slunk down in my chair.
"I'm sorry," Eric said. "I know you wanted to go really bad."
"It was the only thing I had to look forward to."
His eyebrows furrowed. "Not the only thing. Don't say that."
"Name something."
He couldn't.
When I realized the hiking trip would never happen, I gave up. Everything that could go wrong in my life finally had. My brain taunted me with crazy schemes to salvage the trip, but as soon as I got my hopes up that it might work, reality set in and reminded me why it wouldn't. Each time, the high from hope was briefer and more fragile, until I couldn't even feel that anymore.
The gray film of depression oozed over me. It hung in the air inside the house, muting color and sound, crept over food, and removed the flavor. Everything I put in my mouth was reduced to textures which made me gag. It was hard to fall asleep, and when I woke in the middle of the night, there was no getting back to sleep.
Maybe it was exhaustion, or blind hope, but I convinced myself that if Mom would come home, everything would be fine. Not great, but good enough. She was always telling me to snap out of it. Maybe, for once, it would work. I was drowning under the gray and I needed someone to jolt me back above the surface so that I could breathe again.
I made promises to God. If she came back, I'd be the daughter she demanded. I'd keep my mouth shut. I'd watch my attitude. I'd pretend to be all girl. I fixated on a date. If she walked in the door by Mother's Day, by some miracle, I'd come out of it.
It wasn't that I believed in magic, but I couldn't stop myself from creating rituals to bring Mom home. I tried to walk like a girl. I read Mom's women's magazines, as if they held the clues I needed to pass as a girl. I vowed to let my hair grow out of the short buzz cut I liked so much.
Pop and I went to church on Mother's Day. I felt like a criminal when surrounded by people who had their mothers with them. An usher at the front door of the base chapel pressed a white carnation into my hand to give to my mother. I held it up to my nose, enjoying the spiced scent, and then pulled it apart petal by petal until it was a sad heap on my lap.
After we got home from church, I pleaded with Pop, "Please just let me call and say Happy Mother's Day? I'll pay for the call."
"Leave her alone."
Even though I hadn't slept in days, nervous energy kept me on my feet. I paced by the front door and looked through the peephole every time a car drove by. It was never Mom.
It didn't make sense. If Mom had been home, she would have ignored me, or worse, honed in on one of my many faults and shredded me until I ran to hide in my bedroom. I couldn't get past wanting to see her though, so I tucked Pop's address book into the waistband of my jeans, pulled my concert T-shirt over it, and went over to the Foster's.
The gray haze must have seeped through our shared wall, because the bright lemon yellow of their kitchen seemed muted. Or maybe the gray followed me around and contaminated everything I saw.
"Can I ask a favor?" I asked Mrs. Foster.
"Sure, hon." Her side of the house smelled of cinnamon, like carnations. "I'm making snickerdoodles. Would you like one?"
"No thank you, ma'am. May I use your phone?"
"Of course."
"It's long distance." I pulled waded bills out of my pocket and shoved them into her hand. Coins fell to the floor. "If this isn't enough to pay for it, I swear I'll pay you back. I just ... I have to talk to Mom."
She stooped down to pick up the change. "Sweetie, it's fine. It's Mother's Day, after all. Keep your money."
"I can't."
"Really. This is far too much."
I was shaking my head and hoping it hid how I trembled. "I can't." The words stuck in a dry spot in the back of my throat.
"Okay." She touched my shoulder. "How about this? I have a timer. You start it when you dial, and after you hang up, we'll see how much you spent. Okay? Fair enough?"
I swallowed and swallowed. "Yeah."
She dug through the kitchen cabinets and found a white plastic timer. "You probably want some privacy, so why don't you use the extension upstairs in my bedroom?"
I'd never dialed long distance before. Feeling like a complete idiot, I went downstairs and asked her how to do it. Press one. How was I supposed to know that? Why was it that everyone in the world knew a million things I didn't? Basic stuff. I was lucky I knew how to breathe.
The phone rang only twice.
"Hello?"
I was afraid for a moment I wouldn't be able to speak. She was still in Georgia. A tear leaked out of the corner of my eye. "Mom?" My voice broke.
"Hello? Who is this?"
And then I realized it wasn't Mom. "Aunt Rosalind?" Relief was almost worse than fear. If Aunt Rosalind was at her house, it meant Mom was already driving home. "How long ago did Mom leave?"
"I'm not sure what you're talking about, honey. Your mother isn't here."
"So she's on her way home now? When did she leave?" My brain whirled and tried to calculate the distance and how long it would take Mom to drive home.
"Honey, your mother hasn't been down to visit us since last summer, when you were here."
"But ... But she's been there twice since then. Over Christmas, and for the past couple weeks."
"No she hasn't."
"She told me---"
"We always like you to visit, but why did you think she came to see me?"
"Mom goes down to take care of Lee, Brian, and Madison while you're away at the hospital."
There was a long silence. I expected her to be cold or mean, but Aunt Rosalind's voice was soft. "Honey, I know your father disapproves of me taking medication for my illness, but since I started my anti-depressants three years ago, I haven't been to the hospital."
"No."
"I'm better now."
"Then where's Mom?" I was remembering something Mom said. When we were at her parent's house in Georgia, she told Pop, "They haven't seen any of us in three years." She'd been lying to me.
"I don't know, honey."
"But Mom told me she was taking care of my cousins. She goes down to help you out all the time."
"No, honey. It isn't true."
I rubbed my face. "Then where is she?"
"Honey, I have to go help the ladies in the church guild set up for our ice cream social this evening. We're having a covered-dish dinner. I wish I could help you, but I can't. I'm so sorry. I wish I could help you."
I forgot the timer, forgot Mrs. Foster, forgot to keep it secret.
Our front door bounced off the wall when I barreled through it. "Where's Mom?" I yelled at Pop. "Where is she?"
"Don't you slam doors."
"Where is she?"
"At your aunt's."
"No she isn't! She isn't there, she's never been there! Where is she?"
"Don't you raise your voice to me."
"I know you're lying. I talked to Aunt Rosalind just now."
Pop's face got a shade darker. "You can't believe a word that woman says."
"Where's Mom?"
He rose, his finger shaking at me. "You're going to shut up now. You're not going to talk about this. Did it ever occur to you that she was there and didn't want to talk to you?"
"Aunt Rosalind said she wasn't there."
"Your aunt is a drug addict and a liar."
No, she wasn't. She told me the truth and I believed her.
Pop grabbed my elbow and steered me toward the stairs. The dog went nuts, yapping, weaving between us. He reached down and smacked her butt. She whimpered, cast a worried look at me, and ran up the stairs.
"We're leaving for Hans' in an hour. For God's sake, you've been in those same clothes for a week. You stink. Can't you smell yourself? Clean up. And when you come back down here, you will calm down, and you will never, ever talk about this again."
"Just tell me where she is."
"It's your fault, you know. Look at yourself. You're a fat slob. A freak. I have to explain to people that you're my daughter, not a boy, and half the time I wonder why I even admit you're mine. No wonder she can't stand to be around you."
He should have just hit me. It would have hurt less. I ran up the stairs, not to obey him, but to hide the shock that I knew was still on my face. I didn't want him to know how much it stung.
The dog was on my bed, her head resting on her paws. I gave her ears a quick ruffle.
"You're not a doberman, ya stupid mutt."
She wagged her tail anyway.
Pop didn't talk on the drive to Hans', or on the way back. A small miracle. He finally ran out of sermons. I guess once he'd told me how much Mom hated me, further conversation was unnecessary. I knew I had nothing left to say to him.
When we got home, I slinked into the kitchen, too defeated to go anywhere. Pop turned on the TV.
The phone rang. I didn't move. It rang again.
"Pick up the god damn phone," Pop shouted.
At first, I thought it was Mom, but the voice and the tone didn't fit together. "Aunt Rosalind?"
"Yes."
"Did you want to talk to Pop?" I twisted the telephone cord around my finger and unwound it.
Her sigh was the only sound for a couple more seconds. She was paying an awful lot of money to not talk. "Don't let him know it's me. Honey, I just feel awful. I lied to you. This should come from your parents, but I won't protect that man any longer."
It took me a moment to realize "that man" was Pop.
"When your mother goes away, she ... No, she needs to know this."
"Huh?"
"Sorry. The Reverend doesn't want me to tell you. He's talking to me. Now Walter, hush. Go on. Sorry about that. You mother has been staying at a private mental hospital somewhere near Covington, Kentucky. They didn't want the military to find out. Something about it hurting your father's chances for promotion if anyone found out she had a mental illness."
"I---" The telephone cord was so tight that the tip of my finger pulsed hot pain.
"The hospital is called Hillcrest or Hillview or something like that. I thought you should know."
Mom's insomnia, her rages, the way she flew to pieces over everything just before she disappeared---it wasn't my fault.
I closed my eyes and hugged my arms tight around my stomach, as if the rage building up under my ribs would make me fly into a million pieces if I didn't hang on. It burned though, radiating out from my skin until I could feel a coat of sweat bonding my clothes to my skin. My hand flexed into a fist.
Pop, absorbed in his show, jumped from the couch and crouched down, throwing punches at imaginary foes. He must have been watching a boxing match. I glared, but as usual, he didn't see me.
"Honey?" Aunt Rosalind said.
My throat was tight. I was suffocating on truth. When I tried to talk, it came out as a sob.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Aunt Rosalind kept saying, even though she wasn't the one who owed me apologies.
I had a fresh pack of cigarettes, a lighter, a bottle of peppermint schnapps, and a baggie with the Elavils I'd swiped from Aunt Rosalind at Thanksgiving.
The dog tried to come with me. I had to get a little rough with her, shoving her back into the house and slamming the door before she could run out.
No one was at the gazebo. I dusted off a spot on the picnic table and sat there for a bit, staring into the dark underbrush of the woods. The only thing I kind of regretted was the roof overhead. I would have liked to see the moon, and stars. I always did like a starry sky.
Everything was a ritual. Lifting the cigarette to my mouth and exhaling the smoke that curled like food coloring in water. Sipping the schnapps, feeling the warmth ooze down to my stomach. Lining up the three pills on the edge of the table. The metallic scent of my sweat.
By moving slowly and experiencing each moment to its fullest, I gave it meaning. No one would know but me, but it was important to approach suicide in the right frame of mind, like someone in Japan carefully going through the rites of seppuku. The focus drew my fragmented pieces together.
Lifting the first pill, I put it on the back of my tongue and washed it down with schnapps. It had a good feeling, like success.
The last pill stuck to my tongue when I tried to wash it down with the schnapps. It dissolved into bitter granules. I scraped it with my teeth and took another swallow.
The schnapps was a mistake. It smelled like a candy cane, but after the first sip, all I tasted was alcohol. Alcohol and bitterness.
It was time for the last part of my private rite.
Fuck you, God. Fuck you. I believe in you more than anyone else I know. And since you are the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, remember this for all eternity: you started this war between us. You made me live with those people. You made me be a girl. You made my life unending misery just because you could. I hope you had a fucking good laugh over it, you cruel, sadistic bastard.
The inside of my mouth was still bitter from the pill. I flicked my cigarette away, lit a new one, and took another sip of the schnapps. The syrupy texture of it didn't sit well in my stomach.
As soon as I became stomach aware, I knew I was in trouble. No matter how much practice I had at holding it down, it was a losing battle. I pitched forward on my knees and puked on the cement.
God, you perverse son of a bitch.
I dug into my pocket for my lighter. It burned my thumb as I held it down close to the remains of my dinner.
I heard someone coming down the trail to the gazebo, but I knew if I looked away from the vomit I couldn't force myself to look again, so I kept relighting the flame.
"What the hell are you doing?" Eric asked.
"I'm looking for something. Isn't it obvious?"
"What did you lose, besides your lunch?"
"Go away. I'm busy."
"Busy doing what?" Eric snapped.
We knew each other well enough that I didn't have to say anything. I just met his gaze and held it.
He shook his head. "No."
Yes.
Eric lunged at me and shoved me back on my butt. "Just stop it! Just stop!"
"If you were a real friend, you'd let me go."
"You selfish shit! Do you have any idea what it was like, watching you die at the Officer's Club? It was the worst moment of my life, but you never even asked me. Quit thinking about yourself for once."
It shocked me, but he was right. I never asked him what happened.
The anger faded from his face. "Your eyes are scaring me. They aren't right."
What could I say? It was so absurd. I knew that. I was absurd. I took a deep breath. "I think I figured it out. God makes me stay alive as punishment for telling him to fuck off. Next time, I'll skip the speech and just kill myself." Eric startled when I laughed. Maybe I was babbling.
"You can't stay here," he told me.
"Yes, I can."
"You're not going to die tonight. All you can do is get really sick, but you'll survive puking."
I hated it when he made sense. My teeth chattered hard, as if it were cold outside.
Eric kicked dirt over the puddle of puke, burying my pills. I miscalculated, again. Ah, well. There'd always be next time.
At first, I thought Eric was taking me back to my parent's place, but he stopped at the Foster's half of our duplex and pounded on the door. Even though they were dressed for bed, Mrs. Foster let us inside. Tony came halfway down the stairs, but she sent him away.
"Have you been drinking?" she asked me.
"Look at her eyes," Eric said. "They're all wrong."
Mrs. Foster's cool hands cupped my chin and she stared at my eyes, frowning.
"Okay. Eric, go look in the boxes in the kitchen for a white plastic bowl and bring it to me. Then go upstairs and tell Tony to grab you a blanket."
She led me to the couch. She sat and had me lie with my head in her lap. "Do you want to watch TV?"
Eric handed me the bowl. They took off my hiking boots and gently peeled off my coat before draping a blanket over me.
Every time dry heaves shook through me, Mrs. Foster rubbed my back. While I rested, she stroked my short hair.
"I think I have a drinking problem," I said after I spit yellow bile into the bowl. "I can't keep it down." It was supposed to be a joke, but no one laughed. Tough room.
Eric sat on the ground beside the couch. His fingers crept along the cushion and intertwined with mine.
"I wish I could just die."
"Oh, dear." I'm sure she meant to say something more comforting than that, but that's what Mrs. Foster said. "I'm going to make some tea. Would you like tea?"
I didn't want any, but I said yes.
After a while, I sat up. I really wanted a smoke, but I was afraid to let go of Eric's hand.
"Do you want sugar?' Mrs. Foster called from the kitchen.
"No," we answered together.
Eric got up close to my face. "Don't ever pull that shit again. I don't want to go to your funeral, okay? Yeah, your life sucks. Your parents are demented, you got stuck being a girl, you'll never hike the Appalachians, and your date dumped you at the prom for some grit boy, but is it really that bad that you can't stand it?" He glared at me.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times, but couldn't decide if I should tell him off. He had no idea how hard it was for me. Or maybe he did.
Mrs. Foster brought us the tea. I grasped the hot mug with both hands.
"Her eyes are getting back to normal," Eric told Mrs. Foster. "But---you aren't going to tell anyone about this, are you?"
"About what?"
"She was trying to kill herself."
Mrs. Foster sucked a long breath between her teeth. "I should." She shook her head and sighed. "I know I should. But who would I tell?" She slipped onto the couch beside me and wrapped her arm over my shoulder. "Poor baby. Poor, poor baby. Why do you want to die? You have your whole life ahead of you."
"I don't want it."
"Listen to me. I know it's hard to be a teenager. But these years end. When you're away at college, you'll see how different life can be. You don't have to see your parents after that."
I said, "I guess so," because I wanted her to think she was helping. She just didn't understand that I wasn't trying to escape Mom and Pop. I was trying to escape from being me.
I stared at the ceiling in my bedroom without seeing it. The pill that dissolved on my tongue must have stayed in my stomach, because I was too sluggish to get out of bed the next morning. It felt different from my usual depression though. At least I could sleep, but I couldn't seem to fully wake up.
Pop was talking on the phone in his bedroom. He slammed the receiver down and stomped downstairs. I heard the front door slam. I heard the car leave.
It took me hours to work up the will to go downstairs. I ate half a cup of noodles and felt like puking it back up. Convincing myself to walk back up the stairs was even harder.
The fitted sheet on my bed had long since sprung from the corners. The wrinkles hurt my ribs when I lay on my side. I was still considering fixing the sheet when I heard the front door open.
Two people walked up the stairs. They went past my door to my parents' room. Not much later, two people stopped at my door. I thought of a million things I could do to fix my bed or room, but didn't. Pop pushed the door open, but stayed in the hallway.
"We're going to be gone a couple days," Pop told me. Mom stood behind him. Her lips pressed tight together, almost invisible, but her eyes dropped at the corners as if she was exhausted.
I hadn't said a word to Pop since I found out about Mom. I enjoyed the power of the secret and had been savoring it. I'd fantasized about how I was going to confront them. A casual hint dropped over dinner. Or even better, shouting their secret in public and seeing the humiliation and fear in their eyes. It would be like ripping a scab of a pus-filled wound. But seeing Mom at my door, I couldn't wait.
I propped up on my elbow. "I know---"
"Your idiot cousin Sheri blew her brains out. Selfish little bitch. Ruined her daddy's truck. Now we're expected to go to her funeral. We'll be back in a couple days. No parties while we're gone." Pop slammed shut my door.
I blinked. I missed my chance. I---
Sheri killed herself.
I couldn't get my head around the words.
Sheri was dead.
Blew her brains out.
Sheri was dead.
I heard suitcases thumping down the stairs. Heard the door; heard the car start. The dog jumped up on my bed, turned a couple circles, and settled at my feet. The house got dark.
I had no idea how I was supposed to feel. Happy for Sheri? Jealous as hell that she seemed to do everything better than I did? Sad for her parents? Annoyed that I was older and should have been the first to do everything? I tried to settle on bitterly jealous, but then I started crying and felt like a pathetic jerk.
For hours, I groveled at God's feet, begging him to forgive me for being mean to Sheri, for not being more understanding, for failing to see her misery. I should have known. Maybe if I'd made an effort to be friendly, or at least talked to her. I groaned when I realized that God knew how spiteful I'd been that Grandma paid more attention to Sheri than to me. I was such a selfish shit.
And I was fat.
And ugly.
And had a future ahead of me too dismal to live through. A college I didn't want to attend; a major I was doomed to fail.
Lucky Sheri---her dad loved her enough to keep guns in the house.
If only I could stop thinking long enough to just act. That was always my problem---too much thinking. My MENSA brain worked against me every time.
Sheri put the shotgun into her mouth and pulled the trigger. I could imagine the taste of heavy metal and the scent of oil, but I couldn't see getting over the fear of fucking it up---being left alive, but paralyzed, with only half a face, or no top to my head. I could have never stepped down on the trigger with my big toe. I couldn't have stopped thinking long enough to do it. Sheri did. She was the ultimate success. She shut off her mind, and then blew it into red splatter that would never have to think again.
I sat up on my bed and extended my arms in front of me. Sheri sure had a lot more balls than I did. I'd seen those scars across her wrists. She picked up the knife and made the cut. Knowing how much it hurt, she did it again. Fuck. How could she? I couldn't make myself face the pain.
I glanced down at my pristine forearms. Blue veins forked like lightning at my wrists on either side of a thin tendon. That wasn't the right place to cut. I knew that much. Down, not across. That's where Sheri made her mistake.
If only I could peel off my skin. Underneath boobs and slit had to be the real me. There had to be a way to escape. I just wanted out.
My pulse throbbed at my wrist. Several inches up from that, there was a scar from the bee sting I got in Georgia. That was the first time I'd gone into anaphylactic shock. At the time, it seemed like a big deal, but I knew now that was a mild reaction. Too bad I couldn't find a whole hive of bees to sting me. The second reaction was supposed to be worse than the first. If only I could trust my body to let me die instead of fighting---
Oh! The answer was beautiful. Like red velvet curtains drawing back in a theater during the overture, I knew exactly how I could do it, and for once, my body would help me out. It was too fucking perfect for words.
Anyone who saw me walk into town would have never guessed my intentions. Years of unhappiness lifted off my soul. It was amazing that my feet could stay on the ground.
Perfect. Almost painless. Fool proof. God proof!
The hostess at the Red Lobster didn't seem to notice my bubbly mood. How could she know it wasn't like real me to grin like an idiot? Time had no more meaning, so I didn't care that they made me wait an hour on the hard wooden bench for my shrimp scampi to go. It used the last of my money, but what did I care? I handed over the wad of lawn mower earnings with a huge, idiotic smile and took the bag.
The walk home was a blur of bliss. Nothing felt like my fault.
I sat down at the kitchen table and removed the aluminum dish from the bag. The fork had to be aligned just so with the napkin I never intended to use. A glass of water balanced the visual of the table setting. No matter how hard I tried though, the ritual feel to it simply wasn't there.
For a moment, I considered leaving a note. Something that would sting, but not too dramatic. Something along the lines of, "Mom and Pop, you finally got what you wanted. I'm gone." No matter how I worked around the words, though, it seemed tacky. Suicide notes weren't my style.
I wondered if Sheri left one, and what she said.
The scene I planned struck my sense of humor just right. Death By Shrimp. I hoped the coroner would write it up that way. The guys at the morgue would get a good chuckle. Maybe, I thought, I should leave a note for them, letting them in on the joke. Nope. If you had to explain it, it wasn't funny anymore.
I bent back the edges of the aluminum until the clear plastic lid was free all the way around.
Each shrimp was a white comma in a gold sauce that smelled of wine and butter. All I had to do was eat one, maybe two or three for insurance. It was that easy.
Oh lord, they'd think I did it because of Sheri. There was no way I'd let them think it was a pathetic "me too" gesture. Or worse, Pop would think I'd done it on accident. "Stupid little bitch," he'd say, "too dumb to remember she was allergic to shrimp." I could write a note telling them I did it on purpose, or that it wasn't about Sheri, but no one would care enough to believe me, and I wouldn't be around to argue it with them.
Since Sheri was a suicide, would they bury her on sacred ground? And if they didn't, could she become frovoliki? If she came for me, I'd let her take me. But if the shotgun blew off the bottom half of her face, how would she bite me? Shit. Why did death have to be so complicated?
But it wasn't. It just had to be done right. Every little piece in place. Everything aligned just so on the table. End of fork even with end of knife, napkin pristine white. Glass five inches above the tip of the knife. Those cotillion classes were worth something after all. Everything was perfect.
I debated saying grace, but there was nothing to thank God for.
I wiped the condensation ring off the tabletop and got a new napkin.
Okay.
Set.
Go.
The fork was too close to the edge of the napkin.
The ritual didn't feel right. I tried to get into the right mindset. I went through every reason I wanted to die: Amanda, my parents, college, the hiking trip, but they didn't add up to enough somehow. I'd always be a girl, though. Still, even that, even God's cruelest joke on me---I couldn't slice deep enough into my body to cut away everything that was female in me, and I couldn't wish or pray it away, so how could I blame myself for God's mistake?
I picked up a shrimp by the tail and turned it from side to side, letting the greasy sauce drip across my fingers.
I missed being in love with Amanda, aching when she didn't show up for P.E. or how my entire soul would fly at the sight of her every day. I couldn't be what she wanted. I couldn't be what I wanted.
It wasn't my fault I was a girl. It was God's fault. Even if I did manage to break into heaven after I died and force God to explain why he fucked me over, what good would the answer do me? He'd probably have a lame excuse anyway. The only answer I'd accept was that he liked to see me suffer. I already knew that, and I'd never forgive him for it.
Shit, I hated crying. I dropped the shrimp and wiped my fingers on my jeans.
The dog walked into the kitchen, her nails clicking on the linoleum. She sat near the refrigerator and looked at me.
Crap. I'd forgotten about her. I had no idea how long my parents would be away at Sheri's funeral, so I filled the dog's water dish until it slopped over the side. No reason to make her suffer. I also filled her food bowl, and then tossed her several treats.
She sprawled on the floor and watched me with worried eyes, her tail wagging in indecisive bursts.
Maybe I'd been wrong all along. Maybe I should have prayed to Jesus instead of God. At least Jesus understood what it was like to have a father who wanted him dead.
Nah. Jesus was useless too. Despite what the churches advertised, he never saved anyone, not even himself.
I sat down at the table again. The scampi sauce was congealing. The dog whimpered.
I knew I should have taken her for one last walk. "Mom and Pop will be home soon," I promised. Lying to the dog. That seemed pretty low.
What if my parents were gone for days? The dog would be stuck inside, and no doubt Pop would smack her around for accidents on the carpet. It wasn't fair of me to put her through that. Plus, she might whine, and in the middle of the night, the sound would travel between the thin walls of the duplex and drive the Fosters nuts.
What if my body started to stink, and the stench wafted into the Foster's half of the duplex? Poor Mrs. Foster didn't deserve that. She tried so hard to fix the unfixable things in my life, or at least make them bearable. Mom and Pop would be pissed off at me, but Mrs. Foster would be so upset. Maybe, I thought, I should write a note apologizing to her. Something like, "You did your best. Don't blame yourself. It's not you, it's them."
That phrase stuck in my head. It's not you. It's them.
Maybe all those years I'd been translating everything Pop and Mom said the wrong way. When they said it was my fault, what they really meant was that they were the ones who were screwed up. They were the ones who were sick. They were wrong. It was them. It wasn't me.
My little world tilted on its axis.
The circular orbits I'd been trying to force on my world became elliptical paths. Mercury was no longer in retrograde. I felt the cogs align inside my brain, teeth into gears, everything working the way it was supposed to. I had a new model of the universe, one that worked, one that explained everything.
Of course, I rejected it. Copernicus must have done the same thing when the insane idea of elliptical orbits struck him. He must have told himself that he was wrong. And then his next thought must have been fear---fear of the church, fear of the revolution his work would spark. I wondered if he thought of tossing his proofs into the fire and forgetting that for an instant he'd glimpsed the mind of God.
That was the part that scared the churches most, I decided, free will. No wonder they preached that independent thought was the first sin. I didn't feel expelled from Paradise though. I was finally glimpsing the gates.
Like Copernicus, it was too late for me to deny what I'd seen when the curtain was pulled back. The truth had been revealed and my brain wouldn't let me hide from it.
No one was coming to save me.
I'd have to do it for myself.
I had to get out of that house. Mom and Pop would feed off me, drain me, keep me weak, unless I rescued myself.
The gears churned, and something clicked into place.
I'd convince Eric, his parents, and my parents, to let us hike the Appalachian Trail after graduation. It was something I'd wanted for years, and I'd be damned if I'd let the opportunity slip through my fingers on the whim of some distant, sadistic deity. When that week was over, Eric would come back, I wouldn't. At least not to my parent's house. I'd beg friends for couches or I'd camp in the woods around the gazebo until school started. Then I'd move into my dorm room. Mrs. Foster was right, once school started, I was free.
I wiped my face with paper towels until the tears smeared away and dumped the shrimp into the garbage.
It wasn't me. It was them.
Those words were like a mantra.
I liked my new universe a lot better. I belonged there.
Early the morning after graduation, I checked my backpack one last time.
Everything felt like ritual. They were simple things, symbolic, but of what, I had no idea. Mom sat in the kitchen, read a magazine, and sipped her morning coffee. Sheets of newspaper and a roll of tape sat on the counter.
My stuff was already packed away in boxes in the garage.
Pop kneeled on the living room floor in front of the bookshelves, surrounded by boxes. He retired the week of my graduation. The Air Force had no further use for him, so they told us to get the hell out of base housing by the end of the month. Your grateful country thanks you for your years of service. Right.
The backpack rested against my thighs as I stared out the small window by the front door and waited for Eric. It weighed a ton; my entire life was crammed into it. The coffee maker gurgled. Next door, Mr. Foster sang opera, poorly, as he showered.
I yanked open the door as soon as I saw Eric's car.
Eric climbed out of the driver's seat and opened the trunk. His dad waved from the back seat. I crammed my pack into the trunk.
We stood there as if we weren't sure what to do next. He opened the car door. Homesickness and happiness and fear welled in a rush through me. When the door slammed shut, would it sever me forever from my parents? It couldn't be that easy, and it shouldn't have seemed so hard.
"Are you okay?" Eric asked.
"Just a second, I forgot something." I ran back into the house, up the stairs, and into my room. She was waiting for me, sitting on my stripped mattress, looking forlorn. I dropped to my knees and threw my arms around her, hugging her tight until she squirmed. I rubbed my face against her fur.
"I'll miss you. I'm sorry I can't take you with me."
The dog licked my hand. I gave her ears one last pat, and scurried out of the room before I started to cry. I think she followed me down the stairs. I didn't know for sure, because I didn't look back.
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