Like a Charm

by Karin Slaughter

  Mom was happy about the fresh ice. 'So what have you been up to while I was out?'

  'Me? Just drawing.'

  I pulled my sketchpad from the corner of the breakfast nook table and opened it to the page.

  Mom slowly took the pad. 'Is that me?

  It was a sketch using oil pastels. I'd made my mother's skin a little too peachy, I realized, having coloured it without her there to look at while I drew. And I hadn't remembered just how light were the golden highlights in her hair. But other than that, I thought it was maybe not too bad. I had gotten her chin just right.

  Mom took a while to tell me what she thought of it. And while I was waiting, standing in the cool kitchen, I realized that I got her nose wrong. Completely. And her eyes. My neck started hurting again. And I couldn't wait any longer. I wanted to snatch the sketchbook out of her hands. Grab it. And rip out the page, punch it into a ball and throw it away. Fast.

  'Do you like it, Mommy?'

  'It's just fine.'

  Fine? No. It was awful. The eyes were horrible. I'd gotten the nose all wrong. What was I thinking? My mother's eyes were a million times prettier than I had drawn them. I could just kill myself for showing her that picture.

  'It's just . . . honey, I don't think this artsy stuff is for you. I know you met the art teacher at the public high school.'

  'Miss Sanchez. She said . . .'

  Mom put her hand up gently. 'She tells all the kids they have talent, honey. That's her job. I will not have you attending the public high school simply because one teacher appealed to your vanity. So just get that idea right out of your head. Next thing you'll be telling me you want to drop out of the honours programme and hang around with a lot of troubled kids, is that right?'

  How could I keep on letting my mom down like this? I was way too selfish. My mom once said I had my father's selfish gene and I guess that's so. I made a secret promise right then to stop thinking like this. To stop disappointing my mother.

  Mom looked at me closely. I wondered if she could see I was going to try harder, because I really, really was. 'You need to be more positive, sweetie. You'll do fine at Eastlake. I've gotten you this far, haven't I?'

  My mom's smile faded immediately when she saw my face.

  I stopped looking at her; stopped breathing, even, for a few seconds. It was the thing we never talked about.

  I pulled my hair down over my face, which I know I shouldn't since she doesn't like it, but sometimes I can't help it. My grades are a subject that's tricky. It's like something we can't talk about, because we both know it's been my mom who has been earning all my As at Pasadena Country Day, practically doing all my homework and projects and papers since kindergarten. Everyone in my sixth grade class suspects it. My teachers know it. And so do I. That's why when the rejection letter from Eastlake came in the mail, I wasn't surprised. I was kind of expecting it.

  Are you worrying again? About the letter?'

  'No. Honestly.' I gave her the kind of smile she deserved, real nonchalant and carefree.

  Last Saturday was like a funeral around my house. My father glared at my mother. My mother was so trembly she asked me to fix her a drink at noon! Even with Daddy at home.

  Are you worrying, Megan? Please don't. I'll help you, sweetie. You'll love Eastlake.'

  She held out her glass and I got up to refill it, making it mostly Diet Coke this time, hiding behind my hair.

  When the letter came and Mom was so disappointed, I realized something. She regrets having me. I know she does. I could tell by the look on her face. And you know something else? I can't blame her one bit. She's right. I'm just a screwed up kid and she deserves so much better. As much as I always try to be just perfect for her, I always find some supremely stupid way to muck it all up. Typical me. Instead of making her happy, like I always, always try, I just end up embarrassing her. How screwed up is that?

  And parents aren't very tolerant, you know? They hate being embarrassed. They just hate it. It's like when I feel embarrassed only a thousand times worse because she's a grown-up and has worked terribly hard and all. I wish I could be good enough to make her proud, I really do. Then she could be happy. Or maybe it would be better to wish for something else. I looked at the bracelet on the counter. Maybe if I were just gone, my mom wouldn't be so sad.

  The first thing she said, after reading the rejection letter from the Eastlake School, was what was she going to tell her friend, Carrie? Carrie's daughter Zoë is in sixth grade at Country Day, too. When I showed up to school on Monday, I wasn't surprised to learn that Zoë got accepted to all the schools she applied to. She was going to go to Eastlake, of course.

  'Carrie?' My mother was already on the phone as I handed her the fresh rum and Diet Coke. 'Guess what? I just spoke to Mrs Williams at Eastlake.'

  I guess my mom couldn't wait to call Carrie. I heard her laugh for the first time in a week. She said, 'So if they give the girls four hours of homework every night and make them work on projects all weekend, the girls will do it. I know the school is academic, Carrie, but so are our girls.'

  I stood in the kitchen, feeling pretty much like throwing up.

  Mom, what if I just can't keep up at Eastlake? What if I fail all my classes? What if I can't breathe there? What if I let you down, again and again and again?

  My mom didn't hear me, though. I wasn't really talking out loud.

  My mom put her hand over the telephone and whispered, 'Put on the bracelet, doll. It's so you.'

  I jumped up to put the bracelet on, just like she asked. But I could tell she was disappointed I hadn't thought to put it on myself.

  One year later . . .

  Right before the start of Mrs Gold's Latin class was the first time I heard it. Clarissa Blake stopped talking as soon as she saw I was standing behind her. Katie Hardy's face still looked shocked and she couldn't cover it up fast enough once she realized I was standing right there.

  I bet in all the history of the Eastlake School, no other seventh grade girl had ever before gotten a D in Latin. And right before I entered the classroom, I bet someone must have been asking how I got into Eastlake, then, if I was so stupid. And that's when Clarissa shared her family's theory. Her mother said that my mother had sex with the admissions director. Right on the office floor. With Mrs Williams, who all the girls know is a lesbian.

  My cheeks burned. Burned hot as fire. It was such a sudden, unexpected pain I almost tripped. I couldn't go on living one more second with that burning. And at the same time, there was such dizziness. I was falling down a deep, deep pit. Standing there like a dork. Blushing hotter and hotter.

  'What's going on in the back of the room?' Mrs Gold called too loudly, looking at us all tied up in a knot of girls near the door. 'Settle down. Take your seats. We're going to have our Latin final in a few days and we have a lot to review, young ladies.'

  I don't know how I got to my seat. I don't know how I found the right book and opened it to the right page. I could do nothing more than tell myself to breathe. I was numb, mostly, with not even one thought in my head for a full ten minutes. I think the only thing that brought me back to earth was the burning pain. I looked down at my left wrist. I had been twisting my gold bracelet, mindlessly twisting it harder and harder, round and round. The little gold charms had scratched my skin raw. I stopped, surprised at what I was doing.

  As Mrs Gold talked about the genitive case, I played with each little charm, daydreaming about the tiny tiger devouring my enemies, the tight clique of smart girls, including Katie and Clarissa, who sat together in the front row with their hands in the air for every question.

  I fiddled, as I always did, with the heart-shaped gold locket, the one with the tiny jewel. It was stuck shut, like always. I had been frustrated I couldn't see if anything was locked inside, but I'd feared pushing on it too hard, afraid it was too delicate and I might damage the charm and then what would my mother say? But as Mrs Gold didn't see me very well in my seat in the back, I got a little bolder
and began to look for things in my backpack with which to prise open the seal of the locket. A ball point pen wasn't doing it. I tried another, but nothing. A paper clip – carefully straightened out – was too thick. But the sharp tip of my math compass! That was perfect.

  As Mrs Gold praised Lucy McCook's brilliant freaking declensions, I stabbed at the locket. I don't know my own strength, I guess. The point of the compass skittered off the shiny gold heart and punctured my wrist. I held my breath, willing myself not to gasp, and heard the girl next to me giggle. Blood was coming from the small puncture wound and I was startled when she nonchalantly passed me a tissue.

  I picked up the compass once again and fitted its dangerous silver tip right against the groove that ran all round the locket. I tried to use a prying pressure, but again the compass point slipped off the charm, scraping my wrist, not drawing blood this time, but close.

  The girl next to me smirked. Her name is Hannah Miller. She pantomimed that I should hold the charm steady and she would wield the compass. We girls are pretty good at giving Mrs Gold a face that looks interested while we're busy doing what we like. Hannah picked up the compass, gripping it like a dagger, and drew it back a good nine inches. I thought about what it might feel like to get stabbed with such force. And I wondered how the pain could be any worse than hearing second-hand that your mother slept with the lady who works in the admissions office, moaning and writhing on the floor, lipstick smeared all the way off, to get her stupid daughter into a decent school.

  Hannah brought the sharp point of the compass down hard, striking directly on the seam of the locket with all the force of Eastlake's star middle school volleyball spiker. The gold heart charm cracked open.

  From inside, a slip of yellowed paper, folded very slim, popped out on to my Latin book. I grabbed at it greedily, using my fingernail to unroll the note. On the slip, in green fountain pen ink, were the words: 'Mors stupebit, et natura.' Bloody Latin.

  I thought about opening my Latin dictionary.

  Hannah pulled the note closer and read the faint handwritten scrawl. She pointed to the first word and whispered, '"Death." Cool.'

  There wasn't a flash of light or a clap of thunder, but I wasn't such a big idiot that I couldn't tell when God was sending me a message. Death. And something more. I read the note again. Maybe 'Death, stupid, is natural'. Something like that. And, of course, it all made sense! I almost laughed, it seemed so right. Death is natural. Why should anyone go on and on and suffer? And wasn't I suffering?

  And with this new thought, my pain seemed to disappear. I think I might have even smiled. I pushed my long hair behind my ears and kept smiling.

  Maybe, I thought, I could go home right after school. And maybe, I thought further, while my mother was out shopping and I should be starting on my homework, I could get out the rum and the Diet Coke and see if I could stand the taste. And then maybe I could go find those Xanax tablets of my mom's. And it could be over that fast! I could be free! I could do it before my mom came home from the store.

  I smiled up at Hannah, who looked startled to see me so happy.

  I could do it. I knew I could. End the misery. End the pretending. And if I timed it just right and didn't lose my nerve, I wouldn't even have to do tonight's homework in Latin.

  The pills were in my mother's bathroom cabinet. I shook them all into my hand and counted. Fifteen pills. I guessed that would be enough to do it.

  In the kitchen I was a pro at mixing a rum and Diet Coke. I crushed the pills using this cute old marble mortar and pestle my mom's decorator found in England. It made like a teaspoonful of chunky white powder, all crushed. I stirred it into the drink. There was no reason for me to be sad. I wouldn't ever have to go back to Eastlake. I wouldn't have to sit and be judged by girls who could say such cruel things about another girl's mother.

  I set the drink on to a yellow fabric napkin, nice and neat, and then ran out to the main hall, up the steps, my feet suddenly not clumsy. I dashed into my bathroom, the pink tiles giving me the rosy glow my mom thought was the best for us girls. I found my hairbrush and brushed my hair until it was shining, and then, pulling my hair back off my forehead, put on a fresh headband. In the mirror, I saw the face that my mother would approve of. A neat face. With neat hair.

  I was feeling lighter than ever, almost giddy with lightness. Time stretched out but I really didn't care. No homework was pulling at me. No Latin and math and ethics hiding round each corner, waiting to bite me each night. No hours and hours of trying to get into my head all the stuff I just didn't get. Not anymore.

  In my room I pulled off my dark blue Eastlake School sweater and put it neatly in the laundry basket. I stepped out of the navy-and-white-plaid uniform skirt, inspected it to see if it was clean enough for another day, and then caught myself and smiled a nice, free smile. I put it neatly on top of the sweater. I did the same with my white polo shirt. The last time, I thought.

  In my closet, a straight row of school uniforms hung in silent judgement, but I just shut the door. I had to make a careful choice. From my drawer I chose my favourite pair of bright yellow shorts and a silky blue tank top that had thin straps. I ran back into the bathroom and checked myself out in the full-length mirror. And I didn't look so bad at all.

  I took off the charm bracelet and threw it into the pink trashcan. I'd memorized its message. I didn't need it anymore.

  I was so calm. That was the oddest thing. Calm and happy. I was ready. I was. Sometimes you just know what to do.

  I walked down the stairs and the house looked different somehow. Down in the hall, I felt blessed. Then I walked back into the kitchen. There, on the counter, was my mother's keyring. She must have come home a little early.

  There on the floor lay my dead, dead, dead mother. She looked really beautiful, lying there like that, but her hair was a real mess.

  The kitchen clock read 3.55. My mom needed her pick-me-up earlier every day. I had noticed that. I wasn't so dumb. I wasn't.

  I picked up my sketchpad and walked over to the mirror in the hall. I didn't look different at all. Not at all. Same lumpy body. Same geeky braces. And I started to draw my self-portrait.

  THE BLESSING

  OF BROKENNESS

  Karin Slaughter

  Mary Lou Dixon sat in the front pew of the church, her eyes raised as she watched the cross over the pulpit being slowly lowered to the floor. She fiddled with the bracelet on her wrist as the cross, which had seemed so small hanging a few inches from the ceiling, began to grow larger as it descended in front of her like a broken bird.

  'Hold up,' the foreman said, and the three men working the pulleys stopped. The cross shook in the air, its broken right arm dangling by a few slivers of wood as it tapped ominously against the side. The noise reminded Mary Lou of a clock, ticking away time.

  'Easy, now,' the foreman instructed, using his hands to illustrate. He was the only English speaking person in the four-man crew and the Mexicans were slow to understand his orders. They finally seemed to comprehend, though, because the cross began its journey to the floor once again, finally coming to a gentle resting point on the carpet.

  The Mexicans genuflected, and Mary Lou wondered if that was entirely appropriate in the Christ Holiness Baptist Church of Elawa, Georgia. The cross was a simple wooden affair, lacking a Jesus, but with a fine polish that shone in the morning sun. It was hardly the ornamental icon most Catholics were used to exalting, if that was what Catholics did – Mary Lou had no idea. She had been Christ Holiness for the last twenty years and before that Lord and Saviour, which was two steps below Primitive and one above snake handling.

  Although plenty of contractors attended the church, none had volunteered their time to repair the ailing cross. Bob Harper, who had been a deacon for the last ten years, owned his own construction company, but he was still over five hundred dollars more expensive than the black man and his crew. The job was too small to make it worth his time, he had said. Mary Lou had commented she was glad J
esus had not felt the same way about dying for Bob's sins, but the deacon had not been swayed by her remark.

  So, here Mary Lou was with a black foreman and his Catholic Mexicans, trying to get the cross repaired before Easter Sunday – at considerable expense – with no help whatsoever from the more capable men of the congregation. This sort of thing was typical of the church lately. Long gone were the times when people happily volunteered to do routine maintenance or send out mailers to collect donations for foreign missionaries. No one visited the sick in the hospital anymore. No one wanted to go on bible retreats unless they were assured there would be a pool and twenty-four-hour room service. The last two anti-abortion rallies down to Atlanta had been cancelled because the weather report had predicted rain, and Lord knew no one wanted to stand out in the rain.

  'Mrs Dixon?' the black man asked. His name was Jasper Goode, she knew. He was a dark-skinned older man with a bald head that showed a significant amount of perspiration despite the air-conditioning in the church. Mary Lou did not trust this show of over-perspiration, as if it somehow made him shifty. He had done nothing but stand and direct the crew all morning, yet he was sweating as if he had been running a marathon.

  'Ma'am?' he prompted.

  'Yes?' Mary Lou answered, shifting in the hard pew. She put her hand to her stomach to calm it.

  Jasper walked towards her, down the stairs that lined the stage. He kept walking until he was about three feet away, looming over her.

  Mary Lou squared her shoulders, willing herself not to fidget. He was a tall man and knew it. She could not help but glance down at the floor before bracing herself to look back up at him.

  'Sorry,' he said, smiling as he kneeled down on one knee in front of her.