Something nobody recognizes but me.
On the outside, Schmule has morphed into a “perfect” child. Polite to Dad, polite to everyone, including evil Aunt Colleen. Uncle Dieter takes him fishing and to the Indians’ home opener. Now that the weather has warmed up, he helps Nonny plant geraniums. He mimics her Scottish brogue perfectly, much to Nonny’s amusement.
And yes, he loves Poppy most of all. He even “plays” chess with my grandfather by pinching Poppy’s frozen fingers around the pieces and moving them himself. Poppy, I notice, always wins.
“Penny used to talk about him,” Schmule says wistfully.
“She did? What’d she say?”
“That he was the one who gave her that nickname. He called her ‘Penny, lass’ all the time, like it was just one word. Pennylass,” he repeats, testing it on his tongue. “She thought it was funny, like he was calling her ‘penniless,’ ha-ha.”
I feel a tweak of envy. Mom never told me that. “Really?”
“Yep. He said she sparkled like a penny.”
Sometimes, when it’s just the two of us, we’ll talk about Mom. It’s like I now share a history with someone other than myself. I can say whatever I like, without repercussion. Something I’ve missed out on for seventeen years.
The Mom Schmule knew, I find out, wasn’t much different from my own: flaky, self-absorbed, but, well, still Mom. Who loved us on her terms, not ours.
I can see how he loved her.
Nevertheless, there’s something in Schmule’s eyes—or, more accurately, something missing. Whenever I hear Dad brag about how well “Sam” is adjusting, I know, with growing dread, he can’t see what I see.
Maybe “Sam” is adjusting. But Schmule’s fading away.
When Dad hauls us to a studio for a cozy family portrait—he and Schmule in suits and matching red ties—Schmule smiles into the camera, all freckles and braces. Later, when I sit down to copy the picture by hand and add it to my collage, his hollow blue eyes plunge an icicle through my heart.
I try to explain it to Julie when she takes me shopping. Next month is graduation, and I need a dress. I’d rather do this with LeeLee, but Julie insisted. Bonding time, or whatever.
“Julie, he’s still depressed, and Dad doesn’t even see it.”
“He’s on medication,” she reminds me.
I know that. I hand it to him every day. “Pills won’t help. He misses Fran. And I think he’s scared of Dad,” I add in a small voice.
“Scared? Why?”
Her indifference infuriates me. “Hello, weren’t you sitting in the same room that night?”
She knows which night I mean. “He lost his temper. He’s not a violent man, Shawna.” I give her one of those “looks,” a genetic gift from my dad. “Now I don’t know what you think happened between your mom and dad—”
I do. I saw it.
“—but I know your father. He overreacted, that’s all. He promised me it’d never happen again.”
“Did you guys set a date?” I ask slyly.
“Uh, no. Not exactly. I don’t think your dad’s too eager to tie the knot again.”
“Funny. He was pretty damn eager when he thought it’d get him Schmule.”
“I’m not discussing this with you,” she says, uncharacteristically snappish. “Now pick a dress and let’s get out of here.”
I vacillate between two, one white, one baby blue. Holding them up, I say, “These are cute, don’t you think?”
She points to the blue. “Lovely! That’s the perfect color for you.”
Evil Shawna jams the blue one back on the rack. “Good. Let’s go.”
If I hurt her feelings, she keeps it to herself. “Don’t you want to try it on?”
“I don’t care what it looks like.” I just want to graduate and get out of there. I’m sick of books and lectures and endless studying. I’m sick of all the end-of-the-year festivities I can’t be bothered to go to. I’m sick of Wade Prep, period, and twelve years of plaid. All I can think about is Kenyon . . . and freedom . . . and maybe Arye.
While waiting in line, Julie confides, “Your dad says you discussed that art school of yours.”
“It wasn’t a discussion and it’s not my art school. Can we talk about something else?”
“Like what?”
Hmm, like, what do you see in my dad? Were you fooling around with him when he was married to my mom? Are you going to make him marry you? Or continue to let him string you along like a monkey on a leash?
The words explode from nowhere: “You never said good-bye to me when you left. Remember?”
She pretends to study a display of marked-down sweaters. “I remember. It was thoughtless of me.”
“Thoughtless? It sucked.”
No answer.
“So why did you leave in such a hurry?”
“Because I was in love with your father. And no,” she adds, reading my thoughts, “we were not having an affair. But I was young, and after your mom left, I thought . . .” Julie falters. “Well, he was devastated. He truly was. So I stayed as long as I could, hoping, you know, he’d see me as more than your nanny. But it never happened.” She moistens her lips, examining a price tag. “So, after a while I just had to get out of there. I didn’t even know I was going to quit, till I woke up that day and thought, ‘I can’t face going back to that house one more time.’”
“Till you came back,” I remind her.
She nods, battling a smile. “He was so thrilled to see me. It still feels like a miracle.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s, like, almost sixty, Julie.”
“I know that. But you can’t always choose who you fall in love with, right? You’re not that much younger than I was back then. Haven’t you been in love?”
“Next in line!” the lady bellows from the register. I could kiss her.
I drop the dress onto the counter and slap down my charge card. “You can do better, you know. It doesn’t have to be him.” If the cashier wasn’t trying so hard to listen in, I might elaborate on that. Then my cell phone goes off. I scribble my name on the receipt with one hand, fumbling through my purse with the other.
“Arye called,” LeeLee announces excitedly. “He wants you to meet him at the Coventry Café at eight o’clock!”
I duck away from the counter. “Tonight?”
“Yeah, tonight! Omigod,” she squeals. “Are you two, like, a thing?”
“No!” Luckily Julie doesn’t possess superhuman hearing.
“I said I’d call him right back and let him know if you can make it.”
“Tell him yes!” I shout.
Julie, perturbed, marches over with my garment bag. “What was that all about?”
I smile serenely. “Nothing. Just LeeLee.”
100
A flash of paranoia grips my gut. It’s amazing what runs through your brain when you’re about to do something your father might kill you for.
I do want to see Arye. I want to see him so badly it’s like a rush of fire through my bones. I didn’t realize how much I missed him till I heard LeeLee say his name.
At seven forty-five I approach the den. Dad and Schmule, glued to a James Bond movie, barely glance up. From the looks of that Bond girl in her skintight jumpsuit, I can see how Dad might be interested. But I’ve never know him to sit through an entire movie. Another first.
“I’m going to the library,” I sing out.
Entranced by the thundering TV, neither of them replies. Only Charles whines suspiciously as I zip out the door.
I lag in the doorway of the Coventry Café, and spot Arye in a corner with a cup of coffee. Working up the nerve, I watch him push his glasses farther up on his nose, one toe of his deck shoe tapping the table leg.
Spotting me, he flags me over. “Hey! You made it.”
“Well, yeah.”
“I was kind of afraid you wouldn’t come.” Me too. “How are you?’
“Oh, peachy,” I say brightly. “You?”
“
Great. I got accepted to Berkeley.” He adds, not shyly, “Full scholarship.”
“Wow, Berkeley?” So he’ll be moving to California. “How cool.” I try hard not to sound deflated.
“Yeah. But Cleveland State gave me one, too. So I guess I’ll stay here.”
Oh-h, so he won’t be moving to California . . . “Wait. How can you give up a scholarship to Berkeley?”
Arye shrugs. “I just figured this might not be the best time to leave my mom.” He points to the chai latte next to his coffee. “See? I remembered.” I duck my head for a sip as he asks, “How’s Schmule?”
“Okay,” I fib.
“Good. Tell him Mom says hi. And, you know, she loves him.”
I nod. “Sooo . . . why’d you want to see me?”
Straight-faced, he replies, “Maybe I miss you?”
“You do?”
“Yeah. A lot. You want to go for a walk?”
Gratefully, I grab my tea and follow him outside. It’s not quite dusk. The evening smells like rain, exhaust fumes, and patchouli incense from a nearby import shop. We wander for a block before Arye reaches for my hand. He pulls me closer till our elbows touch. I scan the traffic, happy to know that Dad’s home with Schmule, safely planted in front of the TV. True, there’s always the chance of a freak encounter . . .
Arye notices my darting glances. “What?”
“. . . Nothing.”
We pass a Thai restaurant, a New Age bookstore, and a vintage record shop, then cross the street and head back the other way. It doesn’t seem to bother him that I tower over him, though not as much as I used to. He feels warm and solid. I love the way my hand disappears inside of his.
We reach my car, and he tugs on the passenger door. “Drive me home?”
I pretend not to understand the glint in his eye. “Arye. You live right over there.”
“So we’ll take the long way around.”
With my stomach twisted in a funny, excited knot, I start the engine and head the other way. When he reaches over to rest his hand on my thigh, the spiral of shock this sends through me turns the street into a blur.
We don’t speak. We don’t need to. Like Schmule and Poppy, we share the same mysterious wavelength.
I park in the lot of an elementary school, and I swear I don’t know who makes the first move. Arye’s glasses bounce onto to the dash, and his mouth lands on mine. His lips are softer than I expected and the stubble on his jaw burns my skin. My tongue meets his, and I taste coffee and cinnamon. Our teeth graze. Our noses scrunch together. Thank God, or maybe not, for the cup holders, CD box, and gearshift between us. Not that it seems to be holding us back.
Groping hands. Thunderous panting. I feel teeth on my neck. I touch his lap and feel him straining against his jeans, and how his own eager hands seem to be everywhere at once.
A second later I spot the spinning blue light. I smash my head on the steering wheel as I scramble upright.
“Oh, crap,” is all Arye can manage.
Knock, knock, knock on the driver’s-side window. “Everything all right here? Can I see your license?” I hand it over with petrified fingers. “Are you here of your own free will?”
“Yes! Everything’s fine.”
He eyeballs Arye as he passes my license back. “Do you have any identification?”
“I don’t drive,” Arye says sheepishly.
What if he makes us get out? My jeans are unzipped! What if he searches the car and finds the empty wine bottles I never bothered to throw out?
“Well, I think you can find a better place to do whatever it is you’re doing. Move along.” To be perfectly sure we understand the severity of his message, he waits until I pull out of the parking lot and then follows us for a few blocks before turning down a side street.
Arye quips bleakly, “Yay, Cleveland Heights. Nice to know I live in su-uch a safe community.”
“Oh, God, oh, God, what if he runs my plates? It’s registered to my dad!”
“We weren’t, um, breaking the law.”
“But what if they do? I am so fricking dead!”
“Take it easy. He didn’t even ask for the registration.”
I can’t take it easy. I can hear Dad now: Shawna? I just received a call from the Cleveland Heights Police Department. Apparently one of the officers found you in a compromising position and—who do I say I was with?—I think I deserve an explanation. Was it that Goodman boy? Did you have in-ter-course with him? Did you use a condom?
I wrench the car to a stop in front of Fran’s house. We sit there in uneasy silence as I slowly recover from my meltdown. Then I ask, in wonder, “What just happened tonight?”
“Beats me.” Smiling, he lifts a strand of my hair and kisses it. A sweet, funny gesture. “But I hope we do it again.”
101
I fly awake in the middle of the night.
“I peed the bed,” Schmule says in my ear. “Don’t tell Dad.”
“You want to climb in with me? Wait! Did you, like, shower I hope?”
“Yeah, so, what about my sheets?”
“I’ll take care of it in the morning.” Nudging Charles aside, I hold up the covers.
Schmule scooches in beside me. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Should I tell Dr. Silverberg?”
“Why?”
“I’m ten years old, duh. Now watch me turn into a serial killer or something.”
I don’t laugh. Knowing Schmule, this seriously concerns him.
Charles pads in a circle of annoyance, wondering why there’s an extra body in my bed. Schmule slides him onto his chest and kisses his head.
“This is creepy,” he observes. “Ugh, sleeping with your sister? Aren’t there, like, laws and stuff?”
“Hey, you can leave anytime. I won’t be offended.”
He pokes me with an ice-cold toe, then shoves his feet off the bed. A minute later he’s snoring.
102
Because I stay awake for hours thinking about Arye, wondering what might have happened if that cop hadn’t shown up, I sleep through my alarm. Forty-five minutes late, I stumble downstairs, where Schmule’s eating breakfast in front of the Discovery Channel. “Why didn’t you wake me? Didn’t you hear my alarm?”
“Hey, I’m the child.” He nibbles a frosted Pop-Tart. “You should be waking me up.”
“It’s seven thirty!” I yell. “Move! Where’s Klara? Take your pill!”
Klara shows up seconds later, stammering some excuse about a long-distance call from a cousin in Germany. “What are you going to do without me for a week?” she demands as she throws together Schmule’s usual lunch: peanut butter and jelly and mayo on rye.
“Where are you going?” I ask. Klara never takes vacations. She rarely takes a weekend off.
“Munich,” Schmule pipes in. “That’s where those terrorists broke into the Olympics once, and took those Israeli guys hostage.” He continues to blab as grumpy Klara hustles him through his routine. “They broke in with machine guns and rounded them all up, and—”
Klara throws him his lunch bag. “Did you brush your teeth, Mister Never-Shuts-His-Mouth?”
“Yes. So then the government tried to rescue them and, like, totally screwed it up, and—”
Flinging up her hands, Klara lumbers out to her car. She honks the horn as Schmule lags back, nuzzling Charles and yammering away. I hate when she does that. And I hate the fact that she drives him to school because Dad, obviously, doesn’t trust me yet. Good thing he doesn’t know I already broke my promise.
Ignoring Klara’s warning blasts, Schmule wanders up as I assemble a fruit salad for my lunch. I’ve pretty much given up on that cafeteria yogurt. “I need my pill.”
“You already took it.”
“No, I didn’t. You’re supposed to hand it to me, remember?”
“Didn’t Klara?”
Hand outstretched, he waits with a smirk. I shake out a pill, then hesitate. Maybe I should run out and ask Klara?
“Hello? Happy pill, Shawn
a!” Schmule snaps his fingers. I pass him the pill. “Will you, you know . . .” He points to the ceiling. “Before Klara notices?”
“I said I’ll take care of it.”
Upstairs, as I gather up the smelly sheets, I trip over Schmule’s bookbag at the foot of the bed. Well, if he thinks I’m running this down to him, he’s out of luck.
A red folder sticks out, and I see, printed on the front: The Stockholm Syndrome by “Sam” Gallagher. Sam, in quotes, I notice with a renewed rush of despair.
I’m already late, but curiosity wins out. I flip it open, and read:
In 1972 a group of customers in Stockholm, Sweden, were held hostage in a bank by a bunch of robbers for six days. After they were rescued they stuck up for their captors. When the case went to trial they refused to testify or say anything bad about them.
This is what is known as the Stockholm syndrome. This is a very well-documented phenomenon. It has been studied by scientists and psychologists for many years. People held captive start to identify with the kidnappers even if they do very bad things like torture and mental abuse.
At first it is a matter of survival. They depend on the kidnappers for food and water. If they are kept isolated they also depend on the kidnapper for company. Every day they survive, they are grateful to the kidnapper for not killing them.
Usually they get brainwashed. For instance a man might kidnap a child and then tell him that his real family doesn’t love him. This is how a kidnapper may get you to believe that nobody wants you. If a lot of time passes and you are still with the kidnapper, you start to believe it. You think that the kidnapper is really a nice person who wants you when nobody else does. Besides, he did not kill you yet.
Finally, if you are rescued, you feel sorry for the kidnapper because after he finished doing all the bad stuff to you, he took really good care of you. You start to see him as a human being and not as some monster. There are stories about people who were kidnapped for years and never escaped even when they had a chance. Sometimes they were afraid to risk it. But sometimes the victim feels that he is being disloyal. He does not want the kidnapper to get caught and go to prison even if the kidnapper deserves it . . .
Say the Word Page 22
