My mother thinks I am spending the day with Becky, going to see Victor/Victoria. She even gave me money for popcorn and a soda. I want to tell her the truth, beg her to save me, but I can’t do that to her. It would break her heart, destroy her marriage. She’s so happy with Leo, and I am stronger than she is—strong enough to carry this. It is my responsibility. I was nice to Conrad, I let him in the door. “It’s your funeral,” Anna had said that poison ivy night. And she was right. Now everywhere I go, I’m trapped by the weight of his body, his moist breath, his smelly hands, his hideous fleshy parts.
* * *
—
We are ushered from the information session to a changing room and given paper dresses. “Take everything off, leave on your shoes,” the nurse tells us. There is a line of women in thin paper dresses and heavy snow boots sitting on a long bench waiting their turn. It is two hours before my name is called, and the nurse brings me into an exam room.
The doctor has a mask over his mouth. I never see his face, just his distracted eyes.
“Please ask the patient to get on the table and put her feet in the stirrups,” he says to the nurse.
“I just need a prescription for birth control pills,” I say.
He turns to the nurse. “Did you explain that she cannot get medicine prescribed until we examine her?”
The nurse nods and gives me an impatient glare. “Of course, Doctor. She signed the forms.”
When I climb up onto the table, I feel my dress tear. How will I get back to the changing room without exposing myself? I lie back and let the nurse place my wet boots into the metal stirrups. It is hot in the room, but I can’t stop shivering.
There’s a knock on the door.
“Come,” the doctor calls out.
A young Asian man in a white coat enters the room.
“We have a medical student here from Kyoto studying our birth control methods. You don’t mind if he observes?” the doctor says. He beckons the man over to the end of the table, ignoring the look of horror in my eyes. Hands him a mask.
The man gives me a formal bow, arms tight by his side, before putting his head between my legs and looking at my vagina.
“Interesting,” he says. “The hymen is still intact.”
“Yes,” the doctor says. “This will feel cold.”
15
1982. November, New York.
Water sluices the windows. My room is tomb-like, sealed. I yawn, sit up in bed, stare down into the interior courtyard. The heavy rain has puddled to the middle, forming a square-shaped lake. A waxy Dixie cup skitters across the surface, dragging a piece of Saran wrap behind it like a jellyfish tail. I reach for my clock. I have a history test first period and I’ve set the alarm for six a.m. so I can finish memorizing. 7:45. A flash of panic sweeps me as I realize I’ve slept through my alarm. I rush around my room, throwing things into my backpack, drilling myself out loud: Stamp Act Congress, Taxation Without Representation, “the shot heard round the world.” I pull on whatever clothes I’ve left lying on the floor and am almost out the front door when I remember my birth control pills. I race back to my room, reach into the way-back of my closet, grab the nude oval container from inside the old ice skate where I keep it hidden, and swallow Tuesday.
* * *
—
The week I started taking the pill, Conrad stopped coming to my room at night. At first I thought it was the timing. Six days after my visit to the clinic, Conrad had left to spend spring break in Memphis with his mother and weird Rosemary, whom I hadn’t seen in three years and, for all I knew, was probably a bride of Christ by now. The first few weeks after Conrad got back, I lay in bed at night, forcing myself to stay awake, waiting for a floorboard to creak, the whisper of his clothes, the unzipping. But nothing happened. It was as if I had taken a magic pill.
Conrad was different when he got home from Memphis. He was happy. The trip had been a big success. His mother had asked him to come again in June and stay for the whole summer.
“We’re gonna drive to New Mexico to visit my uncle,” he told us at dinner. “Rosemary figured out it’s exactly nine hundred and ninety-nine miles from Memphis to Santa Fe. We’re choosing a one-mile detour so it’ll be an even thousand.”
“Cool,” Leo said. “Uncle Jeff?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he still married to the stewardess?”
“Linda.”
“Right. With the big hair.”
“They’re separated,” Conrad said.
“Your mother could never stand her. Said she was a fortune hunter. Though marrying an orthopedist isn’t exactly hitting the jackpot.” Leo served himself a big glob of mashed potatoes. “Can someone pass me the butter?”
Conrad looked different, too. He stopped buttoning the top button of his shirt tight around his Adam’s apple, which always made him look like a serial killer, and finally started using the dandruff shampoo my mother kept putting in the bathroom. He had made the varsity wrestling team. There was even a girl he liked at school. Leslie. A sophomore who had transferred in midyear.
In June, right before he left for Tennessee for the summer, Conrad, Leslie, and I went to see E.T. together. As we sat in the dark movie theater eating popcorn and watching a small boy communing with a long finger, I realized that, for the first time in a long time, things felt almost normal.
* * *
—
It’s been over six months, and still no quiet tapping at the door, dark shadow next to my bed, whispered threats. I don’t know if it’s because spending the summer with his mom and Rosemary made him realize what a disgusting perv he was, or because he and Leslie are dry-humping all the time, or because the hormones I’m taking change the way I smell. But whatever it is, the pills are working.
I run the eight blocks to school, rain pelting down on my umbrella, dirty puddle water splashing my ankles. I’ll probably flunk the test. I can’t remember why Paul Revere is so important.
December
“There you are,” Mum says, pushing her way through the heavy velvet stage curtains and plonking herself down on a metal folding chair in the now-empty viola section.
“You’re not supposed to come back here,” I say.
“The concert was a great success,” she says, ignoring me completely. “Though that conductor has no sense of rhythm. At these prices, the school really should hire someone more musical.”
“Mom!” I give her a fierce look and mouth Shut up. Half of the school orchestra is still backstage, putting their instruments away. Mr. Semple, our conductor, stands nearby, chatting to the oboes.
“I should have a word with him. He may not know he’s off tempo.”
“If you speak to him, I’ll kill you.” I pull apart the pieces of my flute, thread a white handkerchief through the tip of my cleaning rod, and shove it into the hollow lengths of silver pipe. A thin stream of saliva drips from the head of my flute when I hold it upright.
“And why on earth do a movement from Brandenburg four when you could do five?” She takes a ChapStick out of her purse and applies wax all over her lips. “In any event, Eleanor, you stole the show. Your piccolo solo has always been my favorite part of The Nutcracker: that quicksilverish slide up the scale: Bada bada bada bah . . . blrump, ba ba badladladladl bloom-pah,” she sings, at the top of her lungs.
“Oh my god. Mom. Stop.” I pick up my flute and piccolo and shove them in my backpack.
“The bassoons sounded like curdled milk.”
Leo and Conrad are waiting for us in the lobby outside the auditorium.
“Bravo!” Leo says. “You’ve turned into an excellent flautist, young lady.” He turns to Conrad. “What’d you think?”
“It was fine.”
“Only fine? I thought Elle was terrific.”
“I’m not into classical stuff.”
A fe
w of my friends have run over to congratulate me, twittering with excitement: You were amazing . . . Who knew you could do that? . . . Is it hard? I like my friends, but I know they are not here to see me play a wind instrument. They’re here because Jeb Potter, the hottest guy in school, plays timpani in the orchestra.
Conrad edges his way into our circle. “Hey,” he says to my friends. “How’s it going?” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’m Elle’s brother, Conrad.”
“Stepbrother,” I say.
1983. January 1, New York City.
If I eat another dumpling I will burst. We are in a crowded dim sum restaurant in Chinatown, sitting at a big round table. Mum and Leo are hung over and are being mildly unpleasant to everyone. A waiter with a big metal steam cart is bashing around the restaurant flinging small white plates of unrecognizable food onto tables. The air is thick with cigarette smoke, sweat, and din. The waiter puts a beer down in front of Mum and she gulps it straight from the bottle.
“Hair of the dog,” she says. “Not even twenty-four hours and I’ve already broken my first resolution.”
I look over at Anna and groan. “I’m so fat.”
“Please,” Anna says. “I feel like a tick.”
Anna is home from college. She’s a freshman at UCLA. She’s sharing my room over the break, since Conrad has her room now. Mum set up the folding bed for Anna, but the mattress is lumpy, thin in the middle – you can feel the metal bar coming through. So, I’ve given her my bed instead. At night, we lie there talking until we pass out. Ever since I visited her at boarding school, when she confided in me for the first time, we’ve become friends.
“Who wants a pork bun?” Leo grabs two plates off the cart. Conrad reaches out to take one, but Leo bypasses him—Conrad has been gaining weight. “Rosemary?”
Rosemary is spending the holidays with us. She’s still mousy, with dull dirty-blond hair. Small for her age. Sad. She’s fourteen, but she wears sensible brown lace-up shoes and pleated wool skirts. She looks like her mother dresses her. Rosemary didn’t want to come for Christmas, but Leo insisted. He’s happy having both his children under one roof again, but Mum is going out of her mind. She keeps finding reasons to go to Gristedes. For Christmas, Rosemary gave each of us a different ceramic souvenir bell from Graceland. Leo played carols on his saxophone and we all sang. Then Rosemary asked if she could sing her pageant solo, “Lully, Lullay,” which always sounds to me like someone playing the recorder. Rosemary insisted on singing every verse, eyes closed, rocking back and forth to the music. At one point, tears began to roll down her cheeks. Anna pinched my thigh so hard I almost screamed.
“It’s like she never grew up,” Anna says later that night when we are lying in bed. “Her skin is translucent. It’s probably all that religion.”
* * *
—
“We should talk about the summer, Rosemary,” Leo says now. “It would be wonderful if you could come for a proper long visit this year. We’ve missed you.”
I can see Mum mentally kicking him under the table, but she smiles at Rosemary, nods in agreement, polishes off her beer, and waves to a waiter.
“I can’t. I have band camp in June,” Rosemary says. “And then Mom and I are going to Lake Placid.”
“Mom didn’t say anything to me about Lake Placid,” Conrad says.
“It’s a girls’ trip. You’re not invited.”
Conrad takes the pork bun off her plate and bites into it. Small bits of liquid brown meat ooze from the white, doughy corners.
“Are you sure you need that, Conrad?” Leo asks.
February
The playground is still full. It’s freezing out, and dusky evening is setting in, but Mrs. Strauss, the woman whose daughter I babysit after school, insisted I take five-year-old Petra to the park for fresh air, even though I’m sure Mrs. Strauss could see I had frostbite and my nose was about to fall off. She’s one of those women who only seems nice—the kind who shops at snotty stores like Bendel’s and Bergdorf’s, but not Bloomies. The Strausses live in a modern white-brick building on East Seventy-fifth, with a beige awning that stretches all the way across the sidewalk to the curb, so the tenants can step into a cab without getting wet in the rain. Their apartment has sliding doors onto a balcony that overlooks the park. When Mrs. Strauss and her husband are too lazy to walk their Weimaraner, they let it shit out there, and then the shit freezes in horrible gray-brown clumps.
I follow Petra around the playground, from jungle gym to slide to swings. Children run around in thick wool coats and mittens, scarves tied around their necks, noses running with snot. The nannies sit together on a park bench, ignoring them, trying to fill the gap between after school and dinnertime with the least effort possible.
“Push me!” Petra says.
I’ve forgotten my gloves. My hands are turning blue as I push the metal chain of the swing, flinging her higher and higher into the wind. The trees are bare. Inside my coat pocket, I can feel the weight of the roll of quarters I have stolen from the kitchen drawer where Mrs. Strauss leaves change for the housekeeper to use in the basement laundry machines.
* * *
—
I step off the elevator, waving good night to Pepe, our elevator man. A few flights up, someone else is ringing for him. Pepe slides the heavy brass gate closed. The outer elevator door shuts behind me. I stand in the foyer, feeling around in my book bag for my house key. Even from here, outside on the landing, I can hear Conrad and Leo fighting again. It’s so loud, everyone in our building must hear them. Conrad is screeching that his father understands nothing—he was just “holding” for some kid at school. It wasn’t his pot.
I slide down to the worn black-and-white mosaic-tiled floor of the foyer and lean my back against the front door. There is no way I’m going in.
“You’re grounded for a month,” Leo is yelling.
“You can’t do that! I have tickets to WWF at the Garden. It’s André the Giant,” Conrad screams. “I’m taking Leslie.”
“Give them to Elle.”
“I bought them with my own Christmas money from Mom.” Conrad is sobbing now. “You’re such a dick. I hate you.”
I’m at my desk doing my algebra homework when Conrad appears at the door. “Here, bitch,” he says, and throws his tickets at me.
“What did I do?” I say. “I hate sports.”
March
The sound of paper wakes me. An orange-and-white paperback book cover is sticking through the crack of my closed door, which now has a hook-and-eye lock. I watch in dread as Of Mice and Men slides slowly upward. It catches under the metal latch, lifts it up and out. The book cover disappears. My door handle turns.
“Mum?” I call out before he has time to open the door. “Is that you?”
I listen for the creep of his footsteps receding down the hallway before relocking the door.
April
The doleful drizzle hasn’t let up since we arrived at our grandparents’ house in Connecticut. My grandmother insists April showers bring May flowers, but this feels more like a heavy heart than the twiggy greenness of spring. Anna and I are spending two weeks with Granny and Granddaddy. Granny Myrtle has been having fibrillations and she’s feeling a bit wobbly. She could use some extra hands around the house. Anna is on spring break and wants to spend most of her time with them.
“Who knows if I’ll ever come back from California. And by then they might both be dead,” she says when she calls me from school to tell me the plan.
“Lovely. We’ll all miss you so much.”
“You know you will,” Anna says.
“I know. I already do.”
* * *
—
Now Anna and I lie on our old twin beds, where we have spent most of the past three days reading the books Granny Myrtle took out of the library for us. “These should keep you occupied until the nas
ty weather lets up,” she said, handing each of us a thick book. War and Peace for Anna, Wuthering Heights for me.
I hold my book up to my face, sniff the pages. I love the way library books smell: more important than regular books, a grand olden-days smell, like the steps of a marble palace, or a senator.
Anna yawns, stretches. “This book is too long. And too Russian. All that male, thrusty prose. I’ll never finish it. I’m going to go find something else on the bookshelves.”
Alone in our room, I watch raindrops slide down the window. Stare out into the brume. The crabapple tree has become a specter in the mist, its black-wet branches tapping at the pane. I don’t care if it rains for a month. I’m just happy to be here where I’m safe, where I can spend time with my funny, brusque, sardonic sister; where I can fall asleep without dread, where I know that my grandmother, no matter how frail, will love me fiercely, make fresh waffles, insist on washing my hair in the kitchen sink with Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, as she has done since I was little, rinsing out its sweet-kerosene smell under the warm tap, my head leaning back at an unnatural angle, neck pressed against the sink’s cold porcelain edge. And yet even here, I’m prodded awake all night by my unconscious vigilance. I lie in the darkness comforted by Anna’s snores, before at last falling back into a restless sleep.
“You look like shit,” Anna said when she got back from California.
“I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” I said.
“I thought someone had punched you in both eyes.”
The Paper Palace Page 16
