Talk about motivation. Mary Louise had never been out of Georgia, never mind across the Atlantic. She’d busted her sweet little tush, and Vassar had come through, and she’d been almost as excited about going on this program as getting in. Who wouldn’t want to spend nine months in Florence? Mary Louise was already pretty sure she wanted to major in Renaissance studies, and, apart from anything else, this would give her advance credits. With her AP courses, she’d be sailing come September. Her mom was going to come over, too, at the end, in May, and they were going to travel together, for all of June and July. Go to Venice, Rome, all the way down to Sicily. Sweet. Then she got landed with Kristin.
Well, no. Not quite landed. She’d volunteered. Which kind of made it worse—the knowledge that she didn’t actually have to get stuck doing this. That she’d put on her goodness and flapped her fairy wings right into this mess all by herself.
At first, to be fair, it hadn’t seemed so bad. Kristin had been a little weird—kind of hyper—on the plane on the way over. But then again, they’d all been kind of hyper on the plane on the way over. Twenty girls going to Italy for a year were pretty much bound to be at least kind of hyper, if only because it was the first time a lot of them had been to Europe, or lived anywhere other than with their parents or at school. Quite a few of them already knew each other. Sherbrooke College, the school that ran the course, gave its students first dibs on places. Only seven of the twenty who’d assembled at Dulles airport on the evening of last September 6 hadn’t gone there, Mary Louise and Kristin among them.
So it seemed like they had something in common, at first. And they were the youngest, too. The only seventeen-year-olds. Mary Louise, because she’d skipped a grade in high school. Kristin, she suspected—no, check that, she knew, because Kristin had told, like, anyone who would listen—because she was a total fuck-up and had gotten thrown out of so many places that she needed these credits before she could even apply to college.
Kristin’s father was a famous surgeon. He’d operated on football players, and some guy who’d won Wimbledon. She’d told everyone that, too. And about how he’d paid a fucking fortune, i.e., bribe, to get Sherbrooke to give her a spot on the Florence course. Which was, like, the only place she’d ever even think about going. “I mean, what sort of loser wants to go to Lisbon?” she’d asked, screwing up her nose as if she could smell the salt cod from here, and Mary Louise had thought, Probably one who wants to learn to speak Portuguese.
But she hadn’t said anything. She’d kind of started to catch on by that time, anyway. She’d seen Kristin’s stomach once, just for a second, right after they moved in when she opened the bathroom door by mistake as Kristin was getting out of the shower, before Kristin put the lock on—which she went out the next morning and bought and screwed in herself, presumably in case Mary Louise was really into that kind of thing, or something, and wanted to look, which she wasn’t and didn’t. Actually it kind of grossed her out. Anyway she’d figured out by then Kristin wasn’t stupid. Far from it. She just acted stupid most of the time, like she was about six. Which made it harder—if you were going to in the first place—to feel sorry for her.
Most of the time, it was almost impossible to believe that Kristin was about to be eighteen. Except she wouldn’t let you forget it. The Big Day was less than two weeks away. Countdown to February 5! Kristin was having a party at some really fancy restaurant. They’d all been invited. Everybody on the course got a printed invitation and the whole deal, which was kind of silly considering they were in class together basically every day. Ms. Hines, the program director, had made it way clear, in case anybody was tempted to, like, have a lobotomy scheduled, that they were all going.
Kristin’s parents were even coming over. Or rather, her father and stepmother. She made a big deal of the fact that it was her stepmother because her mother had died when she was little. Although when Mary Louise thought about it—which she didn’t often, to be honest—she realized that, while Kristin made, like, a huge thing of it, she didn’t ever actually say what had happened, or even talk all that much about her mom. She just referred to “the accident,” like you were supposed to ask, but no one did. And she didn’t call her mother Mommy, or Mom, or anything like that. She called her Karen. Her stepmother she called the Bitch. Which was nice.
Some of the girls thought the whole thing was garbage. Just a story about having this wicked stepmother. Mary Louise didn’t believe that, exactly. She was pretty sure Kristin’s real mother was dead. She remembered the lines—just the glimpse of that broken belt, pink and puckered around Kristin’s waist. She knew what that was. She’d seen it before. Anyone who’d gone to a girl’s school had seen it. Cutters always thought they were different, but they were pretty much the same as everybody else—they just picked up a razor to make life bleed, which Mary Louise actually always thought showed kind of a lack of imagination. Most people figured out, at least by the time they were in high school, the best way to screw themselves was with their own head. Who needed a piece of metal? It was kind of pathetic, actually. But since she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be in the world without her own mom, she’d tried, at first anyway, to be Kristin’s friend.
Which had turned out, of course, to be A Big Fat Mistake. Because, basically, the nicer you tried to be to people like Kristin Carson, the more people like Kristin Carson hated you.
If Mary Louise Tennyson had been asked to draw a picture, or to describe it, she would have said her good feelings about Kristin Carson were like a piece of pie—peach, and not that huge to start with. And that every time Kristin did something obnoxious, it was like a rat came along and took another bite out of it.
Take this morning, for instance. They’d made a deal—they each did the dishes every other day. Your turn, my turn. As a concept, it wasn’t exactly hard. Mary Louise did the washing up one day, Kris did it the next day. Except she didn’t. Not anymore. In fact for the last month or so, she didn’t do anything. Except whisper into her cell phone to her supposed boyfriend—whom nobody had, like, ever even seen—then disappear at sunset and come back way late without even trying to be quiet and sleep. Sometimes all day. It was like living with a vampire. One who never took out the garbage, or bought food, or even tried not to hog all the hot water every time she took a bath. She’d used Mary Louise’s soap, too. The expensive one she bought at the Farmacia Novella. And left it in, like, an inch of water in the soap dish so it rotted to mush. Fifteen euros down the drain. Mary Louise kept her bath oil and her shampoo and even her toothpaste in her room now, which she kept locked.
Maybe she should start keeping her food in there, too. Except then they’d probably get rats. You never knew in these old buildings. She glanced at the sink. It was full of basically every dish and cup and bowl they had.
“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, “what does she think I am, the maid?” No. Don’t even go there.
Mary Louise Tennyson sighed and got up. She walked across the room, opened the cupboard under the sink, and pulled out the rubber gloves.
* * *
Kristin stood on the steps of the church. The wind whipped her dress around her knees. It was freezing. She should have worn an overcoat. But she didn’t have one—just the big poofy parka thing the Bitch had bought her for Christmas.
Mr. Ted wasn’t with her, but she felt the pang anyway, as if he could read her thoughts. She shouldn’t call Anna the Bitch. She knew there was nothing wrong with Anna, except that she got in the way. And tried too hard. Just like Mary Louise. What the fuck was it? Why was it she always got saddled with these people—the ones who wanted to “care”? Who glommed on, and made you feel like you couldn’t fucking breathe, and then, when you tried, when you pushed them away just so you could suck some air into your lungs, looked at you with their big hurt eyes, as though you’d done something really horrible. As though every bad thing that had ever happened to them was your fault.
It made her chest tight just thinking about it. Made her f
eel like an overinflated balloon, so stuffed with all their caring that she was about to pop and the only thing she could do was cut herself open. Gash, and let some of that shit out so she could breathe.
Wind gusted, rushing up the steps, lifting the hem of her dress and snatching at the flower in her hand. The petals were furled tight and safe, but Kristin cradled the bud anyway, shielding it the way you shield a guttering flame. Which meant she had to let go of the front of her jacket, which blew open as she craned, getting up on tiptoes so she could see the red wink-wink of taillights as his car glided across the piazza.
It made her feel like Cinderella, every time, watching him go. Not the part where the Fairy Godmother waves her wand and Cinders looks down and, voilà! she’s dressed for the ball, but the other part. The one where all of a sudden the dress is just a ratty old dress and the little white mice are nothing but little white mice. And there was always the feeling inside—the tightening and the bang-bang, like a thud on a drum—no matter how many times he reassured her, that of course he would be back. Of course he would email her tonight. Of course she would see him again, tomorrow. Carina, I love you, my little Beatrice. The bud had no scent, but Kristin raised it to her face anyway, and let the velvet edge of the petals feather her cheek as the black shape winked one last time before sliding back into the city.
The piazza was empty now. Frost glittered the roofs of the parked cars. He always left her here, at the Carmine. It was only a couple of blocks to the apartment, but he said it was more complicated to drive back that way because of the one-way system or something. Which was bullshit. She’d started to say so once, when it was raining and he’d pulled over to let her out. But something had stopped her. It had been the light in his face, a white arc that swept the windshield as another car swung out of its parking place. Her mouth had been open, forming the protest, then the headlights swept across him and he’d looked as if he wasn’t in color, wasn’t flesh at all, but was black and white, a photograph—something one-dimensional she could put her hand through—and she’d stopped, saying nothing. Not even “I love you,” or “Good night.” She’d just kissed him, harder than usual, and gotten out, and climbed the steps and watched him slide away.
The high heels she was wearing were open-toed. She’d bought them to go with the dress because he’d said tonight was a special dinner. At least it wasn’t raining. Her feet were frozen, but her shoes wouldn’t get ruined walking back. And even if it had been pouring and they did, even if every single one of her toes got frostbite, who cared? Because soon it wouldn’t matter. In ten days, actually. In ten days everything would be different. A fizz of excitement ran through her. Kristin forgot the cold, and the wind, and picked her way down the steps, holding the rose, and walked back to the apartment.
She didn’t realize, at first, that anything was wrong. At first she was just pissed, because Mary Louise never stayed up late. Never. Little Miss Goody-Goody always went to bed by eleven, and here it was almost one in the morning and she was sitting on the sofa staring at the television like one of the Living Dead. She didn’t even look up when Kristin opened the door. She just sat there with her mouth open, like she was catching flies.
It was the rose, actually, that Kristin was worried about, which was stupid. What did she think Mary Louise was going to do? Jump up and grab it from her? Demand to know where she’d gotten it? Bite it off its stem and swallow it in a single gulp?
Kristin put her hand around the bud, as if it contained the whole evening. The way he had looked at her as she had told him about the party and about her father and Anna coming, as she slid the invitation across the table. The way his fingers had rested on the creamy paper as he’d smiled, and said, “Thank you, Carina. I have a surprise for you, too. I also want to give you a beautiful gift.”
He’d told her then. And now she wanted to savor it. Alone. Talking to someone, anyone, saying anything at all, would mess it up, like putting your finger in a glass of champagne.
Maybe she could just step back out to the landing, let the door click closed, and come home to bed later, when the apartment was dark. But, to be honest, the idea wasn’t appealing. The building’s front hall smelled like old food and cats. She didn’t want to sit on the stairs in her nice dress, and she had nowhere else to go, and anyway she fucking lived here. She didn’t have to talk to or answer anyone. Screw Mary Louise, who did she think she was anyway?
Kristin closed the door. Mary Louise was so engrossed in whatever was on TV—some inane game show, or the Italian news, read by a lady with a boob job and a trout pout—that she didn’t even glance up. Kristin could slide across the room. Tennyson-Like-the-Poet wouldn’t even notice her.
She’d actually taken a couple of steps and was slipping her heels off so they wouldn’t clack along the floor when she saw the wine bottle. And the tipped-over glass beside Mary Louise’s fat little socked foot. And realized that Mary Louise wasn’t going to bite or grab anything. She wasn’t even going to talk, never mind ask where Kristin had been or where she’d gotten the rose from or why she was so dressed up. Tennyson-Like-the-Poet wasn’t going to say a word, because she was drunk out of her mind.
Kristin stood completely still. The air in the room was heavy. And now that she thought about it, smelled kind of bad. She looked at the sink, piled with dishes. It had been her turn to do them, and she hadn’t. Even so it was weird that Mary Louise hadn’t done them, either. She usually did.
Kristin sidled across the rug and opened the hall door. She went to her room, laid the rose on her bedside table, slipped out of her jacket, kicked off her shoes, and changed into a pair of jeans and her oldest sweater—if she was going to get puked on she didn’t want to ruin any decent clothes.
Back in the living room, Mary Louise hadn’t moved. For a second, Kristin wondered if she was dead. If maybe she’d been dead for a while and rigor mortis had set in while she was sitting there staring at the TV, which might explain how she could watch that stuff, and why her mouth was open. Then she saw the sheen of tears on Mary Louise’s cheeks. And the pile of wadded up toilet paper she’d been using to blow her nose.
Kristin leaned over and switched off the TV.
“ML?”
All the other girls called Mary Louise Mary Louise, but Kristin found it too much of a mouthful. Besides, it made her feel like she was living in Gone With the Wind. She’d always hated that movie. No one else did, but she thought Scarlett was a dope.
“ML?” she asked again. “Are you OK?”
Tennyson-Like-the-Poet nodded. Then she started to howl.
The sound was high and keening, broken by choked snotty sobs. Kristin stood, staring. She had been in boarding school, had done her apprenticeship in drunks, drugs, and fights, but when it came to grief—the genuine slam-your-face-into-the-wall-no-way-around-it pain of loss—she had been the star, and only, performer. Now, looking at Mary Louise, she felt as if somebody had stuck a foot out in front of her, or pushed her from behind, tripping her up. Then, just as quickly, the swoop of irritation was dowsed by recognition. Whatever Mary Louise was feeling, it wasn’t fake, and it wasn’t because she was drunk.
Kristin hovered. She stared at the top of Mary Louise’s head, at the shine of her glossy dark hair and the hunched shudder of her shoulders. She wanted, badly, to be angry—to feel a groundswell of resentment because her perfect evening had been ruined by Miss Goody-Goody. She wanted to tell Mary Louise she was stupid for drinking too much, or watch her throw up so she could feel superior and stalk off down the hall. She wanted not to hear the echo in the raking rhythmic noise Mary Louise was making of Mom-my! Mom-my! Mom-my!
Kristin sat down on the couch. Gingerly, as if the touch might burn, she put her hand on Mary Louise’s shoulder. After a second, Mary Louise snorted. Her round face was scrunched and piggy. She squeezed her eyes and groped for the wad of soggy toilet paper.
“Brad,” she said, finally.
Brad Boyfriend. Kristin had heard all about him. He was a coup
le of years older than Mary Louise. He lived down the street from her and she’d known him since she was six. Brad Boyfriend was tall and blond and, if Kristin had to say so herself, pretty hot, at least for someone like Mary Louise. He’d gone to Ole Miss on a football scholarship, and as soon as she got out of Vassar they were going to get engaged and move in together. Or maybe not.
“He dumped me.” The words came out on a shriek, as if it was the only way she could say them.
Mary Louise forced her eyes open and turned to Kristin. “It’s real,” she said, suggesting Kristin had said it wasn’t. “I mean, it isn’t just a fight. He called me.” She nodded at the apartment’s telephone. “We just spent fucking Christmas together!”
Now she was spitting the words like they were hot and she had to get them out of her mouth. “He was home for Christmas and we spent it together and he never, he never, said anything. But he’s been seeing her, he’s been seeing someone else for, like, a year. He said he wasn’t sure, but after seeing me again, he knows he loves her. They just got an apartment together.”
She screamed the last sentence, then bent forward as if someone had punched her in the gut. Kristin leapt off the couch and grabbed for what had been the fruit bowl and was now sitting on the sink drainer crusted with dried spaghetti sauce, just in time. Mary Louise threw up the bottle of wine, and something else. Maybe Amaretto. Kristin held her head while she retched. She took the bowl away, flushed it, and came back with a cold washcloth that she held on the back of Mary Louise’s neck. This part of boarding school, she’d aced.
It was almost two o’clock in the morning before Mary Louise finally passed out. On the couch, where Kristin covered her with a quilt. Earlier she’d made them toast, and spaghetti. And listened to a bunch of long, rambling stories about Brad, who actually sounded like kind of an asshole. Not that she said so, for once.
The Lost Daughter Page 2
