The Edge Of The Sky

by Drusilla Campbell

  She tried the intellectual approach, Problem Solving IA. “What do you think he wants?”

  “How should I know?”

  Okay, try being friendly. “You must be curious.”

  “So?” Micki picked at the green polish on her nails, peeling it off in sheets. Lana wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled.

  “Got any ideas?”

  “Rape. Drugs.”

  “Oh.” Lana swallowed and ground her teeth into a smile. “Are you interested?”

  “Ma-a.”

  “Give me a sensible answer, Micki. What do you think he wants?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Don’t be rude.”

  “What do you expect when you—”

  “I expect you to keep a civil tongue in your mouth.” So much for being nonconfrontational. I sound like Stella. Somewhere—in one of the many parenting books she had resorted to for guidance during the last year—Lana had read: with teens, pick your battles. What the article left out was that it took inhuman self-control to do it.

  “You must have some thoughts. You must wonder what he wants.”

  “Why do you have to make such a big deal out of it?” Micki expelled a sigh and a groan on the same breath. “I think he just . . . wants to talk, Ma. I don’t think he’s a sex maniac.”

  Lana poured soap in the dishwasher, closed it, and turned the knob. The water rushed in and she imagined what it would be like to be small and trapped inside, drowning, with all that scalding water churning and knocking her sideways.... She felt like she had just described her life.

  Micki said, “You remember that man who used to live next to Tiff, had the birds and all like that? Well, he used to try to get Tiff and me to go in his backyard.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “Calm down, Ma. Jeez.” Micki patted her hand on the air.

  “You should have told me. Tiff’s mom—”

  “We never went.”

  “I would hope not.”

  “Ma-a, let me make my point, will you? This guy, the Jaguar guy, he’s not like that. He’s never even asked me to go for a ride. Or even to sit in the car.”

  This information, intended to reassure Lana, only made her more anxious. Whoever this Eddie was and whatever his motives, he was not stupid. She stood listening to the shush of water in the dishwasher.

  She sat at the table beside Micki. “You know, even if this Eddie is harmless, if he keeps hanging around I’m going to have to call the police and tell them he’s stalking you.”

  “That is so unfair!” Red-faced, Micki stood up and began to thrash around the kitchen, slamming drawers. Gala stood in the doorway watching her a moment and then slunk away to a safer part of the house. “I don’t know why I ever tell you anything—”

  Lana didn’t know what to say.

  “You could like, ruin his whole life,” Micki went on.

  “It doesn’t have to happen, Mick.”

  “You just said—”

  “If you ignore him, he’ll go away and then I won’t have to do anything at all.”

  Did Micki have a larger role to play in this than Lana had first imagined? Did Eddie see in Micki what Lana saw? The wild wire in her, the sparks of reckless fire in her eyes? And how conscious was Micki of this quality in herself? Lana tried to remember when she had first become aware of her sexual power and all she recalled for sure was that she had been older than fifteen. But Micki was a television child, a movie kid. Had she learned from media what her body did not yet understand?

  “I know all this strikes you as paranoid, but I’m doing what a mother has to do, Micki. It’s my job.” And I’m not very good at it. I never had to be, before. “Ignore him and the problem will go away.”

  “Are you saying this is my fault? You are so—you just don’t get it.”

  Micki tugged hard on her hair. Lana’s skull hurt.

  “He’s not old, you know. He’s only like thirty or something.”

  “There are a lot of thirty-year-old men in prison for messing with underaged girls.”

  Micki drew a snarl of breath.

  “I will ground you unless you promise not to talk to him.”

  “You don’t even believe in grounding. You told me—”

  “There are times.”

  Her cheeks flamed. “You are such a bitch.”

  “Don’t speak to me—”

  “Just because you’re my mother, not even my real mother, you think you can make all these rules and I have to follow them like some kind of slave or something.”

  Not even my real mother. This was the big gun, the cruise missile, nuclear warhead. No, a kind of germ warfare that hit Lana’s bloodstream, went straight to her heart and broke it. There was something about those nine months, the physical carrying of a life, that held sacred magic for an adopted child and elevated and sanctified even the most neglectful mother. Here she was, Lana Porter, who had done all the schlepping and cleaning up and worrying and yet she would always feel second-best to some hot pants, irresponsible fifteen-year-old.

  Well, shit, maybe she was. That unknown teenager might have known how to handle this situation better than she. There were gentle ways to manage difficult conversations—Lana just didn’t know any of them. She was like Godzilla crushing whole city blocks beneath her feet. Having started that way, she might as well flatten the whole damn town.

  “Right now, Micki, I’m the only mother you’ve got and I’m telling you that if you don’t do as I say, I will personally lock you in your bedroom and keep you there for as long as it takes.”

  Micki opened her mouth.

  “No more talking.”

  Micki stared at her, no doubt thinking up a killer riposte. Then she shrugged, rolled her eyes, and walked out of the kitchen. “Whatever.”

  Lana looked down at her hands on the oak table. Trembling, of course. She wanted to thrash Micki, lock her in a convent cell, feed her bread and water until she swore to be agreeable.

  What had ever made Lana think she would be good at motherhood? And where the hell was Jack when she needed him?

  That night the wind shifted and clouds rolled in off the ocean. Near dawn a veil of misty rain began to fall, and Lana awoke early with the weight of the long, gray day pressing down on her. She dragged herself out of bed and stood in a hot shower for ten minutes until she felt half alive. At breakfast Beth did homework as if she had not been in the library until it closed at ten the night before, and Micki sulked with a lip that could trip a trailer.

  It was bliss to leave the house and get to work.

  Lana intended to call Stella from work and talk about the Hollywood Cafe, but business at Urban Greenery was surprisingly brisk for a gray, midweek day; during the slow periods she worked in the back, ignoring the misty rain, down on her knees in the damp soil of the herb garden, her choppy nerves calmed by the smell of the dirt and pungent plants. By closing time, when she thought about her mother again, she was too tired to call her.

  On the way home, she detoured for stops at the market and the dry cleaners; a true rain was falling as she put the car in the garage. She turned off the engine and sat a moment, crossing off lines on her to-do list and adding a couple of new things. When she could postpone it no longer, she dashed through the downpour into the house.

  “Where have you been?” Beth’s strident voice and the sight of her corded neck set off alarm bells in Lana.

  “I called the job and Carmino said you left hours ago. Why didn’t you have your cell on? Ma, the list went up today.”

  Lana dropped the grocery bags and dry cleaning on the oak table. “She didn’t make it?”

  Beth shook her head.

  Rage hit Lana so hard it seemed to have velocity. She jerked the kettle off the stove and stuck it under a blast of water. She was going to need coffee. And food. Something starchy and satisfying like a cheese sandwich. But wine first.

  “Tell me everything.” She put the heat on under the kettle and went
into the pantry for a bottle of Merlot.

  “Tiff was on the list, Ma.”

  Lana stopped and turned. She knew what she had heard, but she did not believe it.

  “Tiffany Watson got a bid and Mick didn’t?”

  “Are you listening?” Beth’s forehead shone with sweat. “That’s what I said.”

  Lana pulled a chair away from the table and sank into it. She dragged the cork out of the Merlot and drank right out of the bottle.

  “Ma-a!” cried Beth, appalled.

  Beth handed her a glass and Lana absently filled it to the top.

  “When I heard, I said she should meet me at the courts and we’d go right home,” Beth said. “I knew she wouldn’t want to hang around. But she didn’t show up so I came home and she was already here. . . .” Beth held out her hands in a gesture of hopelessness. “Ma, she won’t even talk to me.”

  “Why’d it happen? I thought she was a sure thing.”

  “I heard it was cuz of New Year’s. How crazy she got.”

  Lana took a slug of wine. “God damn those Fives.”

  Beth’s blue eyes were suddenly wary. “Are you okay?”

  “No. I’m not. I’m so fucking mad I can hardly breathe.”

  “It’s just a club, right? Isn’t that what you always say? How come now—”

  “I can’t go up there.” She was talking to herself. “Not yet.” She could not let Micki see how much she, too, had counted on The Fives accepting her. The Fives would get her mind off the Jaguar man; The Fives would give Micki a sense of belonging and she would stop nagging about public school. Her life—all of their lives—had been so miserable for the last year. Didn’t any of them get a break? Ever? “I’ll make her some soup.”

  Lana was sure she’d been goofy with hope. How else could she explain counting on a handful of teenage girls doing the right thing? The most useless race of creatures known to history. She swallowed wine without tasting. Before she could talk to Micki she had to get beyond feeling as if she were falling headfirst into a bottomless, scalding darkness.

  Beth said, “You’re not going to get drunk, are you?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, when have I—” She stopped herself when she saw the mote of panic in Beth’s eyes. She touched her daughter’s arm. “You’re right, it’s just a club and if this had happened to anyone but Micki . . . Just give me a few minutes.”

  Beth said, “Why’d she even want to be a Five anyhow?”

  Lana drew a deep breath and her head spun. She had not had that much wine, but then again she had gone without lunch so what did she expect? She stood and put her arms around her solid and reliable daughter. For just a moment she let herself be supported by the tensile strength of her young body, already so much like Jack’s—wide, straight shoulders, strong, muscular back. She stepped away and patted Beth’s cheek.

  “Thank you, Bethy.”

  “For what?”

  “Being you.”

  Beth looked as if she were about to say something but changed her mind.

  “Get me a tray, will you? The one with the roses on it.”

  Preparing soup and arranging a tray with crackers and a handful of Oreo cookies took about ten minutes. Beth sat at the table and watched Lana as if she expected disaster at any moment.

  “Order a pizza while I’m upstairs,” Lana said. “I think we need a big one with everything on it.”

  “Even anchovies?”

  “You bet. One quarter anchovies.”

  “Ma-a.”

  “Actually, tell them I want double anchovies.”

  “That is so gross,” Beth said as she picked up the phone and dialed the number of the pizzeria. She knew it by heart.

  Lana carried the tray upstairs with Gala tagging behind. The patter of rain was hard on the roof and Lana felt trapped inside the house, inside her life like that small person she had imagined in the dishwasher. She did not want to have another fire-and-fury conversation with Micki. She wanted Jack to take the tray from her and say he’d handle things from now on. Instead, she passed through Micki’s room and looked onto the balcony that ran along the back of the house. Micki sat on the weather-beaten, plastic-wicker loveseat, bundled in her duvet, the pink angora watch cap Lana had knitted pulled down over her ears and eyebrows. After a long cry, her mouth looked bruised and overripe. She was smoking. The ashtray on the glass-topped wicker table brimmed with ash and butts.

  “Put that out and come inside. I’ve brought you some soup.” A curtain of rain blew across the covered balcony, wetting Lana’s ankles. “You’ll catch pneumonia out here.”

  “I don’t see why I can’t smoke.” Micki stared across the balcony. “My life is over anyway.”

  “I guarantee you’ll recover.”

  “Why do you always say stuff like that? Like it’s a joke?”

  Because I don’t know how to talk to you, because I love you so much my tongue gets tied in knots and I’m afraid if I tell you the truth—that this was cruel and unfair and you will hurt for as long as it takes—I’ll only make things worse. “Trust me, you will recover, Micki. Now come and eat and let’s talk a while.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Force yourself.”

  “Or what? I’ll die? Big fucking deal.”

  Lana reminded herself to choose her battles and that swearing was one of Micki’s techniques for derailing a conversation. Lana took the half-smoked cigarette from her and ground it out in the ashtray, turning her head away from the stink.

  “You are fifteen. Smoking is a crime if you’re under eighteen.” She held up her hand, palm out. “And don’t tell me it’s no BFD. The way you talk to your friends is your business, but when you’re with me—”

  “You cuss all the time. You and Mars and Wendy. And anyway, I don’t have any friends.”

  “Honey, you have lots of friends. This thing with The Fives—”

  “You just don’t get it.” Micki sprang off the loveseat, uncoiling like a snake. Reflexively, Lana stepped back. “You think this is some kind of cheese-ass girls’ club like in Nancy Drew or something. But it isn’t, Ma. This is my entire life in high school. Totally fucked.”

  “Micki,” Lana warned.

  “See? That’s what I mean. This is the worst day of my life and all you can do is tell me not to swear.”

  “I didn’t tell you not to swear. I just . . .” Lana took a breath and looked out through the rain at the backyard. It fell straight now, glistening in the balcony light like strands of tinsel on a tree. She pressed down on the balls of her feet and said in her mind the names of the flowers that would bloom in her garden in a few weeks. Pansies. Johnny-jump-ups. Reciting the innocent names calmed her. The Carolina jasmine on the alley wall was already a cloudy mass of bright yellow blossoms. She could not see it now, but it was there, as it had been every January for a dozen years, as it would be next year.

  She touched her daughter’s shoulder. When Micki didn’t flinch or pull away, she drew her close.

  Micki stiffened against her and then something seemed to break loose and she began to cry. Pressing her face into the curve of Lana’s throat, she sobbed, first gently and then with wet, gagging pain, her slender frame convulsed in grief. Lana held her closer, as if by doing so she could break the barrier between them and they would understand each other.

  Micki tugged away and, avoiding Lana’s eyes, went into her bedroom and threw herself on the bed, folding her arms over her face.

  “Talk to me.” Lana laid the tray beside her and sat.

  “About what?”

  “The list, Micki. The list.”

  “We all thought it was going up on Friday.” Micki sniffled and rubbed her nose against her bare forearm. “Tiff kept sending me notes saying she knew I’d get chosen and she wouldn’t and would I still be her friend when I was a Five and she wasn’t. She made me promise all this shit.” Micki sat up, drew her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. “And there were these, like, rumors going aroun
d about how this year they only chose three because there weren’t enough good candidates or they weren’t choosing any at all.”

  A jury of Lana’s peers, mothers like herself, would never find her guilty if she strangled the breath out of every Five.

  “Eat some.” Lana handed her the cup and Micki sipped the chicken noodle soup reluctantly, as if it were a strange brew and not good old reliable Campbell’s.

  “And then Marybeth Cooper stuck her head in the door right when Miss Young was talking about Martin Luther King and she’s all yelling, ‘The list’s up! The list’s up!’ And Sophie Winslow jumped right out of her seat and went and looked. . .” Micki sighed and said nothing for a time. “It was tacked up in the little kids’ locker room. How dumb is that?”

  Micki finished the soup and cookies. Lana carried the tray to the computer desk Jack had built for Micki’s tenth birthday when she got her own PC and printer. He had spent hours in his garage workroom, the mosquito sound of the sander skimming the birch boards he’d chosen so carefully.

  She set it down. “What about Tiff?”

  “She jumped up and down like she’d won the lottery or something. It was so embarrassing. She’s a Five. Big deal.” Micki pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I don’t want to talk, I just want to die. I can’t go back to that school again.” She grabbed Lana’s wrist. “I’m not kidding, Ma. I can’t do it. I’d be like totally mortified.”

  Lana certainly knew what it was like to want to pack up her life and move it somewhere new and anonymous.

  “Can I go to Balboa?”

  “We’ll talk about it later, Mick. Now’s not the time.”

  “You always say that.”

  Lana stood up and closed the balcony door. “What you need is a long bath. With candles and smelly stuff and—” The suggestion was such a platitude, Lana couldn’t even finish the sentence.

  Micki dragged her comforter up from the foot of the bed and rolled herself into it. She looked, Lana thought, like a pink caterpillar.

  “Micki, what can I do? Let me help you.”