Notes on a Near-Life Experience

by Olivia Birdsall

  Allen smirks and opens his mouth to say something, but Keatie cuts him off.

  “Can I say grace?” she pleads.

  Like anyone else is going to volunteer.

  I don't shut my eyes while she prays about dogs, families, soccer, and eggs. Instead, I survey the scene. Even though it's a different table, everyone sits in the same places they did at our house, only Paloma sits where Mom usually does. Allen doesn't close his eyes, either; he keeps them fixed on Keatie through the entire prayer.

  While we are eating, quietly and awkwardly, Dad pipes up, “Well, Mia, Paloma was so intrigued by my explanation of your prom while we were shopping the other day that I decided she should see one herself. And your school actually sent out a request for chaperones on the parent e-mail list. So we've volunteered. Paloma and I are going to help chaperone the dance.”

  My jaw drops; I am speechless. My dad is coming to my prom? My dad is coming to my prom? I feel like the kid in that story, the one who put his finger in the dam to keep it from breaking and flooding his town, only it feels like my finger has gotten stuck in the dam, which has burst anyway, and I am drowning.

  “I like very much to dance,” says Paloma, excited to join the conversation. “In Peru I am a dancer in the Ballet Nacional.”

  Paloma is a dancer? Like me? Perfect. I picture myself wearing a tutu and floating facedown in a flooded village while my dad and Paloma drift by in a lifeboat.

  “There is no way you are going to chaperone my prom with your girlfriend,” Allen tells Dad, looking at me as if this is all my fault.

  “Can I come, too?” Keatie begs.

  “I've made a commitment to your school, Allen. And I think that it would be good for me to be more participative when it comes to the lives of my children.”

  “It's a little late for that, Dad,” Allen retorts.

  Paloma looks disappointed, embarrassed. She hangs her head. She dances, like me. Maybe she feels lost in this family, like me, like all of us.

  On one of the first days of ninth grade, all the freshmen had to attend an assembly that was supposed to teach us tactics for surviving in high school. One of the things Ms. Hooten, the vice principal, told us to do was to make lists to stay organized and keep from falling behind in homework or missing important extracurricular events. Sometimes I make lists to remember what I'm supposed to do on a given day or to make sure I have everything in my backpack before I leave for school.

  When I get home, I make a list to make sense of my father and his brunch, to organize everything that seems strange about them in my mind.

  (1) lives in a one-bedroom condo with a Peruvian womanhe has known for a month—even though he is still married to my mother.

  (2) says prayers before he eats—even though he used to grumble when my mother asked him to bless the food or say grace before meals.

  (3) plays the viola.

  (4) wants to go to my prom.

  But some things are too complicated to put on a list, and some I can't put into words at all.

  I'M SUPPOSED TO HAVE AT LEAST A VERSION OF NEXT YEAR'S modern dance competition piece ready by May 15, so that when we audition new girls for the dance team we know whether they can handle it. The thing is, every time I try to work through it, I get distracted.

  I am a minute thirty into the routine when I notice my fingernails. They're dirty. How do nails get dirty if you bathe regularly and you aren't a mechanic or a construction worker? So I have to stop dancing and do my nails, because now that I know they're dirty I can't think of anything else.

  MY RADIO ALARM GOES OFF AND I WAKE TO A DJ DOING AN Arnold Schwarzenegger impression and discussing something political. It's hard to take the government seriously when the Terminator runs your state. I hit the snooze button.

  In the silence, a piece of the dream I was having floats into my head. I was at the prom wearing my mother's wedding dress and my dad was my date; Paloma was there with Julian, wearing my prom dress. Everyone at the dance was wounded, blood soaking their tuxedo shirts and formal dresses. They were all missing pieces of their body. Julian only had one leg, Paloma had a huge hole in her chest, Dad was missing an arm. Half of Kiki Nordgren's face was gone. I was whole, though. I try to remember why. And then it comes back. I wasn't whole. I was missing my entire body. I was a ghost.

  The dream disturbs me. Thinking about it, I realize that I would rather have a gaping bloody wound than be nothing at all.

  Later on, I remember something else: I wasn't just a ghost, I was carrying their missing pieces. Maybe I was the one who had taken them.

  TWO DAYS BEFORE THE PROM I AM IN LISZ'S OFFICE FOR MY weekly appointment. I can't stop thinking about my dream. I feel like a ghost again, only now I feel as if I'm drowning, too. “Can I ask you a question?” I say, pushing the question jar to the side. “Sure,” Lisz says. “Do you think I'm a future serial killer, or a suicide case, or something?” “Mia, you can't be serious.” “I am, though.” “No. I absolutely do not.” “Oh.” I feel relieved, like I've come up for air. “Can I ask you a question?” Lisz asks. “Depends on the question,” I tell her.

  “Why would you think you might be a serial killer?”

  “Well, I had this dream….” I start to tell her. I hesitate, wondering what I should leave out. I realize that I am too tired to leave things out and try to remember them all. So I tell her everything. I tell her about my dream. I tell her about finding Allen hungover. I tell her about Julian and my boobs.

  And she listens.

  “So?” I say when I am finished. “What do you think?”

  “I think you have a lot of weight on your shoulders. Too much. And I think you put some of it there when you don't need to, and I think some other people put it there when they shouldn't.”

  “So what should I do?” I ask. I mean, I finally told the truth, so she got what she wanted. Now she can do her magic or whatever. Now she can give me her answers.

  “That's what we're finally going to be able to figure out,” she tells me.

  “That's it?”

  “For now, that's it. You've got a beginning.” She acts like I've just been crowned Miss America.

  “That's it? A beginning?”

  “I think it's what we've been waiting for,” she says.

  I decide to believe her. For now. I'll give Lisz maybe a chapter a week—not the whole story, but some if it—and I'll see if it works.

  THE MORNING AFTER KEATIE WAS BORN I WORE A T-SHIRT TO school that had the words BIG SISTER on it in big pink letters. I felt like having someone in the family who was younger than me made me a more important part of my family. I finally had someone to take care of, just like everyone else.

  “My mom had our baby,” I announced to my class at school. “Yesterday.”

  My teacher, Ms. Plummer, asked me to wait until announcements to tell the class my “exciting news.”

  When it was time, Ms. Plummer asked me to come to the front of the class to tell about the baby.

  “She has brown hair and she weighs nine pounds and one ounce. And she is going to live at our house.” Ms. Plummer wrote the information on the board.

  “What is your sister's name?” she asked.

  “We don't have one yet. We thought she was a boy. Then when she came out, the doctor saw that she didn't have a—”

  “I see. Well, when you know her name, be sure to let us know. For now we'll just call her Baby.” Ms. Plummer wrote Baby Day on the board above the words brown hair and 9 lbs. 1 oz.

  Mom was so used to having just Allen and me that once, after Keatie was born, she almost forgot about her and left her at home. She got into the car, made sure Allen and I were buckled up, and almost left; luckily, she noticed Keatie's empty car seat when she looked in the rearview mirror while she was backing out. Another reason I need to be better about using my mirrors when I drive, I suppose. If I don't get into the habit, my future children's lives could be at stake.

  For a while after that, I worried that my mom woul
d forget me, too. But I got over it when I talked to Allen about it.

  “Duh, Mia,” he said. “We're the ones she remembered.”

  Thinking about that now, though, thinking about Keatie stuck in front of the music academy and Allen left alone on the sidelines after that disastrous soccer game, I wonder if she has, in some ways, forgotten us.

  I WAKE UP AT ELEVEN AND THERE ARE ALREADY THREE MES-sages on my phone.

  Mom: “Mia, it's me. I had to go into work early this morning, but I wanted to call and find out what time you'd be leaving so I can be there when you and Allen go. And let me know if you need any help getting ready or if you need me to bring anything home. I forgot pantyhose on the night of my prom. Back then, everyone still wore them, so it was a big deal. Call me when you get this, honey.”

  Julian: “Today's the day. I have a few questions for you, so call me.”

  Haley: “Mia, your brother just called and told me that he isn't going to the prom. Please tell me this is some kind of joke.”

  I WALK DOWN THE HALL TO ALLEN'S ROOM. HE ISN'T THERE. I call his cell phone; he doesn't pick up. I leave a message; it takes significant effort for me to restrain myself from screaming into the phone. “Al, it's me. Haley thinks you aren't taking her to the prom anymore. You can't just back out of a prom date the day of the prom. If you need money or something, ask Mom or Dad. And please call me back. And you are taking Haley. Where are you, anyway?”

  I call Mom. I get her voice mail.

  “Hi, this is Maggie Preston….”

  Since when does she go by her maiden name? She's not even divorced yet.

  “I can't take your call right now, but if you'll leave your name and phone number, I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

  If your call is urgent, press zero and you'll be forwarded to my assistant.” Instead of a beep, there's an odd medley of ringing bells.

  “Mom, it's me. I'm getting ready at Haley's. We'll take pictures, okay? Have you seen Allen? I can't find him, and I need to talk to him about tonight. Bye.”

  I call Julian. “Allen's gone. And he told Haley he isn't going to prom.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You do?”

  “He was over here last night and he got pretty crazy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don't know. I'm not getting into this. You should just talk to Al yourself.”

  What? Since when was Julian so…diplomatic?

  “Oh. Right. What was I thinking, asking you? I mean, we aren't friends or anything. We just hang out once in a while and make out sometimes. Why would I ever presume to ask you about my brother?”

  “Are you kidding? C'mon, Meems. Any time I say anything about Allen's problems, you make some excuse or say that I must be wrong.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “Okay. I must've misinterpreted things. I'm really tired.

  Can I call you later?” “Sure. Whatever. I've got a million things to do, too.” “All right, then I'll talk to you later. Bye.” “See ya.”

  I call Haley.

  “Thank goodness it's you!” she exclaims when she answers the phone. “What is going on? Please tell me that I am still going to the prom.”

  “I'm working on that.”

  “What is it, Mia? Has he been drinking? Is it something else?”

  “I don't know. I have no idea what the deal is. He freaked out when my dad told us he was going to chaperone the dance, but I didn't think he would—”

  “Have you talked to your mom about what he's been doing?”

  “Are you kidding? What am I supposed to say? Look, it'll work out. I know he's not really going to skip the prom; he wouldn't do that to you. I'm going to come over in an hour to get ready. It's going to be fine.”

  “You always think everything is going to be fine. Sometimes it isn't.”

  “Well, this time it is.”

  “I hope so. I'll see you in an hour.”

  I HEAR THE MOVIE PLAYING BEFORE I SEE IT.

  “Another round please, bartender.” Allen's slurred voice floats from the TV.

  Keatie is at it again, watching home movies.

  This one is of all of us cleaning up after a New Year's Eve party my parents threw a few years ago. Allen has picked up some empty champagne bottles, one in each hand, and is pretending to be drunk. He staggers around the room.

  “Whoa, this room is really spinning,” he says, pretending to take another drink from the bottle as he stumbles around the room. “Guess I don't have my sea legs yet.”

  I grab the remote from Keatie and turn off the TV.

  “Hey,” she says. “I was watching that.”

  “Would you stop watching those stupid movies?” I

  shout. “What's wrong with you?” I throw the remote on the couch and stomp back to my room.

  THE GUYS ARE SUPPOSED TO PICK US UP IN TWO HOURS, AND I am beginning to panic. Not that it's ever taken me that long to get ready for anything in my entire life. Haley and I are wearing bathrobes; we've just finished painting our toenails.

  “Haley, do you have time to do that thing with my hair where you make those spiral curls… you know, like what's-her-name from that movie?”

  “I thought you were wearing it straight.”

  “Well, now I wonder if curly hair would be sexier.”

  “Meems, my hair is still wet. Do you realize this?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “But what?” She begins to dry her hair with a towel. “You know, you've been acting like this whole night is about you, Mia. This is my prom, too. Did you bother to come with me to pick out my dress? No, you didn't. I had to take a cold shower because you were in there forever and you used all the hot water. I agree to go to the prom with your brother, and now he may not even show up. And all you can think about is your hair. I'm supposed to be your best friend, Mia, and you're treating me like I'm your maid.”

  I haven't seen Haley this upset since the time her mom made her start eating red meat again because she was iron deficient. I feel like a total jerk.

  “Haley…I'm so sorry. I didn't realize…”

  “You don't realize a lot of things. At least, you act like you don't. And I'm not just talking about the way you've been acting like you're the star of prom. I'm talking about your family crap, too.” She rubs the towel against her head so vigorously that it looks like she's trying to start a fire.

  “Look, I'm sorry about the prom stuff. I've been a total brat, you're right. Let's just drop it and start over…. I'll do my own hair. And you should be careful with that towel, you're not going to have any hair left when you finish.” I give Haley the most apologetic look I can muster.

  “You're damned right, you'll do your own hair.” She puts down the towel, goes to the bathroom across the hall from her room, gets out a hair dryer, turns it on, and shuts the door.

  I decide to leave her alone for a while.

  I call Julian to ask him if he's heard from Allen.

  “We're picking up your flowers right now. Al's a little, uh, funny, but everything's going to work out.”

  Allen gets on the phone. “Tell Haley that I am going to

  show her the time of her life,” he says, slurring his words. I can hear Julian struggling to take the phone back. “We'll be there at six-thirty or so.” “Okay…. Are you sure everything's all right?” “No. But we'll be there at six-thirty. See you then.” I remember what Lisz told me during our appointment

  this week.

  “Ignoring a problem will never make it go away, Mia. Sooner or later things come to a head. Sooner or later you have to deal with them.”

  Things can come to a head tomorrow. “Tonight I am a princess,” I repeat to myself over and over again, until I realize it sounds crazy.

  When Haley comes out of the bathroom, she seems re

  laxed. I decide not to mention the explosion. She sits down in front of her mirror and starts to do her

  makeup. I decide to do my h
air myself, but after seven minutes of struggling with the curling iron, I'm ready to give up. “Okay, princess,” Haley says (she couldn't have heard

  that, could she?), “let's do your hair like what's-her-name's.” “Thank you.” Haley does my hair; I help her with her makeup; things

  seem normal again.

  At six-twenty we put our dresses on and Haley's mom takes pictures of us; I almost call my mom to tell her to come and see us and take pictures, too, but then I remember about the dress. Haley's mom tells me I look beautiful, but it's not the same.

  SIX-FIFTY-TWO P.M. ALLEN AND JULIAN ARRIVE TO PICK UP Haley and me. Allen is wearing a powder blue tuxedo.

  “I tried to talk him out of it,” Julian tells us.

  “This is a rock star suit,” Allen says, “and Haley is my supermodel date.”

  Haley's mom gives us a confused look. We both shrug.

  “I promise to take excellent care of your daughter. And I will tell you right now that I do not plan on trying to seduce her,” Allen tells her.

  “Well… thank you …” She looks worried.

  “He's just kidding, Mom,” Haley tells her.

  Her mom snaps some pictures and tells us three times before we leave to have fun and be careful.

  WE EAT DINNER AT A FANCY FRENCH RESTAURANT. Al Orders escargots and makes us all try one. They're actually pretty good, a little garlicky, though. He tries to order a bottle of wine, too. But the waiter doesn't go for it.

  “Maybe in a few years,” he tells Allen.

  Haley keeps looking at me funny throughout dinner. I check to make sure my boobs aren't falling out of my dress or anything. I give her “What?” looks, but I can't figure out what she's trying to say.

  We get lost on the way to the dance because it's being held at a reception center nobody's ever been to before. We arrive just after the king and queen have been crowned. Kiki Nordgren rushes by us in tears, so I assume she didn't win.