Wintergirls

by Laurie Halse Anderson

  “You look tired,” she says.

  “Pot calling the kettle black,” I say.

  Dr. Chloe Marrigan wears her fatigue like a suit of armor. To be the best, you have to give everything all the time, then you have to give some more: hundred-hour weeks, crushing patient loads, working miracles the way other people flip burgers. But tonight she looks worse than usual. I don’t remember seeing those lines around her mouth. Her corn-yellow hair is tamed into a tight French braid, but a few strands of silver hair flash in the candlelight. The skin on her face used to be tight as a drum. Now it’s sagging a little at her neck.

  Dad tries to make small talk again. “Was it an emergency surgery?”

  She nods. “Quintuple bypass. The guy was a mess.”

  “Will he make it?” Dad asks.

  She puts her pager next to Jennifer’s dirty fork. “Doubtful.” She measures the three bites of turkey left on my plate and the bread crumbs that I scattered next to it. “Lia looks pale. Has she been eating?”

  “Of course she has,” Dad says.

  It took her seven sentences to piss me off. That’s an Olympic-qualifying accomplishment. I lock my mouth, stand up, pick up my plate, pick up my father’s plate, and walk out of the room.

  Jennifer and Emma are at the kitchen table, a stack of flash cards between them so the quizzing of division facts can continue. I load the dishwasher as slowly as I can and signal the answers to Emma by drawing numbers in the air behind Jennifer’s back.

  Dad calls to me from the dining room. “Lia, come back in here, please.”

  “Good luck,” Jennifer murmurs as I leave the room.

  “Thanks.”

  I put Emma’s silverware on her plate, but Dad says, “Don’t worry about the dishes. We need to talk.”

  Talk = yell + scold + argue + demand.

  Dr. Marrigan pushes up the sleeves of her green silk turtleneck. Her nails are short and polish-free, the magic fingers connected to the hands connected to the forearms roped with steel muscle and tendons that lead to shoulders, neck, and bionic brain. Her fingertips drum the table. “Sit down, please,” she says.

  I sit.

  Daddy: Your mother has a concern.

  Mom: It’s more than a concern.

  Lia: About?

  Daddy: I told her that you’ve been fine since we got the news.

  Lia: He’s right.

  Mom, spine not touching the back of her chair: I’m afraid Cassie’s death might trigger you. The research shows—

  Lia: I’m not a lab rat.

  Mom glances at the blank screen of her pager, hoping it will go off.

  Lia: We stopped talking months ago.

  Mom: You were best friends for nine years. Not talking for a couple months doesn’t make that go away.

  Lia stares at a stain in the tablecloth.

  Daddy: Do you know how she died?

  Mom, taking a roll from the basket: Cindy will call me when the autopsy results come in. I offered to explain them to her.

  Daddy: I bet it will show drugs.

  Mom: Maybe, but that’s not the point. The point is Lia.

  Emma walks in to say good night, her eyes puffy. Dad kisses her; Dr. Marrigan gives her a clinical smile. I hug her close and whisper that long division is a stupid poop-head. She giggles and squeezes me tight, then runs up to take her bath. Jennifer stands with her back to Dr. Marrigan and me and asks her husband some lame questions about the garbage pickup tomorrow and his socks in the dryer, little homey details to remind Wife Number One who wears the diamond ring around here.

  I brush the crumbs from the tablecloth into my hand. Drugs didn’t kill Cassie, not unless it was a couple of bottles of aspirin. Or she drank vodka until she fell into a coma. Or she cut too deep. Or maybe someone else killed her, some bad guy who followed her and stole her purse and emptied her checking account.

  No, that would have been in the newspaper.

  I should have asked Elijah what he saw, what the police really said. I should have told him my name. But, no. I don’t know who he is, not really. What if he lied about having an alibi, what if the police think he’s a suspect? And what kind of guy lives in a creepy motel? Maybe he was a figment of my imagination. The whole day could have been a blackout dream I spun for myself because admitting that I spent the whole day in bed is pathetic.

  Doubtful.

  Poof! Jennifer vanishes again.

  Mom, taking roll out of basket: I can’t go to the wake because of work. Are you going?

  Dad: It might be awkward. I haven’t talked to them in years.

  Lia: I’ll go.

  Mom: Absolutely not. You’re emotionally fragile. I’ll pay our respects at the funeral on Saturday.

  Lia: But you just made a big deal about how long Cassie and me were friends.

  Dad: Your mother is right. It’ll upset you too much.

  Lia: I’m not upset.

  Mom: I don’t believe you. I want you to see Dr. Parker more frequently. At least once a week, maybe more.

  Lia, quietly: No. It’s a waste of time and money.

  Dad: What do you mean?

  Lia: Dr. Parker is dragging out my therapy so she can keep getting paid.

  Mom, picking out bits of grain from roll: You’re alive because of Dr. Parker.

  Lia, bleeding where they can’t see: Stop exaggerating.

  Mom, dropping crumbs: She’s slipping back into denial, David. Why are you letting this happen? You’re not supporting her recovery, you’re letting it go up in flames.

  Dad: What are you talking about? We’re a hundred percent supportive, aren’t we, Lia?

  Mom, acid-eyes: You coddle her, you let her call the shots.

  Dad, louder: Did you just say we coddle her?

  They leap into battle, the steps to the dance burned into their muscle memory. I pull a candle close to me and push the soft wax at the top of it into the blue flame.

  My parents met at a midsummer’s party by a lake in the mountains. Dad was finishing up his PhD and knew the guy who owned the cabin. Mom had a rare night off between her internship and residency. She and her friends were looking for a different party and got lost.

  When I was a real girl, they would cuddle with me on the couch and tell me the fairy-tale version of how they fell in love:

  Once upon a time, on the shores of a purple lake so deep it had no bottom, a man saw a lady with long golden hair walking barefoot in the sand. The lady heard the man singing sweetly and playing the guitar. It was fate that their paths should cross.

  They paddled a canoe to the middle of the water and laughed. The moon saw how beautiful they were and how much in love, and gave them a baby for their very own. Just then, the canoe sprung a leak and started to sink. They had to paddle hard, hard, hard, but they made it to shore just in time.

  They named the baby Lia and lived happily ever after.

  The skin on the edge of my thumb rests on the cusp between safety and flame.

  The real story is not poetic. Mom got pregnant. Dad married her. They couldn’t stand each other by the time I was born. They were random gods who mated by a wine-dark sea. They should have turned me into a fish or a flower when they had the chance.

  Mom: She looks like hell. I want her to move back with me until she graduates.

  Dad, throwing napkin on table: Oh, for Christ’s sake, Chloe . . .

  The two of them will fight forever.

  I blow out the candle.

  Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses PLAY.

  When she falls asleep, I flip through the channels one after the other after the other.

  Dr. Marrigan leaves an hour later, without bothering to come up and say good night or notice that I haven’t unpacked most of my boxes or see what a good almost-sister I ca
n be. The front door closes hard with a muffled whoomp that pushes air against all the windows. Professor Overbrook bolts the door and sets the security system. I turn out the princess light next to the bed. Emma breathes through her open mouth.

  Ghosts dare not enter here. I fall asleep with my head on a raggedy elephant.

  020.00

  “Wake up, Lia!” Emma shouts in my ear. “You’re going to be late! You’re going to be in trouble.”

  I’m under Emma’s tie-dyed comforter, my head on the elephant. Her room smells like dryer sheets and cats.

  “Don’t go back to sleep again!”

  “What day is it?” I ask.

  “You know,” she says.

  Today is waking Wednesday.

  History class is a genocide lecture, ending with ten minutes of photographs of Polish children killed by the Germans in World War II. A couple of girls cry and the guys who usually make smart-ass remarks stare out the windows. Our Trig teacher is deeply, deeply disappointed in our last test results. We have anothermovie in Physics: An Introduction to Momentum and Collision. My English teacher flips out because the government is demanding we take yet another test to assess our reading skills, because we’re seniors and pretty soon we might have to read or something.

  I eat in my car: diet soda (0) + lettuce (15) + 8 tablespoons salsa (40) + hard-boiled egg white (16) = lunch (71).

  Two minutes before the buzzer sounds to set us free at the end of the day, the loudspeaker orders me to see the counselor, Ms. Rostoff, in the conference room. Most of the girls’ soccer team is there, too, along with Cassie’s friends from the stage crew and a couple of girls from the musical. Mira, my study partner from sophomore Spanish, waves to me when I walk in. She was in our Girl Scout troop when we were little.

  We are here to share our feelings and discuss a memorial to Cassie’s memory, “so her spirit will live on.” The room is freezing.

  Ms. Rostoff has boxes of tissues decorated with kittens lined up on the table. Two gallons of discount-store red punch and tiny paper cups are arranged in a lovely display next to the plate of generic black-and-white cookies. Ms. Rostoff believes in the healing power of snacks. She loves me better than anybody because I am such a mess I have to see a real shrink in the real world, and I have to go to the college where my dad teaches, so advising me took two minutes.

  The drama girls take over the beat-up couch and the rug in front of it. The soccer team wheels in spinny chairs from the conference room. I sit on the floor near the door, my back against the heating vent.

  While we wait for stragglers, the soccer team complains about not getting enough time in the weight room, and the drama girls whine about the new director, a prima donna who has confused our school with Broadway. I measure myself; I can’t act or play soccer, and most of them have better grades than me. But I am the thinnest girl in the room, hands down.

  There is an awkward pause between stories and the room gets too quiet. Someone farts softly. The heat comes on.

  I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know how anybody does it, waking up every morning and eating and moving from the bus to the assembly line, where the teacherbots inject us with Subject A and Subject B, and passing every test they give us. Our parents provide the list of ingredients and remind us to make healthy choices: one sport, two clubs, one artistic goal, community service, no grades below a B, because really, nobody’s average, not around here. It’s a dance with complicated footwork and a changing tempo.

  I’m the girl who trips on the dance floor and can’t find her way to the exit. All eyes on me.

  Ms. Rostoff looks at her watch. It keeps better time than the clock on the wall. “All right, girls.”

  A drama raises her hand—BMI 20. Maybe 19.5. Her sneakers are painted, one with an impossibly small checkerboard of a thousand colors, the other with yellow happy faces alternating with black skulls. “Ms. Rostoff? Can we have a moment of silence?”

  Ms. Rostoff calculates. Will our parents scream at the school board if she allows a religious ritual in her office? Or will they scream if she denies us our freedom of religious expression?

  “Is everyone interested in that?”

  We nod, the strings attached to our heads twitching.

  “Okay then.” She looks at her watch again. “A moment for Cassie.”

  Drama and soccer bow their heads. I do, too. I am supposed to pray, I think. I can never tell with moments of silence. They’re so . . . silent. Empty.

  Somebody sniffs and pulls a tissue from the box. I peek out through my eyelashes. Mira’s eyes are closed tight and her lips are moving. A girl I’ve never seen before wipes her face with a dirty Kleenex from her pocket. A soccer player pulls out her phone to read a text. Ms. Rostoff rubs her artificial nails against her thumb, then checks her watch again.

  “Thank you, everyone.”

  Sheestablishes the parameters of our discussion. We will not talk about how Cassie died, or why, or where, or who in this room could have done something to stop her or at least slow her down. We’re here to celebrate her life.

  thirty-three calls.

  Ms. Rostoff has already arranged for a memorial page in the yearbook, and she wrote an obituary for the school newspaper. The soccer team says they are dedicating the rest of their season to Cassie, both weeks of it. The theater girls want to take a moment just before the musical starts, when the houselights go out and the stage is black, to light up a single rose in a vase at the center of the stage while the chorus sings “Amazing Grace,” and then the star of the play will read a poem about the tragedy of dying too soon.

  The idea gets trimmed down to the rose in the spotlight for a minute and a mention in the play bulletin.

  “What about Lia?” Mira leans forward to see me better. “Do you want to do something special? You guys were best friends.”

  Were.

  “These are all great ideas,” my lips say. “But I think Ms. Rostoff should talk to Cassie’s parents. Get their opinion.”

  Diversion successful. The counselor talks about the family’s loss and how we can support them and how we have to be there for each other and how her door is always open and the tissue boxes always full. Before we leave, the soccer captain reminds the team to wear their uniforms to tonight’s wake. Mira says everyone from the play will go in black.

  021.00

  I am wearing navy blue tights under a stained pair of baggy jeans, a long underwear shirt, a turtleneck, a hoodie sweatshirt I stole from my father’s closet, and my jacket, with a surprise for Cassie buried deep in the left pocket. And mittens. Not what you wear to a wake.

  I tell Jennifer I won’t be home for dinner because I have to do research at the library with stupid primary sources, which means I have to use an actual book that has probably been touched by a hundred thousand strangers carrying God knows what mutant strains of virus.

  It is such a bad lie I’m sure she’ll bust me for it, but she’s up to her elbows in papier-mâché helping Emma make a Greek temple.

  My car parks at the library. I hurry the two blocks to the church, keeping my head down and my hair in my face. The sun set an hour ago. Cold air blows in with the smell of burning leaves and dead things piled onto bonfires. Red-and-green Christmas decorations are hung on the streetlights and in all the stores.

  I can feel the shadows slipping out of the dark, coming for me.

  Last time I was locked up, the hospital shrink had me draw a life-sized outline of my body. I chose a fat crayon the color of elephant skin or a rainy sidewalk. He unrolled the paper on the floor, butcher’s paper that crinkled when I leaned on it. I wanted to draw my thighs, each the size of a couch, on his carpet. The rolls on my butt and my gut would rumble over the floor and splash up against the walls; my boobs, beach balls; my arms, tubes of cookie dough oozing at the seams.

  The doc would have been horrified. All his work, gone, in the endless loop of snot-gray crayon. He would have called my parents and there would be more consultations (meter run
ning, thousands of insurance dollars ticking away), and he would have adjusted my meds again, one pill to make my self-of-steam larger, another to make my craziness small.

  So I drew a blobby version of me, a fraction of my real size, fingers and toes accounted for, stones in my belly, cute earrings, ponytail.

  He pulled another long sheet of paper from the roll and had me lay down on it so he could draw the outside of me, life-sized. The crayon hugged my bones tight and it made me shiver. He did not dare approach my inner thighs. He did not speculate about the size or condition of my interior organs.

  I pulled a magazine off the table while he taped the drawings to the wall. It was a trigger magazine, strategically placed to send sparks into the air that could catch fire and burn clean away the craziness of hispatients.

  Even the ugly people in the magazine were beautiful.

  “Look up here,” he said. “What differences do you see, Lia?”

  Truth? They were both hideous waxy ghosts on butcher paper. I knew what he wanted to hear. He couldn’t stand me being sick. Nobody can. They only want to hear that you’re healing, you’re in recovery, taking it one day at a time. If you’re locked into sick, you should stop wasting their time and just get dead.

  “Lia?” he asked again.

  The $$$$ were ticking away.

  I recited my lines. “The picture I drew is bloated and unrealistic. I guess I have to work on my self-perception a little more.”

  He smiled.

  I had figured out that my eyes were broken long before that. But that day I started to worry that the people in charge couldn’t see, either.