My Life Undecided

by Jessica Brody

  And there she goes. Talking about the ever perfect, ever wise, ever brilliant Isabelle Pierce. I immediately tune her out, focusing my mind on better things, like my brief but dreamy five minutes with Hunter Wallace Hamilton III this afternoon, and those heart-stopping blue eyes of his, until my mom’s voice is just a distant drone. It’s not like I need to listen. I already know what she’s saying. Why can’t you be more like Izzie? If she can manage to graduate at the top of her class, serve as captain of the girls’ tennis team, and get into Harvard all at the same time, it shouldn’t be that hard for you.

  But what my parents don’t understand is that, actually, it’s harder.

  I read this article once that said that younger siblings statistically perform worse in school (and in life) than firstborns. Because firstborn children start out with a clean slate. A benchmark-free existence. Whatever they do—whether it’s achieve excellence or barely manage to scrape by—is the measuring stick against which the other siblings are compared. And when you have a measuring stick like Izzie, you might as well just throw in the towel and get used to mediocrity. Which is exactly what I’ve learned how to do. Because really, what’s the point of trying when, according to the scientists, I’m destined to come up short anyway?

  My mom’s diatribe lasts the entire car ride home. Thankfully, once we get there, she tells me she’s too angry to speak to me anymore, and I slink into my room and close the door. I swear she’s this close to disowning me. I wonder if that’s even possible. Can you legally disown your own children? I would ask Google but the moment my dad gets home and my parents have finished their little private chat in the kitchen, my computer is confiscated and moved into the den and my Internet privileges are indefinitely revoked. Along with my phone privileges, my TV privileges, my leaving-the-house privileges, and my basic right-to-having-a-life privileges.

  I’m pretty much grounded until I’m forty. And I say “until I’m forty” instead of “for life” because I assume by the time I reach forty my parents will finally be old and senile enough to forget why they grounded me in the first place.

  The house is like a prison. No cell phone. No text messaging. No instant messaging. No Facebook. No Twitter. No television. No movies. No dates. And instead of driving me, like they usually do, my parents are making me take the bus to school every day.

  So I guess Bob was right. There are worse punishments than community service.

  And here I thought I wasn’t going to have to serve jail time.

  Then, as if that isn’t bad enough, to top it all off my parents decide that once the contractor starts rebuilding the fire-damaged model home, I’m going to work at the construction site twice a week. Some kind of punishment-fits-the-crime idea that they’re both especially proud of. So as soon as the inspectors give my mom the go-ahead, I’ll be doing hard-ass, clothes-ripping, nail-hammering, large-object-lifting manual labor…for free. Which I’m pretty sure is illegal but what am I supposed to do? Sue them?

  Things get progressively worse as the week goes on. School is basically a living nightmare. I’ve become invisible overnight. Insignificant. From royalty to nothing. People barely even notice me in the hallway, let alone recognize me. They bump into me like I’m not even there. Like they didn’t even see me standing right in front of them. Because as it turns out, without Shayne standing next to me, I’m nobody. All this time, I thought I was important. I thought I was somebody at this school, when really I only existed as an extension of her. An appendage. Like an arm or a leg or a strand of hair. Not as my own person. In the context of Shayne, I was a goddess. In the context of just myself, I am blank space.

  I guess the one positive thing about being cast out of Shayne’s high-heeled posse is that I actually get to sleep in during the week. No more waking up at the crack of dawn to beautify myself to Shayne’s ridiculously high standards. I mean, why should I continue to care about what I wear or if my lips are glossed or if my eye shadow complements my skin tone when I’m no longer the center of any attention? When no one gives a crap about me anymore? In fact, just to show my rebellion, I actively choose to wear my hair in a ponytail and don my most comfy (and therefore least trendy) pair of jeans every single day this week. And you know what? It feels freaking awesome.

  My classes are particularly boring now that Shayne has conveniently transferred herself out of the three we had together. In English, Mrs. Levy asks us to choose between reading The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and honestly, they both sound like total downers. Especially since Shayne and I used to pick our assigned reading together and then download synopses off the Internet. Now it looks like I’ll be cheating alone.

  I’ve been trying to keep a low profile at school. Which is probably why I haven’t been able to spot Hunter Wallace Hamilton III again, much to my disappointment. Because don’t think for a second that I haven’t looked. I have. Pretty much every time I skulk down the hallway. Chances are, he spends most of his time in the senior hall with the rest of the cool people (e.g., not me). And you’re really not allowed in the senior hallway without a pass. Not a real, physical pass, like a hall pass or something, but a metaphorical pass. Like a boyfriend who’s a senior or a recognized kinship with someone who’s been granted lifetime, unlimited access. Someone like Shayne Kingsley.

  And I think we’ve already established what happened to that particular “kinship.”

  On the plus side, my homework load has lightened significantly. Because when you live in Shayne’s World, there are actually two different kinds of homework. The kind you do for school and the kind you do for her. Or rather, for her continued acceptance. Because not only do you have to look dazzling at all times, you also have to be up-to-date on every reality show, celebrity blog, fashion magazine, album release, movie opening, awards show, and anything else Shayne deems “important.” It’s a very time-consuming endeavor.

  DishnDiss.com is the bible, the ultimate source for every gossip-worthy tidbit released to the public (and a few things that weren’t meant for public knowledge). Shayne reads it religiously. She lives by it. And therefore, if you want to be in her inner circle, so must you.

  But now, there’s no reason to keep up-to-date on these things. Shayne doesn’t even speak to me anymore, let alone quiz me on my retention skills. So I haven’t visited the blog once since Sunday night. Not that I have much access to the Internet these days. Mostly just during my daily hibernations in the library during lunch.

  I’ve staked out a permanent hiding place there so I don’t have to sit by myself in the cafeteria. The problem is there’s no food allowed in the library, so by the time sixth period rolls around, my stomach is starting to growl and my blood sugar is dangerously low. And when you tack on the extra bonus that I now have to go to detention every day after school this week, I’m basically famished by the time I get home.

  Not to mention the total humiliation of having to actually sit in that detention room.

  So by the time the week draws to a close and my mom picks me up after school on Friday evening, believe it or not, I’m actually looking forward to the first day of my court-ordered community service tomorrow. Because I figure anything has got to be better than this.

  Servicing the Community

  I was wrong.

  When I step foot in the lobby of Centennial Nursing Home on Saturday morning and witness firsthand where I’m going to be spending two hundred precious hours of my life, seven words flash through my mind: They have got to be kidding me.

  Lawyer Bob assured me this was the “primo” community service gig. A walk in the park. All I had to do was play some bingo, maybe a few games of checkers, and it would be over before I knew it.

  But he didn’t mention anything about the smell.

  This place absolutely reeks of old people. And that’s probably because they’re everywhere. Hunched over in wheelchairs blocking off entire hallways, sitting on the couch in the lobby mumbling to themselves, inchi
ng their way down the corridors with walkers at two feet an hour. And to be honest, it’s kind of freaking me out. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never been around old people before. I do have grandparents. It’s just that I’ve never been around this many of them at one time. And a lot of these people look like they’re on their last leg…literally. That guy sitting in the corner who looks like he hasn’t moved in weeks is missing his leg from the knee down. I wonder if he lost it in some freak boating accident or maybe a shark attack.

  I take a deep, long breath—all right, let’s get this over with— and start to weave my way through the obstacle course of parked wheelchairs and walkers standing between me and the front desk. Then, out of nowhere, a crusty, chapped hand reaches out and grabs my arm. I let out a shriek and whip around to see an old man with a bandage taped over one eye clutching on to me like he’s drowning and I’m the life preserver.

  “Dih yoo brih ma si-gah?” he asks, his one eye all intent and determined.

  I stare back at him in horror. “W-w-what?”

  “Dih yoo brih ma si-gah?” he repeats, this time a little louder. As if volume was the initial problem.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, glancing uneasily down at the iron death grip he’s got on my arm. You wouldn’t think that a man this frail would be capable of hanging on for dear life like that. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “He asked if you brought his cigar,” a helpful nurse translates as she approaches and carefully pries the man’s hand open. I immediately feel the blood rush back to my fingers. “Every week there’s a young volunteer who goes to the tobacco shop and brings him back a cigar,” she explains. “She kind of looks like you.” Then she turns to the man and speaks loudly and slowly. “That’s not Betsy, Mr. Jacobson.”

  “Wah?”

  “That’s. Not. Betsy!”

  As she continues to try to explain the difference between me and some girl named Betsy, I approach the front desk and introduce myself to the young Asian woman sitting behind it. Her name tag reads “Carol Yang.”

  She flashes me a warm smile. “Good morning! How can I help you?”

  “Um, yeah, hi,” I say. “I’m Brooklyn Pierce. I’m here for my first day of court-ordered community service.”

  And just as quickly as it came, her smile vanishes, and now she’s looking at me like I’m some kind of violent criminal who should be locked away and never released.

  “Oh, right,” she sneers dismissively. “Well, do you have your paperwork?”

  I produce the documents that Bob received from the courthouse and set them on the desk.

  But Carol sighs and pushes them back toward me with the tip of her finger, as if the criminal acts the paperwork represents were somehow contagious. “Volunteers report to Gail. I’ll page her.”

  She picks up a nearby telephone and practically yells into the receiver. “Paging Gail Goldstein. Gail Goldstein, please come to the front office.” I cringe at the high-pitched squeal that blasts through the overhead speakers, echoing her exact words with an underwater, gargled effect. It’s as soothing on the ears as metal scraping against glass, but apparently I’m the only one who heard it because everyone else in the room doesn’t bat an eye.

  No surprise there.

  A few moments later, a short, tubby woman with dark, silver-streaked hair and black horn-rimmed glasses waddles into the room and proceeds to look me up and down, as if she’s assessing a horse that she’s thinking about purchasing. I assume this is Gail although she doesn’t introduce herself. She just starts talking. Incredibly fast and with a very thick East Coast accent. I can understand her only slightly better than that one-eyed guy who is still waiting for his cigar to manifest.

  “You’ll need to sign in with me as soon as you get here and check out before you go. I have to report your hours to the courthouse so I need to know exactly when you arrive and when you leave.” These fifty or so words escape her mouth in a total blur, but I manage to catch the gist of it and nod my understanding.

  She pulls my paperwork off Carol’s desk, secures it to a clipboard in her hand, and scribbles something on the top sheet. Then she motions for me to follow her and starts off down the hall, rattling off rules like an auctioneer on Red Bull. “Always wash your hands after you’ve interacted with a resident. Don’t try to help a resident into or out of a wheelchair. Never give our residents anything to eat or drink. No matter how nicely they ask. And try to avoid using generic questions like ‘How are you?’ when interacting with the residents. Unless you really want to know how they’re doing. Which I assure you, you do not.”

  “Why not?”

  Gail stops at a door marked “Activity Room” and turns to face me. She shoots me a stern, almost warning look. “This is a nursing home. People don’t come here to get better. They come here to die. So you can imagine most of them are not exactly in the best shape. As the activity director of this facility, it’s my job to make their last days—weeks, months, whatever—as entertaining as possible.”

  I swallow hard and fight back a wince, praying that nobody actually kicks the bucket while I’m in the vicinity.

  Gail ignores my reaction and pushes open the door. “C’mon,” she orders. “Let’s find something for you to do.”

  That task is easier said than done, however, because it quickly becomes evident that I pretty much suck at community service. Over the next few hours, I manage to get booed off the bingo stage for calling out the numbers too fast (apparently one bingo ball an hour is the going rate around here), I nearly kill a diabetic man by giving him a glass of lemonade, and I unintentionally cause a riot in the activity room by proposing we play Monopoly instead of Rummikub. Because according to today’s activity schedule, eleven o’clock is Rummikub hour and suggesting any modification to that schedule is the equivalent of suggesting anarchy.

  No matter what I do, I can’t seem to avoid screwing up. It’s like I destroy everything I touch. Gail is starting to go hoarse from all the reprimanding she’s doing, the nurses are giving me dirty looks everywhere I go, and to top it off, some really sick-looking guy just sneezed on me.

  “Well, Brooklyn,” Gail says with a frustrated sigh after she’s successfully pacified what will now go down in history as the Great Rummikub Riot of Centennial Nursing Home, “I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with you.”

  As I listen to the soft clanking of Rummikub tiles being maneuvered across the tabletops behind us, I’m kind of hoping she’ll just give up and sign the court document saying I’ve successfully completed my two hundred hours so I can be on my way. But judging by the determined look on her face right now, I kind of doubt that’s going to happen.

  The intercom squawks to life, interrupting her thoughts as that same high-pitched squealing voice announces, “Gail Goldstein, please report to room 4A. Gail Goldstein, please report to room 4A.”

  I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in room 4A, but from the way Gail’s shoulders are slouching and her face is bitterly grimacing, I’m willing to guess that it’s not good. Or at least not something she wants to deal with right now.

  But then suddenly her entire demeanor shifts. Her eyes brighten, her lips curve into a scheming smile, and I can almost make out the lightbulb flickering over her head. “Actually,” she begins, seeming pretty darn proud of herself, “I think I might have just the job for you.”

  “What?” I ask warily, sensing that my future is looking dim.

  “I’m going to have you read to the resident in 4A.”

  “Read?” I verify, feeling somewhat relieved by her response. I can think of much worse things for me to do in a place like this. “As in just read aloud…from books?”

  Gail bobbles her head from side to side in a gesture of ambiguity. “Well…yeah. For the most part.”

  She motions for me to accompany her as she heads back into the hallway. “Come on,” she says cheerfully—almost too cheerfully—“I’ll introduce you to Mrs. Moody.”

  With
a skeptical frown and a reluctant step, I follow her out the door and down the long corridor of rooms, scanning the plaques on the wall for the one marked “4A,” the whole time wondering if the name “Mrs. Moody” is actually a real name, or some kind of indicative nickname.

  Mood Swings

  “Mrs. Moody,” Gail coos softly as she raps on the door three times.

  “Whaddya want?” comes a rough, crabby voice from the other side, proving in an instant that “Moody” is both a name and a state of mind.

  “I hear you’ve been giving the nurses some trouble again.” Gail’s tone, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite. Soft and peaceful like a lullaby. Not in any way resembling the way she’s been addressing me.

  “They’re trying to poison me!” the old woman howls in response.

  Gail steps inside but I opt to remain in the hallway. For some reason, it just feels safer.

  “Oh, Mrs. Moody,” I hear Gail say soothingly as I watch her pick up random items lying on the floor and place them on a dresser that’s visible from the doorway. “No one is trying to poison you.”

  “I can see it in their eyes,” the raspy voice insists. “You can tell everything from the eyes, you know? And there’s evil there. Evil, I tell ya!”

  “Well,” Gail promptly changes the subject, “I brought someone who wants to visit with you.”

  Gail’s hand emerges from behind the door and she beckons me forward. I step timidly into the room, half expecting to find a snarling, wart-covered monster on the other side. But instead I see a small, extremely frail-looking white-haired woman lying in her bed, the covers pulled protectively up to her bony, sagging chin.