Before, After, and Somebody In Between

by Jeannine Garsee

  I beat it back to my room as she marches upstairs, but don’t quite get the chance to slam the door in her face. “Well, Martha. You certainly picked the winning ticket this time.”

  “I didn’t pick anything. They picked me.” As she strolls around, looking at this and that, I ask, “What’re you doing here anyway?”

  “I am trying to do my job.” A brilliant gold scarf wraps her dreads in a bunch, and dangly gold bracelets drip from her pudgy wrists. Souvenirs, no doubt, from her fabulous vacation. “Well, well, so tell me. What was so bad about the Merriweathers?”

  “They’re jerks,” I spit out, wondering where Nikki is, praying she doesn’t overhear.

  “Jerks? In what way?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “You know, they’ve been caring for kids for almost twenty years.”

  “So? They’re still jerks.”

  Zelda picks up my journal, studying the cover. “The Brinkmans seem to be quite taken with you, hmm? ‘Charming and intelligent’ were their words, as a matter of fact.”

  I grab my notebook out of her paw. “I am intelligent.”

  “And charming,” she adds.

  “I can be charming,” I agree with a charmless sneer. “What are you so mad about?”

  “Who says I’m mad?”

  “Well, you’re acting mad. Look, he picked me up off the freaking street, okay? I didn’t ask to come here. What do you think, I go around town begging rich people to take me home?”

  Zelda heaves a sigh. “Martha, this is fine. I have no problem with it at all, just as long as you remember this is only temporary. You won’t be spending the rest of your life here, you know.”

  Whose side is she on? “You think I’m stupid? Oh, and my name is Gina now, by the way.”

  This throws her for a second. “Gina?”

  “G-i-n-a. Gina.”

  Zelda flips up her eyebrows. “Well, Gina. I know you are not stupid. I just want you to keep in mind that your mother does want to get better. And that as soon as she does, she is going to want you back.”

  Icy fingers tickle my backbone. “Maybe not.”

  “You’re not very happy about that, are you?” Zelda observes.

  “I never said that. Anyway, you don’t know how I feel.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me, hmm?”

  I wish I could. I wish I could say to her face that even if Momma does get better, I’d still like to hang around here. Not because the Brinkmans are rich, but because they’re so normal, and yeah, it’s nice to be around normal people for a change. People who don’t get drunk or stoned or goof around with guns. People who don’t get fired from their jobs or slam me into doors, or, in general, act like pathological freaks.

  This is how people should live, how I’m supposed to live. How can she not see this? How can she not understand?

  “Nobody knows about me here. They don’t know about Chardonnay and they don’t know I got expelled. They don’t even know where I live. I’m supposed to be from Columbus.”

  “Columbus?”

  “Yes! And I want to keep it that way, so don’t blow it for me, okay?”

  I can tell she’s getting ready to say something profoundly unnice, but I don’t give her the chance. Instead, I ask about the gun and she says yes, they found it. “What in the name of God were you doing with a gun?”

  “I thought Wayne was gonna kill me, okay? He beat me up the day before.”

  Okay. I said it. It’s out. Now deal with it.

  “Well, it wouldn’t have helped you much. The thing wasn’t even loaded.”

  What? Did Jerome know that? Why would he give me an empty gun?

  I throw myself on the bed and pull the pillow over my head. “I’m tired of talking. So why don’t you just go?” An empty gun? A freaking empty gun?

  “Excuse me?” Her note of astonishment gives me a twinge of satisfaction.

  “I said why—don’t—you—go? Did you hear me that time?”

  Zelda’s fierce stare singes me through the pillow. “Yes, Martha. Loud and clear.”

  “I already told you. There’s nobody here by that name.”

  “Oh, I think there is.” And out she glides, leaving me to slow-bake alone in my fairy-tale room.

  …

  Our court hearing the next day isn’t even in a real court, just some stuffy old office, and Judge Timothy Monaghan—yes, the Tim from the phone call—turns out to be Mr. Brinkman’s old college roommate, of all things.

  “I spoke with your guardian ad litum,” he tells me, “and—”

  “Who?” I butt in, like totally against protocol.

  “Mr. Lipschmidtz. He was appointed by the court to see to your best interests, and he has no objection to your staying with the Brinkmans.”

  Not that I’m thrilled that some guy with a name like Lipschmidtz gets to make my decisions, but, hey, this means I win! On top of it, with a bit of coercing from Mr. Brinkman, the judge zaps away my probation with a wave of his magic wand.

  “Don’t let me down, now,” he warns, shaking my hand. “You stay out of trouble.”

  “I will. I promise.” I do everything but curtsy. Ha, so much for Zelda. I bet she blows a gasket over this one.

  …

  Christmas morning I dread the idea of watching Nikki open up her presents. I stay in bed as long as I can, wondering how Momma will be spending the day. Roped to a wheelchair in front of TV cartoons while some grim, muscular nurse forces tranquilizers through her teeth?

  But Nikki drags me downstairs, and I find Gina written on an enormous box under the glowing tree. “Omigod!” My trunk! I thought it was gone for good. I tear the extra key away from the bottom, and when I fling open the lid, all my stuff is still there. My Elvis posters, too, all neatly rolled up on top, and Anthony’s money and my Percodan tucked safely out of sight.

  I have no idea how Mr. Brinkman got this out of Wayne’s house, and with Nikki in the same room, I’m not about to ask. I shoot him a pleading look, and he winks reassuringly. “I just thought you might appreciate having a few of your own things.”

  “I do! Thank you, thank you!”

  And that’s not all. Taped under the lid is a gift certificate for a year’s worth of cello lessons with somebody named Leopold Moscowitz on Shaker Square.

  “I said you could play the one upstairs,” Mr. Brinkman reminds me. “I wasn’t kidding.”

  I clench my fingers, crumpling the envelope as sweat gathers in my armpits and my chest begins to buzz. I never said I wanted to play it. Does this mean he plans to make me?

  “Well?” Nikki bounces a scrunched-up ball of paper off my head, determined to snag back center stage. “Say thank you, dummy, and let me open my stuff.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper, the envelope shivering in my hand.

  While Nikki screams with ecstasy over a stunning bracelet, I sneak off to the music room, shut the door, and open the cello case without touching the instrument.

  I don’t want to play anymore. I remember telling him that, too, but I never told him about Bubby, or why I quit the cello in the first place. Maybe if he knew, he wouldn’t be so quick to try to change my mind.

  I touch the dull wood of the instrument, leaving an invisible imprint, and run my fingers down the length of the strings. It’s old, very old, like nothing I’ve ever seen. A priceless family heirloom that I can play whenever I want.

  If I want.

  31

  Tonight is the Brinkmans’ New Year’s Eve bash, and guess who calls me? Danny, Danny, Danny! “You gonna be home tonight, or do you have other plans?”

  Me? Other plans? Clearly he has me confused with somebody else. “No, I’ll be here.”

  “Great. See you then.”

  So, like, is this a “date”?

  What if I screw up? Blab out a four-letter word?

  What if he gets personal, starts asking questions and stuff?

  What if I totally spaz out before he even rings the doorbell?r />
  Nikki and Justin are hitting a different party tonight, and Nikki drops me a zinger before she leaves. “Danny thinks you’re hot.”

  Ha, ha. “No way.”

  “Way. He says you two are like soul mates or something.” She twists and turns in front of the full-length mirror on the back of my door, critically surveying her slinky strapless dress, oblivious to the fact that it’s pushing zero degrees outside. “Ugh, I’m obese! I so-o need to lose like ten pounds.”

  I’m too busy thinking “soul mates” to helpfully point out that she’s what, a size zero? Finally I ask casually, “Well, what about his girlfriend?”

  “Who, Caitlin?” Nikki flaps a freshly manicured hand. “Oh, she’s history. She threw his ring at him last night and almost took out an eye.”

  “Ring? Were they engaged?”

  “No, dummy, his class ring. He told her she’s too clingy—which she is!—and that maybe he wants to see other girls, so she told him to eff off. And since Danny told me all this himself, he must want you to know, too, so…” She winks at me like we’re the best of friends. “Good luck!”

  If she’s lying, I’ll kill her.

  …

  Danny shows up at ten, and the first words out of his mouth are, “Wow, you look great.”

  “Thanks.” I spent the past four hours preparing for this night, half that time plucking my virgin eyebrows. I’m wearing a new dark green sweater, and, thanks to a ten-dollar bottle of name-brand conditioner, my hair hangs in glossy spirals instead of a mess of frizz. “So do you.”

  Man, does he ever, in his jeans, a silky shirt, and that sexy stubble on his jaw. Hoping my legs don’t melt, I follow him down to the family room, wondering what I can eat that won’t poison my breath. Not that I plan to get that close to him, of course.

  We crank up the music and shoot some pool, which is all I did during my delightful stay last summer at that lunatic asylum that passed for a group home. I purposely flop a ball so he won’t think I’m a show-off, and he gives me this look, like, how dumb do you think I am?

  “Sorry,” I murmur. “Wasn’t paying attention.” I smack the next three balls right into the pockets, never mind that I’m so distracted by his impossibly perfect body that I can’t hardly—I mean can hardly—tell which ball is which.

  Sufficiently beaten, Danny flips on another CD, and it’s Celine Dion’s version of “At Last.” Without even asking, he takes the pool cue out of my hand and slides his arms around me to dance. I promptly step on his toe—nice!—but he only pulls me closer. He’s a perfect gentleman, too, unlike that maggot Maurice.

  “All we need now is some Elvis,” he says when the song ends.

  I nearly stomp on another toe. “You like Elvis? I love Elvis!”

  I feel him smile into my hair. “I kind of figured you would.”

  What I need now is something to drink because my throat feels like gravel, I’m still obsessing about my breath, and the fact that he loves Elvis totally blows me away. I untwist the cap on a bottle of Evian as he moves over to the stereo, and nearly spit out a mouthful of water when I hear the first line to the most romantic Elvis song ever—“Wise men say … only fools rush in …”

  Danny takes my hand again, and we stand there, scarcely moving to the music. Every detail of this dance feels seared into my brain: the warm muscles of his back, the way his cheek rests on my head, the pulse in his throat…then he kisses my hair, my forehead, my cheek, and finally my mouth. A very long kiss, with a very fresh tongue.

  “You’re so beautiful, Gina.” His blue eyes shine down, and I feel faint and giddy because nobody has ever looked into my face like this. And nobody ever ran their fingers through my hair unless they were trying to yank some of it out. “You look like…I don’t know, like autumn or something, all green and brown.” He pulls off my glasses and leans closer. “I can’t even tell what color your eyes are. Sometimes they look brown. Sometimes kind of golden.”

  My tongue has disintegrated.

  “Amber, maybe. Like falling leaves.” He kisses me again and again, and before I know it I’m down on the couch with his long fingers sneaking under my sweater. My mind quakes with an image of the Brinkmans popping in to find their darling nephew with his hands on my boobs—but even that’s not enough to make me push him away.

  Over and over, he whispers how beautiful I am while his hand stretches the waistband of my brand-new, skintight, low-cut Sevens, creeping like a tarantula toward my new silk bikinis. Oh-h, God! And now his crotch, hard as a rock and about as big as a cucumber, is pushing into my thigh as he takes hold of my hand, drags it downward, and whoa! Stop—the—music! I’m seized by rigor mortis.

  With one last kiss, Danny straightens up with an explosive, “Wow!”

  Omigod, one more minute and that would’ve been it. Sex right under the noses of the nice people who literally saved me from the gutter. Sex with somebody I’ve only laid eyes on once before. Funny, I can’t decide if I’m glad, or highly bummed out that one of us, namely me, came to our senses.

  On the big-screen TV, the New Year’s Eve ball takes the plunge. Smiling, and kind of avoiding each other’s eyes, we toast to the New Year and then cuddle on the couch. I feel so-o strange, both hot and cold, both excited and exhausted, and—well, could “horny” be the right word?

  When the New Year’s Eve show is over, he takes his time kissing me goodnight. “I had fun, Gina.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I’ll call you soon. I promise.”

  …

  For the next two days, he’s all I can think about. Danny Brinkman, Danny Brinkman. How he touched me, how he kissed me, the way he smelled, the way he smiled. The phone, though, stays silent. Sadly I figure, promise or no promise, I probably pissed him off when I wouldn’t let him go all the way. Still, did he honestly think I’d want to have sex there on the couch with a hundred people upstairs sipping cocktails and blowing horns?

  But now it’s time to go back to school, and I’m trying to keep my mind on what’s really important. Yes, I’m going to Waverly, and this is how it happens: First I take an entrance exam, and I totally ace it. Next, I have to be interviewed by the school dean with the druggie son. After promising me everything will be kept strictly confidential, he asks about the “incident” with Chardonnay. Nothing for me to do but tell him the truth.

  Tipping back in his chair, he takes in every sweet detail of my ingénue get-up. “I can’t even imagine that. You hardly seem the type.”

  I smooth my skirt with a demure smile. “I’m not. I promise. It just, um, got out of hand, and I was scared, and I didn’t know what else to do, and—” I shut my mouth before I get too carried away.

  The dean says he understands, and gives me one warning: I have to abide by the rules one hundred and ten percent. If I don’t, I’m outta there, adios, end of story. “I hope you’ll be happy here, Gina.”

  I offer him my newly acquired classic Brinkman handshake. “Thank you, sir. I’m honored to be here.” Dude, you have no-o-o freaking idea!

  32

  Next to Jefferson, Waverly Academy isn’t even on the same planet. No guards, no boys, no weapons in sight. No ear-splitting rap, no gum in my hair, and not one single shadow of another Chardonnay. How did I survive that hellhole?

  Oh, wait. I didn’t.

  On the official forms I write “Martha Kowalski” but I tell them right off the bat I only answer to Gina. Gina, Gina, Gina …I write it over and over in my neat loopy handwriting, dotting each i with a teeny circle. I look like a Gina in my long cello-friendly skirt, pointy, high-heeled boots, and the toxic layers of mascara it took me an hour to apply.

  But best of all, I feel like a Gina. I blend in, safe and anonymous, with this trendy crowd of rich white-bread chicks with their camera phones and palm pilots, and hideously expensive haircuts. Maybe I don’t have the toys, but I do have the hair now—gold highlights and a celebrity hack job, courtesy of Jean-Philippe, Mrs. Brinkman’s stylist, who jabbers with her in
French.

  God, I wish Momma could see me now. Mr. Brinkman’s been asking me if I want to go see her, and I finally broke down and said yes. I just want to make sure she’s not as bad off as I imagine.

  The only glitch at school is my last-period study hall. Three rows away and one desk up sits Danny’s old girlfriend, Caitlin Mackenzie. Well, doesn’t this bite the big one? Very small, very cute, with big, brown cow eyes and spiky black hair streaked with maroon. A microscopic diamond glitters in her nose, making my own unadorned nostril quiver in sympathy. Damn, she looks happy. Is she back with Danny? It’s been three full days now, and he hasn’t called.

  Munching my nails, I try to force my attention back to my homework. But I hear Danny telling me how beautiful I am, how I remind him of autumn—and I waste the whole study hall daydreaming about his kiss.

  Back home I get a very nasty surprise. Mrs. Brinkman shows me a letter from Momma’s social worker: Mrs. Kowalski is doing well in rehab and will soon be transferred to a community facility. Regrettably, because she feels she needs to deal with some personal issues, she has requested that her daughter, Martha, not visit at this time.

  I’m majorly pissed off. Plus, my feelings are hurt, and Mrs. Brinkman can tell. “Well, wait a couple of weeks, and maybe we can try again.”

  What-ever. I nod airily, like I couldn’t care less, wishing I could talk to someone about this, like maybe Shavonne. I really miss her, especially since I started school, but do I dare tell her where I am? What do I say? “Hey, I’m staying with the Brinkmans, but don’t ever, ever call me because I don’t want Nikki to know I’m not from Columbus”? Same with Jerome, because he might just give me away.

  Already this fantasy is getting complicated.

  …

  After dinner, it happens. The phone rings, and, yes, it’s Danny, and, yes, he wants to go out, and, yes, he’s picking me up in thirty minutes! I shower fast, then prance around in my walk-in closet in a state of naked panic. Dress or skirt? Pants or jeans? White lace bikini or cream-colored French-cut?

  Gina’s reflection replies: “You are such a slut. You think he’s gonna see ‘em?”