Before, After, and Somebody In Between

by Jeannine Garsee

  “Well, I gotta use his computer,” Nikki announces, spinning on her heel. “My laptop’s messed up.”

  “Oh, Nikki. You know your father doesn’t like you going into his office.”

  “It’s a paper for school! It’s due tomorrow! Would you like me to flunk English, Mother? Would that make you happy?” Without waiting for an answer, she whirls out and goes straight upstairs to Richard’s office, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the pots and pans.

  Claudia sighs. “She’s been so moody since she started those rehearsals. I honestly don’t think she’s getting enough sleep. And I know she’s not eating enough.”

  Yeah, poor Nikki’s overworked. Poor Nikki’s under pressure. Is that any reason to act like a colossal bitch? Pressure, my ass. Try living with Momma for a week.

  …

  Danny pops in later to help with my cello composition, and just seeing him, being with him, perks me back up. True, thanks to Caitlin, I keep obsessing about that ski trip. Did he know he wouldn’t be at Natalie’s party, and purposely not tell me? Probably so, and I know why—because he knew I’d think the worst, which is exactly what I did.

  Okay, I don’t like the idea of him keeping secrets from me—and yet, who am I to talk about secrets? Look at my parents. Look how I was living. White trash, Momma calls us, and it doesn’t even bother her to say it. Would Danny feel the same way about me if he knew who “Gina” really is?

  Yes, yes, he would! He’s not a shallow fake like his dad who only wants him to be a surgeon instead of helping him do what he loves best, playing and composing music. I know what his music means to him, and Danny knows the same about me. He won’t care where I come from, once I get the chance to break the news. I told Claudia I’d do that, and I will, I promise.

  Just not right now.

  When we finish with the music, and Danny starts kissing me again, all those nasty doubts fizzle out of my head along with any thoughts of Caitlin and her inane, twisted ramblings. We make out like crazy, then come up with a plan for Saturday night: movie, maybe dinner, and then back to his house since his parents will be out of town all weekend.

  “Okay, see you Saturday,” he says, kissing me good-bye. “Wear something sexy.”

  Ha, poor Caitlin. She doesn’t have a clue.

  39

  When Saturday night rolls around, Danny is late picking me up. On top of that, he doesn’t bother to come to the door. He toots the horn from the driveway, something he’s never done.

  “Hi,” I greet him as I climb into the car, fighting to keep my extremely short skirt from hiking up around my hips. It’s way too cold to be wearing anything this skimpy—already my thighs are numb—but I wanted to look sexy as hell. I succeeded, too.

  “Hi,” he answers without even glancing at my legs.

  I lean over to kiss him. He kisses me back, but I can tell something is wrong. His lips barely move. “Hey, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he says shortly, nearly giving me whiplash as he shoots the car into the street. “Tired tonight.”

  This is so not like him, and I wonder if Uncle Ted’s been giving him a harder time than usual. But no, his folks are out of town. Wasn’t that the whole point of tonight?

  “What’re we going to see?” I ask brightly. We take turns picking out movies, and it’s Danny’s choice tonight.

  He names some movie I never even heard of, and then doesn’t say another word the whole way to the theater. It turns out to be some artsy Swedish film, in black-and-white no less, and it is b-o-r-i-n-g! A comedy would’ve been better, or maybe a good slasher flick.

  Twice I reach over and take his hand. Twice he lets go and folds his hands in his lap. I wonder if Nikki dropped a bug in his ear about Jerome. Pretending he doesn’t see me trying to catch his eye, he studies the fuzzy English subtitles like he’s really into this dumb movie. Maybe he dragged me here on purpose to torture me into confessing.

  I suffer through the whole two-and-a-half hours in absolute despair, hoping to think of a way to bring the subject up over dinner. Am I not allowed to have friends who happen to be boys? I did nothing wrong! It’s not my fault Nikki’s got such a dirty mind.

  I know I’m doomed when, after the show, Danny decides to take me straight home. “I’ve got a racquetball game tomorrow, so I can’t stay out too late.”

  How could he pass up this chance for us to be together? Hurt beyond belief, I slump down in the seat till we roll into my driveway. When he shoves the car into park and moves closer to me, I’m ready to kick myself for being so typically paranoid—

  “So, Gina. How’s your mom?”

  “My mom?”

  “Yeah. Your mom.”

  “She’s fine. I mean, she’s getting better every day.”

  “So what exactly is that disease she has? Some kind of nervous disorder, you said?” I stare in horror as he throws me a few prompts: “MS? Epilepsy? Some kind of brain cancer?”

  “Cancer? No, it’s nothing like that. More like—” My mind spins madly as I try to figure out two things: where this conversation is going, and can I get away with another lie? “Um, why do you want to know?”

  “I’ve been hearing a few things,” he admits, moving back a bit.

  Dread creeps into my bones. “What things?”

  “I heard your mom was in the hospital, and not because of some nervous disorder.”

  Go ahead, Gina. This is your chance. You can tell him about Momma and the drinking and the drugs. Tell him about Daddy and what happened to him in prison. Tell him how they kicked you out of school for jumping a pregnant girl and sticking a knife in her face in front of a hundred witnesses.

  Tell him how the drug gang drove by and shot up your house, and how they murdered the baby sleeping right over your room.

  Tellhimtellhimtellhim! Why can’t you open your big mouth?

  But all that comes out is: “She’s depressed a lot. She’s being treated for depression.”

  “Then why aren’t you with your dad?”

  Now it’s perfectly clear what’s happening, and still I blather on. “I already told you. He’s busy with his job.”

  “Which is—?”

  “He’s a lawyer, okay? He used to work with your uncle.” I search Danny’s face, but it’s too dark to see much. “So what’s with the third degree? Who’s been telling you this stuff?”

  Danny sighs hugely. “Shit, Gina.”

  “What? What?”

  “Will you quit playing this stupid game? I know about your mom.”

  I swallow hard. “What do you know?”

  “I know she’s an alcoholic and a drug addict, and she’s not even in the hospital, it’s some kind of homeless shelter—”

  “Halfway house,” I argue, making things worse.

  “—and that your dad died in prison. Years ago, right?”

  I could end this right now if my brain could only find the right words, and if my out-of-control mouth would let me say them. This is my one last chance to get it all out in the open, so what do I do?

  I blow it.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is this, like, some kind of joke?”

  “Do I look like I’m laughing?” He slams a hand on the steering wheel, and I jump two feet. “And you know what really pisses me off? I told you everything about me, all that stuff about my dad, about my music. Everything that’s important to me, everything I want to do with my life. And you did nothing but lie to me from day one.”

  “What did I lie about? I told you my mom was sick.”

  “You didn’t tell me you live in Cleveland, you didn’t tell me you got expelled from school—and you sure as hell didn’t bother to tell me you’re only fourteen! Jesus Christ, are you trying to get me arrested for rape?”

  “You’re not eighteen yet,” I say with unearthly stupidity, “so why would they arrest you?”

  “You’re not listening, Gina!”

  “You’re not listening to me either. Just stop yelling, okay
?”

  “Okay, fine. Let’s hear it.” He waits in dead silence while I nibble intently on a thumbnail. “Go ahead, tell me everything. Tell me it’s all a bunch of lies, that everything I heard about you is bullshit.”

  It happens again. My throat clamps shut, strangling me. Maybe I’ve told so many lies, it’s impossible to tell the truth.

  “That’s what I thought,” Danny says quietly. He reaches past me to push open my door, and his arm brushes my chest in a way that makes me want to grab him and hold him. But in the glow of the dome light, his pale Brinkman eyes are flat and cold. I realize now, nothing matters to him anymore. All those things he used to say, all those ways he touched me—he’s forgotten everything, like none of it ever happened.

  Like a decomposed corpse arisen from the grave, I climb out of the car and stagger into the house. Stupid, stupid! I should’ve known this would happen. I should’ve known I didn’t deserve to be this happy, that nobody would ever really love me that way.

  Why would they? Why?

  I cry in bed for hours and hours till I practically smother in all the snot, and the pain in my chest grows to unimaginable proportions. Over and over I say his name into my soggy pillow, praying he’ll call me, that he’s already had second thoughts. Maybe he realizes how badly he hurt me, and he’s trying to call me right now! Taffy whines sympathetically as I cuddle the phone, waiting for it to ring. Just waiting and waiting, listening and listening.

  It never happens.

  Finally I get up because I can’t take it anymore. I need to sleep.

  I need to stop thinking.

  I tiptoe through the house like a burglar and fumble around behind the bar. Three bottles of beer, cold and delicious. The first is gone in less than a minute, and the second one makes me dizzy but doesn’t knock me out. So then I dig out my Percodans—I have four of them left—and wash down two with a swig of the third beer.

  All I can think about are the things Danny once told me. How he loved me, how he adored me.

  How beautiful I am.

  How he’d never, never hurt me no matter what.

  Trembling violently, I pop the last two pills and polish off the beer. Then I rinse out the bottles, wrap them up in the yellow sweater that still smells like Danny, and savagely stuff the whole thing into a far corner of my closet.

  Oh, why did I lie in the first place? Why couldn’t I just be honest?

  Because I wanted to be Gina. And Gina has too many secrets.

  40

  After wallowing in misery for the rest of the weekend, I force myself to get up Monday morning and move. My insides feel shredded into a billion bloody pieces, and I can hardly pop my contacts into my grainy, swollen eyes. I sleepwalk through school, cutting last-period study hall so I don’t have to face Caitlin Mackenzie.

  Dinnertime, Nikki picks at her broccoli, mentally adding up the carbs. “So, Gina, too bad about Danny, huh?”

  I don’t know why she suddenly hates me. What did I ever do to her?

  “What’s this about Danny?” Richard asks.

  “He broke up with her,” Nikki says casually, keeping her eyes on her fork.

  Richard and Claudia glance at me in shock, and I throw down my napkin and shoot out of the room. Only one minute later, Claudia pushes open my door. “Gina, talk to me.”

  I shake my head under the pillow. I’ll never get over this, never, never, never! I will go to my grave still bawling about Danny.

  “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “You know what happened,” I mumble into my mattress. “Somebody told him about me and now he won’t even talk to me.” What really sucks is that I don’t even know who to blame. Nobody knows anything except for Richard and Claudia, and no way in hell would they ever do this to me.

  I wait for Claudia to say I told you so, but she just pats my back and says she’s sorry, and then leaves me alone to stare hopelessly at the phone. But I’m not even allowed to be miserable in peace because Nikki comes up and starts blasting Tchaikovsky. Nobody tells her to turn it down because nobody tells Nikki what to do. She treats her whole family like shit, and yet they think she walks on water.

  Exasperated, I pound on the door and when nobody answers, I kick it open. Empty! Guess she only did this to annoy me, and boy, did it work. I whack off her stereo, and that’s when I see it: one single black capsule, out in plain sight.

  Okay, I’m no expert. But golly-gee-whiz, it looks like one of those old diet pills Momma used to pop, and not for the sole purpose of knocking off a few pounds. No wonder Nikki’s been acting so psycho. Stress, huh?

  Keeping one eye nailed to the door, I find a few more of the same pills wrapped up in a Kleenex, tucked neatly under a batch of Victoria’s Secret butt-floss thongs. Personally I couldn’t care less if Nikki annihilates her brain cells. But if Richard and Claudia find out—

  Why is this family wasted on Nikki? She doesn’t appreciate them. She doesn’t deserve them. I stomp out in disgust, leaving the black capsules behind. Fine! I admit it. I did take those Percodans, but not to get high or anything. I only wanted to sleep so I could stop thinking about Danny—and that doesn’t count.

  …

  With my audition coming up, as much as I’d like to, I can’t afford to stay in bed and turn into a fossil. Day after day I work on my composition, scribbling at school, in bed, and even on the toilet. Night after night I’m up till all hours, playing Sleepers, Awake without an accompanist. No straight A’s for me this semester, thank you very much. But who cares about Nathaniel Hawthorne, or why X equals Y when your whole future, your whole existence is majorly at stake?

  When my big day comes, I’m screwed from the start because I have nobody to go with me. Richard has an emergency court hearing, and Nikki drags Claudia to her dress rehearsal “for emotional support.” Jittery and depressed, I take a cab to University Circle alone. After all our plans, after all his help, Danny’s not with me on the most important day of my life. It feels so wrong.

  When I first see the school, I’m kind of disappointed. Just an old granite building with a crummy little sign: Great Lakes Academy of Music. Inside, though, it’s cool and pleasant with glossy wood floors and huge arched doorways. I huddle on a bench in the hall, waiting my turn, trying hard not to listen to the kids ahead of me. Compared to these pros, I suck, suck, suck!

  I’ve already tuned my cello fifteen times today, but I do it again to keep my mind off the competition. The C string seems off, and now I could smack myself for not bothering to spring for an electronic tuner, for thinking I’m so smart and so cool to be able to tune the strings by ear. I guess I could borrow one, but then I’d look amateurish, unprepared…

  “Gina Kowalski?”

  Numb with dread, I pry myself up, meander into the main room, and sit down in front of the panel of unsmiling strangers.

  “Wachet auf,” the head honcho announces. “Sleepers, Awake by J. S. Bach.”

  My right eyelid twitches. “Um, my accompanist couldn’t make it, so…” But he just beckons to some kid who jumps up, spits out his gum, and stakes claim to the piano bench.

  Okay, that was easy. I breathe deeply, blank out my brain, raise my bow, and start to play. My eyeball spasms the whole time, and my armpits are drenched, but except for a couple of itty-bitty mistakes, I play it through perfectly.

  “I believe you have a composition to show us?”

  By now I’m having one of those out-of-body experiences. My spirit, high up in a corner, watches me saw through the music, the notes strained and foreign in this huge echoing room. They Xerox a copy and scribble across the top: Gina Kowalski/Variation on a Theme by Rupert Campbell. Rupert Campbell, they’re thinking. Who the hell is he?

  Then: “Very nice. Thank you. We’ll be in touch.”

  41

  As my own dumb luck would have it, my birthday, March twenty-second, falls on the same day as opening night of Swan Lake. Richard and Claudia want to take me to dinner, but Nikki’s pitching a fit. Becaus
e it’s her special night, she wants to hog the whole day. No sharing the glory, and especially not with me.

  Claudia says, reasonably, “Nikki, the show isn’t until eight. We have plenty of time to go out.”

  “I don’t feel like it. I’m too stressed out. Why can’t you guys pick a different night?”

  All eyes fall on me, and boy, talk about stress. But really, who cares if we go now or a month from now? Heck, even Momma couldn’t be bothered with my birthday this year. No card, nothing.

  “Okay with me.” But my jawbone is throbbing.

  “Well, it’s not okay with me,” Richard tells Nikki. “I don’t recall ever skipping your birthday, so if you’re that stressed out, you can just stay home.”

  Claudia tries to smooth that one over. “If we leave now, we’ll be out of there by six. You’ll still have a couple hours before the curtain goes up.”

  “Mom, it takes me that long just to put on my damn makeup!”

  Richard holds up a hand. “Either come with us now, or stay home and sulk. This conversation has gone on entirely too long.”

  “Fine!” Nikki shouts. “Go without me. Who cares?”

  “Wait,” I butt in. “It’s no big deal. We can go some other time.” Anything, anything to stop the arguing.

  But Nikki only scoffs. “Gee, thanks, Gina. Now you’re everyone’s little darling.”

  “Nikki!” Richard’s voice hits us like a thunderbolt.

  “Well, it’s true! She’s just like Rachel, always sucking up to you guys. Gina this and Gina that! Well, I’m sick of it, okay? You all make me si—”

  Richard’s hand shoots out, landing smartly on Nikki’s left cheek. “And I’m sick of your mouth,” he says, deadly calm.

  Nikki flees, clutching her face in shock. Me? All I can do is stand there, unable to believe what I saw with my own eyes. A livid Claudia pulls Richard aside, and for once in my life I have no desire to eavesdrop. I fly upstairs, hating the fact that it’s my own birthday that started this mess.