“I’m not spreading any stories about you.”
She glanced at the other girls at the table. None of them was particularly close to me. None would ever defend me. In fact, they looked amused, happy to see me being dressed down.
“You told someone I had an alcohol intolerance and became seriously ill at a party.”
I shrugged. “Isn’t that true?” I asked. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed of anything, you nit. Who told you to say that?”
“Nobody.”
“You’re a liar. I ought to pull your hair out, you and whoever put you up to it.”
“No one put me up to anything.”
“Right. You just came up with that out of thin air. Don’t make up any more stories about me, or I’ll come looking for you,” she said.
She marched off to join her friends, who all looked back at me, trying to outdo one another with expressions of rage. I looked at the other girls at my table. The silence felt like the inside of a tornado.
“Who told you to tell that story about her?” Susan Mayo asked me.
“No one.”
“Then where did you get it?”
“I just knew it. She’s lying about it, but worse, she’s lying to herself. She’s going to get into bigger trouble.”
I actually envisioned funeral wreaths, but I didn’t say it. I must have had a shocked expression on my face. No one spoke. They stared at me.
“It’s true. It’s not a lie,” I said. “She’s just embarrassed about it.”
“How do you know all that?” Susan asked. “You don’t hang out with her friends, so you wouldn’t hear them talking. Did you sneak into the nurse’s office and read some private stuff or something? Well?”
“No. I just know,” I said.
“You’re hiding someone,” Marge Coombe said. “They’re going to find out eventually. You’re stupid to protect them. Is it a boy, someone you like or who likes you?”
“No. I’m telling you all the truth. No one told me that story.”
“No one told you? You just knew?” Susan asked.
“Yes.”
“Delusional,” she told the others.
The word brought back memories of my therapy. Was she right? I couldn’t explain to them how I knew. I couldn’t tell them about my visions and dreams, about the voices I had heard all my life. Of course they would think I was delusional, just as my therapist had, but deep inside, I couldn’t stop believing that I was right.
I didn’t think the incident got back to my parents, but I might have been wrong about that. My mother knew some of the other mothers. Maybe that was part of the reason my parents had decided to move me to a new school. Whatever the reasons, it did surprise me when they said they wanted me to leave the public school I was in and attend a charter school instead.
“Why?” I asked.
“This school has a much better reputation. It has smaller classes. You’ll get more attention from your teachers, and it’s closer,” my mother explained.
Either she or my father would still have to drive me there and pick me up after school. “It’s not that much closer.”
“It’s closer,” my mother insisted. We were all in my father’s office. He sat behind his desk, and she stood beside him, looking down at me on the settee.
“But I like my teachers. My grades aren’t bad. I’ve always been on the honor roll, and my teachers tell me I have top reading scores.” Usually, I never questioned a decision they made for me, but I couldn’t accept their reasons this time.
My father looked up at my mother. She sighed deeply but seemed calmer. “You’re getting to that age now,” she said. “Things are . . . well, things are just more delicate, actions more consequential. We hope you’ll make better friends, too.”
Better friends? I thought. Better than what? I never had what most girls would call best friends at my old school, but I did have some classmates who could have grown into real friends if my parents would have let me do more with them. Now I would never see them much anymore, if at all. I thought I would be even more alone.
There was no more discussion about it. Arrangements were made, and I was moved to the school they had chosen.
If they knew about the incident at my old school, they still hadn’t mentioned anything about it by the time we celebrated my fifteenth birthday. Whether my birth certificate was authentic or not, I had always been told that my birthday was on September 15, and what I had seen in the file confirmed it.
I say “celebrated,” although I’m sure anyone my age would question whether this was really a celebration. It was just the three of us. Uncle Wade was somewhere in Europe, and they hadn’t invited any of their friends. They never did when it came to one of my birthdays. It was as if they had always wanted it kept a secret in a house bulging with secrets. We had dinner, but it wasn’t anything extra special. My father liked pot roast with grilled rosemary potatoes. I liked it, too, but there were so many other things I liked more, and they never took me to a restaurant and had the waiter or waitress bring a cake with candles. Neither of them asked me what I wanted for my birthday dinner. My mother did put out the better dishes.
As always, I helped set the table, but just like on all my previous birthdays, it wasn’t just candles on a cake. We had a candelabra in the center of the table with four tall white candles like the ones in churches. They were lit at the start of the dinner, and the lights were turned lower. All the window curtains were closed, too. I couldn’t help feeling like we were doing something we shouldn’t be doing, but what? It was my birthday, but it felt more like we were at a séance.
My mother began with the same questions she had asked at every birthday for as long as I could remember. It was almost like the questions asked of children at religious dinners. They had a spiritual air about them.
“How do you feel tonight, Sage? Do you feel any different? Special?”
“I don’t feel that different,” I said. I always tried to give her the answer I thought she wanted or to avoid the answer she didn’t want, but I was too unsure. This time, I was very matter-of-fact. “I’m hungry, but I’m usually hungry.”
She grimaced and turned to my father.
“Your mother means, do you feel any older, wiser? Has something about you changed? Do you see the world any differently?”
What parents asked questions like that on their children’s birthdays? None of my friends ever described their parents asking such questions.
“I guess I do,” I said. “I’d better. I’m in the tenth grade now. The work’s going to be harder, and I’m around older kids more often, so I think I’ll act older.”
Neither looked satisfied with my response. What did they want to hear?
“Are you going to tell us about another birthday you remember?” my mother asked with a sour look.
“I don’t remember any right now, except, of course, Lucy Fein’s birthday last year. That was a big party. I was surprised she invited me. We had hardly talked in school before she sent out her invitations.”
“You know I don’t mean that sort of birthday, Sage,” she said. “No dreams, no illusions, no inexplicable memories to plague us with?”
“No,” I replied. “I haven’t had any thoughts like that.”
She looked happy and satisfied about that. The truth was that a few days ago, I did dream about being at a birthday party I could not explain. I supposed it would fit the definition of a nightmare more than just another strange dream.
It took place in a small house. The room was lit by many candles because there wasn’t any electricity. There were at least a dozen adults and two other children. All the adults were dressed in black. I could feel them all watching me as a woman who was my mother brought out my birthday gift on a dish. It was an amber necklace. Before I was given it, she lifted it out of the dish and began to recite something in what sounded like gibberish to me. Everyone around the table joined in, but the chant was hard to understand
. When that ended, she turned and brought the necklace to me to put it around my neck. She was behind me, and the necklace was not as long as it had looked. It seemed to be shrinking, tightening around my throat until I gagged and woke up.
That was a dream I was definitely not going to tell them about tonight.
My father cut the roast and served me some. I took some string beans and passed the plate to him. I could see how my mother was watching every little thing I did, anticipating something or waiting for me to say something strange. My attention was centered on the gift package they had brought me. I wouldn’t be able to open it until after we had eaten dinner and my birthday cake was brought out. I’d had a glimpse of the cake when I opened the refrigerator earlier. At least it was my favorite, a vanilla cake with an apricot icing.
As we ate, they continued to ask me questions about my new school. I had been there only a week, but they wanted to know if I had met any girls or boys I would like to have as friends.
“Yes, there are a few girls I think I could be friends with,” I said.
Nothing terribly dramatic had occurred yet, and the other girls were feeling me out the way girls did anywhere. What kind of music did I like? What did I watch on television? What were my experiences with boys? Stuff like that. I tried to give them answers they liked, but of course, I was vague about the boys I had known. I didn’t want to reveal that I had no romantic experiences while they were unwinding spools of dates, parties, and sexual explorations that honestly made me tingle, especially the way they freely described their orgasms, trying to outdo one another.
Now my mother was silent for a moment. She glanced at my father and then asked me a strange question. “When you came out of school today, did you see anyone watching from across the way before you saw me waiting for you? A man?”
“Watching? Watching what, Mother?”
“You, of course.”
“No. I don’t remember seeing anyone watching me. Who would be watching me?”
“No one, but if you ever do see anyone doing that, you tell us right away. Do you understand?”
“No. Why would anyone be watching me? How do you mean?”
“There are sexual predators,” my father said. “They focus on someone, and it’s better if you’re aware of that sort of thing now, Sage. You’re a mature young girl. Clear?”
“Yes,” I said.
Why were they suddenly concerned about this now? Why not when I was at my old school? I was sure I wasn’t less attractive six months ago. The school I was at now was on a side street, that was true, but there was still lots of pedestrian traffic.
My mother rose, went to the kitchen, and brought out my cake, but there were no candles on it. She saw the disappointment on my face.
“You’re too old for candles on a cake,” she said. “We don’t have to sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ You know that’s what we’re saying with this dinner, this cake, and your gift.”
I know, I thought, but who likes to feel their birthday is just something ordinary?
My father gave me my gift after my mother cut the cake and put the piece in front of me. I looked at the package and then up at them.
“What?” my mother asked.
“Nothing,” I said, but I already knew what was in the package. I had envisioned it. I was afraid to tell them I had done that, so I opened it carefully and took out the amber necklace.
“You don’t look happy about it. Don’t you think it’s pretty?” my mother asked immediately.
I couldn’t help my reaction. It was as if I had drifted into my frightening dream. “Oh, yes. It is very pretty.”
“Here,” she said. “I’ll put it on you.”
She rose to come around behind me. I looked at my father. I was sure he saw the panic in my face.
“What is it, Sage? You look very nervous, even frightened.”
“No. I’m all right,” I said. “It’s just so beautiful and looks so expensive. I was surprised.”
He looked up at my mother. Neither accepted my answer.
She plucked the necklace out of the box and undid the clasp. I closed my eyes. My heart was pounding. Would I choke to death? The necklace settled just below my throat. I reached up to touch it. Then I turned to look at myself in the wall mirror. When I was younger and I looked at the mirror, I sometimes saw other people sitting at the table, people who weren’t there. I had stopped mentioning that years ago. I was thankful they weren’t here now and hadn’t been for some time.
“Like it, then?” my father asked.
“Yes, very much, Dad.”
“Good. You know what it is?”
“It’s amber,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” he said.
My mother sat.
“It has protective powers,” I told them.
My father smiled a little but didn’t speak.
“How do you know that?” my mother asked. I could see she was preparing herself to hear another one of my inexplicable memories.
“I read about it somewhere, maybe in a novel.”
“Then wear it as much as you can,” my father said. He sat back. “Unless you find it uncomfortable.”
“Oh, no. Why would I?”
He didn’t reply. They were both staring at me so hard that I did feel a little uncomfortable. I began to eat my cake, and they began to eat theirs.
“I’ll make you a cake for your birthday, Mother,” I said.
“What would you make me?”
“What you like the best, angel food with raspberry jelly in the center.”
She nodded. Whenever she liked something I said or did, she would smile, but it always looked like half her face was trying not to.
Later, when I was preparing for bed, I started to take off the necklace, but it was as if there was someone standing behind me grasping my fingers to stop me. I stared at myself in the mirror. I was totally naked except for the necklace. Although it wasn’t tight, it felt very warm against my skin.
I heard my voices telling me to leave it on, but then, for the first time, I heard another voice, a different-sounding voice, deeper, darker. It was coming from the far right corner of the room, where there was a shadow that shouldn’t be there because it was so lit up.
“Take it off,” the voice whispered. “You’ll never know the truth about yourself if you let them control you. Take it off.”
There was something hypnotic about the voice.
“Take it off. Don’t wear it all the time.”
I started to reach back and stopped. And then, as if a spotlight had hit it, the shadow evaporated, and the room was silent.
I went to bed with the necklace on, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the voice in the shadows was the one I should have obeyed.
3
I was happier in my new school than I had been in my previous one for many reasons, but the main one was that my classes were smaller, which gave me more opportunity to become friends with others my age. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it at my birthday dinner and sound too optimistic. I hadn’t been at the school that long, but pretty quickly, there were five of us who were drawn to be with one another. I could sense their positive energy toward me. What I feared was that my parents would prevent me from doing things with them, as they had done with the girls in my old school, and these budding friendships would die on the vine just as quickly.
The five of us girls quickly became like a knot moving along the corridors, eating lunch at the same table in the cafeteria, sharing food, and always sharing homework. By the end of the second week of school, we were already commenting about one another’s clothes and talking about our hair, lipstick, and nail polish, and of course talking incessantly about boys, all older than us. Of course, they all knew more about these boys than they thought I could, but once one of them was pointed out to me, it was as if I had known him all my life.
I actually felt a little sorry for the boys in our class, even though I thought a number of them were quite nice. From the way
my new friends and others talked about them, dating one couldn’t be further from their minds. It was almost as if it would be an immature thing to do. For one thing, none of them could drive or had a car of his own, and few, if any, reeked of the worldly experience that made older boys more dangerous and, therefore, more attractive.
Actually, the more I listened to my four new friends, the more the world outside of my very confined home life came into focus. I didn’t want to tell them that I had yet to go to a real party or be with any special boy, even if just to meet at a mall and go to a movie. I was sure they’d be shocked to learn that I had never stayed over at a friend’s house, either.
The closer I became with my four friends, the more my mind swirled with visions about them. I tried to keep most of that to myself. Occasionally, I slipped up and said something that amazed them because it was about something they hadn’t told anyone else, like when Ginny Lynch found her father’s contraceptives in a bedroom drawer and thought they were some balloon toy.
“I bet you were surprised when you learned about birth control,” I blurted when we were having a conversation about our sexual experiences.
She blanched the color of a fresh red apple. “What do you mean?”
“What you found in your parents’ bedroom drawer.”
“How do you know that?” she asked.
“I thought I heard you mention it,” I said, so confidently that she blinked and wondered whether she had. “Weren’t you shocked when you learned the truth about them?”
She laughed and then described to the others her discovery and how her parents had reacted. “My mother took me aside and gave me my first sex talk. I was only seven!” she added.
The others all claimed it was the first time she had mentioned such a thing to any of them.
“Who did you hear her telling that to?” Mia Stein asked me, making it sound like I had uncovered a betrayal. How dare she tell anyone else but them? Everyone waited for my answer.
I shook my head. “I don’t remember,” I said, but covered it up by quickly describing my own first sexual discovery. I hadn’t actually seen it, but I had envisioned a girl in my seventh-grade class masturbating in the girls’ room at my old school. I described how I had discovered her. That got everyone else back to talking about their experiences, and the incident passed.
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