Across the street, Mr. Middleton is taking his dog Popsicle for a late-night walk. I glance at the clock. Half past one. I wait a little longer, and eventually headlights creep up our street and slowly halt in front of our house. It’s them. The silhouette of Leslie’s Lincoln Town Car is illuminated by the moon. I move to my second bedroom window, the one that faces into the courtyard of our one-story ranch-style home. I slide the window open just enough so that I can press my ear against the window screen. Then I patiently wait for them to get within hearing distance.
“Thanks for lending me that book,” I hear Leslie say, as she passes underneath the archway that leads into the courtyard. She looks over at my window and I wonder if she can see me, but apparently she can’t because she says, “Looks like Susie might be asleep already. I hate for us to disturb her. Maybe I should get it later?”
“Susie sleeps like the dead,” my dad assures her. “So it’s no problem at all.”
Leslie hums as she follows my dad up the walkway. “I’m sorry. I can’t get that aria out of my head. It was so beautiful.”
“Yes,” my father says, “yes it was.”
“You know”—Leslie steps onto the front porch—“I really thought it was sweet that you held my hand when I cried. That meant a lot to me.” Leslie tilts her head up to his.
“It was nice to see that you could be so moved.” My dad takes a small step backward.
“So…” Leslie says, shifting slightly, “I’ll wait here.”
“Right.” My dad unlocks the door and I hear him enter the house and go into his study. Minutes later he returns with a book in hand. He hands it to Leslie.
“Keep it as long as you like.”
“Thanks, I’ve always wanted to learn more about classical music. This will really help.” Leslie brushes her hand across my father’s shoulder. They stare at each other for a long time. “I had a really good time.”
“I did, too.” My dad rocks on his heels. He seems to avoid staring directly at Leslie.
“Do you think you’d like to do it again sometime?” Leslie’s voice catches in her throat.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Well”—Leslie inches closer—“give me a call next week. We’ll talk.”
“Sure.” My dad stops rocking. Even though his head is slung low, I can see the tension in his face. Their feet are nearly touching. Leslie leans forward. She rests her head on his chest, and then slowly, very slowly, lets her arms wind up his back and, with her hands, cups his salt-and-pepper hair.
“Joe.” She says the word so softly. “Joe.”
“Yes…” My dad is as stiff as a statue.
“It’s okay, Joe,” she whispers.
“It’s okay?” he repeats, sounding confused.
“Yes.” She holds him tightly. “It’s okay.”
I watch them, unsure of what’s happening. His body is still stiff, his hands buried in his pockets. He stares off into the night. I want to go to him. I want to comfort him. I want to tell him that it’s not okay. That I know.
“No,” he says after some time. “I’m not sure that it is okay.” The minute I hear him speak, I know that he has spoken for both of us.
“Oh. Of course. I understand.” Leslie untangles herself from him. “I’ll call you, Joe.”
“Yeah, okay.”
My dad waits until Leslie is safely in her car before coming back into the house. When she’s gone, I rest my head on the window ledge and stare into the night. I watch the moon. I try to remember what it looked like the night my mom died. I wonder if it will ever look the same.
EIGHTEEN
the mall
the next day, marisol gets me up at the crack of dawn and drags me to the mall. She’s determined to find her homecoming dress and, apparently, to torture me in the process.
For the first hour we’re both too sleepy to chat. I’m also a teensy bit annoyed that she sold me out for Ryan Rosenbloom. Occasionally, though, I slip in a question.
“How was the Coldplay concert?” I ask in JCPenney.
“I had the best time,” she starts enthusiastically, before suddenly finding herself distracted. “Oh, look, a cute dress.”
“Was it just you guys, or did some of his other friends go, too?” I ask two stores and twelve dresses later.
“Um…oh, this is nice.” She hands me a blue faux cashmere scarf to run my fingers across. “I don’t know. It was Ryan and me. Jesse, Ryan’s best friend, and Monica, his girlfriend. And another couple—I can’t remember their names. Oh, and his cousin Jared, who still doesn’t have a date to homecoming.”
“Well, tell him good luck with that,” I respond dryly.
“You know”—she gives me a look—“Jared is actually pretty cute.”
“Like Ryan’s cute?” I chuckle under my breath.
“Ryan is cute.” She gives me a dirty look.
“If that’s your type,” I mutter.
“He is my type,” she says, snatching up several pretty thongs from an underwear table.
“Uh-huh,” I say in a tone that really says whatever, retard. And suddenly, my blood is rushing to my face, turning my cheeks red. I can feel myself gearing up for a knock-down, drag-out fight when suddenly she says, “I’m going to pay for this. If you want to stay here and live in a box all your life, feel free.” She stomps off, leaving me pissed off and alone next to a case of padded pink polka-dot push-up bras. And the only thing I can think is: I would have preferred a full-fledged fight. It’s a lot fairer than a hit and run.
“you’re doing it again,” marisol whispers underneath her breath.
On the escalator in Macy’s, Marisol decides we’re back on speaking terms.
“What?” I hate when she refers to me as if I can’t hear her. “What am I doing again?”
“You know,” Marisol waves her arm across the span of the escalator. “That weird thing you do when you take like two steps forward and one step back.”
That weird thing that she is referring to is the game that I play with escalators. It’s like a ritual for me. I can’t get on an escalator without doing it. Marisol swears it’s my version of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. But I’ve given it a lot of thought lately, and I think it’s more like an affirmation of life. In life, you take strides forward, but you always take a few steps back. But in the end, if you take more steps forward than backward, you’re making progress. It also calms my nerves. I try to explain this to Marisol, but she’s not buying it.
“Sounds like the best excuse you could think of since the last time we went on an escalator,” she tells me.
Which is true. But so what? I’ll ride the escalator the way that I ride the escalator. After all, she has her quirks. So what if I’ve got twenty?
“You know what?” Marisol says when I finally reach the top.
“What?”
“I just realized that you started doing that when we were ten. And that,” she mutters under her breath, “is very interesting.”
As we walk down the aisle, I run my fingers over all the different fabrics. The seasons are supposedly changing and so are the fabrics. Some are cool, some thick and fuzzy, others plain itchy.
“I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving.” Marisol points at a holiday advertisement. “I have to figure out what to buy for Ryan, like, soon because Hanukkah is in three weeks and it’s crazy—it’s, like, eight days long. Do I give him eight small gifts or do I give him one good one?”
“You’re, like, giving each other gifts now?”
“Well…” She gives me an irritated look. “Yeah.”
“Well…” To keep the peace, I adjust my voice so that it’s not so sarcastic. “Unless he’s giving you eight gifts for Christmas, I’m pretty sure you should just get him one.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
We reach the formal wear department, and, just as I thought, we’re surrounded by tacky dresses. It’s like stepping into Britney Spears’s closet. This is what the excitement
is all about?
“So.” Marisol ruffles through a rack of puke-brown ball gowns. “I think Ryan is going to invite me to go skiing with his family.”
“What, are you guys on hyperspeed?”
“No… Do you like this?” Marisol holds up a simple, strapless burgundy gown with an empire waist and sheer overlay. And, I hate to say it, it’s really beautiful. Instinctively, I touch the fabric. It’s silk.
“Yeah, it’s nice,” I say with one-tenth the excitement I feel.
“I think I’m going to try it on.” She sets the dress aside and continues looking. “Anyway, the reason why I’m telling you about the ski trip is that it’s the same weekend as”—she pauses, awkwardly—“your mother’s memorial service.”
November twenty-sixth. The day my mother died. Every year, my father holds a memorial service to keep her memory alive. And every year, the guest list gets shorter and shorter. It’s expected, I guess. Sometimes people want to forget. But Marisol? Is this just another one of her ways of telling me that she is ready to move on with her life?
“Are you going to go?” I ask. “I mean, are you going with Ryan?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
And I don’t want her to go, but I’m not going to say that because the worst thing in the world is when someone does something out of obligation, not genuine interest. It’s like my dad and the symphony all over again. Why can’t people make their own decisions and let me feel the way I feel about it?
“Do whatever you want.” It’s a struggle, but I keep my voice even, unemotional. I examine a terrible taffeta gown in hopes that it’ll stop my eyes from glassing over.
“I guess,” Marisol says with hesitation, “I’d really like to go.”
“Then go,” I say coldly. Does she expect me to beg her to stay? “I’m going to try this on.” I hurry toward the fitting room. The minute I shut the door, I start to cry.
it takes exactly ten minutes for a sales clerk to knock on the stall door.
I don’t answer her right away. It’s not that I’m trying to be difficult, but the only sound that will leave my mouth is the sound of me gasping. That’s how I sound when I cry hard.
“Hello? Sweetie, are you okay?” Her gentle tap turns into a persistent knock. She’s probably baffled as to why I picked her fitting room to have a nervous breakdown.
“Miss”—her key turns the lock—“if you don’t respond, I’m going to have to come in.” And sure enough, two seconds later, she’s standing in front of me, motherly concern written all across her tan face.
I know to her I probably look a mess. My face is streaked black from my not-so-waterproof waterproof mascara. My hair is stuck to my face in patches of unruly curls. And to add to that, I’m sitting on a tattered stool, wearing the terrible taffeta gown, which is even more terrible because it is too tight for my hips and too big for my boobs.
“Oh, honey.” The fitting room attendant digs into her pocket and hands me a crumpled tissue. “The dress isn’t that bad. I can get one for you in your size.”
“I’m fine, really.” My voice is wobbly. I clear my throat. “I’m fine,” I repeat. But I accept the tissue and blow into it something fierce.
“Tell me, it’s the gown. Isn’t it?” The attendant kneels down and pushes the hair away from my face.
I shake my head no and proceed to choke on my own boogers.
“Oh.” The attendant smiles sympathetically. “It’s a boy?”
Again, I shake my head.
“Well…” She seems to ponder her remaining options. “Did you have a fight with a friend?”
I nod yes, blowing my nose in the already soggy tissue. She’s super-perceptive, I think.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks gently.
What was there to talk about? The only thing I know for sure is that inside I feel like a complete mess. And that realization starts a fresh wave of tears.
“Sweetie…” The attendant shuts the door behind her and locks it. “Now wait. I know things are bad for you right now, but you’ve got to pull yourself together. You’ll work this out. Friendships”—she lifts my chin so that I look directly into her brown eyes—“are the most important thing you can have in your life. Sometimes they have their ups and downs. Sometimes it’s your fault and sometimes it’s not. But the key to handling those ups and downs is to remember that good friends will always find their way back to each other. Understand?”
I nod. Through my tears, I admire her kind face. When she smiles at me, laugh lines crease the sides of her cheeks.
“I’m just being a crybaby.” I wipe my nose with a new tissue she offers me.
“There’s nothing wrong with a good cry. But”—she considers my outfit with such disdain, I can’t help but laugh—“there is something terribly wrong with that dress. What can we do to fix it?”
I shrug my shoulders. Doesn’t she know there’s nothing that can be done about the way I look?
“I know.” She slaps her hand on her thigh. “I’ll be back.”
thirty minutes later, i emerge from the ladies’ fitting room tear-free and, thanks to Jeanette, the overly perceptive sales clerk, wearing the coolest pair of Bubblegum jeans ever to be seen and a simple black tank with small embroidered butterflies running down the left side and a double-wide sea-green belt that hangs perfectly over my wide hips. I look…God, it’s like impossible to believe, but I look so…normal.
Now, if I can only find Marisol. I haven’t seen her since I went into the fitting room. And she doesn’t appear to be anywhere nearby. This, I think as I try to tear myself away from the mirror, is why I need a cell phone. And that’s when I hear IT.
“No way.”
Or, should I say HER? It can’t be…
But there she is. A thousand watts of sheer constipation frozen on her face.
“Hi, Tamara.” I force a huge grin. Homecoming or not, I look great, and I’m not about to let Tamara’s sour expression ruin my high. “Hi, Mrs. Cruz.” I wield my false smile at Tamara’s mother.
“What happened to you?” Tamara voice drips with disbelief.
“Tamara, really.” Mrs. Cruz gives Tamara a sharp look. “You look so stylish, Susie. Did you have a makeover?”
“Not really.” I glance over my shoulder to make sure Jeanette is nowhere near. “I just, you know, was doing a little bit of shopping and found this. I decided to wear it home.”
It’s a little white lie—I know. But so what? It’s obvious that I had somewhat of a makeover. But I’m not about to admit that to the mother of the homecoming princess from hell. Especially, after the HCPFH stole my…
What exactly did Tamara steal from me?
Whatever. The look of disbelief on Tamara’s face—the one that says I might possibly be a threat to her and her future happiness with Danny—is worth a zillion lies, if you ask me.
“Doesn’t she look great, Tamara?”
“Yeah.” Tamara rolls her eyes. “Great.”
Mrs. Cruz smiles at me, unaware (as always) of Tamara’s attitude. “It’s a funny thing that we should run into you like this. I was just asking Tamara how you were doing. I haven’t seen you since your mother’s memorial service last year.”
“Right, I remember.” Every year Tamara and her parents come to my mother’s memorial service. I never really minded their attending. The truth is I barely noticed they were there, except sometimes when I thought that Tamara was lucky to still have a mother. But this year, I’m not sure I can stand the idea of Tamara standing in my house, flaunting her very much alive mother and her souvenir homecoming keychain.
“Well, we really should get back to our shopping. Tamara’s looking for a new homecoming dress.” Mrs. Cruz sighs. “Apparently, the other one wasn’t the right color. Have you found your dress yet?”
“No.” My eyes shift to Tamara. She’s absolutely gloating. I almost wished that I had Jessica here to slap her. “Actually,” my eyes drift to the floor. “I’m not going.”
<
br /> “Oh. Well, that’s too bad. Yes, well we’re off to find a red dress. Red dress, can you believe it?” Mrs. Cruz rolls her eyes at Tamara.
“It’s Danny’s favorite color,” Tamara pipes in. “Did you know that?”
I can hear the challenge in her voice.
“No,” I say, rather slowly, “I didn’t. But”—my palms feel shaky, and I can’t believe that I’m going to say what I’m about to say, but I say it anyway—“that might explain why I saw Jessica here earlier, desperately looking for one.”
“What?” Tamara hisses, swinging her head around, scanning the crowd for Jessica’s huge breasts and glossy black hair. “You’re kidding, right?”
It’s another white lie, I know. But still, it’s so much fun to turn the tables on Tamara that I don’t bother to answer her question. Instead, I muster up a smile for Mrs. Cruz and say: “It’s nice seeing you, Mrs. Cruz.”
“You, too, Susie,” Mrs. Cruz says, turning to follow Tamara, who is frantically searching for Jessica, like she might be hiding under a table, holding all the red dresses hostage. “We’ll see you in a few weeks at the memorial service.”
“Right.” A few weeks until my mother’s memorial service—like I could ever forget.
NINETEEN
interlude
on the ride home from the mall, i do my best to ignore my father. He’s pretty much number one on my crap list, followed by:
Marisol—Apparently, she left me at the mall.
Leslie—Apparently, she wants to get down my father’s pants.
Danny—Apparently, I’m not good enough for him when über-bitches like Tamara and Jessica are.
Tamara and Jessica—They’re just evil. What other explanation is needed?
Unfortunately, my father fails to take the hint that my jutted shoulder, brooding lips, and need to blare the radio past human comprehension are actually all part of an effort to drown him out.
Not Anything Page 9
