by JoAnna Novak
I toured the room in my socks; after this, I’d have to incinerate them. There were scattershot stains on the pale yellow carpet; it looked like someone had been doing Skip-It while drinking coffee. In the bathroom, two plastic cups sealed in cellophane sat on the sink. I yanked back the shower curtain, the color of Lorraine Swiss. A cockroach, a fingernail, a pubic hair: I was hoping for something revolting, but the tub was clean.
Next to the TV, the remote was Velcroed to a clipboard listing a channel menu and the numbers for three pizzerias. I brought the control with me to bed and flipped. Reruns and news were all the non-cable stations showed until seven: I zipped past The Simpsons (now, three characters I didn’t recognize were wearing Pilgrim garb and being roped to a pyre) and a commercial for Viagra starring Bob Dole. In California, eighty-four Methodist ministers would be gathering in the morning to marry one lesbian couple. That made me happy. Miss World reported rape: that made me sad. Da Bulls: Luc Longley and Scottie Pippen were waiting for the lockout to end before they went the way of MJ. Tim Floyd would replace Phil Jackson. Slug-eyed Jerry Krause said, “No other coach has had to step into a situation quite like this one.” My heart sunk. I really did feel alone. The Bulls’ sea change was no different than a new crop of Park eighth graders entering high school. All the names I remembered from championships, B.J. Armstrong and Toni Kukoc, they’d be here and gone, forgotten, like Lisa and Rocyo and Marissa and Ethan and me. Mr. Breit was right; our world was a mess. If it felt this bad now, how would it feel to be his age or my mom’s? Forty-five? Forty?
I rummaged through my backpack and grabbed the baggie. I pulled open the drawer of the nightstand and set the heroin on top of the phonebook, next to Gideon’s Bible. I wanted to pass out again. I wanted to fall asleep and wake up to Anna’s hand on my shoulder. I wanted my mom to guide me to her car and drive me home.
I untwisted the heroin. I licked my pinky, dipping and sucking the way Ethan and I had done. Leaving his room—what an idiot I was. I’d weirded up the situation, been dumb and cruel, right after he kissed me. It really happened—he’d leaned in and worked open my mouth with his tongue. Fast and vertiginous and good. Not awkward. I’d never seen anyone’s eyes that close-up. His skin was soft and oily.
I turned off the TV and grabbed the phonebook. I set it on my lap and felt thin when it completely covered my thighs. If Lisa’s dad had been honest, I knew exactly where she was. I flipped to H, for hospital.
I dialed the number and the switchboard operator answered instantly.
“Carousel Gardens, how may I direct your call?” I couldn’t tell if I was speaking to a human or one of those automated robots Anna complained about whenever she paid her credit card over the phone.
“Eating disorder unit,” I said. “May I be connected to Lee—”
“Transferring.”
On hold, I wondered if heroin had psychedelic properties. A flute-heavy Muzak rendition of “Mo Money Mo Problems” played. It sounded like a jig for elves.
“EDP.” The woman’s accent was PBS. “Marjorie speaking.”
“Hi. Can Lisa Breit take a call?”
The woman cleared her throat. “Who’s calling?”
“I don’t have to frickin’ tell you that … Her—why?”
“Miss Breit is no longer … If you have information about her whereabouts, I’d implore you to … well, you can imagine, her parents are very concerned.”
“Bull. Shit. Have you met her mother?” I felt cheeky. “That woman doesn’t have a concerned bone in her fat-ass body.”
I slammed the receiver down. I pinched a tiny mound of the powder and tried to chew; it was like crunching soft snow. That chemical taste filled my mouth. I dialed my last bet and crossed my fingers that Larry would pick up.
11 ·· LISA
“LET’S DO A DRIVE-BY,” I say. “I’m tired of wearing sweats … with no drawstring … that I also slept in. Especially after being in a movie theater. That’s just narsty.”
“It’s not a slumber party, Lee-Lee. That’s the beauty of a hotel. ‘Holiday Innnnnn,’” Junior Carlos sings.
“Watch the road,” I say.
He doesn’t. He makes the whites of his eyes more and more enormous until I laugh.
“Lisa. You lock the door. You order room service. They provide the towels. Hey, get this: fluffy slippers and Egyptian cotton robes, too. You’ve got Mr. Lova Lova here to pay for champagne. Or, yah know, his dad’s expense account. No big. You keep your sexy self in bed and kick it. Catch? Real clothes optional.”
We’re back in the BMW, and I have Life After Death in the CD player, half a box of Cookie Dough Bites in the side compartment on the door. Carousel Gardens is in the past; now tonight can be like any other JC+L= 4EVA. A D8. There’s Friday traffic, even though we’re only ten minutes from my home. When you’re not in a sheltered little neighborhood, the world is lit up and blah. Three blocks of fast food, eight car dealerships dickering with giant seasonal inflatables. (Currie Motors has an MLK blow-up. As my dad would say, Someone call the Suburban Life; it’s their time to shine).
We inch forward, stop, start, skid on ice, fake-panic, brake brake brake, stop. The snow has been tromped by the wind, pushing the car like a go-kart; Junior Carlos’s jaw is clenched, his hands tense on the wheel. Today they look rougher, speckled with blood. Winter sucks, but I don’t care. A thought paused me while we were in the back row of the theater, his arm around me, my hand chilling on his through-jeans cock, watching Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino, At First Sight: Someday, I’ll tell J.C. I love him.
“One: I feel gross without having a fresh pair of underwear,” I say. “Two: I don’t want you taking me to the mall and strutting me around Victoria’s Secret like we’re in some Skinemax sex movie. Three: I am this much curious about my grandma.”
“You think your mom stuck a note on the fridge? Grocery list: 2%, Pillsbury crescent rolls, Velveeta, turkey franks. Arrangement of RIP flowers for Lisa’s grandma?”
“Douche. No, but, hey! I’m the one who had to escape from a mental hospital. Gimme a break!”
“Oh, like how I just took you to, literally, one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“What’s a better movie?”
“Um, Breathless?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“196—”
“One made in the last decade.”
“American History X.”
“That sounds pretentious. What’s so wrong with At First Sight? And how does that affect whether or not you can swing by my house?”
“Insert obvious joke about me wishing I could be the visually impaired one in the theater. I think that’s a break. Why do we have to stalk your house for you to get panties? Can’t you just call and see if anyone answers?”
“Great idea.” I sound bratty, sarcastic. It’s fulfilling to be rude, to say what I want. Not like I was a saint this morning, but men change my manners. “You wanna leave me at a payphone?”
“Open the glove compartment, Miss 1994. And, no, you’re not gonna find Dookie in there.”
“I don’t know how to use a pager, Mr. Mr…. Mr. Drug Dealer.”
“I am an infrequent passenger aboard the cocaine train. And smoking pot doesn’t make me a drug dealer.”
“You ever give anyone that pot?”
“Yeah, but not for more than I paid.”
“Then you’re a drug dealer who’s getting robbed.”
We come to a red light, and Junior Carlos leans over. I get to be this close to him two days in a row; usually, I’m lucky if I see him twice a week. Riding in the Bimmer, I feel like my skin is magnetized to attract his charge. When he opens the glove compartment, the heat of his forearm diagonals over my lap.
Unlike my mom’s minivan, where twin Saint Christophers watch over us, offering pious protection from the visors, and a rosary in a yellow satin pouch is coiled in the first aid kit and Saran-wrapped stacks of Chips Ahoy are available “just in case,” J.
C.’s car is masculine and practical. In the glove compartment, there’s a frosty bottle of Acqua di Gió. A pair of green-lensed goggles with chewed-up straps. Two types of eye drops. A folded map of Illinois that fits snuggly in a clouded plastic envelope. A sturdy silver coin, bigger than a quarter. I flip on the overhead light to examine it.
“‘Confederate-E-Oh—”
“Confoederatio Helvetica. Swiss five franc.”
“You’ve been to Switzerland?”
Junior Carlos nabs the coin and slams the glove compartment and turns off the lights.
“Here.”
He hands me a phone. It’s shorter and skinnier than my graphing calculator; its antenna feels about as sturdy as a coffee stirrer.
“Call your house, so we don’t get caught lurking. I’ve heard your dad on air. He sounds like the James Earl Jones of white guys. Pretty sure he’d castrate me.”
“I want a cell phone.” The buttons illuminate at my touch.
“Why? So your mom can be even more in your face?”
“No. Why don’t I know about this?”
“Because I don’t want you bothering me around my real girlfriend?”
I’m still wearing his puffy green coat; when I punch his arm, I hit layers of T-shirt. Underneath, the muscle is concrete. “Jerk.”
“I never use the thing, Lisa. I’m surprised it even has a battery.”
“Okay, be quiet now. It’s ringing.”
Junior Carlos spider-walks his fingers up my left thigh.
“Quit it. Hey—!”
“Asshole,” he yells, at a woman in a Mercedes who swerves into our lane. He honks, so long that I feel awkward just sitting there, like I should be shouting and swearing, too. “A fucking Pomeranian on the dashboard and a cigarette in her mouth? Jesus Christ. Hey, Anna Nicole Smith—someone stole your MENSA card.”
The ringing stops. There’s a click, the same as when you press Play on a tape. Duh, I think, one of those mini cassettes is inside. My dad’s baritone rumbles on the answering machine.
“Score!” I hang up, before the beep can record me. “Okay. I’ll be two seconds. You’ll call if someone pulls up, right? Park in front of the Malussa’s.”
“Which one?”
“Um, nativity? Tickle-Me-Elmo in the manger instead of baby J.”
“I’m sure your mom loves that.”
I jam my feet in my Converse as Junior Carlos turns into my neighborhood. We pass Goose Lake, the surface covered with a screen of ice, and the surrounding beach, a graveyard for headless snowmen and Red Hot candy hearts that bleed cinnamon blood. Elliot’s house is pitch black; all the curtains are wide open. I sniff. I hope their power got shut off.
“You know what’s so ironic? I bet when my mother finally meets you—you know, in like, a kagillion years, she’ll be totally fine. She’ll reconcile our age difference with some 666 biblical numerology.”
Junior Carlos turns up the volume on the CD player. I’ve won, by the way. Biggie Smalls is rapping “Hypnotize.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” he says. “I’ve always had a way with moms.”
··
My grandma, when she could still speak more than a few words, when she could form acerbic sentences and vitriolic gibes, referred to herself in the first person plural. My dad said it was because she worshipped my grandpa so much she couldn’t accept herself as a widow, even though she’d been on her own since I was born. My dad thinks she actually believes she’s still wedded to my grandpa, except now he’s a ghost. That info, by the way, was between my dad and me. My mom would shit bricks—multiple bricks—if she knew my dad had occult theories.
Along with those nudie pics of Kim and Larry in the photo albums downstairs, there’s a section of dogs. My parents, their first years dating, had two: Rocky and Adrian. We’ve never had pets, so I’m bad at breeds. They could be black labs or black retrievers or black hounds: is one of those a thing? The dogs have floppy, zucchini-shaped ears. Mopey eyes that are more lifelike than most humans. Red-violet tongues.
Sprinting upstairs to my bedroom reminds me of being a champ like Sylvester Stallone and that reminds me of the dogs. In my room, the Fen-Phen are still scattered all over the carpet. You’d think former pet owners would have some “vacuum up” reflex, like my grandma’s phantom marriage.
Either my mom is more callous than I thought—or things with my grandma are worse.
Under my bed, I keep a box of CDs. I pull that out and flick to the last row, where I keep the albums I don’t want my mom to see: Lauryn Hill and Snoop Dogg and Erykah Badu and Tupac and Faith Evans and the Quad City DJs. The Space Jam soundtrack. The Waiting to Exhale soundtrack. The Dr. Doolittle soundtrack. From inside the double disc of Riverdance, volumes one and two, I grab the stack of bills I’ve collected for each pound I’ve gained back over the past year and a half. I crumple a black lace thong in my fist, when the phone rings.
“Shit.” Any minute, my mom could barrel through the door. By now, Carousel Gardens must have alerted her and my dad to my getaway. She met with a visitor, I hear Marjorie saying. A brother? Older? Swarthy male with luscious locks? When my parents can’t come up with anyone who goes by J.C. (“blaspheme,” my mom will howl), poor Phoebe will be treated to an interrogation.
The phone rings again. I shove away the CD box and smooth the bed skirt and, to silence the noise which is about to drive me bonkers, I answer.
I wait. I refuse to say the first word. I wish, on all the pennies I’ve ever found and all the birthday candles I’ve ever huffed, on every 3:33 and 2:22 and 11:11, that I hadn’t wanted a hot-pink fun fur phone from Limited Too. No Caller ID. No portable receiver. Just me, standing like an idiot, yanking up the waistband of my sweats and staring at my Converse, the tongues sticking out like kindergartners’ tongues, kindergartners who’ve gone to town on cherry Blow Pops.
“Mr. Breit,” says a reedy voice.
I would recognize it anywhere. Even today, right now, when, for some reason, Elliot sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks, or a tape on Fast Forward.
I clear my throat. Have I mentioned I’m a good actress?
“Mm,” I growl in Larry-tone.
“This is Elliot … Elliot Egleston. From today. I’m at the Flagg Creek Motel and … well, like you said about Lisa, so I tried Carousel Gardens and they said, they said she’s not available, and I didn’t know if you and Mrs. Orlowski-Breit pulled her out …” Her words tumble like a maze of dominos. “ … or there was a development with Lisa’s grandma, or if she just doesn’t wanna talk because I think … I really need to talk to her and I need to know if she’s not gonna or if I should wait, and I know you said, give her time, but I can’t do that. Every day I don’t talk to her, I feel like we’re getting farther apart, we’re gonna be old … history, just reruns of everything we … and soon, it’s gonna be a week, and how are you best friends with someone if you don’t talk to them once in a single week. I mean … hello?”
I close my eyes. I summon Drew Barrymore (quirky, lovable, incapable of malice) from The Wedding Singer, which Elliot and I saw last summer. Before Junior Carlos or my grandma, before I knew better. I know what I want to do.
“Elliot?” I’m earnest as honey. “My dad just gave me the phone. It’s me.”
“Oh my god,” she breathes. Even her inhalations sound sick, wheezy, like wisps of tissue. “Oh my god. Lisa! Lisa! How are—I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through. Can you talk, what’s going on? I’m—”
“I’m not here,” I say, carefully. “Technically. Where are you? Junior Carlos and I will meet up with you. You said the Flagg Creek—”
“Room 217. You’ll come over? Can you … can Junior Carlos, like … I mean, can we have some time to talk?”
“Oh, absolutely, sweetie,” I say. “Calm down. Hey, babe. Take a deep breath. You sound pretty worked up.”
There’s a pause. A zip line of snot. Elliot is blubbering. Eat something, I mouth. F
or Christ sakes.
“Okay,” she says. Flooded by tears, her words sound bloated. “I’m just … sorry. I’m so happy to talk to you.”
Do what you want, I remind myself. You. Not Elliot. Not Junior Carlos. Not Dr. Ogbaa. Not Mom. “Hey, me, too. Love ya like a sister.”
··
I knock on the car window. It’s fogged, billowing clouds punctured by one or two random fingerprints. Inside, I throw my neon-orange Speech Team duffel at my feet. With my index finger, I draw a heart in the steam. On one side, I make the feathery, nocked end of an arrow; on the other side, the pointy head.
“That was more than two minutes.” Biggie is gone, and even though Junior Carlos turns down the music, the bass shakes the car. “Boricua,” someone sings. It’s a song you hear a million times and know all the words to but never remember the artist.
“Ah! ‘Don’t stop, get it, get it!’”
“Yeah,” he says, raising an eyebrow, “ … are we taking off?”
I wish the music could get so loud that it overpowered my thoughts. Dr. Ogbaa would call that risky behavior—wanting to disconnect from your consciousness. And I agree. But I don’t care. I want to feel gone, with J.C., but I can’t.
“Uh-huh,” I say. “That’s uh-huh yes.”
Junior Carlos eases away from the curb. I keep my eyes straight ahead. You can’t see much at night, in winter, but we’re far enough from Chicago that, up above, the sky is coated with stars, like glittery nail polish. A slice of moon glints through a tuft of silvery cloud. All of a sudden, this babyish song from Barney (yes, the big purple dinosaur) injects itself into my brain. I sing along with B96, harder, trying to ignore it.
I stretch out my phrasing and round my vowels to sound angelic; this is funny for dirty rap. “‘Punish ah, punish ah!’”
I lean back and move to the beat, leading with my pelvis, crotch out, the way TLC dances in, like, every video. Useless. In my head, Barney is indefatigable:
Flying high in the sky, we look back to say goodbye, as our spaceship is flying away. Past the earth and the stars, look there’s Jupiter and Mars, as our spaceship is flying away.
