“Just stay down on the ground when you see headlights come through the alley.”
“But the sign says no…”
I stop myself from being called straight again. I don’t particularly like Suzee. She’s more Lola’s friend than mine. She seems a lot older than us and wears way too much liquid eyeliner.
“This is so awesome,” says Lola, grabbing a tall bottle of beer out of the bag.
She hands one to me. “Melissa, you get a better buzz if you drink it fast,” says Lola.
“You’re so skinny. You’re probably like a complete lightweight,” says Suzee.
I try throwing back a gulp like Suzee and Lola, but the cold bubbles make my throat burn.
“Truth or Dare, Suzee?” says Lola.
“Truth only,” says Suzee.
“How far have you gone with a guy, Suzee?” asks Lola.
“Third.”
“No way! I wouldn’t even know how to do that,” says Lola.
“It’s not hard, Lola.”
We sit chattering and swigging while Lola asks Suzee a million questions. I’m glad to just be quiet and listen. I feel the beer making my head a little dizzy.
Then Suzee turns to me. “Your brother Jamie is way cute.”
Lola hands me another bottle.
“Truth, Melissa. How come you live with your dad and your brothers?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “My dad just decided to raise us, I guess.”
“That’s sort of fucked up, isn’t it?” says Suzee.
Her words irritate me, and yet I can’t seem to respond. I take another long drink of the beer and swirl it around in my mouth until it feels warm.
Lola jumps in. “Suzee, what gives? You’re being kinda tight.”
“No, it’s just that I’d be pissed off if my mom wasn’t around.”
I want to say something, anything to try to explain, but my thoughts are running around too quickly for me to catch any particular one.
Lola and Suzee start talking about some of the girls that they can’t stand at school, but I begin slipping into my own quiet, thinking world. The back of my throat feels numb. I’ve tried to do everything right, get good grades and be responsible. I promised myself that I would never do drugs, smoke, or drink—but here I am getting wasted.
And why shouldn’t I be? Who really cares? Maybe I should be pissed off like Suzee says. Where is my mom these days anyway? Can she even imagine that I’m sitting here crouched in this alley drinking beer? Would it even bother her?
Maybe this is exactly where I should be—getting wasted in a dark alley. I look around, marveling at how all the bits of broken glass in the alley shimmer like tiny fish just beneath the surface of the water.
The beer warms me completely now. I can do whatever I want. I lift up my bottle and drink as fast and hard as I can.
“Right on, Melissa,” says Suzee.
I look across the alley and think how easy it would be to throw my empty bottle against the concrete wall and listen as it smashes into a thousand pieces. I’ve carried this urge to break things for a long time but I’ve never had the guts do it. Now, finally, I raise my arm and hurl my beer bottle against the wall. The pitch is perfect. A sound that’s beautiful and bad.
Lola looks at me wide-eyed, laughs out loud, and then throws her bottle.
I think I get it now why people break bottles in this dark alley. I know why Jamie has punched his fist through so much glass.
“You idiots,” says Suzee. “You’re so immature.”
I don’t care what Suzee says this time. We run down the alley, laughing, knowing we’re already late for the movie because drinking the beer took longer than we thought. I am heavy and full of laughter, and it feels right.
The inside of the theater is dark and wobbles back and forth like we’re on a boat. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not a regular movie—people get out of their seats and dance and shout out loud. It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen—and not because of the alcohol.
“Don’t be surprised if you don’t remember any of this tomorrow,” says Suzee with her face pushed too close to mine. Someone next to me is shouting, “Dammit, Janet!”
I remember Janet. I don’t remember how we got home.
If getting wasted means forgetting most of everything that happens in a night, then I did it right. And if Lola asks me again? I’ll say yes.
THEN
hands
A boyfriend appears suddenly, unexpectedly. He asks for my phone number at a party, and a week later, I’ve fallen into his world. His name is Hannon, and he attends the rival school across town. I was taken by his smile and his forwardness in asking for my phone number within minutes of meeting. I was also looking for some kind of change. Now, I’m not feeling so sure.
We’re driving off county-maintained roads in Hannon’s 442 Oldsmobile with white racing stripes on the hood. I ask him if he’s ever been on these back roads.
“Yeah, once with my old girlfriend,” he says.
He turns off the headlights, laughs, and says he can drive this road by Braille. I’m grateful for the full moon that’s watching over us.
I’m not afraid of Hannon, but I’m uneasy that we’re going to get stuck out here and I’ll be home late again. He’s brought me home late every time he’s taken me out in his 442.
We park at the end of the dark road.
“Why are we stopping?” I ask.
“So we can be alone,” he says, smiling.
“I can’t be late again,” I say. “My dad is going to kill me.”
“Screw your dad. You’re with me.”
I can tell he’s had too many beers by the edginess in his voice. He reaches under his seat, pulls out another can of Budweiser, and hands it to me.
“I’m okay.”
“Are you kidding? Don’t be a lightweight. Let’s get wasted.”
I don’t want to get wasted. I want to talk about something other than getting drunk.
I flip on the interior light. I show him my hands. I make a fist to show him how the blue veins on the top of my left hand form a peace sign. I trace the outline of the symbol with my finger so he can follow.
“Cool,” he says.
He starts kissing me in a way I don’t want to be kissed. Sloppy and drunk. I pull away.
“You have to look at my hands.”
“Why?”
“Please just look,” I say.
I uncurl my fists as if I am revealing a secret. I lay my hands open for him to see—and for the first time he sees my flat palms covered with a map of intricate lines. Lifelines and heart lines going in every direction. Lines that normally don’t appear on palms. More lines than on his mother’s hands.
“Do you think there are too many lines?” I ask. I want him to look closely. I want him to admire them like rare etchings.
But he grabs my wrists. “I don’t really care about your hands.”
He pushes himself on top of me. Clumsy, with his pants on, he grinds against my hips. I lie still underneath him on the leather seat, closing my fists and wishing I hadn’t made such a big deal about my hands. There is nothing special about them. I reach for the beer underneath the seat even though I don’t want it. I’m out of things to offer. I’ll get wasted and disappear into his world because I have nothing to lose anymore. I tilt my head back so I can see the sky above, the Little Dipper, and a million stars.
THEN
the good girl
The sharp gravel pushes into the arches of my bare feet. I hold my brown shoes and my purse against my chest to stop my heart from beating so hard. Getting safely across the gravel driveway that leads to our yellow house without being heard is close to torture at two o’clock in the morning. I’ve watched how our calico cat does it. Every step is low to the ground, measured and s
ilent. Her eyes don’t even blink as she threads her body through the grass. She’s an expert but I have to stand for minutes at a time between each small movement here in the dark. Every step is a land mine of noisy, shifting gravel. It doesn’t help that I’m drunk.
I am getting away with too much lately. I am as clever as my brothers now at creeping through the back windows late at night and telling lies, both the white kind and the black kind. I’m not one of the BPs (the beautiful people) at school because I don’t hang out with those girls who have perfectly flipped hair and painted-on French jeans. And I don’t hang around with the Ben Boys. They’re so into their thin white T-shirts, steel-toed boots, and black Ben Davis pants. And I’m not a stoner like Jamie and his friends who practically own the back lot behind the gym, the creek, and the field at lunchtime. I may be uncategorized—a thin wisp of a girl looking for a role to play.
I take another step toward the yellow house and cross my fingers, hope to die that my dad is either not home or already asleep. I won’t know until I get past the blackberry bushes, where I’ll be able to see if his van is parked under the laurel tree. If it’s not there, then it’s a quick forty-second dash across the rest of the driveway, up the hillside, and in through the back door before he rolls in from the Bit-a-Honey downtown. If the van is parked under the laurel tree, then it’s another twenty-minute cat creep across the gravel and in through the window.
I wait for a few minutes in the stretch of driveway between the overgrown blackberry thicket and the hedge of pink tea roses. This is where time always stops. Once I round this curve, everything changes and I am no longer protected by the branches of ripe fruit and the scent of a hundred flowers. Within this small stretch of space, between the blackberries and the tea roses, I wait as long as I can.
I’m supposed to be the good girl, the fair princess in the house of males. But I’m not. When I asked my dad what he would do if he found out that I started smoking cigarettes (which I don’t), he didn’t pause. He didn’t hesitate. “I’d disown you,” he said.
I asked him why it was okay for everyone else, including Jamie and Eden, to smoke but not me.
“Because you’re different. You’re smarter than that,” he said.
That’s what pisses me off the most. What makes him think I’m so different? Why shouldn’t I be as messed up as the rest of us? I’m jumping off the pier with my brothers. We’re holding hands, sinking down into the soft sand underwater. Lola asks, Melissa, you want to get high after school? Okay, sure. My boyfriend asks, Melissa, you want do some lines of cocaine at the drive-in? All right. I keep my thoughts and answers simple because I don’t want to think or feel too much.
There is something good about being numb. The dentist slowly pushes in that long needle of Novocain for a reason. My boyfriend hands me a small mirror lined with clean, white lines of powder for that same reason. He also tells me I’m a lightweight and a cheap date because I don’t require much. My skinny frame has its limit. I cheat on a test if I need to because I’m not naturally smart like Lola. I’ve learned how to slip almost microscopic cheat sheets into the taped cuffs of my jeans.
I say yes to every party and make sure I slam a beer quickly so that I can feel the buzz as soon as possible. At first I just drank keg beer, but now Jell-O shots and cocaine are lined up in the back rooms of these parties and I get invited in. I’m not the one who rolls up the dollar bill; I’m just the one who uses it. It’s always free. I rub the leftover flakes into my gums. Numbness feels great.
I try not to think about my actions and take an uneven step around the corner. Fully lit, our big yellow farmhouse stares down at me in disapproval. The van is not under the laurel tree, but someone’s car is here. A green Chevy Nova parked sideways beneath the oak tree that belongs to one of Jamie’s Ben Boy friends. They usually hang out downstairs drinking and smoking pot if my dad isn’t home.
I quicken my pace toward the window to my bedroom, now knowing that the headlights from my dad’s van could come around the corner any second, knowing that whoever is here could suddenly walk out the front door. I need to slip into my room without being detected. These days, more than ever, I need the shelter of my room, where the world feels contained and in order.
I can still be the good girl, I think. If only everything outside of the yellow house wasn’t moving so fast.
I lift up the window to my room. The old panes hesitate from too many layers of paint. The window halfway open, I slide my stomach over the sill and land with a quiet thump inside my room with a sigh of relief. I feel like Alice in Wonderland. I’m looking for the label that says “Drink Me.” I’m looking for the key to that tiny door. I want to be small again.
NOW
solitude
It’s past midnight. I check in with Kim, who is still awake, to see if he needs help with anything. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses rests on the bridge of his nose, and a second pair is perched on top of his head. He lifts his eyes from the pages of his paperback and shakes his head, the picture of strength. “No, everything is okay for now.”
I’m glad my mom has this stoic man by her side.
“Good night, Mom,” I say from the doorway.
I walk upstairs and call my husband and explain that she’s still hanging in there.
“You can stay longer if you need to,” he says to me.
“I can’t. I don’t know what the right thing to do is anymore.”
“What’s going on?”
“I miss you guys.”
“We miss you too.”
When I hang up, I feel irritable. As tough as these last days with my mom are, I know that I have to switch roles as soon as I return home. I will lose the solitude I have had here. Instead, I will be consumed by housework and tending to what the kids need—the cleaning, scheduling, getting them to and from school, buying their school supplies, making their meals, organizing their visits with friends, paying the bills, and playing the part of the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, the toilet cleaner, the laundry maker.
The house is sure to be a complete mess when I return. It’s a domestic battle that I lose every day. As much as I want to tell the kids and Anthony to clean up their crap, it’s easier for me just to do it myself. The filthy kitchen counters and the whole goddamn kitchen itself are enough to drive a parent mad.
I imagine that most mothers—even if just for a fleeting moment when the kids are screaming and your spouse is being a jerk and the bills are late again and you’re just desperate for a moment of peace—at some point long to just drop everything and pick up a new life, a calm life, a free life to pursue their passions and ideas without any responsibilities to tie them down.
Right now though, it’s late, and I need to decide whether to stay or leave Olympia. I don’t want to be angry with my mom but I am. I resent that she has pulled me away from my family during Christmas. I’ve been completely detached from my kids since I’ve arrived. And I know it’s not her fault or intention, but the anger in me is rising.
I should be screaming at myself for being a coward. I selfishly wanted to be next to her when she closed her eyes and stopped breathing. I childishly wanted to hold her hand, thinking it would make up for all the years she wasn’t there to hold mine. But I know now that I’m not going to be here for that moment. Even so, I want nothing more now than for her to die while I’m still here. Not in two days, not in twelve. Here and now.
THEN
clear lake
I’m seventeen, sitting in the slippery backseat of a beat-up orange Camaro with my boyfriend and a couple guys I hardly know. Hannon is trying to impress them with his altered California ID. I can’t tell if I’m feeling carsick or just tired of this endless game of getting high. When I was nine, I’d sometimes watch the pink-eyed mice in the window at Scooter’s Pet Shop frantically spinning on their wheels and wonder if they understood they weren’t going anywhere at all. That’s how I’m f
eeling now.
I didn’t particularly want to go on this overnight trip, but Hannon said that we might have a chance to water-ski on the lake and that’s something I’d love to do. From the minute we left Novato, the driving has been nothing less than reckless. We’re speeding close to sixty around tight one-lane roads, the guys cheering when the tires screech. I anchor my elbow into the armrest and close my eyes each time the car flies around the sharp turns.
“Don’t worry. I know where the cops stake out this road,” says the guy behind the wheel.
He pumps the brakes, rocking us back and forth as we pull into a gas station halfway up the mountain. One more stop to score another twelve-pack and stock up on Red Vines candy.
Hannon shoves his fake ID into his wallet and jumps out of the car with giddiness in his step. His friend Marty follows, with a baseball cap pulled down to his eyebrows.
“I’m going to head across the street,” I say. But they don’t hear me.
A sign that says “Antiques” in hand-painted gold letters is calling my name.
“What are you doing?” Hannon yells to me.
“I just want to take a look. Real quick. I promise.” The wind pushes my gauze skirt up as I cross the road.
When I open the door to the shop, the scent of furniture polish and musty paper invites me in. French wax, lemon oil, and Wright’s Silver Cream—the familiar smells from my father’s first antique store in Santa Rosa. The woman behind the counter nods at me and smiles politely.
There are oak tables with feet carved like lion’s paws, brass lamps, stacks of leather-bound books, and colorful glassware lighting up the windowsill and throwing prisms of color across the floor. I suddenly want to be lost here in the quiet space. Pink and yellow Depression glass, cranberry and cobalt vases. I miss the days when I would spend hours exploring my dad’s shop, discovering the hidden drawers inside of antique desks and imagining the things I could stow away in them.
Pieces of My Mother Page 19
