The Turning Book 1: What Curiosity Kills

by Helen Ellis

  “After the fourth grade, your grades were terrible.” Mom rolls her eyes. “Have you forgotten that your shrink attributes all your issues to skipping?”

  “What issues? I don’t have any issues.” Dad often plays dumb.

  Octavia says, “What does this have to do with anything? We don’t have a TV in our room.”

  Our family has one TV. (Luddites, remember?) It’s in the living room. If you’re watching, everyone else is watching with you, or they know what’s on. And—wait for it—we don’t own a DVD player. It’s not because my parents are seriously anti-technology or that my sister and I are overprotected. My parents just hate extra stuff. Mom’s mantra is: We are not hoarders. Every year, we give away clothes we’ve outgrown (or we’re too old for), books we’ve read (or are never going to get to), and extras (“Tell me,” says Mom, “do we really need two garlic presses?”). Dad can’t be convinced Netflix is necessary when we get all the movie channels. Having never had more than one TV, this isn’t a hardship. Octavia and I don’t miss out on much—unless you call much vegging out on the sofa and watching Twilight eight times in a row.

  Our folks DVR their old favorites for us. With my dad, it’s The Warriors and The Taking of Pelham 123—1970s movies that represent the New York he grew up in; where subways were graffitied, everybody had a switchblade, and after eleven, you could get yourself killed. Mom goes for all things teenage-angst. She got weepy when John Hughes passed away and then nearly keeled over herself when she found out Marjorie and Mags hadn’t seen the Molly Ringwald trifecta (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink). Mom wanted to watch them with us, but Dad dragged her out for Ben & Jerry’s because she was reciting every line.

  “‘I can’t believe this. They fucking forgot my birthday.’”

  “Yes, dear,” said Dad. “John Hughes was your George Lucas.”

  Octavia and I tried to get into the original Star Wars trilogy for Dad but couldn’t. Luke, I am your father! Well, duh. Who didn’t see that coming? Dad and every other Dungeons & Dragons fanatic apparently. Dad shrugged off how jaded we were, but he still keeps a lightsaber on the top shelf of his closet, and on Halloween, he makes Mom wear earmuffs that look like hair cinnamon rolls.

  Mom says to Octavia, “You may not have a TV in your room, but you have YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and all that other garbage on your computer that keeps—”

  “my mind on my money and my money on my mind!”

  “—that keeps you quoting Snoop Dogg instead of Shakespeare.”

  Dad grins at Mom. “Since when do you quote Shakespeare?”

  “’Tis a nobler…’tis a far, far better…” She laughs. “Oh, you know what I mean! From now on, girls, your laptops stay out in the open and go off at eight o’clock. Mary, you’ll work in the kitchen. Octavia, you’ll work on the dining room table.”

  The dining room table is in the living room because we don’t have a room especially for eating. Yes, this is the Upper East Side, but Anderson Cooper’s mom is not our mom. My parents have plenty of money in the grand scheme of things—they can pay our tuition, send us to college, take us on vacation, buy us nice clothes—but they don’t have the kind of New York City wealth that takes three or four generations to squander. If we swapped moms with Marjorie and Mags, we’d have our own Vanderbilt-like bedrooms and adjoining bathroom, plus a library and a study. I’ve never understood the difference between those—except that one has leather couches, which the twins’ cats have scratched up and which Octavia refuses to sit on because the claw marks give her the creeps. But I digress. Life isn’t a Disney movie where you wake up in somebody else’s body and realize you were happy just the way you were. Besides, Octavia and I would never swap moms with anyone.

  ***

  After eight, my laptop is closed. Mom has put a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies on top to seal the deal. I have to get through four chapters of A Tale of Two Cities. Octavia is done with her homework. She’s always done first. She’s watching TV with my parents in the living room on the other side of the kitchen wall. As a reward for a job well done, she has clicker control. It’s a Tuesday night in January. For the next two hours, I’m going to overhear auditions for American Idol.

  I hate the show, but Octavia loves it. She’s always trying to convince me to give it another shot. It’s the debater in her. She tries to convince me I should change my mind about everything. The situation in Afghanistan is worse than the situation in Iraq. September 11 was an inside job. Health care should never be free. A woman’s right to choose is wiggida wiggida wiggida whack. Arguing is a game to her. She picks pro or con and runs with it until her opponent is too exhausted to catch up. I’m not sure she loves American Idol as much as she says she does, but she puts up a heck of a fight.

  Sample debate:

  Octavia: “It’s all about second chances for girls like Kelly.”

  Me: “Clarkson or Pickler?”

  Octavia: “Either. Those girls are one in the same.”

  Me: “One’s rock, one’s country.”

  Octavia: “My point is that those girls come from Podunk, U.S.A. Humble beginnings. Without American Idol, they’d never be more than cashiers who can carry a tune. Not one overprivileged kid ever makes it to the finals. American Idol loves oil-rig workers and teenage moms and ROTC kids back from the war. Girls like Kelly are taken out of hopeless situations and given a future with financial security. Like us. How can you turn your nose up at a genie-in-a-bottle show when our parents are the real-life Simon and Paula!”

  Me: “You mean Simon and Ellen.”

  My sister rolls her eyes at my nitpicking. She knows how to go for the jugular and she got me. She was right, but what I said at the time was: “Could be.”

  I open the paperback with the guillotine on the cover and read, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

  Simon’s English accent interrupts from the TV. “You have a voice that would make an angel’s ears bleed.”

  “Turn it down please!” I holler.

  Simon Cowell is the rest of the world’s Ling Ling Lebowitz.

  I reach for a cookie. Take a bite. The chocolate melts on my tongue while the cookie part sticks to the roof of my mouth. It is perfect. But I can’t bring myself to chew. There is nothing wrong with the cookie. It’s delicious. The warm, half-moon remainder smells sweet, but all I want to do—as Octavia would so eloquently put it—is drop it like it’s hot.

  The severed edge of the cookie crumbles when it lands on the table. The crumbs glisten because they are wet.

  I am salivating. The bite in my mouth dissolves with no help from my teeth. I am desperately thirsty. My mind gets a picture in it; an ad from a grocery-store circular. Not for Coke, not for seltzer, not for Snapple. For milk.

  I have to have it, and I have to have it right now.

  I push back the metal-framed chair, and it scrapes like bad brakes.

  “Turn it down yourself!” yells Octavia.

  Simon Cowell says, “That wasn’t singing, sweetheart.”

  With two steps, I am at the fridge. My hand is on the handle. I swing it open with so much force, it swings back. The door smacks the rubber sealant and makes a sound that Jim Carrey makes in most of his movies. I steady myself. My thirst is so overpowering, my hands shake. I reach out and take the handle gingerly this time.

  Open…

  With both hands, I grip a two-liter carton of whole milk. The carton slips from my hands. The milk spurts onto the floor.

  I cry over it. Yes, I am crying over spilled milk. This realization doesn’t make me laugh; it makes me sob harder. Crying is another thing I hate to do where other people might see me. When I cry, I turn ugly and get loud. But I can’t stop myself. I’m so thirsty! All I wanted was some milk! I kneel to see if any of it is salvageable.

  “Mary!” Mom shouts like I’m not right in fr
ont of her. She shouts my name over and over like I’m deaf and miles away.

  I don’t respond. Cast in the light of the open refrigerator, I know what I’m doing is wrong. It is vile. But the milk is so creamy. I’ve never tasted such cold creaminess before. Suddenly, I’m dirt poor again, and the milk is liquid gold. I’m on American Idol, and the milk will turn me into Carrie Underwood. Jesus, take the wheel! With a lick, I’m addicted. But I convulse at the competing flavor of a terra-cotta floor tile, which hasn’t been mopped in a week, against my tongue.

  chapter three

  Heroin,” Dad pronounces once they’ve wrestled me off my hands and knees. “You fall asleep in the middle of the day and eat off the floor when you’re on heroin.”

  Octavia says, “She’s not on heroin.”

  “Well, grass doesn’t do that.”

  Octavia shakes her head. “Dad, nobody says grass.”

  Mom’s never been one of those parents who, when they come in from outside, wash their hands before they hug you. She doesn’t like clutter, but she’s not a neat freak either. Right now, she’s standing sock-footed in spilled milk. Her hand hasn’t left my forehead.

  “She’s burning up, Scott. She has a fever.”

  Without another word, Dad scoops me up, all fire and rescue. I hear him stifle a groan from my weight. I’m not heavy, but I’m not a little kid anymore. The first time he carried me was when he taught me to ride a bike in Central Park. My front tire hit a crack, and I flipped over the handlebars. He left the bike there and carried me all the way home. We never saw that bike again, and my parents swore they didn’t care. In all my life, I’d never felt so loved. For the next year or so, I walked into walls, shut my fingers in doors, and chewed too fast so that I’d bite the inside of my mouth to test that their love wasn’t fleeting. Every time I cried out in pain, Dad scooped me up and whisked me to safety. A cure was always in their medicine cabinet.

  Dad sits me down on the closed toilet in their bathroom. He’s the managing editor of a financial news website, so he’s no tough guy, but he keeps his cool in the face of a skinned knee, a nose bleed—or, in this case, a fever of a 102.

  “Scott, should I call 911?” Mom asks anxiously from the doorway.

  “Calling 911 is going to land her in the emergency room. We’ll be there all night, and she’ll catch something worse. Give her four Tylenol and get her into a lukewarm tub. If the fever doesn’t break by midnight, then we’ll take her to Lenox Hill.”

  Dad leaves to clean up the kitchen. I’m weak, so I let Mom draw my bath and Octavia hold a Dixie cup to my lips as I swallow each extra-strength caplet. When the tub’s full, I wave them away.

  Mom says, “I’ll be right outside.”

  Octavia goes with her. I imagine my sister plants herself back in front of the TV, but I know Mom’s ear is pressed against the bathroom door, eavesdropping for the slightest sound of distress.

  I take my time peeling off each sock. I unzip my jeans. To slip out of them, I ease down onto the black-and-white checkerboard tiled floor, so if I get dizzy, I won’t fall off the toilet and crack my skull. I shimmy out, and the tiles are cool against my bare legs, which feel as fevered as my face. Off comes my Nada Surf hoodie. All that’s left on me is my pitiful A-cup padded bra and Victoria’s Secret boyshort panties that read I ♥ Geeks.

  Mom calls, “Are you in the tub yet? Do you need help?”

  “No,” I manage. “I’m fine.”

  Mom hasn’t heard the bathwater splash. If I don’t make some noise that shows progress, she’ll be in here, and I’ll be mortified. Sleeping, crying, licking milk off the floor—I’m not about to add public nakedness to my growing list of humiliations. I prop myself up on my elbows and glare at the small black radiator that hisses to life.

  Mom hears it too. “Do you want me to turn that off for you, baby?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Most everyone in our co-op is in for the night, so the super has cranked up the heat. All over the apartment, I hear the iron beasts clank, spit, and roar. To turn the blistering on/off nozzle righty-tighty, I use my sweatshirt as an oven mitt. Even with the valve shut, the radiator ribs will remain hot and turn this bathroom into a sauna.

  I brace myself along the long side of the tub. I’ve sweat through my underwear. My hair sticks to the back of my neck. I’m trembling, but the thought of getting into the tub makes me cringe. The water is a sheet of glass. If I touch it, it will shatter. Then, I’ll be in worse pain.

  “Baby, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I lie.

  I have to do something or Mom’s going to come in here. The only thing that sounds good to me is sleep. That milk was a sedative. I fight the urge to lie back down. Maybe if I stir the water around, Mom will believe I’ve done what she wanted and I can go to bed. I reach my hand into the tub to test the temperature.

  “Good girl!” Mom thinks the splash was my foot.

  I jerk my hand out, and Mom claps because she thinks it’s my other foot going under the surface.

  I shake the water off, and it splashes the shower curtain, which has sailboats on it so the bathroom isn’t too frilly for my dad. The water is slimy like the inside of a sink pipe when you stick your finger down it to fish out a ring. To placate my mom, I stir the water with the plunger.

  Mom calls, “Cool off. I’ll come back in a little while with the thermometer.” Her footsteps fade, and I wonder why she’s not worried that I’ll pass out and drown.

  Outside the bathroom window, kids are yammering and smoking while waiting for the Crosstown 72. Our apartment is on the second floor above the bus stop. I can hear entire conversations, and while I’m not a smoker myself, I can smell the difference between Marlboros and American Spirits. This is a prewar building from 1917. Even with the windows shut, everything gets in, including a draft.

  I rest the side of my head against the blinds. It’s less than 30 degrees outside. The icy air seeps through the window. I’m covered in goose bumps. I unhook my dad’s terry-cloth robe from the back of the door. The robe is heavy. My knees buckle. I steady myself and then part the blinds and peer out.

  The neon lights of the bus stop glow in the dark. The kids, four boys and a girl, are talking about—what else?—how cold January is. The boys are bundled in what never goes out of style in Manhattan: black down jackets that make them look like charred Michelin Men. I’m sure that three of them don’t go to my school because their haircuts would never fly. Too cool for wool caps, one kid’s hair is spiked with Elmer’s Glue, another’s is dirtied into blond dreadlocks, and a third’s is shaved to reveal a scalp tattoo.

  The remaining boy better fits the Purser-Lilley mold, except for the cheap black-and-gray-checked scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth. By the way that he tugs at it, I can tell it itches and ain’t Barney’s cashmere.

  The boys might be my age, might be older. I think everyone in high school looks older than me. Every time I look (or don’t look) in the mirror, I feel like I’m twelve. Mom says she forever feels sixteen. I don’t know who I feel sorrier for.

  The girl wears a white version of the Michelin Man jacket. The hood is trimmed with rabbit fur. The drawstrings end in fuzzy rabbit balls. I’ve seen it on skinny Purser-Lilley moms; it seems too expensive for this crowd. The girl throws her head back and laughs.

  My eyes widen. Hello, Ling Ling Lebowitz.

  Ling Ling, a tiny girl who is always cold, is warmed by the group. She slips in and out of their spooning embraces. She’s a dodge ball that’s not thrown but gently passed from one easy catch to the next. The boys encircle her and take turns getting cozy. If Octavia saw this, she’d call Ling Ling a ho. But Ling Ling doesn’t look ho-ish. She looks perfectly at ease. I’m jealous. No boy has ever wrapped his arms around me, let alone four at once.

  The bus arrives, and the group piles on. Ling Ling chooses a window seat. The boys el
bow each other over who’s going to sit beside her because they can’t pass her around on the bus. The driver closes the doors, and the bus rocks from the suction. The boys stretch out their arms and pretend to be surfing.

  Ling Ling snatches the tail end of that one boy’s cheap checked scarf. The boy tips toward her, bats her hand away, frees himself. Fringe comes off in her mitten. Ling Ling grabs another handful, higher up at his throat. The scarf tightens around his nose and mouth. His forehead turns red. Does she want to borrow the scarf or cut off the blood to his brain?

  The other boys prod him. Ling Ling has chosen him; he should sit his ass down. He settles in beside her and loosens his scarf but doesn’t remove it. He takes his cap off, and out pops a cloud of black curly hair. He turns toward Ling Ling, leans into her, and whispers I don’t know what. But I see who he is.

  Nick Martin.

  The one Purser-Lilley boy who is not too skinny and not at all fat. He’s not too tall and not shorter than me. He has dark brown eyes and what looks like a year-round tan. Every summer, he disappears from Manhattan and goes to Athens and the Greek islands to spend three months with his grandparents. Every first day of school, he smells like the beach.

  Do I need to mention that Nick Martin is my not-so-secret crush? With that description, what else could he be?

  The bus veers into traffic, and Nick looks over his shoulder in my direction as if he’s forgetting something. That I live here? That instead of being the tablespoon in Ling Ling’s measuring set of boys, he’d meant to acknowledge me for the first time in our lives? He keeps his gaze in line with mine. The bathroom blinds are closed, but I get a weird sensation that we’re making eye contact. I feel something between us—something warm and incredibly real.

  I put my hand over my drumming heart. Like the bus, Nick is now long gone, but I feel like he’s still out there. Closer than before…getting closer…about to ask my doorman to give me a buzz. It’s ridiculous, I’m ridiculous, but I take another peek. For what? His bus dust?