Another Little Piece of My Heart

by Tracey Martin

  But though my parents have done their best, personality is only so malleable. They started with the piano and tennis lessons in elementary school because, according to my mom and her mother before her, all girls should know how to play both. While those were ongoing, I was made to appreciate art everywhere from the Met to the Louvre, taken on shopping expeditions from Fifth Avenue to Florence, and the gaps in my pricey private-school education were filled in with horseback riding and sailing lessons.

  And although I can’t deny some of my mom rubbed off on me—I stuck with the piano long after April quit and I pretty much adore all things Italy—she didn’t create a little version of herself. I prefer funky boutiques to high-end designers. I’d rather watch a game at Yankee Stadium than a match at Wimbledon. And I want a Strat and a set of amps for my sixteenth birthday instead of the new car my parents are offering.

  Worse: I love Jared even if they don’t. As a result, I begin the downward slide from simply being the misfit child to the bad daughter. It’s a process that’s been fifteen years in the making.

  The harder they try to make me into their version of Claire, the harder I fight back. If I’m not hanging out with Jared, I’m hanging out with Kristen. Anything to get away from the tension at the Winslow house. My parents’ tendency to favor April, which they staunchly deny, becomes even greater. It’s as if we communicate so infrequently and irregularly, that sometimes they forget I exist. Or maybe we start speaking in two totally different languages.

  Take, for example, my cousin Alison’s wedding. Alison is my mom’s brother’s daughter. She’s ten years older than me, and I see her maybe once a year. Our paths cross so infrequently that I can’t even give an opinion of her. But that’s not about to stop Alison from using me and April as decorations in her wedding party.

  Alison is determined to have the most badass (read: expensive) wedding known to humanity. Something so ostentatious that members of Greenpeace should probably be picketing the event for its gratuitous use of natural resources. As such, she requested April and I be junior bridesmaids. What a junior bridesmaid does besides wear an ugly dress, uncomfortable shoes and a fake smile is not something anyone can explain to me, but that’s beside the point. April is excited about dressing like a princess, and my mom is excited for the high-society photo op.

  Alison planned a shopping date for bridesmaid dresses with my mom, and in typical Winslow family fashion, my mother conveyed this information to April, but not to me.

  “Jared’s picking me up at four,” I say as I come down the stairs on Saturday and help myself to the platter of bacon.

  “Picking you up for what?” my mother asks. She looks healthy. True, she lost a bit of weight on the last round of chemo, and she hasn’t regained it. But since her motto is “never too rich or too thin,” she’s far from bemoaning the fact that she once again fits into her size two jeans.

  “For the concert.” Technically, it’s called the Music or Lose It Tour, and it’s headlined by one of Jared’s and my favorite bands, but there’s no way I’m bothering to explain that to my parents. “Remember? He got us the tickets for Valentine’s Day. It’s up in Hartford tonight.”

  This is when my mother informs me of the dress shopping plans and tells me that trumps any silly concert.

  I force down the bite of bacon. “When did you decide this?”

  “A few weeks ago. We had to pick a day that didn’t interfere with April’s practice schedule.”

  “Well, what about my schedule? You didn’t think to ask me?”

  “I’m sure we did. You didn’t mention any prior commitments.”

  “Um, hello? Concert? If you’d asked, I would definitely have mentioned it!”

  My father puts down his newspaper. “Claire, this is your cousin’s wedding. That takes a bit more priority than your boyfriend.”

  A wedding for a cousin I see once a year and who spelled my name Clare in the email telling—excuse me, asking—me to be a junior bridesmaid. How is that more important than my boyfriend of seven months? You know, the guy I see every freaking day?

  I attempt to be rational. “That’s not the point. You didn’t ask me, and Jared spent a couple hundred dollars to get these tickets.”

  “And your aunt and uncle are spending a hundred thousand dollars on your cousin’s wedding. Your dress isn’t even included in that because we’re paying for it.”

  That’s supposed to make me feel better? Jared had to take a part-time job to pay for these tickets. My Uncle Doug might be insane, but I’m guessing he didn’t work extra hours at the office to afford the wedding. Telling my parents about Jared’s job, though, is a bad idea. They’ll only turn up their noses even further.

  The smell of the eggs on my plate is screwing with my stomach. “I’m not blowing off the whole wedding. I just can’t go dress shopping today.”

  “You’re going.”

  “I’m not.”

  Across from me, April smiles, perfectly smug, and stuffs another forkful of scrambled eggs in her mouth.

  “Yes, you are,” says my dad. “You don’t have my permission to go to this concert. The discussion is over.”

  “You gave me permission last month.” I should have gotten it in writing.

  “I gave permission to let a seventeen-year-old boy drive my fifteen-year-old daughter to Hartford for some concert? No, I don’t think so.”

  My parents love to play the age game with Jared. Although he’s only one year ahead of me in school, thanks to his birthday being in the spring, he’s currently two years older.

  “And in that piece-of-shit truck of his?” My father reddens with the very idea. “It’ll probably break down before you reach I-91.”

  My mom smoothes her napkin out on the table so the embroidered violet lies flat. “If he gave you the ticket as a gift, then it’s your choice whether you go. There’s nothing that says you have to. He should have asked about the date first.”

  “You should have asked about the date. The concert was already planned.” I can’t take it anymore. I push away from the table and lock myself in my room.

  I went to the concert, too. I called Jared, snuck out the back of the house, and spent all day with him until we left, my cell phone off. I knew I’d pay for it later, and sure enough a massive grounding followed. In fact, that would turn out to be one of the pivotal events cited by my parents as a reason I should break up with Jared. The good, pre-Jared Claire would never have done anything so horrible.

  The radio station jumps to commercial break, and I’m abruptly pulled from my memories.

  “What do you think of these?” April holds her phone up to my face.

  I shake my head. “I can’t look now. I’m driving.”

  Driving? Hell, I’ve been zoning. It’s only April and the heavy traffic that dragged me off memory lane and back onto the Mass Pike.

  I rub my eyes beneath my sunglasses. “What are you looking at anyway?”

  April frowns into her phone. “Shoes to go with my dress for the Michelsons’ party.”

  “We still have to go to that thing?”

  I swear I can hear April rolling her eyes. “You really thought we could get out of it? Dad was talking about it the other night. Which you’d know if you hadn’t had your earbuds in.”

  I haven’t the faintest idea what other night she’s referring to, nor the desire to ask. Absently, I scroll through my music. Janis and the radio station are long gone. I want something more current now. Something that promises the future instead of replaying the past.

  April continues to shop, undaunted by the size of her phone screen. “I’m looking for you, too, since you don’t want to do it. Feel free to thank me anytime.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Gee, thanks. I know it’s a hardship for you.”

  Just another way my sister takes after our mo
ther—the shopping gene. More so than tennis or organizing fundraisers for the local art museum, my mother loved to shop. And I don’t just mean for clothes and shoes and all the usual things either, and certainly not just for herself. She was annoyingly generous that way, buying me new backpacks, earrings or whatever else she thought I needed to update more frequently in my life than I did.

  In fact, the longer I was with Jared, the more she tried shopping for a new boyfriend for me, shuffling through the possibilities like boys were something you bought off the rack at Nordstrom.

  Do you like the blue sweater or the green one? The brunette or the blond? Oh, honey, pick any boy but that Jared one. He’s too shabby for you and he clashes with your future.

  Speaking of the Michelsons, the most blatant memory I have of her doing just that was the afternoon of their annual party two years ago. My mother’s hairdresser has come to the house to fix April and me with elaborate up-dos because that’s what you do before going to the Michelsons’ gala. I’m not even sure how my dad knows the Michelsons, but we’ve been going—and I’ve been suffering—through these parties once a summer for as long as I can remember. Think champagne, caviar, ice sculptures, boasting and evil gossip disguised by tuxedos and glittering jewelry. It’s a lot like how I imagine The Great Gatsby went down only without the cool flapper dresses.

  “What about Sam Cohen?” my mom asks.

  The hairdresser yanks too tightly on my head and I wince. “What about him?”

  “He’s cute.” My mom so innocently tries on one of her wigs, scrunching her face up as if that will help her figure out which one goes best with her gown.

  I stare wistfully at the bowl of blueberries several feet away. I can’t eat while Candy tortures my scalp, and I can’t fight with my mom right now although I know where this is heading. “No, he’s not.”

  She clucks her tongue at me. “He thinks you’re cute. His mother told me so.”

  “Of course, he thinks that. I’m adorable. But that doesn’t change his face.”

  She knows where this is heading too, but that makes her smile. “The Hendricks’ boy then? What’s his name?”

  I pretend I don’t know it.

  Undaunted, she lists off every boy within my general age range who is known to attend the gala. “Really, Claire, one of them ought to be good enough for you. Todd is even a musician. I’m sure you’d get along well. I can talk to his mother and—”

  “Todd has a girlfriend.” And, you know, I have a boyfriend. But duh—she knows. That’s why we’re having this conversation. She wants me to exchange my boyfriend for a new one.

  My mom puts the second wig on the bureau and smoothes down her pixie-ish hair. “So what? Relationships shouldn’t be so serious at this point in your life. At your age, you should be going out on lots of dates with lots of different people. You should be exploring and living it up, not locking yourself down with one person. Shop around, sweetie. Keep trading up until you find the best match. Isn’t that right, Candy?”

  Candy bites her lip, clearly not want to be dragged in to this conversation. “If you’re going to date around, high school is the time.”

  Beautifully noncommittal. I silently applaud her.

  In retaliation, she takes the curling iron to my hair, and I wince because I’m not a fan of having hot metal so close to my face. “I hate shopping, remember? I prefer the old and comfortable to the new and shiny. Anyway, it’s bad karma to replace what works great. Wasteful. Bad for the environment.”

  “Oh, Claire.” My mother clucks her tongue at me. “I just don’t want you missing out on new opportunities or settling. Live a little. For me. Shop.”

  Boys are not interchangeable objects, I want to say. And unlike a sweater that doesn’t care if I add a new one to my collection, Jared would not be pleased.

  But my mom runs her hand over her super short hair again, and her guilt trip is achieved. Live a little for me. With the unspoken ending: because I don’t know how much longer I’ll live myself.

  So I curl my hands into fists and say nothing. I love my mother, I tell myself. I just wish she could love that I also love Jared.

  But she can’t, and it only gets worse that summer. That’s when April overhears me talking to Kristen, and the word condom or sex or something equally blab worthy is mentioned. She squeals about it to Mom and Dad, who panic.

  Mom spends too much time crying because she’s worried about me making bad choices. She fears I’m going to ruin my life, and she won’t be around to help me pick up the pieces. Dad’s angry all the time because I’m upsetting my mom.

  I know none of this is an act; they’re genuinely freaking. I’m worried sick over my mom, and all the lectures I’ve gotten about how bad an influence Jared is are starting to nibble away at my confidence in our relationship.

  I love Jared, but I don’t want to cause my mom any more stress. I don’t want to make her sicker. I don’t want to lose her. She’s my mother. I grasp at any hope and start to wonder: since stress makes people sicker, will breaking up with Jared help her get better? Is this a choice between my mom’s life and my boyfriend’s heart?

  All my agonizing comes down to a single, almost unconscious decision. Jared and I are at the mall on a Saturday morning. Neither of us wants to be there, but it’s ninety degrees outside and his mom’s AC died. Among the food court, the piped-in soft rock and the generic clothing stores, we can breathe. Yet it’s a stupid way to spend the day, and we both know it.

  “Can we go back to my house, please? I hate the mall, and we can go swimming.” I cross my arms, but Jared ignores me. Again. He shuffles toward the arcade, and I kick the railing in frustration. “If you don’t want to come over, just say it already.”

  “Fine.” He spins around, his arms raised in defeat. “I don’t want to go to your house, okay? I can’t stand the way your parents talk down to me.”

  “They don’t—”

  “Yes, they do. They hate me, and I don’t want to deal with them.”

  People scurry by, sucking on soft drinks with amused expressions. My cheeks flame, and I suspect it’s because deep down, I know Jared isn’t entirely wrong. “That’s not true.”

  Jared pushes his hair out of his face. “Are you kidding? Christ, Claire, I can’t believe you’re defending them. I thought you were better than that.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.” His shoulders slump and he turns his back on me.

  I feel funny, like my brain’s been injected with Novocain. Maybe it’s stress or self-doubt, or maybe it’s simply the irrational urge to protect my mom, but whatever it is, I can’t stop the words from dribbling out. “You know, if that’s the way you’re going to be, if that’s what you think of me, then maybe we need to back off for a bit.”

  That stops him walking away. “What?”

  “Maybe my parents were right, and we shouldn’t hang around together so much. We should take some time apart.”

  “I can’t believe you think that.” Those blue eyes of his go dead gray. “You’re going to pick them over me?”

  I close the distance between us, dropping my voice so the gawkers in the food court won’t hear us. I feel as though I’m having some kind of out-of-body experience, like I’m watching myself have this conversation because I sure can’t be doing it for real. My heart pounds against my chest, trying to beat the seriousness of what I’m doing into my head. And yet my mouth plunges forward. I’m sick of walking this tightrope between family and Jared, and my mom needs me. She must need me more than Jared does. Besides, after all she’s ever done for me, how can I not do this one thing for her? Sitting through ten years of piano recitals is reason enough that I owe her.

  “I’m not picking anyone. I just can’t deal with you bad-mouthing them right now. My mom’s sick, and—”

 
“And I’m supposed to be okay with the way they treat me because of that?”

  “That’s not it....” I swallow, but a lump in my throat gets in my way. “She’s my mom.”

  “And I’m nothing?”

  “Stress is bad for her.”

  “Right, and I stress her out because I’m not good enough for you. I get it.”

  The greasy food court stench makes my stomach roll. “No, you don’t. I....” Jared gives me a second, but I can’t collect my thoughts. I have too many, and I’m still in shock over what I’ve done.

  “Yeah, I do. Your parents are a couple of stuck-up assholes, I’m a loser and you care more about appeasing their snobbishness than you do about hurting me. That’s fine. Believe me, I get it.”

  He storms off, and I have to call Kristen to get a ride home. When I explain to her what happened, she swears I made the right move. But then why doesn’t it feel right? Why do I feel slimy and evil, like I just condemned a million puppies to death? Why is there this hole inside my chest?

  Within hours, I’m wishing I could take it all back because I feel worse than ever. Jared has a temper, but he usually cools off quickly. It never crosses my mind that this time I might have wounded him too badly for it to blow over.

  But when I call him, he doesn’t answer. So I leave messages. I text him. He never responds. I cry until I puke. A week later, I hear through the gossip mill that Jared’s taken off to spend the rest of his summer with his sister in New York City. I remember what he told me about his father—how when he’d get angry, he’d run away. But I can’t believe Jared would act like his father, the man he loathes for running out on him and his mother. And yet...

  I try to forget, but everything seems to remind me of him. Even the new Miata my parents buy me for my birthday can’t distract me. What good is a car when I don’t have Jared to ride around with in it? So I give my mom rides instead. I throw my heart into making up for all the quality mother-daughter time I lost out on when I was with Jared, but this only convinces my mom that she won. She harps on why Jared was so bad for me, and even though she means well, each time she does it’s like she’s digging her nails into my heart.