by Mindy Raf
I scrunch up my face.
“Yeah, Nate especially. I mean, like you don’t already know.” Meredith rips off a piece of pita bread from our pile.
“Like I don’t already know what?”
She looks over at me. “It’s okay, Izzy, you don’t have to protect her.” Meredith nods.
“Yup, yeah, totally, we know,” Cara adds.
“I’m not protecting … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay.” Meredith nods at me like I’m a toddler who’s successfully Velcro’d her own shoes. “I get it. I won’t bring it up again, say no more. It’s just, ugh, Nate is just like Jacob. A douche with a capital D. Stupid basketball and their stupid initiation crap,” she says, her face wrinkling up.
“Oh, you mean like the hazing?” I ask.
“Well, yeah, and their tasks.”
“Oh … right. Wait, like the underwear?”
“What? No, like tasks. Like Nate’s task, to get pictures of me doing you-know-what to him in the girls’ bathroom? Not like I would even go into the bathroom with him in the first place. And Nate was so pissed I wouldn’t do it. It was kinda funny. Well, until he started telling everyone I did do it, and this whole story about how Miss Larper caught us … doing that.” Meredith pauses, putting down her fork and grinding her teeth on her lower lip.
“Right …” I nod, taking this in.
“And people actually believed him! That was the worst part, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Like my mom, I know she knows the truth now, but I still feel like things are weird with us.”
“Wow, I’m … I’m so sorry, Meredith.”
“Yeah, well.” Meredith just shrugs and gives me a half smile. “Anyway, point is that Jenna and I, we know firsthand about capital D douches.”
“What? Oh … so, you do know about what happened over the summer? I mean with Jenna’s—”
“Ugh, it was awful. And I’m sure she’s painted me in a terrible light, but you know it really wasn’t my fault. Even though, yes, I still feel somewhat responsible.”
“You feel responsible?”
“Wasn’t your fault, totally not,” Cara says.
“Well, I mean, I was the one who kind of set them up, and I thought he liked her, we all did, I think he did, but you know, he screwed up.”
“Wait,” I say, trying to put it all together, realizing now that Meredith knew Jenna’s cousin Amy, and was the one who set her up with the guy in the basement in the first place. “But how do you even know—”
I’m interrupted by my phone buzzing in my coat pocket. I see Allissa’s name flashing across the screen. And then my stomach drops down to my shoes. I have five missed calls from my mom. I’m breathing hard, but trying to look calm and not freak out as I listen to my most recent voicemail. At first I can’t really understand Allissa because her voice is cutting in and out. Finally I make out what she’s saying.
Text! Address! Now! Mom! Flipping! Out! I’m! On! Way! You’re! So! Dead!
CHAPTER 15
I’m a bad daughter.
Allissa’s driving is even more erratic late at night and when she’s angry. I grip the arm rest as she swerves. I haven’t said a word since I got in the car, mainly because the first thing she said after I got in was “Don’t say a word.” But I need to feel things out.
“Thanks for coming to get me. I’m sorry you had to,” I start.
“Oh, it’s fine,” Allissa says with a feigned flippancy. “I was just hanging out with some friends, trying to enjoy my weekend, when I get a frantic call from Mom, who’s basically about to call America’s Most Wanted.”
“Oh God, so she was mad?”
“Well … she was worried. Now I’m sure she’s mad.” Then her voice starts rising, and stays pretty much in that high octave range. “Ugh, first this morning and now this. God, Izzy.”
“This morning?” I close my eyes and we drift closer and closer to the highway’s guardrail.
“Two hundred and sixty dollars!” she blurts out at dog-whistle pitch.
“Oooh.” I drop my head down, and then start shimmying off my coat in the one-hundred-and-five-degree car.
“I got a new charge on my gas credit card, which Mom gave me for gas. It’s not just like free money for you!”
“I’m sorry. I know. I meant to tell you. I have some of the cash, but …”
“And you didn’t even get anything good! Sunglasses? Who needs seven pairs of sunglasses? And two art-something neti pots? What the freak is a neti pot?”
“It’s for sinus irrigation.”
“Oooh, right.” She nods and laughs, but in that way where you definitely don’t find something funny. “Sinus irrigation.”
“It’s important to irrigate your sinus cavities.”
Allissa flashes me a death stare.
“It’s just, Mom’s been so congested and coughing. And I wanted to try it too, for myself, but you can’t share these things. Do you know how it works? It literally goes all the way up your—”
“No! There’s seriously something wrong with you. You need serious therapy. You’re always doing this, you’re always buying this crap and then I have to cover for you. It’s too much this time.” She catapults into the driveway. “I’m showing Mom the bill, and then you can explain to her why you bought overpriced glasses and two ugly clay pots that cost more than my nicest pair of shoes!”
I nod, feeling my nose tighten like it does just before I cry.
Allissa miraculously speeds into her space in the garage without a scrape, and then turns to me and sighs.
“Izzy, just … the less you say in there, the better, okay? Just nod a lot and then say sorry, okay?”
I nod at Allissa and then say, “Sorry.”
She rolls her eyes and laughs a little. “Good job.” And then before getting out of the car, she turns back and gives me a once-over, seeming surprised by her own words when she says, “I like that top.”
Mom is sitting at the kitchen table when we walk in. She gets up fast, the pajama pants she’s swimming in almost falling down to the floor.
“You’re safe!” She runs to me and gives me a huge hug, which I wasn’t expecting at all. But then, as soon as she pulls away, her whole body goes stiff and straight, and I know she’s morphing into Grandma Iris. Whenever Mom’s angry, I mean really angry, she starts talking and acting just like her mother. I could never tell her. But it’s pretty freaky.
Now she starts pacing around the kitchen, talking in that ice-cold monotone with the occasional dog-whistle squeak and asking me how I could do this to her, telling me how scared she was, and how angry she is, all the while waving her really bony arms around a lot. Then she stops and leans against the counter to catch her breath and cough. She coughs. And coughs, and coughs, and coughs.
“I knew it. I knew Meredith was still troubled.” Troubled is Mom’s euphemism for “girls who have oral sex on school property.”
“No, Mom, she’s not,” I burst out, forgetting Allissa’s “nod and apologize” advice. “You don’t understand. She’s fine.”
“Fine? Really, well—” And then Mom stops and blinks at me, as if she’s willing the image in front of her to change. Her regular voice returns for a moment. “Where did you get that nafka top? That is not appropriate for you at all. Did you go out in that?”
“Yes, but it’s fine. The top is fine. I don’t look—”
“You look inappropriate and—”
“And Meredith is fine. And I’m sorry I went out without asking you, but I left you a no—”
“Did you know that after the whole Meredith incident, Stacy Brightwell lost three clients?” And the Grandma Iris voice is back.
“What? No, Mom, listen—”
“Three! I know because two of them came to me, because nobody wants to hire a woman who can’t control her own children; who can’t set an example. It’s about [cough] trust, and respect, and how [cough] is somebody going to tr
ust me to [cough] reconstruct their home environment if they don’t think I can raise children who respect their parents [cough, cough] and themselves?”
I pour Mom a glass of water. She grabs it from me and takes a tiny sip.
“This isn’t a large town, girls, so what you do, it doesn’t just get lost in the shuffle. It matters [cough] and I’m just so … very … you’re just making things harder than they have to be for me right now, Izzy.” She takes another baby sip of water, moving her fingernails up and down her forehead.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I nod. And I just keep repeating that, and nodding, feeling smaller and smaller every time I do.
Mom shakes her head at me and sighs. “I’m heading up.”
“Are we still going tomorrow?” Allissa asks quickly and quietly.
“Oh. Yes.” Mom turns back and gives me a serious Iris look. “Don’t think you’re getting out of girls’ day, and your haircut. We are going to the mall. We’re cutting your hair. End of story.” She brushes past me, pulling up her pajama pants and coughing.
“Guess she didn’t give you a chance to show her your gas bill,” I mumble at Allissa.
“She’ll calm down once we get her inside a mall,” Allissa whispers. She gives my shoulder an encouraging squeeze and follows Mom upstairs.
I lean back against the kitchen chair to sit down, almost crushing Leroy, who’s managed to sleep-balance himself across it, his belly taking up the whole seat and his arms and legs dangling off to either side. I scoop him up and take us to the living room, where I collapse on the cushions, and close my eyes. Leroy pushes his paws into my thigh and purrs in my ear while I cry.
CHAPTER 16
I’m finally feeling inspired.
Please don’t drop it. Please don’t drop it. I repeat this to myself as I attempt to maneuver my now massive map sculpture onto its other side.
I only have about twenty minutes left in the studio before I should head back to study hall to avoid Miss Larper noticing I’m gone. I wish I had longer—who knew Mom’s dance decor would be such a great muse?
“Need some help?”
I slowly crane my neck around, both hands clutching the sculpture, and see Ina walking through the studio door.
“Yes, please!” I say, and soon she gently takes hold and helps me flip it around to its unfinished side.
“Thanks,” I sigh, smiling. I’m grateful to see Ina smiling back and that the color has fully returned to her face since Friday’s disaster.
“What are you doing here now?” I call out to her as she disappears behind her project rack.
“I need to snap some quick pictures so I can work tonight from home.”
“Oh. Pictures of …”
“New version of the sculpture,” she calls back to me.
“Oh,” I say again, then pause and look over in her direction again. “Ina, I’m still … I just want you to know that I’m still really sorry about what happened last week.”
“Yeah.” I hear her sigh. “Thanks. I know it wasn’t fully your fault. Well, anyway, it was very unfortunate. Yes.”
“Yeah.” What else can I say? I join her at her table to get a good look at this new sculpture, my eyes widening. “Wow. You kept it! You kept it? How did you …? That is very cool.”
“Yes, I fished through and saved most of my pieces. I spent the weekend completely reinventing.”
“Wow.” I walk around it to get the full effect. The sculpture’s still really intricate, but it almost looks animated now, like you’re watching it break in slow motion. “You know, I actually … I think I like this version even better,” I say, and then back out of her way as she starts to snap pictures at different angles.
“I’m adding some media now of its different stages so people can experience the journey of it. Well, that is my hope, at least.”
“That’ll be awesome.” I look back at my map, feeling inspired. Ina looks over at it too.
“Your whole portfolio, is it a Darfur theme or just this piece?”
“Oh. Well, no, I think this is just going to be for the dance decoration. It’s not—” But I cut myself off. Could this be part of my Italy portfolio? The more work I do on it, the more I like it. I’d have to step up my technique a little, but it might work. I look back at Ina. “Well … I’m not sure about this one yet, but … yeah, this is my only Darfur-themed piece.”
We work quietly side by side at our tables for a couple minutes, me mixing paint for the last area of what might be a portfolio-worthy sculpture, and Ina finishing up her photo shoot. A little while later, as she’s on her way out the door, she stops and says, in her closed-mouth way, “Oh and Izzy, your hair looks nice, very sleek now. I like.”
“Thanks,” I say as my phone starts beeping in my bag.
It’s a text from Mom.
Remember to call me before AND after rehearsal. Come right home after!
I deflate a little. Not even a “thanks for breakfast” or a “sweetie” or anything. Mom was still sleeping by the time I got up this morning. She’s usually showered, dressed, and made up by then, but I decided not to wake her and instead left a warm cinnamon roll and some eggs in the oven with a Post-it on the oven door: Breakfast! :) Sorry again about this weekend. Love you, Izzy.
Not that I thought some lousy eggs and a note would smooth things over, but … I don’t know.
Allissa was kind of right about Mom’s mood, though—it did improve once we got her inside a mall on Sunday. Sort of. She was like a mom Jekyll and Hyde. One moment smiling and laughing with Allissa and the next completely Grandma Iris–ing out on me.
I spent most of the time sitting in a swizzle chair getting attacked by a razor-blade-wielding man in a hot-pink turtleneck sweater who kept saying, “Texturizing layers, giving her the texturizing layers.”
I actually don’t hate my new haircut. It’s not mullet-like or poodle-like, which are two of my biggest haircutting fears. Mom certainly loved turtleneck man’s work too. In fact, that was the one time she smiled at me all day—when I answered “I like it” after she asked what I thought of my new hair.
I read Mom’s text again and sigh. She’s right to be angry. Sneaking out to go to a lame party, such an idiotic move. I check my new messages one last time—no new texts or calls from Blake since Saturday. Either he’s not in school today or he’s doing a really great job avoiding me. Jenna’s not doing so great a job since we practically collided with each other on my way to Spanish this morning. She bolted off fast as soon as I was tackled by Meredith, though, gushing apologies about getting me in trouble and then ogling my new haircut for five minutes.
I put my phone back in my bag and then hear someone coughing. I whip around to see Marcus standing at the door. It’s great to see him until I remember that no, maybe it’s not.
“Hey, can I … can I come in?”
“Yeah, come in. It’s not my own private studio or anything.”
“No I know, I just didn’t want to interrupt or …”
“No, it’s fine, come in,” I repeat.
He walks over to my table and then sets down the paper shopping bag he’s carrying with a thud.
I lean forward to peer inside.
“Some of my dad’s medical journals,” he explains. “Thought you’d like them.”
“Oh.” I nod. “Thanks.”
“So listen,” he starts, looking down at the floor, and then across the room at the plaster-dust-covered window. “I’m sure you’re still upset about what I said the other day when I implied that you might be … focused on being sick because of your mom. You know … because of your mom … being—”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I say, feeling annoyed already, and then more annoyed because I don’t want to feel that way around Marcus.
“No, I know, it’s just that sometimes when people think they’re sick, or want to be sick if somebody they love is—”
“I don’t want to be sick.”
“No, no, of cours
e not.”
“You think I want to be sick?” Now I’m looking at him.
“No, sorry … I just … I just want to apologize and here I am sticking my foot further into my mouth … again. No, I just wanted to say that …” He sighs and leans back against a stool. “I’m sorry about Friday, about making fun of those glasses.”
“Oh. Well, thank you. I … I probably overreacted anyway, so …”
“No, no you were right. It is stupid not to be open-minded and I tend to not be … about some things, but”—he’s pacing around the table now—“anyway, it was insensitive of me to— And I just didn’t mean to make you feel bad …” He stops walking around the table and turns to finally look at me. “Oh wow, that looks… Izzy, that looks really good.” He comes closer so that I get a whiff of his fresh-soap-boy smell.
“Thanks. I’m not done yet but, yeah, I think it’s getting there, and—”
“No, I meant … your hair. You got it cut? It looks … it looks really good.”
“Oh.” I clutch at my new layers. “Thanks.”
“But yeah … no, the sculpture looks really awesome too. You’ve … um, changed it?” Now he’s smiling. And it’s not his usual nervous smile or the way he smiles when he laughs, but like this nice, face-perfectly-still, slow-growing smile that makes him look kind of older, like handsome.
“Yeah.” I nod, then Marcus points to a section of the map and just says, “So … green.”
“What?”
“Green … um, it’s … a good color.” He gestures to that part of the map again.
“Oh. I guess so, yeah.”
“No, I mean, it’s supposedly one of the most cleansing colors.”
I look at the sculpture, and then back at him, getting it. “Yeah, I know.”
“Yeah, green is supposed to be good for the pituitary glands and it’s supposed to aid in healing infections and rebuilding cells. In fact, there was study in 1978 at this hospital in Georgia and—”
“Okay”—I laugh—“apology accepted.”
“Good,” he says, still smiling. “Now on to the good news. How would you like to retake your bio quiz?”
