The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky

by Jana Casale

  John was gone for the weekend on a business trip. When they were planning the party, there was some concern over John missing it, but the party was already a few days past Annabelle’s real birthday.

  “You sure you’ll be able to handle it?” John said to her.

  Leda found the question amusing. She tried to envision in what capacity John would have ever been helpful in the planning of and/or the execution of an eleven-year-old’s sleepover party.

  “I think I can handle it,” she said.

  The girls made their way into the living room and started to debate what they should do first.

  “Twister,” Leda heard muffled in the mix of voices. She came in the room with a bowl of chips and another of pretzels.

  “What do you girls want on your pizza? I was just going to get cheese, if that’s okay with everyone?”

  All the girls nodded except for Judith, who raised her hand. Leda was always surprised by the child’s reserve, given how much time she spent at the house.

  “Cheese isn’t good for you, honey?”

  “I just got diagnosed with celiac so I can’t have pizza, but if they have steak, or something like that, I can have that.”

  “Let me check on that.” Leda went into the kitchen and pored over the pizza restaurant’s menu. There wasn’t any steak. The only thing that she could find that was gluten-free was the lobster tail appetizer. Why the pizza place served lobster tails she could not understand.

  “Judith?” she called.

  Judith hurriedly came into the kitchen. The child was obedient, that was for certain. Leda had met her mother, Charlotte, on a few occasions. She was a stern woman with a short, peppy haircut. She never once dropped Judith off late, and if Leda was ever a few minutes late picking Annabelle up, Charlotte would purse her lips into a small, exacting smile and say, “It’s no problem at all.” But Leda knew it was a problem. She knew it was a problem very all.

  “Do you like lobster tails, by any chance?” she asked her.

  “Umm, I don’t know if I’ve ever had lobster tails…” Judith looked troubled. “I can try them.”

  “No, that’s not good enough.” Leda thought that Charlotte might be a mother who would force-feed lobster tails to a child out of propriety, but she was not. She scoured website after website before finally finding a pizza place that had gluten-free pizza options. She ordered two big cheese pizzas for the girls and one small gluten-free pizza for Judith. Judith was so happy that she actually looked relaxed as she ate, something Leda had never seen the child be.

  The girls all sat around the kitchen table. Annabelle joked about Mr. Yunni, a teacher all of them hated. Leda was amazed by her daughter’s ability to be so in command of the group. She knew when to joke and when to hang back. It was obvious that each of the girls admired her, even Stassi. She wished she’d been like that growing up. She remembered herself as a child who had wanted in a way her daughter never seemed to. Maybe she gets that from John, she thought, but she didn’t think John was really like that either. She thought of her own mother. Maybe it’s from my mom.

  “I’m so sick of school,” Stassi said as she picked at a slice of pizza. She and Miriam had both blotted the oil off their slices with a paper towel before eating. Leda was sorry to see them at eleven years old already worried about pizza grease, but it wasn’t her place to say anything.

  “At least we have spring break soon,” Miriam said. “Well, kind of soon, anyway.”

  “Are you guys all going to camp this year? We should all go to the same camp!” Stassi said. She seemed very sure of herself as she spoke, as if she’d already made the arrangements for the six of them.

  “I’m going,” said Miriam.

  “I’m going too,” said Sasha.

  “Me too,” said Judith.

  “I’m not,” said Annabelle. “I never go to camp.”

  “Why not?” said Stassi. “Camp is the absolute most fun. It’s where I learned to make friendship bracelets.”

  “I just never wanted to go,” Annabelle said. “It’s just never seemed like it was something for me.”

  “We usually go on trips in the summers,” Leda added. “What camp do you usually go to, Stassi?”

  “Camp Susserton. It’s in upstate New York where my mom grew up. She went there as a kid. She says the bunks look the same still.”

  Leda had never met Stassi’s mom, but she imagined her to have a sports car and a synthetically white smile.

  “That’s nice. How long do you go for?”

  “Eight weeks.”

  “What about you, Sasha? I thought you were home in the summers usually,” Leda asked.

  “I go to day camp,” Sasha said as she took another slice.

  “You know what? I think the worst part about school is just the fact that you have to be around so many people you don’t like,” Miriam said contemplatively. “I hate Brian Russell and I have to see him pretty much every day until I turn eighteen.”

  “Ugh, I know,” said Stassi. “I hate Ellen Howard. She’s so gross.”

  “Who is Ellen Howard?” Sasha said.

  “You know Ellen, the one with the short hair who always wears headbands,” Stassi said.

  “Her voice is so annoying,” said Miriam.

  “Oh my god, I know,” said Stassi.

  “I went to kindergarten with her,” Judith added.

  “I had Brownies with her,” Annabelle said. “She always brought the worst snacks.”

  Leda only vaguely remembered this short-haired, headbanded nightmare from the few days she spent leading the Brownie troop. Annabelle quit after only one year and hadn’t really made many friends during her time there. The other mothers involved in Brownies were far too serious about crafting for Leda to have kept in touch. Was she the little girl whose mother called me about balloons at 7:00 a.m. that time? Leda wondered.

  “Did you know she cried during gym once ’cause she didn’t win at kickball? She’s always crying,” Stassi said.

  “She cried a lot in kindergarten too,” Judith added.

  “She cries at recess all the time. One time I asked her if she was okay and she screamed at me and was like, ‘Of course I’m not okay!’ and I was like, ‘Okay…,’ ” Annabelle said.

  “Oh my god, wait,” Sasha said. “Is she the girl who wears that crazy coat that goes to, like, to the ground?”

  “Yes!” all the girls apart from Ally (who was chewing and smiling but not adding anything to the conversation) said in near unison.

  There’s nothing like hating another girl that will bond a group of girls together, Leda thought. She considered if maybe she should step in and say something, but it seemed like an exercise in futility.

  “What about Brian Russell?” she asked. “Why do you hate him?” Talking about a boy they hated seemed like a healthier direction to lead the conversation.

  After dinner the girls settled into the living room to watch a movie. They’d discussed for a long time what they would watch. Stassi immediately suggested that they watch a horror film, but Leda stepped in and said no scary movies allowed. She knew Annabelle hated them, and besides that, watching horror films at sleepovers was one of the rituals of childhood she remembered dreading. There was always one kid who wanted to, usually someone like Stassi, and the rest of the kids would go along with it out of fear of ending up the next point of discussion after Ellen Howard. Plus, she wasn’t about to allow a bunch of eleven-year-olds to watch a PG-13 movie at her house. She could just imagine what Charlotte would say when she found out. Probably something along the lines of “We don’t allow Judith to watch that kind of thing at our house,” or “Judith came home and said ‘shit box.’ Where on earth did she learn the term ‘shit box’ from?” In the end the girls settled on watching Finding Nemo.

  “I love Dory,” Stassi said.

  As the
girls watched the movie Leda sat in the kitchen and put together the goodie bags. She wasn’t sure what should go in goodie bags for eleven-year-olds. As far as she was concerned they were too young for any kind of makeup or lotions or the kinds of gifts you might give to a group of older girls, but at the same time they were too old for the kinds of silly plastic knickknacks one would usually put together for a birthday party. She settled on ChapStick, stickers, erasers, and some candy in a pretty little purse for each of them. After putting together the goodie bags, she sat for a while at the kitchen table. She’d needed to clean up and do a few other things around the house, but she felt too tired for any of it. From the other room she could hear the girls talking and laughing, but she couldn’t make out much of what they were saying. The movie was loud and muffled any conversation they were having. She took a deep breath and got up.

  A few hours later the girls came back in the kitchen for cake and presents. Annabelle graciously received each gift.

  “Oh, I love it!” she’d say, or “I’ve wanted one of these forever.”

  Leda took as many pictures as she could of the whole thing. She assumed that the girls would tire of her snapping shot after shot. She herself had distinct memories of begging her mother to stop with the pictures on her birthdays growing up, but the girls loved posing. In fact, all of them had their phones out and were taking just as many pictures, if not more, themselves. The scene was something unrecognizable as anything she ever associated with birthday parties and childhood. These children were documenting everything. Stassi held her phone over her and Annabelle’s heads and stuck out her tongue. After looking at the photo for a second she said, “That one’s going on Instagram.”

  The girls goofed around in the kitchen for a while longer before deciding it was time to get into pajamas and head to bed. The six of them moved together collectively up the stairs as one indistinguishable mass of prepubescent fervor.

  “I’ll be down here if you guys need anything. I’ll check on you before going to bed.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Annabelle called out of the indistinguishable mass.

  Leda watched a marathon of Law & Order, which made her feel very old, but there wasn’t anything else worth watching. After a few hours she went upstairs and checked on the girls.

  They were all gathered around eating candy and whispering in low, hurried voices.

  “I don’t like him, though,” she heard one of them say.

  “Hey, guys, I’m going to go to bed, but you can come and get me at any time if you need anything at all.”

  “Okay,” they answered collectively.

  “Don’t stay up too late.”

  “We won’t.”

  Leda lay down in bed. On days when John was away for business she often enjoyed just how much space she had to stretch out, but tonight it just felt very empty. She thought about the last time they’d slept together. It had to have been a couple of weeks at this point. She couldn’t quite remember when exactly. After they’d had sex she had worried about it, how they’d just done it in missionary again and how that’s all they had done the last few times they’d had sex. Shouldn’t we be doing it from behind more? Doesn’t he care that we hardly ever do it from behind? she had fretted. She didn’t say anything to John about it, but she shrugged her shoulders when he asked if she was okay. He fell asleep before the issue could be resolved. Now, lying there alone in her big, empty bed, the whole thing seemed foolish. Outside she could hear the rain start. Its loud consistency was calming and she went to sleep.

  “Mom.” She woke up to Annabelle standing beside the bed.

  “Mom,” Annabelle said again.

  “What time is it?” she said.

  “Two a.m.”

  “Why are you awake?” For a second Leda had forgotten all about the sleepover.

  “We’re trying to pull an all-nighter.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m just not having a lot of fun.”

  “Why not?” She sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “I’m just bored of the other girls. All they want to do is talk about boys and I’m sick of it.”

  “Well, that’s what girls usually do at sleepovers, but I understand that it can get tedious.”

  “I like talking too, but I just feel like I’m not like them.”

  “You aren’t.”

  “But who am I like?”

  “No one is like them, Anna-B. No one is really like that. People just act a certain way at parties and that’s what they’re doing.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t really know. To feel like they belong? You have nice friends. They’re just trying to do what they think they should do at a sleepover. Half of them are probably bored of talking about boys too.”

  “Yeah.” Annabelle lay down beside her mom and rested her head on her shoulder. “Can’t I just stay here with you the rest of the night?”

  “I think if you did that you’d probably feel worse.”

  “But you’re more fun than they are.”

  “I know.” Leda smiled. “But you’ll only look back on tonight and think of it as a good time. You had fun earlier, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s just late. I hope you guys sleep at least a little while, and in the morning you’ll feel better.”

  “I don’t know.” Annabelle snuggled up closer. “I really don’t want to.”

  “I’ll tell you what, you do this and tomorrow morning, after they leave, we’ll go get a big breakfast together, just the two of us, and go for ice cream afterward, how about that?”

  Annabelle considered it for a moment and then nodded. “All right. Thanks, Mom.”

  “You’ll be happier in the morning, honey. I promise.”

  Annabelle hugged her and left the room quietly. Leda listened to the girls’ whispers and giggles. The rain had stopped and she could hear them talking back and forth a bit. She fell back asleep after feeling sure that she’d done the right thing in encouraging her daughter to go back to the party.

  She woke up intermittently for most of the night after that. A few times she got up and checked on the girls. They had fallen asleep, as she had suspected they would. In the early morning, just as the sun came up, she fell into a labored sleep full of strange dreams about the party. In one of them she was walking through the house and calling for the girls but no one was answering.

  “I’m here,” she heard Annabelle call from the bathroom. She ran up the stairs and into the bathroom to find Stassi lying naked in a blood-filled tub. Her blond hair was still done up perfectly; her head was all that wasn’t submerged by the pink-hued water.

  “I got my period,” Stassi said. “I’m not dying. And I’m not scared.”

  The next morning the girls gathered around in their PJs and ate bagels (Judith had eggs). Annabelle hardly touched hers, and Leda knew it was because she was saving her appetite for the promised breakfast ahead. How different they all acted now that the nighttime glow of the party had worn off. They were tired and disheveled. Each of them looked younger and more childish.

  “I’m tired,” Sasha said.

  “Me too,” said Judith.

  Stassi just nodded. Her hair still did look nice.

  One by one, each of the girls was picked up by her mother. Judith was the first to go, as was expected. Stassi and Miriam left together. Sasha left soon after. Ally was the last to go. She hugged Annabelle at the door and said, “I don’t go to camp either. We should hang out this summer.”

  Once the house was finally empty, Leda cleaned up a bit and got ready to head out with Annabelle.

  “That was fun,” Annabelle said. “But I’m kinda glad it’s over.”

  “That’s how everything good in life feels,” Leda said. She grabbed her wallet and keys and then her phone before he
ading out the door. As she walked to the car she noticed that John had texted her.

  “I miss you,” it said.

  And all she felt was happy.

  CHAPTER 49

  Writing Group

  She missed writing. She felt it all at once one day as she was making a sandwich. I miss writing, she thought as she coolly spread mayonnaise across a piece of bread. For so long she had told herself that she didn’t really miss it. Didn’t have time, was already happy. But the outburst from the vestibule a few years earlier often came to her mind, and when she’d think of it her heart would race. Most of the time she could look past it and not wonder why she’d said she was a writer when clearly she was not. Tired, stressed, trapped, she could think, but then one day she felt something else, and it was so fully and undeniably the feeling of wanting that she couldn’t simply excuse it all away.

  When Annabelle was very little Leda had told her that she had wanted to be a writer once.

  “You know, Mommy used to write,” she said to her daughter, who was busy drawing a picture with a scented marker. It felt like a confession, even though clearly a two-year-old child was incapable of grasping the meaning of it all. As silly as it was, she felt nervous in the silence between them. Annabelle didn’t even look up as she answered. “Yes,” she said, as matter-of-factly as possible, as if she’d been well aware all along exactly who her mother was. From then on Leda would mention it from time to time, and Annabelle grew up accepting it as any other part of family history: a grandparent who fought in a war, the story of her father’s favorite childhood Christmas. It could not be uncoiled from where it was or where it began; it was just always there, thumping away a pattern or a footprint that could scarcely be contextualized in Annabelle’s life: Mom used to write.