by Schow, Ryan
“I think that was Brittney Spears,” Brayden says. His face is like he’s seen a ghost.
“I think so, too. But I’m still not sure. You know how famous people never look like they look on TV or in the movies.”
“Can this day get any more surreal?” he says.
“I’m still in shock.”
“She looks older,” Rebecca says. “But still beautiful.”
“She looks old to you,” I say. “But that’s because you haven’t seen her in almost ten years. And you’re right. She looks beautiful. But don’t get all star struck just yet because that might not be her.”
No one says anything for awhile, and then Brayden says, “I want my hearse, Abby.”
I almost forgot about that thing: the big black hearse that’s older than dirt, but in a cool, hipster kind of way. The very same hearse that so tastelessly says “I see dead people” on it. Maybe it’s not tasteless. Maybe it’s just funny. I don’t know. I guess your interpretation depends on who you are as a person.
“You don’t think that’s inappropriate right now?” I say. I don’t really know why I said this. I guess I just wanted to put an end to the silence.
“Most everything I do is inappropriate and self-serving. Besides, looking at Maggie’s hearse makes me really want mine.” Most people think of Brayden as brash, and rude. I’ve known him long enough to realize this is his way of coping with difficult things, so I forgive him the minute he opens his mouth.
“You’re a freaking retard,” Damien says sharply. I remind myself these two are friends. “What kind of a jack-monkey drives a hearse?”
“It’s here in Sacramento,” Brayden says to me, completely ignoring Damien. “In storage. If I’m going to live with you for the summer, I’ll need my own car.”
Rebecca is staring at Damien. I think she’s in love with him, and this worries me a bit because maybe I’m in love with him, too. Or not. Maybe I’m just in love with the way he looks. Who wouldn’t be? He’s gorgeous.
“One thing at a time,” I say, patting Brayden assuredly on the leg. “One thing at a time.”
“So can we get it later?” he says. “After the funeral?”
Jesus, he’s like a three year old begging for candy. “God, Brayden, yes,” I reply, certain my father will hate having that wickedly gothic rust-bucket parked out front. “As long as you promise to keep it clean.”
5
Standing before a six foot rectangular hole in the earth watching one of your best friends get lowered into it in a box is probably the most difficult thing a girl my age can bear. A somber understanding of how things can go wrong washes over me. The emotions that hit me now are not the ones I expected.
Even though Cicely and Tempest are at my side, I can’t stop my mind from drifting elsewhere. Watching Buford Jaynes’s face, seeing the pain Maggie’s suicide is causing him, I can’t help feeling pissed off at Maggie’s mother. What kind of a selfish woman would leave her family like that? She had to have known there was a chance Maggie would find her. And Maggie? I barely want to admit this, especially now, but she was no better. She killed herself in my house knowing the kind of pain it would cause. To heap that misery and grief upon us, upon me, and most especially her father, is sinful.
No, it’s unforgivable.
“Did you know her well?” whispers the familiar voice. It doesn’t matter where you are or what the forum may be, Brittney Spears has a very distinct voice. You’d recognize it anywhere.
“I did,” I say. For some reason, I’m not nervous around the pop-star. Maybe because there was a good chance it was just a Brittney copycat, of which there are so many. “She became one of my best friends.”
Standing just a little behind me, the girl leans in close enough to my ear for me to actually feel her breath upon it. She smells…wealthy, uninhibited. I wonder if my friends are seeing this. Across the hole in the earth, Theresa Pritchard is seeing this, but pretending not to. Who knows what she will say when she leaves? I’m sure that bitch will post something on Facebook or Twitter, or perhaps even SocioSphere.
I promise myself not to look.
“The music industry changes you,” the girl in my ear whispers. “You give it everything, but it’s never enough. It demands more. Men like Demetrius, they swallow your soul for pennies on the dollar, then trade you in for a Christina Aguilera, a Selena Gomez, a Lady Gaga. Even if you succeed, they’ll eventually wash you out while signing the next big thing.”
I listen to the pastor officiating the more formal services as he talks about forgiveness and being in the Lord’s embrace and finding peace. Looking right at Theresa who is looking right back at me with a frown, I whisper to the girl who might be Brittney, “Why are you telling me this?”
“I just thought you should know,” she says softly, tenderly. “What she did to herself, it probably wasn’t her fault.”
“She knew what she was doing,” I whisper. “Her mother killed herself the same way. Maggie knew what she was doing.”
“Her mother was a singer, too. Think about it.”
That’s all I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been wondering how many other singers were made to suffer a “right of passage” involving rape to get their career started. The rumors about Michael Jackson being taken to hotel rooms as a boy and used as a negotiation tool haunt me. The stories about powerful Hollywood archetypes sexually abusing child actors—stories told by people like Corey Feldman about him and the late Corey Haim—once you hear them, you can’t un-hear them. Marilyn Monroe once said, “Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you thousands of dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.” Maybe it’s not just the music industry that’s upside down, perhaps it’s the entire entertainment industry. And what is this girl trying to say to me? Is she telling me something? Whatever the case, her words, her message, only solidify my plans to drive a stake through Demetrius’s heart.
Because I need the strength of my friends, I take Tempest’s hand. She is closest to me, and she does not deny me this support. In fact, she seems to appreciate it.
After the services are over, I turn to say good-bye to the maybe Brittney, but she’s gone. Cicely and Tempest and I talk as we’re heading toward our cars, but in the parking lot, Blake catches up to me and says, “I want to talk to you.” Her face is not friendly. Her tone is not kind. Theresa is a few feet behind her, glaring at me, saying nothing her dark eyes aren’t saying for her. Already I don’t like this. Then again, what’s a funeral without a fight?
“What can I do for you, Blake?” I say. Cicely and Tempest have my back. Their presence fuels me.
“That was bullshit what you said on the phone,” she snarls. “Then hanging up on me? You’re a coward.”
My mind is mixed as to the appropriate response, so instead, I slap her across the face with all of the strength I have left. Better to stop her before she gets started.
Plus, I’m offended.
“I pulled your step-sister from a bloody bathtub and held her dead in my arms. Not you! Think about that next time you open that shithole of a mouth.”
Enraged, or perhaps shocked, she holds her slapped face while everyone watches. I wonder if she is embarrassed, or if she’ll hit me back. I’m not really prepared to get beat up in front of everyone, but I guess if it’s meant to be, I’ll take it with as much grace as I can muster. Then, to my utter surprise, she turns and walks back to Buford and her mother. Theresa eyes me a moment longer, then walks in another direction to her car.
“That could have gone so much worse,” Cicely says. I agree. It could have. “We have to go, sweetheart. Our flight leaves in just over an hour.”
“Already?”
“I know,” Tempest says. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, as long as you guys pick up the phone if I call. I’m sort of not doing so well, you know?”
They both give me a long hug, then kisses, and then we say good-bye and they leave. I’m about to get into my car when Jake approa
ches me.
“Hi, Professor Teller,” I say, my heart galloping now for an entirely different reason.
“How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Yes, call you Jake, I get it. I just don’t like saying it in front of other people.”
He hands me a business card. It’s to the Hyatt downtown. “I’m staying here tonight. I wrote my room number on the back in case you want to call me.”
I slide it into my pocket, give him a hug and thank him for coming.
“If you need me,” he says, pausing, “it doesn’t matter how late the hour.”
Because people are looking at me, and because Rebecca, Brayden and Damien have all piled into the car and are waiting, I kind of brush him off with a meek, “Thanks.”
All the way home, we talk about if that really was or wasn’t Brittney Spears, me hitting Blake and how Brayden thinks Professor Teller has a crush on me. They laugh and tease, but I can see the worry in Damien’s eyes, and it matches the worry in my heart. For the things I’m contemplating, for the trouble I could very well get myself into on so many fronts, he has good reason to worry.
6
We stop off at the vehicle storage facility holding Brayden’s hearse and he’s happier than a fat kid at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I wonder how he can feel so good on a day like today, but he compartmentalizes his emotions. To be happy about the car, he has to send his sadness about Maggie to a different part of his brain and close that door. It will open again, though, and so he’ll close off the happiness about the car to be sad about Maggie. That’s how he works, and to some degree, I’m envious.
Damien, however, is mad. When we take off and leave Brayden to head home on his own, Damien sits up front and says, “If I’d known you would be chauffeuring that clown all over town I would’ve taken my own car.”
After that, we don’t talk on the way back to the funeral home. He gets out of the Audi, and so do I. I’m trying to slow him down for a moment, not end this day on such a sour note.
“Why are you so upset?” I say. The parking lot is mostly empty, and the air outside is warm with a slight breeze.
He spins around, faces me with smoldering eyes. “Take a guess,” he snaps. If I guessed, I wouldn’t know whether it was because I inconvenienced him by taking Brayden to his storage unit, started a fight at the funeral, got extra attention from Jake, or because our friend killed herself.
“Why don’t you just spare me the games and tell me. It’s been a long day already.”
He doesn’t say anything, and it’s killing me that we’re fighting, so I try to be good. I go and give him a hug, assuming he’s upset over Maggie, but it’s awkward. He hugs me half-heartedly, so I try to kiss him—not make out, just settle him down. He turns away and it breaks my heart.
“That’s not really appropriate,” he says.
“What, you don’t want to kiss your girlfriend now?” I didn’t mean to say girlfriend, but I’ve been wondering.
“What did Professor Teller give you?” he says.
Oh, crap. It’s this.
I let go of him, cross my arms. “Nothing.”
His face tells me he knows I’m lying. He shoves his hands in his pocket, then glances at the car where Rebecca’s sitting in the back seat looking like a twelve year old girl in an adult’s body. God, she really is beautiful.
“What did he give you?” he asks again. At this point, I hate his tone.
“He didn’t give me anything.” When someone spots a lie, the rule of thumb, if you are in fact lying, is to defend said lie to the death.
“He likes you, you know.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“You can see it in his eyes. He likes you, and I think you like him, too.”
“If you’re going to be with a good looking girl, you have to get used to other men liking her. I’m good looking, Damien. Men are going to be attracted to me. It’s human nature.”
“We’re not together, Abby. We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend.”
Okay, now I feel stupid.
“But I thought—”
“Jesus, Abby, or Savannah, or whatever. You’re not even a real person. You’re just…you’re like my sister, playing dress up, but with bodies rather than clothes.”
As if this day could get any worse…
“Is that what you think of me?” I ask, my voice shaking. I can’t believe this is happening. I tell myself to be strong, but inside I feel like the unwanted, unloved girl I used to be. The one no one looks at. The one no one likes.
“You’re better off being with someone who doesn’t know what you are.”
“And what am I?” I say, pissed off that I’m getting so emotional over this. Pissed off that I’m now crying…again. Holy Jesus, I’m so tired of crying!
“Never mind,” he says. “I have to go.” With that, he turns to leave, but I catch up, grab his shoulder and haul him around.
“No, you chickenshit,” I all but bark, wiping tears angrily from my eyes. “You have something to say, have the spine enough to tell me!”
“You want to hear it?”
“Say it!”
“You’re fake, Abby. A glorified lab rat.”
When I slap him, it’s twice as hard as I slapped Blake. When I turn and leave, he doesn’t stop me, and I don’t look back. Rebecca crawls into the front seat then watches me cry almost all the way home.
7
When we get home, Margaret is there and I’m like, fuh-reaking great! When I go inside, however, she’s sitting on the couch next to my father. They’re talking. I stop in my tracks, my jaw slack. Am I seeing this right? They actually look…happy together.
“What’s this crap?” I say.
“Well hello to you,” my father says.
I head to Maggie’s room, close and lock the door and crawl into bed. I should have asked about Brayden, but he’s out doing whatever. Snuggling into the sheets and blankets, I draw a deep breath, if only to hold on to what’s left of Maggie’s scent. Soon it will be gone. Replaced by my own smells.
Within minutes I’m asleep.
When I wake up, it’s pitch black outside and I feel as lonely as I’ve ever felt. It’s hitting me that she’s not coming back. I look at the clock: 10:32 P.M. A half-hour passes. Then an hour. Finally I get up, put on my clothes and sneak out of the house.
Normally it would take two hours to get to Sacramento, but in the middle of the night it takes more like an hour and forty-five minutes. I’m knocking on Jake’s hotel room door at half past one, and I’m more nervous than a hooker at a STD screening.
Then again, he said I could wake him up. No, I remind myself, he said I could call and wake him up, not just show up and wake him up.
Damn.
Too late. He opens the door, eyes bleary, hair tussled. “Abby,” he says. He stands aside and lets me in.
For awhile we talk, but then I can’t stand it anymore. More than conversation, I want that strength in him. The way I was feeling like a fool before, for not taking a chance on him—on being with him—I’m feeling like taking the risk, especially after the fight I had with Damien.
“I need to shower,” I say. I don’t know why I say that, only that I feel icky from crying all day, and then from falling asleep and not really fixing myself up the way I should. If I’m going to make my move, I should at least look and feel clean.
“It’s almost two,” Jake says, like he can’t believe my request.
“I know. But I’m all out of sorts and, honestly, a shower is the only thing that sounds good to me right now.”
He looks a bit baffled, but then he points the way.
I head into the bathroom, take off all my clothes and start the shower. There’s a low swooping in my stomach that leaves me nearly dizzy. I look in the mirror and appraise myself. My perfect skin, my lovely breasts, my perfect legs and vagina.
“Not fake,” I hear myself whisper. “Not a lab rat.”
Something sensual glides through me, someth
ing carnal, something almost…predatory. For the longest moment I feel like puking, but then the need completely overtakes me. Reckless is how I feel. Reckless and alive.
I open the bathroom door, poke my head out and see Jake laying in bed, his back to me. I open the door a sliver wider, so Jake can see everything.
“I wouldn’t be upset if you wanted to join me,” I say.
He rolls over in bed, rubs his eyes and says, “Abby,” in a way that makes me feel ashamed of my actions. He says it the same way my father would say it. My hands close the door a little, so he can see nothing. Already heat is steeling into my face and I’m feeling stupid.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, my confidence diminishing by the second, the fires in me cooling against their will. “You’ve seen me naked before.”
“I know, but, you’re still…underage. And I haven’t seen you that naked before.”
To Damien I’m fake, to Jake I’m underage; I swear the only person who truly appreciates me is Brayden.
Without another word, I close the door, get in the shower and twist the dial to cold. The fires burn out. Reality sets in. The way this day is going, I’m ready to cry all over again. To really have a good one. But I can’t. My eyes are dry even though my heart still bleeds.
Standing under the cold water, I can’t help thinking how much today sucked the big D. I buried a friend, slapped an enemy, destroyed my relationship with Damien, made an absolute ass out of myself with Jake—Professor Teller. Forget this shower, my rejected advances, this miserable f*cking day, I’m going home.
Fully dressed and ready to drive back home, I step out of the bathroom into the hotel room where Jake is waiting. I push my damp hair over my shoulders, fix him with an icy stare. He’s sitting on the chair next to a table no one probably ever eats at and he looks conflicted.
“I want you more than you can imagine,” he finally admits. Relief permeates every inch of my core. Finally acknowledgement! The harder edges in me are softening, becoming more forgiving, more vulnerable. “But when you were cold to me today, when you blew me off, I figured…I don’t know…I guess I just pulled back. Then you show up in the middle of the night and ask me to shower with you. I wanted to, I really did, but I also want to do the right thing.”
