ELFBOY: Right.
ZED: Interesting, Ag. So you think she should keep pursuing this?
AGNES: Keep upping the ante, right?
@SSHOLE: Always.
I open the window a crack, and now the smell of pot is floating in and I can hear each and every one of Paul’s sighs. He must know the window’s open, but he’s not breaking the non-wall between us. We have to do this in our tiny house sometimes. Pretend there is privacy where there is not. Act like we’re alone when we’re feet away from each other.
I imagine this will get even harder to accomplish when there is a screaming baby in the little nursery upstairs. I remind myself what the note taker said in The Secret Garden, that change could be a comfort. I want to ask Zed if he thinks that could be true.
I slide my seat in closer to the desk. Let my face drift closer to the screen. I turn some music on, hike up the volume to drown out tears and weed and the memory of my parents fighting.
BITTY: I love him.
I wonder if I mean what I typed. If this thing with Joe is love. I guess if I say it is, then it is, right?
I turn up the volume another notch. The room is shaking a little from the noise, and I sing along.
BITTY: Maybe not love, yet. Something. I don’t just like kissing him. I don’t just think he’s cute. I don’t just hate his girlfriend.
ZED: But if we decided you had to tell the GF?
BITTY: I don’t get a say?
ZED: You’re here to do something better than what you do alone.
Again, a collective pause. The group seems to work like this. Somehow we all are keeping the same call-and-response rhythm, and we all pick the same moments to pause and collect our thoughts. It reminds me a little of Cate’s yoga classes, where everyone is somehow breathing as one unit. That’s the only part of yoga I ever liked. But this time I guess the responsibility is on me. My mouth is dry from the clarity of Zed’s words.
In the stretch of the pause, another post from Star goes live.
STAR: What if I stayed here? What if I just stayed? I’m eighteen. I’m scared to post a secret, because the only Assignment I want is one that keeps me in his arms forever.
I can’t move. I didn’t know it, but this is exactly what I wanted for her. This feels Right in the deepest, craziest, most exciting way. I have a surge of YES that runs through me. She’s a crusader. A romantic. She’s the girl I want to be. The girl I didn’t know I wanted to be until I saw her red heels and her happy knees.
STAR: Don’t worry, Bitty, no Assignment until you tell another secret anyway. And I won’t let them make you tell the GF.
Her words cling to the screen, promise and threat both. And a reminder that I have to dig deep for another secret and steel myself for another Assignment next week. That this whole thing is ongoing. My stomach turns, knowing I’ll have an Assignment bigger than the one before. And that I’ll want to complete it. There was a mini high from typing the words Assignment completed today, and I want that again.
An hour has passed by the time I hear Paul slip back inside. I’m scanning LBC and alternately clicking back to chat and waiting for Joe to sign on, which he hasn’t, again.
“Hey, chickadee,” Paul says, peeking his head in. I click out of LBC so fast you’d think a gun went off.
“Hey, Paul.”
“Sorry you had to hear that.”
“Wasn’t listening,” I say. I keep my eyes on the screen. I don’t really want to enter into a father-daughter conversation right now.
“Having a baby’s a big adjustment, huh?” he says. Out of the corner of my eye I see him lean against the door frame and cross one foot over the other. He’s settling in.
“Yeah . . .”
“Been a big year for all of us.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I sigh out. It’s funny how much I said to Mrs. Drake this afternoon and how little I want to say to Paul right now. “You really should cut back,” I say.
“Et tu, Tabby?” I hear him grinning. I don’t like it.
“Or whatever you want. I don’t know.” It seems like anything I say is going to turn into some long talk with him, and I really can’t right now. There’s a pause, and I almost wonder if he’s left his place on the door frame, so I turn at last, taking my eyes fully off the computer for the first time. But he’s still there, and when my eyes are finally on his bloodshot ones, I see just how crazy-sad he looks.
“You really seem so different lately, kitty cat,” he says, his mouth turning down into a frown. “You’ve really changed.”
It sounds so much like what Jemma said to me at the dance in the spring, so much like what Mrs. Drake said this afternoon, that it turns me cold. My arms, inside my stomach, the space between my shoulder blades—all icy.
“That’s what I’ve heard,” I say, giving him one pinched look before turning all the way back to my computer screen.
Paul sighs, the way other fathers always do, then he’s gone from the door frame.
ZED: We need another secret from our newbie. You’re having fun with us, right?
I think of the way Joe looked at me after we kissed—like I was brave and bold and sexy—and know I wouldn’t have gone for it without the extra push. I wouldn’t have been able to be that girl. I think of Brenda’s wedding dress photo, and Agnes’s story about interrupting a phone call between her mother and her therapist and admitting she’d been listening in on them for months while they spilled her secrets to each other. I think of the perfect shapes the red script in the margins of The Secret Garden makes. I think of Star’s knees.
I can’t quite bring myself to post another official secret. I have a week.
BITTY: Soon.
Elfboy:
The tattoo hurt.
I mean, damn, it’s needles and ink drilling right into your skin, you know? Of course that shit’s gonna hurt.
Got it on my shoulder. Not the blade, in the back, but the rounded part in front, the place where you get sunburned. Figured that part of my body would be hearty enough to take it.
Not to mention I’ll be able to cover it up with a T-shirt anytime, but it isn’t so hidden that it’d be pointless. So you know, a lot of thought went into it.
The biker dude with the leather dog collar around his neck knew I was a kid and too young, but when I told him what I wanted, the word PRIDE in rainbow colors on my shoulder, he took pity.
“I hear you, dude,” he said. “I got a brother who, you know.” “Is gay?” I said. Not to be obnoxious, but cuz I didn’t want him to feel like he couldn’t say the word around me.
He nodded, kinda like a Buddha, all wise and slow and contemplative. Don’t know how I found my way to a gay-friendly, totally Zen biker tattoo artist, but there you go. These things happen and you just gotta go with it and say thank you to the universe or whatever.
Yeah, that’s something the biker dude said, actually. We had a good long talk while he was drilling needles into my body. I didn’t exactly come out to my parents, but I did as much as I could. I hope that’s okay, Zed. I’m doing the best I can here. I told them I got a tattoo. Sat them down and said, you know, don’t be mad, blah blah blah, but I got a tattoo.
My dad kept shaking his head. My mother covered her mouth with her hand and started to tear up.
“Oh, honey,” she kept saying, over and over, just like that.
“Oh, honey.” I’ll hear that in my head on repeat for a while, I think.
They asked me what it was. What the tattoo was.
And I showed them.
Up in my room now.
So, there you go.
Assignment completed?
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Twelve.
I open the café alone the next morning.
It’s not something I do often, but Paul slept on the couch in the den, and Cate’s not feeling well, and I’m in need of
a coffee after staying up so late last night that I can feel the space behind my eyes. And that space hurts.
This morning, the Tea Cozy is drenched in that early-morning sunshine, the kind that seeps in all soft and eventually goes hard and overbright, surprising you in the way only violent natural light can.
I have a constant stream of nerves now. They haven’t subsided really since Joe and I kissed at the gym. Maybe even before that, when I got the Assignment. Nervousness is becoming part of my blood, and I could probably lift a car from all the adrenaline.
My stomach grumbles. I think my body knows I’m at Tea Cozy, and it wants a muffin and a coffee and a moment to actually wake up. So I pump up the tunes over the shitty speaker system. The Beach Boys. Not even the really respected stuff. I go for “Kokomo,” knowing nothing else will even make a dent in my foul mood.
Soon there’s the jingle of bells and the first onslaught of early-morning customers, and like Cate, I get lost in the business and familiarity of that.
“Good morning!” I call out. The regulars like when I’m on my own in the mornings. They smile too big like I’m some six-year-old they need to humor. They crack jokes and offer to come behind the bar and help. Usually harried and tapping their fingers at breakneck speeds on the counter, they are suddenly monk-like in their patience. They pick up the paper from the wire racks we keep next to the counter, or make awkward, frog-voiced small talk with the person ahead of them in line. They leave five-dollar bills as tips, and smile so wide and so close to my face I can tell whether they remembered to brush their teeth this morning.
“Lady Tabitha’s in charge,” I hear when my back is turned to steam a bunch of skim milk for the dieting new mothers. There is only one person who calls me Lady Tabitha, and I smile before I remember I have to hate him for being related to Jemma.
“Devon.” He doesn’t go to our school, so we haven’t even caught sight of each other since Jemma dumped me. Which means when I do turn around and he is there in his fitted flannel shirt and his shaggy dirty-blond hair and his cowboy boots, I almost drop the boiling milk on my toes.
Just another reason not to wear wedge sandals in November, I guess.
“We miss you, Tabs,” he says. I push stray bangs back and blush. Not because Devon wasn’t cute before. He was. He’s always been. But right now he isn’t throwing water balloons at me or getting into a screaming match with Jemma. He’s digging his elbows into the countertop and leaning over enough so that we are eye to eye. He was always part brother, part crush, but with Jemma no longer my best friend, does that mean he’s . . . all crush? “You know, miss having you around all the time.”
His smile isn’t unlike Jemma’s. His eyes drift down my body, and it doesn’t feel all lecherous like when some guys at school do it, but I cross my feet and my arms anyway. Neither of us moves or speaks for five seconds, which is forever when no one is moving or speaking.
I turn away to get some napkins and busy myself with the milk I already poured and the coffee I already brewed. If I look away for long enough, I think I can get mad instead of wistful. I think of Jemma’s raised eyebrows and too-straight hair and I decide I am totally over the nostalgia. I will not miss that bitch or the life I thought we had together. I refuse.
“Jemma says you’ve been too busy with a new boyfriend to come by lately,” Devon continues. “I think it’s been hard for her, you moving on and dating guys and stuff. She’s not ready for that yet. Or not confident about it, you know?” I would do a spit take if life were a movie, but instead I swallow hard and smile even harder. I’m sure it looks like one of those scary-angry smiles, but that’s all I’ve got right now.
“That’s what she told you, huh?” I say. I am on the precipice, and I know the right thing to do is to shrug and lie and agree with whatever slightly damning lie Jemma has come up with to explain my sudden absence, but I can practically hear Zed and Agnes and everyone else in my head if I were to type it up and tell them about it. So I shift gears and plow ahead into something honest and risky and bad. Something Normal Tabitha would never do.
“Gosh, that is so weird,” I say. “Because, you know, I don’t have a boyfriend at all. Haven’t in over a year.” I cock my head and gauge Devon’s response. Decide I have not said enough. “But maybe that’s why she hasn’t talked to me in three months. Maybe Jemma thinks I have a boyfriend?” I keep the edge out of my voice. Try to steer clear of sarcasm. Sound as close to earnest as I can possibly manage. “This is so great,” I say. “I can totally clear this up! Dude, I’m so glad you came in today. This is, like, a total weight lifted off. Jemma thinks I have a boyfriend! Well. I’m sure I will be seeing you at your house ASAP now that we’ve figured out this whole miscommunication.”
Devon gulps. I hold his gaze and keep my mouth a steely-straight line; I think he gets it. I know he gets it, because he blushes.
People in line behind him cough and close in on him, shuffle closer to the register. They’ve had enough of our small talk, and I have too. I hand him the coffee he didn’t order but I know he wants. He clears his throat and starts to move on. I don’t want to take back what I’ve said or anything. I don’t exactly regret calling Jemma on her crap and telling it like it is. It’s sort of a new rush, and I don’t mind it. But I want him to like me. I want him to tease me for my sort of nasal voice and call me Freckle Face and buy Boardwalk and build three hotels on it and watch me go broke while we sit cross-legged on the plush carpet in the TV room and play four-hour Monopoly marathons.
“Hey, Devon,” I say when he’s almost too far away to hear me. He turns back sheepishly, but I’m impressed he turns back at all. “I really miss you guys too.”
When the morning rush ends, Paul comes in. He’s rumpled and definitely didn’t shower after his stay on the couch. Not exactly the kind of guy you want serving you scones, but I guess everyone’s used to his ratty stoner garb, and it’s not the first time he’s worked in what I have to assume is a T-shirt from high school and hospital scrubs.
“Dude,” I say. “That is a serious fashion choice there.”
“Get yourself to school, Tab,” he says. Not mean, but not exactly gentle either. I hate when Cate and Paul fight.
“Still too early,” I say, and Paul sighs like it’s my fault my school starts at eight.
“Homework, then,” he says. “Or check this out.” He grabs a copy of Letters to a Young Poet from the back pocket of his jeans and tosses it my way. It bounces off my chest, and he snickers. Not exactly Paul at his best.
“I’ll be on the couch.”
“Maybe you should just get to school early,” he says in a mumble. Other people’s parents don’t ever nail that combination of whine and grumble. When Paul’s cranky he wants to be alone, and that means he doesn’t even want me visible. I get the feeling that he smoked up this morning, even though it’s something he almost always saves for later in the day. The shift in his routine, however slight, scares me.
“Nope.”
Paul’s eyebrows shoot up. He’s awake at long last.
“Nope?” he parrots back.
“I’ll stay here, thanks,” I say. And then right away my mind pokes in and says, Who are you? I don’t talk to my parents like this; I don’t need to. “Keep an eye on you.” I mean it as a joke, to lighten the conversation, but it definitely doesn’t work.
Paul rolls his eyes.
“You spying for your mother?” he says. I can’t imagine what that means. He and Cate don’t need me spying. They are practically attached at the hip. They tell each other what they eat for midmorning snack and how many times per day they pee. They hardly rely on me for reports.
“Spying?”
“You ladies are relentless,” he says, rolling his eyes.
I don’t even know, really, why I’m fighting to stay here, except that I’m pretty proud of how I was with Devon, and I don’t want to be at school without Elise, and at Tea Cozy things happen.
“I thought you wanted to stop smoking s
o much. So what are you all pissed at Cate for?”
“I really hate this new attitude,” Paul says. It’s a continuation of our conversation last night, except gone sour, gone mean with his early-morning hangover. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t get all teenager-y on us. I don’t even know who you are right now.”
“I don’t think I’m the one being all teenager-y,” I say. Our voices are low enough that the customers probably can’t hear us, but it’s still so far outside our normal interaction that we’re both a little stunned at the way we’re speaking to each other.
“I’ve got enough on my plate, Tabitha,” he says. And I get why he and Cate are fighting. I get why she wants him to get it together. I’m terrified of the new baby, but I also want the best for it. I’m not a sociopath. I want that kid to have the best version of Cate and Paul. And me. “We’re both trying to be nice to you, given what’s happened, but we have limits, you know?”
I look right in his bloodshot, squinty eyes. I am not his charity case. I am his daughter. I don’t care how much he’s had to smoke today. I don’t care how many awesome scuffed-up books he gets me. I don’t need to take it from him. Not anymore.
“I didn’t ask you to take care of me. I don’t need your fake niceness. I’m all set. Trust me,” I say. And maybe leaving Tea Cozy would make more of a point, but he wants me to leave. So I stay.
I stomp away from Paul and grab my laptop and my coffee. I sit in one of the armchairs near the fire. I want to write about what happened with Devon, and maybe post a secret about Mrs. Drake, that I’ve seen her get wasted. Maybe I’ll get a crazy Assignment to take down Mrs. D in some sizzling, scandalous way. I’m ready for whatever Zed and the rest of the group throw my way. Look at me: I’m on fire.
Then I see a post from Roxie.
ROXIE: I told my boyfriend I’m on birth control. I’m not. It’s not like I want a baby, exactly. But I want to have a family. A real family.
I wait for an onslaught of judgment, but instead there is support. Love. Understanding. She’s done a terrible thing, but we aren’t here to make her feel worse about it. We’re here to get her on some new, exciting, better path.
Life by Committee Page 10
