I'm Down: A Memoir

by Wolff, Mishna

  My ears perked up immediately. Sailing—I like the sound of that.

  “Yeah?” I said casually.

  “Yeah. I could bring a friend,” Marni said, unsure.

  “Maybe I’d be into that.”

  “Well,” she said, “it was just an idea.”

  “No! No!” I said. “I’m warming up to it. . . . I could use some air myself.”

  Marni got excited, which for a moment made her seem normal, but she caught herself and put her sweater in her mouth and said, “Cool.” Then spaced out until the bell rang. I had to admit part of my eagerness to stay with Marni was also curiosity. I thought that over the course of a sleepover I might understand what it was that made her so weird.

  Oddly, the person I was actually feeling the most connected to these days was my sister. She would come and stay with Mom on the weekends and I was embarrassed how much I looked forward to it. She had gotten the other scholarship spot on the swim team—another born breaster. So now I got to see her every day at swim practice. We would play together in our lanes after practice, submerging ourselves all the way to the bottom of the pool and walking on the bottom like astronauts. Or arching our backs and trying to jump out of the water like dolphins. Then afterwards, we would shower off and dress together. Then I would head back to Mom’s, leaving Anora waiting in the pool lobby for Dad, who would be late to pick her up. I was always a little sad to leave her, but never worried. She had endeared herself to all the lifeguards there. And when I left, she usually jumped behind the attendant’s booth to watch TV with Tony, a black man in his forties, whose job it was to tell us to be quiet.

  I would return to my mother’s house and to my room, where I could practice, eat, talk on the phone, watch TV, study, or draw unicorns until bedtime. Sometimes I used the time to plan my weekend and whose house I was gonna stay at if I didn’t have a swim meet. And I thought about Dad—not at all. Which was handy because since I had left, it seemed I was dead to him. And I was just like my mother—a leaver.

  I arrived at Marni’s house at around eleven on Saturday morning. I was supposed to be there at ten, but Mom drove around in circles for a while because she couldn’t believe that there was a house on that particular stretch of beach. In fact, I was also surprised it wasn’t protected land. I got out of the car still unsure if we were at Marni’s house or if it was some wildly bougie caretaker’s house in a state park that paid their caretakers seven figures.

  The door creaked open and Marni appeared slumped over in the entryway. “Hey,” she said anemically, and slowly motioned for me to follow her into the house. I waved back at Mom to let her know she didn’t have to stay. But she had already taken off , intimidated by the prospect of having to meet her parents. I followed Marni up the terrazzo stairs and into her living room.

  It was an airy house with huge picture windows, but somehow it still seemed dark. There was a big screen in a side area that was on but no one was watching. And in spite of the TV blaring CNN, the house was eerily quiet.

  “Where are your folks?” I asked.

  Marni shrugged.

  “Well,” I asked slowly, “when you woke up this morning were they here?”

  “Of course,” Marni said, quicker than usual. “I just don’t know where they went. They might actually be here.”

  “Do they know I’m here?”

  “I told them,” she said. It all felt a bit odd, but everything about Marni was odd, why shouldn’t her home be, too?

  “Well.” I slapped my hands together. “When do you want to take the boat out?”

  “Oh . . . It’s too choppy today. I don’t think I should.”

  “But I came over here because we were gonna take the boat out,” I said. “I really want to do that.”

  “Why?” Marni asked. “Is that the only reason you wanted to hang out with me?”

  I felt guilty immediately and really ashamed. “No. I just thought that’s what you wanted to do. I don’t care what we do. . . . What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. . . . Hang out . . . talk.”

  Yipes!

  “We can watch a movie on the big screen, right?” I said.

  “No, let’s just go to my room.” And she walked me down the hall to her lair of sadness.

  The rest of the afternoon went as followed: Marni told me about how her parents don’t touch each other or her, and how her dad runs the house like it’s a business. Then around noon her dad walked into her room to tell her that she “lacked talent and character” in front of me. Then she got even spacier. Then we talked about the band Skinny Puppy. Then her mom came in and held up some pink blouses she had bought for Marni. Then Marni told her she wouldn’t wear them and that her mother should return them. Then her mother cried. Then her mother asked me what I thought of the blouses. Then I tried to comfort her mother while Marni crawled into her sweater like a turtle. And by late afternoon her dad was gone, her mom was drinking, I was watching sitcoms on the big screen, and Marni was actually catatonic.

  “Hey, Marni!” I had now been trying to cheer her up for about a half hour. “You want to watch Saturday Night Live later?” I tried to make it sound like the best thing that could happen to a person.

  “Ughn,” Marni said without taking her sweater out of her mouth.

  “I’ll take that as a yes!” I said.

  She took the sweater out of her mouth and said clear as a bell, “Do you ever just feel like it would be better for everyone if you didn’t exist?”

  I thought she was being a terrible host.

  She continued, “Not to kill yourself—just not existing.”

  “Yes,” I said. Then trying to ease things, “Sure.”

  “Not like I do.”

  I really didn’t want to fight about it and said, “How ’bout something to eat? I’m hungry.”

  “I’ll go ask my mom to take us to Jack in the Box.”

  I thought about that a second “Wait, your mom who’s in the living room?” I said. But what I meant was, “Your mom who’s been drinking since four and is passed out on your Italian sectional?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and took off to wake her mom.

  “I’m sure we can find something to eat in the fridge. I don’t have to go anywhere.”

  “I like their curly fries,” she said, and bounded out of the room.

  Ten minutes later I was in the backseat of a swerving, careening piece of glass and metal helmed by a drunken house wife. After four tries, and at my behest, Marni’s mom finally found the headlights, which I had to point out were diff erent from the turn signal. Oddly, Marni seemed more easy and relaxed in this possibly life-threatening situation than she had all day, and as Mrs. Madison made right turns that left skid marks, Marni conversed relatively normally with her about history class and what her mom might cook for a potluck later in the week. I had to admit, except for the driving, Marni’s mom really was more fun to be around when she was intoxicated, and barely resembled the hysterical woman from that morning.

  Of course, I was relieved when we peeled into the drive-through at Jack in the Box in one piece. And it seemed like Mrs. Madison had sobered up a little during the ride. That’s when the lady’s voice at the drive-through said, “Welcome to Jack in the Box, can I take your order?”

  And Marni’s mom said, “Why the fuck not?”

  That night Marni and I started to watch Saturday Night Live but wound up getting too tired and fell asleep in Marni’s room. She had a trundle bed that we had to push a pile of dark clothes out of the way to open and it took us twenty minutes to find some extra bedding, but ultimately I fell into a deep restful sleep.

  That is until I was awoken in the middle of the night by Marni’s dad coming into her room, flipping on the light, and yelling at Marni about how he had to move her bike in order to park his car, which quickly escalated back into the earlier conversation about her lack of character.

  Marni was rattled again and went into her bathroom, while I put the pillow over my
head and tried to go back to sleep. But then I had to pee and, thinking Marni was just smoking, thoughtlessly barged into her bathroom.

  I flung the door open to find Marni was not smoking. Marni was cutting herself. She was slumped over the tile floor of her bathroom with an X-Acto knife making a series of short marks in her left forearm.

  I was too stunned to say anything, but I think my face said it all because Marni immediately got defensive and said, “It’s okay. I’m just relieving some stress.” And from the looks of her arm, she wasn’t new to this form of pressure release.

  “Stop that!” I demanded. “What the fuck?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What the fuck?” I repeated.

  “Why didn’t you knock?”

  “Why are you cutting yourself? I don’t understand why anyone would do that to themselves.”

  “I don’t know!” she said, confused. “It just makes me feel good. It’s not what you think. I’m not hurting myself.”

  “I think you’re making your arm look like shit, and you might want to wear short sleeves one day.”

  “Doubtful,” Marni said, and then realizing that wasn’t the point, said, “Well, I guess you’re gonna go now.”

  “No,” I said, knowing there was no way in hell that I was getting my mom out of bed at this hour and there was equally no way I was getting back in a car with hers. “I’m gonna stay. But you gotta give me the knife.”

  She silently handed over the knife. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “No,” I said, unsure whether I was lying, “I won’t.”

  “Promise?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Say you promise,” she said, and looked at me expectantly.

  I didn’t know what to say and said, “Um . . . I still really have to pee.”

  “Say it,” she said.

  “Okay, Marni. Jesus . . . I promise not to tell anyone.” And Marni slumped out of the bathroom.

  The next day I got into the car with my mom, both physically and emotionally exhausted. I threw my bag in, and she asked, “So, how was sailing?”

  I didn’t want to get into it, so I just said, “Tiring.” And climbed into the backseat and fell asleep until the car’s pulling into the driveway woke me.

  Mom and I walked into the front door and she instinctively ran to the bathroom, arriving as Anora was pouring the last of a gallon of milk into the bathtub.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Mom yelled as Anora finished off the bottle and tossed it aside. “What are you doing?” I caught up to Mom and stood behind her in the bathroom.

  “Mish!” my sister said.

  “Hey.” I waved.

  “You haven’t answered my question!” Mom said to Anora.

  “It’s a milk bath,” she said. “Yvonne said it keeps your skin young.”

  “You’re eleven,” Mom said.

  “You’re never too young to start taking care of your skin,” she said, as though quoting Scripture. “Oh yeah . . . Mom can you get me some cocoa butter when you go to the store?”

  “Aren’t you just gonna undo all that skin softening when you go in the chlorinated pool?” I pointed out.

  “Huh?” Anora said, then, “Hey, Mish, do you want me to leave my milk bathwater for you when I’m done?”

  “I don’t want your cold dirty milk water.”

  “Anora!” Mom said, getting back to the matter at hand. “I don’t care what Yvonne says, milk does not grow on trees!” She tried her best to seem intimidating. “We need it for cereal!”

  But Anora wasn’t the least bit fazed by Mom’s order and said a placating, “Okay,” before taking off her clothes and getting into her bath.

  I went to my room and tried to go to sleep but thought about Marni instead. I didn’t know what to do. I knew Marni needed some help and although I wanted to give it to her, I was smart enough to know I was in over my head. I was even a little angry at her for inviting me over and sucking me into her problems under the guise of sailing. I felt bad for being angry, but didn’t she know I had my own problems? I was deep in my thoughts when my sister started hollering for the lotion as though if someone didn’t bring it to her right away, she was going to die of dry skin. I got back out of bed and found it for her in her room.

  “Here.” I handed her the bottle in the bathtub.

  “I miss you,” she said.

  “Let’s have this conversation later.”

  “Why don’t you come back to Dad’s house? It’s super yucky there without you.”

  “I would think it would be better.”

  “Well, it’s not,” she said. “It’s yucky and Dad and Yvonne are always mad at each other, and all I do is clean and take care of the babies.”

  “You could live here, too.”

  “No way. I couldn’t do that to the family. I mean, don’t you feel terrible?”

  “Nope,” I said.

  ______

  On Monday at lunch I looked for Violet. Her divorce self-pity was preferable to Marni’s creepy secret. Unfortunately, Violet was absent, and Marni caught up to me in the lunch line. We sat down together and it was instant weirdness. The fact that I was the keeper of her secret made her feel much closer to me than she actually should.

  “Hey, Mishna.”

  “Hi, Marni,” I said, suddenly feeling engulfed with responsibility.

  “I’m really depressed,” she said. “I have been since you left.”

  “Oh?” I said. I just didn’t want to get into it. “You should probably talk to the counselor or something.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think sometimes I just cut so I can feel something.”

  “Lilith!” I said, seeing her across the room. “There’s Lilith.”

  “I thought maybe just you and me would have lunch,” Marni said.

  “Well, I already waved.”

  The rest of the week Marni tried to have lunch with me, and every day I pulled a third into the mix. I felt bad for her, but I knew that if we did any more hanging out one-on-one, I wasn’t gonna be able to keep her secret for her. It was too heavy.

  By Friday, things with Marni had calmed down and she didn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency. For the time being she was acting like herself, and promised me twice during the week that she wouldn’t cut again. But now Violet still hadn’t come back to school and Lilith was worried.

  “Calm down, calm down,” I said as Lilith paced the hallway outside the cafeteria. “Why are you so worried about Violet?”

  “Are you kidding?” Lilith said. “Her parents have their heads so far up their asses that she and her brother and sister could light the place on fire without them noticing.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Are they that bad? I mean, I’ve spent the night there a lot, things never seemed that weird.”

  “Have you ever met her dad?” Lilith asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Well . . . ,” Lilith said.

  “I never thought that was that weird. I guess it’s weird. I don’t know.”

  “Of course it’s weird!” Lilith said.

  I was getting impatient with this conversation. I didn’t want to play witch hunt with Lilith. I didn’t know Violet’s parents well enough—and I guess that was her point. “Well,” I said, and sort of changed the subject, “have you called over there?”

  “Of course,” Lilith said. “No one picks up.”

  “Well, I’m sure everything’s fine. She’s probably just sick or something.” I was irritated and walked away.

  That weekend I spent alone. Anora was at Dad’s and I didn’t feel like socializing. And for the first time in a while I thought about Dad’s house. I guessed part of Marni’s problem was that her parents weren’t really involved and she was an only child. And I guess Violet’s parents weren’t around enough, either. The one thing I could say about Dad’s house was you were never lonely there—he didn’t work too much, and the house wasn’t uncomfortably nice. You never thought you might get in trouble f
or sitting on something or breaking anything, because everything was shit being held together with shit. Plus Anora was there, and Andreus and Yvette were awesome kids, really. At least everyone at Dad’s house seemed like they were trying to have a good time. As a matter of fact, I had always been the killjoy. I guess I never appreciated just how hard it must have been to live with me. And for a few minutes I missed being a big sister and I missed Dad and I missed the old house. That was, until my new friend Kendra called and asked if I wanted to help her pick out a new dressage horse.

  On Monday there was still no Violet, and Marni was gone from school, too. It was bizarre. My friends seemed to be disappearing like teenagers in Friday the 13th. I walked up to Lilith in the hallway, who was putting on black eyeliner in a mirror with a picture of Morrissey taped to it.

  “Hey, Lilith,” I said. I could tell by the look in her eye she was waiting to tell me something. Her lip was almost trembling with anticipation.

  “You heard from Violet?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah!” Lilith said, almost pissed off. “Her fucking parents didn’t even notice she’d been walking around with pneumonia for like three weeks!”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said.

  “That’s not the half of it,” Lilith said. “She was, like, telling them she thought she should get her lungs checked out. Like for two weeks. The girl has asthma, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said slowly. I knew that cough sounded nasty, but I had no idea. “Is she okay?”

  “No!” Lilith said. She loved this kind of stuff. It gave her an excuse to be righteous. “It gets worse. . . .” She closed her locker door and turned to face me. She took a deep breath and paused for maximum effect. “Her lung collapsed. She’s in the hospital.”

  “That’s like pretty bad, right?” I said.

  “Yeah!” Lilith said. “It’s really, really bad.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said, shaking my head.

  “What’s not to get? No one in her whole fucking family cares about her. . . . I told you.”

  “I know you said that, but I didn’t really get it,” I said apologetically. “I mean get it, get it. I’m sorry.”