by Anne Dayton
“But—”
“No. Don’t touch anything in that studio. Stay away from her.”
“Christine, I’m sorry.” She opens and closes her mouth, saying nothing. How could she bring my mom into this mess they call a relationship? “I thought it would be a nice thing to do. We could put one of her paintings in your room.”
I push myself off the bed. She has no right. She has no right to discuss my mother with me—she shouldn’t even be thinking about my mother who was an amazing, unique, one-of-a-kind person who cannot be replaced. I shake my head and scan the room for my sketchbook. I need to get out of here.
“Christine, let’s talk about this. I didn’t mean to hurt you. We don’t have to clean up the studio.” Candace’s face is pale. Somewhere deep inside I think I know she only did this because she thought I’d appreciate it, but I push that down, down, so deep that I’ll never have to think about it. She’s the one trying to take my mom’s place.
I remember that my sketchbook is in my backpack, and I reach in and snatch the smooth leather book. I slam the door to my bedroom, shutting Candace inside, and start walking toward the back door.
“Christine, wait,” she says, throwing the bedroom door open again. “You can’t just keep running off.”
I turn back for a moment and see her standing at the end of the dark hallway, the one that used to be lined with pictures of our family. Of course I can.
I yank the sliding glass door open and look across the backyard to the studio. The cool evening air hits my face, and it feels good. I close the door behind me, then step out into the yard and look up at the sky. This can’t continue. This madness stops now. I don’t care what it takes, I am going to figure out a way to stop this wedding.
3
One of the cool things about having all the adults at your high school think you’re crazy is that you get to skip PE once a week. Someone high up decided that meeting with the school counselor to talk about my feelings is more important than getting smacked in the head playing dodgeball. After all, talking about your feelings is very, very important. Just look at how many famines and wars have been stopped by people taking a little time out of their day to sit around and talk about their feelings. I’ve absolutely lost count.
I knock on my counselor’s door. It’s just a courtesy, really. I’ve been coming here every single Tuesday afternoon since I started high school, so I know she’s waiting for me.
“It’s open.”
I walk into her office and nod hello. How can she stand it in here? It’s so cluttered, with books on every single surface.
“Christine, welcome back to our little sessions. I assume you’ve missed them exactly as much as I think you have?” Ms. Moore gives me a sly smile and gestures at the chair across from her.
“Least I’m not in PE.” I plop down in the swivel chair. The real school counselor is Mrs. Canning, but she only lasted two sessions with me. That’s when they tapped Ms. Moore to work with the freak show. I don’t think the other girls know who I meet with. They know I see a counselor, but I never really mentioned who it is, so it’s our little secret.
“I’m surprised to hear you say that, after all the interest you showed in full-frontal contact at the pep rally yesterday.” She crosses her arms across her chest and bores her eyes into me.
Jeez. I just got here. It’s a little early for the third degree.
“I was showing Hailey how to scrunch her shirt up around the collar. It’s the latest thing.”
Ms. Moore refuses to laugh.
“How was your summer?” I ask. “Did you make it all the way through that, um, weird book you wanted to read?”
I pull my hair back into a ponytail as she talks. This summer I decided to give up dyeing my hair. It’s so “troubled teen,” and I’m really fine, no matter how much adults treat me like I’m going to break. Plus, Zoe and I went to San Francisco one day and got my nose pierced and my hair cut. My hair is shoulder-length and choppy now, and the little diamond stud I got looks so cool.
“Ulysses. James Joyce. And yes I did, thank you.” She clears her throat. “So. A new year. A whole new chance to talk about—”
“Did you like it?” Talking about books is the easiest way to keep Ms. Moore distracted. The more boring the book, the more she loves it.
“I did. But I want to talk about what happened at the rally yesterday.”
“Did the freshmen seem tiny to you? I know it’s only been a year, but I just can’t believe we were ever that small.”
Ms. Moore locks eyes with me, and for a moment we stare at one another.
“Christine, what do you think made you do that at the pep rally?”
I shrug.
“I’ll tell you what I think. I think you have so many questions bottled up inside of you, boiling and churning around, that you occasionally bubble over in ways that surprise even you.” Ms. Moore seems to wait to see if I will explode on her.
I laugh instead. It’s always better to play this stuff off as a joke. “I never really saw myself as a bubbly person, to tell you the truth. Now Riley—”
“Christine.” Ms. Moore stands up and presses her hands flat on her desk and leans across it. “It’s been a year. It’s time to start talking about the accident.”
I lean back in my chair and jut out my chin. Why do people always want me to talk about it? There’s nothing to say. My mom croaked, my life is miserable now, and I can wallow in it or just move on. “I gotta get going. I’ve got art class next, and Mr. Dumas will hate it if I’m late.”
“We will talk about it this year.” Ms. Moore nods. “That’s my goal.”
I stand up and slowly pick up my book bag, wondering if Ms. Moore will try to stop me. We both know that no art teacher since the dawn of time has ever cared about students being late to class, especially Mr. Dumas.
“You’re going to have to report back to P.E. I can’t let you wander the halls.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Seems better to take a seat and talk about the accident with me.”
“Actually, I’m feeling kind of sporty all of a sudden.” I walk toward the door. “Well, uh, see you next week, I guess.”
Ms. Moore says nothing and time seems to creep by. She has one of those industrial standard-issue wall clocks and now that I notice it, I can hear the minute hand tick.
“Okay, bye then.” I rush out the door and steal down the hall as quickly as possible, tears streaming down my face.
4
Last year Ana was always after me to come to church with her, especially because Zoe goes with her pretty regularly now, but it wasn’t until the white-water rafting trip they took this summer that I actually braved it. I mean, sitting around singing “Kumbaya” and talking about Jesus is fine if you’re into that kind of thing, but river rafting is really more my speed. I guess that’s how they sucker you into it because the next thing I know I’m sitting in church on a normal Sunday evening, wondering how I got here.
And tonight they made me endure a long service and song time. I was so relieved when the last chord was strummed and the lights finally came up. Now the fun could begin. But instead Riley, Ana, Dave, and Zoe planted themselves on couches that look like they’d give you a rash, so I was forced to engineer this plan to liven things up.
I used to be pretty into the whole God thing when I was younger. My mom was very religious, and we went to church just about every week, but Dad and I don’t go anymore. Everything changed after the accident. Still, I play along. The Miracle Girls have a way of knowing things, so I wonder if they suspect my dirty little secret. Knowing Ana, this might be exactly why she’s always pressing me to come to church with her.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Zoe says, wobbling out onto the sloped church roof. She really shouldn’t have been the first one up because she’s a total scaredy-cat, but it took all of us to push her up to the roof. I learned tonight that Zoe does not actually have arms. She has wet noodles attached to her shoulders.
Riley goes up on the roof next. She throws her right leg up, as if she’s doing nothing more than stepping into a pair of jeans, and then pushes herself upright. I can see her triceps glistening in the moonlight, and it’s nearly impossible not to hate her.
Then it’s Ana’s turn. She pulls herself up on the roof with a little boost from Dave, who goes to great and very hilarious lengths not to touch her butt. Dave is Ana’s pseudoboyfriend. Ana’s not technically allowed to date, but those two are together so much it doesn’t really make any difference at this point. She ends up stepping on his face with her shoe, but he seems to admire her all the more for it. Love is a very serious sickness.
I shimmy up before Dave can touch me, then slide out of the way, and Dave is on the roof behind me in a matter of seconds.
Zoe, Ana, and Riley are already lying on their backs on the sharp incline. It took some time to convince them that stargazing from the roof would be fun and not get us into too much trouble, but now I’m not hearing any complaining. Typical. Dave and I walk over to join them.
The warm shingles feel good against my back as the night cools off. Down below us we can see members of the youth group congregating around cars and playing basketball.
“They’d better not scratch Emily.” Dave points at his new (to him) Chevette—bought with a summer’s worth of wages from Pizza King—that already has a dent in the front fender from where he hit a light post last week. Who names their car? Sometimes I think Dave might be an eighty-year-old trapped in a sophomore’s body.
I spy Tyler Drake and Tommy Chu, Dave’s bandmates, sprawled out on the hood of Fritz’s car. I had a thing for Tyler last year, but one evening at an art gallery was all I needed to figure out we are not a match made in high school heaven. When I compared one of the artists in the show to Klee, he said, “Oh, yeah, I guess clay is cool, when you’re a kid and everything.”
The rhythmic sound of the basketball hitting the pavement begins to lull me into a peaceful state. It’s nice up here, looking down at the ants below. What would it be like if I could orchestrate their lives? If I were God, I’d make only good things happen to people. No more war or hunger or . . .
“Hey, Riley.” Ana sits up and brushes the dirt off her hands. “What did you get on the Middlemarch test in Ms. Moore’s?”
Riley laughs. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
Ana bites her lip a little. “It doesn’t really matter, since I bombed the first trig test—”
I nudge Zoe. “Bombed means she got a B+.” Ana and Riley are on the accelerated paths to college, jockeying for the spot at the top of our class. Meanwhile, Zoe and I are bumping along. It doesn’t matter that I’m no good at algebra because someday I’m going to move to the East Village and be a painter, and Zoe’s going to . . . I don’t know, join the Peace Corps? She doesn’t need math to build wells in Papua New Guinea.
Zoe laughs, and Ana waves me off. “When you’re up against a genius like Riley, a B+ matters.”
“Hey, Dave, have you scaled back your hours at Pizza King now that school’s started?” Riley smiles at Dave, who nods. Completely oblivious to Riley’s attempt to change the subject, he continues to watch the basketball game below.
“Anyway, after I bombed that trig test I reworked our class standing and you were ahead of me by a long shot. So even if you didn’t do so well on the Middlemarch test—” Ana studies Riley’s face at the suggestion “—it wouldn’t matter too much. I might catch up a little, but you’d still be ahead.”
Zoe’s face shows that she’s going into panic mode. Neither of us has ever mentioned it, but I suspect she worries about those two as much as I do. There’s this weird competitiveness there sometimes.
“Nerd alert,” I say and roll my eyes. “It’s like the third week of school. How can you already have reworked the standings?”
“It’s important, Christine.” Ana gives me a lopsided smile, then turns to Riley. “Sorry, you were saying?”
Riley laughs a little. She has taken off her worn Cal hoodie and is using it as a pillow, staring up at the sky. “I hate this stuff, guys.” Ana continues to stare at her until Riley sighs. “Fine. I got a 98.”
Ana collapses back in her seat. “Congratulations,” she mutters. “I got a 99, but it’s not enough to make a difference.”
In the awkward silence that follows, I sense it happening. School is already beginning to come between us. I bite my lip and fight off the feeling that it’s all starting to slip away.
“Isn’t this the most perfect evening ever?” Zoe says. She’s trying to change the subject. Good Zoe. “You can see so many more stars from up here.”
“Mos def,” Dave says and takes Ana’s hand, and they smile at each other, but I sort of want to gag. It’s easy to say that God is awesome and cool and totally radical when he’s given you everything you want, plus a hot boyfriend. Too bad God has forgotten the rest of us down here in the ninth level of the inferno, also known as high school.
What if I told them that I’d left my faith in that ditch with our mangled car? I stare at the Miracle Girls and think about the perfect summer we had together, away from the distractions and pressures of school. If I told them, we’d have nothing in common left. It’s better to keep quiet.
5
As Candace grips the sharp knife, I swallow hard. If an evil stepmom-to-be wanted me to go away and never come back, the last thing I would hand her is a knife. But then beauty queens aren’t really known for their brainpower, and besides, she has to pretend to like me until the wedding. Though if my plan works, she won’t like me after tonight. I can’t wait to see Dad’s expression when she drops the goody-goody act and her true colors show.
When Candace showed up wielding a bag of carving supplies and four handpicked pumpkins, her hair shellacked into place, I tried to escape to my room, but Dad came home and forced me to come out and “be nice,” to use his words. Well, Dad doesn’t make too many guest appearances during waking hours these days, and when he does show his face he’s usually making goo-goo eyes at Candace, so the fact that he was willing to spend some time with his only daughter was enough to get me to come out. I never promised anything about being nice.
Emma plunges the knife straight into the top of her pumpkin without even making any kind of sketch of what she’s going to carve. That’s either really brave or really stupid, I’m not sure which.
“I wish my dad were here. He’s like a pumpkin-carving genius.” The knife slips into the flesh cleanly, and Emma begins to hack away at the top of the poor gourd. “Last year he helped Sylvie and me carve a puking pumpkin. Do you know what that is, Christine?”
I shrug, staring at the blank canvas of my little orange gourd. You know, in this light, it kind of looks like Candace when she goes a little crazy with her bronzer.
“It’s hilarious.” Emma looks up from her pumpkin. “You have the pumpkin’s guts coming out of his mouth. You know, like he’s ralphing or something?”
I laugh a little.
“You would have loved it, Christine. You’ll have to meet my dad soon. He lives over in San Mateo. You can come along sometime when he picks me up.”
Ohh! Why don’t I carve this pumpkin as a caricature of Candace, and then my dad will look at the hideous orange vegetable and realize he’s about to marry its human equivalent.
“He can fix anything, and he’s like a genius with wood and carving and stuff. Isn’t he, Mom?” Emma smiles at her mother, and for a moment I wonder if she’s up to something. Candace divorced Emma’s dad a few years ago, and Emma goes to stay with her dad every other weekend, which is not nearly enough in my opinion.
Candace clears her throat. “I think I’m just going to go with a classic design this year.” She’s wearing a navy pants suit, high heels, and full makeup. She’s a Barbie nightmare come true. Candace sticks her tongue out a bit while she concentrates on penciling her design onto her pumpkin. She draws dorky googly eyes, a triangle nose, and a wide mouth with a couple of wo
nky teeth and pretends not to hear as Emma talks about the year she and her father carved an entire pumpkin village. I begin to sketch what I’ve decided to lovingly entitle Miss California Pumpkin.
Miss California—okay, well maybe I’d better call it Glamour Pumpkin just so Dad doesn’t kill me—is not going to be that hard to accomplish. The pumpkin’s skin is the perfect shade. Plus, I have a wig in my closet from the year I dressed up as Cleopatra for Halloween, so I’ll flop that on its head. My sketch has plump lips, heavily made-up round eyes, high cheekbones, and even a little beauty mark. In short, it’s a perfect rendition of Candace, except that her hair is a little pouffier.
It’s not that hard to create a really intricate design if you take the time to sketch it out and then carve very carefully. Right now it just looks like a bunch of strange lines, but once I cut away the right places and stick a candle inside, I think it will look exactly like my evil stepmom-to-be. Maybe I should put a tea light inside. She’s not that bright.
“Oh, he’s turning out so perfectly!” Candace claps her hands and admires her pumpkin, which is not turning out perfectly and does in fact have a crooked mouth.
I study her as she continues to carve. What is my dad thinking? I’ll admit that she’s pretty, in a fake kind of way, but she’s way too high maintenance for us. I need to expose her for what she is, or someday he’s going to wake up and realize that he made a mistake, that they are nothing alike and never have been, and it will be too late. I’m outta here in three years, but he’ll be stuck waking up to her mug for the rest of his life unless I fix this.
I scan the face of my pumpkin. Satisfied that I have the design copied accurately, I pick up the knife and begin to cut a hole around the stem.
“This year Dad’s out of town so we have to carve pumpkins here. But maybe when he gets back, Christine, you can meet him.” Emma’s pumpkin has three eyes, no nose, and a few teeth.
