Haters

by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

  “Okay. Here’s the deal,” I say. “All my life, ever since I was really small, I’ve had these dreams that, like — okay. I mean, sometimes I have dreams that come true.”

  “Oh, how sweet,” says Jessica, all sarcastic. This isn’t going well.

  “Very sweet,” Andrew agrees.

  Jessica gives him a strange look and says, “Dreams can come true? How adorable.”

  I need to get my point across. I shake my head. Nothing makes sense right now. “No, not like that. I mean I see things. Things that happen before they actually happen.”

  “Oooh!” Jessica is totally laughing at me. She looks at Chris. “Did you hear that? She sees dead people.”

  Andrew chimes in: “And Bruce Willis? Can you see him, too?”

  “Shut up, you guys,” says Chris. “Let the girl talk.”

  Jessica remains quiet.

  “Talk,” says Andrew. “I’m sorry. Was I behaving badly again?”

  I ignore him and say to Jessica, “Okay, so you don’t have to believe me. But the thing is, ever since I moved here, I’ve had this vision of something bad happening to you.”

  “That’s funny,” says Jessica, looking at Andrew. “I had the same vision about you just now, when I saw how you were looking at my boyfriend.”

  “No, listen to me.” I put my hand on Jessica’s arm.

  She slaps me away. “Don’t fucking touch me, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say. I give up. I told her something bad would happen. That’s enough, isn’t it? She’s horrible. I’ve warned her, just like Grandma said. That’s all I needed to do. “I won’t touch you. Sorry.”

  “Let’s walk,” she tells me. She stands up and holds her hand out like we’re friends now.

  “Walk?”

  “I want to talk to you alone for a second,” she says. Chris looks at me with fear, but I’m not going to let her scare me anymore. I’m not.

  “About what?” I ask.

  “About Chris,” she says.

  “Jessica,” says Chris, “leave Paski alone.”

  “No,” I say, “it’s okay. I can handle it.”

  “Shall we?” asks Jessica.

  “Fine.” I stand up and walk with her. She takes me to a part of the yard next to the pool, where there aren’t many other people. She smiles so that anyone looking at us would think we were friends or something.

  “You’re a sick bitch,” she tells me.

  “What?” I say.

  She’s still smiling sweetly. “Stay away from Chris or you’ll be very, very sorry,” she says. Still smiling. She puts her hand on my shoulder and turns her head to one side as if she’s offering me friendly advice. “And stop talking about bad things happening. I don’t like psycho girls who threaten me.”

  I feel dizzier now than I did a minute ago, and my legs are weak. “It’s not a threat. It’s a dream.” There’s something very wrong with me. “There’s more I should tell you about the dream. It’s not just a bad thing but a specific bad thing.”

  “Come whisper it in my ear.” Jessica comes close with a sickening smile on her face and wraps her arms around me. Then, with a strength that surprises me, she lifts me up and throws me in the pool. As I go down, I feel a crack against the side of my head, like I hit the concrete. Then the shock of the water clears my head, and I struggle back up to the surface. I can’t breathe. I kick my legs frantically and can’t feel my arms. I’m in the deep end and can’t feel the bottom. The yard and the sky spin above me, purple and green with flashes of light. I look up and see Jessica laughing with her stupid head thrown back. “Sweet dreams, apartment girl,” she howls. “Time to wake up!” Lots of kids rush over, and they seem to be laughing, too.

  I see Andrew reach his big, tanned hand out to help me, but he’s laughing. Why is he laughing if he’s trying to help? I try to swim toward him, but I can’t move right. His hand seems to ripple and waver. I’m going under, swallowing water. It’s like there are weights on my legs. Oh my God. I’m going to drown. My head is killing me. My nose, too. What’s wrong with my nose? Did I get water in it? Why can’t I swim? I’m a good swimmer. I taste rust in my nose and mouth. It stings. I’m under the water, sinking, when I hear a loud bubbly swoosh, the sound a splash makes when you’re under the water. I feel hands on me, and terror floods throughout my body. Is Jessica in the pool, holding me under? Is she trying to kill me? Why does she hate me so much? I feel like I’m going to throw up.

  I feel myself move through the water, like I’m being pulled, and then I’m out in the air again. Everything is a smear of lights and sounds.

  “Hold on to me,” says Chris.

  Chris?

  He’s in the water, holding me, and paddling toward the shallow end of the pool. He spits water out, struggling, too. He releases me when we get to a part where I can touch bottom. I try to stand but stumble. He catches me, and I throw up, right into the pool water and on him.

  “Fucking gross!” someone yells. I feel like there’s fire in my guts, like I’m going to die.

  “I want my dad,” I say. I am so scared. “His number is programmed into my cell phone. Please, I want my daddy.”

  “Paski? Paski? Look at me.” Chris holds me. I look at him.

  “Oh my God,” he says. “Someone call an ambulance! She’s bleeding everywhere! Oh, shit!”

  Bleeding?

  He touches my head and my nose with his hand and pulls it back covered in blood.

  “Why?” I ask him. I can’t move or hear, or see. It’s like there’s Vaseline in my eyes. Why am I bleeding? I feel him lift me up and gently place me on the grass. I sit up, leaning against him, and he holds my head against his chest. I see Jessica come over, and Chris looks up at her.

  “We, you and me, are over!” he yells at her. “You understand? Don’t call me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me.” He stares at me just as I feel my eyes start to roll back into my head. “Someone call an ambulance!” he shouts. “How many times do I have to ask? Jesus Christ!”

  “Call 911!” someone shrieks. Then I hear everyone screaming to call 911.

  “They already called,” someone says.

  “What’s happening?” I ask Chris. I feel faint.

  “Hang in there,” he says softly, near my ear. “Help is coming, Paski. Hold on.”

  Why is the yard spinning? Why does it feel like I’ve swallowed a thousand knives? Why is Jessica still laughing at me? Why is Haley shrieking at Andrew, slapping him, asking him what he put in my soda? “How could you do that to her, you stupid motherfucker?” she screams. “Haven’t you learned anything? My God! What is wrong with you guys?”

  Why does Andrew look so scared? Why is he running into the house like he’s being pursued? Why have all the faces that were laughing a second ago turned so scared? Why does the sick hyena sound of Jessica laughing sound so, so far away? Why am I passing out?

  Why is this happening to me?

  19

  I wake up in a hospital room. I haven’t been in one of these since my mother overdosed on cocaine a few years back and we all drove from Taos to Santa Fe to visit her and try to talk her into going into rehab. My father sits in a chair next to the bed I’m in, with that very same face that he had then. My stomach and head hurt so much I can’t stand it. I groan, and Dad uses a cool white washcloth to dab my forehead.

  “Dad,” I whisper. “What happened?”

  “Shh,” he says. “Just rest.”

  I feel my stomach lurch. “Oh God. I have to throw up.”

  Dad holds a pink plastic tub up to my mouth, and I vomit into it. “That’s good,” Dad says. “It’s the medicine they gave you to make you purge the drugs.”

  “Drugs?” I ask. He wipes my mouth and looks at me with a mixture of love and pity in his eyes. “Dad, what happened to me? Why am I here?”

  I look around the room and see that Chris is here. No! I don’t want him to see me like this. Why is he here? Please tell me he did not just see me hurl. No, wait. I have
a memory of hurling on him earlier. Oh, my God. For some reason, Haley is with him. There is also a nurse in the room. She checks my chart and watches me carefully.

  “Hi,” says Chris with a strange, sad smile.

  “What happened?” I repeat.

  My father looks at Chris and Haley, and then Haley answers. “Andrew put something in your soda, Paski.”

  “You don’t know for sure it was Andrew,” says Chris.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “The date rape drug,” says Haley.

  Now my dad speaks. “According to your friends here, one of the boys at the party put something in your drink so that he could try to have sex with you without you remembering it.” My father says the word “friends” sarcastically, as if he can’t believe these people care about me, as if he hates them.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “Tina warned me.”

  “Who’s Tina?” asks Dad.

  “A friend,” I say. For the first time, I realize that she really, truly is a friend. She might be the only friend I’ve made, and she tried to warn me. I shouldn’t have put my need to be with the popular kids ahead of my loyalty to the nicest girl in school, the only one who went out of her way to make me feel welcome, the only one who tried to protect me from Andrew. Well, almost the only one. Chris saved me. I remember that now. He jumped in the pool and pulled me out. And Keoni and Kerani told me to be careful. I have to thank them for that. They’re good guys. They really are.

  “My poor girl,” says Dad, dabbing my head again. Okay, now the whole washcloth thing is getting annoying. Dad is kind of clumsy with these real gentle tasks. It makes me wish I had a mom, so bad.

  “Why would Andrew do that to me?” I wail. “What did I ever do to him?”

  “It’s not the first time,” says Haley. “It’s not you, it’s him. He’s got issues with girls. Big-time.”

  “What do you mean?” Dad demands.

  “Andrew’s done this to girls before. He thinks it’s funny.”

  My dad looks incredibly disturbed by this, and disgusted. He turns to me. “Why are you hanging around with people like this?” He points to Haley and Chris. I feel like I’m going to be sick again. He can tell by the look on my face and holds up the bucket. The smell of the vomit that’s already in there makes me throw up again. He wipes my mouth when I’m finished. This is the worst I’ve ever felt. I don’t want to be here. I hate this.

  “That kid Andrew should be arrested,” says my dad. “He should be in prison.”

  “He’s not the only one,” says Haley. She looks like she wants to say more but doesn’t.

  “Thanks for saving me,” I say to Chris. He shakes his head like I shouldn’t be thanking him. “Dad,” I say. “Don’t be mad at them. They were the only ones who helped me.”

  Dad gives Chris and Haley a suspicious look. “Don’t talk about it right now,” he tells me. “Just try to get some rest, Paski.”

  “Am I going to be okay?” I ask.

  “You’ll be fine, honey,” says the nurse. “You’re lucky this guy here had the frame of mind to call an ambulance when he did.” She smiles at Chris; but he looks worried and angry.

  “Can I take her home soon, you think?” my dad asks the nurse.

  “In a few hours. We just want to make sure we get everything out and that she’s hydrated before we release her.”

  Get everything out?

  What the hell was put in me?

  20

  The hospital sends me home with instructions to stay home from school for a couple of days and eat bland food. Oh, and I’m supposed to drink plenty of water. Chris and Haley have gone home, and it’s now close to two in the morning. My dad called Emily and Janet and let me talk to them, and they’re really concerned. I don’t want them to be concerned. I want them to be here. With me. I need them.

  I’m glad Chris isn’t here anymore, to see me all doubled over and queasy, climbing into the Squeegeemobile. My dad is uncharacteristically quiet on the drive. The top is down — honestly, I don’t even know if my dad can get the thing up — and the cool air feels good on my skin. I feel guilty for some weird reason, even though I know I didn’t do anything wrong.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell my dad at a stoplight. When I look at him, I see that he has tears on his cheeks. “Why are you crying?” I ask him. Like I mentioned before, my dad is a weeper sometimes.

  “It’s my fault,” he says. I should have known my dad would find some way to bring this all back around to his favorite topic lately — himself.

  “You weren’t even there,” I say.

  “That’s just the point. I should have been. It’s not easy doing this alone, you know that? Raising a kid on your own. I have to be mother and father to you, and I don’t have enough time to do everything I’m supposed to be doing. So I should be the one saying I’m sorry here. I’m sorry for letting you down.”

  “Dad, please, it’s not your fault.” Why am I comforting him now? Isn’t this, like, my time? Of all the times that are my time, shouldn’t this be a big one?

  The light turns green, and we drive the rest of the way to the apartment in silence.

  Later, once I’ve changed into my favorite long flannel nightgown — it’s a granny nightgown, I know, but back in Taos you need these things, trust me — I crawl into bed and my dad knocks on my door.

  “Can I come in?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  He comes and sits on the floor next to my bed. He’s stopped crying, but he still looks really sad. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Did anything else happen that you want to talk about?”

  “No.”

  “I know that when I was your age, I wasn’t very comfortable talking to my mom about sex and all that.”

  “Nothing happened,” I say.

  “Are you sure?” He looks concerned.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay,” he says. “I trust you to make good decisions, Pasquala, I always have. I know what happened tonight wasn’t your fault. I want you to feel like you can talk to me about whatever, okay? I’m here, you can tell me anything, and I won’t judge you or go crazy, okay? I just want you to know that even though I’m not around that much, you can count on me. I know sometimes you probably feel like you don’t have a lot of people to hold on to, but you have me. That’s all I want you to know, that you have me, and you don’t have to find love or attention anywhere else.” He looks like he’s going to cry again.

  “Okay, Dad,” I say. “Can I go to sleep now?”

  “Oh, God, right.” Dad looks guilty again, like he should have known I wanted to go to sleep. I was actually just trying to lighten the mood a little and make him smile, but it looks like I sent him back into the crisis of bad parenting. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “Good night. Go to sleep. I’m just right in the next room if you need me, okay? You call me. I’m going to leave your door open so I can hear you.”

  I stare at him in a most unfriendly way.

  “Unless,” he adds with a nervous shrug, “you want it closed.”

  “Closed, please,” I say.

  “Right.”

  Dad, looking like he’s still surprised by his own bad suggestions, turns off the light, closes the door, and I’m left staring up at the blackness of the ceiling. There are no visions, no voices, no sounds. Just my breath, in and out, small and weak. I replay the events of the night and try to figure out what happened. I start to doze off but am jolted back to consciousness by a light, irritating tapping.

  A muffled voice on the other side of the wall says, “Paski? You up?”

  It’s Kerani, eavesdropping. “What do you want?” I ask. I am starting to understand what’s wrong with apartments. At least this apartment. The walls are too freakin’ thin.

  I hear his voice again. “I just wanted to say good night. Your dad’s way cool. You’re lucky.”

  I don’t say anything, and he doesn’t speak anymore. Soon enough, I can hear
Kerani snoring in the apartment next door.

  21

  I’m on the sofa watching a movie on HBO. Did I say HBO? I did. My dad, feeling guilty that I had this horrible experience with the supreme popular haters of Orange County, has rushed out and gotten digital cable so that my recovery time at home might be more enjoyable. I like it, but the more I flip through the stations, the more I realize I really wasn’t missing anything.

  Dad is in the kitchen trying to make green chile stew with the frozen chile Grandma sent us from Taos. It smells pretty good. And makes me very homesick. I can’t even imagine someone slipping me a mickey, as Dad puts, in Taos. I’m not in Kansas anymore. I’ve actually never been in Kansas, but I bet it’s nothing like this.

  I hear a knock on the door. I feel fine, actually, so I try to get up to answer it, but my dad rushes over. He’s all “No, no! Sit down. Don’t move!” I try to tell him I don’t think there’s any of that drug left in me, that I feel totally normal, but I think he’s enjoying this chance to play Mr. Mom all day. He’s called in sick to work the past couple of days to stay with me, and his bosses are very cool about it. They’ve sent him some stuff over the Internet, and my dad’s all “Wow! I didn’t realize you could do so much with e-mail!” I’m, like, what rock did you crawl out from under that you don’t know this already? But whatever. Dad is just getting familiar with all these computerized animation techniques, too. He used to be what you’d call a throwback. He did everything the old-fashioned way.

  Dad opens the door, and I see Tina standing there with her pink hair sticking up and her big black sunglasses on. She looks like a tall Kelly Osbourne. “Hi,” she says. “I’m Tina. I came to see Paski.”

  My dad lets her in and gives her a big hug. She’s looking at me over his shoulder like, “What is your dad doing? Is he a pervert?”

  “Thank you for trying to warn my baby about those boys,” he says. “You saved her life.” Actually, Chris saved my life, but my dad can’t accept that any hot guy who had beer on his breath and was at that party could possibly be innocent and good in any way. He won’t even let me talk about Chris. He has told me that if he sees me with Chris, I’ll be grounded. I wanted to ask him how he’d know if I was home, seeing as how he’s never home except for the past few days, but I didn’t say anything. Sometimes, my grandmother taught me, it’s better to stay quiet.