by Isobel Irons
“Are you family?” The blonde girl in scrubs looks barely older than Margot and me, and yet she’s copping an attitude like she’s the Angel of Death herself.
I stand up, until I’m towering over her, even though my legs feel like they’re about to give out. I give her my best ‘do not fuck with me’ glare. “Is she dead?”
“No,” she says, her voice gentler this time. “But we need to contact her family, for paperwork. Can you give me her parents’ phone number?”
My mouth opens to tell her about Nana, but then I think of the look on her face. She doesn’t drive. She’ll be so scared. She could call a taxi, but then she’d show up here in her curlers and slippers, probably on the verge of a heart attack. She’s so old. What if it killed her? No, until I know for sure that Margot is going to be okay, I can’t let Nana know what happened. How it happened. It would break her fucking heart.
“I’m her family,” I say. “I’m eighteen. I’ll sign whatever you want.”
After that, the girl leaves me alone again. I sit in the waiting room for what seems like days. I stare at the linoleum until I start to see shapes. Then a pair of shoes stops in front of me. I look up.
“Grant?” My eyesight is still blurry from crying. I can already feel my eyelids starting to swell.
The man in the white coat smiles down at me. “No, I’m Dr. Blue. You must know my son.”
Suddenly, the niceness of Grant’s car makes sense. Also, his savior complex. All of it, he must have inherited those. His dad is a doctor. I was so stupid to think that he cared because of me. Because I was special. But no, caring just runs in the family.
I hate myself for thinking about Grant, even now, when my best friend could be dying in the next room. But teenagers are selfish assholes, after all. And I told you from the beginning, I’m a horrible person.
Dr. Blue turns out to be every bit as nice as Grant. He explains to me that Margot’s stomach is being pumped, but she’s going to be okay. At least physically—at least when it comes to the bottles of medicine she took. Then he starts talking about potential ‘long term’ side-effects. When I ask him what that means, he pauses.
“Are there any adults I can speak with, or are you Margot’s legal guardian?”
The word catches me off guard. It's almost like I can see it shooting out of his mouth in slow motion, jutting toward my chest like a CGI spear in one of those shitty made for 3D movies. Guardian. It thuds into my heart.
I'm stronger than her. Bigger. Taller. Tougher. I should have protected her from this.
“Her parents...” I clear my throat, covering the fault in my lie. “Our parents are out of the picture.”
I don't feel bad saying it, because it's true.
“I can call our Nana, but she's like, really old. I'm not sure if she could handle this right now. Not until we know for sure that Margot is going to be okay.”
That much is also true.
With a sigh, Dr. Blue sits down next to me. I'm surprised by the way he looks at me. It's like he's treating me as an adult. I sit a little bit straighter, wanting to earn his approval for some reason. I can't fathom why. His eyes are identical to Grant’s, though, and it is freaking me the fuck out.
He explains the rules about a mandatory psychiatric hold, which means the hospital has to keep her under observation until a psychiatrist can determine whether she’s still a danger to herself. Also, they have to notify child and family services, because Margot is still legally a minor.
“But her birthday is in two weeks.”
“Be that as it may,” he says, “she's still not legally an adult. Which means her health is a huge concern. She's in an advanced state of malnutrition. Now, I'm sure you do the best you can, but I don't know if the social services people will see it that way. They'll want to do an investigation into her home environment, see why it was able to progress this far.”
No. That can’t happen. I think of Nana's pot supply. If they find it, they'll take Margot away for sure. She'll never survive in foster care. Hell, I only spent a week in it and I almost didn't.
“It's not the environment,” I tell him. “It's not Nana's fault. She doesn't know.”
I can't believe I'm doing this, even as I blurt out the words. It's her greatest secret. And it's not mine to tell.
“She does it to herself, because she thinks she's fat. She wears baggy clothes, so no one will notice. But she barely eats. And sometimes....” I stutter, knowing she'll never forgive me, if she finds out what I’ve done. “Sometimes, she throws up right after she eats.”
Dr. Blue nods, like he already knew. And I guess he probably did, since he's a fucking doctor. But he probably needed me to say it.
“Don’t worry, the psychiatrists will try to work with her on that. Anorexia is a disease, just like anything else. It takes work, but it can be cured. Worst case scenario, she might have to do a program. There’s an inpatient rehabilitation clinic in Gresham.”
That’s like, three hours away from here. “What, like AA?”
He does that pained Grant smile. “Sort of. That would be an extreme measure, though, and I’m hoping it won’t come to that. I can have her admitted here for a few days, and recommend some on-site counseling.” He pauses again, and I can tell he’s trying to find a more delicate way to put something. Just like Grant, when he’s trying to explain a math problem I don’t understand. “I’m guessing you don’t have health insurance?”
I shake my head. What gave it away, my torn leggings or my graffiti-covered shoes?
“That’s okay,” he says. “I’ll work something out with the financial aid office. We do write-offs for things like this sometimes. I’ll try to make sure Margot’s case goes to the top of the pile.”
“Why?”
He raises his eyebrows at me, the same way his damn son does. “I'm not sure what you're asking.”
I open my mouth, wanting to ask all kinds of inappropriate questions. ‘Why are you helping her, when she means nothing to you?’ Or, ‘What's in it for you?’ Or, ‘Why is everyone in your family so goddamn nice?’ But I don't.
Instead, for quite possibly the first time in my life, I just say, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says. “You can go see her now if you’d like, for just a few minutes.”
Before she gets admitted to a psychiatric ward, he means.
I must look concerned about that, because he says, “Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds.”
Then he stands up and leads me down the hall.
When I see Margot, I can't help but gasp. She's skinny, so tiny underneath those sheets.
“Hey, it’s about time,” Margot rasps, and my heart breaks all over again. “Where’s my muffin?”
Even now, even hooked up to all these scary looking tubes, she's trying to pretend like everything is fine. But nothing is fine. It never was.
“I’m guessing you saw the picture.”
Margot closes her eyes. “Leave it alone, Tash.”
“No. Sorry, I can’t do that.” Now that my best friend is going to live, my tears are drying up. Now, there’s nothing left but stomach acid and hate. “That horrible fucking bitch is going to pay.”
I start storming around the room. I'm so angry, my vision is blurring. I feel like every cell of my body is shaking.
“Tash.” The voice from the bed is surprisingly strong, just like the other day in the locker room. I turn around. Behind her thin, almost skeletal face, Margot's eyes are burning.
“Tash. You have to promise me. You can't go after Becca. It's your last strike. You'll....” She stops for a second, wheezes. “You'll get expelled. Promise me. You won't touch her.”
I go over to her bed and grab her hand. Her grip is also surprisingly strong. “Margot, look what she did to you. I can't just let this go.”
“You will,” she whispers. “You have to. I won't let you go down because I was...too weak...to take it, like you.”
My jaw clenches. “You are not weak. You are th
e strongest person I know. You're going to go to college and become an actress. You're going to get through this, and someday, we'll laugh at how stupid it was that we actually gave a shit what Becca Foster and her army of bitches thought of us.”
Margot shakes her head again, and in a perfect impression of Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, she says, “But it is not this day.”
I laugh until the tears return to my eyes. “Oh my God, even on your death bed, you're such a fucking dork.”
She smiles, but she doesn’t let it drop. “Promise me, Tash.”
“Be honest.” I try to change the subject. “Secretly, you’ve always wanted to do a death bed scene. This whole thing has just been one elaborate soap opera audition.”
Margot stares me down, refusing to break.
Finally, I give up, but I’m acting now too. “Okay, I promise.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What?”
“I promise I won't get expelled trying to take down Becca.”
“Good.” Margot nods and her head falls back on the pillow. It's obvious she's exhausted.
Almost dying will do that to a person, I guess.
But then she rallies, and her eyes fly open. “Will you tell Nana that I'm sorry? Make sure she knows...this isn't her fault.”
God, she’s such a better person than me. I squeeze her hand. “I will.”
After Margot falls asleep, I stand up slowly. I gently disengage my hand. I wipe the tears from around the corners of my eyes. I need to be strong now. I need to tell Nana, and somehow I need to convince her that it's not her fault. That it’s no one’s fault. That none of us could've seen this coming.
Even if I don't believe my own lies.
Because deep down, I know whose fault it is.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Two days after Margot almost died, I somehow manage to get out of bed.
My mom has already left for work, and I doubt she has any idea that I came home last night for the first time in 48 hours. I make myself some coffee with her French press, and choke it down, hoping it will make me feel human. But it doesn’t. I don’t know how I manage it, or what drives me, but I end up fully dressed and in the car without even really thinking about it. Numbly, I start the engine and put the car into drive.
It’s not until I’ve been sitting in front of Margot’s trailer for a good five minutes that I remember she’s not coming out. Not for a long time. Maybe not even before school is over.
It hits me then that Margot and I might never drive to school together again. But no, it’s worse than that, isn’t it? Forget about high school. What about college? What about her scholarship? Will she lose it, if she doesn’t graduate? Of course she will.
Unless they let her do all of her homework from the psych ward—which I seriously doubt, given Principal Shoemaker’s penchant for screwing over trailer park kids like us—she’s toast, from an academic standpoint. And therefore, from a financial one.
Let’s not even talk about what this is going to do for her socially. When it comes to acting, dating, making new friends? Will she ever be able to stop seeing herself the way she looked in that picture? I know I won’t.
The rage this thought causes me is enough to energize me in a way no amount of coffee ever could.
I drive to school, gritting my teeth the entire way. I shuffle into the locker room, slowly, like I’m afraid I might break. I am a ticking time bomb, a catastrophic event waiting to happen. I get dressed, like everything is normal. But inside, I’m a seething mass of hatred.
All through aerobics class, I watch Becca from afar, watching her roll her eyes and laugh with her friends. She has no idea of the damage she’s caused. Or maybe she does, and that’s what she’s so goddamn happy about.
I try to imagine how someone like her, someone with so much going for her, could become so evil, so cruel. But I can’t.
The first time Becca Foster openly targeted Margot, we were in fifth grade. Margot was so confident back then. She tried out for the elementary school production of ‘The Three Little Pigs,’ which was considered avant-garde at the time, because the whole thing was in Spanish—Los Tres Cochinitos, or something.
Becca tried out, too. But she ended up being the first pig. The stupid one, who built the house out of straw. She only had three lines. Two of which were something lame, like, ‘No!’ and ‘Ayudeme!’
Margot got the part of the third pig, the smart one who built her house out of bricks. I can still remember how hard everyone in the audience was laughing as Margot stood on top of that fake brick house, taunting the wolf in Spanish in that squeaky little voice of hers. Hell, she even adlibbed some stuff. Margot was such a ham—pun intended—that night, she almost literally brought down the house she was standing on—because in reality, it was made out of cardboard and red paint.
Margot would never believe me, though, when I told her that Becca was jealous of her, because she was so good. Because the day after the play, Becca had all the kids calling her ‘Little Piggy,’ asking her if she was headed to the market, if she was going to ‘wee herself’ on the way home.
Third graders are fucking brilliant when it comes to turning nursery rhymes into insults, as it turns out. And for some ridiculous reason, the name ‘Piggy’ stuck. Over time, it evolved from ‘Piggy,’ to ‘Pig’...to ‘Fatty’...and then the latest derivation, ‘Large Marge.’
I stare at Becca from across the upper tier of the gym where we have aerobics, hating her with every fiber of my being.
What is she, really, but a bunch of favorable titles she's created for herself? Popular. Hot. In body, at least, if not in face. Desirable. She talks about how many guys want to date her, and people believe it.
Even if the only guy who's ever publicly admitted to getting in her pants is her ex-boyfriend, Rick, who graduated last year. And yeah, so Rick used to be popular, too. And a lot of guys liked him. And he was marginally good looking. And of course, Becca and all her stupid friends have money, which means they can afford the latest brand name clothes. Unlike Margot and I—we were raised to stretch what we’ve got for as long as we can.
But other than that, what does Becca Foster have?
People know who she is. People talk about her. People are afraid of her.
I could do that.
Except there's one thing I definitely don't have, and that's a rich dad who can afford to buy her a nice car and give out fucking two-thousand dollar scholarships for Prom Court. Like Brittany said, as things stand, it'll be no contest. So he probably thinks it's a good investment. Pay for your daughter's education, which you were going to do anyway, and get a huge tax write-off in the process.
I watch Becca doing her stupid high kicks, trying to get ‘prom ready.’ I want to smash her ugly face in, and break both of her stupid legs. See if she wins Prom Queen then.
But I can't do that, because I promised Margot.
I glare at Becca for a few more seconds, before I finally have to turn away. My unfulfilled desire for revenge is making me sick. I pretend I’m going to the water fountain and sneak around to the other side of the bleachers, to the balcony, where I can look down at the boys’ first period basketball class.
Technically it's co-ed basketball, but only Leslie Glough was man enough to sign up for it. Two guesses what nickname Becca gave her. (Here’s a hint: it rhymes with Bes-bo.) God, she’s such an evil cunt. I wish I had a tractor, like one of those 4H kids, so I could run over Becca Foster with it.
As I stand there seething, my eyes fall across Grant. He smiles up at me, and then he actually waves. I fight the urge to turn around and see if there's someone else he could be waving at. There’s no one else up here but me. Then I realize: his dad must have told him about what happened with Margot, at the hospital.
So much for doctor-patient confidentiality.
My heart sinks as I remember my epiphany from the other night: Grant is a second-generation bleeding heart savior type. That's all this will ever be, him feeling sorry for me. The rich
doctor's son getting his philanthropy hours in by helping the poor, trailer trash girl. I smirk, as he turns away to run down the court after the ball, with his popular dude friends. I wonder if he'll feel sorry enough to just give me the answers to the test, instead of making me work for them.
There’s a shuffling sound below me, and my eyes are drawn to a cluster of other guys, standing on the sideline. They're looking at Grant, as he's looking at me. They're talking, whispering. I can almost hear them speculating, as they look up at me in that horribly un-subtle way high school guys have. Still, these aren’t the kind of stares I’m used to getting.
They're wondering what he sees in me. If Grant Blue can wave at me in public, maybe I’m somebody.
Suddenly, it hits me, like a bolt of lightning:
A way to take Becca Foster down royally, without getting expelled. A way to show those uppity bastards once and for all that they haven't beaten me. That I can fuck up their world as much as they've fucked with mine.
I'm going to run against Becca for Prom Queen. And no matter what it takes, even if it kills me, I'm going to fucking beat her. And I'm going to use Grant Blue’s savior complex to do it.
Part III: “Slutty”
Shakespeare once wrote, ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ But what about those words which aren’t so sweet? What makes one word seem so much nastier, and cut so much deeper, than another? For instance, what's the difference between a ‘skank’ and a ‘slut?’
Apparently, quite a lot.
According to UrbanDictionary.com (which is basically the Webster’s of my generation,) a ‘skank’ is defined as the following:
‘Derogatory term for a (usually younger) female, implying trashiness or tackiness, lower-class status, poor hygiene, flakiness, and a scrawny, pockmarked sort of ugliness. May also imply promiscuity, but not necessarily. Can apply to any race, but most commonly used to describe white trash.’
Well, shit. That’s a pretty spot-on description of me, up to this point. Wouldn’t you say?
On the other hand, ‘slut’ is defined by UrbanDictionary.com as: ‘A woman with the morals of a man.’
