“No, it’s fine,” I murmur. Get me out of here! my mind screams.
The car ride is torture. My mother reeks of smoke and the perfume she sprayed on to cover it up. My father has put on way too much cologne. Between the two of them, I’m suffocating. I roll down the window and gulp for air.
“Jane, you’re letting all the cold air out,” my mother chides. I roll up the window. My last hope for escape.
The area where Lizzie is staying is “just for teenagers.” I heard my mother tell my father she was glad of that, at least. But I’m not so sure there’s anything to be glad about when we step off the elevator. All I can hear is screaming. Horror-movie kind of screaming. And someone laughing, like a hyena. It’s freezing cold up here and I wish I had worn my ski jacket, or a heavy sweatshirt at least.
Lizzie is in 1208. It’s at the end of a mint green hall. I notice locked gates everywhere. Like we’re in prison or something. It makes me want to stand closer to my dad. So I do. When we find 1208, the door is closed. I feel sick to my stomach. Lizzie had to sleep here last night. Alone. I can’t wait to see her and make sure she’s okay.
But when the nurse leads us into Lizzie’s room, I suddenly wish I had stayed home. She’s lying in a stiff white bed, and her face looks as white as a blank sheet of paper. Her eyes are all red around the edges, and she’s just staring. At nothing. The TV’s not on. There’s nothing on the walls, except for one of those wipe-off boards; it reads NURSE LACEY. There’s a tube coming out of Lizzie’s right arm. It connects to a clear bag of fluid. Looking at it gives me shivers up the back of my neck.
My mother sits down by Lizzie’s side and talks to her softly. My father leans up against the window and stares out at the people walking on the sidewalk. I just stand in the middle of the room, feeling like an alien. I don’t know where to look, what to say, what to do. It smells strange in here. Like cleaning solutions and old gym shoes. Lizzie’s mouth is open, but no sound is coming out. I notice some drool forming on the side of her lips. I know she would hate this, if she had any idea what was going on, so I creep closer to wipe it off. That’s when I notice the handcuffs. Well, not really handcuffs, but there are leather straps holding Lizzie’s wrists to the bed.
I can’t breathe. I’m going to throw up. I reach out for the door and I can’t find it. I am grasping at something, pulling. I hear a dull shrieking, but I don’t know where it’s coming from. It sounds like a balloon losing its helium. Finally the door gives and I collapse into the hallway. The shrieking continues to follow me all the way to the front door. It is only when I reach the street that I realize I’m the one shrieking.
I sit on the curb until my parents pick me up. I have no idea how long I’ve been there. I don’t even know what I’ve been thinking about. Just bits and pieces of Lizzie. I climb into the backseat and hunker down. No one speaks on the way home.
The rest of Sunday passes in a haze. We eat in shifts so no one has to speak. Zoe calls a few times, but I pretend to be busy. I can’t talk. I try to concentrate on my Spanish homework. Mi hermana esta bonita. Mi hermana esta delgada. My hermana ...
I don’t know how to say “my sister is in the hospital, tied to a bed” in Spanish. But I think it would sound better than it does in English.
Chapter 4
Monday morning. I have to go to school today. I’m never allowed to skip school. I have had a perfect attendance record since the first grade. Even if I were dying, my parents wouldn’t let me miss until I was actually dead. I think they don’t let me miss school because then someone would have to stay home with me all day. So even today, with Lizzie in the hospital, hooked up to tubes, they make me go.
While Mom is downstairs making breakfast, I sneak into her closet and pull out a small red wood jewelry box. It’s full of costume jewelry. I rummage through until I find what I’m looking for. Gold hoop clip-ons. I pinch one onto each ear, pull my hair forward to cover then, and I’m ready to go.
Then I hurry downstairs. Mom’s cooking up eggs and turkey bacon, toast and smoothies. Dad’s buried behind the paper. The only difference is that Lizzie’s place is empty. How can they just act like this? I think. I want to scream, to break something. To make them notice. I still can’t eat, so I push the food around on my plate. No one pays any attention.
Zoe’s mom honks outside at ten to eight. Thank God today is her day for car pool.
I grab my backpack and my cleats. “See ya,” I call out to no one in particular. I slam the back door and head down the driveway.
Zoe opens the back door, and I climb into her mom’s minivan, careful not to step on any of the toys, sippy cups, and magazines covering the floor.
“Hi, Dee and Dum.” I greet Zoe’s twin brothers, who are strapped into their car seats. “Hi, Jane,” they call out in unison. Their real names are Landon and Luke, but Zoe and I have dubbed them Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Zoe smiles at me. Her golden eyes sparkle against her chocolate skin. I feel better already, just seeing her face.
“You definitely look older,” she compliments.
“Thanks.” I shrug.
“How’s Lizzie?” she asks.
“She’s okay,” I mumble. I don’t want to talk about Lizzie because then I’ll have to lie to my best friend some more. There isn’t a worse feeling than that.
“I’m glad,” she says. Then Zoe holds out a small purple velvet box.
Normally, I’d rip into it immediately, but today I want to savor it.
“Open it,” Zoe orders. I slowly lift the top of the box and find a black choker with a star pendant. The star is silver, but open so you can see through the middle. I love it. I tell her so as I put it around my neck.
“I almost forgot!” Zoe exclaims, and pulls my hair away from my left ear.When she sees, she lets my hair softly drop back to its place. She studies me with her warm eyes.
I look down at my fingers and pretend to see a hangnail. I know she can tell they’re clip-ons, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Did you get the camera?” she asks.
The camera. I don’t even know. My presents are still sitting on the table, unopened. I smile with embarrassment and say nothing. Zoe takes my silence as a yes.
“That’s perfect,” she says. “Now you can take pictures at my tennis match Friday.”
Great. I don’t even know what’s in that box.
Just then, Zoe’s mom turns up the radio. “Oh, I love this song,” she squeals. Zoe’s mom starts singing really loud, and Zoe joins in. I turn and stare out the window, and conjugate the verb estar.
And then we’re there.
I manage to make it through my Spanish quiz, fractions in math, and reading poetry aloud in English.
But that’s all before lunch. Zoe and I sit under a big elm tree with our third musketeer, Misty.
I’m letting them do all the talking. Or Zoe mainly. She’s chattering on about something she watched on television last night. I’m just thinking about Lizzie in that cold hospital room. Her hands tied down to the bed.
Just then, Kirsten Mueller walks up to us with her two minions, Emily and Gabrielle, and says, “Okay, Holden, let’s see ’em.”
I wasn’t exaggerating when I told my parents that I’m pretty much the only sixth grader without pierced ears. And the worst part about it is, everyone knows. Including Kirsten, the snobbiest, most popular, and meanest girl in school.
I have totally forgotten about them. My earrings. Misty hasn’t asked about them, probably because Zoe already told her about the clip-ons. But before I can say anything, Kirsten yanks my hair back and looks at my hoops. For a second, I think she’s fooled, because she doesn’t say anything. Then she starts laughing. Cackling, actually.
“Who’d you borrow those from, your grandmother?” she snarls as she yanks one hoop from my ear. “What a joke,” she says as she tosses it on the ground. Emily and Gabrielle start snickering. Then she and the gruesome twosome walk off together. All I can think about is that I don’t wa
nt to cry. I can feel Zoe and Misty staring at me. Zoe picks up the earring and hands it to me. I snap the other one off my ear and stuff both of them into my pocket. I can tell Zoe and Misty are looking at each other, trying to figure out what to say. But all I can do is try to think of something to make me not cry. I think of horses. Running across a field. A white one and a black one.
I bite into my sandwich. I can’t taste it. We all pretend nothing has happened. But by the time we stand up, everyone in school knows about my fake earrings. Even the most popular boy in school, Hunter Baxley. I know because he stares at me as I walk past.
I keep moving, with Zoe on one side and Misty on the other. I try not to notice all the kids pointing at me and laughing. I wonder if anyone has ever made fun of Kirsten. Probably not.
I go through the motions at soccer practice. It feels good to not to have to think for a little while. But right before it’s time to go home, I have this overwhelming urge to run away. I wait until everyone else heads for the locker room and then I hurry to the bleachers. It’s that or cry out in the open. I step out of the blinding sunlight into the blanket of shade underneath the bleachers just in time. The tears start falling so fast, I can’t do anything to stop them. All I can do is let them out. I flop down in the soft grass, my hands covering my face.
“You okay?” I freeze. Someone has found me. I peek out from underneath my left hand to assess the intruder. Friend or foe? And it’s the worst situation I could possibly imagine: Hunter Baxley. And he’s close enough to see the tears on my cheeks. I wipe them away with the back of my hand even as I feel my chin jut out in defiance.
“Fine,” I respond defensively. Being discovered makes me feel bristly all over, like a porcupine who wants to be left alone. The heat of humiliation sears through my face, and I close my eyes, willing myself to disappear.
When I open my eyes again, he’s gone. And I can’t be sure if I really saw him there at all. Or if I imagined him.
A few minutes later, I am climbing into my mother’s white SUV. All traces of tears have been wiped from my cheeks.
“Hi, how was your day?” she asks, the same as she does every day. It’s not a question that can be answered with anything but “Okay” or “Good” or “Fine, I got an A on my Spanish quiz.” My mom doesn’t really want to know how my day was, only that it was fine. How does she think it was? How could it possibly have been, with my sister in the mental ward?
I want to tell her that it was awful, that people laughed at me for pretending to have pierced ears, which I wouldn’t have had to do if she’d taken me to get them pierced like she promised. Instead, I say, “Fine. It was fine.”
At dinner, no one talks about Lizzie. We just pass the potatoes around. Dad asks me about school, and I mumble a generic reply. After days of not eating, I’m starved. Mom offers me more turkey.Then she busies herself clearing the table.
Sometimes you don’t notice when everyone around you has gone mad. It happens so gradually that it just seems normal to you. And then, one day, you realize that nothing is the same anymore. It’s like you are somewhere else, only with all the same people. And then it occurs to you that maybe the one who is different is you.
“Jane, you never opened your gifts,” Mom says. As though I just forgot. The reason I never opened my gifts is unsaid. But we are all thinking about it.
So I just say a quiet, “I know.”
Dad makes an effort. “Why don’t you open them now?”
I shrug. I really don’t want to. But now they both seem so focused on me. Maybe this is what Lizzie feels like all the time. Like a bug under glass.
My mother hands me the smallest of the boxes. I carefully pull back the pink paper. And there is the coveted digital camera. Only it doesn’t matter to me so much anymore. I force a smile and thank my parents. The other boxes hold a carrying case and special photo paper.
It’s really an incredible gift. And two days ago, I would have been jumping up and down with excitement. Instead, I get up and give both of them hugs.
“You’re always using my camera. And I was twelve when my father gave me my first camera,” Dad explains. “Though it wasn’t digital in those days. Want me to help you set it up?”
“Maybe later,” I offer. I just can’t fake it anymore. I see something in his expression. I can’t tell if it’s disappointment or relief.
I mumble something about homework and escape to my room. I turn off the light and climb into bed fully clothed. I hide way down deep underneath the covers. Then I pull my knees up to my chin and bury my face there, wrapping my arms around my head like a hood. I am a teeny tiny ball of anguish. I weep silently. I feel the sobs shake my body so much that if my own arms weren’t holding on, I think I would come apart.
Chapter 5
My favorite flowers are daisies. They’re happy flowers. Simple flowers. Nothing ever goes wrong for a daisy.
Now, a rose is another story. A rose is very complicated. It’s always changing on you. First it’s a bud, and you think how pretty it looks.Then it starts to open and you’re amazed because it’s even more beautiful than before.When it opens all the way, it’s so breathtaking that you have to touch it . . . and you do, but you forget about the thorns.
Lizzie is a rose. She’s so beautiful and fragile that you have to reach out to her. You forget about the thorns.
She doesn’t want pity. Which I understand. I wouldn’t either. I would hate people feeling sorry for me, I think. On the day Lizzie comes home from the hospital, I try to cheer her up. I think she might like to listen to some music. But she won’t even look at me. She just sits huddled in her bed, facing the wall. Then I ask her if she wants to come to the den and watch movies with me. She ignores me again.
The last time I went in there with one of her favorite magazines. I offered to cut out some photos for her. She threw the magazine on the floor. I’ve been sitting in a corner of the couch since then. I am hiding under the big pillow that normally sits on the back of the couch. It covers my body. I hope that no one will ever find me. But my dad does. I hear him come in and sit down on the other side of the couch. I know it’s him because of his cologne. I love that I always know when my dad comes home because I can smell his cologne. I think maybe no one else in the world wears this kind because I’ve never smelled it on anyone except him.
I hear the rustle of his files. The scratch of his pen. It is oddly comforting.
Then, “Hi,” he says quietly, without moving the pillows.
“Hi,” I whisper back.
“Almost sat on you,” he says.
I don’t say anything back.
“Everything’s going to be just fine,” he tells me, but it sounds like he’s really telling himself.
“I want her to be okay,” I mumble.
“I know, honey,” he says. “We all do.”
It feels strange talking to him like this. I barely remember this dad. It’s like the whole world is turned upside down. Lizzie is a stranger and Dad is sharing his feelings. Well, sort of, anyway.
He pulls the pillow gently away and reveals my hiding place. “Would you like to come out now?” he asks, and holds out his arms. I crawl out of the pillows. I am so happy to be hugged that I don’t even realize I am crying until his shirt is all wet in a big circle.
When I apologize for messing up his shirt, Dad grins and says, “Now I know what a tissue feels like.” It’s a stupid joke, but you can’t very well expect someone who has no sense of humor to all of a sudden be a comedian. So I smile anyway. I ask Dad if I can rest here on the sofa while he works. He hands me a throw blanket and I snuggle in. I don’t say it aloud, but I don’t want to go upstairs tonight.
Dad must understand that somehow because he leaves me there to sleep all night. I don’t dream at all.
The next morning, Mom wakes me up for school. She is already dressed and ready, and she reeks of smoke. I follow her into the kitchen. Mom turns off the coffeemaker and pours herself a cup. I stare at the cans of protei
n drinks on the counter. They have extra calories in them, extra calories that are like poison to Lizzie. I know she won’t even take a sip.
“How’s Lizzie?” I ask immediately.
“I think she ate a little bit,” my mother tells me with a tiny smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. When was the last time she really looked happy, instead of fake happy? I can’t remember.
Suddenly my mother reaches out and pulls me to her. Tight. Like everything in the world depends on this hug.
Then, just as suddenly, she releases me. “Did you study for your spelling test?” she asks.
And just like that, we are back to business. “Mmm-hmm,” I lie. There’s no big breakfast today, just a bowl of oatmeal with raisins. I devour the entire bowl and drink two glasses of orange juice.
After I get dressed in the downstairs bathroom, I make my way to Lizzie’s room. I knock softly and then push open the door. She’s still on her bed, in the same position as last night. I forget once again about her thorns and long to hold her.
“Hey,” I offer.
“Hi,” she answers in a crackly voice.
“I have to go to school,” I begin, but Lizzie cuts me off with a harsh witchy laugh.
“Of course, gotta have that perfect attendance record, right?” Her tone is sarcastic and bitter and it send chills down my legs. This isn’t the Lizzie I know.
“I’m so surprised they aren’t sending me. Except then people would know that we aren’t perfect. Then Mom would be so disappointed.” She’s so angry.
I am frozen in place. Who is this person? Where’s my Lizzie? Straight-A student, homecoming queen, my idol.
“I learned some new diet tricks in the hospital. I’ll show you when you get home.”
I am horrified. I don’t want to hear any more. I want to run. Hide. I turn and flee. Happy, for once, about my perfect attendance record.
Jane In Bloom Page 3
