“I am loyal to my daughter,” he had replied forcefully. “You don’t ever have to doubt my loyalty to my family. But why should Petey be punished for something he didn’t do?” Mike had argued. “It’s bad enough his father has virtually abandoned him. Why should I walk away, too, just because his sister did something childish and wrong?”
The argument had gone around in circles, yet another conversation with no conclusion.
Jane sighed. She had so much work to do. A pair of pants needed hemming and the kitchen floor could use a cleaning, though she had washed it just two days ago. She was accomplishing nothing by sitting in the backyard obsessing over matters she could not change or influence. She went inside through the back door and locked it behind her. Then she checked to be sure that the front door was also locked.
There had never been a break-in in the neighborhood, at least as far as Jane knew. And she had never been overly conscientious about locking the doors to the house. Yorktide was not a high-crime town; the worst offenders were the occasional drunk driver and abusive husband—both horrors, but neither a real threat to the Patterson household. But ever since Rosie’s trouble, Jane had felt generally insecure. She felt that her family was threatened in ways she could barely define. Locking the door was largely a symbolic gesture, ultimately futile as these days you could be threatened and even attacked right in your own home via the computer or cell phone. Still, it was a gesture Jane felt compelled to make.
9
December 9, 2011
Dear Diary,
Something weird happened this morning on the way to school. Mrs. Giroux offered to drive Meg and me for some reason. Anyway, she let us off a few blocks away to save herself some time, I guess. Or maybe she was just tired of Meg’s complaining about having peanut butter and jelly again for lunch.
It all happened so fast I can’t really be sure what exactly did happen.
I was about a block away from school by then and by myself because Meg had run ahead to try to catch someone in her advanced math class. She wanted to ask him something about the homework assignment. Anyway, Mackenzie Egan, Courtney Parker, Jill Harrison, and Stella Charron were passing me on my left and the next thing I knew, I felt what I thought was a shove or a shoulder bumping into me and then I was on the ground.
The left knee of my jeans ripped and my palms got kind of scraped, but the scrapes are not too bad. Mom can fix the hole in the jeans, so that’s not really a big deal, either. I told Mom that I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk. It’s not like that couldn’t really have happened.
Later, I told Meg about it. She immediately got all freaked out and said that Mackenzie and her friends were bullies. She said I should totally ignore them all. She said that bullies want attention and that they go away when they get no reaction. I don’t know if that’s true. I can’t remember if that’s what we learned back in middle school when we had those classes about how to deal with bullies. Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention. Why? I always pay attention in class. I guess it never occurred to me that I would be bullied.
And maybe I haven’t been bullied. Maybe it really was an accident. Mackenzie laughed but sort of apologized to me and she called Courtney an idiot for having been clumsy and knocking into me. Jill and Stella said nothing and then all four of them just walked on toward school. But Meg is still suspicious. She thinks Mackenzie set the whole thing up and that Courtney banged into me on purpose. But why me? I’ve never done anything bad to any of them. I don’t think I’ve ever even talked to any of them, certainly not to Courtney, not until that Halloween party, and they came up to us, not the other way around. Like I said, Meg can be so suspicious sometimes.
Anyway, I don’t know if I can actually ignore Mackenzie and Courtney and Jill and Stella. They’re so popular. At least, I think they are. They act like they are. I’ve decided after what happened today that I don’t like them at all, but I would never say that to anyone, except for Meg. I mean, if it was really an accident, why didn’t one of them ask me if I was okay?
I have to admit that after talking to Meg, I did wonder for about a half a second if I should say something to someone else about what happened, maybe to Carly or to Tiffany.
But then I thought, what if it really was an accident and I got Courtney into trouble for nothing? Then I’d be in a really bad situation and Mackenzie and the others would definitely hate me.
And what if it turned out that Courtney did knock me down on purpose? Then everything would be an even bigger mess. Because what would I do then?
And why would Carly or even Tiffany want to get involved in the first place? I’m only a freshman and they have all this important senior year stuff going on.
Besides, like I said, I really do think it was an accident. I’ve been in school with Mackenzie since forever and we’ve never even spoken before this year. Why would she suddenly want to cause trouble for me now? It doesn’t make any sense.
I’m going to put it all out of my mind.
It’s been snowing on and off for the past two days and the weather has been cold enough to freeze Duckworth Pond. Meg wants us to go ice-skating there on Saturday (she’s always hoping we’ll be there at the same time the boys from the high school ice hockey team are hanging out), but I’m not really in the mood to go ice-skating. I’m not really in the mood to do anything fun right now. I don’t know why. But if she really, really wants to go, I guess I’ll go with her. I mean, she’s my best friend and was really upset about my falling (or, as she says, being pushed), so the least I can do is go skating.
I think I need to put some more Bactine on my palms. Some of the scrapes are kind of stinging. It’s probably from holding this pen.
Well, I should go and do my homework. Mom and Dad never ask me if I’ve done it all before dinner, but I know they expect me to. And I don’t want to disappoint them, so see you soon.
Your friend, Rosie
December 23, 2011
Dear Diary,
It’s strange. Christmas is only two days away, but I just don’t feel excited about it the way I used to. I wish I did feel excited. But I can’t seem to fake it for myself, though I think I’m doing a pretty good job with Mom. She wanted us to bake cookies yesterday and I knew that if I told her the truth, that I didn’t really want to bake Christmas cookies, she would be all upset, so I went along and pretended that I was having a good time. When we were done I didn’t want to eat any, but I took a bite of one of the peanut butter cookies and when Mom left the kitchen to answer the door for the UPS guy, I threw the rest of it in the garbage. I felt bad about wasting food, but I just couldn’t eat the rest of it.
I know she’ll want to go to that Christmas concert at the Episcopal church, too, and I don’t want to hurt her feelings, so I’ll go with her. I don’t know why she likes it so much anyway because she says she’s an agnostic. I really like the carols, and even a lot of the hymns, especially “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (it sounds so haunting and it always makes me cry for some reason), even though I’m not really sure what most of them mean because I’ve never learned much about the Bible and theology and all. But this year ... I don’t know. I just don’t care about going to the concert.
Meg’s been going on about wanting a suede jacket for Christmas. She really thinks her mom’s going to get one for her, but I saw in a catalogue my mom gets how expensive suede jackets are and I really doubt Mrs. Giroux can afford it. Still, I really hope Meg gets what she wants. She deserves good things. She asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her it was okay if she got me nothing because I really didn’t want anything. That was a bit of a lie. There are a few small things I would like to get. The real reason I told Meg she didn’t have to get me a gift is that I know money is really tight for the Giroux family. They shouldn’t be spending their money on me. Besides, Meg bought me that really pretty rose quartz pendant for my birthday only two months ago.
I thought I saw Mackenzie giving me an odd look today at lunchtime, sort of a sneer. I wa
s probably imagining it. Since that time when I fell I think I’ve been imagining stuff, small things, that probably aren’t even real. Like after lunch today, when I was at my locker getting my books for the next class, I thought I felt someone watching me and when I turned around, Jill was right across the hall, staring at me. She didn’t smile or say or do anything, just stared at me for another few seconds and then walked away. But it’s not a crime to stare at someone, just rude. And like I said, maybe I was just imagining that she was staring at me. Why would I think that I’m so interesting? Mom’s always taught me not to have a big head or to be full of myself.
I’ve always been a bit confused about that. I mean, Mom always likes it when someone tells me how pretty I am. But isn’t that the sort of thing, getting compliments all the time, that leads you to being full of yourself or having a big head? Lately I’m realizing that there are so many things I just don’t understand. Maybe life was always this complicated and I was just too young to understand. Or maybe life is always getting more complicated. If that’s true, then how do you ever catch up with it?
I should go now. I still have to wrap Mom and Dad’s presents. Usually, I have every present wrapped weeks ahead, but for some reason, this year every time I thought, “I should wrap those presents,” I just couldn’t do it. Seriously, sometimes it’s like my brain just can’t make my hands DO anything. It’s never happened to me before. I wonder what it means. But now I only have two days until Christmas, so I really, really have to try to force myself to get those presents wrapped. I hope Mom and Dad like their gifts. I had a hard time figuring out what to get them. Finally, I got Dad a sweater and Mom a book about gardening. I saw that she’d circled an ad for it in one of our local papers about a month ago, so I hope she really wanted it and that she’s not disappointed. I don’t want her to think that I don’t care about her.
I had a hard time choosing something for Meg, too. I mean, Meg always has a wish list a mile long, but I still couldn’t decide what to get her. Finally, I got her a DVD set of the second Twilight movie with outtakes and interviews and stuff. It’s one of her favorite movies. It was kind of expensive but that’s okay. I’ve been saving my allowance. I hope her mother doesn’t also get it for her. Well, I kept the receipt, so I could always return it and get her something else.
Last night before dinner I went with Dad to find the “perfect tree.” He loves searching for the tree. We got a nice fat one at a tree lot in town and it’s out in the backyard. I think the man who sold it to us said it was a Scotch pine. We’ll be putting it up in the living room tomorrow and decorating it like we always do. Mom will be sure I get to hang my favorite ornament on the tree, that pink one that once belonged to my grandmother. I’m not excited about it at all, though. Maybe it’s just because I’m growing up. I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t believed in Santa Claus for a few years. (Neither has Meg, but we keep quiet about it for Petey’s sake.) Maybe Christmas really is just a holiday for little kids. Maybe Mom and Dad pretend excitement around Christmastime just for my benefit. Maybe I should tell them they don’t have to pretend anymore. I don’t want them wasting their time for my sake.
Talk about wasting time! That’s what I’m still doing. Good-bye, this time for real.
Your friend, Rosie
10
Meg didn’t really mind picking Petey up from camp every day. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do at three-thirty in the afternoon. Sometimes she walked to the church, but today she had ridden her bike. For some reason she thought more clearly when she was riding than she did when she was walking. And today she had something important to think about.
That morning, before she had left for work, Meg’s mother had told her that Mrs. Patterson had demanded Meg not talk to Rosie. This news had made Meg feel angry and also a little bit sad. What did Mrs. Patterson think she was going to say to Rosie? What did she think she was going to do? Punch her in the nose?
Well, she supposed she had no right to be angry. She knew she had “blown her credibility” with the Pattersons. She had read that term recently in an article in Time magazine about some disgraced politician. Her dentist never had fun magazines, just serious stuff. In Meg’s opinion, Bloomberg Businessweek did not help calm your nerves when you were waiting for someone basically to drill a hole in your head.
Meg turned the bike smoothly onto Main Street. The bike was secondhand; she and her mother had gotten it at a yard sale two summers before for twenty dollars. Her father, for once actually keeping his promise, had fixed it up enough so that it rode pretty well. And the brakes were in good shape, which was important. Meg just wished it looked a little newer than it did. And that it wasn’t a weird shade of green, kind of like pea soup, which was good to eat but not so much to look at. But she didn’t care enough about the bike’s appearance to bother with painting it, and besides, if she was lucky she would find a newer model at another yard sale this summer.
Meg continued to ride through downtown on the sidewalk. Though technically you were supposed to ride a bike in the street, lots of people in Yorktide ignored that law, and as far as Meg knew, nobody had ever gotten arrested or fined. Anyway, she was careful not to go too fast and to watch out for old people or anyone on crutches or some little kid who wasn’t paying attention. Once when she and her mother had been up in Portland, some skuzzy-looking guy on a bike had crashed into a tiny old lady on the sidewalk outside Renys on Congress Street. Mrs. Giroux had hurried right over to help the woman, but the skuzzy-looking guy had just taken off. That had happened years ago, but Meg still remembered how scared and kind of sick she had felt seeing the blood on the old lady’s forehead. A police car was on the scene within minutes and it turned out that the cut on the old lady’s forehead was minor, but Meg had a feeling that both she and the old lady would remember that incident for a very long time to come.
Meg glanced down at the Swatch watch on her left wrist. She was a bit early. There was time to window-shop. Nothing helped chase away negative thoughts or upsetting memories like window-shopping, unless it was actual shopping, but she couldn’t afford to do that too often. She came to a stop in front of a small store called Annie’s Boutique. It sold women’s clothes and accessories. Now, for summer, there was a display of bathing suits, cover-ups, straw hats, sunglasses, and sandals. A pair of sandals right in the center of the display caught Meg’s eye. They were flat and silver, with a thin strap around the ankle and a shiny blue stone on the strap that went across the toe. She would love, love, love to have a pair of those sandals, but she bet there was no way she could afford them. It seemed so unfair. Rosie could probably afford to buy them but she probably wouldn’t bother; she didn’t care about fashion all that much. Meg sighed and touched the glass of the window with a fingertip. She supposed she could try to save up for a pair, but by the time she had enough money to buy them, the store would probably be sold out.
“Grr,” Meg said under her breath. “Grr, grr, grr.” She was self-aware enough to recognize the mood into which she was rapidly descending. Her mother called it her Miss Grumpy Pants mood. She said it wasn’t attractive. Most times, Meg didn’t care. Like at that moment, slowly cycling on past the boutique and toward St. Teresa of Avila church and rectory. Who was around to even notice if she was being “attractive”? And why should Meg care what other people thought of her?
Well, no man—or woman—was an island. That was another one of her mother’s favorite expressions. And in my case, Meg thought contritely, yeah, I should care what other people think about me. Because no one could get by alone. No person could survive without a community.
Her mother was right. She had told Meg she was lucky that her part in Rosie’s breakdown wasn’t known. If Meg had been publicly accused of bullying, even if she wasn’t really guilty, no sane parent would have hired Meg to baby-sit her kids. And the Giroux family needed whatever money they could earn. It seemed like Meg’s mother reminded her of that every single day. Meg glanced down at the ratty old sneakers
she was wearing. As if she could ever forget. Her mother didn’t even let them get a real tree at Christmastime because she said it was money down the drain. The artificial tree that they had been using for, like, forever, was sad and saggy, but nothing short of it falling on top of Petey could persuade Mrs. Giroux to toss it and buy a new one. Buy fresh flowers at Hannaford? No way. The dusty old plastic yellow tulips she had found at a garage sale would have to do. Throw away a pair of jeans because the hems were frayed? Why not just sew on a new hem, cut from a stray scrap of fabric? Her mom didn’t need Jane Patterson’s help to do that.
Meg pedaled on. Well, she thought, she might be poor now, but she fully intended to make a ton of money when she grew up and got out of school. She definitely wanted to go to college but was pretty sure she would have to go part-time while she worked a full-time job. Whatever. She would do it, and since she was really good at math and science and computers, she didn’t think she would have too much trouble making a lot of money in some big career. No way would she wind up like her mother, who was really smart but stuck working a job that Meg had concluded was beneath her. Not that Mrs. Giroux had ever said that, exactly, but Meg thought she could read between the lines of her mother’s reports at the end of each workday. And not winding up like her mother also meant not getting married to someone like her father. No. Way.
Lately, Meg had spent a lot of time wondering why her mother had chosen to marry her father. She wondered what it was about him that had attracted her mom. It couldn’t have been his intelligence or his character—neither of which he had much of—or even his sense of humor, which Meg had long since judged as juvenile. Beavis and Butt-Head were more sophisticated than her dad! Well, sometimes. Part of her wanted to come right out and ask her mom to explain why she had done what she had done, but another part of her was afraid to know the truth. Maybe, Meg thought, when she was older she would work up the courage to ask. There had to have been something good about her father to make Frances Mary Donaldson marry him. There had to have been. Meg had seen plenty of photos of her mom when she was young. She had been really attractive. She probably could have gotten any guy she wanted. But something had made her choose Peter Giroux.
Last Summer Page 8
