Inside Out Girl

by Tish Cohen

  “I don’t know,” Len said. “I still haven’t worked anything out—”

  “What’s there to work out?” asked Henry. “Virginia’s parents, may they rest in peace, aren’t an option.”

  Grace shook her head. “Terrible thing, that. I’ll never fly in a private plane again. Never.”

  Henry tapped his pipe on the table, then looked at Len. “You have someone else in mind?”

  “No. But—”

  “I’ve already cleared out my sewing room,” said Grace. “It will be her room completely. We’ll have it painted in her favorite color.”

  “Mom, I love you for offering. But that would mean switching schools. Not good for a child like Olivia. She can stay at Wilton until…” He’d been about to say “college.”

  Henry said, “That’s what we wanted to discuss.”

  Grace jumped forward in her seat, the table seeming to cut her in half. “We’ve found a lovely school for her. It’s called the Beacon Institute and it’s less than an hour away.”

  Len pushed the ketchup aside. “I know all about Beacon. It’s not right for Olivia.”

  Henry said, “It’s perfect for her. It’s a special-needs school. We drove out there last week and spoke to the headmaster. She’s waiting for you to call—”

  “Olivia’s not going to Beacon.”

  “It’s one of the finest special-needs schools in the country, Len,” Grace assured him. “They really prepare these kids for independent living.”

  Len rolled his eyes. “I checked it out years ago. The program runs seven days a week, from nine in the morning until evening, with a fifty-minute bus ride tacked on both ends…”

  “We weren’t going to send our granddaughter on the bus,” said Henry. “We’d drive her ourselves. Hell, we’d move closer to the institute if it would make things easier.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you mean well, but Olivia’s not going to attend an institute. It’s the very opposite of what she needs.”

  “Darling,” said Grace, laying her hand on Len’s, “this just might be the most perfect solution we’re going to find.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “Behind the Door”

  —CIRCLE JERKS

  On Monday morning, the last week of school, wearing the school’s mandatory gray Wilton sweatshirt, Janie guarded her position of dead last in a line of sweaty eighth-grade girls jogging through the woods. If Monica Larson slowed down, Janie slowed down more. If the depressed chick—the one who sewed her own clothes with her eyes closed—in front of Monica stopped to retie her shoe, Janie stopped to retie both.

  At the very back of the line, you could see which skinny girl had the worst cellulite. You could take extra walk breaks without the girl behind you rolling her eyes and passing you by in an athletic huff. And, best of all, if you fell really far back, you could wait to pass the pile of mossy logs, cut to the right, and bypass the whole gaggle of them. You could slash your woodland climb in half, coming out on the soccer field at the place where everyone breaks apart and sprints to the gym doors anyway. So no one notices you totally cheated.

  Janie burst into the gym in fourth place and low-fived Ms. Dawes, the gym teacher, who said, “Nice work, Berman. See what happens when you put forth a little effort?”

  Janie despised long-distance running almost as much as shortdistance running. Running was for lean, competitive types. Ms. Dawes barked at the girls to grab a mat and cool down. As Janie dragged her mat as far away from the gym teacher as possible, she noticed Dustin and his friends hovering around a group of younger girls by the gigantic, folded-up accordion divider that halved the gym during team sports. She turned around and let her mat slap down onto the varnished floor before climbing down onto her knees and flopping on top of it. While she lay on her stomach, she tried not to look at Tabitha, all the way at the other end of the room, reaching forward to touch her toes.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a blond girl push a ponytailed girl from the herd of Dustin-infested middle-graders. The blond waved the other girl to keep walking. As the kid ambled down the center of the gym, Janie looked again. Shit. It was Olivia, and she was headed straight for Janie’s mat. Janie scrambled into position and stretched down over her legs, letting her hair mask her face.

  Please turn around, Olivia, she pleaded silently. Please!

  With her nose practically touching her knees—a gymnastic undertaking she’d never have been able to achieve without the looming threat of humiliation—Janie listened as the girl’s footsteps passed right by. Thank God, she thought. She collapsed sideways onto her mat to see Olivia heading past the eighth-grade girls and straight across the gym floor to where the eighth-grade boys were doing sit-ups. She stopped in front of Cody Donovan—Tabitha’s best friend’s ex-boyfriend.

  Positioned directly in front of him, Olivia looked like she was about to burst. Her mouth broke into a big, toothy grin and she said, “Yes.”

  Cody sneered and glanced around, to show any and all persons who might think otherwise that he was in no way condoning this unauthorized approach. “Yes what?”

  Olivia began stepping from one foot to the other, tugging a clump of hair out of her ponytail. “They…” she pointed back toward the kids in the doorway—all of whom were purple with laughter. “They said you wanted me to be your friend. They gave me your note.” She pulled a balled-up paper from her pocket and stretched it open as a ripple of giggles billowed across the girls’ side of the gym.

  “What’s going on over there?” called Ms. Dawes, climbing off her mat and marching toward Cody.

  Olivia looked up. “I’m just talking to my friend.”

  The gym roared. Laughter bounced off the painted cinder-block walls and the wooden benches. It thumped off the floors, hit the ceiling, and rushed back down like a tornado, wrapping itself around Olivia’s little body. She began to whirl, one hand yanking at her hair, the other hand clutching the note to her chest, blinking back tears.

  Cody snatched up the paper and examined it. “It’s not from me.” He crumpled it up and threw it toward the younger girls. “Sorry, sweet stuff. I’m not your friend. Come back in a few years and we’ll talk. More than talk.”

  Just before Ms. Dawes reached her, Olivia—face twisted and red—spun around and tore out of the gym, pushing through the crowd of kids, who only laughed harder when they realized the child had gone into the boys’ locker room.

  Little shits, thought Janie.

  She jumped off her mat and raced after Olivia. With her forearms held high, she barreled through the fifth-and sixth-grade nothings, knocking Dustin to the ground. “Why can’t you little assholes leave her alone?”

  She burst through the still-swinging door to the nearly empty boys’ locker room and found Olivia in a rumpled heap on a stack of discarded towels, sobbing and rocking herself back and forth. She touched the child’s shoulder. Olivia startled, spinning around, then smiled wretchedly when she saw Janie. She pulled herself to her feet, exposing a large wet spot down one leg of her sweatpants, and leaped forward. She locked her damp little body onto Janie’s.

  Janie held her. A group of seventh-grade boys came in, needling her for trespassing, but that Janie could take. She refused, however, to let them see Olivia’s tears. Standing between Olivia and the boys, she peeled off her sweatshirt and tugged it over the girl’s head, pulling it low to hide her pants until Janie could get her to the office. Then, with only her strapping bra and damp white undershirt to hide behind, Janie took the girl’s small hand and marched out of the locker room.

  Leaving Olivia in the office secretaries’ maternal hands, Janie swung into the hallway and came face-to-face with a group of boys leaning against the wall.

  “Nice superhero-ing, Berman,” said Ritchie, a ninth-grader who hit six feet in seventh grade and had yet to show any signs of leveling off. “Too bad your cape got piss all over it.”

  Cody Donovan pushed himself off the wall and looked her over with a predatory grin. “Undershirts
are better anyway. Especially on you.” His friends milled around him, snickering.

  Janie spotted Tabitha and Charlotte heading toward the office. Not good. She definitely did not want Tabitha to see her being victimized. Quickly, she ducked into the girls’ bathroom and locked herself in the last stall. She listened while the door swung open again and, of all people, Tabitha and Charlotte came in behind her.

  “God, that Ritchie’s hot!” said Charlotte, making purse-clicking sounds over by the sink.

  “You think?” asked Tabitha. “He’s too tall for me. How would you make out with him? Standing on Cody’s shoulders?”

  Charlotte laughed. “Cody’s got to be good for something.”

  “I want someone shorter. Closer to my height.”

  Holding her breath, Janie stared at the inside of the stall door, covered in graffiti: Jessie B. sucks toes, Sierra Hertzman was going to marry her boyfriend Brad (who’d been cheating with Emily Waldron for a week now), Dean Reiser’s cell phone was “filming you now.”

  “Ugh, you’re so predictable,” said Charlotte. “Knowing you, you’ll probably marry the boy next door.”

  “I seriously doubt it. The boy next door to me is about twelve. I’d be better off marrying his sister.” They walked out giggling.

  A grin spread across Janie’s face. She threw her arms above her head and cheered in silence, then reached for a pen lying on the floor beside the toilet and hunted for blank space on the stall door. She scrawled “JB + TC” and wrapped it in a heart. Stepping back from her handiwork, she frowned. The letters came out great, but the heart twisted like a jagged coat hanger at the bottom.

  CHAPTER 23

  What to Do with Bedlam and Delight

  Release yourself from guilt. Every parenting decision you’ve made has been born of best intentions.

  —RACHEL BERMAN, Perfect Parent magazine

  Rachel rang the doorbell for the third time. Still no answer. Strange, since Len’s Audi was in the driveway and she could hear the Doors playing from inside the house. She pressed her face to the window and stared in at the empty living room.

  “No one’s here,” said Dustin. “Let’s go home.”

  “No way, pal. You’re not getting off that easily.” Rachel had received a phone call from the school the night prior, informing her of Dustin’s satellite participation in a prank involving Olivia. “They’re probably out back.”

  With Dustin dragging his feet behind her, she led the way toward the backyard along a stony path canopied with birch trees. What was once probably a lovingly cared-for shade garden, complete with glorious hostas and ferns, now ran riotous with weeds, some of which were tall enough to be saplings. Broken branches lay strewn across the path. Still, the overall effect was a dreamlike combination of bedlam and delight.

  In the equally shady, equally charming, and equally unkempt backyard, Rachel found Len sitting on a weathered Adirondack chair, staring into space. Behind him, the sun was dipping down below the line of fir trees along the western edge of his property.

  “Hey there,” she called out.

  Len smiled, sort of, and stood up, greeting her with a discreet kiss on the cheek.

  Rachel waved Dustin over. “I’ve got someone here who has something to say to a certain someone else,” she said, nodding toward Olivia, who, she’d just noticed, was tramping through a bed of wildflowers, wearing plaid shorts and what could only be her father’s winter boots. Her arms and legs were covered in mud. “Is it all right that Olivia does that?” she asked. “Stomp through your flowers like that?”

  Len glanced at his daughter and sniffed. “Oh. Yeah. We don’t care much about those.”

  “Olivia,” Rachel called. “Come on over and see Dustin. He has something to say to you.”

  Olivia turned and her face lit up. She came bounding, crashing through a patch of red poppies, sending delicate crimson petals fluttering through the garden. Stampling across the lawn, she came to stand, a mud-and-broken-flower-encrusted swamp creature, facing Dustin. She was barely able to contain her joy.

  “Hi Dustin.”

  Rachel nudged her son from behind. In monotone, he said, “Olivia-I’m-sorry-I-made-fun-of-you-in-gym-class. It-was-wrong-and-I’m-shamed—”

  “Ashamed,” Rachel corrected.

  Dustin slumped his shoulders. “Ashamed. Can you…” He shot Rachel a pained look, “find it in yourself to forgive me?”

  Rachel nudged Dustin again. He held out his hand for Olivia to shake.

  “Okay,” she chirped, ignoring the hand. She took Dustin’s entire body—arms and all—and squeezed him madly, her beautiful, filthy face mashed against Dustin’s white shirt, her eyes shut tight, face dreamy.

  Dustin looked down at his muddy arms and groaned, “Mom.”

  It was the hug that kept on hugging. Unsure how to stop it, Rachel glanced at Len, who watched the whole thing with a miserable smile. Finally, Rachel said, “Olivia, do you have any rodent books in your room to show Dustin?”

  Olivia released her soiled hostage and trotted toward the house, babbling something about the next day hopefully being her birthday.

  “I’ll go with her if you agree to skate camp,” said Dustin.

  “That’s bribery,” said Rachel.

  Len looked up. “Extortion, actually.”

  “Extortion.” Rachel spun Dustin around to face the house and nudged him. “Now go!”

  Dustin grumbled something Rachel was glad she couldn’t hear as he trudged toward the back door, flicking mud from his arms.

  After a longer kiss, Rachel trotted into Len’s kitchen to dig up some wine. She pulled two cloudy glasses from a cupboard and leaned across the paper- and file-strewn kitchen table for a bottle of pinot noir. Something fluttered off the table, so she set the bottle down and picked up a small photograph from the floor. It was a black-and-white picture, a young Len dressed as some sort of a monster for Halloween. “Cute,” she said out loud.

  The title of a document poking out of a blue file caught her eye. “This is the Last Will and Testament of Leonard Kendrick Bean.” She crumpled her brow and nudged it aside with her fingernail. Beneath it was a legal-size envelope labeled “Power of Attorney.”

  Her pulse quickened as she noticed a memo clipped to the file. It was a note from Len to his assistant asking her to “draw these up right away.”

  Right away?

  Certainly when Olivia was born Len and Virginia must have drawn up wills—as every other parent does, however reluctantly. And certainly he’d feel the need to update things from time to time. But not with urgency.

  Her head began to swim with absurd conclusions. Could Len be dying—or, worse—planning to die? People like Len don’t get sick. The guy refused mussels, for God’s sake.

  Here I go again, she thought. The man does a little filing, a little planning, and I’m imploding with panic. Smart people, especially smart parents without an ex-spouse around, made wills. Smart lawyers probably made wills quickly. Len was an intelligent man, and instead of planning his eulogy, she should get the hell outside and pour the guy a glass of wine.

  By the time Rachel stepped back into the yard, the sky had faded to a deep indigo above the now inked-over tree line. Tiny lights in the garden, set to timers, flicked on, dotting the bushes and weeds like motionless fireflies. She sank into a wooden chair as Len reached for the corkscrew and set to work opening the bottle.

  “I’m so sorry about what happened yesterday. I don’t know what got into him.”

  The cork came out with a pop. “Well…kids.”

  “If they just stand by and watch, they’re just as guilty. Dustin knows that.”

  “It’s not your fault, Rachel. Forget about it. Olivia has her own way of dealing with this sort of thing…” As he filled the glasses, his cell phone rang from the ground by his feet. He passed Rachel her glass, sipped from his own, and checked the caller ID. He silenced the phone and tossed it back onto the grass.

  “What was that?” Ra
chel asked.

  “Nothing. The receptionist of one of my clients seems to enjoy tracking me down after hours. It’s ridiculous.”

  “She’s calling you after work? About what?”

  Len waved the question away. “Nothing. Everything. Shannon calls to say a package might be late. Or a package might be early.” Len chuckled into his glass. “Last week she offered to pick me up and drive me to the Audi dealer after work when my car was in for service.”

  “Did you let her?”

  “Of course not! I had a doctor’s appointment after.”

  “That’s what stopped you?”

  “No.” He looked at Rachel. “I was tempted, though. She said she had a box of chocolate ruggelah in the backseat.”

  “And that’s all it would take to lure you away from me? One box of melted ruggelah?”

  “Only the chocolate kind.” Reaching out to touch her arm, he trailed one finger down to her hand and picked it up. He smiled sadly. “I’d never leave you for cinnamon.”

  “That’s comforting,” said Rachel.

  It wasn’t all that surprising, a woman throwing herself at Len. He was a good-looking lawyer. Single. Not only that, but he was nice. Nice was getting harder and harder to find in the world. Maybe Rachel shouldn’t be taking this so lightly. Especially since Len seemed…subdued tonight.

  “You’re sure you’re okay with the Olivia-and-Dustin thing?” she asked.

  “Cross my heart.”

  “So, uh, how does she get away with all this flirting—this Shannon person?” Rachel asked. “Where does she work?”

  “Just over on Charleston. At an adoption agency I work with.”

  Rachel froze. Her hand shook so hard her wine lapped against the side of her glass. She set it down so Len wouldn’t notice. Clearing her throat, she asked, “Which one?”

  Len jumped forward and slapped at his arm. “Mosquito!” His eyes searched the air above his arm, as he waited for his attacker to land again.