The look of anger on her mother’s face was a hundred times more recriminating than Mr. Woo’s sad eyes or Mr. Dosher’s grim mouth. Stone-cold eyes and lips pursed together into a furious line for Rosie’s joyride home.
Rosie’s descent from the sky to the ground had been swift and fast, like a meteor’s. She had started out Miss Rosie Goldglitt, in an excellent mood, that very morning. She was a crisp green leaf on a nice walk to school. For several hours, Rosie’s name had matched her—golden, glittery; yes, life was good, to use Mr. Woo’s favorite device, alliteration.
Why hadn’t she remembered what Grandma Rebecca had once told her: all that glitters is not gold. Her new life was fool’s gold, that’s what it was. The Kissing Diary had fast become Rosie’s Diary of Doom. She should never have retrieved it from the garbage can.
12
The Goldglitts at the Gynecologist
Mrs. Goldglitt walked swiftly ahead of Rosie and jumped into the car. She waited half a second for her daughter to close the door, and took off as if she had just robbed a bank.
“My seat belt!” cried Rosie before she understood that safety was not what Mrs. Goldglitt had in mind. Out of habit, she switched on the radio, and her mother turned it off. It reminded Rosie of Jimmy, but she didn’t dare say so. She was afraid her mother might decide to drive the car into a ravine, if there were a ravine in the town.
“Is that all you have to say?” said her mother, which was confusing, to say the least, because Rosie hadn’t said much of anything.
“I’m sorry,” said Rosie, although a deep part of her was not, the part that still throbbed from Mary’s wishing that she didn’t exist.
The air felt oppressive inside the car. Rosie opened a window, wondering if her mother’s fury could give off heat.
“What on earth possessed you to hit someone, Rosie?”
She could barely hear her mother. Were her teeth clenched, preventing the words from escaping?
“Wait until I tell Dad.”
Rosie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her mother had cast her in an old-fashioned movie, except that the “Wait until your father gets home” routine was tired and pointless when your father didn’t even live with you.
“She hates me,” said Rosie.
“Who hates you? Dad’s wife?”
“Dad’s wife?” Rosie shouted. “Mary, that’s who. Mary, the one that I hit, the one you told me was evil!”
“I may have said she was evil, but did I tell you to hit her? Did I, Rosie? Why on earth would you do that?”
“Because she hates me, and I hate her because she hates me, that’s why!” So much for saying that she was sorry, but Rosie couldn’t help herself.
Her mother sighed and turned her head slightly toward her daughter, as if she had switched on the air-conditioning inside her head. “You don’t hit people because they hate you,” she said, making an effort to soften her tone. “You ignore them, Rosie.”
“If a baseball landed on your head, could you ignore it? If you stepped on a piece of glass, could you make believe you didn’t, Mom?” Why hadn’t she ignored Mary Katz? She’d done it for months and months and months. Why couldn’t she be like Gandhi and turn the other cheek? She watched her mother drive past their street onto a major thoroughfare. It wouldn’t do to complain.
“I can’t believe this!” Her mother must have been thinking too hard, and was on the rampage again. “I need this, Rosie? With Grandma gone, and Grandpa sick, I need my own daughter behaving like a juvenile delinquent? Your father will blame it all on me, you know.”
Rosie stayed silent. So that was the problem. Her mother was afraid she would be blamed for her downfall. Maybe it was her mother’s fault that Rosie had screwed up. Maybe it was her father’s fault, too, messing up their lives and leaving the family to marry someone else. Maybe Rosie was slugging the whole world, did her mother ever think of that?
“You’ll have to come with me to the gynecologist’s office,” her mother said.
Rosie sucked in air. Just what she wanted, to be holed up in a room full of pregnant women.
They parked, and Rosie followed her mother into Dr. Shapiro’s office, which smelled faintly of baby wipes and antiseptic.
“Sit,” said her mother, tossing aside a copy of Parents Magazine that lay on the seat.
Rosie wedged herself between her mother and a woman whose belly was the size of the cage ball they used in gym when it was raining outside. She averted her eyes from the monstrous stomach.
Mrs. Goldglitt leaned across Rosie toward the woman, saying, “I hope you know that your baby could grow up and be suspended from school someday.”
The woman smiled faintly and placed a protective hand on her belly, as if to say, Save us from this silly, raving woman. Rosie huddled in her seat, knowing that her mother was losing it and would embarrass her more before the visit was over. She grabbed a Highlights for Children and started leafing through it, hoping to find the tree with the hidden pictures, anything to distract her from her mother’s lethal behavior. Rosie hid behind the magazine as if she were wearing blinders. She wouldn’t look to the right of her where her mother had become a rattlesnake, nor to the left of her, where an alien was living inside a belly.
Mrs. Goldglitt found another target. Across from them, a mother was unstrapping a baby, cooing at her with such love that it made Rosie feel sad. Could her mother possibly have loved her as much as that? The baby had chubby round cheeks and a pink ribbon tied around a tiny strand of hair, which meant she was definitely a girl even if she looked like a boy.
“Yours, too,” said her mother, startling the woman. “As cute as she is, she could grow up and be suspended from school someday.”
“God willing,” said the woman, unfazed by Mrs. Goldglitt. “Just let her be healthy.” She hoisted the baby up and held her firmly in her lap, lifting her shirt up with the other hand. One, two, three, the baby was under it, latching on to the mother’s nipple so quickly that Rosie was totally mesmergusted and fascinpulsed. She wanted to run out of the office and home to her bedroom, where she could call up Lauren and describe her horrible afternoon and hear her best friend laugh as if she hadn’t hit Mary and gotten detention and ruined her life in an instant.
“Can I wait outside in the car?” Rosie hissed at her mother.
“Absolutely not.”
Rosie’s punishment continued as the baby sucked noisily. The hidden toys in the Highlights tree couldn’t distract her. Terrific, thought Rosie, it was time for the other breast.
She made a note to herself never to nurse in public if there was a young girl around. She made a second note not to embarrass her daughter in a public place if she ever got suspended from school.
At last, her mother’s name was called. “Just urinate in the cup, Lucy,” the nurse said easily. Oh, joy and rapture, Rosie could sit there and imagine her mother peeing in a cup.
Finally, her mother returned to the waiting room. The nursing mother had gone and two more women in varying stages of pregnancy flanked Rosie, who had started reading Working Mother magazine out of sheer desperation. Mrs. Goldglitt paid at the glass window and muttered a thank-you.
“Come,” she told Rosie.
In the car, Mrs. Goldglitt fastened her seat belt. She turned on the radio and let Rosie’s music penetrate the air. “Sorry,” was the first word she uttered.
“What?” said Rosie, stunned by the reversal.
“I should have dropped you at home. I don’t know why I dragged you to the gynecologist.”
“Do the crime, serve the time,” Rosie answered. She was happy to hear her mother laugh for the first time all day.
Then Mrs. Goldglitt said, “Don’t ever disappoint me like this again, Rosie. I don’t ever want another phone call from the principal’s office telling me that my daughter the hooligan is hitting some child.”
Rosie considered her new nickname, hooligan, on the twenty-minute ride home. It was a far cry from hooking up with a boy named
Robbie.
In her diary that evening, she gave herself several names. Her first choice, Rosie Gold-hitter, was to the point. Rosie Gold-bitter described her mood. The last one was signed:
Half-regretfully yours,
Rosie Gold-hooligan
13
Rosie’s Intentions Did Not Include Detention
When they got home, Rosie’s mother delivered her own set of detention rules: no television, no computer, no telephone. Rosie pleaded hard for her telephone privileges. How else would she know if her reputation was in the toilet? Her mother wouldn’t budge.
“What was it you told me? Do the crime, pay the fine?” Mrs. Goldglitt said, raising an eyebrow.
Serving detention at home reminded Rosie of last year’s blackout, except that she was the only one dealing with the misery of no electronics, and no one volunteered to play cards with her by candlelight. She did her homework, read a novel, and wrote a letter to her cousin in California, but she was itching to talk to Lauren and her friends.
Jimmy loped into the living room and tossed his jacket over the easy chair, despite his mother’s call from the kitchen to hang it up.
“Hey, slugger, how’s it goin’?” he said, landing a few light punches on Rosie’s arm. “I heard it on the grapevine that my sister’s a thug.”
“Very funny,” said Rosie dejectedly.
“Hey, we all hit rock bottom sometime. I beat up Stanley Siddow in the eighth grade, remember?”
“That’s true,” said Rosie, brightening. Mrs. Goldglitt entered the living room and lifted up Jimmy’s jacket with two fingers. “Hang it up,” she said.
“Did you take away Jimmy’s privileges when he beat up some kid in the playground?” Rosie asked her.
“Stanley Siddow was three hundred pounds and he sat on Jimmy’s head and wouldn’t let him get up,” said Mrs. Goldglitt, unyielding. “It was self-defense. Besides, they separated the two of them, and Jimmy wasn’t suspended. This is very different.”
“Yeah, I’m going to jail,” said Rosie.
“Detention sucks. I had detention when Mom and Dad were getting the divorce, and we were always getting to school late, remember?”
“You were late four times,” said his mother. “And they made you stay after school.”
“Whatever.” Jimmy tossed his jacket back on the chair. “I’ve got my study group tonight. Can I hang it up later? What’s for dinner?”
“Prison food,” joked Mrs. Goldglitt. “Dry bread and water.”
The following morning, Rosie sneaked a phone call to Lauren while her mother was in the bathroom. “Meet me at the rosebush where Robbie fell over,” she whispered as soon as she heard her friend’s voice. Rosie kept her eyes on the ground as she waited. She felt as though she were about to perform her Greek play all over again, except that this was her life and there were no extra rehearsals to make things better.
Lauren arrived looking very solemn. “Hey,” she said as they headed toward the school.
“I’m so glad to see you,” said Rosie, relieved, even if it felt as though she were going to a funeral.
“I called, you know. Your mom said you were grounded.”
“We had bread and water for dinner,” said Rosie, repeating her mother’s joke.
Lauren didn’t even smile. “Why did you do it?” she blurted out. “I know Mary bothers you, but did you have to hit her? What were you thinking?”
“Thinking had nothing to do with it,” said Rosie. “I was out of control.”
Lauren shook her head, and her sparkly barrette from Claire’s Accessories threatened to come undone. “I was in a state of shock. I just couldn’t believe you would do something like that!”
“You act like I planned it!” Rosie felt herself getting defensive. Couldn’t Lauren support her instead of sounding like her mother? She lowered her voice. The way things were going, a rumor would circulate that she was yelling at her best friend and about to slug her. “I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, Lauren! What happened afterward?”
Lauren softened her own tone, saying, “I was at the nurse’s office with Mary, so I missed a lot of it.”
“What did Mary say?”
“That you were a threat to society and ought to be put away. That you should be expelled. The nurse put cotton in her nose, and it was all red. Mary kept saying, ‘Is it broken? Is it broken?’ Did you aim for her nose?”
“No,” said Rosie, feeling a rush of shame. “It wasn’t broken, was it?”
Lauren shook her head.
“It just happened,” Rosie repeated. Punching someone in the nose was like a bad cartoon from the olden days. When was the last time she’d hit someone? When Jimmy had gotten angry and thrown her book bag out the door? All of her papers had scattered across the lawn, and Rosie had socked him, but not in the nose. Luckily, her mother had intervened, and Jimmy hadn’t been able to punch her back. She pulled Lauren out of the main hall for privacy. “Does everyone think I’m a low-life?” she asked.
“Just let it blow over and people will forget about it,” Lauren said, looking around as though she was ready to bolt.
“What did Sarah say?”
Lauren’s eyes flickered. “She said … what did she say?”
“Tell me.”
“She said it was nuts!”
“Nice,” said Rosie.
“Don’t get mad! You know what you did was off the wall!”
Rosie could feel her face turn to stone. “And Summer? What did she say?”
Lauren put her hand out, as if it would make Rosie shut up. “Don’t go through a list of people, please.”
“Summer is not a list. Summer is Dumb and Dumber Summer who was tortured by Mary all through elementary school.”
“She was … shocked.” Lauren floundered. “She said it made you look bad and Mary look good.”
Rosie felt herself go pale. “I guess she can’t remember when Mary picked on her, and she didn’t want to go to school, and her mother had to force her to go. Hey, maybe nobody wants to be seen with me anymore. I’m a…” Rosie cast around for the word she was looking for.
“An outcast?” said Lauren, trying to be helpful.
“A felon!” cried Rosie. Lauren looked confused, which didn’t surprise Rosie, as she had always done better on vocabulary tests. “You’re worse than my mother!” Rosie declared.
“It was embarrassing, Rosie! Can’t you see that? It was like … The Jerry Springer Show or something!”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” said Rosie, close to tears.
The bell rang and they hastily said goodbye, rushing away from each other so quickly that Rosie had no idea if they were friends or not.
As she walked in the direction of the detention room, the patter of feet and jingling chains made her think she was about to get mugged. “Rosie!” a voice called breathlessly.
Rosie turned around to see Teresa running toward her like a friendly dog.
“I just wanted to tell you that I’m in your corner!” said Teresa.
“What?” said Rosie, hoping it didn’t look as though she was about to cry.
Teresa slung an arm around Rosie. “I’m not saying you should have hit her, but Mary has a new nickname now.”
“She does?” said Rosie, trying to keep her eyes from welling up with tears.
“In gym class, somebody called her Bloody Mary, which has lots of connotations, if you know what I mean.”
“Connotations?” said Rosie. Was that one of Mr. Woo’s vocabulary words?
“I’m just saying that if they ever do a remake of the movie Mean Girls, Mary could be the star. You stood up to her. Even if you did it the wrong way, Rosie.”
“That means a lot to me,” said Rosie, her voice husky.
Teresa took Rosie’s arm and escorted her to the detention room as if she were squiring a princess. “Bloody Mary, that’s her new nickname. She was the Queen of England for five years, so it didn’t last much longer than middle sc
hool, you know? It’s a drink made of vodka and tomato juice, too. My aunt had too many at my cousin’s bar mitzvah. And Bloody Mary is the Polynesian lady from South Pacific. She’s nasty, even if she sings some nice songs.”
Rosie laughed. “Where do you get this stuff, Teresa?”
“See you later,” said Teresa, patting Rosie’s back and walking away, a cowboy with jingling spurs.
Rosie joined a dozen kids slouched behind their desks. They looked up to scrutinize each new arrival. Slipping into a chair behind Deena Corvo, who badly needed a dandruff shampoo, Rosie wondered what she’d done. Sworn at a teacher? Set fire to a wastepaper basket? Shown too much midriff, which, to judge by the outfit, might be the case? A teacher Rosie had never seen before waddled in, her billowing dress tent-like, camouflaging a large lumpy body. Rosie made a mental note to follow her mother’s exercise regimen when she got older so that she wouldn’t end up wearing tents.
“My name is Mrs. Caruso. Welcome to detention.” She picked up a clipboard and read their names from a list, licking her finger as she turned the page. It reminded Rosie of her father, who licked his index finger when he was reading the newspaper. Germ-phobic Sarah said it was a nasty habit and made her feel sick. Her ex-friend Sarah, Rosie thought sadly.
“Billy Jones?”
Billy Jones? Rosie was astonished.
The door flew open and Billy hurtled through it. He mumbled a “Hi” and flopped into the vacant seat next to Rosie. Something was different about him that she couldn’t figure out. “I’m here,” he said.
“You’re late,” said Mrs. Caruso. “Here are the rules. You may do schoolwork or read a book. There will be no gum chewing, no eating, no headphones, no iPods. In other words, this is meant to be a punishment. It’s not a vacation from school.”
The minutes felt like hours. The hours felt like days. Rosie memorized every chipped block on the wall. The hands of the clock moved incredibly slowly. By one o’clock, Billy’s eyes were closed and he was snoring gently. The teacher rapped a paperweight on the desk and said, “No sleeping, either, Mr. Jones.”
The Kissing Diary Page 8
