Trauma Queen

by Barbara Dee

  “No, Mari, you can’t,” Mom answered me firmly. She put her hands on my shoulders and looked right into my face. “Let me tell you something, baby: Whenever I add a new dog to my Walkers, I can tell right away if it’s going to work out. And you know how I know? I watch if the dog joins right in, sniffing all the other dogs’ butts, or if he hangs back, like he’s afraid. The ones who hang back always tangle the leashes.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, great. You’re comparing me to a dog?”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “I mean it as the highest compliment. Get in there and sniff everyone’s butt, Marigold.”

  Another thing about my mom: She knows how to make a point.

  So I started Aldentown Middle at the end of May, the time of year when everybody is sick of school, and also sick of everybody else, and fights break out. But it didn’t take a whole lot of butt-sniffing to figure out that at this school, the sixth grade wasn’t just fighting. It was at war.

  For some reason nobody seemed to know, Sarah Wong and Ally Ferrara, the two most powerful girls in the grade, had decided that they were mortal enemies, and that everyone had to choose sides. You had two choices at lunch: You could sit at Ally’s table or at Sarah’s table, and once you made your choice, that was it.

  Of course, if I was the kind of join-right-in dog Mom approved of, I’d have immediately walked right up to these girls, and decided who would make the better friend, or at least the worse enemy. But I’m a leash-tangler. I admit it. In most new situations, I hang back, take my time, try to figure out what I’m thinking. And feeling. Anyway, my point is, I wasn’t going to show up at Aldentown Middle School and make a whole bunch of quick decisions about people, especially when those decisions were the kind you couldn’t unmake. So I kept to myself in the lunchroom, painting cream-cheese pictures on a rubbery bagel. I was fine like this for three straight lunches. And then on the fourth lunch, I realized that Emma Hartley had slid into the seat beside me.

  Right away I could tell she was hiding. This shocked me. I mean, I’d been in school less than a week, but already I’d noticed how popular she was. And not just popular: athletic, fashionable, smiley. Girls like this usually totally psyched me out, and I didn’t even try to get to know them. But there was something about the way Emma was sitting there, scraping the crust off her sandwich with grape-colored fingernails, that made me ask if she was okay.

  She looked up at me. Her light brown eyes almost matched her auburn hair. “No,” she said, a little too loudly. “I hate all this fighting.”

  “You mean between Ally and Sarah?”

  She nodded. “It’s not even about anything. And I’ve always been friends with both of them, so how can I possibly choose sides?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “it’s so much easier when there’s a villain.” I’d been thinking about this a lot lately, how Mom loved it when she had something—or someone—to make her angry. It wasn’t even just that it gave her material for her art. It’s like it gave her energy.

  Emma smiled at that. “Your name is Marigold, right? That’s so funny; I just bought some nail polish called Marigold.”

  “You did?” I laughed. “Was it orange?”

  “Sort of a yellow-orange. I thought it would be fun and summery, kind of a different look, but on me it didn’t work. Can I give it to you?”

  “Sure,” I said excitedly, even though I never wore nail polish.

  “I have soccer practice this afternoon. Are you free tomorrow?”

  Of course I was; I’d just moved in, so it wasn’t like I had a whole bunch of after-school clubs or dentist appointments all lined up.

  And so, amazingly, starting the very next day, Emma and I began spending practically all her soccer-free afternoons together. We didn’t do anything special, mostly just listening to music, encouraging each other’s crushes, polishing our fingernails. I was the official polisher; Emma’s nails came out blobby and tacky if she did them herself, and I liked being careful, so I always did us both. We’d go to Rite Aid after school and pick out the colors with the best names (Hot Date! Puppy Love! Cotton Candy! Sugar Rush!). She’d pay for the polish with her allowance money, and never ask me to pay her back. And usually we’d end up at my apartment, where we’d watch MTV or old episodes of The Simpsons, and apply three glossy coats, first to her nails, then to mine.

  The other main thing we did was complain about our moms. In fact, the more I got to know Emma, the more I told her about Mom’s performances, and the dogwalking, and the moving, and the marbles. Once I even told her I wished I could switch places with her, and live in a big, soap-smelling house with a dad whose life wasn’t Dedicated to Art, and a mom who knew everybody in town and didn’t yell at principals and pour oil all over her head.

  “Listen, Mari,” Emma said to me. “You think your mom’s harder to live with than mine, but she’s not. I mean, okay, so maybe she drives you crazy in public”—this was about the time Mom had taken up unicycling on the school soccer fields to improve her balance—“but at least she doesn’t nag you about lining up your sneakers at a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree angle to your bed. And I bet she doesn’t go ballistic if there’s a leftover hair in your hairbrush.”

  “Wait,” I said, laughing. “Stop. Your mom cares if there’s a single hair in your hairbrush?”

  Emma shook a bottle of Pink-tastic so hard I could hear the little brush rattling inside. Then she twisted off the lid and handed it to me.

  “I’m not exaggerating,” she insisted. “And she won’t let up until the hair is gone. ‘Emma, have you taken care of the situation? It’s been three minutes since my last reminder. Do I really have to jump up and down and turn purple again?’ I’m serious, Mari. My mom’s obsessed. She never relaxes about anything.”

  “Whoa,” I said, slowly and neatly brushing the Pink-tastic on Emma’s ragged thumbnails.

  “And does she go after my brothers like that? Even though all four of them are total slobs? No. She cleans up after them. You know why?” She blew on her thumbs. “Because they’re boys.”

  “That’s so unfair!”

  “Tell me about it.” A very sweet mutt that Mom was babysitting named Maxie came over and licked Emma on the nose. She laughed. “Just be thankful for what you’ve got.”

  “Oh, I am,” I admitted. “I was just kidding about switching places.” And then I scratched Maxie between the ears, which wasn’t easy to do with my own sticky nails.

  That was during the summer. By the fall of seventh grade, Emma was getting so frustrated with her mom’s constant nagging that she started eating dinner with us every Friday night, and sometimes during the week, too, when she didn’t have soccer practice. Mrs. Hartley wasn’t too sure about Mom—I could tell this by her eyebrow angle and her no-teeth smile when she asked polite questions about Mom’s “stage act.” But she had four sons who did a million team sports each, and I think she was glad sometimes that she didn’t have to rush home from whatever practice to fix dinner for Emma. So she always let Emma stay at our apartment, even though, from Emma’s side of the phone conversation, you could tell her mom was starting to put up some sort of argument.

  One Friday evening in early November, Emma and I were sitting in the living room waiting for our nails (that day, Juicy Passionfruit) to dry. Suddenly Mom walked in the front door and immediately flopped on the sofa next to Emma.

  “Well, girls, I give up,” she announced.

  “You give what up?” I asked.

  “The whole performance thing,” Mom said. “All of it.”

  I sighed. I’d heard this one before. “What happened?”

  “What do you think happened, Mari? They rejected my grant proposal.”

  “Who did?” Emma asked, outraged.

  “The American Arts Council.”

  Emma squinted at me like Who? What? How dare they?

  I examined a passionfruit-colored pinky nail. “Did they say why this time?”

  “No,” Mom said. “My guess, and this i
s based on pure speculation, is that they think paintball is more of a sport than an artistic medium. And they think ‘random’ is a curse word. Just my theory, of course.”

  “Maybe you can get the money for your show somewhere else,” Emma suggested.

  “Hmmph,” Mom said. She put up her feet on the coffee table. She twirled her wild frizzy hair into a ponytail, then let it sproing out angrily. “What money? What show? Mari, I hate to say it, but this looks like a definite Chocolate Night.”

  Emma’s eyes lit up. “A what?”

  “Chocolate Night,” I said. “It’s sort of a family tradition. It’s what we save for those special sucky moments.”

  Mom poked my arm. “Like the time my beloved daughter took sides with The Horrible Mona Woman.”

  “Dad’s girlfriend,” I explained.

  Mom snorted. “Or the time I rented the Lewisville Community Theater for a special performance of Swan Lake—”

  “Mom played all the parts,” I said. “On rollerblades.”

  “You bet,” Mom said. “It was fantastic. Except for one small detail: Nobody showed up.”

  “Gram did. And Uncle Robby.”

  “Uncle Robby doesn’t count, Marigold. He left before intermission.”

  “Yeah, well, he had to go to work. And anyway Gram loved it.”

  “Because she’s my mother. She’s required to love it.” Mom stuck out her tongue at me. “So after that fiasco we had a huge feast of Snickers bars and Tootsie Rolls.”

  “And Kennie threw up.”

  “But not from the chocolate. From the excitement.” Mom got up and did a yoga stretch. Downward Dog, or some semi-alarming name like that. “Anyway, Emma, the moral of the story is, you’re welcome to stay for dinner. If you don’t mind shameless self-indulgence.”

  “Why would I mind?” Emma said, laughing.

  A few minutes later, Mom went back out to Stop & Shop. When she came back, she called us all to the table and passed out Dove Bars and Twizzlers and Tootsie Rolls and Milky Ways. (The Twizzlers were mainly for Kennedy, who was still a little shaken from the last Chocolate Night.) We drank gallons of milk and Emma told hilarious stories about her four slobby brothers, like the time the oldest one, named Seth, microwaved an unopened can of SpaghettiOs and almost incinerated the house. By seven thirty there were candy wrappers all over the kitchenette and we were feeling a little sick. But at least Mom was laughing along with the rest of us, which was the whole purpose of Chocolate Night.

  Only then, unfortunately, Trisha Hartley showed up.

  Terrible Manners

  When I was a little kid, I thought my mom was the coolest mother in existence. No, I knew she was. Because everybody said so.

  I remember one time in second grade when all the parents were supposed to come to our classroom and talk about their jobs. Matt’s mom went first and talked about how she was a dermatologist, and how you should always wear sunscreen. Will’s mom talked about working in a bank. Emma’s dad talked about marketing, only it was so boring I didn’t listen.

  And then Mom walked to the front of the classroom.

  And started taking off her clothes.

  Everyone gasped. Until they realized that under her clothes was a scuba-diving outfit. Which was cool all by itself, really.

  But then she reached into a giant tote bag she’d brought, and took out three beach towels, which she carefully spread on the floor. She placed a chair on the beach towels and sat down. Then she grinned at the class and held up a giant bottle of imported olive oil. She twisted off the cap slowly, and before anyone could stop her, she poured some of it into her mouth.

  “Eww,” said the class.

  Except she didn’t just drink it. She also poured it all over her scuba-diving outfit. In her lap, down her chest, even on her arms and legs. She also poured some of it onto her hair, and let it drip down her face. She was so oily and shiny under the fluorescent classroom lights that she practically glowed.

  At first no one knew what to say. “What’s your job?” a kid named Bradley Miller called out. “Are you a weirdo?”

  Mom shook her head. Oil spattered on the towels.

  “Eww,” said the class again, louder this time.

  “Are you a grease monster?” Sean Koplik asked, laughing so hard he fell out of his chair. “Are you a french fry?”

  “Nope,” Mom said.

  “Are you a weirdo?” Bradley repeated.

  “Ms. Bailey?” Our second-grade teacher, Mr. O’Neill, was young and fun, but he was definitely getting a little nervous. “Can you please give us a clue about your profession? We’re kind of stumped here.”

  Mom grinned. “I’m the United States.”

  The class stared.

  “I’m guzzling oil,” she explained. “And making a big mess. Isn’t that silly?”

  The class roared. I mean, if you want to get a whole bunch of seven-year-olds to instantly fall in love with you, Mom had the secret formula. They clapped and jumped out of their seats and begged her to keep pouring oil over her head, but finally she wiped herself off with some paper towels and explained that she was sort of an artist, but not the easel type. She did performance art, she explained, using her body to make you see boring, everyday things in a surprising new way. “And possibly even think a little,” she added. Oh, and she was doing a one-woman show this weekend at the community theater, so if the class wanted to see more, they should tell their parents to buy tickets.

  “Thanks, Ms. Bailey,” Mr. O’Neill said, smiling. “That was certainly memorable.”

  And it was. The kids all remembered to tell their parents, and that Saturday, Mom had maybe her best turnout ever. I forget what she did onstage—I think it was Plastic Surgery—but whatever it was, it didn’t go over as well as Guzzling Oil. Which the kids in my class couldn’t stop talking about, constantly asking me if my mom wore a scuba suit at home, and if the floors in our apartment were all slippery. Finally somebody’s mom—I think it was Sean Koplik’s—complained to the principal that she caught her kid drinking canola, so the principal called Mom and accused her of “sending the wrong message.”

  “Excuse me,” Mom shouted into the receiver. “But under the First Amendment of the Constitution I have every right to speak out about protecting our planet. And maybe if you folks were teaching energy awareness and global responsibility, my daughter would actually be learning something important!”

  I couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation, but from the way Mom slammed her bedroom door afterward, I could tell she was really upset. And that night at dinner, Mom didn’t eat very much. Or talk very much either.

  Finally she said, “I think I may have blown it with your principal, Mari.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “Nobody likes him, anyway.”

  “That’s not the point.” She sighed. “I just don’t want him taking it out on you.”

  “But he never even yells at me.”

  “Really? Well, let’s keep it that way. No youthful hijinks, all right, young lady?” She wagged her finger, like she was scolding me. And then all of a sudden she grinned, like the whole thing was a joke.

  But it wasn’t. Because the next thing I knew, Mom got uninvited from chaperoning the second-grade trip to the planetarium, and four kids in the class told me their parents wouldn’t let them come to my house anymore.

  “Your mom’s a weirdo,” Bradley Miller said to me at recess one day.

  “No, she’s not, she’s an artist,” I’d answered loudly. Kids were starting to crowd around, so I added, “And if she’s so weird, how come you clapped for her? How come you came to the theater afterward?”

  “Because she’s funny,” Bradley said. “But now everyone thinks she’s nuts.”

  “And she also had a big fight with the principal,” said this older girl I didn’t even know. Which was how I knew that word had gotten out, and it was all over school now, probably all over town.

  Right around this time, the theater told Mom it was cancel
ing her show. (Mom threatened to perform for free in the small park across the street from the theater; they said, “Go ahead,” so she did, wrapping herself with Saran Wrap for all the nannies and the pigeons.) The next year, Mom lost her job teaching improv at the community college. By the time I was in fourth grade, she started walking dogs to pay the rent.

  We moved in the middle of sixth grade, the second year of middle school. At the time Mom said it was so that we could live closer to Dad, but they’d been divorced since I was in first grade, and not together very much before that, so I had my doubts. He was renting a small house about three miles from our new apartment building, but he was a magazine photographer always off “on assignment,” so he was practically never there. I don’t know if Mom had totally realized this before we’d moved. Maybe she expected us to become one big happy divorced family. Or maybe she thought if he saw us more often, he’d pay for more stuff; I know around then she was pretty worried about money.

  Anyway, the whole time we were setting up the new apartment, she was in a great mood. She even unpacked an old scrapbook of Dad’s photos, and showed Kennedy and me a bunch of landscape shots he’d taken during his study-abroad year in India. I thought they were pretty amazing, but I could see by the slow, dreamy way Mom turned the scrapbook pages that they meant something else to her. Then she gave us a big speech about what a brilliant photographer he was, how daring and original, how proud she was that he’d dedicated his life to his art.

  “You do that too,” I reminded her. “Dedicate your life to your art.”

  “You think so?” she answered. “Because I think I dedicate my life to my two precious daughters.” She kissed my cheek and then Kennedy’s, closed the scrap-book, and stuck it in her nightstand.