If You Loved Me

by Marilyn Reynolds

“No, thanks.”

  She feels my forehead again. “No fever. But maybe I should call Dr. Lee, anyway.”

  “No,” I say.

  She gives me one of those long, appraising looks, then walks back out to the kitchen. I hear her fussing around out there as I drift back to my breathing, thoughtless state.

  Afternoon, I hear the murmur of voices in the kitchen and rouse myself enough to listen a bit. It is Grams’ friend, Betty.

  “Do you know what has her so spooked?”

  “Love, I think, but I’m not sure.”

  “What a mess of things the creator made when she set women up with that love-need.”

  “Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” Grams says. “There’s lots that’s wonderful there. Lots of pleasure.”

  “Lots of pain,” Betty says.

  I’m on Betty’s side with this one.

  “Thanks for picking this up for me, Betty. Maybe it’s silly, but I didn’t want to leave Lauren alone and go off on errands.”

  “No trouble,” Betty says. “I got you the same kind I’ve got, so I can help you set it up.”

  I hear them tearing a carton apart and realize Grams is following her sheriff friend’s advice about an answering ma­chine. Yesterday that would have made me so happy, because it would have meant I’d always know when Tyler called, even if no one was home. Today? Rip the phone out for all I care.

  After Betty leaves, Grams suggests I come out and see the machine, and she’ll show me how it works.

  “No thanks,” I say, which is also what I say later, when she asks if I want dinner, and later still, when she tells me Amber’s on the phone and asks if I want to talk to her. It’s the same answer I’ve given each time Tyler’s called today. No thanks. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to think about him. I don’t want to see him with Shawna, over and over again, in my head, a constantly repeating scene set in the nursery office.

  Late in the evening, after Grams shuts off the evening news, I hear her walking down the hall toward my room. I turn my face to the wall, again pretending sleep. Grams opens the door and walks to the side of my bed. I guess she thinks I’m sick enough, or weird enough, that knocking is no longer appropriate. I don’t stir. I can feel her looking down on me. She nudges my shoulder.

  “Lauren?”

  I don’t respond.

  She nudges again, more insistently.

  “Lauren!”

  “What?” I mumble.

  “Listen, Lauren. You haven’t eaten all day. You’re still in the same clothes you were in when you came home last night. I know something awful must have happened, but I don’t know what. You’ve either got to talk with me about it, or you’ve got to work to get past it. You can’t have another day like today. If you’re not up in the morning and eating a little breakfast, you’re going to the doctor,” Grams says, then walks out, closing the door behind her.

  I’m sorry if I’ve worried her, or made her mad. I just don’t know how to be anymore. I don’t know how to be in the world, with the image of Tyler and Shawna always there, right behind my eyes. I don’t see how I can possibly get out of bed in the morning, or eat anything. I’ve got to stay here, in my room, tucked away, where I’m safe.

  Chapter

  18

  Tuesday morning I force myself to get up and shower and eat a few spoonfuls of cereal and drink a glass of orange juice. Enough to convince Grams that I don’t need a doctor.

  “Take the car to school today,” she says. “I don’t need it until this evening, and I’ll feel safer knowing you’re not walking around where the red Honda can find you.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  I feel like my whole being is sunk to the size of a walnut and it’s hiding in the deepest part of my body it can find, somewhere between my belly button and my spine—a tiny me.

  “You still don’t look very chipper,” Grams says.

  “I’ll be okay,” I tell her, but in my heart I know that’s not true.

  I pick up my backpack and get into the car, as if I’m going to school. I do drive past the school, slowly. There is Tyler, sitting on the bench, looking toward the parking lot as if he’s waiting for someone. As if he’s waiting for me. As if the whole world weren’t changed.

  It is a gray morning, gray sky, gray outlines of mountains, gray air, all the more gray when seen through tears. I drive to the foothills, park, and walk. The hundreds of times I’ve walked this path guide my steps. Step after step, trying to think, then trying not to think. Think. Don’t think.

  I walk past Baby Hope’s bush, on to the waterfall. There hasn’t been much rain lately, and the waterfall is more of a trickle than a fall. The pool below is shallow and muddy. I pick up one of the heaviest river rocks I can lift and smash it down into the mud, pretending it is smashing into Shawna’s face. Rock after rock. Smash Shawna. Smash Shawna—time after time, until my arms are so tired I can’t lift another rock. Nothing works. Nothing makes things better.

  I walk to the peak and sit near the edge of the trail, looking down on the valley below. Not much can be seen on a day like this. It is murky, like the pool at the waterfall, like my soul.

  On my way down I pause at Baby Hope’s bush. I get out my journal and sit down, ready to write. But all I can think of is why. Why? Why? When everything was so good. Tears come again. It seems I should be empty of tears by now, but they keep coming. I start taking deep breaths, to calm myself, but that reminds me of Tyler, how he taught me to do that, and I cry even harder. I won’t think of it anymore, I tell myself. I won’t think of them, there in the office. But as soon as I think that, their image, Tyler on Shawna, overwhelms me.

  Sometime in the afternoon, by the bush, my mind goes back to the tiny Baby Hope on the trail, blue and barely breathing, and then to seeing Grams breathing into her, a pinkish tone gradually coming to the baby’s face, and for a moment Baby Hope coming alive overcomes the scene from the dimly lit office of the nursery.

  As I walk through our back door, the phone is ringing and Grams is hovering over it, reading the displayed number.

  “It’s so hard to remember not to answer the phone,” she tells me. “I’ve been answering the phone all my life, and now . . .”

  Tyler’s voice comes on, “I really have to talk to you, Lauren. I can explain everything. Call me when you get home.”

  I press the erase button and walk back to my bedroom. In just a few minutes the phone rings again. This time it is Amber.

  “An answering machine? Welcome to the twenty-first cen­tury. Call me. Where were you today, anyway?”

  Grams opens my bedroom door. “Amber asked where you were didn’t you go to school today?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just couldn’t,” I sigh.

  “Lauren, I know you can’t always share your personal secrets with me, but if you’re in trouble, let me help.”

  “Oh, Grams, no one can help.”

  “Well . . . whatever it is, as awful as it may seem, you’ve still got to go to school.”

  “I know,” I say. “I just can’t stand to see Tyler right now.”

  “He said he could explain,” Grams says. “Maybe you should give him a chance.”

  “I can’t.”

  “But he’s such a nice young man . . .”

  “Oh, Grams,” I say, letting my voice show annoyance.

  After a long silence, Grams asks, “Pizza sound good for tonight?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “The usual?”

  “Sure.”

  I know she’s trying to make me feel better. Pizza always used to work if my team had lost at soccer, or I’d messed up on a spelling test. Pizza was good for that. The sadness I’m feeling now is bigger than pizza, though.

  The phone rings again. This time, no one leaves a message. I open Jane Eyre and read of her terrible loneliness and despair at having had to be separated from Mr. Rochester. She wishes she had died in the night, but then she thinks, �
��Life, however, was yet in my possession: with all its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured, the responsibility fulfilled. ”

  I guess that’s one way to look at things right now. Life is a burden that must be carried. I must eat my pizza, and go to school, and do everything I’ve done before. Everything but love Tyler. Everything but trust that promises can be kept. I guess that still leaves me being one of the “everything but” girls. Except now I don’t know what the “everything” stands for. It seems more like nothing is left.

  Amber comes over, unannounced, as Grams and I are finish­ing dinner.

  “Oh, Amber. I’m glad you’re here. It’s our Scrabble night at Betty’s, and I’d feel better about going if Lauren weren’t left all alone.”

  “I’ll babysit,” Amber says with a laugh.

  I force a smile, then start clearing the table.

  As soon as Grams is out the door, Amber says, “Tell me everything!”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it,” I say.

  “What happened, anyway?” Amber asks, as if she’s not even heard that I don’t want to talk.

  I shake my head.

  “Tyler keeps telling me ‘I’ve got to talk to Lauren. Get Lauren to talk to me,’ like his vocabulary is limited to about ten words.”

  As if on cue, the phone rings and it’s Tyler, leaving the same message. “Talk to me, Lauren.”

  “Aren’t you going to pick up?” Amber says.

  “No.”

  “When are you going to talk to him?”

  “Never.”

  “Lauren! How can you do that? He’s the love of your life, remember?”

  “That’s what I thought. I was wrong.”

  “But everything was fine at the Habitat house. What hap­pened?”

  As much as I don’t want to talk about it, I hear myself start the story, slowly at first, and then as fast as the words will come.

  “You’re sure?” Amber asks, eyes wide with surprise.

  “Sure.”

  “Tyler with Shawna? Doing it? In the nursery office? Are you serious?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  “Unbelievable!”

  “Believe it,” I say.

  I tell Amber about going to the foothills, and smashing Shawna’s pretend face with giant rocks.

  “Why Shawna?”

  “Why SHAWNA??”

  I am amazed that Amber can ask such a stupid question. “No, I mean, why not Tyler? He’s the one to be mad at.”

  “But if it weren’t for Shawna none of this would have happened.”

  “He’s a guy. There’d have been someone else.”

  “I guess.”

  “But he had me fooled, too. Tyler was the last guy I thought would do something like that,” Amber says. “You’re sure you saw what you thought you saw? You said it was really dark.”

  “I’m sure, Amber. I’m as sure as I can be. Don’t ask me that again.”

  The phone rings again. We listen. This time it’s Shawna.

  “Lauren, I need to talk to you. I can explain.”

  “This is weird,” Amber says. “You should hear what she has to say. And you should at least give Tyler a chance. I mean, he’s been like the perfect guy. Maybe there is some explanation, like they were just pretending or something.”

  “Amber. I know what I saw.”

  “Okay. Okay. It’s just so unbelievable, that’s all.”

  There are three more phone calls before Amber leaves. One for Grams and two from Tyler. I erase the ones from Tyler.

  “Shall I pick you up for school in the morning?” Amber says. “I’m sure I can borrow Mom’s car tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say.

  “Coach Terry was mad to the highest power that you weren’t there yesterday or today. Better be prepared for a lecture, especially after she finds out today was unexcused.”

  “I dread going to school,” I say.

  “I’ll stay right beside you all day tomorrow. You don’t want to talk to people?—I’ll block them.”

  She shows me her special jump-up-and-down-in-front-of- my- face conversation block. I feel myself smile for the first time in days.

  “I’ll even go to creative writing with you if you want me to.”

  “Thanks,” I say, realizing what a good friend Amber truly is.

  “Hey. You’ve always been there for me. I’ll be there for you, Kinky Sister.”

  “Okay, Sister Blondie,” I say, smiling again.

  The smiles don’t keep me from crying myself to sleep later, when the house is quiet and dark. I’m still as sad as I’ve ever been. But talking with Amber helped some. Not that anything has changed, but that the burden is shared. If only I could get out of going to school tomorrow, seeing Shawna, seeing Tyler, seeing the night-time scene replayed again and again. I don’t know if I can do that or not.

  Chapter

  19

  Amber parks in the lot on the north side of the school, as far away from where Tyler always parks as possible. She grabs her backpack, gets out of the car and slams the door. I sit in the car. She comes around to the other side and opens the door.

  “Well?” she says.

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Come on. It’s only school.”

  “No. It’s Tyler and Shawna this period.”

  “You can’t just keep cutting class.”

  “I’m NOT going to go to creative writing and sit in the same room with Shawna and Tyler, and pretend nothing happened!”

  “Okay. Okay. Stay there. I’ll come back and walk with you to peer communications.”

  I shake my head. “Don’t you see? I really can’t see Shawna.”

  “Well, I’ll see you in English then.”

  I nod. Amber closes the car door and walks away toward her zero period. I take Jane Eyre from my backpack and find the spot where I left off. Jane Eyre was cold and hungry and had no place to stay since she left Mr. Rochester’s. She sat in the driving rain, waiting to die. I’m sitting in a warm car. I’ve had breakfast and I have a home to go to. But I believe I am as sad and desolate as Jane Eyre ever was. Should that make me feel better, knowing my feelings are so common that a woman way back in the nineteenth century could write about the same emotions? I try to look at things philosophically. Many people suffer terrible disappointments in love. Why should I expect anything different? But it’s all theory, and I feel just as lost and empty inside as ever.

  I notice when it’s time for English, notice the bell and students milling around between classes. I slump down in the car so no one will see me. Second period passes. Then third.

  Amber comes to the car and tries to talk me into at least going to afternoon classes. I say yes, but I don’t leave the car until time for volleyball practice. It will do me good to hit the ball, and I don’t have to worry about seeing Tyler or Shawna there.

  Coach Terry lectures me way too long about missing practice, then I take my place on the court. It’s still Marcia I serve, but now it’s Shawna I spike. Wham! Down to the ground! Smash that face! Once, when I’m set up for a perfect spike, I try to turn the ball into Tyler’s face.

  “Hey, keep your mind on the game!” Coach Terry yells when the ball bounces lightly off my fingers and lands outside the boundaries.

  Practice is nearly over when Shawna comes walking onto the court, heavy flannel shirt, baggy jeans, head down.

  “Hey, off the court! What’s going on here?” Coach Terry yells.

  Shawna keeps walking, straight toward me. She stops right in front of me, throws her hair back so I can see those gray-blue eyes.

  “I’ve got to talk to you!” she says, loud and firm, in a voice I’ve never heard.

  The scene from the nursery flashes before me and my head is spinning with Shawna, her face, her presence. I haul back and slam my open hand into her face, aiming it over the net, but it goes nowhere. I haul back again but
someone blocks my arm. Coach Terry, Amber, the rest of the team, swarm around us. Amber is in front of me, blocking Shawna.

  “No! Stop!” she’s yelling right in my face.

  I jump high, trying to pull my arm loose, to spike Shawna, but I can’t reach her.

  Coach Terry has Shawna by the arm, pulling her away.

  “I’ve got to talk to you, you stupid bitch!” Shawna yells.

  “Let me go!” I yell to whoever is holding my arms, pulling at my waist, but the pressure only tightens. I struggle to squirm away, to get at Shawna, but they’ve got me.

  Two security guys come running over, one grabbing me by the shoulders and the other grabbing Shawna. Their walkie-talkies are squawking and a crowd is gathering. Across the courts I see Tyler running toward us.

  We’re already being led away to the vice principal’s office by the time he joins the crowd. My last glimpse of him is with Amber, talking intently.

  “What’s this about?” Dr. Ogden asks, motioning us to sit down.

  Coach Terry sits between me and Shawna. The two security guys stay standing, one next to Shawna and the other next to me. My hands are trembling and it’s everything I can do not to cry.

  “Terry?”

  “This young woman, Shawna, came walking onto the volley­ball court in the middle of practice. She defiantly refused to leave, engaged in a fight with my student, used foul language, and tried to fight off security.”

  “Do you have anything to add?” Dr. Ogden says, looking from one security guard to the other.

  Both shake their heads.

  Dr. Ogden’s secretary comes in carrying two big file folders and sets them down on his desk, then leaves. One of the folders has my name on it and the other has Shawna’s. Our permanent records, I suppose. Shawna’s is about twice as thick as mine.

  “What is the meaning of this, Shawna?” Dr. Ogden asks.

  Shawna is hidden behind her hair and doesn’t answer. I wonder what her cheek looks like under that mass of hair. My hand, the one I hit her with, is red and throbbing.

  “Do you have anything to add, Lauren?” Dr. Ogden says.

  I shake my head.

  “So this is the version we’re going with?”