The First True Thing

by Claire Needell

  “Hannah, Senna, and Chuck are into blow,” I say, not delving into the whole complicated mess. It’s too soon to tell the whole story—anything that’ll get Hannah and everyone else into real trouble. “Hannah’s my best friend, okay? And last night she asked me to cover for her—to lie for her—and I did. At the time it didn’t seem like that big a deal. Then her mother called my mother, and even then I didn’t come clean that Hannah asked me to cover for her. And then she wasn’t in school today. I haven’t heard anything from her and neither have the guys, her boyfriend, even.

  “I’m thinking maybe she ran away to her dad’s in New Jersey. I think maybe she’s trying to get away from this guy, Alex.”

  There is silence around the table.

  Then James speaks softly. “Marcelle, if your friend is really missing, and she texted you last night, and you concealed this information from her mother, you need to call her mother now. I think you know this.” Everyone nods.

  “You need to tell your parents what you did,” Cyndi adds. I start crying again. “Secret-keeping for your friend isn’t going to protect her.”

  “I know,” I say. “I fucked up.” My voice sounds small and hoarse.

  As we all file out of the Group room, Martin lightly pats my back. I begin to wonder if he and Cyndi really are a thing, or if Martin is just a touchy kind of guy. Cyndi doesn’t say a word to anyone as she gets her bag and struts toward the door, her six-month book balanced on the top of her head.

  Everyone leaves but me and James. “Later y’all,” Maria calls in her singsongy child’s voice. “Good luck, Marcelle!” She grins, flashing rows of tiny teeth. For the first time it occurs to me that Maria might be so small not because of her eating disorder, but because she’s actually a child—maybe only twelve or thirteen. I wave back wordlessly as James and I slip into Kevin’s office.

  “This is a good opportunity for you, actually,” James says brightly. He sits in Kevin’s big faux leather office chair, which makes him look smaller, and paler.

  “Now you can walk the walk,” he says. “When people first get here, it’s mostly all talk and that’s great, but it can backfire, too. You get too confident, but you’ve really done nothing to change yourself. Real work needs action, and you’re really lucky to get to take an action in your first month here.”

  I tap my fingers on Kevin’s desk and nod as if I agree with everything James says. In reality, I wish I could be anywhere but Kevin’s claustrophobic office. I blink back my tears. No one cares about tears at the Center. No one wants to know how sorry you are.

  I text Mom asking for her to come inside to Kevin’s office. James looks down at his phone and doesn’t look up until Mom comes in.

  Ten

  I CAN TELL Mom’s looking around for an adult, but there aren’t any here. Somewhere, there’s a janitor named Sam, who pushes around a musty-smelling mop every evening at six, and there’s a security guard on the first floor by the elevator, but inside the Center’s meeting rooms, there’s often just kids at this time of day. Kevin’s assistant, Jen, and the other counselors come and go on their own schedule. If any of them are around, they’re in their cubicles in the outer offices doing paperwork. James keeps his keys to the metal doors around his neck on a blue nylon lanyard, a sign of his official role.

  Mom looks quizzically at James. I try to see James through her eyes. He’s really just an awkward kid with too-bright blue eyes, bad skin, and a prominent Adam’s apple. His hands, I notice, are very white, and his fingers are long and thin. As he reaches out to shake my mother’s hand, I catch a glimpse of the purplish, healed-over track mark on the exposed white of his wrist. I hope Mom doesn’t see it too. At the Center, we don’t judge where people have been. It’s one of the fundamental rules. It’s right on the back cover of the handbook: Here, you are free. You live in the present moment. We offer you the critical support you need to remain free from the suffering of addiction.

  This is not how Mom’s mind works. She’s told me since I was a little kid: you have to make good choices, so you don’t have any regrets. I’ve always thought of regrets like clouds that line your mind. Regrets are like weather, always there. Even on a clear day, there’s something on the horizon, some smudge of gray.

  James looks Mom directly in the eye in a way I’ve come to think of as the Center Look. She seems impressed with him, blind to the scarred wrist.

  “Thanks so much for coming in, Marcelle’s Mom,” James says. “I’m James, Marcelle’s group leader. I’m here to support Marcelle and yourself in this conversation, which Marcelle thinks might be a difficult one. I will be mostly a witness, unless there’s some reason for me to intervene.” I get the feeling “support” in this case also means “eavesdrop on.”

  James continues, “Marcelle’s Mom, I’m not sure you know about our basic principles of communication, so I’ll go over the Three Rules. One is we say what we mean and own it. That basically means we choose our words carefully and do not deny our own truth. The second is we listen actively to the other person without rushing to judgment. We respect that the person probably knows right from wrong, and we can help her catch her own accountability. The third is we do our best to understand things as they are, without making things seem better or worse than the reality—we honor the path we’re on. Okay?” James rushes through these ground rules, as if it’s all common sense, stuff everyone talks about, and not a paragraph from the Center manual that he’s been trained to repeat in meetings like this one. Mom turns her gaze to me, drops her nice-to-meet-you smile, and crosses her arms.

  She’s tired of waiting.

  “What now?” she asks, looking at me sharply. “Tell me right now, Marcelle. I have no time for this.” She nods in James’s direction as though suddenly she sees him as my protector. James sinks into Kevin’s chair, expressionless, nodding to go on.

  I wipe the tears from my face and sit up straight. “At first, it didn’t seem like a big deal,” I say. “It just seemed like Hannah didn’t want Senna to know where she was going. I thought maybe she was seeing another guy, so I didn’t tell you that she asked me to lie for her last night.” I pause and try to think what happened next. “But she didn’t answer any of my texts all night, and then she didn’t come to school today and everyone else was there,” I continue. “She’s still not answering her phone. No one else knows where she is either, not Senna or Chuck.” I exhale loudly. I feel my chest and throat tighten.

  At first, Mom looks relieved. She’s obviously glad this is not a story about me getting supplied with vodka or beer by one of my friends. Then she seems to give the story some thought. She takes off her glasses, and her face is blankly angry.

  I glance at James and he nods, calmly urging me on. He even reaches out and puts his hand on my shoulder. I want to say it’s not my fault—that I don’t control Hannah—no one does.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have told you right away, and I should have told Elise when she called.” James gives me a squeeze. I think I must weigh twenty pounds more than him, and that my shoulder must feel big to the touch, but he leaves his hand there. I am, in some non-physical way, smaller than James. I’m small on the inside.

  Mom breathes deeply, and to my surprise, she tears up.

  “All I know,” Mom finally says, “is this has gone too far. If Hannah has run away, and her mother and the police can’t find her, you are in part responsible. Do you understand that?” Her hands clench into bony fists. “Marcelle, it seems like you are constantly looking for a way to avoid meeting our most basic expectations.”

  Mom looks from James back to me, back to James again. “This is not a healthy relationship between my daughter and Hannah Scott.” She shakes her head and sighs. “She lets Hannah walk all over her. I honestly think it’s how Marcelle got into this situation in the first place.”

  She looks back at me and continues, “You have to have your own values—your own ideas about what’s right and what’s wrong. You need to stand up for you
rself. Tell Hannah you will not keep covering for her!”

  I look to James, who slowly raises his eyebrows. Then he cocks his head and holds his hand to his ear, miming what I have to do. Mom holds out her cell phone. “Do the right thing, Marcelle,” she says.

  I take my Mom’s phone, find Elise’s number on the recent calls list, and dial.

  There’s a pause when I tell Elise about Hannah’s text. For a millisecond I expect her to say Hannah is home in bed, that she’s been home for hours.

  “Marcelle,” Elise says finally. “What did you say?”

  I start to repeat myself, but Elise Scott interrupts, and I hand my Mom the phone. Elise must be going nuts, because my mom is mostly listening, except for saying things like she understands and she would feel the same way. Then Mom nods and says, “Yes, Elise, I would.”

  “She’s letting the police know,” Mom says. “She’s been speaking to them since last night, but this information could help. They’ve told Elise that with runaways, it’s difficult. They can’t send out a huge search party for someone who doesn’t want to be found. The fact she texted you makes it seem as though she had a definite plan, which I suppose is the good news, in a way. At least she didn’t just run off without thinking.”

  I glance at James, but he’s staring out the window at some kids waiting for the bus. He looks bored, as if this sort of drama goes on at the Center all the time. Maybe in James’s experience these things turn out all right; missing girls show up, scars heal, track marks get concealed, and life goes on—fucked up, but continuous. Maybe the Center feels inevitable to James, like varsity sports, graduation, and college for other people.

  Mom and I walk to her car in silence. Once again, she’s favoring her right leg, holding her knee in a stiff, awkward position. Climbing into the spotless beige interior of her Acura, I feel a little less like a criminal than I did in Kevin’s office. I did what I needed to do. I told Elise Scott what I know, or at least everything that seems immediately relevant.

  Mom looks straight ahead as she drives. If things had gone normally for me this year, I’d be driving right now. I’d have my permit and I’d be practicing for my road test. But Mom and Dad agreed that would all have to wait until my six months at the Center are up.

  Dad left my mangled, blood-and-mud-splattered Hampton Classic by the curb on the Friday after my Death Wish crash, the day you leave out the really big stuff you want to get rid of. I think he did it to show me he didn’t care who knew what happened, that we were beyond that. One wheel of the bike was bent almost in half. The handlebars were twisted, with one pointing practically straight up. It looked dead, if you can say that about an inanimate object.

  At the light at Myrtle, Mom brakes too suddenly, and I jolt forward. She shoots me a look. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m distracted—just thinking about Elise. I don’t know how she’s coping.” Mom shakes her head. “It’s unreal to me that Hannah would do this to her mother. What could she possibly be thinking?” The light turns, and Mom sighs, rubbing her knee as she accelerates up the hill. “I don’t think I need to tell you how disappointed I am that you lied like this, Marcelle, even if you thought you were protecting a friend. It’s just wrong.”

  “I know, Mom,” I say. “I get that. I didn’t know what else to do. I’m really sorry. I want you guys to trust me.”

  When Mom seems to accept what I’ve said, I go on. “Anyway, why don’t parents realize kids just fuck themselves up? Why do they have to make things worse by taking everything so personally?”

  Mom turns and frowns at me. “Marcelle, this isn’t the time for your philosophies on life. You really aren’t looking that smart at the moment.”

  I stare out the window and let the warm tears roll down my cheeks. “I don’t think being a fuck-up means I can’t be smart, too,” I mumble. But Mom doesn’t respond. She just keeps driving.

  Eleven

  BACK IN THE neighborhood, Mom parks at the curb in front of Michiko’s house.

  We sit in silence for what feels like an eternity. “I know it’s hard,” Mom finally says, and I nod, even though she’s being vague, and I’m still angry in a way I can’t explain.

  I pause with my hand on the car door, and peer at the place in the trees that opens onto the Death Wish path. There is a short, steep, rock-filled drop from the trail onto the road opposite Michiko’s driveway. I don’t know how many times I’ve taken that path across town. Hundreds, probably.

  “Don’t take long,” Mom says, putting the car back into drive.

  “I won’t,” I say. “But remember, I’m walking home.” I don’t mean to remind her about my wrecked bike, but I don’t need her texting me every other minute asking why I’m not home yet. I’m still slightly amazed she’s leaving me at Michiko’s on my own. I expected, once I confessed about Hannah, I would be on immediate, total lockdown, but after her brief flare-up, Mom seems to be back to thinking the drama with Hannah is mainly Elise’s problem, not hers. I want to think this too—that Hannah is going to show up and my life will return to semi-normal.

  I get the mail out of the plain, silver mailbox and unlock the front door of Michiko’s house.

  After the accident, my parents asked Michiko if there was a way I could compensate her for the hassle of having a drunk girl nearly die in front of her house at three in the morning. She hadn’t hesitated. “I get home and the bird is squawking, and the cat is underfoot, begging for his dinner, and all I want to do is sit down with a glass of wine. I’ve been thinking for a long time how I need a housekeeper, but just for fifteen minutes a day!”

  Michiko laughed when she said this, and I think my parents found it strange, given the fact they saw my “job” as a form of punishment. The three of us had walked over to Michiko’s the Sunday evening after the accident to apologize and offer up my services. I was annoyed with my parents for coming with me, when I’d already promised to go on my own.

  There was a dinner plate–size bloodstain visible on the grayish asphalt driveway that Dad casually sidestepped. Mom rang the doorbell, and I remember feeling like I was about to vomit just being there. When Michiko answered the door, she was wearing what looked like white pajama bottoms with a white sweater, even though it was only four or five in the afternoon. She was barefoot, and I remember finding it strange that she was dressed identically to how I remember seeing her the night of the crash, standing there in the dark with her cat, the two of them all I could make out before the darkness around them narrowed, then caved in on me.

  I walk around the house, switching on every light as I go. I call out to Marco and on cue he darts around the corner and pounces on my feet as I turn into the kitchen. He bats my ankles, but he keeps his claws harmlessly retracted. This is his usual semi-aggressive greeting.

  It smells mysteriously good everywhere at Michiko’s, like a spa, but it’s also dark, and a little frightening. When I get Marco his food, and his attention is turned safely to his bowl, I turn on the outside lights and the lights over the kitchen table, and text Andy.

  At Michiko’s is all I say. Then I put the phone in the pocket of my overalls and begin the rest of my chores. I switch on all the lights in the four rooms on the main floor of the house.

  Michiko’s husband is gone, wherever asshole husbands go. That’s what she told me, anyway.

  The tuna smell is strong and makes me want to gag, but Marco sticks his whole face in the bowl and eats. I’m about to text Andy a second time, when my phone vibrates in my pocket.

  “Hello?” I say. My heart skips a beat.

  “Hey, Marci, what’s going on?” he asks. I exhale slowly and begin my story. I start about Hannah’s mom, and how I had to call her from the Center in front of Mom and James. It feels like forever ago now, and telling the story exhausts me.

  There’s a long silence. “Where do you think she went?” I picture Andy, his dark eyes, his smallish mouth, the square white teeth that are his best feature.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “But her
mom is going nuts. You’re probably going to get a call.”

  For a moment, I imagine Hannah, her tiny body, the brass bracelet she always wears pushed up onto her bicep. I picture Senna, the bear, his narrow green eyes, his thick torso. Hannah made more sense with Chuck—delicate, beautiful Chuck. But none of that matters now, their love triangle, Hannah’s playing on Senna’s jealousy. Senna and Chuck were both in school today. Hannah went wherever Hannah went alone, or at least not with either of them.

  After a long pause Andy says, “Maybe they’ll all get the crap scared out of them—and Jonas will go to a real college, and Hannah and Senna will see that Alex is a loser drug-dealer asshole.” It’s like Andy has read my mind.

  “Yeah, that would be a dream come true,” I say. “If they could forget they ever met that scum. Senna seemed pretty pissed this morning, about the knife or whatever last night. So maybe.”

  It’s true I could see Senna turning on Alex. He could be jealous, or hold a grudge about Alex threatening him, but could Hannah, I wonder? Hannah crossed a line. She crossed it with Alex. He knew he could get her to do whatever he wanted. There are people like that, people who can read you, and don’t care how they use what they know. Somehow, I think she respected him for that—for seeing her craziness—that part of her that doesn’t care about anything but the moment she’s in, the high she’s chasing. “I think it might be too late,” I say. “She’s already gone too far.”

  There’s a heavy silence. “Don’t say that,” Andy says. “Don’t panic. I think we should hold on—don’t say too much, yet. If we do, everyone’s screwed.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess you’re right.”

  “I can’t sell out my own brother. Not like this. Not this fast.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “If we tell about what Alex and Jonas are doing, and she comes back, then what? Everyone will know what she did. How could she come back to school? It’ll be a huge fucking deal. Jesus, I don’t know. I don’t want them all to get arrested. I don’t want to have to talk to the cops. I want them to stop on their own.”