Watermark

by Christy Ann Conlin

  “No,” he says, “I don’t. You should have thought of that before.”

  “But I didn’t do anything,” I tell him.

  The warden nods. “Yes, so you say.”

  I look away. He doesn’t care that I’m a victim too. He thinks because my father is a politician I feel entitled to special treatment. I don’t.

  “They’ll be here for you soon,” he says. Maybe my father isn’t coming back. I don’t even bother asking. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing I want to know what’s going on. He leaves and I look at the door as he walks out.

  Click.

  The sharp sound of the door locking fills the cell and then fades into a dream sound, a muffled, faraway echoing.

  Click, click.

  My mother used to tap her shoe when she wanted something done. She’ll have been gone for three years this spring, and I can still hear the click her high heels made on the ceramic tile.

  Click when the door closed behind her. The click the phone made when she’d hang up when we’d have our weekly call after she left and moved. She always said she had to hang up before I was ready to stop talking. Then I would hear the sound of the call ending.

  Clickity clack, I’m not coming back.

  “It’s not you,” she said, during our first call. “It’s me.” Like she was breaking up with me. “It’s always been my dream to live in a house on the beach with palm trees. And be with someone who’s home more often than not.” And someone half her age — she didn’t mention that.

  Snap. My father flipping his phone shut.

  Snap, snap, snickity snap. We don’t need her, shut her trap.

  Twelve years old is more than old enough, he said. You’re old enough to babysit. We’ll manage. Let her have her palm trees.

  And then he was off to work, before I was even dressed to go out and wait for the school bus.

  Beep. His car started with a flick of his button.

  Click. The garage door opened. Off he drove.

  Click. I shut the door to the house.

  The walls of our house were beige then. Sable, my mother called them. Sable, she would say, picking up a crystal hourglass she had, tawny, sandy, sandy dune, sparkling in the sun of June, turning it upside down on the table by the window where the afternoon sun spilled in, watching every grain drift down.

  * * *

  The doorknob turns. The door slams open. I only see the arm of the guard and then my father comes back in. He sits down. I wait for him to talk but he doesn’t even say anything, just sighs. I’m not going to be the one who says anything. I’m not going to open my mouth and let that beige flood down my throat and invade my body.

  It’s hard to keep track of time in here. Every day is like the other. I’ve been to court twice already. They cuff me and shackle me. Strip search me when I come back. Like I’m a common criminal. My hands keep sweating. I don’t know why. I’m not nervous or anything. Sergei said he’d tell them, and I know they’ll drop the charges. I don’t know why it’s taking them so long to check out his story.

  I told him, when we were waiting there by the pond for the police to come, if he didn’t say it, if he tried to blame me, I would tell them where his grow op was, his big marijuana patch, and they’d take his house away and then his grandmother, the old wrinkled babushka that he worships, would have nowhere to live and they’d stick her in a nursing home. They always confiscate drug property, don’t they? I said I’d tell them he forced me to have sex with him even though it’s not true. I told him if he really loved me, if he wanted to prove his love, then he would be a man and say he did it — true love is about proving your love.

  I mean, he has to take responsibility, and I’m not beyond forcing him to. I told it all to the police, what happened to his ex-girlfriend. They went over and over the story with me, and I told them the same thing every time. You didn’t help him? they asked. You didn’t drown her? I started to cry then. How could they think I would do that? She fell in the pond. I couldn’t reach her. It was too deep.

  This whole thing is her fault, Sergei’s fault. When we started seeing each other he never talked about her — I never knew a thing about her until the day we were at the store getting Popsicles and cigarettes and she was at the cash paying. She looked up and smiled, at him, not me. That’s when the trouble started.

  Sergei will do the right thing. Or else, I told him. He made all of this happen. I keep going over and over what happened, because it’s easy to get the story mixed up.

  It’s like it’s a comic book. I can see it in my mind whether my eyes are open or shut. It was so confusing at first, trying to remember, because it happened so fast. But then I remembered, piece by piece, picture by picture. I told the police how Sergei just went crazy. He was fanatical when it came to proving his love for me, and he was fixated on getting rid of her. I wanted to help Lulu, but I was scared of doing anything because he was so out of control. I realized he was crazy and maybe it could have been me lying in the lily pond, not her. Just a snap of the fingers and our roles reversed. I wish it was me, I told my father and the police. I wish it was me and not her who had to suffer, I said with my voice cracking. I couldn’t believe how upset I sounded. My father’s eyes filled up with tears and he said in a very kind voice that I wasn’t responsible for Sergei and what he did, and I shouldn’t blame myself.

  * * *

  Being locked up is probably harder on other kids in here than it is on me. I’m used to being on my own, because my father is always working. Except for now, when he’s visiting me, but just sitting there with his hands over his eyes, like he’s sleeping sitting up, or trying to punish me with his silence.

  I’m also used to doing what I want, and that’s what’s hard in here. I can’t piss unless they authorize it. When I first realized they were going to charge me, I lost it. I was screaming and crying and this youth worker did what they call “non-violent crisis intervention.” Those words, “youth worker” — what a joke. She’s a guard. They should just be honest about this. I’m a prisoner. It’s a prison. I don’t know why they have to make up all this language to hide the truth. Who do they think they’re fooling?

  There is a tiny window with bars embedded in the glass — it’s a state of the art facility. The window faces east and I can see a bit of the sky beyond. The sky is magenta as the sun comes up. They bring me breakfast in here on a tray and I get to look at the wall while I await transport to the courthouse, going over and over what happened, wondering what will be next.

  * * *

  My father came to see me less than an hour after I was arrested. It feels like an eon ago, not three months ago. The first thing I noticed was the stubble on his face. Something had finally shaken his world up, like he was a little man in a snow globe who’d become unglued from the bottom and was now floating around banging his head on the plastic walls, trying to get his feet glued back down again. He came in and he looked at me, his eyes all red. “Isabella. What happened? You have to tell me.” I had my arms crossed and he leaned over and took my hand. It was the first time he’d touched me tenderly since I was ten years old, aside from patting me on the shoulder like I was the dog.

  It’s a long drive for him, but he’s been coming twice a week. It could be a disaster for his career, although he hasn’t said this, which is unusually thoughtful of him. I’ve seen my father more than I ever did when we lived in the same house. He must like the routine here. He’s all about routine. Every Sunday is visitor time, although they’ve made some special arrangements for him to have an extra visit.

  They do art therapy in here. Mandatory art. What’s therapeutic about that? I ask the art instructor. Her name is Elaine. It’s printed on the red facility pass she has clipped to her smock, the pass that gives her access to the high security part of the facility. Her name is pronounced like it’s élan, like she thinks she’s from Paris or something, instead of just some b
itch from the boring world. She keeps correcting us when we get it wrong. I always say it wrong to see what she’ll do. I’d like to come up behind Élan, grab her stupid ponytail and give a yank and watch her neck snap. That would be pretty funny live art.

  * * *

  Someone called her “Elaine-the-Shit-Stain” to see what she would do. She just smiled and finally said, “Call me whatever you want, I don’t care.” All the girls laughed. They don’t have anything else to do but laugh. They have sentences already.

  I’m the only one in here on remand, on dead time, waiting for my dumb court date. The stupid youth workers told me they’ve seen other people sit in here for a year waiting for their trial, next they’re found guilty and none of it counts as time served, a whole year of dead time.

  Elaine comes every week. She’s the only one in here who is nice, who doesn’t talk down to me. Art is the only thing I can stand. I want to be an interior designer. My father wanted our whole house redone, and he let me choose the colours.

  Yesterday in art therapy Elaine got us to pick colours to reflect how we feel. She has this colour wheel she uses, a poster she puts on the wall. Colour therapy, she calls it. All the shades of purple spoke to me. I touched each one of them, the lavender and plum, the mauve and lilac, the pale violets and the deep wines, the grape and heather purples. “Yes,” she said, smiling. “What does it say about you, this colour?”

  What I thought then and will always believe is this: I am all the colours of the sunrise and sunset, painted by a dark demon spirit who dwells in a stone tower on a cliff which looks out over a dark blue sea where only mermaids who have betrayed their kind now swim with sharks and strange monsters of the deep who never come to the surface. But I didn’t say that. I just smiled and looked down. When I looked up, she was staring at me, her eyes these pale green pools, the pupils dark lilies.

  “You can always talk to me, Isabella. About anything. I know you don’t talk to the other girls and you’ve had some trouble with the youth workers. It’s hard having to be polite all the time. You must feel very alone.” She smiled all friendly.

  I could feel the panic crawling up my throat then, like some sort of horrible lizard. My eyes filled up with tears, but I didn’t say anything because I learned long ago people don’t really care, and I wasn’t about to trust her even though she seemed like she really felt bad for me — but it’s all pretend, just like the rotten tooth fairy and that sort of shit. This is what growing up is about, learning how adults just lie their heads off.

  And it’s not just the lies. It’s something beneath that, something flat and insubstantial about how they are inside. It’s like they aren’t real. It’s pretend how humans grow up and mature, have meaning in their lives. It makes me want to barf. This morning when I woke up I imagined a shelf running along the top of the cell with the head of every adult who has ever caused me a problem sitting on it like a vase.

  * * *

  Sergei always said he was a tough guy, I told the police. Talking about beating up losers. He was in court once for uttering death threats, so I know they’ll believe me.

  Sergei’s grandfather was Russian, born and raised in Moscow when it was the Soviet Union. Sergei told me that if his grandfather hadn’t defected, Sergei could have been a Russian hockey star, because they have a better hockey program over there. At first I thought Sergei was telling the truth. He is so big, so strong. But he doesn’t even speak Russian. And then I found out his grandfather wasn’t a Russian spy. He was a janitor at the American embassy in Moscow. Apparently the embassy even let janitors defect. But I suppose everybody has secrets, even janitors.

  The truth is, Sergei smoked away his hockey career. They told stories about him when I started high school last year. My father kept asking why I couldn’t find a boy my own age. You’re only fifteen, and he’s nineteen. He can’t even get out of high school. My father didn’t understand how boys my own age are tedious. He told me he didn’t want to see him anymore.

  I kept my end of the bargain. He never did see him — because I only had Sergei over when my father wasn’t at home.

  But then, if my father was really concerned about me, he would have stayed around a bit more, wouldn’t he? He can’t fool me. His lack of concern reeks beneath the expensive aftershave he splashes on every morning. He uses being an adult as an excuse so he can do as he pleases. What makes me so mad is he thinks because I’m so young I don’t know. He thinks he’s hiding in plain sight but he underestimates me. My grandmother died when I was little, but I remember she said when he was a boy he was always dressing up in a suit, staying inside to count his piggy bank when the other kids were outside climbing trees. When he married my mother they went on their honeymoon to a resort where he had a conference so he could use the trip as a tax write-off. She just sat on the beach the whole time, talking to cabana boys.

  * * *

  My father’s second visit here, I came into the visiting cell and he looked up at me like he was going to chair a meeting. He had a pad of paper and a pen. “Tell me what happened. I’m getting you the best lawyer. I’ll see Sergei is put away forever.” He was talking really fast. He was all business, just writing notes, doing damage control. Clean-shaven. Not like the first time, when he still cared enough about me to be upset.

  I said Sergei was going to tell them what really happened. He wasn’t all bad, I told my father. I mean, who is all bad? Sergei wasn’t going to let them put me away for something he was responsible for. He promised when the police arrived at the pond that he would make sure they knew the truth, how I was totally innocent. Sergei would keep his word.

  My father nodded, playing with his pen. It drove me crazy that he wouldn’t even look me in the eye. It was like he didn’t believe a word I was saying.

  But at least he didn’t just sit there saying nothing, like he’s doing now.

  * * *

  Lulu was everywhere after that time we saw her at the store. We drove by her once and she was walking her big white poodle, and she gave us a flutter of her hand and a smile, and of course, she winked. I could see her, even though we were driving fast. Sergei said there was no way I could have seen her from so far away, how I was starting to act crazy, really paranoid. Well, I could feel my face turn red when he said this.

  “Crazy? Me, crazy?” And I put my hand on the door handle and opened the door. “Maybe I’ll just hop out right here. How about that? I’m sure my father would love to know you pushed me out of the car.” Of course I would never have jumped out but Sergei didn’t know that, did he?

  He slammed on the brakes. “Isabella, are you out of your mind?”

  “I know exactly what I’m doing. Don’t you dare call me crazy. I’m not the one who’s crazy for their ex-girlfriend, now am I?”

  He said he wasn’t, but how was I supposed to know if he was telling the truth?

  * * *

  I miss Sergei’s hands. Big, strong, warm. They were always warm on my body, moving so slowly. My Russian love machine, I called him. I can see his hands when I close my eyes, his hands open like fans, spread like sea stars on the sand.

  He was always wanting me. But I only let him when he was good, when he behaved, when he did my chores around the house, when he arrived exactly when I told him to and left when I said so, when he called me exactly when I told him to. Then he’d get his reward.

  I mean, he wasn’t doing much with his life, just looking after his grandmother all the time, but anyone can look after an old Russian lady. What’s the big deal? I told him he was a loser, that he’d let his life just rot. He got so angry, so hurt. He wanted to get married, but I told him I couldn’t marry him like he was. And who gets married when they are fifteen? But Lulu, I bet she wanted to marry him. She would probably be into teen marriage, just to get her claws in him, to get Sergei away from me. She’d probably get pregnant right away and he’d be stuck with her for the rest of his life, and it would be just fi
ne with her.

  * * *

  My father didn’t even know Sergei and I were seeing each other, that’s what he told the police. He’d forbidden it. He forbid a lot of things, but it’s hard to rule the castle when you are never in the kingdom. That’s what I told him when he came to see me here for the first time three months ago, after they called him and said I’d been arrested. I remember my father sitting there, all tired-looking, rumpled. We were in a little room and there was a youth worker sitting outside the door.

  “But I told you not to see him anymore,” he said, looking at the bruise on my face, putting his head in his hands.

  “Yes, I know, Daddy. But I was lonely.” I looked at him and then down again. It was easy to start crying. I used to practise in my bedroom with a stopwatch to see how quickly I could make my eyes tear. I would think about starving children in Africa, their bony bodies and bloated stomachs, things like that. I would sit on my bed, holding my pink princess mirror in one hand and the stopwatch in the other, and I would picture poor little children, all alone, children in those refugee camps with no parents, and then the tears would slip over my eyelids and run down my face. Just looking at myself was amazing, how my eyes filled up like fish bowls and the tears slid down in a perfect oval shape, how blue I looked. It was like watching a star in a movie, this really beautiful girl who no one understands and she’s all alone all the time, her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend trying to steal him away.

  After that I only had to picture my face and I could get the waterworks going right away. It took about sixty seconds at first, but I got it down to thirty seconds after doing it every day for a week. Just as the tears started to fall, I pushed up my sleeve again so my father could see the purple there too, where Sergei had grabbed me. Perfect timing.