He lifts an imaginary hammer over his head, and then brings it down as if to shatter the invisible layer of ice over the group. “I’m sure you’ve all thought about the assignment from last group so you’ve done the hard part—you’ve fished those feelings out of the water. Now you just have to show us what you’ve caught.”
But none of us seem willing to speak tonight. I can feel the reluctance in the room. It hovers around our ankles like a low fog rolling in. Throw me a bone! Mrs. Sharp says during live chats in biology when our class grows silent like this. She begs like a hungry little puppy for our words, for someone to raise their virtual hand and discuss the functions of the various parts of the cell—the nucleus, cytoplasm, the mitochondria.
I’m not a teacher’s pet, but I feel sorry for Greg. I wish someone would answer him because I certainly won’t. It’s not that I’m a bad student; it’s just that I’m a bad follower. I’m not compelled to do what someone says just for the sake of obeying authority. Question authority! My mother has a magnet on the refrigerator that says that.
A girl finally raises her hand. It’s her first night here, and Greg appears excited that she’s already participating. She’s looks about my age but shorter than me. She has dark hair and bangs that fall to her eyelashes. Sometimes she pushes her bangs to the side with her fingers, parting a thin curtain so she can see, and other times, she smooths them down, tries to pull the shade over her eyes.
Greg’s eyes brighten—the whites of his eyes actually become whiter—and he turns to her. “Yes! Thank you, Clarisse! Welcome! And thank you for sharing!” So much appreciation, and she only raised her hand. I half want her to be teasing him, half hope to hear her ask if she can go to the restroom, to watch Greg’s eyes turn less white, less sparkling. Sclera. That’s what you call the white part of the eye. If an eye were an egg, the sclera would be the egg white, the pupil the yolk, the unborn chicken baby.
“I feel pissed off,” Clarisse says. Thwack. The sound of a bone being thrown against the wall.
“Okay,” Greg says. “Now that’s a start. Can you tell us more about that?”
Clarisse shifts her weight in her chair, uncrosses her legs, and crosses them again. She’s wearing black jeans and green Chuck Taylors. If my mother saw her shoelaces, she might rip them out and soak them in bleach, and toss them over the shower curtain to dry. “I don’t know,” she says. “Like, I’m just pissed off that I have to deal with any of this.”
“They are your feelings. So somewhere inside, there is a reason why you feel them,” Greg says. “Take your time.” He looks at her and then looks around the circle at the rest of us. “Can anyone here relate to what Clarisse is talking about?” he asks. The word about lingers in the air for what seems like a long time. We are silent again. So silent for so long that I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve imagined Greg’s question.
I clear my throat, and the whole room turns to look at me. They think this is a signal that I have something to say. Is it? Does my body want me to say something, even though my mind wants me to keep quiet? And how much time has passed? It feels like forever, but that’s impossible. There is no forever. I look around for a clock or a wristwatch on someone’s arm but find no traces of time anywhere.
“What do you feel?” Greg asks. He’s looking around the room, and I’m afraid every set of eyes in the room is boring into me. I feel naked and invisible all at once. I know this question too well. I ask myself all the time, but I never answer. It’s not about the answer.
I look at Clarisse, and she’s sweeping her bangs out of her eyes. She’s wearing blue eye shadow, a pale shimmery shade of crystal blue, like Key West water. A wave of words tumbles around inside me, breaking and foaming, and I try to pretend that I’m not in this room, in this circle of children with missing parents, missing pieces of jigsaw puzzles that leave small patches of nothing where there should be sky, or a kitten’s nose, or the center of a sunflower.
The waves of words crash fast and steady, an ocean rushing through the canals and trenches of my brain. I feel like a rotten apple from a rotten tree. I feel like a little pebble of evil broken off from a big rock of evil. My father is evil. How can he not be? How can you just walk into a building and kill people, just walk right up to people and shoot them in the face without some evil in you? I feel like my insides are decayed. My insides are cavities full of bile and the thickest, darkest oil. I feel like I hate my father. He was evil before he went to jail, and now he’s rotting even more. He’s there right now, decomposing, rowing toward death. What do I feel? What do I feel? What do I feel? I feel they should just kill him already.
“Okay, let’s take a quick break,” Greg says, interrupting my panic, the cold sensation filling my lungs. “Let’s reconvene in ten minutes for wrap-up. Maybe some of you will want to share after a nice sugar rush.” A lump is rising in my throat, that half-sick feeling of fear you get after watching a horror movie at night when you’re all alone in the house and you’re sure that every sound, each creak and settle of the house, each rap of a raindrop on the windowpanes, is a monster coming for you. I’m afraid that someone in the room has been reading my mind. I realize that I’m rocking forward and backward slightly in my chair so I stop as nonchalantly as possible and look around to see if anyone has noticed my movement in the first place, but the others are already standing and stretching, retrieving phones from their pockets, texting friends and boyfriends and girlfriends. Everyone, that is, except Clarisse, who is still sitting in her chair across the circle from me, her green shoes flat on the floor. She’s looking right at me, her blue-lidded eyes locked on mine for a few seconds before she bounces out of her chair and heads to the cookie table. I can’t explain why, will never be able to explain why, but I follow her.
Tonight, Greg is serving an assorted cookie tray from Publix and off-brand lemon-lime soda. The soda is flat, no bubbles. Clarisse is standing over the cookies, holding a small plastic cup in her teeth as she surveys her choices, finally reaching for a thumbprint cookie, a dollop of thick icing in the middle radiating like a bright pink eye. She pours herself some soda, puts the entire cookie in her mouth, and then takes a long drink to wash it down.
“Hey,” Clarisse says, and laughs, tilting her head back slightly. One high-pitched note rises in the air above us. Clarisse smiles, showing her top front teeth, which are small and pointy.
“Hey,” I say back. I grab a chocolate chip cookie from the table and take a small bite, something to occupy my mouth and maybe prevent me from saying something stupid—something that makes me wish I hadn’t opened my mouth and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“So why are you here?” Clarisse asks, and my face must register a peculiar reaction because she feels the need to clarify. “No offense,” she says, “but you don’t seem like the type.” I grab a napkin from the table and use it to cover my mouth as I quickly chew the rest of the cookie, hoping to look natural, hoping that Clarisse can’t sense how insecure I feel when people watch me eat.
“Why am I here?” I say out loud. When I don’t know how to answer a question, I usually repeat it until either (a) I come up with an answer or (b) the person asking the question thinks I’m strange and finally gives up on talking to me. Clarisse doesn’t give me a chance to say it again.
“Existential crisis?” Clarisse asks. She reaches for another cookie, oatmeal raisin this time. She chews the cookie deliberately, raises an eyebrow as she walks away.
After Wavelengths, Shea picks me up, and on the way home, we head south on Pinellas Bayway toward the beaches.
“So are you making any friends?” Shea asks.
“It’s not that kind of group.”
“Says who?
“Says me.”
“Oh, teenagers!” Shea says in an exaggerated voice, making me laugh. She smiles at the windshield, and then turns the music up—an album by Iron & Wine. The prickly sound of a banjo fills the car, and Sam Beam’s hushed voice serenades us as Shea drives the rest
of the way home.
Chapter Seven
My bedroom is quiet and dark. I turn on the lights and then go into my bathroom and close the door. I turn the shower on, twisting the hot water knob as far as it will go. The room begins to fill with steam as I get undressed, my clothes a pile on the floor. I sit naked on the sink, and take out a small piece of folded-up notebook paper—Clarisse’s phone number on faint blue lines in green pen, her name above the ten digits. She dotted the i in Clarisse with a double star—two stars stacked on top of each other.
Toward the end of group, when Greg started talking about grounding techniques, when I couldn’t bear to hear another word about coping skills, deep breathing, or emotional regulation, couldn’t pretend to pay attention any longer, I went to the restroom. I didn’t really have to go. I just stood at the sink washing my hands while singing “Happy Birthday” in my head the way they taught us in kindergarten, a measure to ensure you’ve washed away all of the invisible germs.
I was rubbing white foam into my palms and watching the iridescent soap bubbles circle the drain when Clarisse walked in. She smiled at me and then went into one of the stalls, starting to talk to me as she closed the door. “So what’s your deal?” Clarisse asked.
I could hear the rustling of her clothing and the clink of her belt buckle as she moved inside the stall. I continued washing my hands. Looking at myself in the mirror, I watched my cheeks turn pink, blushing from the intimacy of this encounter, this girl I barely knew peeing while we talked.
“Are you one of those crazy hand washers?” Clarisse asked, her voice amplified by the hard tile inside the stall.
“Who, me?” I asked her in return, as if there were someone else in the room she could have been talking to. I turned off the water and waved one hand in front of the automatic towel dispenser. The red eye of the sensor acknowledged my presence, and a length of brown paper appeared. I tore it off and started drying my hands.
“Yes, you.” Her voice was light, on the verge of laughter. “Are you a germophobe or something?” She flushed the toilet and then appeared at the sink next to me. “You know, like the OCD people on that show. They wash their hands until their skin is, like, rubbed raw and bleeding.”
“Oh no. It’s not that,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “I was just bored, you know? I felt like I was about to fall asleep if I didn’t get up and walk around.” I reached for the door handle to leave, but Clarisse put her hand on top of mine, stopping me.
“You know I actually like you,” she said. And she took off the tiny drawstring backpack she wore, grabbing a pen and a little spiral notebook. “You seem like one of the only interesting people here.” As she wrote her phone number on a piece of paper, she resembled a waitress taking my order, as if somehow she knew exactly what I wanted.
Now I hold the paper up to my face and breathe in the scent of the ink. I grab my phone and tap Clarisse’s name and number into my contacts list. I catch my reflection in the mirror. These days, my body is an expanding territory—there is always something new to explore. I rub my breasts, pinching my nipples until they harden. I tilt my head to the side, wondering how Andy would like this pose. I open the camera on my phone and snap a picture, just to see what he would see if I could beam my body through the satellites to him, if I could reach him in the death house. If I could be his first taste of a girl in years.
I open The Catalog of Everything I’ve Done Wrong and add an entry: fallen in love with someone who doesn’t love me back.
Chapter Eight
Clarisse’s house is bigger than I’d imagined. I’d pictured her in a white Key West–style bungalow with two bedrooms and a tin roof. But really, her house is peach and has four bedrooms. It’s built in what my mother and Shea call McMansion Style—a stucco house in a neighborhood with identical stucco houses in various shades of Florida neutral, which includes beige, tan, sandalwood, pink, and peach. Clarisse lives in Seffner, about twenty minutes northeast of Tampa, in a gated community called Darcy Lake. There are no sidewalks in Darcy Lake, only identical mailboxes lined up in rows, their little red flags in various positions based upon the status of their letters. Incoming or outgoing, I can never remember which means which.
My mother pulls up to the intercom at the gate, pushes the silver call button, and then enters the code that Clarisse has provided. The black wrought iron gate opens, and we are granted access. When we pull into Clarisse’s driveway, my mother shuts the car off and turns to me. I’m sitting in the backseat with my red duffel bag and my pillow. Shea is in the passenger seat, her right hand dangling out the window, a swirl of smoke rising from the tip of her lit cigarette.
“You have everything, right?” my mother asks. I can only see the reflection of her eyes beaming back at me in the rearview mirror. “Your toothbrush, your phone, your deodorant?” She turns around to see me now. “Do you have your phone, Ev?” Her voice rises, and her eyes search my face for something—a sign that I will be okay. Shea reaches over and rubs the back of my mother’s neck with her left hand.
“Yes, I have my phone,” I answer. “I have everything.” I unbuckle my seat belt and lean forward to give my mother a kiss on the cheek.
“And you’ll text me tomorrow? Keep me posted on when I can come get you?” she says. She’s been repeating this like a mantra the entire ride to Seffner. Text me tomorrow, text me tomorrow.
“I will text you tomorrow, Mom,” I say.
“Okay, then. Have fun and mind your manners,” she says.
“Aren’t you coming in to meet Clarisse’s mom?”
“Oh, right. You know what, I’ll just meet her tomorrow when I pick you up. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
“Love you three,” Shea says, and I give her a kiss on the cheek too.
After getting out of the car, I walk up to the front door of the house. It looks like solid wood, maybe dark cherry, with a small oval window made to imitate stained glass. I ring the doorbell and hear the muffled sound of chimes from inside the house. When Clarisse opens the front door, I turn around and wave at my mother and Shea in the car and Clarisse waves too. The car backs out of the driveway, my mother honking the horn good-bye. Shea’s hand out the window offers a smoke signal farewell.
Inside the foyer, I meet Clarisse’s mom, Jenny, and Uncle George. George must be Jenny’s brother, as they both have the same small nose, and the same crooked teeth.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Evelyn,” Jenny says. She is young, probably even younger than my mother and Shea. “We’ve heard so much about you.” She looks self-conscious as soon as the words are spoken, shooting a nervous glance at George and then Clarisse.
“I hope you’re hungry,” George says. “Pizza will be here soon.” He wears a Pink Floyd T-shirt and faded black jeans. He’s definitely younger than Jenny, probably late twenties.
“Thank you for having me,” I say, following my mother’s instructions. “And pizza sounds great. I love pizza.”
“It’s from Cubby’s, a great little mom-and-pop place down MLK Boulevard. New York style,” he says. “As if there is any other, right?” Jenny smiles and nods in agreement.
“Well, just let us know when it’s here,” Clarisse says. “Come on, Evelyn. I’ll give you the grand tour.”
I slip off my sandals and follow her as she shows me around the various rooms of the cavernous house. The kitchen is sprawling with a marble center island, cherry cabinets, and a stainless steel refrigerator. There is a wooden rack hanging over the island, with wineglasses and goblets and flutes hanging upside down from their feet. Above the stove, knives are lined up in a neat row on a magnetic strip, their sharp ends pointed toward the ceiling. There is one knife missing, and I see a bloody handprint in its place for just a moment, until I blink it away. The blades catch the light, shining like diamonds in jewelry store cases. My father shattered those cases with bullets. Crushed glass rained onto the hard floor, sounding like hail in a summer storm.
&
nbsp; The family room has a TV and a sectional couch of black leather. Three black dogs (one big, two small) are nestled on the couch, each occupying their own little territory. The big dog lifts his head for a moment and sniffs the air before settling back into position. One of the small dogs chews on something raw and bloody. He holds it between his front paws. It is dark red like a liver. The small dog devours it, his teeth stained pink until I close my eyes for a moment, reminding myself it isn’t real.
The hallway leading toward the bedrooms has pastel blue walls and a white ceramic tile floor, cool on my bare feet. Clarisse points out the doors to the four bedrooms—one for her mother, one for George, one for George’s exercise equipment, and one for Clarisse. Each closed door looks identical, as if they could all lead to the same place.
Clarisse’s bedroom is big and mostly white, with one intensely dark red wall, the color of blood in a vial after it’s been drawn from your body. It’s not the bright primary red of fresh blood that seeps slowly from small scrapes and cuts, but the darker crimson that flows deep under your skin, inside your veins, that mysterious network of canals and rivers, invisible pathways of life. Clarisse has a queen-size bed outfitted in heather gray sheets and a neon pink comforter. I sit on it, and it’s so puffy I sink, feel the air releasing itself from invisible holes.
“It’s goose down,” Clarisse says. “My mom and George turn the house into the North Pole at night. I used to hate it, but now I can’t stand sleeping in a warm room. I have to be freezing when I sleep. It’s just so cozy.” The room is indeed a freezer. It even smells cold, which I love, like the scent of the frosted glasses my mother and Shea use for margaritas sometimes, when they remember to chill them ahead of time. Sometimes I’ll sneak a lick, my wet tongue on the dry frost of the glass, and it sticks for a moment until I gently tug myself away.
I know there are places where the air is truly cold—naturally cold, not air-conditioned cold—although I’ve never been to those places. There are places where frost appears on the ground and in the trees and even in your hair if you go outside while it’s still wet from the shower. In those places, you can lick a frozen flagpole or frozen mailbox, anything metal, and get your tongue stuck for real.
Girl at the Edge Page 5