Did I Say You Could Go

by Melanie Gideon

  “Mooommmm!”

  Gemma rises slowly, sits at the end of the bed. Her head feels too heavy to lift. She’ll have to make an excuse to explain her appearance. She’ll blame it on insomnia.

  * * *

  “God, I’ve been calling you for hours,” huffs Bee when she appears in the kitchen doorway.

  “Sorry. I didn’t fall asleep until three. Morning, Marls.”

  Marley, her hair in braids, looking startlingly young, nods. “Morning.”

  Gemma stumbles to the coffeemaker. The floor is soaked. She gives a little shriek.

  “Somebody left the faucet on last night, Mom,” says Bee.

  “Well, it wasn’t me,” says Gemma. Was it? It must have been. Drugged out of her mind. Raiding the kitchen cupboards, leaving the faucet running. She doubles down on her lie. “I told you I was awake until three. I didn’t leave my room at all.”

  Gemma’s such a wreck. Back-to-school night might have been the beginning of her personal comeback, but it hasn’t affected her business at all. She’s still down nearly 40 percent. If things don’t improve in the next couple of months she’ll have to take out a second mortgage.

  “Get the mop,” she says to Bee. She wants nothing more than to sleep off her hangover, but it’s already past nine, and these two precious girls sitting in front of her want a home-cooked breakfast, just like in the old days when Marley would stay over almost every weekend. It’s so sweet to see them together, in their sweats, waiting for her to pull out the box of Bisquick.

  “Pancakes?” Gemma asks.

  The girls’ faces beam out their emotions, happy, happy, happy.

  * * *

  Ruth comes to pick up Marley at eleven. She, too, is dragging.

  “Bad sleep?”

  “No sleep,” says Ruth. She feels her forehead. “I’m hot. Is it hot in here? How do you know if you’re having a hot flash?” She falls onto the couch so elegantly Gemma wonders if she’s practiced the move.

  “Let’s watch some shit TV,” Ruth says.

  “I’ve got to run to Trader Joe’s.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  No, she doesn’t. Seeing Ruth settling in for the long haul, she invented an excuse on the fly.

  “I do. I have nothing to cook for dinner.”

  “Let’s order in. Burmese. Have you tried that new place on Telegraph, Burma Moon? It’s amazing!”

  Dinner? Ruth wants to stay until dinner? Gemma planned on crawling back into bed with the new Stephen King novel after Marley left.

  “We had a little accident this morning. Somebody, I’m being blamed, left the faucet running last night and we woke up to a flooded kitchen.”

  “How odd,” says Ruth.

  “We mopped it up but the floor’s still really damp. I have to go rent one of those wet-dry vacuums from Ace.”

  Ruth pauses and then says, “Do you want me to help? I have a tennis lesson at one, but I could cancel if you want.”

  Now they’re both lying. The floor is fine and Ruth doesn’t have a tennis lesson. The last thing she wants to do is wet vacuum the floor with Gemma.

  “No, that’s okay. But thanks for offering.” Yippee! She can go back to bed.

  “Sure. But how strange. You just forgot to turn the faucet off after dinner or something? And nobody heard it running?”

  Gemma contemplates telling Ruth about her Ambien habit but decides against it. She’s going to stop cold turkey tonight. A few days of rebound insomnia and then she’ll be fine.

  She shrugs. “Yeah, I guess. The girls were hanging out and I went straight to bed.”

  “Right,” says Ruth.

  BEE

  Marley won’t stop texting her.

  Is it ok if I wear tights under the shorts?

  Not sure about the crop top. Would it be ok to wear a leotard under the shirt?

  What’s the color of that lip gloss you were wearing last night? Is it ok if I get the same shade?

  Are you sure you want me out in front? I don’t want people to be mad at me

  I think Coco might be mad at me

  I’d be ok if she was in the front

  She’d be ok, she’d be ok, she’d be ok. Oh my god. Does Marley have any idea how desperate she sounds?

  Bee shuts off her phone, something she rarely does. Be nice, she admonishes herself. It will take a while for Marley to acclimate. She’s been on the outside for so long. She has virtually no friends, except for Lewis Singleton, who’s super, super smart—a self-described brogrammer. He latched onto Marley in middle school and to this day still follows her around like a little duckling. He senses something familiar in her; Bee gets it. Marley’s not as intense as Lewis, but she’s super smart and very focused on the things she loves, like—well—Bee doesn’t really know what Marley loves anymore. And as for Bee, she’s smart and focused. Okay, maybe that’s overstating it. Focus is not her strong suit and she’s probably of average intelligence. Yeah. Average and difficulty focusing. That’s her.

  Bee turns on the TV and clicks through stations with the sound off. Her mother is upstairs sleeping off her hangover. She has no idea Bee knows about the Ambien. It’s getting bad. She’s never seen her the way she was this morning—stumbling, slurry, like she could barely hold up her head. It freaked her out. Should she confront her mother? Or maybe she should tell Ruth. Maybe Ruth could confront her mother for her.

  Bee turns her phone back on and ignores three new messages from Marley. She takes a photo of her feet, one of her best features, the toes descending in length, none of that second-toe-bigger-than-all-the-rest shit. Somebody once commented she could be a foot model. Why not, if the SLUTZ didn’t take off, lolz.

  Give the people what they want. She posts the photo on IG. Then she snuggles into the couch and lets the likes stream into her, until she’s fullfullfull to the brim with confidence. It’s a fake confidence, though, crispy like meringue, and temporary. If you put it on your tongue it will melt and leave you hungrier than before, but it’s all she has.

  MARLEY

  When they pull into the driveway and Marley sees Sander’s truck, her heart gives a little leap. Sander is their handyman. He comes to 626 Buttercup frequently; there’s always something that needs to be fixed. He’s basically on the payroll. Sander also happens to look like a lumberjack version of Harry Styles. Longish hair tucked under a Carhartt beanie. Red Wing boots. Muddy green eyes. He’s putting the finishing touches on a shed he’s built to house their garbage bins.

  “Hey there, Ms. Thorne,” he calls out to her mother as they get out of the car. Her mother huffs. She has told Sander repeatedly to call her Ruth, but Sander always calls her Ms. Thorne. This offends Marley’s mother because it makes her feel old.

  Marley grabs her backpack. It’s loaded with books, but she shoulders it easily. She feels herself moving with a kind of grace she’s never had before. Head high. Shoulders back. Hair swinging.

  Sander looks at her and does an unmistakable double take. It’s involuntary and almost comical, cartoonlike. His eyes skitter off her face and slide down her body. She feels the heat of his gaze and even though it’s only a split second before he gets hold of himself and puts on his professional face, in that split second she understands she’s the one with the power. She has reduced him to something.

  “Hey, Marley,” he says gruffly.

  “Hey.” Marley swans past him.

  * * *

  “What the hell was that?” asks her mother once they’re inside.

  Marley shrugs, as if she has no idea what she’s talking about. But her mother misses nothing. She saw the way Sander looked at her.

  “I asked you a question.” Her mother’s eyes are glittering and beady. She looks like a crow.

  “What?” Marley says innocently, which sets her mother off.

  “He was looking at me, not you,” she snaps. She turns her back on Marley, grabs the kettle, and starts filling it up with water.

  And just like that, a moment that Marley h
as been waiting for all her life to arrive is gone. Stolen by her mother.

  * * *

  There’s only a week until the talent show, so when Bee sets a nightly rehearsal schedule, Marley tells her mother she and Bee are working together on a Summer of Love history project for Ms. Chu’s class.

  Marley has the iPhone X with the biggest screen, so they record their rehearsals on her phone. She dumps the videos in a file called Bay of Pigs 1967. At night, when her mother’s asleep, Marley puts on her headphones and studies the videos. Frankie’s Nae Nae needs work, but they’ve all got the Renegade down.

  Marley gets careless. She dances imprudently around the house. When her mother goes to the bathroom she pops, she twerks, she does the Milly Rock. It’s impossible to hide her happiness. She’s part of a tribe now. There’s no going back.

  One morning at breakfast her mother says, “Give me your phone. Now.”

  Marley gives it to her, willing her hands not to shake.

  “Password?” her mother demands.

  “Three one four one five nine.”

  “What’s that code for?”

  “Just random numbers.” Of course, her mother has no idea it’s the first six digits of pi.

  Her mother goes immediately to her photo app, and thumbs to her videos. “The Bay of Pigs was in 1961. If you’re going to lie may I suggest you get your dates right. Sloppy, Marley, sloppy.”

  Her mother opens the video and presses play.

  RUTH

  Marley is sobbing. Marley is weeping. She’s crying so hard she can’t catch her breath.

  “You’ve been lying to me for weeks! Did Gemma approve of this dance? Did she think I knew about it, too? Of course she did. You’ve made a goddamned fool out of me!”

  “No, I haven’t, I swear,” Marley bleats. “All Gemma knew was that we were practicing for the talent show. She didn’t see our rehearsals.”

  “Don’t make excuses for Gemma. And why don’t you protect me like you protect Gemma? Why am I always left in the dark?” Ruth snarls.

  Ruth knew something was going on. She was used to Marley treating her phone like a second appendage, but lately her obsession with it seemed out of control. She was constantly texting with a smug smile on her face. A smile that said she had a secret.

  Ruth watches the video for the third time and it’s even worse than the first two times. The transcendent look on Marley’s face as she wiggles her butt. Her daughter’s breasts bouncing in her sports bra, barely contained. She’s out in front. Ruth can’t believe Bee has allowed this. But Bee isn’t as good a dancer as Marley, that’s clear. Marley is the showstopper for once.

  So this is what Marley’s been abandoning her for? Evenings with this pack (and they are a pack, crude and feral). Night after night, Ruth’s eaten yogurt for dinner, drifted around the house like a cipher. Weightless. Tetherless.

  Ruth reads her daughter’s emotions as they flit across her face: guilty, ashamed, frightened. Good! Ruth shivers with pleasure. Oh, to have this kind of power over somebody! To induce this kind of vulnerability. She feels herself filling, becoming hard and taut.

  She knows soon it will be over. She’ll deflate and be overcome with sadness at the sight of Marley’s face. Then it will be unbearable to see her baby in such distress. She’ll hold her in her arms, rock her, tell her everybody makes mistakes, she’ll never make this mistake again, will she? WILL SHE?

  “I’ll tell Bee you found out and you forbid me to be in the group anymore,” Marley frantically suggests, having reached the bargaining stage.

  “You’ll do no such thing. You will not blame this on me. This is your fault. You are accountable. Tell Bee you’ve changed your mind. It’s a disgusting dance. You don’t want to participate.”

  “But I love it, Mom. I’m a good dancer. We’re not doing anything wrong. This is the way kids dance now.”

  Bee has brainwashed Marley once again. “It’s the way sluts dance.”

  Marley’s eyes widen.

  “Yes, I said sluts.”

  The corners of Marley’s mouth quiver. Is she smiling?

  “What’s so funny?”

  Marley shakes her head—she is laughing!

  Ruth slams her fists on the table. Marley lunges backward in fear.

  “I’m sending Bee a text from you.”

  “No, don’t. At least let me do it,” Marley protests, trying to snatch her phone back, but Ruth shakes her off.

  Ruth texts Bee. I’m not feeling it anymore. I’m out.

  GEMMA

  Debbie Darling (yes, that is really her name) stops her in the hallway. “Gemma! How serendipitous to run into you! I’d like to make an appointment to discuss Chloe’s PSAT prep. I know the first test isn’t until next year, but we want to get a jump on it. We’re hoping to get a National Merit Scholarship.”

  As soon as high school starts, parents shift from “them” to “we.” Getting into college is a family sport at Hillside. It annoys Gemma, and normally she’d have encouraged Chloe to take the first PSAT without prepping so she could get a baseline score, but Gemma badly needs the business now.

  “We can set up a time for you to come in,” says Gemma. “And don’t stress. She’s going to do great.”

  “Chloe Darling, she was in Wings with Bee. Don’t forget her name. I’ll be calling,” Debbie chirps, walking away.

  Wings. Gemma remembers the day she was informed that her daughter was chosen. And boy, oh, boy, did Bee rise to the occasion. Her transformation was stunning. She started getting straight As. She worked a grade level ahead in math. Gemma’s parent-teacher conferences were filled with nothing but accolades.

  And then everything changed in fifth grade when Bee failed to test into the program. Gemma went to Mr. Nunez to complain, but the decision was final. They retested all the kids every year so it would be fair and Bee simply didn’t make it this time around.

  “This is actually a good thing,” he said. “You want her to have disappointments. You want her to fail, and better she fails early, in lower school, than in high school, when the stakes are so much higher.”

  It was a brutal fall to earth, compounded by the fact that a few weeks later Bee got her period, the first girl in her class to menstruate. She lived in fear of being outed, having an accident and bleeding through her pants. Mostly what Gemma remembers of that time was Bee’s rage. It was so unfair. Why was she the only one who had to go through this? Why did she have to be the first? No matter how many times Gemma told her that within a year or two most of the girls would start to menstruate as well, it didn’t help. Fifth grade was a total disaster. Gemma couldn’t wait for her to graduate and make the move to middle school—a fresh start, she thought. How hopeful she was. How naive.

  She walks into the auditorium. Twenty minutes before the show and it’s already packed. Some parents have been waiting in their seats for an hour.

  “Gemma!” Ruth pops up and waves at her. “I saved you a seat!”

  Gemma weaves her way down the aisle and plops down beside Ruth. Marley sits on Ruth’s left.

  “Marls, what are you doing here? Aren’t you guys on in the first act?”

  Marley shakes her head miserably.

  “What’s going on?” Gemma whispers to Ruth.

  Ruth says, “Cramps.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame. I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, sweetheart,” Gemma says to Marley. “I know how hard you guys have been working on the dance.”

  The first act is a boy named Henry Hill. He sings a wobbly rendition of Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud.” It’s a brave, completely wrong song choice (I will be loving you until I’m seventy?) for a high school talent show. Entirely too earnest and the boy doesn’t have the voice to carry it off, never mind that he’s four foot something and looks like he weighs eighty pounds. Why didn’t his parents steer him in another direction? It’s excruciating to sit through. Gemma’s heart is in her throat the entire time—she feels so bad for Henry Hill.

  T
o her surprise (and his) he gets a standing ovation, and Gemma thinks how much things have changed since she was in school. It’s not cool to bully overtly vulnerable kids, at least not in public. But is this better? To overcompensate by giving them standing ovations when they don’t deserve it? Gemma’s happy for Henry Hill, but this is not the real world. Tomorrow morning he’ll go back to being invisible, or worse, a target. Adolescence is crushing.

  Only one more act before Bee and the gang. Bee’s a great dancer and she’s choreographed the entire routine. Gemma hasn’t been allowed to see the dance, Bee wanted it to be a surprise, but she has a gut feeling it will bring the house down. Bee needs a win. Middle school was rocky. She focused on all the wrong things: boys, parties, gossip, clothes. High school could be the start of a new and improved Bee.

  The second act is a brother-and-sister violin and cello act. They’re perfect, but they only get modest applause, a few whoops. A standing ovation would be redundant. And then finally, it’s Bee’s turn.

  Gemma whispers to Ruth, “I’m so nervous.”

  Ruth squeezes her hand. Marley sinks down low in her seat.

  The girls run out onstage. They are dressed identically. Crop tops and shorts. They turn their backs on the audience. Their shorts are so short Gemma can see the cheeks of their asses. Where the hell did Bee get those shorts? Are they even wearing underwear? The music starts, Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen,” and they begin to twerk in concert.

  Bitch you up on the bando… I’ll fuck in your benz hoe. Oh, fuck me in my benz hoe, Gemma thinks, frozen with shock, as are most of the parents in the audience. The kids are a different story. They rocket out of their seats, screaming their appreciation, undulating with Bee and her crew. Where did they all learn to dance like that? Gemma feels ancient, prehistoric. Bee’s face is ecstatic. She slithers across the floor, feeding off the crowd.