The She

by Carol Plum-Ucci

  I remembered Grey telling me at Bear's party, "It's like an oxy." Oxy, my ass. I had just been a way-trusting, drunk fool who wasn't looking for the difference between a football and a marble. I didn't even start to realize what this thing could do to me until I was alone in bed. Grey had been long gone by that point.

  But she'd heard. She had played a stupid game of slice and dice with my brain. It brought up a cleai; vivid picture of what happened the night my parents died, right up to the point where I was climbing the stairs to the widow's walk. The widow's walk is high up. Some of the oldest houses at the shore have them—it's a tower with a porch, where sea captains' wives went a hundred years ago to watch for their husbands coming home from sea. One memory surge reminded me that I hadn't been able to climb the stairs. I'd fainted or something ... wasted precious time.

  I squirmed, thrust an arm around Emmett, and stared at his gray type. It gave me a safe feeling to know that I was living with very smart people, even if I didn't always understand them. I just figured if very smart people loved me and treated me with the respect and kindness I got, I couldn't be as awful as I felt I was sometimes.

  Emmett rubbed his beard, sighing. "I ought to have made you see a shrink last year. I don't know what was wrong with me."

  "No, Emmett. I'm fine," I told him, being careful again not to mention my trip to West Hook. "I wouldn't have gone. I wouldn't have gotten anything out of it."

  He kept rubbing and smiling in a way I didn't like—it was what most people would take for pleasant, though I knew him better, and knew that smile meant a "pleasantly judgmental" remark was about to fly.

  "You didn't think at the time you would get anything out of it, probably because a psychotherapist would have no grounds upon which to disprove the fearful existence of a character that picks thirteen-ton shipping vessels out of the water and eats them."

  I laid my head onto his shoulder and let him rub my back affectionately as I cracked up. "I'm sorry. It was short-lived. It was gone again ... in a week."

  "If you want, I'll call Mrs. Ashaad and tell her I don't think it's a good idea," he offered. "She knows how many charities Aunt Mel and I take on, that we're not inordinately selfish. Only when it comes to you."

  I lifted my head and almost said, "Do it," just because Grey Shailey could push my buttons like nobody else. I probably would have, if it hadn't been for how much I just wanted to stand there and stare at her up in a mental-health facility and gloat. Bear and Harley and about four other friends knew of my trip to West Hook, so Grey probably knew about it, too. She had known my flipped-out and desperate state of mind that week. She'd had plenty of chances, and yet she had never even said she was sorry.

  I told Emmett I would go see her, meet the minimum requirements of this KHK project, and then forget about it again. But I didn't like how I could feel his eyes piercing my back as I went to answer the pizza man's buzz.

  THREE

  I'm not any expert on being mean, even to Grey Shailey. So I kind of rearranged my strategy before heading off on the subway after school ended on Wednesday. It was about three in the afternoon when I got on the train at Seventeenth and Walnut, with Jupe under my coat. I looked like an amazing fat person from the waist up. Jupe was my twenty-five-pound lop-eared rabbit, a gift from Aunt Mel, whom I had "trained," more or less. Most magicians could pull a little white rabbit out of a top hat. I could pull Jupe out of a garbage can, though I wasn't planning on doing that trick. Most magicians could make their rabbits turn into pigeons and scarves. I could make Jupe shit cupcakes by sleight of hand. I practiced the trick on my friends, though Emmett said I could have a nice job doing little kid birthday parties if I would clean up the agenda.

  I would do this thing and I would tell my friends, "Jupe is the only creature in the world who shits cupcakes. Nobody else shits cupcakes, including us, so..."—meaning don't get too impressed with yourself. I thought maybe Jupe and I could lay a few hints on Grey—to change the subject—if she asked me any up-close-and-personal questions, or if the situation got too tense.

  I kept that game plan until I got to the gate and looked up the winding walk of Saint Elizabeth's. It was a gray day and the sun was low, so at three-forty-five it was dark enough that all the lights were on inside. This place looked like a combination of a gothic mansion and a modern country club. I could feel my brother's thoughts running through my head as I went up the long walk, looking over the neady clipped grass and bushes and back out the wrought-iron fence to what lay on the other side. Brick row houses smacked of low income, with drooping drapes and blankets hung in windows. I could hear babies crying, dogs barking, a woman's shrill voice rising from the sidewalk as if in an argument. There were a lot of souls packed into this neighborhood, one on top of the other. The neighborhood surrounding the haven of Saint Elizabeth's was not Rittenhouse Square, where I lived in the town house Opa used to keep for business. Grey was sent here by rich parents, to be protected from the world's problems by a high iron fence and a football field of grass and trees, and to loll around until she got over the fact that people die.

  When I signed my name to her sign-in sheet, I noticed the only other name on it was Kevin Shailey, her attorney-father, day after day, twenty times in and out. Daddy's girl. He was paying for the whole thing and visiting her every day, probably ignoring the surrounding neighborhood because his little girl had a little problem. I sighed, promised to keep Jupe off the floor, and followed the lady in an expensive business suit down a couple of long corridors. I was ready to be not so sweet.

  Grey was in a TV room with little couches and chairs, but the TV was off. She was standing by the window, looking out. She was alone in the room, and the echo of the woman retreating down the corridor again made me wonder if people on her ward were able to get passes to go home for the holiday, and if so, why Grey had not. She turned, sizing me up, I think, to try to detect my mood. I didn't smile. She was wearing a hospital orange top, but her own jeans. She looked washed out and like maybe she'd been crying. The sight of the orange shirt and some obvious wear and tear on her good looks made me keep my irritation to myself.

  She glanced down at Jupe the way bitchy girls do when they're looking you up and down. She met my eyes again.

  "Your rabbit looks happy, but your face looks unhappy. I take it you're not happy to see me."

  I put Jupe down on a plastic chair while I took off my coat. I took it off slowly and set it down, unwrapped the scarf from my neck, threw that on top, stuck my hands in my pockets, and leaned against the wall.

  "What's happening?" I answered. "Food any good here?"

  "You're still pissed. All right. Starting from the top. I owe you an apology."

  She raised her eyebrows at me, like maybe she was hoping I would say, "That's okay." I raised mine back at her.

  "I'm sorry. I should not have slipped you that acid and told you it was an oxy. Even though you should have known, Mn Blind-and-Dumb. Oh, God." She dropped into a chair in front of the window and held her head in her hands. "This is not very easy for me. I'm terrible at apologizing."

  I moved toward her only because I could hear real sniffs full of real tears. The best I could do was grab a Kleenex out of this box on my way past and hold it under her face with two fingers. She took it and blew her nose.

  "Just bear with me..." She stood up again. "Yesterday I made up what they call around here 'The List.' That's a real Catholic phenomenon, 'The List.' I should have gone to Stillwaten At any rate, there's about fifty names on it, and you're the first, so..." She passed me and walked over to the chair beside Jupe, then rubbed his fun "...so, sit down. And let me work on this."

  I pulled a chair up and sat down facing her. After about fifteen seconds, she went on.

  "Evan. Evan Barrett, maybe not the nicest kid in school, but the nicest cool kid in school ... I am ... terribly sorry about what I did to you. It was my own fault. I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry I thought it was funny afterward. I'm sorry I was mean to you after
I heard about your visit to Pennsylvania Hospital. It's just that I thought your damn brother would send someone over to bust me or something, and it's not like I'm any big-time user or I've ever sold the stuff! Wait—"

  She sighed, scratched her hair through with her nails. Her normally shiny, short blond hair had turned into an untamed mess, almost ready for dreadlocks. "Back it up. Take out all that stuff I just said—that excuse about why I was mean to you after the party. Start with, I'm sorry I was mean to you afterward..."

  I actually started to listen to this, not because I sensed any real regret in Grey but because this apology was getting to be like an engineering project—in avoiding all casting of blame.

  "I'm sorry I pretended I never saw you in the halls..." She started watching me hopefully, like maybe that was enough.

  I coached hei; "I'm sorry I sat two seats away from you all last spring in—"

  "Yeah, that, too."

  I just let her cry, because it was very obvious she would not be doing this if her own life had not become suddenly very uncomfortable for some reason. She was doing this for herself, not for me. I waited.

  "So. Can you forgive and forget?" she finally asked, looking miserably at the tissue clutched in her hand.

  "Keep working at it. This ... the list you're talking about. Do you have Soundra McLelland on it?"

  "Is that any of your business?" she snapped, then shut her eyes and let her breath out like she was sorry once again. "No, Evan. I skipped her. I don't know how I'm supposed to march up to a girl with one leg and say, 'Sorry I gimped around behind you five or six times.' Can we just leave that one alone?"

  I didn't say anything.

  "So what does your rabbit do? Do you pull him out of a hat or something?"

  I couldn't believe I had been good-hearted enough at one point to think I might actually do some tricks for her. "No, he was just bored and needed to get out of his cage."

  She wiped her nose and stood up again fast, moving back to the window. "Look. Evan, I've heard all the stories. I know you were dreaming ... or having flashbacks about your parents' death. I know Bear sat on the floor of your town house with you the next morning, while you lay there holding your ears and yelling, 'What was that fucking noise?'" She shuddered. "Do you think that doesn't make me feel bad?"

  Her apologies were so to the downside of horrible, I really didn't want to respond to them. Memory surges don't only bring back something that happened. You also jump back into your feelings at the time, your age at the time, and I bounced into a nine-year-old head that made me see my parents getting sucked into a whirlpool that was actually the belly of some terrible sea hag. It was like stepping into an alternate universe, where you start to question everything you believe, and sleep is all but impossible.

  "So what are you doing here, Grey? What can I do for you?"

  "I'm here because..." She paced a little aimlessly, back and forth. "Do you know what panic disorder is?"

  "Yes." Aunt Mel had it, said twenty-five percent of all people have some degree of it. Big deal.

  "I got it in August. In September I realized I could get away from it via my parents' wet bar. I switched around a lot, vodka one night, Johnnie Walker the next, so my mom wouldn't miss anything. Then one day I was going to sneak some into school, you know? I've had my fun on weekends, but I'm not a loadie—not a school loadie. I just decided, 'No, I'm not doing this.' I finally broke down, decided to confide in Mrs. Ashaad, and she got me in here. So here I am."

  I was a little more impressed with that story than if she'd told me she had been caught. Sounded like she'd come here of her own free will.

  She went on. "At first I didn't think the accident last summer put me here. It happened a whole month before I started losing it, and I got good pretty fast at drowning the symptoms. I thought I was coming for panic disorder and the substance abuse that followed, and the accident was just some awful thing. I tried to tell myself I wasn't responsible for it, which I wasn't, exactly. And it worked, until I got up here. Now I can't stop thinking about it."

  She wandered over and sat down across from me again. "So go ahead. Abuse me for not caring right away that somebody died."

  I resisted the urge to ask, "How does a beautiful girl get to looking like shit?" It wouldn't have done anything except make me feel better.

  It was my turn to get up and pace. "Unfortunately, I don't know if I can help you, Grey. That whole business with my parents was a long time ago. I was a little kid. I don't exactly remember much."

  She just stood there watching me, and before I knew it I was doing what I hadn't wanted to: reciting personal details that followed my parents' passing, just to fill the silence.

  "There's not a whole lot to remember. They disappeared at sea, went down fast. No boat, no wreckage. I moved in with my mom's dad over in East Hook, and when the school year ended, Emmett managed to talk my grandfather into letting us move up here with Aunt Mel. There's enormous picture windows and views of the water from every room in my grandfather's house. Except one or two of the bathrooms. I think Emmett realized it wasn't the place for me when he kept catching me playing with my toys in one of those bathrooms. We've been here with Aunt Mel ever since. I guess you could say I've grown pretty happy."

  "Unless we're counting your bad time last year."

  I really didn't want to get into that, either. So I answered her personal questions rather than go there. I thought maybe she was stalling.

  "Where was your grandmother?"

  "She died when my mom was fifteen."

  "Out at sea?"

  "No, she had cancer."

  "I heard you had all these relatives who died at sea."

  "That was on my dad's side."

  She kept watching me like she was interested, so I searched my memory for what my father used to tell me. It seemed like a good way to be charitable without getting personal. I could take her mind off her problems by telling her harmless little details. "We're from thirteen generations of sea captains, and every few generations, one of them would go down on a ship. Leave an offspring to carry on the family fun 'n' games."

  "Your mom? I heard down in West Hook that she actually owned her own freighter?"

  "She was paying it off slow. She bought it from my grandfather who made them."

  "That's your rich grandfather?"

  "The one and only. Phillip Starn. She had to sell it to my dad, though. She tried different crews, but ... the sea is new ground for females. It didn't work out very well."

  "Yeah, I heard about that."

  I kept staring out the window. I supposed she was talking about the rape, before Emmett was born, when a few of the crew got drunk and disorderly in port in North Carolina. She pressed charges against one guy, and the crew stiffened up, torn between knowing right and wrong and living by this code of honor where one seaman never turns on another. My mom had then tried a "no drinking on my boat" rule, which went over about as well as putting a "no drinking" sign outside in the bushes at a high school party. It had just been a lot of anguished talk I'd heard between her and Emmett when I was little. And since Emmett and I had made it a habit not to talk much about Mom and Dad, it was all very hazy.

  I shrugged, didn't see how this would be interesting to Grey, but she started to laugh a little. "And your mother has a sister a Starn, who is a ... a communist?" She blasted out a laugh. "God. Does your grandfather go around with a bag over his head? What an awesome scandal."

  "She's a socialist." I turned and stared at hei; thinking if she didn't get that smirk off her face I would leave. "That's one reason I don't go to West Hook, Grey. The summer people have too much downtime. They squawk and carry on as if everybody's business is their sole responsibility in life. Aunt Mel teaches philosophy; she's got tenure. And yet she's not so above it all that she won't go down to one of the soup kitchens on Christmas morning to mop the floors, which is more than I'd wager your mother ever did—"

  "All right, I'm sorry." She put her hands up, t
hen wiped the smirk off her face. "I'm sorry." She looked serious, like she realized she was apologizing again, and apologizing is a serious business. "My mom gets so drunk on Christmas, she's asleep on the couch by noon."

  She came over and leaned against the window, facing me. "Maybe she's why I'm here. Maybe I don't want to be like her. Maybe I don't want to go through life thinking only of myself until I realize there's no self left ... or maybe there never was any self to start with." She turned, put her forehead up to the glass, and I felt my eyebrows shoot up. "I know I have spent almost my whole time in high school never really appreciating the things I have. And I was really..."—she sighed—" ...mean. I didn't consider other people's feelings. And now ... I'm sitting up here, while everyone down at school is laughing. 'Ha-ha, serves her right for thinking she was so much hotter than'... whatever: I'll bet Soundra McLelland is having a real field day."

  "I don't think anybody is taking time from their lives to talk about you, Grey. I heard about you from Mrs. Ashaad."

  I would have thought she might have been surprised that she wasn't the talk of the school, but all she did was mutter "Guess Chandra's better at keeping her word than I gave her credit for." She started laughing as she started crying again. Chandra Clemmens was her best friend. "So. I hear Soundra McLelland is running track this year! I heard they fashioned her some sort of bionic metal leg over at Presbyterian Hospital! Hell, that's a great way to get your mug in the paper—"

  "I'm out of here." I went over and picked Jupe up off my jacket, but Grey followed and grabbed my arm before I could get my coat on.

  "Look, Evan, I'm not here because I'm a piece of shit. I'm here because I'm a piece of shit who doesn't want to be one. All right? I know I have a ways to go."

  "Grey, you know what I used to think of most when I thought of you? I thought you were a lot of fun. At least, you were fun until you turned my life upside down. It was temporary. But I guess I woke up at that point. What in the hell gives you the right to treat people like they're some sort of cartoon characters? As if we were all put here for you to amuse yourself with?"