“Congrats,” said Claire.
She did not sound nearly as enthusiastic as I would have liked.
“Are you really mad about Raina? This was her idea, and it gave me new life,” I said.
Claire coughed for a while, but I think it was a cover, so she didn’t have to respond.
“No, I’m not really mad,” she said. “Jealous, maybe.”
“Jealous of who?” I asked.
“Raina. Because she gets to hang out with you more. Possibly because she doesn’t have to be in fucking Our Town, but I bet she also got a starring role as a lead witness.”
“I mean, you can be on the team. Competition starts in February, and I am in a pinch here. You don’t even need to quit the play.”
“But then there’s college auditions and summer stock to think about. And…”
“Well, I offered,” I said. “Anyway, are you sure there isn’t a junior I could borrow? One overly dramatic, angsty junior who could memorize seven pages of information? Surely there is one. You know what? I’m not even picky. I’d take a sophomore or freshman even.”
“Hmm. Maybe. I’ll think about it.” Claire coughed again.
“Do you need something? Soup?”
“Nah, I’m fine. My aunt is bringing my grandma over with rum or something to heat up.”
“That cures strep throat?”
“Or maybe it’s whiskey. I don’t know. You mix it with stuff. It sounded gross, but she swears it’s kept her alive for eighty-five years, so I wasn’t going to argue.”
“Good move.”
We hung up. Claire was still being fussy over Raina, but I knew she’d come around. Hopefully, she’d find me two reasonable people in the next week or two.
My gaze drifted up from my phone back to the kitchen table. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that it’d been a lot of hours between my ham sandwich and now.
The recycling hadn’t been taken out in a few days.
Or the garbage.
And the counters never stopped being sticky.
I knew Dad’s job kept the heat on, but honestly, he was still the adult in this equation. It wouldn’t have killed him to clean something every now and then. When Mom left, it seemed he just assumed I’d fill all the roles she had filled. I realized day by day how many there had been. On top of cleaning and cooking, apparently Mom did all the doctors and dentist appointments for him because Dad had forgotten. Sometimes I’d peek in at him in his office, and he was just playing computer games, so how busy could the man be?
But sometimes you had to prioritize things in order to be a team player.
“Focus on the self that is the best self of all,” I breathed.
I noticed that some daily affirmations made more sense than others.
I wondered if that is why she’d left. Maybe the new husband did more than mow the lawn.
I got a sponge and brushed the crumbs off the kitchen table into the last few centimeters left at the top of the garbage bag. I scrubbed at the strange stains on the plastic tablecloth and tried my best to make the counters shine. I unloaded the dishwasher, that I thankfully had remembered to turn on before I left for school. I reloaded it with all the stuff that hadn’t fit before. I swept up and took out the garbage and recycling.
I’d been using a load of sheets and towels to play a game of chicken with Dad, to see how long it’d take him to notice them by the basement door. It’d been two weeks, so it occurred to me that maybe he’d gone laundry-blind and they’d just sit there and rot if I let them. I considered it, but the thought of work undone made me shudder. A girl had her limits. I picked up the dirty load and squashed it in our beautiful WashPro Elite, the last thing Mom demanded before she left.
Maybe she’d known I’d need it.
I vacuumed the living room, since I’d initiated the cleaning cycle and could never stop myself once it began. I had calc and English and history homework, not to mention plotting my Mock Trial team strategy. But my stomach rumbled again.
I parked the vacuum in the coat closet and started opening cabinets. I’d have to make Dad take me to the grocery store on Saturday, since we were low on all real food. There was fancy pizza dough that I’d snuck in the cart left in the fridge, with tomato sauce and cheese. Pizza night! This could all be salvaged. The lettuce, tomatoes, celery, and carrots were crisp (well, crisp-ish) and only a little brown. Salad! I could do this. I was making life work. When life gives you lemons, squeeze some juice on the counters to make them smell less weird, scrub them, and then use the rest to make lemonade.
Girl boss. That’s what I was.
I listened to my Ruth Bader Ginsburg biography audiobook and got my lopsided homemade pizza into the oven. The kitchen warmed with the smell of garlic and onion.
Dad got home just as the timer went off. With great satisfaction, I slid Mom’s abandoned pizza stone out of the oven and sliced my creation into eight pieces. Next time, I should get some heirloom tomatoes or oregano to dress it up, like the fancy Italian restaurant up by the mall.
“Hi, honey,” Dad said, sliding into his chair. “How was your day?”
“Great!” I said. “I am making progress with Mock Trial! You know, I actually am not on the same…”
Dad’s phone rang.
“Sorry, baby, I have to take this. It’s this nice, new lady my buddy from work introduced me to!”
Dad left the table.
I watched him retreat to the living room. I served myself pizza and salad, and then another helping of each before he came back.
“I never thought I could get back in the dating game, but it seems I’m there,” Dad said.
“Oh. That’s great, Dad,” I said.
“It really is. Huh,” Dad said, sliding a piece of pizza onto his plate. “Don’t quite have your mom’s technique down yet, do you?” He smiled sadly to himself.
I stopped chewing. Cheese and sauce lumped in my mouth. Part of me wanted to spit it out at him. I caught myself and choked it down instead. This is not about you; this is about his own pain. He needs to do this to move on, I reminded myself. I had read that in a So Your Parents Are Getting a Divorce pamphlet I’d found on the ground outside the guidance office.
It read a little like the same people wrote for the pamphlet company as my daily affirmation app.
Dad must have actually noticed the look on my face. “I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “I just meant that I know this is hard on you, too. This all tastes wonderful.”
We finished dinner in silence. I kept thinking of things I wanted to yell at him, but Dad got up and went to his tiny office next to the dining room when his phone rang again.
I surveyed the table. Clean up now, or clean up tomorrow? I sighed. Why not both? Or why not take a flamethrower to it? I thought. Sadly, I was all out of flamethrowers. I traced the same steps as I had after school (and before school and last night and…). The monotony broke a little when I transferred the sheets from the washer to the dryer. I watched blues and greens and purples rumble around one another in an endless chase. I felt like that sometimes—that everything I did was a blurred loop, repeating and repeating.
That was my excitement for the night. Identifying on an existential level with state-of-the-art appliances. Maybe Claire was right. Maybe I did need to get out more.
I waited a little longer to see if Dad would emerge from his cave, but by six thirty he still hid behind his closed door.
The dryer buzzer went off, and I slowly folded the sheet and towels. Surely, he wouldn’t avoid me? What did I do except work as his maid?
I took the laundry basket upstairs with me and put everything away. I settled at my desk with my books. I heard Dad’s door creak open.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” I said to my desk. “It’s safe. You don’t have to deal with me.”
Stop! Focus instead on the positive, I thought. Enough with the negative patterns. Dad is just tired and overwhelmed with work. And trying to date. And life. Stop it, Millie!
“I
forgive myself,” I said out loud. “I have wants and needs, and I forgive myself for getting angry. I breathe in.” I took a breath, held it, and exhaled. “I breathe out peace.”
My chest felt more like it expelled barely contained garlic-scented rage, so I tried a few more times.
“Okay, time for homework,” I said. “Because tomorrow is going to be another great day.”
I didn’t know if I believed that. But I wanted to believe it. And sometimes wanting it just had to be enough.
5
RAINA PETREE,
:
IN THE COURT OF
:
REVENGE OF CAMBRIA
Plaintiff,
:
COUNTY
:
v.
:
:
BRANDON ROTH,
:
Case No. OVERIT4SURE22
:
:
Defendant
:
JANUARY 25: MOTION TO QUASH SUBPOENAS FOR DEPOSITION
Brandon and Ruby broke up over the weekend.
But then they got back together again today.
Not that I cared. Obviously, I didn’t care, because I was totally moving on now, three weeks later. From his stupid blue eyes. And from the plaid shirt I noticed him wearing that brought back the memory of that time last year when we’d gone camping. It was just Brandon and me in a tent under a canopy of pine and spruce and twinkling stars. I’d been afraid of the too quiet, too dark night out there near Brandon’s favorite fishing creek. But he’d made me laugh and held me close and that was the first time we’d …
But I didn’t care anymore. Obviously.
Except when I did, which was more frequently than I wanted to admit to myself.
Then there was the other thing I totally didn’t care about—Megan told me that Claire is really ruling on high in fucking Our Town rehearsals, because she overheard Judy from the band telling Kyle from Model Congress that Rebecca the freshman (who did commercials in middle school) was super impressed.
I wasn’t smoldering over this when Mom interrupted my thoughts at the breakfast table.
“Are you working on college applications?” asked Mom.
“What?” I said. Mom had been talking for several minutes, but I hadn’t been listening. I’d been wondering where Megan even saw Judy. They might have gym together.
“Applications are due soon, right? I know you turned in one or two already. I should have gone to that presentation with the guidance counselor. But they offered me an extra shift and property taxes were due. I’m sorry about that. But I want to support you. I really do. Did you hear from any yet?”
“Thanks, Mom. Not yet.”
“What about NYU? Or Juilliard?”
“Juilliard, Mom? Are you serious?”
“Ah, so you are listening. Well, actors go there. New York is where actors go, isn’t it?”
“I guess,” I said. I made a chocolate star chase a marshmallow unicorn around in the milk at the bottom of my cereal bowl.
“Raina, look at me,” Mom said.
I briefly flicked my eyes to hers.
“God, is this still about Brandon? Raina. Come on. Let’s run lines for your play.”
“Mom, I was with him for years, and we broke up less than a month ago. I’m trying here. Besides I don’t have lines,” I said before thinking.
“Okay, okay. A month or two for the boy. But he’s not worth more. Does the spring show feature a bunch of mimes? Oh God, please not again.”
Mom had never recovered from my “silent bodies in motion” performance two summers ago.
“No, I’m not in the show. I quit theater.”
“You … what…” I knew I was in for it when Mom had trouble forming words. “Excuse me, young lady, I can’t even begin to process…”
“I joined Mock Trial instead.”
“You joined Brandon’s team. That is even worse. I’m going to get your father on the phone, and we are going to…”
“No, I joined a rival team. All girls. It’s kind of like the knitting. Therapeutic. Plus, they’re doing Our Town. I will play a witness or two on this team and bring crushing defeat to my enemies. I needed something new, Mom.”
Mom’s face changed back from purple to red to its normal freckled, sandy color. I looked back down at my soggy breakfast, but I could feel her trying to bore into my brain for my thoughts.
“You joined Mock Trial for revenge?” she said.
“Kind of. Not really. It was an accident. This girl was on the team for years, and then the boys kicked her off. And I told her she should form her own team, and I’d join. I never thought she’d do it. But then she did, and Our Town, and here we are.”
“Raina, uprooting your life for some guy is just not worth it. You need to live for you. Is this for you?”
I thought about that for a minute.
“Yes,” I said finally. “It’s still acting, Mom. But it’s acting for me, not for Brandon. Trying something new has been helpful. It’s a little easier to move on when you have something to move toward.”
It was true. I was enjoying the idea that playing a witness was moving me toward something … else. Something meaningful. Not that acting wasn’t meaningful, but this was different.
“Huh,” Mom said, taking her time with her coffee. “Well, kid,” she said. “You’re eighteen. You’ve got a long time to figure it out. Just know that I’m not going to another two-hour ‘speculative kinesthetic performance,’ no matter how much it means to you.”
“Got it, Mom,” I said.
I escaped to school, where an already wound-up Millie greeted me before the first bell had even rung.
“It was going so well,” she said.
“What was?” We hadn’t even met as a team yet.
“Finding people. First you, then Veronica. But fifteen girls in a row have turned me down. Basketball, swimming, archeological dig—you name it. Everyone has an excuse.” Millie shook her head.
“That sucks.”
“Claire won’t help find theater people,” she said. She stepped toward me. Even though she was about five feet tall, the fire in her eyes made me take a step back.
“You. You know people. Find me a witness,” she said.
“My best friend is a swimmer. Or spring musical people. Or Veronica.”
The air went out of Millie like she was a popped balloon. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said. Her voice wavered dangerously close to tears.
“Hey, listen. We still have time. We got this,” I said.
To sound confident, stand with your feet hip-width apart. Puff out your chest and breathe deep into the diaphragm. Push the air out with your words. Elevate the chin and look down at your speaker.
“Okay,” said Millie. She closed her eyes for a second and moved her lips, as if in conversation with her own brain. When she looked up, I could tell she’d bought the act. “You’re right. You did get us Veronica. And if we find people by next week, we will still have three weeks to prepare.”
“Yes. And there are hundreds of girls here. Some of them are going to want in.” I nodded for emphasis.
Satisfied, Millie left to go to the library or homeroom or maybe the intensity pod where she regained the energy it must take to live her life like that.
I’d given up my daily cry in favor of one good primal scream behind the gym.
“It actually gives you a bit of a glow,” said Megan at lunch. “The scary yelling.”
“Yes, it’s part of my skin-care regimen now. Some moisturizer and a few broken blood vessels. I should market the technique,” I said.
“I’d buy,” said Megan.
“Can you come to The Dropped Stitch?” I asked Megan. “There’s a special circle. Something about the past elections.”
“Are you going to make sweaters for the poll workers?”
“No, Carla the owner said something about a local seat. I don’t know. Come with me and you’ll find out. I’m to
ld there might be cake.”
“Alas, I cannot. Away swim meet. I won’t be back until late.”
“All those competitions I’ve attended. Does my devotion mean nothing to you?” My head fell onto my curled arms.
“It means everything. But Coach will kill me if I don’t show. You know people at YLS now. Fill me in later. I’ll be on … wait for it”—I could feel Megan’s grin—“pins and needles until you do. HA!”
“Wow, Dad. Thanks for that one. And using the yarn lingo.”
“You are quite welcome,” she said.
After lunch, I looked for Millie in the library, but she wasn’t there. She’d probably cornered some poor soul to recruit and trapped her in a net of earnestness and fear.
Throughout my afternoon classes, I tried to spy on all the girls around me. Did anyone of them seen keen on pretending to bring truth and justice to fictional characters? Could any of them believe it? By junior year, most people really had their own thing going and didn’t always want to try something new. Kelly was in track; Melissa babysat all the time; Ally, Connecticut, and Kathryn made movies; and Libby Dennison almost joined, but she made too much real money from painting miniature figures for some game that involved elves to sacrifice her free time. Millie was right. The rest of them were all year-long club, club, live-action role play, job, spring club, spring club, all of the above.
JANUARY 26: MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT
Dad had gotten paid, so I had my small monthly cut of his automatic deposit that Mom had given me. I thought maybe new yarn would cheer me up. Mom had appreciated the hat I’d made her, even if it was lumpy, had two holes, and mysteriously expanded from the eighty stitches I’d cast on to end closer to ninety-five. I wanted to make Megan a fancy hat, but maybe I’d make Millie one first. Double-pointed needles and finer yarn still felt like too much of a challenge, even if hats were considered a beginner’s project.
Millie’s eyes were brown. Maybe a nice warm chestnut to match her eyes and her hair. Though she wore a lot of orange. Was this because it complemented her skin tone or because she just preferred it as a color? Megan would probably know this. I planned on using swimming-pool blue for her.
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