What Happened to Lani Garver

by Carol Plum-Ucci

  "Oh." I watched him with a little more respect. He had hinted that he wasn't a very good fighter, but maybe in a way he was. He might not land hard punches—not with those hands—but it sounded like he had a pocketful of tricks.

  "At the same time"—he shuddered—"when people realize you can see past their eyes and into their heads? They don't take kindly to that. In the city, you could get mugged. Around here? Forget mugged. You could get lynched. So, you can't tell."

  "Okay." I wanted to be polite but felt kind of insulted by his statements about Hackett. "I don't think you have to be worried about getting lynched around here, Lani. People just want to have fun—"

  "You're laughing."

  I realized I was. "I just think you're overreacting."

  "Yeah? Believe me, you wouldn't like it much if I started looking inside your head at your hidden garbage. I won't. But just put yourself in the shoes of somebody whose hidden garbage is over the top—"

  "Wait ... What about me and my 'garbage'?" I slowed down to stare at him.

  "See? You're defensive already—"

  "That's because I'm fine. I don't have 'garbage.'" I forced a laugh, which sounded half strangled. I had told him about cancer. Not that cancer qualifies as "garbage." But I sensed he thought it could bring on some psycho-weirdness after-affect in my case. I stopped and put my fingers up to my forehead, covering my face, remembering what a jerk I'd been in his bedroom. "I have nightmares. They're bloody..."

  "That's called the 'defensive stance.'" He pulled on my arms, grinning. "Did you know the people most afraid of their own thoughts spend half their lives with their arms crossed? Put your arms down, here." He flopped them down. "Now. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't have any hidden garbage in your life."

  I wanted to say it. But I'm a bad liar and had a strong sense it would come out all muddled. I settled on "I can see why people would totally hate you."

  "If you're going to hate me, you might as well hear all my thoughts about you."

  "I don't want to." But I felt suddenly scared that maybe he could see into my basement. See my "bloody lyrics." See my electric guitar that only Macy knew about—and only because I was cranking it so loud one day I couldn't hear her come in upstairs. I had just been ripping on some blues runs, thank god. No razor-blade lyrics. "Go ahead ... say what you were going to say." I curled my toes to brace myself.

  "I think you would do yourself a favor to go see a shrink."

  I did my standing-stock-still routine, but he was right in my face. It was not a situation where you can become invisible. My insides started exploding. "I think you have nerve. It's not your business, telling me a thing like that."

  "Claire, simmer. A shrink is a status symbol. It's like having a masseuse."

  "'A masseuse'?" I let myself boil over. "The only masseuse on the island goes back to Philly in the winter. Cuz the only people that come to her are rich lady tourists and faggots—"

  I threw a hand over my mouth, and he raised a hand to his. I got the impression his was to keep from laughing. I sunk down onto the lawn beside the sidewalk. I could not believe I had just spewed that word in his face.

  "That's another version of the defensive stance," his voice went off, muffled, behind his fingers. "You just lowered yourself out of my gaze and turned away."

  "Up yours."

  "Honestly, I understand. This is part of the reason why I could never become a shrink. I'm too blunt."

  "You're a bloody nightmare." Since I knew nothing about psychology, or any of the stuff he had read, I got paranoid. "What is it ... that you know about me?"

  He sat down cross-legged on the sidewalk, facing me. "Only that you've been through a trauma, you've never talked it out, and you're having nightmares."

  "That's it? That's all you think you know?" Doyee. I had just implied that there was something else.

  "I'm not a shrink, Claire. But it's probably not as bad as you're thinking it is."

  And I am not going to see one. "You could make people nuts."

  "I guess that's it."

  "Don't be sarcastic. Tell me. I want to hear what you think you know about my hidden garbage."

  "I—" He stopped for a minute. Then he got that crankingmind look again, and things started spilling out in half sentences. Like his mind was working so fast, only parts could break the sound barrier. "You're not a criminal, for pete's sake ... had illness and trauma ... no one to talk to ... but the shit always comes out somewhere. Mutilation dreams, you said ... Gone beyond dreaming, or you wouldn't be so crazed ... Music. You've got artistic tendencies so probably ... don't know if you're old enough to be writing music yet ... Sixteen-year-olds dump in poetry ... same part of the brain as dreams ... You're writing bloody poetry."

  It was close enough to make my jaw hang. It was like being naked while he decided if my headlights were pink or brown. The only reason I didn't slap him is that he could have predicted it. "You're a regular nightmare."

  "I could get myself lynched. So, you won't tell your friends I'm like this."

  "I'm going home now." I stood up. He picked up my backpack and handed it to me. I swiped it and started on my merry way. I could feel him staring after me.

  I stopped, because I didn't want him to think he had totally gotten the better of me. "Where is this place you want to take me?"

  "Philly. Franklin Hospital. Come to the bus station at eight tomorrow morning."

  I decided I would just not show up. Somehow it felt like getting even. "Okay."

  "And if I don't see you, I'll just go on to school."

  I turned, slowly. Mind reader. "Uh ... what makes you think I wouldn't come?"

  "You didn't turn around until after you asked. We're not connecting. I've been a pain. I'm sorry, I'm just too blunt." Then he turned and started walking back toward his house.

  He is obnoxious and weird, I decided. I wasn't going anywhere with him. I don't care if I'm half dead. I turned and hurried toward my house, where I knew I'd find a ton of great phone messages.

  6

  I threw my coat and backpack into the hall closet and headed for the kitchen to check the answering machine. I found five messages from Macy and one from Scott. Two for Mom. I listened to them while eating a drumstick from the chicken Mom had left in the microwave.

  The first two from Macy were along the lines of "Where are you, dork? We're waiting for you!" then the click as she hung up.

  The one from Scott went, "Hey! Yo! Claire woman! Where's the Claire woman? Yo, Vince, get your hands off me, fish breath. What does it look like I'm doing! I'm talking to the Claire woman! Her answering machine at any rate, yo! Claire! Are you home, Claire?"

  My grin rose and fell in all of about ten seconds. The what ifs of the future buzzed around my head, making the chicken tough to swallow. ... could lose all of this if I got sick again...

  The last three were Macy's. "Claire, we're heading out in Vince's car in ten minutes." "We're heading out in five minutes..." "We're heading out in two minutes..."

  I tossed a drumstick bone into the sink, eyeing some salad I'd put up on the counter. I grabbed a handful of lettuce and shoved it in my mouth as I erased all evidence of the phone messages, whipped a pen out of the drawer, and started scribbling my mom a note saying I went to Macy's for study group. The front door slammed, and I heard my mother's keys drop inside her handbag. The pencil flopped on the counter, and I drummed my fingers in frustration.

  "Claire? How was your day? Did you get dinner?" She came around the corner into the kitchen and kissed my cheek. "Did I get any phone messages?"

  "Two from Aunt Phyllis. She wants you to call her. I think you're about to be roped into making Tina's homecoming dress."

  "Tina made Mainland Homecoming Court?" She clapped her hands together and spun twirls in the kitchen. "Go, Tina! Go, Tina! Go, Tina!"

  "Go, Tina!" I threw in, despite my eyes wanting to roll to China. Mom's sizeable butt flew this way and that. A few of her cheerleading pictures still sa
t on the dining room breakfront, along with her homecoming queen photos. She had been cute, not heavy then. Just ... perfect. More like Macy than me. No one would guess we were mother and daughter these days—not with my height and slenderness. I looked just like my dad. "Besides, you know you'll end up making the dress—"

  "And it will be the most beautiful dress from here to Philadelphia! Your own father would drool—"

  I put a smile on my face, to take some of the harshness out of my thought. "Speaking of Dad, can you make sure Aunt Phyllis pays you back for the fabric this time? Being that she's got a husband and you've got none?"

  "Did you eat? Where's the mail?"

  "I didn't exactly eat," I said, trying to get a strategy together in a flash. "I lay down after cheerleading, and it turned into a two-hour crash-out nap. I just woke up."

  I didn't have to say where this happened.

  Her perked-up eyebrows dropped for a moment, and she looked me up and down. "Oh. You just ... got tired after cheerleading and lay down for a bit."

  Nap ... why did I say that? I never take naps unless I'm sick.

  "Oh. Yeah, tough practice, that's all. I'm fine. Great."

  Fortunately her mind was rolling too quickly to doubt me. "Good, because it's Ginny DeGrossa's birthday this weekend. Party-party, party-hardy." She pinched my cheek. "You have to make one of your famous health salads. I'm making my lasagna and fried chicken, and if I don't have something for all the health nuts—"

  "You're having a party here? For Mrs. DeGrossa?" I stuck my head in the refrigerator to get some air. "Mom. She calls the cops on me with a noise complaint if I don't stop playing at Sydney's right at ten every Saturday night. I can't stand her."

  "Well ... pretend you can."

  "Since when is Mrs. DeGrossa in Les Girls?"

  "She's not. But there's no birthdays in Les Girls until after Thanksgiving, and we've done the Rod 'N' Reel for four weekends in a row now. It's our excuse to do something exotic."

  Les Girls is my mom's clique of divorced and single ladies who wear too much perfume and too much makeup just to go to the local bar. I don't think any of them could get as sloshed as my mom, but they never seemed to mind her slurring and swaying. They kept asking her out with them—though no man ever did.

  "How about the movies? Wouldn't kill you guys to go to the mainland."

  "Drive over those drawbridges at night? You can feel them shift when the wind blows."

  "You cannot. That's ridiculous."

  "Can, too." Her way of saying, No one wants to be the designated driver.

  I sighed. "Does this party mean I have to mow the grass, too?"

  "Yes."

  I started sorting through the mail, flinging junk coupons and credit card applications in the trash.

  "Come on, Claire. Don't I always cook and clean for the parties with your friends?"

  I plastered my smile back on, which meant the conversation was about to get dangerous. "I would rather you pay the electric bill than spend money on parties you conjure up with Macy before you even ask me."

  "I'm the world's worst ogre! That's why your friends love me. Get over yourself."

  "Mom..." I held up an electric bill with a pink notice in it, my grin rising higher. "Do we know what pink means?"

  "Pink means we have thirty whole days before blue."

  "And how much is our little party going to cost?"

  "I'll catch up. If your father would pay his support on time—"

  "How much, Mom?"

  "Get over yourself. How much does it cost to bake a lasagna and a few bins of fried chicken?"

  "Does this party mean I'll have to use my Sydney's money to pay the electric bill again?"

  She went to the refrigerator and stuck her head in—her turn to get away from my gaze. "I never asked you to do that, Claire. I was going down to pay it in person."

  That one was a lie. I managed to keep the grin as I bubbled over. "We sat in the dark for two days, Mom."

  She slammed the fridge, deciding she hadn't heard me. "And eat something before you make me crazy. You look like your father—irresponsible, musician, scarecrow ... and as for Ginny DeGrossa, if I throw her this party, she'll stop calling the police on you. I promise. She's got an anxiety disorder, okay? Not everyone is as young and as spry as you are, my dear."

  Spry ... a mom word for "healthy." I grabbed my jacket. "I'm outta here."

  "Where? It's a school night."

  "To ... the Pirate's Den for a burger. I've got those deadly red-meat cravings."

  "Uh-huh. I'm sure you're not meeting Macy and Myra and Geneva and Eli. I'm sure I was never your age." She held out a five-dollar bill from her handbag, which I started at. "Order yourself a milk shake. They use real milk at the Pirate's Den—"

  I took the five, shoved it back in her wallet, my plaster grin starting to hurt. "Mom, take your cash and pay that bill. Before it gets pissed away."

  "And you stay out of Vince Clementi's car! You hear? He's trouble. You know what his father was."

  "Maybe ... a drunk?" I hinted.

  "Maybe ... a clammer!"

  "A clammer is an alcoholic who can't get work on a fishing boat."

  "And be back by ten. It's a school night."

  I could see her hands shaking a little. She was waiting for me to leave before she went for the vodka bottle. Thinks I'm blind and stupid. I rarely said anything about her drinking beyond these types of stupid hints. One Saturday night I got mad and called her a drunk, and she spouted off quickly, "I was fine before you got sick!" It had been a way ugly thing to say, and she apologized when she got sober, saying it had come out all wrong. But she had spoken the whole truth. Before I got sick she had been pretty much like other moms—loved her crowd, loved a party, but knew when to switch to Pepsi or call it a night.

  "I will stay out of Vince's car, I will be home soon ... and I love you, Mom."

  That first thing was a lie, but the last was what she lived for. She hugged me tight. I could remember a time when her hugs were overwhelming and she felt like the biggest, funnest person in the world. This year she felt short and almost breakable, despite the pillows on her hips and thighs. I left.

  I started walking down Hackett Boulevard, knowing my friends would come by quickly. That's what we did if we were going somewhere and didn't want our parents to see us get in Vince Clementi's Impala.

  Vince was the only sophomore to have a driver's license, probably because he flunked at least one grade. He was kind of a scary guy, but we tolerated him after he got a car—being that he drove us all around.

  I had only walked about three blocks toward the business district when brakes screeched beside me. Vince's Impala was twelve years old, and the back end sank way down from having carried too many bodies. The passenger-side door flew open, and I looked through the sea of grins and laughs, wondering if I'd have to sit in the trunk again.

  "Just get in!" Vince hollered. "I ain't paid off my last ticket for hauling you fag hags around—"

  Mike Mayer's huge hand reached out from the backseat, and next thing I knew, my forehead was sliding across the ceiling as a thousand hands tried to wedge me in.

  Mike said, "Claire, pull your feet in. Jesus Christ, do you have to be so long?"

  My head knocked into the driver's-side back window, and I fought to curl my legs while a fit of giggles spazzed me. My eyelashes caught in Phil's eyebrow, and we giggled as Vince gunned it.

  I tried to decide who was where. Scott's voice came from beside Vince. Geneva was singing with the radio, sort of behind my back, which meant she was sitting in Scott's lap. I couldn't hate her for that, I decided. Vince was avoiding Officer Dan, Hackett's dreaded teenage-driving hawk, and there had been no time to rearrange when I arrived. Phil, Macy, Eli, Myra, and Mike were under me in the back somehow.

  Geneva sang loudly with the end of a Felicia Almonara song. "Ahh, I love Jennifer Martinez," she said.

  I would have let it go. But I think Macy's hawk eye works even
when it's buried under bodies. She jabbed me in the side. "Claire, was that Jennifer Martinez?"

  "You think I don't know my tunes?" Geneva barked back.

  I wondered if I should have complained about Scott to Geneva. She wasn't exactly known for breaking up couples, but she was one of those girls who either had a boyfriend or was seriously scoping for one.

  "Claire knows every tune that ever buzzed," Phil shouted, jostling me around. "And you don't know shit. Claire, who's singing?" Phil and Geneva didn't get along so great. They used to go out. He shook me again, trying to squirt information, I guess.

  He only stopped after I said, "It's Felicia."

  I could feel Geneva seething as Macy poked me victoriously. She hadn't missed where Geneva was sitting.

  Geneva defended herself. "Claire only knows, like, The Doors, and shit. Hey, Claire! When are you going to bring your electric guitar down to Sydney's?"

  I jerked up until I found Macy's face in the crowd and froze. Ratted me out...

  Her mouth formed the O shape, and I tried to dig through my panicked head about what she had heard that day. Blues runs. That's it, I think...

  "I'm sorry ... I'm sorry," she murmured loud enough for me to hear. "Remember that week that Lyda Barone wouldn't leave us alone? And I was so mad at you?"

  "What did you tell them?"

  "That you had an electric guitar in your basement, and you sound like a dying cow. Claire, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

  I sighed. You always knew where you stood with Macy, because she always told the truth. If she'd heard any girls-butchering-their-brains-out stuff, she would have let me know that, too. Still, I couldn't relax, what with the responses coming down.

  "Neerr ... neerrrr ... neeeeeerrrrrr! Claire's gonna be the next Jimi Hendrix!" Phil bounced me as he ground his butt around the seat.

  All the guys were making a chorus of neeeeeer-neeeeers, all calling me Pearl Jam and Judas Priest and fifteen other totally guy groups. All except for my own boyfriend, who was singing along with the radio like this whole thing wasn't happening.