What Happened to Lani Garver

by Carol Plum-Ucci

  I felt surprised that even a doctor would take that concept seriously. Sounded like the type of legend that would float around the janitors and LPNs.

  "I get the feeling he really cares about you. So, if he can report back to me that you passed this little test I'm going to give you, then I won't call your parents and lecture them about making you get some therapy. Who knows what can of worms a phone call home might open in some cases. Is that a deal? Because from my end, that's a supreme compromise."

  "What do I have to do?"

  "I want the two of you to go to a diner or an ice-cream parlor or something of that nature. And Claire, I want you to order a hot fudge sundae. I want you to eat the whole thing. If you can't eat it, or you don't want to, or you feel an urge to vomit afterward, I want one of you to be honest with me. We've got a big problem if you can't do that. We can't ignore it, not given your history. All right?"

  I nodded, forced a grin on my face, and said, "Piece of cake."

  She rolled her eyes at my bad pun, taking a big bite out of her sandwich, and I turned my eyes up to Lani and let my panic roll out of them. I had not eaten ice cream since July. The very thought was making my stomach ball up like a metal crusher eating a tin can. Yet, I couldn't say that. To say it would sound like an eating disorder. Which it wasn't. Was it?

  I shook my head the slightest bit, so he would see, but not her. As much as I shook my head, he nodded his. He smiled and winked in a way that was supposed to be reassuring, and I decided he would definitely sit there and not get upset, even if it took me four fucking hours to eat a thing like that. But as usual, I felt like I was surrounded by people who cared ... and yet I still had to do impossible things myself.

  11

  The Indian-summer sun shone hot on my face as we wandered onto Pine Street. I inhaled a huge breath of warm air, trying to clear my head. For lack of any other way to express utter relief and complete humiliation, I cracked up laughing.

  Lani put his arm around my neck, pulling me close to him and kissing me on the side of the head. It was another of those overly old gestures that made me feel in the twilight zone with someone's dad disguised as a kid—someone who was trying to say, "You're okay, no matter what stupid things you do."

  I found his waist under his jacket and rested my arm there. It felt surprisingly okay to grip hold of a person who wasn't my boyfriend, without any opposite-sex mini spazzes. At least, none were coming from him. He was babying me, and after a couple of minutes, it turned me kind of stony. I accused him of babying me, but he just laughed.

  "Relax. Maybe you need it."

  "What about you?" I thought of his life, how he could dole out something that he was probably in desperate need of himself. Maturity thing. Even if his shaving hormones are strangely whacked, he's eighteen, at least. "Come on. How old are you?"

  "Why must we go there?"

  "Because. If you don't tell me, I'm going to start believing you're one of those floating angels. Born a bazillion years ago," I joked. But after hearing even the doctor mention it, I had gotten curious enough to want to see that very old book of his. "You're just like ... slightly overly wise, something. Just enough to put me on edge. I want to see that book and look at the pictures. I want to make sure you're not in it."

  "There're other ways to get to know me," he said. "You can hear me ramble on about Hegel sometime. That would explain a lot. But I would say you're too keyed right now to do Hegel."

  "You're right."

  "You could meet some of my, uh, non-sick friends sometime, if you want."

  "You got normal friends?" I asked, and almost died. One of my famous Claire statements. Doyee.

  He just laughed. "People don't have to be desperate to want my company, you know. Wherever I've been, there were always a couple girls I got very tight with. And most of the time? They're not what you would classify as dorks. They're not the coolest but—"

  "Like me," I said suddenly.

  "Yeah. A lot like you. But last year was a very cool year."

  "I thought you lived on the street last year," I said.

  "Yup." He went on to say that some of the teachers at his school probably guessed he was homeless, and a lot of the kids knew, but they didn't bust on him. He had gotten accepted to an art school and just showed up every day. It was called the Creative and Performing Arts High School of Philadelphia, and it was a public school, but something called a magnet school, which they only had in big cities. He said he showed up on the last day of auditions to get in, had played the drums, and was accepted in the instrumental department.

  He giggled more as we walked. "I remembered hearing about the place back from when I lived in Cheltenham. The kids there used to call the Creative and Performing Arts High School 'Homo Heaven,' which is so not accurate. Yeah, there are some gays, but in a school where people perform and don't just be, there are more intense ways to look at people. What you look like is less of an issue. Sometimes having serious problems is actually a good thing."

  "What do you mean?" I asked. "In our school, you don't want to announce your serious problems. People will yack and hold it against you."

  "Have you heard the expression 'You got to pay your dues to sing the blues'?"

  "Yeah..." It took me a minute to remember where I'd heard that. My dad used to spew it at me when he stuck the guitar in my hand before he left for work in the mornings. I would be all So much bullshit to make me feel better. "So ... you had friends from your school who've been through bad things?"

  "Lots."

  "You mean illnesses?"

  "Maybe. Don't always know."

  "But if you don't know, then how can you know what they've been through?"

  "A lot of times it shows up in how they perform."

  My glance shot up to him. He nodded. "It's almost like a cause-and-effect thing. You watch someone act a drama part extremely well ... dance an awesome ballet ... play a great instrument ... A lot of times that horrible thing that happened to them somehow translates into talent. You wanna go to South Street? School should let out in an hour or so. I'd love to see my friend Ellen. I can call her on her cell phone. She'll come down there."

  My eyeballs almost blew out of my head. I had totally forgotten about South Street—a place that was, like, art-and-music central—where my dad used to take me on days when I was feeling good. He'd said he was too old for the place anymore, but taking me there helped him remember to stay young.

  We walked back down Pine Street to Fifth, then cut to South and found a café, near the corner, with outdoor tables. Lani went inside and left me sitting in one of the plastic chairs, zoning in on the strange-looking, artsy types passing by. There was the parade of black ... black leather jackets, black lipstick, black eyeliner, jet black hairdos, but also blasts of color that left me staring. Bright pink and purple hair spikes. Blazing blue, penciled eyes. Most of the people looked college age, and I remembered the University of the Arts being about eight blocks over. I wondered what these people looked like when they were my age.... When in their lives had they started getting this twitch to look different?

  I thought Lani had gone into the café to call his friend, but he came out with a couple of hot fudge sundaes and dropped one in front of me. I pushed on my stomach.

  "Dr. Lowenstein didn't say now, like today. I just want to sit here and relax and watch the sights."

  "So, watch the sights. It will help you relax, and you'll be able to eat better."

  I had already eaten half that egg salad sandwich before leaving Dr. Lowenstein's office, trying to prove something to her, I wasn't sure what. I think I was trying to get her to ease up on the hot-fudge-sundae issue, which she hadn't done.

  "Not to waste your money, Lani, but I'd have a much better shot at eating a whole sundae at night. Like, when it's my dinnertime and my gut is used to moving food through."

  I watched him gaze at me and realized how much like an eating disorder I was making this thing sound. Plus, I had not told the whole truth to
Dr. Lowenstein. The time I ate mayonnaise, I did feel sick after, like I'd eaten a whole stick of butter. And now that I'd eaten half that egg salad, my gut was busy fighting off Mayonnaise Hell. I cast a glance at the whipped cream, then Lani pressing his fingers together in front of his lips and watching me over the top of them.

  He dropped them finally and said, "You keep wanting to know my age, well, I'll tell you this much. When you're homeless, people melt into each other, when you're not doing those boxes every day, like sophomore, junior, graduated. Everybody sort of becomes one thing. Even that line between grown-up and kid gets lost. I don't have that problem a lot of kids seem to have ... I'm not immune to grown-ups. I have grown-up friends. Not that Dr. Lowenstein is exactly one of them."

  I shrugged, didn't get it.

  "I'm saying that the whole concept of ratting out to a grown-up is kind of lost on me. And if you can't eat that, I will have no problem calling her."

  I returned his even gaze. With as much style and grace as I could muster, I made an evil face. Not a single movement stirred from the return-stare factory.

  "I don't want to know your age. It doesn't matter." I swiped up the spoon, pumped my face full of whipped cream, and tried to focus on my irritation as opposed to my stomach. "Because you're just plain old. You remind me of my dad. You're an old fart."

  "I'm an old fart," he agreed, and started eating.

  "There's another reason why it would be very hard for a kid to be friendly with you." I swallowed more whipped cream. "You're, like, invasive."

  "Yup, I'm invasive."

  "And you have no shame."

  "No shame. Look at this guy coming. He's rich." Lani pointed with his spoon at one of the more radical facepiercings I had seen all day. The guy had, like, nine little rings through his lip, a couple on his eyebrow, and a chain running from his ear to the middle of his cheek.

  I laid the spoon down to stare. A few of these older kids looked like they'd had the kitchen drawer thrown at their faces. This seemed like the perfect place to make a huge confession. "I've always had this secret thing for black leather..."

  Lani's eyes lit, like this was kind of interesting.

  I thought he was missing the point. "You don't understand. Nobody on Hackett ever wears black leather anything. So ... where did this love of black leather come from?"

  "From Claire." He shrugged, and I wondered if I had to dance on the table naked to shake him up. He asked, "Well ... what kind of black leather?"

  My eyes scanned the people walking past, and I heard myself giggle. It was daring, trying to define my own weirdness instead of pretending it didn't exist. "I haven't seen it yet. I mean, not the type that goes with chains or black lipstick. I really couldn't see myself as a vampire type. And I don't like those black motorcycle-gang outfits. And there's those crunchy black leather jackets with the huge zippers that a lot of gay people wear. That's not it, either." I scratched my head in confusion.

  "You're saying what black leather you don't like, but what kind do you like?"

  "I guess a lot of people use black leather to make some kind of a statement," I said, thinking of all the groups I had just named. "I don't want to make a statement. It would have to be just 'Claire' black leather."

  "When you find it, you'll know." He laid his spoon down in his empty cup and looked at mine. I hadn't yet hit ice cream. It was starting to melt down into the sides. Part of me wanted to throw something else at him. He was looking at me like This is not working. Yet the bigger part of me knew he was only trying to help.

  Something over my shoulder caught his eye. He started to wave and grin from ear to ear. "Classic. She's got Cooper with her. Hey, Ellen!"

  I turned, grateful for a distraction. A tall girl and a shorter, skinny guy waved back, trotting across South Street. They were dressed normally, when compared to other people we'd seen on the street. In fact, the girl looked like a J. Crew model. She was as tall as I was with long, beautiful red hair. The guy was black, and despite the unusual heat, he had on a sweater that came down to his knees and a long, silky scarf knotted up near his neck. I watched them coming closer and started feeling myself wanting to become invisible. Kids from art high school. It was like watching actors jump out of the screen and tumble into our space.

  The guy spread his hands out when he reached us, and shouted, "Lani, sweetheart, you can't just disappear and leave us all hanging. My god, you've really got that do working." He bounced the bottom of Lani's hair, and the J. Crew–looking girl hugged Lani.

  Cooper held out a hand to me, which he sort of dropped in my hand. "Who's your girlfriend? She's darling." He was being completely dramatic, cracking me up, despite my sudden feeling of shyness.

  "This is Claire. Claire, Cooper. Claire, Ellen."

  "So, what are you doing down here?" Ellen asked Lani as she dropped into the seat beside me. "Yeah, I kept your dirty little secret. I never told anyone you were moving to Hackett Island for the dead of winter. What a concept. Catching any fish?" She shuddered.

  Lani said, "Shh, Claire's from there."

  I threw a polite smile, despite that they were studying me like I was something to behold, instead of them.

  And to make matters worse, Lani stood up, picked up my spoon, and dropped a bomb. He got the spoon full of melting ice cream and brought it so close I went cross-eyed. "The doctor over at Franklin thinks she might have an eating disorder, but we're trying to prove her wrong."

  I was nervous anyway, from wondering if I might do something awful, like hurl mayonnaise on these art school kids' laps. I could not believe he just spewed like that. I grabbed the spoon and out of my mouth came, "Do not feed me. I am not a baby. Just back the hell off."

  It wasn't the way I wanted to impress these people. To my shock I heard laughter.

  "Yeah, Lani, back off," Ellen said. She took the spoon out of my hand. "Hot fudge sundae. That is a very tall order for an EDO. Who'd you see at Franklin? Lowenstein?"

  I nodded. "What's an 'EDO'?"

  "Eating disorder. And Lowenstein? She's a witch. If you had seen Erdman, you wouldn't be here right now. He's a shrink, so he gives some leeway for the head-case elements of EDO. He would have told you something easier, like a greasy cheese sandwich. Do you heave or just starve?"

  My eyes floated over to Lani, who looked like this whole conversation was perfectly normal. I threw my head back, thinking, You sly bastard. You brought this girl here because of me, not you. But I had already let loose once, and they were all waiting for my answer.

  I stumbled, "I ... never throw up food."

  "Did Lowenstein even ask her?" Ellen asked Lani, waving the spoon. "This is why she refers people to Erdman so fast. She doesn't have five minutes to know what she's talking about. If you were bulimic, this would be no problem to eat. You're a starver." She turned to Lani. "There is probably no way in hell she can eat this whole thing. So just back off."

  His eyebrows shot up as the whole spoonful of ice cream went into her mouth. She turned back to me and handed me the spoon. "See? You can do it eventually. I was EDO all last year. I could never have eaten this. Even now I'm not sure I could eat half."

  I watched in fascination as she started pushing hot fudge off to the side, giving me some strategy on scraping up the ice cream only as it melted, eating it like soup and avoiding the chocolate.

  Cooper prattled on to Lani about why they had cut their last class of the day, like this whole eating ordeal was no big thing. I took smaller spoonfuls, scraping like Ellen had done, listening as Cooper went on and on—something about their drama teacher gay bashing on him. I didn't have a whole lot of time to stay mad at Lani, because Cooper's story got too hypnotizing.

  "She keeps telling me I need to round out my persona, and so, she's got me playing all these really masculine roles. Yesterday I was Octavius in Julius Caesar."

  He straightened up, swung a fist in the air, and this girly little voice suddenly dropped into the black hole and out came a deep, booming, masculine
one.

  "'When think you that the sword goes up again? Never, till Caesar's three and thirty wounds be well avenged, or till another Caesar have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.'"

  Lani giggled, but I sat there frozen. It was like watching magic—one person disappears and another appears.

  "'Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth; If you dare fight to-day, come to the field: If not when you have stomachs.'"

  "Oh my god ... how did you do that?" I stared as he plopped down again.

  He waved me off. "Oh, honey, I got a million voices. Wanna hear Clinton?" He went off on a Bill Clinton fest that sounded so real you almost forgot for a minute the kid was black. "At any rate, I'm cutting drama to boycott. Dr. Sykes thinks if she keeps giving me these masculine roles, eventually she'll stop catching me painting my toenails in the back of her class. I'm a good Octavius, and that's never going to stop me from painting my toenails. Wanna see? Today they're green."

  "We'll pass on your stink fest." Ellen held up her hands, like stop, because he was already untying his sneaker. "I cut drama in Cooper's honor. Not that any old excuse won't do right now. Last week Erdman told me to quit making everything in life into such a serious goddamn big deal. So Friday we cut for 'therapy.'"

  She giggled, like that was supreme. I watched these people laughing at their faults and weirdnesses, which were laid out in plain view of everyone. It made me freeze into my invisibleperson mode, lest they call on me to be next. There was a long silence, and I decided I'd better fill it with a question.

  "So ... you were in therapy because you had an eating disorder?" I asked Ellen.

  She shook her head and swallowed. "I was in therapy because I lost four friends in one year. All unrelated deaths, too. Very freaky. My girlfriend Cher got hit by a car and dragged about thirty yards. Broke her neck. Four days later a friend from junior high died of a heart defect no one even knew he had. That weekend, my cousin Aleese died in a diabetic coma, and no one knew she was diabetic. Three funerals in nine days. Who feels like eating, okay? I think that was the start of it. I shrunk my stomach way down, so when the real traumatic one happened, like six months later, I was prime for deciding I was too big a target for a car, a mugger, or a bolt of lightning—"