Anatomy of a Misfit

by Portes,Andrea

  “Hey, so, I wanted to tell you . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “I thought that was really nice what you did for me. I mean, not many people would have done something like that. Honestly.”

  “Well, it wasn’t much.”

  “Yeah, it was. Believe me.”

  “It wasn’t even true, so, I mean, that kind of helped.”

  “I know!”

  We walk on up the hill. It’s rows and rows of suburban houses but you can see your breath now. It’s obvious my parents are trying to kill me.

  “It’s kinda weird, right?”

  “What? What is?” I’m halfway to daydreaming, she better make it quick.

  “Well, I mean, don’t you wonder who started that rumor in the first place?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “I sure do.”

  “Well, let’s think. Do you have any enemies or anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dunno, did you like do something mean to someone, maybe you didn’t even realize until after it was too late or something?”

  “Hm. Lemme think.”

  We walk on and now it’s really starting to freeze over. The sun is going down through the scraggly black trees and the leaves on the ground—red, brown, orange—smell burnt. We are about one block past Shelli’s house and I can’t help but wonder if she’s become a born-again Christian yet.

  “Anyone? I mean, maybe it was just some dumb thing.”

  “I dunno. The thing is . . . I’m not like you. I mean, people don’t care about me. Like, they don’t care what I do. It’s like, I dunno, it’s like I’m invisible or something.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s like . . . I mean as weird as it sounds, that whole debacle was like the first time half the school even knew I existed.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah. Way.”

  The fact is, she’s telling the truth. And I don’t even know why. I don’t even know who makes up these unwritten rules about who and what you’re supposed to care about. The whole thing seems like throwing spaghetti against the wall. Nobody knows what’s gonna stick.

  “Well, I knew who you were.”

  Like that helps. But what else am I supposed to say?

  “Thanks. Anyway, you saved my ass, and don’t think I’ll forget it.”

  We’re walking on and the sun is really starting to take its last bow. The unspoken rule is that I won’t invite her to my house and she won’t invite me to hers. That’s okay, too. It’s not like you can be best friends with everybody. Also, she thinks I’m kinda like a good person now and I don’t have the heart to let her know that inside I’m spider stew. I better keep her at a distance so she never finds out.

  Logan’s moped buzzes in the distance and I think . . . I’d feel bad disappointing her.

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  twenty-four

  This dinner is gonna be like the most uncomfortable dinner of my lifetime. Seriously. I don’t know what I was thinking.

  Of course, my mom thinks this is like the greatest thing ever and that I’m like Mother Teresa or something just for inviting “that black girl” over for dinner. It’s weird. It’s like somehow I have given my mother the opportunity to care about something for the first time in forever. It’s like she’s had too much coffee or something.

  She’s fluttering around the kitchen making this thing and that, putting out this dish and that, asking me to cut this vegetable and that. I mean, I kind of think she’s possessed. Even my horrible sisters have noticed. And they are not happy about it. Lizzie, particularly, is livid. This is how the conversation went:

  “Mom. Neener and I have a date tonight, so . . .”

  “Oh, no no no. Not tonight. Tonight we are having a very special guest over for dinner and you are both gonna sit there and be on your best behavior, I mean it.”

  “Special guest? What is this, The Tonight Show?”

  “No, honey. Your little sister did something really kind. She reached out to someone, someone who maybe most people wouldn’t, and she held out her hand.”

  I look to the heavens for guidance, but see only the kitchen ceiling. “Mother, what is wrong with you?”

  “You know what,” she continues, “I wish you girls would treat your little sister with more respect, because if you actually opened your eyes . . . you’d see she’s a really good person.”

  But Lizzie is not opening her eyes. She is rolling them.

  “Well, what is it, like, a homeless person?”

  “No, Lizzie. It’s not a homeless person. It’s a very lovely girl of African-American descent.”

  “A black girl?”

  “Yes, dear, a black girl.”

  “Where did she meet a black girl? I thought we didn’t have any black people in Nebraska.”

  “At the Bunza Hut,” I mumble.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes,” my mother chirps. “She goes to Lincoln High, so she’s not exactly from ‘the right side of the tracks’ as they say, but she is a very sweet girl and it’s possible her mother is starving her.”

  Lizzie looks at me. Boy oh boy if looks could kill.

  “Little miss perfect strikes again.”

  Neener doesn’t say anything. She just reiterates Lizzie’s hatred by standing behind her. If my mom wasn’t right there I’d be wrestled to the ground in like two seconds and spit on immediately. But my mom is not having it.

  “Now go downstairs please and put on something appropriate for dinner.”

  “What’s wrong with this?”

  Lizzie looks at her latest uniform. Jeans and a concert tee over a long thermal underwear shirt.

  “What’s wrong with that is that we are not going to chop wood, we are going to have a nice dinner here, at a nice table, with our nice china and our best behavior.”

  “Jesus.”

  She and Neener go hurtling down the stairs, saying something under their breath to the tune of, “All this for some black girl?”

  I stay there and help my mom chop carrots.

  “Now, honey, I want you to slice them the long way, and thin, too, because those are going to be julienne carrots, the secret is the orange juice.”

  But now we are in trouble because the ogre walks in.

  “What’s all this?”

  “We are having a special guest tonight. Dinner at seven. On the dot.”

  “Why so late?”

  We’re talking about a guy who is done with his plate by 6:30 p.m. every night. Just in time for Wheel of Fortune.

  “Please, just, dinner’s at seven.”

  “Well who is it?”

  “It’s a girl from Anika’s work.”

  “From the Bunza Hut? What’s so special about that?”

  And now Henry comes in, carrying his Trapper Keeper and peeking in to see what’s on the stove. Henry never says anything but when he does, it matters.

  “She’s black.”

  Now he disappears into his back room for more studies. God, he studies his eyeballs out of his sockets. If he doesn’t get into Harvard we are all gonna be on suicide watch.

  “You’re making all this fuss for a nigger?”

  “WADE!”

  “Well, doesn’t it seem like a lot?”

  “Wade, do NOT use that word in this house. I mean it.”

  “What word?”

  “You know what word.”

  “You mean NNNNN-iiiiiiii—”

  “Wade, I mean it. You know how I feel about that. And around the kids!”

  He laughs. “Geez, where’s your sense of humor?”

  He waddles into the kitchen, swings open the cupboard, grabs a bag of Fiddle Faddle, and heads into his master hovel.

  “And don’t spoil your appetite!”

  “Yes, massa!”

  He leaves and now it’s j
ust Mom and the julienne carrots and me.

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

  “Mom, news flash, he’s an idiot.”

  My mom sighs and shakes it off.

  “Okay, now you have to put the butter, before the orange juice.”

  She takes out a skillet and puts it on the stove. In that moment, I decide a couple of things. One is . . . I’m never cooking for some guy that just grunts and says bad words. And two: The vampire is right. If I don’t get straight As I’m gonna get stuck here and if I get stuck here I am gonna kill myself.

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  twenty-five

  Pedaling fast fast fast, this is the moment. This is the moment I’m getting closer and everything is still, everything is still and everything, the trees, the leaves, the sidewalk, everything is holding its breath, waiting.

  Pedaling fast fast fast, the trees are leaning in, trying to protect me, trying to grab me, trying to keep me from seeing. The leaves and the sidewalk whooshing by, whispering to each other don’t let her see don’t let her see don’t let her see. The stop signs practically begging me, stop, go back, go home, just go home.

  Pedaling fast fast fast, this is last moment I get to be this person. This is the last moment before everything changes from pink to purple to black and nothing is ever the same, nothing is ever the same again.

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  twenty-six

  The evening does not go well.

  But it’s not what you think. The only person who is normal about anything is Tiffany. Everyone else is spazzing out. Especially my mom. But she’s spazzing out in a good way, or a nice way, at least. Put it this way, she’s kind of acting like the mom on Leave It to Beaver. June Cleaver. She’s emphasizing everything in the weirdest way possible. Example: “Wade, could you please pass the julienne carrots. Thank you so very much.” Normally this sentence goes like this, “You! Carrots!”

  Now, my mom, God bless her heart, is acting this way I don’t know why, but I think she’s overcompensating, outside of her head, because inside of her head she knows how much no one else at the table is really happy about this after-school-special of a dinner to which their dumb little sister has subjected them.

  Like my annoying older sisters, for instance, they are just huddled over to the side of the table like two bitchy bats just waiting for some moment to swoop down and bite out everyone’s entrails. My perfect brother, Robby, is the second most normal person. He’s eating his food and just waiting for everything to play out with a content but slightly amused smile. This is not surprising because it’s sort of the way he deals with everything. One day the Grim Reaper will show up at his doorstep and he’ll shrug and say, “Yeah, okay. It’s been a good run. Where to?”

  Henry is acting pretty weird, honestly. What else is new? Quiet. Check. Brooding. Check. Staring. Check. Now if Robby were acting this way we’d call an ambulance but this is Henry’s natural state, so we’re all clear.

  And what about the ogre, you ask? Well, his way of dealing with this excruciating dinner is to pile his plate as high as possible and stuff his face as fast as possible and not make any eye contact. If he looks up at all, he looks up at my mom, rolls his eyes, and quickly eats another bite of mashed potatoes.

  Poor Mom.

  “Now, Tiffany, I want to know if they are treating you girls okay at the Bunza Hut. I try to ask Anika but I can’t seem to get a straight answer out of her.”

  “Mom, what do you think they’re doing? It’s the Bunza Hut.”

  Tiffany obliges: “Oh, it’s not so bad. They let us drink the shakes.”

  “Oh, they do, do they?”

  “The leftover shakes.”

  Silence. Confusion.

  I chime in to ease everyone’s befuddlement: “You have to make the shake in this silver cup thingy, and there’s always some leftover. So, we get that.”

  Now Henry: “But then couldn’t you just make the shake bigger?”

  “Well, we do. Basically we make the shake twice as big so every time anyone orders a shake we get a free shake.” I’m so proud of myself.

  “So, you’re stealing.” That’s the ogre. Of course.

  Tiffany kind of blushes. Stealing’s not her racket. It’s mine.

  “Well, I just hope you’re not abusing that privilege.” Mom feels the need to turn this into some kind of life lesson.

  “Oh, Mom, the guy’s a total jerkface. And he’s like superrich. Have you seen their house on Sheridan?! Not to mention he told Shelli she’s fat.”

  Again, Henry: “Their house on Sheridan is worth one million two hundred and seventy-six thousand dollars.”

  Silence.

  Now Robby: “But who’s counting.”

  “Mom, the guy totally sucks. You should see how he talks to Shelli, he just abuses her. It’s horrible.”

  Now the ogre: “Does she work there?”

  Now Mom: “Wade—”

  “I said, does she work there?”

  God I hate the ogre. “Yes. She works there.”

  “So, he’s the boss. He can do whatever he wants.”

  Me: “Nice. That’s a nice philosophy. What if he wanted to chop her head off or eat her ankles or something . . . could he do that, too?”

  Wade shrugs. Everybody else looks at their plate.

  Now the doorbell rings. This is a surprise to everyone but Tiffany.

  Mom goes to the door and answers in her best Doris Day.

  “Good evening, how may I help you?”

  But the person on the other side of the door is not in the mood for Doris Day.

  “Tiffany! Get out here right now!”

  Of course, now the whole table, our whole table of sibling rivalries, little snickers, and the ogre, turns to look.

  Tiffany’s mom is not in a good mood. She, also, looks like maybe this is the first time she’s got out of bed today. Just looking at her, my heart breaks for Tiffany. As meticulous and sweet and orderly as Tiffany is . . . now I see it’s maybe a reaction to whatever her mom has going on at home.

  “Get out here right now. C’mon now!”

  Tiffany is red with shame. God, I wish I could take this from her. And all of us are instantly on Tiffany’s side. I can feel it. The whole family, who were so annoyed we had to have this stupid Leave-It-to-Beaver dinner . . . well, now we are ready to take Tiffany in as our own.

  Come live with us, Tiffany. What’s one more? Even the ogre is less ogre-fied. His spine is up. He wants to help. But like all of us, he is helpless.

  Mom tries to make it better.

  “Would you like to come in for dinner, there’s plenty of—”

  “Lady, I can take care of my own.”

  Mom nods. I can tell she’s calculating. What can she do? Can she do anything?

  “You think I can’t take care of my own?”

  “No. No. I don’t think that. I just thought maybe you might—”

  “Well, you thought wrong, lady. C’MON now, Tiffany, I ain’t sayin’ it again!”

  Tiffany ducks out of the dining room and down the stairs and to her mother. Her mother who moves her, not gently, behind her. We all stare.

  “Please, we would love to—”

  “Good night.” And with that Tiffany, in her white ankle socks and cute navy skirt, is gone. Back to that cruddy little stucco apartment complex with that just-out-of-bed-mom and the rest of us are just sitting there, struck dumb.

  There is a long silence.

  Mom comes to the table and starts collecting the plates. Lizzie and Neener look at me. Lizzie does the talking.

  “Hey, Anika. That sucks. We didn’t know.”

  “Neither did I, really.”

  Beat.

  Now Neener: �
�Poor Tiffany.”

  Now Henry: “I thought she was beautiful.”

  Silence. Okay, if you were looking for the quietest, weirdest silence in the USA . . . you found it. Right here in this dining room between the oak dining cupboard and the cedar breakfast nook.

  Now Robby just starts chuckling. “Well, okay, there you have it.”

  Now Lizzie and Neener start making funny noises, not a catcall exactly, more like “Ooooo, Henry’s in looooooove . . .”

  And now it’s too much for the ogre.

  “DON’T. Don’t even think about it, Henry!” He’s pointing his finger.

  Of course, this makes Lizzie and Neener lose it completely, they are giggling and teasing and snickering it up. Robby’s clearing his plate with a smile on his face and Henry is turning the color of a lobster.

  “You guys are idiots.” Henry clears his plate, shaking his head. “I swear, if I don’t get into Harvard I’m going to jump off a bridge.” He walks back to his room, annoyed.

  “Yeah, a loooooove bridge.” Brilliant comment, courtesy of Neener.

  The ogre rolls his eyes, gets up, and lumbers back to his room, where he will lie down on his water bed and blast Wheel of Fortune,, then The Tonight Show, then the late-night news.

  I say it. “What in the world is a love bridge?”

  Mom is just putting away the leftovers. She looks at me, over the Tupperware. She doesn’t have to say anything. She just gives me the universal look for “We tried.”

  We tried what? To have dinner with a black person? To pretend we weren’t just a household of generally crappy people? We tried to be less self-involved. We tried to look up from our dumb obsessions and notice other people. We tried to be open, for once. We tried not to be just another vaguely racist family. We tried to be enlightened. We tried to be good.

  We tried to be all of the things . . . we are not.

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  twenty-seven