Flannery

by Lisa Moore

  Since milk moustaches.

  Since we were infants in the hospital born five hours apart and our mothers took pictures of us with big satin bows on the sides of our little bald heads, which was a thing to do with babies back then.

  Why did Amber need to learn this difficult lesson, you ask?

  For one thing, she stopped texting me. Completely. She just stopped. Another stoppage. The friendship needed a plunger. We were gucked up.

  Okay, there were a few scraggly little texts, like, Busy, sorry.

  Or, Can’t, Flan.

  Or, Not tonight.

  Then she just didn’t answer me at all! And then I ran into her dad at the supermarket and he asked me if I wanted to come over for supper.

  Did Amber invite me? I asked.

  No, Sean said, but she’s been having so many sleepovers at your house that I assume she’s eaten you guys out of house and home.

  It took me one long baffled second, that’s all. I must have had a funny look on my face because Sean said, Like, last weekend she slept at your house. And the weekend before that. And the one before that.

  Then I recovered.

  Oh, that’s okay, Sean, I said. Don’t worry about it. My mom doesn’t mind. She loves having people around.

  Really, Flannery, thank you for being there for her. Cindy and I know she’s going through a tough time right now, but she won’t open up to us. She’s been swimming her whole life. I know she thinks we’re angry with her for missing a few practices. A lot of practices, actually. But we just want her to be happy. What do you think of this guy Gary?

  Gary? I said. Gary is … Amber really likes Gary.

  Yeah, okay. That’s what I thought. Thanks, Flannery. Say hi to your mom.

  Then I had to head for the produce section just to get away from him because I could feel tears starting. There I was in the supermarket, my eyes watering the organic bok choy.

  I tried to think about what it was I felt.

  First of all, shock. Amber skipping practice? Now she has to prepare for the Nationals. That’s what she’s been working toward. I know that she partly competes to please Sean, but she also loves it. She’s part fish. She’s happiest in the water. It’s like she can breathe under there. It’s who she is. Ever since I can remember. It’s her thing.

  And then, “sleepovers”!? I felt used. I hated lying to Sean about her sleeping over. And I felt hurt.

  Simile: My chest felt like someone had lit a birthday sparkler right under my breastbone and it was firing off a gazillion splinters of cold burning pain. That was my heart.

  The truth is, I felt lost without Amber. Who was I going to tell stuff to? The weird stuff that happens every single day. The stuff I used to save up to tell Amber when we were walking home from school.

  And now when we see each other in class or in the halls, Amber pretends I don’t exist. Like I’m the one who’s done something wrong. She’s like the little boy in the Snow Queen fairy tale. A splinter of ice in her heart has made her cold inside and out.

  So I did the only sensible thing I could. I decided not to speak to Amber ever again in my whole entire life.

  Or at least for a couple of weeks.

  That’ll show her, I reasoned. Bring her to her senses.

  The morning after this decision I was brushing my teeth really hard and I was foaming at the mouth and I just stopped and said out loud to the bathroom mirror, This is for your own good, Amber Mackey.

  Felix banged on the door and yelled, Who are you talking to in there?

  I thought the cold shoulder would have her on her knees after a week, begging for forgiveness.

  But that was two weeks ago and I don’t think she’s even noticed. She’s always with Gary, or Gary and his band, or — much more often, actually — the girlfriends of Gary’s band.

  I broke my vow of silence three days into it and sent her a text saying, What’s wrong? Have I done something?

  It was like she didn’t even get the text.

  But, I thought, she’ll still need me for the music video. When it came down to it, I knew Gary would do nothing to help except sing his songs with the fake tremolo he likes to throw in on the high notes. The tremolo, the thing he does with his hips. Gary has a way onstage. He sort of rocks his hips. I find it particularly unappealing. The newly acquired black-rimmed hipster glasses? Please. Also, to tell the truth, I think his voice sounds a little nasal. You know that kind of singing high up in the nose?

  So I figured, I’ll rise above and help Amber with the big shoot and prove myself indispensable to her and the costumes and the bazillion dancers and even to Gary if that’s what she wants and then this whole Ice Queen thing will finally melt away. I knew that Melody Martin had dumped her band-boyfriend for Brittany Bishop, so she probably wouldn’t be helping with the video anymore. Amber would need me more than ever.

  But then, on Monday, I saw on Facebook that Jordan Murphy had put up pictures from a shoot that had happened on Tuesday night. It was the shoot.

  And no one, including Amber, had thought to tell me about it.

  From the pictures it looked like everybody in our school was there. There was even a picture of Elaine Power with a clipboard, pointing at something on stage with her pencil.

  There was a photo of Amber looking through the viewfinder of a camera, and then another of her giving instructions to the videographer. And in another photo she was laughing and looking like she was having a lot of fun. There was no hint on her face that someone important was missing. She hadn’t given me a single thought.

  Then, a few days ago I went to the bathroom in the middle of math class and I heard the door creak open and I caught sight of Amber’s shoes. I came out and she was leaning with her back against the sink, facing my stall. Her arms were crossed. She looked exhausted and pale.

  I went to the sink next to her and turned on the taps. I pressed on the soap dispenser three times and washed my hands under the running water.

  She was sort of jiggling one leg as if trying to hold back whatever she had to say.

  I pulled three pieces of paper towel and dried my hands very slowly and balled up the paper and tossed it in the garbage. If she wanted to apologize she didn’t have much more time. There was nothing else I could do.

  I had already opened the door when she finally spoke.

  I want a bottle of the red love potion, she blurted. I think it would make a nice present for Gary. I’ll pay you.

  So there wasn’t going to be an apology or an explanation about why she’d left me out of the video shoot, or why she was letting Gary ruin a friendship that had once been the most important thing in both our lives besides our families.

  They sold out, I said.

  That’s not true, she hissed. I know you must have some. You’re just jealous of my relationship. That’s why you don’t want to give me any.

  Nope, I say. Sorry. Sold out. You can’t get it, not for love nor money.

  And I let the bathroom door slam behind me.

  Macbeth’s witches are trundling across a long beach. This is a very old movie. It takes them quite a while to get to where they’re going. A seagull circles, squawks. There’s a whining noise that sounds like somebody getting their fingernails pulled out, but it’s only the creaking wheels on the little wooden cart that the witches are dragging behind them.

  The sun gleams on the wet sand. One of the witches stops and draws a circle on the ground with her walking stick, and then all three witches get down on their hands and knees to dig the hole.

  The youngest witch gets a package out of the cart, something wrapped in filthy rags.

  Whatever the youngest witch has, it isn’t any of the ingredients mentioned in the Double-double speech.

  What is that thing the young witch is cradling near her breast like a baby? It’s too big for an “eye of newt” or the “toe of frog” or a “lizard’s leg.” Could it be some “wool of bat”? Do bats even have wool? I thought they were more rubbery. The youngest witch
unfolds the rags to reveal …

  It’s a man’s hand! Severed somewhere around the elbow, and the witches drop it in the hole they’ve dug in the sand. A man’s hand is not even on the list of ingredients for the evil potion! Unless they’re trying to pass it off as the finger of the babe “ditch-deliver’d by a drab.”

  I mean, it’s bad enough to give birth in a ditch, which Miranda almost did with poor Felix, but if the “babe” has an arm that size, I’d hate to think about how big the rest of it was.

  Must be very disturbing for Madame Lapointe, who could pop her own baby out any second.

  The witches lay a dagger in the palm of the dead hand and they bury it. Then they pour some very dark liquid over it, maybe the baboon’s blood.

  And they’re all business, these witches, spitting over their shoulders, first over the left and then the right.

  They stand up and look at the sky. All in a day’s work. They are apparently checking the weather because they have places to go, people to see. Other severed limbs to bury. Lots of toil and trouble to cause. They make Ms. Rideout look like a slacker.

  Madame Lapointe is standing in front of the classroom slapping a ruler against her thigh. She’s noticed Amber is asleep.

  Amber Mackey? asks Madame Lapointe. I hear a chuffling, groggy snore.

  I am not going to wake her like I normally do. Amber doesn’t want us to be friends anymore.

  Forget it, Amber. My days of saving you in class are over. If you want to forget about that summer Miranda took us to Northern Bay Sands and we stayed in the ocean until our lips were blue and our teeth chattered and afterward we had a bonfire and jumped up and down on the bed until we broke the bed frame, and we had to sleep with the bed on a tilt and we kept rolling onto the floor, that’s fine with me.

  Or if you want to forget about going to circus camp together when we were seven and spotting for each other when we were learning somersaults on the trampoline, go ahead, forget all about it.

  Or when we got those glasses that are actually clear plastic drinking straws and you put one end in your lime crush and suck and the crush goes up the straw and circles one eye, and goes across the bridge of your nose and then it circles your other eye and behind your ear and into your mouth and we sat there watching each other’s glasses until we were laughing so hard lime crush came out our noses. Go ahead, forget it.

  Or when Miranda’s former boyfriend Hank made us stilts and we climbed the fence to get up on them and then learned to walk through the boulders at the edge of the ocean in Broad Cove looking like elegant flamingos, okay, go ahead, yup, forget all about that too.

  I’m not here to be walked all over anymore, Amber Mackey. You’re on your own. You can spend the rest of your life in detention for all I care. You’re not the friend I thought you were.

  And the truth is, you stopped talking to me before I stopped talking to you. I haven’t been able to sleep since you stopped talking to me and it isn’t fair to just walk away from a friendship like that without an explanation.

  I can’t even draw a full breath because my chest hurts so much and it’s because I’ve lost the best friend I ever had. You’re mean, Amber Mackey, capable of anything. How can you just forget me? You’re like that witch with the skullcap, except it’s my heart you buried in the sand.

  Fine. Okay. I get it. We’re not friends. We’re like strangers. I would probably help a stranger. I tried to tell you about Mercy Hanrahan, but you wouldn’t listen. In fact, I’m worn out trying to help you. I give up. I am not helping you out of this one.

  I am not waking you up just because Madame Lapointe is about to lose her poo, and probably fail you for falling asleep in her class. She is French, after all, and very passionate, and she doesn’t take kindly to that sort of thing. She’s flunked people for less.

  I get it already. Gary is more important.

  Fine. Let Gary wait outside the school in the snow and dark for you to finish detention. Let Gary be attacked by a bunch of girls who want him to eat a used condom. Let Gary hear all the stories about your mother being a drunk. Let’s see how Gary manages when it comes to being a real friend. Because we’re not friends anymore, right? I’m never saving you again, Amber Mackey.

  And then I jab the pink eraser of my pencil between Amber’s shoulder blades and her head bobs back up and she has a full body shiver.

  Isosceles triangle, says Amber.

  It’s English class, I whisper.

  Atticus Finch, Amber says.

  I haven’t asked the question yet, says Madame Lapointe.

  Macbeth, I whisper.

  What did the witches put in the cauldron? asks Madame Lapointe.

  Cinnamon hearts? asks Amber.

  The buzzer rings.

  Miss Mackey, Madame Lapointe says. See me after school. You have detention. She gathers her purse and storms away, the roses on her dress rippling with the breeze.

  Somebody turns off the projector and the cooling fan at the back of the machine sounds really loud in the dark. Somebody else turns on the classroom lights. That’s when I see it. Amber’s hair has fallen over one of her shoulders in the front and I see a mark on her neck that was hidden by her long hair. Some kind of lettering.

  I can’t help myself. I do it without even thinking. I reach out and pull down the neck of her sweater so I can see what it is.

  It’s a big tattoo. A big red heart with an arrow through it and the name Gary in yellow on a bluish rippling banner.

  Amber jumps up and tears the neck of her sweater out of my hand.

  Let go of me, she spits.

  Amber, what have you done? I say.

  And then it’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself.

  It looks more like a brand than a tattoo to me, like he owns you.

  Amber’s face goes very pale. At first I think she’s going to faint, but it’s a white-hot rage. Her eyes narrow but she’s biting her lower lip as if in an effort to hold back what she’s about to say. But it bursts out of her anyway.

  I am sick to death of you, Flannery, she says. I’m sick of you trying to make me feel guilty all the time. Looking at me with those big stupid puppy-dog eyes. I’m busy, okay? Do you get that? I have a life. I have a boyfriend. It’s not my fault nobody’s in love with you.

  And stop salivating over my biology book. I’m sick of that too. It’s not my fault that your mother doesn’t have any money and my parents do. You can just stop rubbing that in my face. My parents work. That’s why they have money. Why doesn’t Miranda get a job like everybody else? You’re not my problem, Flannery.

  Trying to pretend there’s something superior and chic about vintage clothes from the Sally Ann. They aren’t “vintage”; they’re just used. And they smell. Just leave me alone. Just stop, okay? I don’t have time. You’re Welfare. Stop hounding me. Do you think I don’t notice that look on your face in the corridor every single time I walk past? I’m not going to be stuck with you anymore. I have moved on. I have new friends. People change. Get over it. I didn’t want to say this. A normal person could take a hint. But here goes. Just. Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone. Do you think you get it now? Are you satisfied? Are you happy?

  Her eyes are wet with tears, making them even bluer than they normally are. She is trembling all over. I have never seen her so angry. My blood is thumping in my ears. My face feels like it’s on fire.

  Everything between us is ruined. She has ruined it. She has ruined it.

  The few stragglers who were left in the classroom gathering their books are now in a big hurry to get out. It’s clear I’m about to cry too and nobody wants to see it.

  Amber is shoving stuff into her book bag. Papers, pens. A clear green plastic ruler snaps in half against the edge of the desk and she hisses under her breath, Now look what she made me do.

  I am pretending to be getting my stuff together too. I keep flipping through my exercise books like one might be missing. Like it’s absolutely imperative that I find that particular exercise book r
ight now. Then I close the binder. My tears fall on my blue binder cover. Plop, plop, plop.

  Finally I’ve packed all my stuff together. Of course I have biology next. Mrs. Krishna tells me if I don’t have the book by the next biology class, I’ll get a week’s detention.

  I decide to cut class. I head down two flights of stairs and out the front door and down Bonaventure, half expecting some teacher to call out after me to come back this minute.

  I can just hear the automated phone call now. A child in your household named FLANNERY was absent from fifth period and she walked home all by herself, snuffling and bawling, and it was a very long, lonely, miserable walk.

  24

  At first I tell myself, it cannot be.

  What is that? I ask Felix.

  What is what? He looks up at me with his big blue evil/innocent eyes, a spoonful of Cheerios halted just below his pouty lips. Cheerios are his bedtime snack. He’s wearing flannel pajamas with a hamburger print. Hundreds of little hamburgers with sesame seed buns and lettuce. And each hamburger has eyes with little hearts exploding from the pupils. They are his favorite pajamas.

  Never mind the pajamas. There’s a smudge of chocolate just under his lip, and I can feel my stomach flip over.

  On your chin, I say.

  A beard? he asks, touching his chin.

  No, I say. Not a beard. A smudge. A chocolate smudge.

  Felix lowers his eyes, trying to see his own chin.

  And then he looks back up at me. He is unblinking, doleful, angelic. His curls are bouncing with halo light.

  I know that look.

  I tear out of the kitchen and take the stairs two at a time. I throw open my bedroom door.

  At first it looks as though everything is in its place — exactly how I left it.

  There’s a layer of clothes tumbling off the bed and more clothes spilling from the bookshelf. Clothes churn in the open drawers of the dresser and a balled-up lacy skirt froths over the sides, all of it pooling on the floor.

  I dive through the crumpled chip bags and books and belly under the bed and grab my jewelry box of treasures.

  Even from under the bed I can hear Felix downstairs by the front door, zipping into his ski jacket. The whisper-whisper of the nylon.