There's a Word for That

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There's a Word for That Page 11

by Sloane Tanen


  “It will kill him if he finds out,” she said to Jürgen.

  “He’s doing a good job of that himself,” he said, illuminating the absurdity of her family. “He’s in a drug-rehabilitation center and you are worried about embarrassing him?” Then he smiled sympathetically. “Try not to let it swallow you up.”

  Jürgen had always taken a tone of amused disapproval in regard to Janine’s family, as if they were Scientologists or part of some weird Hollywood cult. But even cults had their rules of conduct, and Janine had violated one of the unspoken laws: She’d made a spectacle of herself. She felt the burning shame of tripping on a runway while wearing a bikini and being stepped over by a cooler model.

  Jürgen sat down on the edge of the bed and kindly put his hand around her good foot. She closed her computer and smiled at him. Janine wondered about Birgit. She’d been so calm and reassuring on the phone. Had Jürgen told her what had happened? Did she know where her husband was now? Janine wanted to make sure she wasn’t causing any more trouble than her phone call might have already started.

  “She doesn’t mind,” Jürgen had said yesterday when Janine asked if it was okay that he was there. “She understands.” Janine had nodded. She didn’t ask what exactly it was Birgit understood. That her husband’s ex-girlfriend was a loser? It nagged Janine that their long history together, tepid as it might have been, hadn’t inspired even a spark of jealousy in Birgit.

  Now Jürgen instructed her to stay off the computer and promised to be back the next day with provisions for her and the cat. He told her to call him (or Birgit!) if she needed anything.

  The moment he left, she reopened her computer and clicked on another e-mail from Amanda. Along with a screenshot of what appeared to be her sister’s finalized divorce papers, there was Kevin’s rental application for an apartment in San Diego with someone named Gilbert Monk as a cosigner. A roommate? Highlighted in yellow was Amanda’s signature on the application. Amanda was her ex-husband’s guarantor? Janine felt a little thaw in her heart for her sister. Amanda really was having a hard time—there was everything going on with their dad, the divorce and the move to LA, the girls acting out. And who the hell was Gilbert Monk?

  Although Janine had promised herself that she would not call Amanda first, she picked up the phone and dialed. Amanda’s cell phone rang and rang. She called her sister’s landline and left a voice mail there.

  A few hours later, her cell rang. “Aunt Janine?” It was a young girl’s voice, packed with sorrow.

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Aunt Janine?” the girl said again. “It’s Hailey. I heard your message. Can you talk?”

  “Of course,” Janine said, undone at how young and sad Hailey sounded. She sat up straight, assuming the role of a necessary person, an adult.

  “Can you come here?” Hailey said, as if she were asking Janine to hold the door or bring her a glass of water.

  Janine was caught off guard by the directness of the question. Did Hailey really expect her to just hop on a flight to Los Angeles when she was in the midst of a scandal, with stitches in her foot and a cat to feed? “Yes,” Janine said without any hesitation. Why hadn’t she thought of going to LA? Why not ditch the local paparazzi and never, ever set foot in that cartoon class again? Jürgen would take Kitty Fisher, and she really should see her dad. He probably missed her, needed her. He hadn’t been to New York in almost a year. She was being really selfish. And Hailey! How many years had it been since she’d seen her? Eight, maybe nine? The girl obviously needed her too, Janine thought, quickly reflecting on some of Amanda’s weirder e-mails. Undoubtedly Amanda could use some support as well.

  “Yes, Hailey,” Janine said again. “Of course I can come.”

  Hailey

  Hailey didn’t tell her mom she’d spoken to Janine. She definitely didn’t tell her that Janine was coming to LA. She relished being the one to finally have a real secret, and the upside of not being in the school play was all the free time she had after school. Since her conversation with her aunt, she’d been spending hours watching old episodes of Family Happens on TV Land.

  “Why do you have any interest in that?” her mom asked when Hailey brought up the show in an attempt to broach the ever-touchy subject of her aunt.

  “I don’t know. I’d never seen it. Aunt Janine was really good.”

  “Mm.”

  “I didn’t realize she’d been nominated for an Emmy,” Hailey said, excited. “Twice. I feel like maybe I could do that.”

  “Do what? Get an Emmy nomination?” Amanda snorted. “Don’t start spinning some yarn around Janine. She’s nothing but a cautionary tale.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t start with me, now. The show’s opening in a few days. Do you have any idea how important this is for me? The San Fran production is just weeks away. How long have you heard me talk about being a part of the theater initiative? So focus on school. Focus on therapy. I get that it’s new and uncomfortable but that’s the whole point.” Then Amanda sighed, as if this mothering thing was just too exhausting. “And after that stunt with your hair, I think we can all agree that you’re too emotionally fragile to even think about acting right now. Just let it go, Hailey.”

  With considerable effort, Hailey swallowed a smart-ass comeback.

  “Do you want to end up in a nuthouse and then splashed all over the internet?” her mom went on, unable to let anything go. “Living like a hermit with no family, no career?”

  “No,” Hailey answered, skulking back to her room. She did, however, want to know what had happened to Janine all those years ago. Janine had been a comic genius. She deserved those Emmy nominations. She should have won! All that watching and thinking and Googling got Hailey thinking that if Janine had made it despite being the “uglier” sister, why couldn’t she? People thought she was funny too. Maybe she was even Emmy-funny.

  Hailey couldn’t wait to see her aunt. She’d sounded so nice on the phone, normal. Hailey didn’t really remember her well. They’d met only a few times when she was a kid. Maybe Janine would answer some of her questions when she came to town. She’d told Hailey she’d be there soon. “As soon as I’m off the crutches,” she’d said on the phone. “I promise.”

  So Hailey set about the business of being good. She stayed out of her mom’s way, got a B+ on her math test that week, even took the recycling outside. When Janine did show up, Hailey didn’t want her mother to have a single reason to prohibit her from seeing her aunt. Hailey vowed to be a better daughter, a better student, and, most of all, a better sister. She even apologized to Devon about that stupid selfie she’d sent.

  Brimming with good intentions, Hailey headed off to opening night of the show with roses for both her mom and her sister. She felt generous as she settled into the front-row seat. She waved to her mother when she peeked out from behind the curtain and smiled nervously.

  The packed audience went nuts after Jaycee did her showstopping number, the same song that had seemed so completely stupid in front of their grandpa in rehab. Exactly when had she learned to sing, dance, and twirl a baton like that? Hailey sat paralyzed. That was the thing about theater—when it all came together, it was magic. Jaycee was magical. It wasn’t that Hailey wasn’t happy for her sister, or her mom, for that matter, but the applause made her feel that she wasn’t worth being noticed, that her place, even in her own family, was in the audience. Frozen in the dark, surrounded by the cheering crowd, Hailey was blinded by how lonely she felt. And this loneliness was laced with the terrible shame that she’d become a nuisance, that she’d burdened everybody with her unhappiness. She didn’t know why she felt so bad all the time. She didn’t know why she did stupid things occasionally. She just wanted to be appreciated for who she was. When had the accomplishments of her sister and her mom become the yardstick by which she was judged? It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t like them.

  As Jaycee’s ovation swelled with a renewed round of clapping, all Hailey’s benevolence and g
oodwill evaporated. Her magnanimity was extinguished by Jaycee’s spotlit face, by the idea of their mother grinning backstage, maybe even crying with pride. Hailey ground the roses under her shoe. She stood up and stormed out of the theater before the cheering had died down. It was only the middle of the first act, but she knew her sister and her mother wouldn’t notice that she’d left. And if they did, so what? Why should she care about hurting their feelings? Had they ever given her that much consideration?

  * * *

  The cardinal rule of field hockey is not to hit the ball hard with a forehand edge stroke; it’s too difficult to control its height and direction from that angle. But Hailey had grown tired of rules. So on Monday, without the least reservation, she angled her stick and struck as hard as she could in an attempt to strategically wallop Jaycee in the face with the ball.

  She missed.

  She got a penalty.

  And while nobody else might have known the intention behind her foul, Jaycee did. All Hailey could remember next was Jaycee’s mouth, tight like a baby’s fist, and the sight of Jaycee’s hockey stick coming down hard on Hailey’s not-as-pretty face.

  At first Hailey thought she was dead. Or if she wasn’t dead, she would be soon. There was so much blood. No pain. Not yet.

  “What the hell, Loehman?” she heard Coach Lindstrom yell as a sea of screaming girls bent over Hailey’s body. It took Hailey a minute to realize Coach was yelling at Jaycee and not her. Hailey saw nothing but cleated feet and snatches of horrified faces and blue sky. Callista Cunningham fainted. Jaycee went down on a knee and then Hailey couldn’t see anything else. She was blind. Her mouth tasted like ink.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Jaycee cried while being pulled away by one of the seniors. “Is she dead?” she screamed. “Is she?”

  Hailey heard sirens and the hysterical pitch of the assistant coach’s voice as she told the girls to make room. “Step away, miss,” the paramedic ordered someone as he strapped Hailey onto the gurney and then rolled her into the back of the ambulance. “You’re in the way.”

  “I’m so sorry. She’s my sister,” Jaycee said, sobbing over Hailey. “Oh my God, look what I did. Look at her! Oh God. Hailey? Hailey?”

  Hailey reached up and felt a lumpy mess of sticky, wet cartilage where her nose used to be. She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. What had happened to her face? She was deformed. Not just ugly but deformed. When she tried to touch her cheeks she felt a strong arm pull both her hands away and strap them down.

  “What’s going on?” She moaned, her panic rising. Her words were being drowned in blood. “What happened?”

  “Stay calm,” she heard Coach Lindstrom say while someone wiped at her face with a wet towel and a gloved hand scooped something out of her mouth. “Just breathe, Hailey. Breathe.”

  She tried to protest but she couldn’t talk. Her mouth felt like a hot sponge. She pushed her tongue against her teeth and felt nothing but mush. Hailey wanted whoever was in charge to just let her die. She didn’t want to live without teeth and a nose. She tried to tell them to just let her die but she couldn’t talk and it’s not like anybody ever listened to her anyway.

  Bunny

  “Bunny? Are you there? It’s Sam. Pick up the phone. Enough with the self-flagellation routine. The press are hunting me down; you’re not returning my calls. Everyone is worried. Henry is worried. Please, Bun. Call me.”

  “Self-flagellation routine?” Bunny snorted. “To hell with you, Sam. You think I’m sorry? You think I’m feeling apologetic? That I give a crap what everyone is saying?” she asked the empty air around her, lighting a cigarette. Still, she had to resist picking up the phone. Was Henry really worried or was Sam manipulating her?

  Bunny hadn’t left the back rooms of her flat in the days since the party. She hadn’t spoken to anyone but Bettina. She hadn’t read a newspaper, turned on the computer, or answered the phone.

  Ian was the only person that Bunny was feeling a bit sorry about upsetting. He must be furious with her. Well, he should have known better than to tell Sam anything. He should have known better than to count on Henry. He should have known better than to throw her a surprise party and invite Gene fucking Sparrow. He’d get over it. He could patch up his ego with the percentage on her next book, which, she’d just decided, was going to be her last. She was done with Henry Holter. Her hero would go back and shag Violet Winwick, and she’d give him that new H041 strain of gonorrhea and both of them would die from septic shock within days, Bunny thought with a wicked laugh. Henry Holter Gets the Clap. “Oh yes,” Bunny said. She emptied the last of the gin into her coffee mug, drew on her cigarette, and reached for a legal pad and pencil.

  “Pardon?” Bunny heard someone say.

  “Dear God.” Bunny gasped and dropped her cigarette. She rolled out of the down comforter she’d been coiled up in to fetch it off the floor. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she told Bettina.

  She appreciated Bettina’s mute meanderings, but her sudden appearances could be a little startling. Bunny threw the bedcovers aside and stumbled to the closet. She pulled out a bag and an envelope and held them out to Bettina. Inside the bag were three empty bottles to be thrown away at least four blocks from the flat. The envelope contained two thousand pounds for a few days’ worth of groceries and gin. She instructed Bettina not to speak to anyone outside the flat and to purchase the gin from different shops, one bottle at a time.

  Bettina nodded, taking the empties from Bunny without a hint of reproof. “What about the press, ma’am?” she asked, referring to the lingering paparazzi who’d been camping outside the flat hoping to catch a shot of…what exactly? Bunny flinging herself from the window?

  “Ignore them. Pretend you don’t speak English. And remember, one bottle at a time. Inconvenient, I know, but I don’t need anything fanning those flames,” Bunny said, more to herself than Bettina.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Bettina turned to leave.

  “Can you get me some fags too?” Bunny called after her. “Please. Make it a carton.” She watched Bettina’s uptight little figure walk away.

  Bunny made her way into the kitchen and grabbed a bag of crisps and an apple. As she headed back to her office, she took a bite of the apple and noticed a pile of gifts on the round table in the foyer. The party décor, mercifully, had been cleared out at some point. She considered the packages. So there had been a reason to leave her back rooms after all! With a mixture of shame and delight, she set about opening the presents. She rifled through them like a spoiled child on Christmas morning.

  There was a lovely little Milton Avery painting from Elaine, a first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird from Ian, a bottle of Nolet’s from Gene (perhaps he wasn’t so bad), and a few books on gardening and some picture frames from those who clearly had no business being at her party in the first place. The last gift was a sloppily wrapped but carefully taped-up box very clearly from Sam. He never had the patience for wrapping things. Bunny had to go to the kitchen to get some scissors. She was so furious by the time she’d finally made it through the bubble wrap and Scotch tape that she almost dropped the gift: the beautiful cloisonné vase she’d admired in Sam’s shop. Inside it was a tiny sealed envelope. Bunny opened it.

  To My Dearest Bun,

  Like all precious things, you’ve only grown finer with time.

  With all my love,

  Sam

  Bunny burst into tears. “Oh, Sam, you fucking fucker,” she cried aloud.

  But where was Henry’s present? she suddenly wondered, rummaging through the detritus of ribbons and cards, paper and bubble wrap. “Nothing for you this year, Mummy,” Bunny said, then she opened the gin and pulled on it like it was a baby bottle. She made a little pillow out of the bubble wrap and lay down on the soft rug next to the foyer table. Gin in hand, Bunny began to relax in her home for what might have been the very first time. She took in the view of the living room from the unusual vantage point of the floor. The midmorning light made th
e starkness of the place nearly soothing. She wriggled her toes deep into the fibers of the rug and looked at the portrait Alex Katz had painted of her years earlier. It was ridiculous to have a portrait of oneself, she thought, nonetheless admiring how that flat-as-a-pancake face staring back at her was so clearly her own. “You make it look easy, Alex,” she said, holding the bottle up for a toast to the absent painter. “I suppose all we artists do.”

  She was alone with nothing but a bottle of gin and seventy years of feeling sorry for herself to catch up on. She was on her way. She felt deliriously grateful.

  A loud scream was followed by the sound of shopping bags and glass crashing to the floor. Bunny flinched but found she couldn’t move. Somebody started shaking her. “Wake up, Mrs. Bunny! Please. Wake up!”

  Bunny could feel her eyes roll back in her head.

  “Oh God, Mrs. Bunny. Get up!”

  Bunny was so tired. Why couldn’t everyone just let her be? A cold hand slapped her face. It was a pathetic slap, really. It didn’t merit a reaction. “Oh God, she’s dead!” Bettina cried, and Bunny heard her small heels clapping frantically on the polished concrete floor toward the kitchen.

  Bunny wasn’t dead but she wouldn’t have minded if she had been. She imagined herself in a cozy satin casket being lowered into the ground. The image was oddly comforting. She replayed it several times in her head. Bettina started crying again. What was she carrying on about? Bunny could just make out the sound of a phone ringing on speaker as drawers in the kitchen were yanked open and slammed closed.

  “Ian Merrick’s office,” an officious voice said.

 

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