The Word for Yes

by Claire Needell

  The dog run was half a block away, and the apartment was on the twenty-fifth floor, so Melanie’s view was perfectly clear. Mom sat on the little dogs’ side of the dog park, and she was sitting, quite close, to a man. It was Scott, the guy from Trina’s with the bracelet. Mom really did hang out with that guy.

  Melanie watched from the window, hoping her mother would get up and leave or talk to someone else, but she and Scott seemed to keep to themselves. Mom even threw her head back in laughter once or twice, and reached out, she thought, to touch Scott’s arm. Her mother was being a total idiot.

  “Let me have that,” Jan said. “I have got to have one of those stuffed pepper things in the next five seconds. You have no idea how disgusting the food is at school. We’re subsisting entirely on BLTs.”

  “Mom said those are for tomorrow,” Erika said.

  Back in her bed, Melanie could hear the girls’ voices from the kitchen. Jan’s voice familiar, yet strange to hear at home after so many months. She had only caught a glimpse of Eliza when the girls arrived in the afternoon. She wore suspenders and a skirt with Doc Martens and tights with big yellow flowers on them. Her hair, Melanie thought, was a darker red, and it had grown out slightly on the side, and looked more like normal hair.

  When Eliza walked into the Russells’ apartment, she’d said, “Well, well, so this is how the other half lives.” At first, Melanie didn’t know which half Eliza was talking about. But then Eliza went on. “I think my whole house could fit in this one apartment. This place is like three double-wides.” Melanie laughed because their apartment was nothing special compared to how her friends lived. There’d been times when Melanie had gone to someone’s house and had wanted to make a similar comment, but held her tongue. But what was so bad about saying what you thought? She got up from her bed. Maybe Eliza was enough of a distraction that she could cope with being around the rest of her loser family.

  She thought maybe she would tell Jan about Mom and that guy Scott. Maybe Jan was in the know. Mom sometimes confided in Jan, because Jan was the oldest. But that would probably make things worse. Jan might dismiss the whole thing as silly, or she’d get upset herself that Mom was so desperate she’d look twice at a guy like that. Still, seeing Mom down there with Scott gave Melanie a strange feeling—a tingling sensation that reached all the way down her back. Maybe she was actually sick—feverish? She couldn’t tell sometimes whether she was physically ill or just upset. She never seemed to be only a little upset anymore, in the way that allowed her to tell what the source of her distress might be. These days, her emotions simply overtook her entire body. She never felt like talking to anyone, even Jess, who was the last person to judge anyone for being a drama queen. She couldn’t talk. The only thing that brought her back to normal was doing simple things—checking her email, taking a shower, getting a snack. She forced herself out of bed and into the kitchen to see Jan. A normal person would go into the kitchen, she told herself.

  Erika, Jan, and Eliza were all still unpacking the food. There must have been ten bags of stuff, with nowhere to put half of it. There was the turkey Mom ordered—it was enormous and took up almost a whole shelf in the fridge. The three of them were pulling out all the old, regular food—yogurt, leftover pasta, cottage cheese—and piling it on the counter. Melanie grabbed a yogurt and pulled the top off. “What are you doing with all this stuff?”

  “I haven’t got the slightest idea.” Jan laughed. “I just know it can’t stay in here. Maybe we’ll have some of it for dinner.”

  “This is like a week’s worth of food in my house,” Eliza said. “I mean, this yogurt—this Greek shit? Do you know what it costs? My mom would lose it on me if I brought that home. If I were all vegetarian, like Erika here, I’d be living on cornflakes, I guess. Anyway, you can’t be a vegetarian where I come from. You know what we call the cows, back where I live? They’re called ‘beefs,’ ’cause that’s what they are. Food. Walking food.”

  Erika made a face, and Melanie laughed. Eliza was too much for Erika—too in-your-face. That kind of girl really rattled Erika’s nerves.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what Erika’s eating—that Tofurkey crap? What is in there? How do you know they’re not sneaking in like little tiny particles of turkey brain, or some other part they can’t sell to regular people?”

  Erika rolled her eyes. “They have quality controls, Melanie. It’s all processed and checked by food-manufacturing experts. It’s actually interesting scientifically—how they reproduce molecules that mimic the way certain animal proteins, certain amino acids, react with taste receptors.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Eliza asked. “You’re like Madame Russell-Curie.”

  Melanie laughed, her mouth full of yogurt. “That’s just the beginning. Now she’ll get on a roll and we’ll start hearing about why eating meat can cause kidney disease, and blah, blah.”

  Erika stopped placing the brussels sprouts in the fridge and turned around to look at Melanie. “I would never say that,” she said, a look of hurt crossing her face. “That’s not even true—I mean there’s no basis in fact for that at all.” It wasn’t Melanie’s taunting that had upset Erika. It was the randomness of the accusation.

  “You little Russell chicklets ought to chill out. It’s like one false move around here and the kitchen is going to combust.” Eliza said.

  “Yeah,” Jan said, suddenly reclaiming her older-sister position. “Let’s just get this crap put away and find something in here worth eating. Mom said we should do whatever we want—she isn’t going to be home until ten or so. She said she invited her editor friend to come tomorrow and we aren’t eating until pretty late—so none of that prep stuff she asked us to do really has to happen tonight. You guys want to go see a movie with us?”

  “Well, Jan, in my inventory-taking of your family cupboards, I have assessed that there is simply too much booze in this house for your mom to notice what might be missing,” Eliza said. “What is this, like two cases of wine? Perhaps the movie can wait until post-zinfandel?”

  “Mom belongs to some wine-of-the-month club, and they send stuff she doesn’t like, so it piles up,” Jan said.

  “Well, is she the type to keep track of the shit she doesn’t imbibe?”

  “Mom is pretty chill about that. She’ll let us have wine at dinner. Don’t know about Melanie, though. Does Mom let you have wine yet, Mel?”

  Mel shrugged. Her mother had been letting her occasionally have a glass of wine at dinner on the weekend, but she wasn’t sure about now, since the PTs concert and the Gerald nightmare, thanks to Erika’s big mouth. “Sometimes,” she answered uncertainly.

  “I think this lovely, what is it—a California zin, plenty of berry flavor, hint of cherry?—this would be a fine accompaniment to our—what are we having?”

  “It looks like pasta with mushrooms and prosciutto,” Jan said, peering into a plastic container.

  “Excellent,” replied Eliza as she scrounged through the drawer looking for a corkscrew. “And fortunately, there are two bottles of this same shit. We won’t even require fresh glassware.” Eliza was prancing around the kitchen in her flowered stockings, twirling ballerina-like with Mom’s best wineglasses.

  Melanie got out the place mats and started to set the dining room table for the four of them. She liked the idea of staying in with Jan and Eliza. Maybe Erika would get uncomfortable enough to leave them all alone. The girls found more leftovers from the week, microwaved them, and tossed them onto plates—there was broccoli, some sort of turkey chili Mom made on Monday, and pad thai they’d ordered in yesterday. Eliza came to the table carrying the wineglasses, and Jan brought out the first bottle of wine. Jan was definitely giving Melanie permission to join the party. Melanie had suspected Mom had told Jan about the Halloween disaster, but if she had, Jan was being cool about it. She wasn’t pressing her for information or acting like she was some sort of terrible person.

  The first taste of wine on her tongue had a familiar sourness. Her mot
her’s philosophy was that the girls should learn from adults what moderate drinking was like. She let them try different wines and explained about varieties of grapes and how wine could be dry or sweet. But those lessons hadn’t helped her much at the party. The punch had been so sweet she couldn’t even taste the alcohol in it, which must have been something really strong. She hadn’t gotten out of control at the Thongs concert, the way Jess had. She had been careful and had paced herself.

  “So how’s everything been around here with Dad gone?” Jan asked. They had eaten most everything on the table, with Eliza scarfing her food down so fast Melanie had to wonder if she was the type who’d be on her way to the bathroom any second to puke it up. They had polished off the first bottle of wine between the three of them—Erika wasn’t drinking, and Jan had gotten up to open another bottle. Melanie wasn’t drunk, though, just warm and relaxed.

  “I think Mom’s acting kind of weird,” Melanie said. Erika shot her a look from across the table. Erika had started emailing someone from her iPad, but she was, annoyingly, still hanging out at the table with them, watching Eliza like she was some sort of celebrity—someone notorious and glamorous. Melanie found having Eliza in the apartment an exciting diversion, too, but she wasn’t staring at the girl like she was an alien life-form.

  “What do you mean weird?” Jan asked.

  “Well . . .” Melanie hesitated. “There’s this guy.” A hush fell around the table as Melanie recounted how she and Mom had run into Scott at Trina’s and then how she’d seen Mom just a few hours earlier hanging out with the same guy at the dog run.

  Jan shook her head. “I don’t know, Melanie,” she said, but she smiled a knowing sort of smile. “Maybe she’s just having a little dalliance, a flirtation, you know, something to keep her occupied.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t say anything, since she’s your mom and all, but so what if she is, you know, having a bit of a thing?” Eliza said. “I mean, your dad took off, right? A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

  Melanie sighed. “I don’t know. I think Mom’s been out of it too long. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. You should have seen her at Trina’s. She was acting all into this loser guy. She was definitely totally flirting with him. Mom is too, I don’t know, desperate or something.” Jan and Eliza waited for her to go on, but Melanie could feel Erika bristle from across the table. She looked up from her iPad, with her stupid twisted-up-looking mouth, and her bugging-out eyes. Erika could never stand it when Melanie talked about their mother like she was an actual person. Erika was like a three-year-old in that way, unable to face that their mother was now single and maybe insecure about dating at her age.

  Erika suddenly slammed the iPad case shut, and everyone turned. “Well, at least she’s not a little . . .” And she paused, confused, unable to complete the sentence.

  “A what?” Melanie hissed, glowering, leaning over the table. “Just say it, a little what?”

  Erika shut her mouth tightly and stared back at Melanie. Her hands trembled a little on the tabletop, and Melanie could hear her tapping her bony feet against the hardwood floor. Melanie had pushed her too far. She had her cornered.

  “A little slut!” Erika spat the words out and stood stunned at her own pronouncement.

  Melanie grasped her wineglass, the thin stem fragile in her tense grip. It was everything she knew from the beginning. Erika hadn’t told on her to Ms. Jensen out of concern for her. She didn’t think she’d been a rape victim. It had all been her stupid babyish need to rat her out for anything she did. Erika was a spy. Erika was a loser tattletale baby who needed to keep everyone around her as innocent and as stupid as herself. She didn’t care about Melanie, only about herself. Erika just couldn’t stand not knowing, not understanding. She hadn’t cared about what happened, so long as she could play the good girl and point at her as the bad one. The bad seed. The spoiled brat.

  She hadn’t meant to throw the whole glass, just the wine.

  It had been one of those big round glasses that break so easily.

  21

  Erika liked the dry, antiseptic smell of hospitals. She even liked the triage process; it was sensible, scientific, if not altogether efficient. Unfortunately, Jan had been determined to take her to the new “concierge” emergency facility on Chambers Street, which had an atmosphere more like an airport lounge than a hospital emergency room. Erika had felt strangely out of place sitting in an upholstered armchair, cupping her bleeding face, while Jan filled out forms. It seemed like an eternity before the nurse ushered her out of the carpeted foyer and into the mostly empty, tiled triage room. There, she was told to sit with her head back while another nurse began to clean the wound and stop the flow of blood that had been trickling down the side of Erika’s face, since the moment the sliver of glass had lodged into the side of her nose. At some point, she heard Jan’s voice and felt her sister’s hand on her shoulder. “Mom will be here soon. She’s on her way downtown. I just spoke to her.”

  “Okay,” Erika said. “Is she upset?”

  “Of course she is!”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Just that you and Melanie had a fight. I don’t know exactly what was going on with you guys. Melanie was talking about Mom and then you were going after Mel. Was that about what happened at that party? She shouldn’t have thrown the glass, Erika, but she feels terrible now. I’m sure she didn’t mean it. I’m sure you didn’t mean it either.” Jan shook her head. “I guess I really should have talked to you guys before we came down. Seems like a lot of shit happened between you. I thought Eliza and I could talk to Melanie, but I guess we were bad influences on the drinking front.”

  When Jan spoke in her somber, reasonable voice, Erika deeply regretted calling Melanie that terrible name. She meant to be like Jan, understanding and even-tempered. Someone who understood without being told how other people felt. At the dinner table, that word had just flown into Erika’s consciousness and lodged itself there, almost before she was aware of even being angry at Melanie. But why would Melanie talk about Mom like that? Or get into the sort of trouble she had with Gerald? What was wrong with her sister? Why did they see everything so differently? “I didn’t mean it literally, I guess. But I had to say something when she started talking about Mom. She hates me anyway. She really does.”

  Jan stroked Erika’s forehead, brushing her hair back, the way their mother would under the circumstances. It felt good to be taken care of, to be understood.

  “Melanie has her way and you have yours, Erika. I think Melanie is really angry at Dad for ditching us the way he did, going off to Hong Kong right away, not letting anyone even get used to the separation. She’s kind of out of control. She and Dad didn’t exactly have the best relationship when he was home. I know you were trying to help her, but sometimes people have to get through things their own way. I know I let you down by not talking to Mel after you told me about that party. But I didn’t want to do more harm than good, you know?”

  “I know,” Erika said. “You know, Dad emails us both every couple of days. It’s not like he’s abandoned us.”

  “I know he does. He’s there for all of us, even though he’s away. And I promise not to ignore anything from now on. I’ll be there for you, too, okay? Even though I’m at school.”

  “Okay,” Erika agreed. The first nurse came back to where Jan and Erika sat, and she ushered them into a small side room. The room contained a full-sized hospital bed, and a small fern by the bedside. It looked like a room intended for an extensive procedure, and not just a few stitches. “Jan, stay with me?”

  “Of course, I’m right here.”

  The door opened and the doctor walked in, seemingly surprised to find them there. “Hey, girls,” he said, and sat down on the stool beside the cot. “I’m Dr. Anderson. Dennis Anderson.” He shook hands with Jan, and then leaned over into Erika’s field of view. “You must be Erika,” he said. He had curly brown hair, and small hazel eyes. Erika could see by
the shape of his smile that he was trying to make her relax while he began his examination. His smile was hard at the edges, rectangular, and not soft and sloping like the smile of a truly friendly person. She trusted him immediately.

  “So, your sister tells me your nose had some sort of encounter with a shard of glass.”

  “Yes.”

  “And she removed the glass from about here, and that’s when this bleeding started? In other words, your nose wasn’t bleeding first, right, all the blood is from the cut?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure the whole glass even hit me. It’s crazy, but I think it may have bounced into me. Hit a certain angle and then bounced up, I guess.”

  “Yes, it’s crazy-sounding, but not impossible,” the doctor said. “But it did result in a nice slash down the right side of your nose. Now, I am attending here right now, but I’m a plastic surgeon, so I think we’ll wait a few minutes for your mom to arrive, so we can get her approval for the plastic surgery. Really, it simply means I’ll stitch the cut on the inside of the skin to minimize any scarring. I know you must be concerned about a scar, honey, but I’ll fix it so there’ll just be the tiniest line—like a hair, down the side of your nose here.” He traced the length of the cut with his forefinger.

  “About how many stitches will you need to put in?” Erika asked.

  She could feel the doctor’s hesitation. “We’ll see when we get there. You know, the smaller the stitch the better. Could be fifteen, could be more. You have about a one-and-a-quarter-inch cut.” He paused a moment, then leaned forward, his voice dropping slightly. “You know, honey, I’m required, in cases like these, to ask you girls to give a separate account of what happened. We have Jan’s story already, but Erika, you need to give me your account of it, too. Then your mother will be given the statement. But since Jan is eighteen, she’s considered the adult witness of the incident.”