All That's True

by Jackie Lee Miles

  Right now, I’m helping them move in and Amy is resting on the sofa. They don’t have a lot of furniture yet, but Jeffrey says they’ll worry about that later. The important thing is to get Amy settled and resting properly.

  I’m putting their dishes away. They do have a nice set of dishes—stoneware, with yellow and brown flowers in the center. They were a wedding present from my parents. They got married at the courthouse by a justice of the peace. Amy’s mother cried the whole time, which really irritated my father. I mean it’s bad enough Alex is dead and Amy’s having his baby, without her mother boo-hooing because there’s no big church wedding. Well, that’s what my father said, and I have to agree.

  “Thank God they’re getting married and the poor child is getting a proper name,” my mother says.

  Appearances are everything to my mother. That and the right street address. She’s not overly wild for North Druid Hills Road where their new home is located, but it’s respectable enough and in a section of Decatur where the land grows more valuable each year.

  “A good investment,” my father points out. “And affordable for them,” he adds. “I rather like the fact Jeffrey insists on making his own way. He’s got character.”

  He says it like it’s a reflection on Alex. And maybe it is; he was Alex’s best friend.

  “Can I get you anything else?” I ask Amy and hand her an iced tea and some magazines I found lying in a box full of books. Cosmopolitan, an old issue of Reader’s Digest and People magazine. She picks up the Reader’s Digest and I notice it has an article on the front entitled “The Truth About Miscarriage.” God! I reach to take it back, but she’s already turning pages. She stops at the joke page, but then continues on.

  “Maybe we could watch TV,” I chirp gaily.

  “Cable’s not connected,” Jeffrey points out.

  I’m hoping she’s not going to have a meltdown and then my parents and Jeffrey find out I gave her those magazines. Jeffrey says, “Keep her company, Andi. We’ll unpack.”

  Oh, I’m good company, alright. I sit down next to Amy, keeping an eye on what page she’s up to. She stops on page 167. It’s where the article on miscarriage starts.

  Oh brother. This world and I are not getting along.

  ***

  I’m home lying on my bed waiting for dinner and thanking God that Amy read the article and then just put the magazine down and picked up the People and never said a word, when the phone rings and it’s Bridget. She’s all excited because Madeline won class president. Like I could care. It’s a big deal, Bridget insists. It means Madeline is the most popular girl at their school.

  “And she’s like my best friend,” Bridget says.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Well, next to you, Andi, you know what I mean—here at Westwood, she’s my best friend.” She’s a bad influence is what she is.

  There’s a tap on my door. It’s my mother. She asks if she can come in and waits for me to answer. My mother always gets it right.

  “Sure,” I call out.

  “Honey, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about,” she says. “Is this a good time?”

  There’s never going to be a good time. My blood pressure is higher than the ceiling.

  “Sure,” I lie, and tell Bridget good-bye.

  My heart starts to pound. What is it my mother wants to talk to me about? I’m thinking Madeline called. No, Donna called. No, my father’s told her—

  My mother wobbles over to my bed and sits down next to me. I can smell the wine on her breath. She sighs deeply, like what she is about to say is more difficult to discuss than when she brought in the book on sex.

  I sigh deeply, too, but try and force a small smile onto my face. It feels like it’s stuck on with scotch tape.

  “Andi, sweetheart, I’m going away for a little while,” my mother says.

  I knew it. My father told her. He just up and told her and tore our entire world apart and here we’re having a wedding in a few months. That’s just like him.

  I hate him. I do.

  I put my arms around my mother and hug her tight.

  “I’m sooooo sorry, Mommy,” I say. That’s what I used to call her when I was little and right now I feel smaller than I’ve ever been.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  My mother is going to Peachford. She’ll be gone for thirty days. Peachford is for those addicted to drugs or alcohol. This means my mother is an alcoholic, which I find hard to believe. I mean, she doesn’t even drink before breakfast. How can she be an alcoholic? She has a home and nice clothes, and friends, and still helps Rosa around the house. Alcoholics lie down in the street or stumble home and pass out in the doorway, don’t they?

  She’s leaving in the morning and I’ve decided to bury myself in my school work. Maybe I can become an absolute scholar and surprise my mother when she returns. She’ll be so happy with my progress she won’t ever drink again. The only problem with this plan is my teachers. There is not one of them I like. Well, maybe Mr. Majors, the choir teacher. He’s alright, but he has some strange habits, like he clears his throat constantly as if something lives in the back of it and he prefers that it didn’t. But the rest are crazy. So burying myself in my studies and becoming a scholar to grab my mother’s attention is not going to be easy.

  ***

  Peachford is different than I pictured and so are the people stuck here. They have a nice lounge area where family and friends can come and visit and there are lots of plants and large windows—which have mesh inside the layers of glass; I guess so nobody can break out—to look out onto the grounds which are well-kept and full of flower beds. My mother has made friends with another woman with a drinking problem, Dixie. It’s hard to imagine my mother making friends with a woman with a nickname that sounds like she lives in a trailer. I find out that she does.

  “Come over some time,” she says to my mother. “I got a cool double-wide.”

  My mother says, “Double-wide what?”

  Dixie grabs her sides and laughs so hard she starts coughing. Dixie is thin and nervous and chain-smokes Lucky Strikes. It’s hard for me to picture my mother and her being friends. I think about my mother’s soft voice greeting her in the morning, “Lovely day, isn’t it, Dixie?” and Dixie’s frog voice calling back, “I ain’t noticed. Hand me one a’ them coffee cups.” It’s too much for my brain to handle on short notice. I smile and put my hand out to shake hers when my mother introduces us, like I’ve been taught to. Dixie gives mine one good awkward shake and then lets go real quick.

  “Nice kid,” she says and lights up another Lucky Strike.

  Vivian’s here, you know, my mother’s best friend who’s married to Howard.

  “Andi, sweet girl,” she says. “Come right over here and give me a big hug. You’re as tall as me.”

  It’s true. Now I am. But then she’s only like five-foot-three, so that’s not saying much. I give her a hug and then turn to my mother to give her one.

  “How are you?” I ask, not sure what else to say. “Is it okay?”

  “It’s fine, honey. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

  Great! Right where she’s supposed to be—smack in the middle of the nut ward with all the other nuts.

  “Okay?” she says.

  I stare at her. Oh just peachy.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I don’t think Beth said anything to my mother about that perfume bottle. If she did, my mother is keeping it to herself—at least for the time being. I feel like I’m getting off scot-free, which means I really can’t count on it for sure. It all goes back to Dred Scott, the slave that never got free.

  I buried the necklace out in the backyard in a part of the garden Mr. Porter mostly leaves to nature and I buried what Anthony did to me as deep inside of me as possible. I saw him for the first time since the incident this past Saturday and told myself that I should stop liking him, pronto. But telling myself to and actually stopping is not the same thing. When I
look at him my heart still does this little dance like it knows how to polka. Maybe I’ll just keep liking him but never go to the balcony with him again. That should be okay. I’m still trying to figure out what got into him. Maybe he feels we are destined to be married someday, too, and just got impatient. Either that or he’s a sex fiend and I don’t like to think of him being one of those types, seeing as I can’t help myself that I still like him. So like I said, I’m off scot-free.

  Alex’s fraternity brothers are for the most part, too. There’s not going to be a trial. The guys involved pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated hazing, which my father explained is a fourth-degree offense, whatever that means. And all they got was probation and a million hours of community service. It didn’t upset my father.

  “It’s not going to bring back Alex,” he said.

  “Well, maybe it would make other people think before doing something stupid like that,” I told him and he just nodded and then changed the subject.

  “Would you like me to take you to visit with your mother?”

  Not really. “Sure,” I say.

  She’s on her twenty-fourth day and goes to these AA meetings every day faithfully. They have to while they’re residents at Peachford or they lose their privileges. I’m not sure which ones they’re referring to, maybe they don’t get dinner and they have really good food there. I got to join her for lunch on Sunday and it’s cafeteria style, but real fancy with a chef and all sorts of meat to choose from, roast beef slices and ham, all sorts of fresh vegetables and a salad bar better than many restaurants, and desserts to die for. Maybe that’s why this place is so expensive, the food is heaven.

  “Can we go for lunch?” I ask.

  “Not this week,” my father says. “I’ve got a deposition to work on, but I’ll take you this afternoon.”

  Afternoons aren’t as fun. Everyone just sits around and drinks coffee or soda. And there’s candy and crackers in a vending machine, which is better than nothing at all, but not by much.

  I nod my head and go off to read for a while. Sundays are very boring days. After mass there’s never really anything to do, unless Bridget is home for the weekend and this is her week to go to Madeline’s. Madeline used to invite me sometimes but not since I told her not to steal for me anymore. I paid the price.

  Instead of reading I decide to write a letter to Donna, not to mail to her, but just to get it on paper. Maybe I’ll feel better. My dad is seeing her almost every day now that my mother is out of the house. Rodger, Bridget’s father, is still in Europe but he’s coming home next weekend and he’s taking Bridget and Madeline and me to the mall and then to dinner and a movie. It’s all planned. He and Donna are going to shop by themselves and then we’ll meet up with them at Longhorn’s Steak House. I’ve already decided what to wear. One of the outfits Madeline put together for me. No sense in going back to dressing like a dunce just because I’m mad at her. I went to confession and told Father Murphy that I have hate in my heart for a friend and he said if I can’t forgive to ask God to do it for me, and gave me ten Hail Marys and two Our Fathers, and then absolution. I did ask God to forgive Madeline for me, but if he did it hasn’t done any good. Maybe it takes a while ’til I feel that I’m not mad at her anymore. So far I still am. Maybe God’s not listening to me, which is probably the case, because I did not confess what Anthony Morelli did up in the balcony. Father Murphy knows my voice so I couldn’t. I wanted to go to confession at another church so I could confess it to a strange priest that’s never heard me before but I couldn’t figure a way to ask my father without him suspecting I’d committed a mortal sin and get very nosey and start asking questions. So I just decided to leave it out of my confession entirely. Besides, I really didn’t do anything wrong. Plus I didn’t even like it, except for the first part of the kiss before Anthony pushed his tongue into mine. The first part was very nice. My stomach dropped a mile. And then out of the blue it took off like a roller coaster.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  My mother is coming home next weekend and my father has planned a big surprise. We are all going on a cruise to the western Caribbean. We’re not leaving next weekend, of course. We leave the week after school’s out and I get to take Bridget! This will be my first cruise and Beth says she will help me shop for just the right clothes to wear. She has very good taste in clothes. She’s like Madeline that way. My father said Beth could come, too, but the wedding is two weeks before we leave so she’ll still be on her honeymoon.

  I don’t want her to go anyway. She’d just be trying to play tour director every day and Bridget and I just want to roam around the ship by ourselves. My father has sworn me to secrecy. I’m not to say a word ’til my mother is home and he presents her with the news. Howard and Vivian are coming, too. I can’t wait. It’s just so exciting—first the baby’s due and I’ll be an aunt, then the wedding, and then the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Costa Maya, Cozumel. My life couldn’t be better and to think I thought it was going all wrong. And I’m hoping that my father will fall madly in love with my mother again and when we get home he will have forgotten all about Donna. Stranger things have happened. So it could happen.

  Bridget says, “Don’t count on it.” But I am counting on it. One should always be hopeful. It fills the air with positive ions, or something like that, positive energy fields. Ms. Schaeffer, my science teacher, insists it’s true.

  Madeline and Bridget and I are getting ready to leave for the mall. This is the weekend her father takes us and then we all meet up for dinner at the steak place. This is going to be an outstanding, memorable day. You know how you can just feel it almost to your bones? That’s what I’m feeling—all tingly inside. Plus my hair turned out. It’s long and blonde and the edges are cut just right, kind of like a gypsy shag. Beth took me. She’s turning into a real person. She wants me to look good for the wedding, so she had them experiment with me with putting it in an up-do before we left. But now I’ve combed it out and it looks great. I’m wearing my favorite jeans and a white shirt and a tapestry vest and these western-style boots I’ve had since Christmas. Madeline said, “Too cool,” when she saw them. I’m not sure why her opinion still counts, but it does.

  I can’t remember who it was that said never count on anything being what you think it will be, or you’ll be disappointed. Maybe Nana Louise when she was still in her right mind. But whoever said it was right on target. Today did not turn out anything like I counted on. If I had counted on it being my worst nightmare then I would have counted on it correctly.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  One day in math class, a girl—Virginia Stuart—started her period right out of the blue. Virginia was wearing pink, pale pink, a skirt and a matching sweater and I swear her face just turned green and she raised her hand and said in the softest voice I’ve ever heard, “Ms. Hadley.” And Ms. Hadley must have had some experience with girls wearing light pink and speaking in a soft voice with a look on their face that they’d rather be in China, because she walked right over to her and took off her sweater—I might have forgotten to mention those sweaters she wears around her shoulder. They almost reach down to the floor. So, Ms. Hadley walks over to Virginia, wraps the sweater around Virginia’s shoulders while she escorts her to the door and whispers something in her ear, and Virginia leaves, and Ms. Hadley goes on with the lesson and asks Billie Martin if he knows how to solve the latest algebra problem, which I’ve forgotten even what it is.

  The point is Ms. Hadley is now my favorite teacher. I mean if I’d started my period at school, which I didn’t—I started last summer when I was twelve—I would want it to be in her class.

  ***

  I’m not sure why I thought of Ms. Hadley just then, when what I want to do is think through what happened at the mall to see if it could have turned out any differently. Maybe if I’d been more alert. I don’t know. Everything is just a mess and to add to it I have failed to be the type of person I have always counted on being. To start with, I ha
te Madeline. She is the entire reason there is a mess in the first place. I go over and over what happened in my mind: We are shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue, which is Madeline’s favorite store—naturally—but about the only thing I can buy is maybe a handkerchief; my father gave me fifty dollars and everything in here starts at a hundred. So we are just walking along and this security guard comes up to Bridget and says, “Come with me, miss.” And he takes her by the arm and Madeline just stands there looking all innocent with a look on her face like, “What? What?” And I have daggers in my eyes aimed right at her.

  I run after Bridget and another security guard says, “You two girls follow me.” And my heart is pounding like it’s leaving my chest. And I’m thinking what if Madeline put something in my purse! I should have been watching her like a mother watches an infant learning to walk.

  I just know I’m going to be sick. There is a bad taste marching up my throat. I swallow hard to force whatever it is back down. My knees are limp as a dishrag, my head is swollen up three sizes too big for my body and my ears are ringing out of my head—which is thinking, you could go to reform school. This is Saks! This is the part in the movies where the music gets very deep and loud. Only it’s not make believe, it’s real life and I am being led away by store security personnel who have already taken Bridget away, probably to beat it out of her that she’s a thief, which isn’t true. It’s Madeline who’s the thief and she’s looking like she can’t possibly understand what all the excitement is about. In fact, the look on her face is one of boredom. I think this explains a lot about her. Not even a security guard dressed up like a regular cop with an official looking badge and a gun gets her excited. She has major problems.