Miss Taken

by Sue Seabury

  I found I could not speak.

  “What’s happened? Something bad, I can see. Tell me.”

  My jaw opened but the only thing that came out of me was a torrent of water from my eyes.

  “Oh, you poor thing. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  She guided me to the nearest girls’ room and thoughtfully checked to make sure all the stalls were empty. As soon as I got the all-clear, I let out a howl which I’m sure the wolves on the Siberian Tundra replied to.

  It did not summon anyone locally, however, thank goodness.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” Diana said again. “Can you tell me about it?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s Ned, isn’t it?”

  Torrent #2 told her the answer to that one.

  “He stormed by me in the hall.”

  I didn’t want to hear further details. I held up my hand.

  “Oh, Jane.” Diana sounded so sympathetic, the wailing got worse. She cleared her throat and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Jane. Listen. You must listen to me: You are a strong and powerful woman. Use your power. You can get through this.”

  This from the girl who was screeching “Turn Around” because my brother didn’t stick around for a non-existant date? It helped dry up the tears though.

  “The best way to deal with it is to go on as if nothing has happened. It’s hard at first, but time heals all wounds.”

  Diana had perhaps been watching too many daytime talk shows. And while I’m sure her advice was sound, it was also totally cheesy. The whole problem with ‘taking the long view’ and all that crap, is that nothing matters in the long run. We’re all just worm food in the end, so the only thing that does matter is living right now.

  And right now, I felt like my heart had about a dozen dissecting scalpels stuck in it.

  The bell rang for the next class. Diana was incredibly nice by not even mentioning that she was now late because of weak, pathetic me who was unable to see myself at age 85, laughing this off as silly, overly emotional youth.

  She asked, “What do you have now?”

  I honestly didn’t even know. “What period is it?”

  “Eighth.”

  “It’s just wood shop. I don’t care about going.” Not to mention that I did not want to end up in jail. If I had to even look at Kyle right now, it would take more will power than I had not to take the jigsaw to him and cut him into 17,000 island-shaped pieces.

  “Okay, but I need to go to class. Can we meet after school? Do you want to come home with me today?”

  I was genuinely touched by her caring. “Do you have any good records we can sing along with?”

  “You betcha,” she said with a wink that was meant to be encouraging. Instead it felt like she was humoring sadsack little me. The waterworks threatened to start up all over again.

  I felt bad for making her late though. And I didn’t think any more Phil Monahue pep talks would help, especially coming from someone who was unaware that yellow should be worn only as an accent color as it can be quite depressing in large amounts and is definitely not slimming.

  I told her to go, I would be fine.

  I spent the whole of that period trying to wallow in self-pity, but I actually got pretty bored with it after twenty minutes or so. There was still another twenty to kill. I spent it racing into a stall each time I thought I heard a footstep outside the bathroom door. By the time the next bell rang, I was more than ready to attend my social studies class.

  After school, I took a cursory look around for Diana, but when I didn’t see her, I went to wait for my bus. I had pulled myself together sufficiently and didn’t need the embarrassment of either a) going over the horrible event all over again or worse b) turning back into a water-filled bag of pathos.

  Just as my bus pulled up, Diana came over. “Hey,” she said, “Did you forget?”

  “Oh, I’m okay,” I replied. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m feeling a lot better.”

  She looked hurt. I said, “No, really. The pep talk really helped.” I nodded in reinforcement.

  She continued to glare at me. “I’m not embarrassed about where I live you know.”

  I didn’t know where this was coming from, but I was about to miss my bus. “Diana, I didn’t mean -”

  “A person’s shelter is not necessarily indicative of anything. Great people have come from very humble beginnings. Look at Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley.”

  “Um, who?”

  “You know, Molly Pitcher?” She jutted her jaw out in case I was thinking about contradicting her.

  This was not clearing things up for me much, but we both needed to get on some bus or other soon. To keep the peace and to avoid having to walk home, I capitulated. “I’ll come over. I just didn’t want to impose, that’s all.”

  Diana stopped glaring and smiled a little. “Okay,” she said. “Great. C’mon.”

  Diana takes the 123, which is also Hannah’s bus. I was glad we were all getting along.

  That is, I thought we were all getting along until I got a glimpse of Hannah’s face when she saw me waiting with Diana.

  “Hey,” I called to her because we are officially acknowledging each other in public.

  “Hey,” she replied, totally flat with a quick darting of the eyes in Diana’s direction.

  “Hello, Hannah,” Diana said formally through pursed lips. “Jane is coming over to my place this afternoon,” she added in a somewhat gloating manner and, I thought, unnecessarily. I wasn’t in the habit of taking any old bus after school just to see where it went.

  Diana flamboyantly allowed Hannah get on first and selected a seat across from her. It took me a beat to realize that Diana did this intentionally so Hannah could hear what she was saying. Diana proceeded to gush about all the great things we had on the schedule for that afternoon, including such exciting items as an extended examination of her seedpod collection. She also promised a decent quantity of records we could listen to, thank goodness.

  I was sitting by the window, facing in toward Hannah so I could see her eyes roll at the mention of seedpods. She flipped her hair to block her face before I could see what she thought of the record collection.

  I was a little surprised to see Hannah and Diana get off at the same stop. Neither had ever mentioned this little factoid to me before. But when it turned out they lived in the same building as well, I couldn’t stop myself from throwing a quick glance at Hannah. I didn’t know what she was embarrassed about. It wasn’t like there were derelicts passed out in the lobby or anything. As far as apartment buildings go, it was pretty nice.

  It should have been natural to walk in together, but instead it was very, very awkward. Diana was purposely excluding Hannah from the conversation, all the while making sure we stayed at a close enough distance so she could hear every word. I didn’t know why; Hannah was hardly one to be made jealous by listening to a description of Molly Pitcher’s tireless work, which seemed to consist primarily of hauling around buckets of water and washing soldiers’ dirty laundry.

  Hannah hurried ahead in an effort to get the elevator to herself. Luck was not on her side. We caught up just as the bell dinged and trouped in together. Hannah did her best to pass the time by checking for split ends on her perfect hair. I can assure you, she didn’t have any.

  The endless stream of inanity continued to flow out of Diana’s mouth. I stopped listening. I even ceased making the polite “Uh-huh” kind of noises I had initially been giving her.

  Diana’s floor came first. The discomfort was finally at an end. Or should have been, until I interrupted Diana to call out extra-chipper, “See you tomorrow, Hannah!” which sounded like I was trying to rub it in that she was not invited to Diana’s house.

  These social situations can be so complicated sometimes.

  Scientific fact: Excessive stress can cause a wide variety of symptoms, from headache to nausea, sweaty palms to difficulty breathing.

  Stress can also make it very hard for
a person to get off the couch. I have firsthand knowledge of this.

  The ceaseless chatter stopped as soon as the elevator door closed on Hannah. Or perhaps it was the stink of stale smoke in the hall that knocked the phony cheer out of Diana. Either way, she shut up. I was grateful for the reprieve, but not the smell which intensified as we neared her door.

  “I don’t know if my mom is home.” Diana smiled at me apologetically.

  I felt a flash of annoyance. If Diana had dragged me on this boondoggle only to inform me that we were locked out, I was not going to be happy.

  Putting her hand on the door, Diana leaned in for a moment as if she was listening for something. She then produced a key - thank goodness - and opened the door slowly. A thick wave of stale smoke hit us. I had to hold my breath to not choke on it. With a hard edge in her voice, Diana called out, “Mother? Are you here?”

  It didn’t seem likely, the apartment was so gloomy. But then a croaky voice answered, “Yeah, hon. I’m home.”

  Diana winced. “I have a friend with me. Her name is Jane.” She made no move to go through the door.

  I was starting to wonder why Diana had pushed so hard for me to come home with her.

  Her mom called out, “Well, bring ‘er in already. Let’s have a look at her.”

  As soon as I got through the door, I wished we had been locked out because the place positively reeked of smoke and other unsavory things, like spoiled milk and body odor. In the few seconds before Diana switched on a lamp, I formed a picture of her mother: an old, worn-out shell of a person who had worked herself to the bone to provide for her daughter. There was, I knew already, no father in the story.

  The only part I got right was that she looked exhausted. Clad in a wrinkled kimono in a most unflattering shade of olive green, her mother lay on the couch, cigarette in hand, two inches of ash poised a little to the left of an overflowing ashtray. She reached over and took a swig from a cheap-looking bottle of beer, shedding ashes in the process.

  In some ways, her mother looked very young. Her hair, although messy, was thick and full. In other ways, such as the wrinkles around her eyes, she seemed ancient, even older than my own mother who is forty.

  “Come on in,” she said, taking the trouble to sit up halfway. “Clear a space for your friend, why don’t you hon.” Diana’s mother shifted in a half-hearted attempt to make some room. The couch groaned in protest.

  Diana’s face was wooden as she emptied a chair of clothing, magazines and various other detritus to make a place for me to sit down. It didn’t look much sturdier than the couch.

  She had had some nerve acting all prissy in my room for having the same stuff lying about.

  Diana cleared a spot for herself next to her mother on the couch.

  “So, Jane and I are in several classes together,” Diana prompted as her mother seemed like she might have forgotten what I was doing in their home, or that I was there at all.

  “Oh?” said her mom with a little bit of a blank stare.

  “Yes,” Diana pushed on. “She’s quite good at math. She’s even tutoring Hannah.”

  Was it me or did Diana mention that maliciously? And I wasn’t giving Hannah remedial help, but rather helping her get ahead so she could take the next level during summer school, although why she would voluntarily attend school during peak tanning season was a mystery to me.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” replied her mother distractedly taking a long drag off her cigarette at the same time.

  There was another awkward pause. Diana filled it by saying, “So, I think we’re going to listen to some records now. Since you’re not feeling well, do you need anything?”

  Her mother wasn’t sneezing or anything. And to my knowledge, cigarettes and beer are not on a par with chicken soup for clearing up illness. I figured Diana was covering for her mother lying around in the middle of the day in a dark room.

  Her mom said, “My head is killing me, so don’t play anything too loud. Turn out the light too. I think I’ll just get forty winks.” She took another swig of her beer.

  “We won’t. Let me take that cigarette for you. You don’t want to fall asleep with that in your hand.” Diana said politely through gritted teeth.

  “Thanks, hon,” replied her mother, nearly dropping the cigarette as she surrendered it. Diana carried it and the ashtray at arm’s length to the kitchen. I followed her since her mother had already stretched out. The kitchen was just as messy, with dirty dishes, pots crusted with food, open bags of chips, etc. An odd little noise, different from the one that came out of her on my porch bench, came from deep in Diana’s throat as she set the ashtray down with a bang.

  Walking back through the living room, we both noticed her mom had lit another cigarette. Diana’s face turned to stone as she marched back over to the couch. She ground out that cigarette with a vengeance in a new ashtray she dug out of a drawer in the side table.

  “Come on,” she ordered me through tight lips.

  Down a short, dimly lit hallway was Diana’s room. She had to kick some rags out of the way before she could open the door. She said by way of explanation, “It helps keep the smoke to a minimum.”

  Diana shut the door firmly behind us and carefully arranged a towel in front of the door on the inside. “I apologize for the state of the apartment,” she said formally. “I cleaned it before leaving this morning.”

  Diana’s room was amazing. Not only was there no hint of smoke (it had a pleasant, citrus-y scent), but it was immaculate. I got the feeling that if I were to check her sock drawer, they would not only be neatly folded but arranged by color as well. The cover on her bed was pulled so tight, I was sure I could have bounced a quarter on it. I sat down carefully on the edge.

  “My mother hasn’t been well lately,” she went on, still sounding stiff and formal. “She...” Diana paused and pressed her lips together. “I’m not sure what’s wrong.”

  Even though her mother - who may well have been a teenager when she had had Diana - was crying out for explanation, Robin Jane’s code of honor did not permit me to pry.

  “I expected her to be at work,” Diana added.

  I nodded, a model of discretion.

  She sat down next to me. The silence was allowing certain unwanted thoughts to creep back into my consciousness. I still wasn’t out of the danger zone of the tear factory starting up again. I asked, “Do you feel like putting on some music?”

  Diana jumped up. “Sure. What are you in the mood for?” She walked across the room to her record player. There wasn’t a speck on the thing even though they collect dust every five seconds. She looked at me expectantly.

  “I-I don’t know. You pick.” Then I wished I hadn’t let her choose. She put on “I Want You to Want Me.” I started blubbering like an idiot.

  “Oh, oh, I’m sorry!” Diana cried. “How about this one?”

  But “Always on My Mind” was not any better. Neither was “Do You Believe in Love?,” “Open Arms” or “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” By the time she finally came up with “Harden my Heart,” I had melted into such a mass of bubbling goo that I couldn’t even accept the round hairbrush she proffered.

  “Go on. Take it,” she insisted.

  I was so weak with misery, my arm almost broke under the strain of holding up a four-ounce hairbrush that looked like it had never been used. I let it and my arm flop uselessly on the bed. You really can bounce stuff off her blanket.

  “Aw, you poor thing. Let me get us something to eat. That should cheer you up.”

  Diana left the record on auto-repeat. By the time she came back, I had at least been able to swallow a sufficient quantity of my tears to hum along, if not harden my heart enough sing full throttle into the hairbrush. I did manage to play a little bit of saxophone with it however.

  Things weren’t so bad; at least I had walls around me to do my crying rather than embarrassing myself on a street corner like Rindy Ross. But she does play a mean sax.

  The Soke, Aereos and
chips helped improve my mood too, but I still wasn’t able to handle “Hurts So Good” that Diana suggested. We went with “Shake it Up” instead, but I had to stop dancing after only half a song because the carbonation and junk food weren’t cooperating with being shaken up.

  Diana sat back down too. Gesturing exactly like a certain talk show host, she crossed her legs and curled her hands around the top knee. She cocked her head at me with the telltale serious expression. “So,” she began in a deep voice, “Tell me how you’re really feeling, Jane.”

  “Who are you, my shrink?” I tried to laugh it off because seriously she was creeping me out.

  Diana pressed her lips together, but whether it was because she was trying to hold back words or barf from dancing on a full stomach, I didn’t know. “It’s a career I’m considering.”

  “Oh,” I said with a nod. If she was serious, she should consider spending some time with the school psychologist because Miss Kindley knows a thing or two about facial expressions that make a person feel comfortable and not freaked out.

  “Yeah, that or join the Navy as a first class petty officer yeoman.”

  I was mid-sip. Soke came snorting out of my nose with that one. “What?” I coughed, surreptitiously wiping my face.

  “Are you going to make fun of me?”

  “No, no,” I said, looking around for a tissue box. Soke really unclogs the nasal passages. “It’s just...that’s a very specific job. What the heck is a first class officer petty yeoman?”

  “First class petty officer yeoman,” Diana corrected. “But then again, I think women have progressed enough to where I can aim higher. I don’t see any reason why I can’t become an Admiral of the Fleet.”

  I was glad I hadn’t taken another swig of soda before she dropped that one on me. Picturing Diana in one of those funny hats and a military uniform was enough to make me forget about Ned for a minute.

  “Where did you come up with the idea to join the Navy?” I asked, in a way I hoped sounded like I was interested and not mystified by a career choice that could not be further from Diana’s personality. Although she did have the military bed-making down and the basic training would help her shave off a few lbs.