by Karen Rivers
Oh, says Mira.
Ohhh, mimics Cat. She swings for a minute more, the sky tipping crazily around her head. Winds up the chains by spinning and jerkily unfurls them again. How’s your sucky school? she says. You must have something interesting to tell me.
I don’t know, says Mira. Nothing special, I guess. I have a debate to do tomorrow that I’m probably going to mess up because I don’t even agree with myself, you know?
A debate, mimics Cat. We don’t do those at our white trash school. Besides, I’m sure you’ll win. Don’t you always win?
No, says Mira. I don’t.
Yeah, right, says Cat.
They sit together without talking for a while. Swinging back and forth, straight and crooked. Purposely trying to bash into each other without looking like they mean to do it. Mira laughs, a belly laugh. Cat hits her harder. They used to swing here all the time when they were little kids. They used to wear matching outfits, too. They did all that twin stuff. Trading names. Tricking their mother. Well, that’s all changed. Now they look different, not in their features but in their mannerisms. Their expressions. Somehow they took the same basic mould and diverged so much they barely look alike. Mira’s heavier, but somehow her heaviness is pretty and warm and Cat’s thinness is harsh and brittle. Mira’s face is clear and Cat’s spotted with blemishes that she can’t stop touching.
Mira’s fancy school has a special program for gifted students, which of course she is in. She’s the twin with the brains. And the looks, thinks Cat bitterly, though she doesn’t know why this is true. Somehow Mira is just better. Slightly smaller nose. A tiny bit bigger eyes. Teeth that are a bit more even. It all adds up to a nicer, bigger picture. Obviously her parents agree, which is why Mira goes to a school where the field trips are to, like, Paris. At Cat’s school, a field trip is more likely to the local jail to watch the prisoners try to act in a play or something equally crappy and weird.
Cat is the scrap-twin. Like the runt of the litter, even though the “litter” was just the two of them. She got the leftovers that Mira didn’t need to be smart and beautiful and everything else.
I’m going to a party this weekend, says Mira. It’s supposed to be a big crazy thing. Someone’s parents are away. Want to come?
Cat shakes her head. I’ve got plans, she lies. Mira’s parties are horrible for her. Painfully restrained. Boring, quiet groups of people eating pizza and being polite. Cat likes parties where things get broken and people throw up and the police are called to force them to turn down the music. I’m going to hang out with X, she improvises. We’re going to do something. Some stuff.
Huh, says Mira. I hope your careful. When you do stuff.
Whatever, says Cat. I’m not stupid.
Are you sure about the party? Says Mira. There’s going to be drinking and all that.
Cat looks at her hard. Drinking and all that? She says. You better be careful, sister. You don’t want to fall off the straight and narrow.
Mira looks uncomfortable. It’s not like I’ve never had a drink, she says quietly. You don’t know.
Yeah, I guess I don’t, says Cat. What do I know? I’m sure you get loaded all the time.
Shut up, says Mira.
Who are you going with, anyway? Says Cat. Do you have a boyfriend that I don’t know about, too?
No, says Mira.
Mira has never had a boyfriend. Mira’s never even kissed a boy, not that Cat knows about anyway. Mira makes Cat feel old and filthy and used up. Ragged. She spits into the dirt. She’s had sex so many times she’s lost count. Only with X, but still, it seems shocking to her. Gross. Like it’s all blurred together. And, frankly, nothing like she’d imagined it would be like before she’d done it. She’d thought there would be more … tenderness. Loving. With X it’s more like stuff she’s seen on Animal Planet: hump, hump, hump, and just when it starts to hurt more than she cares to take, it stops. And she lets him keep doing that, pretends to like it, doesn’t even try to let him know that he’s hurting her, that he’s maybe, just maybe, not doing it right.
Hump, hump, hump.
It’s like he’s using her up somehow that she can’t pinpoint. Something about how he doesn’t really look at her while it’s happening, he’s focused on some point in the distance past her head. Something about the fierce concentration on his face. Like he’s having to try. Like it’s work.
She hates that she’s given herself over to this whole thing without bothering to say, “Stop it. This hurts.” She hates that it happens so often, the exact same way, every time. She hates that she clenches her teeth and gets through it. She hates that she keeps wanting it anyway, in spite of how it is. Or maybe because of it. Maybe because it’s so untender, so methodical, so hurtful. Maybe that’s what feels right.
Well.
Not that she could tell her sister any of that. Not ever.
Mira is someone who would “make love." Mira would see fireworks: lights and colours. Mira would cry from the joy of it. She’d hear music. Have orgasms. She’d know how to connect. She'd do it better, do it right.
So, Cat starts to say, and then she stops.
The park is empty and the temperature is dropping. Their breath is showing up, smokeless clouds hanging in front of them. There used to be a lot of kids in the neighbourhood. There used to be people here all the time, playing baseball or sliding on the swings or walking dogs. Cat doesn’t know when that changed. There’s a rock in the middle of the park, a huge rock that looks like a small mountain. It has two trees growing out of it and also new grafitti, some kind of spray painted alien and the initials BP and KB, plus a stick figure masturbating drawn in black felt pen just where the rock face of it fades to white. The whole rock looks wrong there, like it was dropped in from downtown outer space. That’s the place, now, where she meets her dealer to buy pot. He’s just a kid himself, maybe fourteen, probably selling his Dad’s stuff. Rumour has it that his dad is in some kind of biker gang. Not that Cat cares. He’s a nice enough, harmless kid. Just not a park-playing baseball kid like you might expect to find here.
Nothing is like it used to be.
Their house backs on to the park. From here, they can see across the field and into their own kitchen. They can see their parents in the kitchen, talking.
Wonder what they’re talking about, says Mira.
Who gives a rat, says Cat.
A rat? says Mira.
Rat’s ASS, says Cat. Duh.
Yeah, echoes Mira. I guess.
They both watch as their mother gestures violently with a spoon. When she talks, her Italian roots show through. She talks with her hands. She talks constantly and fast. When she’s telling a story, she sometimes knocks knick-knacks off shelves with her wild movements.
Probably talking about how great you are, says Cat. Super Mira. What have you done lately?
Shut up, says Mira. Nothing.
You shut up, says Cat. Do-gooder.
Mira laughs, dragging her feet in the gravel.
The sound of Mira’s dragging feet or her own boredom or both makes Cat want to scream. She stands up on the baby swing, which bends under her feet, pinching her legs and shoes together. She starts bending her knees and swinging as hard as she can. Twisting. If she swings hard enough, maybe she’ll go all the way around. The sky swoops and falls. The air bites into her bare arms. She can feel her body working, like it used to, when she did gymnastics. She needs to get back to the gym. Her muscles feel underused, restless. She swings higher. Harder. Mira moves some distance away and watches, hugging herself like she’s afraid. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t tell Cat to stop. She never does.
A crow swoops down and lands on the bar above her, making a loud caw. Suddenly, weirdly, it comes and flaps so close to her, she can feel feathers on her skin before it flaps off in a black flurry. She pushes herself more, swooping higher than the bird. Higher than anything.
Finally, Cat’s legs start to cramp up so she lets go. Jumps. A second too late, she mis
ses the lowest ebb of the swing and falls further than she thought she would, lands forward on her hands, knees, belly. It hurts so much at first, whoomps the wind out of her, her palms raw on the ground, the swing hitting the back of her head on its return trajectory. She lies low, waits until her chest unsqueezes and grabs a breath. There, there. In, out. Breathe. Mira hovers. Cat gets up. Pushes past her sister and runs loopily over to the monkey bars and climbs up fast. Scrambles, metal cold and rough on her skin. Then she somersaults over the top bar and drops, eyes closed, just so she can whoomp herself again. She lands hard on her heels in the sand. Wobbles backwards, lands on her hands. The sand is cold and damp. Sitting, she narrowly misses a pile of dog crap. Mira still hasn’t said anything. She watches her sister, then she turns around and starts walking slowly back towards the house, head tilted to look up at the sky. She probably has homework to do, thinks Cat. She’ll probably do it.
Cat has her own homework, but she’s not doing it. She has math questions. She has to write some crappy character thing for English class, which she definitely won’t do because of Mr. Beardsley. Asshole. She can flirt an A out of him without even trying. She bites her lip when she talks to him, and looks down. She squirms in her seat and watches him turn beet red.
She could fuck him, she thinks. That would get an A, for sure. But she doesn’t want to. She loathes him, really, and the way he always looks at her like she would if he wanted her to. She’d rather prove him wrong than follow through, although maybe it would be better. Maybe it would be different. Maybe it would be worth it.
I am a slut, she says out loud. Fuck.
She has to study a chapter in her science book about the disgusting insides of a frog. She has a test on it tomorrow. She hates the dissecting, the organs, the formaldehyde smell. Hates the dead frogs splayed out on their black tar beds, white labels on pins like flags marking their insides. She heaves a sigh that hangs in front of her like a mini-thunderhead. Really, she can only get away with not doing the English. She’ll have to do the others. She’s not getting good grades, so it really doesn’t matter, but she should probably try to suck it up. Only half a year left, after all.
She jogs in place on the grass. Does a cartwheel. Mira hesitates, looking back at her. Starts walking towards her, then changes her mind and turns for home. She calls something, it might be, It’s too cold! Or You’re a toad!
Cat flips open her cell phone from her pocket, but it’s off. Probably broken from the fall. She whacks it against the slide and the lights flash on, but then off again.
Fuck, she says out loud.
She wonders if X has called yet. He usually calls when he gets home from work. She’s thinking maybe she’ll break up with him when he calls. If he calls. She’s getting that vibe again, like he’s losing interest. Like he looks through her when she talks and it’s making her antsy.
Besides, he’s just not as much fun as he looks. He’s beautiful, so what? He’s getting boring. She wishes he would surprise her and do something unexpected. Get a tattoo. Steal a car. Rough her up. Anything. She’s hungry for him to change. She climbs up the slide but she can’t slide down, her legs are too warm on the cold metal slide and she sticks there at the top.
Sometimes she feels so trapped here – on the slide, in the park, in her life, in suburbia -- that she just wants to go. Get on a bus and disappear. Wants to move to New York or LA and become a famous actress or a singer or both or anything. Anything but this. She hates the suburbs, the identical white houses. She hates Mira’s neat sweater and coat from The Gap and the way that Mira keeps circling back, waiting for Cat to get moving, to get off the slide, to come home.
She walks down the slide, the metal collapsing slightly under her feet, sounding like cymbals. Does a round-off, the grass so cold it crunches under her sore hands. Takes a deep breath.
Argh, she screams.
Mira stands and waits, head cocked like a puppy.
Cat sits in the grass for a second. Lights a cigarette with a match struck on the sole of her shoe. She’s dizzy, inhales big, blows rings to bug Mira.
I’m going, shouts Mira. It’s too cold for this.
Cat holds up her hand. She takes a pin out of her shirt pocket and sticks it fast and hard it into the fleshy part of her palm. Pulls it out and lets it fall in the grass. It’s always the exit that hurts more than the entry. Then she gets up and runs to catch up to her twin.
Hey, don’t wait or anything, she says. Grabs Mira’s hand with her bloody one before she gets to the gate so they can go back into the house together.
You must be so stupidly cold, says Mira. I don’t know why you can’t wear a coat like a normal person. Your hands are frozen.
I’m not cold, Cat lies.
Liar, says Mira. Why do you have to lie about it? You’re obviously cold.
Whatever, says Cat. I’m not cold.
That’s totally fucking annoying, says Mira.
What did you say? Says Cat, clutching her head with her free hand in fake shock. Did you say “fucking”? Oh, my head.
Cat, says Mira, trying to shake her hand free. Could you just…?
What? Says Cat.
Nothing, says Mira. Forget it.
Don’t fight, girls, says their mother, leaning out of the kitchen into the front hall. Her face is damp and sweaty from cooking dinner, hair stuck to rivulets on her overly made-up forehead. It smells great, even Cat has to admit that.
What’s for dinner? she asks. She lets go of Mira whose hand she was holding so tightly she’s left marks, she notices. She touches her mum on the shoulder, surprised as always at how soft her mother’s flesh is. Sinky, like quicksand. Smells good, Ma.
Sometimes she doesn’t actually think she wants to leave, now or ever. She could live here forever, eating her mum’s stews and pastas and casseroles and bread. Never alone. Never hungry. Never not looked after. Mira is going to Stanford next year, but Cat hasn’t heard anything from her early admittance applications. Not that this is surprising at all -- early admittance is for A students, overachievers, geeks, brainiacs, Mira. She knows she isn’t going to Stanford anyway, early, late, or probably ever. She’ll stay in this lame-ass town, go to a community college, become a dental hygienist or something equally awful. She shudders.
No, no, no, never, she swears, not that. She runs her hands – riddled with tiny cuts from the park’s gravel – under the hot tap until they sting and scald. Then she makes her way into the dining room and sits at the doily-encrusted already-laid-table and waits for her sister and her parents to come and join her.
Ruby
Chapter 6
Even though it’s sort of your own private joke with yourself, sometimes you think you really are going crazy, like this is what crazy is. Feeling stuck in your own head. At odds with everything and everyone and mostly with yourself. That, the idea that you aren’t crazy is itself a crazy idea. Do crazy people know that they are crazy?
You kind of want to ask your dad but you won’t. He’s been extra-jovial lately, like he’s getting confused between his TV book-promoting persona and his real self. His joviality makes him unapproachable and almost creepy. It’s like Santa has been let loose in the mall on the off season or something. He’s started making up nicknames for you that push you back. Yesterday he called you "Sugarplum” and you almost threw up, a reaction that makes you think that the crazy idea is not crazy at all. Crazy people probably throw up a lot. In the middle of conversations. When they are given dumb nicknames.
Probably the fact alone that you can’t stop contemplating your own craziness means you are crazy.
You should be crazy.
People think so. Especially people who have read your dad’s book, you’re starting to sense. You really should read it. Why can’t you read it? You should force yourself to read it.
But you can’t.
Anyway, whatever it says somehow must imply that you are a fun kind of crazy, a zany kind, a Cat kind, an understandable kind. An approachable kind. Peop
le are approaching you.
You don’t like being approached. It makes you uncomfortable. They can go ahead and approach your dad, he asked for it. But you didn’t ask for it. And you don’t want it.
Which in itself is probably also crazy.
People would accept (even seem to want) a kind of dollar-store insanity from you, like insanity-lite. They would understand it – admire it, even -- and you could take Zoloft or Prozac or lithium or all of them or none of them. Maybe you could have electroshock therapy like in that Winona Ryder film. But no, that’s too extreme. Too ugly and creepy and weird.
When you saw that movie, it reminded you a bit of boarding school books you read when you were little. It made craziness look not be that bad. It actually looked kind of fun, living in a dorm with a bunch of other people who accept all your weirdnesses because you’ve all already been written off by everyone else. Zap, zap, zap. You could make your brain flatter and easier and you’d maybe be happier or less confused. But then you wouldn’t be yourself.
Besides, the joke is that you aren’t unhappy. You’re just lonely, even though you are always around people. The approaching people. People like the bullied kids at school, like you can somehow help them. People like the aunties, who swirl around constantly, like a flock of annoying mosquitoes, just waiting to get close enough for their brush with fame. People like Courtney and Joanne, who really probably only so forcibly hang out with you because you are as close as anyone has come in this school to being famous. Not the people you want to be around. The people you would never approach.
You shake off your own thoughts without moving, although you imagine them scattering away from you like droplets off water off a wet dog’s fur. Where are you? Oh, right. Here. You are here at a pricey restaurant with your father and his newest girlfriend, the much-mentioned Cassidy. It’s all hushed thick carpets and dark wood furniture and multiple glasses at each place-setting.
You don’t usually think of the girls that cling to your dad’s sweatered arm as “girlfriends” because they are usually so … adult. Lady friends. But this one is different. She giggles. You sort of want to punch her. Pull her hair and run away.