by Helen Ellis
Nick’s neck reddens. He’s embarrassed, either because his yiayia has to trick him into eating his vegetables or because he can’t take a toke like a man—I’m not sure which. Ling Ling seems turned off by the whole half-baked scenario. But this makes me more curious about who Nick really is. After the way he stopped, dropped, and rolled for me under the parachute, he’s obviously no burnout. No wheezing invalid either. Hidden pot, closeted asthma, girlfriend on the sly—none of this makes sense.
I look to Nick, and there are those eyes: steady, perfect ovals. Again, I’m lost in their darkness. I have no sense of how much time is passing. A clock ticks on the wall. A bell rings for next period. Then, his invisible hand grips my wrist. Before he blinks and breaks our bond, I get the message: I am surrounded by lies.
The principal says, “Your grandson must have an inhaler.”
Yiayia mutters, “This is no good.”
“Mr. and Mrs…”
“Poulikakos!”
“Madam.” Principal Sheldon looks her in the eyes. “What you do in the privacy of your own home is not my concern. Western…Grecian…ancient medicine—that’s up to you. But when a student brings marijuana into my school and shares it with my students, we have a problem.”
Papou says, “You will never again have this problem from Nick.”
“Sir, I want to believe you.”
“Believe him,” says Yiayia. “It is best that you do. You expose Nico mou, your Purser-Lilley parents will do away with right to privacy as they did with team sports. There will be security guards, random searches to conduct, the testing of urine. Consider your future, sir. The rest of your school life riddled with interruptions. All because of a little oregano.”
***
Nick got let off with a warning and a week’s detention.
Ling Ling got two.
Dr. Lebowitz protested until she learned that her daughter had gotten time for both drug possession and masterminding a P.E. black market. Like any good mastermind, Ling Ling didn’t name names, and the principal didn’t press her. If he had, half the boys at Purser-Lilley would get detention. When Ling Ling’s hall locker was raided, Principal Sheldon confiscated Dr. Lebowitz’s prescription pad, last year’s sophomore trig and biology final exams, three bags of Haribo gummy twin cherries, and an IOU from Ben Strong for a C-note.
Me, I got a lecture. Before I opened my mouth to defend myself, the principal copped a plea for me. If it hadn’t been for my killer curiosity, he would never have known about what was going on right under his nose.
chapter eight
Kathryn Ann holds court at the head of three tables-for-two shoved together at Pizzeria Uno. She, the twins, my parents, my sister, and I are finishing our unlimited soup for supper and reliving how the Purser-Lilley debate team destroyed the Nightingale girls. My visit to the principal’s office wears heavy on my parents’ faces, but they are giving Octavia her moment of glory. During the debate, she brought one of her opponents to tears. Ben Strong, normally a fact-gatherer not a verbal assailant, reduced another girl to running off the stage as her rebuttal. Instant disqualification! My sister was impressed—but not as impressed as Kathryn Ann is with me.
She drawls, “Mary, hon, you are a star. If more people got involved with bustin’ drugs, this country would be a safer place.”
If you’ve watched Chime In with Kathryn Ann, you know she blames drugs for all of society’s ills. According to her, if people didn’t do drugs, they wouldn’t be poor. There wouldn’t be birth defects. The murder rate, which to her includes vehicular manslaughter, would plummet. Drugs lead to stealing, and stealing leads to bullets and knives. Drugs are depressants, and depressed people rape. Kathryn Ann is a teetotaler. I’ve never seen her so much as dip a fork into a pot of white wine-laden cheese fondue.
She says, “Who’s Mama’s little narc? Mary is! Yay, Mary!”
Octavia looks embarrassed for the twins. I don’t blame her.
Mom says, “I’m worried about our Mary.”
“Oh, my word,” Kathryn Ann chuckles. “What is there to worry about? Your Mary’s not on drugs.”
“She’s not herself lately.”
“Mom, I’m fine,” I say, but I am in fact worried sick.
Kathryn Ann says, “All Miss Mary needs is a night in with her friends. The girls are scheduled to spend the night at our place tonight. Let ’em. Their highfalutin school is a pressure cooker. No wonder your Mary snapped.”
“She ran a fever last night,” Dad says. “I think she should come home with us.”
“Dad, I’m fine.” I’m not fine, of course, but I don’t want to go home. If I go home, I’ll be watched. At the twins’ apartment, I’ll be free of parental supervision. Their dad’s away on business three weeks of every month. Chime In airs live in two hours, so Kathryn Ann will be gone. I’m not sure what I’m planning on doing, but I won’t get away with anything if I go home with my folks. They love me too much to leave me alone.
Kathryn Ann signals for the check. “Don’t even think about splitting the bill, Scott. This is my treat. We’re celebrating your two girls’ major accomplishments. Besides, we’re getting off easy. Free refills! Do you know how much my three Diet Cokes would cost anywhere else?”
“Twelve dollars,” recite the twins. They know this like they know how much Triscuits cost without a coupon ($5.00) or how much a practically free box of name brand cereal costs without 1,500 D’Agastino green points ($6.00). Their mom likes to remind them she wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and now that she’s got one, she’s not about to spit it out. Life is unpredictable. Money isn’t. If Kathryn Ann and her husband drop dead, the twins need to manage what took her a lifetime to secure.
Kathryn Ann hefts her blood-red designer bag onto her shoulder. It’s the same Upper East Side must-have as Ling Ling’s, but Kathryn Ann got hers gratis from the designer’s publicity department. They wanted her to be photographed with it, but I doubt they wanted it to be while she was coming out of Pizzeria Uno. She tells my parents, “Quit your worrying. I’ll drop the girls off at our place and send Mary back to you tomorrow better than new. Trust me, she and Octavia will be perfectly fine. Have a date night!”
Dad nudges Mom. “There’s a double feature at the Film Forum.” Mom begrudgingly agrees.
Upon reaching the twins’ Fifth Avenue apartment building a few blocks away, a town car is waiting to take their mom to the TV studio. Kathryn Ann clips coupons and never eats anywhere with a coat check but doesn’t take public transportation? She sees how puzzled I am. Ducking into the back seat, she says, “This ain’t my money, honey.” She winks and points to her tight face. “And neither is this!”
It’s the cable channel’s directive that Kathryn Ann continue to be “fresh” at fifty-eight years old. She told them that if that’s what they wanted, then they’d have to pay for it.
We wave good-bye, and a doorman walks us to the front entrance. Another doorman opens one of the double doors from inside. Another doorman meets us in the entryway and walks us to the elevator. Another doorman holds the elevator door open for us as we fit ourselves inside with him. Yes, that’s right: four doormen for the four of us. The final doorman presses the PH button and takes us to the top.
The elevator opens into a tiny receiving area hardly bigger than the elevator itself. There is a sideboard for mail and, to the left, enough room for an umbrella stand filled with bright red promotional umbrellas that, when you open them, have tiny bells dangling from the spokes that read Chime In!
Despite the building’s staff of twenty-three, the apartment is locked. The twins have a key but also a pass code that must be punched in within fifteen seconds of unlocking the door to silence an alarm. Mags fishes in her book bag for her key chain, while Marjorie readies her fingers over the pad.
But then they simultaneously freeze.
“What?” Oc
tavia whispers.
The twins are more attuned to their surroundings than we are and thus must have picked up on what my sister and I are now hearing. From the depths of their apartment, the noise is getting closer.
Crying.
Terrible, terrible, terrible crying.
When the twins open the door, Peanut Butter and Jelly are standing on the threshold and screaming. It’s not meowing. I’ve heard these two cats “talk” before and even “yell” at each other when they play-fight, but what they sound like now are inconsolable babies. Their slick, cream-colored hair stands on end. Their backs arch. The centers of their spines are level with their pointy black ears. Their tails puff. Their trimmed claws are out, curled downward. The blunt tips dig into the hardwood like thirty-six tiny sickles. Their black paws hover above the floor.
“Peanut Butter!” admonishes Mags.
“Jelly!” Marjorie says.
Octavia shrinks into the far corner of the receiving area. She hugs her book bag to her chest. She shuts her eyes and prays—as if God will stop what he’s doing, reach down, pinch her collar, and airlift her back to 72nd and Lex.
My sister has a fear of cats. She usually keeps it in check around Peanut Butter and Jelly but refuses to be left alone with them. Up until now, they’ve never done anything I’d consider scary. Peanut Butter only swats at you if you get up in his grill. I always figured Octavia was irrationally scared of cats like other people are scared of snakes and spiders. That’s the thing about living with someone you haven’t known your whole life. You never truly know what’s going to freak that person out, how badly, or when.
Octavia slams the heel of her hand against the elevator button. She beats it. If I didn’t know any better, I would think she’s going to break it or jam the elevator car. The twins and I gape at her, momentarily forgetting the braying cats. The elevator arrow ticks, pausing sporadically between numbers 1 and 14 as it crawls toward PH. The crying and pounding must be echoing down the shaft.
The call button light goes out. I hear the car rising into place. In five seconds, the door will open, and the twins’ mom will never forgive them for exposing the secret that they’re harboring cats. This building doesn’t allow pets. Kathryn Ann tips the doormen extra every Christmas to look the other way. If anyone from a lower floor has come along to investigate what’s going on up here, the twins are in big trouble. Marjorie and Mags grab hold of Octavia and drag her into their apartment.
The cats scatter. I scoot in after them and pull the door shut.
We hear the elevator door slide open and a doorman give a nosy neighbor the brush-off. “Babies? No ma’am. I didn’t hear any babies.”
The elevator door closes, and away they go.
The cats come back. They slink silently, shoulder to shoulder, a pack of two. The fur on one side of each of their pale necks is wet. Kathryn Ann’s house policy is to leave the kitchen sink barely running so that her “darlings” can tilt their heads under the skinny stream and drink fresh water whenever they want. I wonder what it’s like for the twins to live with Peanut Butter and Jelly, another set of siblings who are older than they are but never grew up.
The cats slither toward me.
“Boys!” says Marjorie. “What is wrong with you?”
They sniff my knee socks, sniff my shoes. Do they smell the orange fuzz? Of course they do. I stiffen like a stop sign. To me, the fuzz smells like the rest of me. To Peanut Butter and Jelly, it must smell unnatural. They must be trying to figure out if I’m friend or foe. Or too sick to stay near.
Marjorie says, “Boys, you know Mary. It’s Mary!”
Mags says, “She must have gotten that pot on her socks.”
“Since when do cats like pot?” asks Marjorie.
“Since it’s all-natural. You know how they like to eat grass.”
Octavia tries to show signs of her old self. “Yo, your cats love the chronic,” she jokes weakly, but her skin is devoid of brightness.
Peanut Butter and Jelly rub their wet necks against my socks.
“See?” says Marjorie. “It’s Mary!”
Kitchen sink water from the cats’ necks soaks through the wool. The cats purr. Their vibrations tickle. The brothers are slender, but when they lean against the outsides of my lower legs, their combined pressure makes me feel like I’m going to collapse. Peanut Butter has never been so affectionate. He aligns himself in front of Jelly and drapes his tail across Jelly’s forehead. The boys circle. My legs are a maypole. They increase their speed. From my vantage point, they turn into one blurry, unending cat.
“They’re going to spin themselves into butter,” says Octavia.
Marjorie says, “Maybe Mom forgot to feed them.”
Mags says, “No way. Her darlings?”
“Maybe she didn’t feed them enough,” Marjorie says under her breath.
Octavia says, “Maybe they’re going to eat Mary.”
The fact that my sister calls me by my real name shows me how scared she is.
I say, “They’re fine, y’all. I’m fine.”
I’m not sure what I should do to get out of the situation. Do I need to do anything? Won’t the brothers tire themselves out? Lose interest? Their circling is strange, but cats do it all the time in cat food commercials. Their speed is off-putting, but they’re not hurting me. My legs are warm, but the warmth isn’t bad.
Marjorie and Mags move forward to wrangle their pets.
I say, “No, really, I’m fine.”
But I’m not. The tingling is back. The fire ants have found me. They spool my calves and shins. I no longer care if my sister is scared because I want these cats off. If Peanut Butter and Jelly have done to me what the deli cat did, my legs will sprout fur from my ankles to kneecaps.
I inadvertently kick one of them in the ribs, eliciting a hushed miaow. A warning. The cats don’t stop circling.
I reach down to separate them. That’s when I get scratched.
I can see by my sister’s face that what’s happened is ugly. Funny: if Ling Ling had scratched me, Octavia wouldn’t hesitate to scratch her right back. Scratch her bald-headed! Scratch her eyes out! Octavia has no fear of Ling Ling, Nightingale girls, or anyone meaner, bigger, or smarter than she is. But, dang, she is scared of Peanut Butter and Jelly. She flees down a long corridor toward the twins’ rooms. I hear two doors slam as she barricades herself inside their shared bathroom.
“Peanut Butter!” Marjorie scoops him up and tosses him away from me. The cat lands on the hardwood and slides, spinning like the last legs of a top. He crashes into a receiving table. A cut glass vase topples. Drooping tulips are crushed, lithe green necks severed. Water spills and beads across the Pledge. The vase rolls, tulips twisting with it, onto the floor. The thud scares the bejeezus out of Peanut Butter, who jumps and cracks his head on the underside of table.
“Serves you right, you bad boy! Mary, are you okay?”
But it wasn’t Peanut Butter who scratched my hand; it was Jelly. The cat sitting beside my ankle is licking my blood off his front paw. He’s proud of himself. He spreads his toe pads and licks the hard-to-reach spots in between.
Mags grabs him. Marjorie grabs Peanut Butter. The twins aren’t going to put up with their cats’ rotten behavior anymore. They grip the boys under their front legs and carry them at arms’ distance. I follow them up the winding staircase that leads to a second-floor den and master bedroom. Mags nudges open her parents’ door. She hurls Jelly across the room to land on the bed. Marjorie throws Peanut Butter after him. The cats tumble to the far side of the bedspread. I hear the material rip. The boys spring off the rumpled mess and, with midair twists, land to face us. They crouch. Their hackles rise, and their inkblot faces smolder. Their ice blue crossed eyes zone in on where I stand.
I glance down at my knee socks and am relieved to see that although the wool is tight from what has sp
routed underneath, the fur is contained. The scratch across the back of my hand isn’t bleeding badly. Amazingly enough, no fur has come out of the clotted red line. I blow cool air on the scratch.
The cats fly off the bed.
Mags slams the door. “Rabies!”
Marjorie says, “How? They never leave the house.”
We race down the stairs to get away from a new blitz of crying. We hole up in Mags’s room, but the crying comes through. Still locked in the bathroom, Octavia is nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe it’s not as loud as we think,” I say.
“Yeah, like a tree falling in a forest,” Marjorie nervously agrees. “Maybe we hear it because we know that it’s there.”
Mags clicks on her flat screen, and we luck into a mind-numbing block of reruns from season one of America’s Next Top Model. To drown out the cats, she raises the volume as high as it will go. The three of us line our backs against the single bed and draw the comforter over our legs. After several minutes, Octavia ventures out and plops herself into the over-sized beanbag chair.
Hours pass, and I decompress enough to soak in what’s happening on-screen. But all the models remind me of Ling Ling. They’re twice her height but, like Ling Ling, know how to walk across a room and command attention. I can see why Nick is drawn to her. I can see why dreadlocked, spike-haired, and tattoo-headed boys are also drawn to her. Those types would never give me a second look. Up until now, Nick has never looked my way either. What’s his sudden interest in me?
Without thinking, I brush a hand over my socks from under the safety of the covers. Everywhere I squeeze, there is fur underneath. The fur is slick in some places, tangled in others. What is wrong with me? What’s happening?
Kathryn Ann barges in. Home from broadcasting her show, her tight, surgically enhanced face is creased with anger. Hand on her hip, she says, “Please, ma’ams, will one of y’all kindly explain why my darlings are shut up in my room like it’s a pound? Those boys have nearly put a hole through my door trying to claw their way out!”