I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway

by Tracy McMillan

  “I didn’t do anything,” I say back, with a hint of you suck in my voice.

  My smart mouth is making Yvonne’s eyes narrow. “I never should have adopted you,” she sneers. “You ruined my life.”

  “Oh really? I’ve ruined your life?” I don’t know where this is coming from. Puberty, probably. “Is that why you have no friends, and your mom and your sisters hardly speak to you?”

  This is true. Yvonne is pretty hard-pressed to maintain a relationship. We do holidays with her family, but that’s it, and it feels obligatory. Still, I shouldn’t have said this. I know by now that saying the truth is the one unbreakable rule of living with Yvonne.

  “You little shit.” She pushes me to the floor and kicks me. With her Earth shoes. She’s gotten physical with me before—a wooden spoon once, a slapped face here and there, some hair pulling, and once, a bar of Tone soap in my mouth—but never like this. Mercifully, she sticks to my midsection and it’s over quickly.

  “Get up off that floor and call your Aunt Do. Tell her to come get you right now,” Yvonne spits. “You’re going to live with her.”

  I’m scared. I don’t want to have to call Aunt Do, and I don’t want to leave really, and I’m crying, even though I’m also tapping into that place where none of this is even touching me.

  “No!” I shout, refusing to move toward the phone. “I’m not going to call her.”

  Yvonne lifts her arm to me. “You little bitch, you call her right now.” When Yvonne calls you a little bitch and tells you to do something, you just kind of have to do it. So I pick up the phone and start dialing.

  My uncle Jimmie, my dad’s brother and my September 12 birthday twin, picks up on the other end of the line. There are tears and snot in my voice. “My mom says I have to come live with Aunt Do,” I say through the snot.

  “Tracy?” Uncle Jimmie can’t quite believe it’s me. I’ve never before called them in a crisis. “Tracy? Are you okay?”

  “My mom says I have to leave.” I glance over at Yvonne. I never ever call her Mom, though I will refer to her as “my mom” to a third party. Never calling Yvonne Mom is how I preserve my sanity and remind myself, At least she’s not my mom. I hold out on her like a POW, which makes sense since she’s kind of like the Vietcong.

  Uncle Jimmie says he’ll be right over.

  Twenty minutes later, he shows up on our doorstep. Like the badly written domestic-violence scene that this is shaping up to be, Yvonne is light and matter-of-fact. And she plays down any trouble. “Oh, everything’s okay,” she says, like it was just a big misunderstanding. “I think maybe Tracy was overreacting a little bit. Huh, dear?” She’s nodding at me to let me know that I’m supposed to nod at Uncle Jimmie.

  “Right,” I say to Uncle Jimmie. I nod. I know that “telling on” Yvonne is a bell that can never be unrung, and anyway, it’s not my nature to make such a big decision in the heat of the moment. I’m more cautious, more calculated than that. Even at twelve. And then there’s the fact that I don’t think I want to live with Aunt Do. She’s been shot! At least Yvonne is a known quantity.

  So I send Uncle Jimmie home.

  Yvonne takes a deep breath in victory. It’s not really her win, though. It just comes down to one simple fact: I’d rather manage the devil I know than the devil with a gun and a Diet Pepsi.

  THERE ARE STRANGE COINCIDENCES around Paul from the very beginning that give me the sense that the whole thing is ordained. Meant to be. And even though I know that sounds like something a teenage girl would say, I mean it. There are signs.

  Even before our first meeting, I am dishing with my dear friend (also, crazily, named Tracy Renee) about Paul. “What does he look like?” she wants to know.

  “He’s supercute,” I gush. “He has sandy-colored hair, blue eyes, a wide smile. He looks like Beck.” I remember I have a picture of him on my computer. “Here, let me show you.” I bring up the photo.

  Tracy looks at him. Her huge green eyes grow even more huge (and more green) than they already are. “No. Way,” she says ominously.

  “What?!” I’ve never heard her use that particular tone of voice before. I’d think she slept with him, but he’s just not her type.

  “That guy lives in my building!”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  I know, of course, that Tracy lives in a loft downtown. And I know, of course, that Paul lives in a loft downtown. But it never occurred to me that they lived in the same loft downtown! Downtown is big. There are thousands of lofts downtown. I’ve never really believed in coincidences, but this is a lot to take in, even for me.

  So you mean to tell me that the guy I fell in love with at first sight from a picture online lives in the very same building—technically, it will turn out to be a different building in the same complex, but still—as one of my closest girlfriends?

  I just can’t argue with that.

  I’M SICK OF THIS. It only takes me two seconds inside the prison to realize it. (Or is it remember?) I’m sick of the guards, the guns, and the electronic doors. I’m sick of the waiting room, the vending machines, and my dad’s perfectly shined shoes. I’m sick of the drive. I’m sick of the crappy hotels with the mossy pools. I’m sick of all of it.

  Aunt Do, Russell, Ray, and I are waiting for my dad to come down from his cell. They chatter among themselves, excited to see my dad.

  “How long’s it been since you seen your father?” Aunt Do asks me.

  “Three years.” I’m guessing. All I know is it was some time before we moved in with the lawyer.

  “How ’bout you, Ray-Ray?”

  “Long time,” Ray answers, shaking his head. “Since he went away to Leavenworth.” You can tell Ray loves my dad. He’s got that kind of loyalty where it doesn’t matter what my dad did or how long he’s been gone—Ray has the same level of respect for him.

  Me, I’ve been indoctrinated with midwestern values, where you accord love and respect to a man relative to how “good” he is. And by “good,” I mean does he not cheat, not lie, not hurt people, come home at night, earn a living, and replace your bike chain when it falls off? That’s what gets my respect.

  I’m contemplating this when my dad steps into the visiting room, beaming. We all jump up and hug him. He does that thing where he steps back to get a better look at me.

  “What’s that thing on your face, child?” My dad has my chin in his large brown hand and is examining a giant zit tucked into the fold between where my nose ends and my left cheek begins. “Is it a pimple?” He really wants to know. “That sucker’s big.”

  I’m a teenager now, and my dad notices everything, so there’s no lack of things to talk about on our visits. Besides my acne, he asks me about boys (they don’t know I’m alive), school (I’m underperforming, as usual), and whether or not I can dance (I can, but not in front of anybody). There’s still a sparkle in his eyes, but the usual fun energy between us isn’t there. I don’t know if it’s him or me. Probably a little of both. I think prison is taking a toll on him; after all, it’s been ten years since he first did time—he’s in his early forties now. The old age of youth. Or is it the youth of old age?

  We’ve lost a lot of time. In the past five years, Yvonne and I have moved four times and I’ve grown five inches, gotten my period, gotten drunk, bought my first ounce of weed, been to New York, had three paper routes, spent a year studying ballet at Minnesota Dance Theater, smoked pilfered Parliament cigarettes as often as possible, and become a regular every Sunday at the Roller Garden. And my dad wasn’t there for any of it.

  Moreover, there’s no way to really connect anymore on these visits. When I was little, I used to sit on Freddie’s lap, or we’d play Tic Tac Toe or Hangman, or he’d help me stay inside the lines of a Mickey and Minnie coloring book. It’s actually easier to talk on the phone than it is to visit in person because on the phone there’s no anxiety of having him stare at me, notice my zits, and gauge my reactions to eve
rything.

  I miss Leavenworth. It was a vintage prison, totally old-school—the neoclassical gravitas of the building, the granite floors, and the tall ceilings. It’s like the Harvard of the federal prison system! By comparison, these new prisons have the feel of a Denver megachurch, or maybe a steroidal Extended Stay America. There’s carpet everywhere, and laminated furniture, and silk plants that are made of polyester.

  It’s just not the same.

  We slog through some more polite conversation, notable much more for what it doesn’t cover than for what it does. Many topics are off-limits, like what my dad did to get in here, how his being gone is affecting me and everybody else, how crazy Yvonne is getting, how she tried to kick me out, how our apartment has no running water, how bad school sucks, and how if he didn’t want the $3,000 from Yvonne, none of this would be happening.

  Instead we practice the fine art of saying nothing too much.

  “How was the drive down?”

  “Winter sure was long this year.”

  “Did you hear Cousin T. got popped? Yep. He’s in a maximum in Ohio now.”

  We focus on the external and the mundane. We visit the vending machines and play a game of checkers. Mostly, it’s just like any other normal American family gathering. Except it’s happening in prison.

  In what seems like just a few minutes, it’s time to get back in the Lincoln Continental. My dad says good-bye to everyone else before me—we all tacitly understand that you have to save the best for last—which makes me nervous. I’m anxious about not giving “enough” of a good-bye—I know he has all these expectations for a meaningful farewell, or at least I imagine he does. But I’m also worried about what I’m going to feel when he hugs me. What if I feel something? What if I feel nothing? This is why I don’t really like feelings. Because you can’t, as they say, win for losing.

  I spend these last few moments we have together pissed—pissed that I’m expected to fulfill some kind of pent-up need he has for connection, pissed that I’m now facing a six-hundred-mile ride home, pissed that I have to come here. After all, I didn’t commit a crime.

  So when it’s finally my turn, I give my dad the hug. And vow never to come back here again.

  PAUL CALLS ME THE MOMENT my shift ends. Six-oh-two P.M. It’s the phone equivalent of standing outside the door of the TV station, waiting for me to come out. I take this as a good—not stalkerish—sign. It means he is just as excited to restart our relationship as I am.

  I pick it up. “Hello?” I have no idea why I’m pretending I don’t have caller ID.

  “Hello, hello?” He sounds extra cute.

  “Hi!” I’m smiling. He’s totally with me. I can feel it. That whole messy business where he was too scared to start a relationship? History. Ancient history.

  “When are you going to be here?” He wants it to be soon, I can tell.

  “I’m just leaving work.” I want it to be soon, too.

  “Good. Hurry.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  I’m very calm as I drive down the 101. In the past six months, I’ve seriously taken up prayer (owing to last year’s “nervous breakthrough”), and this is exactly the type of situation that calls for tapping into a higher power. I used to sneak around on god, hoping to get away with the occasional “freebie”—stuff I wanted that I knew-slash-suspected god didn’t want for me—but those days are over. If it’s not in my highest good, I don’t want it. Prayer is where I put all that into words.

  So I whisper to myself, “Dear Universe, I don’t know why you made Paul call me again, but whatever it is you want me to do here, just tell me, and I’ll do it. Because I don’t have a clue. I mean, you and I both know there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to walk away from this guy, so if he’s not right for me, please, please remove him from my life.”

  That sounds good. But then I figure I should throw in some kind of clause to cover unforeseeable contingencies. “And, god, whatever your will is for me, please make it really big, like billboard-size big, because I’m nearsighted. Thanks a lot.”

  I’ve heard that once you make a sincere prayer, you should consider everything that happens afterward to be part of the answer, so from now on, I really gotta pay attention.

  A chill runs up my arms as I exit the elevator. This is your home. That’s what the chill says. It reminds me of something I heard a spiritual guy say once, that you’ll know when something is the truth because of the way it feels: not like you’re getting new information, but like you just remembered something you’ve already known for a long time.

  That’s what this is like. As I walk down the long hallway to see Paul for the first time in 5.5 weeks, I remember what I knew the moment I saw his picture. This is my home.

  WE FINALLY SOLD THE HOUSE (minus my dad’s $3,000), and we’re now living in a place Yvonne bought on the “good” side of Lake Harriet. Not that the other side was bad exactly, it was just a little less good.

  My new school is loaded with middle-to-upper-middle-class teens sporting straight white teeth, alligator shirts, and Tretorn tennis shoes. I own none of these things. I haven’t even heard of these things. Plus, I have a big gap between my front teeth.

  I’m definitely bringing the fourteen-year-old awkward to Woodrow Wilson High. My skin is brown from a long summer spent mostly at Main Beach, my hair is puffy, and to put it frankly, I’m a tad peculiar. I’m full of non sequiturs, I bounce off the walls, and I’m kooky, which isn’t really charming until after one graduates from high school and moves to the part of town that used to be gay and is now home to people who purposely wear ugly glasses.

  I take stock of what I have to offer in trade on some social standing and it’s quickly apparent that barring a sudden run-in with a jar of hair relaxer (which probably would change my life) the only thing I really have going for me is that I possess a mean round-off and front handspring, and I can do the hell out of the splits. Add that to a voice that “carries” (as many a teacher has charitably put it), and I’ve got just one shot at high school happiness:

  Cheerleading.

  I’m pretty definitely an extrovert, but I also have a very pronounced timid streak that makes me pathologically afraid of asking for anything that I want. And auditioning is asking, right? (So is flirting. Another thing I am turning out to have trouble with.) The only thing I can get up the nerve to ask for is a job, but only as long as it’s a job I don’t actually want.

  One of the girls in my homeroom, Mara “Call Me, Okay?” Moline, is a captain of the JV cheerleaders and, as such, is teaching the “clinics” for the upcoming tryouts. I don’t know what possesses me, but I ask her about it.

  I should backtrack a moment. When I got to Wilson, I was like a bedraggled refugee who’d been rejected by three other nations—junior high schools that were the rough equivalents of, say, Hungary or Poland or Greece—and had somehow landed in Denmark. On the one hand, I couldn’t believe my luck. My new country was clean, and safe, and had a high standard of living. On the other hand, the Danish were all so blond! So beautiful! So well-bred!

  And further, I had no idea how to speak Danish.

  I had always had a popular streak in me, but once I got to Yvonne’s, bad hairdos (pigtails) and emotional disturbances (a very special combination of anxiety and compulsive talking) had sent my social value plunging a good 50 percent or more. I needed some kind of rescue package.

  One thing living in foster homes does for you is that you get a lot of fieldwork in the social sciences, and if you pay attention, you can apply it in ways that can make the difference between four years of social hell and three years of relatively fun weekends at keg parties plus one final year where you’re totally over it. As a result, I looked around my homeroom and made a vow: I’m going to figure out who the popular kids are at this school, and I’m going to be one of them.

  However (and it’s a big however), high school popularity has a scent that absolutely cannot be faked. It’s a supersecret formul
a no one in the world has ever cracked, although the Axe body spray people may kill the rest of us trying. Teenagers intuitively know how social status is to be accorded: to whom, how much, and what kind. A given individual can lose status but can never gain any past a certain point. Even dating the most popular boy (or girl) in school will only get you plus or minus a 20 percent differential. (Which you then lose when you break up.) Why? Because if you could gain any more from dating that person, they wouldn’t want you in the first place.

  In other words, there’s nothing anyone can do to make themselves become popular. Otherwise everyone would be doing it—even the Goth kids who pretend they don’t care.

  I developed this theory during the first seven months of the 1978–79 school year, a time during which I was abjectly invisible, unless you were sitting behind my home-done “bubble” haircut during the science movie.

  As I moved forward with my fieldwork, I saw that the only way to get popular was to somehow have the popular girls ordain you as a popular person. Obviously, this observation is not a huge breakthrough—anyone who’s ever seen Alicia Silverstone remodel Brittany Murphy into a cute girl already knows this. But remember, Clueless was still seventeen years away from the multiplex when I hit Wilson.

  It turns out I’m in luck. Mr. Harrington’s homeroom is, for the class of 1982, a sort of popular-girl clearinghouse. In the same way South America churns out beauty queens, the last names beginning with the letters L through M tend, in my school, to produce bumper crops of girls who have that perfect combination of good looks (but not too good: too good is bad) and confidence that comes off as superiority and bitchiness to anyone in the theater department or the marching band. These girls are also incredibly centrist—so traditional they make Regis and Kelly look like members of a terrorist organization.