by Johi Jenkins
She has to move. Every day that she spends locked in her room she can almost feel the world slowly spin under her, the rotation pushing her back against her will, holding her inside the horrible town. She feels the scrutiny of her tears and nothing soothes her hurt until she thinks about him.
Simon. He was cut from a white cloth of an oxford shirt. His hair is golden brown in the sun and black at night. At every turn he is a gentleman to all, but falls in love with only one girl. Margarette.
***
In the dimly lit kitchen of her house, Margarette closes the refrigerator door and jumps as she sees her mother standing right next to her.
“Mother!” she exclaims, startled.
“You put on weight,” her mother says.
Margarette feels like she accidently stepped on a scale as she looks down. “It’s been a while since you saw me.”
“And you gained weight.”
“I’m older, too.”
“What is that you wearing? In my house you will not wear indecent clothes.”
Margarette’s mother obtained a male friend in Margarette’s absence. Some guy she met at the hospital; Margarette never commits his name to memory. Her mom and the boyfriend don’t like the way Margarette dresses around the house. Her shorts are too short, her shirts too tight.
She gets the sense that the new boyfriend is trying to Lolita her; Lolita being her and her mother being the victim of the interfamily rapist boyfriend. But that could just be her imagination creating the perfect excuse to make her run. Or maybe the guy is just more caring than she is used to, making her feel like he’s being too aggressive with his attentions. She has several reasons, valid reasons to split, and she is able to convince herself it could get worse.
But she doesn’t want to antagonize her mother, not so close to the day of her impending escape.
“I’ll go change right now,” she says, and runs to her room. There she secretly schemes as she looks at the book she filled with money; all that she earned while working at the bank and whatever she took from Tommy’s pockets when she did his laundry—an old trick of hers.
For some reason the idea of going after the guy in the book doesn’t seem so crazy. Her life was empty before the Plan. She knew daydreaming didn’t fix the problem and that it was just a temporary solution. That she would eventually have to face reality. The Plan gave her a purpose, gave her hope. A future.
The day she first saw him on that piece of paper she took up running, although she would only run on a back road behind her house. Maybe it was the idea that she could finally leave behind the sad past few months what pushed her forward. But she ran, thinking the Plan through, ran and ran until she was exhausted. She lost weight despite her mother’s opinion; it was easy for her since she didn’t care to be alive and not eating saves money.
The Plan is simple. The information she stole from the bank includes addresses and account transaction history for none other than the writer himself. At the bank she was able to confirm it was indeed his account that she was spying on because of a large chunk of his deposits came from the book’s publishing house. She has the writer’s address and phone and a one-way ticket to him. He would lead her to her destiny. And her destiny is Simon.
She knows she doesn’t have much to offer him. But away from Coyote Falls she could reinvent herself. She will apply for college—psychology department. Away from the prison of this small town and its narrow-minded inhabitants she will thrive. She will become someone new; someone that no one will ever believe grew up in a place like this.
She gets up early the next morning with a tote bag and a book bag full of clothes and the book that Paulie gave her. At the last minute she throws her yearbook in the book bag, too. Checking that she has everything and her cache of saved money, she leaves quietly out the back. It is early, and she has hours to go before boarding, but she wants to leave before her mother wakes up.
By nine o’clock she has lost her nerve and goes back to the house. She feels weak that she didn’t make it to the station. She doesn’t know why the fear set in then, after she had already taken the step. The backdoor clicks and she sneaks back up the stairs to her room. She had even written the schedules down on a scrap of paper in her pocket. She puts her bags down and automatically pulls out the book, just to stare at it, begging for strength.
Margarette tries to smile at herself in the mirror; her dress has wrinkles on it and she barely has any makeup on. What was she thinking going like that? She bends to take off her boots when she sees her mother in the mirror.
“Oh hell, what are you doing in here?” Margarette asks. And what is it with the crazy horror-movie sneak attacks?
The noises have apparently woken her mother and led her into Margarette’s bedroom, without time for her to hide her precious belongings.
“What are you doing?” Her mother counters, her arms at her hips.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Don’t ‘nothing’ me, little girl. What in the devil are you doing?” Her eyes turn to the bags on Margarette’s bed and she gasps. “You think you can just leave? This is not a hotel for whores. You are beyond grounded, and I forbid it.”
“Why can’t I?”
She doesn’t sense the emotional shift in her mother’s persona until the question was asked. “Because I need you to be here,” her mother says unhappily, and breaks down crying.
Nothing but manipulation.
“How is it possible that you can make that sound like bad thing? Any other kid would love to be needed, but living with you is horrible. I can’t stay here!”
“Your wickedness made it that way,” her mother says, wiping her eyes. “That’s why the Lord took back your child. Contort with the serpent and spin in his filth.”
Margarette’s palm presses into the bed as she fights falling to the floor. Anger keeps her on her feet, but the poison in her mother’s words stings deep under her skin. Her head shakes at her mother’s verse. “What is wrong with you?”
“You got a blessing to start over. You should be thanking the Lord for the gift.”
“Mother, be quiet.”
“The Lord is speaking loudly enough for both. You need to change your ways.”
“You’re never here for me. Instead of blaming me or affirming your beliefs you should blame yourself. I need a mother, not a magistrate.” Margarette opens her backpack on the bed and grabs the book to put it back inside. Her decision to leave has been reinforced.
“You’re carrying a Bible?” her mother asks, quasi neurotic, her eyes fixed on the book in Margarette’s hands.
Margarette scoffs. “No. It’s just a book.”
“No, it’s not,” her mother says, as her eyes register the book’s title. In a firm mother voice she commands, “Give it to me.”
Margarette shies under her mother’s firm voice. She has seen her mother go crazy too many times, and it always starts with that voice. “I’m borrowing it from a friend,” she says, trying to deflect her mother’s anger.
“Margarette Marie,” her mother says dangerously, rolling her Rs through both.
Her mother takes it from her with a faint glimmering in her eyes. Her eyes well up. “It is the book of the Devil.”
“What? No….”
“The Devil wrote this filth and my daughter reads it. The church has told me about this, but I never suspected you. Oh, how I’ve fallen. My own flesh and blood is carrying the tool of the Devil!” She sobs exaggeratedly.
“No, no devil or anything,” Margarette says.
“We’re going to burn in hell! You see what you’ve done? Oh heavens… you see what you’ve done to us? We’re burning, child!”
Margarette looks around and then back at her mother. “I don’t see any fire….”
Mother points holding the book above her and shouts Bible verses.
“Can you just talk to me?” Margarette calls over the sermon. “Stop reverting to stuff you hear and say what you think. I want to hear you talk to me….”
But her mother sputters damnation about the hell bound book.
Margarette starts to get truly scared of her mother’s reaction. She needs to get the book back, but she isn’t sure how to retrieve it short of beating her mother to death with a blunt object. She focuses on the vein sticking up on her mother’s forehead and thinks maybe it would pop and she would have done herself like a rage aneurism suicide. She catches herself thinking about her mother’s death. Maybe her mother is right and the book does make Margarette think evil thoughts, but deep down she knows she was born like that, or learned it from her parents. It is really what she chooses to do with those thoughts that makes her different.
In a sudden, but calm even tone, Margarette says, “Well, if it is, and I’m not saying it is….”
“The Devil’s post. Sent with evil stamps to deliver books filled with lies that taint the soul….”
“… Then it exudes evil. And you’re touching it.”
Her mother shrieks and drops the book face down in the middle of the room. She kicks it away from her and runs out of the room. “I am going to destroy that thing!”
Think quick, Margarette! She looks around the room and her eyes fall on her small bookshelf above her desk. Aha. An idea comes to her. She grabs her First Communion bible, which looks and feels just like Paulie’s Comeunion. She swaps the books quickly, throwing the Bible on the floor and Comeunion back into her bag, along with a box containing a rosary from her First Communion.
She hears her mother ascending the stairs, and looks down at the Bible on the floor and sees the giant intricate cross etched on the front. Margarette falls to her knees and she reaches out for the book, flipping it to hide the cross seconds before her mother enters. They face off like an old western; Margarette holding a lie, her mother holding barbecue kerosene fluid and matches. Margarette’s eyes open wide with shock as she realizes what her mother plans to do.
She is shocked at her mother’s choice of weapons. She thought her mother would get a broom, gloves or a kitchen tongs to move the book. “No, Mother. Don’t do that.”
“I will destroy it!” Her mother nabs the book from Margarette, griping the edges with her bare hands, and wincing as if it hurts to hold it. She steps to the bathroom and a minute later the smell of burning paper reaches Margarette’s bedroom.
The smell shocks Margarette into action. A searing sermon whipped into a muffled frenzy follows her as she runs down the stairs with her bags. Her mother has gone completely crazy and inadvertently burned the word of the apostles and their editors.
Margarette doesn’t stop, doesn’t think; she runs out the house and for a few blocks, her book bag on her back and her tote on her shoulder. She is afraid her mother would take the car out after her so she runs through the trees behind the neighbors’ houses into the woods. For a moment she feels alive and for once she doesn’t care about the end of the road; she simply rips through the trees as the next inevitable step away from her life. The momentum pushes her further than she was ready to go before. The air is sweet and she breathes it in like an elixir of life. Every breath is borrowed freedom from her personally decorated hell. Maybe she did make it like this; maybe she made her own mistakes. It’s not the first failure for her and it’s far from the last.
She hides inside the convenient convenience store and calls Paulie, shaking. He picks her up at the store ten minutes later. Paulie knows something is wrong, but drives her willingly, wherever she says, agreeing with everything she says, hoping for the opportunity to be a partner in crime. Her request is cryptic at best; he doesn’t know much other than she needs a ride to an area near the train station.
The CD player in the car doesn’t work so the ride is mostly quiet. She knows she left out enough details that he doesn’t really know why they are going downtown. He helped her with her bags, so she thinks maybe he knows; maybe he understands and is protecting her. She feels safe for a moment as the sun shines in her eyes. This time she would not consider going back.
It is strange to her that her whole life everyone spent so much time telling her about love, warning her about sex and making it seem a certain way. Her experience was a flash of emotion without enough time to absorb what happened. Did she even love Tommy? Did she know Tommy by watching his habits? How could she love anyone when she couldn’t get her head straight? Nothing else matters in the town to her. Everything is broken in a way that cannot be fixed. Maybe Paulie is the only thing left here for her, but he isn’t exactly the anchor she needs.
Taking him with her never crosses her mind, but she doesn’t want to hurt him either. Asking him to go with her would only interfere with the Plan. The circumstances just set her adrift so she chose to change directions.
At the next big intersection Paulie asks, “Where to?”
She points him in the direction she needs. As he turns into the train station, he looks at her suspiciously.
“Why are you going to the station with your luggage?” he asks. “You’re going on a trip?”
“Well, yeah….”
“Where? You’re going to see family or something?”
“I, uh…. Not really… family, per se…” she stammers.
He figures out the first part of her plan without even realizing she had a hidden one. But given her poorly-concealed anxiety it’s suddenly clear to Paulie that she’s doing something else.
Skipping town.
“No.” His eyes widen as he figures it out. “I don’t want you to go. Frick this damn town! I don’t want to be here either, but I am. I put up with it. Don’t tell me you’re leaving.”
“Alright, I won’t.”
“You won’t leave?”
“No, I won’t tell you I’m leaving.”
“Margarette….”
“I have to, Paulie.”
“I’ll go with you,” he offers quickly.
“What? No. You have another year to go.”
“I can finish high school wherever I want. Wherever you go.”
She started shaking her head before he finished. “I don’t think so.”
“Margarette, I know I can never really get out what I want to say, but this is not right. Where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know. I could go see my dad,” she lies. “See if he’ll help me. I’m going to try to go to college. Maybe I’ll be lucky and never come back.”
“Lucky? I’ll never see you again.” Paulie’s voice changes, as if breaking.
“Shit….” Margarette is not ready to discuss Paulie’s tender feelings after fighting with her mother. “Let’s not do this, okay? I’ve had a horrible…” she pauses, reconsidering the word day, “life. I can’t deal with this now.”
“Right now is all you’re giving me!”
“Paulie!” Margarette yells angrily.
He flinches, and tries a different way. His voice softens. “Margarette, please. I didn’t even know I was dropping you off at the train station to leave. I thought you were going to stay with a girlfriend or something. This was a total ambush.”
“Paulie—”
“No, let me finish,” he protests. “Please stay. I’ll help you in any way that I can. Find an apartment to stay away from your mom, get a new job. Just don’t run away. I know… I think I know… what you’re going through. Whatever’s got you afraid, we can face it together.”
His words are meant to be affectionate and supportive, yet Margarette bristles at the thought of him knowing about her pregnancy, and worse, the suggestion that she’s afraid. She’s not afraid; she’s fed up. And she finds she has no patience for him or his poorly-worded proposals. Her mind is set; she’s leaving this ass-backwards town, and nothing he or anyone can say can make her stay around here, not even another hour.
But she takes a second to answer, trying hard to curb her anger so as to not yell at him, because deep down she knows he only means well. Except that Paulie misunderstands the second of silence, thinking that his words may be working, and moves to grab her han
d.
She snaps her hand back, as if his flesh were infectious. “Don’t, Paulie,” she hisses, her words laced with venom, almost similar to her mother’s darker tone. “Do you even hear yourself, what you’re suggesting? Stay here? And do what, hang out with you all day? Go around town ignoring all the bitches and the dicks that keep trying to make my life miserable? Frick that.”
“No! Not like that. Those people… they don’t mean anything.”
“It’s not just them! This town sucks! I want to go to college. I want to be someone. I can’t do that here.”
“College? But I thought you… you’d be taking some time off. Because….” He looks up at her, and the anger in her face makes him look away. “I must’ve made the wrong assumption.”
She sighs. “I was pregnant, Paulie,” she admits. And just like that, her nose burns and her eyes fill with tears. Her eyebrows scrunch in pain.
“Margarette…” Paulie starts to say, but swallows thickly and has to pause. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was a… an experience I’ll never forget. But it’s over. And I’m… I’m not over it. I have to get out of here. Do you understand?”
“Yes. But—”
She doesn’t care to hear him out. “Goodbye, Paulie.” She turns around quickly without waiting for him to reply, exits his car and moves towards the bus. She gets in and chooses the row facing the other side of the parking lot, so as not to see Paulie while the bus leaves.
When she settles in she places a hand over her heart, noticing that it is beating faster than normal. Her goodbye with Paulie definitely didn’t go well; it felt like a fight, and left her hurt and agitated. They were friends, not lovers. It’s like they broke up without ever being together.
As the bus leaves, her heart begins to calm down. Funny, the farther away she gets from home, the safer she feels. Home, she scoffs internally. Her home becomes just an empty room where she grew up.
She thinks of Tommy and quickly shakes the thought away, but unfortunately her mind next replays Mrs. Gallager and every venomous word she said, Mr. Gallager’s cryptic advances, and May’s prejudiced antagonism. She squeezes her eyes tightly to shut off the Gallagers, but then her mother cackles behind her eyelids holding a lit match to the Bible. The pharmacist shakes his head, judging her, as if the baby had put itself in there by magic. No one ever judges the father. Frick them all! One after the other, the faces of her recent past swim in front of her mind’s eye, and angry tears finally spill. Not a single one of them have a single redeeming quality to offer her.