Girl in Reverse (9781442497368)

by Stuber, Barbara

  “I know that.”

  “So what is it? Do I need to act like Mom on the phone again, or to help you sneak out, or stalk the nun, or what?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll have another Coke,” he says. “No, a Coke float.”

  I get him a Coke float, which he eats delicately, dissecting every bubble. I order coffee.

  “What? COFFEE? For real?”

  “Don’t have a conniption.”

  Ralph peers at my cup. “Is it black? Ugh. Since when did you start—”

  “Since when will you stop asking two million questions and start shutting up?”

  Ralph shudders. “So . . . okay. What do you want me to do? Be Mom?” He rubs his throat, cranes his neck, and squawks, “Why, hello, Vice Principal Thorp, yes, our Lillian has dropped high school and become a member of a Chinese opium den. She is also a coffee fiend. We are so proud of her.”

  “Opium?”

  Ralph shakes his head. “Yeah. It grows in dens, or something.”

  “Very cute, but what I really need you to do is hold on to your underpants . . .” Ralph rolls his eyes. “While I tell you something that you must lock and swallow until I say it can be known out in the real world, which it never will be.”

  Ralph burps and chews his thumbnail.

  “God, Ralph, ick. Stop that.” We sit for a minute and I say, “I know who the phantom is.”

  My brother’s eyes bulge. He blinks an astonishingly large number of times. The milk shake maker grinds behind the soda fountain. Ralph swipes the back of his hand over his mouth.

  “He’s not in China. They made that up,” I say. “He’s not even Chinese!”

  Ralph leans in, checks the vicinity for eavesdroppers, and whispers between his fingers, “Can I meet him?”

  “You almost have. You’ve seen him anyway.”

  I tell Ralph everything I know about Michael Benton, the art and archaeology stuff and a little bit about his romance with Gone Mom, which gets Ralph intensely fidgety, and how their love pulled her all the way across the Pacific Ocean, and how I interrupted their plans to be together. I tell him about the cloud slipper match and that he is married now and that amazingly, I have a phantom half sister.

  Ralph squirms, sloshes his straw in his glass. He’s quiet for a long moment. He turns the color of wet newspaper. “Does Dad know?”

  “What? Dad? God. No!”

  Ralph frowns. Narrows his eyes, stares at the table. There’s a long, awkward silence that I wasn’t expecting at all. “I guess I’ve had a few days to think about this and you haven’t,” I say, which is exactly what the phantom said to me.

  Ralph finger-paints drips of vanilla ice cream on the tabletop. “So . . . Michael Benton has got the other little Martian boot thing, the mate?”

  I tap my palms together. “Yep. He has one and I have the other one. The pair. It’s like Gone Mom wanted me to find him, not her, and I did.”

  He looks up at me. “So they have a family, with him and your sister, and his wife, who’s all nice and all . . .” His face crumples. He swipes his eyes. His voice cracks. “Are you gonna go live with them now?”

  WHAT?

  He lowers his head. His shoulders start shaking. This is not a skinned-knee cry but an out-of-the-blue, tight, ripped-feelings cry. He’s petrified that Dr. Michael Benton is going to explode our Firestone family still-life arrangement. This is a “prism moment”—my amazing little brother flashing all his hidden colors.

  I slide him a napkin. “I won’t ever go live with them, Ralphie,” I say. He shakes his head. He’s not buying it one bit.

  * * *

  On the bus Ralph mumbles, “Are you gonna tell Dad?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Don’t! Dad’ll beat him up.”

  “Are you kidding?” Not once have I thought of my father as having real human reactions of his own that are not either protecting his wife or protecting himself from his wife.

  “And double do not tell Mom!” Ralph pleads.

  “Okay. Okay. I won’t. Right now only you and the phantom and his wife and Evangeline know. That’s it.”

  Ralph flashes me a look. “That’s a ton of people!” he whispers. “Michael Benton is different than Gone Mom. He’s walking around with a real name and everything—Mi-chael Ben-ton. He’s not a phantom. Not anymore.”

  Ralph leans down, fumbles to arrange his kite under the bus seat, cranks his head to look up at me, and says, “It was neat finding your box, and the mirror placement technique, and the clues at the museum and stuff, and catching Mom and Dad red-handed, but now . . .”

  I stare out the window. We pass the Country Club Plaza and Our Lady of Sorrows and neighborhoods with people walking their dogs, raking dead winter out from under their bushes, and little kids roller-skating and circling on their trikes.

  Out of the clear blue, this question pops into my head and right out of my mouth. I turn to my brother. “Hey, why don’t you have a kite theme for your birthday party this summer?”

  “Nah.”

  “Why not?”

  Ralph turns to the window. “I’m not having any more birthday parties.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just not.”

  “Why?”

  He starts to say and then he doesn’t.

  I sit back, a dull gong clanking inside. “What’s wrong?”

  Ralphie turns to me, pulls back the corners of his eyes. “Your ears are too tight.” Then he rubs his index finger over his front teeth until they’re dry, sticks his neck out, bucks his teeth. “You famiry chinkie.”

  “So . . . uh, is somebody making fun of you because of me?”

  No answer.

  “Like guys in Scouts?”

  Ralph nods. “Yeah. They’re falling all over themselves.”

  I feel sick. “School too?”

  “Yep.” Ralph turns, sneers, and snaps his fingers in my face. “What else you wanna talk about?”

  “God! I hate that. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He shrugs.

  “Don’t let them bother you!”

  Ralph turns to me, his eyes wide. “Oh, really? That’s interesting advice, Mom!”

  Hmm . . . “Then why don’t you tell them off?”

  He turns. “Or I could just walk out, get a detention from Boy Scouts.” He shakes his head and says to the window, “It doesn’t matter, they’re not my friends anymore.”

  “Did you tell Dad?”

  Ralph turns. His look reads: maybe your ears are too tight. “Oh, that’d be rich. Either he’d laugh it off like with you or . . .”

  Ralph doesn’t need to say the rest—or Dad would rise to the occasion and help Ralph somehow, and expose a race discrepancy right in our house.

  Ralph crosses his arms. He looks a million years old. “But if Michael Benton ever shows up, Dad better order him off our property.”

  I shake my head. “Right. And if he doesn’t, you will.”

  Chapter 33

  It’s late Sunday afternoon. My parents have just finished their routine round of gin rummy at the kitchen table, unaware that they are about to meet Michael Benton. Dad gathers the cards, taps them into a neat stack, looks up when I step in. “Hello, Lily.”

  Despite my lurching stomach and the internal warnings, I walk over, grip the table edge, and blurt out this sentence: “Do you two remember how you said that my Chinese birth father was gone forever behind the Bamboo Curtain, never to show up again?”

  Dad’s forehead turns slick. His breathing becomes a string of sighs. Mother chews her manicure. Ralph walks in, sniffs danger, glares at me with his palms up—what gives?—and exits.

  “Based on the circumstances, that is what we assumed to be true, Lily.”

  “Well, he’s not.”

  Dad cocks his head as if experiencing a sudden hearing loss. There’s a slight say what? eyebrow raise.

  “My birth father is not in China. His name is Michael Benton.” Mother’s eyes tu
rn to stone. I unfold the newspaper story onto the table with his picture next to the bodhisattva in the Chinese Temple. “I met him at the art museum. I was not searching for him; it happened by accident. He is an archaeologist and an expert on Buddhism and Chinese art. I was researching the old objects in my box from the orphanage and one thing led to another. He is a white, American person.”

  Mother scrunches her face. “What exactly is Buddhism?” she says, in a pathetic detour attempt. But I’m not fooled.

  Dad holds up a hand. His voice shakes. “You are telling us that this man is your birth father?” His eyes narrow on me. “Based on what evidence? What possible proof?” He slaps his palm off the picture so hard we all jump. There, Ralph, Dad hit him! Dad sounds like a real person, no ho-ho-hokey announcer talk.

  “All this time I believed what you told me. You let me believe he was in China.”

  “We thought it was best! For everyone. What’s the difference, really?”

  My hands and face tingle. “What’s the difference? You didn’t know if it was true! That’s the difference! And it wasn’t. You can’t just change somebody’s provenance.”

  Dad stands, snaps his words. “Dammit, Lillian, this has gone far enough!”

  “Oops!” I shoot back. I feel tears spilling down my face. “I thought this was just a crazy old world, Dad. Heh-heh! You know, a real head-shaker old world full of goofy surprises.” I lean in. I am unstoppable, out of my head. Fierce. I switch directions, glare at Mother. “I don’t get why you ever adopted me. Why me?”

  Dad spreads his hands. “Lily!” He sounds sharp, offended.

  But Mother sits with a puzzled expression, as if she’s waiting for me to explain why they chose me. Our kitchen is a sinking ship. Ralph is crying just outside the door. I’m crying, trembling, sparking. But before I can march out, they do. First Ralph grabs his parka, slams out the back kitchen door, and hops on his bike. Dad takes a cue from Ralph. He pulls out Mother’s chair, yanks their coats from the hook, and steers her out to the garage. The car revs, and in a flash they are gone too.

  Only the enemy remains at the table with her smoking tongue. Joy hops on my lap but doesn’t lie down. She’s not cuddly now. She’s hungry. Or scared. Or both. I try to pet her, but she ducks her head away.

  Never have I seen Dad that mad. Never has Ralph stormed out of the house. Never has Mother headed out instead of up the stairs. Never have I exploded like that—right from the gut.

  Our house flattened by the Lillian Firestone tank.

  I head up to my room and find my Gone Mom notebook, my insides a jumble. I sit on the floor astounded that I actually did it. I finally revealed what has been phony and wrong with us.

  The house is silent. I thumb through my drawings and feel my heart slow down. Elliot finds answers in his art. He discovers himself and other people—uncovers what’s true. I can’t stand that I walked out on him. I press my lips to the back of my hand. Tears hit the page.

  I miss you, Elliot. . . .

  * * *

  “Where’s Ralph?” my father demands as he barges into my room.

  A siren goes off in me. “I don’t know.”

  “He’s not in here with you?” Mother screeches.

  “No.” I run past them downstairs and out to the garage looking for his bike. All I can see is the bewildered betrayed look he gave me at the kitchen door. Please, Ralphie, don’t run away, do not be hurt or kidnapped or . . .

  Dad gets back in his car. He bumps the curb hard as he wheels down the street.

  My mother calls two of Ralph’s friends. He is neither place.

  It’s nine thirty. Ten. No Ralph. No Dad.

  Ticking clock. Shallow breathing. Panic building.

  Where is he? Where would he go?

  Mother stands on the front porch in her coat with Joy beside her. She yells, “Ralph . . . Ralph . . .” It is the oddest sound, her calling out to him like that. Dad returns. No Ralph. He looks old and very tense.

  “I’m calling the police!” Mother says. In a minute she’s describing my brother to the police department. Her voice is shaky but determined.

  I recheck the basement, the side yard, call up the attic stairs. I look under his bed. “C’mon, Ralph, don’t do this. You’re scaring us to death.” Maybe he left a note, a clue. I check his dresser, his desk, my vanity, and the bathroom sink. The attic!

  I hear Dad back out of the driveway. Round two of the hunt. Mother sits by the phone. I climb the steep attic steps. It’s cold. The streetlamp casts huge dusky shadows on the rafters. I grope for the light chain, knock it away from my hand before finally grabbing it.

  I yank the light on, squeeze my eyes, blink against the glare. Joy meows, darts up the stairs, and heads for Ralph’s lap. He sits by the broken window, surrounded by ancient bird doo and scattered sunflower seed shells.

  “GOD! Ralph!” I pant. “Wow! Thank you. Thank you. What’re you doing?”

  He points. “Watching Dad’s headlights circle the neighborhood.” His voice is tight and overly polite.

  I tiptoe over. “I called. Why didn’t you answer?”

  Ralph shrugs.

  “Where are all your birds?”

  He looks at me—duh . . . “Pigeons don’t like cats.”

  “Why are you just sitting up here?”

  “Well, I wonder why . . . ,” he says, supersarcastic. He’s Ralph, but he isn’t.

  I stammer without forming a word.

  “You lied. You said you weren’t gonna tell them about the phantom and blow everything up and then you turned right around and did it.” He raises his palms. “You promised me and you broke it. You’re just like them, lying when it’s handy!”

  “But I . . . I thought it was the right thing . . .”

  “For you!”

  “I was trying to be honest.”

  “With them, maybe, but you weren’t with me.” He points in my face, shakes his pudgy hand. “So go on and live with your new people.”

  “What?”

  “In Chicago.”

  “No!”

  Ralphie stares out the window with his back to me. His shoulders jerk. Next comes a string of swooshing, gucky sobs. He wipes his face on his sleeve. “Go away . . . !”

  “I’m awful. I lied, but I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize I was even doing it. I am so . . . mad and sick of them and . . .” I start crying. “I get it. I just did to you what they did to me, and I didn’t even know it. You’re right. My ears are too tight. I love you, Ralphie. I love you more than anybody else on earth. I didn’t think of how it would . . . I’m sorry. You are my best person. You are most esteemed brother of lowly rice-face girl.”

  He flashes me a look and, after a minute, smiles a little. “Okay.” He sits up cross-legged with his shoulders bunched up to his ears—a bodhisattva with a runny nose. “How’d you think to look up here?”

  “Messenger pigeon,” I say. Ralph’s birds coo in the eaves outside. I pause a minute and say very carefully, “You know, I hate to say this, but I don’t think they’re pigeons.”

  Ralph nods. “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. I figured it out a while ago. They’re doves.” He shrugs. “It’s okay, I like doves better anyway.”

  We hear our parents talking in the driveway. “I’ve got too many parents now,” I say. “It’s real hard.”

  “Yeah,” Ralph says. “How many too many?”

  “Four.”

  “Right. Four’s a load.” He stands, shakes out his hands and shoulders. “So is two.” He tiptoes across the plywood planks and clomps down the stairs.

  I’m sorry. I messed up, Ralphie. I love you. I turn to the attic window and watch the treetops—crisp black feathers scraping the sky. I imagine flying out, slicing the night, a kite soaring without a string.

  Chapter 34

  The whole class is ready and waiting on May 4, fifth hour, for Lillian Firestone’s current event. Actually, nobody could care less, except me. I’m
nervous for twenty people. My blouse is soggy and my tongue is glued to my teeth. I just pray I can go first and get it over with. I look toward the door, calculate the steps to escape just as Mr. Howard shows up with his ladder. What?

  He nods politely at Miss Arth and points at the ceiling light fixture—This will only take a minute. He positions his stepladder right by the door. The bell rings. I look at Miss Arth seated under the American flag framed by a giant pull-down map of the world. Mr. Howard lumbers up his ladder with a hunk of building keys on a ring and a canvas bag of lightbulbs hooked to his tool belt. I’ll bet he actually unscrewed some earlier so he could stage this moment. I stare at the gouged tornado on my desk until I hear my name.

  My shoes and I walk to the front. I face my class. Miss Arth squints briefly at the drawings in black cardboard frames that I hold, one in each hand.

  “I’ve got two current events to share. They go together.”

  Miss Arth checks her watch and clucks, “Those look like artworks, Miss Firestone. Current events are to be gotten from the newspaper.”

  Mr. Howard clears his throat.

  Her tone is so infuriating it pushes me to say, “Oh, yes, you’re so right, political cartoons are definitely works of art. These are related to events that have just currently happened.” I show the class Elliot’s drawing. “This artwork was done by Elliot James, who is a good friend of mine. It won first place in the Fine Arts Showcase. It’s called Atalanta and Meleager, which is a marble sculpture at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.” Snickers. Sighs. The couple is so real it almost pops off the paper. They could have come from Michelangelo’s own sketchbook. Elliot has angled and shaded the figures so we see their arms and their sides and legs—nothing too controversial.

  I step closer to the front row and point to Atalanta. “She’s been ruined.” I stop to let “ruined” soak in. “See the mustache drawn on the woman?” I point to her upper lip. “A Fu Manchu mustache like these guys have.” Kids crane forward, squint at the picture. I walk over to Neil’s cartoon on the bulletin board with the army tank of raging Chinese soldiers. “A chink mustache.”

  I look out over the room. Shiver. Catty Piddle won’t look at me. Neither will Anita. I glance up at Mr. Howard—an angel in work boots hanging above us all.