by Delia Ephron
Frannie had read somewhere that newborn babies don’t smile. People call it smiling but it’s either a baby’s muscles getting used to working or a reaction to something physical like a tummy ache. What she’d seen in Sukie’s face, Frannie concluded, was a gas pain that she’d mistaken for emotion.
Sukie, meanwhile, stood silent. Would that vision forever sideswipe her? Was she lashed to the sight of her dad on the court and the grim man’s confiding evil words? Your dad’s slime. Never forget it. Frannie walked away, but everyone else remained rapt, awaiting more details of her mother’s fate. “You won’t believe what my mom looks like,” Sukie babbled. “Like someone punched her.”
She would remember and regret her choice of words.
A Funeral Procession
SUKIE spent forty-five minutes doing the mermaid float, a fleet of vanilla-scented candles sweetening the air, her bathwater oiled with a concoction of eau de kelp and coconut. She emerged liquid-calm. But shortly afterward, she felt the jumps return. By the time her hair was dry, they’d spread from her solar plexus down her arms and legs. That’s how much she feared showing up at the meeting tonight with her mom and having to take her nose to meet Bobo on Saturday.
Preoccupied with these worries, she’d barely thought about the strange incidents in the mirror, even when she was looking into it. Her imagination had run amok, turned happy fantasies to nightmares, that’s all. The night before, in between answering the Final Jeopardy question and finding out she got it right—“Who is Chaucer?”—she’d even had a fit of giggles thinking about her mom, Señor, and herself all screaming at the same time. As for the crack, while it was possible that Señor’s piercing scream had caused it, more likely it was the result of age—the mirror was over sixty. Considering that, it was in remarkable shape. The tiny crack was hardly visible. When she stood in front of the mirror, it bisected her ankle, not a high-priority body part.
Now that her cell was back in her possession (and her racket too—delivered by the club’s lost and found), she summoned Bobo’s texts to enjoy them again and again. MEET ME AFTER THE GAME. DANGER CATION. She’d texted back, SEE YOU THEN. The brevity evoked mystery—or so she believed until she hit send, when the truth clubbed her: It was bland. Her golden hair and even her creamy complexion were a front. Underneath she was one hundred percent beige. She wished this truth were deep underground, but she suspected the opposite. It was right out there, and only Sukie had been too blind to see it. “Beige Girl. You are Beige Girl,” she tortured herself in the mirror.
“Why does Mikey have to come tonight? He’s not going to college,” she said, although she didn’t really care.
“Because I forgot to get a sitter.”
Her mom lay on her back in her underwear as she pulled on tight pants that showed every curve of her shapely legs. On her bed on her back was the only way she could put on pants without bending over, an act that was positively forbidden. As Sukie watched, standing in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom, she squeezed the flesh on her arms, working her way from her wrists to her biceps. Again and again she squeezed, trying to quiet the jumps.
“What are you doing?” asked her mom, sitting up carefully.
“Nothing.” Sukie stopped, but she started squeezing again a minute later.
“As soon as I get all my expressions back, I’ll teach you how to cry on command. It can be useful. Put that on me, would you?” She nodded toward a silk top draped on the chair and raised her arms like a little kid. Sukie dropped the blouse over her mom’s head. Her mom adjusted the shoulders and slid her feet into flats. “Now pull me up slowly.” She extended a hand.
Ever since she’d come home, Sukie’s mom had moved in slow motion. She never turned her head without at the same time turning her shoulders and chest. “Mom’s a robot,” said Mikey. Now she squatted slightly to pinch her scarf off the ottoman. Mikey pointed the cable remote at her and emitted simulated sound waves—“eh-eh-eh-eh-eh”—as if he were controlling her movements.
Her mom swirled the scarf around and around, up her neck, over her chin, to just under her bottom lip.
Sukie handed her a black felt hat. Studying herself in the mirror, her mom adjusted the brim low and slipped on her enormous dark glasses. “Ta-da,” she said.
“In case anyone asks, I think we should all say I had a bumper stumper,” her mom announced as they drove to the school.
“What’s that?” asked Sukie.
“Oh, you know, a mini-accident. I rear-ended someone and banged my nose on the steering wheel.”
“I already told them something,” said Sukie. “I meant to mention.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you had a spa accident.”
Her dad burst out laughing.
From the back, Sukie saw her mom turn her head and shoulders stiffly toward him. “What’s funny about that?”
Her father shrugged.
“I said you dove into the shallow end so, I mean, if anyone says they’re sorry about the accident, you’ll know.”
“For sure,” said her dad.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” said her mom.
“Don’t,” Sukie blurted.
“Don’t what?” asked her mom.
Have a fight, Sukie was thinking, but she knew to shut up.
“Darling, is something on your mind?” Darling was not darling. Darling was the opposite of darling. Darling was a dagger thrust between the ribs.
“Lay off her,” Sukie’s dad said mildly.
“You two are in it together,” said Sukie’s mom. “Am I right?”
No one bit on that.
Her dad pulled into the right lane to join the slow-moving line of cars entering the school lot. A funeral procession, thought Sukie. I’m on a trip to my own grave.
Cobweb
THE funeral idea took root. By the time they’d parked and her mother had fluttered waves to several other parents, Sukie had decided to play corpse for the evening. I possess no feelings, she told herself. Pain nor pleasure, hurt nor joy. I am beyond all mundane earthly emotions, and while present am absent.
She had dawdled, letting her parents and Mikey go ahead. Her mother had fussed about not having a pad and pen, fumbling through the messy glove compartment. “What’s this?” she’d said, holding up a DVD receipt. “The Other Boleyn Girl? Who watched that?”
Her dad, who would normally be striding about glad-handing, waited by the open car door, pointed to the brightly lit cafeteria, and said only, “I guess that’s where we go.” They set off on their mission to get their daughter into the best possible college, strung so tight that they didn’t notice that the object of their concern, Sukie, wasn’t with them.
Face dulling was called for. A slack jaw, limp cheeks, loose lips, shallow breathing. Only enough air to sustain motion must enter system. She felt like Mikey, making up robot rules, only hers were for the walking dead. Alone in the backseat she experimented on the front-seat headrest. “Orbs aslumber,” she intoned. Soon, without being closed, her eyes lost focus. The headrest was no longer a headrest but an identity-less padded object.
She took a selfie and studied it. Did she look dead or merely stunned (as if someone had tapped her lightly with a mallet)? She couldn’t tell, because the photo was too dark. She was cloaked in shadow. There is a zombie truth, she thought, and I am it.
She stepped out of the car.
A sparring wind slapped her pants and blew open her pea coat. She struggled to button it and keep the collar turned up chicly. “Wind, you can’t defeat me,” she whispered. “Cold, you fool, I am beyond shivering.” She might be channeling Ophelia and Shakespeare’s way with words. Maybe. For sure. For sure maybe. She aimed for grace. She would be a beautiful and arresting corpse. No. She would be a nomadic angel—that had more allure. In the midst of classmates and their parents, she observed without connecting. The role suited her because Sukie often had to pretend that she
was actually a part of things. Attaching herself to existing groups, she commented, laughed along with everyone else. If I leave, no one notices or cares, she had noted in her journal. No one goes “Oh, God, no, where’s Sukie?” Tonight she would enjoy her invisibility. Choose it rather than have it be her fate.
The parents conversed in hushed tones, and she could hear Mr. Vickers’s hearty greetings. “Come on, don’t be shy, it’s no big deal, your child’s future is at stake, that’s all.
“What are you going to do with this bag of bones, haw, haw, haw,” he said, referring to lanky Troy Bascomb, who was duking it out with Sukie for the most A’s and was such an extraordinary fencer he was trying out for the Olympics. “Your very existence is an embarrassment,” he assured Jenna’s parents. He even elbowed Dr. Fusco, Autumn’s dad, a man everyone was terrified of. Dr. Fusco did brain surgery. “Where’s your kid?” Mr. Vickers asked him. “Hiding in plain sight like all the rest of them?”
Trying not to see, Sukie actually perceived more keenly. She knew what Vickers meant. Kids lagged behind parents and, as quickly as possible, migrated to friends. Denicia bolted from her mother’s car as if she were escaping kidnappers.
Sukie, at the back of the crowd, spied her tall dad at the front. If she’d craned, she could have seen her mom, too, but the dead don’t crane. At most they mill about. “Well, if it isn’t the parents of the driven and studious—” Vickers abruptly shut up.
Had he forgotten her name?
“—Susannah Jamieson.” There. He supplied it.
She knew what had happened. Her mother’s face. Vickers had been temporarily silenced by the close-up truth.
Did the dead have parents? She made up another rule: No parents for dead people. Tonight she was an orphan.
There was no escaping Vickers, however, because she had to pass him to get in. “How are you?” He dropped his goofy cheer and peered down through rimless glasses. She responded with a bland vague affect. He pressed her arm. “Are you all right, Sukie?” She shrugged and floated by. “How’s Emma?” he barked.
Emma? Who was Emma? Even if she’d cared, she couldn’t ask. Speaking broke the rules, as did caring. In fact, it occurred to her, the dead didn’t have teachers either.
“I’m referring to Madame Bovary.” He cupped his mouth and blared into the cafeteria. “All you kids in AP English, don’t forget. Settle on your topics. Essay presentations begin a week from Monday.”
Sukie’s mom had staked out a front-row table, laying her coat across the bench on one side and propping her purse prominently on the other. Sukie drifted as fast as zombie legs could drift in the other direction, past Mikey with a fistful of cookies, over to the refreshment table, where Jenna’s boyfriend, James, was peeling oranges.
“You will not believe this orange James discovered,” said Jenna. She offered samples, passing slices on a paper plate soggy with juice, standing on one leg while she did it. Jenna was, Sukie observed, excruciatingly graceful. Sukie sometimes thought there was nothing she couldn’t be jealous of, even an ability to raise your leg and point your toe while serving orange slices. Jenna was studying ballet and Sukie wasn’t, but still. James, meanwhile, a serious foodie, spun an orange in one hand and wielded a small paring knife with the other. The peel fell off in a perfect spiral.
“A surprisingly huge variety of oranges are grown in Sicily,” said James.
“You’re the professor of fresh fruit,” said Frannie.
“You are.” Jenna giggled. She popped a slice into his mouth and mopped juice off his chin.
He started skinning another. “They’re called Moros.” He glanced up and flinched.
“What’s wrong?” Jenna asked. “Are you all right?”
He sucked his knuckle while he stared at Sukie.
Did I make him nick himself? wondered Sukie. Is that a compliment?
“Given what we pay in tuition, you’d think the refreshments would be better.”
Sukie realized her dad was standing next to her, his bad side showing. As he popped a cheese cube into his mouth and chewed, the lumpy purple bruise on his cheek pulsed.
Autumn’s mother, pouring juice, nudged Ethan’s mother, who was upending a plastic bag of prepeeled baby carrots, the kind Sukie’s mother refused to serve because they looked like stumps. In an obvious way that was supposed to be subtle (Ethan’s mom scratched her head and Autumn’s feigned a yawn), they both considered him and then pivoted to view Sukie’s mom, now sitting quietly with one arm bent so her hand happened to block her face. But it didn’t. Anyone could see the hideous swelling, the bruising at its ugliest (involving yellow), and bits of the nose bandage. Sukie struggled to keep all expression washed from her face. Her parents matched. They went together in the worst possible way.
She looked around. Nearly every person at the college prep meeting in the Cobweb cafeteria was finding an unobtrusive way to check out her parents. Ethan interlaced his fingers and stretched, peeking between his arms.
She looks like someone punched her.
Sukie’s own words came back to her.
Like someone punched her.
Sukie had been so focused on her mom, she’d forgotten her dad.
She looks like someone punched her.
Yes, she did. Like Sukie’s dad had punched her and she’d punched him back.
The bars of lights striping the ceiling, lights that exposed every one of the seven grains in the bread that health-conscious Cobweb insisted on using for students’ sandwiches, also exposed Sukie’s mom as a battered wife.
No wonder Vickers had detoured into sincerity at the sight of Sukie. The knuckle-sucking incident made sense now too. James had cut himself when he’d caught sight, not of Sukie, but of her dad standing behind her. Everyone saw the spa accident for the lie it was, and everyone knew about it because it was such a terrific lie, so juicy that it had spread through Cobweb like wildfire.
Now the entire class thought they had discovered a hidden truth, only that truth was a lie too.
Curiously and confusingly, in this lie that everyone believed—that her mom was battered and her dad the batterer—her dad came up slime. Slime again. How ironic, how spooky, how strange.
Sukie’s arms popped with electricity as the jumps shot through her. She forgot her zombie disguise, sidled along the wall to the back of the cafeteria, and huddled at a table alone. Fortunately Mrs. Dintenfass, the guidance counselor, waved her arms, tapped the microphone, and announced it was time to begin. Parents quieted instantly, found seats, and started shushing kids who didn’t get how unbelievably important this meeting was.
“It’s vital that your children distinguish themselves not only academically but in their extracurricular activities,” said Mrs. D.
“Basically, colleges are looking for well-rounded students who are quirky and offbeat,” said Mr. Vickers. “In other words, it’s impossible to please them, so why try?”
Parents laughed loudly, although the remark was barely worth a chuckle. They needed to laugh because they were wrecked with worry. Sukie laid her head down on her arms.
Someone poked her.
She turned her head and opened an eye. It was Mikey.
“Did Dad hit Mom?” he asked.
“No,” said Sukie.
He nodded.
“But some people think so.” She flopped up and slid over so he could sit.
The questions at the meeting were endless. How many AP classes did Andrew need? How many times should Moira take her boards? Is it a good idea to have SAT tutoring? Safety schools? Soccer scholarships? “Keep your chins up and your Facebook pages clean,” Vickers said at one point. “Merely a life tip, nothing to do with college.” Kids and parents were fighting too. Frannie’s mom asked, “To maintain your career options, do you think it’s better to go to a liberal arts college?” and Frannie shouted from across the room, “I told you I’m going to art school,” and her mom called back, “I was just asking a question,” and Frannie shouted, “Don’t.”
“I’m not going to college,” said Autumn. Her father stood up and said, “Excuse us,” and they left.
Sukie’s parents hunted her down the minute the meeting was over. “Tell me again what you’re doing,” said her mom. “Besides school.”
“Tennis, flute, EGG.”
“What’s EGG?”
“Educating Girls Globally. We’re having a festival to raise money for girls in India.”
“India?” her mother considered. “Africa would be better.”
“India’s fine,” said her dad.
“You don’t want to come up short. It would be awful if you came up short.”
“I’m on the debate team.”
“That’s a good one,” said her dad, while her mom beckoned, wiggling her finger. When Sukie leaned in close, she murmured, “You are the most amazing person here. You are better than everyone. Isn’t she better than everyone?”
“Better than everyone,” her dad agreed.
Was she better than everyone or doomed to come up short? Or both?
“Sukie, wait.” Mrs. Dintenfass waved. She was surrounded by parents, and after several comforting pats and verbal assurances that they could call her office at whim, she finally was able to tell Sukie, “Your tutoring starts next week.”
“I’m being tutored?”
She laughed gaily. “As if you needed it. No, you’re tutoring. An eight-year-old boy. Don’t you remember? We talked about it in the library.”
So that’s what she’d agreed to.
“Tutoring. Wonderful,” said her mom. “Is he underprivileged?”
“No.”
“Does he speak English?”
“Yes.”
“That’s too bad. I think it would be better if it were bilingual tutoring, because any way that you can distinguish yourself, that’s clearly the point.”
“He needs tutoring because he has a learning disability,” said Mrs. Dintenfass. “And he’s ADD.”
“Oh, good.”
“The important thing, Sukie,” said Mrs. Dintenfass, “is what do you like?”