The Symptoms of My Insanity

by Mindy Raf

  “Dinner’s ready, and Mom wants to know if either of you two wants—”

  “Marcus, don’t be rude.” Jenna singsongs over her brother’s low and steady tone. “Come in and say hi to Izzy.”

  Marcus appears from behind the door, locks his gaze on me through black-rimmed glasses, and says, “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I say back. Then he turns and sees Jenna, who’s still decked out in layers of my double-D bras. I think both his face and mine turn as red as my mom’s painted nails.

  “What the …” he starts, then glances back at me, turns even redder, and glances away again, almost tripping over a laundry basket as he escapes to the door. “Dinner’s ready,” he repeats, and disappears around the doorframe. I sigh.

  “Marcus, tell Izzy to work on the musical with us!” Jenna calls, shimmying all my bras down her hips, and then stepping out of the undergarment circle around her ankles gracefully, like she does this all the time.

  “Work on the musical with us?” I ask as we head down the hall.

  “Marcus is stage-managing,” Jenna says, flapping her hand like I should know this already.

  “No, no, no, I’m just doing light cues for you,” Marcus says. He’s paused at the top of the stairs. “I have stuff of my own to work on, Jenna.”

  Marcus is graduating this year and probably going off to some Ivy league school in like New York, or New Haven … or some other New-named city where super-smart people go. He actually took a college course last summer on freshwater organism chemicals or something.

  “Lights, sound, curtain cues, line prompts,” Jenna says, squeezing past him and bounding down the stairs, “it’s all connected.”

  Marcus sighs and I follow him down. Then he stops abruptly in the middle of the stairs. He takes off his glasses to wipe the lenses on his shirt, turns to me, and says, “You should do it, Izzy, keep me company among the crazies.” I give him a knowing laugh, always surprised at how big his eyes are without his glasses. He puts them back on and hides the stems behind his hair, which is dark and sticks out in all directions, but still manages to look okay.

  “She’s already in!” Jenna calls up.

  “No, no, I’ll … I’ll think about it.”

  “Rehearsal goes until seven,” Jenna adds.

  “Oh, you know what? I have to be home by five tomorrow,” I remember, joining her at the kitchen table and saying hello to Cathy, who peeks her head out of the oven long enough to triumphantly inform me that my mom called earlier and told her about finding the perfect shade of pink for me to re-create when I paint the Dance for Darfur centerpiece vases.

  “So many shades of pink, so little time,” Marcus says under his breath in such a mock solemn tone, I almost spit up the water I’m drinking.

  “Oh, that reminds me.” Cathy reemerges, both oven-mitted hands pointing at Jenna. “Did you get the dance flyers up and those ticket envelopes stuffed yet?”

  “I did all that last weekend,” Jenna says, and then shakes her head no at me as Cathy swivels back to the oven, “and I was busy at Soaptastic all weekend too. So … you’re welcome, Mom.”

  Soaptastic is this vegan-friendly soap store at the mall where Jenna works some weekends. I love visiting and watching her keep a straight face while saying “Organic scents, just make sense.”

  “So why do you have to be home tomorrow?” Marcus asks, sitting down next to me.

  “Oh, I have to help my mom. We need to finish cleaning out the attic so the carpet guys can … carpet it. We’re turning it into an office for her.”

  “I didn’t know your mom was leaving her office.” Cathy’s forehead scrunches together, matching the crinkle-cut carrots in the salad she sets down.

  I nod.

  “But she’s doing okay, though,” Marcus says, “I mean—”

  “Yeah, no, she’s great. The rent went up a lot on the space she was in, so … And she’s got a bunch of new projects she’s working on, so she’ll be really busy working from home.”

  “Well, that’s great!” Cathy says, forehead relaxing.

  “Yup.” I nod.

  Okay, so I exaggerated: Mom actually only has one new project she’s working on now, since the surgery over the summer kind of slowed her down, but I’m sure things will pick up once she starts feeling better. I really hope so, because last weekend she came into my room holding all this lacey floral fabric and asked me the most horrifying question I’ve ever heard: “Do you want a canopy bed?”

  “Okay,” Jenna talks through her salad mouth, “I guess I’ll let you leave our first rehearsal early.”

  “Our rehearsal?”

  And that one word makes it official. I’m now the assistant director/set designer of the school musical.

  CHAPTER 4

  I have knockers grandes.

  I wake up the next morning determined. Four hours, just four more hours.

  That’s how long till I can get to the art studio. I psych myself up while brushing my teeth. Today I’m going to start something new, and I’m going to get this portfolio done.

  I pick up the pace on my walk to school. Just three more hours. The Advance Studio Projects kids, we get the small art room all to ourselves since there’re only five of us. The 101 class stays in the main art room. The spaces are joined by Miss S.’s office, which is more of a junk closet hallway, but we hardly see or hear the other class, which is fine by me.

  If you get here early, come to drama room, need help with tix! I get a text from Jenna and pick up the pace even more, tucking my chin down to cover as much of my face as I can with my scarf. We only live about a fifteen-minute walk from school, but last year Mom made Allissa drive me there and back. My sister drives as if she’s both drunk and blind, so I’m more than happy to walk to and from school in the cold this year.

  I usually meet Jenna at her U.S. history class to say hello and make fun of what Mrs. Kerns’s animal-themed sweatshirt says. “I’m crazy fur you”? “Eel’d with a kiss”? I pass by history on my way to the drama room and peek in quickly. Wow, today’s the best one yet: “Polar Coaster!” And yes, it’s an image of a screaming polar bear riding a roller coaster.

  Jenna’s sitting on the drama room floor among piles of envelopes, tickets, and flyers when I walk in.

  “Guess I should do this for Cathy now,” she says, licking an envelope, “since tickets go on sale this week and she already thinks it’s done. Oops.” She laughs, and shoves another ticket into a tiny “Dance for Darfur” envelope that I recognize, because Mom made me do the designs and calligraphy last month.

  “Polar Coaster!” I say, plopping down and helping Jenna stuff envelopes.

  “No! Wait, like a cup of hot coffee resting on top of a polar bear?” Jenna closes her eyes for a second, imagining it. I shake my head imagining it too, and then we burst out laughing.

  “So.” Jenna picks up a clipboard from the floor. “Meredith Brightwell just signed up to help Cara finish the choreography for the musical.” She makes a gag face usually reserved for when I’m eating our cafeteria tacos in front of her. “I think it’s great that Meredith’s trying to get involved in something at school that’s so far away from Jacob Ullman’s crotch, but please. Hopefully she won’t sign up for the dance committee too. She probably thinks Darfur’s an acronym.”

  I roll my eyes and smile, and then shrug. “We could use an extra person,” I say, thinking maybe I could give some of my dance committee tasks to Meredith and get more work done on my portfolio … though it would surprise me if she actually did any work on the dance herself, since all she does is ask other people to do stuff for her, like copy notes from class, or borrow someone’s computer ’cause she forgot her charger, again.

  “We don’t need her or any of her bobble babe friends.” Jenna makes her gag face again, and then starts bobbing her head up and down, going, “Uh-huh [bob, bob, bob] uh-huh,” like Cara Larson and those girls do.

  “Yeah, but I haven’t even started the decorations yet, and our moms want thi
s perfect combo of … what does it say in the binder again?”

  Jenna thumbs through it and then reads aloud, “A hybrid of informative and culturally stimulating visuals on the Darfur crisis that evoke an overall festive appearance.”

  I shake my head and toss her another sealed envelope. Then there’s a thump. I turn to see Nate Yube leaning up against the entrance of the room, one long, muscle-y arm stretching across the open doorway, his gym bag dropped on the floor beside him.

  Jenna springs to her feet, clutching the pile of tickets she’s holding to her chest. “Can we help you?”

  “Yes, I’d like one ticket please,” he says in that Nate Yube voice, like he’s always talking through a laugh or something.

  “Sorry, not on sale yet,” Jenna replies, still weirdly guarding the tickets.

  Nate slowly moves his damp, dark hair out of his eyes like he’s posing for a photo shoot and then speed-walks toward Jenna. She swiftly zigzags in the opposite direction. He pivots back around toward her. She sidesteps him. He swivels back around. They’re face-to-face for a split second before she does a quick 180. Then just as she moves her right arm out, safeguarding the pile of tickets between her and Mrs. Fredmeir’s desk, Nate reaches his much longer arm around her and swipes the whole pile from her hand.

  I don’t watch a lot of basketball, but I feel like Nate just did some fancy slow-motion man-to-man defensive coverage on her.

  Jenna turns to snatch the tickets back, but Nate’s really tall and starts waving them around over his head like he’s teasing a dog with a treat.

  “Jenna, I’m not gonna ask you to the dance until you stop being so mean to me,” he laugh-talks. The top of his collar is damp from his hair.

  Jenna responds by marching over to me and resuming her spot on the floor.

  “Jenna’s not any fun. Izzy, why isn’t Jenna any fun?” he laugh-asks me, which I think is the first time Nate Yube’s said anything directly to me since “Your sister’s hot” at my bat mitzvah brunch. He drops the tickets on the desk, grabs his bag, and walks out.

  I look from Jenna to the door and back again. “What—?”

  “How should I know?” Jenna shrugs and starts packing the dance stuff into her backpack.

  “Did Nate just try to ask you to the dance?” I say in my art-camp counselor voice.

  “No.” Jenna’s adding an unnecessary amount of tape around and around the ticket envelope box.

  “Um, yes. I think he did,” I singsong.

  “Well, who cares. We’re boycotting anyway.” She flings her backpack over her shoulders and hands me the ticket box.

  “We’re boycotting, what? We’re … what?”

  “The whole concept! Having to get asked to attend something at your own school. It’s such dung, right?”

  “Um … well, we can’t just boycott the dance.” I follow her out, awkwardly trying to balance the box and the binder she left behind.

  “No, not like boycott the whole dance, just the ‘dates’ part. Or no, actually that’s not a bad idea. Yes, we should boycott the whole archaic shebang.”

  “What? Okay, sure, right. Because our moms won’t be upset or anything after we’ve helped them plan the whole dance.”

  “Oh,” she says, stopping at her locker as if that just occurred to her. “No, you’re right. Fine. We’ll go, but no dates.”

  “But … okay, but … why no dates again?”

  “Because it’s stupid! Like being all fake, and posing for pictures, and having to talk to some moronic guy all night just because he’s your ‘date,’ right? Let’s just get some girls together and go as a group.”

  “But … I think a lot of people already have dates … or are hoping to … get ones, you know? And Nate was practically asking you just now, so why don’t you—”

  “Yeah. No,” Jenna says, grabbing the binder and box from me and shoving it inside her locker.

  “Hm … I think … maybe someone still has a thing for Nate Yube?”

  “Please,” she says, slamming her locker shut.

  “Don’t deny it,” I say sweetly.

  “I’m not, and I don’t.” She walks past me.

  I race behind her and poke her in her side. “Aw, come on! Remember you used to say, ‘Me and Yube, me and Yube. It sounds so good together.’” I laugh.

  “Nate Yube”—she stops and turns to me, her eyebrows practically touching—“is a waste of space.”

  “That’s not what you used to say. You used to say that Nate was—”

  “PLEASE can you STOP talking for, like, one second! God!”

  I stare at her, then down at the ugly green carpeting.

  When I look up again, Jenna’s eyebrows are back to their naturally separated state and “Sorry” slides out of her half-opened mouth, which then turns up into a small smile when she tells me that she thinks some of her mom’s menopause meds might have gotten mixed in with the allergy pills she took this morning.

  “… that’s why I feel so hormonally imbalanced,” she concludes, her eyes looking thrilled with this new epiphany.

  “Oh … well … wait, when’s the last time you got your thyroid checked?” I ask. I just read an article on the thyroid and hormones.

  Jenna’s small smile turns into a full-out snort-laugh. So I fake a snort-laugh too.

  “Dr. Izzy,” Jenna manages to snort out at me, “she strikes again.”

  I turn to her, my face now still. “What?”

  Jenna laugh-sighs, shaking her head. “You realize I’m going to be visiting you in a mental hospital someday?”

  I just nod at Jenna, and then manage to force-smile out a “Yup.”

  “I just meant that … I think my thyroid’s fine, that’s all,” Jenna clarifies.

  “Of course it is,” I confirm, mustering a nonchalant shrug. “But stop taking your mom’s menopause meds,” I faux scold her, wagging my index finger before we part for opposite ends of the hall.

  On my way to Spanish, I try not to focus on the fact that my best friend thinks I’m going to end up in a straitjacket. Instead I wonder about Jenna’s semi-healthy thyroid glands, and my own possibly unhealthy ones, and then all of Blake’s glands, which are probably perfect, and how no, I definitely don’t want to boycott dates for the dance.

  • • •

  My ears are completely immune to the speed Spanish firing out of Señora Claudia’s mouth.

  I’m thinking about Blake, his perfect glands, and how maybe it’s a real DIA date this Saturday, and how maybe that real DIA date will lead to a real dance date. Then I can convince Jenna to go with Nate, and we can all go together. Because I know Jenna wants to go to the dance with a date and not just as a PTO mom helper. This whole date boycott thing is just another one of her random tirades.

  “Señorita Isabella? Hola? Señorita Isabella?”

  I wish I wasn’t hearing Señora Claudia calling me up to the front of the room to talk about what I did yesterday “en español,” but it’s kind of hard to ignore a woman in a giant sombrero shouting your name. Less than two hours until I’m in the studio.

  “Hola. Me llamo Isabella. Y ayer …” I try. Great. There’s nothing I did yesterday that I know how to say in Spanish. “Ayer … ayer … miré la television.”

  “Bueno, Isabella,” Señora says, and I start to head back to my seat, happy that at least the buttons on my suggestive shirt didn’t pop open in front of the whole class. But Señora soon stops me, saying, “Y qué más?”

  What else? What do you mean what else? Um … okay, Señora. Como se dice, I was up all night worried about play practice, my pathetic art portfolio, and breast cancer, en español?

  “Y qué más?” Señora Claudia is repeating. “Y qué más?”

  “Um … nada,” I reply. Señora is not happy with that response and says, “Nada?” and then starts blasting me with more speed Spanish:

  “Trabajodelaescuela? Comerlacena? Ustedlimpiasusitio? Elhablarenetelé fonoconsusamigos?”

  What? What? What
about my friends? And then Jacob Ullman whispers really loudly, “Miré la television con mis knockers. Mi encanta mis knockers, son grandes.” His freckled cheeks lift in approval as people start snickering, and I know Señora hears them, because she says, “Okay. Bueno,” and gestures for me to go back to my seat.

  I slide back against my chair, pretending not to hear Jacob’s guttural, seagull-like laugh, and the boys whispering “knockers” in bad Spanish accents, and wishing I was small enough to fit inside that open pocket of my backpack.

  See Mom, I’m wearing my new bra, they’re supported properly, but it doesn’t change anything.

  Why did I think for a second that Saturday was going to be an actual date with Blake? It’s obvious that guys are interested in me for a good laugh and that’s all. Jenna’s right, Blake just asked me to go with him because his mom made him. She probably said, “Blake you should invite a real art student, somebody up for the Italy scholarship. Wouldn’t that be nice for Jillian?” Yup, I’m just an art buddy for his sister.

  Señora announces that we’ll be spending the rest of class working in pairs on our cultural research projects. Meredith Brightwell’s my partner—well, my silent partner, since I do most of the work—and we’re doing our project on this Colombian artist named Botero and his awesome, colorful paintings of people who are … well, really fat.

  “Hey, Izzy.”

  Meredith’s dragging her desk over to mine carefully, as if not to chip her nails, which are done in that French style Allissa tried to do on me once. My nails ended up looking like I was attacked by a bottle of Wite-Out. Meredith’s nails look pretty, though, and I see she’s still wearing that tiny gold ruby ring she got for her thirteenth birthday. I was always amazed how the red in the gem was almost the exact same strawberry shade as her hair. I wonder if she’s grossed out by the paint manicure I always have on my nails.

  “Hey,” I say back. And then we flip through our Botero books in silence.

  I’m not super-sad about not being friends with Meredith anymore. We just kind of naturally grew apart. It’s strange seeing someone every day though who used to be your best friend. I met Meredith in first grade, when I was desperate to try out this new prank kit I got for my birthday with fake vomit and snot. So I sat down next to her and faked a huge sneeze, making tons of gooey prop snot appear in my hands. She started crying so hard, she had to leave class. When my mom made me go over to her house that night to apologize, I showed her how to fake vomit, ended up sleeping over, and we were basically inseparable until about seventh grade. That’s when she made lots of new friends who didn’t seem to want to include me in anything. Also, that’s when I got more interested in art than whose lunch table at I sat at.