The Symptoms of My Insanity

by Mindy Raf

  Jenna doesn’t respond. In fact, I think she might be choking on her pizza. Finally she coughs, swallows, and gasps out, “You’re Boobgirl?” It sounds like she’s asking a question and making a statement at the same time. “Why didn’t you say something? Oh my God!” She puts her pizza down on the chair next to her and starts zigzagpacing around the room. “Here I am going on and on about the play and the set and you’re Boobgirl? You’re Boobgirl. I have to sit down.”

  “No! That’s wet!” Meredith screeches, stopping Jenna from getting brown paint all over the back of her pants. Which would be hilarious for a second and then just really unfortunate.

  “Wait a minute, you didn’t know?” Meredith asks Jenna. “How did you not know?”

  “Yes, Meredith. Thank you. Why didn’t I know?” she shrieks, then says in a softer tone, “So … you told Meredith, and not me?”

  “No, she found out by accident.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me? I mean, I know that we’ve been … Oh my God! This is so huge. I didn’t even know … you were … doing anything with Blake. You … you haven’t told me anything.”

  “Well, you didn’t tell me anything about last summer until last week. And you lied about it,” I counter pointedly.

  “I … what are you talking about?” Jenna gets up slowly and walks toward the set, hiding herself behind a Rothko green tree.

  “I know about Amy!”

  “What?” Meredith’s looking at us both now like we’re the walls of some maze she’s stuck inside of. “Who’s Amy?

  “Jenna’s cousin, who had sex with the capital D douche last summer. Only it wasn’t—”

  “Your cousin had sex with Nate Yube too?” Meredith sits down now, taking this in.

  “No, no, no.” Jenna paces a full circle around the foliage. “There’s no cousin Amy, I mean, there is, but … never mind.”

  “Nate Yube?” I turn to Jenna. “What does she mean … Oh.” Oh! “Well … right … so then it’s true. You were … it was Nate Yube?” I ask, the lightbulb over my head growing brighter. “Wow. Wow, so is there anyone else you were secretly dating last summer that you decided to not tell me about? Ryan Paulson? Jacob, maybe?”

  “See? This is why I don’t tell you these things, because you’re so … judgmental.”

  “Judgmental?”

  “Yes. You’re … Your tone, you’re judging me.”

  “No,” I say, turning toward her, “do whatever, with whoever you want. Date the whole basketball team. I dated Blake, if you can call it that. But when you lie to my face about it—”

  “I was going to tell you the truth. I started to a million times, and then … I don’t know, the whole Amy lie just came out. And it was so much easier because then I could tell you what happened, and you’d still … want to be my friend …” She trails off.

  “You think … You thought I wouldn’t want to be friends with you anymore … because of that?”

  “No. But, I don’t know. Maybe.”

  I chew my lip and look down at my slice.

  “I thought,” Jenna continues, “I thought that’s why you and Meredith weren’t friends, because she was that girl.”

  “I’m sorry,” Meredith whispers, who we now realize has relegated herself to a corner of the room, and is just standing against the wall trying to make herself scarce. “I should go.”

  “Oh, crap. No, I’m sorry,” Jenna says to her. “I didn’t mean it like that, I—”

  “It’s okay, I get it.” Meredith nods. “I should get this to the theater anyway,” she says, picking up the napkin dispenser and walking out of the choir room.

  “I should go apologize.” Jenna looks toward the door. “She’s been nothing but nice this week, trying to make amends, and I feel like I should—”

  “Did you think … ? I mean, you thought I wouldn’t want to be friends with you anymore … because you had sex with Nate Yube? I can’t … I can’t believe you thought … that’s really what you think of me? Really?”

  “No, I just … I don’t know. I’m sorry I lied. I wish I hadn’t and I wish you had told me about Blake because I feel like I could have maybe— Oh my God, that picture. Are you really going to turn yourself in?”

  “I have to. I just … I already made the appointment. By one p.m. tomorrow I will officially be Boobgirl.”

  Jenna just shakes her head, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, she seems tongue-tied.

  “I should get back to the studio,” I say, picking up my uneaten pizza slice and throwing it in the trash, then heading for the door.

  “Hey, Izzy,” Jenna calls. I turn and she opens her mouth, and then closes it, and then opens it again and then just sighs and says, “Don’t paint Leroy.”

  I shake my head, fighting a smile. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m working on a whole Leroy collage. It’s pictures of him mixed in with garbage and I’m calling it …”

  “Kitty Litter!” Jenna finishes for me, which was the phrase on Mrs. Kerns’s sweatshirt today. Only it was a cat garbage man that looked nothing like Leroy. We laugh, and it feels easy again.

  “Good luck tomorrow,” she adds, and smiles.

  “Thanks,” I say. I head back to the studio, appreciative of Jenna’s well wishes even though I know good luck won’t make Boobgirl go away.

  • • •

  I step away from my Mom canvas, stretch my arms up over my head, and shake out my wrists, which are starting to feel a little numb. I wonder if it’s something to do with my circulation or if it’s maybe some kind of clot. Then that “You’re fine!!!” voice bellows into my head again, and I stop myself from flipping through my mental Symptomaniac archives of illnesses with blood clot side-effects.

  I shake my wrists out again and pick up a couple vintage picture frame pieces that Miss S. left lying on the table. They’re probably just asleep. But what if they aren’t? I shake them out again. Okay, if I still have wrist tingles in ten minutes, I’ll worry.

  Every time something like this happens now, I remember what Marcus said the other day about me wanting to be sick. And okay, I know wanting to have a heart attack sounds even more messed up than feeling like you’re having one when you’re not. But if I really was sick like that, then at least Mom could concentrate on something about me that’s potentially fixable and not out of my control, like the way my body looks when I walk. And then she and I could be sick together; we could be in the hospital room together right now, and then maybe she wouldn’t be so ashamed about it all, and about me.

  I squirt some paint from the almost empty bottle of yellow and mix it with some water. I back away from my canvas and see Mom’s perfect snapshot face staring back at me.

  I’m sorry I’m not with you right now, but Pam told me to stay here, I think at her.

  Relax, Izzy, she says. I’m fine. Get your work done. Why waste your time idling around a dreary hospital with your comatose mother when you have so much to do!

  I guess you’re right, I think at her, and then zigzag the end of the wooden shard across the canvas, cracking her into pieces.

  CHAPTER 26

  I am photogenic.

  I look at my reflection in the mirror. My keypad is indented in my cheek. I guess sleeping on my cell phone wasn’t a good idea.

  I get out of the shower ten minutes later and have two new voicemails. I almost drop the phone hearing Allissa’s voice, but then relax after she says, “Status quo, nothing new to report.” Then Cathy Mason’s voice keeps me company while I walk to school.

  “Hello, Izzy. It’s Cathy. Cathy Mason. Hope you’re eating breakfast. Pam said to get you the whole wheat English muffins, so that’s what I got. Yum. So let me get down to business here. I e-mailed you a dance checklist. Check your e-mail. It should be in your e-mail by now. Subject is ‘dance checklist.’ So most of it is self-explanatory. But honestly just peruse it, if you see something you can do, or want to do, do it and let me know. If not, no worries. No stress. I’m going to take care
of finalizing and e-mailing ‘Ray Ray the DJ’ the inappropriate song list. And I’ll keep you posted this afternoon on how it goes with Mrs. Preston. But don’t you worry your head about that smut. Okeydokey. Love and light to your mom, and talk soon-ish.”

  I walk through the school parking lot but feel like turning right back around. I keep going, though, repeating my mantra: Show up, tell the truth, and it’s over. Show up, tell the truth, and it’s over.

  By the time I get to my locker, I feel like I’m in one of those dreams again, except not the one where you go to school naked. In fact, I don’t know what I’d be wearing or not wearing when I go to school in this dream; I just know that people would be acting super-duper strange. Like all the girls would be huddled together in little clumps whispering and giggling. And not in their usual clumps, either. These are, like, mixed-up clumps—girls standing around with girls they would ordinarily never stand around with.

  I get to my locker and, as I’m pulling out my Spanish book, I see Meredith reflected in the mirror on my door. She’s leaning against her locker with Cara down the hall and also … Jenna? Meredith’s waving her arms around a lot, and Jenna’s writing stuff down in a notebook and nodding. Then Cara and Jenna scatter in different directions. Meredith stays at her locker, though, furiously typing into her phone.

  I’m about to head over to see what’s up when I feel someone tap me on the shoulder. I turn around and see Ina standing behind me.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She grins at me wildly and then gives me a thumbs-up and says through mostly closed lips, “I’m in! Are you in? Hope you’re in too!” and then slouch-sprints away.

  Okay. What?

  Then in Spanish when I’m heading to the front of the room to give my oral presentation using the subjunctive, Sara Ronaldson, in her cheerleader uniform, pats me on the back and says “Rock it” like she’s revving me up before a big game or something.

  And by the time I book it out of English to Mrs. Preston’s office for our appointment, two more people have given me a grinning thumbs-up, and this freshman girl I don’t even know fist-punches me in the shoulder. What the hell is going on? Why is everyone being so … nice to each other?

  When I get to the lobby, I see a crowd of girls lined up outside the main office. Oh God, maybe I’m too late. Maybe the dance has already been canceled. But then why would everyone be acting so happy about it?

  “Try and stay in order, please, and keep your chatter to a minimum.” Assistant Principal Kippley is walking through the line, handing girls what look like little slips of paper, like at the deli in Farmer Jack’s. When I get closer to him, he hands me one too. It says 60.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “Your number,” he says, dismissing my puzzled face and walking away.

  “Mr. Kippley,” I shout over the babbling hum of girls, trying to follow him toward the office without losing him. “I’m Izzy Skymen.” I tap him on the back. “I have an appointment with Mrs. Preston right now.”

  “What? Oh. You do? Hmmm. Izzy …” He sighs. “Well, yes … hmmm. Well … let me see if she can still take you.” He pushes a button on his phone, looks around the lobby with a grimace, and says, “Jeanine, I have Isabella Skymen— No, no, she has an appoint— Yes. No. I don’t think that’s the case. Okay, will do.” He slips his phone back in his suit pocket and gestures for me to follow him inside.

  I take a seat on the bench outside Mrs. Preston’s door. Thirty seconds later the door opens up and I hear Mrs. Preston say, “And are you sure you want to go on record with this information, Miss Belfry?” Wait, what is Emily Belfry doing in Mrs. Preston’s office? Go on record with what?

  “Yup, I’m sure,” Emily says, and her magazine-ad face breaks out in a huge smile when she walks out the door and sees me on the bench. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her teeth for that long.

  “Isabella, come in.”

  Mrs. Preston adjusts her suit skirt and gingerly takes a seat behind her desk. She tucks a strand of short, curly hair behind her ear and pulls a tissue out from the dispenser on her desk. She’s only about forty-five, but the perfume she chooses to overspray herself with ages her by about thirty years. She takes the tissue in her hand and uses it to dab across her upper lip. Then she lets out a long sigh and smiles at me. The skin around her eyes crinkles at the sides, which makes her liner lines look really off. It hasn’t been proven yet, but we’re all pretty sure Mrs. Preston has her eye makeup tattooed on. To draw eyeliner of the same angle and thickness, and produce the same blue-green blend on the lids every single day … it’s just impossible.

  “So Isabella, good to see you,” she says, looking down at what I’m assuming is my file. “How is your mother? We’re thinking of her, of course, and you.”

  “She’s um … the same,” I say.

  “Well … yes. So, I have to say you’re a breath of fresh air today. A break from the masses,” she says with a tattooed-makeup crinkle-smile.

  I smile back at her, not quite understanding what she means. Then I look behind me at the door, which seems really far away right now. What am I doing here? Why did I think this would make things better? Why didn’t I just let Blake lie for me? Why am I taking the blame for this? What does that solve? What was I thinking? Tell the truth and it’s over? Yeah, it’s over for me.

  No, no, I have to do this. I have to be the one to do this, not Blake.

  “So,” I say, taking a deep breath, “what I wanted to talk to you about was the cell phone picture.”

  “What? Oh … oh no, really? Really?” She lays both her hands flat on her desk and is leaning forward, looking at me, her black pupils taking over her light blue eyes.

  “Um … yes, I … See, that picture is actually of me.”

  “You know what?” Mrs. Preston jumps up from her chair, shaking her head, and raises both hands in the air as if signaling to the heavens that she gives up. “I give up!” she actually says, shaking her hands. “I give up! I give up! I give up!”

  Uh, not quite the reaction I expected. “Excuse me?” I say, slowly rising from my chair.

  “Isabella, I’m disappointed in you.”

  “I’m sorry I … I just thought I should come forward so that—”

  “Kippley!” Mrs. Preston screams into the buzzer. “Miss Skymen is one of them. Put her on the list. All right,” she says to me, opening up her door, “so like all the rest, I now have to officially ask you, are you sure you want to go on record with this information, Miss Skymen?”

  “Um, yes … Wait, the rest?”

  “Mrs. Preston, it was me! I’m the girl in the picture. It was me,” Angela Rodriguez screeches, shooting up from the bench.

  “For the love of all that is sane.” Mrs. Preston shakes her head. “No offense, dear,” she says, taking a long look at Angela’s flat freshman chest, “but that’s just not possible.”

  “No, it was me. I’m your girl,” Angela says, nodding her head up and down.

  Mrs. Preston sighs, dismisses me with an outward wave, and leads Angela into her office with an inward wave. Then she shouts to Mr. Kippley, who’s standing by the main entrance looking around like it’s infested with mice. “Ten more minutes and that’s it!”

  I float out of the main office like I’m on one of those moving walkways. I make my way past the waiting line of girls, which goes all the way through the main entrance, past the cafeteria, and down around to the study alcove hall, until suddenly Meredith, Cara, and Jenna grab hold of me, and like a bunch of ants seizing a large piece of food, they drag me to the drama room.

  • • •

  “Okay, what just happened?” I ask, falling into a nearby desk.

  “That was … amazing!” Meredith says, giggling and opening up a celebratory pop that she cheers into the air, spilling some on Cara’s head. “Mrs. Preston looked like she was about to commit herself when I told her,” she adds. “Classic.”

  “Totally, so classic.” Cara bobs her head in agreement.
r />   “Well, she can’t blame anyone now,” Meredith says, clapping her hands together, “right?” She turns to Jenna, who’s standing by the door, nodding and darting her eyes around the room as if this is the first time she’s been here.

  “Wait … you guys … you did all this?” I ask.

  “Jenna masterminded it.” Meredith giggles, still sounding a little out of breath from our sprint to the drama room.

  “You did?” I turn to Jenna.

  “We strategized after you left rehearsal last night,” Jenna explains with a sly smile.

  “Yeah.” Meredith beams, her eyebrows practically touching her hairline.

  “Wow. So … wait, everyone knows?”

  “No, no, the other girls don’t know who, they just know to confess,” Jenna says quickly.

  “Oh,” I say, still taking it all in. “I— Wow. Thank you, guys. This is— Wow, thanks.”

  “So I’m thinking the dance is still on,” Jenna adds.

  “Oh”—Meredith turns to Jenna—“my mom said we can use her display panels from her showroom, but we have to transport them.”

  “Perfect. Ryan said we can use his van.”

  “Just a Man and His Van,” Cara says in a deep voice, imitating Ryan’s dad’s commercial. There’s a pause, and then we all laugh. Cara smiles. “Is he in our group?”

  “Oh … I don’t know … I guess we could ask him to be.” Jenna shrugs.

  I must look confused, because then Meredith says to me, “We’re screwing the whole date thing, going as a group instead.”

  “Oh.”

  “Marcus was cool about it,” Meredith adds.

  “Uh-huh, totally cool.” Cara nods.

  “I mean, he’s like obviously so into you, anyway.”

  “Yup, totally. Totally into Izzy.” Cara nods. Which makes me spit a mouthful of pop across the room, and which makes everyone, including Jenna, burst out laughing again.