And cold hands holding cold hands.
It seemed like a time to cry or scream. But I was perfectly silent.
When the cop car pulled up behind me I realized my mistake; I’d left home with out telling anyone. The cop ushered me onto the seat of the patrol car. I heard him radio in to the station. “Have someone phone Dinos,” he said. “I’ll have her home in fifteen minutes.” He gave me a glance, shook his head, sighed through his nose.
At home, my frantic parents slipped into their roles: Bampas playing “good host” to the officer, pouring him coffee, and making light of everything, and Momma following me to my bedroom. “I’ll start your shower,” she said. “After, I’ll help you with your hair.”
I went along with that. My mother came in and out of my bathroom several times, the shower curtain billowing to announce her each time. She left fresh towels, then came back and handed me her bottle of rosemary and olive oil—Old World hair conditioner. “Suppresses the tresses,” we’d always said. I poured a small puddle of the oil into one hand then spread it between both palms. I drew my hands through my hair, then rinsed and watched the water falling toward the drain. My arms and shoulders were tired; my wet hair was heavy. Even my fingers felt weak. I rinsed one last time and shut the shower off. I wrapped my head in one towel and my body in another. My mother tapped on the door.
“I’m leaving a clean nightgown on the hook.”
“I want the one I’ve been wearing,” I said.
“It’s stale. I’m washing it,” my mother answered. I don’t know why but I wilted over that loss. When I came out, she was tossing a crisp, clean top sheet over a fresh fitted one on my bed. The windows were open to the cold day. She was airing me. I shivered.
“Put it on.” My mother gestured at the clean gown. “Your robe too. You can have tea if you want it. I’ll close the windows after a few minutes.”
It was late afternoon, the winter sun dropping and fading, when my mother gently braided my damp hair for me and told me how fine I was going to be. When she left, I tried to find my way to sleep, and to a dream where I might glimpse Cowboy. But sleep didn’t come. I twisted in my fresh bed. My hair caught underneath me. For years I had never cared that my braid made my nightgown damp, that it was heavy and so constantly with me. Now, I remembered the day Brady Cullen had jerked my head back so hard.
I sat up in bed. The scissors were the on the nightstand. The next thing I knew, I was halfway through that rope of hair. It was quite a thing—that braid—hanging from the grip of my finger and thumb. I don’t know what gave me the thought that it had to be kept together but I twisted an elastic band onto the chopped end. I dropped the braid and folded myself back between my sheets.
There was the awful moment when my lamp came on. My mother screamed. She was frantic, searching the back of my head and finding only a short cob of hair left there. She was still breathless when my father’s form filled the doorway. “Does this do it, Dinos?” Her voice was hoarse. She swept the braid off the floor and shook it at him. “Can you see that beneath this roof there is a heart that must be mended? And will you help me? Because if you will not . . . I will ask you to leave so I can do it alone.”
That about blew me out of my bed.
Leave? What had I done to them? “Oh, Momma! No!” I cried and begged her to understand. “It’s j-just hair!” I stammered. “It felt wet—it was twisting around me—and I was tired of it, is all. Momma, it doesn’t matter.”
Her face ran with tears and her lip quivered uncontrollably. I looked at Bampas, who stood still as granite and looked empty as a cardboard box. I turned back to my mother. “Please, Momma,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I suppose I did sleep that night once they left the room. But I kept opening my eyes wide in the darkness. I could not dream.
When I came into the kitchen the next morning, both my little brothers looked at me with big eyes and mouths wide open. I caught my bowed reflection in the cupboard glass. My hair had sprung into wild spirals and uneven lengths. I should’ve said something to Favian and Avel. But Bampas excused them before their cereal bowls were empty.
I put the kettle on, flicked the burner to high, and watched the flame. I stared at the fire below the kettle and twisted the knob. Flame up. Flame down.
My mother glanced at me, at my hair. She turned away to face the kitchen sink.
“Bettina . . .” My father cleared his throat. “Tomorrow you need to get up and go back to school. This has been enough,” he said. He endorsed his own words with a nod.
“Enough?” I said. My lips felt numb. “No. I can’t go back. Really, I can’t.”
“Your mother will take you to have something done about your hair, which you have ruined—”
“Dinos!” My mother turned from the sink so fast, one of her bones cracked. “Please don’t say that Bettina’s hair is ruined—”
“I don’t care,” I said. I paused to touch the springs of hair. How quickly it had untamed itself. I couldn’t stand it if Bampas got on Momma’s case, any more than I couldn’t bear the mention of anyone leaving. “I don’t want the hair fixed,” I said. “But okay, I will go to school. I will try.”
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Forty-seven
BRADY CULLEN WAS WAITING AT MY LOCKER. I ARRIVED in front of him on hollow legs.
“What the hell . . . ?” He stared at my hair and walked around me until our places were switched and I was against my locker door. “You look like barf. What is this?” He reached toward me, flicked a few wiggly strands. He stood there, mouth like a trout, and let out little gasps and swears. “What gives? I’ve sent you a shit-ton of messages, I’ve been calling you. . . .”
I knew that this was true.
“How come you don’t answer me? Huh? I wanna know.” He put his finger in my face. “’Cause what I hear . . . is that you cheated on me?”
He knows. How does he know?
“Like, for a while.” He went on. “Some way older dude? A guy that’s dead now?”
I stood with my back pasted to my locker. I tried for loud and clear but all that came out was a whisper. “I can’t be with you anymore. I should have broken it off—”
Bam! Brady slammed his fist into the locker close to the side of my head. My heart lurched inside my chest. He swore at me. He flicked at my hair. He put his face right up to mine. He pounded his fist into the metal for every word: “You. Look. Like. A. Freak!” He went away down the corridor, bashing more lockers on his way.
The space around me grew quiet, though there were people everywhere. I glanced up. A sea of faces loomed, so many eyes on me.
Tony Colletti must have come around the corner right after Brady’s storm. “Hey, Bettina.” He grinned, same as he always did. I looked up, watched him striding by. “Hey, where ya been?” he asked. He turned, took a few backward steps, and panned the nearly silent crowd around us. “Missed you the past couple of weeks,” he said. Now he looked bewildered.
I went in and out of classes, picking up packets of missed work. By noon, I felt like I’d collected a stack of paving stones. I dumped the work in my dented-up locker and walked out to the far end of the parking lot for my lunch period. I stared out at the industrial park—couldn’t help it. I lit one of Cowboy’s cigarettes and took long, hard drags on it. The smoke was horrible and perfect going into my lungs. I shivered in the open cold. If I could get caught, maybe I could get suspended. No such luck. I finally put the butt out under the toe of my boot and went back inside.
All through the day, I felt people staring, heard them whispering. At first, I thought it was because of what I’d done to my hair. Surely, I looked bizarre. But soon, I understood that word had gotten around that I’d done Brady Cullen wrong. I had cheated on him. He’d said it himself. I pushed past all the whisperers in the hall and went to clay class.
One
glance to the back of the room and I saw them, a neat row of mugs and teapots—teapots with spouts and lids—all ready for the kiln. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. I sucked at this before, and now I was two weeks behind. The art room seemed like a foreign country to me—in fact, my whole life did.
Big Bonnie stopped beside my desk. She leaned down and slipped some pages of notes between my elbows. I darted a look at her. She seemed a dispirited version of herself. Slack-faced. “I copied these for you,” she whispered. “It’s not much since the class is mostly about throwing clay.” I think she might have felt bad after she said it; after all, I was the girl who had thrown no clay—not successfully. “When you’re ready, I’ll help you at the wheel,” she added.
I couldn’t speak, but I weighted the pages with my elbows. I was grateful to Bonnie Swenson; she was good to her core. But I knew that something bigger was driving her this time, and that something was guilt. Bonnie had to be the person who’d told Brady Cullen about Cowboy and me.
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Forty-eight
“SLUT.”
Not again.
One of the basketball players spoke loudly behind me as I stood in the bus circle. I did not turn. The White Tigers were having a perfect season, and now, a handful of Brady’s best buds were having open season on me. I had done their homeboy dirty.
“I hear you could do me right off a cliff!” the same one called out again.
My stomach turned. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. If only the buses would move. Mine wouldn’t make it to me until the second wave. I couldn’t even see it yet. Still, I inched closer to the curb.
Everybody knew about Silas Shepherd now—or thought they did. What they really knew were just a few things about me. I had been seen at his funeral; I was absent from school for forever; when I came back I was weird and my hair was all chopped off. I hated that they were talking about Cowboy, guessing, and making things up. None of them knew him. They had no right. I was ashamed of feeling too weak to defend him.
“How do you like your ho-down?” A mock-conversation began maybe ten feet behind my back. Bastards. They weren’t even taking buses. Why couldn’t they just go back to their gym?
“Like my ho-down—on her back!”
I clenched my jaw until it ached.
“Hey, I’ll bet there’s a tramp stamp over that ass—”
Somebody touched me from behind. I jumped the bus line. I crossed straight through the circle. A driver shouted down at me from his window. “Hey, what kinda stunt is that? My kindergartner knows you don’t walk between the buses! Use the crosswalk or I’ll write you up next time. Hear me?”
I stumbled onto the sidewalk and went on blindly, and with no idea where I was headed. I wiped my face in the bend of my elbow a few times. I sniffed hard and walked on until I reached the shelter of the business buildings in the next block.
Tony Colletti appeared out of nowhere—perhaps from the drugstore. “Hey, Bettina. What’s the matter? You doing okay?” he asked. He pressed a clean cloth handkerchief into my hand and I pressed it into my eyes. He leaned against the building beside me and just waited. I started to hand him back his handkerchief but changed my mind. I’d soaked it wet.
“Let’s walk,” Tony said. He took my pack without asking. We started off again. Suddenly, I turned and pushed my face into poor Tony Colletti’s chest. I kept pushing. Tony managed to walk me around to the side drive of one of the town houses. We sank down into a little stone stairwell for shelter. He put his arm around me while I cried my head off.
Every so often he gave me a squeeze. When I wasn’t sobbing, I could hear him humming softly.
I cried until I was done. Tony never asked me why, and it was amazing, I thought, to let go like that—no one to tell me to kiss my feelings goodbye.
When I finally collected myself, I blew my nose and I said the only thing I could think to say. “Thank you, Tony. Thank you. I’ll wash this,” I added, holding up the balled handkerchief in one hand.
“Or keep it,” he said. I laughed just a little. I thought it was sweet that he carried a handkerchief when most guys were more likely to be packing a condom. “Hey, it’s Tuesday,” Tony said, “and Tuesday is your day to visit my nonna.”
“Oh. Y-yes. I meant to keep going. . . .” I actually missed Regina. It had been weeks, and it wasn’t right I’d been sloppy about my promise. “I still want to help you fix her fountain.”
“Oh, that,” he said. “If I live a hundred years . . .” He made us both laugh.
“Anyway, I’m sorry. I’ve been so . . .” All I could do was shake my head.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said. “I know things haven’t been easy.”
“Yeah?” I sniffed again. “Are you hearing a bunch of weird shit about me at school?” I asked.
“Eh. I hear, but I don’t listen so much.” He jostled me just a little. “You should come see my nonna. Just something to do. Might take your mind off other things.”
“Tony, I want to see her but I don’t know if I’m any match for Regina today.”
“She is spicy,” he said. “Look, walk with me. If you don’t want to go in, I’ll take you home in my ma’s car. Come on. What else are you doing?” He didn’t give me time to say no. “You got your phone? Call your mom so she won’t worry,” he said.
I heard myself say okay.
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Forty-nine
“OH, MY GIRL, MY GIRL!” CONCERN SEEMED WRITTEN all over Regina Colletti’s face. I wondered what she was reading on mine. Once again, she got rid of Tony as quickly as she could, though he okayed that with me twice before he left. I took my spot on the edge of her bed. “Are you all right?” Regina sat forward and whispered as if we shared a secret. “You look exhausted.” She invited me onto a bigger patch of her bed with a pat of her hand. I obliged.
Regina reached up and pushed her fingers into my wild hair. I pretended not to care that she was looking it over. Working her way down, she brushed my jaw with her fingertips. Then she squeezed my upper arms in her hands—kneaded me like I was dough. “Poor girl, poor girl,” Regina said. “Tony told me something terrible happened. He heard you lost someone,” she said. Her voice was breaking. “Someone special,” she went on. “Tell me about it. Who was that? Was he the first one you loved?”
I felt like she’d thrown a lit match at me but her head was bowed in a sympathetic way. Being with Regina was like that, I realized. You got both sides of everything from her. I closed my eyes, dipped my chin. She had my wrists now and I stretched my rigid arms long but she would not let go.
“Stop,” I said. “Y-you don’t know. . . .”
“Then tell me,” she said. All I wanted to tell Regina was that she had to stop hanging on to me like she was. She let go and grabbed one of her snow globes from her bedside table and pushed it into my hands. It was the one with the little Chinese boy inside who flew his kite in a whirl of stars—it was the one that, if you took it away from all the others, was actually beautiful. “Tell me all of it,” she said.
“If I tell you, you cannot tell anyone else—”
“If I do, you can feed me cat shit when I am not looking. I would expect you to,” Regina said. She squeezed me.
“I—I’m not sure how to tell it. . . .”
Regina waited.
“I called him Cowboy,” I said. “I never would have met him if I hadn’t run from my so-called boyfriend one day.”
“How long ago?” Regina whispered.
“September.”
Regina settled back to listen, her eyes intently on me—too much. I could tell her, I thought, but not while she was looking at me. I tipped myself onto the gold velvet pill
ows with my back to her. I pulled my knees up and held her snow globe to my chest.
I told everything. The good. The best. The rotten. While I talked, I did not so much cry, as leak from the corners of my eyes. My cheeks grew wet and tears seeped onto the velvet pillow shams. Regina listened the whole time. She was so silent I thought she’d fallen asleep. But then she spoke.
“You are always going to love him,” she said. “You’re stuck with that.”
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Fifty
AT HOME, I FOUND MY MOTHER AT THE KITCHEN TABLE. She was near tears.
Must be a crying day all over.
“Momma? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, just all these things,” she muttered. She waved her fingers in the air. “You know, so much hurting in this house.” At that, she began to weep.
I could not remember seeing her like this. When I thought about it, it seemed to me that my mother had always been smiling sweetly—and maybe preemptively. But in the last few months, I’d seen her cry several times, and I remembered her words, so shot-through with pain, when she’d suggested that Bampas should leave.
I pulled a chair out and sat down. “Did you and Bampas fight again? It’s not about me, is it?”
“No, no, no,” my mother said. “Well, it is about you, but no fight with your Bampas. It’s just that . . . I felt like I should tell you . . . I have thought of him often since we read the bad news that morning. I know that will sound strange to you, Bettina.” She rubbed the back of her hand against her nose.
I handed her a napkin. “Him? Momma, are you talking about Cowboy?”
She nodded.
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