Doll Hearts

by Colleen Clayton

  This dump is going to be auctioned off and given to a new family and I’ll never see it again. I know I should be happy for this house because it’s getting a better life and going to end up with someone who will love it and take care of it. But I’m not, I’m so, so angry. I look down at the box in my hands and start tearing at it. I tear it all open, claw at it like a crazed lion. The pieces of cardboard fall to the ground and the Styrofoam molds crack apart. I pull out the stupid waterglobe and look at the happy teddy bear inside, building his ridiculous sandcastle in the middle of a snowstorm. Walking closer to the house, I wind the globe up, wind it all the way, twisting the turnkey until it practically snaps off. When the sunny chiming of “Happy Days Are Here Again” starts up, I hurl the ball toward the sliding glass door with every ounce of strength that I have. The globe shatters like a fistful of glitter.

  My weakling attempt at shot-putting a hole through the door leaves only a spider web crack, a scratch really. The music doesn’t stop right away but sort of slow-motions downward into a glum tinkling somewhere over in the grass.

  “Hey!” someone yells as a second story light goes on next door. Mr. Phelps is shaking his fist at me from his bedroom window. “Thief!” he yells. “I’m calling the cops!”

  I take off running, getting torn up again as I make my way through the bushes and fence. I run through the side yards, and get into my car. I peel out and head to The Lakewood Inn.

  29.

  The parking lot of my mother’s new home is littered with broken bottles and pot holes. It’s a squat, L-shaped, single story motel off the freeway. I knock on my mother’s door, room sixteen, and immediately hear the TV shut off inside. She unlocks and opens up and we stand staring at each other for a moment. Then I burst into tears for the millionth time this summer.

  “That was my house too, mom,” I say. “How could you let this all get so bad? How could you just give up like this?”

  “Oh, J-bear, I’m so sorry,” she says, starting to cry, too. “Please don’t hate me. I tried to clean it. I rented the Dumpster and I had every intention of filling it. I just couldn’t. Every time I would throw something out, I ended up crawling back over and getting it out. Then the days, they just kept going by. I don’t know where they went, the days, they just…and then the bills, Oh, God. They’ve just been piling up and I had no choice. Bankruptcy is the only way out at this point.”

  She looks at me and then focuses in on my banged up face.

  “Honey, what happened to your head? Were you in a wreck?” She looks down at my arms which are torn to shreds.

  “I was assaulted by our house!” I say.

  “Oh, god,” she says, reaching out to touch my head with her fingertips.

  “Don’t, it’s sore,” I say, pushing past her. I go into the bathroom to clean up my cuts. Even though they’re mostly surface wounds, they’re everywhere. I look like I’ve been locked in a closet with a honey badger.

  “I filled the ice-bucket,” my mom says through the door. “Do you need help?”

  I crack the door and take the bucket from her; wrap some ice in a washcloth and press it to my cheek. After a few minutes, I open up and step back into the room. Looking around, I get a better assessment of her current situation.

  She really made off with all she could. There are boxes and bins and garbage bags all over. It’s not a place to stay; it’s a storage unit with a bed and TV. It’s my house, only smaller. The only thing she’s done is move her freak show to another location. It’s difficult to look at her.

  “Are you okay,” she asks. “Do you need anything? A pop from the vending machine? A snack?”

  Like she has a single penny on her. She looks like she hasn’t eaten in weeks.

  “Is any of this stuff mine?” I ask, sniffing, gesturing to her siphoned-off mini-hoard.

  “Oh,” she says, her eyes getting wide. “I didn’t think to grab anything from your room. If I’d known that there were things you needed…”

  “Of course there were things I needed!” I say, choking back tears. “But it’s not about the things, mom! I needed my home! I needed you!”

  “Oh, J-bear,” she says, and her eyes are pools of misery. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  She collapses onto the bed and puts her face into her hands. I cross my arms and stand over her, watching her sob. She starts heaving and I can’t take it; I can’t stay angry with her. How can you stay angry with someone who is so completely broken on the inside? Someone you so desperately love? I sit down next to her and rub her back until she gets through the worst of it.

  “So, what are you going to do when you get to Grandma’s?” I say, finally. “Are you going to find a job? Get into therapy? You can’t live like this forever. You’re sick. You need help.”

  “The job market is better in Tampa than Cleveland,” she says, looking up, hiccupping. “I’ll get a job right away. You can come, too, you know. We could all live in a condo on the water, maybe? It’d be a fresh start for us, J-bear.”

  She looks at me with wretched hopefulness. She really believes herself. So much so that it makes me want to believe her, too. I consider what she’s saying. Maybe she’s right, maybe she might get better down in Florida. Maybe it’s Ohio and being near my dad that makes her act the way she does. For a few seconds, I entertain the idea of moving south with my mom. Then my attention is drawn back to the stuffed trash bags and junk. I decide to give her one last chance to convince me that she might be ready for true change.

  “There’s a Dumpster in the parking lot,” I say, lifting my chin. “If you get rid of this stuff, all of it, I will go with you to Florida. We’ll start fresh, just like you said.”

  Her fingertips float up to her mouth. She glances around the room with heavy eyes.

  “Oh…well, uh…,” she says, stuttering, “let me think about what I brought. There’s a lot of expensive stuff here. I can’t just toss it, Julianne. It doesn’t make sense. It’s worth so much…”

  I suck a sharp bit of air through my teeth and squeeze my eyelids shut, groaning. It’s like being punched in the gut for the five-hundredth time. I can’t take it anymore. I rake my hands through my hair.

  “How are you going to get this stuff to Florida, mom?” I say, “You can’t take it on a plane. Are you going ship it? Store it somewhere? These things cost money and you don’t have any.”

  She’s looking around like a child. She has no idea what she’s going to do with this stuff; how she’s going to get her stolen treasure to Florida. She just knows that, for right now, she has to have it, has to be surrounded by it, buried in it.

  “Maybe someone from my old job can hold it? Then I can send for it,” she whispers, more to herself than me.

  I shake my head and think about what will happen to her. My grandma lives in a retirement community, in this tiny assisted-living apartment. My mom can’t stay with her forever. Will she be homeless someday? Will she be on the streets pushing a shopping cart full of dolls? My mind races and starts to get away from me so I shut it off. I can’t think about this anymore. It’s killing me. Worrying about my mom is killing me. I think about what Ginny the Organizer said a few months ago. If your mom doesn’t get well, it’s not your fault and you owe it to yourself to live your own life, a life unburdened by your mother’s addiction.

  I cannot keep hoping that my mom will snap out of it. I cannot keep praying that the simple act of seeing me or hearing my voice will flip some switch inside of her and make her want to get rid of all this stuff and be a functioning, healthy human being.

  “You know what, mom?” I say, standing up, digging through my bag. “You have a mental illness; an addiction. So, when you’re ready to get help, I’ll be there for you. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be part of this life and this problem if you’re not going to get help for yourself.”

  I hold out all of the money that I have in the world. Nine hundred bucks. She won’t take it so I set it on the bed next to her.

&nb
sp; “Pay me back when you get a job,” I say. “I love you, mom.”

  “I love you, too, J-bear,” she says, standing to face me. “Things are going to be different in Florida. I’m going to get a job and a nice place and it will get better, I promise.”

  “Call me when you get there, okay?” I say, hugging her close. “Let me know how you’re coming along.”

  I smile and square my shoulders so that I can leave us both with the impression that I believe in her. I don’t want our goodbye to be ugly and hopeless.

  “I will,” she says, smiling back, playing along.

  As I walk out, I glance back and she waves a little before closing the door.

  Crossing the lot, I call my dad and tell him that I’m on my way home, that I’m catching the eleven o’clock ferry. For the first time since all of this started, when I say the word “home” I don’t mean the house in Lakewood, I mean the one on Middle Bass with my dad and Melody.

  30.

  I dig through Dana’s spare change and put together enough to buy an Egg McMuffin and iced-coffee at the McDonald’s drive-thru. While in line, I call Brandon to give him the short version of tonight’s—or rather, last night’s—events. I agree to swing by the dorm before dropping off Dana’s car.

  The sun’s up and it’s been several hours since that face-plant on the patio. The bruising in my cheek has traveled up into my eye resulting in one heck of a shiner. In the dorm parking lot, I dab on some concealer and eye shadow and then part my hair to one side in an attempt to camouflage the damage. It doesn’t help; outside of throwing on a ski mask there is no real way of hiding it.

  When he opens the glass security door of the dorm, his eyes pop open, practically spinning in their sockets.

  “Oh, my God, Julianne! Holy freaking shit! You said you had a little bruise, that you fell coming out of your house. This is not a little bruise!”

  He moves in closer, brushes my hair to the side and inspects my eye, wanting to touch it but stopping short. Then he picks up my hands and turns my arms one by one, his eyes moving over the dozens of pink slices and welts.

  “Jesus,” he says and then looks at me like he wants a straight answer, “Is your house on a cliff?”

  “It was hard getting around in it and the lights were cut off. You saw the news. It’s a hazard zone.”

  I cross my arms over my chest and look around. This is so humiliating.

  “Jules, it’s okay,” he says, “Come here,” and he puts his arm around me and walks me up the stairs to his room. When he opens the door, he tells Hugo that we need to be alone. Hugo sees my face, the cuts and bruises, my shredded arms, and immediately gets up from his desk.

  “Is she okay?” he asks Brandon.

  “It looks worse than it is,” I say, because it really does look worse than it is.

  Hugo shuts the door on his way out and I look down at the floor.

  “So, anyhow…,” I say, and my voice is high and weird and strained because I’m so embarrassed. My hands wrestle with each other and I glance around at things on the floor, a waste can, a sock, a sketchbook, “…there you have it. Julianne’s big reveal. My mom’s a doll hoarder. It’s disgusting and freakish, I know. But I want you to know that I’m not like her. I’m not—,”

  He pulls me down onto his bed, lays me back on the pillow.

  “Of course I don’t think that. You really need to start giving me some credit, Jules,” he says and his gaze keeps zeroing in on my blackened eye. “You have no control over your mom. You can’t pick your parents.”

  He kisses my eye and our bodies find each other, wrapping up tight.

  “I just wish…I wish I’d gotten to save a few things.” I say. “My dad is trying to get some things from my room, photos mostly. He’s making calls to the bank.”

  He pulls me into him; rubs my back and strokes my hair until I feel better. Then he sits bolt upright like something’s just occurred to him.

  “He has an eBay site, right?”

  “Who, my dad?”

  “No, that asshole from the news. The Junk Detective?”

  “Oh,” I say, and mind conjures up Billy’s hideous mug. “Yeah, I guess.”

  Brandon hops up and takes a seat in front of his desk, opens his laptop and starts clicking and tapping.

  “Billy’s looking to turn a buck,” I say, staring at the ceiling. “My yearbooks and favorite old sweater will not be on eBay, I promise you. And he’s only gotten to the garage, my stuff’s not in there. ”

  “Yes it is,” he says, waving me over. “Look.”

  I get up and walk over to the computer to sit on his lap. The words on the screen make me look closer.

  “JUST LIKE ME DOLL. 2001. Poor Condition. $.99+shipping.”

  I gasp and cover my mouth. Then, I reach out with a shaking hand to take the mouse from him. I click on the close-up picture of the doll’s face. The braids are a little frayed and there’s a scratch on her cheek but she’s intact. I click on the other photo, a close-up of her dingy blue dress, her name stitched into the hem. I can’t pinpoint the moment or even the year that she became lost to me but it makes sense she would have been in the garage. I used to play with her in the loft.

  My heart swells with longing and an overwhelming need to save her. I hover the cursor over the Buy It Now button, but then think about what it might mean to buy her. My hand draws back like I’ve touched a hot coal. I look at Brandon who is looking at me with so much tenderness.

  “It’s not the same,” he whispers, squeezing me gently around the waist. “She’s not junk. She had meaning.”

  I nod, relax my fingers back over the mouse and click.

  On the ferry, I watch a little girl running around the passenger deck, dragging a worn teddy bear from bench to bench. She bounces the bear up and down and talks to it while her wild hair blows and whips in the wind. Memories of my doll come flooding back in disconnected snapshots. A tiny teepee made of sticks and leaves; hugging her close during a thunderstorm; spinning in the yard, holding her up to the sky. I watch the little girl with her bear and remember when a doll could be beautiful. I think of my first precious friend, my little Babette, sitting in the quiet of the loft, waiting and hoping with all of her tiny doll heart that she would find her way back to me. Even if it takes years and years, even if we’re miles apart, I will wait and hope for my mother, too.

  Playlist:

  Crazy – Gnarls Barkley

  People Are Strange – The Doors

  Love Rollercoaster – Ohio Players

  Steal My Sunshine – Len

  Valentine – Fiona Apple

  Daredevil – Fiona Apple

  Hot Knife – Fiona Apple

  Fuck You – CeeLo Green

  Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash

  In the Mood – Glenn Miller

  Mr. Bright Side – The Killers

  Summertime Sadness – Lana Del Rey

  National Anthem – Lana Del Rey

  Muchacho – Phosphorecent

  Bel Air – Lana Del Rey

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my daughter, Mary, who designed the cover. Thank you to Jennifer Hutkowski for reading my drafts and helping me develop an accurate portrayal of a teen living with diabetes. Also, thank you to Dawn Gareau Funk for giving me the inside scoop on being a Cedar Point Sweep. Thank you to my biggest fan, Meems, who loves every sentence I write, even if it’s a total clunker. Thank you to my sister, the talented author Stacey Reynolds, for her support and advice on how to self-publish. Thank you to my Ride-or-Die, YA author Alyssa Brugman, who would help me bury a body if I asked her. Thank you to Nash for helping me authenticate Ring Toss Nita’s Cockney dialect. And to Jill for helping with Dieter. Thank you to Kelly, Cait, Noelle and to all my Facey Friends and Twitter Bugs who have cheered me on over the years. (@andiABCs, I’m looking at you, gurl…)

  A special thanks to Alyssa Reuben, Katelyn Dougherty, Pam Gruber and Alexandra Cooper who helped shape this story and who loved Julianne,
too.

  Lastly, THANK YOU, Dear Reader! Thank you for buying this little book that has been sitting in my hard drive for five years. If you liked it, please leave a review on Amazon and tell your friends about it. A self-published book lives or dies by reviews, word-of-mouth, and the mercy of sales algorithms. You can also check out my other YA title WHAT HAPPENS NEXT that was published by Little, Brown in 2012. And keep an eye out for a third book that I am working on. It deals with kidnapping, jailhouse parenting, and rock-climbing! (And of course a solid, swoony romance…)

  Again, thank you SO much for buying this book.

  XOXO, Colleen