by Julia Mayer
“Why the sudden compulsion for company?” Tommy asked, looking at me and imperceptibly shaking his head.
“Tommy,” Eva said quietly, tilting her head to one side.
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I’ve just been doing some thinking, and I miss you guys.”
“Miss us?” asked a girl at the other end of the table. “We were never—” but Eva caught her eye and she stopped.
“So,” Eva said, pulling everyone’s eyes back to her, “how did everyone do on that chem test? Tough stuff.”
“I know I bombed it,” said one guy who I didn’t recognize.
I zoned out, thinking about Samara, and forcing myself to laugh when I heard everyone else laughing. I reminded myself to thank Eva later for getting the focus off me. From the discussion about the test, they moved on to the dance that had been a week before and a party that one of the girls was having that weekend. Eva quickly said to me that I was welcome to come if I wasn’t busy. I smiled and thanked the girl who was throwing the party. I’d have to remember to tell Samara.
After that I had trouble focusing on what people were saying. I noticed that the cafeteria smelled the way school lunchrooms always smell: horrible, even though the food isn’t that bad. It’s just standard cafeteria food. Why does it smell so bad all the time?
The food they served really didn’t look bad, and it hardly tasted like anything, just bland. It was just the smell and the fluorescent lighting that made the whole room look like a hospital and made everyone in it look a little bit grayer, a little bit paler, and a little bit sicklier than they would the rest of the time.
I tried to make myself listen to the conversations, but I couldn’t make myself interested in people I didn’t know and tests I hadn’t taken. At the end of lunch, I really wanted to talk to Eva, so I went out of my way to linger. After everyone else had left, I put my hand mirror back into my bag and slowly stood up again.
“Eva?”
“Yeah?”
“I need to talk to you. I…I need to tell you something. Today at lunch, I mean, and yesterday, I just wanted to say that, well, I don’t even remember what happened between the two of us. I don’t even know why we’re not friends anymore, and I miss you. I meant that when I said it before. I want to be friends again. Do you think that would be possible? I’m turning over a new leaf, trying to be a whole new person.”
“Oh, Samara. Look, I’ve missed you too. And, I don’t know, maybe you really are trying to turn over a new leaf. But you’re still you, like it or not. We can try, I guess. I mean we can definitely try. But, well, I was pretty hurt when you stopped talking to me. And I don’t know if I can truly forgive that. Not overnight at least.” She stood up and walked out of the lunchroom, and I looked around and felt alone. Completely alone.
***
When I got home that night, Samara’s dad was already there waiting. He was sitting at the kitchen table, hands folded on top of the table in front of him. He looked at his thumbs, at the table, at the wall behind me, even up at the ceiling. He did everything but look at me.
“All right,” he said, beginning to twiddle his thumbs slowly. Right over left, left over right, right over left. Very slowly. I waited. He continued, pronouncing each syllable in a hard tone, using each word as its own complete thought. “I’ve decided…what I want to do.” Right over left. “This is…what is going to be best for you.” Left over right. He paused to raise his eyebrows at the cookbooks on the bookshelf. I guess the cookbooks didn’t have any questions, so he went on. “There’s a place…in Florida…that helps girls when they’re in trouble. Depressed, or you know…”
Rehab. He was going to send Samara to rehab.
“They only take girls for a week at a time because of the high demand. There is usually a long waiting list, but I called some people and they can take you right away. You need to be there Monday.”
He unclasped his hands and held onto the table instead as if preparing for me to yell and kick and scream. As if the table would be able to stop a huge wind from blowing him away. He had rehearsed talking to me. He had prepared for what he thought my responses should have been.
He had no idea what I would be thinking right now, no idea what Samara would be thinking right now. I had no idea what Samara would be thinking right now. I was almost glad I was still here. At least I would be able to break the news to Samara instead of her hearing this ridiculous semi-talk her father was giving. That was something.
“Then after that,” he continued, “you’re going to have a weekly support group. The people at the…facility…will help you find one you’re comfortable with.” His body wilted and he looked so old. “This is okay. We’re going to get through this. You and me. You’re going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.” The cookbooks clearly appreciated his moral support.
I had nothing to say. I was in shock. I couldn’t begin to imagine how Samara would or should respond to all of this. I couldn’t respond, and eventually he just said something about letting me think it over for a few minutes. He got up, kissed the top of my head, and squeezed my shoulder. I winced.
***
I spent the next day wondering how I was going to tell Samara that she had to go to rehab. She was not the type to just open up to a bunch of people she didn’t know, and I couldn’t imagine her going to a weekly support group.
By the end of the day, I was thrilled to get back to my locker. It was cold for early December, but it took me a few minutes to bundle up—longer than usual because I accidentally put on my gloves before zipping up my coat. That gave Eva enough time to come and find me.
“Okay, look. Maybe you are turning over a new leaf. You’ve seemed happier. I like that you’re happier. And…I have missed you. We used to be so close before…you know.”
“I don’t. I honestly don’t remember anymore,” I said, pulling on my hat and then my gloves again. I took a quick look in the mirror in Samara’s locker but nothing. I turned to look at Eva again.
“I just meant…” She lowered her voice. “Before your mom died.”
“Oh. Well, I’m obviously not going to say I’m over that. But I am trying to be me again. I’m trying to…I don’t know. I think I need help, though. I need you guys again. I need my friends.”
“Well, I guess I can try to be here for you. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but if you’re going to…to, like, flip-flop again, I don’t know if I can handle that. Well, actually, I know I can’t.”
“I’m trying. Please believe me.”
“I’m trying to believe you.”
***
It hadn’t occurred to me that Samara could stop me from getting into my own world, but as it turned out, she could. I had to wait in front of the mirror in Samara’s room for most of the night. I was glad it was Friday. I occupied myself by returning all of the things in Samara’s room to where they belonged. I knew Samara would be upset if she found out I had gone through all of her stuff.
I looked at the dolls, the dresses, the notebooks. I turned them all over in my hands and put them back in the cupboard. Then I got to the razor. I knew it was easy to get another one—to get a knife, to get anything—but I wrapped it in a tissue and threw the razor away, hoping that I would be able to stop Samara just one time, just one day. I wanted to make her think about what she was doing. Think about not doing it.
I would try to get through the mirror every few minutes, but each time I ended up in the black box between worlds and I had to step back and try again. The fifth time, I stood silently in the black box for a long time. I wanted to see if my eyes could adjust to the darkness and I could find my way around without touching anything. But nothing happened as I stood there.
I tried to blink my eyes, move my head, clench my face, but I felt like my whole body wasn’t there unless I was touching the sides of the box. My soul stepped through the mirror. My body was left behind. I supp
osed that was why Samara and I took each other’s bodies when stepping through.
Then I began to feel the same tingling I had felt when Samara and I had switched bodies for the first time. A moment later, I found myself back in my own body, in my own room, on my own carpet, looking at Samara through the mirror in front of me.
“Lorna,” she said, nodding her head coldly.
“Samara, don’t be angry at me. Please, don’t be like this. We…we need each other.”
But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. I was tired of it. I was tired of her blaming me for everything I had done for her. I had seen her suffering and tried to help. I had found her and befriended her and switched places with her and given her a chance to see another world and another life, and I was so tired of her acting like this.
“You know what? Whatever. Be angry at me. You want to blame me for all your problems? Fine. But at least listen to what I have to say. Before you talk to your dad, there’s something you should know—”
“No, Dee, there are some things I have to tell you,” she said.
“I’ll take care of whatever it is, Samara. I can take care of myself. Now listen to me.”
“What? As if I need your help to take care of myself? Bullshit, Dee.”
“That’s not what I was trying to say.” But it was what I was trying to say.
“My dad’s calling me. You can fill me in on the fascinating things that went on in my life while I was away some other time. Oh, and if I were you, I’d go talk to Jamie. You have plenty to talk about.” Then she walked away and I was left with the empty reflection across from me.
I stared at my room and then closed my eyes, feeling momentarily relieved to be home, to be back where I belonged. Then Samara’s smirk in the mirror flashed in front of me again. I realized that she was not that good an actor, and I ran out of my room to go find Jamie. I needed to know what it was now. Right away.
“Lorna, where are you—” Mom must have just gotten in from work. She was cooking dinner, and I felt bad that I had to go and couldn’t help her get anything ready. She looked so tired. Days on end on her feet can do that, I suppose.
“Sorry, Mom. No time to explain. I need to—” but I cut myself off to go give her a hug. I had always appreciated my mom, but after seeing Samara’s dad, I appreciated her more than ever.
“Hey, sweetheart.” She kissed the top of my head. “What’s going on? You’ve been just…off for the last few days. Stay, talk to me.”
“I can’t. Over dinner, definitely. But I really need to talk to someone right now.”
“Yes, you do. Your mother. Sit down, sweetheart. Keep me company while I cook. What’s going on? Is this person you have to talk to a certain boy? Who slipped out the window when I came home?”
“What?” Samara had screwed things up so much worse than I had thought. “No. I mean, maybe? No. Please, Mom. I need to find him and figure things out.”
She put a hand on my shoulder. “Lorna, it might be better to figure things out before you find him.”
She looked me straight in the eye, and it felt like a standoff. I knew that she was right. But I didn’t have enough clues to figure things out yet. There was a knock on the door. We stared for a moment before I ducked under her arm to answer it.
Jamie.
“Hi.”
I looked imploringly at my mother. Jamie looked nervously at the floor, tapping one foot rapidly as we waited together for my mom’s decision. My mother shook her head at me and sighed. “Think about what I just said.”
“Please, Mom.”
“Fine. Go. It’s your choice. Take a sweater. And I’m holding you to that real-conversation-over-dinner promise. This isn’t over.”
“Thank you, Mom,” I said and ran in for a second to give her a hug. A real hug.
Jamie waited until we got outside to turn to me and say, “We have to talk.”
chapter 9
Feeling Defeated
Samara
I looked at Dee in the mirror and thought, We’re back. I heard my father calling me, and I wondered what he was doing home so early on a Friday.
“Samara, can you come down here for a minute?” I went downstairs and stopped on the landing, looking down at him. He had one hand on the banister and a foot on the first step. “I wanted to give you this…” He held a pamphlet toward me. “And to see if you started packing already, if there’s anything you need…”
“Packing? Packing for what? Where are we going?” I walked down the stairs and reached out to take the pamphlet he was holding. It took a moment to sink in. Reality Rehabilitation. I opened it and stared at the inside. It was filled with text, but I didn’t understand any of it.
“Rehab? I’m supposed to be…I’m supposed to be packing for rehab?”
“We talked about it, honey. It’s only for a week. To help you deal with…help us deal with…” his voice trailed off.
I felt a small flame begin in my stomach, come up through my intestines, and burn out the back of my throat and the roof of my mouth. I was sure that when I opened my mouth I would breathe out fire, but instead I screamed, “I am not going to rehab!”
My father took a step back, and I looked down at him from three stairs up. “Samara, you…you said it was a good idea. We talked about this,” he repeated meekly.
“I must’ve been out of my fucking mind. There’s no way I’m going.”
“Yes, you are. This is not your decision. This is what’s best for you, and it’s not your decision.”
“To hell it’s not,” I said. I ran down the stairs and stomped out of the house, unsure where I was going.
***
I found myself outside the cemetery where my mother was buried. I had never been to visit before, though Dad had pointed out the grave when we drove by the cemetery once. I hadn’t even been to her funeral. My father had told me that it would be too much for me to handle, and I guess it would have been.
The man at the gate of the cemetery asked if I wanted to buy flowers. I shook my head and put my hand on the gate in front of me. All I needed to do was push it open and walk in and ask my mom for help. But I couldn’t. I had never been able to go in, not since she died.
The man with the flowers continued pushing me to buy, and finally I crossed the street to get away from him. I went to a park and sat down on a bench.
When Mom died, instead of letting me mourn, my dad had told me to write letters to her.
“It’s better than crying,” he told me. “Write down everything you wish you could tell her. Then give them to me, and I’ll send them to her so when you get to heaven, she’ll be all caught up. It will be like she was here all the time.”
I wrote letters for years, giving them to my father in sealed envelopes addressed:
My Mommy
the Most Beautiful House
Heaven, the Sky
After I had stopped writing, when I got old enough to realize the letters were never being sent, that there was no heaven, that I wasn’t going to see my mom again and she wasn’t going to see me again, I went into my dad’s room while he was out. I went through his sock drawer and his closet and eventually found them all on the back of a shelf tied up with a red ribbon. I moved them into my room, but I was never able to bring myself to reread them. What had my life become since she died?
Sitting on that park bench, I wondered for the first time in a long time what I had written, what I had told her. I realized how cold I was. I had stormed out without thinking about where I was going or the fact that I might like a jacket when I got there. I looked around and wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t anybody else in the park. In the few days since I had left, it had gone from fall to winter; the trees were barer than they were orange or red. I got up and slowly walked home. I sneaked in as quietly as I could and tiptoed up the stairs.
I close
d the door of my room and opened the third dresser drawer. There, underneath my sweaters, was a stack of envelopes tied with a red ribbon. I sat on the floor with my legs crossed and stared at the stack for a moment. I untied them and ripped open the one on top.
Dear Mom,
Since I last wrote to you, I’ve started seeing somebody new. I like him. More than the last one, at least. I don’t know if you would approve. I don’t think so. A few weeks ago, I got drunk with him. It felt good. For one night, I wasn’t thinking about you. Everyone else doesn’t think about you all the time, but the only time I don’t think about you is when I’m distracted. Then at night when I’m alone in bed, every moment that I didn’t think about you makes me feel guilty. I don’t want to feel bad. Not like this. It’s…it’s too hard. So now I sometimes get drunk before I go to bed.
One year ago today, I came home from school and I wanted to show you a report I had done well on. One year ago today, I had to see your empty eyes that didn’t love me anymore. One year ago today, I cried while I was lying in bed by myself and Dad was downstairs making “arrangements.” One year ago today, I had to tell my friends that I didn’t have a mother anymore. One year ago today, you left me. Alone. To figure things out.
So today I figured things out. Today I thought the less I can think about you, the better. Today I decided I want to do things without wondering if you would tell me they were okay. Today I cried alone in bed when I woke up and then cried alone in the shower. Today I am crying alone in my room while I write you a letter.
But tomorrow I will not cry anymore. Tomorrow I will not think about you at school or on my way home. Tomorrow I will not write you another letter. Tomorrow I will do anything it takes to not worry about you. Tomorrow I will think of a way to make things better. Tomorrow I will not tell you things that will upset you.
I hope you don’t miss me as much as I miss you.
Your baby girl,
Samara