by Justin Sayre
I walk toward the doorway of the front room, slower than I ever thought it was possible for any person in the world to walk. I look down, hoping that when I get to the doorway, someone else will be there. Someone besides Janet. Anyone else.
My feet move slowly, but inside my head is racing around with everything that will go wrong if it is her. I’ll never get out of here. I’ll have to face Ryan every day until he calms down and decides not to hate me anymore, whenever that might be. Maybe he and Brian and all the rest of the boys in my class will start to hate me, and somehow even Ellen will have to hate me too. Actually, no she won’t. She’d probably like it, because it would give her free rein to hate everyone in our school but this time with an actual reason. And Ducks would still love me. Maybe that’ll be enough. Allegra’s already gone. I’ll fail my project for Mr. Gennetti tomorrow because the minute Auntie leaves, Janet will pull out a bottle, and I won’t be asleep until three in the morning. I knew I couldn’t get away. I knew it. And when I finally get to the doorframe and look up, it’s her.
“Oh, baby, come here,” she says, sort of crumpled up on the couch and smaller than I remember. She’s trying to wipe tears off of her face as she keeps talking to me. She’s waving me over to her, but I don’t move. Auntie starts to wave me over, too, but I don’t move for either of them.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” Janet says, looking down into her hands. “I don’t blame you. I don’t, Sophie.” She takes in a very big gulp. Her whole face is shiny and wet. “I’m so sorry, Sophie. I’m so very sorry.”
Okay, I mouth, barely loud enough to hear it myself.
Auntie pats Janet’s leg and puts her hand on her shoulder. She looks at me hard, pulling me over to them with her eyes. But I still don’t move. I can’t and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to.
“Sophie, say something to your mother,” Auntie says, looking at me even harder.
“I didn’t know you were coming home today,” I say, mostly looking at Auntie and even directing the comment to her. “You never even called once.”
“We couldn’t,” Janet says, twisting her mouth down in a big frown, and she starts to cry again.
“In Paris? You couldn’t?” I answer, not flinching about the tears.
“You didn’t tell her?” Janet looks over at Auntie, who raises her hand and shakes her head. “You should have told her.”
“You told us all not to,” Auntie says louder, overlapping me as I keep asking, “Tell me what? Tell me what?” until finally I yell, “Tell me WHAT?”
The whole room stops, and they both look at me a little shocked, but not angry.
“I wasn’t in Paris,” Janet starts to say, clearing her throat. “I was in rehab.”
“She hasn’t had a drink in almost thirty days,” Auntie Amara says, softer than before, but still eye-pulling me toward them.
“Okay,” I say, just looking at Janet. She’s crying more than she’s looking at me, and I want to catch her eyes to see if she’s actually telling me the truth. To see if this is just her being good for us so Auntie will leave, and then in another week, she’ll be down in the kitchen having a bottle of wine with dinner and screaming about how ungrateful I am.
“It wasn’t okay, Sophie. It wasn’t,” Janet cries at me. Her eyes are red and lost. She acts like she doesn’t know where she is. She’s looking for the right way to be but can’t find it. When she makes eye contact with me and looks me straight in the face, I somehow know she’s telling the truth. I see that whatever she is feeling is real, it’s not just a lie till the next drink. This time she means it.
Auntie rubs Janet’s back and wipes her dripping eyes. Janet’s almost like a baby, she looks so small and weak. I should feel sorry for her, but I can’t, not yet; that’s how she gets you. But looking at her, I don’t actually think she’s trying to get me. I don’t know what to say or think. And I am a liar. I know that now, just like her. This whole time, I’ve been telling everyone who will listen that I don’t miss her and I’m glad she’s gone, but that’s been a lie. I always missed her, and I want to hug her and tell her so, but I don’t.
“I saw what I was doing to you,” Janet says. “I hated myself for that. When I woke up that morning and saw everything I’d done, everything I’d been doing, I didn’t want to hurt you anymore. Sophie, I never wanted to hurt you. I love you.”
I want to answer her but can’t.
“Amara’s told me about taking you up to her house for a while,” Janet says, calming herself down. She squeezes Auntie’s hand, starting in again. “And I understand if you want to go. I understand that it’s going to take you a while to trust me again. I understand why you don’t now. But I’ll be going to meetings and staying in touch with my sponsor. I’m not going to drink again. I’m not. I promise you that.
“If you want to go, I understand.” Janet cries harder again and needs to take a break.
Auntie pats her back and says to me, “You have to make the decision, baby.”
I am almost instantly angry. I’m right back to hating Janet again, because either way I choose, it’s going to be the wrong choice, and she knows that. It’s like she’s setting me up. If I choose to go, she’ll be all alone and afraid and sad, and she’ll start drinking again in no time. And if I say no, I have to stay here with her. Either way she wins.
She’s still crying. Curled up on top of herself and needing someone to hold her or prop her up straight. I should go to her, but I don’t. I don’t move. It’s almost like when you’re a kid and you have that stupid thought that if you stand very still everything will stop. Time will stand as still as you are, but it never works.
“I need to think about it.”
Janet looks like she’s trying to swallow a big pill. Auntie Amara gets up, saying there’s food in the kitchen. She brushes my shoulder as she walks past me to go to the kitchen. She leaves me standing there just looking at Janet, and Janet at me.
I don’t smile, I just stare. She’s too beaten up to smile.
“You’ve liked having her here, haven’t you?” she says.
“Yeah.”
“I knew you would. She loves you very much,” Janet says.
“I know,” I say.
“And so do I.”
Auntie calls us into the kitchen for food. For most of the dinner, Janet eats with a spoon that looks too big for her mouth. She asks me about school. I tell her about the project and going as Auntie. She smiles a little at that and asks me to show her what I look like as Amara. Auntie laughs and tells me to go too. As I run out of the room, I hear her whisper to Auntie about my braids. She likes them.
I run up the stairs and into my room. This is the first time that my mind is actually quiet. I’m not thinking about anything else but getting this outfit on. I take the costume off my chair and slowly put it on. I want it to be perfect, especially perfect, to show Janet. See, I’m proud of her, I am. And not you. I wrap the scarf around my head and dangle the dread that Auntie gave me from the front just like it’s a stray that’s fallen in my face. Like I’m Amara and not Janet.
I run downstairs to the kitchen and catch them hugging hard near the stove. Auntie’s eyes twinkle when she sees me, and she starts to laugh. Janet turns around and looks at me. She smiles so big, showing so many teeth that she’s embarrassed by them, and she covers her mouth before she begins to laugh.
“You look beautiful.” Janet smiles. She rushes over to me, and without stopping, she tackles me into a hug. She’s thinner and bony in her sweater, but she smells like Janet. I don’t hug back at first, but the tighter she pulls and the harder she pushes my face into hers, the harder it is to not to put my arms around her. I hug her as hard as I can because I want to believe it, I want to think that all of that is over, but I just don’t know if I can.
Later, I head to my room to sleep, for the first time in a long time. Janet stops me in the hallway to ask me if
she can sleep on my floor.
“Why?” I ask her.
“Because I want to be close to you,” Janet says. I look at Auntie brushing her teeth and getting ready for bed. She’s not even hinting at me what I should do. So I say I guess, but I don’t know if that’s right.
Janet grabs pillows and blankets faster than I’ve seen her move all night. She runs into my room and lays the blankets down on the floor near my bed. I walk around her and straighten my Auntie clothes for tomorrow, looking at her, watching her, wondering what she’s going to do. She just smiles and waits for me to get into bed. She pulls my head to her and kisses me on the forehead. She curls up on the floor and says good night. I lie perfectly still in bed for a long time, looking at as much as I can see of her without making it obvious. She doesn’t move. She’s still. I watch her until my eyes can’t stay open anymore, then fall asleep.
CHAPTER 28
In the morning she’s still there. She’s barely moved. She’s even still in the clothes she wore last night. I try to get out of bed and over to my chair without waking her, thinking I can get dressed in the bathroom, but with my first step, she shakes awake and then looks straight at me. She’s not angry for being woken up. She smiles.
“Good morning.” She yawns at me.
“I’m sorry to wake you up,” I say back, almost right on top of her.
“Do you want me to make you breakfast?” Janet asks.
I tell her I’m fine and rush out of the room into the bathroom to be alone. Is she going to be like this all the time now? All on top of me? Smiling? What does she need to smile at me so much for? What happens when she stops smiling?
I rush in and out of the shower and then into my clothes, tying the head scarf as tight as I can and putting the dread back in. I hear her going down the stairs, and already I’m thinking about how fast I can run down, put on my jacket, grab my books, and be out the door before she makes me eat a bowl of cereal with her.
I go quickly back to my room to get a few bracelets and the peacock necklace, tiptoeing so that maybe she won’t hear me and will think I’m still in the bathroom. That way she won’t be expecting me until I’m halfway down the stairs, and closer to the door before she can call me into the kitchen for breakfast. I slip on my shoes and head to the stairs, bouncing off them, trying to touch them as lightly as I can. It isn’t until I’m at the front door that she calls out to me. I stop cold. But just stand there. I look back at her.
“I can’t. I have to go to school. Sorry,” I say, just opening the door and pushing my way out to the street and down to Ducks’s house. Ducks comes down the stairs wearing an old shirt of his grandfather’s and a big tattoo on his arm in Sharpie. He smiles at me a second before his grandmother comes down the stairs pulling at his shirt and yelling at him.
“Watch that belt. Don’t play with it or lose it,” she yells.
She makes a big fuss at me, but I just keep moving away from her. I want to be away from these people now, I just want to take Ducks with me.
He smiles at me but knows that I can’t smile back, not yet. We walk fast down the block, and by the corner I feel far enough away from them that I can start to relax. Ducks follows, not asking me anything, at least for a couple of blocks. Finally, he asks if I like his tattoo. I tell him it’s great and it looks just like Jock’s.
“You remember that?” he asks me.
“Of course,” I answer.
When we get into school, everyone in our grade is dressed up. So many strange and wonderful costumes. It’s really amazing to see, but we both laugh the hardest when we see Ellen, who’s wearing a big black wig and an old-fashioned dress with a bustle. She’s jocky and all elbows. Sometimes when she moves her head it takes her wig a second to catch up.
“Shalom, kids,” Ellen says, pushing both her hands in the air and waiting to hug us.
Ducks tries to pretend to be Jock, but he can’t walk like that as well as Ellen can. For a few minutes it’s just a fun game between us and not a project at all. It’s just us pretending to be people that are part of us. I try to be Amara, but I really just want to laugh with them. I laugh loudly, so maybe I am being her anyway. Allegra’s walking by herself in a fur coat, which everyone stares at, wondering how fancy it is and if it is real. I look at her and smile, but she doesn’t look at me.
When we get into Mr. Gennetti’s class, he’s at the front in a pair of old-man glasses with chalk dust in the hair at his temples. It sort of looks good and funny at the same time. He walks differently, too, and holds his pen like it’s a cigarette.
“Good morning, class. My name is Ernesto Dejoya, and I am Mr. Gennetti’s abuelo.” Everybody laughs, even though the girls that always like to stare at Mr. Gennetti when he’s his usual self are a little disappointed he’ll be hiding behind those glasses today. He only acts like his grandfather for a bit before he starts calling on us to tell him our names and something interesting about ourselves.
Ellen stands up. “My name is Ruchel Nussbaum, and I came to this country in nineteen eleven from Poland.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Nussbaum. Were things hard for you in Poland?” Mr. Gennetti asks.
“Sure. I came all by myself and worked in a factory until I could send for my three sisters and mother.”
“That’s wonderful. You must be very proud of yourself.”
“You don’t leave any man behind. My little ketsla, Ellen, taught me that from Call of Duty,” Ellen says loudly, and the whole class laughs. Mr. Gennetti turns to me next.
I stand up and start. “My name is Dr. Amara Watley, and I’m a writer and a professor.”
“A very famous writer,” Mr. Gennetti says. “How did you hear about Dr. Watley?”
“She’s my aunt,” I answer. The whole class whispers about me knowing someone that Mr. Gennetti is obviously impressed by. “I grew up in Maryland with my mother and father and my younger sister, Janet. I was the first woman in my family to go to college.”
“That’s just one of your accomplishments, though, isn’t it?” Mr. Gennetti asks me, already knowing the answer.
“I’ve written a few books,” I start.
“Amazing books,” Mr. Gennetti interrupts me.
“And I teach at CUNY in the city,” I continue. “I love teaching, and I love when my students begin to understand themselves through the work we do together.”
“Well, that’s the point of this whole project,” Mr. Gennetti interrupts me again. “I wanted you all to learn something about the people in your family to find out something about who you are. What did you find out, Sophie?”
I wait for a minute, not sure how to answer. There’s so much swirling in my head, and the harder and harder I think about it, the further and further away I seem to be from an answer. But everyone’s staring at me, so I just say, “I found out that I can be beautiful.” There are giggles around the room, but Mr. Gennetti shushes them and leans in to ask what I mean.
“Beautiful is how something is made. Beautiful is how things work together, like a piece of music or a poem. Beautiful is how you take all the things that you are, all the stuff that makes you up, and you put it to good use in the world. How you help people with it, and take care of people with it, and how you create things with it,” I spit out, not sure how much of this is Auntie’s idea or mine. “Pretty is fine, but that’s, like, anything, anything can be pretty when you put it in the right light, but to be beautiful is to have a purpose.”
“Well.” Mr. Gennetti smiles. “I like that very much.”
The class, which had been laughing at me until a minute ago, turns and starts to raise their hands to tell Mr. Gennetti who they are next. I sit down in my seat, and Ellen pats my back.
The rest of the class, I think about what I said, and what that actually means. It’s so weird to me that after you say something and put the words out into the world, it means something comp
letely different from when you were just thinking it. It’s not necessarily that the words are different, but hearing them, using your mouth to make them and your breath to carry them out to the people around you, makes them seem to mean more, makes them seem more real.
I do want to be beautiful. I didn’t understand it before the way I do now. And I’m happy but so sad about it, because I know that I can’t go with Amara. I know I have to stay here because I have to do so many things here. I have to fix things with Ryan, not be his girlfriend again or anything but at least let him understand that I didn’t mean to hurt him. I have to fix things with Allegra, who’s just angry with me because she thinks that I have things she doesn’t. She should know better. And for Ellen. She needs me in moments, moments she doesn’t want to admit, but she does. And Ducks, he needs me, but more than anyone, he just needs me to be me. And Janet. All of these things are my purpose and that’s part of being beautiful.
When Mr. Gennetti calls Ducks’s name, he stands up and says, “My name is Padraic ‘Jock’ Flynn, and I’m a carpenter.” He smiles, but I see that his lower lip is stretched wide across his teeth to keep him from crying. He looks over at me in a bit of a panic, but I just smile, letting him know whatever happens, he’s doing fine.
Ducks shows pictures of all the places Jock built in Park Slope. Martinetti’s. Mantelpieces in big fancy houses. The chairs in his mom’s bakery. The shelves where his records go. When he pulls out that picture and sees himself smiling with his happy but dead grandfather, he starts to tremble a little, and without missing a beat, Mr. Gennetti pulls him over and gives him a big hug. Tara looks jealous or mad that she didn’t think of crying over her dead nana.
“It’s hard to lose these people. But a big part of this project is to tell you that they are all still a big part of you. And they always will be.” Ducks pulls away, red-faced and embarrassed. Ellen and I both smile at him, and he mouths the word sorry to us.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I tell him on the walk home.