Please Proceed to the Nearest Exit

by Jessica Raya

  “Are you okay, Robin? Are you mad at me or something?” Carol wasn’t much for subtlety.

  “Since you asked.”

  When I looked up, Carol was biting her bottom lip, clutching her Bible so tightly she nearly folded it in two. Joyce was gone, and Allen sat alone with a big smile on his face, carving something into the table with a thumbtack.

  “No, Carol, nothing’s wrong. I just really need to get this done, okay?”

  “Sure, Robin. Okay. I’ll leave you alone. See ya later, crocodile.”

  She bounded away as happily as she’d come. Allen Wendell followed her with his eyes. When he saw me watching him, he grinned and grabbed his crotch. I closed my book and gathered my things. I’d had enough biology for one day.

  I had planned to tell Melanie about Joyce and Allen as we walked home that day—had been looking forward to it all afternoon, in fact—but Joyce beat me to the punch. She’d told Melanie that she’d seen me talking to Carol Closter. Her pair of twos trumped my ace.

  “I told her you’re only being nice to Cloister because you feel sorry for her,” Melanie assured me. “But you better watch it. People are going to think you’re actually friends.”

  “Maybe we are,” I said.

  “That’s not even funny.” Melanie stopped and crossed her arms. “Have you even talked to Troy yet?”

  She knew I hadn’t. It had been two weeks since Jamie Finley asked what my story was, and Troy hadn’t so much as glanced at me in the halls. I was fine with this arrangement, but Melanie, apparently, was not. My apathy was getting in the way of her complete and total happiness, which depended, she explained now, on Jamie Finley falling in love with her.

  “You like Jamie?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Why not? He’s a junior and he’s on the swim team, and he’s sort of cute, don’t you think?”

  “Why don’t you just go out with Troy?” I said.

  “Because that’s not the way it works. Troy likes you, so I like Jamie. I don’t make the rules.”

  I tried to pay attention while Melanie explained just what those rules were. She had older sisters, so she knew about these things. If we were still in junior high, at least we’d be having this conversation on the swings. Mr. D’Angelo had hung a tire swing in the backyard for Melanie and her sisters, but she preferred the swings at our school, where she didn’t have to worry about her mom listening through a window. We used to spend whole afternoons nestled in those snug canvas seats, doing our favourite songs grave injustice and sharing the kinds of things only twelve-year-olds would call secrets. If Melanie had a crush on a boy, which was all the time, she’d plan their wedding, laying out the details for me slowly, as if I were taking notes. Four groomsmen in pale grey tuxes, four bridesmaids in full-length lavender tulle, lavender roses on everyone and everything—you could dye the white ones any colour you wanted, she’d told me, just like carnations. Mrs. D’Angelo had seen blue roses at a cousin’s engagement party once, tinted perfectly to match the bride-to-be’s eyes. Melanie would wear white, of course, and her hair up so God would see the delicate gold cross necklace she’d gotten for her first communion. As she descended the church steps as the new Mrs. So-and-So, a hundred white doves would be released while Richard and Karen sang “Close to You.” That last one was my idea. I couldn’t imagine my own wedding, so I elaborated on hers.

  Melanie applied her planning skills now to the Troy Gainer problem. Once again, she had it all figured out. Weekends, the swim team held court at The Place, an abandoned house in an old development slated for demolition where kids went to drink and make out. We would go and act sexy and Troy would finally ask me out and Jamie Finley would ask out Melanie. Then the four of us would fall in love and drive around in Troy’s red Mustang, and our lives would be a chewing gum commercial.

  “The Place?” I said. “Grade-twelves go there.” Stories had circulated of small, dark rooms with mattresses on the floors.

  “That’s the point,” Melanie said. “We’re not kids anymore.”

  Looking at her, I could see she was half-right. Melanie wore matching bras and underwear. I still wore a training bra, though what I was training for wasn’t clear. Melanie had started shaving her thighs. I hadn’t started shaving anything—I figured I’d have plenty of time to enjoy razor burn. It felt like these changes had happened overnight, while I wasn’t looking. Somewhere along the way we’d gotten out of sync. Instead of trying to catch up, I kept digging my feet in. Melanie said high school was our time to spread our wings. But I didn’t want to spread my wings for Troy Gainer, or anything else for that matter.

  “Are you trying to ruin my life on purpose?” she said. “Maybe I should cut my wrists now and get it over with.”

  “Pills are a more common choice.”

  I was only trying to make her laugh, but Melanie didn’t think it was funny. We walked the rest of the way in silence. I could hear the swish of her cords.

  As we neared our corner, I tried to remember the last time we’d been to the swings. I couldn’t remember when it was exactly, only that it was the summer before high school. If I’d known it was the last time, I would have paid more attention. I’d have smelled the metal on my hands as I fell asleep that night. I’d have saved some of the sand from my shoes.

  “Hey,” I said. “Let’s go to the swings.”

  Melanie scowled at me sideways through a wing of perfectly feathered bangs. “Swings? How old are you? God, Robin, get a clue.”

  She turned sharply and started down her street. I stood there for longer than I should have watching her walk away, embarrassed by how bad I was at letting go of things, amazed at how easy she made it look.

  —

  When I got home, my dad’s car was in the driveway. It wasn’t even four o’clock. Seeing it there before six was like hearing a phone ring in the middle of the night.

  Dad was in his overcoat, banging on Mom’s bedroom door. I could hear him from the foyer. “Goddammit, Elaine, you made me come home early. Now you won’t talk to me? I’ve got things to do. What the hell is going on?”

  Mom’s door opened a few inches. She was still in her housecoat. A single roller clung to the right side of her head.

  “What’s going on?” he said to her, softening now. Nobody could yell at someone that pathetic.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said through the crack.

  “So talk. By all means. I’m dying to hear what you have to say.”

  “Did you have a nice day?”

  “Did I have a nice day? Is that what I cancelled three appointments for? My day was wonderful and this is the cherry on top. How was your day, dear? Did you talk to the gardener? Did you take in my tasselled shoes to get fixed? Did you even get out of bed? It must be nice to have nothing to do all day. Is it your time of the month or something?”

  She started crying.

  “It’s the roses,” I said from the hallway. “You shouldn’t have thrown them away.”

  Dad gave me a look. “Not now, kiddo. Your mother’s not feeling well.”

  “How would you know what I’m feeling?” she said and slammed the door shut. A second later, it opened again. Dad’s loafers were hooked by the fingers of one hand. The other held a pair of scissors. She snipped off the tassels and handed him the shoes. When she slammed the door this time, we heard it lock.

  “For Christ’s sake, Elaine, take a Midol. Take a Valium. Take something.”

  “She just wanted to keep them a bit longer,” I tried again. “She put 7-Up in the water every day.”

  Dad sighed and bent down to pick up his shoes. He took them and a bottle of Scotch out to the pool house. I thought maybe I should tell him that you could buy roses in any colour you liked, in case he wanted to get her new ones. But then I remembered that the red ones were Mom’s favourite. Despite all appearances to the contrary, she wasn’t a woman who was hard to please.

  —

  For the next week, Dad ate his meals at the office, showered at the
club, and came home late. Mom slept in and went to bed early, with migraines, she said. She must have felt better during the hours I was at school and Dad was at work. Fabric swatches and paint chips accumulated on the dining room table while we were gone. At night, when the sound of Mom’s crying came through the wall, I slept with my radio and let David Cassidy wonder into my ear why he was so afraid to love me.

  If I wanted to worry about something, I would’ve started with my own screwed-up life. In the mornings, Melanie wasn’t waiting for me at our corner anymore. After school, we didn’t walk home together either. In between, I would find her sitting on the back field with Joyce Peyton, picking at their sandwiches and slicking their bare legs with baby oil. Seeing me, they’d clam up and smile like cherubs, shiny knees touching, they sat so close. “We’re working on a group project,” Melanie said. Beside her, Joyce grinned, smug with secrecy.

  I spent more time in the library, where you could nap uninterrupted at one of the carrels that lined the back wall. When Carol found me there this time, my geography paper was pasted to my cheek with drool. We were studying the Ring of Fire, twenty-five thousand miles of oceanic trenches, island arcs, and volcanic mountain ranges that encircle the Pacific basin. It’s the secret earth beneath our feet, a land of angry plates and ancient crusts, pushing, stretching, grinding away at our solidity. Periods of calm go on for years, decades, millennia, and then one day, snap—the world splits in two. I didn’t know why they bothered teaching this stuff. Every Californian knows about the Ring of Fire, but most still go on with their lives as if the worst thing that can happen today is gridlock on the 101. For the daughter of an insurance salesman, it was just another bedtime story.

  “I knew you’d be here.” Carol peeled the page from my cheek.

  “Who told you that—God?”

  Carol flattened her smile. “You shouldn’t joke about Him.”

  I yawned. “What do you want, Carol?”

  She looked around, as if someone might be listening, but the library was empty. Only losers went there at lunch. Even Allen Wendell had better things to do.

  “God did tell me something,” she said. “He told me to tell you not to be sad about those girls. He told me to tell you they aren’t really your friends.”

  “Do I look sad?” I gave her the biggest smile I could manage—forty, maybe forty-five watts. The school nurse had assured me that it was normal to feel bad all the time because of puberty. Dad thought I should pace myself. He said I had plenty of time to be disappointed with life when I was his age.

  “You can’t fool God, Robin. God sees everything and He’s worried about you.”

  “Tell him to take a number.” I laid my head back down on my books and waited for her to go away.

  “You know, sometimes you make me wonder if we’re really friends.”

  “Yeah, well maybe you should stop wondering.”

  I buried my face in the crook of my arm. My cheeks were hot with shame. It still shocked me how mean I could be, how well I could imitate girls like Joyce if I wanted to.

  When I woke again at the bell, there was a piece of paper in front of my nose, folded a million times into a small, fat square. My name was written on one side in purple pen, a heart over the i. Carol Closter might talk to God, but in some ways she was just like every other teenaged girl.

  I shoved the note in my pocket and forgot about it. I’d had it with people who wouldn’t speak up for themselves. If God had something to tell me, he could put some pants on and tell me himself.

  —

  I didn’t see Carol again until Friday afternoon. The last bell had just rung and the hallways were like roiling rivers, everyone rushing to their lockers, groaning about homework, plotting their weekends. The scream tore through our clamour like a gunshot. It was an awful, injured sound, wide-mouthed and from the belly. We froze and pricked our ears. Even after it stopped, we stayed frozen, mute antelope waiting for a signal. Then the gym door flung open and someone tumbled into the hall as if she’d been spit out. She was in a towel, her hair a mat of white suds. She ran toward us, wiping at her face with one hand. Carol.

  As she neared us, the crowd parted to let her through. We flattened against our lockers, made more room than necessary. Whatever had happened, it had nothing to do with us.

  Carol slipped and landed against some kid’s legs. Nobody laughed. It took her forever to stand. The floor was wet beneath her and she wouldn’t let go of the towel. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear it if she looked at me. At last she was up and running again, more slowly now, limping maybe. I couldn’t watch, heard only the slap of wet feet on linoleum and the boom of a fire door slamming shut.

  Two girls ran into the office. Seconds later, Mr. Galpin came out, a paper napkin tucked into his collar. “Which way?” he said. Kids pointed meekly. He tore the napkin from his collar and flew out the door.

  We camped against our lockers. “Oh man,” someone kept whispering. “Oh man. Oh man.” Nobody wanted to go home yet. We were terrified and giddy, flooded with adrenaline and something else familiar that I couldn’t quite name. Relief, maybe, though that didn’t seem right.

  The memory was just a feeling, then bits of light and sound. I was nine years old, lying down in the back seat of the car and counting streetlights as they flew across the rear windshield. My parents were up front, not talking as usual. Suddenly the car slowed and the windshield exploded with light. I reached up to touch the glass. Still cold. Dad pulled over to the side of the road. “She should see this,” he said.

  Mom said it was morbid, that I was too young, but she knew there was no use arguing. Dad got out of the car and left the engine running so she could listen to the radio, which she did loudly to drown out the noise of sirens and shouting. When I got out, Dad gave me his hand, so I knew something special was happening.

  I felt it from across the street, hot as an August day. The flames were orange and red and blue. Firemen’s voices barked over the roar of the fire, jets of water arcing gracefully to the sky. Around them, sparks snapped in the air, playful as fireflies. I squeezed Dad’s hand. I’d heard stories about house fires, but I’d never seen one until then. When Dad talked about another poor sap who forgot to unplug the Christmas tree, I thought only about what I would save from my own burning house—how would I choose between beloved but aging toys and gift-wrapped boxes that may or may not contain socks? I hadn’t realized a fire could be so beautiful, like a hundred sunrises set against a black velvet curtain. The night was electric with it.

  “Are you scared?” Dad said.

  “No,” I said, thinking that maybe he was. He held my hand so tightly his school ring pinched my finger. Insurance men have tremendous respect for fire. They’re a lot like arsonists that way.

  “Well, you should be,” he said. “Do you know why?”

  “Because we’re all one bad decision away from disaster?”

  The light from the fire reflected in his smile. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s my girl. Don’t worry,” he said, squeezing me tighter. “Nothing like this will ever happen to you.”

  But I wasn’t scared, not even a bit. Dad’s arm was around me, Mom was safe in the car, and the heat in the air made everything shimmer. That’s when I noticed a family huddled together under wool blankets at the edge of the light. They had a daughter too, about my age. When she turned around and saw me smiling, I bit my lips so hard they bled.

  I didn’t yet have the experience to imagine what had happened to Carol Closter, but whatever it was, it hadn’t happened to me. What I felt that day in the hallway was the same horrible, guilty relief I’d felt the night of the fire. I would never be that girl under the wool blanket.

  At last the gym doors opened again. The gym teacher came through them with Allen Wendell, his arm around the boy’s wet shoulders. Snot ran down Allen’s trembling chin.

  When Mr. Galpin returned, he was alone. “Go home,” he said, barely looking at us. “Everyone just go home.”


  We shuffled outside. It was a bright day, but the sun gave off about as much warmth as a drama club prop. I didn’t see Melanie anywhere. Moody Miller was sitting on the roof, still as a gargoyle. I wondered if he’d seen Carol run out the door. He probably saw the beginning and end of a lot of things up there. Nervous whispers were already turning into careful laughter, prickling at the back of my neck. Any relief I’d felt vanished. I hugged my books and hurried across the parking lot. For once, I was eager to get home.

  Jamie Finley caught up with me at the edge of the football field. “What was that?” he said. “You think she’s okay?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to think about it.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Shit.” He raked his hand through his hair. I could smell his apple shampoo. His hair was long for a swimmer. Most of the guys on the team shaved their heads—among other things, Melanie said. A football player started skipping around the parking lot, flapping one arm and pinching his T-shirt under his chin like a towel. He had a white beret on his head, the kind the school majorettes wore, and the pompom bounced up and down. Troy Gainer leaned against his red Mustang, laughing. The hatless majorette beside him fluffed her hair and smiled.

  Jamie shook his head. “Not cool, guys. Not cool.”

  I’d already started walking again. He caught up and settled into step. “My friends aren’t always jerks,” he said. “Just most of the time. Hey, you’re really fast. Have you ever thought about trying out for track? Seriously, where’s the fire?”

  I stopped in the middle of the field, arms braced over my books. Laughter wafted across the field. Wherever Carol had run to, I hoped it was out of earshot.

  “Who wants to know?” I said.

  “What do you mean? I do. Didn’t I just say the words?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t even know if you’re really saying what you’re saying.”

  “Okay, I’m lost.”

  “Me too,” I said, feeling tired again. My books weighed a hundred pounds. Being fourteen was turning out to be a lot more complicated than television had led me to believe.