by Kieran Scott
This was so pathetic. Me, balled up on top of a toilet bowl, sobbing into Glenn’s sweater. What did Cameron think of me right now? Was he ever going to speak to me again after that display? That comment? And why couldn’t I stand up for myself ? Why was I such a huge-mongous loser? Tama was right. I had to stop this. I had to show these people that they couldn’t walk all over me. Forget Stephanie and Mark Wahlberg. Saturday night I was going to that party with Tama. I was going to stop this once and for all.
ACT ONE, SCENE TEN
In which:
DIVORCE SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN
“I’M NOT EATING THIS, JILL! THIS IS SLOP!”
There was a crash. The sound of ceramic plate hitting steel sink. Christopher and I both flinched.
“Well, maybe if it hadn’t sat around for two hours before getting reheated, it wouldn’t be slop!” my mother shouted back. It was Friday night. Bad Dad Night. And this one was turning especially bad.
I hugged Christopher a little bit closer to my side on my twin bed. On the TV, a family sitcom was all but drowned out. Two sisters were pulling on the sleeves of one sweater between them as the laugh track applauded their efforts.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” my father shouted. A cabinet slammed. The bottles in the door of the refrigerator jangled.
“It means that if you weren’t three hours late . . . if you were here when the rest of the family was eating, your food would have been fine!” my mother shouted.
“Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that?” my father yelled. Another slam. “This is my house! I paid for this food! I have a right to expect a real dinner whenever the hell I choose to come home!”
God, I hated him. What did he want my mother to do, make two dinners? One for us and another for him? And when should she prepare this meal exactly? Was she supposed to psychically intuit the exact time at which he was going to deign to roll through the door and time his meal accordingly?
“Oh, so I should just sit here all night cooking meals until you come home so that one of them will happen to be fresh?”
“Yeah! Maybe you should!” my dad screamed.
Christopher moaned and curled into a ball with his head on my upper thigh. My heart felt sick.
Throw the food in his face, I willed my mother. My fingertips curled in toward my palms. Tell him you’ve had it. You’re leaving. Tell him to get the hell out of our house.
I’m, like, the only kid in the world who wishes on a daily basis that her parents would get divorced. But life would be so much more peaceful if he would just go away. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to come home and know that there was no possible way the night would end in a fight. That my father wouldn’t be around to blow up for no reason. To not have to always wonder what might set him off, who he might choose to focus his venom on that night. To not be scared all the time.
Come on, Mom. You don’t have to take it.
“Fine! Don’t eat! I don’t care! Do whatever you want!” my mother shouted.
Her pounding footsteps crossed the kitchen and moved down the hall.
“Screw you!” my father roared.
Their bedroom door slammed and I flinched.
A hollow pit of disappointment opened in my gut. Once again, she’d decided to just take it. To walk away and let him get away with it. I felt my heart rate start to quicken as my father continued to pound around the kitchen. I should just go down there and scream at him myself. Tell him he couldn’t talk to my mother that way. Tell him what a freaking hypocrite he was, expecting everyone to treat him like the god of the household when he treated everyone else like dirt. I grew warm just thinking about it and my breath started to shorten. I wished I could do it. I wished so badly I could. But I knew that I never would. It was just like being cornered by the geeks, but ten times more intense. I was trapped there inside myself, dying to say what I really wanted to say, and frustrated to know that I would never have the guts.
“KJ. You’re squeezing me,” Christopher whined.
I realized how tightly my arm muscles had coiled, and released him.
“Sorry.”
Down below, the basement door banged closed and my father’s heavy footsteps barreled down the creaky stairs. That was “game over” in our household. Now he would throw darts for a while and drink from one of the bottles he had “hidden” down there among his books—because clearly he hadn’t had enough tonight. Then he would pass out in my grandfather’s old recliner until sometime in the early morning when he would crawl up the stairs and into bed with my mom. How she tolerated that so often, I have no idea.
Christopher’s little body relaxed and my blood stopped rushing through my ears. I breathed in and lifted the remote to turn up the volume. The dad on the TV had the two sisters gathered into his arms on the couch as they all laughed over the now torn and ruined sweater. Christopher giggled at a lame joke. I closed my eyes against the burning.
ACT ONE, SCENE ELEVEN
In which:
WE ALL PLAY OUR ROLES
I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING TO THE STOMACH-GRUMBLING SCENTS of pancakes and bacon. At first, I smiled, but then I woke up and realized what this meant. Dad at the stove. Mom sipping coffee. Christopher emptying half a bottle of syrup onto his plate. The Millers play 7th Heaven for a day. So very fake.
I whipped my covers off and got right in the shower, scrubbing my skin so hard I scraped a big line up my arm with a fingernail. I put on my softest cargo pants and a black sweater, wrapped my wet hair back in a ponytail, shoved my marked-up script in my bag and trudged downstairs.
“There she is!” my father sang. He wore a sweatshirt and jeans and his “Quiche the Cook” apron—an ill-advised Father’s Day gift from a few years back. When I still liked the pancake-flipping, cheerful guy he was on Saturday mornings. “Two pancakes or three?”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
There was a bottled smoothie in the fridge somewhere. I dove in to look for it and to cool down my angry, overheated face. How could he be so chipper? After his performance last night shouldn’t he at least be punished by a massively painful hangover? But no. He was a “functioning drunk.” At least that was what my mother called him. She got the rhetoric from her Al Anon meetings. They were for family members and loved ones of alcoholics. Every once in a while she’d get on this big “I’m so healthy” kick and go to meetings once or twice a week, then come home acting like she was all wise and had my father all figured out. And when I had my normal emotional reactions to his insanity, she’d look at me in this condescending, piteous way like I was just so unenlightened. “Oh, KJ. When you’re older, you’ll understand,” was her catchphrase. I hated that version of my mom almost as much as I hated the sloshed version of my dad.
“KJ. You should eat something. You have a long day,” my mother said.
I turned and let the fridge door slam. Both my mother and my brother stared at me with pleading eyes. This was one of the few hours of total peace we were granted each week. They didn’t want me to ruin it for them. I heaved a sigh.
“Fine. I’ll have two.”
“Aha! No one can resist my perfect pancakes,” my father said.
Yeah. You’re, like, the coolest dad ever. Just keep telling yourself that.
I yanked out a chair and dropped into it so hard I bruised my butt. My father deposited two pancakes on my plate and kissed the top of my head. Such the doting dad. As if twelve hours ago Christopher and I hadn’t been huddled up in my room hating him with everything we had in us. I watched my brother as he lapped up his syrup, happily swinging his legs under the table. Traitor.
“So you have a long day?” Dad said. “What’s on the agenda?”
“I have an all-day rehearsal and tonight I’m going to a party with Tama.” I ate the pancakes dry. It wasn’t like I wanted to enjoy them. Take that, Superdad.
He turned to me, his eyebrows coming together. “Tama? Do I know Tama?”
He had to be kidding
me. He loved Tama. “She was Kim in Bye Bye Birdie last year? You drove us to Friendly’s that one night after rehearsal and you let her crank up the stereo?”
Nothing.
“You said she looked just like Whitney Houston back when she was normal?”
There was an edge in my voice now that earned me an admonishing look from my mother, which was so unfair. She wanted me to spare his feelings? Please. How ridiculous was that? And besides, my father should know who Tama was. He’d even met her a few times when he was stone sober.
“Oh, right! The girl with the nose ring,” he said finally. “I like her.”
“She doesn’t have one anymore, but whatever,” I replied.
“Well, I suppose you can go to this party as long as you promise us you’ll be responsible,” my father said.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Like he could really tell me whether or not I could go to a party. He had no idea about my life, let alone what was okay to do and what wasn’t. That was my mother’s department, and she had already told me I could go.
“Something funny?” my father said.
My bones burned, heating me from the inside out. Yeah, something’s funny. How about the very idea that you have any clue what the word responsible means? Next you should tell me not to drink. Please, please, please hit me with that one.
He hovered over me with another pan of sizzling bacon. My mother’s brainwaves were pounding against mine so hard my temples hurt. Christopher’s legs had stopped swinging. I swallowed a lump of dry pancake and sucked down some orange juice.
“No. Just got something stuck in my throat,” I lied.
I played my part like a good little actress. I hated it, but it was easier that way.
ACT ONE, SCENE TWELVE
In which:
I SING IN PUBLIC . . . SORT OF
THERE’S ALWAYS A LOT OF MAYHEM AT AN ALL-DAY SATURDAY rehearsal. There’s something about having the run of the school that makes an already-prone-to-mischief set of people just a little bit wackier. There’s a lot of whooping in the lobby, skate-boarding in the main hall and raiding the vending machines, as if they’re not there every other day of our lives. But today, I just couldn’t get into it. I watched all the revelry going on around me with a detached impatience.
Yeah. Look at you people having tickle fights backstage. You’re so very carefree. I get it. Now shut up.
Finally Mr. Katz set us free for lunch. I grabbed my stuff and went right outside to wait for Stephanie, who was upstairs in the home ec room getting measured for costumes. I took a big gulp of fresh air and glanced at my watch as everyone poured out the doors behind me. Including Robbie and Tama. Who walked out together. Interesting. Had Robbie already made his move?
“Hey, KJ, we’re gonna hit Wendy’s for a little Biggie this and some Biggie that,” Robbie said. “Wanna come?”
I kind of didn’t. I had been looking forward to venting all over Stephanie at lunch. But behind Robbie, Tama waved her hands and pressed her teeth together, begging me to be her wing-man. I felt a flutter of pride. Needed by Tama Gold.
“Sure. I could use a Biggie this,” I told him.
“Don’t forget the Biggie that,” he replied. “The Biggie that is very important.”
Stephanie pushed through the door. Andy was with her, that damn little pad of his at the ready.
“So, where are we going?” Steph asked, shrugging her coat on.
I bit my lip. Steph was already irritated at me because I’d busted our plans for the movies so that I could hang with Tama. She was not going to like the idea of having lunch with the girl as well. “We just decided on Wendy’s,” I said.
Stephanie looked at Tama and Robbie like they were alien beings potentially interested in sucking her brain matter out through her ears. “We just went there.”
“So what?” Tama said.
“So I didn’t want anything too heavy,” Stephanie replied.
“They have salads, you know,” Tama shot back, semi-condescendingly.
What was with these two? Why did they always have to be at each other’s throats?
“Sure. Salads with processed fried chicken on them. Only forty grams of trans fat,” Andy scoffed.
“Not all of them have fried chicken on them,” Tama sneered.
“Well, I’m out.” Andy put the pad away and I found myself breathing again. “I brought tofu tacos.”
Gross. “Okay. So let’s go!” I said happily.
Stephanie hesitated, shifting her weight from foot to foot. I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t she see how rude she was being? I knew we usually ate together alone, but what was the big deal if a couple of people came along?
“Okay. Fine. Whatever,” she said finally. Thank God.
We were almost home free when Fred came barreling in out of nowhere, yanking down on his T-shirt. “Where are we going? BK? Mickey D’s? Panera?”
I looked at Tama desperately. Tama shot me a pointed look. Like this time it was my job to get rid of him. I opened my mouth, not entirely sure what we were going to say, but Stephanie beat me to it.
“We’re going to Wendy’s, actually,” she said, looping her arm through his. She shot me a tight smile. Her way of getting me back for forcing Tama on her and ditching her tonight. She could be vindictive sometimes, that Steph. “Let’s go!”
“Ooh! I love Wendy’s!” Fred said, wide-eyed. “I call—”
“Shotgun!” he and Robbie both said at the same time.
I looked at Robbie gratefully. “Sorry, Fred. I think Robbie beat you out on that one.”
“Darn,” he said, hanging his head.
“Better luck next time, Freddy.” Robbie patted him on the back.
And we were off.
Tama refused to sit in the middle of the backseat, so Fred offered and wedged himself in between my two friends, both of whom looked stonily out their respective windows. On the way out of the parking lot, Robbie cranked up my stereo and started to sing along at full voice. I glanced nervously in the rearview mirror. Tama eyed Robbie with mild distaste.
“Robbie,” I said under my breath. He could not dork out in front of Tama. Not if he wanted to date her.
“What?” he said loudly. “I love this song.”
“Oh. Yeah? So do I,” I told him. Clearly he wasn’t getting my hidden meaning, so I tried to be supportive instead.
“So sing it, baby!” he cheered, turning it up even louder.
He was insane. “No.”
“Come on! Sing! You know you want to!” he teased, opening his mouth to belt out the chorus. Fred leaned forward and joined right in with him. Robbie laughed. “See? Fred knows! It’s fun!”
“Come on, KJ! You can do it!” Fred chided me.
I rolled my eyes at them and started to sing. Thanks to the volume, I couldn’t even hear me, so I sang even louder. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that Tama and Stephanie were singing along now, too. Robbie was that infectious. Suddenly I couldn’t stop laughing. Between the sun and the cold breeze and the singing . . . I just felt free. For the first time all day, I felt like nothing at all could be wrong. Maybe I wouldn’t have to vent about last night after all. I looked at Robbie and smiled. He had no idea the favor he’d just done for me.
The song came to an end just as I stopped at a red light. Robbie turned the radio down.
“You know, KJ, you should really talk to Ms. Lin about her choice of costumes,” Tama said. “She’s giving Ashley all the good poodle skirts and sweaters.”
“So?” Stephanie said.
“So isn’t Rizzo supposed to be, like, badass?” Tama replied. “She should be in hot pants and tight tops. Instead they’ve got her looking all Sandy-like. I should stand out from the rest of the Pink Ladies, shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t think you need a costume to do that,” Robbie said.
“Robbie!” Tama said gleefully, shoving his shoulder.
“Just stating an undisputed fact,” he said with a casual shrug.
“You’re right. Sandy should look more pure than the other girls, especially in the beginning. It just makes sense, artistically,” I said.
“This is what I’m saying!” Tama announced.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, KJ,” Tama said, patting me on the shoulder. “I knew you’d make a good stage manager.”
I beamed at the compliment.