I shook my head "I don't want to hear it," I said.
She smiled coldly. "I just thought you should know that I know," she said, full of self-satisfaction. Her smile faded and was quickly replaced with a look of rage. "No wonder you play sports like a boy."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
She smirked as if I should know. "Just don't act like such a big shot around me," she warned, and walked away.
My heart was pounding. The me I imagined floating above the victory celebration slowly sank down to earth. With trembling legs, I rejoined the party, but I didn't really listen to anyone or hear the music. Every once in a while, I caught sight of Heather staring at me and smiling, her eyes full of satisfaction.
In fact, I was grateful when Peter arrived to take me home. He was introduced to people who immediately congratulated him on my achievements.
"I'm so sorry I missed the game," he told me as we started for the car. "From the way everyone was talking, you were really something. Didn't you tell Pamela? She didn't mention a word of it when I stepped into the house."
"I tried, but she was too concerned about my photographs. I almost missed the victory party," I complained.
"She just doesn't realize . . . explain it to her," he promised. "Slugger," he added with a big smile. He sensed something wasn't right. "What's wrong?"
"I'm just tired, I guess," I told him I desperately wanted to keep anything from spoiling this day and this night.
"No wonder. Catching up on schoolwork, keeping up, learning how to play piano, bringing the girls' softball team to victories . . . talk about an overachiever. I'm proud of you, Brooke. I really am," he said.
It made me feel better. Pamela was already in bed when we returned. He hurried up to tell her more about the ball game and make her understand. I went to bed, and when my head finally hit the pillow, I felt as if my body had turned to lead. I sank into a deep sleep and didn't wake up until the sunlight hit my face in the morning.
Peter received a phone call early in the morning that ruined his Sunday. Even before I went down to breakfast, he had to leave to go to his office. It made Pamela angry, and she was in a sulk. I spent my time catching up on studying for exams. I didn't get half as many phone calls as I had expected. Peter didn't get home until nearly dinner, and I could tell that there was still a lot of tension between him and Pamela. It was one of the quietest meals since I had arrived.
All of it caught up with me that night, and I fell asleep with my books in my lap. When I woke Monday morning, it was later than usual, so I had to skip my piano practice and I didn't spend half as much time on my makeup. Fortunately, Pamela was sleeping late and didn't get a chance to inspect me as she often did before I went off to school. She did, however, leave word with Peter to remind me that I had a doctor's appointment after school tomorrow. I told him I thought it was silly. There was nothing wrong with me.
"It doesn't hurt to get yourself a checkup," he said. "Think of it as that."
If there was a compromise in the wind, Peter would smell it, I thought. Anyway, at the moment, he was obviously avoiding any more arguments with Pamela.
I felt something different in the air soon after I attended homeroom. Everyone has to come down from a peak of excitement, I thought, and this was what it was like. We were back to our usual day of work. The victory was already fading into the past, and there were looming final exams to consider and new work to do.
I was late for lunch because I had remained after class to talk about a math problem. When I arrived in the cafeteria, I heard what seemed like a little hush in conversation, and when I looked at the girls, some of them dropped their eyes guiltily. Why? I wondered. I got my food and joined ray new friends at the table.
"I thought Mr. Brazil was going to keep me right through lunch period," I said, laughing. "You know how slowly he talks." Eva smiled, but no one else did.
I started to eat and noticed everyone was being rather silent. "Is something wrong?" I asked.
No one replied. It was as if I wasn't even there. The bell rang to move on to class almost before I had finished my lunch. Everyone started to move away.
I reached out and seized Lisa's wrist. "What's the matter with everyone today? They act like someone died," I said.
She gazed at the girls who were moving toward the door. "Someone did," she quipped.
"What does that mean? Who died?'
"Many of the girls think you're a phony," she replied coolly.
"A phony? Why?"
"Because you never told anyone you were adopted," she said.
"Oh," I said, looking at the back of Heather Harper's head. She was laughing loudly. "Well, why did I have to announce that?" I asked.
"You didn't have to announce it, but you didn't have to pretend you were someone you're not," she replied.
"Yes, I did." I snapped back at her. "Especially here, where everyone judges everyone by how much money her father makes or how big her parents' house is."
"That's not true."
"It is," I insisted.
Lisa glared at me. "You probably knew how to play tennis all along, too," she said. "You made me look stupid."
"What?"
She started away.
"I didn't know. How could I know? Do you think we had a tennis court at my orphanage?" I shouted at her. Some of the other girls looked back, but no one remained to walk to class with me.
Less than forty-eight hours ago, I thought, I was a school hero. Today, I'm a school pariah. Once, when I complained that some of the other kids at my school made me feel inferior, one of my counselors at the orphanage told me sometimes you're respected more because of the nature of the people who dislike you. She was right. If anything, I was angry at myself for trying too hard to be like these girls. No matter how much money Pamela and Peter had, how much money they spent on my clothes, how many pageants I would enter, how big our car and our house were, I would never be like these girls. I felt as if I was born and had lived in a different country. I practically spoke a different language.
I put my head down and went forward. I worked hard in my classes the rest of the day. I ignored everyone. Most of the other girls were polite, if not overly friendly, but even my teachers seemed different to me. Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe I was feeling sorry for myself. Suddenly, I had little to look forward to.
My dark, heavy mood was lifted from my shoulders when I went to physical education class Coach Grossbard called me to her office before I dressed for gym. She was sitting behind her desk with a huge grin on her face.
"I just received a nice phone call a half hour ago and waited for you to attend class," she said.
What could this be? I wondered. Did she just find out I was an orphan, and that somehow made her happy?
"What does it have to do with me?" I asked.
"Everything," she said. "You were chosen by the league to be on the all-star team for the county's all- star game. In fact, you're probably going to be the starting pitcher."
"Really? All-stars?"
She nodded. "I never had a pupil make an allstar team before. Congratulations, Brooke," she said, rising. Instead of shaking my hand, she hugged me.
I couldn't help crying.
"Hey, this is supposed to be a happy occasion," she said, laughing, but there was just too much emotional baggage for me to carry. I bawled harder. "What's wrong, honey?" she asked, making me sit.
I told her as quickly as I could. She sat back and listened, her face turning red with anger. "They should call this place Agnes Fodor's School for Snobs," she said. "You must not let them get you down. They're all just jealous, that's all."
"No, they're not," I said. "There's nothing to be jealous about. They have real families."
"You're twice the person any of them are, honey. Real families or not. People are going to judge you for yourself and not because of your family name. You'll see," she promised. "If you don't feel like dressing for class today, you can skip it," she said.
"Just rest up."
"No," I said, brushing the tears from my cheeks and taking a deep breath. "I'll be all right."
She smiled. "All-star. Wow!" she said.
It did buoy me, and I felt much stronger when I left the building than when I had entered. The word hadn't gotten out about me yet, but I didn't think my new so-called friends would be as happy about it as they would have been a few days ago. I tried not to think about it.
Pamela wasn't home when I returned. I went to my room and started on my homework, but my excitement was so great I couldn't concentrate very well. Finally, I heard footsteps on the stairway and stepped out to see Joline coming up, her anus loaded with packages. Pamela followed soon after.
"I had to get myself some new things to wear to the pageant," she told me when she paused in the hallway. "It's important-that I stay in fashion, too. They take pictures of the mothers and daughters."
"I have something to tell you," I said. I knew how important it had been to her that no one knew the truth about me. "The girls have found out about me. They know I'm a foster child in the process of being adopted?'
"What? How could that happen?"
"Heather Harper overheard her aunt talking to someone and told everyone," I said. "They're a bunch of snobs. I hate them. I hate that school, except for Coach Grossbard. Even the teachers are looking at me differently," I wailed.
She stared, furious. "Wait until I tell Peter. We'll sue her for being a gossip," she declared.
"What good will that do me?" I asked, but she didn't reply. She turned and charged back down the stairway. A little over an hour later, Peter came home. I heard their raised voices below and went down to find them in the den. Peter looked overwrought, his face flushed, his hair disheveled.
"There's no ground on which to sue anyone," he told me as soon as I entered.
"I don't want you to do that, Peter. It wouldn't help," I said.
"She's right, Pamela. Let's forget about it."
"I won't forget about it. That woman is going to get a piece of my mind. I'll speak to the trustees. She should be fired for doing this."
"It's over and done with," Peter said.
"I don't want to go there next year," I said.
Pamela looked up sharply. "What do you mean? Where would you go, a public school?" she asked, her lips twisted.
"I don't care. I hate those girls. And soon they're going to be even more jealous of me," I added.
Peter raised his eyebrows. "And why is that?"
"I've been selected to be on the county's all-star team. I'm going to be the starting pitcher in the game," I told him
He beamed a wide grin. "Brooke, that's fantastic! I'm so proud of you!" He stood up and hugged me.
"What kind of an accomplishment is that?" Pamela muttered.
"It's the biggest, most important thing that's ever happened to me," I said.
She smirked and shook her head. "I can't take all this tension. It's bad for my complexion," she complained. She stood. "I need to sit in my electric massage chair before dinner."
"Well, I'm thrilled for you, honey. When is the game?" Peter asked.
I told him, and Pamela stopped walking out. She turned and looked at me. "What did you say? When is that silly event?"
I repeated the date.
"You can't go to that," she said. "Don't you realize what that date is? Have I been talking to myself for weeks and weeks? That's the date of your audition for the pageant. It's all arranged."
"No," I said, shaking my head. I looked at Peter, but he looked worried. Surely, he would come up with one of his ingenious compromises, I thought. "I've been selected from all the girls in all the schools. It's a great honor."
"That's no honor," Pamela declared. "How can you compare throwing a softball to winning a pageant?"
"I don't care. I'm playing. I've been chosen. I'm not going to the pageant."
"You absolutely are," she said. "I'm going to the phone immediately and call that big-mouth principal. I'll tell her that I absolutely forbid your participation, and if she doesn't obey me, warn her that I'm going to the trustees about her gossiping."
"Pamela," Peter said softly.
"What? You're not thinking of permitting her to go to the ball game instead of the pageant, are you? Look at all I've been doing, what we've spent, the piano lessons, the work, the pictures!"
"Maybe we can get her a different audition," he said, still speaking softly.
"You know we can't do that. You know how hard it was to arrange for this." She turned to me. "You're going to the pageant. Forget about that ball game. You're a girl. You're a beautiful young woman. You're not some . . some Amazon. I won't have it!" she screamed. "I'm Pamela Thompson. My daughter is going to be a pageant winner."
"No, I'm not. I'm not," I yelled back at her, and ran out of the den.
"I'm calling Mrs. Harper right now," she screamed at me as I charged up the stairway. "I'm calling her! You can put that game out of your mind, Brooke. Do you hear me?"
I slammed my door closed and locked it. Then I threw myself on my bed and buried my face in my pillow until I couldn't breathe.
Why did this have to happen to me?
I sat up and stared at my image in the vanity table mirror. Why was I born if I was to suffer like this? Why did people have children they didn't want?
When Pamela came to the orphanage and saw me, she didn't see me. She saw herself. She saw what she wanted me to be, and then she brought me here and tried to make me into the girl she had seen. I'm not that girl. I'll never be that girl, I told my image in the mirror.
The makeup I had been wearing had streaked under my tears. I wiped the lipstick off and then, in a rage, went into the bathroom and washed my face until my skin burned. Afterward, I came out and looked at myself again. I practically ripped off my blouse and tore away the padded bra. I rifled through my drawers until I found the faded pink ribbon my mother had left with me, and I tied up my hair. Then I put on my blouse again and sat fuming.
I heard footsteps outside my door.
"Why is this door locked?" Pamela cried.
"I don't want to talk to anyone," I said.
"I just got off the phone with Mrs. Harper. You can forget that game It's all taken care of. Now, stop this nonsense immediately. I want to talk to you about the audition. I have other things to explain."
The tears streaked down my cheeks again. My shoulders felt sp heavy.
Everyone looked down on me at the school, and now I was losing the one big accomplishment I had achieved. Coach Grossbard would be so disappointed, too.
"Brooke! Do you hear me?"
I felt something shatter inside me. It was as if my body was made of glass and the glass had cracked. Soon, I would just crumble to the floor, and when she did come in, she would only find a pile of broken pieces.
"Brooke!"
The more she yelled, the more I felt as if I was coming apart. I reached out and seized the scissors in front of me, and then, taking fistfuls of my hair into my hand, I began to hack away at the strands, dropping clumps of it on the table, cutting and snipping away above the old, faded ribbon, slicing my hair without design until I could even see my scalp showing in places.
Pamela was pounding on the door, screaming my name, threatening, lecturing. I could hear Peter behind her, pleading, asking her to calm down.
When I was finished, I laid the scissors down softly on the table, rose, and quietly, like a shadow, floated across the room to the door. I unlocked it and then opened it.
When she saw me, her eyes nearly exploded. Her mouth opened and closed without a sound at first, and then she put her hands against her own temples and screamed louder than I could ever imagine myself screaming. Her effort turned her face blood red, and her body shook violently, denying what she saw, refusing to believe.
Peter stepped around her to look at me and fell into shock himself.
Pamela's eyes went into the top of her head. She threw her hands toward the ceiling
and collapsed into his arms.
I closed the door softly.
Epilogue
"It's better for you," Peter said. The grandfather clock's ticking seemed so much louder.
Peter sat across from me in the plush living room, his hands clasped as he leaned toward me. He looked very tired, his perennial tan had faded, and his hair was slightly messed up. He wore no tie. His collar was open and his brown sports jacket undone. I almost felt sorrier for him than I did for myself. I knew how bad a time he was having with Pamela. A parade of doctors and health-related people had come through the house, marching up the stairs to her room to give her massages, skin and hair treatments, nutritional guidance. There was even a meditation specialist who spent hours with her She claimed I had aged her years in minutes and it would take months to cure the degeneration. She even complained of heart trouble.
I had yet to say another word to her or she to me.
"No one wants to make you live where you're uncomfortable," Peter continued. "Or go to school where you're unhappy," he added.
I looked at him, and he had to look away.
People who lie to themselves have a hard time looking at other people directly. They are afraid that their eyes will reveal the self-deceptions.
After my tantrum, Peter wanted to take me to a doctor, too. I refused. Actually, I felt fine, even somewhat stronger. It was as if I had thrown a weight off my shoulders. I had been trying to fit myself into a mold that simply did not fit. What I wished at this moment was that I had my old clothes back. I still wore my old ribbon around my head. I wouldn't take it off.
Peter sat back thoughtfully. The clock ticked.
Sacket appeared in the doorway. "The car has arrived for Miss Brooke, Mr. Thompson. Should I begin to load the trunk?"
"Yes, please, Sacket," Peter said.
I had told him that I didn't want my new things, but Peter insisted I take them. "What you do with them afterward is your business, Brooke, but they are yours."
I was adamant about not taking a single tube of lipstick. The way I felt, I didn't know whether I would ever put on any makeup again.
"Are you all right to travel?" Peter asked me.
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