by Nicole Maggi
Technically, I’m allowed to go out after school; it’s just understood that if I do, it has to be to the library or church or Delia’s house. So when I met Bethany on the steps outside school, I told her the truth. “I’m craving that carrot cake from Marie’s. I’ll be home in an hour or so.”
“Oh, yum,” Bethany said. “I’d come with you if it wasn’t for my piano lesson. Bring me a piece?”
“Sure.”
She went in one direction and I went in the other.
I barely made it half a block when Lise caught up to me. “Are you stalking me?” I asked her.
Her face turned red. “Okay, I kinda followed you last week, but I wasn’t today.”
I stopped and stared at her. “I was kidding! You’ve actually been stalking me?”
“I knew something was up… I couldn’t let it go.”
Maybe I should’ve been annoyed with her, but Lise is the only one I can talk to right now. So I rolled my eyes and started walking again. Lise fell into step with me. “I’m going to Marie’s,” I told her before she could ask. “I need a piece of carrot cake.”
“Yuck. There is something wrong with putting vegetables in cake.”
“You don’t notice the vegetables when there’s that much frosting involved.”
Lise laughed.
When we got to Marie’s, it was practically empty. It doesn’t get much of an after-school crowd. Most of the kids go to Starbucks, which, thankfully, hasn’t driven Marie’s out of business. I got two slices of carrot cake (one for me and one to go for Bethany) and Lise got a red velvet cupcake. When I took my first bite of cake, it was as if everything I’d ever eaten had been sawdust. Nothing ever tasted that good. I think I may have actually moaned. Lise stared at me. I told her about the Fudgsicle incident.
We sat there for more than an hour, talking and laughing like we were just two totally normal friends getting their afternoon sugar fix. It felt so good, Ms. Tilson. It felt safe. I could be myself and not have to worry about covering up this terrible secret I’m keeping. In the span of a few days, Lise has become a better friend than Delia ever was. She cares about me for me, not because of who my family is or what I can do for her.
I elbowed Lise. “Hey. Thanks for stalking me.”
She elbowed me back. “Hey. You’re welcome.”
She didn’t ask me what I was going to do about my situation, or how I was feeling, or if had I changed my mind about reporting what happened. This afternoon she was just my friend. It wasn’t until we left that I understood how much I needed that.
Signed,
Mellie Rivers
March 7
Dear Ms. Tilson—
This afternoon Mellie and I got our sugar on at Marie’s (which thankfully Starbucks hasn’t put out of business) and talked like two old friends. You know what? She’s awesome. I guess I’ve always had this idea that she’s a little high and mighty, or that she thinks she’s better than everyone else. Why did I think that? Why did I assume that, instead of getting to know her? I’ve always prided myself on being open-minded and tolerant…but maybe I’m only tolerant of people who think like me.
The funny thing is, Mellie is a lot more like me than I thought.
What she’s going through is changing her. I can see it. There’s a privilege in being a witness to it. Because when all is said and done, there will probably be very few people who will know her before and after like I will. I just hope her family sticks by her. I can’t imagine going through life without my mom. Nobody should have to know what that’s like.
My dad called me tonight. I totally forgot I was supposed to visit him this weekend. I told him I had to wait until next month. I just feel like…I don’t know…I need to be here. In case Mellie needs me.
Dad was pretty upset. He went into a whole long monologue about making a commitment and sticking to it. What he doesn’t understand is that I am making a commitment and sticking to it—it’s just to Mellie and not to him. Finally I put the phone on speaker so Mom could hear, and set it on the kitchen table. After a minute, she picked it up and interrupted him. I don’t know what she said because she carried the phone into the other room, but I got the strong sense that I shouldn’t follow. When she came back, she just handed me the phone. Dad cleared his throat, said he’d miss me, and that he’d call the airline to change the flights for next month.
This is why I don’t watch superhero movies and TV shows. I already have a superhero in my own home.
—Lise
March 9
Dear Ms. Tilson,
The bathroom by the gym has become one of the few safe spaces I have left. I don’t know what it is about that bathroom. It’s like a sanctuary of pink tile and graffiti. There are curse words written in all the stalls, about girls long since graduated, that the janitor hasn’t been able to scrub out. An old nail polish stain distorts one of the mirrors. The tile is chipped and the heater clangs. All these things drive other girls from here, giving me a place to be myself.
Maybe it’s not the bathroom. Maybe it’s because Lise is here too.
When we were settled on her scarf, she pulled out a package of almonds and offered them to me. I cupped my hands and she poured a little pile. I ate them one by one, chewing slowly to make sure they were not going to come up again.
“I haven’t figured out a good excuse to get out of the house,” I told her. “I will soon.”
“You could tell your parents you’re having dinner at my house.”
I shook my head. “They don’t let me have dinner with people they don’t know. They’ll ask me a million questions about you and your mom, the first being ‘Where do they go to church?’”
“Then tell them you’re having dinner at someone else’s house. Someone they’ve already approved.”
“I’d have to get that person to cover for me. No, it needs to be something where no one else has to lie for me.”
Lise tapped her finger against her lips. “I wish Mom could get you in during regular hours after school, but she’s booked solid for the next month. Hey, can you suddenly start taking a pottery class?”
I raised my eyebrows at her.
“Yeah, that’s not a great excuse. Okay, we’ll figure something out. But we gotta do it soon.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling tight on the strands. “I can’t wait much longer, can I?”
“You can get an abortion up to thirty-six weeks in Colorado,” Lise said. I stared at her. “But my mom doesn’t do them past twenty weeks unless something is wrong with the baby or the mother’s life is in immediate danger.”
“Thirty-six weeks? God, that’s…that’s…a baby,” I choked out. I remembered what my mother looked like when she was thirty-six weeks pregnant with my sisters, big and heavy. She’d let us touch her belly to feel how active the baby was inside.
“I escorted a woman who was thirty-two weeks,” Lise said softly. “She said her baby’s brain developed outside of its skull. There was nothing the doctors could do. It was going to die when it was born. But that doesn’t make it any less sad.” Her voice cracked a little.
I tried to imagine hearing that news: that the baby you loved and were waiting for was going to die. Why would God do that to someone? I guess the same way He’d allowed me to be raped and get pregnant. I’d never realized before how cruel life could be.
“I can’t wait until twenty weeks,” I told her. “Everyone will know soon. My parents can’t know.”
“Mellie,” Lise said, and I could tell she was choosing her words carefully, “what would happen if they knew?”
A million responses ran through my head. My parents would say that somehow it was my fault. Even if they believed me about the rape, they would say I was bringing shame to the family. They would say I was damaging my dad’s campaign by creating a scandal. And they would make me keep the baby. Th
at I knew for certain. They would probably lock me up somewhere for the duration of my pregnancy, so no one would find out. Maybe my mom would claim the baby was hers, like the plot on a soap opera.
They would hold this over me for the rest of my life, the way I tried to bring them all down and how they saved me.
But I didn’t say any of this to Lise.
“They can’t know,” I said again, and left it at that.
She looked like she wanted to say something more, but didn’t. Just as well. There is nothing she could say to convince me to tell my parents.
Writing this now, with a flashlight in my closet (another safe space) while Bethany sleeps, I feel the deep truth of it. My parents can never know. They can never know about the rape, or the pregnancy, or what I am finally ready to do.
Signed,
Mellie Rivers
March 12
Dear Ms. Tilson—
This afternoon I met Mellie in the library, in one of the tucked-away corners people rarely go to unless they’re desperate to make out. It’s not the best make-out spot in the school (that’s the costume storage room behind the stage in the auditorium), but sometimes the storage room is occupied and you have to take what you can get.
After Mellie and I had settled into those low, squishy chairs, she turned to me. “I’m ready,” she said. “I’m ready to see your mom.”
I put my hand on her arm. “You’re sure?”
She nodded. Her eyes looked overbright, but I had to take her word for it. “Can we go tonight?” she asked.
“Yeah—crap, no.” I tugged at my hair. “My mom has her staff meeting on Monday nights after the clinic closes.”
Mellie sucked in a breath and her eyes grew more shiny. I squeezed her forearm. “Can you make it tomorrow? Do you have your excuse ready?”
“I…I didn’t say anything to my parents yet.”
I looked at her. She couldn’t quite meet my eyes. “You don’t have an excuse yet.”
She pressed her fingers to her temple. “My brain. My brain won’t work no matter how hard I try to come up with an excuse for them.”
“We’ll figure something out.” I mean, what the hell else could I say? What do you say to a girl who is always expected home by six for dinner?
We were quiet for a long time while we both thought really hard. Seriously, I think I could actually hear our brains tick-tick-ticking away. After a while, Mellie pulled out a sketchbook from her bag and started to draw. “It helps me think,” she said.
I watched her hand move in long, sweeping lines across the page. She had the pad turned away from me so I couldn’t see what she was drawing, but I couldn’t stop watching her. Remember when I said there always used to be an aura around her? While she was sketching, that light came back. Her whole face glowed as her hand moved across the page. She’s like a different person when she draws.
Then it hit me. She’s not a different person when she sketches, she’s her true self. This is who she truly is.
I pulled my knees up under my chin and watched her. I don’t think she was aware I was staring at her. She was in her own world, far away, in the other dimension of whatever she was creating on her page. I wish I had a passion like that. I wish I had something that was purely mine, something so deep and true that I couldn’t not do it. I don’t feel that way about anything, really.
At that moment I envied Mellie Rivers.
There was a rustling in the stacks beside us and the spell broke. Mellie’s hand paused and we both looked up as Rowan crashed into our cozy corner.
“There you are!” he said. “Oh, hey—Mellie, right?” He glanced at me, a swift, almost-invisible look. I knew he was remembering our conversation at dinner, but I gave him a look back, hoping he wouldn’t say anything about that. Amazingly, he seemed to get it. He peered over Mellie’s shoulder at her drawing, and before I could tell him not to invade her private artist’s space, he said, “Whoa. That’s amazing!”
Mellie tilted the sketchpad toward her chest to hide it. “No, it’s nothing.”
“Are you kidding? You are really talented. May I?” He held out his hand and smiled, making that little dimple in his right cheek appear. He was probably in the library looking for me because he wanted to make out in this very corner (which, okay, we’ve done before), and all of a sudden I wanted to make out with him, too.
Slowly, Mellie lifted the sketchpad and handed it to Rowan. He dropped down to sit on the floor next to me, all lanky limbs and moppish hair. He flipped through a couple of pages, looking at all of them intently. “The way you play with light and shadow is so interesting. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like you bring everything that’s usually in shadow into the light, and put everything into shadow that’s normally in light.”
“I…I’ve never thought about it like that. I just draw the world like I see it.”
Rowan lifted his gaze from the book and grinned at Mellie. “You should really show this to my mom.”
“Your mom?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “She runs the Empty Space. You know, the art gallery in town.”
“I’ve never been there,” Mellie said.
“Yeah, it’s mostly for tourists,” Rowan said. “But she loves nurturing young artists. She does a residency program every summer. You should totally apply.” He tilted the pad so I could see Mellie’s drawing too.
My breath caught in my lungs.
My heart squeezed.
She had drawn herself inside a cage. She was trapped, and the look on her face was one of defeat, surrender. I’d never seen a sadder picture. In the picture, Mellie’s fingers curled around the bars, as though she wanted to break out, but her eyes were downcast, as if she knew she could not escape. “Oh, Mellie,” I breathed. I felt her and Rowan’s gaze on me. I forced myself to swallow past the lump in my throat. “It’s beautiful.”
“See?” Rowan said. “You have to meet my mom.”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on! Here.” Rowan dug into his backpack and pulled out a glossy flyer. “They’re having an opening tomorrow night for a new artist from Boulder. You can come and meet my mom. There’ll even be free food.”
He thrust the flyer into Mellie’s hands. She and I bent over it, our heads touching as we read.
America: Lost & Found
Mixed-media photographs by Lee Skyler
Tuesday, March 13 from 7 to 10 p.m.
Mellie and I raised our heads and looked at each other.
7 to 10 p.m.
A public event at a public place where no one will notice if we show up late, or how long we stay. A public event that a teacher could’ve easily suggested we attend for extra credit.
“We’ll be there,” we said at the same time.
And then I told Mellie to go home, so I could make out with Rowan as a thank-you for saving her ass.
—Lise
March 13
Early morning
Dear Ms. Tilson,
It’s 4 in the morning, and I can’t sleep. My appointment with Lise’s mom is tonight, and my mind is racing. My heart is trying to catch it, pounding a million miles a minute.
My cover story for my parents is that I’m going to the art show at the Empty Space. Lise’s boyfriend Rowan’s mom owns it.
It’s so weird that Lise has a boyfriend. Okay, it’s not weird; a lot of girls do. She doesn’t talk about him much, so I kinda forget she has one. I guess when she and I are together, we’re usually talking about me.
Rowan seems really nice. Like one of the good guys. I wonder if they’ve had sex. I wonder what it’s like to have sex with someone you love. I can’t even imagine it.
I can only think as far ahead as tonight.
I’ve never been to an art show. I want to go, to see how artists—real artists—create, but that’s not
the reason I’ll be there tonight. The plan is we’ll go at seven, stay for an hour, and then Lise’s mom’s driver will pick us up around the corner from the gallery.
And, miracle of miracles, my parents okayed it.
I told them anyone who goes will get extra credit toward their final grade in your class, Ms. Tilson (I’m sorry I involved you in my scheme). My grades haven’t been that great this semester, but my parents have been so busy with Dad’s campaign they haven’t paid much attention, and I think they may have even felt a little guilty about that. So they said yes to the art show without any fuss. The plan fell into place easily.
Too easily?
Nothing about this is easy. I have no idea what’s going to happen tonight at the clinic. So maybe I’m owed something easy amid all of this hard stuff. But I can’t help feeling like I’m being set up for a huge fall from something so high I’m going to break my neck.
I close my eyes.
I watch my life spiral out before me. I picture it so vividly that it feels like I’m there, living in that reality where I have HIS baby.
I open my eyes.
I’m not backing out.
Signed,
Mellie Rivers
March 13
Dear Ms. Tilson—
Tonight was the WORST night of my LIFE. Even worse than the day my parents told me they were getting divorced, because I could see that from ten miles away.
Tonight was filled with
so
much
PAIN.
And it wasn’t even my pain. I can’t stand it. I feel like I’m going to burst into a thousand fragments with the unfairness of it all. I want to scream so loud that I
bring
down
the night.
I did it. I ran out into my backyard and screamed so loud all the dogs in the neighborhood howled with me. My mom ran outside, yelling, “What’s wrong?!” and I yowled in her face, tears streaming down my cheeks, and she knew. She knew why I was screaming into the darkness, and she joined me.