Jillian
Call Waiting.
She could have called. She, of course, is my mother, but I’m not calling her my mother right now because that would suggest respect.
I had to tell Parker I was sick. He said he understood, but I felt the pause. The pause that says what you really want to say before you say what you think you should say. Pause= How could you let me down?
I called the physics group and told them Chantal wasn’t going to the party and neither was I. I didn’t have to tell them not to go. Without us they wouldn’t feel comfortable. And honestly, I was having nightmares about them all together in the same room with Parker. Chantal might have enjoyed having them around, but I know I’d have been on high-alert to stop Gavin’s Darth Vader impression or Brenan’s plot analysis of Simpsons’ episodes or Callie’s insistence on Dance, Dance Revolution. All party killers. Maybe even boyfriend killers.
Even though I’m relieved the party won’t wreck my chances with Parker, I still wonder what he’s thinking now. I wonder how much girl drama a guy can take before he walks away. I wonder how much mom drama I can take. I lock myself in my bedroom, ignore the screams of the twins as they pretend, for the 127th day in a row, that they are knights slaying a dragon.
I know what’s coming; the boys will realize their dragon is invisible but they can slay each other instead. It will be up to me to limit the damage. I’ve tried to stop them in mid-battle, to take away their swords, to distract them, but the slaying is part of the game. I can’t change their knight and dragon story any more than I can interrupt whatever story my mother tells herself when she’s drinking.
She’s probably totally shitfaced in the hotel room doing something with the-guy-without-a-name that’s disgusting. Justifications like “I deserve to have fun,” “I’ve had a hard life,” “Jillian’s brothers love her,” cancel out the one thought she should have: I promised I’d be home by 4 P.M. When she shows up she will tell me one of her lies: the traffic was awful, the clock didn’t work in the hotel room, the car broke down, or I got a phone call from a friend and had to go help.
And then, like now, and like always, I won’t know how to respond. Nothing prepares you for having a lousy mother, just like you can’t really be ready for an earthquake. It’s all about minimizing the harm. I know it’s easy to imagine that you wouldn’t stick around after the first natural disaster—you’d move to a safer building or transfer to higher ground. But, listen to me: it’s not easy to admit you’re living on a fault line.
I don’t call Chantal because I don’t feel like dealing with anyone else right now. I sit on the floor, my back against the metal bed frame that collapses if I sit on the right corner. It’s 5:45 and I know from experience that if Mom’s not home before happy hour, she won’t be home until the bar closes. Self-pity itches at the back of my throat, but I pull my headphones from my pocket, ready to extend my break from responsibility. Four small fingers and a thumb stop me.
Baby Ollie’s chubby fist wiggles under my bedroom door, his fingers stretch, and then retreat. A few sticky “O” cereal pieces are left behind. It happens again. I hear him digging deep into the cereal box, gathering another handful. He crunches a few with his four teeth and adds the rest to the pile he’s creating for me. Again. I smile. My brothers do this, thing, to me. The moment I decide I hate them, they show me their sweet side, like Ollie with his O’s message. The next time his hand slides under, I tickle his fingers. I hear him giggle.
But the cuteness wears off when I realize what’s really happening—Ollie’s feeding me O’s because he wants to take care of me. If I’d been drinking I’d probably have laughed the way my mother does, giggled and blathered about how Ollie entertains himself so easily and I wouldn’t have made the connection that he’s trying to take care of me. I can’t let this happen. I can’t.
My brothers will tell my mother that they didn’t even miss her while she was gone. Josh and Stevie will rush to explain the rules of the best-ever game of dragons and knights (make that one mother dragon and six brave knights). Travis, Thomas, and Trevor will remember that I told ghost stories with a flashlight under my chin. Baby Ollie will beg for nacho chips and cheese with pickles on the side for dinner. And me? I will find a way to help myself.
Chantal
Shrunken Diameter.
The SRC2 (Social Retard Cake squared) is a cool, sophisticated quadrate. Caramel Chocolate Ganache fills and envelops two layers of the insides of my formerly round cake, precisely reconfigured at right angles. The toffee accessories pebble a horizontal line a third from the top edge of the cake. The SRC2 is more a mistake of genius than a planned treat, but either way, I think Nigella would be patting me on the back. That’s a girl, she’d say. You fall off the pony and you get right back on.
Getting back on the pony was not easy, and it was not quick. It was dark by the time I had a cake carrier fixed to the front of my bike and I had to ride in my lowest gear up the steep climb from downtown to the suburb, my tires grinding slower and slower in the gravel shoulder.
Now, the ground is level and I glide under streetlamps, alternately feeling like a star (lights on) and wondering what crisis will befall me next (lights off). When I arrive at Parker’s house, the shade-drawn windows suggest the party is in the backyard, though I don’t hear any party noise. My cell phone shows that it’s after 10 P.M. I wonder how late these sorts of parties go. I remove the cake from the basket, careful that it doesn’t slide off the aluminum foil–covered cardboard platter. I step past the partially open gate and stop. I could be holding the cake that will seal my fate as the nerdiest girl ever. Cool kids bring bags of chips to parties. But I am not one of them and I never will be. I don’t want to be. If I did, I wouldn’t have spent hours baking a cake. I wouldn’t be standing here, about to give them another chance to like me for me.
The slate path leads to the center of the yard and an outdoor dining table, a fire pit with Adirondack chairs, and a gazebo hung with gauzy netting. The perfect party location. Like a TV family, but without the obvious dysfunction, Parker’s parents have money and good taste, and they pull both things together. I set my cake on the dark wood table, slide into a contemporary polished wood chair. Abandoned coals in the fire pit glow a faint red. Crud. The party is over.
The longer I sit in the chair the greater my regrets grow. I’m sorry that Jillian didn’t witness my attempt to sweeten our soured relationship.
Even though I know I’ll have to listen to the details of a party I failed to get to, I reach for my cell phone to text Jillian an invitation to my empty house.
The patio door swings open. Two people. And Jillian isn’t one of them. My hand, gripped around the cell phone, is trapped in my pocket as I dive for the ground. My shoulder hits but I recover and shuffle on my hands and knees to the gazebo. Through the slats, I watch Parker and Will settle into the Adirondack chairs, beer bottles in hand.
“Dude. I guess no party was better than a nerdfest.” Will leans his head back and chugs.
“Maybe it would have been okay.”
“Dude. All they’d want to do is sit in the basement and play video games.”
“It would have been different if Jillian was here …”
“And what’s with that? She didn’t show. She didn’t freakin’ show. So that means, my friend, that you have forfeited the man challenge.”
Man challenge?
In between long swigs of beer Will talks about how great he is and details the terms of his winning. “And this is the shot of the party girl.” He holds up his phone to Parker as proof. “The kiss that wins the big prize.”
“Let me see that!”
Will hands the phone to Parker. He laughs so hard he nearly spews beer from his nose.
“Dude. It’s perfect. Isn’t it?”
What sort of prize, I wonder, and who is the subject? Then he talks about kissing her and having her puke in his mouth.
I am the subject. Her is me.
No.
In my mind I’m back in time: seventh grade, in the hallway outside science class. Valentine’s Day.
Will held a box wrapped in red with a pink velvet bow. I blushed. My heart beat hopefully. Will had fallen for me. His lopsided smile grew. He handed me the box and I was sure it was chocolates—heavy truffles. As I pulled away the bow, he mumbled something like, I hope you like it. I stared into his eyes, trying to memorize the look of someone crushing on me. It took me nearly a minute to figure out what was in the box. I couldn’t imagine why the chocolate would be gray. Then, why it was so squishy. And then I smelled the formaldehyde.
He laughed. That’s when I knew for sure.
Once again I am the subject of his ridicule. I imagined that I’d become slightly hot. Cute. Smart. Fun. Turns out I am, still, not normal.
I mean, I hated the kiss, but I … damn … I liked that I had to fight him off. Didn’t that prove that I was something?
Nothing more than how stupid I am.
Will
Geniustastic.
We chill in Parker’s backyard. The beer and the man challenge that I, alone, completed make the nerdfest night celebratory. Though every time I look at Parker, I get this vibe that he’s pouting. Tonight was his last chance and Jillian called in sick. He doesn’t lose well. Not enough practice.
Parker is part of the mad money clan. They’ve got the cash all right. He’s the fourth boy in an all-guy lineup who rep Mr. Big Cheese, Accountant: Parker’s dad. They drive great cars, they date hot girls, and they have, like, two houses each. Parker’s mother does not rearrange her furniture twice a year to “freshen the place up” like they do in my mom’s reality shows. She buys a new couch. And Parker has never borrowed money for lunch. He’s the bank.
You might think Parker is given everything, but he isn’t. He saved up his allowance to buy half of that car. I respect Parker for earning his own wage. I wouldn’t hang with him if I didn’t.
Sure, I’ve been jealous of him—with an old man like mine, you don’t get help with anything. And it’s normal to want what the next guy has, especially if he lucked out with the family he grew up in. In that family you get to be part of a whole group of people, all going for the same thing—even if it is a weird-ass team of bean counters. Except for Brad, he’s a bean counter turned manager—my dad’s boss.
Seriously. One night I’m at their house having dinner over the Christmas break and Parker’s brothers are talking about accrual accounting. One of them must have made a joke because they all laughed and of course I chuckled along but, dude, what was so freakin’ funny?
I turned to Parker, thinking I’d give him the Halo signal but he was all-in with them, talking about how important accruals are for understanding the revenues and expenses for each month. The brothers clapped. Howled with laughter. Frick. I really needed a Halo break. I jabbed Parker with my elbow.
He startled when he looked my way, having apparently net-zeroed me out of his family accounting love-in. He shrugged. Shrugged like an apology. And I got it, right in my gut. He was sorry he’d shown how smart he was in front of me. Sorry because he sort of knew that, even at number four in the class, I’d never be at his level.
It’s one of those times that’ll stick with me for life. Like when your head’s on the lino next to the toilet and you’re vowing to never drink another vodka and Kool-Aid? Parker shrugged. I told myself, I want his life.
And this is where it starts. Beating him on the man challenge was a bonus. What I really want is the girl. Annelise. Since Parker’s dumped her she’s available.
As I drain the last of my beer, I notice Parker hasn’t even finished his first one. Frick. The pouting vibe is serious enough that it’s got me worried. I’m about to suggest a new man challenge when I see he’s got a picture of Jillian on his phone and he’s frickin’ staring at it.
“She’s sort of hot.” I nod at the phone. “I mean, for a challenge.”
“I was this close, man. I almost kissed her. But I wanted it to be for real.” He doesn’t delete the picture before he slides the phone back in his pocket.
“So you’re saying you forfeited? Dude, c’mon.”
“No. You won. I’m just saying …” He grins.
“Dude, that girl is under your skin.” I slide my sunglasses down over my eyes to hide my brilliance. It’s so obvious. I get Parker to dump his girlfriend and then, it turns out he likes Jillian? Genius. Nothing can stand in my way to getting Annelise. Nothing.
Chantal
Revenge.
The challenge was supposed to end with Jillian and me jilted. Destroyed. It is half-successful.
I’m trapped in the gazebo, waiting for a chance to escape. I learn that humiliation grows when you can’t leave the scene. I suffer again and again, telling myself I should have known better.
I cut my hair when I was in the third grade. I used safety scissors and I didn’t look in the mirror. I’d met Jillian by then, but we couldn’t spend every day with each other, which made the days I wasn’t with her longer and lonelier. I loved everything about her, especially the way her hair floated wild and free under bands of daisies her mother taught her how to weave. I’d begged my mother to let me wear my hair loose.
“You’re cursed with frizzy hair,” she said. “Ponytails. One? Or two?”
I cut it so short she couldn’t tie it back.
I piled all the long curls up in the top drawer of my desk, and went to the bathroom to check out my hair. I was shocked. Yaks had better hairstyles than mine. I tried to tame the wildness with water and a glob of every hair product I could find.
I knew my mother would be upset when she saw it, but I hoped she would laugh, like the mothers on those religious commercials you see on TV. Where the kid does something wrong and the mother smiles. My mother was enraged.
“You look like a boy,” she said, her voice full of rage. “A fat little boy.”
“I’m not a boy.”
“Everyone’s going to think you’re a boy.”
“You’ll tell them I’m not.”
“I will do no such thing.”
It doesn’t matter that my mother took me to the hairdresser to try to fix it or that it grew back and I’ve worn my hair in one ponytail or two ever since. I haven’t forgotten the moment I didn’t feel love. Love expected me to look a certain way and to follow the rules even if I didn’t understand them.
And now, here I am again. If I had known the rules. If Jillian had been more clear. If I had worn my hair differently, or said less, or gotten some questions wrong, even on purpose, or let Will kiss me because that’s what he wanted. If I could do it all over I would be someone different. More like Jillian.
Even if Jillian had come to the party tonight, Parker wouldn’t have followed through on the challenge. She has a certain something that commands respect. And I have a certain nothing.
And now as I’m thinking that the torture of hiding here in Parker’s gazebo can’t get any worse, I watch him stand up and walk toward the table. And … the cake, my cake.
He dips his finger through chocolate and toffee bits and tastes my delectable ganache.
“God, this is so good.”
He likes it. I can claim some part of myself as worthwhile. My cake.
“It must be from Jillian,” he says. “She said she was planning on bringing something. She must have had her mom drop it off.”
He doesn’t know Jillian very well. She doesn’t have time to bake a cake like that and if she did, it wouldn’t look like the cake he’s destroying, one finger of frosting at a time.
“Hey, how do you know it’s for you?” Will stands near the table. “That cake is definitely for me.”
“Who would send you a cake?” Parker asks.
Will takes Parker’s beer from his hand and chugs it. If he dips his finger in the cake, I’m going after him. “There’s a girl who’s got me in her sights.”
If I had him in my sights, I’d have put laxative in
the melted chocolate.
“I know who it isn’t. Not only is Chantal so not into you, she’s the last person who would bake a cake. Man, tying her shoes stresses her out.”
“You got that right. Like kissing a plastic goldfish. Dude. Let’s eat a piece of cake and speculatize on the girl who is after me.”
Parker drops his finger, mid-lick. He picks up the cake. They turn their backs to me.
Finally, I’m free. I can go home. I can go to bed crying. I can bike off the edge of a cliff. Or I can plan my sweet revenge. Will is not going to get away with humiliating me. These two aren’t the only ones who appreciate a challenge. And when Jillian dumps Parker, he’ll turn on Will. We’ll see how he likes it.
Will
The New Deal.
My mouth is still rocking the chocolate cake as I exit Parker’s house. I ate three pieces, but left the rest for Parker’s family. I don’t want to have to explain a cake to my mother. She’ll ask questions and I’ll have to lie because telling my mother something means my dad finds out.
I drive two blocks in the Green Machine, pull over to the curb, turn down the radio, and dial Annelise’s number.
It’s busy. She’s got to be on the phone with one of her friends because Parker told me he hasn’t talked to her since they broke up. He said it was over, and now he’s gone for Jillian. That dude has it all wrong, but it’s going right for me.
Annelise turned me down a few years ago, but things are different now. She must be feeling a guy with a little danger on his side is where she’s at—otherwise she wouldn’t have left a cake for me. A cake. Only Annelise would think of doing that. When I talked to her last night I told her that Parker was digging Jillian but I was available.
Wicked Sweet Page 9