Pearl

by Deirdre Riordan Hall

  By the end of the day, my brain feels like a Ping-Pong ball as it bounces from subject to subject. Sorel finds me zoning out in the library, returning some books from a research essay.

  “You look like you need a break. I was just on my way to meet Pepper and Grant,” she says enticingly.

  As we enter the glade, with sparse leaves and muted by shades of brown, Pepper holds the remainder of what might be a cigarette but smells like marijuana up to his lips. He coughs fitfully, trying to speak. “Uh, sorry, babe. I just finished it. I didn’t know you were coming. Grant’s on his way too.”

  Sorel glares at him in a way that reminds me of my mother, a hungry animal, starved for something that drugs or attention won’t satisfy, no matter how much she smokes or how outrageously she acts. I feel myself shrink, wishing to blend in with the leaves on the dirty ground.

  By way of explanation, Sorel barks, “Pepper and I split a couple of ounces when I went home for Thanksgiving, and he hasn’t been doing a very good job sharing.” She flies at him, her hands reaching into pockets and under his vest as she searches for more pot. Unlike my mother and Darren, they play fight; he tickles her, she giggles, and as far as they’re concerned, I disappear.

  A pack of cigarettes falls out of Pepper’s vest, and I seize it, lighting one up. One drag and the long ream of tension wound tight inside me from studying and repeating brushstrokes disperses, much like the remaining oak leaves flittering off the branches above. I take a few more puffs, starting to cough. My throat hasn’t been the same since the fire.

  Sorel rolls another joint. “Victorious!” she proclaims, holding it up. “Gimme the light, PJ.”

  I toss it to her, and soon the familiar, herby smell of marijuana dominates the cigarette smoke. As she pulls the joint from her lips, Pepper makes for it, but Sorel brushes his arm away. “Ladies first,” she says, passing it to me.

  I take one practiced hit and pass it back to her.

  “Not your first time, eh?” Pepper asks.

  “She’s a city girl, stupid. Of course she’s smoked pot,” Sorel says, instantly asserting her provisional version of respect for me.

  “Nope, not my first time,” I say, exhaling, feeling more relaxed.

  I’ve found myself in countless situations where marijuana held court as the centerpiece of conversation and activity, and in some circles, at least it seemed, taking a hit or ten was the sole purpose for getting out of bed.

  “Stoked classes are almost over. Glad you and Grant are done with that art class? What was it, card making for dummies, for the lovelorn?” Sorel glances at me. I don’t flinch at her words.

  However, Pepper does. “No, it was printmaking, and if you want to transfer in next semester, I can talk to the teacher.”

  She answers with a plume of smoke directed toward him, and then they proceed to gnaw on each other’s faces and leave me with the joint and a pack of memories that drift back to me through smoke and haze. My lungs burn and blister, but my insides quickly mellow, dulling the remnants of pain.

  The sound of Sorel and Pepper’s laughter, and my own, involuntarily issuing forth at something inconsequential in my memory, rolls over on itself just when Grant shows up. He smirks at me and motions with his hand. “Pass the fresh J this way.”

  When nothing more remains than a fragment of white rolling paper, the four of us laugh at Pepper’s elaborate plan to grow weed in the clearing, harvesting it to fund an M&M candy dispensary on campus.

  “In every color. I call orange,” he says.

  “Dibs on blue,” Grant says with a laugh.

  Sorel rolls her eyes.

  With nothing to occupy their hands or lips, Sorel and Pepper make out again. Grant and I move away, taking a seat on top of the boulder in the center, our backs to the couple.

  “I didn’t expect to find you here,” he says.

  “Blame Sorel,” I say, meaning she dragged me.

  “How’d you do in precal?” Grant asks, imitating our teacher’s thick accent. I almost fall off the rock, laughing, and grab his arm to keep from plummeting to the hard earth.

  “Gotcha,” he says as he pulls me closer to him.

  The momentum of him catching me propels my face just inches from his, and our eyes meet for one heart-stopping second. My pulse records the unfolding instant as time slows. I gaze at the pale freckles splattered like paint across his nose, then travel down to his full lips. A tiny scar marks the space between his bottom lip and chin. I wonder where it came from. I feel his breath tickling my skin, the scent of mint and pine. Our eyes meet again, and before I can stop it, I let loose more peals of laughter.

  “I don’t want to admit it, but I like that sound.”

  “I thought you liked my voice.”

  “That too. I’m going to break the no-talking rule. Holiday plans?”

  “I didn’t know that was a rule,” I say, remembering how he asked me to tell him about New York City that stolen night in his dorm and how we talk fairly regularly, but usually it’s in Sorel and Pepper’s company. In fact, we’re rarely alone, at least not without them in close proximity.

  “I meant it when I said I don’t want to be friends—or anything else,” he adds almost as an afterthought. “But I can’t help it; I want to hear you. Tell me your plans, tell me anything.” His voice pitches toward agony, like it physically pains him to bear my silence.

  I shrug, baffled and tired of the question about vacation, of the whole idea, hoping maybe by not committing, a better option will arise. “My uncle’s condo down in Florida,” I say, having received instruction to go there instead of meeting my mother in New York.

  But the rules Grant has imposed burden me more than vacation. At first, I thought it was romantic, but now I’m just baffled.

  “I’ve read that card you gave me going on a hundred times. I don’t get it. It didn’t occur to me that we weren’t friends or what it means not to be friends or more than friends.” I tilt my head as though the explanation is in his expression. When he doesn’t answer, I add, “But you can’t get away with kissing me or asking to hear my voice, never mind our great dining hall debates, and not consider me a friend.”

  “Like I said, it gets complicated. It is complicated.”

  I shake my head, not buying it. “Believe me, I know complicated, and you”—I wag my finger between us—“this seems straightforward.”

  “Trust me. It isn’t.”

  Undeterred, I say, “Where are you going for vacation, O vexing one?”

  “Scotland,” Grant says, mimicking my lack of enthusiasm about the prospect of Florida.

  “I’d rather go there.”

  “Ever been?” he asks.

  “Not even close,” I say drearily.

  “There’s always someday,” he says expectantly.

  Chapter 12

  My uncle meets me with a thin smile as I emerge into the bright Florida day. After I slip off my jacket and sweatshirt, the razor-like sunlight feels as if it cuts my skin.

  “Pearl, nice to see you,” Aunt Beverly says, glancing up from her compact after fixing her lipstick. Her awkward hug makes me think the words are more convention than sincerity.

  My cousin Erica’s hug makes me think of koalas.

  My uncle’s grumblings about traffic are in tune with my ambivalence about the upcoming weeks.

  Seeing this branch of the Jaeger Corporation reminds me they were essentially absent until, of course, my mother’s uncensored activity threatened a media blowout. I wonder if JJ succeeded in, once more, parlaying bad press on my uncle’s dreams of political office. I make it a rule not to read anything other than Vogue and whatever my teachers assign me.

  The word resentment volleys into my mind, punctuated by my aunt’s nearly constant thinly veiled criticisms. “Your clothes are just, so . . . unique, Pearl; have you considered a haircut; what ab
out joining the school senate—when your uncle was your age—” she says in rapid succession.

  “Mom, Pearl and I are going shopping. You remember what boarding school was like. It isn’t as if there’s a mall on campus,” Erica says without sarcasm. “The school store certainly doesn’t carry clothing, unless you count spirit tees and athletic gear.”

  I rerun the disaster of the Christmas my mom and I spent with them years back. The tree toppled to the ground, the roast burned, and my uncle ended up with a glass of scotch tossed in his face. Classic Janet.

  Perhaps this year everything will be amiable, my mom will be sober, and beneath the tree, there will be shiny packages filled with rainbows, unicorns, and darling bunnies for each of us to unwrap.

  When the Cadillac pulls into the high-end condominium development—where my aunt and uncle will go when he retires, although from what I gather she spends the winters here—it looks like we’ve entered a grandiose Lego set. The identical buildings, a bland color that may have once been coral, now bleached by the sun, stand nondescript from one to the next. Sure, there’s lush greenery and opulent fountains, but it’s a place for retirees, who, escaping the cold northern winters, convinced themselves they could endure the hot, humid Floridian summers. Really, they just traded heating for air-conditioning. The only redeeming thing is the proximity of the azure ocean.

  “How is school?” my uncle dutifully asks.

  I fill them in with sparse details about my dorm, roommate, classes, and cross-country. Of course, I omit smoking, drinking, and Grant. As the words issue forth, I sound like a normal teenager, not one with a murky past, a cracked-out mother, and a fractured sense of self. I learned about that concept in a therapy group I attended a couple of years ago.

  “We sent your mother her ticket. She’ll be arriving on Christmas Eve. I bet you’re excited to see her.” My aunt speaks flatly.

  I change her statement into a question and ask myself if I am excited. My yes comes out at a whisper.

  “And do tell us, how’s the cough? It seemed you were well on your way to recovery at the beginning of September. What a tragedy. Did you know that, along with a generous endowment to Laurel Hill this fall, your uncle and I funded the restoration of the shelter? Did your mother mention that?” Her smile seethes.

  “Actually, I haven’t heard from her.”

  As I unpack in the spare bedroom, the polished tile cool beneath my feet, I accidently knock over a framed photo of my grandparents with Gary, and Janet—around age twelve. I stare into her then-clear eyes. Sometimes I want to blame my grandparents for my life, but they’re both dead. What did they do to my mother to make her nuts, helpless, and hopeless? Or what didn’t they do for her? I can come up with a quick list of things JJ hasn’t done for me. I wonder what it would look like if she and I compared notes.

  Later that day, as promised, my cousin and I go shopping. We talk about Laurel Hill—she graduated last year—and swap stories about some of the teachers. I mention Shale, but she just shivers and says she never took art classes. I almost forget I’m Janet’s daughter and instead feel like I’m just Erica’s cousin.

  When we walk into the air-conditioned mall, she flashes her dad’s credit card. “I know he seems uptight, but it’s just that his job is really demanding. People always say CEOs, lawyers, people who make money have it so easy, but the level of stress he’s under, it’s like he’s contractually obligated to have a heart attack.” She doesn’t say anything about how much he hates his sister and, therefore, me. “He wants us to have a good Christmas. And by good Christmas I mean let’s go shopping.” Her lips curl up, and despite Uncle Gary’s sad attempt to express his affection for his daughter with plastic, I’m all for having what she calls a good Christmas.

  Erica insists I pick out a few outfits and get some Christmas gifts for my mom and the rest of the family. As I tote our bags to the car, she hands me a hundred-dollar bill.

  “This is just extra, for when you go back to school, in case you need anything.” I dimly recall my grandmother slipping my mom bills and wonder how quickly they disappeared up her nose.

  “Thanks, Erica, but you don’t have to,” I say courteously.

  “Consider it part of your present,” she says, but the pity I’ve braced myself for isn’t there; instead I find a kindhearted smile.

  On Christmas Eve, my uncle pulls out the artificial tree as my aunt pours herself lunch: a glass of rosé. She detours down memory lane, describing the various ornaments my cousins made as children.

  My uncle retreats to his home office, mentioning a follow-up call he needs to make, while my aunt’s emptying glass ferries her further into her own world.

  Late that afternoon, we pile into the Cadillac to go to the airport to meet Janet and Logan, the latter coming in from Indiana, where he goes to Notre Dame.

  Checking the monitor, we see that the flights are on time. They greet Logan with a big hug. I get an oblivious hug from him—he probably hasn’t followed the Janet saga from afar. As we wait, my stomach binds into the familiar knots of uneasy anticipation that have been forming for as long as I can remember. Will she be sober? Will she be high? Will she be coherent?

  Passengers dressed in New York black—leather, puffers, and peacoats—disembark. I look for the shock of blond hair that identifies my mother, but she doesn’t appear. A parade of baby strollers comes off the Jetway last, and she isn’t among them.

  “I bet she fell asleep,” Erica says, offering a reasonable excuse.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say softly.

  “She said the halfway house is noisy day and night. This is probably the first time she’s had peace and quiet,” my uncle says snidely as the families with crying babies move out of earshot.

  The pieces neatly fall together. Janet slipped up again. She isn’t coming. However, I indulge the fantasy that history isn’t repeating itself and inquire about the passenger in seat 24-B, Janet Jaeger.

  “I’m sorry,” the frazzled employee says as she scans the computer screen. “She wasn’t on the flight. It looks like the ticket was transferred to O’Hare.”

  “That’s strange. Why would she go there?” Erica asks naively as we walk away from the desk.

  “She sold the ticket, Erica,” I say, surprising myself with my candor. I’m usually good about going along with the excuses or making up some of my own. However, that scenario is tired, pinpointing what has bothered me over the last couple of days.

  I gaze up at the tiled ceiling to gather patience for my mother and this situation. I want to shake her. Tell anyone who will listen to wake up and smell the coffee, wine, crack, or whatever gets them out of bed in the morning. I wish I knew which was easier, denial or oblivion, because right now I’m so desperate not to feel so far beyond disappointed that I discover a thick layer of disgust that threatens to unhinge me.

  Heavily, I look at the small cast who plays my family. “She’s not coming,” I say simply. “Let’s go.”

  I want someone to go get her, to run to her. Save her. Do whatever they need to do. Race the two thousand miles to New York, steal a motorcycle, or travel back in time to whenever that critical point was when they stopped caring. If they ever did. I just want us to love her, for goodness sake, and loving her doesn’t mean giving her money or excuses. Loving her means—but I don’t know what it means. Whatever it is, she makes it very difficult.

  When we return to the high-rise in paradise, I retreat to the guest room and slowly wrap the gifts I picked out for my aunt, uncle, and cousins. I wind the scarf I bought for Janet around my neck. Through the wall, Logan boasts loudly about his semester and the brotherhood on campus.

  As for Janet, it’s unlikely she’ll be welcomed back to the halfway house if she did, in fact, break the rules. She always screws up. After I put a few gifts under the tree, I ask my aunt and uncle if they’ll call around to try to find her, but my request is n
ot met with enthusiasm. Nonetheless, I overhear Aunt Beverly on the phone, inquiring and then hissing as she relays to my uncle that JJ cashed in the ticket and he should just let it go.

  I curl the ribbon on top of the chair massager I got for Uncle Gary—to help relieve his stress. My finger catches on the blade of the scissors and starts bleeding.

  In the guest bathroom, all I find are Q-tips, an emery board, and various outdated balms and ointments. I wrap a tissue around the cut and go to my aunt and uncle’s bathroom.

  In the back, among half the stock of a drugstore, a box of Band-Aids peeks out. As I shift aside containers promising relief from a host of ailments, my hand lands on a bottle of painkillers. I read the label. Do not take with alcohol. Which I know, at least in my mother’s language, means do take with alcohol. May cause drowsiness, reads the second warning. Perfect. I recall the crumbling borders of reality during my hospitalization after the fire. Sleep would be a quick exit from this vacation. I pop the lid and swallow two of the chalky white tablets with water from the tap. Oblivion.

  I set the rest of the wrapped packages under the tree and go help in the kitchen, while my uncle zones in on a squawking news show. I’m electric with the promise that in about twenty minutes, I’ll be floating away from reality.

  I go to the kitchen and help my aunt arrange crudités on a platter, which seems pointless. Then, noticing the glass of white wine on the counter, next to a nearly empty bottle of my aunt’s favorite, I think maybe we’ll all be in our own little worlds before long. When Aunt Beverly adjourns to ask Uncle Gary if he’d like eggnog, I chug the wine directly from the bottle, then pour some into my cup of the thick, festive drink.

  Shortly after, the substance in my veins feels sluggish and my eyes droop. I finish setting the table and lie down on a cushioned lounge chair on the lanai, what Aunt Beverly calls the screened-in patio.

  As if on one of the wispy clouds that drift by the setting sun, I glide back to New York City. Back to strangers’ beds, mattresses without sheets, walls with peeling paint, drafty windows, and abandoned dreams.