The Stone Girl

by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

  “We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

  Sethie nods. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.

  “Merry Christmas,” Janey says.

  “Okay.” Sethie considers making a joke about being Jewish, but it seems like it would take too much effort.

  “I’d say Happy New Year too, but we’ll talk before then.”

  Sethie shrugs. “Sure.”

  “Okay.” Janey turns around and presses the button for the elevator. Sethie thinks that she would have better believed that Janey wanted to come in if she’d unzipped her winter coat. But then, Sethie made it clear that she wasn’t exactly welcome.

  17.

  LATER, SETHIE FINDS another piece of paper, with another phone number. She puts it next to her phone, on her nightstand. She hates the furniture in her room; white wicker, left over from a phase she went through when she was ten and wanted everything to be white. White wicker dresser and desk, white bedspread. Rebecca says there’s no point in replacing anything, with Sethie going away to school next year.

  Sethie glances at the paper on her nightstand as she changes into her pajamas and gets her bottle of water. She takes a vitamin called chromium picolinate before she begins to drink, because one of the girls at school said it makes you lose weight.

  By the time she picks up her phone to dial the number, she’s already memorized it. She slips the paper into her desk drawer. She plugs her phone into its charger so that it will have the power it needs for one call. She stretches the cord to stand in the center of the room and holds her phone out in front of her, presses the numbers. Ben picks up on the second ring.

  “I read ‘Everything That Rises Must Converge,’ ” Sethie says instead of hello. “I should have been studying, but I read your story instead.” Sethie steps over to her bed and sits up tall in the center of it, her legs crossed underneath her.

  “It’s not my story.”

  “It is as far as I’m concerned.”

  Sethie thinks Ben is smiling now. “Well, what did you think?”

  Sethie takes a deep breath before answering. “I loved it. The hat.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the mom.”

  “I know.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “Positively.”

  “If I get into Columbia, you’re going to have to tell me which class it was that you read that in. I want a teacher to help me figure out what it all means.”

  Ben laughs. “When you get into Columbia, I will be happy to guide you in your course selection.”

  “Hey, I’m perfectly capable of picking my classes.”

  “I’m sure you are. I’m just also perfectly capable of helping.”

  Sethie smiles. She uncrosses her legs.

  “I’ve done two bad things,” she says slowly. “But I can’t seem to decide which one to tell you first.”

  “Is one worse than the other?”

  Sethie closes her eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me in order of badness.”

  “I’m not honestly sure which one is the worst.”

  “Hey, at least you know they were bad. That’s half the battle.”

  “All right, G.I. Joe.”

  “Tell me both at once, and I’ll figure out which one was worse.”

  “I sent Janey away.” Sethie’s shoulders slump as she says it. She makes herself sit up straight again; sitting up straight is good exercise for your abs.

  “What do you mean you sent her away? She’s going away, with Doug.”

  “I don’t mean I sent her to Virginia, numnuts.”

  “Dude, you know nothing about my nuts,” Ben says, and Sethie giggles.

  “I sent her away from my door. She came over to talk to me, to check up on me I think, but I sent her away.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I’m angry at her.”

  “Why?”

  “She should have told me about Shaw sooner.” Sethie assumes he knows what she’s talking about.

  “Maybe she should have.”

  “And maybe she only came over here because she was feeling guilty for not having told me sooner and wanted to make sure I wasn’t, like, slitting my wrists over it or something.”

  “Were you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s a good first step.”

  “Thanks, I worked hard on it.” Sethie smiles; even now, she is flirting with Ben. The retorts come so easily; that was never the case with Shaw. She was always scared to irritate Shaw.

  Ben says, “So you sent her away, because she waited too long to tell you, exposing you to all kinds of heartbreak and humiliation? Even though, when she realized how wrong she was, she felt bad about it, and wanted to make sure you were okay?”

  Sethie considers this. “I guess not.”

  “That’s not why you sent her away?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  Sethie tries to take a deep breath around the lump that’s formed in her throat. “I think I was embarrassed.”

  “Embarrassed?”

  “Yeah. Embarrassed. That I fell for Shaw, that everyone knew he was sleeping around, that I was so stupid.” Sethie can hardly believe the words can make their way past the lump.

  “That’s what happens when you’re in love. That’s where that whole ‘love is blind’ thing came from.”

  “I thought that meant that when you’re in love, the person you love becomes more good-looking to you. That you can’t see if they, you know, gain weight.”

  At least Sethie certainly hopes that’s what it means, so that someday maybe there will be one less thing to scare her about gaining weight.

  Ben says, “That too. But also that you can be totally blindsided by the person you’re in love with.”

  “I don’t think that’s what they meant.”

  “Well, that’s because you’re not up on my modern, hip interpretation. You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  Sethie closes her eyes. “Well, there’s something else. The other reason I sent Janey away.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I knew if she came in I would probably tell her the second bad thing that I did.”

  “What’s the second bad thing?”

  Sethie keeps her eyes shut. “I’m not sure I can say it out loud.”

  “Try saying it like it’s about someone else.”

  Sethie opens her eyes. She lies down so that her feet are on her pillows. Even though she’s washed her sheets since the last time Shaw was here, she believes that the pillowcases still smell like him.

  “Someone who slept with the guy she thought was her boyfriend but discovered he was really only using her for sex and probably also for a place to smoke pot? Someone who slept with him while he told her about his new girlfriend who is, apparently, the kind of girl that he could really fall in love with?”

  Sethie is surprised to have said all of that, surprised at the ease with which the words came out of her mouth. Ben was right; saying it about someone else did make it easier. She said it, and she’s not even crying. In a minute, she will even be laughing.

  “Jeez,” Ben says. “That girl has issues.”

  “Tell me about it,” Sethie says, and now she laughs. She’s grateful Ben made a joke; it’s a relief to be a punch line, even if it is a punch line about being a basket case.

  “Keep me the hell away from a chick like that,” Ben continues, and Sethie stops laughing. Maybe she had no business confiding all of this in Ben.

  “Sethie?” Ben says when he hears how quiet she’s gotten.

  “Yeah?” She knows when she speaks, her voice sounds small. She imagines that when someone’s as tall as Ben is, even his voice is bigger.

  “I don’t think you really are a girl like that. I think you only were for a second there, or a few months there. But I don’t think that’s who you really are.”

  Sethie quietly says, “Who do you think I really am?” But she doesn’t intend for
Ben to answer; she doesn’t even intend for him to hear.

  “You’re the only girl I ever met who understood that it’s not so great, being this size. And you’re the only girl I ever met who wants to write a paper about Ernest Hemingway.”

  Sethie likes the girl Ben thinks she is. She likes who she is on the phone with Ben, just like she liked who she was at dinner with him, and on the couch beside him. She is brazen and brash, flirty and opinionated. She isn’t a girl who curls over toilets and counts calories. This girl is so much easier than that. By the end of this phone call, this girl nicknames Ben “the Giant” without even worrying that it might offend him.

  Ben says, “As long as you don’t say ‘jolly green.’ ”

  “Nah,” Sethie says. “That’s not you. You’re the friendly giant, like in The Princess Bride. You look scary, but you’re the one who really rescues everyone in the end.”

  “I never saw that movie.”

  “You’re kidding. It’s my favorite. I practically burned a hole in my copy, I watched it so many times.”

  “And you just gave away the ending.”

  Sethie laughs. “Don’t worry. I really didn’t. We’ll watch it sometime, and I’ll prove it to you.”

  “All right then, it’s a date. After the break.”

  “Okay,” Sethie says. “After the break.”

  “And Sethie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I figured out which one of the two bad things you did was worse.”

  “Oh yeah, how long did that take you?”

  “I knew the answer even before you told me number two. It was sending Janey away. And you know it, too.”

  Sethie doesn’t say anything.

  “Okay, well, till after the break, then.”

  “Right, after the break.”

  “You take care of yourself while I’m gone.”

  “You too. I mean, while you’re gone. Stay warm up there.”

  “Dude, up there is my only chance to cool off.”

  Sethie smiles, and says good night and Happy New Year. When she hangs up, she unplugs her phone so that the battery will die again. Now that Ben is off to Vermont, there honestly isn’t anyone left she wants to talk to.

  18.

  TWO DAYS AFTER Janey leaves, Sethie begins to leave all the windows open in her room. A cold snap has hit New York City, and Sethie likes the sound of that; a snap is something sharp, like breaking open peas that have soaked in water until they’re turgid. Cold like a snap of the fingers that can get your attention, stop you from what you are doing, or send you on your way. When she drinks her water, Sethie fills the bottle with ice cubes. She has been too warm for the last few days—days spent without Shaw. Sethie thinks that if she can just get cold enough, it will feel like Shaw is with her.

  She charges her phone. Maybe Shaw has been trying to call; after all, he says they’re still friends. He says they always have been. But when the phone rings, it’s never Shaw, and Sethie lets it go to voice mail. Every phone call is from Janey.

  Sethie checks her voice mail after each call.

  “Hi Sethie, just wanted to wish you Merry Christmas.”

  “Hi Sethie, I miss you. It’s freezing in Virginia. I thought the South was supposed to be warm!”

  “Sethie, I’m getting a little worried. Call me back at Doug’s house, please, just to tell me you’re okay. Or if you don’t want to talk to me, leave me a message at home that you’re okay, and I’ll get it when I check my messages. Please, Sethie, I miss you.”

  Sethie deletes the new messages; she hears the words Janey’s saying, but she doesn’t want to listen. There are saved messages from Shaw in her voice mail box. She plays them a few times, and it feels like she’s hearing his growling voice through her belly instead of through her ears.

  Five days after Janey leaves, Sethie is sick of being cold and sick of waiting for Shaw. She shuts the windows and turns the heat as high as it goes, burning her hand on the old radiator. I should be hot, Sethie thinks. I should not be trying to feel Shaw here, to imitate his touch, to re-create his kisses by sucking on ice cubes. I should not be inviting him in through the open windows; I should be keeping him out behind locked doors. She will sweat him out. She layers on sweatpants and a sweatshirt, even a hat and scarf. She tells herself that Shaw is in the sweat leaving her body. And she tells herself the harder she sweats, the more weight she will lose—an added bonus.

  Sethie lets the phone battery run out again so that even if Shaw does call, she won’t be tempted to talk to him. It’s bad enough, she thinks, that there’s all this extra flesh making me fat, but it’s also extra flesh that Shaw touched, extra flesh that misses him now. She is sure, though she only saw her for a second, that Shaw’s new girlfriend is skinny and flat and that her stomach curls into a C when she slouches. Sethie corrects herself; Anna is not his “new” girlfriend. She can only be new if Sethie was old, and Sethie was never his. Or he was never hers. She can’t remember which one she’s upset about. It’s so confusing, to feel that she’s been dumped even though it’s perfectly clear to everyone else, apparently, that she and Shaw were never a couple to begin with.

  Sethie can’t believe just how alone she is; a month ago, she imagined spending Christmas with Shaw, or at least with Janey. Now they’re each with their respective significant others. Sethie gnaws on the word significant like it’s a piece of gum.

  She decides to clean out her desk. She empties each of the five drawers completely and spreads the contents on the floor around her. She can’t think what to throw away, so she arranges everything into piles and places each pile back into the drawers. She can imagine Shaw sitting on her bed while she cleans; he would laugh over her inability to throw anything away. He would have told her to get stoned before cleaning. Sethie climbs into her bed; she sleeps as much as she can. She doesn’t bother getting dressed; she stays in her pajamas so that she can always get into bed and try to sleep. She can’t eat in her sleep. And when she sleeps, she isn’t hungry.

  Eight days after Janey leaves, Sethie walks into the kitchen. It is midday on New Year’s Eve, and Sethie has no plans to go out. She has decided to take some more of Janey’s mother’s Valium and go to sleep early. Sethie has not left the house since she took her last final, the day before Christmas Eve, the day before Janey left for Virginia and Shaw left for Florida and Ben left for Vermont. The day before everyone left her here, leaving her no choice but to go into the kitchen and run her fingers over her mother’s knives.

  It’s not that she wants something sharp. A dull knife will do just fine. A dinner knife; sharper than a butter knife, but not as sharp as a steak knife. The knife she is most familiar with; the one she uses to cut up pieces of white-meat-only chicken, to scrape peanut butter thin across wheat toast, to peel the skin off of apples.

  When she was little, Sethie always imagined what it would be like not to be Jewish, to have a house filled with lights and presents at Christmastime. A tree and a fire and a Christmas Eve dinner and a big breakfast on Christmas Day. The kitchen filled with leftovers all through winter break. Now, she is grateful to be Jewish. There are no leftovers in her kitchen to tempt her. Only some old cheese and dry pasta, only frozen chicken cutlets and Diet Coke. And dinner knives.

  Sethie’s mother is in her bedroom; she has plans tonight. She’s already getting ready. A friend of hers is having a dinner party. She invited Sethie to come, but Sethie laughed. Staying at home alone still seems like something better to do than going with her mother to a party.

  She brings one of the knives into her bedroom and slides it between her mattress and box spring. She doesn’t know why she feels she needs to hide it well. Her mother will only pop her head in before leaving; under the covers or in the closet would have served just as well.

  Sethie waits until her mother leaves, and then she takes off all of her clothes and lies on the hardwood floor. She repeats her old ritual of going over her body with a hand mirror, but this time, she uses the knife. She sit
s up to run it over her legs, holding it above her skin but so close that she can feel the cool of the metal pricking the hair on her legs, which she hasn’t shaved for days, since she hasn’t bathed for days.

  Sweating him out hasn’t worked. She still misses Shaw. Throwing up hasn’t worked. She still feels fat. It seems the only thing left is to cut off the fat and to scrape away at the layers of skin that Shaw touched, the layers of skin that remember how his touch felt. She will make herself free of fat; she will make herself clean of Shaw.

  Sethie’s shoulder blades press into the floor. The blade finds its way to her hip bone. Sethie’s favorite part, the part where the bone protrudes: the skinniest place on her body. She makes a light scratch, just enough to turn the skin beneath it white. Then presses just a little bit harder, so the skin begins to turn red. She feels like a creature out of a fairy tale: a girl who discovers that her bones are really made out of stone, that her skin is really as fragile as glass, that her hair is brittle as straw, that her tears have dried up so that she cries only salt. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t hurt when she presses hard enough to begin bleeding: it doesn’t hurt, because she isn’t real anymore.

  19.

  SCHOOL BEGINS ON a Monday, almost a week after New Year’s Eve, and on Sunday, Sethie’s mother knocks on Sethie’s door. Sethie is lying in bed; her mother doesn’t wait for a response to her knock before she sticks her head into the room. Sethie looks at her mother’s bare feet. She thinks about her eighth-grade health teacher, who brought a Barbie into class and said that there was no way that, were Barbie life-size, such small feet could support her body. Even then, Sethie thought: you’ve obviously never met my mother.

  “How about brunch?” Rebecca says.

  “I’m not really awake yet, Mom,” Sethie says.

  “I’ll wait,” Rebecca replies, and Sethie rolls over, away from her, facing the wall.

  “Okay, but you might have to wait a long time. I’m not going to waste the last day before school starts by getting out of bed early.”