The Stone Girl

by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

  Sethie closes her eyes. She’s not tired, not really; she just wanted to be alone. The nurse has turned off all the lights in the office except for the little one on her desk; she’s really being very kind. Sethie thinks how different the nurse’s job is for the lower schoolers, six-to-ten-year-olds with their sticky fingers and runny noses; the middle schoolers, getting their periods for the first time, too embarrassed to ask for a tampon or pad; and the upper schoolers, girls like Sethie who just need a quiet room where they can shut their eyes. Sethie listens to the sound of the nurse’s fingers tapping her keyboard. It’s a comforting sound, steady and clear.

  The pillow has a piece of paper over it, like at a doctor’s office, and Sethie wonders how often the sheets and blankets on these beds are washed. When Sethie turns onto her left side, the paper crackles beneath her head. Sethie presses her cheek against it; she expects it to be smooth, cool, but instead, it’s rough and wrinkled, and when Sethie looks in the mirror later, there will be lines on her cheek where the paper was. Wrinkles, she’ll think: this is what I will look like when I’m old.

  Sethie imagines that the articles are looking down on her, arguing about her diagnosis, trying to decide which of them is right. She’s bulimic, one says. No, anorexic, another argues, because bulimics are never as organized as she is. Yeah, but anorexics hate throwing up, another article counters.

  Stop analyzing me, she begs the articles silently, and turns so that she’s facing away from the wall. She closes her eyes, and the only thing that makes the buzz of the articles go away is thinking about Shaw.

  Sethie imagines that Shaw is in this bed with her. She knows she should be angry at him, but she likes pretending he’s there. Maybe it’s a few years from now, and things have changed, and they’re in school together, and they’ve gotten back together, and he’s grown up into the type of boy who loves a girl like Sethie, the type of boy who tells her I love you all the time, just lying in bed watching TV, or studying side by side, or walking down the street. The type of boy who holds your hand and brings you a cup of coffee from Starbucks when you’re too tired to get it yourself.

  It might be easier, Sethie thinks, to just find a boy who’s like that than to wait for Shaw to become one.

  22.

  SETHIE KNOWS THAT Ben is back at Columbia now. Classes haven’t started yet—in college you have a longer winter break—but Ben has come back early; she’s not sure exactly why, but he told her he’d be back around the fourth and now it’s Monday the fifth, so Sethie is certain that he’s back by now. She knows that Janey and Shaw are back in the city as well; their school started the same day White did. Maybe that’s why Ben came back early; Doug was returning early because of Janey, and maybe Ben wanted to hang out with Doug. And maybe Ben and Doug are friends with Shaw’s girl, Anna, and maybe she came back early too, to be with Shaw. Dating a high schooler sure complicates the schedule, she thinks.

  Sethie decides she will call tonight; they have to watch The Princess Bride, after all, and it seems a shame not to have Ben see what 104 looks like. I should take 104 out for a spin, she thinks wryly; I should enjoy it while it lasts.

  She waits until nine p.m. to call Ben. She’s sitting on her bed with the covers around her, but not pulled entirely over herself. After a couple of weeks of cooling and sweating herself, she can’t tell whether she’s hot or cold anymore. You expect metal to be cold, but the knife, which she has kept under her mattress, is always warm, and Sethie likes the way it feels. She holds the knife on her lap while she waits for Ben to pick up the phone. She likes the heft of it on her legs, like she has a pet sitting on her lap, keeping her company. She runs her finger along the top of it, like stroking a cat.

  “Hello?”

  “Jolly Green,” Sethie says.

  “I thought we’d discussed you’d never call me that,” Ben says, and Sethie’s stomach feels full because he has recognized her voice. She’d never have to eat again, she thinks, if she could always feel that full.

  “I must have forgotten.”

  “Well, keep it in mind in the future.”

  “That I will.”

  “Good.”

  “How do you like being back in town?”

  “I like it a lot better now,” Ben says.

  “Now?” Sethie asks.

  “Now that you’re coming over to watch The Princess Bride.”

  Sethie laughs; she hasn’t laughed since before the holidays.

  “Dude, that was so smooth.”

  “I thought you’d be impressed with it.”

  “I am.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what time will you be on your way?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes, tonight—it’s not too late, is it?”

  “Not exactly. But some of us do have school tomorrow.”

  “Oh, of course, right.”

  Ben sounds so disappointed that Sethie says, “Screw it—give me twenty minutes and I’ll be on my way, movie in hand.”

  Sethie imagines that Ben is grinning as he says, “See you soon,” and hangs up the phone.

  Sethie pulls on the skinny jeans she bought with Janey at Saks. She thinks back to that day—before they met Doug, before Shaw met Anna, probably, when she had only ever thrown up once and long before she took to hiding a knife under her bed. She thinks how tight these jeans seemed; she can’t tell whether they’re looser now because of the six pounds or whether it’s just because the jeans have stretched from being worn. Sethie almost puts the knife in her purse before she leaves, but then she remembers that it’s the movie she needs to bring.

  She rolls down the windows of the taxi on her way uptown, practically sticks her head outside like a German shepherd. It’s not quite raining out but not quite dry, and Sethie thinks that by the time she gets to Ben’s her eyeliner will have begun to drip, but she doesn’t roll up the window.

  “Hey there, Happy New Year,” Ben says as he opens the frat house door. Sethie thinks that if only Ben had been in town for New Year’s Eve, she would have gotten a midnight kiss.

  “Happy New Year,” she says back, leaning into him for a hug. He’s so tall that her arms are around his hip bones. Sethie notices that they jut out, just like hers do when she’s thin enough.

  “I think you shrunk,” Ben says, tousling her hair. “You look even littler than I remembered.”

  “Well, you look even taller than I remembered,” Sethie says. But she thinks that she has shrunk; she is six whole pounds smaller, and she’s proud that Ben has noticed, even now, when she still has on her coat, when you’d think it wouldn’t even show.

  She waits until they’re in his room to unbutton her coat.

  “Jesus Christ Sethie, you’re supposed to gain weight over the holidays,” Ben exclaims.

  “Oh well.” She shrugs. “I’m Jewish.”

  It’s a good joke, and one she thinks Ben would normally laugh at, but he just takes her coat and asks for the movie.

  The TV is across from his bed; it seems natural that they should be sitting on his bed, but Ben slides onto the floor, with his back against the bedframe, even though the room is so narrow that his feet hit the wall when his legs are only halfway straight. Sethie sits down beside him—there is room enough for her legs to be completely straight.

  A few minutes into the movie, Sethie leans against Ben. She thinks maybe he’ll put one of his long arms around her; it’d be more comfortable that way. But Ben is stiff beside her. She thinks maybe he’s nervous, because maybe he wants to kiss her tonight. Maybe he’s waiting until the movie is over, and maybe he can barely even pay attention to the movie; maybe he’s too busy thinking about trying to kiss her afterward. She thinks maybe he won’t be able to pay proper attention until she kisses him.

  She tilts her face up, but he’s so tall that even when she stretches so that she’s sitting up straight, her lips can only reach his neck. So she begins there, by pressing her lips onto his neck. She can see just
how it’ll go; Ben will turn and his lips will fit on hers perfectly, and then it will be perfectly natural for her to lean back until she’s lying on the floor, and he’s on top of her. He’d hold himself up, though, because he is so much bigger than she is that if he really lay on top of her he might crush her. Sometime she’ll have to ask him just how much he weighs; she suspects he might actually be twice her weight. As he leans over her, she’ll make a joke that they have to pause the movie, and Ben will laugh, but he’ll hardly be able to stop kissing her long enough to find the pause button.

  Sethie closes her eyes as she presses her lips onto Ben’s neck. She feels him begin to move, but instead of his lips pressed on hers, she feels his hand pressing on her shoulder. Pushing her away.

  Sethie opens her eyes. It takes her a second to realize what’s happened, because it looks so different from what she’d been expecting. Ben has pressed pause, and he’s slid away from her, holding her at arm’s length, which is very far away, considering his long arms.

  Sethie blinks. “Why’d you pause the movie?”

  “I think we need to talk.”

  “Okay.”

  Ben drops his hand from her shoulder. “Sethie, you look like hell.”

  Sethie is so surprised she actually can’t stop her mouth from dropping open.

  “I do?”

  “Have you eaten a thing since I saw you before break? Have you slept?”

  “What? I slept.” It was, she thinks, the thing she probably did most of.

  “And eaten?”

  “Of course I’ve eaten.”

  “You don’t look like you have.”

  “Ben, don’t be ridiculous. A person can’t just stop eating for two weeks.” It sounds like such a reasonable point.

  “Well, you didn’t eat enough. Look at you. You’re tiny.”

  Sethie doesn’t say anything, but Ben looks at her like she’s just said something awful.

  “Sethie,” he says softly, “you’re smiling.”

  Am I? Sethie thinks. She finds she has to think about it, to stop and try to feel whether her own mouth is open, whether her lips have curled up. Of course she can’t help smiling when someone says she’s thin; even now, hurled at her as an accusation, it sounds like a compliment.

  “Sethie, look, I like you. I think you know I do. But I think, right now, it might be better if we stayed friends.”

  “You just want to be friends?” Sethie stands up, and Ben does too. Suddenly, being small feels like a disadvantage. She considers standing on top of his bed to be at his eye level.

  “Don’t take it the wrong way.”

  “What’s the right way?”

  “I just don’t think I’d be much use to you as a boyfriend right now.”

  “Much use?”

  “I think you could use a friend more.”

  “You’re not so much older than I am.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not so much older than I am that you have all this wisdom. I’m not your little high school case study.”

  “I know that.” Ben runs his fingers through his hair, twisting the ends. He looks at the ceiling and says, “Sethie, don’t be angry.”

  “So now you’re not only telling me whether or not I should have a boyfriend, you’re also telling me how I should feel about your telling me whether or not I should have a boyfriend?”

  Ben sits down again, on the bed this time. Even sitting, he’s nearly as tall as she is standing.

  “I think I should leave,” Sethie says finally.

  “Okay. But I’d like to call you tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m your friend. And because eventually, you’re going to get over this thing you’re going through and then I’ll probably want to be more than just your friend.”

  Sethie leans over him to retrieve her coat from the bed behind him.

  “Well, you can’t call me tomorrow. I never gave you my number, and I’m certainly not giving it to you now.”

  “Your number’s in my phone,” Ben says, like it’s obvious. Which, she supposes, it is. She’s called him a few times now.

  “Well,” she says, “delete it.”

  Sethie stands out on the corner to get a cab alone, even though it’s late. She remembers the night when she and Ben met, how he and Janey both protested that she shouldn’t be out on the streets by herself to catch a cab. She thinks now that Ben didn’t really mean it. But then, after she’s lowered herself into a cab and is slamming the door behind her, she thinks she can see the shadow of a giant looming on the corner, like maybe it followed her and hid behind her, and waited until she was safely inside a taxi to turn around and head back home.

  23.

  THE SECOND DAY of school, Sethie thinks, is probably a little early to start cutting class. And, she thinks, your second semester senior year is probably a little late to start cutting class. Sethie has never cut a class in her life, never had a grade below a B+, and has always been a favorite among her teachers. They’d never guess she’s also a girl who’s done drugs, and cut herself, and they certainly don’t seem to notice that she’s shrinking in front of them. They trust her so much that they believe her when she says she can’t speak up in class this week because her doctor diagnosed her with pre-laryngitis. They trust her so much that when she asks to leave French class early to go home, the teacher sends her home with a packet of her favorite French cure-all tea.

  The streets are pretty empty at 2 p.m. on a Thursday when everyone else is in school. Sethie’s coat is unbuttoned, but she’s wearing a hat and scarf; she’s still not quite sure what the temperature is. She remembers something

  Janey told her, a few weeks ago. Janey started doing yoga in November, and she said that since she started, the cold hasn’t been bothering her, and it’s because—she said—of her new muscles. Janey explained that when you work out, your muscles rip, and when you’re resting, they’re repairing themselves, which burns calories and keeps you warmer. Janey invited Sethie to come to yoga class with her, but Sethie turned her down. Sethie doesn’t want to exercise, the same as she doesn’t actually want to diet. She wants to be one of those girls who can eat whatever she wants and not gain weight, who can eat whatever she wants and not have to exercise for a taut stomach or arms, who can eat whatever she wants and so isn’t tormented by a plate of fries or a bag of chips.

  But because of what Janey has said about muscles keeping you warm, Sethie wonders now whether she was wrong in thinking that Shaw was strong and muscular; if he was really so muscular, maybe he wouldn’t have been so constantly cold. But then, Sethie didn’t believe Janey that building muscle really did burn calories, so maybe she was wrong about the warmth, too. The only way to lose any real weight is to eat less, Sethie thinks. And then less, and then less.

  Sethie isn’t sure where to go, now that she’s out of school. Her mother worked late last night, and might have stayed home today to make up for it; the law firm only pays her to work a certain amount of hours. Even though her mother would probably believe she was sick just as easily as her French teacher did, she doesn’t feel like having to repeat her lie. So she begins walking south; she begins walking in the direction of Shaw and Janey’s school. She walks slowly, with her head down, her hat falling over her eyes, so that she almost walks into the boy who says, “Sethie!” a block away from Shaw’s school.

  Sethie looks up. It’s Matt Ellison, who goes to school with Shaw and Janey, who came over to the vacant apartment to smoke up on the first day of school, with whom she crammed into a cab on the way up to Columbia.

  “What are you doing out?” Matt asks, taking a step closer to her.

  Sethie shrugs. She doesn’t think Matt really has any business asking, since he should be in school, too.

  Matt grins, like he’s just remembered something. “Hey,” he says, “that apartment still free?”

  “What?”

  “That apartment in your building—is it still available?”

&
nbsp; “Oh, yeah. The new people haven’t moved in yet.” The doorman told her the new family would be moving in next week.

  “Come with me,” Matt says, offering his hand and pulling her toward Fifth Avenue.

  “My building’s in the other direction,” Sethie says, resisting his pull.

  “Yeah, but we just gotta meet someone first.”

  “Oh,” Sethie says, understanding. They have to get the pot. Sethie’s never actually seen anyone buy the drugs she’s taken; certainly, she’s never bought any of her own. They always seemed to just be there; there always seemed to be someone who knew better than she did where they came from and how to get there.

  She follows Matt as he crosses Fifth Avenue and heads into Central Park. She sits down next to him on a bench just south of the Met. She wonders how long they have to wait.

  “My buddy goes to school across town,” Matt explains. “I told him I’d meet him in the park.”

  Sethie nods.

  “You must be freezing.”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, you should button up anyhow,” Matt says, and Sethie does as she’s told.

  Buying drugs, Sethie discovers, is kind of anticlimactic. Matt’s friend shows up and gives him a brown paper bag that looks like it’s more likely to have a bagel in it than a dime bag. Matt gives him forty dollars. And Sethie stares at the bag as they walk back to her apartment, thinking not about the pot, but about the bagel she can picture inside it.

  “At least it’s warm in here,” Matt says, sliding his coat off. He opens the bag and takes out a can of Coke and a sandwich. Sethie looks up at him, confused.

  Matt grins and says, “Let’s just say you should wait before you take a bite out of the sandwich.”

  He gets up and goes into the kitchen. Sethie hears the pop of the soda can opening, and hears the liquid being poured down the drain of the sink. She’s not sure whether the sink is currently hooked up to any pipes.

  When Matt comes back, he’s crushed a dent in the can and pulled a pen from his pocket to poke holes into it; he opens up the sandwich and pulls out the dime bag. Sethie wonders why it’s called a dime bag when he paid forty bucks for it.