by Jen Larsen
I didn’t lose my temper at my grandmother. She said, “I don’t see why you’re so upset about this,” but I didn’t shriek and draw out crowds of people to see who was murdering us deep in the shadows of the back lawn. But there were still people watching us, faces around the corner of the garage peering at us, people on the deck. Brandon standing next to Laura on the steps down to the lawn. Looking our way, maybe. Laura can always tell when I am “considering acting irrationally”—that’s what she calls it. Considering acting irrationally, which is very unlike you, Ashley. Maybe she can tell from a distance. We’ve never tested it. Why am I thinking about things like this?
Maybe they didn’t see anything. Maybe they didn’t notice me escaping down the driveway from my father’s studio.
I’m pacing around the car parked behind mine and I think I see a glint in the grass, but my shadow blocks the light. I drop to my knees and search in the tall blades. The front lawn is too long because I forgot to remind my father to refill the gas tank on the mower, or maybe he just forgot to do it after I asked. Combing my fingers through, hoping Schatzi, the neighbor’s French bulldog, hasn’t been escaping through the screen door again, crashing headlong and leaving a big hole behind him because he’s so excited to be crapping on our lawn. My dress is too tight to be kneeling on the ground like this and the urge to run away is swamped by a wave of tiredness. That’s what this was supposed to be, running away—but just to take a breath, in and out, while I work out how I’m supposed to respond to my grandmother. To the idea of weight-loss surgery.
My grandmother thinks I need surgery.
No. My grandmother knows which buttons to push.
She knows that what I was looking at was the words Full Tuition and that my heart stuttered and leaped all at the same time before any other words on the card made sense.
I said, “Why? Why wouldn’t you just pay for me to go to school if that’s something you can do?”
She said, “Because it would be worthless.”
“Worthless,” I repeated. “I don’t know what that means,” I said.
“Ashley,” she said, in the voice that can flay her residents at the hospital. “Think about it.”
“About how I’m worthless?” I said.
As I’m kneeling on the lawn the front door opens, of course it does, and everything gets brighter and this dress is too goddamn tight to let me stand up with any kind of dignity, but I don’t care. I haul myself up and run my fingers through my hair. I can’t see through the bushes and over the railing from here, but I hear Laura say, “No, she didn’t say she was leaving,” and I sigh. She says, “I’ll be right back,” and I know she’s coming to see if my car is still here.
She glides down the stairs in her heels and right past me. She says it’s a life skill to always look graceful in dangerous situations. It is also a life skill to wear whatever you want with all the aplomb in the world. Laura’s taste in clothing is “everything.” She’s dressed up now, changed out of her shorts and into a maxi-length red dress that makes her dark skin look like it’s glowing from a fire beneath the surface, a sculptural dress draped down her body as if she were an artist’s model. Fabric flutters over her shoulder. No mask, just a tiara. She looks like she doesn’t belong here in this town.
She doesn’t belong here in this town.
We all know every corner and hiding spot and person and secret here, and that’s enough for most of us. That’ll never be enough for her. Or me. I want to leave more than I have ever wanted everything.
Laura stands with her hands on her hips at the end of the walk, peering down the street like she’s trying to decide which way to go.
“Hi,” I say to her, and she spins around.
She sighs. She says, “Your zippers are shiny,” and I look down at myself. I’m glinting geometrically. And my knees are dirty.
“I lost my keys. Do you have your phone?”
“It didn’t go well,” she says flatly. She pulls her phone out of the little silver furry bag she has dangling from her wrist and hands it to me.
“No. Is she looking for me?” I ask, turning the phone over in my hands.
“You’re being illogical,” my grandmother had said. “I’m not suggesting that you are worthless. I said no such thing.” She moved toward me, as if she were going to put her hands on my shoulders and shake some sense into me, but I stepped back out of her reach.
“Then I have no idea what you mean,” I said. “No idea.” I cleared my throat and this was the exact feeling: my heart had dissolved so it was an acidic mess in my chest, leaking into the rest of my body. Just like that.
“Ashley,” my grandmother said. And I had to turn and walk away from her. I was going to be the one to end this.
“Principle Simons is talking to your grandmother about the Organic Food for Every Neighborhood Initiative,” Laura reports. “And she’s demanding that your father feature the school in his real-estate listings. She’s frothing about it. Waving her hands around. She’s very worked up. Her teeth are huge, did you ever notice that?”
“Wait, my grandmother’s?” I think maybe I’ve lost the thread of the conversation. I can’t focus very well on what Laura is saying.
“No, Principle Simons.” Laura waves her hands around and her wrist bag bobs and dives.
“Okay,” I say. “I need to find my keys.”
Laura pulls me into a quick hug. She’s as tall as me in those heels. “We’ll find them,” she says.
“Okay,” I say. I pick my way out of the grass and head down the walk, using Laura’s phone screen as a flashlight. Nothing is glinting.
“This is perfect,” I say.
“Ashley,” Laura says, spreading her arms wide, her purse swinging in circles from her wrist. “It’s a beautiful night and every single person in this town is trying to fit in your living room. They all love you, and they’ve eaten all your tamales.”
“All of them?” I say. I stop in the middle of the road. Both ends of the street are dark and I realize I hadn’t picked a direction to go in anyway.
“I got one but Morgan ate most of it while she was trying to sell me on being treasurer this year, which is really highly unlikely and she knows that. Pretty sure the girl was after my food, which is immoral and not behavior suited to a class president and future legislator.”
That’s something Laura’s dad says when he’s moved to act like a father in the brief glimpses she gets of him. Young lady, that dress is not suitable for a future legislator. As if her dad is not perfectly aware that Laura is not going to be legislating anything except her own life.
“At least he thinks I’m smart enough,” Laura sometimes says.
“I want to play skee ball,” I say now.
Laura claps. “Tickets! I will win all the tickets and we will get pirate hats. I’ll text Jolene. Let’s take my car.” She’s fumbling in her furry bag again and produces her key fob. She is not going to press further, she is not going to ask me more, she is not going to give me advice. She’s heading down the block to her MINI Cooper and she’s walking like a supermodel down the middle of the pockmarked road, her heels ticking off the beat of the music inside the house.
“Should we change?” I say.
“Never change,” Laura calls over her shoulder.
Again I hear my grandmother saying, “You’re being illogical. I said no such thing. You know exactly what I mean.”
She had moved toward me, as if she were going to put her hands on my shoulders and shake some sense into me, but I had stepped back out of her reach.
“I have no idea,” I had said. “No idea.”
I had been ready to walk away, but then my grandmother had stepped forward so I could see her face in the light. She had cupped my cheek, squeezed my shoulder. “I love you. You know that.” She had stroked my hair back from my face. “I want you to think about your future. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Go enjoy your party.” And then she was the one who had walked away.
I’ve
stopped in the middle of the street and Laura is almost around the bend ahead of me. I want to run after her, so I do. I race down the street with my hair flying and bump into her with a hug and she laughs.
“See? I told you things were perfect,” she says. She throws her hands up in the air. “All the things.” Her face is bright in the moonlight and sparkly with makeup and her tiara is askew. Jolene is bounding toward us, her face alight. “You’re perfect,” Laura says. When she hugs me I’m glad they can’t see this sudden, unfamiliar doubt I feel twisting my face.
CHAPTER 10
Monday and the test both come too soon.
My test-taking ritual, especially for physics: I get up two hours early. I put my hair in a giant messy bun on top of my head so that it is all out of my way, and I wear something pretty close to pajamas, only marginally more socially acceptable. I swing through the Beans There Done That drive-through, which is the only place open at four in the morning because otherwise I would boycott it for the execrable pun. The exhausted dude at the window always blinks at me when I order an extra-large, extra-hot black coffee (the mocha with whip is my reward for getting through the test), as if he can’t believe he gets to avoid using the espresso machine. The paper cup is always too hot to handle for long, even with the heat sleeve, but I take a tiny sip anyway as I pull forward. My whole body and every part of the inside of my head jerks awake, glowing red and warm and bright.
The car windows are all rolled down and I take a sharp left out of the parking lot, balancing my cup and hitting the gas hard to shoot through the middle of downtown and veer onto the coastal road that will take me through three towns and back, just barely in time for class. My ritual is that I don’t think—I have been thinking a lot, too much, all the time, for the previous week, all the way up to the test. Now I need that drive to clear it all out, to breathe in the dust of the universe and breathe out the shards of stress or whatever our yoga instructor is always saying. All I know is that rituals are important.
But I can’t make myself stop thinking this time.
We ditched the rest of my birthday party and drove down to San Luis Obispo, all the windows open and blowing away all the things I didn’t want to admit to them. I felt cold and clear and cleaned out by the time we reached the all-night diner, filled with local college students who hooted as we walked in. Over disco fries, I said the words—weight-loss surgery. I didn’t look at either of them. Jolene touched the back of my hand lightly, and Laura made an angry noise.
“No,” I said. “Not right now. We can talk about it later.”
“Skee ball?” Jolene said, and we walked the three blocks over to Dizzy’s. She bought us all foam pirate hats with the tickets she won. We had more coffee at the diner when we realized none of us wanted to go home. We drove back as the sky was getting pale and bright.
Sunday I stayed in my room with my textbook in my lap and my phone turned off and my door locked. “She’s got a test,” I heard my father explain to Lucas when I dashed from my room to the bathroom across the hall, into the kitchen, and then right back up the stairs. Everyone knew the ritual and I was taking a lot of grim satisfaction in the idea that I wasn’t hiding from anyone, just doing what I always do. I forgot to say good-bye to Mateo and Lucas when they were leaving, or I didn’t hear them go.
I spent Sunday thinking about nothing but differentials, and now that there was no book in my lap, just endless empty space stretching ahead of me in the dark, my brain seizes the opportunity to drive me crazy. Dragging me through scenarios—where I told my grandmother off; where I ripped that little slip of paper up and threw it in her face; where I announced to the party that my grandmother was trying to bribe me (public shame is intolerable for her—there’s a reason she refused to accompany my brothers into town until they were of legal age); where she handed me an envelope with the business card of a used-car dealer tucked inside, no strings attached to trail on the floor between us and trip me up.
Worse: Picturing surgery. Weight-loss surgery. Doctors opening up a flap in my gut and lifting it like the hood of a car, digging elbow-deep inside of me. Hauling out all the broken parts and leaving them in a steaming heap on the floor of the operating room. Me sprawled on the operating table, helpless and huge. My grandmother standing next to my limp, torn-open body with a mask snapped over her face, in pearls and scrubs, looking terribly satisfied.
I’m cresting a slope, swinging around a sharp turn where the road feels carved into the cliff over the sea, and then I find myself abandoning my ritual, skidding into the turn-about, flipping a U-turn, and peeling out to the sound of clattering gravel. Heading back into town, past my house, pulling into the parking lot of the school. It’s still empty except for the janitor’s car. I know she’s smoking by the gym doors. She doesn’t look surprised when she sees me coming.
“Tonya, can I go in?” I say, and she smiles at me. She’s let me in before.
She says what she always does, which is, “Don’t tell Simons,” as she stands and swings open the door, gestures me ahead of her. “And don’t break anything.”
“Why would I ever talk to Principle Simons?” I say, as I always do, and then “thank you!” as I’m racing up the carpeted ramp toward the library.
The library is kind of like an aquarium: a couple of thousand square feet staked out by floor-to-ceiling glass walls. People who are less studious can stop and stare at the very studious people inside with the drooping mouths and the sense of being trapped underwater forever in a hell not of their own making. I don’t like the library very much. But it’s got computers—in fact, it’s mostly computers, because Principle Simons believes in the information superhighway more than she believes in most things except a Whole Spirit and a Healthy Mind. Maybe that’s why the door is locked. I rattle the handle, and then again, and then I step back and notice my reflection in the dark glass. My hair is sticking out of the bun and there’s a curl that’s fallen down my neck and my glasses are slightly askew and then a face is superimposed on mine and I scream as it comes at me.
“Oh man, I’m sorry,” Brandon says when he swings open the door, reaching for my shoulder. “I thought you saw me coming. I thought you were waiting for me to open the door.” I start to giggle helplessly and then he is giggling too, both of us giggling like idiots in the dark together.
“No,” I say, catching my breath. “No, I wasn’t expecting you. I wasn’t expecting anyone. So, you know, the screaming. But I’m—I’m good. I’m jumpy. I’m just. I have a test.” I realize he’s still got his hand on my arm and I duck around him into the dark library. We do have chemistry, no matter what he said last year. He’ll never find out that I cared, even briefly, what he thought about my size. “Thank you,” I say. Then, as it occurs to me, “Why are you sitting in the library in the dark with the door locked?”
“I didn’t realize it locked like that,” he says, and in the low lights from the hallway I can tell he is embarrassed, the way he ducks his head and scratches the back of his neck. The way he used to get embarrassed when we were kids and my mom teased him about how much he must love her beans and rice, since he was coming over for dinner every night that summer while Laura was at art camp. That was the summer he asked if he could kiss me and I shouted no and threw my plastic shovel at him and ran down the beach, my hair streaming behind me. I never told anyone about it. Does he even remember?
Instead I say, “I don’t know, you seem kind of suspicious.” It comes out accusatory and I cringe.
“I’m just studying,” he says, smirking, with his hands in his jeans pockets.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and he laughs.
“It’s only Literature,” he says. “Joyce. It’s just quieter here. Laura’s always—” He waves his hands around.
His gesture is the international sign language for, She’s always up until four in the morning painting and playing house music way too loud.
“I’m here for that, too,” I say stupidly. “But physics.” Why else would I wa
nt to break into a locked and dark library myself?
“I thought you usually drove around before a test,” he says.
I blink. “How do you know that?” My hand goes up to my messy bun, which is collapsing under the weight of its own gravity, and I can tell I look insane.
“Well,” he says. “You know. I think you’ve mentioned it. Laura’s mentioned it.”
I feel the giggles rising back up and I clear my throat hard and awkwardly.
“Okay,” I say. “So, uh, I just have to look something up.” I march past him to the bank of shiny Macs sitting in formation up and down the center tables. His bag and books are at the far right near the printer banks, so naturally I head to the far left and smack the mouse to wake up the monitor. And then I smack it again. And then I pound the space bar on the keyboard.
“You have to turn them on. Dr. Trujillo shuts them off before she leaves at night,” he says. I hate him a lot for a moment, and then sigh.
“Thanks,” I say, because I am not unreasonable, just awkward.
“You know, you can log in at home,” he says.
“Oh?” I say, as the library page comes up.
We’re both silent for a moment, and then I say, “I never like to do things the easy way.”
“That’s what Laura tells me,” and he’s smiling at me in the bluish light of the computer.
“Oh,” I say cleverly. “Well. I’m going to look things up now.”
“Okay,” he says, nodding, and he doesn’t move.
“Okay,” I say. “Good luck studying.”