With or Without You

by Lauren Sanders

  “A girl should wear a dress to her own graduation.”

  “Ma, forget it, okay?”

  “What’s all this about?” Grandpa said.

  “They want me to wear a dress,” I said. “What do you think, Grandpa?”

  “Dresses are nice. Where are you going?”

  “To my graduation.”

  “Graduation? What grade are you in?”

  “Twelfth.”

  “The twelfth grade! How did that happen so fast?”

  “Magic,” I said, liking my answer better each time. “But what do you think? Should I wear a dress?”

  “Where did you say you were going?”

  “To my graduation.”

  “Graduation? What grade are you in?”

  “Twelfth. Happened so fast, didn’t it?”

  “Okay, enough already, it’s time to get going,” Grandma said, glaring at me, and I felt terrible. “We’ll wait in the car.”

  I ran after them. “Wait! Grandma, I’m sorry.”

  “When I was a girl I begged my mother for a dress. ‘A dress?’ she said. ‘Where do you think you’re going in a dress?’ I had no graduation to go to. You don’t realize what a privilege that is, you should show some respect.”

  “Grandma, I swear if I had a dress I’d wear one, but I don’t own any. I look totally gross in them. My knees are all knobby.” I had no idea what that word meant, but I’d heard other girls use it when they talked about their knees. Better she thought I had ugly knees than knew how really wrong I looked in dresses. Like if Nancy started wearing jeans and flannel shirts and packing a pistol above her crack, it would just be wrong.

  “Such a different world,” Grandma said, and looked over at my grandfather. He’d sat down cross-legged on the lawn. We walked over to him.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said again.

  “Forget it, pumpkin, I can’t stay mad at you on your graduation day, can I? Now, give me a hand.”

  Together, we lifted my grandfather up and put him in the backseat of my car. They would ride with me to the ceremony; Jack and Nancy could deal with everyone else.

  On the way to school, still feeling like shit, I asked Grandma to tell me about Nancy’s graduation. A million times I’d heard how Nancy had to return for it since she had already finished classes and enrolled in City College, where she met Jack. They fell in love, and within a year, had married and moved into their own apartment in the Bronx. They’d spent most of the sixties there. Grandma loved telling that story. Somehow it meant she’d raised her daughter right.

  At school, I helped them out of the car, and we waited for Jack to pull into the parking lot. Grandma said it was a lovely day. Grandpa took out a wad of chewing tobacco, placed it against his cheek, then tipped up his felt cowboy hat. Since he stopped remembering things he’d been acting more and more like a cowboy. Grandma went along with it so he’d be comfortable. She rented videos of old Westerns and wore silk rodeo shirts. Called him Hog. It was like they’d created a whole new life. You could do that in the West, she said.

  When my parents showed up, I split for the picnic tables to have a cigarette before the walk. A few little kids laughed on the swings behind the fence. I watched them kick their legs in the air and flutter, looking like they might catapult into a sky bluer than Nancy’s eye shadow. They couldn’t have been more than five or six years old, so young it wasn’t even clear whether they were boys or girls, and no parents in sight. I wanted one of them to fall, then felt guilty about it. I could always shoot their parents. I sat down and lit a cigarette, looking across the parking lot at the redbrick compound. After today I’d never have to come back again. It didn’t matter. I was headed for buildings just as ugly. We’d visited Syracuse a couple of months earlier, and the dorms reminded me of projects. Inside everyone wore argyle socks.

  I put out my cigarette and quickly stood, feeling queasy and light-headed. I didn’t want to go to graduation, didn’t have to, but what else could I do? If Edie’d been with me things might have been different. But in almost a year she hadn’t said one word to me. Of course she was the first person I spotted by the auditorium, where we were lining up for the march outside. She wore sunglasses and red lipstick. My pulse increased as I approached her, the entire senior class plastered against the wall around us. She turned her head toward me, and my heart raced. I smiled. She looked away. A teacher screamed through a megaphone: “Two minutes and counting! Everyone get in line.”

  “Edie,” I said.

  She didn’t move. There was another amplified sound I barely registered. More people rushed into place. My feet were stuck in plaster, my skin falling off with each silent second. I said her name again. She was about to turn when Belgrave came by. “What are you doing out here? Get back in line.”

  He led me back between Gavin Solomon and Donna Streeter, then shuffled away. I was self-combusting beneath my gown, so wet I hoped the gun didn’t slide down my leg. It would suck getting caught with a gun just before graduation, but it was the only thing separating me from the rest of them: part of the who that made me. There goes Lillian G. Speck and she’s armed so don’t fuck with her. I once heard a song about a homecoming queen with a gun who shoots up the school and embarrasses her friends. Bunch of wimps. But before I could remember the words, we started moving like a giant snake toward the side doors and outside to the bleachers. I spotted Gustave in the audience standing next to Jack with a small video camera in front of his eye and tried to motion for him to stop. He just smiled as we filed into the bleachers. I kept wishing I could disappear before I had to stomp down and pick up my diploma. And it was a long wait. There were speeches by a couple of teachers and two classmates I’d never seen before, and I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if I jumped up and started shooting like the girl in the song, though you lose points if you’re not homecoming queen or valedictorian or voted most likely to succeed by the yearbook staff. Where is the irony in the “class nobody” shooting up graduation? So I stayed put, baking in the sun and counting the passing cars on the road behind the football field, until, finally, one of the teachers told our row to stand and walk slowly down the bleachers so we’d be there when the principal said our names. A few people whispered, and I hoped I wouldn’t pass out or trip when I got to the principal. She called Edie’s name and my spine tingled watching her flip Edie’s tassel and smile. A lot of kids screamed and swung their diplomas in the air. Edie just grimaced at hers, as if she were wondering what to do with it. I wished she would tear it to pieces. The old Edie might have.

  When I made it to the principal, I heard Jack scream my name. He wanted me to smile for the camera. It was mortifying. I couldn’t imagine how you dealt with it all the time. Maybe that’s why you were pulling your hair out. We were going to have a lot to discuss later. Somehow I managed to get back to my seat without falling, and before I knew it, the ceremony was over, and I was a high school graduate. Everyone threw their hats in the air and headed toward their families. I found mine, which had grown to encompass Gustave, Pamela, and a couple other friends of my parents from the city. They were all talking to one another and barely even noticed I’d come up. I tore off my cap and gown and sat down next to my grandfather on the grass. His hands were covered in dirt, and the ground next to him looked like it had been attacked by cows with frenzied eating habits. “Want some chew?” he said, and held out a handful of grass. His shirt stunk of fertilizer.

  “Oh, Grandpa.”

  “Hog, what are you doing? That’s not your tobacco!”

  Grandma lifted him up.

  “I’m just sharing the field with this lovely lass.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “My granddaughter … what grade are you in?”

  “Twelfth.”

  “The twelfth grade! How did that happen so fast?”

  “I know, she is so grown up,” Gustave said, camera in hand. “Stand with your grandpapa and wave … say cheeseburger …”

  “Peace,” I said, but made a gunlike sha
pe with my thumb and forefinger: revolutionary and pacifist.

  Nancy burst in next to me. “Hey, Lily, guess who I just saw.”

  “Turn to me, Nancy, over this way.”

  “Hi, Gus,” Nancy waved. “Welcome, everyone, to Lily’s graduation. At first we were afraid it might rain, and we’ve got the backyard set up for a party, so that was upsetting, but it’s turning into the most beautiful day. And I just ran into Lily’s friend, Edie.”

  “You what?”

  “She was with her mother and her boyfriend, I think his name is Robert. He’s going to Harvard in the fall.”

  “I know who he is!” I snapped at her, although I didn’t. I couldn’t believe Edie had a whole other life.

  “I invited them to the party, but they were all having lunch in the city. Edie said to say hi and congratulations. Gussy, can you follow me? I see the Huberts over there. I’m trying to get them to list their house with me. Let’s see what they have to say on tape.”

  Gustave took his camera and followed my mother over to another group of people chatting away beneath a bursting green tree. I was steaming mad at her for talking to Edie about me. But she’d said to say hi. She probably wanted to talk before the ceremony, probably wanted to tell me about the new guy, and I would tell her all about Bobby, even though he’d warned me not to. She had to know about him; he turned out to be such a jerk. We had the whole summer ahead of us.

  “I’m hungry,” Grandpa said.

  “There’s tons of food at home,” I said.

  “Let’s get a move on then, young lass.”

  I wrapped my arm through his, and with my grandmother next to us, steered him toward my car, promising steak and champagne for lunch.

  “Yee-haw!” said Grandpa Hog, and we laughed, excited for the party, although I’d already received the best graduation present I could have asked for: Edie and I were going to be friends again.

  My entire family left for the Hamptons the next day without me. I’d told Nancy that Tabitha had called and wanted me to work. Nancy said she was proud of me for ushering at the theatre, and I assumed she was zonked on Valium or some of the other pills I’d been snatching from her hiding place, most of the soothing, calming variety. She was queen of the quiet interlude. “It’s nice to see you actually doing something,” she said. I never told her you were in the play. That was between the two of us. Instead I dropped a few stories about the theatre people with their quirks and superstitions. The last time I ushered, Tabitha had me pace three times around the lobby, holding the director’s dirty socks. She said it was an offering to the theatre gods. If we circled before every show, they would extend the run through the end of July. Jack sneered and said it was bunch of B.S., but I wasn’t sure. I liked that they created their own beliefs, no matter how silly they seemed to other people.

  As soon as my family hit the highway, I called Edie and left a message on her machine. I told her it was great seeing her at graduation and said I wanted to hang out this weekend, then set about waiting for her to call me back. There was plenty to keep me busy. I had two weeks of World taped and had barely seen any of it. Since the play started it was hard watching you on screen when I could see you in real life, although we all saw too much. The more I sat through that second act, the more convinced I was you shouldn’t have agreed to take your shirt off. How could anyone take you seriously after that? I decided to draft another Brooke Harrison PSA, this one about your career.

  I took my colored markers, charcoal pencils, chunky eraser, sketchbook, and a stack of empty storyboard panels, and spread everything out on the kitchen table. I was hungry but sick of eating. There was so much food in the house since my graduation party, I couldn’t go five minutes without someone, usually my grandmother, asking if I wanted a piece of chicken, mozzarella and tomato salad, white asparagus spears, goose-liver pâté, and if I said I wasn’t hungry she complained I didn’t eat. “Grandma, look at me.” I bunched up a couple of rolls of stomach skin. “Does this look someone who doesn’t eat?”

  “You need protein,” she said. “And a banana for potassium. If you promise to eat a banana a day I’ll be happy.”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  A bunch of almost-ripe bananas beckoned from the counter, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat one. Food had a way of settling me down and I needed to keep my energy up for Edie’s call. The coffee pot was still plugged in, so I poured a cup of jojo—Jack’s word for coffee. It was cold and stale. I added some water and reheated it in the microwave. Five tablespoons of sugar made it almost tasty. I took the mug to the kitchen table. Lying in front of me was my sketchbook, its covers expanded so it looked like the mouth of a whale; over the years I’d jammed it with newspaper clippings, stickers, pieces of loose-leaf paper with drawings I’d done in class, pages of heavier paper with charcoal drawings, stuff from your fan club, the trip to L.A., and, early on, anything I could find about Delta Airlines. Blair had said, Whenever you draw you’ll think of me, but the more I filled the book the less I remembered. I ran my fingers over the cover. What used to be hard and shiny as brand-new asphalt was cracked and faded like the neglected streets around the theatre. It barely had any heft to it as I turned the cover and the first page, the one that said Lillian Ginger Speck in bubble letters, popped up on its own. I hadn’t looked this far back in a while. The drawings were terrible: airplanes and stewardesses and pencil sketches of the boarded-up guest house, all before I’d met Mickey and learned about color. There were even a couple of pages of pressed leaves from the oak in front of Blair’s, the one that came down with the house to build the swimming pool hardly anybody ever used. Flipping the pages, my throat felt bitter and pasty, and the coffee raged through me. I had a sudden urge to tear out the beginning, erase everything about her. She’d deserted me, why should I be stuck with the memories? I reached around my back, checking for the gun. Still there. Nobody could fuck me. If I ever saw her again I’d pretend I didn’t know her. I nuked another cup of jojo, then turned to the empty section in the back and started thinking.

  I always began with the book. Talking to you on paper. “Brooke, you’ve made a disastrous career move, flashing your tits like some tacky bimbo. I’ve got to get you back on track, show you what’s important.”

  Okay, but I’m not sure I want to see it.

  “What am I supposed to do? Stand by and watch you ruin your life? I don’t think so.”

  I don’t know what you can do at this point.

  “Let me show you.” I broke down the page into four panels and drafted a moral: no more nudity.

  Okay, that’s the easy part.

  “Be patient.”

  Drawing was a long, revolving conversation. The only time I could lose myself (other than when I was watching WorldWorld). Forget the rumblings in my stomach, my runny nose, the burst of cold air streaming from the vent above my head, why Edie wasn’t calling. She was probably with him, Robert Whatever who’s going to Harvard. It didn’t matter. I had my own stuff to do. By the time I looked up it was 9:14. She really should have called. I tried her house again, but nobody picked up. We could have ordered a pizza and hung out watching World like we used to. With everyone gone, this damn house felt like an empty theatre. You could hear the wind rattling beyond the windows. I went upstairs and took a couple of Nancy’s quiet pills from the tissue holder in the bathroom. Waiting again, now for the pills to take effect, I turned on the makeup mirror and smoked a cigarette in the different shades of light. One switch had me in a bar, the next outside, another in an office. Each was somebody I might be, in the future maybe. I liked me best in dark lighting. It hid the tiny red veins and made me sort of tan. This was how we should meet.

  After a few more cigarettes, I decided to drive by Edie’s. It was a balmy night. Everything looked the same but softer, and slightly twisted. Like those mirrors at carnivals where I looked like myself but really tall or skinny or stumpy. I made it to Edie’s in no time and sat for a while listening to the tape I’d made the da
y before: one song recorded a few times in a row—a ballad that reminded me of Edie. I was going to play it for her, before we talked about guys. I closed my eyes and sang along. My shoulders shook with the singer’s words. He repeated a line … and you give yourself away, and you give yourself away … and I felt it so deeply I realized it wasn’t Edie he was singing about, but you. You had to stop giving yourself away, Brooke. I was trying to help you. The whir of a passing car jolted me, but it didn’t matter. Edie wouldn’t understand. I turned on the ignition and headed home as fast as I could.

  FOUR OF US SIT AROUND A METAL CARD TABLE: me, Jack, Nancy, and my new lawyer, Ms. Davina Moore. A big piece of granite hangs from a silver chain over the black V-neck sweater, exposing her soft caramel skin, and her dreadlocks are carefully bunched on top of her head. I see her through my parents’ eyes, not what lawyers are supposed to look like, and wonder if she’s got half of Brickman’s killer instinct. Whether that matters. The thing is, I had no idea she’d be black but now I know it couldn’t have been any other way.

  She’s explaining to Jack and Nancy what happens if I change my plea. Very calmly she tells them there’s a new kind of defense, something like insanity but you’re still guilty. It was invented after the guy who shot the president got off on insanity. People said it’s not fair, this guy’s guilty as sin, who cares if he’s nuts? Enough people that they changed the law. The thing is—and I said this to Davina at our first meeting—I’m not crazy. Have a look at my loony tests: The shrinks declared me to be of exceptional intelligence, hyperaware of my environment and my actions. Davina said don’t worry, she’ll order new tests. You can make people say whatever you need them to say. But I’m not crazy, I repeated, and she said, “I know.”

  Now she tells my parents it’s all a game. Our job is to determine the best way to play.

  “This is a waste of time,” Jack says. “Brickman’s got all of this figured out already.”

  He’s upset about losing Jonathan Brickman. The shark. He can’t understand why I’d fire his guy in favor of the woman with big jewelry and dreadlocks. “Why don’t you tell me how this is supposed to work, then?” she challenges my father.