by Ryan Schow
“Margaret, you sound like a freaking salesman,” I say. The room falls into silence, then: “Where?” When your entire life gets upended and the precious few good feelings you have shake loose, you tend to speak in incomplete sentences.
“Just outside Sacramento. In the Sierra foothills. Totally private. The paparazzi won’t bother you there. No one will bother you there.”
Things move and clear in my mind. I’m realizing something. “How long have you two been planning this?”
“Margaret’s going to rehab and I have to wrap up version 3.0, so there won’t be anyone around to take care of you.”
“Do you ever stop to think maybe your priorities are twisted? That they’re all wrong? I mean, how can you even love each other? Do you love me?” Before either of them can answer, I say to my father, “Margaret’s a high-society burnout and you’re sending me away because you have business to attend to? Do either of you even know how to love anyone besides yourselves?”
“Don’t be so naïve,” Margaret snaps. “And I’m not a burnout.”
We all stand our ground, neither relenting nor advancing. Finally, realizing there is nothing to gain, I say, “I’ll be ready to leave in the morning. If you’ll be kind enough to provide me with an address, I’ll find my own way there.”
Margaret says, “You’re finishing the rest of the week here. You have to go to school. And don’t argue with me because you’re going.”
“No, I’m not.”
Margaret marches toward me, the full measure of her will pulsing heavy in some kind of warp-speed intensity I’ve never experienced before. Something dark and cruel balloons inside her: a toxic, unrelenting force. She’s in my face in an instant. “You’re going to school tomorrow like every other day, or I swear to Christ I’ll ship you off to the worst boarding school in the country, someplace where the paparazzi can film that big fat ass and those poor sloppy tits of yours over and over again to their heart’s content. You’ll be puking and crapping every day from the—”
“That’s enough!” my father roars. He never roars. He has never even raised his voice in my presence before. Tonight he looks poised to slap her. I wish he would. Gosh damn, someone should!
He starts to say something but I’m already gone. Already not listening. They can say whatever they want, but even though I’m standing right here, I’m not hearing a thing.
4
School is unimaginable. Everywhere I walk people fall into whisper. The weight of their stares, their judgment, their mocking, it’s an impossible burden. People who never looked at me before now show me pity. They laugh. They level me with hollow eyes. Are they looking to see if I’ve cracked yet? Oh, yeah, I’m cracking inside. Dying inside. My stomach empties itself out five times in three different bathrooms. Fourth period never even happens. Just before fifth period, Netty and I see Jacob Brantley and right then I consider ditching school for the first time ever. Netty holds up her pinkie finger as we walk by and Jacob’s friends totally lose it. They laugh as if it’s the funniest thing ever. His face blisters a deep red. He tells everyone it isn’t true, about his wiener, but this only gets them laughing harder. His humiliation is the only good thing to happen to me today. Sadly, this isn’t enough.
After school, me and Netty are walking toward our cars in the parking lot when a twenty-something redhead dressed in clothing too Rodeo Drive to be from around here approaches me. Her smile is genial, her teeth bleached to a blinding white. She says, “Are the divorce rumors true? And if so, how do you feel about this?”
Suddenly her press pass is out of her shirt and I can’t breathe.
“Who are you?” Netty asks.
“Sarah Stone, TMZ.” A camera man materializes to my left. Panic widens my eyes. I scoot closer to Netty. My eyes go to Sarah, then to the camera, then to Sarah again. Uh, help?!
Gulping down a breath, I fold to a surge of nausea and hold fast as an unexpected charge of anger blazes through me. All the pressure, this ambush…I want to punch Sarah Stone in her perfect, smiling face.
At this point, I’m not sure whether I’m going to become violent or pass out. I can’t stop seeing the camera. Or the microphone in my face. Before a single word escapes my mouth, my stomach makes an epic roll, squirms hard and charges up my throat with unstoppable force. I rush to the nearest garbage can and puke until my eyes water so bad everything looks washed in a soft, wet haze. Netty is beside me, gathering my hair in a ponytail. She’s done this dozens of times before. She’s well practiced.
In between my convulsions and upheavals she’s yelling at the cameraman to stop filming. She’s saying the kinds of words they aren’t aloud to use on network TV and I’m glad for it. I’m glad for her. At one point she even calls the redhead a two A.M. beauty queen with a face made for radio. Sick as I am, this actually makes me smile.
All Netty’s bravado, all her threats of violence, their net worth can only be measured in entertainment value. The damage is already done. By this time tomorrow afternoon, video of me blowing chunks will be everywhere. My caught-on-tape misery will make the rounds on the tabloid TV shows with the theme being the path I’m taking in life. Undoubtedly I will be compared to Margaret. The TV hosts will talk about genetic links to addictive patterns of self-destructive behavior, then they’ll pretend to be so sad for me. Of course, follow-up broadcasts will surely pose the question: Intoxicated at school or genuinely upset? Which is totally stupid considering I don’t even drink. Rather I didn’t. The way things have been going lately, I’m thinking it’s not too late to start.
After TMZ leaves and Netty cleans me up, I muster the courage to tell her about Astor Academy. My soon-to-be boarding school. All day long I’ve been terrified of how she will react.
“Why would you want to move?” she asks. I laugh at the absurdity of the question, but stop myself when I see hurt flooding her eyes.
Netty has a better life than me which is why things always seem easier for her. Except for her shyster dad—a boisterous Russian whose philosophy is “take from them before they take from you,” whomever “they” are. She is my best friend, but the truth is me being sent to boarding school while Margaret goes through rehab and my father spends even more time at work feels more like a blessing than punishment. But not to Netty. Her loss will easily overshadow my gain. This makes me sad, and now I’m back to the crying again, which is irritating because I’ve already cried too much this week.
“I don’t have a choice,” I say, sobbing. “My parents are sending me away.”
She hugs me, her bones wrapping my fat. “This Astor Academy, I’ve never heard of it.”
I wipe my nose and tell her she isn’t rich enough to have heard of it. She shrugs her shoulders, not taking offense.
Where we live, everyone has everything they want, so it doesn’t much matter who has more. Netty’s father bought her a brand new BMW M3 for her sixteenth birthday. She totaled it two weeks after she got it and already she has a new one. Netty asks when I’ll be leaving. I tell her Monday.
“But we just started our junior year. We didn’t make it all this way for you to leave now.”
“I know.” Knowing I won’t see her again for months, my heart actually aches. She is my only friend.
She pulls me into hug that nearly suffocates me, and then in her clunky accent, she says, “You’d better tweet me, bitch. Like, a lot.”
The Astor Academy
1
Somehow I manage to survive school Thursday and Friday, and when Saturday morning comes, my outlook is maybe better. Not so dismal? I’m not sure. With all the drugs I’m on, I can’t say for sure what I feel or what I’m being made to feel. All I know for sure is I slept six uneasy hours and now I’m more tired than ever.
Thinking about moving tomorrow sends something like a spark of excitement through me, then it’s pinched out. A cold, damp fog gathers inside my head. Honest to God, at this point in my life, I would give up entire body parts for one solid night of REM sleep. The kind
of sleep where other people think you’re dead. And clarity of mind? That’s a dream that just might become a reality if no one is around to force-feed me my meds. Maybe I should celebrate.
Again, I’m not sure.
Packing my things, I fantasize about my new life. Thinking about what lies ahead, I can’t help wondering about the people at Astor Academy and if they will like me. Then I wonder, will anyone like me? Inevitably my thoughts turn dark. I am chubby and ugly, totally unlikable. One of the idiots on Facebook actually asked Jacob if I had Down’s Syndrome. His reply: IT’S POSSIBLE.
What an asshole.
What began as introspective curiosity steadily descends into self-loathing teenage angst and before long the tears are flowing again. Right then, Margaret barges into my room and sees me bawling, and I’m thinking, this is just freaking great.
“Yeah,” she says, “like you have it so hard. You should feel my pain.”
“Go away, Margaret.”
“I have to dry out for the next week in some nasty rehab room and it’s going to be worse than hell while you stay at what amounts to a five star-luxury resort. I’ll be around junkies and losers and you’ll be surrounded by pretty people. I should be the one crying. Not you.”
“Pain is all the same,” I say, wiping my eyes. “It hurts.”
“You don’t know real pain.” Her condescending tone and this conversation feels all too familiar.
I draw a deep breath, swallow her cruelty like a bitter pill, then harden my resolve. With my most odious smile, I say, “You never had a heart at all, did you?”
“That’s not nice.”
“Everything that comes out of that hole in your face is not nice. You are not nice. You are a self-absorbed monster and I’m glad I’m leaving.”
“Stop it.”
“I hope whatever pain you’re feeling multiplies so much that all you can do is cry and think of ways to kill yourself and then, just maybe, you’ll understand what it’s like to be your fat, ugly daughter.”
Margaret stands inside my bedroom paralyzed in silence. If I grew feathers and sprouted wings, she would look less surprised. A torrent of emotions crash through me, weakening my propped-up resolve. My eyes sparkle with fresh tears that threaten to spill down my already tear-streaked face in a monumental display of weakness. I refuse to blink them out. With all my courage, I hold her eyes, unflinching. The moment she opens her mouth to speak, I interrupt her instead.
“Shut up, Margaret. Just close your disgusting mouth and leave.”
2
I cook myself runny eggs and toast and take them back to my room. For lunch I make a sandwich with fat-free chips and an apple. I eat that alone, too. I’m fully intent on eating dinner in solitude as well when my father insists we enjoy one last meal together. At the table, I say, “The Last Supper,” and I can see my father would have laughed if the truth weren’t so painful. Looking at Margaret, I say, “You can play Judas,” and now my father is not amused at all.
I haven’t tried to be funny in months, so imagine my disappointment when no one even smiles. Least of all Margaret. The way she looks like someone broke all her crayons, I actually feel bad for her. For like two seconds. Then, and maybe this is too cruel to say, but a very big part of me sees her hurting and feels selfishly triumphant. Like whatever pain she’s suffering right now, I really, honestly hope it gets ten times worse.
“Somewhere in my heart I know I love you, Margaret. I really want to show you, but you make it impossible.”
She looks at me, eyes like desert pebbles. “I know I want to love you, too. It’s just, well, you make it impossible, also.”
“You two are stupid,” my father says. “I love you both and it takes no work at all.”
“Then why are we all divorcing?” I ask.
“Because your mother has a problem. I love her but her addictions are affecting both of us right now. They’re affecting all of us. She has to get them resolved because things just aren’t working as a family. Plus, it’s important for you to be healthy and sane as you grow from a young woman into a mature adult. I think you’ll really like Astor Academy. You might even thank us one day.”
“You won’t need to wait for me to thank you. I’m leaving. This is the greatest day of my life, so thank you, dad. Thank you, Margaret.”
Margaret’s eyes flood, which takes my father and me by surprise, and something inside of me feels awful. Margaret’s officially swallowed a cup of her own poison, but her despair moves me because I’m really a decent human being who hurt her, and naturally, I don’t like to hurt people. I reach out to her, to steady her. She pushes my hand away. That chilled part of me that nearly warmed to her now ices back over. My thoughts crawl with profanity.
“Margaret,” I say, my voice glacial, emotionless, “please don’t make that ugly face at the dinner table, it makes you look old.”
She no longer looks vulnerable or hurt. The way her shimmering eyes now smolder from the back-handed comment, I could be Judas tonight.
3
Sunday. The big day. Margaret is supposed to take me to school even though I begged my father to take me instead. He says he needs to be at the office. So it’s me and the monster. On the way up north, she will wish me well, tell me to stay away from fatty foods and boys who pretend to like me but really don’t. After packing up Rover, after telling my beautiful SUV the monster will be driving her home, I head inside and find Margaret still in bed, depressed. Her hair is a ratted mess, her eyes like shrunken raisins set deep inside yesterday’s smear of eye shadow and mascara.
“My God, you look like a beaner Courtney Love right now,” I say. It’s not a kind thing to say because she thinks Courtney’s a crack-whore junkie, even though I love her and her amazing music. Especially “Letter to God.” I totally get that song.
“If that’s the last thing you say to me, and I die in rehab, will you be satisfied?” She speaks into the pillow, her voice muffled, scratchy sounding. I can barely understand her.
“Perhaps.” She offers me her screaming silence, so I say, “I’ll drive myself so you can get ready.”
“Already packed.” Packed for rehab.
“Yeah, but you look sooo bad. And you know the paparazzi will be there.” The words stick her like a fork in the face. She shifts in bed, pulls herself up and pushes the crazy hair out of her eyes. The effort it takes for her to crawl out from under the comforter and stand up looks historic. Just for good measure, I say, “The way you look right now, people would see the two of us and say I’m the pretty one.”
“Don’t be silly,” she grumbles, digging sleep-crusties from her eyes. “No one will ever say that.”
“Check the mirror, Courtney. Even the picture on your driver’s license looks way better than you right now.”
Margaret turns around, pulls me into her arms, and with her dragon breath says, “You’re my daughter and I’m going to be the bigger person here. Please try hard in school, and do your best to make friends, and don’t drink too much soda because you know sugar is bad for you.”
“Sugar is bad for everyone, Margaret. I know that already.”
“That’s my point.”
I want to hug her with love and devotion, with sadness in my heart and an ache to see her again even though I have yet to leave. Holding her close, though, I feel nothing. Her arms are rubber hoses slung around me, her head a stuffed animal on my shoulder. She is nothing, no one, inhuman. I can’t connect with her no matter how hard I try, which is disheartening. Even worse, with her so close and being nice, I still get no sense of her having a soul.
Moving away, I say, “Good luck with rehab.” My voice is flat, my face expressionless. My version of the Botox stare is the best I can do, but at least I can say I’m trying.
She turns around, pulls her t-shirt over her head, drops it on the floor and goes for the shower. I will never be that skinny, or that beautiful, but this isn’t what bothers me most. What makes my heart ache is the pain of not feeling lik
e I have a real mother. There is no convenience I wouldn’t give up to just once feel different. I would give up everything for her love.
She pulls off her sweat pants and before she slips off her underwear, I say, “Are you and dad getting divorced?”
She pauses at the question, then says, “I don’t know. He says he still loves me.” She pulls off her underwear and turns on the shower.
On my way out, I whisper, “Bye, mom.” She couldn’t have heard me if she were sitting on my shoulder.
4
Me and Google Maps usually get along like old friends, but when it comes to getting directions to Astor Academy, nothing shows up. Just groves of trees and some open space with a gigantic blacked-out square where the school should be. The words “No Satellite Coverage” glare at me. Fortunately the welcome packet my father gave me has directions. Of course, two hours later when I should be arriving, I get lost. With nothing but a tight road meandering through rolling hills and trees, I’m certain I won’t find my way back to the highway if I try.
How I end up at the school entrance is still a mystery to me. Talk about off the beaten path. A pair of closed iron gates stand before me, huge, black and imposing against the lush natural landscape. Beyond the gates, a single paved road winds through a grove of trees before bending to the left and dropping out of sight. I heave a sigh of relief. The school crest is engraved on a large metal placard welded to the gate. A metal-plated keypad and speaker stand to my left. I stab the call button and wait. A pleasant voice asks how she can help me. I kill Rover’s engine and tell her my name.
“We’ve been expecting you, Ms. Van Duyn. The gate will open in a moment. Please drive up front and park in Guest parking. I will meet you in the front lobby.”