by Julia Swift
“So what do you think about Carmen’s, can you get out of being grounded?”
I can tell by her silence she either doesn’t know who Carmen is, doesn’t like her or has no idea about the grounding.
“She writes for the school paper.”
“I’ll figure out a way. I’ve always wanted to see what one of the houses on the hill looks like on the inside.”
She gives me a kiss and leaves me wanting more. We’re definitely a couple. Or at the very least, friends with benefits.
21
Sasha
My brother watches as I sneak into the house. I sit at the kitchen table next to him, suddenly aware I’m in the pajamas Dad bought me for my birthday. They’re my size, but they look like they were designed for a six-year old with cartoon characters and rainbows. If my dad knew I kissed a boy wearing my princess pajamas…
It was a long slow kiss, and it wasn’t planned and it wasn’t about getting more.
Mom appears in the doorway dripping, her bathrobe wrapped around her. I hate that bathrobe. It’s worse than my pajamas. It makes her look 80 and she’s not. She’s young for a mom, but she acts old.
“I’m trying to relax in the shower, the only five minutes of peace I ask for everyday, and all I can hear is you yelling. Sasha? What was that all about?”
I can’t think of a single answer that won’t get me in trouble. And I really need to see Will tonight. I need another one of those kisses.
“Now is not the time to pull one of your I’m-not-talking-to-you-Mom moments, push me, young lady, and see what happens.”
“I’m sorry we were loud. I was trying to get the last pancake and she was hogging it.”
My brother is so cool.
“How old are you two? I expect more, who knows why.”
Mom grabs the pancake from him and eats it. He looks truly pained. He can eat anything and not gain weight. He’s so lucky, at least about that. I never get to see him anymore now that he works at night, but since Mom let me stay home from school, we can actually have breakfast together, minus my dad who’s not talking to either of us. Which is ridiculous. My brother and I are good kids. He made one mistake, but he’s done with it, and I didn’t even make a mistake. I didn’t.
“You better get dressed soon honey, we have the meeting in one hour.”
I don’t look up at Mom. I don’t want to go. But I told Will I would meet him at Carmen’s.
“Lisa called and invited me over.”
My brother gives me a look. He knows I’m lying, he knows it was a guy.
“Lisa’s in school and the only reason you’re not is because we are going to the meeting.”
“I mean after school, tonight.”
“I’m pretty sure your dad grounded you after last night, for about…”
“Six months.”
My brother thinks he’s so funny.
“I’ll make you a deal, Mom. I’ll go to your meeting, if I can go to Lisa’s tonight.”
“No deal. We are leaving in ten minutes.”
I’m not opening my mouth in the meeting, not even to say hello.
*
“Hi there.”
I hold out my hand for the therapist to shake. She’s waiting for me to say hello. My mom answers for me.
“This is Sasha.”
The therapist is still staring at me, shaking my hand. She guides me toward her office.
“We’ve already started, so why don’t you stay out here, and Sasha and I will go in and join the group.”
My mom sits nervously on the couch. She doesn’t lean back or grab a magazine, she just stares at me as the therapist and I enter the office. Five very strange people sit in a circle. The therapist pulls up a chair for me. Oh great, I’m finally part of a clique, a group and this is it? I don’t think so. One freakishly thin guy picks at his fingernails, another guy stares at my chest. I slouch forward. The woman next to me smiles. She’s as old as my grandmother. There’s another woman, about 30, but I barely look at her because she looks infinitely bored with my presence and intimidates the hell out of me. The thin guy starts talking.
“I was in the elevator and it started to fall, you know, jump between floors. Suddenly I was back on the plane, we were falling and I couldn’t breathe.”
“Did you practice the breathing exercises we talked about to offset panic attacks?”
I try to sneak a glance at the bored woman, but she catches me. If I’m part of this group, I must be like at least one of them in some tiny way and I’ve decided it’s got to be her.
“I did like you said, and I don’t think anyone else on the elevator noticed. But later I had the nightmare again. I was trapped in the elevator, falling.”
As the freakishly thin guy continues, the bored woman rolls her eyes. I can’t believe how rude she is. Isn’t this supposed to be a safe place? Everyone stares at me. Oh no, did I say that out loud?
“This is a safe place.”
The therapist and everyone wait for me to go on, open up, bare my soul. But I didn’t agree to that. And I don’t know what’s in there anyway. I’ve got to find out first before I tell anyone, make sure it’s ready for public viewing. A therapist’s office is public, even if it’s confidential.
I look at the guy who was talking, putting on my most fascinated face, the one I’ve cultivated in school for years to convince teachers I’m totally present when I’m really far away, daydreaming. It works, he starts talking again, but I can’t get myself to daydream. I try, but he’s still talking about feeling trapped. And it’s like part of me wants to tune out and part of me is fighting back saying I don’t want to have that nightmare again tonight. I don’t want my heart to beat fast and feel like I’m not going to make it to morning. Maybe he has an answer. Listen you idiot. And I do and I’m not putting on the face anymore. He really is the most fascinating person I’ve heard talking in a long time because he has the same nightmares. Who would think this freakish guy would be the one to get me? Or, I guess he doesn’t get me because I’ve only uttered five words, but I get him and that’s something.
I’ve been on this search for someone to understand me for as long as I can remember. My parents don’t have a clue and my brother loves me because of the sharing the same blood thing and having to deal with my parents as a united front, but he doesn’t really get me. Lisa’s in the no clue department and Will seems to like me, but I don’t know what he’s seeing because it sure doesn’t feel like me. It’s a combination of the on-a-date-afraid-to-be-real me and the image of the girl who was dead. But it’s also about me understanding someone else and that hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so many years imagining what my perfect friend and boyfriend would be like. I’m always waiting for someone better to come around the corner. When do I know this guy is for real, or this friend is for real, and not just a standin like Lisa? I can’t walk into the party alone tonight, and I know she’ll go with me. Maybe if I wasn’t always with her I could meet new friends. But I can’t walk into parties alone. I don’t mean because people will think I have no friends, which is actually true, I mean I can’t physically make myself open the door.
Whenever I see someone walk into a party alone, I am so unbelievably impressed. It’s like my dream of an airport restaurant. Strangers enter alone, it’s okay, expected. They sit next to each other and talk. I was stuck in an airport alone on my way back from my grandma’s once, and I sat there for the full two-hour layover and watched other people talking to strangers at the restaurant. Someday I want to do that, but I can’t physically go there yet.
Some parts of shy can’t be willed away no matter how hard you try. But look at how much can. In the last week I’m shocked by what I’ve done. But no way can I walk into that party alone. Don’t forget, I’m the girl who swallowed the fly.
“Then the plane crashed, or so they told me. I still can’t remember that part.”
I was wrong. I’m nothing like this guy. I remember every second of my acci
dent.
“It’s okay, it will come back. Sasha, it looked like Ty’s story was affecting you, do you have something to add?”
I shake my head no. Therapy is not helping.
22
Will
Mom knocks on my bedroom door. Usually she just eavesdrops.
“Go away. I’m doing homework.”
She opens the door. I hate when she does that. I’m not going to look up at her. I’ll make her stand there, waiting. She’ll leave. Only this time she’s not. She’s still there, staring. I thought she wasn’t mad at me after the lasagna.
“What?”
“Someone’s here to see you. Actually, two people.”
At that moment, Griff pushes past her. I can’t believe my best friend from back home is here, it’s like when you’re dreaming and people who you know but don’t know each other are suddenly having a conversation. It couldn’t happen, it doesn’t make sense. Griff standing here doesn’t make sense.
“He’s the frosting, to sweeten the tough part.”
Dad’s friend Bill squeezes into the doorway behind her.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“You obviously aren’t listening to me or my rules, so I hazarded a guess you might listen to a guy.”
I get it, Bill’s the enforcer, here to dole out the punishment.
“And now that there will be four for dinner, I need you to run to the grocery store and pick up a few things.”
Mom hands me a twenty and a grocery list.
“I expect change. Bill, I’ll show you where you can put your suitcase.”
They disappear down the hallway. Griff and I bump chests, fists and skulls. Our usual greeting. Then we take off for the store.
“Okay, dude, you’ve only been here two months, what happened to get you into so much hot water so fast?”
“What did they tell you?”
“All I know is Bill called my parents, he asked if I could miss school for a couple of days because you really messed up and he thought I could help him get through to you.”
As we walk to the mini-mall, I bring him up to speed, tell him not only about almost getting arrested, but also how things have gone with Sasha.
“Is that it?”
“What do you mean is that it? That’s a lot.”
“I don’t know. From the looks on my parents’ faces, I thought you killed someone.”
Griff freezes, he didn’t mean to bring up death.
“So are all the malls outdoors?”
“Most of them. They don’t have to deal with the cold.”
“What about when it gets really hot?”
“See those tube-y things? They spritz you with mist, keeps you cool. Wanna see the weirdest thing of all?”
I’m walking along the sidewalk and then I step into the street right in the path of an oncoming S.U.V.
“Watch out!”
Griff can’t believe the car stops for me. They definitely don’t do that on the East Coast. I laugh.
“Hey, you’re never gonna believe who got suspended first week of school.”
We enter the store.
“Half the girls field hockey team. They put a box of garter snakes in coach’s office one day before practice.”
“No way, that’s awesome.”
“They had to forfeit the first three games because they didn’t have enough people to play.”
“You still interested in what’s-her-name?”
“Nah, keeping my options open. Did you know the family who moved into your old place has a kid in our grade?”
I didn’t.
“One time, I was on my way home and I zoned that you didn’t live there. I walked right inside like I used to.”
“No way!”
“It’s was weird, the house was exactly the same on the outside, but everything inside was in the wrong place.”
“Man, you’re a freak.”
“The mom just stared at me.”
“She was there? What’d you do?”
“I took off, pretended like I forgot something.”
Griff and I buy the food. I’m glad Carmen’s not working. On the way home, we pass by where Sasha had her accident, but I don’t say anything to him. It’s my secret with Sasha.
*
After dinner, I finish my homework as Griff showers, getting ready for Carmen’s party. Bill stops by my room.
“I hear you want to be a journalist.”
I ignore him.
“Your father wrote for his school paper, The Free Press. He always thought it was an ironic name because First Amendment rights aren’t protected when it comes to student papers. He never forgot those early lessons about reporting. Years later, a Colombian drug lord approached him when he was working on a story about how innocent people were being blown to bits by the Medellin cartel. It was gonna be a powerful, emotional story.”
Okay, he’s getting on my nerves, but I want to hear what happened. I don’t remember any story in Dad’s collection about a drug lord. I’ll listen, but pretend to do my homework.
“Your father didn’t even have to do any work to land the interview. The kingpin had been following him in the press. He saw what kind of stories your father wrote, knew if he talked to him, it could help his image. He invited your father down to Colombia. Your mom didn’t want him to go, but it was a story and potentially a great one. You father was offered a huge sum of money if he wrote about how this drug lord donated millions to help the poor. Your father wouldn’t take it.”
“How much did he offer?”
“Enough to build an indoor basketball court in your old house. Now your father could’ve taken the money, trailed the Colombian and published a puff piece. But he didn’t. Instead he wrote an exposé on the drug cartel’s use of bribery and violence to control the press. Your father wrote because he loved it. He felt it was his responsibility to report the truth. And he was a great man. But he put himself in danger. Nothing is worth getting hurt. What would your Mom do if something happened to you?”
“How’s Eddie doing?”
Eddie is his son I know he doesn’t talk to. His ex-wife won’t let him. Bill gets up from his chair.
“Think about it, kiddo.”
Bill exits as Griff enters from the bathroom.
“Are there gonna be hot girls at the party?”
“Definitely.”
“Just make sure to point out Sasha so I don’t go hitting on her.”
“You gotta do me one better. I kinda lied to Sasha about what happened with my dad, so she doesn’t know anything. No one here does.”
“Hey, whatever you say.”
As I shower and get dressed, I wonder if Bill knows where Dad’s notes are for that story, I never found them in his boxes. I head toward the living room where Bill is chatting with Mom.
“I talked to him, it’s not about Will right now. It’s about you.”
I stop before entering.
Bill takes a step closer toward my mom, puts his arm around her. Whoa, what’s going on here?
“Why don’t you apply for a job practicing law again?”
“I’ve got my hands full with Will, plus I’d have to take the bar.”
“So do it.”
Mom doesn’t answer. She doesn’t want to fight and the answer is no. Bill sits next to her, holds her hand.
“Are you happy here?”
I wait for Mom to push him away, tell him he’s a jackass, but she doesn’t. I creep back to my room, grab Griff and we’re out the back door, off to a party where things can only get better.
23
Sasha
I’m standing in front of Lisa’s door with a suitcase full of clothes. I’m glad we don’t live in a two-story house because I would’ve been afraid to jump, plus all the clothes I need for a Sasha fashion show crammed into my bag might have caused it to explode when it hit the ground. I’ve been throwing my own version of runway extravaganzas for years. I put on an outfit, walk downstairs, see my parents’ faces
and before they say anything, storm back upstairs to change. They always say I look fine, but I can see what they really think, especially Mom. She always thinks my clothes are too baggy. She’s much more of a show ‘em what you’ve got kind of a gal. I’m still hoping the best of what I’ve got is on the inside. Lisa is all about the outside, and if I’m going to a party, I have to look good because people go to parties to stand around and look at each other.
Lisa’s Mom opens the door and gives me a hug, that we-almost-lost-you-kind-of-a hug that reminds me about the accident and I don’t want to be reminded.
“I haven’t seen you enough around here lately.”
“Leave her alone Mom, we have to get going.”
“Carmen’s party... I can’t wait to meet your boy, Sasha.”
Lisa pulls me upstairs to her pink and purple room. Lisa is definitely a girly girl. It takes her two minutes to pick through my clothes and decide I should wear something of hers. She puts mascara, eyeliner and lipstick on me. I blot the lipstick and she’s annoyed.
“Why did you ask me to put makeup on if you’re just going to rub everything off?”
She has a point.
“Let Will rub it off with his lips.”
She’s so crude. I don’t like it when she talks about Will. But I don’t let her see because I need her to walk in with me, and the thought of Will kissing me, well, I forgot what I was saying. We have to get going. He’s probably looking for me at the party right now.
24
Will
“Will, slow down. What’s the big rush?”
I want to tell Griff that all I can think about is how my mom is not happy here and now Bill is putting the moves on her. But I don’t. Not that her depression would be a major newsflash, other people must sense it, too. Her old friends have pretty much stopped calling, and I don’t think she’s made any new ones. I know she’s probably going to want to date someone again when I go to college, but not Bill. That’s gross. It’s easier to ease up than explain to Griff. His parents are still alive, still together. They’d never cheat on each other. Griff’s lucky.