Fault Line

by Janet Tashjian

  I’d have given fifty lifetimes to erase the worried expressions on my parents’ faces as they helped me unpack in my dorm room. I reassured my mom over and over that I’d be fine. She nodded and swallowed hard, hoping that would be the case. I knew what it was like to be on the back side of all that hope; I didn’t want to let her down.

  Before they left, I took a walk with my mom to Health Services. I led her to the bulletin board we’d seen on our first trip there last January I pointed to the card with the Dating Violence Support Group.

  “I promise you I’ll go to meetings,” I said.

  “I want more than that. I want you to promise that if you’re ever within fifty feet of another dangerous situation, I’m the first one you call.”

  “I can do that.”

  My dad—such a mushball—cried when they got ready to leave. One thing I realized in my bones now: when something happened to one person in the family, it happened to everyone. I owed it to all of us to keep it together. I told my dad we’d walk the labyrinth when I came home in November.

  He handed me a business card with the phone number of the best restaurant in L.A. “I used to work with Douglas, the chef. You call him anytime, he’ll take care of you. This place may be the restaurant to the stars, but no matter how crowded it is, you’ll always have a fine meal there, gratis.”

  Good old Dad, communicating the best way he knew how, with food.

  Christopher handed me an elaborate drawing he’d been working on with a design layout for my dorm room. (I’d given him a drafting set as my going-away present; I think it changed his life.) I picked him up, sat him on the hood of the car, and hugged him hard. I was going to miss this little guy.

  My mother handed me an envelope. Inside was a passbook to a local bank. The account was filled with several hundred dollars.

  “Money for incidentals,” she said. “Call if you need more.”

  “I’ve been begging for spending money my entire life—I leave the house, now you fork it over?”

  “You want to come home, I’ll have a ticket waiting for you at the airport the same day. If not, we’ll see you Thanksgiving.” She tied her scarf around her head as she climbed into the car. “But don’t even think about coming home if you haven’t performed. You get back onstage—pronto. That’s an order.”

  Mom—part mother, part foreman. I waved at the back of the car much longer than they were able to see me.

  When I returned to the dorm, my new roommate was there. She had a row of silver studs running up both ears, a nose ring, tongue and eyebrow studs, and a leather jacket with dozens of pins. She tore off her Discman and shook my hand.

  “Helen Talbot,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

  I loved the juxtaposition of the punk clothes and the preppy name. If I ever got onstage again, I’d work it into a routine.

  “Hope you don’t mind, but I went through your music. I was petrified I was going to have to live with some rabid Dave Matthews fan.” She held up one of my cd’s from the shelf. “I can’t believe you have ‘Wichi Tai To’! It is absolutely my favorite song of all time.”

  I looked at the cd in her hands—the anniversary compilation from Kip. I told her that song had been one of my old boyfriend’s favorites.

  “Old boyfriend, huh? Didn’t work out?”

  “It ended kind of badly,” I answered.

  “He might have been the biggest jerk in the world, but anyone who likes this song can’t be all bad.”

  “He wasn’t all bad. It’s one of the reasons it took me so long to leave.”

  She put the headphones over my ears and turned up the volume. I sat back on my bed and listened to the song Kip used to sing around the house, down the street, always with a smile on his face. It was a great song. For the first time in ages, I felt enough distance from Kip to be able to enjoy it on my own.

  Helen and I spent the afternoon sharing our favorite music. After that, she gave me an impromptu fashion show of her piercings and tattoos.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. “You don’t like to wear earrings?”

  I told her I hadn’t worn them in a while and that my holes had closed up. I stuck with the Hannah story, not wanting to get into the whole thing with Kip.

  She examined my earlobe. “You want me to pierce it again?”

  The doctor had said it would be okay to pierce my ear again a few months after it healed. Doing that suddenly seemed necessary, even important. Helen borrowed some ice from a student down the hall with a fridge, then took out a little suede pouch full of needles. She sterilized one with some alcohol. I winced when she slipped it into my ear.

  She took a post from her own ear, sterilized it, and inserted it into the new hole.

  “Just keep it in for a while,” she said. “Tomorrow it’ll be as good as new.”

  As I looked at my reddened lobe in the mirror, I felt like my freshman year might actually be starting off well.

  Registration was the nightmare everyone said it would be; even with waking up pre-dawn—which made me miss Abby desperately—I was shut out of every class I wanted. Comedy writing, full. History of comedy, full. Writing for television, full.

  This is how the universe screws around with you; this is how the world drags you kicking and screaming toward your fate.

  The only class remotely associated with comedy that had any seats left was Improvisation. I imagined the smile broadening on Abby’s face as she sat on her meditation cushion four hundred miles away.

  On the first day, I sat in the back of the room and hid behind my notebook. The teacher had a blond pageboy and dressed all in black—surprise, surprise. I figured it was the first class; we were safe.

  I was wrong.

  She made us write down random words on pieces of paper, which she proceeded to collect in an old hat. (Was this college or kindergarten?) She then took out the class list.

  The first name she called was mine.

  When I heard the words “Becky Martin” it reminded me of Rick introducing me at the club.

  “Becky Martin,” she repeated. “Take the stage.”

  I told her I didn’t have anything prepared.

  She looked at me as if I’d just said the stupidest thing possible.

  “This is an improv class. Of course you don’t have anything prepared.” She clapped her hands. “Let’s go.”

  As I walked past the rows of other students to the front of the auditorium, I tried to concentrate on my breathing. Difficult to do when you’re terrified.

  She stood in front of me and held out the hat. I picked a scrap of paper with the word “car.” I looked at her expectantly.

  “No instructions, no directions. Give me five minutes on your topic.” She pointed to the stage. “Go.”

  Car—brilliant! I could use my whole getting-your-license set. I hadn’t practiced it in a while, but even if I forgot some of it, I had a solid five minutes.

  I climbed the stairs, then stopped. What if I didn’t go with my planned set? This was supposed to be improvisation, after all. What if I trusted my instincts, really trusted them this time. What would I come up with then?

  “Ms. Martin, get a move on before I decide to grade you.”

  I took the stage.

  I had been through hell this past year, through emotional and physical betrayal I never could have imagined. I had survived. I’d stood in front of girls I didn’t know and bared my innermost feelings of fear and shame. It seemed silly to be afraid now, especially when I had such important stories to tell. It was time to pry loose the fear and move on.

  WHERE ARE YOU?

  I am here.

  WHO ARE YOU?

  Someone who lands on her feet.

  I took a deep breath and began.

  “My uncle Danny died when I was four. He left me his copy of The Canterbury Tales, his Beverly Hillbillies memorabilia, and an old Toyota to save till I turned sixteen. And his friend Delilah—I inherited her too.”

  I looked up just
in time to see a guy in the front row yawn.

  But the guy next to him held my eye; he was listening, waiting for more. It was about all the give-and-take I could handle right now, but that was fine. Maybe that’s the best I could do, connect with the audience one person at a time. I thought of the sign over my desk back home: IF LIFE GIVES IT TO YOU, USE IT. For once, it applied to so much more than comedy. I was creating a body of work; we all were. A lifetime of experiences to absorb, integrate, then move on from. Over time, I would transform the pain of my relationship with Kip into something positive.

  When I glanced at the teacher she was looking at me expectantly but with a smile. I’d learn to make the stage feel like home again, crafting jokes word by word, line by line. I would let the laughter heal me.

  In the meantime?

  I had an audience in front of me, waiting to connect.

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  A Note from the Author

  I was reading Naomi Wolf’s Promiscuities, in which she talks about being physically abused by her boyfriend while in high school. I was shocked; if a leading feminist—a strong young woman from an educated family—was being beaten by her boyfriend, what chances did the average girl have? The very next day (I love coincidences) Harvard released a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association stating that “one out of every five” teenage girls gets physically abused by her boyfriend. When I talked to professionals about these statistics, most thought they were low. I knew then that this was a topic I wanted to write about.

  It didn’t interest me, however, to show a relationship in black-and-white terms. In Wolf’s book, she describes her boyfriend as a nice guy most of the time. This is one of the reasons why it becomes so difficult for girls and women to leave. I wanted to write a novel that showed how easily we blame the victim for the situation she’s in. I also wanted to show both parties dealing with the issue of abuse. As much as Kip’s actions are horrendous, he is struggling with his behavior too. Demonizing the perpetrator hardly begins to fix such a complicated problem. For me, it made more sense to try and understand him.

  In our culture, boys and men swim against a rushing tide of violence; girls and women often bear the brunt of their frustration and rage. Helping both parties heal themselves means eliminating violence in our society by its roots.

  We have a lot of work to do.

  Acknowledgments

  A humble and grateful thank-you to the young women and men who shared their stories with me. Thanks to Mike Nakkula and the others at the Risk Prevention Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Special thanks also to Russell Bradbury-Carlin and Steve Jefferson at the Men’s Resource Center of Western Massachusetts and MOVE for their information and honesty. Any students who haven’t seen the educational video Tough Guise should ask their schools to order it immediately. Also, the National Domestic Violence Hotline (800-799-SAFE) fields calls from teens twenty-four hours a day. On a lighter note, big thanks to Marianne Leone and Ray Ellin for their comedic talents, as well as to several Internet public domain joke sites. Ditto to Judith Souza and Liz Miller, my two favorite reasons for loving San Francisco. And to Mark Morelli, for twenty-five years of generosity, photos, and friendship.

  Copyright © 2003 by Janet Tashjian

  All rights reserved.

  Henry Holt and Company, LLC

  Publishers since 1866

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, New York 10010

  www.HenryHoltKids.com

  Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company LLC.

  First published in hardcover in 2003 by Henry Holt and Company

  eISBN 9781466822870

  First eBook Edition : May 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tashjian, Janet.

  Fault line / Janet Tashjian.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When seventeen-year-old Becky Martin, an aspiring comic,

  meets Kip Costello, she is caught in a mentally

  and physically abusive relationship.

  [1. Comedians—Fiction. 2. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction.

  3. Abused women—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.T211135Fau 2003 [Fic]—dc21 2002038888

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8063-6 / ISBN-10: 0-8050-8063-5

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

  First paperback edition, 2006