Buried

by Robin Merrow MacCready

  “Are you here to rescue me? Please?”

  “I was just out and wondered how you were doing,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’ve gotta save me. Dad’s smothering me with love. He wants to be sure I forgive him, so today is all about the family. Frisbee, burgers, and togetherness.” She tugged on my hair. “You look like your mom with your hair down. Come eat and we’ll make a plan.”

  I walked around back with her, Brandy licking at my hand. I wiped it on my pants.

  Mr. MacPhee stood up, spatula in one hand, soda in the other. “Claudina, my girl. Long time.” He gave me a kiss on the cheek and opened the grill lid with the spatula. He hadn’t called me that nickname in a while. I secretly loved it, even though I claimed to hate it.

  “Hey, Tomasina,” I said.

  “Ah, you remembered. Please join us. There’s tons to eat. Tons.”

  I waved to Mrs. MacPhee, who was on the chaise looking pissed off but glamorous in her Jackie Onassis sunglasses. She waved back but didn’t say anything.

  “Is your mom okay?” I whispered to Liz.

  “Shell-shocked, but she’ll be fine.”

  We got sodas and moved over to the patio. “So, Dad told us he’d been drinking more and now he knows it’s time to cut back. If the meetings aren’t enough, he wants to look into Jackson Heights, too.”

  The condensation on the can was slimy under my hand, and I wiped it on my jeans. “Yeah, you told me.”

  “Isn’t that great?”

  I took a sip. It was too sweet. “I need some water, Liz.”

  She fished for a bottled water in the cooler. “It went pretty well.”

  My hands were sticky with dog drool. I had to wash them. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and went into her kitchen. I filled my palms with blue liquid dish soap and let the water get hot before I rubbed my hands into a lather. I rinsed and did it again. Brandy panted at the door, strings of drool dangling from his jowls. “I don’t think so, dog.” I shook off the water and dried my hands with a paper towel.

  From the sink I could see into the living room, where Mrs. MacPhee had her collection of crystal figurines. I looked around the corner. My stomach did a flip, and I remembered a sleepover we had in that living room in front of the Christmas tree. The tree reached all the way up to the second-floor balcony.

  I heard Mr. MacPhee ask Liz to get the condiments, so I stepped back into the kitchen. She came in and got ketchup, relish, and mustard from the fridge. “What do you want to do after we eat?”

  “Anything,” I said.

  We spent the afternoon at the beach, sitting on the hood of the car, getting the last of the sun and hanging with whoever stopped by. But then Jenna Carver came over, and the energy changed. She was convinced that the three of us should go to the after-football-game party that her brother Jake was throwing at her house. Liz agreed, and they hopped in the car. “Come on, Claude,” Liz said. “You’re driving.”

  Out the open window, Jenna said, “Jake was awesome. You should’ve gone. They slaughtered them. Don’t you ever go to the games?”

  I shook my head and hopped in.

  Jenna said, “I love football. Jake’s going to introduce me to Ryan. You know, the quarterback? He’s hot. So hot.”

  Liz and I locked eyes. She looked into the back at Jenna.

  “Jenna, take a breath,” she said.

  Jenna giggled. “I can’t help it. I’m so pumped up.”

  “Oh my god,” I mouthed.

  Jenna hollered out the window as I pulled into her driveway. There were people pouring in and out of her house, and the music was pumping from speakers placed in the open windows. She hopped out and jumped on her brother’s back. “Jakey!” Liz was right behind her.

  I stayed in the car, hand on the key. My fingers wouldn’t move. Fear tightened my belly, and I looked behind me. Another car was blocking me in. I’d be blocked in.

  “Come on,” Liz called. “Her parents gave them the house for the night.”

  I shifted into reverse and backed the car around the oncoming car and out of the driveway.

  On the way home I kept the windows open and the music off. The trailer was dark and peaceful. The only light was the message light blinking. It was Liz and Jenna saying that a couple of guys wanted to know who the babe with the long, funky hair was.

  “They like the new look, Claude. Keep the lipstick. And COME BACK!” They hooted and whooped into the phone and hung up with a bang.

  I went into the bathroom and showered off the lipstick and everything else. In order for my hair to not look as kinky as Mom’s, I had to condition it a lot. I gooped it with an extra handful of Hot Body and wrapped it in a towel. While it soaked in, I painted Night Rose Red over my Seashell Pink toes and watched the History Channel. I rested my feet on the coffee table and closed my eyes. Whenever they shut, I saw Mom. Her shocked expression, her pleading eyes, her hair in clumps.

  I fumbled for the remote and turned up the volume. Beside my right foot was Mom’s toe ring. I touched my second toenail. It was dry. I slipped it around my toe. Cool. The silver was perfect with the red.

  I opened my notebook to my section of letters.

  Dear Mom,

  All of a sudden I can’t stop looking back. It’s like I cracked open a door and now memories are leaking out. Today without warning I remembered the birthday parties you ruined, and I keep remembering the way Mrs. MacPhee would make a big deal about my “special day” and I would come home with presents from her on my birthday. It’s true that sometimes you’d remember, but sometimes you didn’t. I never told you that she bought me those winter boots I had in fourth grade. I didn’t get them from the lost and found at school—the jacket either. Didn’t you think it was weird that Liz and I matched like twin sisters?

  Here’s something I forgot until I was at Liz’s today. You never knew that when I went over there, I took things from Mrs. MacPhee’s makeup drawers in the bathroom. I stole things, Mom. You never noticed the new stuff? The extra-fancy soaps in the bathroom? Soaps in different shapes, perfume samples, complimentary shampoos from the Marriott, a folding hairbrush?

  There is a shelf in their living room that has crystal figurines that Mr. MacPhee brought back from business trips for Mrs. MacPhee. There was a wren that was posed like it was going to take flight. Every time I passed through that room I checked on that wren. I was obsessed with it, and one night when I slept over, I stuck it in my pocket. No one noticed that I had anything in my pocket, and nobody noticed it was gone.

  I wish I hadn’t remembered that. I want to close the door.

  When I started stealing, I didn’t do it all at once. I took one thing each time, until one day Liz noticed that the rose-shaped guest soaps in our bathroom were just like the ones at her house. She trusts me so much that it doesn’t occur to her that I’d done anything wrong.

  I never did it again after the soap incident, and I buried all of it in the backyard so you’d never know.

  —Claude

  7

  I WAS ONE BIG ACHE when I woke up. I could have sworn I was the football player, not Jenna’s brother. My body was curled up, and I was on my side. When I remembered it was Sunday, I went back to sleep.

  I woke for real when light slanted onto my bedroom floor. That meant it was afternoon. Moonpie was at the front door, waiting patiently for me to let him out.

  It was when I reached for the door handle that I noticed my fingernails. They were dirty red stubs. Most of the polish was chipped off. Didn’t I just paint these? What had happened? In the shower I dug into what was left of my nails until it hurt too much to clean them. Later I could use a nailbrush on them, and then all I’d need is a little more polish.

  The phone rang while I was drying off. I let the machine pick up. It was Liz and Jenna telling me everything I’d missed, and did I want to meet at the beach to play Frisbee with the football team? I walked to the machine and clicked it off. It sounded like a nightmare.

  I
spread the application out on the kitchen table again and looked over the first five pages. The sun glared at me through the kitchen window. I pulled the shade. The first page was done. The second page wanted my school history and my grades. That was easy: straight As. I reread the first page:

  APPLICANT: CLAUDINE MARIE CARBONNEAU

  ADDRESS: 2 SEA SPRAY ACRES, DEEP COVE, MAINE BIRTHPLACE: PORTLAND, MAINE

  I sat down and put the papers in order. I left the space for FATHER empty. I finished Mom’s information the best I could.

  MOTHER’S NAME: SERENA MARIE CARBONNEAU

  A space for Mom’s birthplace was next. It was someplace in Wisconsin or something. That doesn’t mean it was her home. She and Grandma moved around a lot.

  I set the five pages back in their folder and lifted the kitchen shade. The sun pierced my eyes, and I turned away. I pulled every shade in the trailer and made it dark, like when I was young—shades drawn, and only fingers of light touching the rooms. If there’d been blue, hazy cigarette smoke hanging in the air and Mom at the kitchen table, I’d be twelve years old again.

  I needed to do the essay, but instead I wrote to Mom.

  Dear Mom,

  I almost went to a party yesterday—for about two minutes. I just about threw up and all I did was smell the beer. No, all I did was SEE the beer. I ran home to Moonpie. I ran, but not like you do. I think my running was a good kind of running away.

  Your running away is just a geographic cure (as they say in group), and soon you’ll be tired of Gary. You know how I preached to you and you never listened? Well, get this—it’s important. The geographic cure really isn’t the best thing, you know. People who run away just to escape their problems are only half right. They KNOW they have a problem and that they need to get away from it. BUT they move WITH the problem instead of leaving it. They carry it with them, on their backs, along with all their luggage. You know why? The problem is more than the six-packs they left behind in the fridge or the guys they’re running from. The problem is inside them. Their souls are sick, and you can’t leave your soul behind in the fridge or pour it down the drain.

  The books say you need to start by admitting you have a problem and then you need to work from the inside out. There are six-packs all over America, and Gary isn’t going to save you from that. This is just denial in a big geographic, cross-country way.

  Mr. MacPhee is thinking of going to Jackson Heights. It was my dream for you to do rehab, but now it won’t happen, and it’s a little weird that Liz’s dad is going to the place I said you’re at. Not just weird, but wrong. It should be you going there, not him!!

  Damn you, Mom. It could’ve been you if you’d just tried a little harder.

  —Claude

  8

  AT SCHOOL I COULDN’T PAY ATTENTION to Mr. Springer, and Liz kept poking me.

  “You look sick, Claude. What’s wrong with you?”

  I pushed my hair back from my face and looked at the board. Springer had made a graphic organizer of a poem. It was in the shape of a tree.

  “Claudine, you’re good with these things. What’s your input?”

  Wisps of hair floated down again. They weren’t really wisps, but greasy strands. With a shock I realized that I hadn’t showered that morning. Had I taken one yesterday? I couldn’t remember. Yesterday I’d shut the shades and stayed inside. My face flamed red.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Springer,” I said.

  “Were you listening?”

  I nodded. While he went on about how each word balances on the next, I wondered where I’d been. I knew I’d worked on my application and written to Mom. Did I go to bed? Of course, here I was. I looked at my shirt. I’d worn it yesterday.

  Mr. Springer’s voice reached into my thoughts. “There’s nothing wasted, not one word. Each one is as important as the rest,” he said. “Now, what about the other poets? Do you feel the same way?”

  I tried to pay attention, but all I could see were the greasy strands that dangled before my eyes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the group called out names like when I was little. Hey, Stinky!

  I squeezed my hands tighter. My knuckles turned white, a contrast to the dirt in the creases. A shot of adrenaline spiked through my body. My hands were dirty. I curled them into fists and stood up. “Excuse me,” I said, weaving in and out of the tables toward the door.

  The halls were empty, so I ran to the girls’ room. Mirrors don’t lie. What happened to me? My hair was my best feature, and now it was skanky. I finger-combed my long hair and twisted it into a neat knot. Under hot water, I scrubbed my hands and dug the dirt from under my nails. My skin grew redder under the hot water and the school soap stung, but the pain meant it was cleaning out the germs. I held my cupped palms under the powerful stream and planned the shower I’d have when I got home. I’d run it steaming hot and get out all the puffs and scrubs and every kind of body wash we had. I’d breathe deeply and cleanse my lungs, too.

  How could I forget to take a shower? It wouldn’t happen again. Never again. I’d put a Post-it in every room if I had to.

  The girls’ room door swung open, and Liz came in. “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, fine,” I said, adding more soap. “I must’ve overslept.”

  She scrunched up her face—her confused look.

  “I didn’t get a shower. Just wanted to wash up a bit.” I splashed my face and blew out a long breath. I wiped the steamed-up mirror with my hand. Better. My reflection was more alive.

  Liz turned off the hot water. “Jesus, Claude, you’re gonna burn yourself.”

  She looked at me like I was crazy.

  “I’m better now,” I said, taking a paper towel and patting my hands and face.

  She followed me out. “You’re being weird. Weird!”

  As we came in, Mr. Springer said, “Tomorrow’s the test. Be ready.”

  I opened my notebook with a smack. Test taking was a snap. Ace in the hole.

  “You’ll answer a few questions in essay form, do some matching, fill in the blanks, and I’ll have some extra-credit opportunities,” he said.

  I arranged my notes across my desk and sat waiting.

  Liz stood up and hoisted her backpack over her shoulder. “What are you doing? The test is tomorrow. Time for group.”

  Lydia sat forward in her chair. Her auburn hair splayed out over her shoulders, reminding me of the seaweed that washed up on the shore of Deep Cove.

  “I was thinking about Liz’s term, the Pleasure Zone. I like the way it describes her dad’s misconception about his alcoholism. And I want to tell Liz and Claudine how I admire that they’re talking about it in their homes. That’s an opportunity not everyone feels they have.”

  I felt myself flush deep red, and I wished I was home in my shower cleaning off the crud that showed. My hair was pulled back, but it was greasy.

  “You know, I have my own Pleasure Zone,” Matt said.

  “Ooo, and don’t I know it,” Deb said. She cracked herself up and had to turn away to get it together. I took the opportunity to force a deep breath and breathe it out slowly. I picked at my nails and focused on the shiver it gave me as I peeled away the ends of my thumbnails.

  Matt stuck out his long legs and crossed them. “You wish, Deb. But if you play your cards right . . . maybe.” He winked at her. “But I really do have a Pleasure Zone, and it’s not what you think. It’s when Dad’s doing his thing—drinking—and I’m doing mine—ignoring it. It’s fine. We accept it all without making it a big deal, but it’s not real. In the back of my mind, I know it can’t last. I know it’s coming. It’s building, and pretty soon, BAM!” He smacked his hands together, and I jumped in my seat. “Sorry, Claude. I guess you know what I mean.”

  “No,” I said, too fast and too defensively. Everyone turned and looked. I was red in the face again.

  Blake said, “So the Pleasure Zone is a perceived control.”

  Chris laughed. “Man, you’re such a geek.”

  “He
’s right,” Deb said, “exactly right. It’s like after a big fight and you’ve made up. Things are balanced just so, but you haven’t really talked it out. You think it’s all fine again because it looks good on the outside, but things can only last so long that way before, BAM! You have to deal with it all again.”

  Feet shuffled, positions changed, and throats cleared. Silence grew until Lydia asked, “So why doesn’t the Pleasure Zone work?”

  “It’s what Matt said,” I said. “You know something worse is coming.”

  “Did you know your mother’s relapse was coming?” Blake asked.

  I looked up in shock. “It wasn’t really a relapse. Not like the others.”

  That was a lie. It was exactly like the others.

  Liz turned to me, and I felt her gaze on me.

  “It was worse because I thought she was recovered.” A lump rose in my throat.

  Matt nodded to me and looked away.

  Steam rose from the bottom of the shower stall, and I was wrapped in a blanket of clean, warm clouds. My face flushed, but it wasn’t from shame, it was from the purge, the filth oozing from my pores. The water pounded me clean, and I watched all of the grease from the day whirl down the drain.

  There had been a commercial when I young that sang about the squeaky clean sound you get from clean hair. I washed my hair over and over until I got that sound and then I washed it again and again. I washed it five times and then conditioned it. I held my palms out to see if I was done. My skin was pink and my fingers were tender prunes. A new beginning.

  As I dried off, Matt’s voice echoed in my ears. Even though I hadn’t wanted to listen today, something replayed, uninvited. Does everyone have a Pleasure Zone? What about Mom and me? Ours was always the summer.

  I wiped the steam from the mirror. I combed my hair out and didn’t like what I saw. The hair that had hung in my eyes today had to be cut. Without giving it another thought, I took the scissors from the shelf and snipped straight across. There. Now I had bangs. The frizz at the ends? I lopped off a couple of inches, and it was gone. I set the scissors down on the shelf and went to find Post-its.