by Laura Ruby
“Can I help you, miss?” one of them says.
The girl barely glances at him. “I don’t think so.”
Another says, “How about your number?”
She rolls her eyes and keeps walking. The guys’ smiles get tight and fake. I don’t know what they expected, or maybe she did exactly what stick figures with boobs always did to them. Either way, they’re mad and looking for someone to take it out on. Their eyes find her, carefully hanging plastic packages on hooks. They glance around, probably making sure there’s no manager around to stop them.
Then: “Hey, Patrick. Wanna go out sometime?”
She doesn’t answer, but even from where I’m hiding I can see the blood that burns in her cheeks.
“You’re sooo hot,” says the one who asked for the stick girl’s number. “Do you do three-ways?”
Chelsea lifts up her head and glares, which only makes them snicker. And I guess here’s where I’m supposed to feel sorry for her, where I discover that she’s in pain, too, mocked by a bunch of angry, overcompensating woman-haters with hairballs for brains. And maybe I would have felt sorry for her if she didn’t drop the basket of adapters and stomp over to the Geek Force, dispersing them like bunny rabbits. If she didn’t see me crouched on the floor across the aisle, pretending to study the latest version of Grand Theft Auto.
Her eyes narrow, then she smirks. “Looking for something? We’ve got lots of computers with tons of memory. Great for watching videos on the internet.”
I shove the game back on the shelf and stand to face her. “My computer’s fine. It’s the psycho in my school who’s giving me all the problems.”
She breaks out in a grin. “Did you know there was an exhibit about digital art that day you and Mr. Mymer went to the museum? That’s what I was there to see. Lots of good stuff, but none of it went far enough, in my opinion. Sort of dead on arrival. Bland electronic imitations of two-dimensional art. I filmed them anyway; I’ve got a great camera and I know how to hide it from the guards. But none of it had the right impact. And then, there you were with Mymer. God. The look on your face! Pure desperation.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“You told the school board nothing was going on,” she says, thoroughly enjoying herself. “Why would you care what I put online? I mean, if nothing was happening.”
“Nothing was happening.”
“Sure. Whatever you say. I can’t help what other people will say about it, though.”
My whole body is buzzing, I’m so angry. I suddenly understand every bit of violence in every fairy tale I’ve ever read. The ovens, the axes, the cauldrons full of snakes and lizards and the urge to shove people into them. People always say there are two sides to every story, but I don’t believe that’s true. Not always. There are villains in this world who do terrible things. Why they do them is something else.
“Why?” I say.
“Because you’re a stupid slut.”
“Cut the crap.”
“Being a slut isn’t enough?”
In stories, the villains launch into their confessions, spilling their guts as soon as you ask the right question: I want to be the most beautiful in the land. I want to marry the prince. I want the throne for myself. I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too.
“We were friends for a long time,” I say.
“So we played hopscotch in the third grade. I’m supposed to feel bad?”
“You’re supposed to feel something.”
“You think you can do anything,” she says.
“Climb every mountain? Swim every sea?”
“Paint your stupid paintings—God, those paintings! They’re like pages from a bad calendar you get at the dollar store. And Mymer! You never shut up about him. Mr. Mymer loves my work. Mr. Mymer thinks I’m sooo talented.”
Did I say that? Did I lie? “He never even complimented me.” And now that I’m saying it, I realize it’s true. He talked to me, he encouraged me, he pushed me, but he never told me I was a great painter. Not once.
“All because you screwed him,” Chelsea’s saying.
“You screwed yourself,” I say. “There are actually laws against stalking.”
“Whatever. No one will be able to trace the site or the video or anything back to me, and every time your mother gets it shut down, I can get it back up somewhere else. To the police, I’m just a concerned student worried that my old friend is being abused, that’s all.”
“If you had that video the whole time, why did you wait until now to post it?” But even as I’m saying it, I know why. Because waiting until now just prolongs the fun for her, and the agony for me.
“You’re sick,” I say. “Something happened to you. What happened to you?”
“I told everyone that I’ll put the best comments in the piece. There are already hundreds of new ones,” she says, smiling evilly. “Everyone wants to be a part of my little video. I love reading them. It’s like the world’s best bedtime story. Puts me right to sleep.”
“Someone should do that permanently.”
She takes two giant steps forward and puts her face in mine. “Are you going to do it?” She pokes me in the chest. “With what? The power of your thoughts?”
She pokes me again. I grab her finger. She tries to pull away, but I’m locked down. She yanks harder, dragging me into the aisle with her. I don’t care. I’ve been punched by the best of them.
“Don’t you get it? You can’t win,” she says. Her breath smells bad, like something inside her died long ago. “You’re useless. What are you going to do, paint a picture?”
“What’s going on here?”
Our heads whip around to see a guy way too young for the enormous gut straining his Geek Force T-shirt. The white tag on his chest says CHUCK HUGHES: ASSISTANT MANAGER.
“I asked you a question. What’s going on?”
I let go of Chelsea’s finger. She takes a step back.
Both of us, in unison: “Nothing.”
“Looked like something to me. Chelsea? You want to explain?”
“We were just talking, Mr. Hughes,” she says.
He looks from her to me, raising his shaggy unibrow. I could do some damage here, I know, tell this guy that she wanted to beat me up, tell him that she wanted to sell me stolen televisions. But it won’t be the right kind of damage. And it won’t be enough.
“It’s like she says. We were just catching up. We know each other from school.”
“From school, huh?” He frowns. “You seem familiar to me. Don’t I know you?”
“No,” I say, turning to go. “People just think they do.”
Afterward, I have to wait in front of the corner department store for Mr. Doctor. He pulls up in his hybrid SUV.
“Thanks for picking me up,” I say.
He grunts cheerfully in reply. He puts the car in gear and drives. As I sink into my seat, I realize how much I love this car, the murmur of the engine, the whir of the fan, the radio. It saves me from attempting the smallest small talk, not that Mr. Doctor needs it. In Mr. Doctor’s car, you’re safe, even if it’s only for the time it takes to get where you’re going.
I ask Mr. Doctor to turn up the heat, and he does. All around us, the town glistens. Icicles hang from telephone lines, ice coats the trees. I wonder how the trees survive, weighed down like that. I wonder how they don’t break.
Mr. Doctor turns up the radio. His favorite talk radio show yammers on about the removal of a judge who threw forty-six people in jail after no one would admit to owning the cell phone that rang in his court. A Japanese man was arrested for releasing hundreds of beetle larvae inside an express train to try to scare female passengers.
And then this:
“In local news, a teacher recently exonerated by police and reinstated to his teaching position is again under suspicion over a video released anonymously on the internet. The teacher, Al Mymer, was investigated for an alleged affair with a student, but police found no evidence of the
affair. Last night, however, a video showing the teacher and the same student holding hands at a New York City museum café popped up on a website, casting doubt on the result of the police investigation.
“In response to this new evidence, Al Mymer released this statement:
“‘It is with great sadness that I resign my position at Willow Park High School. I was thrilled to be exonerated of all charges of wrongdoing and planned to return to my job, but it is clear to me today nothing will change the fact that my reputation, and the reputation of my student, have been permanently damaged. I sincerely hope she can get on with her life. And I will have to move on with mine. I thank everyone on the staff of Willow Park High School and the parents and students who wrote letters supporting me. I will miss you all.’”
My eyes water, but it isn’t the heat blasting from the vents. It’s my voice blasting from my throat.
“It’s my fault,” I say. “It’s all my fault. I was at the museum café. I was sitting alone. He just happened to be there at the same time, and he sat with me. He was always so nice. And I was…lonely.”
I stare straight ahead. I don’t know who I’m telling. The windshield. The ice-encased trees. The road.
“I touched him. Just his hand, and just the once, but it was me, not him. And only for a few seconds before he pulled away. He never told anybody what I did, but then I never told anybody what I did, either. At first, I didn’t say anything because I was embarrassed. And then later, I didn’t say anything because it all seemed so stupid.” I want to cry. I should cry, big ugly Madge-sized sobs. But I’m all locked up inside.
Mr. Doctor says what he always says: nothing.
Then Mr. Doctor opens his mouth. “I love to drive.”
I turn to stare at him.
“People think I’m crazy, but I love it.”
I sit perfectly still, wondering what the hell is going on.
“When I was young,” he says, “I used to drive and drive and drive, hoping that I would get lost.”
I’m still staring at him, but he keeps his eyes on the road. Mr. Safety, Mr. Doctor is, even now.
“But I never got lost,” he says, his voice heavy with disappointment. “I seem to have a compass in my head.”
He doesn’t speak for ten more minutes. Not till we’re turning onto our block.
“I could teach you, if you want.”
( comments )
“At first, I did stuff the way the other trolls did. Just for laughs. We call them lulz. You’d be amazed how many people you can freak out just by calling them on their bullshit. It was delicious. But sometimes I get tired of people not knowing who I am. Sometimes I want credit. That thing with the superintendent showed me that.
“It’s not trolling. It’s art.”
—Chelsea Patrick, classmate
“My first wife always wanted kids. But I said we had to wait. I was still in dental school. We had no time. We had no money. We lived in a studio apartment.
“So we waited. And then, right after I graduated, she was killed in a car accident. I think of her when I see Anita’s girls. They’re a handful, I guess, but I think that she would have liked them.”
—Dr. Anthony Baldini, stepfather
THE BATH
Grandpa Joe is sitting up and seems focused on what I’m saying, which I hope is a good sign. He’s dropped ten pounds he can’t afford to lose since he’s been in the hospital, but he manages a couple of bites of the cupcake that I brought for him. It’s a cupcake I found in my locker and saved especially for Grandpa. The doctors say every bite counts, and these cupcakes have an obscene pillow of buttercream frosting.
“More cupcake, Grandpa?”
“I think I’ve had enough for now.”
“Come on. When have you ever refused dessert in your whole life?”
“Maybe some water.”
I swallow my disappointment and carefully wrap the cupcake in a napkin in case he wants another bite later. Then I take the cup of water and hold the straw so he can take a sip. I wipe the drips from his chin with the sleeve of my favorite tattered sweater.
“Thank you,” he says. “What day is it? How long have I been here?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I tell him. “A couple of weeks?”
“I feel like it’s been a month. Or a year.”
“I feel like that, too, Grandpa.”
“Where’s Grandma?”
“Getting soda from the machine in the cafeteria with Mom and Madge.”
“Oh,” he says, and suddenly closes his eyes. Each time he does this, my heart starts to pound. Sometimes I run out into the hallway where they have the monitors for the whole floor mounted on the wall so that the nurses can keep an eye on the patients’ vitals. I watch to make sure that his heart is still beating, that the waves dart up and down the way they should, as if I actually know what that would look like.
His eyes flash open, and he tries to sit up higher in the bed. I’ve watched the nurses help him a million times, so I do what they do: I grab the sides of the quilted pad laid beneath him and use that to haul him up rather than tugging at his arms and at the delicate skin that hangs like swaths of wrinkled cotton from his bones. It’s harder than it looks.
“You’re getting good at that,” he says. I have to lean in close to hear him. “Wouldn’t think you’d be so strong.”
“I’m your granddaughter.”
“True,” he says. “So what’s going on with that teacher of yours?”
“Oh, nothing. He quit. He found another job, I think.” As I say this, my voice cracks. But Grandpa doesn’t notice. He’s closed his eyes again.
“How’s everyone doing?” my mom says from the doorway. Her voice sounds like she’s forcing it through clenched teeth.
“Okay,” Grandpa breathes. Grandma Emmy comes in and holds his hand. Madge paces in the background.
“He ate some of the cupcake I brought,” I say.
“Yeah, now he’s cured,” Madge mutters.
Mom ignores Madge. “That’s great, Dad.”
“I think I might have an emergency,” he says, trying to throw the sheet off.
“Let me get a nurse,” Mom says.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Grandpa says.
“It’s no problem,” says Mom. “Let me help you.”
“I don’t need help,” he says.
“Yes, Dad, you do. You’re not strong enough to walk on your own.” She suddenly notices me and Madge. “Give us some privacy, girls.”
Madge grabs me by the elbow and drags me from the room. When we’re out in the hallway, she says, “Nice going.”
“What do you mean?”
“The cupcake?”
“He has to eat,” I say.
“It goes right through him.”
I’m sick of Grandpa being sick. And I’m sick of Madge being Madge. I’m so sick of her that the sickness is a living thing, a spiked briar that twists up from my stomach and twines itself around my throat. “So we shouldn’t try? We should be like you and just give up?”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind.”
“I want to know what you mean.”
“No, you don’t,” I say. “You don’t want to know what anyone means. You just want to stay as miserable as possible. We should go outside and dig a hole so that you can jump in and get it over with.”
She glowers at me like a thunderhead. But I glower back—harder, fiercer—and for once she’s the one who drops her head first.
On the way home, the silence is truly glacial, a frozen crust even the hum of the engine and the yammering of the radio can’t cut through. The doctors are now giving Grandpa something to make food more palatable, and something to help him hold on to it, but if a cupcake isn’t palatable, I don’t know what is.
Mom drops Grandma off at her house. “Mom, are you sure you don’t want to come home with us?”
“I’m fine, Annie,” Grandma says. She’s the only one in the universe who
calls my mom Annie instead of Anita. Not even Grandpa can get away with it. Must be something about mothers. Mothers can get away with stuff presidents can’t.
“I want to be in my own house,” Grandma says.
“I can make dinner for you.”
“No, no, no. I’m not hungry,” Grandma says. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Mom—”
Grandma pats her roughly on the arm and scoots out of the car before Mom can say anything else. We watch Grandma march up the sidewalk to her door, her purse clutched under her arm like a football. If I know her, she’ll make herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and eat it with a pickle. Or she’ll forget to eat completely.
Mom sighs and puts the car in gear. She’s erratic on the road, slipping over the line here, drifting there, but we don’t mention it. We also don’t mention the fact that she scrapes the side of the garage with the car on the way in.
“How about breakfast for dinner?” she says once we’re inside the house.
I shrug. Madge shrugs.
“Well,” Mom says. “I want breakfast for dinner, so that’s what I’m making. Pancakes, eggs, and bacon.”
“Shouldn’t we have some sort of vegetable?” says Madge.
“I’ll slice you a tomato.”
“That’s a fruit,” Madge says.
Mom doesn’t answer. She goes into the kitchen and gets out the griddle and a couple of frying pans. It takes only about fifteen minutes for her to fill a few platters with food and get them on the table. When we were little, this was our favorite meal of all time—Mom’s, too—because it was so easy. But now it seems weird to enjoy it when Grandpa can’t, and when Grandma is alone in her house playing solitaire.
I’m trying to find the right way to tell my mom about Mr. Mymer, if she doesn’t already know from her husband. But Madge jumps in first.
“Where’s the ever-important orthodontist?” says Madge, pushing some eggs around her plate. Pib perches in Mr. Doctor’s seat, praying for bacon.