Damage Done

by Amanda Panitch

  “Lucy, good afternoon,” the principal said, removing her glasses and rubbing her eyes. She was pretty for an old person, with a mane of tawny golden curls and skin that looked so soft I wanted to touch it. It was smooth, but she had a neck wattle—the sure sign of a face-lift. “Or is it Julia Vann?”

  “Yes, it’s Julia Vann,” I said. “The documents my parents gave you at the beginning of the year were forged. So if you want to kick me out of school, just get on with it. I won’t blame you, and I definitely won’t shoot you.”

  The principal flinched, then sighed. “Nobody wants to kick you out,” she said. “And I certainly don’t think you’re going to shoot me or anyone else. You’re not to blame for what your brother did, and I hope everyone here will eventually be mature enough to understand that. I wanted to call you down to prepare you for what’s waiting for you on the front lawn.”

  Dread filled my stomach, sick and heavy. “I saw Jenny in your office.”

  She creased her brow. “Who?”

  I gestured toward the door. “Jenny. Jennifer Rosenthal. She’s with the Sun. Well, now she’s with the LA Times.”

  “A reporter? One snuck in?” She sighed and rubbed her forehead, then picked up her phone. “Nancy? Is there a woman sitting in the waiting area?”

  I could hear the secretary’s voice faintly through the receiver. “Yes, ma’am. She’s the mother of a concerned student.”

  The principal looked questioningly at me. I shook my head as vigorously as I could without it sailing off and out the window. Concerned, my ass. “Red lipstick, blue pantsuit, that’s Jenny.”

  “Did you hear that, Nancy?” the principal said. “She’s a reporter. Get her the hell out of here.” She hung up with a decisive click. Some of the dread drained out of me. A bunch of it still weighed me down, don’t get me wrong, but the burden had eased a bit. Someone was on my side. “Now, Lucy. Julia. What would you prefer I call you?”

  “Call me Julia.” It came out easier the second time. I had never really been Lucy. I’d wanted so badly for Lucy to be real, but I’d only ever been Julia.

  “Julia.” She sighed. “I can’t believe a reporter snuck in. Irv’s been so vigilant about posting people at the doors.”

  So it had gotten to the point where people were trying to sneak in, then. “Are there more reporters outside?” I said wearily. “I hate the ones who yell. They’re my least favorite.”

  The principal stared at her desk, as if she just couldn’t bear to look me in the eye. “None other than the one in my office,” she said. “Not yet.”

  “Well, that’s a positive thing!” I said.

  “Well…,” she said.

  “Well!” I said. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Well,” she said again, frowning faintly. I could hear a bang in the outer office, like Jenny had kicked over a chair on her way out, or thumped on the secretary’s desk. Or the ceiling had fallen in and crushed her. “There aren’t reporters outside yet. But people have been posting about you online already, and I’ve received a number of calls from parents demanding your expulsion. A number of students, too, have stopped by to tell me they no longer feel safe.”

  I shifted in my seat. “I am not my brother,” I said. “I didn’t do it.”

  “I know that.” The principal’s smile was warm and unexpected. “That’s exactly what I told them. We’re a public school, Julia, so we don’t have to worry about frightened donors. I just wanted you to be prepared for everything, and know that I stand behind you.”

  I took a deep breath, then another, then another. “I don’t think I have to worry,” I said. “I’m confident people will see the truth. They’ll see that I’m not my brother. That I’m the opposite of my brother.”

  She gave her desk a comforting rap. “I hope so, Julia.” The corner of her mouth twisted. “You don’t take the bus, do you? If you can, you should call your parents and have them pick you up.”

  I imagined what would await me on the bus: more whispers, more stares, a sudden hard push to the back that would send me hurtling out the emergency door and into a long pink splotch on the highway. But then I imagined what would await me if I had to call my mother: the trembling would begin as soon as she saw the people clustered outside. The hard shaking would ensue once the reporters and potential angry parents swarmed the car, thumping on the hood and the windows. She’d shrink in her seat, trying to hide, but there wouldn’t be anywhere to escape the noses flattened against the glass. “I’m okay. My friend is going to drive me home.”

  “Your friend. Alane, right?”

  I nodded. “Alane. Or Michael. Silverman. He might take me today.”

  She steepled her fingers together, and her eyes turned flinty behind her glasses. “Alane and Michael are good kids. I hope they’re right to trust you.”

  The dread seeped back into my stomach. She might profess to trust me, but she didn’t, not really. In the end, behind everybody’s smiles and reassuring words, all they saw was my brother. “They’re right,” I said coldly, and stood. “Am I done here?”

  Her gaze didn’t waver. “We’re done, Julia. Like I said, do let me know if you need anything, or you’re having any trouble with anything.” She stood, too, and stuck out her hand. I shook it. Her skin was clammy even in the room’s heat. “Please take care.”

  “I’ll take plenty of care.” I gathered my things and showed her my back, walking quickly and deliberately. I was glad to see she’d at least rid us of Jenny.

  At this point, chemistry was almost over, so I headed straight to band. I lurked in the hallway outside the band room to wait for the class to empty out, then went in, took my seat, and took my time screwing together my clarinet, greasing each piece of cork. My old reed had chipped, so I let it die and stuck a new one in my mouth to moisten.

  By the time I deemed the reed sufficiently soft and screwed it onto my mouthpiece, I realized I was the only person in the band room. If I stood up and yelled, my voice probably would have echoed. I laid my clarinet gently across the music stand and knocked on the door of the band director’s office. The door cracked open. “Hello?” I called hesitantly inside.

  “Oh. Lucy.” The band director peered back out at me. She was rolling something between her fingers. I squinted. Was that pepper spray? Seriously? “You didn’t hear the announcement? I canceled practice today.”

  I squinted further, narrowing my eyes into slits of suspicion. “I didn’t hear any announcement.”

  “Yes, well,” the band director blustered, “it was a bit last-minute. I sent around an email this morning.”

  So was it an email or an announcement? I opened my mouth to clarify, then felt myself deflate like a leaky balloon. “So what’s next?” I asked. “Are you going to decide to have tryouts again, then decide another clarinet is more suited to second chair? Let me guess: I’ll be cut.”

  The band director stared at her desk. Whatever she was holding knocked against it. Her hand was shaking. Yes, that was definitely pepper spray. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Tears rose in my eyes, but I pushed them back. Or tried to, anyway. “Yes, you do. I know you do.” But there was nothing to discuss; she only continued to stare intently at her desk.

  I returned to my seat, picked up my clarinet, and blew into it as hard as I could, making a sound between a honk and a squawk that might have come from an angry moose. I could practically hear the band director cringe, so I did it again, and then again, and after the third time I realized my cheeks were wet. I pulled my clarinet away from my mouth, gently swiveled it apart, packed it carefully into its case, and took it to the hallway outside the chorus room, where I settled to a seat on the tile and waited for Alane, my head resting on my knees, so that anyone walking by would see me as nothing more than a head of hair and an anonymous pair of legs.

  —

  That was how Michael found me an hour and a half later. He nudged my hair with his sculpted calf. I looked up. “Hey there,” I
said. “How was swimming?” The chlorine drifted off him in waves.

  “Good. Exhausting.” He extended a hand; I grabbed it, and he pulled me to my feet. I staggered a few feet into him and rested there for a moment. “How was band?”

  I pulled away. “I’m not welcome in band anymore,” I said.

  “What? No way,” he said. “I don’t think that’s even legal. You should sue or something.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not welcome anywhere anymore,” I said. It was becoming easier to accept, a dull thud rather than a sharp pain.

  He gave my hand a squeeze. “We’ll fix that,” he said.

  I let my eyes close and my head fall against his shoulder. “We will.”

  Alane came bustling out a few minutes later, cheeks red and eyes blazing. “I just told off half the choir,” she said. “Lucy—Julia—we’d better literally be best friends forever, because I don’t think I have any other friends left.”

  “You have me,” Michael offered.

  Alane punched him in the shoulder. It wasn’t a play punch, either; the thud reverberated through the hallway. “You’re a guy,” she said. “Guys can never really be friends with girls.”

  Michael winced and rubbed his arm. “Okay, ouch,” he said. “On that note, I’ll take Julia home. I owe her a bowl of chicken noodle soup. It’s my specialty and it makes all your problems float away in a stream of deliciousness.”

  “Unless there’s heroin in it, I doubt it’ll float away my problems,” I said drily.

  It was Alane’s turn to thump me. “Don’t even joke. Heroin would taste terrible in soup, anyway.”

  “You’ve tasted heroin?” Michael sounded totally serious, but he jumped back before Alane could punch him again. “I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to do it.”

  “Anyway.” Alane shifted her backpack. “You drive Julia. I’ll go run interference.”

  “Run interference?” I echoed. “What does that even mean?”

  “I thought I’d go talk to the people waiting and distract them so they wouldn’t see you leave,” Alane chirped. “It could be fun. I could give them fake interviews.”

  “Please don’t do that,” I said. “I feel that might turn into rats chewing on my toes really fast. Anyway, the principal said there weren’t reporters out there yet.”

  Alane’s smile faltered. “The parental brigade’s shown up,” she said. “Maybe a couple reporters, too. Not a ton of people, but I peeked out the window after practice.”

  I sucked air through my teeth. “How many?”

  “Fifteen people, maybe twenty?”

  My laugh was dry. “That’s nothing,” I said. “I’ve seen way worse.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think we need any interference run,” Michael said. “Julia, put on my hoodie and slump a little. We’ll be fine.”

  Michael’s hoodie was warm and a little damp on the inside and smelled like the pool’s locker room—sharp chlorine and mildew and sweat—but I hunched inside it anyway and pulled the hood over my head. I held my books against my chest and ducked my head. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  The wind met me in a roar, and I hung back for a moment, afraid it was a wind made of voices, but sometimes the wind is just the wind. I could only see a small crowd: just as Alane had said, there were fifteen people, maybe twenty, clustered out in front of the school. Still, I didn’t want them to catch sight of me, so I ducked my head and rushed.

  “Go,” Alane said, dancing a few steps backward. “I’ll stay here to run interference if I have to.”

  I gave up. If I had to read about rats chewing on my toes throughout my childhood tomorrow, then so be it. It would be worth it. I drew Alane into a quick, hard hug. “Thank you,” I said.

  She wrinkled her nose. “You smell like a men’s bathroom.”

  Somehow we made it to the car without interference. I slouched in my seat as Michael peeled away, leaving the rats behind.

  My mom’s car was in the driveway. My stomach tied itself in a knot. “Hang out here for a second, okay?” I said to Michael, and climbed out of the car.

  The house smelled like bleach and disinfectant. “Mom?” I called. My voice echoed off the high ceiling of the entryway. “Are you here?” I had a sudden vision of Ryan holding a knife to our mother’s throat, a thread of red peeking through, and then banished it. My brother would never hurt our mom, because she’d never done anything to hurt me. Not actively, anyway. “Mom?”

  The squeak of a rag against an already clean floor announced her presence in the upstairs bathroom. She was scrubbing on her hands and knees; her hair was tied back in a low bun, but sweaty tendrils had escaped and stuck to her flushed face. “Mom?” I said cautiously, pausing in the doorway. The floor had turned into a mirror. I could apply liquid eyeliner looking in it and have it come out completely even. “Is everything okay?”

  My mom sank back onto her toes and dropped the rag to the floor with a sodden thud. “Everybody knows,” she said. “How did this happen?” Lines had etched themselves into her face over the course of the day. She looked as if she might be made of glass and shatter with the slightest movement. “Julia, Lucy, Julia, I can’t do it again. I can’t move again and start over again and become a new person again.”

  A crack ran down me, too. I crouched on the floor beside her. “We are not going to have to move,” I said firmly. “I’ve got it under control.” Still, thoughts of the crowd of people outside the school tingled at the back of my mind. Would my plan be enough? Yes, I told myself. It would have to be. Because if it wasn’t, I would have to watch my glass mother shatter into shards all over the floor, and there was no way I’d be able to escape getting cut. “My friend Michael is here, and he’s going to make us soup. You like soup.”

  Her eyes had turned into pits. “Michael, that boy? Your boyfriend?”

  “Soup, Mom, soup,” I said. “You love soup. Isn’t soup your favorite food?”

  A tremulous smile crept onto her face. “I’m glad you’re together,” she said. “I’m glad you have someone who loves you.”

  I gave a short laugh. “Love? I don’t know about that,” I said, but the second the words left my mouth, I did. Know, I mean. Michael had held me and believed me after what happened in Elkton, and he’d stuck to my side like lichen even after all his friends wouldn’t come anywhere near. When he looked at me, I saw the same glow I’d seen in the faces of his family as they’d sat around their kitchen table eating his lasagna. That was love, I was pretty sure. Love. He was in love. And it tasted like chicken soup.

  My mom was watching me with a funny, tentative little smile. “I can see it dawning on your face right now, my dear,” she said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

  “My face?” I asked.

  “No,” my mom said. “I mean, yes, of course you have a beautiful face. I meant the realization that somebody loves you. That’s beautiful, too.”

  I reached over and picked up the rag. Soapy water and something that smelled astringent dripped through my fingers. “Come downstairs and eat. Michael is going to make us soup.”

  “Ooh la la, he’s cooking for you? Sounds like a keeper.” My mom grabbed the rag from my hand and wrung it out, sending water spattering over the clean floor. “No, I’ll let you two have the kitchen to yourselves. Just no going in your bedroom with the door closed.”

  “Really, Mom.” The thought of her staying in here, on her knees, scrubbing the spotless floor, was too heavy for me to bear right now. “I want you there.”

  She gazed at me for a moment, misty-eyed. “I’m happy you have him,” she said. “Go eat your soup.”

  “Please…”

  She looked back down at the floor. “Go eat your soup,” she said. “It’s probably getting cold.”

  —

  I left my mom on the bathroom floor. She’d talked to me, and she’d put the rag down for a few minutes. That was progress. Right?

  Michael was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. “Sorry,” he said. �
�When you didn’t come out for five minutes, I was afraid something horrible had happened.”

  “And you thought you would save me with a carton of broth and a bag of vegetables?” I raised an eyebrow.

  He waggled his. “My soup is deadly delicious.”

  This time he let me help him cook. Though my father had taught me how to chop an onion when I was young (you cut it in half first and then rest it on the flat sides, so it doesn’t go slipping and sliding all over the place and you don’t lose any fingers), I let him instruct me anyway. I waited until we had three perfect piles of diced carrots, onions, and celery, all ready to be dumped into our pot with some olive oil and garlic, before I broached what I’d been thinking about all day. “So, Ella,” I said.

  “Ella.” He gathered each pile neatly between his hand and knife and dropped it into the pot, where the vegetables sizzled and released a cloud of savory aroma. “I’m sorry she told. I told her how angry I am.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and leaned over the pot and inhaled deeply, more so he wouldn’t see my distress than anything else. “That smells amazing,” I said. “How long does it have to cook?”

  “Just five minutes or so,” he said. “Just long enough to release all the tasty odors.”

  “Tasty odors does not sound very attractive,” I said. “I need to talk to Ella, but I don’t think she or her friends will come anywhere near me. Everyone’s afraid of me. Can you help?”

  I moved out of the way so Michael could give our mirepoix a stir. “She has no reason to be afraid of you, right?”

  The pain came back, dull and throbbing. He loves you, I told myself. He trusts you. He doesn’t mean what he’s saying. “Of course she has no reason to be afraid of me.” I must have sounded wounded, because he dropped the spoon and leaned over to take me in his arms. “I understand where she’s coming from. I just want to talk to her.”