by Paloma Meir
I glanced around the near empty bus for boys my age. I was eager to make friends. It looked like most of the stops would be when the bus turned around at the end of canyon. It slowly filled up, but not with kids my age. A couple blocks down from Zelda’s house the bus pulled over and a load of kids came on, most of them my age. Two girls sat across the aisle from my sister, and Zelda and looked them up and down. Even in New York, girls could be difficult. I didn’t pay too much attention to them.
Behind them were two boys my age. One of them stood in front of Carolina and Zelda’s seats and looked down at them, not happy at all. He moved to the seat behind Zelda, sat down and stared at the back of her head. I didn’t know what to think. The boy’s friend, who he had been talking to before the seat issue, sat down beside me.
“Hi, I’m Serge. I just moved here from New York.” I held out my hand to him as he pulled a game from his backpack. He looked at me with confusion and held out his fist for a bump. Until that day I had only seen people do that on television. Going with the flow of my new city, I bumped his fist.
“Brendan.” He turned on the game but continued talking, “What games do you play?”
“I don’t play...” I realized he was talking about sports. “Mostly baseball and I swim. The hotel...” I decided against telling him about my old life and the pool a floor down from our apartments on the roof. New York was gone. This was my new life. I was eager to jump into it.
“Me too and soccer. Danny and I are going to do Lacrosse next year.” He gestured his head in direction of the boy who sat behind Zelda but didn’t look up from his game. I thought to myself that my friends in New York never did that but put that thought aside. “It starts in fifth grade.”
“I like Lacrosse. My dad signed me up for two baseball leagues.”
“Dump one of them. Lacrosse, sticks, we can beat each other.” He hit the game closed, looked up at me and accepted me as someone who could be a part of his group with a nod of his head. I hadn’t worried. I fit in everywhere, always did, always will.
“Lacrosse,” I nodded my head the way he had. I liked the idea of beating each other with sticks. There was too much waiting around in baseball. It was more my dad’s sport than mine. “That’s my sister Carolina,” I pointed to her. “Your friend seemed upset she was sitting there...” I didn’t finish my question because I didn’t know what I was asking.
“He always sits there,” he shrugged.
“Why?” I couldn’t figure out why Danny, who was clearly the leader, would want to sit next to quiet little Zelda.
“He doesn’t like bullies. She’s gay I guess,” he shrugged again.
I looked over at Zelda and wondered why anyone would think she was gay or straight or anything. “She’s my sister’s friend. I don’t think she’s gay.” I suddenly missed New York, “We didn’t bully gay people at my old school.”
“We don’t bully them here either.” He sounded offended. “It’s just Joni and Liza and a couple of their friends do that. He told them to stop, and they did. Now nobody talks to her. Don’t ask Danny about it. He’ll say he doesn’t keep an eye on her. The whole thing is weird.” He looked over at Carolina, “You should tell your sister not to wear dresses. Joni doesn’t like that either.”
I looked over to Danny who would one day be my best friend and Zelda’s “one true love." He was a good-looking kid but not the perfection that she would claim. He was thin like me and muscular. He had wide shoulders that Zelda felt could carry the world because she could be dramatic that way, tousled brown hair, an angular square face and blue eyes. She was right about his eyes. They were a bright blue that jumped out at you. You can ask her about his lips. She’ll write you a novel about them. They looked reddish and full to me. He was a confident and good person.
Zelda did have a shallow side to her. If she were honest with herself those were two qualities she loved most about him. That and his desire to make everything in her life perfect at all times. I’m jumping ahead of myself.
The bus hit a bump in the road and everybody bounced up. Danny exaggerated his movement and touched Zelda’s hair. He tried to be real smooth about it. I may have been the only one that noticed. The only explanation was he had a crush on Zelda. That made about as much sense as a lion liking a lamb.
At school, they moved me out of my regular classroom and into the highly gifted program. I had hoped that wouldn’t happen. I opened the door to see a group of kids all wearing either Science Fiction or Japanese animation t-shirts. The same as it was in New York. Star Wars a series I never really liked, would have to be my favorite film again. I would be doing twice the amount of work as all the other kids in the school because a brilliant mind would be a terrible thing to waste.
By the end of my first week, I saw how it was going to be. My school and free time would be filled with the social misfits of my advanced class, and I would be their leader because I wasn’t socially awkward. We would work on our overreaching projects together. Dioramas - the teachers loved to make us think they would improve our spatial skills.
My afterschool hours would be spent with my father and his pursuit of my baseball leagues. I would play on the two teams, one being year round and the other seasonal. I would be the star player on both teams. Brendan and Danny were on my seasonal team. We were friendly, but there wasn't enough time in my week to build strong friendships with them. I was friendlier with Brendan at that point anyway.
Chapter Two
In eighth grade, the school gave us an advanced placement test in which I achieved the perfect score in science. So, of course, I was put into an online university course through MIT where I would eventually go to college. My schedule of activities was overwhelming, even my father recognized that and allowed me to drop out of my baseball leagues to play on the Lacrosse team.
Brendan had been right. We could hit each other with sticks releasing whatever pent up emotions we had in a controlled environment, where our violence was accepted and even encouraged. We would walk off the field calm and pumped with endorphins. Danny and Brendan ruled that field, but I was a close third. Nobody could really match Brendan’s rage in the game. Danny was all strategy focusing on the long view.
In the spring of that year, my mother entered a period of calmness. She decided instead of putting down the girls, she would help them improve themselves. What is that people say? The road to hell is paved with good intentions? That would sum up how that little experiment went.
It all started on Easter Sunday. The girls were twelve. Carolina was already a good reader, pursuing all the middle school classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and Little Women. Zelda had an affinity for Judy Blume. She was getting too old for that in my opinion, but had recently discovered Gone With the Wind, which she carried around like a bible until that day.
She came over for brunch instead of dinner. She wore layers of black dresses and had put her hair up into a severe bun on top of her head. She had always been pale like her mother but that day and for the next few months, she was ghostly white, so bloodless in her face it looked as if she were wearing clown makeup. Her pallid complexion accentuated the darkness of her eyes. It looked like she had smeared eye shadow across them, but sitting next to her I could see she was completely fresh faced.
She was quiet as usual, but it was a different kind of silence, more anguished as if she were suffering. My mother and sister’s tense chatter didn’t even cause her to glance their way. They were arguing about the meaning of Easter eggs. My mother insisted they represented fertility. Carolina thought they were only a game. I checked after brunch, score one for my mom but still a waste of time to quarrel about.
“Are you feeling okay, Zelda?” I whispered to her.
“Everything hurts.” Her voice sounded pained.
“Are you sick? Do you want me to make you some chamomile tea?”
“Serge, stop whispering to her.” My mother said to me and turned to Zelda, “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m f
ine. Thank you.” She sat up higher in her chair.
“Well, girls. I have a little gift for both of you.” She handed them each a gift-wrapped package. “You girls are getting older and with that comes a greater need for enlightenment. This was my favorite at your age, and I’m sure you’ll love it as much I did, even you Zelda.”
Carolina rolled her eyes at my mother’s insult to her friend. Zelda was too down to have taken in the casual slight. They opened their gifts. Carolina quickly and Zelda slowly as if pulling the paper apart were too much effort. I looked at what they held in their hands. She had given them each their own leather bound copies of Wuthering Heights. Zelda abruptly left the dining room with her face buried in the book. She went up the stairs to Carolina’s room without a word of thanks.
“Good gift, Mom,” I mumbled to her as I contemplated Zelda’s inexplicable rudeness. Carolina opened her copy, thanked our mother and began reading.
“They do seem quite taken with it. My work here is done for the day,” she laughed and got up to clear the table.
I went upstairs to work on a physics paper for my online class. Carolina’s door was open. I looked in to see Zelda wearing the tank top and underwear she always wore when lounging around Carolina’s room. I was used to seeing her gangly kids body so no surprise to see her that way. What was strange was she had curled up in the sun filled spot on Carolina’s bed and was lost in her book. She didn’t even glance up at the sound of my feet on the wooden floors.
I decided she must have the flu. I hoped I wouldn’t catch it as I went into my room to study the great Stephen Hawking. She called out to me as I shut the door.
“Serge, could you get me a glass of milk?”
“Sure.” I tried to think of another time she had ever made a request of me. I went downstairs, poured her a glass and brought it back up to her. She drank it down in one big gulp.
“I’m sorry, Serge. Could you get me another glass of milk?” She extended her arm, glass in hand but did not look up at me.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need some aspirin? Do you want me to walk you home?”
“I’m fine, Serge.” She sounded almost angry but quickly corrected herself. “Please just another glass of milk.”
I went back downstairs and brought her back another glass. One gulp, and she finished it again. She didn’t look up or thank me. I realized at that moment how I had grown use to her constant attention. I went back into my room and firmly shut the door.
…
Her health remained the same as the weeks passed, still pale and complaining of body aches. She was withdrawn, more than quiet with an edge of irritability. I would ask her if she had been to the doctor. She would say she was fine, not wanting to talk about it anymore.
She continued wearing the witchy black outfits and her hair always up. Her face took on weird proportions. One Sunday, it seemed like her forehead had grown taller, another time it looked as if she had the shoulders of a linebacker. I decided I was focusing on her too much, and I would look up her symptoms on my computer. I knew the impartial information I put into search box would give me a clear answer.
The results were bad. It seemed Zelda had an autoimmune disease, either lupus or arthritis. Her symptoms coincided with her cravings for milk, which pointed to rheumatoid arthritis. I slammed my computer shut worried about the shortened future and painful fate she would suffer. I had to be wrong, although how, I couldn’t imagine. I decided to observe her further and record the symptoms.
I would have done that too if Carolina hadn’t started on her crying jags. Anything could trigger one, a cute puppy out on the street, spilling her juice and, of course, the book our mother had given her. She carried it around the way Zelda had with Gone With the Wind. Of course, like her best friend, there was no talking to her about it.
I grew grateful for my full schedule. I kept as busy as possible wanting to be away from the lunacy of the females in my life. Lacrosse was the only place I had peace. I rivaled Brendan with my aggression. He loved it. We were warriors in the locker room using our sticks as swords, hitting each other as hard as possible. Danny would just watch us, shaking his head slowly as if we were nuts. Eventually we got caught by the coach and penalized. He had us run three miles around the track after practice for a month. It wasn’t the punishment he thought it would be at all. We would do four miles pushing each other faster, screaming out lewd names all the way around the field. Best time of my week.
Summer came and Zelda’s family went away for the month of June to the south of France as they did every year, but that summer Zelda refused to go with them. They let her get away with it too. She would be under the care of Maria for the month. I hoped Carolina and Zelda would move down to Zelda’s house. That didn’t happen. They decided the best place to spend their days would be sitting in front of my bedroom door.
They sat in a heap reading the book my mother had so kindly given them. They would finish the book and immediately go back to the first page again. Sometimes they would play one of their character games, again right in front of my door. I wore noise cancellation headphones to drown out their voices and help me concentrate on my physics project on the unifying theory of everything.
The last few days of June the two of them would push me over the edge. It all started with Zelda’s stomach. Infinity is a hard concept to process. When I thought about it, my mind would see a finite point as if there were a cardboard wall at the end of the Universe. Black holes and expanding space, no problem for me, infinity though? I struggled with that. Zelda’s moaning and crying outside my door cutting through my headphones was unwelcome.
I opened the door because I’m a good person, and I cared for her. I wish she had stood up, or I had seen her in any other way than the hunched over or near fetal positions she had been lying in for the previous month or so. It would have saved me a lot of troubled thoughts, but that’s not the way it played out.
Zelda lay on the floor in front of my door in her familiar tank top and underwear ensemble in a full fetal position, clutching her chest. Carolina sat next to her in an oversized t-shirt, patting her head and reading her book, of course. I kneeled down beside Zelda resigned to help her in some way.
“What’s wrong, Zelda?” I asked hoping we would make eye contact. She was always more open with me if I could catch her eye. That’s probably why she wouldn’t look at me.
“My stomach hurts.” Her eyes were wet as if tears would spring from them at any moment.
“Did you eat something strange? All that milk you’ve been drinking can be hard on your stomach.” I wanted to pat her head as Carolina was doing but, by this point, the girls were a little repugnant to me.
“I’m fine, Serge,” she said to me for what felt like the hundredth time. I was done with them. Whatever was wrong with the two was beyond anything I could help them with. I stepped over the girls and went to my mother’s room.
I stood in front of her door nervous about entering. She drank during the day but not too much, usually just a glass of wine or two but things were already so off in our home with her being almost friendly to the girls and the girls being so wrong.
“Mom?” I knocked and entered without waiting for an answer, “Zelda has a bad stomach ache. Could you come out and take care of her?” I wanted to tell her about the possible Lupus diagnosis, but the idea of Zelda’s life on steroids, bloating up and having permanent mood swings was too sad to put into words. She was just a kid. Her future was bleak.
“What’s wrong exactly?” She got up from her bed. She was still wearing her floral bathrobe even though it was noon.
“I don’t know. I wish she had gone away with her parents... She’s lying on the floor holding her stomach. I asked if she needed anything, but she didn’t..." I looked down at the ground, confused.
“Cramps.” She walked passed me down the long hallway to Zelda and picked up her hunched body and basically carried her to Carolina’s room.
The idea of Zelda hav
ing diarrhea disgusted me. The idea of any girl having bathroom problems was gross. I didn’t like to think of them that way. Guys I was fine with, mostly because bodily functions were an obsession with Brandon. He could be pretty funny talking about them. Sometimes in the boy’s bathroom, he would turn around at the urinal and spray everyone around him, except Danny and me. He had a reputation as an animal on the field so nobody ever reported him. It was clearly done with humor anyway.
The next day only got worse.
I sat in my room working on my paper that was a big deal. The university would be entering them into a competition with a large cash prize held in trust until the winner was in college. I wanted to win, and I needed that money.