When I came out of the bathroom, Mom said, “Why don’t you go back to bed, March. Try and sleep. I’ll bring you something to eat in a little while.”
“Not hungry, Mom,” I said. I ached all over, as if I was coming down with the flu.
“We’ll see, cherie,” she said. “Get some rest now.”
Chapter Four
I woke up as the sun was setting. I had slept all day, but I still felt leaden and dull and hideous. I could hear music playing downstairs. Some old rocker that Dad likes. Tom Petty, I think. Dad was singing along: “I wanna free fall, out into nothin’. Gonna leave this world for a while. Oh, I’m free, free fallin’.” I felt like I was already in a free fall, but not the cool kind the song was talking about. I wondered how Tyler was doing, whether he’d phone me soon. Whether I would answer. As the light faded from the sky, Dad brought me a tray. Buttered toast soldiers and a soft-boiled egg in an egg cup shaped like a pink chicken. A pot of Mom’s raspberry jam. A cup of weak tea with milk and sugar. Food for an invalid. Not a killer.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, sitting up in bed and pulling the duvet up under my chin. He put the tray in my lap and sat down on the end of my bed. Dad’s not much for idle chitchat, so I knew he must have something important to say. I lopped the top off my egg and dipped a toast soldier into the yolk. Perfect. Dad sat and watched me eat.
“We heard from Mrs. McKenna again,” he said after a while.
I looked up, a piece of toast halfway to my mouth. “And?”
“And Tyler’s still in a coma. He might have what’s called an acute subdural hematoma.”
“In English, Dad,” I said, shoving the tray onto my bedside table. The sight of the food suddenly made me want to puke.
“It’s serious, March. If he’s bleeding into his brain, something has to be done to relieve the pressure. Before his brain is damaged. The procedure is called a craniotomy, which involves drilling—”
I barely made it to the bathroom before the toast soldiers marched up my throat. When I got back to my room, Dad was gone, along with the tray. I pulled the blackout curtains over the windows and lay in the dark, thinking about drills going into skulls, about blood, about pain. Mom crept into my room at some point. I pretended to be asleep.
“Dear heart,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”
She didn’t know that. No one did.
I thought about the McKennas, sitting in a hospital waiting room, praying it was going to be okay. Wondering why this had happened to their beautiful boy. I thought about Tyler, his head shaved, motionless under cold, bright lights. The right thing to do was to confess, to sit up and tell my mother that I had shoved Tyler into the hot tub and run away. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was selfish. I know that. All I could think about was how disappointed in me she would be. How horrified that a child she had raised could be so weak, so cowardly, so lacking in common decency. If Tyler died, I would be a murderer. And my perfect life would be gone. Just like Kayla said. I deserved to be punished, but I still couldn’t tell my mother. Or my father. I couldn’t even tell Augie. I curled myself into a ball and cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, it was pitch-black in my room, and for a moment I had no idea where I was. I pulled the curtains back and let the green light wash over me. The house moaned as a gust of wind hit it. My windows rattled, and I wished I could climb into bed with my parents and listen to my mother sing a French lullaby I used to love. I hummed the tune, but it wasn’t the same. I switched on the light, got my laptop, climbed back into bed and wrote to Augie.
Hey,
It’s the middle of the night here. Tyler is in the hospital. The doctors might have to drill a hole in his head. I don’t know what to do. I think I should go and see him. Even tho we broke up. Am I right?
I miss you.
March
I put the laptop on my night table so I could hear it ping when Augie wrote back. Then I sat and waited for the dawn. When it was finally light enough to see, I got dressed in jeans and my old gray hoodie. I let myself out the back door without waking my parents. I’m good at that.
I climbed the hill behind our house and slid through the hole in the chain-link fence to get to my favorite place in the world. Blueberry Hill. Where there are no blueberries. Not that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve explored pretty much every square inch of the park. Blueberries grow in bogs (I looked it up online). Blueberry Hill is all rock and Garry oaks and Scotch broom. Augie and Natalie and I used to play Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the hill. We all took turns being Buffy, even Augie.
I scrambled down the far side of the hill and tucked myself into a spot Augie and I had discovered years ago. Moss-covered boulders sheltered me from the wind off the sea and hid me from other visitors to the park. Augie and I used to come here—alone or together—to get away from our parents. To read, to stare at the distant mountains, to smoke weed, to drink, to argue, to laugh. I ran away to this spot when I was nine and Mom wouldn’t let me have a Barbie. The first time Tyler and I had sex was up here, the summer I turned fourteen. The last time Augie visited, at Christmastime, we came up here and talked. About his courses, about his latest boyfriend, about how crazy Mom and Dad are. It was freezing, but we didn’t care. Now I leaned my head against the rock wall behind me, lifting my face to the rising sun and closing my eyes.
Chapter Five
I must have sat there for three hours, trying to figure out what to do next. By the time I had the outline of a plan, my ass was sore and my back ached. I didn’t get up. I knew I deserved the pain. I stared out at the ocean and poked small holes in my palms with a thorn from a gorse bush. I could hear Augie’s voice in my head: You’re a smart girl, March. He was always telling me that. I remembered him reading to me when I was about four. Hop on Pop. As he read, he pointed at the words with a grubby finger. “This is how you learn to read, March,” he said. “It’s easy.” At six, he could already read harder books than Hop on Pop, but it was my favorite. He read it to me every night for a year. Then he stopped. “Read it yourself, March,” he said. So I read it to him, slowly and carefully, and he told me I was the smartest girl in the world. I wondered if he’d still think that when I told him my plan. Maybe it would be better not to tell him. Not to tell anyone. Let my actions speak for me.
I was still arguing with myself when I heard voices. A man’s and a woman’s, calling, “Bonnie! Bonnie! Here, girl.” I hated sharing the hill. I burrowed deeper into my rock cocoon. Out of nowhere, a tiny brown dog hurtled into my lap. It lay still for a second, panting. I wondered if it was hurt, but then it leaped up and licked my face. I picked it up and held it in front of me as it squirmed. “You’re a cutie-pie, aren’t you?” I said.
And suddenly I am three, sitting on my mother’s lap in a bright garden. Augie is running a tiny red metal car up my chubby leg and saying “Vroom, vroom.” The car tickles. My mother is laughing. I wiggle my bare toes in the sunlight. A man leans over and picks me up, holding me in front of his face. I squirm, and he says, “What a cutie-pie. Gonna be a heartbreaker, this one.” The man’s face is a blur, but it’s not my father’s voice. My father has never uttered the words cutie-pie. And I’m the one with the broken heart.
My dad’s not much interested in what he calls “surfaces.” What you look like, what you wear, where you live, how much money you make. All wasted on my dad. The fact that I’m considered the hottest girl at my school means nothing to him. I’m sure he’d prefer it if I was the smartest or most socially responsible girl, but he’s never said so. Neither has Mom, who’s totally gorgeous but doesn’t seem to care. Augie’s the only one who ever suggests that I might want to think about something other than clothes and parties. Well, Augie, I thought as I put the dog down and stood up, be careful what you wish for.
By the time I got home, Mom and Dad had left for work. There was a note on the counter. Sorry we won’t be home for dinner. Leftover lasagna in the fridge. I toasted a bagel and called my boss, Jeremy, at the restaurant where I’m a s
erver. He was less than thrilled when I told him I was quitting.
“Two weeks’ notice would have been nice, March,” he said. “Even a week. Who’s gonna cover your shifts?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I mean, it’s not my fault. My parents enrolled me in this environmental camp for the summer. It’s in, like, Tofino.” It felt bad, lying to Jeremy. But I knew he wouldn’t have any trouble replacing me. Dozens of hot girls dropped off résumés every day. Lots of them had more experience than me. I would be replaced before the day was over.
“You sure about this?” Jeremy asked. He was a good guy. A good boss. No groping the girls’ asses in the kitchen, no gross comments or obvious drooling. Devoted to his wife and kids. He deserved better than this.
“Yup,” I said. “Can you mail me my last check?”
“No problem,” he said. “And March?”
“Yeah?”
“Good luck.”
I hung up and opened my laptop. I couldn’t afford to worry about Jeremy. Not if my plan was going to work. My Facebook wall was jam-packed with stuff about Tyler. Stuff I hadn’t read and didn’t want to read. Ever. I deleted my Facebook profile. Not deactivated. Deleted. Completely. One giant un-friending. No more liking, poking or commenting. No more posting my latest profile pictures and having everyone tell me how awesome I looked. Those days were gone.
I set up a new Gmail account and deleted my old one. I sent Augie my new info with a short message promising an explanation soon. If I told him what I was doing, I was afraid he’d try to stop me. And I was afraid I might listen. Augie’s so rational. And what I was doing was the exact opposite of rational. I turned off my cell phone and tossed it in a drawer. Natalie had called, texted and left messages. I didn’t read them or listen to them. No way she’d understand what I was about to do. I was going to miss her.
It only took about ten minutes of searching on Craigslist to find the kind of job I wanted. A really shitty one. A tacky gift shop downtown was looking for a cashier, five days a week, including weekends. The kind of place that sells toxic made-in-China souvenirs. Minimum wage. No benefits. No tips. Perfect.
Chapter Six
When I got up the next day, I threw my contact lenses in the trash. They’d be as dry as cornflakes soon. My old red plastic glasses were still in my night-table drawer. I started wearing contacts at thirteen. No one but my family ever sees me wear the red glasses. Not even Tyler. Especially not Tyler. As I slid them on, the earpieces pinched my head like lobster claws. The nose pads hurt too. I’d have marks from them soon. Perfect.
I checked to make sure Mom and Dad had left for work. Then I went to their bathroom and found a box of her hair dye. It was hidden under the sink, behind the toilet-bowl cleaner. She thinks no one knows she colors her hair, but she’s been going gray for years. No one would ever describe my mom as vain, but I guess we all have our weaknesses. The color she uses is called Medium Golden Brown, which is a pretty accurate description of her real hair color. Pretty, but kind of boring. She’s all about looking natural. Not me. Like Mom, I was blond when I was little. If I didn’t fork over a big chunk of change every six weeks or so, I’d probably be Medium Golden Brown as well. Not that I’d ever planned on finding out. Until now.
Back in the upstairs bathroom, I stood in front of the mirror, squinting at myself through my ugly glasses. My hair lay on my shoulders, smooth and straight. I took a deep breath and picked up the shears I had found in the kitchen junk drawer. My hand shook as I made the first cut, near my jaw. The scissors were dull, and the cut was jagged. Good. I slashed and snipped until I was left with a sink full of blond hair and a lopsided chin-length bob. And bangs. Very crooked bangs. I wouldn’t recommend this method to anyone who wants to look even remotely attractive, but that wasn’t my goal.
An hour later, my hair was brown. Muddy Gross Brown. Just the way I wanted it. When I looked in the bathroom mirror, I saw a stranger. A brown-haired, short-sighted stranger with a bad haircut. No eye liner, no lip gloss, no mascara. Someone the old March wouldn’t even notice, let alone hang out with. I couldn’t do anything about the fact that I have great skin and perfect teeth, but I planned on stuffing myself with sugar and fat. Bring on the zits and the cavities.
I cleaned up the bathroom and then changed into a pair of Mom’s pleat-front khaki pants and one of her pastel golf shirts. Her shoes didn’t fit me, so I wore my old running shoes. The ones I wear when Mom forces me to go for a nature walk with her, or Dad insists I help in the garden. I stopped in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom. For a moment I felt faint. Short of breath. Sweaty. Sick to my stomach. Was I crazy? Should I call my hairdresser? Buy new contacts? Get my old job back? Change into my own clothes? Put on makeup? I looked at the girl in the mirror and shook my shorn head. “No,” I said as I shut my bedroom door. “No,” I said as I left the house. “No,” I said as I walked to the bus stop. As long as Tyler couldn’t live a perfect life, neither would I.
I hate taking the bus. It makes me itchy. All those sweaty hands and whiny kids and people with god-knows-what diseases. Coughing, sneezing, resting their greasy hair on the seatbacks. The loser cruiser. I hadn’t ridden the bus for years. Before I was able to drive, there was always someone around to take me where I needed to go. A parent, an older sibling, a boyfriend. My boyfriend. Who never complained when I asked him to pick me up from work or drive me to the gym. My boyfriend, who had screwed another girl. My boyfriend, who was in a coma because of me.
I blinked away my tears as the bus wheezed up to the curb. I wasn’t even sure how much it cost to ride the bus. As I fumbled around in my purse for the correct change, a guy sitting in the seat behind the driver looked at me and muttered, “You retarded or something, bitch?” He was balancing a filthy black pack on his lap, and when he opened his mouth, I could see he was missing some teeth. He also smelled like a sewer. I considered flipping him off, but decided against it. Who would defend the dumb girl with the bad clothes and the ugly glasses? All the other passengers were staring out the window or listening to their iPods. The bus driver had already pulled into traffic. I stuffed the correct change into the fare box and lurched to the back of the bus. No one else spoke to me. I might as well have been invisible. It was the weirdest feeling, but not unwelcome. It meant my plan was working.
The closest bus stop to the souvenir shop was outside a 7-Eleven and across the street from a McDonald’s. Tough choice. I’d never eaten anything from a 7-Eleven, so I went in and bought the grossest thing I could find—a Corn Dog Roller—and an Invincible Orange Slurpee. Probably about 3,000 calories. Enough to put some flab on my ass.
As I was crossing the street, a voice said, “Poems for sale.” At least that’s what I thought I heard. It could have been “Porn for sale,” given the kind of people who hang around the 7-Eleven. But I was alone at the light. No one beside me. No one behind me. Could stress make you hear voices? “Poems for sale.” There it was again. A girl’s voice. Soft and low.
I whirled around and dropped my Corn Dog Roller. A hand reached out and grabbed it just before it hit the sidewalk.
“This stuff is crap, you know,” the person attached to the hand said. No wonder I hadn’t noticed her. A girl about my age was sitting on a folded blanket in an alcove next to the bank on the corner. In front of her was a cardboard sign that read Poems for Sale. Weird, I thought. But at least I’m not hearing things. A small gray cat, wearing a tiny harness and leash, slept in the girl’s lap.
The girl held the corn dog out to me. She was obviously a nail-biter and her hands were grimy.
“Keep it,” I said.
She shrugged and took a bite.
“Usually I prefer organic, grass-fed meat, but my chef is on vacation.”
My eyes must have bugged out a bit, because she laughed and said, “Kidding. Wanna poem? Fair trade, I promise.” The cat mewed, and she fed it a bit of the corn dog.
I shook my head and mumbled something about my job interview as I hurried awa
y from her. I tossed the Slurpee in the garbage before I got to the gift shop. It was too sweet and the orange flavor tasted like piss. Or what I imagined piss tasted like. I could already feel my teeth rotting.
Chapter Seven
“My last girl, Katie, was with me a long time.” Mr. Hardcastle, the manager of Castle Gifts, frowned at me over his smudged glasses. As if his employment problems were my fault. I’m not good at guessing people’s ages. Everyone between thirty and fifty looks the same to me. Mr. Hardcastle wasn’t fifty yet, but he wasn’t under thirty either. He was wearing faded jeans and a wrinkled plaid shirt. His shoes were scuffed black lace-ups. Not exactly business casual. His hair was on the long side and greasy. “She went back to Saskatchewan to look after her mother—breast cancer,” he added. “You know how to work a cash register?”
I nodded. “A year at Starbucks. It’s on my résumé.”
“Thursdays and Fridays off. You’re sure you don’t mind working weekends?”
“Weekends are good,” I said.
“I open the store every morning, and I come back at the end of the day to cash out and close up. And to make sure you’re not robbing me blind.” He gave a little snort that might have been a laugh. Or post-nasal drip. “The rest of the time you’ll be working alone. You can lock the door and put up a sign when you need to take a bathroom break. But you should bring a lunch and eat it in back.” He pointed to a tiny room behind the counter. “And keep an eye out for shoplifters. Kids are the worst. If you actually see them pocket something, you can ask them to turn out their pockets or empty their bags. Or you can call the cops.” Another snort. “Not that they do anything.”
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