Lucky Girl

by Amanda Maciel

  I nod, still stunned into silence. Mom never talks to me like this. She’s either tired from her crazy shifts at work, or working a crazy shift, or actually sleeping. Or yelling at me to put on longer shorts.

  “Anyway. I’m lucky Dave found me again, because I was all set to just repeat every idiotic thing I’d done in high school. Date the same kinds of guys, act like the same kind of fool. Dave, of course, was the thing I ran screaming from in high school.”

  We smile at each other because I know this part of the story: Dave went to the same school as Mom and always had a crush on her, but he was busy having acne and learning to play guitar and drums in his band, and she was busy being popular and gorgeous and dating—well, athletes and stuff. And then after college he found her online and asked her out, and he’d gotten taller, and she was a single mom, and here we are.

  “I didn’t know you got in trouble in high school,” I say quietly.

  She raises her eyebrows. “Oh, yeah. Girls don’t typically get pregnant in college without some practice first, didn’t you know? I mean, I’d only had one serious boyfriend before your father. But I’d dated a lot—you’ve seen my yearbooks—and drank too much, and all that. It was fun. And then it wasn’t fun.”

  “Because of me?”

  “No! God, no. I liked your father a lot. I thought I loved him. No, I mean—ohhh.” She lets out a long sigh and looks down again, shaking her head. It seems like she wants to tell me something, but also doesn’t want to talk about it.

  Suddenly I get that feeling I had with Alex, the night on the roof of his shed. Like I want to be trusted, I want to hear the story—but at the same time, I really don’t. I’m not sure I can handle it. After I know whatever she’s going to say, I won’t be able to not know it, will I?

  “Listen,” she says, and I tuck my hands under my thighs, tightening my muscles. Gathering my strength. “I don’t mean to yell at you all the time. I know it’s getting worse as you get older, and as Ayla gets older—I don’t know. It’s so hard, sometimes, having two teenage daughters. But I especially see myself in you, and it just kills me to think you’re making the same mistakes I did.”

  “I’m not,” I say quickly, but she shakes her head.

  “You could be, honey. You go to a lot of parties. You are stunningly beautiful, and I see the way people look at you—everyone wants to be around you. That can really bring out the worst in people. But all teenage girls bring out the worst in certain people, no matter what they look like. It’s awful, you know? I feel like I’m Bambi’s mom, or something, watching these long-legged, innocent creatures just trying to find their way in the world, and there are all these goddamn hunters everywhere.”

  She looks so worried but I can’t help but laugh a tiny bit. It’s just kind of a funny metaphor.

  Mom smiles, too, but only for a second. “I had this boyfriend when I was your age,” she says. Her voice is stronger now. Determined. “He flirted with me at school for weeks, and then he finally took me out for a nice dinner, and I thought I was some kind of princess. And then after the date we were kissing in his car, and he . . .” She only pauses for half a breath, just long enough to look down at her hands again. “I barely understood what was happening, and thank God it was over fast. I don’t think I even said no.” She looks up again, meeting my eyes. “After that I drank and partied a lot, dated a lot, did anything I could to not think about it. It was just easier to be stupid. Because I knew that something awful could happen and you’d be too stupid to even know how to avoid it—because you couldn’t. Sometimes bad things just happen. But it would kill me if something happened to you.”

  I feel sick. That’s all I can feel, just this awful pit of nausea in my stomach.

  “It hasn’t,” I whisper. For some reason I know she needs to hear that, and for a second the sickness lessens its grip when she nods, relieved. Then it’s back full force, because I have to ask, “What happened to the guy?”

  She shakes her head. “Nothing.”

  “Did you—what happened to you?”

  “I didn’t get pregnant, which was incredibly lucky. But like I said, I did a lot of reckless things. I met the one serious boyfriend, but he wasn’t very nice to me. Your father wasn’t very nice, either, though at least he tried to be.”

  I feel stifled in the bandage dress, but at the same time I’m grateful that something is holding me together. In one piece.

  “So you worry about me,” I say.

  “Every second of your life, honey. When you took the car like that—I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know if you were running away or with a boy or what.”

  I nod. I feel crushed. “I’m really sorry.”

  “I know.” She leans over and pats me on the knee. She looks like she wants to say more, but I guess we’re both sort of overwhelmed, because her face clears a little and she says, “I like this dress, too. You want to try on the others, or should we just take these and go share a Cinnabon?”

  “That sounds good,” I say, because it does. It sounds perfect.

  The sugar must go to Mom’s head, because on the way home she lets me drive. She says it’s so she can see if I’m at least following the rules of the road, even if I’m ignoring the big, fat don’t go to Iowa rule. It’s kind of nice, chauffering her around. Especially since she doesn’t yell at me about anything.

  When we pull up to the house, though, I realize I don’t want to leave the bubble of the car. The strange closeness that’s suddenly wrapped itself around her and me. The feeling that will, with absolute certainty, evaporate as soon as we open our doors.

  I slide the gearshift into park and take a breath.

  “Mom, I did have a bad . . . experience. It didn’t—you know.”

  Beside me, Mom is frozen in the passenger seat. I’m not looking at her, but in my peripheral vision I see her arm suspended, reaching to unbuckle her seatbelt. My hands are still on the wheel but they can’t feel it. I can see my fingers, but they could be anyone’s. They could be a photograph.

  “A boy started kissing me, and—more—and—I wanted him to stop. I couldn’t get him to stop.” The words just end, and I realize I’m crying.

  Mom’s seatbelt clicks open, and I feel her arms around my shoulders, holding me as awkwardly as Maddie did. As tightly, too.

  “I’m sorry.” The words heave out of me, the way you keep retching even after you’ve puked your guts out.

  “No.” Mom sits back abruptly, and I stop crying in shock. “Fuck that.”

  I look over at her, not sure I’ve heard her right.

  “Fuck sorry. You’re not sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She thumps her back against her seat, glaring out the windshield. “Goddamn it.” Her eyes shoot over to me. “Tell me the rest.”

  “That’s it, basically,” I say. “I kept pushing him. And then someone walked in on us, and he stopped.”

  “And you didn’t punch him in the balls? Who is it? Because I am absolutely going to beat him to death.”

  A laugh bursts out of me, short but loud. Mom doesn’t even smile.

  “Probably nothing’s going to happen to the little shit,” she mutters. “Girls come into the hospital all the time, get their kits done, wait for some kind of goddamn justice that isn’t coming. I don’t know how my friends in the ER do it, I swear to God it would kill me.”

  I lower my hands to my lap, just watching Mom and staying as quiet as I can. I can’t remember ever seeing her get this mad about something that’s not . . . well, a thing that I did. It’s kind of amazing.

  She looks me straight in the eyes, and it’s like her soul is on fire. The sad, calm way she told me her own story, back in the dressing room—that’s gone. She’s as furious as I’ve ever seen her.

  “What are we going to do?” she asks.

  My heart drops. Just like Maddie, Mom wants to do something.

  I immediately think of Alex, the way he wanted to take care of me and forget the rest. He’s the only person who s
eems to understand what it’s like, to want to simply hide and think about things for a while. A long time. Forever, maybe.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper.

  “This is a guy from school? We need to tell the school. It’s not like these assholes make one mistake and suddenly reform. There’s always another party, another girl. You know, after what happened to me I was so embarrassed, it was years later before I thought that he might’ve done the same thing to other girls.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. “I should’ve run him over with his own car,” she says, her voice softer again. Resigned.

  But her words claw at the back of my brain.

  Other girls.

  “Shit.” I don’t even realize I’ve said it out loud until my mom nods again.

  “Yeah, it’s a lot of shit,” she agrees.

  We stare at each other, both of us almost smiling. It’s another one of those not-funny moments where you feel weird and light-headed. It’s strange and kind of wonderful to curse with your mom.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I tell her. I feel like I’m going to start crying again, but I hold my breath until it passes.

  “I don’t really know either, Rosie. But we’re going to figure something out.”

  “I just wish it hadn’t happened,” I say, my voice very small.

  Mom reaches over to hold my hand. “God, kid, so do I.”

  I hang my new dresses carefully in my closet. They each have their own garment bag, and they’ve carried a ton of lovely new-clothes smell home with us.

  I unzip the bag on the blue dress and stare at it. It’s so pretty. It looks pretty on me. It’s the kind of dress that people will stare at. I thought I didn’t want people staring at me anymore, but I picked out this dress, and I want to wear it.

  Nothing about getting Cory in trouble makes me feel better about what happened.

  But I can’t just let him erase me, either.

  I zip the bag back up and go over to my laptop. I hold my breath and open a new chat window to Alex.

  Will you go to Homecoming with me?

  A lightning bolt of power and pride and total panic rips through me, and I practically jump off my bed as soon as I hit Send.

  I pace back to my closet and start hanging things up that were on the floor. I throw big piles of clothes into my laundry hamper, stack books, open the window to let in some air.

  And then, reaching to put away a pair of shoes, I see something.

  It’s the blue scarf Maddie brought me from Spain. I hold it up to my cheek and feel how cool and soft it is. I wrap it loosely around my neck.

  I’m still full of a sick kind of energy, but I force myself to check the computer—nothing. Alex must be out.

  Okay. Not what I was hoping, but okay. I’m trying.

  Maybe it’s not what Mom or Maddie think I should be doing, but I’m doing something.

  I turn around, looking at my suddenly cleaned-up room. Leaning against the wall near my bed, my sketchbook for art class catches my eye. I grab my charcoal pencils from my desk.

  And then I grab the big notepad, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I sit down at a reasonable hour on a Sunday and start my homework.

  25

  WHEN MADDIE PICKS me up on Monday, she’s wearing a sweater I recognize from last year, jeans, and the small diamond-stud earrings her parents gave her for her sweet sixteen. No feathers, no wispy skirt, none of her new, post-Europe style.

  We match, sort of. I’m wrapped in a bulky cardigan over my torn jeans. Of course, I’m not the one campaigning for Junior Homecoming Queen.

  I guess I’m not the only one who wants to fly under the radar, either. My chest tightens as I realize that Cory might be erasing Maddie, too.

  “How’s art?” she asks, glancing back at where I’ve stashed my huge sketchpad behind my seat.

  “Not that bad,” I admit. “Messy, though. Charcoal gets everywhere. I might’ve accidentally stained my bedroom carpet.”

  She doesn’t laugh the way I’m expecting her to, and for a while we just drive in silence. The car rolls smoothly past houses that aren’t houses anymore, flimsy orange tape strung around toothpick stakes marking the edges of what used to be front yards. I wish she’d driven around this neighborhood, but it’s the quickest route to Ryan’s.

  “When is Alex coming back?” she asks suddenly.

  “Not sure.” I still haven’t heard from him. I’m glad I asked him to the dance, but it’s confusing and a little embarrassing, not knowing more about his plans. I feel like the longer he’s gone, the quieter he gets. I thought I’d tell Maddie about my plan to get him to Homecoming, but now it just seems silly. I stay quiet.

  “I hope it’s soon,” she says thoughtfully. “He seemed like a really good guy. And not that I care about the football team anymore, but, you know. It’d be nice if Olivia and Annabelle would shut up about how screwed the Lions will be without him.”

  “Olivia just loves drama.”

  But secretly, that’s part of what I miss about Alex, too—the drama. For all his quietness, he made things interesting. I miss him as a friend and as a person I want to kiss again, but I also kind of miss him as an event. Without him, school is just the same kids I’ve always known, being mean to each other in new ways.

  And way down, in the most secret corner of my heart, I want Alex to be a hero again, for me. To save me from everything that’s gone wrong.

  Which, okay. Now that I think about it, that isn’t just unfair, it’s impossible.

  As we’re pulling up outside Ryan’s house, my phone buzzes.

  I’d love to go to Homecoming with you. But I have to figure some stuff out first. Talk soon?

  “Hey, girls,” Ryan says, making the car shake as he drops into the backseat. “Christ, what is this billboard back here?”

  “Rosie’s art,” Maddie tells him.

  “Right, right. So what’d I miss?”

  Maddie perks up now that Ryan’s here, and they start talking about some youth group thing they went to yesterday.

  I squeeze my phone as we drive back through Emery Woods, stare out the window, focus on the boarded-up houses and work trucks. At the very last one, a guy is cleaning a yard. The house itself is missing most of its siding and several windows, but the guy is cheerfully raking leaves, putting them in a big paper bag, just like any other dad. Maddie slows the car at the stop sign on the corner, and there’s a pause in her conversation with Ryan. The guy in the yard looks up at us. He raises his hand, waving. After a second, we all raise our hands back.

  That’s it, I think. It’s not the voice telling me anything, it’s just my own thought: You fix what you can. You move forward.

  The car rolls on, and I turn to my two best friends.

  “I’m going to talk to Mrs. Walsh. About Cory.”

  “That’s awesome,” Maddie says. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “Um—I don’t know. Maybe? But maybe not.”

  She nods, her face lit up with a smile. It’s not like it’s good news—but I don’t know. Maybe she’s proud of me or something.

  Ryan reaches up from the backseat and pats my shoulder, and then to my relief they go back to talking about church.

  Just as Maddie’s pulling into a parking spot at school, I unlock my phone again and text Alex. Just a quick Yes, talk soon, and then, after debating it, a heart.

  “Let it go, let it go-oh, don’t wanna think about it anymooorrre—”

  I turn to Steph backstage. “How does anyone not know the lyrics to this song?”

  “Shh!” Steph has her hands covering her face, shaking with laughter.

  “I mean, wasn’t she listening to the twelve other people who just sang it?”

  From the other side of the curtain we hear, “I am the one who will WIN the SKY,” the poor girl’s voice creaking like an old staircase.

  Steph falls to her knees next to the flat we’re painting and gasps f
or air.

  “It’s like torture,” I say. I can’t even laugh—I’m so confused at how many people have brought in the Frozen sheet music to audition with, I’m just standing here with my paint roller midair, staring toward the back of the stage curtain. It’s a good thing no one can see us.

  “Oh my God,” she wheezes. “It’s so painful!”

  “Poor Ryan,” I say, and for some reason this sends her into another fit of giggles.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I know it’s mean—I just—”

  “Yeah, dude, you’re kind of a terrible person,” I tease her. She just shakes her head, too busy trying to keep her laughter silent.

  Outside the curtain the music finally stops, and we hear a very faint “Thank you!” followed by some footsteps and the shuffle of papers on the piano. Mr. Klonsky and Ryan are running the auditions while the band director, Ms. Ribar, plays everyone’s music. I feel sorry for all of them.

  “Really, though, poor Ryan,” Steph agrees, wiping her eyes on the cuffs of her sweater and turning back to the paints. “It was his idea to let people bring their own music. Usually they have a few songs to choose from, so Ms. Ribar doesn’t have to sight-read a million different things.”

  “Well, she probably has ‘Let It Go’ memorized by now,” I point out.

  Steph’s face starts to crumple again, but she shakes her head hard, determined to stop laughing, and gets back to work.

  Out front I hear Mr. Klonsky call, “Olivia Thorpe!”

  “I want to see this one,” I tell Steph, setting my roller on the side of the tin tray.

  Creeping around to the wings, I manage to stay out of sight as the first notes of Olivia’s song begin to play. They don’t sound like anything from a Disney movie, which is sort of disappointing. In fact, they’re upbeat, and I think I’ve heard them before, maybe from Ayla’s room—