Zoe Letting Go

by Nora Price

  The room went dead. This wasn’t a meeting about schedules or allergies or some other minor detail. If I was hearing correctly, Brooke was suggesting that a crime had taken place.

  “Brooke?” Angela prompted. “Would you like to walk us through your side of the story?”

  I knew I should look straight at Brooke while she delivered her complaint, but there was a white smear of goat cheese on her left sleeve, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.

  “Someone went through my personal belongings,” she began, her voice quivering with anger. The cheese smear stood out like a bull’s eye—why couldn’t she eat like a normal person, instead of a pig? If she truly cared about her belongings, why did she cover them in food?

  “Someone went through my things while I was asleep,” Brooke continued, her nose running. “And they took my favorite dress. My green dress. They stole it from my closet and—” she paused to wipe her nose, which had already dripped into her lap, but launched into another crying jag before she could complete the sentence.

  Haley raised her hand. “Are you sure it happened this morning? I mean, what if it happened a few days ago? It could be a mistake—”

  “I wore it yesterday,” Brooke interjected.

  I considered the ramifications of this statement. If she wore it yesterday—and maybe she did, I can’t remember—then the dress would have been filthy when she hung it back in her closet. Why would anyone steal a filthy dress? Not to mention an ugly one. It was a vivid green tube-shaped garment that made Brooke look like a Kirby cucumber. If anything, the thief had done her a favor.

  After discussing the details of the theft, Angela dispatched us to our rooms to check for missing items of our own. A second item, indeed, was gone.

  My leggings.

  I have seven pairs of leggings. Seven identical pairs. I wear them every day in summer, firstly because I can’t be bothered to wear jeans and secondly because my legs look like tree stumps in shorts. Seven is an easy number to remember—a pair of leggings for each day of the week. As I went through my belongings, I kept counting and recounting, certain that I’d missed a pair. I reported the missing leggings to Angela, who wrote the item down on a list.

  How had I gotten implicated in this?

  Victoria was spooked. Haley was excited. I, meanwhile, was eager to discuss the details of the robbery with both of them as soon as possible, but I had a session with Alexandra to get through first. This was good in the final analysis, since I had a question I was dying to ask her. I hurried our session along as quickly as possible, impatiently discussing the Caroline business until Alexandra could be persuaded to talk about the theft. Then, as soon as it was possible to do so without being obvious, I asked the question that had been dominating my thoughts for the past hour.

  “If the thief were caught,” I said, “would she go home?”

  “No,” Alexandra said, momentarily startled at my introduction of a new topic. She quickly regained her equilibrium, like a surfer navigating a choppy wave. “Absolutely not. It would be something we would work through in group sessions.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” I said. This was all valuable information, and I needed to extract as much as possible. The Twin Birch memo had covered petty infractions, not serious crimes.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not everyone’s fault. To me, it seems like only the thief should be punished.”

  “And,” Alexandra prompted, “you think that the thief should be punished by being sent home?”

  Another trick question.

  “No, you’re right,” I said, backtracking. “That wouldn’t be a punishment at all.”

  “Some girls might even view it as a reward,” Alexandra said. I could be wrong, but it seemed as though she were watching my reaction with special acuteness. I sensed that I was being tested.

  “So no,” Alexandra continued, her black bob shining in the sunlight. “We can’t go down that disciplinary route. Not for any reason.”

  “Sounds like a person would have to kill someone to be sent home from Twin Birch,” I suggested.

  Alexandra raised an eyebrow.

  “So what’s going to happen?” I asked, redirecting the conversation. “What will happen to the thief when she gets caught?”

  “I doubt the thief will get caught,” Alexandra said.

  “Or confesses?”

  “I doubt the thief will confess.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  “She’s testing boundaries. If the impulse were rooted in greed, she’d have stolen something of value. If the impulse were based in cruelty, she would have stolen an object of sentimental worth. Instead, she chose an old green dress.”

  “And a pair of leggings,” I added.

  Alexandra wrote something down on her notepad. Our time was almost up.

  After the session, I sprinted outside to the shaded beech grove where I’d agreed to convene with Victoria and Haley. Both girls were already there; their Group Downtime had begun directly after lunch, while I had been in therapy.

  “Nancy Drew to the rescue!” Victoria crowed as I burst out of the front door and ran over to join them. I was breathless with impatience. We immediately began discussing the crime.

  “Why clothes?” Victoria speculated. “If you’re going to steal, why not steal something of value?”

  “Right,” I said. “It’s not the leggings themselves. I have a million pairs of leggings. Seven, to be exact.”

  “You’re right. It’s the weirdness factor,” Haley agreed. She tugged on a pair of gold earrings. “I take these off every night. It’s not like someone couldn’t just grab them from the nightstand. Brooke’s dress was, like, fifty years old and stained. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Clearly, personal gain wasn’t the motivation here,” I said.

  “Then what was?”

  We stewed over this question. In doing so, I happened to notice that my thighs had expanded another half-inch or so. I wondered, objectively, how much wider they’d gotten over the past nine days. One inch? Two inches? Three? I wore the same leggings I always wear: black, size XS, opaque enough so that I never have to worry about my underwear showing through. The perfect leggings. For the past few months, I’ve barely worn anything else.

  But that wasn’t the subject at hand.

  “Do you think this happens a lot?” I asked. “Thefts at Twin Birch?”

  “I dunno,” Haley said. “Angela seemed weirded out by it.”

  “Yeah,” Victoria agreed. “She wasn’t acting on precedent. The meeting was so haphazard—it was like she didn’t know what to do. She was improvising.”

  “She was so serious,” I said, giggling a little. “I mean, the action itself is disturbing, but the details of it—the fact that the person stole my leggings …”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Haley agreed. “Unless it was done purely out of malice.”

  “That’s the whole point,” Victoria said. “That’s why Angela is so concerned.”

  “Well, following that theory, I can understand why someone would take a disliking to Brooke. She’s confrontational and frosty and generally a pill.” I snuck a glance at Victoria and Haley to see if they expressed any agreement with my summary, but it was hard to tell. “But me?” I continued. “I’m not exactly a mean person. Why would someone want revenge on me? Why me and Brooke?”

  Then I thought of something. The thought must have showed on my face, because Victoria and Haley instantly pounced on it.

  “What?” they said simultaneously.

  “You have an evil look on your face,” Victoria said. She scrambled up to a sitting position and thumped the grass with both hands. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”

  “What-what-what!?” Haley said.

  “I’m having a Harriet the Spy moment.”

  “Go on,” they begged.

  I plucked a stalk of clover and removed the leaves contemp
latively, drawing out the gesture for maximum dramatic impact. If I smoked cigarettes, I would’ve taken the moment to unleash a perfect, languorous line of smoke rings. Oh well.

  Victoria poked me in the leg. “What’re you plotting?” she asked. “I’m going to die here.”

  “Don’t die yet,” I said, with a Cheshire Cat smile. “I know exactly how to catch our thief.”

  Dear Elise,

  Day eleven. We picked raspberries today. Soft, squishy raspberries that we gathered from the brambles and deposited in empty yogurt containers, where the riper ones exploded on impact. I conducted an experiment while I picked, consuming a single berry to see if it tasted any different eaten outside than it did eaten inside. You know what? It did. Standing waist-deep in a patch of thorns and rolling the seeds around on my tongue, I could taste all the other elements that conspired to produce that raspberry: dew, thorns, warmth, and even, not unpleasantly, dirt. I was hypnotized by the taste for three full minutes, and I didn’t eat another berry for fear that the taste would go away. The rest of the morning’s harvest went directly into my yogurt container. Plop, plop, plop.

  Have you ever noticed that a raspberry has a hollow center after you pick it? It’s the only berry I can think of that does. Blackberries don’t, blueberries don’t, and strawberries don’t. Why is that? (So elves can wear raspberries as hats?)

  In cooking, we simmered and strained the berries to make jam—a process which left everyone’s fingers and lips stained a bright Valentine’s Day pink. The air smelled like cakes and confections. It reminded me of your very first Valentine.

  (Is it significant that I remember your first Valentine but not my own? Probably, but I won’t attempt to interpret.)

  We were in third grade at the time, way too big for printed turtlenecks and kooky socks but not advanced enough for training bras. It was a transitional age. (Then again, what age prior to full-fledged adulthood isn’t transitional? I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel too old or too young.)

  We were, at any rate, pre-romantic. Our interests included carnivorous plants, Lip Smackers, T-shirts that changed color in the sun, and squishy pencil grips. We still thought the best way to get boys to like us was to imitate them and/or beat them at HORSE.

  What innocent children we were!

  February 13 was like Christmas Eve at my house. It was major. Under my mom’s watch, V-Day involved treasure hunts, doilies, heart-shaped stickers, unrestrained consumption of glucose, and surprises. Your parents, by contrast, were more or less indifferent to holidays that didn’t revolve around the consumption of specialty cocktails (gin and tonics for Independence Day, egg nogs for Christmas, Kir Royals for New Year’s—hell, even I’ve committed their drinking schedule to memory by now). Although our parents weren’t keen on the idea of sleepovers on school nights, you were always allowed to spend the night on February 13, and this occasion was no different.

  The scene outside was brutal when we woke up. A blizzard the week before had left souvenirs of gray ice and filthy slush to crowd the sidewalks, and for weeks the sky had been the color of old clam chowder. Grim weather usually has a leaking effect, wherein it seems to seep indoors and turn everything dull, cold, and dreary. On Valentine’s Day, however, the effect was a contrasting one. As we traipsed to the kitchen in our matching pajamas like a couple of baby bears, we couldn’t believe how snug and warm the little apartment felt. The holiday had transformed a drab apartment into a magical one.

  The smell of melting chocolate poured forth from the stove, where my mother was stirring a pot of homemade cocoa. We squealed, and my brother Harry, who was already up and dressed and waiting at the table, tossed us each a red jellybean from the stash he was working through. Red tissue flowers and glitter festooned the table, where giant heart-shaped cookies marked each of our places. ZOE, ELISE, HARRY, and MOM: Our names were spelled out in pink frosting. My mom kissed our foreheads and poured cocoa and flutes of sparkling pear cider for everyone, and we toasted to Valentine’s Day. (Harry: “Did you know that toasting was originally a way to make sure that Romans didn’t poison each other’s drinks? You’re supposed to splash a little of your drink into the other person’s glass when you clink—that way, if they’ve tried to poison you, then they’ll die too.” Mom: “I don’t think that’s true.”) After toasting we feasted on stiff fondant icing and butter cookies, inciting a sugar high that would spin itself out by mid-morning. In two minutes flat, our pajamas were covered in glitter. We were allowed to go to school without brushing our teeth.

  It was during math lab that afternoon that Ms. Philpott called you out into the hallway. I figured it was something minor, but when you failed to return after fifteen minutes, I asked permission to use the bathroom and went a-searching for you. The coat closet was vacant, so I checked the hallway and stairwells. Nothing. On a hunch—yep, I’d been reading Cam Jansen mysteries—I headed for the girls’ bathroom, where my suspicion was speedily confirmed. A flurry of noise came to a halt as I opened the door and slipped inside. Although the bathroom was silent, I detected ragged breathing amid the disinfectant-scented air.

  “Elise?” I whispered.

  The door to the big handicapped stall inched open. You stood behind it, looking as though you’d recently killed someone and I’d caught you disposing of the corpse.

  “What are you doing?” I cried, rushing inside and locking the stall door behind me. You backed away and slouched unhappily against the wall, your apple-red corduroys still bedazzled in the morning’s glitter. A torn pile of fabric stood at your feet, shredded into something that looked like cartoon roadkill. Scraps of fake fur littered the linoleum floor right up to the seat of the toilet, and when I peered inside the bowl, I saw more fluff drifting in the water.

  “What on earth—?” I began.

  “Ms. Philpott called me outside,” you said. “She said that someone had something special for me, and that I should open it.”

  “Oh God.”

  “She gave me this bag and watched me open it,” you said. “There was a teddy bear inside with a heart on it, and a note from—from—”

  “Who?” I asked.

  You cringed. “Aaron.”

  “Oh, gross.”

  Aaron was the class creep. Not the class nerd, but the class creep. There’s a big difference. The creep is the kid who pushed girls over in kindergarten so he could see their underwear. The kid who would go on to snap their bras a few years later to humiliate them for committing the crime of entering puberty. If cooties were an actual disease, Aaron would have been patient zero. I mean it. He should have been quarantined anyway.

  “I am so sorry,” I said, feeling your pain.

  “I think he got his mom to write the note.”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “In there.” You pointed to the toilet. I looked inside, but the note had dissolved into multicolored mush.

  “What’d it say?” I asked.

  “Dear Elise, Be my Valentine. Love, Aaron.”

  “Shut the front door,” I gasped. “Love, Aaron?”

  “Yeah. Ms. Philpott watched me open it. A tablespoon of barf came up in my throat, and I had to swallow it.”

  I completely understood.

  “She told me I had to thank him,” you went on. “That he’d probably saved up his money to buy it.”

  “Screw that,” I said, stalking over to the toilet. I aimed my sneaker at the handle and kicked, flushing Aaron’s icky Valentine into the sewage abyss where it belonged. Then I fixed you up, dipping paper towels in cold water and patting your forehead and cheeks until the color faded from firetruck red to passable pink. We speed-walked back to class, hoping that our absence hadn’t drawn attention. I wanted to murder Aaron on your behalf for daring to impose his weirdo desires on you. Mega yuck.

  It wasn’t the last time I’d experience that particular kind of protective possessiveness. Five or six years later, it began to happen every day. Guys of varying creepiness—and sometimes even
hot guys—followed you down the supermarket aisle to compliment your eyes. When we went to the bookstore, the guy behind the counter slipped you a note with his phone number. The Apple Store Geniuses fixed your computer for free. It became a source of joking between us.

  Aaron’s Valentine, however, was the first such milestone in our friendship. Until that moment, I’d never really drawn distinctions between us. We were like matching socks or two Twinkies in a package: a pair, and therefore the same. But from that day forward, we weren’t the same anymore.

  I paid close attention to this fact.

  At the time, I was relieved that I didn’t have to dispose of hostile teddy bears on Valentine’s Day. But as time passed, the feeling mutated from relief into despair. I saw the way boys looked at you and the way adults talked about you. I began to understand that the glow of beauty that enveloped you was not transferable to me. I felt a gulf widening between us, and although I knew it would always be a part of our friendship, I could never quite accept it.

  I wonder if you despise me for admitting these things. It is okay if you do. I thought I would feel better after I wrote them down, but it turns out that I don’t. Not really. What I feel instead is ambivalence. I wish that I could gather every last bit of my unhappiness into a ball, just so it would all be in one place.

  Love,

  Zoe

  [Day Twelve]

  Too busy plotting to write more than a few sentences.

  One: Today I ate cheesecake for the first time in three years.

  Two: We are going to catch the thief.

  That is all.

  [Day Thirteen]

  An atmosphere of safety is paramount to the Twin Birch program. For this reason, patients are forbidden from entering each other’s personal quarters without explicit, verbal permission.

  I’d memorized the paragraph carefully. As in legal documents, seemingly minor details of wording were imbued with the potential to wreak dire consequences.