"No-no, Mom, this is an episode," I tell her softly, trying again to use Dad's word, just like I had on the bleachers after my middle school soccer game.
But this time, she frowns at me, shakes her head. "Stop trying to fool me, Aura. It's not funny, you know, making fun of me, fun like that. It's a play, obviously."
I collapse on my knees beside her, put my face in my hands.
"Don't worry, Aura," she says, patting my knee. "It always works out in the end."
And that just makes the tears come, as quiet and big as the drops in a summer rainstorm. I turn my face from her so she can't see.
The thing is, it doesn't always work out-not even on the stage. Not even on the big screen. I mean, I've watched plenty of late-night horror movies over at Janny's house. And I know that before the heroine finally offs the serial killer, he's already whacked a couple dozen girls and left them rotting by the roadside. Not everybody's the heroine, you know. Some of us just have bit parts in somebody else's story.
I'm terrified that the next time Mom needs me, I'm going to crack right in two. Because the longer this drama goes on, the more I feel like somebody that's going to get offed in Mom's journey. Maybe not literally dead, but a spiritual corpse, you know? I'll snap, and the me I've always known will be gone, never to emerge again.
And then what?
Then Angela Frieson will get her hands on me earlier than I thought.
When a loved one is immersed in a schitophrenie episode, you will find yourself unable to think about anything else.. 4nything. Else,
ho the hell am I kidding? I think the next morning, as I pull the Tempo next to the Crestview High curb. A stream of cars honk, angry, as they all veer around me and pull into the parking lot. Me with my pink schoolgirl sweater, like everything is just fine, the only thing that keeps me up at night is my complexion, loiddy-doiddy-di.
What am I going to say to the attendance secretaries? Or Mr. Mitchells, the vice principal that I've never even seen before in my entire life? Or Kolaite? Or Fritz? Is anyone really going to believe I had the stomach flu? Will a note I scribbled myself, hunched over the kitchen counter this morning, be enough for them to just send me on up to Bio II? At this point, would they even believe me if I sauntered in through the front door with an IV on wheels and my own personal nurse to monitor me because I'd been infected with the world's worst case of E. coli, details to be seen on the news at six?
Fritz is going to call me to her office, and I'm going to get reamed. She's going to practically put an ankle bracelet on me, like people wear when they're on house arrest.
I mean, that's the kind of bull that goes on in American high schools. Kid has pot in his locker two doors down from me, but Fritz'll come down on me, because I'm not six-foot-three, and I didn't spend the year before in the Brailly Alternative School, which is where all the violent kids get sent in between their stints in juvie. I'm not scary, so I get picked on.
And teachers act like only kids can be bullies.
I'm sure that if anybody knew what was going oncounselors A-Z and the vice principal and 01' Lady Kolaite and even Dear Abby herself-they'd tilt their heads and wrinkle their eyebrows and plead, Tell someone, Aura. Tell someone what you re going through. Tell someone how bad your mother is. Get help, get help. Like there's some sort of twelve step program Mom can go through and whoopee! No more schizo.
And then, when they're all in private, like in the middle of the faculty lounge-that off-limits-to-gypsies room that consistently sends the bitter smell of coffee dregs into the hall-they'd all say something completely different. I can just picture Fritz holding my sketch of 01' Lady Kolaite's face while the rest of the Crestview faculty settle into ancient Naugahyde chairs and shake their heads over that poor, poor Aura Ambrose.
Her mother is crazy, you know.
Yes, yes, I heard. She tried to keep it from us all. Very sneaky girl.
Such a pity, that one.
Yes, well, you know what they say about apples. Never do fall far.
I saw a movie once about a schizo.
We've all seen movies about schizos.
They're dangerous people, you know. The one in my movie, he killed someone in self-defense, or so he claimed-except it wasn't self-defense, because there really was no danger, he was just-
Imagining it all?
Right. Imagining the threat. So he killed this person just because he was paranoid, see?
Yes, yes-what if this girl is paranoid?
We could have another Columbine on our hands, you know.
The best way to monitor her is to put her in a bunch of art classes. Get her to put down on paper what's floating around up there in her mind.
Right-like art therapy. Get her to put it all on paper.
Easier to justify an expulsion that way.
Right.
And can you believe she bought the whole thing about us wanting to put her in the accelerated arts and letters program because she's "talented?" Puh-lease!
And while I'm at it, how do I think I'm going to get through the whole day? Do I really think that I'll be able to leave Mom alone for eight solid hours? Isn't that a little like putting a dog in the backyard with the gate wide open, and expecting her to still be rooted in the exact same spot, just like a good little girl, when you get home from work?
God, I wish I could just shut the door on her and head out into another part of my life. Yeah, I wish I could turn my whole stupid, stinking life into a giant chest of drawers. One compartment for Mom, one compartment for long-lost friends (make that friend, singular), one for Dad and his new family, one for the complete and total malarkey that the world likes to call high school. I'd be so careful to make sure nothing in one drawer got misplaced in another-because it would be utter disaster, like if the material from your undershorts and your sports socks could somehow create a bomb just by touching. Put one pair of panties in the wrong drawer and blam! The entire house is blown to smithereens.
Blam!
A knock on the passenger's side window makes me jump so hard, my head whacks the roof of the car. I'd gotten so wrapped up in my own thoughts, I hadn't realized that the tardy bell had sounded.
Everyone's already gone inside, and here I am, the Tempo still idling at the curb. I'm right where I pulled over, staring at Crestview like a peeping Tom, trying to decide if I'm really going to head on over to what is becoming my usual space at Kmart two blocks south.
It's Mr. Groce, Security God, glaring at me through the window like he's discovered a machine gun in a violin case that I've been carrying to school for three days. So I lean across the passenger's seat and roll down the window, trying to look as innocent as possible-blink the eyelashes, smear a weepy expression across my face. Will it work?
"What's your business here?" Groce growls.
It doesn't. Figures.
"My business?" I chirp.
"Crestview High students are all inside their classrooms. Visitors are required to obtain a pass from the office. And since you don't have a Springfield Public School parking sticker displayed prominently in your windshield, I have to assume you are a visitor. No loitering is permitted on school grounds."
I nod.
"Ever," he adds.
I realize he's not joking or being smart-he really doesn't know who I am. He's forgotten all about me. So I put the Tempo in drive and take off. But less than a block away, I have to pull over again because I'm laughing so hard. Earlier this month, I was a student. Gypsy scum that Groce personally locked out of the cleanest bathroom in the school. This morning, I'm a security threat.
Another knock-this time on the driver's side window-makes me choke on my own laughter.
"What now," I start, and when I turn to look, I can't believe it, of all the rotten luck. Janny Jamison, out for a walk with her kid. I am just so not in the mood for another confrontation.
"You didn't go in," she says, when I finally roll the window down.
"What?" I ask, like an idiot.
&nbs
p; "You didn't go into school," Janny says again.
"So?"
"So-how bad is she now? Your mom? Is she getting worse?"
"What, you care all of a sudden?"
"Look, don't try to pretend I didn't see you at the grocery store in the middle of the night, all right? Don't pretend I wasn't at your house watching your mom try to spin the world backward."
And if life could ever really be a chest of drawers, Danny's just knocked it over, letting all my undergarmentsmy horrendously private things-start blowing out in the open. I want her to shut up. I want her not to know so much. Because instead of helping me, all she's doing is showing me everything I'm screwing up.
"You should be in school, Aura."
"And look at you, Ms. Teen Mom USA," I snap. "The picture of scholarship yourself."
Janny doesn't get peeved like I expect her to. She doesn't tell me what a bitch I am or that I can just go rot in my own miserable hell, if that's what I want. She doesn't tell me to piss off, like she told all those boys along the Florida coast when they teased us and called us lesbos because we still held hands like a couple of babies. She just gets this disappointed look on her dishwasher-worn face. You know, that motherly disappointment. It's the worst.
"Look, Aura. I gotta take care of him," she says, pointing at her son, who I guess got over his ear infection, because even though he's still all squirmy in his stroller, he's at least not screaming his head off. "I got to, all right? That's my job. I'm his mom, right? That's what I do. I spend all day wiping his nose and changing nasty diapers and burping him, because that's what I signed up for. Maybe I didn't mean to-maybe I signed up on accident, but that's what I got now, okay?"
So?
"So, I'm telling you, after all I've gone through for him-after all I still go through, being a single mom and all, and all I'm bound to go through-I don't want this kid to give up his life for anything. I sure as hell wouldn't stand for him to give up on an education so he could stay home and wipe my ass. I'd just rather slit my wrists, is all."
"Poetic," I say through a glare.
"What are you waiting for, Aura? You waiting for her to try to hurt herself? Are you? You waiting for her to commit suicide, Aura?"
"Janny!" I scream. My mouth flaps like a broken screen door, I'm so offended.
"Look, I've been getting on the Internet at the library, and one in ten schizophrenics kill themselves, okay, so-"
"You think I don't know the numbers?" I snap at her.
"Aura, I'm just saying-"
But I can't stand to listen. Not to one more syllable. So I hit the gas and take off again.
Families who have been through a psychotic episode warn that no amount of preparation can protect you from the shock, panic, and full body sickening dread you feel when your loved one enters this stage of schizophrenia.
oddamn you, fanny, I think as I smash the cigarette lighter into the dash. Why the hell are you acting like you actually care? It was too much, remember? I tear a cigarette out of the pack, shocked that only two more are left.
Too much, too much-the words bounce around inside my head as I suck at my cigarette-I'm like a vampire with the thing, devouring every last drop of blood from my latest victim. Yeah, too much, you said, so you ran to your precious Ace. You made your choice-why shove your face back in my business now?
I slam the car into park and stomp inside, anger rolling off me like steam from the nearby city power plant.
But when I open the front door, everything changes. No more Janny, no more anger, no more smell of cigarette smoke rolling out of my pink schoolgirl sweater. No more Groce, no more Fritz. It's like I've entered another dimension, you know? A dimension that smells of fear and sweat, and it's too hot and too cold and too quiet, and the instant I step into the front hall, the overwhelming silence gives way.
My ears throb against a horrendous squeal that sounds just like a note struck high on the neck of an electric guitar, then sent out of tune with the whammy bar. The note whines, it wails, and I'm thinking of Mom's record player. My first thought is that it's some guitar solo that's attacking my ears. Music that'll have Mrs. Pilkington on our front porch, threatening us yet again with the cops.
But just as I'm about to make a run for Mom's bedroom, to snap that turntable off, the squeal acts like the sound version of a kaleidoscope, because it shifts, it changes color. And I know this isn't music. It's the smoke alarm.
Black curls-like hair caught on a breeze-waft down the front hall and up my nose, crawl inside my head. As the smoke slides down my throat, I cough against it, fighting to breathe. Had I really been sucking this crap into my lungs on purpose just a minute ago? Did I really think it made me feel better?
My whole body feels wobbly. Electricity is chewing on my arms. Something's burning. Something's on fire.
My breath is ragged and it scrubs against my lungs like sandpaper as I rush down the hall. What the hell is going on here? Is the whole house on fire?
"Mom!" I scream, not sure which direction to turn. From the center of the living room, I can see through the doorway to the kitchen, where the chairs are turned over on their sides. A few of the mermaids lie scattered across the table, and the fishing lines they'd once dangled from hang from the ceiling, broken. One mermaid lies on the floor, her tiny arm reaching out across the linoleum as though asking to be saved.
The scene makes me so queasy, it's like I'm not even in control of my body anymore. It's like I've just come home to find my family slaughtered, and the gruesome sight has sent me into shock.
"Aura!" Mom calls, running into the living room. But she doesn't stop when she gets to my side. Instead, she tackles me, pushing me straight into the kitchen, where she forces me down to the cold floor. My sweaty palm adheres to the linoleum.
"Look," she says, making a motion with her head toward the remaining mermaids that still dangle from the popcorn ceiling. "Look at them, up there, smug. Look what they're doing. Trying to drown me, Aura. See them, how they're swimming, mean, on the surface of the water? How they're making a wall, see? And they won't let me through? Red Rover, Red Rover, like a game, Aura. Send Gracie right over. And every time I try to break their chain, they laugh. Like they think it's some funny game, playground, laugh ing, and here I am and I'll die and you will, too, now that you're here we'll die this way, see?"
"What's burning, Mom?" I ask, struggling to get away from her. But her hand is like the old vice Dad left behind in the garage, on his workbench. "What's on fire?"
"They're killing us, Aura, killing us," Mom says. "We've got to kill them back first." Her eyes are as wild as a rabid dog's. But the thing is, you're not supposed to run from a dog. That just makes them think you're scared, right? That they've got you cornered? So I reach up to pet her hair. Nice doggy...
"You're right, Mom," I say. My body could be what's making the smoke alarm go off, the way it burns. But I can't let her see how terrified I am. "Show me where you're killing them."
"Shh," she scolds me, putting a finger to her lip, like she's afraid they'll overhear. "The tilty floor didn't work. I fixed it, but nothing changed. So I covered it up, and that made them mad. They chased me," she whispers, "into the bathroom."
The ear-shredding screech of the smoke alarm gets louder as I make my way through the living room, toward the hallway that leads to all the bedrooms. That wail is the same pitch and decibel as the fear that courses through my veins, and I can't take it. I just can't-so I jump, swing my hand over my head. I miss, so I try again, this time striking it dead center, where the 9-volt lies. The alarm lets out a weird, lower-pitched yelp, like I've actually hurt it. I hit it a couple more times until it finally breaks.
The plastic shell on the alarm shatters, like a whiskey bottle. A bottle that I could have emptied, taken care of. You moron. You had a choice. You had a chance, you could have said something, told anyone. You're worthless. You let this happen to her. She's been in here suffering, and you did nothing.
The fingers that
destroyed the smoke alarm sting like they've been stuck with about a hundred carpet nails as I lunge into the bathroom. The bath mat is on fire-it's like some crazy burning bush there in the middle of the floor. Thank God for the tile, which must be made out of the same scorch-proof crap that Dad installed on the backsplash in the kitchen. But the flames are getting dangerously close to the shower curtain-an orange shoot looks like a tongue trying to lick an ice cream cone just out of reach.
I grab a towel off the rack-one of those fluffy, guestsonly items that was purchased once-upon-a-time, when there was still a dad and a hope that our house could be honest-to-God normal, with doilies on the arms of La-ZBoys and extra toothbrushes in the medicine cabinet and a different out-of-state relative on the doorstep each weekend.
I draw the thick towel behind my shoulder and throw it down, over and over, like I've actually got a baseball bat in my hands instead of a floppy piece of material. I attack the fire, beating it, like the flames are the only monster in the house. I beat it as though, once it's dead, this whole situation will be over, and I'll be able to collapse into a sigh of relief.
But once the mat is just a black, charred spot on the floor, my nose explodes with the firecracker-type stench of a match striking. I look behind me, and Mom's tossing a lit match into the sink where she's piled a few of the mermaids. She's got some newspapers twisted into wicks, too, like kindling in a fireplace. She just keeps lighting and tossing.
"I had them burning awhile, once," she tells me. "They tried to catch me, drag me under. I had them. But the burn is hard to keep, like secrets. Come on, Aura, help me! We've got to kill them before they drown us."
As she tosses another match into the sink, I catch my reflection in the mirror. The details are so sharp-so magnified. I can see every oil-oozing pore. Crooked black eyeliner. The top curve of a red, chapped lip. My faults pile one on top of each other.
Mom just keeps striking match after match, tossing them so wildly that only some wind up in the sink. Others drift scarily close to the washcloths stacked next to our old cracked ceramic toothbrush holder, or fall to the floor.
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