by Vail, Rachel
Headlights passed over me and Mom as cars pulled away. “’Bye!” kids shouted out windows to one other, and maybe to me. One car pulled into the circle and stopped beside us. When I heard the electric window buzzing down, I turned just my eyes, I couldn’t help it, and saw it was Olivia and her mother. Aunt Betsy leaned across tiny Olivia, who was buckled into the front seat beside her. “Corey,” she called to Mom. “Everything OK?”
Mom nodded. “Thanks.”
“OK,” said Aunt Betsy, closing the window and slowly pulling away.
Mom was staring at the sky when I dared look at her again. I wondered if she was trying not to cry, if she learned that looking-up trick from me or if I had learned it from her. Another car tooted pleasantly. “The entire town,” she mumbled. “Every single . . .” She took a breath and shook her head before she looked down into my eyes again. “Go wait in the car, please, CJ. I don’t want to look at you right now.”
I tried to think of anything in the world to do or say to make it better, but there was nothing. She had never before in my life not wanted to look at me. I turned to walk toward the car and noticed my head was hanging down, my shoulders were rounded, my belly was poufed out. I knew that I was ugly, knew that Mom and everybody could see how ugly I really was. It felt worse than I had even last year when I auditioned for the part of Clara in The Nutcracker and stood there with the other finalists with Mom watching and a number on my chest, when Yuri said, “Thank you, number seventeen. Good-bye.” And Mom had cried, a little. She denied it, but I saw a tear. Not good enough, I told myself then, and every time I saw Fiona in her Clara costume. Ugly, awkward, clumsy. Practice more, Mom had suggested to me cheerily. Stretch harder, I’ll wake you every day at dawn, and next year we’ll show ’em at The Nutcracker auditions. Eat less, I told myself, concentrate better—or quit. Who needs this anyway? I don’t want to be Clara anyway, I’d rather be normal, hang out at the pizza place with my friends, so I don’t care.
But this time, opening the car door and slumping into the backseat, there were no words to make me feel better. Eating less or stretching more wouldn’t solve anything. I tried deciding, so what? I don’t want Mom and Dad to love me anyway. But it’s not true. I slammed the car door shut to hide my ugly self.
twenty-two
When we got home, Paul was waiting on the porch. I got out of the silent car and trudged up to the porch, ready for Paul to tell me how dead I was. Instead he hugged me and whispered, “Don’t run away.”
“What?” I asked, but Mom and Dad had caught up and Dad said, “Straight upstairs.”
In my room, I pulled History down from my shelf, but then I decided, No, I don’t deserve the comfort. I slumped into the little space between my dresser and the wall, not thinking, just feeling really, really pathetic, and listening to my family eating dinner quietly below me.
I heard the sink go on, which meant they were done, and then I heard Mom’s footsteps coming up the stairs. I sunk down lower, happy she was coming but at the same time, not.
She opened my door slowly, and I could tell she was looking around for me. My feet were sticking out, so I stretched them a little, and she came over. She placed a plate of turkey and carrots and French fries on my floor between us.
“Hungry?” she asked. Even sitting cross-legged on the floor my mother looks graceful and elegant, with her pearl earrings and perfect posture.
“No,” I whispered. “Thank you.” I tried to sit up straight. I had pulled the pretty flowered scrunchie off my hair and left it up on my dresser, so my hair filled most of the space around me. I didn’t care how ugly I looked anymore.
“CJ,” Mom said. “We have to talk.”
“I know.” I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall for a second, practicing the words I’d been preparing. “I know I was bad,” I started.
“No,” Mom said quietly. “You’re not a little child anymore, CJ. You weren’t just bad, it’s not that simple.”
I started to cry. “I know.”
“I feel just terrible, CJ, and I haven’t even begun to sort this out, but I think the first thing, the worst thing to me is, it’s clear to me that we haven’t been communicating, and that’s at least partly my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted so desperately to go on this trip?”
“I tried, Mom,” I told her.
“I guess I wasn’t really hearing you.”
I covered my face with my hands. “Don’t,” I said.
“Mrs. Johnson has your name down on a list to play soccer. Were you planning to discuss that with me?”
I shrugged, my face still hidden. I wished she would just punish me, or spank me, or tell me I’m grounded until I’m forty-two. I sunk down lower into my body.
“Is that—is that instead of ballet?”
I shrugged again.
“You have to talk to me, CJ,” she said, pulling my hands down. It was dark now in my room, only the light from the lamppost outside by the sidewalk streaming in, throwing Mom’s shadow long and thin across my floor. “What do you want, CJ? I’m asking you and I want to listen. Do you want to dance?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what the answer should be. I only knew she wanted me to dance and my friends didn’t want me to.
“What do you want?” she asked again. “Is it hard to talk? I love you, I mean to be here for you, it should be OK to tell me anything. I’m sorry. I guess I haven’t been a very good mother to you lately.”
“No!” I hadn’t meant to yell and usually my voice is pretty quiet, so it startled us both. “No,” I said again. “You’re a great mother, but don’t do that to me, don’t turn everything around, I can’t keep up.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, tilting her head to the side and waiting, now, listening.
“I mean, I-I-I can’t, the rest of you, you can all, you’re so much more Word than I am.”
She nodded a little and waited.
“I can’t, the words just, for me, I-I get so turned around when I talk to you I don’t remember what I was trying to say, and then I just, I mean, all I know is I want to make you happy, but . . .”
“But you have to do what’s right for yourself, too,” she filled in.
I nodded.
“And what’s right for you?”
I just shrugged.
“Well, you must have something in mind.”
“Wait,” I begged. “Just . . .”
She sucked her lips into her mouth and waited.
“I know I was bad, or, not bad, but I was, what Daddy said—lying, cheating, horrible . . .”
Mom shook her head. “He didn’t say horrible. He was scared. And surprised and disappointed.”
“I know.” I rested my face in my hands.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Go ahead. So? What is right for you? Playing soccer? Do you even like soccer?”
“No!” I pulled my knees up to my chest and hid my face between them. “But it’s not soccer, or picking apples, it’s just, Mom? I’m not like you.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute, and neither did I. That had just popped out, but there it hung, between us. Finally she asked, “In what way?”
I couldn’t look up at her but now that it was there, I had to finish. I stared at the dark floor between my knees and told her, “I’m not . . . You always wanted to be special, and you are, you are a superstar, with style and special, spotlights. Everywhere you go, it’s like there’s a . . . Whether you danced at Lincoln Center or not, it’s just, you stand out from the crowd, everybody looks at you when you walk in a room. But I don’t, do that, or, want that. I want to be in the crowd. I just want to be regular. Don’t say no you don’t.”
“OK,” she whispered, touching my hair.
“Because even if you think i
t’s stupid to want that, I just, I want, I don’t want to think about my career. I’m twelve—”
“I know,” she interrupted, but I jumped right back in.
“It’s hard because, I love when you look at me like I’m special.” Her eyes were steady on mine. I didn’t look away. “And you do everything for me,” I said. “You give me so much. I know I have a gift and opportunities, and I want you to be proud, and, God, I don’t want you to stop looking at me.” I took a breath and stared down at my dirty sneakers. “But also I want to, to lose a three-legged race. I know that’s ridiculous but I just, that’s what I want.”
A car passed outside, its tires sticky-sounding on the pavement. I raised my eyes to my window and focused on the streetlight, letting my vision blur.
Mom touched my forehead, lightly, and slowly brushed the hair back with her palm. “OK,” she said.
“Thank you,” I whispered, without taking my eyes off the light outside.
She pulled her arm back and rested her head on her knees, mirroring me. “You know,” she said, “you don’t have to be exactly like me for me to love you. But you do have to let me know who you are, and whoever that is, I’ll love.”
But not be proud of, I thought, looking at her. I didn’t want her to have to lie, though, so instead of making her promise to be proud of me, I just asked, “Promise?”
“I’ll always love you, no matter what.” She reached across my knees to hug me. It didn’t quite work. We were both off balance and cramped, so we ended the hug quickly and smiled little grins at each other.
I pulled off my sneakers, for something to do, and said, “Thanks.”
“Don’t ever worry about that,” she said, spinning my dinner plate a quarter turn.
We were both trying to pretend everything was all patched up, I could tell, and though I had been sitting here promising myself no more lies, I still didn’t have the courage or the words to be honest about everything still not feeling OK. “OK,” I said. We both smiled again without showing any teeth and let out deep breaths.
She bit her lip but didn’t look up at me. “I just wish we’d been able to discuss this before.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, straightening my legs.
“Paul was sure you had run away.”
“Really?” We looked at each other.
“He felt he’d hurt you by saying he wanted Zoe to be his sister. He was sure it was all his fault.”
“Oh, Paul.” I sighed.
Mom shrugged. “None of us knew what to think. It’s just so unlike you to do anything like this.”
“Daddy hates me.”
“No,” Mom said. “He loves you. But it’s going to take him some time to finish being angry about this.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “You should punish me.”
“The point isn’t punishment, CJ.” She stood up. I watched her perfectly white Keds step gracefully across my floor, over my dirty ones, half a size smaller. It had started to drizzle, which I hadn’t noticed. She slammed my window closed. “The school is going to punish you, anyway, to make an example of you. Mrs. Johnson said you’re going to have in-school suspension for the rest of the week.” Mom leaned against my wall, crossing her arms over her chest. Lightning crackled in the sky behind her.
“Really?” I asked.
She nodded as thunder boomed. “I’m not sure what that is, actually.”
“Everybody will stare at me all day,” I explained. “You have to sweep the auditorium and Windex the front doors and, in between, sit in a chair outside Mrs. Johnson’s office, doing nothing.”
“Ooo,” Mom said. She slid down to the floor, bumping into my dinner plate. “Well, but you know what? I’m not going to intercede with Mrs. Johnson. I’m not going to ask her to go easy on you.”
“Good,” I said, moving the plate out of her way. “You shouldn’t. I guess. All week?”
Mom stood up and straightened her slacks. “That’s what she told us.”
I nodded. “Mom?”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“I really am sorry.”
“Me, too, CJ,” Mom said, standing up again. “Me, too.”
She left without kissing me. I sat in the corner for a long time, watching the rain.
twenty-three
I have a very complex relationship with Tchaikovsky. Also with my mother.
I sat on the bench, banging my new cleats against the firm-packed dirt and imagining myself dancing the final adagio from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. As I died long-necked and alone in the spotlight, Coach Cress called my name. I looked up slowly. She sent me out onto the brown field, where I ran around in circles far from the soccer ball for the final three minutes until the ref’s whistle blew and I found myself in the crush of purple jerseys that meant we had won. Through the bodies of my friends, I looked to the sidelines where my mother sat solemnly among the other chattering mothers. I turned away and followed my best friend, who’d scored two goals off the girls whose fingers we now brushed as we mumbled, “Good game.”
After, at the pizza place, my teammates grabbed slices steaming hot off the tins and recounted the game, nodding, chewing. My mother had gone home, as I’d asked her to. I knew she was sitting straight-backed on her cow-stenciled stool, working up a smile for the daughter who had chosen to slump in clean cleats on a middle school soccer bench instead of to dance in the spotlight. As I pictured her, the Swan Lake music in my head drowned out my friends’ voices.
Turn the page
to get a first look at
Morgan’s story!
Not That I Care
one
no way. I didn’t know we were going to have to stand up in front of the entire class. There’s no sound in the classroom except the click, click of Mrs. Shepard’s pointy pumps on the tile floor. She’s behind me now, so I can’t see her. She hasn’t even said hello. Creative writing and American history are too important, I guess, and we are too shockingly ignorant to waste a second. Mrs. Shepard seems insulted that our sixth-grade teacher thought we were ready for her class.
“When I call your name,” she says, “please bring your Sack to the front of the room and stand beside my desk.”
I don’t know what to look at. This is a new thing with me. Lately my face has trouble knowing what to do. I catch myself blinking too hard, or chewing my upper lip, or with my mouth hanging open. My face can’t relax, like it used to. It doesn’t quite fit me anymore.
I blow my bangs off my eyelashes and try to sit still. Count to five without moving, my mother keeps telling me, I can’t stand how fidgety you are lately, Morgan. One, two, three, I can’t do it. I have to shift my shoulders around.
“Bring Yourself in a Sack” Mrs. Shepard called this project when she assigned it last Friday as part of our unit on creative writing. There was a brown paper lunch bag on each desk when we got to class after lunch. Mrs. Shepard said, “Fill the bag with ten items that represent you in all your many aspects.” Maybe she said facets. Either way, I thought it sounded like a cool project.
Lou Hochstetter, who sits behind me, had complained that we don’t usually get homework over the weekend. Mrs. Shepard raised one eyebrow and stared at poor Lou for a mini-eternity, until he sunk down so low his feet clanged my chair’s legs. “Welcome to the seventh grade, Mr. Hochstetter,” she said. That cracked me up.
After school, my best friend, CJ Hurley, got asked out. She called me right away to tell me, of course, but I was out riding my bike around. Friday had been a stressful day, socially. CJ left me a message on the machine: “Hello, this is a message for Morgan—Morgan? Tommy Levit just asked me out. Call me.” All weekend I kept meaning to call her back, but I just didn’t get a chance. Not that I wasn’t happy for her. I don’t like Tommy anymore.
I just really got into this project, searching for ten perfect things. I barely tal
ked to anybody. “Bring Yourself in a Sack?” my brother asked. “I remember that project.” But I didn’t want his help.
I was in a great mood when I got to school this morning, with my Sack full of ten complicated, meaningful symbols. The janitor was just unlocking the front doors, I got to school so early. I slid my bike into the rack and waited on the wall for CJ.
When her mother dropped her off, CJ ran over and climbed up onto the wall beside me. She didn’t say anything about my not calling her back; she knows I’m really bad about that and she’s used to it. Or I thought so, anyway. We talked about Tommy. I told her not to worry that they didn’t talk all weekend, after the asking out; when I went out with him last year he never called me, either. Then we talked about whether Tommy’s twin brother, Jonas, would ask me out today, like he was supposed to, and how fun it would be if the four of us were a foursome, and whether or not Jonas’s curly hair is goofy. CJ used to like Jonas, but now she’s going out with Tommy, which is fine with me.
Not that she cares.
I guess actually, now that I think about it, I was doing all the chatting. CJ wasn’t saying anything about becoming a foursome. She was just sitting there all pale, her deep-set green eyes looking anywhere but at me, her tight, skinny body even tauter than usual. I didn’t notice she was acting weird until too late.
Anyway.
Mrs. Shepard is walking up toward the front of the class. I hold my breath while she passes me. When my brother, Ned, was in seventh grade, four years ago, he said Mrs. Shepard was “real” because she wouldn’t paste stars on every pretentious, childish poem full of clichés. I took my poem off the refrigerator. I vowed I’d make Mrs. Shepard like me when I got to seventh grade. So far she doesn’t, particularly, but it’s only the third week of school. I still have a shot.
I’m lying low in my seat now, clutching the bag and squeezing my eyes shut as Mrs. Shepard speaks. “I want to hear a clear, concise explanation of each item, why you chose it, and what about your character, the item symbolizes.”