“Yeah, good.”
They walked into school side by side. Emily was too distracted by her new status as Ryan McElvoy’s girlfriend, by their kind of coming out right there in the hallways of CHS, to think much about Trix or mourn that they hadn’t met up, as usual, at the bike racks.
She noticed the school’s smell, as she always did in the morning. Institutional and sweaty. Dusty. Pheromonal.
Ryan had a meeting with a rep from Gonzaga University, so he squeezed her hand and disappeared into a mass of blue and black and plaid.
Trix’s desk in Johnson’s class was empty. Emily slid her backpack under her feet. She could feel the burning eyes of someone, and she looked up to find April Kinsmith staring at her, along with a few others peering Emily’s way.
Rachel Connelly, a ruddy-faced, wispy-haired girl, whom Emily liked well enough and who sat in front of her, twisted around and said, “You and Ryan?”
“Uh, yeah. As of Friday.” She almost regretted saying the words, almost regretted that it wasn’t her and Ryan’s alone anymore, that they were now open to speculation and criticism.
Rachel held out her fist for a bump and said, “Good goin’.”
“Thanks. I think.”
From the back, April said, “So it’s true.”
Emily refused to acknowledge her. She opened her folder and extracted the printout of her Theatre of the Absurd assignment and set it on her desk.
“Seriously?” April snarled. “How’d you hook that up?”
Emily glanced at the door, fantasizing escape. She pretended to read her play, double-check her work.
“Jealous?” came Trix’s voice. She wore her shaggy, fake-fur vest, brown leather boots that laced to the knee, and a super short denim skirt. Her hair was wild, curly as usual, but frizzy, too. Huge. And her eye makeup was twice as thick as it normally was, her lids rimmed in heavy black, with dark blue smeared to her brow bone.
“Hardly,” April snapped.
“You should be,” Trix said. “He’s been chasing Emily for weeks. And I hear he’s an amazing screw.” Trix could never resist locking horns with April.
Laughter. A gasp. Emily shook her head frantically at Trix, who took her seat just as Mr. Johnson came into the room.
He called attendance. Trix pushed back her hair, belligerently flopped a notebook on her desk, and uncapped a purple pen. She didn’t want to be there. But then, she didn’t particularly want to be anywhere else either.
Finally, Trix met Emily’s gaze and flashed a dazzling smile. “Right?” she whispered. She wanted to hurt Emily, in front of everyone. Trix wanted Emily to feel as bad as she did right then.
“I wouldn’t know. And you’re making a spectacle of yourself!”
“Ladies,” Mr. Johnson said, looking at them pointedly.
He then instructed everyone to place their plays on the corner of his desk. He promised he’d try to get them graded by the following Monday. With scraping chairs and squishing shoe soles, they shuffled to the front of the room.
From over by the windows someone said, “Man, who farted?” A few guffaws. And then they were in their seats again.
Trix never moved. Never handed anything in.
Emily knew she should react compassionately. Her former best friend was going through something epic. Was smoking and having random sex and drinking too much and causing a ruckus wherever she went and her grades were going to plummet. But all Emily felt for her, in that moment, was contempt. Trix couldn’t even find time to do her homework? When it had been assigned weeks before? She couldn’t be civil? She couldn’t dress like a normal person or use a normal blue pen? She couldn’t control herself at all?
31. Sweatshop
WHEN TRIX SAW Aaron at work the next day, he looked scared, as if she were a ghost haunting him. Good. She figured if he was scared of her, she wouldn’t have to be scared of him. The jerk.
Trix stood at her station, guiding recently dyed red floral fabric around a massive paper roll. Machines did most everything there. People like Trix mostly handled quality control. It was mundane, to say the least. But it was money and, while she was at Frederick Hui, she was out of trouble.
Her mind wandered a lot while she was at work. On this particular day, spurred by the break room incident with Aaron, Trix thought about an old boyfriend of her mom’s. Harold.
Harold was the worst of the string of men who’d pranced through hers and her mother’s lives. At first he seemed promising, more normal than the rest. He had no piercings or tattoos. His head was full of clean-cut hair and he sported a respectable oxford shirt with khakis for his job at a check cashing joint five days a week.
“I think he’s it,” Trix remembered Fiona saying.
Soon, though, Harold began to betray his true self. His one vice was Bud Light, which he’d drink half a case of every night after work. Trix would watch him warily as he went to the fridge for a fresh can and tossed his empty in the kitchen sink. Over and over again.
By the sixth or seventh trip, she knew to go to her room and lock her meager door.
One night in particular, he’d gone to the refrigerator at least fourteen times (Trix could hear his footsteps and the slap of the fridge door through her walls). He’d begun arguing with her mom about what they were watching on TV. Fiona, who still smoked back then, stomped outside to have a cigarette.
There was soft tapping, and then, before she could process any of it, her door crashed inward and hung from one hinge.
Harold stood there, his chest heaving, his respectable oxford unbuttoned and the t-shirt underneath sweat stained. And then he was on top of Trix, kissing her and ripping her clothes. She tried to fight him off, but he was so much stronger than she was.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour of struggling but was probably less than five minutes, he yowled and rolled off her.
Fiona stood there with a lit cigarette in her hand like a knife. She’d just pushed it into the soft skin above his hip. In an animal voice Trix didn’t recognize, her mother told Harold to leave and never come back.
Trix’s hands shook as she guided the fabric through the machine. She hadn’t thought about Harold in a long time. She and her mother never mentioned him or what he’d done to Trix. Which was fine with her. But occasionally, especially when she was doing something mindless, memories of him crept up.
Also, Aaron’s pathetic excuse for a come on probably reminded her of what Harold had done. They were both, to varying degrees, violators.
The story of Trix’s life.
She longed to take her break and have a cigarette outside (no way was she hanging out in the break room again).
Was she turning into her mother, she wondered? Would she spend her life bouncing from one loser to the next, eventually ending up on oxygen and watching bad TV while eating her weight in microwave popcorn every day?
32. Idiots Suck
IT STARTED THE next day, like she knew it eventually would. Emily and Ryan walked down the hall together between classes, sun streaming through high windows onto the tile floor, and some boy, a boy she couldn’t see but could only hear, spewed, “Look, it’s Olive Oil and Popeye. McElvoy, what are you doing with Stretch Lucas?”
Emily burned—her face and limbs and chest. She was already feeling ashamed because her father had found out about the Friday night party and grounded her from her camera and the computer for two weeks. And now this.
She was afraid to glance at Ryan, to see what he would do.
When neither of them responded to the idiot in the crowd, the idiot said again, “Do you have to stand on a stool to do it, McElvoy?”
Emily felt him stiffen next to her. And then he was gone, busting through the kids and chasing the idiot, who took off down the corridor and around a corner.
She was alone with her backpack and she went to American History where she opened her notebook and stared at the blank page.
She didn’t see Ryan again until after school. She wanted so much not to refer to
the incident that morning, but she felt like she had to. “Did you get him?” she asked.
“Nah,” Ryan said, shaking his hand as if he’d punched the idiot and had sore knuckles. “What a jackass.”
“Total J.A.,” Emily agreed. With a sleeve, she wiped rain off her bike seat and clicked open the lock around the cross bar. Then she said, “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“That it happened. It wouldn’t have if you were with, you know … someone else.”
Ryan closed his eyes and pretended to nod off, snoring.
She nudged him in the ribs. “You know what I mean.”
“Don’t be so insecure,” he said.
This hurt her a little and she said, “It’s not insecurity. It’s reality.”
“It’s both.” Then he asked, “Can you give me a ride on that thing? I’m wheel-less today.”
“Sure.” Emily gestured for him to hop on.
He held her waist, his feet hanging near the spokes.
Emily pedaled standing up. The bike was sluggish and heavy and she was conscious of her butt pumping up and down inches from his chest. When they stopped at cross streets, she noticed his fingers, which had found their way under her vest and sweater to her skin. They pressed firmly, hotly. She imagined, later, finding ten red ellipses where the pads of his fingers had rested along her rib cage.
Ryan directed her to his house, a gray-blue cedar shake bungalow with white trim. It was small, but tidy. A UW flag acted as a curtain for an upstairs window. On the porch sat an old box fan, its cord wound neatly, and a rake, a few leaves stuck in its tines.
It didn’t look like anyone was home, but Ryan didn’t invite her in.
“See you tomorrow then,” she said.
He leaned in to kiss her and his forehead knocked her helmet’s brim. He turned his head and tried again. “In the a.m.,” he said.
She didn’t wait for him to unlock the door. She took off, her heart leaden. Was he mad at her? Did that incident at school change how he felt?
It started to rain. “Perfect,” she said.
As her tires sluiced through mud puddles and soggy leaves, she couldn’t shake the thought that finding her mother and establishing some sort of relationship with her would make this tallness of hers more bearable. That understanding where she came from and watching another woman her height move through the world with some sort of grace would give her hope. It seemed to be the key to accepting this huge body and all the disappointments that came along with it.
When Emily got home, water dripped from her hair and glued her clothes to her skin.
She peeled off the wet stuff and stepped right into a hot shower. She had to duck under the showerhead, something she rarely noticed but today seemed an affront.
She whacked the cold tile wall with her hand. It stung. The sting was good. She whacked it again, harder. Again and again. Until she was on her knees in the tub, pounding the porcelain.
A knock came on the door. Then Melissa’s voice. “Em? Kristen? What’s going on in there? You okay?”
“Yes!” Emily called. She knew Melissa meant well, but she didn’t want her. Melissa didn’t get it. At all. “Go away!”
No more knocks came and she assumed Melissa had uncharacteristically retreated. But when Emily swiped the shower curtain back and reached for a towel, she saw her sitting there on the closed toilet, her arms crossed over her chest. Emily bellowed, “God! Get out!”
“You seem upset,” Melissa said, her voice infuriatingly calm.
Back behind the curtain, Emily buried her face in a thick, burgundy towel, shaking her head. Melissa was too much.
“Wanna talk?”
“If I wanted to talk would I have told you to go? Now, please, leave.” Emily started to cry. She tried to muffle her sobs with the towel, but knew Melissa heard.
“Honey, I just want to help.”
“Don’t call me honey. And you can’t help.” She wiped her snotty nose on the terry cloth. She heard the exhaust fan come on.
After what seemed like a half hour, Melissa said, “Okay. Will you come to me if you need anything?”
To appease her, Emily said, “Yeah, fine. I will.”
And Melissa, thankfully, in a sweep of cool air, left, the door clicking behind her.
Emily dried herself and dressed quickly, not trusting that Melissa wouldn’t come back, reading aloud from a parenting manual about how teenagers need constant convincing to communicate, about how the adult must keep trying, or lose all influence with said teenager.
If she weren’t banned from the computer, Emily would’ve found some article emailed to her about girls and self esteem. Melissa liked to do that. Text little tidbits of “wisdom,” email stories she thought were relevant, but were actually only relevant if you were thirty or forty and thought you were getting an inside track into the brain of your sixteen-year-old.
33. The High Life
THE EGG CAME nested in one of those little cups you only saw people eating out of on TV or in the children’s book Bread and Jam for Frances. “How cutesy,” Trix said to Marjorie as she cracked it and began the arduous peeling. She sprinkled it with lots of salt and ate hungrily. She should make eggs at home. It would be an easy dinner.
Marjorie chowed down on a head-sized chocolate chip cookie, doing an espresso shot after every few bites. She had five tiny cups lined up in front of her and went down the row, slamming them back.
Even for Trix, Marjorie’s caffeine consumption was too intense. Give Trix a strong Americano and she was good. That many espresso shots and she’d be bouncing off the walls.
A few minutes earlier, she’d seen Emily pass the window, pedaling her bike with Ryan on the seat. She and Marjorie had laughed uproariously, but Trix actually felt her stomach sink to her toes. And then the ants came marching up her arms and legs.
“What’s wrong with you?” Marjorie had barked.
“Allergies,” Trix said as she scratched.
“Isn’t there a pill for that?”
“I forget to take them,” she said. She didn’t explain she was allergic to envy. And that she freaking hated herself for it.
Marjorie downed her third shot. “I’m feelin’ the buzz!”
Trix stuffed half the egg in her mouth, then cupped the round, white over her tongue and stuck it out at her friend.
Marjorie laughed and took another shot. “What do you wanna do tonight?” Marjorie didn’t believe in homework. Her grades showed it, too. She wasn’t planning on college and said all she needed after high school was to earn enough to pay for a room in a house on Capitol Hill, cookies, coffee, and “substances.”
“I think I need to do some sketching.”
“Need?”
“Yeah. If I go too long without it I start to get the DTs. Kind of spazzy. It helps.”
“Really? Sketching?”
“My designs. It’s a hobby.” It didn’t seem like she could confide in Marjorie her future plans yet. Ambition wasn’t something Marjorie understood.
“Ah, high on life,” Marjorie said sarcastically.
“Sort of.”
That was at least something Emily understood about Trix. They both had artistic visions and would sometimes hang out for hours, Emily taking and editing photos, and Trix scheming fantastical clothes and putting them down on paper.
She pushed the thought of Emily from her mind. Shared artistic vision didn’t make up for everything else.
“Oh c’mon,” Marjorie said, drinking her fourth shot. “Go out with us. We’ll fill your tank.”
Trix knew taking her sketchbook to the park or a café would be good for her. But at the same time, she liked that Marjorie wanted her to be part of her group. The thought of what trouble they might stir up excited her, made her feel alive.
She looked up at the exposed ductwork on the ceiling. “Okay,” she said. She’d let herself, for another night, be swept into Marjorie’s brume of crazy.
34. Attention, Unwanted
&nbs
p; EMILY SMELLED THE mango hair product and fresh nail polish before she looked up and noticed April lurking next to her locker. At first she thought April was waiting for another girl, Liz, whom April sometimes hung with and whose locker was a few down from Emily’s. But then she noticed April staring at her, her eyes loud and blue.
“You know that Ryan McElvoy used to go out with Jessie Turner, right?” April said.
Emily scowled. She did remember Ryan was linked to Jessie the summer before, but tried not to think about it much. “And your point would be … ?”
“My point is,” April said, adjusting the bangles on her arm. “Jessie dumped him. He still wants her, so I’ve heard. Just a friendly heads up.”
Swapping out the books in her backpack, Emily slammed her locker closed and wished Trix were standing right there, slinging her clever, cruel words back at April. Emily said, “Okay. Thanks for that. You’re selfless, April, really. Always looking out for others.”
“No worries,” April said, pivoted, and walked away, tiny butt and long hair swaying.
Emily was pretty sure she hated April.
She was also pretty sure Trix was insane. That afternoon, Trix wasn’t in English Comp and the buzz was that she and Marjorie were suspended because, the day before, they’d started their own little rainbow party in a second floor boys’ bathroom.
Emily pictured the road Trix was headed down and, instead of an interesting old brick lane that went through charming towns, past fantastic architecture, and led to her own design label, it now resembled skinny, dark alleys lined with smelly dumpsters and puddles of pee.
Emily wasn’t able to think about it for long though, because Mr. Johnson called on her.
Crap. “Yes?”
“Your play.”
“Yes.”
“I’d like you to come up and read it, please. Aloud to the class.”
As Emily made her way to the front of the room, her heart thumping hard, everyone’s eyes on her, including Ryan’s, Mr. Johnson said, “Folks. Ms. Lucas’s was the best interpretation of this assignment I read. That I’ve read from any student. And I’ve taught for fourteen years. It encompassed all the elements I asked for and incorporated them with a flare that, frankly, I didn’t know high school juniors possessed. No offense to the rest of you.”
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