Keeping Up With Piper

by Amanda Adair

  37

  I didn’t want to stay in hell a.k.a. Maywood. And I didn’t want to go back to New York either. I go back because of my plan. Because of Blair. All I do is because of Blair. These are her obligations, not mine. I want to go away instead. Far away. To a vibrant place. A city. Maybe Houston. Vancouver. London. Vienna. Rome. A metropolis with millions of people. Some place I’ve never been before. I want to start all over once more. I need to. This time I want to do it right. I want to meet new people. The kind one. People who are nothing like you or your family or your horrible and dumb friends. Right now, it’s rather a dream than a plan.

  Killing your stepfather wasn’t the only thing I managed to do during our time there. On Monday we drive the kids to school. It’s what we usually do. Nothing special. You drive us to work, we get out of the car and take the elevator upstairs. I smile when we enter the office. It doesn’t matter. Nobody knows why I’m smiling. Is it because of what I’ve done or because I’m happy to be here? I’m never happy to be here. I am incapable of feeling happy at this place.

  “Piper,” Jane says without showing any kind of emotion. “Paola wants to talk to you.”

  “Okay,” you say.

  You have absolutely no idea. I watch you walk into her office, then I go to mine and close the door.

  “Blair,” Amber says.

  I didn’t miss this chick at all. I thought she’d disappear, but I guess I’m not that lucky today. “Hey, Amber.”

  “Where have you two been?,” she asks. “I took care of all the deadlines.”

  There was only one deadline. Why does she always have to exaggerate? “Thanks, Amber. You’re great. We were in Piper’s hometown for a while. Her stepdad was really ill.” Why keep your secrets when you love to gossip?

  “Oh, damn, I’m sorry,” she says.

  “He died,” I add and look down.

  “We should get her some flowers,” she says. “I’ll talk to Jane.”

  That, my dear, won’t be necessary. Paola won’t spend a single Dollar on this bitch. In this very moment the door opens. It’s you. You slam the door and throw your bag onto the desk. You’re obviously not in a good mood. You’re furious.

  “I can’t believe this,” you say. Your head turns red. It looks like you’re on fire and about to explode. “That dumb bitch fired me.”

  Amber opens her mouth but doesn’t say anything. I know what she’s thinking. Finally, there is some drama. She loves soap operas. She must love seeing you getting upset.

  “Why?,” I ask. “How? That’s not fair.”

  I feel restless and tired at the same time. I am nervous and I can’t stand still. Once you’ve killed, there is no turning back, is there? I can’t undo the murder, his death. I feel like a piece of shit. Killing you wasn’t my only plan. However, killing Mr. Maas was never the plan. Do I regret it? No. I’m improvising and I don’t like that. I should stick to the protocol. Why spend so much time planning everything when I don’t obey any of it. I want to hurt you, Piper, but I also wanted to hurt my own son. Wanted? Want? Have I changed my plans? Can I still change them? I feel bad for wanting to hurt a child. My plan was to get rid of Kye, so I can live a life without anything that reminds me of the most horrible moments I’ve lived through. Kye is a part of me, he’ll always be, but he is also part of someone else. Why do I tell Kye and everyone who asks me that Kye’s dad is a Norwegian-British guy, currently living in Melbourne, Australia? Why do I tell everybody that he’s a business owner of an online investment company? Because for a very long I’ve had no clue who he is. Because the thought of Kye’s father makes me want to throw up. I spent so much time figuring out who he was. Therapy and I finally knew what had happened to me. I don’t feel any better ever since. This kind of knowledge made my situation worse. My anger spread grew bigger and bigger. Looking at my son’s face makes me angry. It makes me angry that another human being was involved in producing this little man. I feel sorry for him. He’s an innocent child, still he’s one of my demons. I thought I can let go only after I erase those people who hurt me. The thing is he doesn’t hurt me. He’s a good kid. But I’m afraid that some part of his father is part of Kye. I don’t want him to know that his father is a bloody rapist.

  part IV

  38

  It was three o’clock in the morning when the doorbell rang. I heard Dad go downstairs and open the door. I got up because it was really early in the morning, or late at night. Maybe it was Mom who forgot her keys. Mom spent the evening with her two friends Stephanie and Caroline. She hadn’t become friends with any of the moms of my classmates, which I appreciated. Her new best friend was Stephanie Miller, mother of a twenty-year-old economics student in New York City named Lola. Stephanie was a children’s book illustrator and she mainly worked from home, just like Mom did with her career as a speaker for audiobooks. They often met with Caroline Baldwin, who worked as a secretary at the university where Dad’s employed at. They didn’t celebrate Halloween, of course, but they probably drank some sparkling wine at Stephanie’s, cooked together (according to Mom Stephanie and Caroline had never cooked anything vegan before) and chatted about the world, mom stuff and their marriages or children. I knew Mom would teach them how to cook vegan and they’d never go back to eating anything else. She was an amazing cook, even if she just did it as a hobby.

  “Mr. Goldinger?”

  I walked outside of my room and a few steps down the stairs. A policeman stood in the doorframe.

  Dad nodded. “Yes.”

  “There’s been an accident,” the officer said.

  What? I walked down another step.

  “Your wife, Amy Goldinger, was in the car,” he said. “I’m sorry, sir. She didn’t make it.”

  I couldn’t breathe. I just sank to the ground. I thought it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. Mom was alive. She had to hold onto the railings, otherwise I’d fallen downstairs. I was I couldn’t lose one of the few people I still care about. I needed her. I still need her. I had never felt so damaged before. As soon as I realized this was truly happening, I felt broken, empty on the inside. I blinked so many times, again and again, but the office didn’t disappear.

  That was seven month ago. I have never lost anybody before. Sure, my grandparents, but they were old, they had an amazing life.

  “I’ve lived a good life,” my grandma once said, “not perfect, but good enough to be content. I have an amazing child. It really feels like one can live on by passing on one’s genes. Even if I get hit by a truck tomorrow, I’m happy. I’ve had some great decades.”

  I am sad, devastated, damaged, maybe even dead. Some part of me died with her. I couldn’t go to school for at least a month. I just couldn’t. Everyone knew that my Mom died. Especially after I got to know what exactly happened that night. While I was at Tammy’s house, waiting for Francine to come back, Mom was driving home with Caroline on the passenger seat. Caroline is the type of woman who rides a bicycle instead of just driving a car. You can maybe do that in big cities where there’s trains and buses. To get to Caroline’s house Mom had to make a detour. On that route they came across another car. Did I say came across? They crashed into another car, or the other car crashed into theirs. The car didn’t stop at the stop sign, it just kept driving. Mom couldn’t get out of its way. She didn’t have any chance. Mom wasn’t the only one who died that night. Caroline and one of the passengers of the other car died, too. The other car was a Toyota Prius.

  When I returned to school I didn’t mind talking to nobody. I didn’t mind being excluded. I was used to it. Nobody cared if I lost my mother. They all knew, of course. They all got to know the day after the accident because not just Mom and Caroline died. Someone they all knew died that night. It was a young French girl named Francine Boucher. Francine who was my friend in Maywood died in the accident. But not just that, she was the one that was driving Piper’s Toyota Prius. She sat in the driver’s seat. Their car crashed into a wall, my Mom’s car crashed into a tree. I don
’t understand why it happened. According to the police Piper, Axel and Penelope were drunk, but Francine didn’t have any alcohol in her blood. She was sober when it happened. She just ignored the stop sign. She killed my Mom, Caroline and herself. For a long time, I asked myself why Piper didn’t die, why Penelope didn’t die, or Axel. Why of all people did Mom had to die? Why of all cars did they have to hit Mom’s? Why did Mom go out that night? Why did I?

  In front of Francine’s locker there were flowers and cards. I’m sad, too, that she’s gone. She was the only one who treated me well. We were all reminded of Francine’s death. We all mourned her death, but no one cared about me or Mom. None of the teachers and none of my classmates expressed their condolences. None. Nobody. The teachers didn’t say anything. As if it’s all good. As if I was on vacation for a month. Not that it mattered. I don’t need my classmates to talk to me now after all that time they’ve ignored me. It just hurts to be left alone with all those emotions. I needed someone to talk to. I didn’t want to grieve alone. There were some neighbors who handed me or Dad flowers and self-made cake or cupcakes. At least Maywood’s adults thought of my mother.

  Every time I see Piper, Penelope or Axel at school I think I should kill them right now. I’ve lost one of the most important people in my life. It’s like some switch turned. A switch that activated some kind of anger that is rooted so deeply it’ll never go away. I feel the anger every day just as I felt the sadness every day when I was being bullied. I still am but since the death of my mother that is what I think of all the time.

  Dad didn’t cope with Mom’s death so well either. He’s still taking care of me, but he also seems like he’s dead on the inside. He drives me to school every day now, maybe because he’s afraid of losing me, too. Then he drives to work. After work he comes home and eats some ready-made meal. We never talk about her, it hurts too much. I cry a lot and I wonder if he does, too.

  I didn’t just lose my only friend in Maywood, thanks to that friend I lost my Mom.

  39

  1 YEAR LATER

  This is the first birthday of my life that I spend all alone. To be honest this is the worst birthday I ever had, almost as bad as the TikTok I once saw on one of my classmate’s phone, where that guy’s grandpa threw a party, invited all his friends, rented a huge hall, prepared masses of food… but then nobody came. Not a single soul. It broke my heart. The thought of it makes me want to cry. For him. For everybody who’s being rejected and treated like they’re worthless.

  Happy seventeenth birthday, Samantha. Sweet seventeen. On my fifteenth birthday my uncle and cousins came visiting in Maywood, so I wasn’t exactly all alone. On my sixteenth birthday I told Dad that I wanted to be alone. It was the truth. It was the first birthday without Mom. A lot has changed. Dad and I aren’t as close as before and I can’t tell him much about my life anymore. Mom isn’t even there and I’m not the type of girl who goes to the cemetery and talks to a grave. I can’t. I talk to her sometimes, but I know she can’t hear me. It always ends with me crying so I don’t do that anymore. I write her letters instead. Dad thinks that I’m healing. He wants me to recover even though he struggles himself. You can never recover from your mother’s death, you can just try to move on.

  Dad thinks my friends can help me recover. That is not happening either. I don’t have any friends, not since Francine who’s dead. Every day has been the same since my classmates started hating on me for no reason. I wake up all sweaty and moody, have breakfast with Dad, fake a smile, take the bus to school, ignore the others, go back home or to the library and go to bed. I’m a professional now when it comes to ignoring insults, showing no reaction or feelings whatsoever. After Francine’s death and my refusal to sign the petition for Axel they started actively bullying me again. I am aware that some people don’t like celebrating their birthdays, but I do. Well, I always did. I was that kid who enjoyed inviting about thirty other kids to my tenth birthday in Toronto. That day I was in the spotlight and I felt so popular. Mom only allowed me to invite so many kids because I convinced her that I needed to invite everybody I am friends with. I couldn’t just invite some of them and leave out the others. They would feel excluded and might not invite me back. And I loved to go to other people’s birthdays as well. Somehow that worked. My Mom was a smart woman, really. Probably it just worked because she loves me, not because my explanations made any sense. She wanted me to live a happy life, no matter if it means being with a thousand people on my birthday or just two good friends. It’s just that Dad knows very well that I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to celebrate something, like my birthday. I can’t pretend like I’m suddenly someone who doesn’t like parties and birthdays. I love the atmosphere at birthday parties. All those colorful balloons that decorate the room, all those cakes of all flavors, the music, glittery cake pops and elaborate cupcakes. All those people with their smiles and hugs who came here just for you. A dull bang wakes me up from my daydream of what I miss most. Simple friendly human interaction.

  I sit in the library, my favorite place since moving to the town of Maywood. I always liked reading but I prefer doing it on the beach, with some friends next to me or at home in my bed on a cozy Sunday evening. Now I spend so much time at the library because that way I can pretend I’m with my classmates. They never come here. Never. Not Piper, not Penelope, not Axel, not Tammy, Cora or Anna. It’s a classmate-free zone and that makes it so convenient. They can’t harm me when they’re not around. Staying at home means my parents ask me if there’s no one I can spend time with, especially on my birthday. It’s true, there’s no one, but I can’t let them know. I can’t suddenly be someone who doesn’t like to be in the center of the party when I used to be the girl who was even in the center of other people’s parties. How did this all go so wrong?

  “Is this Jane Austen’s first book,” a girl sitting at one of the huge tables in front of me.

  I don’t like those stiff backrests, I prefer sitting in one of those dark green upholstered chairs.

  The girl puts Mansfield Park onto the table. She’s probably reading it for school. She seems to be a senior. I shake my head. I am a senior now and by now I know most seniors at Maywood. They know me as well thanks to Piper. Sometimes students that attend the university Dad’s researching and teaching at come here. Not because they don’t have their own well-equipped library but because it’s way cheaper to borrow books here. Most of them are English majors. Austen’s first published piece of word vomit was Sense and Sensibility. I only started reading Jane Austen a year ago when I felt too lonely and fragile to continue reading Stephen King and his fellow thriller writers. I can’t stand reading Carrie, not even the first chapter. It makes me sad. It makes me realize I’m Carrie just without any supernatural powers or an abusive religious mother. I’m just a regular girl with wonderful parents that happened to attend a horror high school full of abusive classmates. I can’t even read average non-fiction books or novels. I even stopped reading Jane Austen. Nothing seems to represent what I’m going through, not even Thirteen Reasons Why, which I am reading right now. Everything I read is either too cheerful or too sorrowful.

  “How long’s the essay supposed to be? I forgot,” another girl at the table says.

  If they knew it’s my birthday today they’d be surprised. Not surprised, rather shocked. They would think I’m a total weirdo, worth nothing since nobody bothers to spend my birthday with me.

  “Like ten thousand words,” the other says. They’re most likely university students. We never write essays that long.

  I close Thirteen Reasons Why and look at my watch. I wonder how long I need to pretend like I’m happily celebrating my birthday. It’s half past eight. Is it too early to come home from your sweet seventeen birthday party? It is. I can’t go home now. I grab my phone out of my purse and check my phone. Yes, I stopped using my backpack and ordered a purse online. There’s no store in town that sells any fashionable items, not even Mrs. Kaschak’s concept store. It’s a Micha
el Kors tote bag to be exact. At first, backpacks were alright, they were cool, just not mine. Then everybody transitioned to purses. Apparently seniors don’t wear backpacks anymore but purses. Sixteen-year-old me thought I could earn some respect by dressing more fashionable and mature, but nothing has changed since buying that thing. I don’t even know why I cared.

  On my phone there’s only one new message.

  DAD

  Have fun, Samantha! Enjoy your day

  I’m not exactly having fun. I’m surrounded by strangers and books, no cake, no balloons, no friends. I might enjoy reading but it’s not what I want to do today. I mean I’m reading a book about a dead girl anyway. I can’t even spend the day with Mom and Dad because they would think I’m completely out of my mind, wanting to spend all day with them. I wonder why my parents haven’t found out yet that I lack friends.

  At least Dad and I had breakfast together. I don’t want to disappoint him. I never wanted to disappoint my parents. Being bullied feels like disappointing them, even if it isn’t my fault. I would love to let Dad see what he should be seeing, which is me surrounded by friends and family, surrounded by Mom. She should still be here, alive. Dad got me my favorite cake, carrot cake with white chocolate and nuts, and he gave me a new phone. Why did I want that phone? It’s the same reason as for the purse. I wished for a new phone because the popular kids seem to buy the newest one every year. And obviously I couldn’t wish for my Mom to come back. I just want them to stop picking on me. I do whatever it takes. I don’t want to stick out, with my phone, my weird hair color, my clothes, my backpack, my name, my hobbies, everything they insult me for. I even wanted to dye my hair brunette, but Dad wouldn’t allow it. I know he doesn’t want me to change my look because I look like Mom. If I change my appearance I distance myself from her. Mom always said I would lose my identity, my unique look, if I’d color my hair. I don’t want to be unique, I want to be like everybody else. I want to be liked, or at least respected. I want to have a Mom and friends. If they can’t like, respect or accept me I really just want them to ignore me. I want to become invisible for them. I stop crying. There was a time where I cried myself to sleep every night. I just ran out of tears, not out of reasons to cry, the reasons have multiplied. At least that’s some positive news I have. Crying is exhausting after a while. My body just can’t produce any more tears.