I had no idea what to say to him. Did he think Whit and Carmine were like Ashley? Did he think that Ashley was really very sweet under a rough facade? Did he think that Whit was really vicious under an expressionless facade?
But I was spared answering. Ashley came back—cheeks flushed, eyes bright. But it wasn’t anything taken by mouth or by vein that had done that: It was the admiration of a handsome boy for her music. “How old are you, Anthony?” she said.
Oh, no. She was going to proposition him.
“Eighteen. I should have graduated in last year’s class, but I had to repeat first grade.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I was a six-year-old dummy. Had a real hard time with the alphabet.”
But what she had in her hand was our household’s sole copy of her album, which my mother kept among the things like her eighth-grade diploma and her second-grade perfect attendance at Sunday School document. Ashley had really been doing some searching, I thought. And who had done it with her? Bob? Had Ashley and Bob crawled through my parents’ things?
We keep the stereo in the dining room because we so rarely walk through there that it’s safe from bumps and vibrations. We eat at the kitchen table because of the beautiful view. Ashley danced into the dining room to put her record on.
Conversation was impossible after she turned the volume up to her preferred level, so we sat and listened. Ash slid into a trance of happiness. Even for Anthony I could not take my eyes off her. She was listening to her greatest triumph and most lasting failure. Because this was what she had never duplicated. Success.
We heard the whole side. Most numbers were too harsh for me. They were no longer in style. The whole record had a very dated feel, as if we were dipping back into history. Maybe we were. Maybe Trash was history and the exotic exciting Ashley that Anthony thought he was dealing with really existed.
The music stopped. Ashley opened her eyes and focused on Anthony. Anthony responded as I knew he would. With compliments.
“I like that,” he said, smiling into her smile.
And then the guillotine dropped.
Anthony said casually, “Who did it? It was different.”
Ashley’s brightness dimmed. “Who did it?” she repeated slowly.
“Yeah.” Anthony picked up my hand from where it rested on the placemat. My hand was cold. He held it flat between his two palms. “Interesting. A little unpolished compared to what people are doing now, don’t you think? But it’s nice to listen to the oldies now and then, isn’t it?”
Ashley stared at him. Pain and rage fought in her features. I hoped that pain would win and she would creep quietly away and nurse her hurt in private. But with Ashley, temper surfaced before anything.
“You lying, conniving, scummy shit!” she screamed, hurling the pottery sugar bowl at him. He jerked back and it caught his shoulder without really hurting him. He stared at me, frozen, willing me to tell him this wasn’t happening. Ashley warmed up, calling him the most awful names she knew. Anthony was truly shocked. Ten days ago I would have been too, but now I knew all her awful names. I tried to keep holding his hand, but he was up from the table, standing, just as mesmerized by Ash the Trash as he had been by Ash the Sweet.
“Ashley,” I said, trying to calm her, “he just didn’t recognize your band. That’s all.”
“That’s all! At the football game he told me how much he loved my group. He told me he remembered my music. He was just making conversation. He was lying.” She was spitting the words out at him, like nails from a power driver.
“It’s okay to be polite,” I said.
Ashley ignored me. Her voice thinned, became evil. She hissed at him “Get out of this house.”
Anthony looked blank, as if Ashley’s curses had blinded him. “I’m really sorry, Anthony,” I said, not taking my eyes off Ashley either. “You’d better leave.”
He moved toward the door but not fast enough to suit Ashley. I tripped her. There was nothing else to do. “Mom!” I screamed. “Dad!” She slipped on the spiky heels and hit the sideboard without falling all the way. A candlestick toppled over and she saw it and grabbed it. Twelve inches of solid brass. “Anthony, get out of here!” I screamed. “Ashley, put that down!”
My sister is democratic. Better to hit the girl you aren’t mad at than chase after the vanishing boy you are mad at. But I had the advantage over Anthony. I had seen her try to bite, kick, and rip the cops who had held her. He had really thought she was a sweet person that the community had somehow misunderstood.
He fled.
I ran around the table to get away from Ashley.
My father took the basement steps three at a time. My mother almost fell down the other stairs trying to reach us. It is not fun, treating your sister like a rabid animal.
Whenever we loosened our grip, tempting, since she was kicking with her sharp little boots—she attacked the furniture. She hurled a chair, threw a clock and smashed some china. Finally my father—who in my opinion should have done this days ago—simply took her in a lock position with her arms behind her, twisted so that she could not move without considerable pain.
We stayed that way for a long time: my mother and I staring at Ashley, my father hanging on to her, Ashley’s face slowly sagging with exhaustion.
My mother sank into her usual chair. “You’re right, Warren,” she said dully. “I will stop arguing. We will have her committed.”
Fourteen
ALL MY LIFE MY parents have celebrated triumphs with dinner out at an Italian restaurant called the Open Door. It isn’t much to look at, but we love it. It serves the hugest yummiest meals anywhere, in the friendliest atmosphere. If Dad’s team unexpectedly manages to beat their strongest rival, or the Vietnamese immigrant Mom is tutoring passes a literacy test, we go to the Open Door.
I had just presented the most brilliant idea ever mentioned in a yearbook committee meeting and gotten a standing ovation.
But we didn’t go to the Open Door.
I didn’t tell my parents about the yearbook. Not because they wouldn’t have listened, but because I had forgotten.
My sister had been home less than two weeks and she already had us at the point of putting her into an institution. To protect us, rather than to help her!
My father said, “The two possibilities are Valley Hospital for the Mentally Ill and Cherry Hill Home for Young Adults.”
“It’s my fault,” said my mother. “The moment Ashley sliced up Susan’s sweater and smashed her cassettes we should have gotten rid of her. But I couldn’t bear it. To throw out my daughter in less than twenty-four hours? I couldn’t bear it.” Her eyes were fixed in space. Perhaps she was seeing the Ashley Elizabeth she had always wanted to have: the one who existed now only in photograph albums.
“It’s my fault,” she said again. “I’m too passive. I was the wrong parent for Ashley. It was easy with Susan. I could say now, dear, or be nice, dear, or say you’re sorry, dear and that was all it took with Susan. But Ashley needed—” she stared vacantly at her oldest daughter. She had never known what Ashley needed. Didn’t know now.
It is your fault, I agreed silently. You were too passive. And you did give only the things you felt like giving. But what does it matter now? Ash is twenty-five. She is her own responsibility.
I thought of my stuffed animals, their little throats slit. My sweater, dripping yarn. My clothing, mutilated.
What would it be like on Ash’s twenty-sixth birthday? Would we visit her in an institution? Would we be in court, trying to keep her locked up where she couldn’t hurt us? Or would we be right here, playing the same tune with the same group?
My father eased Ashley into her chair. She didn’t struggle. She had run out of energy. She sat, her colored feathers torn and drooping, and the silver and gold chains in her hair matted and broken.
She was a wreck. Like a ship dashed on the rocks.
There is only one good thing, I thought.
She came
home.
When everything in the world failed for her, she knew she could come home.
My father tilted back in his chair, telephoning a number he had written on a slip of paper in his wallet. From the half of the conversation we could hear, he was talking to the hospitals about admitting Ashley.
What if I do something bad? I thought.
Or what if life does something bad to me?
Home has to be here.
“Happily ever after,” I said out loud.
They looked at me.
“It’s my favorite sentence,” I said, embarrassed. “I wanted to use it for us. I want things to be happily ever after.”
My father cupped his hand over the phone. “Forgiving is easy,” he said. “But we have to survive. It’s time to cut our losses.”
“What am I, a stock investment?” said Ashley.
I like peaceable things. Gentle things. Smooth unruffled things. If Ashley stayed she would defile my bedroom again. But if we threw her out …
My father hung up. “Well,” he said tiredly, “you get your wish.”
He was speaking to all of us.
“Valley has no openings. And Cherry Hill takes only voluntary admissions.” He stared hopelessly at his older daughter. “Ashley, would you consider signing yourself in for treatment at Cherry Hill?”
“My sister and mother are willing to give me another chance,” said Ashley. “How come you aren’t?”
“I guess eight hundred seemed like enough,” he said sarcastically.
I didn’t like him.
For the first time in my life I looked at my own father and I didn’t like him. You can be understanding to every kid who ever played on your football teams, I thought, but you won’t try to understand Ashley. She’s right. You never did try.
On the other hand, what good was it to understand? The hooked rug was just as ruined, the bedroom just as defiled, and the sweater just as mutilated, whether I understood or not. And he was right, too. Eight hundred times was enough chances.
How do people ever see things clearly? I thought. There are too many angles to everything.
“You’re not dating that lightweight preppy idiot, are you, Susan?” said my sister.
“No, Ashley. And thanks to you, I guess I never will be.”
Ashley smiled. “My good deed for the day.”
School.
Everyone was so excited by my yearbook idea they could hardly see straight. People I hardly knew ran up yelling, “Susan! Great idea!” People in marching band told me their favorite march and people in concert choir wanted to know if they could record two songs. A jazz group reminded me that they existed and asked not to be left out. I referred them all to Whit.
Emily told me she knew already that there would be enough sales to make up for the added cost of the record because people were so thrilled.
Anthony never looked my way. He kept his face averted and conversed deeply with other people, especially Shepherd. If I’d had energy to spare for grief, I would have grieved. Anthony, of all people. If Whit had had to deal with Ashley, he’d have grabbed her like my father did and held her down until she surrendered. But Anthony—
He had no way to know how to deal with it.
No more than my mother did.
It was a case where practice meant nothing. You were either able to handle Ashley or you weren’t.
We weren’t.
In trig, Miss Margolis said, “We’re taking a quiz, Susan. Remember? That’s why there’s a pencil in your hand.”
“Oh, is that why she’s hanging on to the pencil?” said Jeffrey. “And here I thought she was going to perform an unnatural act with it.”
“That’s her sister you’re thinking of,” said Karen Campagne. “Susan here is Miss Conventional.”
“I always thought the name Ashley Hall sounded like a boarding school,” said Jeffrey. “You know. The kind where girls have a nine-o’clock curfew and go to chapel on Sundays and all the graduates are just so, so socially acceptable.”
“Can’t be Ashley. She was never socially acceptable.”
They were trying to be funny. They thought it was just easygoing kidding. They figured a status type like me (yearbook originator and all that) would have a good laugh.
What would they do if I began screaming? Pounding my fists and hurling my books like Ashley?
“I can always tell when you’re having fun,” Whit murmured in my ear. “Your knuckles turn white.”
His long legs stretched past his own desk to flank mine. All boys have huge feet. I sometimes wonder how they can hoist all that without tripping. I turned to smile at him. He had had a haircut. How handsome he was! Positively preppy. Oh, Whit! I thought. Maybe Ash did do a good deed, getting rid of Anthony for me.
My crush on Whit was so tangible I could have held it in my hands.
But it was not Whit who caught me after class. It was Shepherd. Whit wouldn’t hang around when Sheppie was there, so any chance to talk to him vanished. “Susan,” she said, taking a deep breath, “my parents recommended calling the newspaper and getting some publicity on the yearbook.”
“Yeah?”
“With the focus on your record.”
I had truly stolen her thunder. I had to admire her, though. She was admitting that it was my project that deserved the publicity.
“The reporter can talk to us tomorrow fifth period or the following day after school. Can you manage one of those times?” She had to work to put the smile on her face.
Planning as far as tomorrow fifth period was beyond me. After all, I still had to go home tonight, and do normal things like homework while Ash cut the buttons off my shirts.
Cindy materialized at my elbow. I had forgotten I had a best friend. Less than two weeks of Ash and all things near and dear had splintered away. “Can she talk to you later, Shepherd?” said Cindy. “Things are a little unsettled right now.”
“Fine,” she answered, looking confused.
“Great,” said Cindy, leading me away.
“We’re going to be late to class,” I objected. My lips felt numb, as if I’d gotten novocaine.
“No, because we’re going to cut class. Come on.”
We went to the student center. I rarely cut anything. But it seemed reasonable enough to sit with Cindy in a dark quiet corner behind one of the pillars instead of going to class.
“Your mother called my mother this morning after breakfast,” said Cindy. “When your mom realized you spent the night on the couch because you were afraid to share a bedroom with Ashley, she knew she had to take action. They haven’t found an institution for her yet, but you’re going to come live with us until they do. You’re going to have Elaine’s room.”
Cindy’s family.
Warm, ordinary, loving. Mrs. Wethers adores making hot drinks for guests. Her sense of hospitality is completely dependent on hot drinks. She never would offer you ginger ale or Coke. It’s always, “Susan! It’s been ages! Hot chocolate? Coffee? Soup? Hot apple punch?” She watches while you drink, and it satisfies her more than you—she’s solved your chill, your thirst, and your troubles.
“Okay,” I said.
We sat silently for a long time. I couldn’t get my thoughts straight enough to talk, so I didn’t try.
“You know, it really hurt my feelings that you weren’t coming to me to tell me everything,” said Cindy. “I mean, what are best friends for? But I had a long talk with my parents last night.”
There had been an awful lot of girls having long talks with their parents last night. Ashley, me, Shepherd, Cindy.
“And they said when things are really awful people close in on themselves like turtles. Keeping to yourself is protective.”
“Oh, Cindy, there just didn’t seem to be time to call you. All I could do was catch my breath and tread water.”
“You don’t have to tread water anymore. You’ll be living with us.”
I closed my eyes in relief. Just thinking of Mrs. Wethers and he
r fussy comforting attentions was a safety zone. Away from the place where teddy bears were stabbed and friends attacked and heirlooms desecrated. Cindy’s house. A place to be cherished.
“You’re such nice people,” said Cindy. “I can’t understand what’s happening to you. You don’t deserve it.”
“I don’t suppose deserving comes into it,” I said. “There doesn’t seem to be a system where you add up the good deeds and the bad deeds and get a life to fit.”
“It’s not fair!” said Cindy hotly.
“Speak to God about it, will you?”
We giggled. Mine was real. What a relief to be really laughing. To know that today after school I could go home to a real home. Passing bell rang and I got to my feet eagerly. Cindy had restored me.
She bounced off to her class and I headed for mine.
But cutting one class had changed me.
Given me ideas.
I thought, Why even bother with school today? I can’t concentrate anyhow. I’ll go home and pack and head for the Wethers’ house and relax.
I telephoned, but nobody answered. My father would be at work. My mother? Ashley? Where would they be, together? I shrugged, went to the pay phone and called a taxi. I prefer to save my money for clothes, but this was an exceptional circumstance.
The taxi silently headed for Iron Mine Road. It was a beautiful day. Deep blue sky, one slim thread of white cloud, the maples turning color and the wind whipping through grass that needed one more mowing.
I paid the driver.
I got out, and the garage doors were open, which was wrong, and I wanted to tell the driver to wait, but he was already leaving. Iron Mine Road was far from any other fare. Our garage was once two sheds, leaning up against the kitchen. Two large swinging doors hang on black iron strap hinges. We never leave them open. The wind smacks them against the building with enough force to snap them off.
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