Sleepwalking in Daylight

  “Listen, I’ve really got to get going,” I lie. “It felt strange keeping this from you. I knew I had to tell you. But …”

  I trail off because I don’t know what else to say. I’m hoping he’ll jump in and tell me I did the right thing in telling him. I want him to ask me to stay a little longer. I want him to work out his feelings and thoughts aloud with me.

  “Okay,” he says. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  He’s lost in his head. He barely notices me sliding into my jacket and walking away.

  I walk down the sidewalk to my car. The only space I could get was in the Sportmart parking lot almost three blocks away.

  Why do I keep going back and forth? Every time I leave him I resolve to not see him again. This time I think I’ll do it. This time I’ll break free and I’ll throw myself back into my family. Of Bob shuffling through his gloomy days. Of Cammy’s troubles that aren’t going to solve themselves. I’ve known that, of course, but I’ve been powerless. I have bursts of energy to deal with her. Just as quickly, I’m spent. For the love of God, someone please help me.

  And then Craig e-mails. Come meet me. And I go back for more.

  Here I am, in the smelly staircase up to the third level of the lot. Cigarette butts in every corner. What looks like spilled Coke on the first landing. Urine, too. I’m in a holding pattern. I don’t belong in either world. Not in Bob’s. Not in Craig’s. I’m in limbo, like those dead souls who hover in despair until they go to heaven or hell.

  I want to break free and make a decision for myself. I have to. Maybe now’s the time.

  Cammy

  Jamie calls shotgun on his way to Mrs. O’Donnell’s minivan. Yeah right. Like I’m really going to let that kid sit up front. It’ll be the same as it always is: he races to the door handle and tries to climb in. I pull him out. He’s so small it’s a joke. I can pick him up with one arm.

  Anyway, it’s like I can say anything to Mrs. O’Donnell. Well, almost anything. I mean, if she knew what was really going on she’d totally tell Samantha so I don’t go into too much detail but still. Today out of the blue she goes, “Do a lot of kids in your class do drugs?”

  At first I was paranoid like does she know about me and is she trying to trap me? She could be a plant for all I know. But then she says, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I was just wondering.”

  “No, no, it’s totally fine. I mean, you can ask. Um, I guess some kids do. I don’t know. I mean, I’m not like close to everyone in my grade. Yeah, there’s drugs.”

  “Huh,” she says. It’s like she’s just interested in the information. She’s curious. “What kinds of drugs?”

  “I don’t know. Pot, I guess. Some kids do coke or ex.”

  “Ex? Is that ecstasy?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And mushrooms too.” That’s when my heart started beating fast. I snuck a look at her to see what she thought of that but she didn’t seem shocked. I least I don’t think she did.

  “Wow,” she says. “We’re always hearing about it so I guess I’m not surprised. I’m just an old lady now. I had no idea. I mean, I figured pot but not the other stuff. Have you tried anything?”

  I felt bad about lying to her but I had to. I told her I hadn’t done anything. She seemed to buy it. Then again she switched topics pretty quickly so maybe she didn’t want me to have to dig myself deeper into the lie. She probably figures someone who looks like me definitely does something. Everyone looks at me that way.

  “Does it take a long time to do your makeup like that?” she asks.

  First of all, Samantha would never ask me something like that. She hates my makeup and my clothes. She can’t do anything about it but she acts like she can. What’s she going to do, hold me down and strip my clothes off? Wash the makeup off my face? Even the school can’t force me to wear something else since it’s a suggested dress code.

  Second of all, Mrs. O’Donnell isn’t judgmental.

  “Yeah, kind of,” I tell her. “My skin totally broke out when I first started with the white foundation but now it’s gotten used to it, I guess. The eyes take the longest.”

  “I bet,” she says. “How’d you learn to do it that way? Are those black teardrops you drew on?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why teardrops?” she asks. She doesn’t really look over at me. It makes it easier to talk to her.

  “I guess I don’t want to be fake, you know. I hate fake people.”

  “So the real Cammy is crying?” she asks. Damn, she’s good. Samantha and Bob never ask me this stuff. They’re all about stopping it not understanding it.

  I look out the window and watch this woman walking a really fat dog. I mean that dog was obese. She stops every time the dog sniffs something on the sidewalk. She must feel me staring at her from the stoplight because she looks over at me. She looks sad but then—and this was totally weird—when the light turned green, she held up her hand. It wasn’t a wave really. Just a hand. What’s even weirder is I held mine up to her, too. I’d never seen that woman or her dog before. Just some stranger noticing me.

  Mrs. O’Donnell didn’t see that. She’s sipping her Caribou Coffee.

  “So the makeup,” she says. Getting me back to what we were talking about.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say. “I don’t know, I mean some of the music I listen to are groups who do makeup like this. It’s kind of more than makeup though. People think we’re freaks but it’s more like a mask you put on. Everyone else puts on a show and acts all fake but you can’t tell who’s like that and who’s not. At least we’re honest.”

  “I never thought of it that way,” she says. “Hold that thought. Boys, do you guys want Dunkin’ Donuts? We have enough time for drive-through if you want.”

  “Yeah!” they all say from the back. Mrs. O’Donnell drives a Suburban so there’re like fifty people stuffed back there and the noise is insane. That’s how we can talk though. No one listens in on us.

  “Can I have a chocolate frosting one?” “I want the sprinkles!” “Plain!” “It’s honey dipped!” “No it’s not.” “Yeah it is, my mom says.”

  “I’m getting plain ones for everybody,” she shouts over them.

  “Oh, man” “Why can’t we get like half chocolate, half plain?” “Yeah, half and half and some with sprinkles!” “Yeah, and a honey-dipped one” “You’re such a retard, it’s not honey dipped.”

  “It’s plain or nothing,” she says. “Tell me now or we’ll keep going.”

  “Plain!”

  At the window she orders a baker’s dozen so everyone can have two. She knows I won’t eat them. I’m trying to eat healthy. She passes the box back and they’re like wolves they grab so quickly.

  “Two each, that’s it!” she says. “If you can’t share I’ll never stop for doughnuts again.”

  “So. Where were we?” She turns back to me before pulling out of Dunkin’ Donuts. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, did it hurt to get your nose pierced?”

  “Yeah. But it got better after a couple of days and now it totally feels normal.”

  “Did your mom and dad get mad at you?” she asks. “No offense but I’d kill my kids.”

  I looked out the window and for some weird reason I felt like telling her my shit. I was watching some woman with her baby carriage. She was folding the awning of it back so she could check on the baby and then there was this smiley coochy-coo thing and it pissed me off for some reason. She had rattles and plastic toys hanging from above the baby and they both looked so happy and shiny. I bet they look alike. So I told Mrs. O’Donnell.

  “They’re not my real parents.”

  We’re driving past a dog day-care place called Citizen Canine when she reaches across the center cup holders and pats my hand. I look down and watch it. She keeps it there till we get to the next light. She doesn’t say anything and that’s good. What would she say anyway? I look out the window so she won’t see the teardrop, the real teardrop.

  My real mother
would do something like that. She’d know that her touch was all I needed right then. She wouldn’t get hurt or mad. She wouldn’t force me to talk about it, like Samantha would. My real mother would know that this was exactly what I wanted from her.

  I sort of wish Mrs. O’Donnell was my real mother.

  Samantha

  I’m glad Sally Flanders is out of the car-pool business. One day Lynn mentioned she smelled alcohol on Sally’s breath when they bumped into each other in the produce section of Whole Foods and that was it. Today it’s Lynn, and I wave thanks to her from the window, a signal that I don’t have time for her to come in for coffee. Usually I’d go out and wave her inside. That’s why my kids are the last she drops off. Her kids have half grown up here. They go right to the snack cabinet with mine. Today I watch the kids come bounding in, Cammy straggling in back. I can see her dreading every footstep that brings her closer to the house.

  “Hey, guys, how was school?” I ask the boys.

  “Fine. Mom, can I.” The questions bombard me and I say yes to all of them, not really hearing, waiting to have this talk with my daughter.

  “Cammy, come sit down,” I say.

  Listless, she drops her backpack and drags herself over to the kitchen table.

  “Oh, God,” she says, sighing fatigue and disgust and not a little fear.

  “I want to understand all this. I’ve waited to have this talk because I know you’ve been sick and I want you to be clearheaded.”

  She crosses her arms over her already concave chest and slides down the chair. Her jaw is set and her hair forms a wall around her face.

  “I’m not fighting with you right now,” I say. “I just want you to tell me what the hell’s going on.”

  “Nothing’s going on,” she says. “I screwed up. Big deal. I’m, like, the last one of my friends to even try drugs.”

  “Well, it was just last week you were skipping down the sidewalk with Lauren when you guys thought no one was looking. You want to know where I’ve been? I’ve been in a dreamworld where I thought my kids were out of trouble and healthy and happy. That’s where I’ve been.”

  “Whatever,” she says.

  “When’s that phase going to be over? The whatever phase. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me. You want out of soccer, talk to me.”

  Nothing. Just that Goth stare. With the lone teardrop drawn on.

  “Fine. Have fun at practice.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. What do you want me to say?”

  “Anything. Say anything,” I tell her.

  For a second she looks like a little girl again. Her eyes open wide and there’s no trace of sarcasm in them. The little girl who’d run over to me after doing a jackknife from the high board at the pool—Mom, did you see me? Did you watch? The girl who loved it when I braided her hair. I hold my breath wanting her to step out of this costume of hers back into the girl who sang along to the Beatles with me in the car.

  I still can’t take a sip of my coffee, it’s too hot. I’ve got to remember to adjust the temperature of the hot-water dispenser at the sink.

  “Am I still under house arrest?”

  “You’re kidding, right? You’ll be under house arrest forever. Consider yourself permanently grounded until you can earn back our trust and until you get rid of this attitude and until you start turning things around. No computer. No cell phone. You’ll go to school and come home and that’s all you will do until we say different.”

  “Fine,” she mumbles on her way out of the kitchen.

  “So that’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

  “Yep,” she calls over her back. “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya.”

  “Whatever,” I say.

  Geraldine Wilkes. The words, the name, scorches the dry ground between us, though, and besides, I’m not sure yet what to do about that part of the story.

  “By the way—” she’s back in the kitchen doorway “—I know you talked to my friends last night. You’ve ruined my life, you know that, right?”

  “First of all, you have ruined your life, not me,” I say. “Second of all, I thought the library-parking-lot kids weren’t your friends. You called them people you know. You were very specific about that. Yet another lie. Are they Monica’s friends, too?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m not friends with her anymore.”

  “You’re not friends with Monica? Since when? I thought you were like little peas in a pod.”

  Oops. I stumbled into a hornet’s nest and I brace myself for what I know is coming.

  Cammy shows restraint at first. An eyebrow shoots up, hair is shaken out of her face, her posture straightens in triumph.

  “Peas in a pod. Cute. Typical.”

  I wait for part two.

  “You think you know everything about my life but you don’t know shit.” She volleys this like someone who’s not keeping a secret.

  Do I tell her I know? Do I shout, I found the letter! I looked her up, too! I know your biological mother is five minutes away! Better not. Not just yet.

  “Why the library parking lot, by the way?” I ask her, a forced look of innocence on my face.

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Just curious,” I say. “Why, of all the places in the area to hang out, why would you pick the library?”

  “It’s empty at night,” she says.

  “So are about a million other places. The post office …”

  “Federal property.”

  “The hospital,” I say.

  “The emergency room’s open all night, remember?” She might as well be saying “ha!” after each comeback.

  “The high school.”

  “Are you kidding? School property?”

  “Okay, smartie,” I say. “Why don’t you cut to the chase and tell me why the library—just answer the question.”

  “Because,” she says.

  “Because why?”

  “Just because,” Cammy says.

  At nine o’clock on the dot I log onto the computer and there is Craig’s name.

  Sorry about before. Just needed to think. I don’t know why but it felt weird. It doesn’t anymore. Hope you’re having a good evening. And hey … I miss you. Tremendously.

  TOY (thinking of you).

  Now I can exhale. I e-mail back:

  TOY.

  Cammy

  Things aren’t going well. I think I’m sick. Like mentally sick. I hate my family. Except the boys. I hate school. I hate my friends, if you could even call them friends. Ricky’s dumped me. He’s been acting like my goddamn parent for so long I think he got sick of it. Anyway, he’s changed so much I don’t even know who he is anymore. He’s even talking about getting his tattoo lasered off. That’s what this kid I don’t even really know Johnnie said the other night at the parking lot. He told me he saw Ricky coming out of a dermatologist’s office and he knows that doctor specializes in tattoo removals because his mom got hers taken off two years ago when she married her fourth husband who’s a minister. Johnnie called Ricky my boyfriend and Will did some snorty thing and high-fived Paul. That was weird. I told him Ricky wasn’t my boyfriend and I don’t give a shit where he was. Johnnie goes whatever and flicked his lighter to the apple he made into a bong.

  I hate Will and Paul and Johnnie and Monica and this weird-ass chick named Jess who’s white but has dreadlocks that reach her butt. She doesn’t shave her legs and one night she was so wasted she was dancing around the parking lot barefoot with her arms in the air and even in the near dark I could see a forest of underarm hair. So gross. I think I’ve said maybe three words to her ever.

  I can’t sleep and then at about five in the morning I do but it’s only for two hours. I’m not hungry anymore. My heart feels like it’s skipping beats every five minutes. It makes me short of breath. Last night Will came to the window and I pretended I didn’t hear him knocking. I kept my eyes closed and after about five minutes I could hear him say ?
??fucking cunt”—he didn’t even try to whisper it—before he climbed back down.

  Paul says motherfucker all the time. He never laughs. Johnnie says Paul never sleeps. No one’s ever seen him with his eyes closed, man, Johnnie says. He’s like Yoda. Will says, How do you know Yoda didn’t sleep? Johnnie goes, He’s this little gnome dude and little gnome dudes don’t sleep.

  I see Paul watching me when the library closes and the workers go to their cars. His head moves wherever mine does. He looks at whatever I’m looking at. He’s never asked about it but I know he knows I’m looking for someone. I don’t care, really.

  I’m quiet but I feel like I’m about to explode and start screaming. When Samantha asks me what I’m thinking I feel like yelling:

  It’s written all over my face, how can you not see me?

  I’m swirling into a vortex of hell!

  I hate and I hate and I hate!

  I didn’t ask to be born!

  I wish I’d never been born!

  Some crackhead got knocked up and I’m forced into this fucked-up world!

  Instead I say, I’m not thinking anything. And when she says, it looks like something’s on your mind, I shrug and she’s off my case. Thank God.

  Everyone’s shiny and sparkly and I’m a black cloud. Heavy with rain that’ll never release. The drops of water clinging to monster clouds woven from tufts of cotton candy bumping into one another. That was a line in a poem I was going to write. Kafka wrote poetry but he burned practically all of it. I want someone to burn this when I’m gone.

  I wish I could just disappear. I wish I were dead.

  Samantha

  “You better hurry up or you’ll be late,” I say to Bob.

  “Why are you so eager to get rid of me?” he asks. “Jamie, chew with your mouth closed, that’s gross.”

  “I’m not eager to get rid of you,” I say. “I just don’t want anybody to be late, that’s all.”