Wintergirls

  On Wednesday the boys whispered a chant of “boobies, jugs, hooters, tits” whenever the teacher wasn’t paying attention. Thatcher drew a picture of Cassie with watermelon-sized breasts and passed it around the class. The glittering girls giggled and twirled their gum around their fingers.

  In the pecking order of fifth grade, I was closer to the top than the bottom because my parents were rich and my dad had met the president of the United States. In the complex math of elementary school, I was a whole number, not a fraction.

  Cassie and me had taken a sacred oath with poison berry juice and blood. There was no choice to make. I had to save her.

  At lunchtime, I sat next to Cassie at the loser end of the table. I gave her all my french fries and talked loudly about the two of us going to Boston for a museum trip with her mom. The other girls watched, tongues flicking over their braces, tasting their lip gloss and testing the wind.

  At recess, I walked up to Thatcher; me—a scrawny elf girl the size of a small second-grader standing up to a future varsity football player, offensive tackle.

  “I dare you to punch me,” I said.

  “You? Dare me?” He was laughing too hard to say anything else.

  I shoved him. “I double-dare you. If you don’t have the guts to do it, you’re a weenie.” I shoved again, harder. “If you do, you’re an even bigger weenie because it’s harder to take a punch than to give one.”

  I had no idea how those words snuck into my mouth.

  Everybody said, “Ooooooooohhhhhh,” and made a circle around us. Thatcher looked around for a teacher to save him. I closed my eyes and crossed my fingers.

  “Do it,” I said.

  He punched me so hard my lip split open and the loose molar I had been teasing with my tongue broke off. I spit the bloody tooth into his face just before I passed out.

  The glittering girls changed sides again. I had showed Thatcher. I had proved that girls rule. They made braided bracelets for me with embroidery thread and beads, but I wouldn’t take them unless they made some for Cassie, too. They invited Cassie back in the tribe, because really, Thatcher was a bully and the whole thing was his fault.

  After that, Cassie and me always told people we were twins.

  ... body found in a motel room, alone . . .

  The body of Cassandra Jane Parrish is asleep in a cold silver box. They’ll dig a hole in the ground and plant her on Saturday.

  What about the rest of her, the real Cassie?

  I think she’s coming here.

  011.00

  Emma goes to bed and Jennifer goes to bed and Dad goes to bed. On the other side of town, my mother stays up too late, but she finally goes to bed, too.

  I cannot sleep. Heat lightning shoots through my skull, short-circuiting the wires. I am cold, then hot, and then I can’t feel my fingers or my toes. Someone is standing on the other side of my door. I can feel it. But . . . no. Everyone is sleeping. Everyone is enchanted, pulled under into a dream.

  The moon drips through my window.

  I wait.

  Spiders hatch and crawl out of my belly button, hairy little tar beads with ballerina feet. They swarm, spinning a silk veil, one hundred thousand spider thoughts woven together until they wrap me up in a cozy shroud.

  I breathe in. The web presses against my open lips. It tastes dusty, like old curtains.

  The smell of ginger and cloves and burnt sugar drifts over my bed, the smell of her body wash and shampoo and perfume. She’s coming. Any minute now.

  I breathe out and it begins.

  Thorn-covered vines creep across the floor, crackling like a bonfire. Black roses bloom in the moonlight, born dead and brittle. The web on my face holds my eyes open, forcing me to watch as Cassie steps out of the shadows, briars twining up her legs and around her body, reaching up through her hair. One minute she’s by the door, the next, she stands over me. The temperature in the room has dropped twenty degrees. Her voice is in my head.

  “Lia,” she says.

  I can’t make a sound. Spiders crawl on my face and leap across to her arms. They fly back and forth, knitting us together.

  “Come with me,” she says. “Please.”

  The web locks us into place, staring at each other as the moon slithers across the sky and the stars fall asleep.

  012.00

  “Wake up, Lia!” Emma shakes my shoulder.

  I groan and bury myself deeper in the warm cocoon.

  “Wake up!” She turns on the light. “You’re going to be late.”

  I open my eyes and raise my hand to block out the glare. I’m still wearing my clothes. It’s dark outside. “What time is it?”

  “Duh,” says Emma. “After six thirty.”

  My room smells like dirty laundry and old candles, not spices or burnt sugar. I plant my face in the pillow. “Five more minutes.”

  “You have to get up now.” She drags the comforter off me. “Mommy said.”

  “Hey! It’s cold.”

  “Don’t yell; Mommy has a migraine. I tried to wake you up nice, but you didn’t move.”

  I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit up. There are no spiderwebs in sight, no rose petals on the carpet. Cassie is in the morgue, belly slit and draining like a fresh-caught fish. It didn’t happen.

  I shiver, pull the comforter back up, and wrap it around my shoulders. “Where’s my dad?”

  “It’s Tuesday, silly. Squash day. Why is squash the only vegetable that has a game named after it?”

  Crap. Tuesday.

  “Where’s Jennifer?”

  “Drying her hair. Where are you going?”

  It’s Tuesday.

  I race downstairs to the laundry room, as far away from Jennifer’s ears as I can get. I turn on the tap, lean over the sink, and guzzle until my belly is a big water balloon. I sail on the tide toward the kitchen, heavy-loaded with ballast, waves splashing.

  When Jennifer comes down with dry hair and sloppy eyeliner, I’m on the first cup of coffee of the day. Black. I have Daddy’s dirty plate in front of me so it looks like I ate toast and jam.

  “Migraine?” I ask.

  She nods once, winces, and puts a mug of water into the microwave.

  My little not-sister shoves a shoe-box diorama across the table at me. “It’s a coliseum in Greece,” she says. “Where they tortured the people and fed them to the tigers.”

  “Sounds like middle school,” I say.

  “That is not funny,” Jennifer says. “And it’s the Roman Colosseum, in Rome, not Greece. Stop touching it, Emma. The glue isn’t dry yet.” The microwave beeps. She takes out the mug, plops in a tea bag that smells like lemons, glances at the clock, and says, “Come, on, Lia. Upstairs.”

  The second time they let me out of the clinic, six months ago, I divorcedDr. Marrigan and moved to jenniferland.

  Once the shock wore off, Dad liked the idea. It would be a new start, he said. With a predictable routine and someone who knew how to cook. Every summer morning I did the good-daughter shuffle into the kitchen and sat at the breakfast table with my father (from the discharge papers: “family mealtimes should be light and pleasant”). He would lecture me about his latest research into the boring life of some dead guy while I ate tiny forkfuls of mushroom omelet and nibbles of cinnamon bagel with butter.

  The doctors told Dad to buy a Blubber-O-Meter 3000, a bathroom scale with a giant dial that was easy to read. Jennifer had to do the dirty work, weighing me in my tattered yellow robe to make sure I stayed fat. For the first couple of months, she measured my sins every morning and called in the results to my doctor once a week. The ugly numbers made me cry.

  Everyday weighing became every-other-day weighing became every-Tuesday weighing because none of us wanted to do it in the first place.

  I change into the yellow robe in my bedroom and make sure the quarters I sewed into the pockets aren’t making them droop. When I get to the bathroom, Jennifer is fixing her eyeliner in the mirror. I step on the scales.

>   107.00 fake pounds.

  She writes the number in the little green notebook that lives in the cabinet next to the antibacterial ointment, then flips through twenty-four weeks of humiliating recorded weights. “That’s down a quarter pound.”

  “Way above trouble, though.”

  “Um-hmm.” The notebook goes back in the cabinet. The cover is beginning to tear off the spiral rings.

  I step off the scale and change the subject. “Can I take Emma out for ice cream after school?”

  The stepmouth opens, but no words come out.

  Emma is nine. Emma is plump. Plump, not husky, not heavy, not fat. She is big-boned—like her dad, she says—and her plump is perfect. Emma should be a model; we’ve heard it a million times at school concerts and soccer tournaments. She is the new American average, a living-flesh girl with chocolate M&M eyes, and hair that bounces, and a roll of love around her tummy.

  Jennifer thinks that Emma isplump, but she doesn’t have the guts to say it.

  “One scoop,” I promise. “In a dish.”

  “Not today.” Her lipstick is bleeding into the corners of her mouth. She pulls a tissue out of the box and leans into the mirror to repair the damage. It’s an antique mirror with little waves on the surface of it. Sometimes it can make you look like an elegant princess trapped in time. Other times, it makes you look like a pig.

  I pull back the shower curtain and turn on the water. Jennifer blot, blot, blots. “Chloe called,” she says. “Again.”

  “Here?”

  “No. David’s office.”

  I make the water hotter. I do not like the shape of my mother’s name in her mouth.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “You said Mom called Dad.”

  “You promised me yesterday that you’d call her.”

  I sit on the edge of the tub and test the temperature with my fingers. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  “Don’t worry about it. She wants you to visit her this weekend, to spend the night. She said it’s time for you two to try again, especially with Cassie’s death. She’s very worried about you.”

  “No.”

  Jennifer’s reflection frowns at me. She’s still learning how to pick her way through the bombed-out countryside that lies between her stepmess and the mythological Wife Number One. But she earns a star for trying.

  She takes a deep breath. “I think it’s a good idea.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Come on, Lia, you should—”

  “You’re not supposed to say that.” Steam billows. I want to strip and boil myself, but if she sees me naked, she’ll freak, and if I get in the shower wearing my robe, she’ll freak harder. “Dr. Parker says I don’t have to let anyone ‘should’ on me.”

  “I’m sorry.” She wipes a clear spot in the mirror. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “I know.”

  When she married my father, I was the once-a-month visitor who cleaned the kitchen without being told and babysat for free. I bet she wishes she had written an escape clause into the prenup.

  “What did Dad tell Mom?” I ask.

  “He said he’d talk to you.”

  The water falls, five gallons a minute down the drain. Jennifer is fading behind the wall of steam.

  “Just go for one night.” Her voice is sticky, like the lipstick bled on her tongue. “Get there at dinnertime on Saturday, come home after breakfast.”

  I open my mouth to ask her to go with me to the funeral, to go to the wake tomorrow, to help me figure out if I should call Cassie’s parents or if that would make things worse. I open my mouth, but steam rushes in and boils away the words.

  “Did you say something?” she asks.

  “Are you going to the store today?”

  “What?”

  “Are you going to the store? I’m out of tampons.” Total lie, brilliant diversion.

  “Sure. I’ll pick some up. You’ll call Chloe?”

  “I’ll call her this afternoon. Now, if you don’t mind . . .” I stand up and reach for the belt of my robe.

  She steps into the hall, half closing the door. “Thanks, honey. I’ll tell David.”

  I stare into the steam until I know she’s down the stairs.

  “Don’t call me ‘honey.’ ”

  013.00

  I turn off the shower. Clouds hang in the air. Tears roll down the mirror, the walls, and the windows. I wait for the magical sound of the garage door closing and then count while her car rolls down the driveway and takes off for Park Street Elementary.

  . . . After they reduced the green pills and orange pills because I was such a very, very good little girl, the fog thinned in my head and my brain shifted back into DRIVE. Life in jenniferland took a little getting used to. There were always people around, for one thing. Jennifer had friends. Dad threw barbecues. Emma suckered them into letting me babysit her, except for the mornings I had to go to summer school.

  My father (“one hundred and ten, kiddo—you look great!”) bought me a new car (“three years old, eighty thousand miles, but new tires and very safe”) so I could drive Emma to the pool and soccer and her friends’ houses. It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go. Cassie had dumped me. My other friends had faded away when I wasn’t paying attention. Dad promised me a bunch of road trips to make me feel better. We were going to watch the sunrise over the ocean, listen to the Boston Pops, drive up to Canada for a cup of coffee and turn around and drive home. He was so convincing, I really believed him for a while. But then his editor refused to change his book deadline again and he had to take over a summer session class and we never went anywhere.

  My car took me to a medical-supply store where I bought a killer-accurate digital scale. One that could not be tampered with, unlike the Blubber-O-Meter 3000 . . .

  I remove the real scale from its hiding place in my closet and carry it back to the bathroom. Weight must be measured on a hard surface. The phones ring, one in every room in the house, ding-dong caroling bells. The answering machine picks up.

  I pee out the extra water inside me and strip. I stand five feet, five inches tall, a little shorter than freshman year. That’s when my periods stopped, too. I pretend to be a fat, healthy teenager. They pretend to be my parents.

  I close my eyes.

  As I step on the scale, Jennifer warns Emma about ice cream.

  As I step on the scale, Emma fears vanilla.

  As I step on the scale, Dad swings his racket and scores.

  As I step on the scale, Mom slices open a stranger.

  As I step on the scale, shadows edge closer.

  As I step on the scale, Cassie dreams.

  I open my eyes. 099.00 pounds. I am officially standing on Goal Number One.

  Ha.

  If my docs knew, they’d bodyslam me back into treatment. There would be consequences and repercussions because (once again) I broke the rules about the perfect-sized Lia. I am supposed to be as big as they want. I am supposed to repeat my affirmations like incantations to drive the nasty voices out of my head. I am supposed to commit to recovery like a nun pledging body and soul in a convent.

  They are morons. This body has a different metabolism. This body hates dragging around the chains they wrap around it. Proof? At 099.00 I think clearer, look better, feel stronger. When I reach the next goal, it will be all that, and more.

  Goal Number Two is 095.00, the perfect point of balance. At 095.00, I will be pure. Light enough to walk with my head up, meaty enough to fool everyone. At 095.00, I will have the strength to stay in control. I’ll stand on the blocks hidden in the toes of my satin ballet slippers, pink ribbons sewn into my calves, and rise above up in the air: magical.

  At 090.00, I will soar. That’s Goal Number Three.

  Cassie watches, half hidden in the shower curtain.

  “Give it up,” she whispers.

  014.00

  I’m late again, and dreaming halfway out the door (099.00! 099.00! 099.00! Tomorrow will be 098.00!)
when the red blinking light catches me. The answering machine. Not my problem. Jennifer will get it when she comes home.

  But what if it is Jennifer, asking me to pick up Emma after school again? Or my dad, needing some important papers he forgot. Or Cassie—

  Well, no. Not Cassie.

  I set my backpack on the floor, cross back across the frozen kitchen, and press PLAY.

  “Um, hello? I hope this is the right number.”

  A guy’s voice. Deep. Nobody I know.

  He coughs once. “I’m looking for somebody named Lia. Um, Lia, if this your house, well, duh, if it isn’t your house, you won’t be getting the message, will you? Can you call the Gateway Motel, or stop by if it’s close? Ask for me, Elijah. I promised Cassie I’d—”

  The machine cuts off his voice.

  I put on one of Dad’s extra-large sweatshirts because I can’t stop shaking. I listen to the message a dozen times before I call the school nurse and tell her I’m having a really bad day and I’m on my way to an emergency appointment with my shrink. She says she’ll tell the office.

  I grab my keys.

  015.00

  I drive past front yards trapped between holidays, some with inflatable turkeys on the lawn, others with fake snowmen and high-class wreaths on the front door. Every mailbox has a security-system sign nailed to it. This neighborhood isn’t as expensive as the one where Cassie and me grew up, but it tries harder.

  The car steers us down to the bypass. I know I’m going to get lost. I always get lost. I should have printed out the directions.

  Who is this guy and how did he get my number and is this a scam and should I call the police?

  I turn the heat up to ROAST. The first exit takes me to a bunch of stumpy office buildings with half-empty parking lots. I backtrack to 101. The next exit would take me to the college and, with my luck, I’d run right into my father or one of his scheming grad students.