After dinner and cleanup, I retreated to my room. My mother stopped by only once, knocking on the door. I couldn't remember exactly when she and my father had started doing that, but one day, they just stopped barging right in and always knocked to get permission first. Something had happened to tell them that they should respect my privacy. It worked both ways. I no longer barged in on them, either. I recognized that this was one of many things telling me I was no longer a child, not in their eyes and not in my own.
"Yes?"
She poked her head in and asked, "Everything all right, Zipporah?"
"Yes," I said. The weight of the lie was so great that it almost didn't escape my lips and barely made it to her ears.
She just looked at me a moment, decided not to pursue, smiled, and closed the door.
Suddenly, my worry and concern, all my curiosity, turned to anger.
What had I done to deserve to be pushed away like this?
If Karen and I were best friends, why wouldn't she share whatever it was that bothered her?
Now I resented all the secret and intimate things I had revealed to her lately. I had even told her things about Jesse that Jesse wouldn't have liked me telling. Where was her reciprocation? She was taking and not giving, and I felt the fool because of it.
I made up my mind that the next day, I wouldn't be so forgiving, and I certainly wouldn't be as friendly.
I pouted and had trouble falling asleep thinking about it all. I had, after all, invested everything in this friendship, sacrificed many others, made myself as much of an outcast as Karen was, and denied myself all the social activities I could be enjoying. Soon, if not already, my name and all sorts of profanities would be written on the walls of stalls in the boys' bathroom.
I fell asleep feeling certain I had been betrayed.
I didn't feel much different in the morning. Luckily, it was Tuesday, and my mother had an early shift at the hospital, so she was on her way out by the time I went down to breakfast; otherwise, she would have been full of questions. My father was scurrying about, because he had to be in court in Kingston, a good hour and a half away. He barely noticed I was there. Before I was finished having breakfast, I was all alone.
I went out to wait for the school bus. Although it was late April, the mornings were still quite brisk, so I kept my scarf wrapped around my neck and wore gloves. After the snows of March melted, weeks of rain injected the trees and bushes with what my mother called a growth hormone. One morning, we awoke to see the forest thickened, the skeletonlike trees filling out with green. The very ground unfroze and came out of hibernation. It was easy to imagine the earth itself yawning and stretching and smiling up at the warmer sun.
I heard the bus rattle around the turn and saw it approaching my house. It slowed to a stop, and the doors opened. There were only a half dozen students on it, mostly junior high kids. I nodded at the bus driver and made my way toward the rear to plop down and wait for Karen so I could be dramatic and sulk.
My friendship wasn't going to be taken for granted, I thought as I hardened myself all the way into town.
Lots of other girls would like to be my friend, I told myself, especially if I stopped being Karen's best friend. I was so angry I even considered being friends with Alice Bucci.
I glanced at the students waiting for the bus in the village. I didn't want Karen to see me searching for her in the crowd, so I turned quickly and sat looking out of the opposite side. I wanted to be just like that, with my back to her, when Karen got on the bus and sat beside me. I'd wait for her to say good morning, and then I'd grunt or something. If she didn't apologize, I would pout the entire way to school.
I didn't look at the kids boarding. I waited until I heard the bus door close and the driver shift and start away. Then I turned and looked and saw that Karen wasn't sitting beside me. I searched the bus quickly and realized she wasn't sitting anywhere else, either.
She wasn't going to school, at least not on the bus.
My anger deflated like a balloon with a pinhole and was quickly replaced by frustration. I couldn't even show her I was angry at her.
She was staying home just so I couldn't, I decided. She was avoiding me before I could avoid her, I concluded, which brought back my anger.
I wore it all day, moping, keeping to myself, chiding myself until it exhausted me. Very few of the other kids even asked about her, and when any did, I just shrugged and said, "I don't know. How would I know?" They looked as if they resented my not knowing more than I did.
Despite myself, despite my wounded ego and sensitivity, at the end of the school day, I got off the bus in town and reluctantly walked to Karen's house to see why she hadn't attended school. My curiosity overpowered my indignation. I was disappointed in myself for needing her so much while she obviously didn't need me half as much.
I'm just a weak puppy, I thought, and chided myself all the way to her front door.
Little did I know how much she would come to need me and how much stronger than she was I would have to be.
4 Pretend Central
She's doing it again, I thought after pressing the doorbell and waiting and waiting.
I pressed it again.
And again.
And then I shouted. "I'm not leaving until you answer the door, Karen Stoker!"
Nothing stirred inside. The spring afternoon breeze made the weeping willow tree on the north side of the house nod. Behind me, a few cars went by on Main Street, and down the block, the four-year-old Lohan twins chased their puppy on the lawn, their squeals of laughter carried off in the breeze.
Where was she? Why hadn't she come to school? Why had she ignored me? The lazy sound of a lawn mower nearly drowned out my indignation. The scent of cut grass filled my nostrils. Even the birds on the telephone wires looked lazy and content. Right in the middle of a Norman Rockwell painting, I was falling into a panic.
I cupped my hands around my face to block out the glare and looked through the living-room window, through the living-room door, and into the hallway.
It was dark, and I saw no one, but I returned to the doorbell anyway. This time, I kept my finger on it and heard it ringing and ringing. 1 began to think she wasn't home. No matter how she felt, she couldn't possibly tolerate someone being this insistent.
With my arms folded at my chest, I stood there glaring at the closed door as if it were someone preventing me from speaking or seeing Karen. I felt like kicking it. I was that frustrated.
Suddenly, the door opened, and she stood there in a nightgown looking out at me, her eyes blinking madly because of the bright afternoon sunshine. Her hair was down but unbrushed, and she was barefoot. Creases from a deep sleep were carved on the right side of her face along her temples and cheek.
"What do you want?" she demanded in a cranky voice.
"What's wrong with you? Why weren't you in school? Why wouldn't you see me last night?"
"I don't feel well," she said. "I still have a bad headache."
"Still? So what's wrong? Did you go to a doctor?"
"I don't have to go to a doctor, Zipporah. Just leave me alone for now," she said, and started to close the door.
I put my foot in the way.
"I won't, Karen. I'm your best friend, whether you like it or not," I said, which sounded stupid the moment I said it.
She paused and stared at me.
"You don't want to be my best friend," she said, in a voice that sounded as if she were talking in her sleep. "Why not? Why shouldn't I want to be your best friend? Well?" I demanded. I still had my foot in her doorway.
She looked at it and then at me again.
"When you're someone's best friend, you have to share their pain and suffering and all their mistakes as well as their happiness, Zipporah, and you don't want to do that when it comes to me."
"How do you know what I want to do?"
"I know what you can do. Take my word for it, Zipporah. If I were in your shoes, that's the way I would be."
"Well, you're not in my shoes." I looked at her feet. "You're not even wearing shoes."
She tried to remain serious and firm, but when I said that, she just couldn't help smiling. She turned away to hide it and took a deep breath.
"Look, because I am your best friend, I won't let you be mine Can you understand that?"
"No, Karen. I'm too stupid. Enlighten me?'
She shook her head.
"Go home, Zipporah."
"I'll camp out right here until your mother comes home," I warned, and saw that got to her. Her eyes widened, and she pressed her lips together hard.
"Okay," she said, lowering her shoulders. "You asked for it. Come on."
She turned and walked toward the stairway. I hesitated. Now that I had gotten what I wanted, did I want it? I had put on a brave face, but I was trembling. Without turning back, she silently continued up the stairs and into her room. I entered the house, closed the front door, and followed, my heartbeat quickening with each step.
"Close the door," she said when I stepped into her bedroom.
Why close the door? There's no one else home. I did it anyway and stood there, waiting. The curtains were still drawn closed, and there were no lights on.
"Can I put on the light?"
She nodded, and I did so.
She had a bedroom as large and as nice as mine, maybe even nicer, because her bathroom was what we learned the French called en suite, whereas I had to go out and down the hallway to get to the bathroom that my parents designated as mine The fixtures in our house had more style but were older. Sometimes the pipes knocked, and since we had been living in the Doral house, we'd had plumbers come out to repair things at least six times. One time, because of a lightning storm, we lost the submersible pump that produced our water. We were too far from the village to have municipal water and sewer. We had a septic tank, and my father was always worrying about it.
In my bathroom, I had a combination tub and shower, and if I forgot to turn the knob after I had taken a shower, I'd get soaked leaning over to turn the water on for a bath. Karen had a stall shower and a tub.
The one thing I liked better in my room was my wooden floor. It was thick, rich wood that could take on a sheen when polished. Karen had a beaten-down, knotty-looking shag rug she said was probably full of mold, because it always felt damp beneath her feet. It was stained before she and her mother had moved into the Pearson house. Her closets were bigger, but I had more to hang up than she did, and I had nicer furnishings--a canopy bed with pink swirls in the headboard that made it look like cherry vanilla ice cream, two matching dressers, and a marble vanity table, as well as a bleached oak desk. Also, I had my own television set in my room now, and we seemed to get better reception than the people in the village, because we were on higher ground.
Karen didn't say anything else. She returned to her bed and sat with her back against the propped-up pillows, her hands folded in her lap. She stared down at her hands. I remained there, feeling foolish.
"So?" I finally said. "I asked for it, so tell me. What's wrong?"
She lifted her head slowly and looked at me with such pain in her eyes I thought whatever it was, it was surely my fault. What could I have possibly done?
"My mother is deathly afraid that Harry will divorce her and we'll be thrown out on the street."
"What? Why?" I asked.
"He's very unhappy."
"Unhappy? With your mother? How could he do any better?"
"Harry doesn't worry about doing better. He thinks he's God's gift to women or something. He takes my mother for granted."
"But why would he divorce your mother?"
"I told you. He's unhappy. Don't get thick on me."
I shook my head. How could Harry Pearson be unhappy with Darlene Pearson? She worked well with him in the drugstore. People liked her. She was beautiful, too beautiful for a man who looked like Harry Pearson. She kept their house well. No one would or could believe he was unhappy.
"I don't believe it."
"Believe it," she said. "You don't live here. You don't know what goes on in this house. You don't know anything about us," she added, practically shouting.
I quickly looked away and then back at her.
"I'm sorry. I don't mean I don't believe you. I just mean it's hard to believe. That's all. So, do you know why Harry is unhappy?"
"My mother says it's because of me."
"You? Why?"
"Because I'm too unfriendly, because I don't like Harry, and I don't hide it from him or from her. I am not being cooperative," she added. "She thinks I'm selfish, spoiled, petulant. She has a whole list of words to use whenever she needs them, and that's usually daily."
"Maybe you should just let them change your name," I said, shrugging.
"It's got to do with a lot more than just a name, Zipporah. Jesus."
She looked away.
"I'm sorry. I'm trying to understand. I want to understand. I don't want you to be unhappy and sick over it."
"It's too late."
"Too late for what?"
"For me not being sick over it. I was sick over it the day they got married."
"But you told me you thought she had little choice. He could provide and .. ."
"She had little choice, not me."
"Can't you pretend to like him? I've seen you put on an act when you want to, and you're good at it.
You're much better than I am. Jesse says I have a face like a window pane, and anyone can tell what I'm really thinking or feeling."
"No, I can't fake it, Zipporah. When he comes near me, I cringe inside. I can feel my intestines go into knots and my heart tighten into a lump as hard as coal. He smells," she added.
"Smells? I never knew that."
"You don't get close enough to him to know." "Why would he smell? He sells men's cologne and after-shave in the drugstore."
"He never wore any of that, because his mother was allergic to practically everything, even air."
"Well, he can wear it now. She's gone."
"Tell him she's gone. That's another thing, Zipporah," she said in almost a whisper. "He doesn't act like she's gone. He acts like she's still living in the back of the house in her apartment. Why do you think he's never rented it out?
"What do you mean, he acts like she's there? What does he do?"
"He goes back there at night and talks to her." "How do you know that?" I asked.
"I followed him, and I listened at the door. I told my mother, but she doesn't want to hear about it. She was furious at me for spying on him and was terrified he would find out."
"Maybe . ."
"Maybe what, Zipporah?"
"Maybe he just misses her so much he can't stand it," I suggested. "Lots of people talk to their dead relatives. My mother sometimes says things like, 'Ma, where are you when I need you?' Stuff like that."
"This is very different, Zipporah. He talks to her as if he believes she's right there. And he hears her talk back to him, too. I know he does. I hear him answering her questions. He whines and pleads with her."
"So he's pretending," I said, still trying to make it sound like something not so unusual.
"He's a man in his forties, Zipporah. He should have a grip on reality, don't you think?"
"Yes, of course."
"He's not normal. Take my word for it." She looked away for a moment and then turned back to me. "I actually know more about him than my mother does."
"You do? How come?"
"Because of what I hear him say in that apartment. My mother doesn't know half the things his mother did to him when he was little. She had a nice variation on confining him to his room. Instead, she tied his hands behind his back for hours and hours, sometimes most of the day. You want to hear something disgusting? She didn't even untie him when he had to go to the bathroom, and he was no infant, either."
"That is disgusting."
"I heard lots of disgusting things," she said.
"Why did his father let h
er do those things to him?"
"His father was as afraid of Harry's mother as Harry was, from what I understand, and he wasn't around all that often. There's a lot more, a lot I can't even talk about without getting nauseated myself."
I sat there a little stunned and unsure of what to say next. Now I was the one looking down at my hands in my lap. She was suffering, but she couldn't tell her mother, and her mother didn't know what Karen knew about her mother's own husband? She was making it all sound very confusing, but I was afraid to show it, afraid she would only get mad at me. Then I thought of something.
"That time I saw you had a bruise on your arm. Did Harry do it to you?"
She looked as if she wasn't going to answer, and then she nodded.
"He explodes. He'll get angry and just pout or something, which makes you think that's it, and then all of a sudden, when you least expect it, he does something mean and vicious like grab my arm and shake me or slap me. Once, he nearly pushed me down the stairs."
"What does your mother say about that?"
"She doesn't know about it."
"Didn't you tell her?"
"No. It would only make things worse. She says I'm just acting spoiled or whining whenever I do complain about anything, and she gets as angry as he does. My mother never really wanted me, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"I was a sexual accident. She's told me that a hundred times if she's told it to me once. Why do you think I never had a brother or a sister? She's not cut out to be the motherly type."
"That's terrible, Karen. You never said anything." "I don't tell you half of it."
"I'm sorry," I said. I couldn't imagine having a mother who admitted to not wanting you born. She saw the look of pity and pain on my face.
"Actually, it's gotten worse recently:" she said. "Worse? How?"
Her eyes filled with tears, and she pressed her lips together. I waited, holding my breath. What could possibly be worse than what I had already heard?
"If you tell anyone, especially your parents, I'll kill myself," she said. "I will," she emphasized when I looked at her.