Zoe feels her breath coming fast, out of control. A flash of sweat heats her face. She can’t even be bothered to lock her door. She doesn’t think that, maybe for me, she should lock her lousy fucking door. She stands in the middle of her dark room with her hands over her face, pressing, measuring breaths that want to come in gulps, pressing to hold it in. That’s where the wine came from. She won’t do one stinking thing for me, but for that she will screw her way to oblivion.
Zoe falls onto her bed in the dark and pulls her pillow over her face. Her gulping breaths are muffled. The only other sound is the jingling of her tips as they slip from her skirt pocket to the floor. The pillow is wet against her face, and her uneven breaths pull something out of her she hates, pulling until her head throbs and a sharp stab swells in her throat. Finally her breathing quiets and she lies on her back, limp, staring into the blackness, her chest occasionally jumping for a breath like it did when she was a child. The darkness vibrates around her and the room is stuffy, but she is too weak to get up and turn on the light or the fan. She wishes the black void would swallow her up. It would be easier.
Her chest jumps again, and she thinks of Kyle and how she used to rub his chest when he was little and hold him tight in her arms so the shaking would go away. “It will be all right, Kiteman,” she would whisper against his cheek, no matter what the problem was, whether it was a scraped knee, or it was a lonely, stormy night and Mama and Daddy still hadn’t come home. She always promised him everything would be all right.
But it’s not.
What does he think of her now?
Zoe sits up on her bed. She doesn’t allow herself to think about Kyle too often. Like Aunt Patsy with Mama, she loves and hates him all at the same time. He’s been gone almost two years now. When Daddy died it was decided that Mama couldn’t handle nine-year-old “boy energy” for a while. He would go stay with Aunt Patsy and Uncle Clint—just till Mama got over it. It was only supposed to be for a few weeks, but then those few turned into a few more, and then more, and soon everyone seemed to forget that Kyle had ever lived with Mama and Zoe. Even when Aunt Patsy got sick, Kyle stayed. Everyone acted like it was normal, and Zoe stopped asking when he would come back home, because she knew he wouldn’t. It was never considered that maybe Zoe should go live with Aunt Patsy and Uncle Clint, too. When Zoe brought it up to Grandma, she frowned and said, “No. Your mama needs you. You need to be here. Besides, there isn’t any room for you at Clint and Patsy’s.”
Zoe leans forward in the darkness, her fingers digging into her face.
No room.
Six
Zoe sits in a chair in the hallway. Waiting. Mrs. Farantino is expecting her, the secretary says. Zoe leans to the side and peers in the office. It is empty. If Mrs. Farantino is expecting her, where is she? Zoe wonders. Probably in the lounge finishing her bagel and coffee. Zoe comes after bagel and coffee but before potty break. She smiles, wondering if this is how she will have to amuse herself all day—figuring out where she fits in.
Somehow, a one-day suspension doesn’t bother her. She has done it before. Last year, for ditching class, she was suspended from class. The irony still amuses her. It’s the counseling that nags at her. Mrs. Farantino has known Zoe since she skipped her first class when she was a freshman, but this is the first time formal counseling has been ordered.
The air-conditioning vent above her head rumbles. Get out of it, she hears. She will. She is not going to play the spill-your-guts game with anyone. The secretary taps her pencil as she stares at her computer screen. Her desk is a piled mess of papers, pencil cups, and clutter, but Zoe focuses on a small potted plant on the corner. Violets. Fresh, blooming, well-watered violets. She looks away. Where is she? Zoe wonders. How long does one freakin’ bagel take? But Mrs. Farantino still doesn’t come.
The violets creep back into her vision. She leans forward, remembers. Bits. Turns. Beginnings. Mama sad. Crying. Days of crying. It began with the potted violets that Daddy forgot to water. They screamed at each other. A glass was broken. Daddy slammed the door. Zoe pulled a kitchen chair over to the sink and filled a cup. She watered the violets on the sill, but they were already dead. Four days later Mama and Daddy are still sad-mad, and Zoe dresses up in the purple flowery dress Aunt Nadine sent her for her seventh birthday. She dances around the room. She tries to make them smile, desperate tiptoe dancing because she wants to make it better. Wanting. Always that. An almost-there kind of hope that keeps her swirling and twirling. But the dead violets on the windowsill are the only flowers that matter. Zoe wishes she had noticed. She should have. She should have watered the violets. What if she had?
“Come on in, Zoe.” Mrs. Farantino catches Zoe by surprise, briskly turning a corner and walking straight into her office. Zoe follows and waits to be told where to sit. There are four chairs. Zoe looks at one in the far corner. Mrs. Farantino points to a chair close to her own and Zoe sits. Mrs. Farantino flips through some paperwork while Zoe looks around the room. Posters of smiling teens fill the walls with phrases like “We’re in this together” and “One step at a time.” Really, Zoe thinks.
The room is cluttered with stacks of papers, greeting cards haphazardly tacked to the walls, boxes of books, two backpacks lying on the floor in the corner, and Post-it notes placed all around the edges of the computer and along the ledge of a bookcase. Mrs. Farantino is one of three counselors at Ruby High. She counsels students with last names A through H. Zoe knows she could have done worse. She is grateful her name doesn’t begin with the letter T. Mr. Hanford is the counselor for those students—and he’s also Mrs. Garrett’s brother-in-law. Sometimes Ruby is way too small.
Mrs. Farantino sets aside her file. “So, do you want to tell me what happened?” she asks.
“You already know.”
“But I want to hear it from your viewpoint.”
“Will that change anything? Will my suspension go away?”
Mrs. Farantino sits back in her chair. She is silent.
I got her, Zoe thinks.
“We need to talk about this, Zoe” she says. Her eyes fix on Zoe and won’t let go.
Zoe doesn’t want to talk, but the Friday counseling session still nips at her. Fridays are important. She wants that extra practice time to warm up before the after-school practice. She needs that edge since she doesn’t have private tutors like so many of the girls on the team do. But talk is cheap, she decides. It will cost her nothing but a chunk of her soul.
“I told Mrs. Garrett how to pronounce my name.”
Mrs. Farantino doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
So I used the word fuck, Zoe thinks. She hears people say it a thousand times a day. No one notices. Pass the fuckin’ fries, look at this fuckin’ book, hand me the fuckin’ pen. But if the word should fall on Mrs. Garrett’s delicate pink ears, all hell breaks loose.
Mrs. Farantino is still quiet.
“I used the word fuck,” Zoe says. “I don’t think Mrs. Garrett liked it.”
A hint of a smile pulls at the corner of Mrs. Farantino’s mouth and she leans forward. “No. I don’t think she ‘liked’ it.” She reaches out and lays her hand on the arm of Zoe’s chair. She is so close Zoe can count the lines fanning out from her eyes. “But it was more than just the word, Zoe. You know that, don’t you?”
Mrs. Farantino’s face is too close to hers. Zoe wants to pull back, so she can look at her shoes, the walls, the Post-it notes on the computer, but there isn’t room for her eyes to drift. God, she needs room. Mrs. Farantino’s black eyes hold her, pinning her against the chair. What does she want? I can’t breathe, she thinks, and she pushes up from the chair, stepping to the middle of the room.
“Okay, it was more than just the word. I’ve met people like Mrs. Garrett before—people who think they know so damn much about everything—they want to control the whole world, including you, and when they make a mistake they won’t admit it no matter what the mistake’s doing to you and instead they make you feel more stupid
and more worthless when it was really them all along, and if you try to tell them they’ve made a mistake, you can kiss your miserable ass good-bye because more than anything else in the whole fucking world, they don’t want to be told that they’re wrong!”
Zoe turns, takes a breath, realizes what she has said, what has burst out of her, what she was trying to hold back. What a stupid dumb-shit I am. She tries to backtrack to soften her tirade. She lowers her voice. “Is that what you meant by ‘more’?”
Mrs. Farantino is not thrown off and does not hesitate. Zoe sees no signs of shock or disgust on her face. “Yes. I mean, I think we can see that this all stems from some anger that you’re nursing. After all, Zoe, it was the first day. She mispronounced your name. That’s all. Mistakes like that happen a hundred times on the first day.”
“Maybe. But Mrs. Garrett also has plenty of attitude.”
“So do you.”
“Does she have to go for counseling?”
“No.”
Figures, Zoe thinks. People like Mrs. Garrett never have to change.
Mrs. Farantino lays out all the rules. She is kind, sympathetic, but unbending. When Zoe protests that Fridays are not good for her, Mrs. Farantino offers that Zoe’s mother has the option of arranging for private counseling. Her mother will need to come in and discuss it with the counseling office. Zoe can’t have Mama come in so she concedes. She takes the paper that says she will agree to go to “Support Group” once a week and signs it: Zoe Beth Buckman. She underlines the e in Zoe, knowing a copy will go to Mrs. Garrett. It must be signed by her mother as well in order to get back into class tomorrow. She decides she will go once or twice and then fade out. As she leaves to go to the library, where in-school suspension is being held today, Mrs. Farantino stops her.
“Remember, Zoe, this puts you on probation. Besides needing to keep your grades up, good citizenship is required for all school sports—including tennis.”
Zoe nods. They always know where to stab the deepest. She goes to the library, stakes out a seat in the corner, and stares out the window at a spindly maple planted between the buildings that has never had enough sun or water to grow. After Zoe hands over her pass, the library aide ignores her, too busy with stacks of books and packing lists to be bothered with playing warden.
She has no homework yet. Just time and her thoughts. Too many thoughts. The hours trickle by. If not for tennis, she would probably screw school altogether. She isn’t the greatest tennis player, but good, ranked fourth on the team. She has been playing since she was nine, though in the early years you could hardly call it playing. She thinks about the first time she saw a tennis game. Daddy had dragged her along to the country club where he had to finish some touch-up work on a painting job. While Daddy worked in the clubhouse, she stayed by the courts and watched the ladies in their white skirts, tan-skinned and golden-haired, leaping across the green concrete like they were unicorns in a meadow. Waiters brought them trays of water and iced tea with little lemon wedges. Zoe figured they must own the whole place to be treated so royally. Their little white skirts looked so dainty and Zoe stood transfixed, with her face mashed into the chain-link until a worker shooed her away and she ran back to Daddy.
“I want to play tennis, too,” she told him.
A locker room attendant snickered. Daddy set down his brush and wiped his face with a kerchief from his pocket.
“You’d make a great tennis player, Zoe. The best.” And then he hugged her and she didn’t care that he got smudges of paint on her face and shorts. After he finished his work, he took her straight to the Wal-Mart in Abilene, an hour away, and bought her a racket they had on special for $7.99, and then, when he took not one but two cans of balls from the shelf, she knew he had to think she would truly be the best.
“What about a skirt?” she asked, because that was really what she wanted in the first place. Wal-Mart didn’t carry tennis skirts, so he took her to the girls’ department and bought her a little white skirt that Mama shortened when they got home. Sitting in the living room, with Daddy taking the tags off the racket and Mama hemming her skirt, she felt more like a princess than she ever had in her life.
Even Grandma’s scoffing at the wastefulness and absurdity of a Buckman prancing around on a tennis court couldn’t take away that moment.
“Spending money like it’s water,” Grandma clucked. “Twenty bucks down the drain and putting fool ideas in a child’s head.”
Zoe ignored Grandma and nestled in closer to Mama’s side, feeling the rhythm as Mama pulled the thread with the needle over and over again—all for Zoe. The living room buzzed with life and hope, Daddy imagining how famous Zoe would become, Mama laughing and saying how pretty she would be, and for those few hours, with Daddy on one side and Mama on the other, she felt like all the planets revolved around Zoe Beth Buckman.
In the months that followed, when Mama was at the beauty shop and Daddy was supposed to be watching her and Kyle, he would take them both to the park two blocks away and drop them off to practice while he went across the street to Lena’s Hideaway—“just for an hour to take the parch off,” but then he’d be gone twice that. He always brought back handfuls of pretzels and cans of soda, so the long wait was soon forgotten. While Daddy was gone, Kyle threw balls over the ragged net. Occasionally one would actually come in Zoe’s direction and she would hit it. After that she would practice bouncing the ball in place on the racket because Kyle was only good for ten minutes’ worth of ball throwing. And then, while Kyle dug holes in the dirt with a spoon on the edges of the court, she would practice serving the six balls over the net, run to the other side to gather them all up, and then hit the six back in the other direction. She knew nothing about how tennis was played except that the ladies at the country club had shouted “love” over and over again, so she knew it had to be a very good game.
Daddy had to take the parch off often enough that she got a lot of practice and eventually picked up the rules by watching other people who came to play on the shabby, weed-riddled courts. Her six balls dwindled down to two and lost most of their bounce, but she always wore her white skirt that told everyone she was the center of the universe, at least for one day.
“You can go now. ISS lunch is back in the counseling offices.”
Zoe looks up, unsure what the library aide is saying.
“You can go,” she repeats. “The lunch bell? Didn’t you hear it?”
“No,” Zoe answers. She stands, swinging her backpack over her shoulder.
She had heard nothing except the sound of Mama and Daddy imagining her greatness.
Seven
Zoe shifts her weight. Her right foot aches. She has been waiting in line at the utility office for ten minutes, and the line hasn’t moved. Four people are ahead of her. Every time the door opens, a breeze wafts in, enveloping her in the scent of the man behind her. Without looking, she guesses he probably doesn’t believe in bathing or else he pumps septic tanks for a living and she considers letting him go ahead of her in line, but she really doesn’t want to wait through one extra person either. She holds her breath the next time she hears the bell on the door ring.
The utility office is in the heart of downtown Ruby, sandwiched between Yen’s Donuts and Grueber’s Gun Shop. It’s small, she supposes, since most folks pay through the mail. But a few, like her, have to pay in cash. Their checks and promises are no good. She listens to the lady at the front of the line now, swearing she mailed them a check and if she pays now they better not cash the check, too, or it will bounce for sure because she is not made out of money, ya know, and maybe she just shouldn’t pay at all since it will probably come tomorrow and it was probably their mistake in the first place. She is convincing. Zoe almost believes her. But like the clerk behind the counter, she has heard a lot of excuses, too.
Before Zoe left for school this morning, Mama promised that she was going to the beauty shop today. She pressed the final notice and a twenty-dollar bill into Zoe’s hand and sai
d, “Take care of the rest of this, sugar, will you? I’ll pay you back. Things are just a little tight right now.”
Zoe wonders where the twenty came from, if the man with the hairy legs was so appreciative he chipped in on their electric bill, too.
It’s not as if Mama has no money. Grandma manages it and doles out a monthly check from the insurance and settlement money they got when Daddy died. Five thousand from the painters’ union and twenty-six thousand from Best Deal Motel where he died. One year’s wages was settlement enough for his life, they figured. Grandma made Mama pay off the mortgage first thing. “Only sensible thing to do with a windfall like that,” she said, and then added under her breath so Mama couldn’t hear, “Something good finally came of a Buckman.” But that still left almost eight thousand dollars. Grandma righteously doled it out in small amounts each month like she was giving communion, and Zoe never heard Mama squeak. For the care of Daddy’s “surviving minors,” Mama also got a small Social Security check each month, but even though Kyle lived with Aunt Patsy and Uncle Clint, Mama kept all the money. All together, with Mama working at the beauty shop, there should have been plenty of money to pay the bills. But Mama didn’t work much, not more than a few days a month, if that, and usually just doing shampoos. Zoe guessed that Sally looked for jobs that Mama could still do. Sally had always been good to her and Daddy. Mama hasn’t worked in three weeks now. Until Mama promised to go to work this morning, Zoe thought she might never work again.
“I’m growin’ moss back here,” the man in front of her yells.
“Me too,” someone farther back in the line calls.
“Same here,” Zoe adds.
The lady at the front turns and glares at the restless hecklers, and the clerk shuffles the paperwork nervously. Zoe wonders if having a gun shop next door adds to her anxiety. The lady counts out the cash, gets a receipt, and stomps off. Only three more to go, Zoe thinks, and then the bell rings and she holds her breath once again.