Love (And Other Uses for Duct Tape)

  And she was brave enough to answer.

  She wiped her nose and her face. The moonlight coming through her window made her tears glisten like they were magic. I remember thinking that.

  She sniffed in real good and said, “If he loved me he wouldn’t have left.”

  I knew she was talking about her dad. Of course, I knew.

  It’s funny we spend so much of our lives worrying about men leaving us, about men not loving us, about what that might mean.

  So, even though Mimi is evil, I feel badly for making her hurt more. She’s evil, but I feel for her. I know what it’s like, missing a dad. I know what it’s like feeling like if he loved me he wouldn’t have left, but that’s stupid. Men aren’t good at staying, I don’t think. They always leave people they love behind. Of course, sometimes it isn’t their fault. Sometimes they die.

  Thoughts of Mimi, and Em, and Shawn, and Tom, and even about my mom flying off to her conference tomorrow, clutter up my head when I get to German class, only a mere twenty seconds after the bell has rung, which isn’t bad.

  Tom winks at me as I get in my seat. I stare at his lips. This is pathetic, but he has really nice lips.

  Herr Reitz doesn’t mind that I’m twenty seconds late. He loves me now. Ever since I passed out in his class after Eddie attacked me, he’s all, “Can I do anything for you, liebchen?”

  Every week we have the same exact German geography quiz. It’s the same quiz for German 1 and German 4. I’ve gotten 110 on it every week.

  Herr Reitz hands mine back before I even get a chance to sit down. He smiles to reveal something green stuck between his front teeth. Spinach? Broccoli?

  “Sehr gut, Belle,” he says.

  It’s 110.

  “Danke,” I say and make a motion with my fingers that something is in his teeth. He claps his hand over his mouth and looks horrified. He runs out of the class so he can go pick it out. I feel bad.

  “Someone had to tell him,” Tom says.

  Crash wiggles his eyebrows and he leans over towards me. “Do you think Anna will ever fall madly in love with me and want to twist my body into torturous positions while having insane, unquenchable, heart-stopping sex?”

  “Probably,” I say.

  He smiles and gives himself a high five. Then he gives Bob a high five. Bob doesn’t look pleased. His hand only made it halfway up, so Crash smacked his fingers. Bob’s uptight about his fingers. He’s a total nudge, which I’m not supposed to think because he’s gay and therefore oppressed, but he’s still a nugget of yuck. He doesn’t care about anyone or anything except his saxophone and Dylan.

  Bob is not my priority, though. Emily is. I try to imagine her in her Spanish class, stressing about things. Her hand touches her still flat stomach. Her heart beats faster because of the load of supporting two bodies. Ah, God, my own heart beats faster, I’m so worried. What is she going to do? I imagine her in a cruddy little apartment with stains on the ceiling. There are roaches on the stove and brown stains in the sink. Her baby’s crying and has crud plastered to his nose. She’s ignoring him, schlumped in the corner, sobbing, rocking back and forth. I will not let that happen to her.

  And God help me, I am so glad that it’s not happening to me.

  I sit down, press my hands into my eyes so I won’t cry. What kind of person am I? Relieved?

  “Belle?” Tom’s touch on my shoulder jars me back into reality. “You okay? Something wrong?”

  I shake my head and wipe my eyes.

  Tom’s voice gets a little harder. He rips off some duct tape. “I was talking to you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I am. I am sorry. Tom is so sweet and good and I love the way he smells, or when his hand touches my shoulder. I love the warmth of him when I stand next to him in the hall.

  “You want to tell me what you were thinking about?” he asks.

  “Nothing.”

  I shrug. It is a forced shrug. Tom can tell and his face shifts, because he is not stupid. He knows I’m keeping something from him. “You worried about tonight?”

  I leap up and sit up straight. “A little.”

  He laughs and twists some duct tape into a man. He starts on a new piece. What about him? What am I doing to him when I worry about Em?

  “Are you doing okay?”

  I lower my voice. “I’m sorry about my thing in the driveway last night.”

  “Have you told Em?”

  “No.”

  “You should probably tell her.”

  I grab my pencil, click it so the lead comes out. “Yeah.”

  He smiles. He pulls something out of his backpack. He’s made a duct tape woman holding a guitar. He must’ve been working on it all day. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  I take the man and woman and make them embrace on Tom’s desk.

  Tom laughs. “Us?”

  I nod. My heart turns all warm and gooey, except for the part that’s stuck worrying about Em. That part is just hard and cold.

  Crash turns back to me and says, “Mimi’s telling everyone you’re pregnant. You don’t look pregnant.”

  “What?” Tom and Bob both focus on poor Crash. He holds his hands up in the air like he’s surrendering.

  “I didn’t say it. Mimi said it,” he says. “Mimi is so not as hot as Anna.”

  Tom’s cheek twitches and his face turns darker than normal. He leans in and says, “Why didn’t you tell me she was saying that about you?”

  “I only just found out,” I say and abandon the amorous duct tape couple to start tying my shoes. I can feel all his anger and I can’t blame him. It’s stupid.

  “God, she’s a bitch.”

  “Yep,” I look up and his eyes are pained. “I’m not pregnant.”

  There, I said it, I said the words. There’s a label that’s true for me. I am not pregnant. I am a girl who hasn’t had sex in months. I am a person who is trying to deal with things and not doing very well. I suck. That’s it. I suck. I suck and I’m not pregnant.

  That’s about the only stupid thing I know about myself as an absolute. Am I a good friend? I don’t know. A good girlfriend? Do I understand anything? No. Am I popular? I don’t know. Am I anything? I don’t know. I don’t know. I just know I’m not pregnant.

  I smash my hand back up to my eyes again and cover them. My hand shakes. Tom grabs it and pulls it away from my eyes.

  “I’m not pregnant,” I say again.

  “Obviously.”

  “And it’s not a sign or anything prophetic like that, okay?”

  He nods.

  We sit there for a second and he says, “I hate that she hurts you.”

  “She doesn’t hurt me,” I say, feeling a little stronger and it’s true. “She’s only hurting herself when she does that. Everyone thinks she’s an idiot.”

  “True.”

  I squeeze Tom’s hand and let go.

  “Mimi is evil,” Crash announces to the room. “Do you want me to go jack her?”

  I shake my head.

  “She doesn’t hurt me at all,” I add, but Emily … It’s Emily that I’m worried about. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like telling Shawn. I can’t imagine what she’s dealing with.

  I suck in a huge breath. It hurts my lungs to breathe that deeply. What do I want? What do I need?

  “Will you pick me up from gymnastics? Then we can go to my house and I can get ready for the show?” I ask Tom as Herr Reitz prances back in.

  “I’d be honored.”

  His voice melts my insides. I stare right into his eyes, which look a little frightened, a little excited and a lot intense and I shiver in a very good way.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  He makes sexy eyes. “Yeah?”

 
“Yeah.”

  Crash starts giggling, “Herr Reitz, Tomen and Bellen are geflirten again.”

  Herr Reitz smiles to reveal perfect un-food-infested teeth. “Well, that’s a news flash right there.”

  I blush but everyone else just laughs.

  I meet Em in the hall before I head to the Y to teach gymnastics. She’s kissing Shawn goodbye. He has baseball practice, just like Tom. They look so sweet kissing. I wish I had Em’s camera so I could take a picture of them. I try to freeze their image in my head, anyways.

  Tall Shawn, short Em, both of them beautiful, both of them clinging to each other.

  Em whirls around and sees me. She shakes her hair out, and reaches through it checking for tangles.

  “I can’t tell him here,” she whispers once he’s walked away. “Not in school.”

  I nod and get my books to go home. I adjust Gabriel on my shoulder.

  Em clears her throat and says, “I heard about what Mimi’s doing.”

  “Someone must’ve seen me at Wal-Mart.”

  “I’m so sorry, Belle.”

  Shrugging, I touch her arm. “It’s Mimi. Nobody’s going to believe her.”

  Anna plops by all spunky and happy, completely oblivious to our melodrama. “Hey guys.”

  We smile at her. We make small talk. We act like everything is absolutely normal. I’m feeling loaded down so I lean Gabriel’s case up against the locker. Kara stops by too and starts indicting Mimi on crimes of sheer idiocy. Then we say goodbye.

  “I’m going to try to tell him after practice,” Em says, her voice small as we head down the stairs. They’re pretty much deserted.

  “Okay,” I say. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know.”

  Em drops me off at the Y and I start jamming towards the doors because I’m late and it’s not good to only have one teacher in there with thirty kids and balance beams. It just isn’t.

  I’m past the graffiti-covered picnic table and almost to the door when I hear my name.

  I pivot, figuring it’s one of the mothers.

  But it isn’t. It’s Mimi.

  She totters across the parking lot in her heels. She steps into a crack in the asphalt and swears, yanking her shoes off. Weariness slugs my muscles down. I have no energy for Mimi Cote right now.

  She carries Gabriel on her back and reaches her out to me. “You left this in the hall.”

  “Crap.” I grab Gabriel from her and sling my guitar over my shoulder. I don’t know what to say. How could I have forgotten Gabriel? Am I that preoccupied? And Mimi? Mimi actually returned her to me? I swallow and say, “Thanks.”

  She nods. We both stand there. A gust of wind blows Mimi’s perfectly straight, sleek hair towards me. She doesn’t move to fix it like she normally would.

  “I’m sorry about Emily,” she says.

  “Emily?”

  “I know it’s not you,” she says. “I know it’s Emily. I think she’ll be okay. I’ve got a feeling.”

  I can’t understand this.

  “Then why did you say that to me?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know, Belle. You just drive me crazy. You have everything. You always have everything. You’re all talented. You had Dylan. You have Tom. You’re smart. You’ve always been smarter than me.”

  “No, I haven’t,” I lie.

  She arches an eyebrow. “Don’t lie. It just drives me crazy. You’re so lucky and you’re so oblivious. It makes me hate you.”

  Okay.

  She keeps going. “And you’re the good girl. You’re always the good girl. You can be the horniest person in the universe and still be the good one. And me? Me? I’m the slut. I’m always the slut.”

  She’s right. I don’t know why it is, but she’s right. If Andrew treated me the way he treated Mimi people would be all over him, but with Mimi, it’s like it’s expected.

  I can’t look at her, so I look down at my shoes. I’ve painted flowers on them. I painted shoes like this for Mimi in eighth grade. I painted some for Emmie freshman year. Emmie.

  “I’ll kill you if you tell people about Emily,” I say, looking up so I can stare her down.

  Mimi clears her throat. Her face is pained and she says, “I was always super jealous of Emily.”

  Eddie Caron drives his truck into the parking lot. He parks. We both watch him leap out, lugging his duffel bag. He waves hi and smiles when he passes, but he looks curious, because, let’s face it, how often do Mimi and I talk?

  I’m late.

  They will have to manage another minute without me.

  I readjust Gabriel and ask Mimi, “Why? Why are you jealous of Emmie?”

  Even I don’t recognize my voice. It sounds so tired. It is almost easier to be enemies with Mimi than have this random, sudden “heart-to-heart,” which is worthy of a feel-good talk show, When Cheerleaders and Folk Singers Make Amends.

  Mimi flexes her naked toes. “She took you away from me.”

  I shift Gabriel’s weight on my back. The sky has no clouds in it. It’s a beautiful sky but it should be raining to match my heart. It should be pouring and gray with no chance of warmth. With all the patience I can gather up, which isn’t much, I say, “Mimi you knew I liked Tom and then you stole him away from me. Remember? Eighth grade?”

  She shakes her head. “I only did that because you started hanging around Emily.”

  I think for a second. “No, that was after.”

  “No,” she insists. “It was before.”

  I don’t think that could be true, but I’ll let her believe it. “Whatever. You can be really bitchy, Mimi.”

  She nods. A tear falls out of her eye, just one. She shrugs. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you I’m sorry about Emily. And I can see why you chose her instead of me.”

  She’s crying. Sort of. Mimi is crying.

  “Mimi?” I ask her. “Is this about Andrew? Because I can talk to him if you want?”

  “Don’t bother.” She pivots like the amazingly good cheerleader she is and marches off inside. I could go after her, but I don’t. I could think about what she just said, but I don’t. Instead, I take off inside and head to gymnastics.

  You know that super-adrenalinized rush that people have when their loved one is stuck under a car? The emergency surges extra hormones through them and tiny women can heave up SUVs to save their children. That whole thing.

  This is what teaching gymnastics is like.

  I am in a state of panic the entire three hours. Children wobble on beams. They try to hang upside down with just their toes hanging on to the bars. They attempt to perform back bends and they’ll land on their little heads if my arm isn’t in the exact right position beneath their spine, holding them up until their arms can do it for them.

  Andrew’s little sister shows off her almost-walkover.

  “Miss Bellie I’ve almost got it.” She puffs up her chest. She tells everyone else, “Miss Bellie has a boyfriend and he’s cute … ”

  All the little girls look at me with big eyes except for Lauren, who is trying to do a back roll off a bleacher. I snag her and carry her in my arms like I’m a fireman rescuing her from a burning building.

  “Do you kiss?” Andrew’s little sister asks as I set Lauren down.

  Lauren wiggles her eyebrows. “Do you make babies? My mommy is trying to make a baby. She’s noisy. Making babies is noisy.”

  Oh yeah, I love gymnastics …

  I actually do love it because I don’t have to think about anything else while I’m there. I have to think about Andrew’s little sister who is trying to do a perfect walkover. I have to think about getting some tissues for Callie Krauss whose nose is running. I have to think about bringing Nick Fowler, our only boy in the beginn
er class, to the bathroom because he’s afraid to go alone.

  I do not bring him in.

  I get Mike, the swim coach, to do it.

  I do not have to think about Em or my mother or Mimi. I do not have to think about seizures or about Tom hopefully coming over tomorrow night, and I don’t have to think about the feel of his body against mine, the way his lips would look if they formed the words “I love you.” I don’t have to think about it at all, because every single part of my body feels it, a warm tingle, an expectation.

  “There are three basic chords in the key of C,” I tell myself while I brush my hair in front of my bedroom mirror. “C. F. G7. There are three basic chords in the key of A minor. A minor. D minor. E7.”

  This little ritual is supposed to calm me down before the talent show.

  It doesn’t work.

  I keep pulling the brush through my hair. “The ¾ arpeggio strum is a regular arpeggio with the last two notes repeated.”

  Gabriel sits in the corner, leaning against the wall. If guitars could sigh, I’m sure she’d be doing it quite theatrically right now.

  In the mirror my mouth forms the guitar lesson mantras that I use to calm myself down. My hand pulls the brush down through my hair, up through the air, like the strumming of a guitar. My eyes, wide and blue, are my father’s eyes. That’s what everyone says.

  I cross my eyes to blur my image and try to imagine my dad sitting there, on the other side of the mirror, staring back at me. What would he say?

  You’ll do fine, Bellie Bear, probably, something endearing.

  I cock my head like a dog, trying to listen.

  Then I close my eyes and imagine a man’s voice, sort of like mine, vocal chords shaped from genetics and war and aching across a grave. I imagine this voice, this father voice, and it doesn’t say anything endearing at all. Instead it orders me, Go out there and kick some ass.

  My eyes fly open, but it’s just me in the mirror, no father ghosts linger there. I giggle and salute myself. “Sir. Yes, sir.”

  Then I straighten my legs, turn like an army man and haul butt over to Gabriel. I point at her. “You are commanded to kick some guitar ass.”