Big Mouth Ugly Girl

  (Did I? All my time? What did that mean?)

  We’d meet for lunch as usual. The “misfits” table, which we’d transformed into a really fun, “intellectually stimulating” table. And after school we’d do homework in the library. And after that . . . But what is happening to Ugly Girl?

  I was ransacking my locker when there came, bounding up to me, Courtney Levao flashing a big smile. “Hey Ursula.”

  “Hey Courtney. How’s it goin’?”

  It was the day after Rocky River girls’ basketball had won, by fewer points than you have fingers on one hand, not counting the thumb on that hand, a hotly contested game with Bedford, another of our old, mean rivals. Anyway, that was the news I’d heard.

  I told Courtney congratulations on the game. She said, “Oh. Yeah, well. We did OK, but if they’d been like Yonkers, or Tarrytown, it’d be a different, sadder story, we know that.” But Courtney was smiling, she was feeling good. Probably she’d scored most of Rocky River’s points the day before.

  Courtney was a senior, almost as tall as Ugly Girl but lacking Ugly Girl’s upper body strength and shrewd, lateral movements in the game. She could score, though, like a guy almost: gliding up to the net, sort of leaping, and seeming to drop the ball in. My most reliable starting-out forward, after myself.

  We’d always gotten along. Except that last game. Courtney was one of the players who’d glared at me as if, personally, she’d have liked to rip my throat out with her teeth.

  Ugly Girl never forgets.

  Ugly Girl never lets down her guard.

  I wasn’t feeling so ugly this morning, though. Too much cramming my head.

  Courtney chatted for a while about the game, then said, in an undertone, so kids on either side of my locker and milling around in the noisy corridor couldn’t hear, “Schultz is saying things like, she misses you, Ursula.”

  I felt my face burn. I didn’t let on.

  “Oh come on, Courtney. That’s B.S. Schultz hates my guts. I don’t even blame her.”

  “Ursula, that isn’t so! We all know you really were hurt, that game. I’d have gone to the ER.”

  This was a really weird, really agitating conversation to be having, so much confusion in the corridor, and the first bell ringing, and Courtney Levao practically in my face looking wistful. I said, “Hey, you guys are OK without me. You never got a chance, with me hogging the ball. This is your opportunity to have a great time.”

  “Oh, sure! A great time losing.” Courtney laughed, like a kid who’s been given her birthday present, opens it, and discovers some wadded tissue. “We have just three more games, Ursula. Almost, we could still make the play-offs.”

  Was that so? It didn’t seem possible.

  By the door to Mrs. Carlisle’s room, Matt was waiting. I always liked to see how tall he was, and that faded-red hair he’d been letting grow a little long, and how he’d be looking around, I guess, for me. Ugly Girl!

  Courtney was saying some other things, earnest but keeping it light. I remembered now that Ms. Schultz had asked Courtney to be captain when I quit, and a good team captain has one primary thing on her mind: winning. That’s spelled W-I-N-N-I-N-G. I could admire that, and I had to concede that Courtney seemed genuinely friendly.

  I saw Matt, and Matt saw me. He waved. He grinned. He had something to tell me that wouldn’t wait till lunch, and I had some things to tell him, too. We’d been e-mailing till two A.M. that morning and it’d been a long break, 6.5 hours out of contact.

  “Courtney, hey—I gotta run. I’m late. Say hi to Schultz and the girls for me, OK?”

  And Ugly Girl rushed away.

  FIERY RED. Dad came home from Germany and brought me back a French-language art magazine, featuring “The New Generation of European Women Artists.” Mom had had her hair done, what’s called highlighting, gray streaks transformed by the magic of chemistry into pale-gold streaks, and was looking pretty for a woman her age, and behaved like she’d forgiven (again) her older daughter Ursula. You could see the relief in her face, at times like these. Dad was home. Clayton Riggs had returned another time to us. I said, “Dad, why’d we never get a dog?” (This was no new query. Lisa and I had nagged Dad most of our lives for a dog, and now I’d met Matt’s Pumpkin and fallen in love with her.)

  Dad said, simple as you’d explain to a two-year-old, “Because we’d have to get a puppy. They start out as puppies, honey.”

  If I asked more questions, Dad would say, with that look of his of absolute innocence, “You know I would love a dog, Ursula. I’m an animal lover. Unfortunately I’m allergic to dog hairs. You wouldn’t want me to be allergic to home—would you?”

  FIERY RED. Those Mom-eyes! Next she’s in my room, just walks in while I’m typing a message to Matt, it’s after supper and Lisa and I did dishes, it’s quiet-homework-time at least in theory, except Mom has been on the phone (I never listen to her friends’ names, there are too many of them) and her news is—“Ursula? You and that Donaghy boy are—friends?”

  My face tightens up. Like a fist. Sure, I knew that Mom would find out. It was just a question of when.

  “Mom, I’ve got friends. I’m not, like, a total freak.”

  “But, Ursula—that boy? Matthew Donaghy? The one who caused all that trouble back in January? And now his parents are suing everyone in sight!”

  Mom is smiling this weird dazed smile. It’s a total shock, the earth caving in, is this something she’s supposed to know, is it some kind of game, she’s been betrayed? “Ursula, you told your father and me you didn’t know the Donaghy boy.”

  Calmly I say, “Mom, I didn’t know Matt then. I know him now.”

  “Well—why? Why him?”

  FIERY RED rising in my brain. Danger!

  “Alison told me her daughter says—you and Matthew Donaghy are a couple. At the high school. And you’ve never said a word.”

  The way Mom utters “a couple,” it’s like she has been forced to utter the name of a really loathsome, disgusting disease she’d never believed would show up in her home.

  I want to laugh. Possibly this hysterical woman hasn’t noticed, but Ugly Girl has not confided in her for years.

  “Mom, you’ve been after me since practically fourth grade to socialize at school more. Meaning ‘boys’—right? So now I have a friend who’s a boy, not a boyfriend but a friend-who’s-a-boy, and you’re looking like I’m pregnant and I have AIDS. This is me, Ursula, remember?”

  All Mom seems to be hearing is “pregnant and AIDS.” She’s just staring at me, breathing through her mouth like an out-of-condition athlete. “Ursula, what—are you saying? Are you being ironic, or—”

  “Mom, I can’t figure you. You never had time to show up for my basketball games, but you want me back on the team. You have time for Lisa but not me: OK. I can live with that. If I happened to be you, I’d be more interested in Lisa than in Ursula. But I’d also know that Ursula is sixteen years old and can make her own decisions about friends without any need for maternal hysteria.” I start making motions with my computer, like to signal Mom to L-E-A-V-E because I have W-O-R-K to do. But Mom’s a warrior-woman herself, stubborn and capable of low blows.

  “These Donaghys! Alison was telling me they’re terribly grasping, vulgar, opportunistic people. The boy’s mother—I don’t know her name—is always joining committees, trying to wedge herself into our social circle. The father—”

  “Mom, I’m not friends with Matt’s parents. I’ve never even met them.”

  “They’ve tipped their hand, suing the school district. And Mr. Parrish, and Mrs. Hale. Who do you think will be paying them these millions of dollars? Taxpayers! Us. I wouldn’t be surprised the entire thing was a publicity stunt, a ruse—”

  All this anger! My well-bred, well-educated mother. I was a little shocked . . . Mom was sounding like kids at Rocky River. Kids smart enough to know better. Saying nasty things about Matt Donaghy because, now, his parents are suing the district for saying nasty things about Matt D
onaghy. At school Ugly Girl keeps her cool, doesn’t offer an opinion. I’m saying, almost pleading, “Mom, look. I thought you and Dad were proud of me, coming forward to help Matt back in January? You said.”

  “Well, yes. We were. . . .”

  “I thought you were proud, getting that big-deal letter from Mr. Parrish.”

  “Ursula, we are proud! Good conduct reports haven’t exactly been your strong point since kindergarten. But now Mr. Parrish is a defendant in this ugly suit, and if you’re involved with the Donaghys . . .”

  I lifted both hands in Dad’s gesture. Total baffled innocence.

  “Mom, please. I don’t have a thing to do with that lawsuit.”

  “You’ll be testifying for the Donaghys, don’t worry. They’ll drag you in. And Eveann. Anyone their lawyer can subpoena to testify. To get those fifty million dollars.”

  Is this so? Matt hasn’t told me.

  Mom says, “To what extent do you ‘see’ Matthew Donaghy?” She’s staring at me like she’s been told I have two heads and she’s trying to figure out where both heads are.

  I was getting angry now. This was turning into one of those situations where, in basketball, field hockey, even volleyball, Ugly Girl is going to use her size and weight to advantage in about five seconds and somebody’s going down. Accidentally-on-purpose.

  Wanting to say, Friends last longer than couples. At Rocky River High, a lot longer.

  Wanting to say, Friends last longer than marriages, sometimes. Look around you, Mom. Start counting.

  “This past weekend you went hiking twice. Were you with—him?”

  I shrugged. I could feel my lower lip bulging out like—who?

  That mean Brewer girl.

  “Those evenings you’ve been at the mall—and stayed to see a movie—you said you were going with your friends, and I assumed—”

  “Is this the third degree, Mom? What? I’m sixteen years old, Mom. Girls at Rocky River have been on the pill since age thirteen, and some of them are daughters of your friends.”

  Mom is looking stricken now. “Well. I know. But your father and I don’t approve of—”

  “So be grateful, Mom. Big Ursula—which is one of the kinder things the kids call me, behind my back—is a V-I-R-G-I-N and will be a V-I-R-G-I-N for a long time.”

  Why am I saying such things? Do I mean them?

  Matt has told me this happens to him sometimes. His mouth says things he himself doesn’t mean. . . .

  “You’ve been at the mall in those circumstances several times, Ursula. Were you with that boy all those hours?”

  “Sure, Mom. We were conspiring to blow up the mall.”

  “Ursula!”

  “Conspiring to bomb Saks and Lord & Taylor, just to inconvenience you.”

  Mom’s laser eyes flash onto my computer screen. From a distance of twelve feet, maybe she can read the message I’ve begun to Matt. “Ursula, are you writing to him now? That’s what you do, isn’t it, you two e-mail each other, and you’re on the phone all night, and—”

  Mom starts forward and, defiantly, I click my e-mail off the screen.

  I’m on my feet, practically clenching my fists.

  “Leave me alone, Mom. Je ne suis pas vous. I am not you.”

  Fast and furious as the closing seconds of a basketball game in which, if you aren’t careful, you can get seriously injured.

  “Your father will have an opinion on this, young lady.”

  Young lady! Mom is totally crazed.

  Mom turns and walks out and slams my door behind her and I’m crouched there trembling, heart pounding and chill sweat all over my body.

  And the phone rings.

  “Ursula? It’s me.”

  “Matt!”

  “You sound sort of—breathless? Is something wrong?”

  “I—no. Nothing is wrong.”

  “I was wondering why you hadn’t answered my two e-mails since school, so I thought I’d call. Is that OK? Or—are you working?”

  “It’s OK, Matt. I was just going to call you.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  AT ROCKY RIVER HIGH, THROUGH THE MONTH of March, everybody had an opinion of the new friends.

  “Can you believe it! Those two.”

  They were seen walking together in the corridors. They were seen in the cafeteria at noon. They were seen in the library after school, studying together. They were reported seen hiking together in the Rocky River Nature Preserve and at Croton State Park, on a steep trail that led down to the Hudson River. Hiking, they were accompanied by a golden retriever.

  “It’s his. Matt’s. Pumpkin. He’s had her forever.”

  They were seen at the Cinemax at the Rocky River Mall, and at Starbucks at the mall, and at Tower Records; they were seen shopping together at the Gap and Clothes Barn. They were seen at Santa Fe Express, at the Orchid Pavilion, at the Whole Earth Art Gallery and Café. The Gypsy Horse Art Gallery & Café. Barnes & Noble. Sakura House. Potters’ Village. Brooke Tyler, who’d gone into Manhattan with visiting relatives, claimed she’d seen them at the Metropolitan Museum of Art —“Sitting in the courtyard of the American wing. On a bench. Like an actual couple.” Denis Wheeler, whose uncle was an off-Broadway theatrical producer, claimed he’d seen them at a play performance—“A really weird comedy by some playwright named Nicky Silver. Just the kind of far-out humor Matt Donaghy would go for.”

  Opinion was about equally divided on whether Ursula Riggs and Matt Donaghy were just friends or more than just friends. Even those who reported on them most avidly couldn’t claim that they’d seen them “holding hands, ever. Or even making out, a little.”

  “They’re just friends, obviously. No normal guy would be attracted to Big Ursula.”

  “Are you kidding? Ursula’s terrific. Matt’s the creep. Why’d she be attracted to him?”

  “Well, they’re both misfits. Obviously.”

  Stacey Flynn said, “Matt is in a state of shock. Since those detectives took him out of Mr. Weinberg’s study hall, he hasn’t been himself. Going out with Ursula Riggs is, like, a symptom of his nervous breakdown.” Stacey felt very sorry for Matt and for his parents, but it was too awkward for her to talk to him right now—she hoped he would understand.

  The senior jocks who talked openly of how they’d like to “show Donaghy what happens to traitors” were disgusted by the very idea of Matt Donaghy and Ursula Riggs. “He’s a fag. She’s a bull dyke. Go figure.”

  Mr. Weinberg, asked his opinion of Rocky River’s newest and most controversial couple, declined to give it—“None of your business, kids.”

  Gordon Kim, now vice president of the junior class, shook his head and laughed over all the fuss. “Donaghy, Riggs—they’re both tall, that’s why. It’s logical.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  HE ASKED ME, SO I TOLD HIM.

  If he didn’t want me to tell him, why’d he ask?

  Sure, I might’ve guessed it was a mistake. But I was thinking he had such high regard for me. Ursula Riggs. 1 individual in 1 million. Like we already knew each other from some time long ago.

  It was like climbing those steps to the high board and knowing you’re not going to climb back down. You’re going to dive.

  “Matt, I think it’s a mistake.”

  Not what Matt wanted to hear from his friend Ursula, I guess.

  “You asked me, so that’s my opinion. I’m sorry.”

  “OK, Ursula. Thanks. I appreciate your honesty.”

  But that was all he said. He began walking faster. And we’d been walking pretty fast already. Up a fairly steep hill. Pumpkin was trotting beside us, breath steaming. It was getting hard for her, a thick-bodied dog her age, to keep up with us. She had to pretend she was interested in sniffing out something, pausing for a few seconds to catch her breath, maybe stopping for a quick inspired pee on a log, before trotting after us.

  Matt was so distracted, he’d have forgotten poor Pumpkin completely. I was the one to encourage her—“Pum’kin! Good dog.
C’mon.”

  It was a fierce-bright-cold morning. We were hiking on a trail above the Hudson River, in Croton State Park; we’d been hiking here lately, driving in Matt’s car, so that nobody from Rocky River was likely to see us.

  “Matt, hey? You asked me. So I told you.”

  “OK, Ursula. I said.”

  He was angry with me. Matt Donaghy was angry with me!

  The first time ever. I was feeling so hurt.

  “Matt, you’ve been asking me and I told you it’s none of my business, I don’t judge, and that’s true, I don’t judge you. But if you ask me what I think of the lawsuit, meaning your parents’ judgment . . .”

  Matt just kept walking up the trail. His face was turned from me—I saw just his profile looking shut up, sullen. He’d jammed his wool cap down onto his forehead. His faded-red hair was looking a little snarled. Pumpkin and I trotted to keep up with his long strides.

  Well, he’d asked. So I’d told him.

  The lawsuit. The damned lawsuit that was all Matt’s parents talked about now. (“It’s like a fire roaring out of control inside a forest,” Matt told me, “except the fire is in our house. It’s the Donaghys’ life.”)

  You’d never realize what a big deal a lawsuit is. If you’re involved personally. It just doesn’t go away. Everybody knew what the Donaghys were demanding: $50 million. They were suing Parrish, Hale, some Rocky River School District officials including the superintendent, and they were suing Reverend Brewer, on charges of “malicious slander,” “defamation of character,” “professional malpractice . . .” There was a lot more to it that I didn’t want to know. Now that the lawyers on both sides were into it, and so-called developments were leaked to the media, it was getting complicated like some disease that breaks down one organ, then another, then another.

  “Matt, hey. I know you and your parents went through a lot, and you’re angry, but—”

  “You don’t know, Ursula. Not really.”

  These words Matt sort of tossed over his shoulder, not looking at me.

  I felt my face getting warm, even on the trail above the river.