Big Mouth Ugly Girl

  The second item of news: Matthew Donaghy’s parents announced through their attorney that they were dropping their controversial lawsuit in its entirety. The reason being: “Mr. and Mrs. Donaghy no longer believe that litigation is the best way to pursue justice.”

  Fri 3/30/01 6:37 PM

  30 mars

  dear matt,

  such good news/ i’m happy for you

  call me when you can

  love,

  u r

  APRIL

  FORTY-SEVEN

  “OH, URSULA.”

  This was Mom’s reaction. She just stared. I saw her swallow hard and a swarm of thoughts rush through her head she decided not to articulate. Lisa loved my new look—“Ursula, wow! Cool”—and kept stealing glances at me through dinner, and reaching over to touch my hair. But Dad was the one who really, like, reacted. He was on a new, modified schedule that allowed him to have dinner with his family at least two nights a week, so it was like a holiday time anyway, and we were feeling good about that, so Dad comes home and sees me and stares and blinks and tries to be funny, to hide his surprise, adjusting his glasses to peer at me, and finally he hugs me and says, “Kiddo, you’re a rare one. I have to admit you look glamorous. But intimidating, too. Like an Amazon rock star.”

  I was flattered by this, but protested, “Dad, I don’t want to look like some rock star, I just want to look like me.”

  Dad laughed. “Ursula, you do.”

  What I’d done was: A few days after Reverend Brewer’s arrest, I made a secret appointment with a hair salon in Rocky River and had my hair cut really short in back and longer on the sides, in sleek, sweeping wings, and bleached platinum blond.

  This was to celebrate, I was feeling so good. I was tired of my old dirty-blond hair that didn’t reflect this good feeling.

  Ugly Girl’s new look.

  Ugly Girl will always surprise.

  When Matt saw me, he was nearly as shocked as Dad. Almost, his jaw dropped.

  “Ursula, you look . . . terrific. Maybe I should bleach my hair, too.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Matt laughed. How would Matt Donaghy look with platinum blond hair instead of his familiar faded-red hair? “Maybe if my play is chosen for the festival. We could both perform in it then.”

  This was a new idea, and I liked it. I’d never been on a stage in my life except in grade school, but I believed it wouldn’t be too different from sports, with people staring at you. With Ugly Girl cool and new blond hair, and reciting Matt’s comic dialogue, I knew I would love it.

  Matt had revised his play William Wilson: A Case of Mistaken Identity and submitted it for the Spring Arts Festival next month. I hadn’t seen the earlier version, which he said was “juvenile,” but this one was extremely clever and funny: There were just two characters, both named “William Wilson” (like in the story by Edgar Allan Poe); one is evil and the other is good—the “voice of conscience.” Matt read the role of W 1 and I read the role of W 2—we tried to approximate the same deep throaty baritone voice—and it was hard to keep from breaking down laughing, the dialogue was so funny. The essence of Matt’s play is that William Wilson 1 has a big mouth that gets him into trouble and William Wilson 2 is always trying to remedy things, explain things, save W 1 from disaster. But while W 1 is a big mouth, he’s also pretty shrewd, too. An amplifier picks up his words and magnifies and distorts them so it’s like he has said the opposite of what he meant to say. Finally it’s too much for W 2, who turns into a Big Mouth himself and the two of them speak in unison as sirens and whirling red lights close in upon them. . . .

  I was proud of Matt. Maybe I was even a little surprised that he could write that well.

  Another comic piece Matt wrote for the Rocky River Run was more serious: “Mass Media Hysteria.” This was so excellent, I urged him to send it to The New York Times’s op-ed page. Matt was shocked at my suggestion. “They’d never publish anything I wrote. . . . I’m just a high school kid in Westchester.”

  I said, “Oh, Matt. The worst they can do is reject it.” I told him I’d fax the piece to the paper myself if he didn’t want to, and Matt said he’d think it over.

  Around school everybody stared at us kind of openly now. Not just my new look, but Matt and me together. Mostly, people were friendly. Like we’d all come through a bad time and it was a new season now, right?

  FORTY-EIGHT

  WAS MATT IMAGINING IT? OR WAS IT REAL?

  Overnight—well, almost overnight—things were changing for him at Rocky River High.

  For weeks he’d been moving like a ghost among his classmates, drawing surreptitious glances and stares but not many smiles, and now people were beginning to acknowledge him again. As if he’d returned from the Land of the Dead.

  He told Ursula, “Must be I’m off the blacklist now. Guess I should be grateful, huh?”

  Ursula laughed. She felt exactly as Matt did about the situation.

  “Well, dropping the lawsuit was a good idea, you know.”

  Matt had to agree. Dropping the lawsuit had changed everything.

  And the revelations in the media about Reverend Brewer, who’d not only telephoned in a fake bomb threat to the school but conspired to blame it on Matt Donaghy.

  Muriel and Miriam Brewer had been involved too. Exactly how, police weren’t revealing because the girls were minors, but suddenly the Brewer twins were gone from school. Their desks and lockers emptied out.

  Ursula said, “Almost, I feel sorry for them, not graduating. With a father like that teaching them hate.”

  Matt was quiet. Sure he’d like to forgive the Brewers, he’d like to forgive all meanness and evil, but it wasn’t that easy if you’ve been hurt. And though Matt was in a good mood these days, he’d remember the hurt for a long time. “I guess,” he said, dubiously.

  She was getting to know Matt so well, sometimes they had only to glance at each other to share a thought. Especially a satirical thought when someone was being conspicuously “nice” to Matt.

  The editors of the literary magazine and their advisor, Mel Steiner, invited Matt to resume his humor column—“Your fans miss you, Matt.”

  Matt pondered what to write for them. He was embarrassed to discover, when he reread a copy of “Just for the Record,” the satirical piece he’d written in a black bitter mood in February, that it wasn’t very good after all. It was raw, childish, clumsy. A joke about lethal injection that came off like self-pity. Mr. Steiner had been right to reject it.

  Still, Matt wasn’t sure if he could be “funny” again, in his old easygoing way.

  * * *

  Big Mouth, popular? But why?

  Since Ursula was intimidating, especially now with her glaring-blond hair, and her manner that differed so from most girls’ soft-melting, sunny-cheery smiles, people tended to approach Matt more readily when he was alone.

  Russ Mercer was speaking to him again, and often. Cal Carter asked Matt about track practice, as if it were just the other day they’d been friends. (“No. I’m not on the team this season,” Matt said. “I’m concentrating on my writing.”) There was Neil Donaghue asking for helpful hints regarding the math assignment, and there was Skeet Curlew, looking a little embarrassed, suggesting lamely that they get together sometime soon. (“Sure,” Matt said. “Not this weekend, though. I’m kind of busy.”) There was Sandy Friedman in her usual rush pausing to squeeze Matt’s arm and assure him that she really, really missed him at student council meetings—“You were, like, the voice of reason.”

  And there was Stacey Flynn twisting a strand of hair around her forefinger. Hesitant to approach Matt, but knowing she should. Matt had to concede that Stacey was a very pretty girl. He didn’t want to think she was shallow, that she’d hurt him; he was thinking instead that she’d gotten prettier since—well, since Matt’s trouble. Since they’d last spoken. Stacey was wearing a yellow cotton knit sweater, and her dark glossy hair fell in sweeping curtains around her heart-shaped face
. She was a slender, petite girl who craned her neck becomingly to gaze up at boys, as she was gazing up at Matt, standing at his locker and asking him what had become of the play he’d adapted from the Edgar Allan Poe story—“Did you submit it to the festival?”

  Originally, Stacey had been going to perform in Matt’s play.

  Matt said, “It’s revised now. It’s very different.”

  “But it was wonderful before . . .”

  “Was it?” Matt asked, frowning. Stacey’s proximity made him nervous. He felt that people were watching them. Yet he could hardly shut his locker and move away, Stacey was standing so close.

  “It was! You have a real gift for comedy.”

  “Better that than a gift for tragedy, I guess.”

  Stacey didn’t know how to interpret this enigmatic remark. Matt, turning away, wasn’t sure what it meant either.

  Wed 4/11/01 8:10 PM

  Dear Matt,

  It’s hard for me to say this. I guess it’s an apology.

  I can’t explain why I didn’t speak to you for so long. I felt so badly about it, all the while.

  I could blame my folks, I guess. (They didn’t want me to “get involved.” They’re worried about my college applications and letters of recommendation already, can you believe it???) But really it’s my fault.

  Call me sometime if you want to talk. Whenever.

  Your friend,

  Stacey

  There were other e-mails from his old friends. And unexpected invitations.

  One weekend, Matt was invited to a party at Cal Carter’s house. He hesitated before saying, maybe, maybe he’d come—“If I can bring Ursula Riggs.”

  Cal was an old friend from middle school. Something of a jock, on the swimming team. A solid B-plus student, always popular with girls. Cal said, tactlessly, “Ursula Riggs? You want to bring her?”

  “Yes,” Matt said, annoyed, “I want to bring Ursula.”

  Cal said uncomfortably, “Ursula’s cool, but . . . she wouldn’t fit in too well, would she? I mean . . . with us?”

  Matt said, “Then I wouldn’t fit in with ‘us’ either.”

  Slamming his locker and walking away to leave Cal staring after him.

  Phonies. Hypocrites. Ursula’s worth all of you put together.

  The most unexpected invitation was to Brooke Tyler’s seventeenth birthday party, to be held at the Rocky River Yacht Club. Brooke was in Matt’s history class, and dated a popular senior; her father was a well-known CBS TV producer. Matt didn’t know Brooke well but was flattered by the invitation.

  More than flattered, Matt was elated.

  It was the first time Brooke Tyler or her clique had ever invited Matt Donaghy anywhere.

  But when Matt asked if he could bring Ursula, he saw Brooke frown just perceptibly and say, with her guileless cheerleader smile, “Ursula Riggs? She’s, like, your girl?”

  “Ursula is my friend.”

  Brooke relented, saying, “Sure, bring Ursula. That’s cool.”

  But Ursula didn’t think it was so cool when Matt asked her.

  “Those phonies! Are you serious?”

  Matt shook his head, embarrassed.

  “Let’s go to New York instead,” Ursula said. There was a new play that had just opened in the Village, which she thought they’d both like. “‘Wild, irreverent, funny but profound’—the review made it sound like something Matt Donaghy might’ve written.”

  FORTY-NINE

  “PUMP-KIN! THIS WAY.”

  She was trotting into the woods, panting and sniffing happily. It was late April, a chilly spring, but mostly everything had thawed and there was that fresh moist smell of earth and last year’s leaves and Rocky River Creek was rushing downhill in a cascade of whitewater ripples. The sky was so blue! As usual Matt and I hiked without talking much. Mainly we’d point out things to each other to see, like the view of the Hudson River, or a spectacular formation of shale outcropping like something carved. The nature preserve was like a prehistoric place—I think that’s why we loved it. And felt safe there.

  The hard part of humanity is history. All that’s been done to human beings by other human beings. In the Rocky River Nature Preserve you didn’t have to think of such things.

  I wondered if Matt wanted to hike to the ravine where I’d discovered him that day. I wondered if that was what he’d intended, bringing us here for his “surprise revelation.”

  I hoped not. I was thinking it would be better to forget that. “‘Forget and forgive’—” Matt liked to joke. “Or ‘forgive and forget.’ Whatever.”

  Matt was being mysterious, telling me he had something to reveal and wanted to tell me in our special place.

  We’d packed a big lunch. Hiking made both of us really hungry.

  By accident (or anyway I think it was an accident) I realized this day in April was approaching an anniversary for us: almost three months since the evening u r sent Matt Donaghy the message please call me, its urgent.

  Pumpkin was overjoyed to come with us. Since the kidnapping she’d become more puppylike, dependent upon Matt, and me. She was afraid to be alone and shied away from strangers, sudden noises and movements, like cars on the street, or airplanes high overhead. Matt said she trembled and whimpered in her sleep like she was trying to run but couldn’t—“Like a human nightmare, you know the kind?” We hugged Pumpkin a lot to assure her she was safe, and she was loved.

  Sometimes I’d see this look in Matt’s face, and I knew he was thinking of Trevor Cassity and those guys, what they’d done to him and to Pumpkin; how they’d terrorized her, and she’d never be the same dog again; and how out of pure meanness they’d made the Donaghys’ lives miserable for those hours. I respected Matt too much to try to cajole him out of it, these emotions belonged to him legitimately, but I would try to change the subject as soon as I could. Ugly Girl was learning there’s no point in dwelling on the past and brooding, replaying old hurts and humiliations in your head.

  I was relieved—we didn’t hike to the very top of the ravine.

  We’d been walking for about an hour when we decided to stop for lunch, and called Pumpkin back. But suddenly we were hearing voices—kind of loud, jarring voices—somewhere close by. We glanced at each other. A single sensation passed through us. No. Not here. Matt’s jaw tightened, and I felt my heart beat hard, and I made sure that Pumpkin was safely back with us, licking and nudging against my hand. Some quick terrible fantasy of Pumpkin attacked by another dog, or kids from Rocky River showing up to spoil our outing, ran through my head . . . but only for a moment. The voices were fading, the hikers had taken another trail. The sound of Rocky River Creek drowned out the disturbance.

  We sat on a broad, sloping granite boulder that looked as if it had emerged out of the sea a million years ago. It had a curious striated texture like seaweed, and a briny smell. I had an impulse to lay my cheek against it: It was warm, comfortingly warm, from the sun. Though the air was chilly, the boulder’s surface was heated. Sunshine fell on our uplifted faces. I’d made tuna fish sandwiches with pita bread and numerous raw vegetables and bean sprouts and Matt teased me about being a vegetarian—“Is a tuna fish a giant vegetable?” I laughed and refused to answer.

  Matt reminded me of my dad, I realized. Though they hadn’t yet met. He respected me but didn’t take me overly seriously. If Ugly Girl had pretensions, both Matt Donaghy and Clayton Riggs knew how to tease her, gently.

  It was then that Matt told me his good news: “Ursula, The New York Times is going to publish my column on the op-ed page. Thanks to you.”

  “Oh, Matt. What wonderful news.”

  I stared at him. I was happy, and yet—I felt a little envious, too.

  “And what’s even more exciting: William Wilson will be in the Spring Festival. Which means that Ursula Riggs will make her theatrical debut in about five weeks.”

  “Matt! Congratulations.”

  “No. You were my inspiration.”

  Suddenly we were huggi
ng. Pumpkin, who was dozing off on the rock, woke up, somehow got between us, and began to thrash her tail excitedly. I felt like crying, but that was ridiculous. Matt hugged me so hard, the breath rushed out of me. Rocky River Creek roared in my ears. Matt ducked his head and pressed his mouth against mine and we were both breathing quickly, and not quite prepared.

  The first kiss didn’t work out too well, I guess. We’d be trying others.

  About the Author

  Joyce Carol Oates is the author of many novels, including the National Book Award nominee and best-seller Blonde. A recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Achievement in the Short Story, Ms. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

  Credits

  Typography by Alison Donalty

  Jacket art © 2002 by Katerhine Streeter

  Jacket design by Lizzy Bromley

  Jacket © 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers

  Copyright

  The quotation on p. 119 is taken from The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work by Germaine Greer (p. 319).

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  BIG MOUTH & UGLY GIRL. Copyright © 2002 by The Ontario Review, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.