“Yes?” Mom says.
I am thinking about how warm it will be in my pajamas, the soft blue flannel with tiny pink sheep. I am wondering when the last time was that my head was in my mother’s lap. I wonder if my head’s ever been in my mother’s lap.
“Will you make me some hot chocolate?” I say.
For a second, she smiles and her face doesn’t seem so old. But then she is my mother again, with the double chin and the blotchy skin and the bags under her red, puffy eyes.
“Of course,” she says, and takes a drag from her cigarette, and I decide that I will let her be Morales tonight.
(FIVE)
“I know him,” Alex says.
“He’s cool.”
We’re standing in line for tacos and the new guy’s across the cafeteria slapping fives with the lunch-table boys.
“His name’s Ethan,” she says. “And he drives.”
“How does he drive if he’s only a ninth grader?”
“He flunked a grade.”
“Oh.”
One taco, Tater Tots, and a Diet Coke.
“He got kicked out of Rose Hill for selling weed,” she says. All the guys are over there treating him like a celebrity. The girls are pushing their chests out, trying to get close and laughing whenever he says anything.
“Let’s go talk to him,” she says, and starts walking.
“No,” I say, but she pretends not to hear me. I throw my food in the trash can even though I just got it. I cannot eat in front of boys, especially celebrity boys.
James the asshole has his arm around the slutty girl and he grins at me before he starts sucking on her ear, and she’s looking at me and giggling like his dirty mouth on her ear makes her better than me. I look at the clock above the painting of the school’s stupid wolf mascot and there are still fourteen minutes until class and I cannot wait that long to get out of here. Even sitting in class surrounded by people who hate me would be better than meeting this boy who’s too cool and too old to talk to me.
“Hey, Ethan,” Alex says to the new guy as he sticks his hamburger bun on the wall and everyone laughs.
“Oh, hey,” he says. “I know you.”
“My brother’s David.”
“Oh yeah. How is he?”
“Good,” she says, but he doesn’t hear her. He’s already looking at me, and everyone’s looking at him looking at me, and I want to disappear.
“Hello,” he says, and extends his hand. I give him mine and let him shake it and his hand is big and warm and mine feels tiny and safe inside it. I know I am blushing but I look at him anyway and his lips look soft and wet and his eyes are big and brown. I let go of his hand and he smiles. I take a sip of my Diet Coke because I have to do something and it makes a slurping noise that is the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. Someone says something and he turns around and says something back, and pretty soon everyone’s talking to someone and no one’s talking to me. Alex is whispering something to Wes and his hand’s on her leg and I’m just sitting here waiting for the bell to ring.
I’m looking at all the tables in the lunchroom—the gangsters next to us and nobody else brave or cool enough to sit next to them; the jocks and their skinny girlfriends; the Christian kids with their dorky clothes; the small table of Asians who are all somehow related and don’t talk to anyone else. In the middle of the cafeteria is the ocean of normal kids who all look the same, who all look like the people I used to dream of being friends with, the girls who still have slumber parties, who pass notes and giggle in the halls. They are the boring kids, and among them are the even more boring gifted kids, the ones I was almost friends with, the ones who think about law school and med school, the ones who have never even tasted liquor, who are destined to do great things and still be boring. And I am sitting here, expelled from the world that welcomed me for just a few days. I can hear the gangsters talking about some rival who wronged them. I can hear James the asshole bragging about how high he got last night. I can hear the beautiful new guy talking about climbing on a freeway overpass and tagging the sign for Mercer Island.
“Yo, what’s your tag?” asks Anthony, and Ethan takes a giant marker out of his pocket and writes it on the table: Aleph.
“What’s that mean?” the guy says.
“A. It’s Hebrew for A.”
“A what?”
“A, the letter A. Like the first letter of the alphabet.”
“That’s cool.”
“’Cause I’m the first, man. The best.”
“Tight,” says Wes, and they high-five. Everyone keeps talking and I keep drinking my Diet Coke and watching the clock and the wolf that doesn’t look tough at all. Ethan keeps looking at me and smiling and I keep looking away because I can’t tell if it’s a nice smile or a laughing smile so it’s best to pretend that I don’t see it. He’s writing something on a piece of paper and the bell rings and I stand up and he stands up and gives me the piece of paper. I put it in my pocket and say “Thanks” without looking at him and he says, “See ya,” and walks away. I want to hit myself. Thanks? Are you supposed to say thanks when someone gives you a piece of fucking paper?
Alex says, “Bye,” and she smiles at me like she knows something I don’t. Everyone’s gone except James the asshole and the slutty girl still making out on the bench, and I’m just standing here like an idiot with no friends. I start walking toward my classroom and I’m the only person in the whole school walking alone. I get to the door that says E&A, EXPANDED AND ADVANCED, the only class I have all day. While everyone else gets a new room and new teacher and new classmates every fifty minutes, I am stuck in here with the same losers and a teacher who hates me. I can see through the window everyone already sitting down and waiting attentively, and I consider for a moment making a run for it. But there is nowhere else to go.
Normal classes sit in rows. Gifted classes sit in circles. Gifted students are plain and dull and they used to think I was one of them. Now they don’t talk to me and I don’t talk to them. I keep quiet and do my work. I can see them all wondering what I’m doing here. They try to be sneaky when our papers come back, like they’re not leaning over to look at my grades, like they’re not pissed that I always get A’s.
I sit in my seat next to Justin, the boy with the glasses and mildew-smelling coat. He’s the only one who talks to me. Everyone hates him, too.
“Hi, Cassie,” he says.
“Hi.”
“Did you have a good weekend?”
“Fine.”
“My mom put me on Ritalin.” He’s scratching something on his face.
“Why are you telling me that?”
“I don’t know.” He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “What’d you do this weekend?”
“Hung out with some friends.”
“Those ninth graders you’re always talking to at lunch?”
“Maybe.”
“They’re not very nice.”
“They’re nice to me.”
“No they’re not.”
“Don’t talk to me,” I tell him, and he obeys. He’s the only person I talk to like this. I can’t help myself. He just takes it, like it doesn’t even hurt his feelings.
Mr. Cobb walks through the door and everyone turns even more attentive. They pick up their pens and open the notebooks that are already waiting anxiously at their desks. I take the piece of paper out of my pocket, breathe, and unfold it.
Yo Casy.
Why R U so shy?
Peace,
Ethan
p.s. I think your hot.
I am melting. I am wanting to tell Alex. I am wanting to shove this letter in James the asshole’s face, in his slutty girl’s face. I am going to explode.
“Why are you smiling?” Justin says.
“Don’t fucking talk to me,” I say too loud, and everybody looks at me like I just pissed on the floor.
“Cassie, you’re this close to detention,” Mr. Cobb says with his white, skinny fingers held up like twee
zers, and the gifted boys snicker and the gifted girls roll their eyes like they always do.
“Sorry,” I say, but I’m not. I have this note in my hand and that’s all that matters. What matters is the coolest guy in school thinks I’m hot. I stare at the letter, looking for more clues, but all I see is my misspelled name and the incorrect form of “your” so I take a pen out of my bag and make it perfect. The letter is perfect and the boy who drives wants me.
“Did everyone finish Romeo and Juliet?” Mr. Cobb asks, and everyone says yes. A couple of girls who went to private school together roll their eyes again, and I want to tell them it would be more efficient if they never stopped rolling their eyes, if they just kept them rolling and rolling until they rolled right out of their heads and I could step on them and smash them like grapes.
One of them whines, “We read that two years ago.”
Mr. Cobb says, “Then you’ll be that much ahead of the curve,” and that seems to satisfy them. “Some of us haven’t read any Shakespeare yet,” he says, and everybody looks at me like I’m responsible for this remedial assignment.
“We’re going to break up into groups of two to analyze and perform a scene for the class,” he says. Everyone starts squealing and fighting for partners while smelly Justin and I just sit there because we’re the only ones no one wants.
He looks at me and says, “You want to be my partner?”
“Whatever.”
Mr. Cobb tells us to move our chairs together and discuss our scene, and Justin is already turned to the page with the kissing.
“You be Juliet and I’ll be Romeo,” he says.
“You be Tybalt and I’ll be Mercutio,” I tell him.
“But you die,” he says.
“And you kill me.”
(SIX)
“Home sweet home,” Alex says, and it smells like smoke and something rotting. The front door closes with a bang and she throws her coat on the floor, onto a pile of other coats and half-emptied shopping bags. There is a frozen pizza in one of them that appears to be fully thawed. The paper bag is dark with moisture and there’s a puddle around it.
“This way,” she says, and leads me into the living room. There is stuff piled everywhere and I can hardly see the floor. The room is hot and the air feels damp, like someone has been taking a shower for months.
“This must be Cassie,” says a raspy voice coming from the couch. I did not notice the woman lying there with hair and clothes as black as the leather. Her lips are red with lipstick and her eyes are painted dark and something about her reminds me of a cat. A thin, lanky, sleepy cat.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work, Lenora?” says Alex.
“I’m home sick,” says the woman, faking a cough and laughing a deep laugh. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
“Yeah, right,” Alex says to the woman. “Let’s go downstairs,” she says to me. I nod and follow even though I want to keep listening to this cat-woman purring in her low voice.
“Cassie,” the woman says, and I turn around. She sits up and pats the space next to her on the couch. “Come talk to me for a minute.”
I look at Alex and her face is angry, but I go and sit by the woman anyway. The couch is warm where her legs were and I sink into it. Something smells familiar.
“My daughter tells me you’re smart,” the woman says, looking into my eyes so hard I have to look away. I cannot believe this is Alex’s mother. I cannot believe this is anyone’s mother.
“Kind of,” I say. “Not really.”
“I thought she was going to be smart. But she turned out just like her brother.” She picks up a glass from the coffee table and swirls the ice around, just like my mom does.
“Did she tell you about her trip to the loony bin?” the woman says.
“Very funny,” says Alex, who does not look amused. She is still standing by the stairs.
“Her crazy brother took her along with him to skin some cats.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Alex says.
“You shut up, you little brat,” she says, then yawns and closes her eyes as she stretches her long body, arching her back and lengthening her neck like she wants to be scratched. “I’m telling a story,” she says, and takes a sip of her drink. She lights a cigarette with her eyes closed and I sink deeper into the couch.
“We took them both to get fixed,” she continues, opening her eyes halfway, her fuzzy glance settling somewhere in the direction of Alex. “What’d they call your brother?”
“I don’t know, Lenora. What’d they call him?”
“A sociopath. Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it?” She takes a drag from her cigarette and leaves a perfect red halo around the filter. “And this one”—she motions to Alex, blowing smoke in her direction—“they said it was too early to tell.”
The room is silent and Alex is smiling and wide-eyed like she’s crazy. I don’t want to believe the story, but I do. Lenora is staring at me like she can see right through me, like she knows everything about me, and I want to disappear.
She laughs a raspy laugh. “I bet your family’s nice and normal, huh, pretty girl?”
“I don’t know.”
She leans back on the couch and ashes her cigarette on the floor.
“Parents still married.”
“Yes.”
She takes another drag and blows it out slowly. I look at Alex leaning against the banister, trying to tell her with my eyes that I want to go, but she doesn’t look at me. She keeps staring at her mother, like I’m not even there.
“How nice,” Lenora says, and then turns so she is facing me. Her leg touches mine and I feel lightning surge through me, something warm inside, outside, spreading, everywhere. She looks into my eyes and I feel my face turn hot and everything solid inside me turn to thick liquid.
“I should have had a girl like you,” she says. She raises her hand and slides her palm down my cheek. I close my eyes and feel the warmth expanding. “Sensitive.”
“Let’s go,” says Alex, almost shouting, and I open my eyes. She is not smiling. She is walking over. She is behind me, tugging on my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
I get up. I follow her to the stairs. My feet move my body, but part of me is still on the couch, still warm and melting. I look back and Lenora’s lying down with her eyes closed, the cigarette dangling from her red lips, like I was never even there. The air is hazy with smoke and dust and setting sun through dirty windows, and I have a sudden urge to curl up beside her, to press against her, to absorb her. I want to wear her black clothes and lipstick. I want to scare girls like me.
But I let Alex pull me downstairs to the cold, unfinished basement. The walls are concrete and lined with piles of boxes, rusted bikes, and other broken things. Alex opens a door to a small, carpeted room with a stained mattress on the floor and graffiti the color of blood on the wall. “This was my brother’s room,” she says, matter-of-factly. She points to a broken light fixture on the ceiling. “And that’s where—drumroll, please—my dad hung himself.”
I look at her in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?”
No, I am thinking. That is the least cool thing I have ever heard.
“When?” I ask because I don’t know what else to say.
“I don’t know,” she says, kicking a broken skateboard. “A couple years ago.”
“That’s when your brother left?”
“Yeah. He just left him up there and packed up his shit and was gone. The funniest part is he left a note right next to the suicide note. It said, ‘Dad’s hanging in the basement. I’m leaving. Bye.’ What a weirdo.”
“What’d the note say?”
“I just told you.”
“No, the suicide note.”
“Oh, that. I don’t know. I never read it.”
Alex keeps kicking the skateboard and I want to grab her and make her stop. I want to grab the skateboard and hit her with it. But she would probably just laugh. Eve
n if her jaw were broken and she was covered in blood, she’d just smile at me with her big crazy eyes and make me feel like there is nothing I can do to hurt her.
“Did you really do that with the cats?” I finally say.
“What do you think?” she says, smiling.
If I say no, she’ll laugh at me. If I say yes, she’ll do something worse. So instead I say, “Let’s get ready to go,” and she smiles like she knows exactly what I was thinking.
The bathroom smells like mildew and old piss and there are strands of green hair stuck everywhere. A box of tampons is spilled on the floor and the towels look like they haven’t been washed in months. I am tracing the outline of my lips with bloodred pencil and I can see Alex behind me in the reflection. She is sitting on the toilet, peeing, and her thighs are covered with bruises.
“What happened?” I ask her.
“To what?” she says, wiping herself.
“To your legs?”
She laughs at me like I’m a stupid child. “Wes just likes it rough.”
“Likes what rough?”
“Sex, stupid,” she says. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Not Cassie, the sweet little virgin.”
I don’t say anything. I turn around and start curling my eyelashes.
“How much money did you steal?” she says as she gets up and flushes the toilet. She grabs a pair of fishnets that were hanging on the doorknob.
“Huh?” I say.
“For Portland, dummy. So we can move to Portland.”
“Oh,” I say. “I didn’t think you were serious about that.”
“Of course I’m fucking serious,” she says, her voice hard. She’s looking at me like she wants to kill me. “Are you serious? Or are you a fucking chicken?”
“I’m serious,” I say.
“Because I can find someone else to come with me.”
“No,” I say. “I’m serious.”
“Then start getting some money. And have a bag packed so you’re ready whenever it’s time.”