3
I didn’t get a sixteenth birthday party. I turned sixteen in November. Last month. Two months after my parents borrowed a bunch of money from my grandmother. Half a year after my dad lost his job. My mom took me to the Chinese restaurant that I adored when I was ten years old. I had sweet and sour chicken.
Dad gave me a check for a hundred dollars sandwiched in a card that said Sweet Sixteen in glittery letters. It’s still in my jewelry box under the silver bracelet Grandma sent last Christmas. The card and the check. I was afraid to cash it. My parents had been fighting about checks bouncing all that week. It was the first time I’d ever heard them yell at each other.
So back to this morning, Merry Christmas and all that. I closed my fist around the cold metal key and pulled it out of the stocking. I remembered the look on Paige’s face, the glow from the paper Chinese lanterns, the candy-apple red of the car, the tan leather interior that smelled so good.
I imagined myself, Parker Prescott, wearing the mirrored sunglasses that make me look like I am cool and collected and don’t give a shit about anything, behind the wheel of an amazing car. Parker Prescott, perfect at last.
The key came free of the stocking, cool in my hand. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Then I stood up—it seems in retrospect that it should have been in slow motion—and I ran to look out the front window at the driveway.
Nothing there but the Century 21 sign, for sale, the one with the additional sliver of sign over the top that says reduced. Mom’s car was in the garage, resting happily beside Dad’s Jeep. The driveway was empty.
“I told you this was a bad idea.” I heard my dad saying this as if from far away.
“Parker.” My mom sounded weird. “It’s a key to the Jeep, honey.” I opened my hand. In my palm, there was this scrappy piece of paper, a handmade coupon. My mom’s big loopy writing on her work stationery. This coupon good for 10 hours of Daddy Driving School. There was a little cartoon of a kind of lopsided SUV and a grinning man who looked nothing like my dad. I could’ve made a kick-ass coupon on the computer, could’ve put Dad’s picture right on it, but of course neither of my parents can do more with a computer than print a document or send an e-mail. And here somebody—my mom, I guess—took the time to make this. Under my anger I felt sad for all of us.
How was I supposed to know? A key to my dad’s Jeep in my stocking as a gift?
“Daddy wanted to spend time with you. Daddy and I thought . . .” Mom trailed off, as if unsure of herself. My mother, who used to know everything, who always bought the hippest sunglasses and looked ten years younger than the other moms when she picked us up from after-school activities. She’s the one who chose the paper lanterns for Paige’s party, who made things look great, like some kind of professional party planner had put it all together.
“Parker, how could you think . . .” My dad sounded mad, and I only realized later that he was terribly hurt.
“The Jeep?” I held the key up. Yeah, that’s what it was, no doubt now. It was silver, slightly squared off. Dad was too cheap to upgrade to the keyless entry, and that was way before our money problems started.
“How could you think that . . . ,” Dad said again, and this time it struck a nerve.
“That you might love me as much as you love Paige?”
“Parker!” Mom said again.
“That something cool and magical could happen to me?”
My dad started to say something, but then the tears welled up in Mom’s eyes.
She runs out and I’m left here with Dad, the gifts, and a little brother who is oblivious to anything that isn’t animated and hurling fireballs. Dad glares at me like I’m a form of life lower than pond scum as he follows her out of the room. I tell myself that ice princesses do not cry, and miraculously my eyes stay dry. Probably because I’m numb from the shock. Anger and hurt are lesser emotions, so I can push those away, ignore them.
A key to the Jeep. Daddy Driving Lessons. My mom crying on Christmas morning. Sometimes I wonder if I belong here at all. If their life would be merrier without me screwing things up.
Nobody notices when I leave the house, even when I reach under the Christmas tree to grab my new red and white scarf. I need it. It’s cold outside, and I’m always frozen on the inside.
4
So now I’m back to the basement.
My boyfriend lives there. Correction, ex-boyfriend. He’s like the troll under his parents’ house. Except he looks pretty good. For a troll, I mean.
I knock on the door. The side door. But before my hand connects for the second knock the door swings open.
“C’mon in, I’m watching something.”
I should probably explain about my ex.
“Take your shoes off, Parker.”
I probably should explain, but I don’t have the energy.
His TV is on, his laptop is defragging, there is a CD playing over speakers angled throughout the narrow bedroom. He’s wearing headphones, but the cord is dangling, not plugged into anything. Kind of like me.
“What’s up, Parker Prescott?”
“I hate the way you say my name.”
“I know.” He raises one eyebrow at me.
“You got any other girls coming over here today?” I ask this and am amazed at how hard it is to ask something as if you don’t care when you care so much that you can hardly get the words out.
“You know I don’t.”
“How’m I supposed—” I stop myself midsentence. There’s just no point. He plugs the headphones into something, turns a knob, nods, then lets the headphones fall down around his neck. They are the big bulky kind, not the sleek little ones that go in your ears. My parents seem to believe that I am a computer genius, but beside him I am nothing.
“Trouble in paradise?” he asks, looking at me.
“You could say that.”
“You could tell me.”
“I could.”
“I could listen.”
“You might.”
He laughs and unplugs the headphones so that I can share his musical experience.
“You like this CD?”
“You know I do.” This is true even though I don’t remember ever hearing it before. Because I like everything when he’s around. Even though he might be getting ready to tell me why he hates this CD, the fact that I heard it here, standing awkwardly beside him while he leans back in his black leather office chair, makes it official: I will love this song until the day that I die.
He knows this. I know he knows this.
“You look good, Prescott. You can sit down, you know.”
The only place to sit is on his bed, which is about a foot from the desk where he’s working. The bedspread is purple stripes alternating with dark charcoal stripes. I know it well.
“I got this scarf for Christmas.” I sit gingerly on the edge of the bed.
“Red looks good on you.” He eyes me for a couple of seconds. “Kandace Freemont got this red and white Santa robe for Christmas. Like a Santa suit, but it wrapped around with a white belt. She showed up here wearing it. Wasn’t wearing anything under it at all.”
My stomach lurches. He isn’t looking at me. I don’t know why he’s telling me this. He’s always done this. He’ll reveal things or make comments about other girls just when I start getting comfortable with him, with us. Things about other girls that I don’t want to know. But I need him. I left the family trauma to seek comfort in his basement. And this is what he offers me. It’s sad, really. I’m sad, in just about every way that it’s possible for a person to be sad.
“Guess you liked that,” I say. This is how it always goes with us.
“I’ve seen better, and I’ve seen worse.”
“What happened?” Don’t tell me, don’t tell me, don’t tell me, don’t—
“I sent her home.”
“Yeah?” Why can’t I breathe? Why is it so hard to breathe in this damn basement? I feel something close to hope, the best feeling I’ve had
today, and hate myself a little for being so pathetic.
“If she’d only had a hat. With a Santa hat it would have been hot. Without it, it was just sleazy.” He looks away, hits a button on the computer, and then turns back to me.
“Didn’t you enjoy that?” I say this coolly, as if I don’t care.
He swivels his chair so that our knees are touching. Is he trying to make me jealous? Right now I am nervous and jealous and sad all at once, and it’s not a good combination. I kind of want to go home. Then he says,
“I’d like to get you sleazy, Prescott. Kandace Freemont already is. There’s a difference.”
He leans forward and closes his eyes, and I let him kiss me. That’s a lie. I twine my arms around his neck and kiss him hard. Possessively. Exactly what he wants.
But I don’t close my eyes. Closing your eyes implies trust.
5
His parents are pulling up in their silver minivan as I leave by the basement’s side door. They wave, I wave. I walk just a little bit faster, hoping they won’t notice my sudden hurry. I don’t want them to offer to drive me home. I mean, if I wanted a ride I would be in his Saab right now. But I love to walk, really. Which is perfect because I don’t have a car. I realize, embarrassed, that they probably wonder why I’m here. They probably think I should be with my own family on Christmas, not slinking out of their basement.
His Saab is sitting in the driveway. He never parks it in the garage. I look over at it and am glad I’m walking home. His car was the scene of our most ferocious fight. The fight when he squeezed my arm and I cried, not because of the squeezing, but because of the look on his face. I know I should be avoiding him, not the car. The car didn’t make me cry. But it’s hard sometimes to be sure of things. It’s easy to avoid the car and impossible to stay away from him.
As I walk I think about our conversation. “Why would Kandace Freemont get a Santa robe for Christmas?” I wondered out loud as I was putting on my shoes. See, sometimes I bring up the hurtful things too. It’s like when you can’t stop worrying at a sore spot, making it hurt worse than before. It’s all pretty sick.
“She said it was from her grandma.” He was sliding the Killers disc out and replacing it with some Pink Floyd.
“Damn, she really skanked up her grandma’s gift.” The nerve of Kandace Freemont, coming over here wearing a robe and nothing else. Pulling the robe open in front of him. Her grandma probably thinks she’s using it when she gets out of the shower. A red and white Santa robe is exactly the sort of gift my grandma would send, if she hadn’t sent me a bath set with talcum powder instead. Who the hell uses talcum powder, anyway? It’s like crushed-up chalk, and it doesn’t even smell good.
“Some girls are like that,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he approved or not. I didn’t kiss him goodbye.
Heading home, I can’t help glancing at the house to the left of his, where a hot senior girl named Erin Glasgow lives. I remind myself that I don’t have any reason to feel threatened anymore. Doesn’t matter if he sits out on his deck so he can see Erin lounging by the pool. I don’t have to care about him anymore. He’s my ex-boyfriend, and that’s not a boyfriend at all.
Erin is actually pretty cool. She was in my chemistry class last year. I skipped the intro to chemistry course, which is why I was with upperclassmen, and woefully unprepared. Erin helped me out a couple of times with stuff that my sophomore brain couldn’t quite grasp. It was lucky, I guess, that before finals they moved me out of chemistry and put me in comparative religion. Kyle Henessy was one of the seniors in my chemistry class.
“It may not seem fair to you,” Mr. Dawson, our assistant principal, said as I sat in his office. “Kyle did something wrong, and you didn’t. We take sexual harassment very seriously here. But he’s a senior and you’re just a sophomore. You have plenty of time to take chemistry, and he needs it to graduate.”
When I went back to the chem lab to gather my books, Kyle had his head on his desk and Erin Glasgow was trying to comfort him. And so my sister’s irresistibleness screwed up my sophomore schedule as well as Kyle’s entire life. Too bad Paige isn’t kindhearted like Erin Glasgow, who I can’t bring myself to hate, even though I find myself despising most girls if the ex even glances at them.
6
“Parker, come on in, honey,” my mom calls.
Yeah, right. She knows I hate coming into a movie that’s halfway over. At least, she should know. I feel a rush of irrational anger. Paige is sitting between our parents and Preston is on the floor. They are all sharing a big bowl of microwave popcorn. So happy and content. What do they need me there for, anyway? I thought they would be upset that I walked out and missed the big Christmas dinner event. Did they even miss me?
“She has to check her e-mail,” my sister says from the living room. “Seriously, do you think it’s normal for a sixteen-year-old girl to be on the computer as much as she is?”
“She isn’t like you,” Dad says. For a moment I wonder if he means something good or something bad. Then I look in at Paige, sitting in front of the TV. Paige had a social life, Paige had tons of friends. How could they compare me to her and see anything good?
I grab some chips and a bottled water and head up to my room to fire up my PC. The Dell desktop that was top-ofthe-line like two years ago.
My in-box is empty. I imagine the AOL voice saying, “You have no new messages.” The voice of social inferiority. I go to Hotmail and click to open a new account. Apparently, to open a Hotmail account you have to have a regular e-mail account. I use my other screen name, P216P, to create a dummy account. Like I said, my parents act like I’m a computer genius techno-nerd, but mainly I just push buttons and see what happens. Of course, I’ve done it enough that I usually push the right ones.
I have to find some way to make him remember and pay attention and realize the things that keep me up at night, the things that tie me in knots and make me want to hyperventilate at the same time. And so I type my masterpiece. Everything that I know he wants me to do to him and with him, with my hands, with my mouth, every single little thing I can think of, I tell him I want to do. He’ll know it’s me because I’m giving him all of his desires, regurgitated. Everything he’s whispered in my ear. Everything I rejected when he became my ex-boyfriend. He has to know this is from me, right?
I get up and walk across the room. Open the bottle of Aquafina only to screw the top back on and pace again. I go back to the screen and add two more juicy little details. My fingers are sweaty. I wipe them on my jeans, and before I can lose my nerve, I hit Send.
Refresh, Refresh, Refresh, Refresh. Ten excruciating minutes for his reply.
Is this a dude? Sorry, I’m not into dudes.
7
“I’m afraid to break it to you, Park, but I’m thinking we’re going to have to get dates for tomorrow night.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m out of money with no child support check until next month. You want some gum?”
I shake my head. Raye knows I never chew gum. It transforms me into a cow. I put the gum in innocently enough, to freshen the breath after a mall burrito or whatever, I chew it discreetly for a while, and before I know it I’m deep in thought and gnawing at it like a heifer. A mad cow.
Raye knows this, but she still offers. Raye is kind of a pusher.
“I have a little bit of Christmas money.”
“And you have that check for one hundred dollars in your jewelry box.”
Rachel Tannahill is my best friend. She knows things about me that nobody else knows.
“You keep saying that about the child support, people are going to think you have a bunch of babies running around,” I say to change the subject.
“With a body like this?” Raye flashes white teeth at me. She wears her dark hair short, with all these wild edges that look even wilder because of her big dark eyes. She’s one of the few people on earth who can wear any color of eye shadow, even purple, and still look cool. Raye’s dad left her mom
for a younger woman five years ago. Her mom turned around and married a dentist. To show her colossal disdain for her ex-husband, Raye’s mom just has his child support check deposited into a checking account for Rachel Tannahill. I have to say, the loot went a lot further before Raye developed an astronomical car payment. Guess I should chip in some gas money sometime.
We walk into the Gap, my favorite place to buy solid-colored V-neck sweaters. Raye walks straight to a circular rack of shirts and starts flipping through them, but I feel like I’m attached to the planks of the hardwood floor. The first thing I see as I scan the store is Marion Henessy, my ex-neighbor. She’s standing in a fairly long line of day-after Christmas shoppers. It’s funny how I pick her out immediately, even though I’m not looking for her, or anything else, really. Just wasting time. Marion turns and sees us and her mouth scrunches up like she’s tasting something sour.
She’s stocky and not very tall, and her hair is curly. When we were little she used to wear it in these two long pigtails. Now it’s medium length and kind of blah. What my sister would call unstylish.
The customer in front of Marion signs a credit card slip and walks away.
“Can I help you?” the guy behind the counter asks. Raye has abandoned the rack of shirts and is standing beside me now.
“No.” Marion sounds like she’s ready to cry. “No, I’ll come back later.” She gives me a venomous look, holds the bag of stuff that she must’ve been returning close to her chest, and stomps out the door. The salesguy blinks a couple of times and then turns to the next customer.
“Boy, she really hates you.” Raye is as mesmerized by Marion’s clumsy stomping retreat as I am.