So I asked the obligatory question: “How’s field hockey going?”
Laurel, who’d played left wing to my center since seventh grade, said that the season was off to an awesome start, that—even though they were only on JV and didn’t have me or Taylor—they’d already won their first two games against Greenwich and Darien, which was huge, and that their coach, who looked like Angelina Jolie, used to play Division 1 for Boston College.
“Wow,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Yeah.”
Both Ariana and Kelly nodded and smiled in my direction, but they didn’t exactly meet my eyes.
“So,” Laurel said, “are you getting a late tryout?”
I was about to answer no when Heidi suddenly shrieked, “TayTayyy!” Which meant that Taylor, her lifeline, had arrived.
“Where have you been?” Heidi demanded. “I waited for you at your locker for, like, ever.”
Every cell in my body froze as I waited for Taylor’s next move. If she sits next to me I’ll leave, I thought. I will stand up and I will walk straight out the door without a word.
But Taylor took the seat between Heidi and Ariana. “Sorry I’m late,” she murmured. “Jarrod had a doctor’s appointment, and my mom was dropping him off. I wanted to find out how it went.”
Suddenly, the whole table was buzzing. “What did the doctor say? Can Jarrod play football yet? How’s his collarbone?”
I’d forgotten all about Jarrod and his collarbone. But clearly no one else had. Which, okay, I know not everyone felt the aversion to Taylor’s brother that I did. In fact, most of them worshipped him. But all this concern over how he was doing, when he was the pervert behind the wheel, driving us into a tree? Come on.
“Well,” Taylor said, glancing tentatively at me, then back at everyone else, “the collarbone is healing fine, but apparently he separated his shoulder, too, which they didn’t realize at first. That’s why he’s been in so much pain.”
Pain? Jarrod doesn’t know pain.
“Does he still need the sling?” Rae wanted to know.
“Yeah, for a few more weeks. Then he’ll start physical therapy. But it looks like he’s out for the season. He’ll still be captain, but…” Her voice trailed off and a chorus of ohhhs and poor Jarrods commenced.
Taylor grimaced, glancing at me as if to say, I know. I’m sorry. You have it a million times worse.
I knew what she was doing, trying to get back on my good side. As if that were even possible. As if I could ever, in a million years, forgive her for what she did.
Just as I averted my eyes from Taylor’s, the lights in the cafeteria flicked off, then on again. My head swiveled like everyone else’s, to see Jarrod at the far end of the room, standing on a chair.
“Omigod,” Heidi squealed. “Speak of the devil!”
We watched as he lifted a megaphone to his mouth with his non-sling arm. “Three words, people: Friday. Night. Lights. Millbridge versus Fairfield.”
That’s six words, moron.
“Be there.”
Eight.
Jarrod made a sweeping gesture with his megaphone and every football player in fifth-period lunch stood up. Taylor’s crush, Rob. A bunch of guys I recognized from the LeFevres’ pool. Kyle Humboldt. Jason Saccovitch. Ryan.
Slowly, and in complete unison, they began to clap.
Clap…
Clap…
Clap…
Until the entire cafeteria was clapping along with them. Clapping and cheering. Clapping and screaming.
My table, it seemed, was the loudest in the room—everyone shrieking and jumping up and down, like groupies at a rock concert. I wanted to feel it, too. But somehow this collective burst of Wildcat pride had the reverse effect, sucking the spirit right out of me.
Taylor’s face was lit up like Christmas morning. It hurt my eyes to look. It hurt my hands to clap.
It hurt.
It hurt.
It hurt.
The Point of Baked Chicken
“YOU MEAN YOU weren’t moved by the Wildcat Spirit?” Ruthie said in the car on our way home. “You weren’t tempted to bust out Mom’s old pom-poms and start straddle jumping?”
“Please,” I snorted, thinking of the cedar trunk in our mother’s closet—the one that held her most prized memorabilia. Beauty pageant sashes. Prom corsages. Pom-poms.
“You realize,” Ruthie deadpanned, “that football players are our heroes. Right up there with firefighters and Jesus. We’re supposed to worship them at mealtime.”
“Well,” I said, “Jarrod killed my appetite. And Ryan. The whole thing made me want to barf.”
I knew, even as I spoke, that I was being a hypocrite. Two months ago, I would have been cheering as loud as anyone. Louder. And the sad thing was that I actually wanted to be cheering. I wished that my only care in the world was whether Millbridge beat Fairfield on Friday night.
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln,” Ruthie said, lifting an eyebrow at me, “how was the play?”
“What?”
“It’s a joke … Abraham Lincoln? Assassinated in the Ford Theater by John Wilkes Booth?”
“Whatever,” I muttered.
“I’m drawing a parallel to your day,” Ruthie explained, college professor to janitor. “Trying to add some levity.”
“Can you ever just talk like a normal person?”
“I don’t know, Lex. How does a normal person talk?”
I rolled my eyes and told her, “Never mind.”
“No, no. I want to be normal. I want to be just like everybody else.”
I knew she was messing with me. Ruthie loves to mess with people to make a point. It is one of her patented lawyer-in-the-making moves, designed to bamboozle her opposition.
“I hereby pledge,” Ruthie said in her best-little-Girl-Scout-in-the-world voice, “to avoid all historical references and multisyllabic words, so all the cool kids will like me—forever and ever, amen.”
“Good luck with that,” I said, letting the sarcasm flow right back at her. Which was better than tears, at least, which I’d spent most of sixth period shedding in the locker room while I avoided gym class. And Taylor.
And the whole world.
As soon as we got home, my mother began her interrogation. Ruthie pleaded physics quiz and took off for her room. I considered doing the same. I had a legitimate excuse—two weeks worth of homework to catch up on—but I knew that nothing would stop my mother. Wherever I went, she would follow.
“How was your day?” she asked the second I entered the kitchen. There were after-school snacks on the counter. Carrot and celery sticks arranged in the shape of a fan. Grapes. Ice water with slivers of lemon. My mother smiled, gesturing to a stool. “Why don’t you sit and tell me all about it?”
I sat. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything! How are your teachers? Your classes?”
“Okay.”
“How are your friends?”
I thought about Kendall’s and Rae’s forced smiles. The weird, sideways glances of my field hockey teammates at lunch.
“They’re okay,” I said, plucking a grape from its stem and holding it in my hand. I’d barely eaten all day, and I was starving, but I didn’t want rabbit food.
My mother raised her eyebrows, waiting for information. For fifteen years she’d been doing this. Hounding me for every last detail of my life. Who did I sit with at lunch? Which boys were cute? Who liked who? This time, I didn’t feel like giving her anything.
“Well,” she said in her infuriatingly chipper tone, “great! I’m glad the day went well.”
“Why?”
“Why?” She frowned slightly.
I rolled the grape between my fingers. “Yeah.”
“Why am I glad you had a good day?”
I shook my head. “Never mind.” My mother hates when people say never mind; she thinks it’s the height of rudeness. “Forget it,” I muttered.
There was a beat of silence
. My mother picked up a carrot then set it back on its plate. “Do you think I don’t know how hard this has been for you, Alexa? Do you think I don’t see those Band-Aids?”
I stared down at the counter.
“Well, let me tell you something … it hasn’t exactly—” Her voice cracked. For a moment I thought she was going to lose it, but then she recovered. “It hasn’t been easy for me, either.”
It was the craziest thing I had ever heard. It was even crazier than Kendall and Rae telling me I looked great. This hasn’t been easy for my mother? This wasn’t about her. It had nothing to do with her! I made my voice dead calm. “Oh. Right. I’m sorry this has been so difficult for you.”
“Alexa.” My mother shook her head. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, no,” I said before she could finish her sentence. “You must be devastated … to have a daughter who’s never going to be Miss Connecticut or prom queen or homecoming queen … or … you know … queen of any kind.” I was babbling now, a complete idiot. “I’m sorry I ruined your dreams for me!”
“Honey, no.” My mother’s voice was shocked, her eyes shiny. Any second now there would be waterworks, and I wasn’t about to stick around to watch.
“I have homework,” I said, realizing, as I turned to leave the kitchen, that the grape in my hand was now a pulpy mess.
I couldn’t call Taylor, obviously. Taylor, who had always been my go-to girl in times of angst—the ultimate giver of pep talks. I couldn’t call Ryan because … well … Ryan was dead to me. My dad was in court. Which left Kendall and Rae, who, although they had always been closer to Taylor than to me, seemed to be taking my side right now. I shouldn’t have faulted them for acting fake in school. At least they were showing some loyalty—walking me to class, saving me a seat at lunch. If that wasn’t friendship, what was?
I picked up my cell to call Kendall, but it went straight to voice mail. Rae, same thing. That’s when I remembered they had soccer practice.
So I left messages, and an hour later Kendall called me back.
“Lex!” she said. “I’ve been thinking about you. What’s up?”
“My mom is driving me nuts,” I said.
Kendall’s battles with her own mother were legendary—like the time in eighth grade when Mrs. Kinsey showed up in the cafeteria with Kendall’s retainer in a Ziploc bag, telling her she was supposed to be wearing it, and a screaming match ensued, right there in front of everyone. Kendall knew just what to say to me now. “Moms are the worst.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
“What did she do?”
“It’s not so much what she did,” I explained, “as what she said. She tried to tell me how hard it’s been for her … you know … since the accident. Like she was the one it happened to.”
“Oh … uh-huh.”
I kept blathering. “It’s like my face is a reflection on her and … I don’t know … it’s taking everything in her arsenal just to get through the day. Meanwhile, I’m the one who—” I paused, hearing noise in the background. “Where are you?”
“JB’s,” Kendall said. “A bunch of us came here after practice…. Hold on a sec, will ya? I’m putting you on mute so I can order.”
“Okay,” I said. Just thinking about JB’s made me drool. They had the best mozzarella sticks in the universe. And the best chicken fingers. And fries. And—
“Omigod, you guys.”
Just like that, my food reverie was over.
“Someone take the phone.”
I wasn’t on mute.
“I don’t know what to say to her.”
I was on speaker.
“She’s, like, freaking out.”
I was on speaker, listening to my friends talk about how they didn’t want to talk to me.
“Rae, you do it.”
“What? I don’t know what to say, either.”
“Laurel, take the phone.”
“Uh-uh.”
“What did she do to her hair, anyway?”
“I know, right?”
As I sat there, frozen, the reality of my new life came into focus. I had no friends. I had. No friends. I. Had. No—
“Hey. Sorry about that,” Kendall finally said in the same phony, over-cheerful tone she’d used in school. “New guy behind the counter, doesn’t know his ass from his elbow…”
“What did you order?” I managed to ask.
“What? … Oh, mozzarella sticks … Hey, listen, Lex … I’m really sorry, but I have to go…. Wish you were here with us.”
I could tell she’d tacked this on at the end to make me feel better, like the obligatory postcards I used to send my grandmother from Florida. Wish you were here! Weather’s great!
“Me too,” I murmured, wondering what Kendall would say if I told her it wasn’t mute she’d pressed, it was speaker. Would she make up some excuse? Fall all over herself apologizing? Would she—
“Lex?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you in school tomorrow…. Take care of yourself, ’kay?”
“’Kay,” I repeated.
And the phone went silent.
For the next hour, I lay in bed thinking about Sylvia Plath, this poet we studied in ninth grade, whose life got so bad that one day she sealed off the rooms between herself and her children, left out some milk and bread, turned on the gas, and stuck her head in the oven. Then I remembered this woman I saw on Dateline who, after her husband divorced her, made herself a Gatorade and Windex cocktail.
It’s not like I was planning to kill myself. It’s just that I needed some real friends, and a new face, and a different mother, and—
“Hey.”
I looked up, startled.
“Beans in your ears?” Ruthie said. “It’s dinnertime.”
“I’m not hungry,” I lied.
“Mom made baked chicken. Your favorite.”
“What’s the point?”
“The point of baked chicken?”
I shook my head. “Forget it.”
“Suit yourself.” Ruthie shrugged, and turned to walk out the door.
I felt my eyes burn, realizing that I needed a new sister, too—a sister who wasn’t an emotionless robot. “Thanks a lot!” I blurted after her.
Ruthie turned around. “What?”
“You’re just leaving me here?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Um … it’s your room?”
I felt a stirring of anger. “Obviously, Ruthie, I’m in my room for a reason. Which is my life basically sucks right now. Which maybe you, as my sister, could notice without me having to spell it out for you….” I paused, giving her ample opportunity to say that she had noticed and she was sorry. When she said nothing, I kept going. I told her about the fight with our mother and the phone call with Kendall. “I’m telling you, I can’t even look at Mom right now. And I can’t go back to school, either. I’m way too humiliated.”
That’s when Ruthie had the nerve to suggest that perhaps my friends were acting weird because I was acting weird.
“Me?” I pointed to my chest in disbelief. “You’re blaming me for the way they’re acting?”
“I’m not blaming you, Lex. I’m just saying … you chop off your hair, you don’t want to talk on the phone anymore, you suddenly hate pep rallies…. Should I keep going?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“They’re not necessarily bad friends,” Ruthie continued. “Maybe they just don’t know how to act, how to treat you after the accident…. It’s like when Jenny Albee’s brother died, remember? And Mom made five thousand casseroles because she didn’t know what else to do?”
I stared at my sister. “Who cares about casseroles?”
“You’re missing the point.”
“No, you’re missing the point!” I cried. “I hate my life!”
“So,” Ruthie said calmly, “get a new one.”
I snorted. “Great. Thanks.”
“I’m serious, Lex. If you hate your l
ife so much, stop wallowing and change it. Change yourself. No one’s going to do it for you.”
At first, I was too furious for words. I leapt off the bed, ran to the door, and shut it in my sister’s face.
But later, when I really thought about it, I saw the genius in Ruthie’s idea. It was so simple and yet so brilliant. I would change myself, and in so doing I would change my life. But this wouldn’t be a Sandy-Dumbrowski-from-Grease type of transformation, where she goes from cute goody-goody to leather-clad hottie just to impress the Pink Ladies and win back Danny Zuko. Oh no.
This would be the opposite.
There Must be a Reason You’re
Dressed that Way
IN THE MORNING, while Ruthie was in the shower, I went straight to her closet. Riffling through my sister’s clothes gave me a feeling of hope I hadn’t felt yesterday, when I was stuck wearing her khakis by default. Yesterday, because my mother was dictating everything—from makeup to clothes to every bite of food that entered my mouth—I felt powerless. But starting today, things would be different.
For half an hour, I was all about creating the perfect outfit, determined in my mission to ditch the old, pathetic Lexi and welcome the new one. I opened a drawer and found a pair of leggings with a rip in the knee. Then I unearthed a box of ratty, oversized cardigans I remember Ruthie buying at the Salvation Army. I picked the best one: mustard yellow with a distinct old-man smell. As I laced up a pair a combat boots, I felt almost giddy, imagining the look on my mother’s face—on everyone’s face when they saw me.
I closed my eyes and pictured my new life….
Gliding through the hot-lunch line of the Millbridge High School cafeteria, tray balanced casually in one hand, I select my favorite foods: pepperoni pizza, side of fries, Yoo-hoo. As I pay the cashier, I spot my ex-friends flagging me down. But I breeze straight past Taylor, Kendall, and Rae—past Heidi, whose jaw is on the ground from seeing my outfit, past Ryan and Jarrod and the football guys, who don’t even give me a second glance. Finally, I arrive at my destination: a table that, in a million years, no one would ever expect me to sit at. A table that—
“What are you doing?”
I opened my eyes and there was Ruthie, wrapped in a towel, hair dripping. “What are you doing,” she repeated, “in my closet?”