I always thought Lisa and I were prime candidates for a switched-at-birth investigation.
But I missed Lisa, too, sometimes. The old Lisa, the one who liked to read the same books I did and imagined fairies swimming in her pool. I even missed those stupid lists she was always making. And Lisa’s family — a nice, totally normal family — I missed having dinner with them. They actually made a point of eating together most nights of the week.
But I guess things at Lisa’s house weren’t too keen, because Lisa left for rehab the day after Michael died.
I picked up a book, hoping Mom would get the hint and leave, but she sat down on my bed and put her hand on my knee. It was all I could do not to cringe. She had that serious look on her face that meant she was about to impart some wonderful words of wisdom that I would find either ridiculous or offensive, or both.
“You know, Michael might have stuck around longer if you spruced yourself up a bit. You’re such a pretty girl, you just need a little blush, a little color.”
She reached out and ran her long red fingernails through my hair, and I knew she was wishing I would get those highlights she’s always talking about.
“And hanging around with someone like Rachael probably didn’t help. I still can’t believe her mother lets her out of the house looking like the star attraction from some freak show. Of course, it’s probably just as well you weren’t dating him anymore. God knows he might have pulled one of those murder-suicide stunts. I hope the next boy will be a little more stable.” She shook her head. “And he was such a good-looking boy.”
“Yeah, usually it’s the ugly people that are suicidal.” I glared at my mother, wanting her to realize how stupid the things coming out of her mouth were. But she didn’t notice. She just got up and started picking up clothes again.
I know I shouldn’t hate my mother for having such a warped take on things. It was really hard for her growing up with Grandma Stein, who was a total head case who went through four husbands before Mom was ten years old. But, God, Mom’s forty-seven years old now; she should have been in and out of therapy and functioning like a rational adult already.
“Oh, no!” she moaned. “This is imported linen, Jordan,” she said, waving a wrinkled white shirt toward me, “and you’ve destroyed it by wadding it up on the floor like that!”
My mother held the shirt away from her body like it was one of the dead moles the cat is always sneaking in. Not that she’d ever consider picking one of them up. That’s my job.
“I don’t even know if the dry cleaner can salvage this. Eighty dollars wasted because you couldn’t remember what a hanger is for! If you can’t respect my things, I’ll ask you to stay out of my closet, young lady.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up, I silently begged. I wanted her stupid, unnaturally pink frosted mouth to stop moving. I wanted to yell at her, I wanted to scream, “What is wrong with you? Michael is dead and all you can do is talk about clothes?” But instead I said, quietly, “Gabby, Rachael, and Janine will be here soon. I need to get ready for the funeral.”
“Fine! I was heading out to get some wine anyway. Steve and I are going to the Gambino’s for dinner tonight, and he doesn’t think they rate one of his good bottles. Do you need money to get something for yourself?”
“No. Janine’s mom is cooking us dinner.”
Janine’s mother may not care a whole lot about what Janine does, but at least she makes sure there’s a hot dinner on the table every night — even if Janine ends up eating it alone most of the time.
“I don’t know how that woman finds time to cook. Well, just make sure you don’t get anything on my dress.” She ran her hand down the navy blue dress hanging on my bedpost, smiling at it like buying it was some great feat she had accomplished. “Why don’t you take a change of clothes? And try some of that new green concealer under your eyes before you go. It won’t look green when you put it on; it just neutralizes the redness around your eyes. You’re just like me: You look awful when you’ve been crying.” My mom smiled. “And don’t worry, I know some boy is probably waiting in the wings to snatch you up.”
She gave me a knowing look, like we’d just shared something deep, and I used every bit of my willpower to keep from rolling my eyes. “The day I am just like you is the day I will do myself in,” I whispered after she left. “And I have a new boyfriend, at least I think I do.”
I hoped Danny was going to be at the funeral. He’d left four messages on my machine. I just hadn’t gotten up the nerve to call him back. I thought it would just be easier to see him in person. Of course I knew hooking up with a guy at my ex’s funeral was all kinds of wrong, but I had figured it was my best shot. I think that’s the main difference between my mom and me: I know I have issues, but she just thinks everyone else does.
When I heard the front door shut, I peeked out my window and saw Mom get in her car. Once she pulled away, the grackles that spend the summer in the tree started screeching. I could usually tune them out, but they were hopping around croaking more than usual. I searched the ground until I spotted my cat lounging under the tree, ignoring the ruckus above.
“Nutty, go somewhere else!” I yelled through the screen. He looked up and blinked, then rolled over and went back to sleep. The birds were going nuts, so I shut the window. There wasn’t a breeze, anyway.
I got up and walked over to my bookshelf. I picked up a picture of Lisa and me at Sea Cliff Beach. We were twelve, smiling and trying desperately to look sexy despite the fact that our matching bikini tops were completely empty. Exuding sexiness was on a list of “how to get boys to notice us” that Lisa had made. Swimming the length of the beach to impress the lifeguards and making the JV cheerleading squad were also on the list.
Lisa swam every day, and after a few weeks the lifeguards not only noticed her, they took turns racing her. I always watched from the beach because I hated the way my hair dried into sticky strings if I got my head wet in the salt water.
Lisa also made the squad, and I would watch her practice from the stands because I was too scared to try out. That was the summer things started to change.
I pushed The Phantom Tollbooth and National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders apart, and wedged the gold frame in between.
When Gabby, Rachael, and Janine walked into my room later, they all groaned.
“Oh my God! Didn’t your mother get you a new air conditioner yet?” Gabby said. “It’s like a hundred degrees in here!”
Rachael kicked off her sandals and stretched out on my bed. “Maybe she’s subconsciously punishing you for leading a boring life and denying her the chance to live vicariously through you. Or she’s just holding out for your birthday.”
Janine nodded. “That’d be just like her!”
“I’ll take it any way I can get it, and a new unit is better than the clothes she’s probably bought me.”
Gabby laughed and opened my closet, pulling out a hot pink sweater. “Let’s see, is this one from Christmas? You haven’t even taken off the tags. And then there’s this horror show.” She held up a turquoise shirt with sequined flowers.
Rachael grabbed the shirt and held it up to her chest. “Can’t you just hear what went through your mom’s head when she saw this? ‘This shirt is just what Jordan needs to get noticed; maybe it would even inspire her to try out for the cheerleading squad or run for class president!’”
“Hey, I have that shirt,” Janine said.
Gabby smirked. “I know.”
“Like I said, an air conditioner would be great.”
Rachael picked up the book off my bedside table and waved it in front of her face. “Man, don’t you have a fan or something? It’s almost too hot to smoke in here.”
Gabby took a bag of joints out of her purse. “It’s never that hot.”
Rachael flicked a lighter and Gabby took a deep drag. She exhaled and passed the joint to me.
I sucked in and caught a spark before it hit the rug. “I hat
e doing this in here,” I said, forcing the smoke to stay in my lungs. I let out a big breath. “I’ve imagined my mother coming home and catching us and launching into the drug speech she used to give Adam.”
“Get real! Your mom can’t say a thing to you.” Gabby laughed. “Your brother’s been getting openly wasted in the house for years and she hasn’t tried to stop him. Unless ‘the speech’ was supposed to guilt him into quitting.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not here this summer, and if she finds out I smoke I’ll have to listen to her where-did-I-go-wrong routine for the next hundred years.”
Rachael threw her hands up in the air and shook her head. “‘We didn’t have all these drugs when I grew up,’” she said in a high, prissy voice. “‘What do I know about marijuana? If only you were on antidepressants! That I know!’”
Gabby nodded. “God forbid she’d have to do some actual parenting!”
“God forbid she gets rid of the pharmaceuticals in her bathroom,” I said.
Janine sat up and wiggled her eyebrows.
“Don’t get any ideas! We just raided them.”
“Hello? It’s been over a month.” Janine pouted.
I shook my head. “Too soon.”
“She doesn’t keep track of them,” Rachael said.
“Well, they’re getting low, we’ll have to wait until she gets some refills.”
Gabby rolled her eyes and handed me the joint. “You’re such a wuss!”
I took a deep drag and felt that stupid, stoned smile creep onto my face. “I don’t even know why I’m doing this, I hate this feeling, like someone shot my brain full of novocaine.”
Gabby laughed. “No one’s putting a gun to your head, Jordan.”
“Uh, that’s a poor choice of words when we’re about to go to a funeral,” Rachael said.
My stomach gave a nasty turn and my heart beat faster. I was getting totally faced just before Michael’s funeral. I’d have to talk to his parents, tell them I was sorry about Michael. Oh God. His mother! Her nasty little dark eyes glaring at me. I didn’t think I could face her. Mrs. Green always narrowed her eyes into the smallest of slits that cut right into me, like she knew what we were doing up in my room, and she was sure it’d been all my idea. I imagined the look of disgust on her face as she realized one of the girls who screwed around with her only child — her dead child — had shown up at his funeral wasted.
Part of me wished I had the courage to tell her how much I loved him. That he was my first love. That being with Michael made me feel like I mattered for the first time.
Of course, there’s the other part of me that wished I could tell her that I was perfectly happy getting action above the waist until Michael had grabbed my wrist and put my hand down his unzipped pants — and then her darling boy had put his large hands down mine. And, hell, part of me wished I could tell her that once you get your hands down there, you can never go back.
“So,” Janine said, finally breaking the silence. “I bet the church is going to be packed. And did you hear they’re going to have, like, six counselors at school to help with the ‘grieving process.’”
Gabby snorted and choked as smoke sputtered out of her mouth and nose. “I’ll bet half the kids at school are thanking God Michael won’t be back this fall to lead the Asshole Patrol around.”
“Uh, the Asshole Patrol?” I asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I forgot,” Gabby said, placing one hand over her heart. “You loooooved Michael. Well, get a clue, Jordie-pie, Michael was an asshole and you just couldn’t see it because you spent a couple of months in a horizontal position with him up in your bedroom. Unless, that is, you preferred to be on top?”
“I always prefer to be on top!” Rachael interjected.
“Cut the crap, you two,” Janine said. “And my brother happens to be a member of the so-called ‘Asshole Patrol’ you’re talking about! The guy’s dead, so let’s, like, drop it.”
“Whatever.” Gabby jumped off my bed and headed to my bathroom. “But the guy was a major asshole, and you know it!” She shut the door and then opened it again, glaring at us with wide eyes. “And your brother is, too!”
She slammed the door, and I shook my head. “Why is she even going?”
“Are you serious?” Rachael asked, lowering her voice. “She just wants to rip on everyone who’ll be there. It’s what she lives for. I read about it in this book. People like Gabby get off on putting everyone else down.”
That made sense, I thought. Gabby’s greatest pleasure was her running social commentary on the haves and have-nots. She spends lunch period analyzing kids — what they’re eating, how they’re eating it. She’s even invented a food pyramid to go along with the school’s social hierarchy, like only the bottom feeders openly eat things like egg salad or bologna. And she has a list of superthin girls who eat huge lunches before they head to the bathroom. She waits for them to get up from the table so she can start making puking noises.
Gabby makes me kind of nervous. I always try to leave the cafeteria after she does so she can’t say anything about me. But I thought Rachael was right, a funeral would provide scads of sobbing cheerleaders and stoic jocks for Gabby to build a new routine around. Not to mention the nobodies who’ll show up, hoping to pass themselves off as close friends of Michael’s.
That got me wondering what Michael’s friends were going to say about me. Michael and I were only together for a few months, and it’s not like Michael did more than grunt in my direction this past year. What would they say about me when they rehashed the funeral tomorrow?
Okay, I told myself. I have as much right to be at that funeral as the dozens of other girls Michael plowed through in his short time at North Shore High School.
But I could still hear Marnie Shaw’s nasal voice explain her theory of Michael and me in the bathroom one day. It was one of those rotten cosmic timing things. I walked into the girls’ room at the end of the science wing during classes, when you can usually pee without the hair nuts hogging the sinks or the Stagano twins harassing someone. Marnie was in one stall and her friend Neela in the other. I could hear a ballpoint pen scraping against the wall, and cigarette smoke was drifting up toward the vent.
“God, I’m so psyched Michael dumped her. I’ve been trying to get in his pants all summer.”
Marnie laughed. “You didn’t think it was going to last, did you? She was just the first warm body he met. It’s not like she’s a skank or anything. She’s just a nothing; Michael didn’t know any better.”
I knew I was the “nothing” Marnie was referring to. And, knowing Neela, she was going to go after Michael with leechlike ferocity. When the toilet flushed, I flew out and back to class. So much for the A-wing bathroom at sixth period.
At least I was Michael’s first “nothing.”
I turned to Rachael and Janine. “I am too stoned to go to this thing. I can’t face Michael’s parents and all the teachers who will be there. I can just picture Mr. D stationed at the door looking into everyone’s eyes like he does at school.”
Janine leered at me. “I think what you mean is you’re not stoned enough! And Mr. D will just think your eyes are red because you’ve been crying.”
She handed me the stub of the joint, and like an idiot I took another drag, burning my fingertips.
Cursing, I snuffed the roach out and stared at Janine, wondering how she could get so wasted and still be able to drive her car. I tried driving stoned once — well, I was pretty drunk, too — and I’m still amazed the only thing I hit was the neighbor’s hedge. I’ve always wondered if Mrs. Marx saw the leaves and branches sticking out of the front bumper before I picked them out the following afternoon. Good thing my mom and Steve aren’t morning people.
But Janine seems to have no problem driving under the influence. She’s our designated drunk driver — literally. I know getting into a car with her is extremely stupid, but she’s so confident, and she’s never even nicked so much as a small s
hrub, much less a hedge.
“We need to get some plastic bags to sit on,” Janine said. “I left the top down last night and the seats got soaked in that storm.”
She stood up and turned around, shaking her wet rear in our faces. Rachael and I burst out laughing, like you can only do when you’re stoned.
“You guys liked Michael, didn’t you?” I asked when we were quiet again.
“He was hot,” Rachael said, shrugging. She got up and grabbed some hair gel off my dresser and ran it through her spiky hair. “I wouldn’t have kicked him out of bed!”
Janine shrugged. “He never said much to me, but I guess he was okay.”
Gabby opened the bathroom door and cleared her throat. “I had an epiphany while I was sitting on the crapper.”
Janine raised an eyebrow. “In English, please?”
“That was English. Anyway, while I was sitting there contemplating the mold on the tiles, I decided it would be a colossal waste of time to go to the funeral of a guy we thought was a waste of oxygen. Well, all of us that didn’t have a chance to sample the dearly departed’s goods, that is. I say we blow off this farce, purloin a bottle of your mom’s cheap vino, and head to Rachael’s, where there’s central air.”
Janine rolled her eyes. “‘Purloin’? ‘Farce’? I know that’s not English!”
“You’re right, they’re French origin,” Rachael said. “And I’m up for skipping it, too. But, I think this is Jordan’s call.”
Gabby held her hands out, tipping them up and down like a scale. “Boring funeral with teachers present… wine and movies?”
I loved Michael, but at that moment the thought of skipping out on his funeral filled me with relief, and since it was Gabby’s suggestion, I didn’t have to feel so guilty about it. “Wine and movies!”
* * *
Janine nudged me later that evening, and I half opened my eyes. “Home?” I asked, wishing we could just drive around some more and keep listening to the song blasting through the speakers.