Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You

  And now that Merissa was going to a “top Ivy” school, her status remained high.

  And she was good-looking: pale blond hair worn straight past her shoulders, delicate features, large gray-blue eyes, and—when she could force herself—a “sweet” smile.

  Merissa looked like perfection. She looked as if she must be very, very happy.

  She’d been told there were guys who were afraid to approach her. Without knowing what she did, Merissa sent a disdainful signal that seemed to say, Don’t come near. If you like me, I can’t possibly like you.

  Still, Merissa Carmichael was what you’d call a “top” senior.

  Though how easy it would be to sink—as it would be easy to sink in quicksand. Just let go.

  How had Tink let go? The rumor was, she’d drunk half a bottle of her mother’s most expensive French wine, taken an overdose of her mother’s barbiturates, and just gone to bed, in her usual grungy black leggings, her long-sleeved GUERRILLA GIRL T-shirt, barefoot and her freckled face scrubbed clean, her teeth freshly brushed and flossed.

  Tink had a thing about flossing. Tink cheerfully described herself as OCD—(obsessive-compulsive disorder)—in minor, weird ways.

  Tink must have known about cutting. For she had had several little tattoos on her shoulders and upper arms, and you could say that cutting was a form of self-tattooing.

  Tink, I miss you so!

  Why did you leave us, Tink?

  We loved you. Why wasn’t that enough?

  “Hey. Merissa?”

  It was Shelby Freedman, who sat just behind Merissa. Poking Merissa’s shoulder, as if to wake her—but she hadn’t been asleep, had she?

  Shelby was an old friend from middle school. Never a close friend, but Merissa liked Shelby, and would have liked to be a closer friend—except there wasn’t room for Shelby in Merissa’s life.

  She was not a girl in Tink, Inc.

  (Did Shelby know this? If she did, she didn’t seem to hold it against Merissa.)

  “You okay, Merissa? What’re you doing?”

  What had Merissa been doing? In the midst of Mr. Kessler’s science class—trying to talk to Tink?

  Trying to hear Tink’s faint, teasing voice?

  Sure I love you, M’ris.

  But first, love yourself.

  Shelby had nudged Merissa, alarmed at what Merissa was doing: She’d seized a strand of her hair between her fingers, at the back of her head, and was tugging at it, without seeming to know what she was doing, as if she’d have liked to tear it from her scalp.

  “M’riss? Doesn’t that hurt, for God’s sake?”

  Merissa, embarrassed, relaxed her fingers.

  Now her scalp hurt—hurt like hell—but a moment before, she hadn’t seemed to feel a thing.

  11.

  “MAKING THINGS RIGHT”

  Kiss and make well. Kissie-kiss!

  Which was what Daddy had said. The last time Daddy had really taken notice of his daughter.

  Because she’d fallen and struck her head. Because her “perfect” face had been injured, and Daddy had been shocked and concerned.

  Exactly the way the owner of a beautiful Thoroughbred filly would feel if she’d fallen and injured herself on the track.

  Each night in the secrecy of her room before she went to bed—at about eleven p.m.—Merissa took up the little nail scissors and drew the sharp points along her skin, which was sensitive and seemed to come alive at the touch of the scissors’ tips, alive with a kind of anticipatory excitement.

  The cuts were made carefully—not deep, but shallow—like handwriting in her flesh. She admired her handiwork. Took pictures on her cell phone.

  On her computer, the pictures shimmered with a fantastical sort of beauty.

  No one to send them to except Tink.

  Tink, I want to be with you. Tink, please give a sign.

  But there was just silence from Tink now. For quite a while now—silence.

  Tink! Help me.

  There is no one but you to help me.

  Quickly then Merissa soaked up the blood in tissues, to be flushed down the toilet; she covered the secret wounds with Band-Aids so that her pajamas wouldn’t get stained.

  Sometimes, in the night, one of the cuts would begin to throb with a stinging pain, and Merissa would scratch at it and pull off the Band-Aid—“Oh! Damn.” She had a dread of bloodstains on her sheets, which her mother might notice.

  Soon she’d exchanged the little scissors for a small but razor-sharp paring knife from the kitchen. This was a stainless-steel knife with a chic wooden handle, one of a dozen matched knives, clearly expensive.

  Essential to cut carefully, like a kind of kiss. As if a creature with a rough mouth but sharp teeth were kissing her. Kiss and make well. Kiss-kiss.

  She was tattooing a secret language in her flesh. An elaborate pattern of cuts on her small, hard, waxen-pale breasts, midriff, stomach, lower belly where fuzzy hairs were sprouting. And on the soft insides of her thighs.

  A complicated code, executed over a period of weeks.

  “Oh! Oh.”

  In the mirror, a dozen thin little curving cuts, some of which could be induced to bleed again, if Merissa scratched at them.

  Such a strange—unexpected—sensation of relief. As soon as the blood appeared in tiny droplets, Merissa shivered, and smiled.

  This is punishment. You deserve it.

  This makes things right.

  It was the first time in her life that something made sense, Merissa thought. And no one could tell her—she’d figured it out for herself.

  12.

  “GUESS I’M NOT ELIZABETH BENNET”

  “Merissa, are you sure?”

  “Yes, Mr. Trocchi. I—I think I’m sure.”

  Here was a surprise: Merissa Carmichael, who’d auditioned so vivaciously for the coveted role of Elizabeth Bennet in the stage adaptation of Jane Austen’ s Pride and Prejudice, and who’d been chosen by the drama instructor over the more experienced Brooke Kramer, was having second thoughts about continuing with the play.

  All the cast was astounded. And Mr. Trocchi was astounded.

  “We’ve only just begun rehearsals, Merissa! No one knows their lines yet—it’s natural for even professional actors to flounder about a little, to grope and find their way in the rehearsal process. You can’t expect to be Elizabeth Bennet; you have to learn how to act Elizabeth Bennet.” Mr. Trocchi was a short, broad-shouldered man of middle age, rumored to have once been an actor in off-off-Broadway productions; he was one of the more popular Quaker Heights teachers, with an urgent and intense way of speaking. He’d chosen Merissa to perform in several plays since ninth grade, but always in supporting or minor roles; Elizabeth Bennet was to have been her breakthrough role.

  “I—I was thinking, Mr. Trocchi. You should have chosen Brooke. Brooke can act.”

  “Merissa, rehearsals are a learning process. You’re a student—a young actor—you must learn to act.”

  Merissa hadn’t thought of this. She had supposed that either you could act—or you could not.

  And Merissa hadn’t been prepared for disliking the play.

  Elizabeth Bennet was a young woman of twenty-one who was very clever, and very beautiful and proud—but Merissa was surprised that Elizabeth Bennet was so uncritical in her thinking. Pride and Prejudice was a classic of English literature, but it was essentially just a romance—witty, comedic—with sympathetic characters not so very different from those on superior TV comedies. Merissa couldn’t respect Elizabeth Bennet as she was supposed to.

  “Austen’s novels are comedies of manners—brilliant social satires. The author uses the convention of romance to reveal truths of her era—the relationships between men and women, and between the generations.” Mr. Trocchi sounded as if he’d memorized a passage from the internet on Jane Austen.

  Merissa objected, “But what else is Pride and Prejudice about, except romance? Just unmarried women desperate to get married, to men who have
money. That is, ‘gentlemen.’ Because these ‘gentlemen’ don’t work—that would be beneath them. Only their servants work. The play is witty and funny, but it’s all kind of silly, who marries who. I think it’s depressing.”

  “Depressing! No one has ever said that Jane Austen is depressing, I’m sure.”

  Mr. Trocchi stroked his mustache gravely. His thinning hair and his mustache were a faint coppery hue, which looked too young for his lined, heavy face. He was staring at Merissa as if he’d never really seen her before and wasn’t sure he liked what he saw.

  Merissa said, “Well, isn’t it depressing if all a woman can hope for is to get married? To someone with money? In those days, a woman couldn’t work except as a servant or a governess—a ‘good’ woman, that is. Women were all trapped.”

  Mr. Trocchi laughed dismissively.

  “You don’t think that Mr. Darcy is a ‘good catch’ for Elizabeth Bennet? You don’t think that female readers, reading Pride and Prejudice, would love to be in her place?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t care what other people think.”

  “But you’ll be married, Merissa—don’t worry. You might not think so now, but you will be.”

  Other cast members, standing about with scripts in hand, heard this exchange and laughed.

  It was hard for Merissa not to think that they were laughing at her.

  “Here, Mr. Trocchi. Brooke will be much better than I could ever be.”

  Merissa handed the drama teacher her script. Mr. Trocchi was too surprised not to take it from her.

  “But Merissa—why don’t you think this over? Tonight? And in the morning come and see me, and we’ll make a decision then? All right?”

  Merissa was thinking, Oh, stop! Stop pretending! You know you’re relieved that I’m quitting. You can’t wait to call Brooke and ask her to take over the role.

  “I’m not going to change my mind, Mr. Trocchi. I owe it to the cast, and to you, and to Brooke, to quit. I guess I’m not Elizabeth Bennet after all. So good-bye.”

  A rush of euphoria came over her, how disappointed Daddy would be.

  At least, Merissa thought so. If she troubled to tell him.

  It was easy, Tink. You’d understand.

  Like grasping a razor between your fingers firmly.

  And bringing it down on your skin, and in, cutting.

  And when the pain starts, not letting go.

  13.

  “NBD”

  Strange. How easy.

  Quitting the play, which had meant so much to her.

  And by quitting, erasing its significance.

  So that what had once meant too much, now meant nothing.

  And so it happened more frequently; the stresses of her senior year at Quaker Heights no longer had the power to distract her.

  Grades, tests, weekend parties, and the spillover talk in the wake of parties—rumors of crude, cruel text messages sent and copied dozens of times—nothing to do with her.

  Now it was Merissa who ignored Shaun Ryan—coolly smiling at him on the sidewalk behind school but not pausing as she passed him, though Shaun hesitated as if hoping to walk with her.

  “M’rissa? Hi . . .”

  “Oh, hi, Shaun. Nice to see you.”

  How easy this was! And not a backward glance to see Shaun staring after her, perplexed and hurt.

  See, I don’t need you. Any of you.

  For the first time in her life, Merissa didn’t hand a paper in on time—what an exquisite sensation!

  Better, even, than cutting herself. Because so public.

  The look on Mrs. Conway’s face—poor Mrs. Conway!

  “Merissa? I don’t see your paper here.”

  Merissa mumbled a vague excuse. Wanting to hide her mouth, which yearned to twitch into a smile.

  Because it isn’t there. Because I didn’t finish the silly assignment on time. Who cares!

  You’d better change your opinion of me—downward.

  And when tests came back—in math, for instance—with disappointing grades, there was Merissa Carmichael doing what others did, crumpling the shameful papers in her fist, shoving them into her backpack unread.

  Just so tired. So bored.

  Field hockey season had ended. Just an average season, though people tried to pretend the team was terrific.

  Next, basketball. But Merissa didn’t show up for first-day practice—she’d been one of the better players, a guard, the previous year.

  Ms. Svala, the girls’ gym instructor, contacted Merissa to ask why, why wasn’t she planning to play basketball this year, which was her senior year, her last year, and the team really needed her.

  Merissa said nobody needed her, that was silly.

  Of course the team needed her! Ms. Svala seemed surprised, and concerned.

  Coolly Merissa said no—that was a misunderstanding.

  The team needed the very best players, yes. But nobody needed her.

  “If I’d never been born, you wouldn’t ‘need’ me—would you? There’re other girls just as good. And they want to be on the team.”

  On the team. How strange this sounded, like a bad joke.

  Ms. Svala had more to say to Merissa, but Merissa just walked away.

  Without a backward glance.

  There came Anita Chang, staring at Merissa.

  Anita, who was/wasn’t a close friend, because you couldn’t trust her—(could you?)—not to talk behind your back.

  Anita, with her flat, round, flawless face, bright black eyes alert with quicksilver intelligence, fun, and malice—came to touch Merissa’s arm in a familiar way that made Merissa stiffen.

  This was weird. Anita Chang seemed sincere.

  “Merissa, what’s this about you quitting the play? Are you serious?”

  Merissa shrugged and drew back from Anita.

  “You can’t quit—your audition was just wonderful, and we all loved you.”

  Anita spoke with such disappointment, Merissa almost regretted her decision.

  (Had she been “wonderful” at the audition? But what had happened in the interim, to so discourage her?)

  “Well—I’ve quit.”

  “So Brooke Kramer will play Elizabeth Bennet? Shit.”

  You had to love Anita sometimes: the way she flared up in defense of her friends and was comically unsubtle in putting down her enemies.

  (Of course, you had to know that Brooke was Anita’s enemy because of a senior boy named Kevin Drake. If you knew this, Anita’s ferocity made complete sense.)

  “Brooke is a bitch. Know what she’s going around saying?”

  Merissa didn’t know. Nor did she care.

  “She’s saying, ‘Merissa Carmichael has stage fright. She’s quit the play and says that I can act better than she can—and she’s right.’”

  Merissa felt a jab of annoyance, but only laughed.

  “You think that’s funny? That bitch is lying about my girlfriend?”

  Anita’s nostrils flared in indignation. Anita had more to say, but Merissa slammed her locker door and turned to depart.

  Anita dared to call after her, “Tink wouldn’t like it, M’riss—her girlfriend quitting so that that bitch can be a star!”

  This hurt. This was true Anita Chang style—a stab in the back when you turned your back.

  Merissa wanted to say, You have no right to speak for Tink. You don’t know a damn thing about Tink, but she continued walking away without a backward glance, leaving Anita to stare after her.

  Brooke can think what she thinks. Say what she says. Why should I care?

  Strange how you can lose interest in your friends.

  You still like them—“love” them—but just don’t want to see them.

  Merissa had to wonder if Tink had felt that way. Just didn’t want to see her friends anymore.

  Not minding that she was leaving them and would not ever see them again.

  She’d said to Merissa hesitantly, “Maybe—I have a favor to ask you, M’riss.?
??

  Merissa had said, sure. What was it?

  And a funny look came into Tink’s face—wistful, regretful. But stubborn, too.

  “Maybe—I’ll ask you some other time.”

  Merissa had said, why not now?

  But of course, being Tink, she didn’t explain. It was like Tink to tantalize you with some hinted-at confidence—then draw back, as if she’d thought better of it.

  Well, Tink had been acting weird around that time. Or, you might say, weirder than usual for Tink.

  With no warning, she’d shaved her head. Totally bored with her hair (she’d said) and so one day she cut most of it off with a scissors, after which—(this was Tink’s gleeful account)—poor Big Moms had had to take her to an emergency session with a hairstylist for damage control.

  Now she seemed embarrassed to have brought up the subject of a favor.

  “No big deal, M’rissa. Some other time.”

  But that was the last time: June 8, 2011.

  Merissa never saw Tink again: Three days later, Tink was d**d.

  It was something to do with—what she did.

  Something to do with what caused her to do it.

  And now I will never know.

  To each of her closest friends, Tink had sent a single, final text message at 10:08 p.m. on June 10.

  These were: Merissa, Chloe, Hannah, Nadia.

  If they hadn’t known how special they were to Tink, they would know now. But it was a painful specialness of which they could not speak to outsiders.

  HEY GUYS, GUESS I WON’T BE SEEING YOU FOR A WHILE.

  LOVE YOU GUYS BUT FEELING KINDA BURNT OUT. NBD.

  TINK

  Not seeing friends you’d been seeing almost every day for almost all your life that matters is like not breathing.

  Except you can’t live without breathing. But you can live without your friends.

  Merissa was letting her cell phone burn out. Forgot to charge it.