ALL DAY I WAIT for my mother to call. Nine o’clock, nothing. One o’clock, nothing. Four o’clock, Jane is on her third nap and my dad is out mowing the lawn. I am watching Cupcake Wars and pretending not to listen for the phone.
It’s the final elimination round. The flavors are Chai Spice, Apple Fritter, Mocha Lava, and Peach Bellini. It’s a repeat, and I already know who wins. Apple Fritter. I am just trying to distract myself.
“Hey,” Marnie says, suddenly plopping down next to me with Jane in her lap. “Look who’s up from her nap!”
“Hey,” I say.
“Say hey, Janie. Can you say hey to Anna?”
I can’t deal with them right now. If Marnie strips off her shirt and starts nursing, I will seriously leave this couch.
“We love Cupcake Wars,” Marnie says, kissing the top of Jane’s head. “Don’t we, baby?”
It’s all I can do not to snort. “I thought you didn’t eat sugar.”
“I try not to eat refined sugar, but there are lots of ways to bake without it. Applesauce, coconut cream, even roasted vegetables … they can all be used as sweeteners.”
“Oh, God,” I mutter. “Kale cupcakes.” I grab the remote and turn up the volume, hoping Marnie will take the hint.
She does, at least until the commercial. Then she says, “Hey. Don’t you have a party to get ready for?”
I shrug.
“No?”
“I can’t go.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have anything to wear.” This is BS, of course. Regina has been back to the house twice to pack up clothes for me. Twice, she has dropped duffel bags on my father’s porch so I would have everything I need. Marnie knows this, but she doesn’t call me on it.
“Come with me,” she says, standing up and propping Jane on her hip.
“Where?”
“Just come.”
I follow her upstairs and into the master bedroom. Marnie has an outfit for every occasion, it seems. Her side of the closet is packed, and she keeps pulling out random things. A feather boa. Leather chaps. An old-fashioned nurse’s cap. A nun’s habit.
“Okay,” Marnie says. “Do you want to be Mae West? Annie Oakley? Florence Nightingale, or … Mother Teresa?”
I stare at her.
“Women’s studies minor,” she says, by way of explanation. She holds up a tennis dress. “Billie Jean King?”
I stare at the pile in her arms.
“Frat parties,” she says. “We dressed up for everything.”
I point to the cone-shaped bra in her hand. “What was that for?”
“Madonna party. Want to try it on?”
“God, no.”
She laughs.
Marnie is very good at clothes. I’ll bet she had a million Barbies growing up and each one had her own closet.
“Oh my God!” Marnie suddenly exclaims. “Yes!” She pulls out a small, brimless hat with a chinstrap. She pulls out a garment bag. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”
“What?” I say.
“Jackie O!” She turns to Jane, who has been sitting in her bouncy seat this whole time, gumming her fist. “Right, Janie? Is Jackie O not perfection?”
“Jackie O,” I repeat.
“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis,” Marnie says reverently. “She wasn’t just a Kennedy, she was a fashion icon.”
“And she wore that silly hat?”
“This silly hat,” Marnie says, “is a pillbox. It is one of the lasting images of the 1960s.” She perches the thing on her head and checks herself out in the mirror. “I had a great time in this hat.”
“At what?” I say. “A 1960s party?”
“A mile-high party.”
“What’s a mile-high party?”
“Never mind that,” Marnie says. “Let’s just say that the Theta Chis dressed as pilots and the Tri Delts dressed as sixties flight attendants.”
“Oh.”
Marnie turns to Jane again. “Service with a smile, mile after mile, right, sweetie pie?”
Jane gurgles.
I’m confused. “Jackie O was a flight attendant?”
“No,” Marnie says, tossing everything on the bed. “But the hat works … Okay.” She claps her hands. “First things first. The coif. Have you ever blown your hair straight?”
I shake my head.
“Ohhh. This is gonna be fun.”
Moments later, I find myself on a swivel chair and Marnie is going to town on me. Squirt bottle, hair dryer, straightening balm. At one point Jane starts to squawk, so Marnie scoops her out of the bouncy seat and sets her in my lap. “Hang there, sweet girl. We’re doing your sister’s hair.”
Your sister’s hair. I don’t know why the words make the breath catch in my throat. I know, technically, that Jane and I are sisters. But hearing Marnie say it feels … I don’t know … real.
“See, Janie?” Marnie says. “We use the round brush. Someday, when you have hair, we’ll use the round brush on you.”
I look down at Jane’s head. Nothing but fuzz there, really. But so soft. I touch it a few times while Marnie works.
“Ta-da!” she says finally, whirling the chair around so I face the dresser mirror.
“Wow,” I say quietly.
“See?” Marnie says. She holds a hand mirror behind my head so I can get the full effect. There is not a frizz to be found. My hair is a clean, smooth sheet, swept to one side and flipped up at the ends.
“Just wait,” Marnie says. “This is only phase one.” She reaches into a dresser drawer and pulls out a shiny black case. “Now we even out your complexion.”
She tells me to close my eyes.
I do.
She dabs a wedge-shaped sponge all over my face. Dab, dab, dab. Dab, dab, dab. Then she fluffs everything with a big feathery brush. “Translucent powder,” she explains, “to set our canvas … Okay, you can open.”
I open.
Marnie takes a step back, squinting at me. “Good. We’re going for the doe-eyed look. Minimalist.”
Jane wiggles in my lap. She reaches out her arms for Marnie.
“Not yet, sweetie pie. Still working here.”
Jane whimpers, but when I lift my hand to stroke her cheek she grabs hold of my finger and starts gumming away on it.
Marnie laughs. “You’re her teething biscuit.”
It is kind of gross, having someone slime all over your hand, but Jane seems happy so I don’t stop her.
“Close again,” Marnie says. “And relax. This part will take awhile.”
I close my eyes, sit back in the chair while Marnie “preps” my eyelids. She explains each step to me. Concealer. Primer. Matte shadow: light for the lid, dark for the crease. She is onto the liquid liner when the phone rings.
“Keep your eyes closed,” Marnie says. “I don’t want anything to smudge.”
I hear her walk across the room, pick up the phone. “Collette residence. Marnie speaking.”
Silence.
Then, “Oh, of course. She’s right here … Anna?… It’s your mom.”
My eyes fly open.
Marnie is touching my shoulder, handing me the phone. “We’ll give you some privacy,” she whispers, lifting Jane off my lap, walking across the room, and closing the door behind her.
“Mom?” I say.
“Anna?”
“I thought you’d never call!”
I am so happy to hear her voice, but as soon as she hears mine she starts to cry, and once she starts she can’t stop. “I’m sorry,” she moans, over and over until I can’t stand it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Mom.” My chest tightens. “Mom, it’s okay. Mom. Stop.”
But she doesn’t stop.
I want to say, I know you’re sad, but please, Mom, don’t try swallowing a bottle of Advil again. Because if you try it again, next time it might work.
“Mom?… Mommy?”
Regina gets on the phone, acting like it’s no big deal. Like my mother sobbing in the background is nothing. “What’s on tap for the weekend, Anna?” she booms. “Got any big plans?”
I start to tell her about Sarabeth’s party, but I can’t. “I thought she was better,” I say, trying not to cry. “Why did they let her leave the hospital if she’s not better?”
Regina doesn’t talk for a moment, which is rare.
“It’s complicated, honey,” she says finally. “The new medicine doesn’t kick in right away. It needs time to work … Think of it like a pair of glasses. Bipolar distorts the way your mom sees things … Does that make sense?”
“No.”
“The right medication, like the right pair of glasses, can make her see clearly. It just takes time to find the perfect lenses. For your mom, it may take weeks. Even months.”
“Months?” I choke, feeling the tears build up behind my eyeballs. “I have to stay here for months?”
“Honey. The doctors think—”
“But my mom has primary custody. I’m supposed to be with her. That was the agreement!”
“I know it was,” Regina says calmly. “But these are extenuating circumstances. Your mom needs you to be strong right now. She’s not going to get better if she’s worrying about you. Can you do that, Anna? Can you take one for the team?”
I swallow. Say yes. Hang up.
Then I curl myself into a ball on my father’s bed, bury my face in Marnie’s feather boa, and dissolve.
At some point, Marnie knocks on the door. She asks if I’m okay.
“No,” I tell her.
“Do you want me to come in?” she says.
“No.”
“Do you want me to get your dad?”
“Definitely not.”
* * *
By the time I come downstairs, it’s six fifteen. I walk into the kitchen, where Jane is sitting in her high chair and my dad is spooning something into her mouth. As soon as he sees my puffy, miserable face, he stops. He does what I knew he would do: he starts blaming my mother.
He swears. He paces. He threatens to call her up right now and give her a piece of his mind.
“It’s not her fault, Dad,” I finally say, repeating what Regina told me. “She can’t control it.”
“Like hell she can’t,” my father says, reaching for the phone.
“Dad. It’s brain chemistry.” If anyone should understand that, it’s him. Doesn’t he sell pharmaceuticals for a living?
“Really, David,” Marnie says. “What are you going to do? Yell at Frances for being depressed?”
My father looks from me to Marnie and back to me. He slams the phone down and runs his fingers through his hair, hard. I watch as it gets spikier and spikier, and then he growls like some kind of pterodactyl. My dad is growling and Marnie is staring at him like she’s never seen him before in her life.
“David,” she says slowly. “You need to calm down. You’re acting crazy.”
“I’m acting crazy?” he says.
“Yes.”
“I’m acting crazy? Do you know how much crazy I had to put up with, living with that woman? Do you? Fourteen years. Fourteen years of crazy!”
He’s ranting about my mom and I can’t stand it. All I want to do is cover my ears and scream Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! because she is still my mom. He got to trade her in for a new wife, but I can’t trade her in for a new mother. She’s all I have. And she’s sick. And I’m scared. And I feel like, if I’m not careful, the fear could eat me alive.
“Stop,” I whisper, slumping against the wall. “Please stop.”
“David,” Marnie says. Sharply this time. “Take a walk. Cool off. And while you’re at it, pick up some almond milk. We’re running low.”
My dad storms across the kitchen, slams the door behind him.
Marnie takes a deep breath, lets it out. Then she walks over to me. “I’m going to hug you now, okay?”
And I let her. Even though I don’t want her to. Sometimes you just don’t have the energy to argue.
* * *
“One must not let oneself be overwhelmed by sadness.” This is what Marnie tells me on the way to Sarabeth’s party. She is quoting Jackie O. Marnie has been president of the Jackie O fan club for the past hour, ever since she sent my father out to buy almond milk and led me back to their bedroom to fix my makeup.
Jackie O is class.
Jackie O is poise.
Jackie O is dignity.
“Harness her spirit,” Marnie says now, as we sit in her VW Bug outside Sarabeth’s house. I am in the back, next to Jane. The sky is dark, but I am wearing Jackie O’s signature sunglasses to cover my bloodshot eyes. “She never let the dreariness of life drag her down,” Marnie proclaims.
I’m not Jackie O! I want to shout. I’m a thirteen-year-old girl with a suicidal mother, you idiot! Don’t diminish my feelings! Marnie is so wrapped up in the pillbox hat she is missing everything.
“Hey,” Marnie says softly, turning around to look at me.
“What?”
“I want you to have fun tonight.”
“I don’t know if I can.” My voice cracks as I say the words. And Marnie hears the crack, and I know she is trying to think of the right thing to say. But there is no right thing.
I get out of the car before she can even try.