LAST WEEK’S FLUFFY snow has turned to glass. Running, I slipped several times. Thank God there was no one around to see me looking like all three of the Stooges.
The loop around the park is four miles. When we were little, Vern and I used to sled on the hill by the playground. I rode on the back. “You on?” he’d ask every time.
I’d squeeze him tight.
I remember one winter, Mom took us ice skating. I was surprised she had her own skates. Then, while Vern and I stumbled and clutched each other, Mom took off across the ice: gliding, spinning, and jumping. She was so amazing. “Wow, I didn’t think I could still do that,” she said. But I felt angry, because there was something I didn’t know, a life she’d lived before. That was when we were still close.
“You’re fantastic,” Vern complimented her.
“Thank you.” Mom smiled.
I looked away. I didn’t say anything.
I’ve often wondered if it was me that made her crazy. My being difficult or... something. But no, it’s “brain chemistry.” And a pill will make her normal again?
I haven’t gotten to visit her yet. On the phone, she sounded flat and tired. She kept repeating over and over, “I’m okay,” like she was trying to convince me, or maybe herself.
I’ve got to stop obsessing. Just step into the shower and wash it all away. Focus on the positive. The present. Seven forty-five and I’ve jogged and finished my paper on Slaughterhouse-Five.
Great book. The main character, Billy Pilgrim, travels to another planet. Aliens capture him and keep him in a zoo. Vonnegut’s aliens are called Tralfamadorians. Instead of the usual literary analysis, I created my own aliens. They have eyes in their chests, and mouths on their butts. Their many hands come out of the tops of their heads, like Medusa’s snakes.
When they comment on our planet, they giggle with sour mirth. The Bush Presidency, they might say. Ha ha ha. Congressional integrity. Ha ha ha. Social justice. Ha... laughing so hard that they finally have to sit down to cover their mouths. I hope Bernstein doesn’t mind my weird approach. He told us to “be creative.”
The house is freezing.
Focus on the positive. In fifteen minutes, my boyfriend (!) is taking me out for coffee, then to school.
In English, Bernstein said that Americans operate on a “carrot on a stick” mentality, chasing one desire, then another. He was no longer talking about Slaughterhouse-Five, but the next book we have to read: Siddhartha, about the life of Buddha.
As for my own carrot, I still want Roger. It’s just that there are days when the idea of going out with him makes me tired. He wants to drive around in his unheated truck, park, and octopus (my new verb). It takes a lot of effort to keep my clothes on. The only time I get a break is when his cell phone rings. And he always answers it!
Also, I feel unsettled when I’m with him, the way I do with Mom, when I’m not sure if she’s going to sit down for dinner or knock all the dishes off the table.
He wants control over me. Is that love? Was my dad like that with my mom?
Maybe relationships are like going on a cruise: glamorous at first, but then a tad claustrophobic.
It was different with Vern. We went to restaurants, to movies and concerts, to the beach. We could talk nonstop or be quiet, and it would be comfortable.
But he wasn’t my boyfriend. Maybe he and Cassie just make out too. Hard to imagine Vern not being bored by that.
Every time I see Vern, I feel guilty. Roger made such a big deal about my friendship with Vern that I’ve drifted away.
I throw on my jeans and the blue sweater I found at Salvation Army, then my best score, a pair of beatup, used-to-be-beige Uggs. A size too big, but they’re Uggs!
Deep breath. Check the mirror. My roots are majorly showing now. Dark circles under my eyes. Some cheekbone action. Jeans loose. But I don’t look thin. With this round face, I never will.
I’d better see if he’s here. Roger hates to wait.
In the kitchen, Selfish winds himself around my legs. He has a sixth sense for when I feel upset. “Hungry?”
He purrs. The house is so silent. I miss my mom. Who would have thought?
I give him an extra large scoop of cat food. “Sorry, I don’t have the canned.” They don’t let you buy pet food with food stamps.
Selfish sniffs the dry food and walks away, his tail up, which is his way of telling me off.
Now it’s eight o’clock. If Roger doesn’t come soon, we’ll have to skip Starbucks. I even scraped up change for a coffee. But I should always remember the “Roger Factor,” meaning, he’s always late.
I grab my backpack and the goodies I baked and head outside, as if that will make him come sooner.
He could use his cell phone to call; it rings enough when we’re together. Wow, I’m madder than I thought.
February is the most depressing month. Winter feels like a terminal illness. The conversation in the halls is about colleges and more colleges. Bernstein says I’d better apply and should major in English. He might as well tell me to go to Tralfamadore.
Roger drives up and honks his horn, even though I’m standing right here. I can tell he’s in a bad mood, because he doesn’t look at me or say hi as I get into the car.
“I made you butterscotch melts.” I set them on the seat between us. “I was so busy with my paper last night, I almost burned them, but I think they’re okay.”
He accelerates, staring at the road in front of him.
“I love working with butterscotch. It’s like toffee, except you add lemon. You can’t taste the lemon, but it’s there. So many foods were invented during hard times. Like toffee was invented in England when molasses was cheap. Divinity fudge was invented during the war when sugar was scarce and corn syrup was substituted. It’s kind of out of fashion now.”
“And the point is?” His voice is hard.
“N-nothing. It’s just... something to talk about.”
“Why does food interest you so much, anyway? You never eat. Or are you one of those girls who eats when no one’s looking, then throws up?”
“I eat,” I say defensively, but right now I do feel like throwing up. “Are you mad at me or something?”
“No.”
“I don’t get why you’re being so—”
“Can’t you take a joke?”
Not when the joke is at my expense.
Roger takes a sharp left, away from the school.
“Where are you going?”
“Starbucks.”
“But we’re already late. I’m going to miss my math test.”
“I’ll go to drive through.”
“We’ll get detention.”
“Coach Collins never makes me serve detention.”
“I don’t have Coach Collins.”
“We’re here, so we might as well order. Do you want anything?”
“Coffee. Black.”
“One diet coffee, tall,” he calls into the speaker, “and a mocha latte.”
“A diet coffee?” The voice has an accent. “What is a diet coffee?”
“Black!” He pulls forward to the window. “These people should learn to speak English.”
“Yours is a dollar sixty.” He holds out his hand. “In my dad’s day, coffee was ten cents and you got unlimited refills.”
“Yeah, but it tasted like dishwater.” I give him the money.
“Here. Careful, it’s hot.” He says it gently, like he likes me again. “So, where were you last night? I called and you didn’t answer.”
“I was home. When did you call?”
“A bunch of times, around seven or eight.”
“No one called.”
“It just rang and rang.”
“I was right there, doing my homework.”
“Maybe the phone was off the hook.”
“The phone wasn’t off the hook. I had other calls.” Fern wanting me to go take drugs somewhere, and my mom sounding drugged.
“I don’t need to be interrogated.”
“I’m not interrogating. I just don’t get it. I was home all night, working on my paper on Slaughterhouse-Five.”
“Did you finish it?”
“Good book?”
He sounds pleasant all of a sudden, which really throws me off. “Yeah, it’s amazing. Every time someone dies in the book, Vonnegut writes, So it goes, to heighten the sense of, you know, absurdity. But I made it more difficult for myself by writing it from the point of view of an alien.”
“That sounds lame.”
I shrug. “So far, I’ve gotten an A on everything in Bernstein’s class. He thinks I should be a writer.”
“He’s a closet faggot.”
“Bernstein?”
“Yeah, Bernstein.”
“So?”
“So, nothing. I don’t care. I transferred out of there as fast as I could.”
“Is something wrong?”
He looks over at me. “No. Why do you always ask that?”
“I’ve never asked that.”
“Yeah. You have. You always think something is wrong.”
“You just... seem in a bad mood.”
“Girls are always so sweet when you first go out, then they get demanding.”
The comment is so unfair that I don’t even answer. He pulls into his parking space. I can’t believe I actually used to watch his stupid space. I get out and walk ahead of him.
“Hey,” he calls. “Wait up.”
“What?”
“Don’t you think a boyfriend and girlfriend should walk into school together?” He puts his arm around me.
“I guess.”
“So, whatever happened with that job at CVS?”
“I told you. When I called to reschedule, she said that if I couldn’t make the interview, she had others who could.” My voice comes out mad.
“Don’t get a job. I want you to have time for me. You look so pretty today.”
Find a new line, I want to say.