CHAPTER 19
Truth Hurts
The stained vintage Halston dress taunted me from where it hung on a hanger across the room on the door to my closet. We were going to have to send the dress to a specialty cleaner before we returned it to Tessica. A part of me wanted to hide it, but the bigger part of me demanded I let it hang there in full view to remind me of the worst night of my life. Even though what happened to me at the party was nothing compared to the worst night of my mom’s life, it still hurt.
Maybe Mom was right and I wasn’t ready to hear the whole story yet. Feelings I had for what happened to her and feelings about what happened to me mixed and melded until I couldn’t separate them. All I wanted to do was escape into sleep. That was the only place where I could get away from everything that had happened at the party and everything I had learned.
On Monday morning, I couldn’t face going back to school. When Mom came to wake me, I croaked that my throat hurt, and even though I knew she didn’t believe me, she let me be. Maybe it was because this was her first day back at work. She would have to stand for hours on a false leg that didn’t fit perfectly anymore. She wasn’t going back to work because she loved her job—being a retail manager was not her dream. She did it because she had to.
Later that morning I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes, and wondered why she wasn’t at my bedside, lecturing me on finding my strength and following her example of doing what was expected of you no matter what. Maybe she was tired of me. I was certainly tired of myself.
Around eleven o’clock, Dada burst into my room, handed me a smoothie, and said, “Get dressed. We’re going for a run in the park.”
I hadn’t run since the day I’d tripped over the tree root and skinned my knee. Back when I was in GOT training, sometimes I would run through the park with Dada on weekends. I’d listen to music as I ran, but Dada never would. “Shut out the world with headphones? No way, mon. The sounds of the city, the cars honking, buses wheezing, birds chirping—that is music enough for me.”
The banana-strawberry-kale smoothie was incredible. And although I kind of resented being ordered to get up, I knew I’d have to leave my room sooner or later.
We set out for the park. At the corner, I realized I’d forgotten my MP3 player and headphones. “I have to go back. I can’t run without music.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I know I can, Dada, but I don’t want to.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Mango, you’ve never forgotten your music before, have you?”
“No.”
“Well, think about it. Maybe you left it behind for a reason. Maybe you need to experience your run differently today. Maybe—just maybe—you need this time to think about things and see yourself without distractions.”
My Dada could be so … Zen sometimes. His almond eyes regarded me with such love, I had to give in. I shrugged. “Okay. But I have a feeling this is going to be like eating cornflakes without milk.” Dada laughed, and we walked to the park.
It was a perfect day for running. A steady breeze put a chill in the air that complemented the warmth of the sun. The trees were showing off their blossoms, fluffy and colorful. I had barely noticed the wonders of summer, being so wrapped up in rehearsing the play, fake-friending Hailey Joanne, and hiding my feelings for TJ. But even though I was busy with all my personal drama, the world didn’t stop. Flowers bloomed, bees pollinated, and baby birds hatched. Regardless of how down I felt, the world kept moving onward and upward. The realization made me smile. Nothing could stop what was meant to be. The only thing standing in my way was me.
When we had finished running through the park, I was exhausted but feeling good. The dark fog that had overtaken me had lifted, burned off by the sun and blown away on the breeze. As we crossed Martin Luther King Boulevard, Dada held his hand out the way he used to do when I was small. My hand lifted to his automatically. My eyes began to water, and I had to bite my bottom lip to stop it from trembling.
Dada squeezed my hand. “Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Yes. I’m fine. I’m great.”
“Then why are you about to cry?”
“Because you reached for my hand, and I love you so much. You, Mom, Jasper … you didn’t turn your back on me when I messed things up. You loved me anyway.”
“Of course, Mango. Family loves you whether you’re on top of the hill or deep in the valley. Unconditional. That is the only kind of love that counts.”
As we approached a bodega, Dada dug some change out of his sweatpants and bought a newspaper. “When we get home, we can go through this newspaper together, read about all the troubles in the world, and compare them to yours. How do you think you’ll measure up?”
I laughed. “Not at all?”
“That’s right. Not a blip on the radar. That’s a reason to be grateful for life and all the things it brings to you, positive and negative.”
“I’m not grateful for the negative.”
“Why not? Without the bad, you wouldn’t appreciate the good. You’d probably be bored to death. Life without conflict, challenges, or pain is dull, like food with no spice—bland, unsatisfying, a waste for de taste, mon.” He laughed at his silly rhyme, and it was contagious.
By the time we reached home, I had decided that I’d had enough of hiding in my room. I told Dada that I wanted to go to school. I could get there in time for rehearsal. This afternoon we were scheduled to do our first run-through of the entire play, from beginning to end with the full orchestra. It was my responsibility to do what was right and not let the cast, Bob, and Mr. Ramsey down.
I arrived at school just before rehearsal started. My old friend the mango pit was growing in my belly, because I didn’t know how I would react when I saw TJ. What would I tell him about not showing up to sing our duet at the party? Before I could reach the auditorium, Izzy saw me in the hall and pulled me into the girls’ bathroom.
“What happened to you on Saturday? I thought you were going to sing with TJ! I called on Sunday, but your mom said you were sleeping. Somebody said you got sick and had to be taken away in an ambulance. What happened? Was it food poisoning? That’s what some people were saying, but the food was amazing!”
“Then what was it?”
“Never mind. I’m fine now.”
“Are you sure? Why weren’t you in school today?”
“I … uh … Mental-health day, you know …”
“Okay. Helen Keller could see you don’t want to talk about it, and I’m not the kind of friend who pries into people’s business.”
Izzy shrugged. I could tell she was a little peeved that I wouldn’t confide in her, but I just couldn’t. Not right then. I still had to face TJ and, eventually, Hailey Joanne. I didn’t know how I would handle any of that, and I didn’t want to have to talk about it before coming face-to-face with them. I gave Izzy a hug and whispered in her ear, “Thanks for understanding.”
The entire cast and crew were assembled in the auditorium. Bob and Mr. Ramsey sat on the lip of the stage and explained that the first run-through of any show never goes smoothly, and we might not make it through the entire play, but that was to be expected. This is when we would run into all the kinks in cues and blocking and work them out one by one. “So don’t be discouraged or hard on yourselves or each other. This will be a slog, so let’s all do our best, but be prepared for the worst. Okay, places for act one, scene one!”
As I hurried stage right, where I would make my first entrance, TJ ran up behind me. “Hey, um, are you okay? What happened Saturday night?”
I stopped and turned to him but couldn’t lift my eyes from the floor. “Oh, it was nothing. Something I ate, maybe. Can we talk about this later?”
“Sure.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “I was worried about you is all, but if you’re okay, I’m cool.” He took off for stage left, where he would make his first entrance. I wondered if I had just thrown Dada under the bus by saying it was something I ate. Why did I lie? Of course, I couldn’t tell TJ the real reason I ran away, not before I cleared the air with Hailey Joanne.
While I waited for my entrance cue, I took some deep breaths and told myself to calm down and concentrate on the play. I was Juliet, a pop superstar, confident and talented and on the way to the greatest adventure of her life. I realized for the first time that it was nice to have a character to escape into, to hide behind, when things in your real life got tough.
Bob and Mr. Ramsey ended up being right: there were hundreds of kinks to work out, and we had barely made it through the first act before rehearsal was over and we were released. I sort of hung out in a dressing room until almost everyone was gone. I was avoiding walking home with Izzy and the questions she would bring up. And, of course, I didn’t want to see TJ when we were offstage and out of character.
When I thought the coast was clear, I slipped out the backstage exit and walked the long way around the building. Wind pushed heavy, dark clouds slowly across the sky, like whales. I could smell rain in the air and knew I’d have to hurry home if I didn’t want to get drenched.
To my surprise and horror, a familiar black SUV with tinted windows was idling at the curb. The driver’s door opened, and Mr. Versey stepped out. “Good evening, Miss Mango. Miss Hailey Joanne would like to offer you a ride home.” He opened the back door, and there was Hailey Joanne on her cell phone, waving at me to get in.
I wanted to run. Maybe I should have, but I knew I couldn’t avoid this moment for the rest of my life, so I sighed and climbed into the cave-like darkness of the SUV.
As Mr. Versey pulled away from the school and merged into heavy traffic, rain began to fall hard. Hailey Joanne finished an angry conversation that I could tell was with her mother. She clicked off her phone and then reached over and touched my hand tenderly. “Are you all right? What happened to you at the party? I saw you scream and run off. I tried to chase you, but there was no way I could keep up with the six-inch heels I was wearing. What happened? Why did you scream like that?”
I slid my hand from beneath hers and turned to look out the rain-splattered window. What should I say? This was the moment of truth, so to speak. If I made up some excuse, I would have to carry it around and pretend it was the truth forever. That’s a huge burden. Also, I would just be flat-out lying. I had already lied to TJ. It was a little lie, but it was a lie just the same. If I turned to Hailey Joanne and lied now, that would be it—Mango Delight Fuller would be a liar for sure. I might get away with it because no one had any idea what really made me freak out, but I would know the truth, and every time I looked at myself in the mirror, I would be looking into the face of a liar. I couldn’t do that to myself. I had to tell the truth, for me.
Besides, I had grown to like Hailey Joanne for real, and I wanted us to be friends with nothing fake between us. I was faking when Brook first got her phone, pretending I was so happy for her when I really felt envious and afraid. If I’d been honest from the beginning, things might have turned out differently. Maybe if I was completely honest now, there could be a way for us to truly be friends.
It was so hard, but I turned to face Hailey Joanne and said, “I got upset and screamed backstage … because I saw you and TJ kissing.”
Hailey Joanne’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Why would that make you scream? You know I like him. I’ve been telling you about it for weeks. I don’t understand how that would upset you.”
I felt as though I was on the edge of a cliff. Hundreds of feet below me were jagged rocks with waves crashing into them. I couldn’t breathe for a minute, thinking that I had no choice but to tell the truth no matter what happened. Would I splash into the water, or land on the rocks? Either way, I had to jump. “I … like him, too.” There. I had jumped, and I was falling.
Hailey Joanne sat back and looked at me with her head cocked to the side. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you just listen to me go on and on about him? You even encouraged me.”
“I didn’t want to upset you.” I was falling faster and tumbling, my stomach lurching into my throat, but there was no way to stop now. “I was afraid that if you were mad at me, you’d fire my father and find another caterer for your party.”
Hailey Joanne’s lips tightened as she looked down at her freshly manicured fingernails, and then she turned away from me, looking out the window. The whomp whomp of the windshield wipers counted off the long seconds that poured between us like sand filling an hourglass. Car horns were blaring outside the window as we inched forward in traffic. Finally, I said, “I’m sorry.”
Hailey Joanne whirled on me. There were tears in her eyes. “Don’t be. It’s not the first time I’ve been used, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
She was right; I had used her. Even though I thought I had a good reason, was it really an excuse to treat her so badly? How could she ever know who her real friends were when people like me took advantage of her? I felt ugly inside, charred and shriveled like a cigarette smoker’s lung. I said, “I’m really sorry, Hailey—”
She lifted her hand and cut me off. “I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” She shouted, “Versey, stop the car! Mango is getting out here.”
Mr. Versey said, “But, Miss Hailey Joanne, it’s raining mighty hard.”
Hailey Joanne snapped, “Did I ask you for a weather report? Open the door and put her out!”
Mr. Versey made eye contact with me in the rearview mirror for a brief instant and kept on moving forward, inch by inch, in the bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Hailey Joanne screamed, “Versey! Do as I say, or …”
“Or what, Miss Hailey Joanne?”
“I swear I’ll fire you!”
“You go on and do what you have to do, Miss Hailey Joanne, but I’ll put you out in the street before I let this poor child walk all the way home in this storm.”
Hailey Joanne threw a tantrum. You know, the kind little kids have when they scream and bang their fists and kick their feet. I moved as close to the door as I could get to keep out of the way of her flailing limbs.
Finally, when she had worn herself out, she dropped her head onto her knees and sobbed until she fell asleep. It was unbelievable, but by the time Mr. Versey pulled up to my building, she was actually snoring.
Mr. Versey hurried around to the passenger door and opened a huge black umbrella. I looked at Hailey Joanne, and, even though I didn’t think she would hear me over her snoring, I said, “I’m really, truly sorry.”
Mr. Versey escorted me to the entrance of my building. He said, “You did good. She needed to hear the truth.”
I nodded, thanked him for the ride, and went inside.
Riding up on the elevator, I tried hard not to cry. I made myself think about how Dada loved my tomato, arugula, and grilled cheese sandwich. I used cheddar and Swiss cheese—two slices of each with a few leaves of arugula between them. I sliced the tomato very thin and buttered the inside of both pieces of the bread. I spread mayonnaise on the outside (that makes the bread golden brown and gives it the perfect crunch). I put the sandwich in a hot pan and use another pan to smash it down really good and cook both sides until the cheese was melted to the point that it started to squish out from the bread. Delicious! By the time I reached my floor, I had avoided crying, but I still couldn’t get the image of Hailey Joanne’s tantrum out of my head, and the fact that I had caused it made me feel the need to start thinking of another recipe quick.