"Johanna, I know exactly how you feel." I looked over at Jackie, my eyes focusing on her mouth, which had uttered those magic words.
Lynne adjusted the strap of her too-tight black tank top, then slugged back another gulp of what seemed like her tenth cup of coffee. "I feel that way all the time about my parents."
"You do?" I sniffled, trying to suck it up and not make a scene here in Ann Arbor, the home of the University of Michigan and the mecca of the hip and well-read.
With Paul working almost all the time, I was at loose ends. At Kara's graduation party I overheard Kara, Lynne, and Jackie talking about a road trip to Ann Arbor. Just like I did that day in the car with Paul, I summoned up my courage and prepared for rejection when I asked if I could join them. To my surprise, they seemed happy to have me come along.
"Lynne, what about you?" I asked. Lynne looked up, her blue eyes shining brighter than her perfect smile.
"My parents think they're flawless. I think that is the saddest and the worst part of it." Lynne answered, almost in a whisper. I could barely hear her with the alt rock blaring over the speakers and the muddled conversations of "tramps like us" who had jammed into Starbucks.
"Mine, too, although they have a perfect system," I added. The complaints departed from my mouth with surprising ease. "My father was a marine, so my house is very rigidly organized. It's like on TV. You know how they talk about good cop, bad cop. My house is more like evil genius general, bad bitch lieutenant."
"That's funny," Kara said.
"No, that's screwed up," Jackie said.
"That's my life." I rolled my eyes for emphasis. "They just won't let go."
"I wonder if graduating is going to change that?" Lynne asked no one in particular.
"God, I thought I was the only one." I almost shouted the words; sharing the pain of my parents made me ecstatic. I had been telling them about my mother's once-a-week rule and all the other roadblocks thrown on my path to Paul.
"My mom has two faces." Jackie was on a roll as she pulled out a clove cigarette from her purse, bouncing it on the table to the rhythm of her speech. "She's like always telling me to stand up for myself, be strong. Be strong, she says, except when it comes to obeying her. She's always yelling at me for stuff, and then if I talk back, she just yells louder."
Jackie was living my life. We had been in the same school for three years on opposite sides of the social spectrum, yet we still occupied the same emotional space. Mr. Edwards would tell me the laws of physics wouldn't allow it, but Jackie and I were living parallel lives.
"At least she just yells," Lynne said in a tone as cold as the ice coffee I had been sipping for the past hour. "My mom never yelled; she just used to hit."
"Lynne, I'm so sorry." It was all I could say. I didn't want to talk about hitting at all. I couldn't talk about it; I had to hear about it.
"Sorry?" Lynne looked at me with surprise. She pushed the blond hair from in front of those baby blues and shook her head. "Johanna, when you say you're sorry, you make it sound like you pity me or like it is my fault. That's wrong on both accounts."
"I was just-—" I started.
"It's not so bad anymore, but every now and then. Every now and then." Lynne had no emotion in her voice whatsoever.
"What did you do?" I asked, needing the answer badly.
"I hope you told them off," Jackie jumped in, ready to take on the world. "Got in her face and told her to knock it off or else."
"You sure can be dumb sometimes," Lynne said, causing laughter all around. She was wrong: I had underestimated Kara and her friends; they were all very smart in ways I only hope to achieve.
"What do you mean?" Kara asked.
"I'm just kidding, Kara, chill," Lynne said. "It is just that there is no or else.' I just told my mom that she wasn't going to hit me again. You gotta take a stand."
I sat back thinking about those words and savored my coffee while the three of them launched into a discussion about their post-high school plans. They chatted about maybe finding second jobs and then getting an apartment together, but it seemed more talk than anything else. Finally Kara drew me back into the conversation.
"So what are you going to do after you graduate? Should we save a room for you?" Kara asked.
"I'll probably go to college," I said, like I was ashamed.
"Johanna, you are still such a bad liar," Kara said, then laughed. "You know you'll go to college, probably a school like Stanford, all expenses paid. I would love something like that."
I laughed and let down my guard. "I don't think I'll be going to Stanford. I want to go to Columbia in New York City."
"Does Paul know that?" Kara asked, raising her eyebrow just like she had seen me do in reaction to one of Paul's bad puns.
"No, I haven't told him," I confessed. "Or my parents. They want me to go to school here. This is hard stuff to figure out, especially since I don't have anyone to talk with about it."
I finally shutup and chewed my thumbnail, washing it down with a big swig of ice-cold coffee. There would be no chance for a refill as they finally turned the lights off on us.
"Johanna, I told Lynne and Jackie that you were the smart one. That was a really dumb thing to say," Kara said softly.
"What did I say?" I asked, the tension in my voice obvious to all.
"You said you didn't have anyone to talk to about this," Kara said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "You have us."
I locked on to those words: "You have us." Then I remembered what Jackie had said earlier in the evening: "I know exactly how you feel." I think I had been waiting my whole life to have friends who would say those things to me. I missed Pam, but this was different. This was belonging to a group and not feeling left out, like Pam and I often did. This feeling of being part of something other than me and Paul was so new to me. My parents always told me that my grades were outstanding, but tonight I didn't feel like I was standing out at all.
The cool of the evening and the coming morning never felt more soothing than when we walked outside. The street, although less crowded, was the same as when we had entered the Starbucks hours ago, but something was different. Looking at my reflection in the Starbucks window, and then looking at Kara, Jackie, and Lynne, it felt like an earthquake rumbled inside of me. I could actually feel my life change; it was a visible shift.