And Then Things Fall Apart (8 page)

“Twenty he can't do it,” and on and on until three tables of jocks were gathered around Matt's lunch table clutching money in their hands like strung-out poker addicts.

Matt waited. He eyed the glass. He took a spoon. And stirred. He stood and, holding the glass aloft so light from the windows played upon the vile slop within, he held it to his mouth and drank it down in six giant gulps. He kissed two of his fingers and pointed to God. We had different lunch periods, but I have heard the story so many times I could make a YouTube video of it using sock puppets and a Barbie doll.

Because I wasn't there and didn't actually witness it, Matt's lunchtime exploits came to me through the awestruck whispers of other students. He was a celebrity. A legend. A mythical creature with ingestion skills of epic proportions. Already popular, Matt became the one person everyone was interested in. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors, even
seniors were fascinated with what was in his glass, and The Swallowing became an event. And it was awesome. And it made me think Matt was fearless and smart and totally antiestablishment, and I loved it.

Every Friday, Matt drank whatever was put before him. People started to bring in things from home: soy sauce, Tabasco, hummus. The base was always milk, and bets started at five bucks. He was saving up for a laptop, so it wasn't all pointless, but he could have paid for his first year at U of I if the principal hadn't heard about the wagering and shut down the whole operation. It was amazing, being the girlfriend of the boy who would drink anything. It made him, and me by association, famous. And being famous was something I liked. Being known. Significant. Walking to my locker while girls looked away, suddenly bashful in the presence of a fascinating enigma: me.

I had never had a boyfriend before Matt, really. I'd had friends. That were boys. Oh, I'd gone on dates to dances, Sno-Ball, Valentine's, Sock-Hop, et al, just like Sylvia and Esther and Buddy and their ilk went to Yale proms, senior formals, debutante balls, etc.

There are a lot of schools in our suburb. There's our high school and the all girl's Catholic college prep school and the boys-only quasi-military academy and two junior highs, all within the same zip code. Nicola and I were friends with all types of kids in the neighborhood, and in eighth grade got
asked to tons of school dances by all the guys we knew. “No strings, Keek. Promise,” they'd say.

The thing about dances is that there are rules. You wear a dress. The boy wears a suit. The boy, bearing a corsage in a plastic container like a pet hamster in an exercise ball, picks you up at your house. Pictures are taken. A curfew is mentioned. Your parents know who, what, where, when, and why, especially in eighth grade, when parents are the ones who have to drive you there and pick you up.

You dance to a DJ, and sometimes it's in a big group and fun, like the Hokey Pokey but with more touching. And punk rock. The gym is always decorated with crepe paper and balloons, or the colonnade room is decorated with Christmas lights and tulle. You drink punch. If you are me, you desperately try to make small talk while slow dancing, pretending you are an extra on a rerun of
The Love Boat
because you no-freaking-way want this nice boy to think you have the hots for him just because you wanted to go to a dance. All you want is to have fun without having to get attached and emotional about some boy you learned how to write cursive with in the third grade. When you get home, you put the corsage in the refrigerator. Just in case you want to wear it the next day. And then Nic comes over in the morning and you rehash the whole night over organic pancakes and Earl Grey tea.

Sure, I kissed a few of them. Only one with tongue—not
because I wanted to, but I had to thrust back with my own to keep his the hell out. It was like an alien probe, for real. He was new at it—and bad at it. I know just how bad because Matt is superior. Matt knows what the hell he is doing, could teach a class at The Learning Annex on how to make a girl's knees buckle without even trying.

So not only was Matt my capital-B Boyfriend, but I was into being his and his being mine. Proud of it. Out of all the people in the world, or at least our high school, we found each other.

“Karina,” he said right after our very first kiss, “I've never met a girl like you before.” And when I'm with him, I feel unique and extraordinary, and I love surprising him by being myself.

At first I assumed he was exactly like the thousands of other Jocks I Have Known. But once I got to know him better, I realized that what I saw was the tip of the freaking iceberg. Brave, funny, a little cynical, into art. Matt is his own person, an individual. When he was in the hospital for kidney stones, I brought him a sea monkey kit to keep him occupied, and he thought it was as hilarious as I did.

I wanted the universe to know of our love, that we were thiscloseto doing it so watch and be in awe, because no one has ever been us or felt like us. We roamed the halls together like feral wolves. Standing in the hallway between the cafeteria and the gym, Matt would press my body against his by holding on to the thick strap on my book bag. Then his
other hand would be heavy on my neck, fingers entwined in my hair. And we'd kiss like ravenous blind people, trying to see from our throats. Our bodies radiated heat as we walked from our lockers to the parking lot.

When we were together, we were all that mattered. When the bell rang, we'd go to our separate classes and I'd write my name and his inside hearts like a unicorn-loving idiot. I swear. I couldn't help it. Just thinking of his hands around my waist made me have to put my head on my desk to catch my breath. I felt all the time like Esther, while skiing downhill for the very first time, thinking that she was the happiest she had ever been. Just before she broke her leg.

This was right before the black hair, before the pink hair, before Amanda and the freezer, graffiti tights, keyboarding class, the pox. Before this disastrous summer. Nic and I were still talking every day, still laughing when I would call her name down the hall like the yodelers in that Ricola cough drop commercial, “Neeeee-co-laaaah.”

I'll always remember those last days when my life was airy and exciting and I was the most famous girl in school who got to eat free food at the Dine & Dash with the coolest, most accomplished wrestler on the team, a boy whose every motion in life was part of a larger effort to get me into his beautiful bed. Before Dad moved out. Before Mom started meditating herself to sleep every night. Before now.

You know the saying “It's darkest before the dawn,”
right? Well, for me it was as bright as the freaking sun before the meteor hit.

I was ablaze with happiness.

And then things fell apart.

When I had the mumps back in February, they weren't as bad as the chicken pox. Ah. The mumps. The temporarily disfiguring childhood illness mocked in Three Stooges movies. I got them right around when Matt figured out exactly how far I would let his hand down my pants or into my bra before I jumped up in terror of my own desire and went home.

It was also the time when my beloved parents went into weekly counseling. They came home late and went to bed early on Wednesday nights while I ate flamin' hot Cheetos and drank Dr Pepper and read and reread and read one more time
The Bell Jar
because it was the only thing that seemed real.

What was so weird about couples therapy (or whatever people are calling it nowadays) was all the sex they were having. Like most normal people, I don't think about my parents', er, lovemaking. As a kid I never walked in on them,
or if I did, I didn't realize it. I had never heard them before, but I did during those months of Wednesday night marriage analysis.

In the eye of the storm that was the breakup of their marriage, they did it all the time. And I could
hear them
. Moaning and thrusting, stifled yelps of laughter and pleasure, mattress squeaking, and all the other ridiculous comedy tropes you can imagine. Was it so wrong of me to think of this as a good sign? They were, after all, together. Making the love. A lot. But perhaps they were making the hate. Saying good-bye the way rabbits make bunnies.

This and all other kinds of heartbreaking and distracting crap was weakening my defenses, making me susceptible to whatever diseases I hadn't had the good fortune to previously contract. Whooping cough, diphtheria, scarlet-freaking-fever. Congratulations, mumps! You made it past the velvet rope of my immune system. School was school. I wasn't doing so hot in math and biology, but was sailing through honors English as usual.

The mumps are
hilarious
. For real. One minute I felt fine, a little giddy and hot to the touch, but not achy or nauseous or in any way bad. I looked good, cheeks flushed like Heidi, as if I'd been foraging for mushrooms in the Alps. But by ten thirty, I started to feel a little weird. Then dizzy. I was in a fantastic mood. Happy for a change, laughing and giggling as I asked the school nurse if I could call home. They didn't
believe that I was sick, but let me use the phone anyway. Good grades do that to a person, make them invincible to school personnel.

As I sat on the couch in the health office waiting for Mom, my neck started to feel tight. It was getting hard to swallow. I lay my head back and tee-heed at the ridiculousness of the nurse phoning in an order for paper cups and memo pads, the Garfield on her
JUST HANG IN THERE
poster leering at me like a bulge-eyed kidney patient awaiting dialysis.

When Mom showed up an hour later (it's hard to just up and leave the D&D during the lunch rush), she took one look at me and started to laugh. She was practically rolling on the floor guffawing and holding her stomach as she led me to the car.

My mom. She's great, but she's also pretty into her own “trajectory.” She has this elaborate theory about her place in the universe and ways to take care of her own “life's purpose.” She's always downloading guided meditations for things like “Clearing Blockages” and “Transcending Your Ego” and “Accelerating Your Evolution.” Right after my parents started counseling, I was always catching her mid-Zen, her iPod nano clipped to her shirt collar—earbuds in, eyes half-open, all zoned-out to some guru like she was stoned.

I listened to one of them once. A woman with a smooth
jazz DJ voice encouraged me to “open to receive,” and to “let the light of your soul radiate light up to the light,” all with this New Age music box tinkling in the background.

Now, if we lived in California or if my mom had ever once in her life worn Birkenstocks, this would have made more sense. But my mom meditating was like the Dalai Lama mugging old ladies as they got off the El. It didn't quite add up. She was all punk rock, once. She used to be edgier—meaning her edges were sharper, her sense of humor more cynical. Then she'd just seemed preoccupied and nervous. At least the meditating seemed to calm her down. She told me she was putting the “om in ‘mom.'” Isn't she clever?

It felt good to see her laugh that mumps day. If it had been anyone else, I would have been annoyed as hell. But it was my mom. And for some reason—a lot of reasons, I guess—it's really hard for me to get mad and stay mad at her.

Anyway, I think if I'd felt awful, I would have been outraged at her totally un-motherly behavior, but Mom is as charismatic as Jesus, and I was laughing too, just because she was laughing. When we got to the car, she said, “Honey, have you looked at yourself?”

So I looked in the rearview mirror and—like Esther Greenwood seeing her reflection for the first time after her suicide attempt—I didn't recognize myself. I looked like a
chipmunk storing a winter's worth of
nuts
in my
cheeks
. My head formed a perfect
triangle
. I looked
inhuman
.

She said, “I think you have the mum—mum—” She could hardly say it without keeling over with hilarity. “Mumps!” Ha, ha, hahahahahaha.

That was on a Tuesday. I watched TV. Ads for Taco Bell made my mouth water, painfully, enticing my salivary glands to burn through the inflammation. I drank fluids. I rested. Nic brought by my homework. I fought the low fever and was back in school by Monday. That's the short story of My Mumps Saga, humorous prequel to The Chicken Pox Chronicles.

After triumphing over the mumps, my stomach remained a scribble of pain. I was always nervous. So uptight and on edge that any tickle in my throat, any deep laugh from my belly, and I would start to cough. And cough. And cough until I would politely dry-heave my pain and nerves and confusion into the nearest garbage can, cafeteria tray, napkin, wastepaper basket, while Nic nonchalantly held my hair. Charming. I wasn't dying. I was just having my own version of a breakdown. I didn't talk about it with my parents. They were busy, what with their marriage deteriorating and all. Matt was beginning to get a little concerned, but I didn't make a big deal out of it, because what could he really do to help me? Nic? She was there for me, sure, but why clutter her day-to-day with the gory details of my emotional
collapse? Guidance counselor? Face it, they respond only to anorexics, suicidals, and the Harvard-bound. If it weren't for Sylvia Plath, Matt's hunger for me, and my poetry, who knows where I would be? Would it be worse than where I am now?

Whatev. I got the chicken pox. I'm surprised no one called social services. My life is practically medieval. Appalachian. Pathetic. I need a guided meditation for “Building a Radiant Aura While Your Heart Folds in on Itself Like a Black Hole.”

Am I being melodramatic? Probably. But it hurts so much, my parents splitting up. The reality of it. I am, everyday here in Poxville, trying to keep myself propped up with stupid jokes and stupid typing humor and
The Bell Jar
so I don't have to think about my mom and my dad.

Staying obsessed with
The Bell Jar
helps me keep all this tragedy in perspective. Reading for me is like a hot bath for Esther Greenwood. Getting all emotionally wrapped up in made-up people's lives gives me a chance to take a break from my own life, to stretch my legs under warm water, close my eyes, and inhale until I can think straight. I'm also trying to learn exactly how Esther does it, makes it through—New York, the suburbs, the asylum, Buddy—what tools does she use to endure it all?