Lemon (22 page)

‘Cookson always wrote happy endings.'

Mrs. Wartowski's parents were killed by Polish Jew-haters after the war was over and they came out of hiding. The Jew-haters nabbed them, wired them together, shot her father in the head and tossed them in a river. They didn't shoot her mother because they didn't want to waste the bullet. Mrs. Wartowski's mother drowned wired to her husband's corpse. Mrs. Wartowski told me this after she saw me reading a memoir by an American whose Hungarian father turned out to be a war criminal, one of those types who raped and ripped out gold teeth and wired Jews together and shoved them in the Danube. ‘You never know what people are capable of,' Mrs. Wartowski said. The people who killed her parents were neighbours and would have killed her except that she was a newborn and they wanted a baby. They raised her like their own. She only found out the truth after they were dead. So she spent her life loving her parents' murderers. Anyway, what's weird is that Mrs. Wartowski is a really nice person, even when people make fun of her accent and her pumpernickel-and-onion sandwiches. You have to wonder how somebody whose
parents got thrown in a river can be so nice and fearless. The guy who wrote the memoir became depressed when he found out his father was a war criminal and started hating everybody, especially his padre. He said everybody looked like a liar to him.

‘What happened to your face?' Mrs. Wartowski asks me.

‘I fell down.'

She keeps staring at me with the eyeball that doesn't wander, and tapping her pencil against the counter. You have to wonder what it can be like knowing you were inches from being shot or gassed along with the other six million.

‘You should be more careful,' she says.

‘I'll try.'

‘You must always look where you're going.' She touches my cheek, which she's never done before. The gesture is so tender, so caring and all that, it makes me feel sorry for myself. I don't want this. I jet out of there.

Old Huff has us dipping into
Twelfth Night
, which is another one of the bard's dumb-ass comedies about people falling in love before they've even had a conversation. He has me reading Viola, and Kirsten reading Olivia. I have to yammer about her beauty and how my master has the hots for her and all that. This proves torturous due to the fact that she has seen me upside down with a beer bottle up my snatch.

‘“I pity you,”' I read.

‘“That's a degree to love,”' reads Kirsten.

‘“No, not a grize: for 'tis a vulgar proof “That very oft we pity enemies.”'

Old Huff jumps in. ‘Is that true?' he asks. Nobody asks, ‘Is
what
true?' because nobody gives a toad's arse. ‘Do we very oft pity our enemies?' Huff demands.

‘Shit, no,' Taylor in the dog collar says.

‘Why not?'

‘They're our enemies. Duh.'

‘Yes, but are they not flesh and blood, do they not suffer as we do?'

‘Shit, no.'

‘I pity them,' Kirsten says, looking straight at me. ‘Because they're ugly and stupid and nobody can stand them.' There's no question that if she could, she would wire me to a corpse and shove me in a river.

‘Why,' I ask because I can't read anymore, ‘is Viola so hot for the duke?'

‘That's an interesting question,' Huff says. ‘Why is Viola enamoured of Orsino?'

The class thinks hard. Megan on Prozac says, ‘Because he's the duke.'

‘Meaning?' Huff asks.

‘She's after his power.'

‘That is
so
cynical,' Kirsten says. ‘She wants him because he's sexy, that's obvious.'

‘How is that obvious?' I ask. ‘He lies around whining, bossing musicians around. What's so sexy about him?'

‘He's the duke,' she says like this explains everything.

‘That's what I said,'Megan persists. ‘She's after his power.'

Huff licks his fingers and starts turning pages, which means he's about to get us to start reading again. I can't handle this. ‘Maybe it's the father thing,' I say. ‘Her dad died at sea, she must miss him. Maybe the duke's a father figure.'

‘She wouldn't marry him if he was a father figure,' Kirsten says.

‘Oh, so you think all those models marrying eighty-year-old billionaires are after their bodies?'

‘Okay, so she's hot for his money,' Megan concludes. ‘And power.'

‘You are sick,' Kirsten tells her. Kirsten who made sure my friend got raped. While I was sitting around sucking on pretzels.

She doesn't answer the door. I know she's in there, can hear the tv. ‘It's me, Ross.' I start pounding.

She flings open the door. ‘Cool it,' she says. She looks alright, just tired. No makeup. Baggy clothes for once.

‘Why didn't you come to school?' I ask.

‘Why do you think?'

‘They win if you don't come to school.'

‘They win anyway.'

Because I might be short a hymen, I've been thinking about Queen Elizabeth II checking Lady Di's hymen. The old crow got a gyno in there and squinted down the speculum with him. No wonder Di stopped eating.

‘So that's it?' I ask. ‘You're going to hide out for the rest of your life?'

‘They're charging Doyle.'

‘Who is?'

‘Jake and Larry.'

‘For what?'

‘The golf club. That's assault with a weapon.'

‘Not if he didn't hit them. Did you see him hit them?'

‘I wasn't exactly around for most of it.' She stares at the tv.

‘How do you know all this?'

‘It's on Kirsten's blog.'

Must have been an update since I checked. ‘I can't believe you're still reading that.
Stop
reading that.'

She flops face down on the couch.
Super Sweet Sixteen
is on, a reality show in which stinking rich Americans hold outrageously elaborate parties for their buxom daughters, and buy them Hummers and private planes or anything else their pride-and- joys fancy. I turn it off.

‘We have to help him,' I say.

‘I'm not reporting it. Forget it.'

‘Okay, let me get this straight. A guy who rescued you is going to go down for assault with a weapon and you don't care?'

‘He didn't rescue me. It was over.'

‘No it wasn't. You know it wasn't.'

‘I don't want to talk about this.'

‘He was defending us, Ross.'

‘He was defending
you
. He's got a thing about you.'

‘I guess that's why he was so happy to drive me to the party.'

‘You've got smarts and you're creative and you just keep shitting on yourself and it's pathetic. He was only going with me because you ditched him.'

‘He was going with you because he thinks you're hot.'

‘He was on the rebound, Lemon, get a grip. He doesn't even like me.'

‘Oh, so I guess that's why he's so keen to go out with you.'

‘Fucking somebody has nothing to do with liking them.'

I've never heard her talk like this. ‘What's it got to do with then?'

‘Power, Lemon. Hello.' She turns the tube back on. Some ancient tv star is talking about a skin cream made from sheep's placenta keeping her looking young.

‘Like the plastic surgeon had nothing to do with it,' Rossi grumbles.

‘Did you tell your mum?'

‘Are you
insane?
'

‘She's worried about you.'

‘She's always worried about me.'

‘It's not too late to go to the police. The semen stays around
for a couple of days.'

‘Shut up! That is so
disgusting
. Just shut up!'

I sit on the couch beside her, want to hold her like Helen held Jane, keep her safe. ‘Please tell me you're still on the pill.'

‘Like, how stupid do you think I am, Lemon?'

‘People forget to take them.'

‘I never forget.' She surfs past car and cosmetic ads. ‘What did they do to you today?' she asks.

‘Nothing. Just ignored me.'

‘So you don't know?'

‘What?'

‘They're
charging you
. Anyway, they're trying to. A cushion's not exactly a weapon.'

On tv there are before-and-after shots of flabby women in bathing suits who've used a ‘firming' gel. I stare hard at their puckered thighs.

‘If they charge you,' Rossi says, ‘you're going to have a criminal record. Forget university, pal.'

I have a horrible feeling she's pleased. Why? Because I wasn't there for her? I can't ask her this, can't face this.

She picks at a zit on her chin, which she never does because it only makes the zit worse. ‘Haven't the cops been after you?'

‘Yeah. I haven't talked to them, though. Just voice mail.'

‘Well, five guys say you hurt them. I don't know what you were doing out there. Karate or something. Bone says you broke his nose.'

None of this seems real. One of the flabby women in bathing suits says the firming gel changed her life. ‘My husband can't keep his hands off me,' she says.

22

I
stare in Marty Millionaire's window. Zippy's talking to her ape-man boss, gripping a rag and rubbing furniture. When she finishes she looks up at him and he points at some other furniture which she starts rubbing. Another sex slave. I heard on the radio that there's a sex-slave cult. The female members cook and clean and obey orders when it comes to sex. The ‘master' recruits the women from chatrooms, says they have ‘a desire to serve.' Zippy starts rubbing the legs of a coffee table near the window and sees me. She jumps up and down like one of those game-show winners, says something to the master and comes charging out. ‘Sweetie, pumpkin, what a wonderful surprise!' She kisses and hugs me and this feels familiar. Everything else feels strange.

‘Can we go for coffee or something?' I ask.

‘Well, it's just me and Lloyd, honey. I can't just take off. I had my lunch already.'

I shouldn't have come.

‘What is it, honeybunch? What happened to your face? Did somebody hit you?'

‘I fell down.'

‘Come and sit for a sec. Lloyd won't mind if I take a few minutes.' She pulls me inside and makes me sit on a bloated couch that smells like animal carcasses. Makes me think of those buffalo being ‘hazed' to make room for ranchers' cattle. In the twenty-first century we're still slaughtering buffalo, mothers and babies with umbilical cords attached, gunned down, drowned, all in the name of the burger factory. The older buffalo form circles around the young, trying to protect them from the bullets.

I don't want to live here anymore.

‘What is it, sweetness? Did something happen?' She puts her arm around me and I lean into her, rest my head on her shoulder. She kisses my head and strokes my hair. ‘What is it, baby?' I can't tell her because I don't even know, exactly. I just want her to make it better. Or offer to kill me. I want us to die together, we should have died together.

‘Do you ever try to kill yourself anymore?' I ask.

‘Is that what you're worried about? Aren't you the sweetest girl. Of course not, honeybunch, and you know why? I've found Jesus. He loves me and He loves you, baby.'

Where the hell did Jesus spring from? I don't want Jesus between us. I want her like she was, wild-eyed, saying nobody gives a fuck. ‘Do you remember when you wanted us to die together?'

‘I do, honeybunch, and I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Jesus forgives me. And He'll forgive you too, sweetheart, if you let Him.'

‘I don't want forgiveness.'

‘We all want forgiveness, baby.'

I'm so tired.

‘I hate to see you sad,' she says. ‘Let's think of the good old days. Do you remember puddles? You
loved
puddles. You'd stamp your foot right in the middle, rain boot or no rain boot. '
Plash
, you'd say,
big 'plash
! Then we'd go home and make Rice Krispie squares, d'you remember that?'

‘Yes.'

‘You were the most beautiful child.'

A Holocaust survivor witnessed a mother pushing her children out a tenth-storey window before jumping herself. She was saving them like Zippy was trying to save me. Now she's found Jesus.

The ape man's gesticulating at her, wants her back rubbing the furniture.

‘I better go,' I say, hoping she'll stop me.

‘I love you, baby.' She's already moving away from me, rag in hand.

Bradley crawls around with iv lines attached, ignoring the central line in his chest. He shows everybody his shoes, hoping they'll take him outside. I roll around on the floor with him and he tells me where his eyes are. Next he points to his nose. ‘Noth,' he says. Then he pats his stomach. ‘Tumtum,' he says. Brenda told me to feed him but every time I hand him something he hands it back, not because he doesn't want it but because he thinks he's giving me a present. I bought some grapes for Kadylak and try offering him one. He slobbers all over it before pushing it in my mouth.

‘Don't you like grapes?' I ask. I offer him another one, which he pushes in my mouth.

‘Okay, now it's your turn,' I say and try to push one in his mouth. He laughs big belly laughs. The grape tumbles to the floor and he scrambles after it before offering it to me again. ‘
You
eat it,' I say. He pops it in his mouth, squirting juice, which makes him chortle even more. Then suddenly fatigue takes over and he lies still, keeping his big wise eyes on me. I slide over so I'm lying only a couple of feet from him. I roll a Nerf ball toward him. He bats it back. We keep this going for a while and I can tell he's enjoying it. Distraction frees these kids of suffering. Mrs. Bradley shows up and doesn't look too happy about us crawling around on the floor. When he sees her, Bradley gets so excited he starts full-body bouncing. She picks him up and kisses him about a thousand times. Her pain is excruciating, radiates off her. I close the door quietly behind me.