Paint Me a Monster (18 page)

Liz and Matt swirl across the dance floor, fox-trotting, dipping, and cha cha cha-ing. Liz loves to dance and so does Uncle Matt.

I sit at the table and pretend I’m somewhere else, a long way off. And mostly, I don’t cry.

It’s been two months. Impressions of Pop Pop are everywhere. Gaga has taken the reins of their far-reaching philanthropic lives and has replaced acquiescence with resilience. She’s lighter without losing weight—at least her own. I actually think Gaga’s enjoying her life more without Pop Pop’s physical presence. Mom only answers to herself, spending more time with Gaga and more money on decorating the house and clothes. Not that much has changed for Liz and me. It’s strange that way. We don’t talk much about our grandfather. There’s no need. He still guides me with his critical voice.

Newest Entry:

Is there a difference between a father and a dad?

I can’t feel the firmness of the carpeted kitchen floor, or my body sitting on it. All my feelings are poured into Croquette’s warm body, spooled against itself, ignorant of all things other than this spot and her worn pillow. She holds on to each breath and lets it go, her lungs making the shallowest of ripples across her chest.

“Deeper, breathe deeper, Croquie,” I plead. “I know it hurts. You don’t have to.”

It’s 2:00 A.M., then three, then four, and we lie next to each other. I pinch a nibble of dog food from her untouched bowl and place it in her mouth.

“Dr. Morton operated on your tummy, and your job is to get better. Eat, you have to,” I whisper.

Croquette takes the morsel, and it dissolves in her mouth. She doesn’t swallow so I swab her mouth with my finger so she won’t choke.

I stroke her gray hair, feeling every rib. You’re so thin, I think. How can you get better if you won’t eat? Maybe you’ll feel better in my lap. The whimper that echoes through my ears bludgeons my senses, and I relax her limp body onto the tired pillow.

“I will never leave you, Croquie. I promise. You are the best dog in the world. Go to sleep, baby dog.” I hum music I’ve never heard before and shutter the rest of the world away.

I wake up in my bed and rush downstairs to the kitchen before Liz and Mom wake up.

Verna is red eyed. “Croquette passed. She went to heaven.”

Verna pulls me to her, and we both cry.

Baked beans again for lunch today. Gooey, brown, sugary. Smelled fattening.

Whitney announced, “No dessert for me, I’m on a diet.” A chorus of “Me too!” harmonized around the table. It must be the bulldozer-shovel-it-in diet. Shelly, Lisa, Leah, Courtney, they all ate hot dogs (with the bun), chips, and beans.

The only food left was the platter of brownies.

Some diet. Half a hot dog, no bun, no beans, no chips. A cup of skim milk. That’s a diet. But I shouldn’t have eaten the hot dog. Had to cut the hot dog in two, and bury half with salt, so I wouldn’t eat it all.

It’s hard to eat when other people are around. I can’t focus on my food.

Have to add hot dogs to forbidden food list. It was way too good.

“Are you going to use Pink Pearl or Berry Blush?” Liz calls. “I’m organizing the nail polishes by color and want to put them away.”

“I want the one that dries the fastest. Can you come in and check my outfit?” I ask, hurrying to wrap a strand of hair around my curling iron. “Ouch, that’s hot.” I wince and suck the burned finger.

Chip will be here in twenty minutes. We have a double date to go to the movies. Mascara and blush are a pleasant change from the no makeup rule at school. Chip will be surprised. A spray of perfume, and the starched smell of soap and hair gel is veiled by Lilies of the Valley. Ten minutes and counting.

I slip into my black jeans and nubby blue sweater, modeling in the mirror on the back of my door.

“I like the look,” Liz says. “Unfussy and classic. You look very nice, very thin, but very nice. Wish I could lose weight like you.”

“Clean, fresh, and ready to . . . ”

The door careens open like an out-of-control race car and crashes into me. Lizzie slips out.

Mom stands between me and the excited girl in the mirror. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I have a date with Chip, remember?”

“Not tonight. You’re not going anywhere!”

“Mom, I asked you four days ago, and you said it was OK. Chip will be here any minute.”

“I canceled your date.”

“You called him? You told him not to come? You, you can’t do that . . . it’s taken me over an hour to get ready. I just straightened my hair. Why did you do that? What did I do?”

She dumps the purse I just filled on the bed. “You’re not going because I said you’re not going.” Mom’s voice is as even and hard as an iron rod. “Clean up the mess on the bed and put the purse away.”

“You can’t just call and cancel for no reason and not tell me.”

“You’re grounded, young lady, and will be until you learn to stop talking back.”

Mom leaves my room. My internal compass points nowhere. It’s broken and lost.
Where is terra firma? This house is quicksand, and I’m sinking.
Liz sneaks into my room.

“Do you know what Mom did?” I blurt.

“I heard. She’s crazy, Rinnie. Don’t let her get to you.”

“What about Chip? He’ll think I’m so rude! I really like him.”

I start to cry and feel crazy, too. If only I had been smart enough, pretty, funny, witty enough, a star athlete, then things would be different. For one, Dad would have taken me, too.

OW! My face stings, and the handprint blooms red in the mirror. That one hurt. The force of Mom’s hand punctures my hearing. For a moment, all sound turns off, except a mute voice that drones.
Don’t cry. Don’t let her see you cry.

I use my hands as a helmet to shield my head from the hail of blows that rain down.

“Who do you think you are, you little snot? I’ll tell you. You are a kid, a kid, hear me?” The screaming sears my ears, and they want to burst.

“It’s your fault Emmy said it’s too stressful to work here, and it’s your fault Evan’s gone. You’ve got me so crazy, I backed into a car at the grocery store. Shape up! SHAPE UP!” she yells, shaking me by the shoulders again.

Her fingers dig into my arms. “You don’t care if I live or die. You don’t care about anything but yourself. You’re nothing but a fat ass, a whore.”

My shoulders mold to Mom’s hands as if her fingers are made of steel. She shakes backward, forward, backward, forward. My head and shoulders joggle in rhythm. I imagine the half-severed head of a chicken flapping side to side.

What will happen to my brain? Don’t cry, don’t cry. She’s crazy.

“Mom, if you hit me again, I’ll hit back. MOM! If you hit me again, I’m going to hit back! Do you hear me?” I don’t want to hit her. I want to diffuse the bomb inside her. A well-developed bicep launches her palm to my neck. Smack!

I smack back. Mom’s breath comes in short, shallow gasps. The tightness in her jaw slackens. My inside scorches like the frenzy of a million ants scuffling for the same crumb. I warned her, “If you hit me again, I’ll hit back.”

What have I done?
Sinned.

Mom snorts in air and snorts out disgust.

“You can trust what I say.” I look into her eyes.

“You’re a monster! Monster! What child hits her mother?” she sizzles, glares, drops her arms, and exits.

Victory and guilt compete for my attention. Did I really hit Mom? Now I’ve really done something bad. Or maybe, it was something good.

Verna left half an hour ago. Liz works on her homework upstairs. Kenny Kreiger and I are the only other people at home. The Saturday afternoon sun streams into the family room windows onto the jigsaw puzzle Kenny and I have almost finished. Only a few more pieces and the picture of polar bear cubs on an ice floe will be ready to be glued together and placed beside the other finished puzzles in the art area.

“If I get the last piece,” I say, “I get to pick the movie we see tonight.”

“If I get the last piece I get to pick the movie, and you have to buy popcorn,” he answers.

No problem. The sun is so bright, it’s easy to see the tiniest differences in color. I’ll find the last piece. I’ve done the puzzle before.

Kenny and his twin sister, Kelsey, have been in Sunday school with Liz forever. He has a crush on me. I can tell, because he likes to put his hand on my neck and massage it lightly. He doesn’t do that to Liz. It feels good.

“Everyone knows it’s good luck to put the last piece of a puzzle in,” I say. “And I have it in my hand—as soon as you put your piece in I’ll pick the movie.”

“No way. You don’t have the last piece without me.”

I grab the piece from his hand and wave it in front of his face, inching closer to tempt him.

In a second, Kenny pins my arms over my head. His body straddles mine, in a canopy of blue and white stripes and denim.

“Gimme. Let it drop,” he says, putting his knees on top of my legs to keep me from kicking.

I warm inside and wiggle my hips causing Kenny to put more weight on my thighs.

I shake my head. Hair falls across my forehead. Laughter swallows my words.

“We’ll do this democratically.” Kenny’s fingers skim the hair from my face, and he sits back on his legs. “You have a choice. Release the puzzle piece or be prepared to die laughing. And stop looking so foxy.”

I stop squirming and look up as if he had spoken Zulu.

“Too slow,” Kenny snickers. He bends low, and attacks my sides with his fingers. “I need to come up for air,” I pant.

Kenny’s strong hands pull me up by the shoulders. Behind him looms my mother. Her arms cross over her chest, and she stands as if she’s just been over starched. It’s clear, by her squinty eyes and lip licking, Mom thinks Kenny and I have been doing things. She glares and huffs out.

“Wait here,” I say to Kenny.

“Mom? Mom?”

She bloodies me with a look. I list backward.

“I leave you alone in the house with your sister and a boy and look what I come back to.”

“Mom, you’ve got it wrong. We were . . . ”

“Don’t back talk me, Rinnie. I saw you. It isn’t enough to give you tennis lessons, riding lessons, buy you beautiful clothes, and send you to the best school. You thank me by acting like a slut.”

“But, Mom, we were wrestling!”

“I saw him on top of you. Don’t lie to me. Go to your room.”

“What about Kenny?”

“He’s out of here.”

“You can’t do that! We weren’t doing anything.”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

Her hand stings my jaw. “You think you run this house. You think you know it all. You think you’re the mother. Well you’re not and at the rate you’re going, you never will be.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about.

“You’re crazy,” I say. My cheek burns with pain from another slap. “You’re crazy, and I’m going to Gaga’s.”

I shoot down the stairs. “Kenny, take me to Gaga’s!”

Mom stands at the top of the stairs and screeches, “You spoiled little brat. Do you think your grandmother will want to take care of you once she finds out what you do when I’m away? I’m the mother. You listen to me. Get up to your room and stay there.”

I wrench a jacket from the hall closet.

“Don’t you dare step out of this house.”

“Come on!”

I pull Kenny’s striped shirtsleeve. His face is contorted, and it frightens me. Will he ever want to see me again? Would I ever want to have him here again?

“If you take her, you’re just as bad as she is,” my mother screams.

She’s on the landing stabbing the air with her finger.

“If you really like that girl, you’ll tell her to stay home where she belongs.”

Kenny grabs his jacket. “Come on,” he says.

“Come in.”

The voice is more mature than I expected. I’ve seen Mr. Algrin in the halls, but this is my first visit to his office.

“Take a seat,” he says, like we’ve been friends for a long time.

He moves a box of tissues from his desk and puts his feet in its place.

“Hope you don’t mind. It’s been a long day, and I could never get away with this at home.”

I know what he means. Shoes on the furniture is akin to assassinating Emily Post, Mom’s authority on etiquette.

“Rinnie. That’s an unusual name.”

“It’s like the dog, Rin Tin Tin.” I wish I felt as brave and smart as that dog.

“OK, Rinnie like the dog. You made this appointment, so what brings you here?”

I wander through my thoughts, as though exploring an enormous cave. Everything feels so bewildering—so unreachable. The speech I practiced vaporizes.

I slump into the chair, head down, arms crossed. There is so much to climb over in the cave. One false step, and I could fall.

“Is this confidential?” I ask, lifting my chin so the words won’t sound garbled.

“Absolutely.” Mr. Algrin smiles. “Unless you intend to harm yourself or someone else, or if information about physical or sexual abuse comes my way.” His smile wanes. “I’m a mandated reporter. That means I am required by law to report any abuse I think might be taking place.”

“Who do you report to?”

“The Department of Family Services.”

He leans in, his hands cupped between his long legs. “Is this your first time talking to a counselor or psychologist?”

“Once I talked to someone with my mother, but it didn’t last long.”

“How long did it last? A month, two?”

“About fifteen minutes.”

“Short,” he says.

“But not sweet,” I answer.

“Well, I hope we can talk about that later if we need to.” Mr. Algrin is a lot calmer than Mom’s shrink, Dr. Didier. His crumpled socks, worn belt, and the cowlick it looks like he surrendered to even before waking up, spell “laid back.”

If I were Rin Tin Tin, Dr. Didier would be a pit bull, and Mr. Algrin would be a Labrador. He looks soft.