Tales From My Closet (22 page)

For once, I had to admit it: Martha was right. Even so, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell Mama the truth. Not even when we got back from Florida and I went over to Justine’s for one final edit of our blog. Not even when Mama Lee called me to tell me that Mama had invited her to the Debate Finals and that Mama was “just brimming over with pride.” Not even when I went ahead and Googled
Black Beauty in Red and White Floral
and saw the painting with my own eyes: my beautiful young mother, wearing my — Mama Lee’s — favorite fabulous dress, the red one with the tight waist, cap sleeves, and big white flowers.

And now Justine was angry at me, Becka was furious at me, and the entire high school was talking about the drama that had happened at lunch. I sprang a headache, and then a stomachache, and by the time the final bell rang I felt like I was going to vomit. All I wanted to do was go home, undress, curl up into my bed, and sleep. But when I got home, Mama, who was usually working at that hour, was waiting for me. She didn’t look too happy, either. This is what she said: “I just got off the phone with Justine’s mother.”

Now, in itself, that wasn’t that weird. Justine’s mom and Mama had started talking soon after Justine and I had become friends. What
was
weird was: first, that she’d bothered to tell me she’d spoken to Justine’s mom on the phone, and second, that she was home in the first place.

I took a tentative step or two across the kitchen floor, heading, I hoped, to the hallway that would lead me to the stairs that would allow me to escape to my room.

“She wanted me to know that something Justine wrote — something on Facebook or something like that — went viral. Something about Becka. And that Becka’s so upset that she broke something — something about drums, and then a mirror.”

She looked at me as if I’d just started the third world war.

“The upshot is that Becka’s in the hospital.”

“Oh my God.”

“You probably already know that Justine’s mom — Judy — and Meryl Sanders are friendly, even if the girls aren’t.”

I nodded.

“Judy’s at the hospital right now.”

“Mama,” I said, “are you saying that the girl tried to kill herself?”

“I don’t really know. Judy didn’t know, either. What I do know is that Justine had something to do with it.”

“What? Who told you
that
?”

“Why? What do you know about it?”

“Just that Becka flipped out in lunch today,” I fudged. “She screamed at Justine and me. She was, like — out of control.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ann,” she said, “I think it’s time we had a little talk, don’t you?”

“What? Why?”

“How about we start with Debate Team.” The way she said it, it wasn’t a question.

Martha had squealed. I wanted to pound her brains in.

“Sit,” Mama commanded.

“Your sister is very worried about you,” she continued after I’d taken my usual seat at the kitchen table. “Very. She’s thinking of taking the semester off.”

“Not for my sake, she isn’t.”

“Even so, she may not go back to Princeton next semester.”

“Kill me now.”

“You aren’t on Debate Team, Ann. Explain yourself.”

“First I have to kill her.”

“Your sister has nothing to do with your choices, Ann. You and you alone chose to lie. You and you alone have chosen to hide your activities from me. You and you alone have decided to prance around in your grandmother’s ridiculous outfits, like — like I don’t know what! Like you’re trying to draw attention to yourself. As if you don’t get enough love and attention at home! Oh, you’re so much like Mama Lee that you may as well be her clone. But it’s over, do you understand?” Finally she just gave me
the look
, her big brown eyes and steady gaze holding mine until I had to look away.

“What do you
want
from me?”

“How about the truth?”

“I haven’t done anything wrong! I swear!”

There was a silence. A long, long silence. Finally, Mama broke it. “I’m not sure I have reason to trust you. But I will hear you out. You can thank your sister, by the way, for assuring me that, though you’ve been sneaking around, you’re not fooling around with drugs or boys. So if it isn’t drugs, and it isn’t a boyfriend, and I think by now we can be pretty sure that you’re not spending your time with the Debate Team — what is it? What are you hiding?”

“Mama,” I finally said, “there’s something you don’t know about me.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you think you’re a lesbian? Because, honey, if you’re gay — you’re a little young to know if you are or not, but if you are, that’s okay. Your dad and I love you no matter what.”

“But, Mama, that’s not it!” I said. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Finally, with my eyes squeezed closed, I said: “It’s that — I want to be an artist.”

She looked at me as if I were speaking Chinese.

“That’s where I’ve been in the afternoons. In the art room at school. Working with Ms. Anders, my art teacher.”

“That’s what this is all about? Frankly, I find that hard to believe.”

“But it’s true! That’s what I’ve been doing! I’ve been learning to — well, mainly to draw.”

“You’ve been learning to draw,” she said in a voice that let me know she’d just about run out of patience.

“Well, I like painting, too. Actually, I love it, Mama. I love painting. I love just — just everything about it, the feel of the brushes in my hands, and the smell of the paints, and how sometimes my hands know what they’re doing, like they’ve got a mind of their own.”

“I see,” she said coldly.

“You hate me now, don’t you?”

“Hate you? Honey, how could I ever hate you? I love you with my entire heart.” Mama’s voice was trembling now, and there were tears in her eyes. Then her voice hardened. “But I must tell you that I’m both concerned and furious. Which is why I have to find some way to punish your butt so badly that you’ll never, never ever, pull this kind of idiocy again.”

“Mama?”

“For lying. For pretending. For dishonesty of every kind. For your abominable disregard for me. And for your behavior to your sister. ”

“But, Mama!”

“And as for art — there’s just no future there for you, Ann. Unless you’re willing to live on nothing for the rest of your life.” She shook her head. “Honey! Listen to me loud and clear: Art is all right for rich kids. But for people like us? We can’t afford to go fooling around with that kind of nonsense. And nonsense it is. I learned the hard way. You don’t have to.”

“But, Mama!” I wailed. “Daddy’s a lawyer! And you have a good career, too. We have plenty of money!”

“Do you have any clue what it’s like out there, Ann?”

I looked down at my feet.

“Exactly. So I’d suggest that, instead of defending yourself, you think long and hard about what I just said. Especially about Becka.”

“What’s she got to do with anything?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Me?”

“Yes,” she said. “You.”

“Oh my God,” I said, utterly panicked as the stories my brain was already spinning came to the surface of my consciousness — how the art I was doing was really making posters for the Debate Team, and how it was obvious that Becka had come to school drunk — but just before I launched into a whole new set of lies, I heard a siren in the distance, thought about Becka being in the hospital, and decided that I had to tell Mama the truth instead.

So I did.

N
o sooner had
I walked in the door when Mom came hurrying out to greet me, but instead of her usual overhug, she took me by the shoulders and, her voice elevated, said: “What do you know about Becka?”

“That she’s the world’s biggest bitch?” I still hadn’t quite gotten over what a hissy fit she’d thrown in the cafeteria over the launch of
Fashion High
, particularly since Ann’s sketches were totally flattering. My only question was how she’d figured out that I was connected to it.

“Did you have something to do with Becka — something that set her off?”

“Mom — the girl doesn’t even talk to me except to insult me. You know that.”

“Tell me the truth, Justine. I just got a call from Meryl. Becka’s in the hospital.”

“What did she do? Choke on her own nasty vapors?”

“No, she did not. She slit her wrists.”

“What?”

“Right in front of her brother, too. Apparently he was the one who called 911.”

“Mom, look: I don’t know what Becka’s mom told you, but slitting her wrists is not the girl’s style.”

“Honey, I was here when the ambulance pulled up. I heard the siren — and I went over there right away.”

“You can’t just mind your own business, can you?”

“For God’s sake, Justine! This isn’t about some stupid quarrel between you and Becka! Don’t you
get it
? She’s in the hospital right now — and it’s where I’m going, too — because of something you wrote.”

“What? Who told you that?”

“Meryl said something about some website, some blog. You and Ann — I knew you were up to something up there. I’m not an idiot, you know.”

“Oh, really?” I then said. Suddenly, with Mom screaming in my face, I felt like a caged animal, hot and scared and desperate all at once. My heart was pounding. My palms were sweaty. Had Becka
really
slit her wrists? Over our blog? Because if she had . . . But as anger welled up inside me, I lost track of what I’d been thinking.

“You’re not an idiot?” I said. “Are you kidding? Mom, you are, hands down, the biggest idiot ever. Not only have you followed Dad around from place to place, like some stupid, loyal dog, but you quit your entire dancing career for him. You quit having any kind of life at all!”

“This is a topic for another occasion,” Mom said.

“I don’t think so, Mom, because if you want to talk about idiots . . .”

“Not now, Justine. I mean it.”

“Spending hours finding the perfect Christmas gift for him when he gives you some cheap earrings . . .”

“That’s enough!”

“That he doesn’t have a clue who either of us are . . .”

“I need to get to the hospital.”

“. . . only you’re such an idiot that you think he actually loves you, that he actually cares, when in fact you’re an even bigger idiot that Becka’s mom, and Ann’s mom, and all the other moms in the world put together, because you and you alone are the mom who doesn’t even have a clue that she moved to New Jersey so her husband could be closer to his girlfriend!”

It was like she’d just been bitten by a poisonous snake. Or like a blizzard had just blanketed our entire living room with drifts of deep snow, bringing utter stillness, utter silence.

“What did you just say?” she finally said.

“Dad has a girlfriend. She lives in New York.”

Swallowing hard, Mom said: “I’m going to the hospital now to see if there’s anything I can do for Meryl. In the meantime, you’re grounded. And I mean it, Justine. You’re not even allowed into the backyard!”

I watched TV. I went onto Facebook. I called Ann, but she didn’t answer. Then I called Polly, but she didn’t answer, either. I even called Eliza, who was still, duh, in school. Then I had a pressing urge to call Robin, but didn’t even know her last name, and anyway, what would I have said?
Am I a murderer?

Because suddenly that’s what I felt like, and I saw my future, too, locked up in some JV prison with a bunch of girls who did heroin and already had two or three children and carried knives just in case they needed to cut your face. The next moment, I was standing over the toilet, dizzy with dread, coughing up — well, nothing. I tried to puke, but all that came out was spit.

Skizz came up to me and rubbed against my ankles.

But I still found it hard to believe that Becka would try to kill herself — especially over our blog, which I read and reread and reread again, until I didn’t even understand what it said. The next thing I knew, Dad called me. Here’s what he said: “What the hell is going on, Pooky? Your mother left me a message saying that there’s been some emergency.”

“Like you could care,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

What was it supposed to mean, anyhow? I didn’t know — but suddenly, I didn’t care, either. I didn’t care about him. I didn’t care about Mom. And I didn’t even want to
think
about Becka!

“You could have at least bought Mom that necklace.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The one you were looking at in Bloomingdale’s when I ran into you there even though you said you were out of town on business. The one with all the diamonds.”

“Sapphires,” he corrected. “And I decided they were too much for your mom. You know she doesn’t go in for fancy.”

“Not like some people. How much of my future college tuition did you spend on that thing, anyway?”

“What? Pooky — you’re talking in riddles.”

“
I’m
talking in riddles?” I said. “Me? Your own little Pooky? Because let’s face it,
Billy
, I’m not the only one who hasn’t been real clear about things.”

“That’s it. Are you on drugs? I’m coming home right now!”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“Listen here, young lady. You don’t talk to me like that. Ever. Understood?”

“Not a good idea,” I singsonged.

“I’ll be home in thirty minutes, at the latest. And you’re going to stay put. Do you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

But instead of staying put — I mean, was he kidding? — I ran away. I didn’t know where to run to, though, so it was a challenge. Clearly, Ann’s house was off-limits, and anyway, we’d just had a big fight and I wasn’t really sure I wanted to talk to her. I called Polly, but her mother said she wasn’t home. And basically, except for the random girls I sat with at lunch, I didn’t have any other friends who I considered actual, live, close, good, want-to-actually-hang-out-with-them friends. So I headed out the door and wandered aimlessly for a while, until, ta-da, I had a master brainstorm. I’d go to Weird John’s house and just kind of hide out there until Mom was so worried about me that she’d forget that I was responsible for Becka’s suicide attempt.

Except I didn’t have the slightest idea where Weird John lived — if he lived anywhere in particular at all, that is. To the extent that I’d thought about it, I’d just assumed that he lived in a garbage dispenser, or perhaps in a log, with a bedroom decorated entirely in Death Cult and Astrovamps posters, with ripped black sheets covering the windows. No matter where he lived, I thought, there’d be bunches of smaller and larger Goths, and perhaps a dog corpse or two rotting on the front lawn.

I did what I swore I’d never do, and called him.

It turned out that he only lived about ten minutes away from me, and his house, if anything, was even more boring, in that Homely Acres way, than mine was. In other words, it was a standard-issue rectangular box, the exact proportions of your typical shoe box, with a row of windows on the second level, and picture windows on either side of the front door. The front mat featured a cheery welcome to our home and, instead of a mailbox, the Weird family had a metal poodle balancing a mailbox on his poodle head. There were frilly white curtains in the windows and, when I rang the doorbell, it chimed tunefully, like a brass instrument.

Weird John appeared at the door, dressed in his usual at-least-two-days-old black, his belt studded with miniature spikes, like the pointy ends of thumbtacks, his eyes outlined in blue eyeliner, and a new earring, in the shape of a skeleton, dangling from his left earlobe. “So I understand that you’ve landed in deep doo-doo.”

“Who told you that?”

“Everyone told me.”

“Can you be slightly more specific?”

“And —”

“What?” I was following him down the stairs now, presumably to his lair, or whatever you call the place where someone with his, er, aesthetics and taste might sleep.

“I love you, Frizz.”

“Shove it.”

“I do.”

“Shut up and tell me who told you.”

“But I love you! I do!”

“Are you
trying
to be a jerk, or does it just come naturally to you?”

“I’ll do anything to help you. Anything at all. Are the police after you?”

“Because I wrote a blog?”

“What? No. Because of what you did to her. To Becka.”

“Why? What’d I do?”

“Don’t try to deny it, Frizz. Not when half the school saw you go after her with that knife!”

“
What?
”

“After she went up to you in the cafeteria and you stabbed her in the arm.”

“Earth. To. John. I didn’t stab the girl. I didn’t stab anyone. I don’t have a knife. Where would I even get one, in the cafeteria? I didn’t do anything at all. Except — write that stupid blog!”

“Are you saying . . .” he said as he swung open the door to what turned out to be a TV-slash-Ping-Pong-table room, but before he could finish his sentence, I was confronted by the sight of both Polly and — blow me with a feather — Robin, sitting together on the room’s beat-up sofa, eating ice cream. For some reason Robin didn’t look so good, but in the shadows of the basement room, I couldn’t tell why. All I knew was that I was doubly embarrassed, first for being at Weird John’s in the first place, and second for being in the same room as Becka’s best friend, whom, on top of everything else, I’d just blogged about! But I didn’t want to let on about how panicked I was. Instead, in an offhand way, I said:

“Excuse me? Now I’m totally confused. T-O-T-A-L-L-Y.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll save you.”

“I don’t need to be saved!” I screamed.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I’m, I’m —” My mouth gaped open like a dead fish’s.

“Exactly.”

Suddenly I was miserable. Not the way I’d been miserable before, either, with a combination of frustration, fury, and fear. Now I was just plain old, flat-out, dumbed-down miserable. “Why are you two here?” I said to the girls.

Polly spoke first: “John called and said I needed to get here immediately. That we had to figure out how to save you. So here I am.”

“But I don’t need to be saved,” I repeated. “I didn’t do anything! Except write that stupid blog!”

“It wasn’t that stupid,” Robin said.

“Thanks,” I said. “But why are you of all people here?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were in the blog, too. And isn’t Becka, like, your best friend?”

“
Was
,” the girl said miserably.