The Art of Losing Yourself (4 page)

“If that’s true, why didn’t Chelsea say anything about it in my office?”

“Because Chelsea’s afraid of her. And you called Chelsea in with Jenna.”

Seriously. How moronic could one guy get? “Since she wouldn’t stand up for herself in the bathroom, I decided to do it for her. What is it you preach to us at the beginning of every school year? Bystanders are every bit as guilty as the bullies themselves?”

Principal Best’s ears turned pink.

“My behavior was morally permissible, if not morally necessary. Just ask Mr. Burrelson if you don’t believe me.”

“Your behavior was unacceptable. We do not tolerate fighting in this school.”

Mom massaged the bridge of her nose and shook her head. She looked tired, fed up, exactly like the mother of a delinquent would look. And as the small man behind the desk relayed the very lopsided account of what happened in the bathroom, she only looked more and more so.

The story, of course, was one of innocent Sadie, who complimented my hair, only to be viciously attacked by wild and out-of-control Gracie. The scratch on my neck was self-defense on Sadie’s part. The cut on Sadie’s lip was unacceptable aggression on my part. Jenna spun the tale. Chelsea didn’t contradict it. By the time Principal Best finished, Mom had turned into a wilted begonia.

“None of that was true,” I said.

“Sadie didn’t compliment your hair?”

“She was being sarcastic.”

“And you didn’t push her first?”

“She was making gagging noises at Chelsea.”

Principal Best ignored me and spoke to Mom. “Given Gracie’s prior infractions, we are left with no other option but a three-day suspension. We will see Gracie on Monday.” If he had a gavel, I’m sure he would have pounded it. “I hope we can start fresh then.”

A puff of laughter escaped through my nose.

Mom gave me a sharp look.

Seriously though—a fresh start? Did she not hear anything he said? There would be no fresh starts here, especially not with him, especially not for me. His mind was made up. So why even try?

G
RACIE

The front door of our small house opened and slammed shut just as I managed to loosen the lid on the jar of spaghetti sauce. Mom was home. And judging by the sound of the door, she was no happier with me now than she had been when she dropped me off at home after our fun little meeting with Principal Best.

I turned on one of the burners. It clicked, clicked, clicked, then flamed to life. I twisted the knob to high, dumped the Prego into a saucepan, and set it over the burner. I was digging through the back of the pantry for a box of pasta when Mom walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. My hand connected with something promising. I pulled out a package of rigatoni.

Mom grabbed a wine glass from one of the cupboards and filled it from a box of Franzia—the giant size she purchased from Costco. I dumped the rigatoni into a large pot, steam rising from the water while the Prego in the saucepan began to bubble. I stared, hypnotized by the way the orange sauce spit hissing droplets of red onto the stovetop. In Chinese culture, red symbolized purity, but almost everywhere else, the color was associated with passion or anger. The warm color of orange, on the other hand, was supposed to stimulate conversation. How appropriate, then, that as Mom drained her wine glass and poured herself another, the orange exploded, leaving beads of red in its wake.

Neither of us said a word.

Once the pasta reached al dente, I dumped it into a colander, mixed the Prego with the noodles, served myself a bowl, and headed out to the living room—away from my mother and her cheap wine. As much as her silence crawled under my skin, I preferred it to lecturing. I wanted to serve my sentence and move on. There were worse punishments than suspension. I settled onto the couch, found a rerun of
The Big Bang Theory
, and dug in.

On my fourth bite, Mom sat on the other end of the couch, wine glass in hand. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, wishing she would finish her wine in the kitchen. On my sixth bite, she reached for the remote and turned off the TV.

I stopped chewing.

“I think you need to go live with your father.”

The rigatoni turned into drywall. My mother hated my father. Had even used me against him in the past. And now she wanted to ship me off to go live with him? I forced the lump of food down my throat and glared.

She set her glass on the coffee table and rubbed circles into her temples. Resignation had replaced the anger she brought with her into the kitchen. “I called him today.”

I scrambled off the couch. “You what?”

She looked up at me, exhaustion in her eyes. “As much as I might not like him, your father is better at asserting his authority than I am and it’s obvious that’s what you need right now. He said he’s willing to take you for a few months.”

“I’m not going.”

“It’s already been decided.”

“You never even asked me.”

“I don’t have to ask you. I’m your mother.”

My anger boiled over—thicker and redder than the Prego. She was barely a mother. “I told you I didn’t start that fight in the bathroom.”

“Gracie, you have a track record.” She resumed her temple kneading. “And I don’t know what to do anymore. Your sister was never like this.”

I grabbed her glass off the coffee table and hurled it toward the wall. It shattered with a burst of red and bled down the paint.

Mom didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She didn’t react at all. She just sat there like a statue, all remnant of color draining from her face.

“I’m not going to Dad’s.” Before she could argue, I walked to my bedroom and slammed the door.

When I moved to Apalachicola in fifth grade, I had a teacher who would spread her arms wide after we recited the Pledge of Allegiance every morning and declare, “Boys and girls, the world is your oyster!” She was a thin-faced woman named Mrs. Dulane, and although I wasn’t sure what she meant by the words, they sounded nice. Hopeful, even. Seeing as Mom and I had just moved to the oyster capital of Florida—they sounded appropriate too.

Until my eleventh birthday, when I begged my mother to take me to Boss Oyster, a restaurant on the south end of Water Street that served the town’s seafood of choice seventeen different ways. I remembered the sense of building anticipation as we waited for our food. What, exactly, would my world taste like? Imagine my displeasure when the waiter brought out a tray of half-shelled goobers. It took several whispered threats from my mother before I put one in my mouth. The slimy, chewy texture turned my nose wrinkle into a full-throttle gag. After that first experience, I didn’t care about the sixteen other ways in which oysters could be made—I vowed never to eat one again.

On the drive home, I told Mom about Mrs. Dulane’s ritualistic morning declaration. She laughed and explained that oysters made pearls. The saying originated with Shakespeare, she told me, as if that settled everything. What she didn’t tell me, and what I later found out on my own thanks to Google, was that very few oysters made pearls in the wild. Most pearls were the result of someone forcing an irritant inside the poor shell.

Needless to say, I no longer found Mrs. Dulane’s words nice or hopeful. She was basically telling twenty-five impressionable fifth graders that our worlds would contain the equivalent of gross food or inescapable irritants. Those were our choices.

Six years later and irony of all ironies, it turned out that
I
was the irritant.

My earliest memories were those of fighting—my mom and dad fighting, my mom and her parents fighting, my dad and stepmom fighting. Always about me. I was over it, which was why I started throwing toiletries and clothes into my duffel bag as soon as I slammed my door shut. I wasn’t going to my father’s, but I sure wasn’t staying here either, an irritant forced into my mother’s oyster world.

When I finished packing, I sat on the edge of my bed, listening as the microwave hummed and beeped. The faucet in the kitchen ran. A cupboard door opened and closed. The TV resumed its droning—first with the six o’clock news, then with some show I didn’t recognize. I waited until darkness fell, the television went off, and the floor creaked with my mother’s footsteps.

Once all signs of life outside my room ceased, I removed the postcard wedged in the corner of my dresser mirror and stepped into the hallway, my duffel bag strapped over my shoulder. I tiptoed into the living room. Mom hadn’t cleaned up the broken glass or the stain of red wine running down the wall. My half-eaten bowl of pasta remained on the coffee table.

As quietly as possible, I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, grabbed a can of Mountain Dew from the refrigerator and all the cash from Mom’s purse, and stepped out into the night. I considered taking Mom’s car, but that would guarantee she’d come after me. So instead, I walked south on Hickory Street while eating my sandwich. Once I reached Avenue E, I cracked open my Mountain Dew and headed west.

A few cars passed, but nobody stopped or slowed. I took the last swig of my drink, kept an eye out for the next available trash can, and continued onward, attempting to ignore the duffel bag strap digging into my shoulder and the way my baggage grew heavier with every passing block. I kept walking, away from my mother and all of her dysfunction.

Once I reached the outskirts of town and headlights approached from behind, I stuck out my thumb. The car pulled to a stop on the shoulder of the road several yards ahead. Rust had eaten away half of the bumper and something like cellophane covered one of the back door windows. There was a soft sound of a latch as the trunk popped open.

I didn’t give myself time to chicken out. I didn’t consider what could happen if the person behind the wheel was a maniac. I checked to make sure there were no drugs or dead bodies in the trunk, then tossed my duffel bag inside and climbed into the passenger seat.

Country twang and cigarette smoke filled the car. A woman with leathery skin and long, straight hair the color of flint sat behind the wheel. “Where you headed?”

“A few miles west of Navarre Beach on Route 399.”

The lady pursed her lips. “You buy me a pack of smokes and fill up my tank and I’ll get you in the general vicinity.”

I pulled the seat belt across my lap. “Deal.”

Nodding, she shifted the car into drive and hit the gas.

My mother used to search for fresh starts in the creek waters of New Hope, Texas. I grasped for mine in a cloud of cigarette smoke on a stretch of Florida highway, a faded postcard clutched in my hand.