The Bitch Posse (12 page)

That of course makes us all laugh hysterically. Rennie blushes, and she knows it’s no good trying to deny anything. She throws herself on her back onto Cherry’s bed and she’s still howling, but it’s so very obvious our Rennie has gotten herself laid.

“Who is he?” Cherry shrieks and jumps on top of Rennie, pulling her arms behind her head. “I’m not letting go until you tell me.” And it’s such a ridiculous scene, like Cherry and Rennie are in a slapstick comedy, that I burst into laughter again, and it’s catching, Cherry’s laughing too and Rennie’s shaking her head from side to side, tears coming out her eyes.

“Kent maybe,” I say in a moment of making sense-ness
(God, where did words go?)
that’s rare for me when I’m high. “Friday, after me and Brandon disappeared with the vodka.”

But the answer in her eyes isn’t yes. “Maybe it’s not a he at all,” says Cherry, “maybe it’s a she. Oh, come on, don’t look so scandalized,” she says to me, and now I blush, feeling unworldly. “Open your horizons, Aim, it’s 1988 after all.”

“It’s not Kent, and it’s not a woman, and that’s all I’m saying.”

“Oh, just tell us, we’re your best friends,” I beg. “Is it someone at school?”

“Would I deign to fuck one of the lowlife jockstraps from the senior class? Are you serious?” The words are supposed to come out lightly, I’m sure, but Rennie’s got a secret and she’s not telling for a reason, and I decide to drop it.

“Listen, let’s put on
Degrassi,
” I say. Watching
Degrassi
when we’re
high is the best because no one can stop laughing when Snake or Wheels or BLT calls somebody “narbo” or “broomhead” (what with the fuckedup names and wacky slang, Canada must be the Land o’ Insanity, eh?), plus Joey Jeremiah’s stupid fedora, and the band Zit Remedy with their one and only song. Oh, God, I’m giggling just thinking about it.

But Cherry presses on. “I’ll bet he’s married. That’s why you’re not telling us.” Rennie just gives a nod, and Cherry lets her up. “I knew it. I won’t make you say who it is.”

Now I
am
scandalized, and the news almost kills my buzz, my best friend sleeping with a married man? What kind of married man would mess around with a high school girl? I only hope she’s not in too deep, surely we can talk her out of this. “Rennie, why? What would possess you to do something so . . . ” I don’t want to say
stupid
so I settle for “risky?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Just—”

“Is that who you were drinking with? When you said you were at play practice?” demands Cherry. And she’s so lucid when she’s stoned, so logical. I can’t be that way, it’s all I can do to follow the conversation: yes, we’re talking about Rennie; yes, she’s no longer a virgin; yes, she’s sleeping with a married man; and my mind won’t process any more.

Rennie nods, and Cherry says, “If you get pregnant I’ll kill you.”

“He can’t get me pregnant, he and his wife will probably have to adopt at some point.”

I can tell by her eyes that it really hurts to say “his wife.” There’ll be a bigger reaction from me in the morning when I try to change her mind, help her figure her way out. But right now Rennie just needs a hug. Her eyes are wide and kind of scared, and I fold her up in my arms and run my palms over her back. She seems to appreciate it, breathing out short little puffs. She
is
scared, like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, like a fox cub who’s had an adventure that’s too grown up. I rub my knuckles over her hair, and I do have a lucid thought.
Please, God, help her through this, don’t let this ruin her.
I meet Cherry’s eyes over Rennie’s shoulder, and she says, “Rennie, this has to stop right now.”

“Look, Cherry, I told you I don’t need a mother. I can take care of myself.” The subject is most definitely closed, and the warm belly of the room has turned decidedly icy. Cherry takes a deep breath and swears as she realizes she’s forgotten about the pot burning in the pipe, wasting away into nice-smelling smoke, and she pulls it to her lips and takes one last hit. But then she’s choking, and she waves us off, tears squeezing out the corners of her eyes. Blood’s trickling from her nose, dripping down her face, splashing onto her quilt, and Rennie grabs the tissue box. Cherry squeezes her nose as Rennie cleans her up, but the tears don’t stop falling from Cherry’s eyes. I’m compelled to ask “Are you okay?” feeling like a loser, the only one who hasn’t had a crisis tonight, and Cherry waves me off again—fine fine, no problem, no problem at all.

But seeing Cherry cry breaks my heart. I pull her close, and even though I’ve escaped Dad’s needling that sometimes comes when I’ve been talking to him for half an hour and one little remark makes me realize the conversation wasn’t at all about what I thought it was, I feel my lips trembling too. I don’t want to go to Hemmler on Friday; I love Callie, but seeing her makes me depressed. I’ll talk to her and read to her again out of
The Very Hungry Caterpillar,
which, well I don’t know if she loves it since she can’t tell me, but which she always seems to pay a lot of attention to. Of course I can’t read to her about things she can’t understand,
Forever, The Grounding of Group 6,
or anything I like, I can’t giggle with her about the
Degrassi
episode, I don’t have a sister, don’t have a sister, don’t have a sister, and suddenly I’m crying too. God, we must sound like a bunch of lunatics stoned and sobbing in Cherry’s room, and it strikes me as funny all of a sudden so now my crying blends into another fit of the giggles.

As I run my fingers up Cherry’s arm, they trip over speed bumps, and I open my eyes and notice red scratches slicing across her skin. I draw in my breath. “Cherry!” Seeing your best friend’s battle scars is the ultimate buzz kill, and in a second my high floats into nothingness and I’m my cold, dreary, depressed self again.

She pulls away and yanks her sleeve down, but I trade a glance with Rennie; she’s seen too. “Oh, my God, what did you do? Did you try to . . . ”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t do that.”

I reach over and slide her sleeve up again. Long red stripes skate across the beautiful smooth unfreckled skin of her forearm. “Why?”

She takes a deep breath and lights a cigarette.

“You’re so beautiful, why would you hurt yourself?” asks Rennie. “It’s not like that.” She blows smoke over my head, and the strands tangle in Rennie’s hair. I reach for a cigarette and light one too. “Did you ever hurt so bad you just couldn’t stand it, felt so bad inside that you thought you’d burst?”

God, I feel that way whenever I think of Callie and Mom and Dad. Emotions scratch themselves open inside me, gouges of pain that just expand and bleed and never get smaller. The only thing that helps is to drink, drink a lot, make my thoughts go away, turn myself into someone who doesn’t think and just acts, impulsive, and I nod so Cherry knows I understand, and Rennie’s nodding too. I say, “Cherry, we’ve all felt bad, but don’t do stuff like that.”

“You haven’t tried it. Look. You’re not going to kill yourself. It’s just taking the pain inside and putting it outside where it’s real.” She opens the drawer next to her bed and pulls out a straight razor blade. Before I know what she’s doing, she pulls it across her arm and beads of blood pop up, sparkle like glass. She holds up the razor blade in an invitation.

Rennie takes it and holds it in her palm for a moment, considering. Then she too closes her eyes, pushes the blade into her skin, and slices across her arm. She opens her eyes as if shaken awake, and her tears have stopped. She doesn’t look afraid anymore. She just says, rubbing the drops of blood into her arm, “Are you going to try it, Amy?”

It was like this when Cherry passed me a joint for the first time, when Pammie stole some beer from her parents’ fridge in seventh grade. It’s not like I’m going to Just Say No.

I reach for the blade and drag it across my arm. All I feel is a little pinch, and I look down. A white scratch zips across my skin; I haven’t drawn blood. I’m just a wimp I guess, and I’m so pissed at myself I try it again. The blade chugs across my arm, slicing pretty deep, and the blood flows up to the surface, and goddamn, reality crashes into me like a world colliding against Amy Linnet, a ping of sensation. I’m struck like a tuning fork and vibrate with life; I
do
feel better. I feel alive, and everything around me is crisper, cleaner, louder, more defined. The air rings with importance. I matter. I am. This is better than blanking out with vodka. And I know why Cherry’s done this not just once but five or six or more times.

We’re just a bunch of fucked-up chicks I guess, and before the wounds on our arms dry up all the way, Cherry decides we’re all going to become blood sisters since we’re sliced up anyway. We scratch open our valleys of blood, and Cherry presses hers on mine, then I press mine on Rennie’s and Rennie presses hers on Cherry’s. Cherry says, “The poet, some words from the poet.”

“I know,” says Rennie. “We must all swear a solemn oath.”

How utterly fucking brilliant.

“First I’ll say it, then the two of you.” She closes her eyes.

We, the Bitch Posse girls,
do solemnly swear
to be undyingly faithful to each other,
and to put no friends or lovers before one another,
as long as the stars are fixed in the heavens
and the fish sparkle in the sea.

“Jesus, Rennie,” says Cherry. “That’s fucking beautiful.”

“Now you girls say it.”

Cherry seizes my hand and Rennie’s and presses our fingers with abandon. Rennie reaches for my hand, so now we’re a circle, a circle of
three. “
We, the Bitch Posse girls,
” we all say together, and our lips work in unison, we own the world, the whole motherfucking world, and the words come out so clean, like diamonds, sharp and hard, and our voices swell, we are better, stronger, more perfect than anyone else on this whole pathetic planet.

When we finish repeating the oath, all of us are crying.

Rennie breaks the silence with a whisper, spinning her fingers along her red glass necklace. “These beads that string us together shall never fall from our necks. Because
‘there is no friend like a sister.’
”

My fingers wander to my own necklace. When I was stringing all those beads I had no idea they’d mean so much to us.

“We should remember this moment.” Cherry rummages around her desk drawer for something and comes up with three little glass jars. “Here.” We each squeeze some drops into the jars, and I know that with the power of blood the three of us can do anything. We’re stronger than anyone, stronger than Callie or Dad or Mom or Hemmler or married men. “Diana’s the Queen of Hearts,” Cherry tells us, “you, Amy, are the Queen of Diamonds, Rennie’s the Queen of Spades, and I’m the Queen of Clubs.” We are three Queens and Diana’s our fourth. We’re all as strong as Cherry, who never seems to worry about anything.

Why the hell would Cherry need to cut herself?

As the last drops slip into the last jar and Cherry seals them, I feel so strong, stronger as three than one. Cherry whispers into my ear, “Forever . . . ” We lie back down on Cherry’s bed and end up missing
Degrassi
as we fall asleep in our clothes, tangled together, best friends.

April 2003
Mill Valley, California

Rennie’s running a brush through her hair, getting ready for Puck’s book party. He’s so famous, she can’t believe she actually knows him as Puck. Bay’s not coming with her tonight. He shies away from parties, especially ones where Rennie’s called Wren and where her book inevitably comes under discussion. Lately it hasn’t been
Go Ahead, Embarrass Me,
it’s been the new novel, that beast she can’t tame, the thing she’s been working on for five years now. It’s humiliating, this perpetually unfinished project people continually ask about and raise a brow when she says she’s still working, like she’s grown an extra nose. She hates thinking about her writing, it doesn’t mean anything to her anymore. She doesn’t read like she should, either. It requires too much thought, which is why sex is so great, you don’t have to think about anything. She’s grateful the attention’ll be on Puck tonight, and his latest novel,
Hayes.
Not her.

The party’s at Beth Hartford’s little rented house by the 2 A.M. Club in Mill Valley. Leave it to the hanger-on Beth, the socialist socialite, to get
the
Puck MacGregor to her house for a party. Beth’s place is a magnet for events of all types because she has the yard and the endless stash of pot and the big wolf-dog Bogie and the hot tub, of course, all the accessories of a successful Marin County get-together.

When Rennie parks her car and gets out, dusk is just drawing from Mount Tamalpais. Jasmine layered with nectar-seeking butterflies pours over Beth’s fence, the heady odor floating in the air, making her drunk, happy, Marin County happy. Most people would kill to live here. The occasional zoom of a car on Miller Avenue interrupts the silence, but mainly it’s Marin, where the air’s ready to pop with the sound of a bird, perfection.

Beth’s place is nothing fancy, a pink stucco bungalow that needs updating. Puck already had a big to-do in the city at the St. Francis, the one that was written up in the
Chronicle
along with a glowing advance review of his book and a bunch of hype about the upcoming
Killing Butterflies
movie, starring Angelina Jolie and Christian Slater. (Will Wren Taylor ever be reviewed in the
Chronicle
again?) This is the intimate, Marin County affair, the one without Loretta Jacobs the social scene columnist, without the reporters, just Puck and his agent and a few local writers. Puck knows everyone, and everyone loves him, the Golden Child, the Boy Wonder. He’s like a magnet drawing famous people to him, and somehow, next to everyone, he seems even more important. Hell, Puck would make Queen Elizabeth look like a nobody.