The Bitch Posse (18 page)

Remembering that makes me tingle, and so a tiny part of me is jealous of Rennie, but that’s squashed by the part that’s worried. It’s a fantasy I’d never want to come to life, really, it’s kind of spooky. If it was Coldwell or someone, I’d be throwing up thinking about it. Even picturing Rennie in bed with the sexy teacher kind of spins my stomach. What’s in his head? If you want to get legalistic about it, he’s been raping her all this time. Not violently of course. I mean, I can’t stop Rennie from messing around with him, she’s one determined girl. But he’s married, he should know better! I want to shake Rennie.
What are you thinking? It can never go anywhere!
But it was all Rennie could do to spill out the story at Cherry’s house. I could tell by her pained face that the worst we could do would be to judge our Rennie, who’d confided in us her secret. It seemed like she wanted to say more, but she stopped and I just rubbed her back. Then Cherry rolled us a big beautiful joint and we sat on her bed and got high and silly and nothing mattered.

It’s supposedly springtime, but it can’t be more than forty degrees outside the car, and the sky is one big fog, one great big white Xanax pill. I twirl up into the atmosphere, make love to a cloud, dizzy spin around the dance floor. The Xanax blankets me into itself, wraps me up warmtightcozysnug, and at once I’m asleep.

“We’re here, Amy.” Mom’s voice wakes me up. I check my watch and an hour’s passed. Hemmler looms before us like a fancy bed-and-breakfast, two Greek-type columns, carved wooden door, brick entryway spilling with flowers. They have all kinds of ways to try to trick you into believing it’s not a prison, but it is. Nausea tickles my stomach, which makes me feel like popping another Xanax, but that probably
wouldn’t be a good idea, would it, having just had two a couple of hours ago?

One as needed.
Ah hell.

I rattle the pill bottle out of my backpack and swallow another one dry. Mom sees me and smiles. “A little nervous?” She knows they’re for panic attacks, but she doesn’t know how many I’ve already taken. The sour Xanax residue dissolves in my mouth, and the taste wakes me up. This is twice as good as cutting, bitter bitter Xanax on my tongue, my miracle in white.

“I’m okay. I want to walk with her today, is it all right?” I don’t think I can bear to be inside Callie’s room. It’s freezing out, but I think Callie’d like it, anyway she seems to like it, and I can push her along the little path, brush her hair, talk to her.

“It’s too cold.”

“I don’t want to sit in the Box.” The Box is what I call Callie’s room, precise corners, studied whiteness, like living in an ice cube, other than the little square of green and blue that is her window.

“Amy, I said it’s too cold.”

“Your mother’s right.”

“I hate it there.” Even the postcards and family photo Dad put on the wall just emphasize the fact that they’ve penned her up like an animal. “She does too, she just can’t tell you.”

“I’ve had enough of your negativity.” Mom slides the door open. “You don’t have to see her at all, we can just drive you home.”

Fuck her. “Dad? Listen, she hasn’t seen me for two weeks and I miss her. It’s not that cold, I’ll put some throws on her lap. Don’t you think it’s all right?”

He looks from me to Mom. “Barb, I think it’ll be—”

Yes! “Great, I’m taking her for a walk to see the ducks.” I quicken my pace to Callie’s room. She’ll be so happy when I tell her we’re going outside.

I could swear behind me I hear the word “bitch,” but when I turn
around she’s smiling. “What a wonderful idea, Amy.” To Dad she says, “Rich, we need to talk.”

After Mom and Dad do their hug-and-kiss ritual that smacks of phoniness, they disappear to talk to Callie’s doctor. I tell Callie where we’re going and pull some blankets over her. She smiles in that little slack-jawed way she has, the smile that can’t quite hold itself on her face. Her eyes are so blue, her skin so smooth, her hair so curly. I take the soft brush and stroke it down the length of her hair, little strands coming off in my fingers. I wind them into a ball and put the ball in my pocket like I always do. Most people would think I’m loony, but I save her hair in a Ziploc I have in my drawer. If I can’t have a sister at least I can look at the strands of hair, and imagine.

I push her all the way down to the lagoon at the end of the property and talk about nothing. What could I possibly tell her that she would understand? Your little sister’s fucked up, in therapy? Instead I point out the leaves popping out on the trees, the tiny patches of grass, and I’m so sad she can’t walk anymore. For a while they were trying her in physical therapy, but it was hurting her legs so much she would cry, so they just decided to put her back in the chair. I pull the blanket up around her, and we stare at the ducks skimming over the lagoon. I’m certain there’s a Hemmler duck family, the Hemmies I call them. Year after year they come back, and the babies grow up and have babies and then those babies come back. I wish I’d brought some bread because Callie likes to watch them dive for it. I wish she was at home with us. We could walk around the college instead of this little lagoon. She could live in a house and not a box with fluorescent bulbs burning onto her like she’s a baby chick in an incubator.

I hate Mom and Dad.

I used to think I hated Callie for making all the problems, but it’s not her fault. Sometimes I wish I was older and on my own, and I could just kidnap Callie, take her away from here.

My fingers slide over the blue beads of my necklace. I lean down,
cross my arms around her neck, and whisper, “I love you, Callie. You’re the most beautiful sister in the world.”

Inside my chest burns a rage I’ve never felt this intensely. I’m glad she can’t see my eyes, not because I’m crying but because they’re hardened with anger, squinted, narrowed. I want to hurt someone. Anxiety pangs in my stomach, and I pull the bottle from my pocket and shake out two Xanax, chew them down. When I stand up, I look across the lagoon, and the ducks drift away.

May 2003
Mill Valley, California

On the kitchen table, Rennie leans against the wall and digs her heels into Bay’s back, smiling. This has been the sixth or seventh in a streak of breathtaking Marin days, days when Mount Tamalpais rises over the high school like a lush verdant goddess, days when Rennie feels the sleeping woman might really be her, rested relaxed and perfect, sure of who she is and what she is and at peace. As their rhythm speeds up, Bay kisses her on the neck. She relaxes into him, comes with a shiver and sigh, and blinks her eyes open; it’s time to get ready for school.

She’s breathed not a word of that night at Puck’s book party, not because she doesn’t feel guilty or it doesn’t haunt her but because it hardly seems to matter. She’ll never see him again, or if she does it’ll be the same literary circles and he’ll be easy to avoid. She doesn’t want to see him again because he’ll remind her of Wren Taylor, who should
be writing instead of playing around with a student teacher, a fling that’s probably already burned itself out. These relationships seem to have their built-in endings; they always graduate, move on, get jobs in Berkeley or Albany or change their minds like Seamus and head for art school.

Now that it’s early May, her relationship with Bay is puttering to an end too. He’s got applications in near Sacramento and Chico, won’t stay here, smarter than she is, knows a teacher’ll never buy a house in Marin. She reaches out and pulls a tangle of his hair toward her, laughing when it springs back to his face. It’s been fun while it’s lasted, and they’ve never said they loved each other; she thinks he knows the relationship is what it is and all it’s ever going to be. He laughs too.

She missed a call while they were messing around on the kitchen table, but her hair’s a disaster and she needs to brush it out in all of ten minutes. “Pick up the message, would you, hon? It might be Mallory.” Her half sister called last week and said she and her boyfriend, Max, and their little boy, Caleb, were going to be in town on their way to South America and could they stay with Rennie for a few days? Which of course is okay, but that means a few nights without Bay, because she doesn’t care to explain her younger lover, the knife, the anything to Mallory, who’s loaded down with her own problems.

Rennie rushes to the bathroom and plugs in the straightening iron.
Shit, Hook like I’ve been fucking someone on my kitchen table. Imagine that.
She squirts some tangle spray into her rat’s nest and brushes it out. As she pulls the straightening iron over her hair, she thinks of Mallory, perky little Mallory, who’s the mirror image of Kelly. Except, of course, Kelly’s not running drugs over the border with her boyfriend, which is what Rennie’s pretty sure Mallory and Max are up to. She slides the straightener over her hair once more and unplugs it, looking at her watch. Damn, she’s running late already. How did this happen?

She hurries back to the kitchen. “Did Mallory call? When’s she showing up on my doorstep?”

But his face is hard and stony as he finishes listening to the message. When it’s done, he presses a button. “Listen.” The word shoves a great, immense distance between them, and hatred or something like it crackles in the air.

Rennie takes the phone and presses it to her ear. “Wren.” It’s a voice she can’t place for a minute. “Wren, hey, hey, Wren.” Oh, God, it’s Puck MacGregor. “Got your number from Beth. Listen, I had a really, really,
really
nice time with you at my book party. Wren, you sweet little bird, Snow White’s at my house for a visit. So get that pretty little ass down here to Palo Alto because I can’t stop thinking about you. We’ll have a little fun with the Princess, and here’s what else we can do. . . . ” He describes all the things he’ll do with her and to her in great detail as Rennie feels her face growing hotter and hotter, particularly when he gets to “sweep my tongue across your body from head to toe and every hot and spicy place in between, I’ll bury my face between your legs, every part of you is so fucking gorgeous, Wren, you know it too. . . . ” And he finishes with “Oh, and by the way,” in a voice that means what he’s about to say is definitely not just “by the way” but perhaps the point of the entire phone call, “your agent is obviously not doing her job, so I’m going to take your novel and go over it and send it on to Pepper. I was talking with her the other day, and she’s interested in you, Wren, really interested.” He leaves his cell phone number and his private e-mail address, the one that’s not on his website. The message beeps at the end, and Rennie presses Save as ideas spin through her head.

Bay’s standing near the corner cupboard looking betrayed, and she sputters, “It was just one time, a long time ago, before I even met you. I was drunk. I’m not calling him, so don’t worry.” Of course, she’s hardly sure of that. Puck is so sexy, and (she’ll barely admit it to herself
) an in with Pepper Perryman is gold in the literary world. The cocaine worries her, though. At Beth’s he asked if she still got high, and she said yes, hating the “still,” which made her feel old. But coke was definitely not what she had in mind. Especially because of Cherry’s mom. Damn, her past keeps popping out at her, even though she’s walled it over with stucco, her memories a toxic mold constantly returning to her house. Another thought stabs into her: Is screwing Puck for an in with Pepper Perryman edging a little close to prostitution?

Was fucking Rob Schafer for an A the same thing?

Oh, God, shut up, Rennie! It wasn’t about that!

You should pay for what you did. . . .

“I’m really sorry,” she says to slam out her stupid memories. She walks over to Bay; the air’s grown less tense but maybe only because he’s resigned. She pulls him to her for a kiss, but the passion’s gone now, a bee that’s lost its stinger, deflated. She halfheartedly works her mouth and tongue around his and closes her eyes and imagines Puck, but this time Rob Schafer’s face pops into her head, the black wavy hair, his erection hard against her belly, and Jesus, why, Rennie, that was so long ago!

She breaks the kiss, and Bay’s smiling again, so
that’s
all right, and she says, “I’ll never be ready in time. You go on ahead, get dressed.” He’s got her first-period class, but legally she’s supposed to be there, responsible for her students. But she trusts Bay at this point and not just because she’s fucking him. “I’ve got a few things to take care of around here, anyway.”

She’s going to open up her e-mail program and sit there with a blank message addressed to Puck MacGregor, and stare at the screen and think.

After school, one of her best seniors, Paul, stays after class. “I wanted to tell you the great news.” He’s breathless, his light brown hair
buzzed around a front section that he spikes up with gel. “Princeton gave me an academic scholarship!”

“Fantastic, Paul!” She’s glad to have something to distract her from the blank e-mail to Puck that’s puncturing holes in her brain. Paul’s a cutie, a sweetheart. She had him as a freshman and again as a senior, and that ninth-grade year was key for him. He was drifting, avoiding homework, probably smoking way too much dope, and maybe, possibly, shooting heroin. Rennie’s no saint herself, but she saw him skating on the edge, a talented kid, directionless. She pulled him aside one day, told him how smart he was and how he’d never forgive himself if he, as she put it, fucked himself over. Apparently he appreciated the candor, because at the end of the year he wrote her a thank-you card: “You turned on the lightbulb in my head.” He’s put on some inches and muscles over the last three years and, unlike freshman year, doesn’t seem intimidated by his own good looks. Oh yeah, he’s gotten laid and grown into himself, she can just tell. “Good for you. But I’m not surprised.”