The Bitch Posse (7 page)

In a way, Callie explains the numerous bottles of scotch and vodka that go out in the trash each week. The drinking bothers me less than the fighting. Hell, I’m no angel when it comes to booze, and they know that, God do they ever. Callie’s the angel. Her blond hair curls around her face, catches the light from the window, falls over her shoulders. She’s never had the chance to do anything wrong.

Callie. Why can’t I stop thinking about her? Dad’s words to Mom are knives, cutting, accusing. She throws words back at him like rocks. Callie. What’s sad is if I had a sister, if I really
had
her, I could vent about them to her.

But I have Callie.

I swallow hard. What a baby!
Stop it, Amy.
I pull the cigarette to my lips, inhale hard, blow out fast.

Cherry untangles herself from Sam for a second and rests her fingers on my arm. “Something’s bugging you, isn’t it?”

“Just the usual. They’re fighting over Callie.”

I guess I should explain. Callie’s my older sister. She’s twenty-one years old and has what they call “profound mental retardation” because when she was born there wasn’t enough oxygen. She’s in an institution—well, they call it Hemmler Memorial Foundation, “a loving environment for children and young adults,” but it’s an institution, make no mistake—near Chicago. When she was a little kid, she didn’t go to school. They hadn’t made those special day classes yet that they
have now. Of course, I was little then too, but I remember when Mom and Dad decided to move Callie to Hemmler. That’s when the tears, the fights, all that started. No one would ever guess Dr. Linnet, dentist of the strip mall, and Mrs. Linnet, town librarian, had a drinking problem. Anyway, Mom still thinks Hemmler’s the only option for Callie. I mean, she can’t feed herself, can’t get dressed on her own, can’t talk.

Cherry leans close to me. “Are you okay?”

I shrug. “Whatever.”

Here’s another thing. Callie’s absolutely, utterly beautiful. I mean, she really is. Long, curly blond hair, big blue eyes, rosy cheeks, full lips. She looks like a china doll, one of the ones I always wanted that closes her eyes when you tilt her backward. One of the ones Mom always said I’d break and I’d have to wait till I was a grown-up. One of those dolls that are too pretty to play with, that are really for collectors.

Me? I’m a cheap knockoff of Callie. I got the blond hair, but it’s stick straight and fine. I’m not exactly overweight, but I’m “cheerleader chubby,” and my nose is spattered with freckles. Maybe Mom and Dad were supposed to have just one child, some meshing of Callie and me, some perfect angel. And instead they got me, plain old ordinary Amy, and Callie, who’s anything but.

Cherry’s lips flatten. “Shit. They shouldn’t bring you into this.”

“Par for the course.”

The arguments about Callie have been a part of my life for almost as long as Callie has. Which is forever. Dad’s always wanted to take Callie home. Mom says Callie “loves” Hemmler, that the “excursions”—Hemmler-ese for walks around the grounds of the institution—“really enliven” her. She says Callie can’t make it on her own, that she and Dad don’t have the equipment to deal with Callie. She’s not selfish exactly. At least I don’t think so. It’s just that seeing Callie always makes her cry. Daddy and I go and see her about every other week. Mom sees her less and less.

They argue about that too.

Brandon reaches for my arm. “I’m sorry, hon.”

His eyes are wide with concern, but I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anyone, really, when it comes to Callie. “I’ll be okay.” I don’t need him for a confidant; our relationship doesn’t run that deep, and that’s fine by me. The only people my heart has room for are Rennie and Cherry. “Can we talk about something else? Where’s Rennie?”

Funny, when I was running with the crowd I ran with since junior high, I didn’t mention Callie once. Not to anyone. Not even to Pammie. Pammie and I claimed we shared “everything” with each other, but “everything” meant juicy gossip, which girls were bitches, which were sluts, which were control freaks (um, that would be me and Pammie). Best friends who wanted to kill each other half the time. Pammie and I always competed, to be prettier, more popular, sexier.

Having a sister like Callie is hardly sexy.

Sam’s all over Cherry already. He’s rubbing his fingers along her back, making her giggle. She leans back for a kiss and then answers me. “Rennie’s at play practice. She’ll be here any minute. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Brandon keeps staring at me. Kent hasn’t said a word since I arrived, and now, sullenly, slowly, he stacks the flyers that are scattered all around the table and puts them in his satchel, sighing loudly like he’s given up. I guess the El Salvador conversation is over, or maybe me bringing Callie up put a damper on everything. The room echoes with silence, and fire floods my cheeks. “Really, it’s no big deal. I mean it’s the usual crap. Forget it.”

When I was little, soon after she moved to Hemmler, I actually thought most people had family members in institutions. I like to think I’d trust Cherry and Rennie with my deepest secrets, but . . . They do know about Callie, have even looked at pictures of her with me, rubbing my back as I cried. Still, there are things about Callie I’ll never tell them.

How I can’t help blaming her, the silent angel, for all their fights.

How I’m jealous of how much time they spend discussing Callie. Callie this, Callie that. Hemmler la, group care da. Do you know what they said when I made Head Cheerleader after working my ass off for three years?
That’s nice.
When I cut up the cheer uniform, do you think they fucking cared? Mom just said,
You’ll have to pay the school for that out of your allowance.

I don’t tell my friends about the resentment that’s a rock in my chest, that pulls me to the center of the earth, that’s stronger than me.

I don’t tell them how Callie makes me feel like such a small, stupid deal.

How I go to the Special Olympics, every year, by myself. Scoot next to some family with an athlete competing, and pretend they’re my own. Cheer my heart out for their daughter or brother or cousin. “Go, DeAnn!” “Go, Sheila!”

How DeAnn or Sheila or whoever waves at the crowd as she runs or wheels or walks past, flashes a peace sign, stops to tie her shoe as runners trot by her.

It’s never about winning, of course.

“Woo-hoo!” I scream. “You can do it, you’re awesome!” How great I feel. How I could watch those games every goddamn day of my life.

How in my head I hear, “Go, Callie!”

When I brought that up to Mom—that I wished Callie could do a race, so we could cheer for her—she said,
I don’t think you have a realistic view of your sister’s condition.

And when I let thoughts like that cross my mind, the tears shimmer in my eyes, and now I’m blinking them out onto my nose and Cherry’s putting her arms around me and Rennie’s just arrived and swoops over and suddenly I’m bawling, and you know what the crappy part is?

No matter how much I dump on my friends (and it’s too much, probably), they’ll never know how it feels.

I push the tears away from my eyes. My mind’s made up. I’m going to get laid tonight and forget Callie, just for a little while.

But I’m going to get good and drunk first. I lift my backpack over my shoulder, act tough. “Let’s go get wasted.”

March 2003
Mill Valley, California

Naked, Rennie sips coffee at the round kitchen table as Bay fries her pancakes in butter. Naked, he slides the spatula under one and turns it, and she swallows, watching his bare back all yellow sunshine and springtime. This has become their morning ritual, the coming out of darkness into light.

They’ll make love again after breakfast, here in the kitchen, without the knife, their warmth matching the heady Marin County air outside. She’ll forget the drama of last night, erase it all, blur away Lisa’s latest e-mail
(Don’t write about a writer, Wren, it’s the kiss of death),
shatter the empty glaring computer screen that doesn’t contain the imaginary novel she doubts she can ever bring into reality. She’ll squash all that here with Bay, the end-of-rainy-season sun spilling through the window over the sink, slanting shadows across the kitchen table, perfect, rectangular shades.

Drawing lines. Making borders. The finite divided. Unconfusing. There’ll be none of the choking, clotting darkness of last night.

And as Rennie bursts into orgasm, all of New York publishing will crumble to the ground.

Scribner.

Fuck me.

Warner Books.

Fuck me.

Penguin Putnam.

Oh, yes, fuck me, fuck me hard.

Bertelsmann owns almost everything these days.

Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, Bertelsmann, oh, yes, yes,
yes!

Then fall to pieces, brick by brick.

As Rennie wraps her legs tight around her gorgeous young lover, she will own everything.

In that pale brief moment before she feels empty again.

Rennie pulls some coffee into her mouth, warmth spreading over the insides of her cheeks—just a little sting, nothing much—and scribbles a few notes on Bay’s student teacher evaluation forms for San Francisco State. For once the cottage feels like home. The warm, salty butter smell clings to everything, as if the air is a cheerful checked gingham curtain in an old farmhouse
(the farmhouse is burned to the ground, but the barn, that’s where stuff happens . . .).

She melts that thought with a gulp of coffee.

Her pen scurries across the paper. “Bay, did you design student-centered lessons?” She doesn’t wait for an answer before circling five out of five. “Yes, you did. Did you ask openended, complex questions? Yes, you did.” At the bottom she scrawls,
Bayuni Henares is an extraordinarily gifted teacher. Almost instinctually he designs lessons that speak to all learning styles and abilities. The progress he’s made in such a short time is incredible. To sum it up, he will be a sensational educator, and it’s
been a pleasure to observe him as my student teacher.
She reads it aloud to him. “Do you like that, Bay? Is that good?”

His tight little ass shifts near the stove, his shoulder blades working like wings under his skin. Aching to touch him, she gets up from her coffee and evaluation and presses herself behind him, rubbing his hips, reaching for his cock, kissing his neck. “I’ll write whatever you want. Anything. You can even write it yourself, and I’ll copy it out in my own handwriting.” She pulls her fingernails gently along his shoulders, over the little hills of his elbows, his wrists. He’s motionless, won’t look at her.

“What?” she’s almost afraid to ask.

“You don’t really think all that stuff, Rennie. That’s just because . . . ” He jerks his head toward the bedroom.

She can’t deny it, really; she can’t point to one specific lesson where he did an exceptional job, though he tries so hard, painstakingly outlines lesson plans and learning outcomes and times things to the minute. But his teaching’s stagy, like she’d expect a student teacher’s lessons to be—overrehearsed, a little anxious, rushed.

She still hasn’t answered, and now it’s too late to sound genuine, because her hesitation has pierced the moment like a knife, deflated it, killed it.

She tries anyway. “Teaching’s hard. Keeping all the balls in the air at once, classroom management, student-centered lessons, progressive discipline, timing. You do a fine job.”

“But that’s not what you said on the form.”

“Do you care?” She slides her fingers back up his arms again, nibbles his earlobe, and probably despite himself, he turns around, reaches for her breasts—oh, God, yes, things are all right again. She presses closer and whispers, “Anyway, your seminar prof bases her grade on my comments. You’ll get an A.”

He lets go of her breasts and glances at the clock, which crushes
Rennie, as if not being late is more important than petting her. “But do I deserve an A? Or a B? A C-plus? You don’t even know, do you?”

He’s hit it perfectly, of course. And before she knows it she’s skipped a beat again, fucked it up. It’ll never sound good now. God, he’s too perfect, she can’t spoil it.

So she lies. “Bay, I’d never lie. Not to you. You’re just what I said, sensational. There’s an English opening at Tarn next year. I’m pretty sure I can . . . ”

His gaze flutters around the room like a butterfly, at the walls the windows the clock, everywhere but at her face. “Don’t say any more. Just fold up the damned thing and seal it. I don’t want to know what you wrote.”

Nausea spins in her stomach, choppy waves rolling under a boat. Tears well up in her eyes, and she threads her fingers through his hair and pulls him toward her, as if by touching her he can become her, so she won’t have to be herself. Into his ear she whispers, “I’m sorry, Bay. . . . ”

He shakes his head. It’s not okay but it’s all right, and he’s making his old sand circles on her back with his fingertips, comforting her. Maybe he does love her, after all.

She opens her lips. His mouth meets hers and the sickening spin turns into a happy, little-girl dizziness. She’s on a carousel, the kitchen blurring around her, and she feels like laughing. As he hardens against her, she swirls her tongue into his, in this pure, good, fresh morning, yellow as dandelions, bright as daisies, clean clean clean of blood. The slice on her stomach has clotted over like blackberry jam. He wouldn’t even have to notice it if he didn’t want to. She lifts herself onto the table, opens her legs. And now she will fuck everything, and everything will be okay.