chapter Four
Emma—Age 13
That prick Michael has taken my mom away yet again. This time for three weeks. And I am left in this house alone. Carol doesn’t come watch me anymore because Michael says he is not paying for a nanny when my brothers can keep an eye on me. I’m thirteen now and both my brothers are in college—I don’t understand exactly how that translates to “keeping an eye on me,” but it’s definitely better than having that chimney Carol here for three weeks.
Mom left a check for me on the kitchen counter. It is signed but otherwise blank. It’s what she does every time he takes her on one of his trips. He calls them “buying trips,” but I have no idea what they actually buy because they never come home with anything more than they left with. I am supposed to fill out the check for however much I want, make it out to cash, and then walk it down to the bank. How the hell do I know how much money I am going to need to live off of for three weeks? I decide to screw them both and make the check out for two thousand dollars. That should do it, right? Michael will probably kick my ass when he sees the amount, but he is a thousand miles away right now, and I don’t give a damn. He’s going to be pissed no matter how much money I take out, so I might as well make it worth it.
I spend my time going to school, which I actually like, hanging out with my friends, and playing volleyball. I’m on the girls’ team at school, and I’m actually half-decent at it.
When Saturday comes, my brother Ricky calls. I think he is drunk, and it’s only three o’clock in the afternoon.
“I’m coming to get you at eight o’clock,” he says. “Michael told me to keep an eye on you while they’re gone. You can hang with me and Evan.” I feel disgusted. My brothers are practically grown men, and I have to go and hang out with them on a Saturday night. They’ll probably take me to some R-rated movie just to watch me squirm. Do they not realize that if I wanted to get into trouble, I could do it whenever I damn well please? I don’t have to wait until a Saturday night. I am thirteen and pretty much living by myself for weeks on end. The potential for trouble is slapping me in the face.
I gotta say, though, for being alone so much, I really don’t get into that much trouble. I don’t steal or drink or smoke or have sex. Not yet anyway—but I’m working on the sex part with Jack Darris. He’s a smokin’ hot tenth-grader. We’ve come close but haven’t gone all the way yet. The only trouble I actually get into is for fighting—and that’s only when I get caught, which I usually don’t. A good scrap makes me feel better. It makes me feel better about Michael, about my brothers, about life in general.
My mom says I have a hot temper, which is definitely true. What can I say? People piss me off. And when I get pissed off, I go all postal. I want to beat the crap out of them. I know that my mom has been trying to talk Michael into sending me to some shrink for my—what was the word she used? Oh, yes—rage, because I heard them talking about it one night. He said that God would fix it and that I just needed to keep going to Sunday school. F*ck him. What he doesn’t know is that every time I look at my Sunday-school teacher, it makes me want to go postal. Seeing her definitely does not fix my “rage issue.” It aggravates the hell out of it.
I hang around the house for a few more hours, make myself some dinner, and watch a couple of Law and Order reruns. A little before eight o’clock, I run upstairs and change into a better pair of jeans and a clean shirt. I decide on the one that Jack says makes me look older. I put on a little eyeliner and mascara and brush out my hair. I’m skinny, yes, but I think Jack is right. This shirt does make me look older. Sixteen, at least.
Ricky is pretty well trashed when he picks me up, but I don’t say anything because I don’t want to start a fight right now. Chances are, he’ll pass out halfway through the movie anyway, and then I’ll only have to put up with Evan, and he isn’t half as bad as Ricky. In fact, Evan’s a half-decent guy when Ricky isn’t around. It’s as if Ricky’s presence instantaneously turns Evan into some kind of stupid minion. I hate it.
As I open the car door, thinking about Ricky’s flair for brotherly manipulation, a memory comes crashing into me, one that almost keeps me from going with them. It was the summer after my mother married Michael, and my brothers and I were still pretty close. Michael had just begun to weave his way in between us. My brothers and I were playing in the creek behind the house, throwing stones and swimming. It was my turn to swing out on a rope and drop down into the water, but I was afraid and I didn’t let go in time. Instead of falling into the water, I dropped on to the ground. My leg scraped against a stump, and I knocked my head hard enough to give myself a ringing concussion. I was crying when my mother came rushing from the back porch. She knelt down beside me and brushed my hair out of my eyes, asking me if I was all right. My brothers were looking down at me, their faces streaked with worry, their fingers fidgeting.
Then I heard Michael’s voice. He was walking toward us, asking what I did this time, sighing as if my falling was the biggest hassle he’d ever faced. As soon as my brothers heard his voice, their faces changed. They stepped back away from me and tightened their expressions, replacing their worry with casual indifference. Toughening themselves up. Michael walked up to us and put a hand on each of their shoulders, telling my mother how clumsy I was, berating me for being dumb enough to forget to let go of the rope. I was scared, I told him, not dumb. When he asked my brothers if they thought that their little sister was being dumb, Ricky looked up at Michael and enthusiastically nodded his head. Then he elbowed Evan in the ribs until the pair of them were nodding and smiling at Michael like a pair of twin cronies begging for his approval. As they walked away from me and my mother, I saw Evan peek back, and for a split second, a small, sympathetic grin flashed at me. It was the first time I felt betrayed.
In the years since then, betrayal and duplicity have become second nature to my brothers, and I’ve been stung by them more times than I can count. I’ve learned to distance myself from them, to shut them out whenever possible. Tonight, however, shutting them out is not an option. Unless I want to get into a huge fight. Which I do not.
I get in the backseat and buckle up.
We stop by Evan’s apartment to pick him up, and he fist-bumps Ricky as soon as he gets into the car, then turns around and gives me a nod. I think for a few moments that maybe it will be a decent night after all. But then Ricky pulls out of the parking lot and turns left, away from the theater and toward the university. Ricky and Evan start talking, and their conversation makes it clear that we aren’t going to see a movie. We’re going to a party. A fraternity party.
Ricky looks at my reflection in the rearview mirror and starts talking to me. He says all sorts of shit about where we are going and how I am supposed to behave while we are there. I wonder what my Sunday-school teacher would think about my going to a college party. I’m silently laughing at the thought of it all when we pull up to the house.
I am going to my first fraternity party at thirteen years old. I am both nervous and excited. Ricky’s behavior lecture was pretty clear. I can drink, I can smoke, I can dance...but I cannot tease his friends. I believe his exact words were: “If you are going to flirt with my friends, then you damn well better be prepared to put out. Nobody likes a dick-tease, Emma.” Uh, I am thirteen years old, you a*shole. Putting out is not on the evening’s agenda.
There are about a million people in the house. The floor is sticky, and I can barely hear myself think over the pulsating music. Evan introduces me to their friend Lainey who decides to take me under her wing. She grabs my hand and hauls me to the basement for a beer. My brothers disappear to God-knows-where. At least in the basement the music is quieter. People are playing Ping-Pong with cups of beer lined up on the table. They are shooting pool. They are bouncing quarters off the table and into full cups of beer. It is a brand-new wonderland, and I can’t stop watching them. They are all laughing and talking, and there is no awkwardness. There are no social bystanders. Only people having fun. I have been to a few high school parties with Jack, and I can tell you that they are nothing like this. High school parties are freak shows of self-consciousness. Everyone is too busy caring about what everyone else is thinking. This, though...this is different. Suddenly I cannot wait to get to college. Screw Jack Darris. I want a boy like these boys. One who doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. One who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything but being himself.
Lainey comes back with a couple of beers and starts chattering with a bunch of other girls. I am left to my own devices in the basement of my brothers’ fraternity house, and before I know it, I am playing quarters and drunk off my ass. Nobody asks me who I am or how old I am or why I am here. They just feed me their beer and their laughter and treat me like I am their very best friend.
At three in the morning everyone starts to filter out of the house. The music has stopped, and the kegs are kicked. Through my beer-bleary eyes, I watch couples leave together. I watch groups of girls walk arm-in-arm out the door. I watch boys stagger down the front walk and out on to the street. I feel euphoric, and I don’t quite think it’s entirely due to the beer. I want to skip over the next five years of my life and get right to the good part. I want Ricky and Evan to bring me back here again.
As I stumble around trying to find them, two boys come up behind me and hook their arms into mine, one on each side. I think for a second that they might be my brothers, but then I realize they are far too cute to be Ricky and Evan. They are laughing at me, and I think it is because I am not at all walking straight. I feel sloppy and small between them. The boys take me up the stairs to where the bedrooms are. I am leaning on them hard, and my head is wagging from side to side. I try to look up, but my neck feels like jelly. When we get to the top of the steps, I see Ricky. He is standing with his arm around Lainey’s shoulder, and there is a big smile on his face. I can hear him laughing at me. Laughing at his drunk-off-her-ass thirteen-year-old sister. I want to punch him in the f*cking face, but I can’t because my two escorts have turned left and are walking me down the hallway.
Then from behind me I hear: “I warned you, Emma.” And more laughing.