CHAPTER 4
Nastya
By the time I pull into Margot’s driveway at just after three o’clock, I’m literally drenched in relief, or maybe it’s just sweat because the humidity here is ridiculous. Either way I’ll take it because, for the first time today, I feel like I can breathe. All in all, it could have been worse. Word traveled fairly quickly after fifth hour but at least the day was almost done. I figure by tomorrow it will all be out in the open and then we can just get on with it.
Even seventh hour, the cruel joke that is my Speech and Debate elective, went as well as could be expected, which is saying a lot, seeing as how I’m at a disadvantage with the whole speech part. We got to do the infinitely cool circle thing again, but by that point I was desensitized to both my dread and the whispers that had already begun to follow me.
My good pal, Drew, was also there.
He didn’t sit next to me, which I was glad for, because his comments were amusing enough and easily ignorable, but I was afraid I might have to fend off his hands, too. My relief only lasted so long before I realized that he had positioned himself directly across the circle from me so that, every time I lifted my head, I couldn’t help but see him and his I-can-make-you-a-woman eyes and his I-know-what-you-look-like-under-your-clothes smirk. I bet he practices in the mirror. I think he could teach a class. I looked down at my desk and traced the names carved in the surface to keep myself from smiling, not because I found him attractive, which he undeniably was, but because he was entertaining as all hell.
I’m actually kind of thankful that he’s there. He’s something to focus on other than the things about that class that suck; for example, everything. I should also mention that everything includes the dark-eyed, dark-haired, refreshingly charm-free jackhole from the courtyard, whose name is, apparently, Ethan. Fortunately, there were plenty of free desks in the room so I didn’t have to take him up on his infinitely appealing lap offer. Not so fortunately, one of those free desks was next to mine so that’s where he sat. He didn’t make any more comments, but he smirked a lot, and he wasn’t nearly as good at it as Drew.
I get inside and throw my backpack on the kitchen table and pull out everything that needs a signature so Margot can sign it before she goes to work. Before I can get it all unpacked, my phone vibrates, and I have to stop to dig it out. I don’t bother keeping it accessible. It’s not like I need it that often. It can only be one of two people.
My mother or Margot. No one else uses the number; not even my dad anymore.
I only keep the phone for the most necessary of communication—texts, mostly one-way, from them to me. When I have to, I’ll use it to let Margot know where I am or if I’m going to be late. That was part of the deal for me staying here. It’s understood that that’s all the information I’ll part with. No How was your day? No Did you make any friends? No Have you looked for a therapist yet? Just basic logistical facts. Talking has never been the issue. Communication is the issue.
The message is from Margot. Went to grab take-out for your first day. Back in a few. I’m still trying to get used to eating at four o’clock. Margot works the night shift, which means we eat dinner early so she can shower and get to work. Then again, apparently lunch here is at ten forty-five in the morning, so I guess it all works out.
I kick off the torture devices and change into running clothes so I can go after the early bird special. I’d go now, but it’s hot and I make sure never to be outside at this time of day when the sun has a way of stalking me, searing memories into my skin. I won’t even go out to check the mail if I don’t have to. My phone vibrates again.
I look at the screen. Mom. Hope your first day was good. Love you. M. I put the phone back on the table. She doesn’t expect a reply.
Margot gets back with all manner of Chinese food. We won’t need to cook for a week. That’s a good thing, because I can’t cook real food to save my life and I get the feeling, from the drawer full of take-out menus, that Margot can’t either. I’ve been here for five days and I don’t think the kitchen’s been used once. At least meals aren’t awkward with Margot. She has no problem talking enough for both of us.
Whatever
I
fail
to
bring
to
the
conversation, she dutifully makes up for.
I’m not even sure she needs me sitting here.
After less than a week, I know who she’s dated for the past three years and who she’s dating now. I know all of her workplace gossip, even though I have no idea who any of the people she mentions are. I’m sure Andrea would not appreciate the fact that Margot is telling me about her financial problems and Eric would not want me know that his girlfriend cheated on him and Kelly would be appalled to learn that I am aware of her bipolar disorder and every medication she takes for it. But the more Margot talks, the less awkward it is that I don’t, and I prefer conversations about people I don’t care about. The times she brings up my family are worse, because I don’t want to think about them, and I can’t tell her to shut the hell up.
After we eat, she rushes to shower off a day’s worth of sweat and suntan oill and I pack up container after container of leftovers and wait for the sun to fade so I can run.
I never even make it out the front door because the sky turns black before sunset and opens up in torrential rain. I don’t mind running in rain but this is even a bit much for me. It’s too difficult to see and impossible to hear anything through this kind of downpour. When I look out the sliding glass door at the back of the house, it seems like it might be raining horizontally, and even I’m not desperate enough to go out in this kind of lightning. I kick off my sneakers and sit and then stand and then sit and then stand again. My brain is on the spin-cycle right now.
I have no treadmill here so I do jumping jacks in place until I get bored, switch to alternating sets of chest presses and mountain climbers, move on to weighted squats and lunges and then do as many push-ups as I can before my arms give out and I drop my face into the carpet.
It’s not the kind of soul-draining exhaustion I’m looking for, but for tonight, it will have to do.
I pull out clothes for tomorrow and pack up all of the signed paperwork and shove it into my backpack. I almost wish I had homework, but I don’t, so I wander around the living room. Margot’s got a stack of newspapers piled up next to the front door and I realize that I haven’t checked the birth announcements for nearly two weeks. I grab the papers and sift through them until I find the right section.
The first one is disappointing. Nothing new. All of the overused classics and the same trendy crap that I wouldn’t saddle a cat with, much less a kid. My name, of course, is never there, but it’s not my name I’m looking for. I scan four papers; there are three Alexanders, four Emmas, two Sarahs, a crapload of names ending in –
den (Jaden, Cayden, Braden, gag), a bunch I don’t remember, and one worthy of going on my wall. I cut it out and grab my laptop.
I pull up the internet and wait for my start page to load. Within seconds, I’m staring at the lovely, pink-and-blue-splattered baby name website that greets me every time I get online.
I type in my newfound query, Paavo, which turns out to be nothing but the Finnish version of Paul. It’s kind of a letdown.
I like names. I collect them: names, origins, meanings. They’re an easy thing to collect. They don’t cost anything and they don’t really take up any space. I like to look at them and pretend that they mean something; and maybe they don’t, but the pretending is nice. I keep most of them on the walls of my bedroom at home—home where I used to live. I keep the ones that echo. Good names with significance. Not the crap everyone seems to be using these days. I like foreign names, too; the unusual ones that you rarely see. If I ever had a baby, I’d pick one of those, but babies aren’t really something I see in my future, even the far off one.
I fold up the papers to put them away, glancing down one more time. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch one of the Sarahs again, and I smile. It reminds me of the one amusing part of my day.
I was running to my locker between classes and had to duck around the corner and wait when I saw Drew in a heated exchange with Barbie, two lockers down from mine. I decided that if I had to choose between being tardy to class or walking into the middle of that verbal smackdown, the tardy was the lesser of the evils. It wasn’t that difficult dodging Drew’s not-so-subtle come-ons when I ran into him by myself, but I certainly didn’t want to take the chance that he’d proposition me in front of his girlfriend. That would definitely make my ever-growing list of things I do not need. So I leaned against the wall and waited for them to move on.
“Give me twenty bucks.” I heard Drew say to her.
“Why?” Apparently annoyed is the only quality her voice possesses.
“Because I need twenty bucks.” His tone indicated that this should be enough of a reason.
“No.” Then, what must have been the sound of her slamming her locker. Hard.
“I’ll pay you back.” No, you won’t.
“No, you won’t.” Smart girl.
“You’re right. I won’t.” I peered around and caught him flash that cocky smile at her. “What? At least I’m honest.”
“Why don’t you go ask one of your whores?” Damn.
“Because none of them love me as much as you do.”
“That stupid grin might work on every other female in this school, but you know it won’t work with me, so forget it.”
“Sarah, you know you’re going to give it to me, so come on.”
Sarah. I smiled. I couldn’t help but appreciate the absolute perfection of the name;
bland,
common,
and
wholly
unoriginal. Best of all, it means princess.
She exhaled loudly and I leaned around to see her digging in her purse.
Seriously? She’s going to give him money?
He’s better than I gave him credit for.
Maybe I just gave her too much credit. My self-respect may not be off the charts, but hers must be nonexistent. She took out a twenty-dollar bill and shoved it at him.
“Here. Just so I can get you to leave me alone.” He grabbed it and started walking away, but not before she yelled after him, “If you don’t pay me back, I am so telling Mom!”
Mom? Oh.
That little revelation was fun, though it does make me wonder if my observation skills are failing me. Did I really miss that? My brother, Asher, and I used to bicker with the best of them, but our animosity threshold was several levels lower than theirs.
I toss the last of the newspapers back on top of the pile and return to the computer, trying to come up with anything else I can do online to kill time. I’m not on Facebook or anything else anymore, so there’s no point in that. I could torture myself by using Asher’s name and passwords to check up on people I used to be friends with, but I decide against it.
There’s isn’t anything I want to know.
The lightning is flashing incessantly outside the window, taunting me every time it lights up the sky. My phone is on my bed, whispering in my ear like a bottle of scotch to a recovering alcoholic, while the rain continues cackling at me through my window. I may actually be desperate enough to go out in this weather. I need to run that badly. More jumping jacks. Lift some weights. More push-ups. Lift more weights. I may not be able to get a treadmill in here, but a punching bag I think I can manage, even if it’s just one of those portable ones. I don’t think Margot will let me hang a heavy bag in her living room, but I’m not that picky. I’ll take anything I can hit right now.
Cookies. I need to bake cookies. It’s the next best thing to running. Not really, but I do love cookies and I don’t like the shit that they sell in packages, which is what Margot buys. Oreos are acceptable.
Because they’re Oreos and no matter what you do, you can’t replicate them. Trust me on this one. I’ve spent more than a few days in my kitchen, trying to do just that.
It’s never going to happen. So Oreos get a pass, but factory-sealed chocolate chip cookies that are shelf-stable for up to six months are another story. Life really is too short for that. Believe me, I know.
I rummage through Margot’s kitchen and I have no idea why I’m surprised that she doesn’t own any flour or baking soda or baking powder or vanilla or just about any ingredient that could possibly be required for baking. I do locate some sugar and salt, and miraculously, a set of measuring cups, but that won’t get me very far. I resolve to head to the grocery store this weekend. I won’t make it long without cookies. Or cake.
I give up, eat half a bag of jelly beans, leaving the black ones because they suck, and head to the shower to wash the shit that was this day off of me. I have a riveting conversation with myself while letting the conditioner set in my hair. I talk about my crap schedule. I tell myself about the unfortunate irony that is my music class and wonder if that tops the ridiculousness of Speech & Debate. I ponder, out loud, whether any female in the school, student or teacher, is immune to the charms of a certain blond named Drew. Then I answer
—ME. Oh, and Sarah of course, though he seems to be able to badger her into submission. I have these conversations periodically, just to make sure my voice still works in case I ever want to use it again. Returning to the world of the vocal was always the plan, but some days I wonder if I ever will. Most of the time, I don’t have much exciting news, so I repeat names or random words, but today was noteworthy, so it warranted full sentences.
Sometimes I even sing, but I save that for the days when my self-loathing is at peak levels and I want to hurt myself.
I crawl into my bed, which is covered in a sage green floral-print comforter, just like the one in my bedroom at home. It was probably more my mother’s doing than Margot’s. I think she has trouble grasping the concept that I was trying to get away from that place, not bring it with me. I lift up the mattress and pull out the composition book I’ve hidden there. I’ll have to find a better place for it soon. The rest of them are in the back of my closet, packed in a cardboard box, underneath old paperbacks
and
my
middle
school
yearbooks. The one in my hands is black and white with the word Trig written in red marker across the cover. Like all of the others, the first few pages are filled with fake class notes. I grab a pen and I write.
Exactly three and a half pages later, I slide the book back to its hiding place and turn off the light, wondering what fresh hell tomorrow will bring.