Weird Girl and What's His Name (19 page)

Rory stared straight ahead.

“I'll take that under advisement,” he said finally.

twelve

I
WALKED HOME TO CHECK IN
with Janet and Leo, but they were sleeping already. I didn't feel like trying to sleep, so I got on my bike and rode over to Jay's. When I got there, Jay was standing on the front porch with a fat woman I'd never seen before. Not that I'm like, size-ist or whatever—I mean, look at Rory, he's huge, and he's adorable—but this woman was, like,
noticeably
fat from a distance. And way bigger than Jay. Jay was a little on the skinny side, but standing next to this woman, she looked like a pipe cleaner with a head.

I stood there in the shadows across the street, not really spying on purpose but just hanging back because I could tell, even from far away, that they were in the middle of an intense discussion. Then, they hugged. The fat woman kissed Jay's hair and pulled away from her, and Jay reached out for her hand. And I realized that this must've been Carol, the infamous Carol, the one who'd wrecked Jay so much she had to drop out of school. I waited until Carol's car was all the way down the street before I clicked my bike across and knocked on Jay's door. When she came to the door, her face was puffy and wet from crying.

“Hey—is everything okay?” I asked. Jay looked at me for a second, her eyes filling with tears again. She shook her head and sort of crumpled, and then she was crying into my shoulder. Really sobbing, her entire body shaking with it. I held her in the doorway for a few minutes, then I took her over to the couch. There were two wine glasses on the coffee table, still full. A ring, a thick band of silver with a notch of a diamond chip in it, sat on the table next to the bottle of wine.

“She said she had to see me,” Jay said, swallowing and sniffling. “Carol.”

“That was Carol?” I asked, still not quite believing it. I'd been picturing someone . . . less plus-sized.

“You saw her?”

“She was driving away—” I backpedaled, not wanting Jay to think I was spying.

“Yeah, that was Carol.” Jay narrowed her eyes at me. “So what?”

“So . . .”

“I mean, you say her name like you're all surprised. Why, just because she's black?”

“What?” Like I'm supposed to be shocked that Jay prefers ladies of color? After her endless Beyoncé monologues? Not to mention the fact that the only decorations in her whole house were a poster of the cover of Janet Jackson's
janet
album and a framed one-sheet from the movie
Foxy Brown.
Nah, I was just trying to get my mind around the physics of the whole thing, given Carol's substantial mass and Jay's considerable lack thereof. “No, I don't care if she's black. But I thought she . . . lived all the way up in Massachusetts.”

“She flew down here. She called me from the airport.” Jay crossed her arms. “I thought maybe she was finally—I thought she'd changed her mind. But she—” Jay blinked up at the ceiling, trying not to cry. “She flew all the way down here just to tell me that she finally worked everything through in her head. Once she had some time to think. She wanted to say goodbye and give me my ring back in person. She wasn't even here long enough to drink the wine.”

I stood up. Jay grabbed my hand.

“Where are you going? Don't leave yet, okay?”

“I'm just going to get you some Kleenex.”

“I don't have any. There's toilet paper in the bathroom.”

I went into the bathroom and emerged with a roll of toilet paper. Jay had already downed one of the glasses of wine and was halfway through the other when I came back. I handed her the toilet paper roll. She put the wine glass down long enough to blow her nose loudly.

“You want some?” She handed me the bottle. “It's really good wine. Really top notch stuff. No sense in letting it go to waste.”

I had a glass, and then another one, just so that Jay wouldn't drink the whole bottle herself, but I didn't feel like drinking. We sat there on the couch for a while, Jay talking about Carol and Kendra, Carol's kid. The things they did together. How much Jay wanted to have a family, since she'd pretty much been kicked out of hers for being gay. After a while, I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. And for a break. I'd been listening to Carol Stories for nearly two hours, and maybe it made me a crappy friend, but what I really wanted now was to go home and go to bed.

“So why were you out and about tonight, anyway?” Jay drifted into the kitchen.

“I went to a football game. Back at my old school.”

“You went to a football game?” Jay snorted. “How was it? A totally vile display of pseudo-masculinity?”

“It was a veritable who's who of people I never wanted to see again,” I sipped my water. “But I ended up going to a party with Rory and his quarterback. This guy Seth. He told me all about how his brother died, and now he sits in his brother's old room and listens to his music. And then we—” I hesitated again. “We had, like, a moment. He hugged me. It was weird. But it was really nice.
He's
nice.”

Jay laughed softly, slouching in the doorway. “So now you're making out with the quarterback. Next in the line of completely unattainable people you fall for. That makes sense.”

“We weren't—”

“Lula, you're so dumb,” Jay said. I was too surprised to say anything. “Why did you come over here tonight?”

“I—I dunno, I thought we'd hang out.”

“I don't think you know anything. You don't know what you want. Why don't you go back to the quarterback's house and get knocked up?”

“Gee, that's nice. Who said I wanted to get knocked up by a quarterback?”

“You think you're so outside everything, but you're so typical,” Jay kept on talking. “You're just too scared to act on it. You're too scared to feel something real for a real person. I mean, for somebody who's not a movie star on your wall.”

“I'm going home,” I muttered. I was too tired for this.

“No, wait a minute.” Jay grabbed my arm again. I waited for her to make sense. “When did you realize you were in love with your gay best friend? Before or after he'd come out to you?”

“What?”

“And your little come-on to your teacher. You think it's a coincidence that it happened on the same night you saw your gay crush with his real boyfriend? You honestly think that what you did had anything to do with real love? You just needed to find somebody outrageous, to get What's His Name's attention. You needed to cause a scene. You found the safest possible person—married, straight, your teacher—the
most
unavailable. You knew she'd rather keep her job and not be ridden out of town on a rail than sleep with you. So it was easy. You acted out, but you didn't have to act on it. I mean,
really
act.”

“What is this? You're putting me on trial because I can't get a date?” I realized she was still holding my arm, and I jerked out of her grip.

“I'm not putting you on trial—I'm—Jesus, I can't believe I told you anything. You don't know what love really means. You have no idea. You don't know what it's like to put yourself out there, to put it all on the line—you think you do, but you don't. You were so proud of yourself,
Ooh, Jay, look at me, I made out with my English teacher and then I ran away from home.
You're so
affected.
Big fucking deal. Lula, you're a child. A simple, sheltered child. So why don't you stay in your room, with your TV set and your DVDs and your computer, and stop pretending like your pathetic bratty outburst is somehow
meaningful.
I mean, all this handwringing you do.
Am I gay? Am I straight?
You're too scared of anything you can't turn off with a remote control to be anything at all.”

Jay, you're drunk,
is what I started to say, but then she kissed me. And I realized a few things, right there in that kiss. One was that Jay was probably right, that I wasn't really in love with Sam, and maybe I wasn't even truly in love with Rory. I just loved him, but I didn't know how to draw the lines yet. To love him like Seth did. Like a best friend. Like a brother.

The other thing I realized was that maybe Jay didn't know any more than I did. I mean, she spent plenty of time here in her house with her stereo blasting, hiding out from everything that had happened at her old school. Not dating anybody or hanging out with anybody but me. And not dealing with Carol, either. What was she waiting for? Maybe she was the one who was using me.

Jay pulled out of the kiss, looking coolly at me. A look like a dare.

“You wanna prove something,” she said, “then stay here with me tonight.”

“No,” I said softly, shaking my head.

“I knew it.” Jay held up her hands. “Fine, then. Go home to Grandma and Gramps. Go home where it's safe.”

“I'm going home because you're drunk,” I told her. “And because I'm not the person you wanted to stay with you tonight.”

It also occurred to me that Jay was acting out, just like she said I was acting out when I went over to Sam's. She knew, deep down, that I wouldn't sleep with her tonight. So it was safe, to kiss me like that. Because it wasn't me that she wanted. She was just trying to make Carol feel as lonely as she felt. Just like I'd wanted Rory to feel alone, last spring, and I couldn't see any other way to make him feel as alone as I had except to leave town completely.

I went outside and got on my bike, feeling pretty smart. Being able to see it all like that, so clearly, for a change.

I
T WAS STILL DARK WHEN
I got home. I stood there in my room, listening to the faint hum of Leo's breathing machine from down the hall, the one he used for his sleep apnea. I didn't feel afraid or tense or angry or anything, really. I didn't even feel drunk. I felt clear. I felt like the future, the immediate future, was a glowing neon arrow in front of me, straight and solid and bright.

The last time I felt afraid—I mean, really, truly afraid—was the night I left. I was halfway to town, my shoulder already aching with the weight of my full duffel bag. I was almost at the highway overpass when I heard a truck shifting gears, growling behind me. I walked to the farthest edge of the grass, away from the road, but the truck still shook me as it passed. I stayed shook; by the time I reached the Flying J truck stop, I was trembling like it was thirty degrees out. My stomach was churning. It wasn't too late to go home. But somehow I couldn't make myself turn around.

I walked into the Flying J and made it into the bathroom stall just in time to puke my guts out. I was drenched in sweat, but cold at the same time. My hands vibrated, hanging on to the toilet seat. I couldn't do this. I had to call Janet. Leo. Somebody.
I'm too small for this. Too weak to be out here alone. Come get me. Come take me home.

But I knew it was false and I knew I wasn't home. I wouldn't be home until I went all the way, until I found her, until I stopped going along with Leo, pretending she didn't exist. His own daughter. My own mother. All of this other stuff—Rory, Sam—it was small ball. She was the one I needed to confront. If I was ever going to know who I was, who I
really
was, then I had to know who she was. Until then, I was nothing. A shadow. A character. Nobody real.

Blindly, I took my sweaty clothes off and opened the duffel bag and changed. I didn't realize until later that I'd spilled my mother's things out of my own bag and left them there, on the Flying J floor. But it made sense, when I thought about it. Without even knowing it, I was getting rid of the props. I was getting ready to make her real.

Now I stood there in my bedroom at home. I was really at home. At Janet and Leo's. Finally. This is where I'd grown up. This is where I was from. Maybe I had to get rid of the props here, too. Maybe Jay was right. Maybe she wasn't. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I stood on my desk chair and started at the top corner. The first
X-Files
poster came down with a satisfying rip, tiny flecks of black paint coming away with the tape, leaving white pinpricks beneath like fledgling stars. Once I started, it was hard to stop. It was like some Christmas morning in reverse, opening the packages to find nothing underneath. I peeled away the pages I'd ripped out of sci-fi magazines. I tore away the one-sheets, let them float like autumn leaves into a pile on the floor. Afterward, I surveyed the scene. I felt the same way I had when I changed clothes and walked out of that bathroom stall. Like I didn't know who I was. Like I might not have even known my name if someone had asked. But I also felt like I was at the beginning of some endless possibility. And that maybe I was bigger and stronger than I ever realized.

The familiar faces were gone. No more Aragorn, no Gandalf. No Lone Gunmen. No Mulder and Scully. The wall in front of me now was blank, black, a vast space. Maybe I'd just leave it that way.

thirteen

I
SAT BEHIND THE WHEEL OF
Walter's pickup truck. Walter sat beside me, holding the keys. My mother kept making excuses, finding reasons why she didn't have time to teach me to drive. So Walter finally took me under his wing.

“The object of the game,” he explained, “is real simple. Get from here to there without running anybody over or smashing into any of the other cars.”

“Aye aye, captain.” I reached for the keys. Walter jerked them up out of my reach.

“Now, don't get crazy here. This truck is not a toy.”

“C'mon, Walt. We're driving in a straight line from the gate to the barn. I think I can handle it.”

“Hey, listen up, Geronimo. Every time you get behind the wheel, the odds that you will die a gruesome death increase exponentially. You have to respect the odds. I'm about to put you in charge of two tons of metal, here. I need to know that you understand the gravity of the situation before I put these keys in your hand.”

“I promise,” I held up my hand in a scout-ish salute. “I will do my best to kill myself in the most un-gruesome way possible.” He wasn't budging. “Walter, come on. I'll be careful. I promise.”

“I hope so.” He finally handed me the keys. I put them in the ignition and started the motor.

“All right. Now, just like I told you. Ease off the clutch, slow on the gas, but not too slow—”

Right away, I stalled the engine. “Whoops. Sorry.”

“That's okay. Just turn it off and start it again.”

This time, I got it in gear. We puttered off down the road, bumping along the jagged gravel.

“There you go! It's just like the horse. You're a natural.” Walter approved! I made it all the way to the barn, picking up speed. The barn was suddenly very, very close.

“Now what?”

“Brake! Brake!” Walter exclaimed. I slammed on the brake, and we both jerked forward. Then the motor stalled again.

“Maybe you should teach me on an automatic,” I suggested.

“Nonsense. Everybody ought to know how to drive a stick. Now, start ‘er up again, and this time, put it in reverse.” I did as Walter said and backed the truck away from the barn.

“Don't hit the water tank. Now, easy does it, shift back into first—yep, just like that.” And we were on our way again, bouncing off toward the gate. We made the crooked loop again and again, until Walter didn't even have to remind me to go easy on the clutch.

“You're getting the hang of it, kiddo!” Walter grinned and ruffled my hair as I drove. “See, the thing about driving is, you can understand it intellectually, but your body has to learn, too. You gotta get used to the sound of the gears, get your hand-eye coordination to where you know how quick to put on your brakes. That's what's good about learning on a stick shift, too. When you're young, you get so damn excited by the thing, you wanna get out on the open road and go faster than your reflexes are ready for. Having to shift gears keeps you honest. These kids today, their parents buy 'em some speedy little number where all you gotta do is put it in “D” and punch the gas. Next thing you know, they're wrapped around a goddamn tree. Artificial acceleration. These kids, their bodies wanna move faster than their brains.”

“Or their hearts,” I murmured.

“Huh?”

“This is one of those driving-as-a-metaphor-for-life speeches, isn't it?” I asked.

“I hadn't thought of it that way, but I reckon it is a rite of passage,” Walter mused. “Watch out, now, there's the barn again.”

I slowed down, reversed, and turned us back toward the gate. Beyond the gate, there was the house, and my mother's Subaru parked outside. She was back home, probably for lunch. I pulled the brake on the truck and rested my hands on the wheel.

“Walter, can I ask you a question? Not about driving?”

“Sure, what's on your mind?”

“When I first got here, you said you're not my father.” I turned and looked at him. “Are you sure about that?”

Walter shifted in his seat. Sniffed. Rubbed his forehead like it hurt.

“Tallulah—”

“I mean, are you really, one hundred percent sure? There's not a chance that it might have been you, and not this other guy? I mean, he was gay, right? Maybe he couldn't even, you know, perform.”

“Hey now.” Walter made a puckering face. He looked back at the house. At her car. “Listen. When Chris told me she was pregnant with you—” He exhaled hard. “I didn't even have to ask. We didn't have, ah . . . we didn't have that kind of a relationship. Not back then. But I wish—I wish I could sit here and tell you—” Walter looked back at me. His voice was almost a whisper. “You're a good kid, Lula. I would've been honored to be your dad.”

“If I'm such a good kid,” I said, clearing my throat. “Then why does she hate me so much?”

“She doesn't hate you. I don't like how she treats you, but she doesn't hate you.”

“Then why is she so mean to me all the time? We can barely say five words to each other without her making fun of me or making me feel stupid. Does she really think I'm so dumb and awful?”

“She doesn't know what to think. You want my opinion?” Walter scratched his chin. “She's angry at herself. Your mother's a perfectionist. You're the one thing in her life she didn't do right, and she knows it. Everything else she didn't succeed at—her movie career, being an actress—she can blame it on the whims of Hollywood or what have you. But when it comes down to you, she's the last man standing. She wants to be the best at everything she does, and being a mother is the one thing she's been the worst at. If you ask me, though, the best thing she ever did for you was to leave you with your grandparents. They raised you into a fine young woman. A little smart-mouthed, but you're brave and you speak your mind and stand up for yourself. That's important stuff, kiddo. Just standing up to your mother the way you do. You don't let her bully you, honey. You're doing a lot better than you think. Better than I'd do, in your shoes.”

“Then why do I . . . feel so bad all the time?”

“Because it's hard.” Walter looked at me. “She's your mother. You want to get along with her. But she loves you, deep down. She really does. I know it.”

I don't know who Walter was trying to convince, me or him. We both stared out at the house, at the sun glinting off her car.

“Walter, can I ask you another question? This one isn't about driving, either.”

Walter just nodded.

“Could I come to work for you?”

“Work for me? What for?”

“I want to save up some money. I'm gonna buy another train ticket. I'm gonna go home. Back to Janet and Leo's.”

Walter looked at me. He touched my hair. “You can stay here as long as you want. You can work for me if you want to, stay the rest of the summer if you like. But whenever you're ready to go, you just say the word, and I'll drive you home.”

“It's a long way.”

“I've driven it before.”

“You'd have to go back all the way by yourself.”

Walter nodded. His voice caught when he spoke. “Yeah, I reckon that'll be the hard part.”

We both just sat there in the truck for a minute. It was quiet.

“Do you mind,” I asked, “driving us back down to the house? I'm kind of tired right now.”

“Sure.” Walter got out and I slid over to the passenger side. The door opened and Walter got in, got behind the wheel.

“You wanna hand me my sunglasses? They're in the glove box, there.” He started the engine. I opened the glove box and saw his glasses in a flat black case. Also, a couple of cassette tapes. The same girl singer that my mom had a tape of, that she'd left behind for me a hundred years ago. Laura Nyro.

“Are these my mom's?” I asked him, holding up one of the cassettes.

“No. Those are mine.” Walter put his sunglasses on and gripped the gearshift. “Your mother hates driving this truck.”

J
ANET KNOCKED TWICE AND THEN JUST
came on in.

“Lula, honey. Did you forget about your haircut?”

I rubbed the crust out of my puffy eyes and sat up. My haircut? Oh yeah, my haircut. Janet was going to take me to get my lame hair fixed, finally.

“I guess so.” My throat was rough. Last night came back to me in floating pictures, hazy jigsaw pieces. Rory and Seth. Sam at the football game. Seth's brother. Jay and Carol. Jay, drunk. Me, coming home. Okay.

“You took your pictures down,” Janet said, eyeing the pile of shiny poster paper on the floor. “I thought I heard something last night.”

“Sorry about the noise,” I said.

“I'm glad it was you.” Janet ruffled my hair. “I was afraid we had a rat.”

I usually hated haircuts, but this one wasn't so bad. Janet's hairdresser, Frank, snipped the dead ends and didn't try to convince me to get some tacky little asymmetrical bob or streaky highlights like everybody else.

“We could dye it again, if you like the red,” he offered. “Otherwise, we can just strip it. Take the color out.”

“Let's get rid of the red,” I decided. “I'm going for the natural look.” Would Frank understand if I told him I was putting my Scully days behind me?

“Your wish is my command,” Frank said. An hour later, I walked out into the sunshine with Janet, looking like the old self I didn't feel like anymore.

“What would you say to a little lunch?” Janet said, unlocking the car.

“Hello, little lunch,” I supplied the punch line. Janet laughed. That was an old one.

“How about the Tea House? I could go for a chicken salad sandwich.”

“Sure.” I stared out the window as Janet cranked the car. She backed out into the road, singing along with her Dionne Warwick CD in her off-key smoker's voice. Good old unflappable Janet.

“I think it's cute,” she said. “Your hair. You don't like it?”

“It's hair,” I shrugged.

“You usually complain that nobody cuts it the way you want, not even Frank.”

I shrugged again, unable to muster up much comment. I had more on my mind now than hair. “I guess he finally got it.”

“Everything all right?” Janet asked. “Did you and your friend Jay have a fight?”

“Mm. Sort of. A misunderstanding. I'll give her a call later. It's no big deal.”

“We don't mind if you want to have her over to the house. You know that, right? We're trying to be supportive of your . . . life choices.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Leo might seem a little prickly about it, you know, but he'll come around. He's just old-fashioned. But you know we just want you to find someone who makes you happy.”

“Wait a minute—you guys think Jay's my girlfriend?”

“You mean she isn't?”

I laughed.

“Well, you were always sleeping over! And she's sort of—you know, not a tomboy, but what do you call it? Anti . . . uh. Ambidextrous?”

“Androgynous?” I couldn't stop laughing.

“Don't laugh at me! This is all very new.”

“I'm not laughing at you. It's just the idea that—I mean, it's a wonder Jay even speaks to me. She'd never go out with me in a million years.”

“Oh, that's not true. She was giving you the flirty-eye all night that time she came to dinner.”

“The
flirty-eye
?” I laughed harder. Then I remembered last night. Maybe Janet was on to something. Maybe Jay wasn't just trying to get back at Carol. No, that was crazy. Jay was too cool for me.

“She seems like a nice girl. I think you'd be good with one of those creative types. Not that I didn't like Rory. But I think you've got an artistic streak, like your mother. You should explore it.”

“First of all, Rory wasn't my boyfriend, either. And second of all . . .” I looked out the window at nothing much going by. A blank field, a cemetery on the horizon, a Family Dollar beyond that. “I'm not anything like my mother.”

“I meant it as a compliment,” Janet said quietly.

“I know.” I bit the edge of my fingernail. “Do you think Leo's ever going to stop being mad at me?”

“He's not mad at you, honey. He loves you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Deep down inside, right?”

“No. He loves you right up close to the surface. Maybe you don't even realize. When you came to live with us, he'd just retired. Fifty years old and didn't have any idea what to do with himself. He'd been in the Navy since he was eighteen, can you imagine? Decades in the service, and suddenly he didn't have anybody to answer to. He didn't have any orders. Not to mention we just moved into the condo and we were probably the youngest people in the retirement villa at that point. I thought Leo was going to go out of his mind. Your mother leaving you with us is the best thing that ever happened to him. He just lit right up. He didn't get to enjoy your mother when she was little. He was off fighting that war. Didn't know the first thing about babies. Kids. You gave him a second life. He'd never admit it, but taking care of you kept him going.”

I closed my eyes. I wasn't sure I wanted that kind of responsibility.

“I know how badly I messed up. But I still don't know how to fix it.”

“Honey, your granddad sits up half the night thinking the same thing.”

W
HEN WE GOT HOME THAT AFTERNOON,
there were two messages from Leo on the kitchen counter, and a stack of mail. The first message read:
Jan—gone to Ralph's. New putter's ready. L.
The second:
Lula—Jay called. 13:35. Call her back.

“This came for you,” Janet handed me a postcard from the stack of mail. It was a picture of Santa Fe taken from up high, almost the same view that I'd seen that day I'd gone riding with Walter. My heart skidded—my mom! I flipped it over. Read the blockish script.