All That's True (7 page)

My mother is going to Peachford. She’ll be gone for thirty days. Peachford is for those addicted to drugs or alcohol. This means my mother is an alcoholic, which I find hard to believe. I mean, she doesn’t even drink before breakfast. How can she be an alcoholic? She has a home and nice clothes, and friends, and still helps Rosa around the house. Alcoholics lie down in the street or stumble home and pass out in the doorway, don’t they?

She’s leaving in the morning and I’ve decided to bury myself in my school work. Maybe I can become an absolute scholar and surprise my mother when she returns. She’ll be so happy with my progress she won’t ever drink again. The only problem with this plan is my teachers. There is not one of them I like. Well, maybe Mr. Majors, the choir teacher. He’s alright, but he has some strange habits, like he clears his throat constantly as if something lives in the back of it and he prefers that it didn’t. But the rest are crazy. So burying myself in my studies and becoming a scholar to grab my mother’s attention is not going to be easy.

***

Peachford is different than I pictured and so are the people stuck here. They have a nice lounge area where family and friends can come and visit and there are lots of plants and large windows—which have mesh inside the layers of glass; I guess so nobody can break out—to look out onto the grounds which are well-kept and full of flower beds. My mother has made friends with another woman with a drinking problem, Dixie. It’s hard to imagine my mother making friends with a woman with a nickname that sounds like she lives in a trailer. I find out that she does.

“Come over some time,” she says to my mother. “I got a cool double-wide.”

My mother says, “Double-wide what?”

Dixie grabs her sides and laughs so hard she starts coughing. Dixie is thin and nervous and chain-smokes Lucky Strikes. It’s hard for me to picture my mother and her being friends. I think about my mother’s soft voice greeting her in the morning, “Lovely day, isn’t it, Dixie?” and Dixie’s frog voice calling back, “I ain’t noticed. Hand me one a’ them coffee cups.” It’s too much for my brain to handle on short notice. I smile and put my hand out to shake hers when my mother introduces us, like I’ve been taught to. Dixie gives mine one good awkward shake and then lets go real quick.

“Nice kid,” she says and lights up another Lucky Strike.

Vivian’s here, you know, my mother’s best friend who’s married to Howard.

“Andi, sweet girl,” she says. “Come right over here and give me a big hug. You’re as tall as me.”

It’s true. Now I am. But then she’s only like five-foot-three, so that’s not saying much. I give her a hug and then turn to my mother to give her one.

“How are you?” I ask, not sure what else to say. “Is it okay?”

“It’s fine, honey. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

Great! Right where she’s supposed to be—smack in the middle of the nut ward with all the other nuts.

“Okay?” she says.

I stare at her. Oh just peachy.

I don’t think Beth said anything to my mother about that perfume bottle. If she did, my mother is keeping it to herself—at least for the time being. I feel like I’m getting off scot-free, which means I really can’t count on it for sure. It all goes back to Dred Scott, the slave that never got free.

I buried the necklace out in the backyard in a part of the garden Mr. Porter mostly leaves to nature and I buried what Anthony did to me as deep inside of me as possible. I saw him for the first time since the incident this past Saturday and told myself that I should stop liking him, pronto. But telling myself to and actually stopping is not the same thing. When I look at him my heart still does this little dance like it knows how to polka. Maybe I’ll just keep liking him but never go to the balcony with him again. That should be okay. I’m still trying to figure out what got into him. Maybe he feels we are destined to be married someday, too, and just got impatient. Either that or he’s a sex fiend and I don’t like to think of him being one of those types, seeing as I can’t help myself that I still like him. So like I said, I’m off scot-free.

Alex’s fraternity brothers are for the most part, too. There’s not going to be a trial. The guys involved pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of aggravated hazing, which my father explained is a fourth-degree offense, whatever that means. And all they got was probation and a million hours of community service. It didn’t upset my father.

“It’s not going to bring back Alex,” he said.

“Well, maybe it would make other people think before doing something stupid like that,” I told him and he just nodded and then changed the subject.

“Would you like me to take you to visit with your mother?”

Not really. “Sure,” I say.

She’s on her twenty-fourth day and goes to these AA meetings every day faithfully. They have to while they’re residents at Peachford or they lose their privileges. I’m not sure which ones they’re referring to, maybe they don’t get dinner and they have really good food there. I got to join her for lunch on Sunday and it’s cafeteria style, but real fancy with a chef and all sorts of meat to choose from, roast beef slices and ham, all sorts of fresh vegetables and a salad bar better than many restaurants, and desserts to die for. Maybe that’s why this place is so expensive, the food is heaven.

“Can we go for lunch?” I ask.

“Not this week,” my father says. “I’ve got a deposition to work on, but I’ll take you this afternoon.”

Afternoons aren’t as fun. Everyone just sits around and drinks coffee or soda. And there’s candy and crackers in a vending machine, which is better than nothing at all, but not by much.

I nod my head and go off to read for a while. Sundays are very boring days. After mass there’s never really anything to do, unless Bridget is home for the weekend and this is her week to go to Madeline’s. Madeline used to invite me sometimes but not since I told her not to steal for me anymore. I paid the price.

Instead of reading I decide to write a letter to Donna, not to mail to her, but just to get it on paper. Maybe I’ll feel better. My dad is seeing her almost every day now that my mother is out of the house. Rodger, Bridget’s father, is still in Europe but he’s coming home next weekend and he’s taking Bridget and Madeline and me to the mall and then to dinner and a movie. It’s all planned. He and Donna are going to shop by themselves and then we’ll meet up with them at Longhorn’s Steak House. I’ve already decided what to wear. One of the outfits Madeline put together for me. No sense in going back to dressing like a dunce just because I’m mad at her. I went to confession and told Father Murphy that I have hate in my heart for a friend and he said if I can’t forgive to ask God to do it for me, and gave me ten Hail Marys and two Our Fathers, and then absolution. I did ask God to forgive Madeline for me, but if he did it hasn’t done any good. Maybe it takes a while ’til I feel that I’m not mad at her anymore. So far I still am. Maybe God’s not listening to me, which is probably the case, because I did not confess what Anthony Morelli did up in the balcony. Father Murphy knows my voice so I couldn’t. I wanted to go to confession at another church so I could confess it to a strange priest that’s never heard me before but I couldn’t figure a way to ask my father without him suspecting I’d committed a mortal sin and get very nosey and start asking questions. So I just decided to leave it out of my confession entirely. Besides, I really didn’t do anything wrong. Plus I didn’t even like it, except for the first part of the kiss before Anthony pushed his tongue into mine. The first part was very nice. My stomach dropped a mile. And then out of the blue it took off like a roller coaster.

My mother is coming home next weekend and my father has planned a big surprise. We are all going on a cruise to the western Caribbean. We’re not leaving next weekend, of course. We leave the week after school’s out and I get to take Bridget! This will be my first cruise and Beth says she will help me shop for just the right clothes to wear. She has very good taste in clothes. She’s like Madeline that way. My father said Beth could come, too, but the wedding is two weeks before we leave so she’ll still be on her honeymoon.

I don’t want her to go anyway. She’d just be trying to play tour director every day and Bridget and I just want to roam around the ship by ourselves. My father has sworn me to secrecy. I’m not to say a word ’til my mother is home and he presents her with the news. Howard and Vivian are coming, too. I can’t wait. It’s just so exciting—first the baby’s due and I’ll be an aunt, then the wedding, and then the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Costa Maya, Cozumel. My life couldn’t be better and to think I thought it was going all wrong. And I’m hoping that my father will fall madly in love with my mother again and when we get home he will have forgotten all about Donna. Stranger things have happened. So it could happen.

Bridget says, “Don’t count on it.” But I am counting on it. One should always be hopeful. It fills the air with positive ions, or something like that, positive energy fields. Ms. Schaeffer, my science teacher, insists it’s true.

Madeline and Bridget and I are getting ready to leave for the mall. This is the weekend her father takes us and then we all meet up for dinner at the steak place. This is going to be an outstanding, memorable day. You know how you can just feel it almost to your bones? That’s what I’m feeling—all tingly inside. Plus my hair turned out. It’s long and blonde and the edges are cut just right, kind of like a gypsy shag. Beth took me. She’s turning into a real person. She wants me to look good for the wedding, so she had them experiment with me with putting it in an up-do before we left. But now I’ve combed it out and it looks great. I’m wearing my favorite jeans and a white shirt and a tapestry vest and these western-style boots I’ve had since Christmas. Madeline said, “Too cool,” when she saw them. I’m not sure why her opinion still counts, but it does.

I can’t remember who it was that said never count on anything being what you think it will be, or you’ll be disappointed. Maybe Nana Louise when she was still in her right mind. But whoever said it was right on target. Today did not turn out anything like I counted on. If I had counted on it being my worst nightmare then I would have counted on it correctly.

One day in math class, a girl—Virginia Stuart—started her period right out of the blue. Virginia was wearing pink, pale pink, a skirt and a matching sweater and I swear her face just turned green and she raised her hand and said in the softest voice I’ve ever heard, “Ms. Hadley.” And Ms. Hadley must have had some experience with girls wearing light pink and speaking in a soft voice with a look on their face that they’d rather be in China, because she walked right over to her and took off her sweater—I might have forgotten to mention those sweaters she wears around her shoulder. They almost reach down to the floor. So, Ms. Hadley walks over to Virginia, wraps the sweater around Virginia’s shoulders while she escorts her to the door and whispers something in her ear, and Virginia leaves, and Ms. Hadley goes on with the lesson and asks Billie Martin if he knows how to solve the latest algebra problem, which I’ve forgotten even what it is.

The point is Ms. Hadley is now my favorite teacher. I mean if I’d started my period at school, which I didn’t—I started last summer when I was twelve—I would want it to be in her class.

***

I’m not sure why I thought of Ms. Hadley just then, when what I want to do is think through what happened at the mall to see if it could have turned out any differently. Maybe if I’d been more alert. I don’t know. Everything is just a mess and to add to it I have failed to be the type of person I have always counted on being. To start with, I hate Madeline. She is the entire reason there is a mess in the first place. I go over and over what happened in my mind: We are shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue, which is Madeline’s favorite store—naturally—but about the only thing I can buy is maybe a handkerchief; my father gave me fifty dollars and everything in here starts at a hundred. So we are just walking along and this security guard comes up to Bridget and says, “Come with me, miss.” And he takes her by the arm and Madeline just stands there looking all innocent with a look on her face like, “What? What?” And I have daggers in my eyes aimed right at her.

I run after Bridget and another security guard says, “You two girls follow me.” And my heart is pounding like it’s leaving my chest. And I’m thinking what if Madeline put something in my purse! I should have been watching her like a mother watches an infant learning to walk.

I just know I’m going to be sick. There is a bad taste marching up my throat. I swallow hard to force whatever it is back down. My knees are limp as a dishrag, my head is swollen up three sizes too big for my body and my ears are ringing out of my head—which is thinking, you could go to reform school. This is Saks! This is the part in the movies where the music gets very deep and loud. Only it’s not make believe, it’s real life and I am being led away by store security personnel who have already taken Bridget away, probably to beat it out of her that she’s a thief, which isn’t true. It’s Madeline who’s the thief and she’s looking like she can’t possibly understand what all the excitement is about. In fact, the look on her face is one of boredom. I think this explains a lot about her. Not even a security guard dressed up like a regular cop with an official looking badge and a gun gets her excited. She has major problems.

I’m sitting in front of the security guard trying to picture the look on my face, whether it says I look totally innocent or maybe I have one of those faces that always looks completely guilty, like the ones on the mug shots in the post office. Then I stop worrying about this because they are taking Bridget out of the room in handcuffs. Handcuffs, like she’s a criminal. The main security guard, who acts like he is the boss over the others, says Madeline and I can go. Go where? Go about our life like nothing has happened? They didn’t find anything in either one of our purses, but they discovered Bridget had half the junior department in hers.

“You better not tell,” Madeline whispers. “Or else.”

I don’t need to say or else what? Or else she’ll tell my parents I’m a slut. This is not good timing. My mother’s coming home, and we’re having a baby, and we have a wedding, and we’re going on a cruise. And now I wonder if Bridget will even get to come? Will she be on probation and not able to leave the country? I could just kill Madeline. But then I’d have to join Bridget in the slammer, if that’s where they have her. The guards show me and Madeline to the door. We walk over to Longhorn’s Steak House which is across the street from the mall. This is supposed to be where we order Shirley Temples and an appetizer and wait for the best steak you can sink your teeth into. Instead, here we are, having to tell Bridget’s father that she’s been arrested.

“You do it,” I tell Madeline and just make my eyes as thin and mean as a Siamese cat with an attitude.

Bridget’s father and Donna are waiting in front of the restaurant. Donna smiles brightly but right away Mr. Harman’s eyebrows arch upwards, like,
what gives?
Where’s Bridget?
And the part of my stomach that is convinced it lives somewhere else marches up my throat again.

“Mr. Harman,” Madeline says. Her voice is all syrupy-sweet. “Something terrible has happened. Bridget’s been caught shoplifting.”

Mr. Harman takes hold of one of her arms. “What did you say?” he says, and leans in a little closer, like maybe he hasn’t heard her correctly. He has his head cocked to the side and one ear turned toward Madeline.

“I just don’t know what got into her,” Madeline says. She opens her eyes wide and shakes her head from side to side.

She’s a total liar, but she doesn’t look like one. She’s very convincing. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was being sincere, too. What I need to do is explain exactly what I know happened, but do I do that? Oh no, I just stand there with tears running down my face and my shoulders heaving like a five-year-old.

Donna walks over to me and puts her arm around me. “Don’t worry, Andi,” she says, “It’s going to be okay. These things happen.”

She pulls me tightly against her and pats my back and I’m thinking I could just love this woman. Go figure. She’s like my enemy. Now how can I send her the letter I’ve been working on? This is all getting very complicated.

Rodger Harman doesn’t look like he thinks these things happen. He looks like he’s ready to start a war.

“Let’s go,” he says and nods his head toward the car.

“Are you okay, Andi?” Donna says. “Do you want me to call your father?”

So that’s it. She wants me to call my father. She wants to see my dad. And here I thought she was starting to be someone I could like.

***

Bridget has been released into her father’s custody and we are sitting with my father in our library. At times like this it’s very inconvenient having an alcoholic mother. I would really like her to be here. She would be sitting next to me with her arm around my shoulder. I just know it. My father is sitting across from me and watching my every move. Madeline has been taken back to Westwood Academy. She boards in, which means she lives there except for when she spends the weekend at Bridget’s or goes home to Savannah, which I wish she would and then just stay there. Bridget has been crying and her eyes are very pink around the edges and her face is blotchy.

“Why would you do this?” her father asks her. “What got into you?”

Bridget doesn’t answer. She just shakes her head and swallows hard like there’s a rock caught in her throat. There’s a major one in stuck in mine. Mr. Harman turns to me. “Did you know this was going on?” His jaw is set in a firm position, and he lowers his head and gives me a harsh look. It is a look that says,
Don’t lie to me
.

“No,” I say weakly.

Which is the truth—I did not know it was going on this time; and I only knew about the other times after the fact, so I’m being completely honest here. But I know I should tell them the truth and not worry about my parents finding out about the necklace buried in the backyard and all about my incident with Anthony. I’ll live in a convent until I’m of age, but it’s better than Bridget living in a juvenile center.

But I’m a coward so I sit there and watch Bridget, who is keeping the secret, too. Why would she do that? Why would she take the blame when it all belongs to Madeline? Is it all just to be popular? To be part of the in-crowd and if she tells Madeline will let everyone know Bridget is a snitch, which I guess is worse than being a thief. I picture Bridget walking down the corridors at Westwood Academy and everyone clearing a path to get out of her way. A tear is floating down her cheek. The whispers on both sides of her easily reach her ears: tattletale, stoolie, ratfink, stool pigeon, SNITCH.

“It was Madeline!” I say. “She’s been stealing for ages. She put that stuff in Bridget’s purse. She did it once to me, too. And she brought a bunch of stuff over here one night and showed us, and we never said anything and we should have!” The words fall out of my mouth one after the other like a waterfall. “She put a necklace in my purse! It’s buried in the garden.” I turn to my father.
I’m sorry
is plastered on my face. Bridget is looking at me, pleading with me to be quiet. There’s desperation in her eyes. I stare back. I feel my eyebrows scrunch together like they have a mind of their own. They try to convince her we are doing the right thing. Lies heaped upon lies have gotten us into this mess. All that’s true is sitting on the table like a delicious piece of pie, piping hot from the oven, warm and all inviting, waiting for someone to take that first bite and say, yes, this is good, this is what dessert is all about. All that’s true—it’s something to savor.