Beautiful (19 page)

I don't move when the bell for lunch rings. I try to be invisible, but Mr. Cobb says, “You can't stay in the room during lunch, Cassie,” and he doesn't even try to hide the smug look on his face.

The traffic in the hallway pushes me toward the lunch-room. I feel everyone's eyes on me, hear their satisfied whispers. I want to turn around, but I keep thinking of Sarah stranded in the middle of the cafeteria. I think about her waiting for me, more scared than I am, and I keep walking. I will get her and we will run out of this place. We will leave and never come back.

I stay close to the wall and look around the lunchroom for Sarah. There is Alex holding court at the cool table where I was once crowned Cassie the Beautiful Seventh Grader, like that meant something, like the stupid title could transform
me. There is Wes with his hand on Alex's skinny ass. There's James making out with his slut, and there's Ethan pouring whiskey into his Coke, looking sad in public and not caring who sees. There are the gifted kids and the jocks and the nerds. There's everyone at their designated tables, their little islands of identity they cling to like their lives depend on it. In the middle is everyone else, everyone who is too boring for anyone to bother defining. They are not gifted, not beautiful, not rich, not tough, not repulsive. They are not anything controversial, not loved, not hated, not feared. I want to see Sarah there. I want to see her sitting at one of those tables, looking like everyone else, talking about a stupid movie she just saw. I want to see myself sitting next to her, planning a sleepover or a trip to the mall.

But Sarah is not there. She is not at the cool table that tolerated her because she was my friend. She is not in line buying food with money she doesn't have. She is not anywhere.

Someone yells my name from across the lunchroom. The room falls silent and everyone turns their heads to look at me. All the extras are perfectly synchronized. The spotlight is shining. This is my new role in the new movie. This is my closeup. This is when my face turns white and I forget my lines.

“Hey, Cassie!” yells one of the slut girls who has taken my old seat next to Alex. “Why aren't you sitting with us? Is
something wrong? Do you want to talk about it?” Everyone laughs except Ethan, who is pretending he doesn't see me, who is drinking whiskey out of the bottle now, not even bothering to disguise it in his Coke. Alex is staring at me with that crazy smile on her face, and her eyes don't look human. They are the eyes of someone who could skin a cat with her brother, someone who could beat up her sister, someone who could destroy her best friend for doing nothing but deciding something for herself.

I turn around and search for the door that goes outside, the door that will take me behind the gym, next to the dumpsters, where I will find Justin and the pills that will make all of this go away. I hear the lunchroom laughing. I don't have the strength to stop the tears bursting out of my eyes. I run to the dumpster and I've never been so happy to see Justin in my life. He's sitting on the cold concrete, cross-legged, eating a limp sandwich, looking out at the dreary field.

I stand in front of him in my still-damp clothes, my hair a mess, tears running down my face.

“You're having a bad day, huh?” he says.

I nod and a little whimper comes out of my mouth that sounds like the most pathetic noise ever made.

“That's too bad,” he says, and takes a bite of his sandwich.

“Justin,” I manage to say. “Do you have any of those pills?”

He stops chewing and considers me for a moment. A look crosses his face like none I've ever seen on him, a look I didn't think was possible. Justin pities me.

He swallows. “My mom started monitoring,” he says. “She keeps the pills now.”

I feel a dead weight in my stomach, like I'm standing at the edge of the world while the rest of it is crumbling behind me, like soon all that's left will be me on a tiny piece of dirt, surrounded by space.

“Sorry,” he says.

All I can do is nod and start walking. I am floating away, around the side of the school and into the rain. I feel the cold drops hit my neck, the wet grass brush against my ankles. That is all I feel. I have skin and nothing else. I am a shell with nothing inside it.

I walk to the pay phone in the front of the school. I call my mom collect.

“Hello?” she says. I can hear the theme music of her favorite video game in the background.

“Mom, can you come pick me up?”

“What's wrong?”

“I'm still sick.”

“Sure, okay,” she says. “Can you wait an hour? I'm kind of busy right now.”

“No,” I say. “Come get me now.” My voice breaks at the end, whiny, like a child on the verge of a tantrum.

“Okay, okay,” she says, not even trying to hide the fact that she'd rather play video games than pick up her daughter, who could be dying.

Our apartment is three miles from school. She will be here any minute. I just need to wait. I can do this. I can wait.

I hear the front door slam against the side of the building. I hear the hard voices of the gangster girls. I see them and their matching red puffy coats. I try hiding behind a pole but it is not thick enough to cover all of me. If I stand still enough, they won't see me. If I don't make a sound, they will never know I am here.

I can see them from where I am hiding. The big one with the face covered in pimples pulls out a cigarette and the little one with the harelip lights it for her. The fat one scratches her crotch.

I stay as still as I can, waiting for the moment my mom's car drives up so I can run to the sidewalk and jump in. I watch the street for her but she's not there. I look back at the gangster girls and they are all looking at me. I moved my head too fast. They see me. They are coming. All three of
them are walking toward me and there's nowhere I can go.

“Hey, bitch,” the big one says. They are getting closer. I start backing away.

“Hey, princess,” the fat one says. “We just want to talk to you.” I back into the side of the building, into the sharp edge of the sign that says
Kirkland Junior High
. I rub my bruised hip. There is nowhere to go.

“We heard you been talking shit,” says the little one. I shake my head.

“Why you lying?” says the fat one.

“I'm not,” I say, my voice high and whiny.

“Why you say all that shit?” says the big one.

“I didn't,” I say, trying to back up further, trying to make the wall absorb me. “I didn't say anything.”

“You calling me a liar?” says the big one. Her face is in my face. Her breath is cigarettes and fried food.

“No, of course not,” I stutter. She is not convinced. She is twice as big as I am. She is so close our noses are practically touching.

I see Mom's car out of the corner of my eye. I breathe.

“My mom's here,” I say.

“I don't give a shit,” she says.

“I have to go,” I say. I step sideways. I find a way out of the trap between her body and the wall. I start walking. I can
hear them close behind me. I see Mom looking at us, confused, wondering who my new friends are. I walk faster. They are still behind me. I am touching the door handle. I am lifting it up. I pull but there is nothing. The door is locked. The big girl's hands are on my shoulders. Her voice is in my ears, “Turn around, bitch.” My eyes scream,
Unlock the door.
Mom fumbles for the button and I am not breathing and my heart is in my throat. I hear the click of the door unlocking and I squeeze my hand but it is not on the door. It is being pulled away. There is a giant girl behind me turning me around.

There are hands on my shoulders. There is hot breath on my face, reeking of rot. There are hands around my neck. My feet are not on the ground. I feel my back slide up the side of the car. I feel my weight hanging from two fat thumbs lodged in my throat, my eyes popping out of my head, my feet kicking air, my feet kicking the car. I hear the dull thuds on dent-resistant metal. I hear the silence from inside.

This is not happening. I am not here. I am not thinking about my mother as I can't even gasp for air. I'm not thinking about my mother or the hands wrapped around my throat and the pain that runs from my jaw through my spine, my teeth gritting, smashed together, my tongue caged and thrashing, my feet thrashing against air, against dent-resistant metal, my hands clutching at smooth metal that has no holds, my hands
gripping at the girl with the man-sized hands, the wrists the size of ankles. I'm not thinking about my mother in the car behind my back. I'm not thinking about the dull, deep thuds she must hear, that she is trying not to hear, even though she's only an arm's reach away, behind glass that does not break no matter how hard I slam against it.

I am on the ground. I cannot see. I hear the girls walking away. I breathe and it feels like bricks inside my chest. I open the door. It is not locked. I put my backpack at my feet. I look straight ahead. The car moves. Mom lights a cigarette with the tip of her old one. Her hands are shaking. She's breathing hard. Smoke stabs my lungs. She looks straight ahead. I cough so hard I want to throw up. She turns on talk radio. Loud.

Silence like waves, undulating like nausea. Like methodical punches in the stomach, shoves, rolling earthquake. Silence in the way Mom grips the steering wheel, the way the radio voices blur into the buzz of frequencies, invisible mouths moving, nothing coming out. Shallow breaths release and are chased back in. My throat pulses.

“Mom,” I say.

Her hands on the steering wheel, her lips nailed shut.

“Mom,” I say, louder.

Her eyes squeezing shut. The car going faster.

“Mom!” I scream. The radio voices scream. My hands grab dashboard as the car brakes just inches before crashing into the
truck in front of us. Horns honk from behind. The car settles into its abrupt stillness.

“We have to go to Sarah's house,” I say.

Mom doesn't move.

“We have to go now.”

She shakes her head slowly.

“Mom, we have to get her.”

Nothing.

“Please,” I say.

A single tear drops down her cheek. I watch its gentle journey down, watch it settle, suspended at the bottom of her soft chin.

“Turn here,” I say.

She does.

“Turn right here,” then, “Left here,” then, “Stop.”

“I'll be right back,” I say. She nods, still not looking at me. The tear hanging from her chin has grown. Her cheeks are lined with long, glistening streaks.

I get out of the car. I close the door. I count my steps as I walk to the house. I ring the doorbell. I knock. I wait and hear birds chirping. I knock again. Nothing. I put my hand on the cold doorknob. It turns. The door opens. I smell the familiar stench.

“Sarah,” I call into the house. Nothing.

“Sarah!” I yell again. I close the door behind me and it is suddenly, eerily quiet, like this cluttered room is now all that exists, like closing the door destroyed everything that makes sound, all cars, all birds, all lawn mowers and airplanes and voices. It is just me and the house and the absence of Sarah.

“Sarah.” My voice is swallowed up by the stained carpet, the walls yellow with smoke, the cobwebby corners, the stacks and piles of garbage and broken things.

I hear slow, wet breaths. I see Lenora on the couch with her eyes closed, in nothing but her underwear and an open bathrobe.

“Hey,” I say. She grunts and her body shudders. I navigate across the cluttered floor. I shake her clammy shoulder. I smell the poison seeping out of her pores.

“Lenora!” I yell in her face, and her eyes shoot open and she sits up straight.

“What? What?” she says, looking frantically around the room, finally finding me in front of her.

“Jesus, girl,” she says, and lies back down, her eyes heavy again.

“Where's Sarah?” I say.

She's nodding off. Her eyes are closing. I grab both of her shoulders and shake her back awake.

“Where's Sarah, Lenora?”

She looks at me, but her eyes don't focus.

“Gone,” she says.

“Gone where?”

“They took her.”

“Who took her? The social workers?”

She shakes her head weakly. Her eyes close again.

“Her dad?” I say. “Did her dad take her?”
Oh, God,
I am thinking.
Please God, no.

Lenora shakes her head. “He didn't get a chance,” she slurs. “She's the smart one. Sarah.”

“Where is she?” I am losing my patience. I want to slap this woman. I want to hit her hard.

Lenora opens her eyes, and for a moment she seems sober. She looks into my eyes and says with a completely blank face, “She's dead, girl. She took all the pills in the house.”

There is a numbness that's greater than all the others, one that is different than floating to the ceiling, different than a wall of fog or an empty shell or stoned stupor or blank space or sheer will. It is numbness that starts with the sharpest pain you've ever felt. There is a dull knife that cuts your heart out. There are giant fists that smash it into a bloody pulp. But then you are left with a cavity, an empty, aching space that can feel nothing but loss, a word,
loss
, abstract and unspecific.

And this is the greatest movie so far. The shot is perfectly
composed. The lighting is sinister. The props are all expertly placed: the piles of trash, the cigarette butts, the liquor bottles, the empty fridge. The only sounds are Lenora's wheezing breaths and the dripping faucet in the kitchen. Then the voice-over: “She's dead, girl,” again and again until you have to believe it, until the credits roll and the lights come back and you can leave the theater and return to your safe, normal life, untouched by anything, where you can shake off the dying residue of feelings that have nothing to do with you.