Buried (12 page)

The lights came on, and everyone began to talk at once. I let myself be carried out with the crowd, avoiding Mr. Springer and forcing myself to resist the urge to neaten the rows of desks. They'll just get messy again; they'll just get messy again. Instead I counted them.

 
Liz was waiting at my car. “Hey, what'd you get?” she said. “I got an A. An A!”

“Great,” I said. My skin felt itchy. It was because I hadn't gone back to straighten the desks. I picked at the tenderest spots on my fingers and thumbs.

“Can I have a ride to group?” She checked me out and straightened my hair.

I looked like shit, I guessed. “Where's your car?”

“Dad wants to take it in for a safety tune-up.”

“What a guy,” I said, getting in. “Come on.”

“Are you mad at him?”

“I guess I am. I'm not sure why, though.” We both laughed a little.

“First group, and then we're going to pick up Jenna and go to the mall, right?” Liz said.

“Right,” I said. “So, how's it going on the report? Need any help?”

“I'm doing okay. You gave me a great start. I think I've got it under control now,” Liz said.

I tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel, alternating thumbs.
One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five.

Liz clicked on the radio.

I beat the wheel harder.

“What did you get?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“On your test,” she said.

“What do you think?”

She laughed. “Yeah, pretty easy,” she said. “We probably could have skipped the studying.”

“Probably.”

 
“Is everybody here?” Lydia looked around. “I think it's important to begin on time.” She was talking about Matt. I knew he was still at school, in the main office. I'd heard him on the phone arguing with his dad, but I didn't tell her. “If nobody has anything, let's talk about—”

“I have something,” I said. All heads turned to me.

“I wanted to share about a book I've read. It's called
The Daily New
. Get it? It's a play on
The Daily News
. Anyway—” I said.

Deb sighed loudly.

“Anyway,” I said, “every day has a new affirmation to think about. Like: ‘I can be proud of the choices I make,' or ‘I will enjoy myself today and be spontaneous,' or ‘I am not alone.'”

“I'd like to borrow that,” Liz said.

“I have a couple of those that Mom and Dad have given me,” Willa said. “And Dad has one for alcoholics.”

Willa continued, “Today my morning affirmation said something about letting other people take care of themselves, and at the bottom of the page was the daily Think About: Recall a time when you involved yourself with someone's recovery process. Negatively or positively.”

“I think I have that book. I guess I didn't read it today, and I never do the Think Abouts anyway,” Hanna said.

Lydia was enjoying the activity in the group. Her eyes moved from one to another. I wasn't. I wanted to steer the conversation in a different direction. I hated when it got chaotic like this, with everyone jumping in at once.

Matt came in and sat down. “What's up?”

“Say it again, Willa,” Lydia said.

Deb sighed again. Maybe she felt the same way I did.

“Recall a time when you involved yourself with someone's recovery process. Negatively or positively,” Willa said.

“This is like truth or dare,” Deb said.

“I got one,” Blake said.

When Blake talked, it was so slow and quiet. I prepared myself for sleep.

“I was always scared of my mother when she drank, so I left the room.” He folded his pasty arms across his belly. I took note of the smoothness of his skin, that he had no stubble. He was Matt's polar opposite. “I left the house, too. Especially when she was loud.”

The group waited. Feet shuffled, and Matt drummed softly on his knees.

Blake said, “That was my involvement. I guess it was no involvement.”

He reminded me of a fish near death, only the lips moved as he gasped for a breath. I would call him Blank from now on. He looked dead in the eyes. I'd call him Blank. Blank.

“I guess that's a negative. I should've said something.”

“It's never too late, Blake,” Hanna said.

He looked at her, unmoving. What did she know? Sometimes it is too late.

A silence weighed heavy in the room. I took advantage of the quiet. “There are lots of positive ways to get involved,” I said.

“Do tell,” Matt said.

I ignored him. “You can buy them a book or a tape. You can suggest nutritious snacks and do active things instead of sitting around in a dark, smoky house. You can encourage each step they take and be there for them if they mess up—ready to forgive. You can make sure they know you love them no matter what. You can—”

“Take a break, Claude,” Matt said. “How is that positive? You gave him a load of codependent shit to do when it's pretty clear that he and his mother are a fucked-up mess.” He looked to Lydia and shrugged an oops. “Sorry,” he said.

“Matt, I didn't mean to do them all at once. It's just a list of ways to bring some positivity into the relationship,” I said.

Willa nodded. “Positivity. She's right; we all need it. Especially me.”

“Oh, yeah, never enough these days,” Chris said.

“It's mostly crap, and you know it,” Matt said. He leaned out to look at me. His curls hung down to his eyes, and even though he was glaring at me, I didn't care. “You do know that it's the
drunk's
job to get it together, right?”

I had to look away from his eyes. Especially because I thought he might be a little bit right.

 
Jenna was at Mother's Beach with the usual crowd that hung there.

She skipped over and got in, handing a pot of lip gloss into the front. “Try this,” she said. “Peach Blossom.”

I could smell the sickly sweetness of it, and I gagged quietly. Liz stuck her finger in it and smeared it over her lips.

Jenna stuck the pot under my nose. “No thanks, I've got my own.” I reached into the glove compartment and put my own color on. I checked myself before we backed out. Just right.

“That's your color, Claude,” she said.

“I know.” Actually it was Mom's, but it worked on me.

 
The mall was exactly what I wanted: the three of us acting like kids in a commercial. We were laughing, happy teens. Giddiness was a strange feeling, sort of like being tickled. I loved it and dove right into the part, following where Liz and Jenna went and laughing at the things they laughed at. We put on headphones at the music store and danced in the aisles.

And then I saw Mom's favorite store, Deja's. A gauzy Indian-print shirt hung outside the store. Her favorite song played inside. I took down the shirt and followed the sound of the Grateful Dead into the cramped room.

“Can I try it on?” I asked, holding it up for the clerk to see.

“Oh, Claude, come on,” Liz said. “This isn't you; you're jeans and a T-shirt, khakis and a polo. What else, Jenna?”

“She's a ponytail.” She put her hands on her hips.

I went into a dressing room anyway. The smell of vanilla musk oil and the light touch of the material was like a kiss from Mom. I held the shirt to my face and breathed. Tears pooled behind my lids, but I blinked them back. “Mom,” I whispered.

A pair of hip-huggers with a fringe belt appeared over the top of the door, and Liz said, “You might as well go all the way.”

“Thanks,” I said. I stepped out of my own pants, pulled up the hip-huggers, and tied up the belt. When I picked up my pants, a silver anklet fell in a knot at my feet. Mom's anklet.

“What was that?” Jenna asked.

“I'll be right there,” I said. I fastened it around my ankle, the opposite foot from the one with the toe ring, and stepped back to take in my reflection. “Excellent.” I pulled the curtain back and stepped out.

Liz and Jenna went white and looked at each other. Their mouths opened and then closed. “It's too creepy,” Liz said.

“What's wrong?” I said, smoothing the shirt. “Everything fits perfectly.”

“Too perfect,” Jenna said.

“Yeah, you look exactly like your mom, Claudine. Exactly.”

I went into the dressing room again and looked. I felt right and serene. “I'll get it all,” I called out. “And I'll wear it now.”

While I paid, Liz and Jenna waited outside the store. We were supposed to be seeing a movie, but it had already started.

“Let's get going,” I said.

“No, wait,” Jenna said. “The movie. We haven't missed that much.”

Liz nodded.

“I've got stuff to do still,” I said. “And school tomorrow.”

“Who are you, Cinderella?” Jenna asked.

“Come on, Claude,” Liz said. She did her sad face for me.

“I'm beat,” I said, and began walking. They stayed a few steps behind me, heads together, whispering.

We drove in silence, except for Jenna's chatter to Liz and Liz's grunts back. As I passed the sign for Deep Cove, my stomach began to tighten and I felt the anklet heavy around my ankle.

After I dropped them off at Liz's house, I drove to the beach and parked at the seawall. The air was thick with salt and cooler than it had been during the day, but I left my sweatshirt in the car. Waves slapped the shore at half tide. I stood on top of the cement block wall, shook my hair out, and spread my arms wide, letting the breeze touch me. Gauzy waves of Indian print rippled against my skin, making me smile. Strange, I thought, I'd always hated this look.

11

LIZ STARED AT ME DURING POETRY CLASS. When I looked back, she looked away. If she was mad about not going to the movie, she didn't say. I moved my chair over and wrote a list of chores I needed to do and covered it with my hand. There was actual dirt on my sheets, and I had to change them. I mean, that was disgusting. Moonpie had brought in half the garden.

“It's good to see someone taking notes,” said Mr. Springer. “It's not a bad idea to write something down if it resonates with you.”

I looked down at the list of household chores and giggled.

A pencil poked me in the back. “Brownnoser,” Matt said.

I wrote Liz a note and slid it over to her
. Let's meet in the library after school to work on your health report. I have some ideas for you. C.

“Claudine, anything you'd like to share?” Mr. Springer asked.

“No, it's personal,” I said, turning the page of the notebook.

Mr. Springer began passing out yellow three-by-three Post-it pads. “Take the packet I made for you of American poets and the Post-its.” He moved to the board, where he'd written the title FIGURATIVE SPEECH. Below were columns for metaphor, simile, alliteration, onomatopoeia, etc. “Find examples of these in the poetry. Copy them with the author and name of the poem on the back and put your own name on the front. Stick them in the appropriate column, your name out.”

The class moved as one mass up to the board. Packet pages flipped frantically and pencils scribbled as they competed to fill the columns. Above their heads I could only see the tops of the columns. With a blast of clarity that only happens when I'm very focused, I saw what I needed to do. I sucked in my breath with a loud, “Oh!” and heads turned to see me staring at the wall graph. Instead of figurative language, I saw my life laid out on the board. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. Below each day I would list the daily chores.

“A revelation?” Mr. Springer said.

“Maybe,” I said.

The idea was huge. I'd use different-colored Post-its for different days of the week. Each chore would have its own sticky note, and I'd put them on the cupboards in vertical columns so I could follow my daily progress. This idea was going to make an incredible change in my whole life. I could even designate another color for long-term projects like home repairs, winterizing, spring cleaning. This was doable. It would fix everything. I would have clean hair every day, my lunch would be packed, and the cat would be fed. I would even coordinate my grocery list with a menu plan.