Girls in Trouble (16 page)

She stared at him. He was standing too close, leaching the air from around her. “No,” she said, and then he slowly, deliberately, lifted up his arm and freed her. He stepped away, still watching her, muttering under his breath, loud enough for her to hear, for the crowd of boys to hear, too—
cunt
—before he casually walked away.

Her mouth trembled, but she wouldn’t let him see how he had hurt her. She wouldn’t let any of them see. She forced her head up, and started walking, down the corridor, to the other end of the school, the boys’ laughter a trail behind her.

All that day, she took her time getting to and leaving her classes, fiddling with her books so that by the time she got to the hall there were only a few kids, rushing to another class, not having time to stare at Sara anymore. At lunch, she found an empty room to eat in. In gym, she hid in the exercise room, curling up on one of the machines, while everyone else played tennis, and when class was over and she went to change out of her uniform, she found her clothes on the floor by her gym locker were tied in knots.

But if the kids were cruel, her teachers were surprisingly kind, and somehow their kindness made her feel even worse, more separated from the kids around her. Carl Morgan, her art teacher, set down a circle of
clay in front of her. “Go ahead, pound,” he said quietly. “You should see how many tables I’ve broken myself.” She hit the clay halfheartedly. “It won’t always be this hard,” he said simply. When she turned around, he had vanished.
You don’t have to leave me alone,
she wanted to cry, but he had.

Mademoiselle Antoine, her French teacher, praised Sara effusively when she conjugated a simple verb. Mr. Reynolds, her calculus teacher, didn’t know what to say to her, so he didn’t say anything at all, not until she was leaving his class. “Nice to have you back, Miss Rothman,” he said, and Sara, surprised and grateful, turned to him, but he was already moving away, already talking to someone else. And Mr. Tillman, her honors English teacher, snapped at her the way he always did, but to Sara it was welcome. It felt like everything might be the same. “Did you do your summer reading?” he asked her, and she perked up because, oh yes, she most certainly had. She thought of her pile of books by her bed, how all she had to do was look at how high they were and feel comforted, because time spent with every book meant less time spent in her real, waking life. She thought of the careful notes she had made. She thought of Abby, sitting at the kitchen table, swept up in Sara’s books. Reading had saved both of them, Sara thought.

“Which book affected you most?” Mr. Tillman asked, and then suddenly, Sara’s mind felt whitewashed. Blank. She couldn’t remember a single title. She tried to think back, to remember a cover, or words on the page, but the more she tried to visualize, the more her thoughts stalled. “Um—” she said.

Kids turned around in their seats, staring at her, some of them grinning.

“I—” she said.

“Well, what were you doing then?” he snapped, and someone snickered, and then a few other people laughed, and Sara felt her face heat with shame, and she suddenly bolted to her feet. “Miss Rothman!” Mr. Tillman said, but she was already out the door, down the corridor, and then she was running, her shoes smacking on the linoleum, not stopping until she was at the far end of the school, at the bank of pay phones there.

She dug out a quarter, she dialed, and as soon as she heard Eva’s voice,
the tightness inside of her loosened. “Eva—” she said. “I just had to talk to you.

She could hear Anne crying in the background, she could hear a clatter of pots.

“Sara, hang on—” Eva interrupted. Sara heard Eva talking to someone. “Okay, I’m back. Now calm down, take it slow,” Eva said, her voice soft, sympathetic.

“It’s so awful here! No one’s really talking to me!”

“The what? Wait, wait—Sara, it’s going to be okay. Listen, the dishwasher repairman is here. I’m sorry, honey, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later. I promise.”

“Wait!” Sara said. “Wait!”

“Sara, I have to go—you’re crying, the baby’s crying—”

Dial tone. Sara couldn’t let go of the phone. She held on, and in the dead quiet of the hallway, she took deep, shaking breaths. Calm, she told herself. Calm. She glanced at her watch. It was two. She had one more class to get through. She hung up the receiver. She started back to her class and then two girls rounded the corner and both of them stared at Sara so hard, she was pinned in place.

“So how’s Danny, Sara?” one of the girls asked. Sara started. How did this girl know her name? And even worse, how did she know Danny?

“I fucked him, too. We all did.”

The other girl laughed, watching Sara, taking her measure.

“We both know that’s a lie,” Sara said.

“Oh, we do?” The girls laughed and nudged each other.

For a moment, Sara wavered. Then she turned, and instead of walking to her class, she walked out the front door.
It’s not true,
she told herself. And even if it was true, well then, it was true before they were Danny and Sara, and any time before that didn’t count. Outside the air was clear and blue. There wasn’t much traffic on the streets, and the only person she saw was an elderly man with a shock of white hair, walking a big, woolly-looking dog. Sara headed for Eva’s and as soon as she rang the bell, as soon as she saw Eva, it was like oxygen. She felt so relieved that she burst into tears, and for a long while, Eva did nothing but hold her.

* * *

Afterward, she felt better. Eva gave her a cool cloth to wash her face, some extra tissues for her nose. Her nose prickled. “The house smells like lemons,” Sara said.

“We have a woman who comes in mornings. You wouldn’t believe what a help she is! She cleans, does laundry. She even helped me bathe Anne.”

“I could do that,” Sara said slowly.

“Don’t be silly, you’re not a maid,” Eva said. “I just have to make a few phone calls. Why don’t you take it easy and when Anne wakes we can take her to the park.”

“Okay, I’ll just study in the other room, then.” Sara sat on the couch. She pulled out her notebook. She had history reading to do, and a paper to write, too. She opened the history book and started reading about World War II when she heard Anne whimper. Sara jumped up and went to check, but when she opened the door, Anne was sleeping.

Sara sat back down and picked up the history book again. She read a few pages and then began scribbling notes, but she kept thinking she heard Anne. She couldn’t get lost in that place where she needed to be to study, fully focused, oblivious to everything but her work. Plus, she was hungry. “Eva, you want something to eat?” she called, getting up. She could study at home tonight.

“On the phone in the bedroom,” Eva called. “And not hungry.” Sara went in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She didn’t want to make a big deal out of eating if Eva wasn’t eating, too, so she picked at what was there, peeling open tinfoil and taking a bit of coffee cake, breaking off a chunk of cheese. She poured herself a glass of milk, saving time by drinking it standing in front of the refrigerator.

“Eva?” she called.

“I said in a minute—” Eva said, and then she came in the kitchen. She picked up a rag and stooped to the floor, where Sara saw drips of milk, a pattern of crumbs. “Oh, I’d get that—” Sara said, but Eva shook her head.

“I already did.”

Anne began crying from the other room, and Eva rubbed her eyes with the flat of her hand. “Oh, she’s up again.”

“I’m sorry,” Sara said. “I’ll clean up.” She reached for Eva’s hand, she wanted to touch her, but Eva was moving past her like quicksilver, disappearing around a corner.

All that afternoon, Sara felt as if she were trailing Eva. Every time she tried to talk to Eva, Eva had something she needed to do. She was diapering Anne, preoccupied, and when Sara reached out an arm to help, Eva said simply, “I can manage.” Sara wanted to feel useful. She wanted to be with Eva and Anne, and she wanted to do her history reading, and by six, she had really done none of those things. Instead, she had to go home.

Timing was everything. She usually got in before her parents did, so that by the time they put their key in the lock, she was on the couch studying. “How was school?” Abby always asked. “How’s my girl?” Jack wanted to know. Neither one of them ever asked if she was at Eva and George’s. They never asked about Anne or commented on the photo of Anne she had tucked in her mirror, that small, perfect baby face looking out at her.

That evening, right after dinner, she went to her room to work. Her books spread across her desk, her computer hummed on, she tried to read. The words swam in front of her eyes. She stood up and stretched and then sat down again, and tried to read, but she couldn’t get past the first paragraph. There was that strange static in her head again.

Coffee. What she needed was coffee. Strong and black and thick. She couldn’t fall behind, wouldn’t let herself. She went to the kitchen and made herself a pot of inky coffee, then carried it back to her room. She sipped until she felt a little buzzed, and then she made the light brighter and hunkered down to do her work.

“Sara?”

Sara awoke, drifting up from her dream, squinting at the light and at Abby who was in a flowery robe, her face glistening with cream. “It’s late, get to sleep now,” Abby said.

Sara stood up, her legs wobbly. Her head still felt thick. Outside it
was dark, and she glanced at the clock. Twelve-thirty. She had fallen asleep at her desk, and now there was a crick in her neck. “I didn’t finish my reading—” Sara said, but Abby shook her head adamantly. “Finish in the morning, then,” Abby said. “Get to bed now.”

Sara waited until Abby left. She shut off her overhead light, and then sat at her desk waiting until all the other lights in the house went off, until she heard Abby’s door shut, her father’s deep, sonorous snores. Then she clicked the light on again. An extra hour would do it. She could finish and then she’d be fine.

The alarm rang and she jolted awake. Stretching, she padded onto the floor. This wasn’t that bad. She wasn’t that tired, even with a lesser amount of sleep.

One week of school passed, then another, and gradually, after a month, she began to feel like her old self. Oh, maybe her jeans were looser now, her T-shirts more baggy, and her hair less wild, the color faded, but she was still first at the board figuring out a complicated math equation in first period, still first to hand in homework. “That’s the Sara we know and love,” her teacher said, making her blush. She was old news now. People had stopped staring at her, and when she overheard a bit of gossip, it was now about a boy who had broken his leg in a motorcycle accident, about a girl who was seen having dinner with the history teacher.

In third-period history class, she felt her lids drooping. Propping her head in her hands, she tried to concentrate, but the teacher’s voice was hypnotic and droning. She shut her eyes for just a moment, and then someone was shaking her, the bell for next period was blasting, and she was rousing up from a deep, steady sleep.

Sara tried readjusting everything, playing with how she used her time. One month, she stopped eating lunch so she could try to do her work at lunch time, but then she was too hungry to concentrate. Another month, she set the alarm an hour early so she could get up and study, but she fell asleep in history class again and the teacher sent her to the principal’s office with a note. “Sleeping is one thing,” the teacher said. “Snoring is another.” At Eva’s, she tried to stay awake so she could talk with Eva, so
she could help with Anne, but half the time, she’d fall asleep, waking with a start to find herself on Eva’s couch, a blanket thrown over her, and the person Eva was animatedly talking to was on the other end of the phone. Dazed, she tried to shake off her drowsiness.

“You don’t have to come over every day,” Eva said gently. “Stay home and sleep.”

“Of course I have to come every day,” Sara said. “I’d miss you too much.”

“Go home. Sleep. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Sara went home and busied herself with schoolwork, falling asleep at her desk. The next day, when she got to Eva’s, Eva was just coming back into the house, Anne in a baby carrier, her hands full of grocery bags. “Oh, you should have called—” Eva said. “Today turned out to be impossible. I have so much to do, and Anne’s out of sorts.”

“I tried to call,” Sara said.

Eva glanced at the car and then back at Sara. “Okay, honey, come on inside.”

Inside, Eva put Anne in her rocking carrier and started unloading groceries. “I can’t figure out how to do everything—” Sara said. “School and Anne and coming here—”

Eva put three packages of pasta high up on a shelf. “Why do you have to do everything?” she said. Bending, she lifted up another bag and handed it to Sara. “Can you be a love and help me with this?”

Sara took the bag. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

Eva nodded at the bag. “Perishables,” Eva said. “I’m saying if you have a paper due, you should do it at home. I’m saying if you need to talk to me, you can call me on the phone, you don’t always have to be over here.”

“Call you! That’s not the same—”

“But sometimes I’m busy—”

“And that’s why I’m here. I can help—”

Eva glanced at the bag. “The ice cream,” she said, reaching over to the bag and taking out the pint herself. “Don’t want it to melt.” She put it in the freezer and then reached into another bag for a package of cereal. “Can you believe how time flies? Five months old. Solid-food time,” Eva said, her face lightening.

They talked only a little after that. The phone kept ringing, and it was always a call Eva needed to take. “I’m sorry, Sara,” she apologized, but as soon as she got off the phone, it rang again. Sara felt like every step she took was in Eva’s way. Sara sat at the dining room table, opened her books, but the words shimmied on the page, her hand wouldn’t hold her pen. Finally, she just put her schoolwork away and went to see Anne.

“Look at you,” she said, lifting up the baby. Anne had spit up over her romper. “Yow. Let me give you a bath.” she said.

She didn’t think twice about it. She had helped Eva bathe the baby before. Filling the tub, she tested the water with her elbow the way Eva did, she set up the nonskid baby seat and put Anne, squirming and naked, into it. She couldn’t get close enough to the baby. The day Anne had been born, the doctor had put her on Sara’s belly, skin to skin, the way all the books she had ever read had suggested, but then her baby had been whisked away from her by Eva. There had always been barriers. Even bathing Anne with Eva, Sara had had to step back, to give Eva the room Eva always said she needed. Eva’s elbows were always slicing the air. Bending, Sara floated her hand in the water, and the baby kicked and splashed water on Sara’s dress. “Hey, you soaked me,” Sara said. Anne smiled and then Sara slid off her dress and got into the tub with Anne, splashing water on the floor. It was the most natural thing in the world. Chortling, the baby slapped her hands in the water. Sara grabbed for the baby’s hands and nuzzled them. She rubbed her nose against Anne’s, making the baby laugh even louder. “Ah, isn’t this better?” she said. She couldn’t believe how wonderful it felt to be in the tub with Anne. How silky Anne’s skin felt, how delicious she smelled, like plums, Sara thought, or fresh green grapes. She lifted Anne up out of the baby seat and put her in her lap. Wrapping her arms about the baby, Sara hummed, rocking them both in the water. Bliss. This was bliss.