Hyacinth Girls (12 page)

Suddenly I was scared to look at Joyce. I knew her blond hair was
escaping from her ponytail in the humidity, and without looking I could've traced her profile, the tilt of her nose, the roundness of her lips, using my finger on the Formica counter. If I lost her—if I was losing her—it was worse than I imagined. More painful than wasp stings and lonelier than being buried alive. I couldn't live. I'd stop breathing. I'd lose everything without her. If she and Curtis were in love, I'd die. I'd die.

Joyce's voice rose. “Are you jealous or something?”

I clamped my teeth down to keep them from chattering, and when I opened my mouth again I told her to get out of the store.

We didn't talk for four weeks. I missed her every second, and there was never a question in my mind about what I had to do. As much as I cared about Lara, Joyce was a part of me. I decided that I wouldn't lie to Lara, but I couldn't tell her the truth, either. I'd just have to avoid her, ending our friendship. I never wrote Lara a note or gave her any explanation. I simply slipped away, making myself absent, and when she came looking for me, I was already long gone. It hurt more than I'd expected, like throwing a part of myself in the ocean. A part I'd only just recovered, and had wanted to keep safe. I didn't know if Lara was sad, furious, or merely indifferent. I never said good-bye to her. In that way, I was just like Autumn.

“Do you think I should call the police?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Danny said. “I don't know. Sounds extreme.”

I called Danny after talking to Robyn's mother. I wanted to let him know that I was taking this seriously. He'd been right to be concerned, it was the mark of a sympathetic person, and I wanted him to think that I was sympathetic, too.

“I bet Cerise would be horrified if the police showed up at her house.”

“Mmm. Not cool.”

“But maybe she just doesn't get it,” I said. “She doesn't remember how it feels. At that age, when you get lost, it's like the end of the world.”

We talked for a while about my responsibility. I said if my neighbor's house was on fire I'd call the fire department, even if my neighbor had told me she had it under control. I'd need to make sure that the fire didn't spread, and I wouldn't feel safe until all the flames were out. But Danny thought it was different, not like a fire at all. He said if I saw a kid playing with matches, I'd let their parents know. But it would be way too early to call 911. He thought I should give Cerise a chance to deal with the problem. Then he said if Robyn was his daughter, he'd be questioning her right now. And I realized I was interrupting bedtime—I'd forgotten he had kids.

“They live with my ex,” he said. Then he started telling me what happened. He came home from work one day last spring and all their things were gone. His life had been ripped apart. His girlfriend left him without a word, and she moved his son and daughter more than a hundred miles away. He saw them twice a month, which really wasn't enough. I pictured him sitting at a dreary table, empty chairs on either side of him. “I try talking to them on the phone, but they're only little,” he said gloomily. “They want to hang up on me after only two seconds.”

“Well, I don't want to hang up,” I said, and then we talked for almost an hour.

The next morning, Callie got up for school on time without me having to bang on her door. I could hear the shower running, then her hair dryer, and when she came into the kitchen she looked exactly the way she used to. She wore makeup and her stretchy red jeans; her shirt was one of the new ones we'd picked out at the mall over the summer. She ate a bowl of cereal without complaining that she felt sick, and then rinsed it out before leaving for school. Every detail confirmed that she was back to normal—and if I felt any concerns about Robyn, I pushed them away.

But as I worked through my morning hygiene appointments, I started wondering about Cerise Doblak. When she called me last April, she said that Robyn came home crying every day. She had
known
Robyn was unhappy. She'd pulled her out of school because of it. Robyn had confided in her mother about what was going on. The bullying, the names, the comments about her chest. If Robyn was depressed, wouldn't her mother know? Wouldn't she make an effort to get her some kind of help? I couldn't figure it out, and I became snappish as the day went on. Then a little girl with severe tooth decay was sitting in my office.

The girl was four years old, wearing a Dora the Explorer T-shirt. Her mom looked up from her phone, exclaiming, “Oops, just baby teeth!” And I started trying to explain how it could affect her permanent teeth. The decay could spread; it could cause an abscess. The mom glazed over like she couldn't care less and I thought of Cerise Doblak, and suddenly I was irate.

“You need to supervise her when she brushes!”

“I do! I supervise!”

“Nobody else can do this! She's your responsibility!”

Splotches of red appeared on her neck. Her daughter's mouth was a tiny
o
, and I could picture this girl at fourteen: teeth crooked, gums inflamed. Tongue thick with bacteria and her mother still shrugging. “Oops! Oops!” I didn't mean to be so judgmental. But there were parents
out there who really
couldn't
guide their children. Joyce, Danny. What would they give to be there each evening, ushering their kids into the bathroom and reminding them to brush? Looking back, I could've been calmer, more understanding of the mom in my office. I might gently ask her about juice before bed, suggest a reduction of sugary snacks. But she seemed so unconcerned and I blazed with self-righteous anger. I couldn't yet see that in many ways we were just the same.

Dr. Rick must've heard me ranting. He swept in like a jolly old uncle. “Rebecca?” he said. “Everything okay?”

Dr. Rick was in his late fifties, sported a year-round Bermuda tan, and snapped off his gloves with a sharp pop at the end of each examination. He always exclaimed at how beautiful our female patients were and sometimes offered up his cheek for a kiss; with the men, he was jocular and familiar—even if it was a patient's first appointment. In a bad economy, he did what he could.

“Rebecca been treating you nice?” Dr. Rick asked, rubbing the little girl's curls.

I was excused from the remainder of the appointment. The incident would be recorded in my personnel file. And as I left, I started mumbling a dozen apologies.
Sorrysorrysorry
, like I was the oblivious parent.
Sorrysorrysorry
, like I understood how these things could happen.
Sorrysorrysorry
, like I'd be sorrying that afternoon, when I got the call from Callie's school and heard about the chocolate.

Callie was being suspended for two days. I locked myself in the staff bathroom and listened to Callie's principal describe how Callie had sworn at her social studies teacher before running out of class. “She used the F-word,” Mr. Wattis said. “She told Miss Laing to ‘Eff off.' ” Callie had run out of the building, and attempted to leave school grounds before
getting stopped by a gym teacher. And before any of this happened, she'd smeared a bar of chocolate across her desk.

“Chocolate?”

“Yes,” Mr. Wattis said. “It was very messy.”

He told me that the outburst was unprovoked, as if she went around swearing like this regularly. As if she was one of those kids who threw eggs at the neighbors. I didn't argue this time around. I didn't ask if he had the right Callie. I didn't bring up her science awards, or her time on the honor roll. I wanted every fact and detail. I needed to understand what was happening. If someone was really framing her, I needed evidence first.

 

All My Interactions with Robyn Doblak, #8

For Rebecca/From Callie

One day in art class, Robyn wiggled her eyebrows and held out her wrist. She was wearing a pit-bull-awareness wristband, the same as mine. Another time she was passing out watercolors and she said my name when she got to my table. Then she held out my paper and looked in my eyes like she was waiting. Online I could do it. I was weightless and floaty. I could leap over clouds and skip over mountains. But with Ella sitting next to me, I knew it was impossible. I felt like I'd die if I moved an inch. I stared down at my hands and then Robyn dropped my paper and Ella was like, “Total dicksplash.”

IM Jan 28 2009 19:40:28

19:34:02

robynroarxo:
It's because of your friends right?

19:35:12

LithoCALpus:
It's not just them. I don't want everything to be different.

19:36:16

robynroarxo:
But it IS different so it's stupid pretending we don't know each other. I want us to be real. I want to be WITH you at school.

19:36:31

LithoCALpus:
i think it was better before

19:37:39

robynroarxo:
Before we knew each other!

19:37:58

LithoCALpus:
That's not what I mean…

19:38:13

robynroarxo:
What then?

19:38:54

LithoCALpus:
I just want to keep talking to you like this.

19:39:19

robynroarxo:
But you're somebody else at school. You won't even say hi.

19:39:24

LithoCALpus:
I can't. OK?

19:39:49

robynroarxo:
If ppl have a problem they're not your real friends. You're not like them anyway. You should be who you are.

19:40:28

LithoCALpus:
Let me think about it. Don't pressure me.

Then, I think it was in February. I don't know what happened. It was like one day she just decided that everything had to change. Robyn was standing in the cafeteria breakfast line when I came in with my friends. We'd been doing our morning rounds, passing our phones back and forth, smudging lipstick on each other's shoulders. We skipped and hollered, smacking each other's butts, and the last thing I expected was that Robyn would wave.

“Callie,” she called. “I've got Papa with me.”

She wore a purple nylon bag around her wrist, and it swung tipsily as she waved at me. She pointed at the bag. “Papa,” she said.

Dallas gave me a little shove. “Is she talking to you? Did she just say Papa?”

Ella lifted her head from Dallas's arm. “Isn't her dad dead?”

Robyn slowly dropped her hand when she realized I wasn't coming over.