Keep Holding On (4 page)

No one can figure out why Ms. Scofield is always so perky. She doesn’t drink coffee. Allegedly. How can her extreme level of perkiness be achieved without caffeine?

“Is everyone ready to start the optics unit?” Ms. Scofield queries. “I know I am. What about you, Gumby?” She picks up the Gumby figure from her desk. Ms. Scofield has a thing for Gumby and Pokey. And this other dude Prickle, who is a yellow dinosaur. She had to explain who they all were at the beginning of the year because only one person recognized Gumby. She puts them in her lessons sometimes. We’ve also become acquainted with Mr. Bill from old-school
Saturday Night Live
. Whenever we’re working on
a problem where something falls off a cliff or gets crushed in a ninety-ton hydraulic press, Ms. Scofield will make Mr. Bill the smashed object. Then we’ll go, “Oh, nooooo!” Mr. Bill style. It’s fun in a retro sort of way.

Ms. Scofield doesn’t care that she’s corny. She just busted out with all this random stuff on the first day, totally confident about who she is. Even though most of us aren’t thrilled about science, we appreciate her effort to try to make it fun. Her confidence is impressive.

School would be way more tolerable if everyone wasn’t so afraid to be who they really are. And if everyone else would let them.

After school, Sherae drives us to her house. In her new car. How awesome is it that I’m like the only one in our class who doesn’t have a car? I don’t even know how to drive. Mother’s not about to pay for driving lessons. What would be the point, anyway? She would never let me drive her car and there’s no way I could buy one. Fortunately, Sherae is incredible about giving me rides.

As soon as Sherae opens the front door, her fuzzy cat comes meowing over. The cat resembles a walking sphere of white fluff. Her name is Nimbus. As in the type of cloud. Sherae’s geektastic older brother named her. I like it better around here now that he’s away at college. He always gave off this vibe like he was better than me just because he had money. Like I didn’t even deserve to be at his house. But if you took away his rich family, we’d be more
alike than he would ever admit.

Sherae’s mom is unpacking groceries in the kitchen. We go in to help her.

“Hi, Mrs. Feldman,” I say.

“Hi, Noelle. How was school?”

“Good.” School was actually decent for once. Julian talked to me for a really long time. Warner Talbot left me alone at lunch. My skin miraculously looked okay. And I’m going out with Matt Friday night. Of course I’m dying to tell Sherae all about Matt now that we’re official. But I can’t. Not that she would tell. I just want to prove to Matt that he can trust me. Anyway, we’ll only be a secret for four more days. Then we’ll be out in public at the mall for everyone to see. Other kids from school will definitely be there.

We help unpack the groceries. There are eight bags. Eight bags of food for three people. When mother goes grocery shopping, she usually brings home one bag.

I lift out package after package of deli cold cuts. Three kinds of fresh bread. An entire roasted chicken. Tons of fruit and vegetables. Mother prefers to avoid fruit and vegetables. She says they’re too expensive. Clearly, Mrs. Feldman does not have the same issue. There’s more meat and fish and ice cream and lots of different drinks and chips and pretzels and cookies.

My stomach growls.

“How are you feeling?” Mrs. Feldman asks Sherae.

“Better,” Sherae says. She keeps telling me she feels better, too. But I think she’s pretending.

Mrs. Feldman doesn’t know what happened to Sherae. The next morning, Sherae told her she was sick. Then she stayed home for two days. Mrs. Feldman was here taking care of Sherae because that’s what she does. Mr. Feldman doesn’t get home until dinnertime. He’s a big-shot lawyer.

Sherae puts some fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies (warmed up for us by her mom—how sweet is that?) on a plate while I get drinks. Then we go to her room. I’m accidentally assaulted by my reflection in the big mirror above her dresser.

“Uuuuhhh!” I groan.

“What?”

“Is that what I
look
like?” My hair could not be any frizzier. I press it down. Sherae stands next to me so our eyes meet in the mirror, almost at the same level. She’s a little shorter.

“You’re so lucky your hair isn’t flat,” she says. “Mine just hangs there. Yours is pretty.”

“If by ‘pretty’ you mean ‘impossible to control,’ then yeah.”

We’ve gone over this a million times. I complain about my hair and Sherae complains about hers. But she’s just being nice. She has superlight blonde hair that’s really fine. It’s like sunlight. Plus, she has blue eyes, so she’s got that wholesome Girl Next Door thing going on.

I give up trying to make myself look presentable and flop onto Sherae’s lounge chair. I could seriously live in this chair. It’s a burgundy velvet chaise with a swooping back that’s high on one end and then curves down so it’s lower on the other end. It is very fancy. When I’m lounging on it, I pretend that I am also
very fancy.

The difference between Sherae’s room and my room is like the difference between Godiva and Hershey’s. Some highlights:

Sherae’s Room

My Room

My room is The Fortress. I’ve tried to make it comfortable despite its many flaws. The Fortress is the only place where I can totally relax. Even when I’m with Sherae, I never feel like I can completely be myself.

There’s a cootie catcher on the side table next to the lounge
chair. Sherae and I love making these. One of us will start making a new cootie catcher. Then we’ll pass it back and forth, adding numbers and colors and fortunes until it’s done.

The warm cookies smell amazing.

“Here.” Sherae brings me three cookies on a napkin. I bite into one. It’s slightly crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. The chocolate chips are almost melted, just the way I like them.

“Ya-
hum
!” I approve. I only have two cookies left. I could eat about a hundred more.

“Want to watch something?” Sherae asks.

“Always.”

Nimbus leaps up on the lounge chair. I pet her fluffy fur. She immediately starts purring. Sherae’s just sitting on her bed, staring at her wall mural.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Hmm?”

I wish I could tell her that she doesn’t have to be strong in front of me. But I don’t really know what words to use.

“We can just talk, if you want,” I say.

“Nope.” Sherae gets up and goes over to her entertainment center. In addition to the enormous flatscreen, she has a cabinet filled with a massive supply of fun. “
Freaks and Geeks
?”

“Awesome.”
Freaks and Geeks
is one of the best shows ever. Even though it was only on for one season, there’s no limit to how many times I can watch those eps. No matter how depressed I am, that show can always make me smile. I even have a poster of James
Franco as Daniel Desario on my wall. And one of Nick Andopolis rocking his disco gear that says
YOU’RE TOO TALL TO BE A GOOD DANCER!

Sherae’s big wall mural is an Alan Maltz photo of the ocean framed by palm trees, taken during a spectacular sunset. The colors are intense—bold purples and blues, hot pink, and bright red and orange. The photo might have been taken in Florida, but it totally looks like California. Sherae’s obsession with California is fierce. She’s only applying to colleges in SoCal. She ultimately wants to have a house right on the beach. Which is perfect because she already looks like she’s from there.

I can’t wait to move far away, but I don’t really get why Sherae wants to. I mean, we’re both frustrated by the confines of suburban nonliving. But Sherae has the perfect life right where she is. Her parents basically buy her whatever she wants. She even has her own credit card.

Right after I turned sixteen last year, I got a job. Mother told me I had to start saving for college. But I wanted to work. It was understood that she wouldn’t be helping me pay for college or anything else.

At the end of last summer, I went to the bank to take out some money for back-to-school clothes. You can’t set up your own bank account until you’re eighteen, so mother set up the account for me when I got my first paycheck. I couldn’t believe I didn’t even have to ask her to do that for me. It was the first kind thing she’d ever done.

I followed one of the customer service people to her desk to
make the withdrawal because I didn’t have a bank card. All of the desks looked the same. No one had any pictures or toys or anything. It seemed like a pretty depressing place to work.

The customer service rep tapped her keyboard.

She said, “There are no funds in that account.”

“What?”

“The account has a balance of zero.”

“But that’s my savings account.”

She tapped her keyboard some more.

“When was the last time you made a withdrawal?” she asked.

“I’ve never made a withdrawal.” My heart was pounding. My throat was tight. It was getting hard to breathe. “I’ve been saving for college.”

“Let’s see … it looks like your mother set up this account for you as a minor, correct?”

I nodded.

“She’s been withdrawing funds bi-weekly since your first deposit.”

There were times when I’d been furious with mother before. Her neglect was disgusting. But this was a whole new level of furious.

When I got home, mother was drinking a glass of red wine on the couch, staring at nothing.

“Why did you steal my money?” I said.

Mother didn’t even bother to look up at me when she said, “It’s not your money.” She drank more wine.

“Of course it is! It’s from my job!”

“Handing people hot pretzels at the mall isn’t a real job.”

“Um, I get paid? So that’s a real job.”

“Well, I’m the one paying rent around here. Do you have any idea how expensive that is?”

“What does the rent have to do with saving for college?”

“College?” mother scoffed. “That was rent money.”

Blood pounded in my head. I was shaking all over.

“What kind of a freak
are
you?” I yelled. “It’s not my responsibility to pay the rent! I’m only sixteen! You’re the mother! You’re supposed to take care of me!”

“How dare you talk to me that way,” mother calmly told the wall.

“I want my money back.”

“Too late. It’s gone.”

“I can’t believe you stole my money! You’re insane!” I stormed off to The Fortress and slammed my door. Then I opened it and slammed it again even harder, just like mother did that night she scared me so hard I couldn’t go back to sleep.

But the slamming wasn’t loud enough to wake her up.

The knife is sharp. I’m using a new one tonight.

This is the best way I know how to get lost when I need to escape.

I stick the tip of the X-Acto knife in. I place my index finger on top of the blade and press down hard.

The cardboard pops, then crunches. All I know is that I want this shape to be some sort of squiggle. I’ll let the knife take me where it wants to go. The squiggle will be the newest addition to
my standing mobile. My neighbors were throwing out this little yellow chair last week. I saw it by their garbage when I was coming home. That night after it got dark, I snuck out and snatched the chair. Now it’s the base for all these shapes extending from the chair, suspended by wire.

Calder did these eclectic standing mobiles I adore. I have a thing for simple, modern designs. I’m fascinated by how he combined art and science to create these perfectly balanced objects of beauty. His mobiles have totally inspired mine. I mostly make hanging ones. Since I can’t hang my mobiles from the ceiling, I have them hanging all around my room on hooks.