Laura Ruby - Good Girls (13 page)

He closed his eyes. "You're trying to kill me, aren't you?"

My face burned. I didn't know what I was trying to do except maybe drive him crazy. I liked the idea that I could drive him crazy; I wanted to keep doing that. And

171 I wanted to keep him coming back to me, I wanted to keep him kissing me and touching me and telling me I was pretty. I started to move my hand, hoping I was doing it right. "I am trying to kill you," I said. "But I hope you'll die happy."

172

Cold Winter

O nce we have the lumber and the supplies, I

throw myself into designing the Hamlet set. My

minions are thrilled to be put to work nailing and

building and painting, even more thrilled when I

yell at them for not following the drawings I cre-

ated on my computer (I always feel horrible after

I yell, so I buy them corn chips and pizza). I spend

173 my free time--all twenty-two minutes of it--raiding thrift stores for random items: phones, curtains, dishes, chairs, and one human skull. My studying is done between the hours of ten and two every night, and I'm beginning to look like a skull myself.

Because Pam and Cindy have nothing better to do, they visit me on the set every afternoon, teasing the min- ions mercilessly and making snack and beverage runs to keep us going. Ash hangs out in the back of the audito- rium, weeding through bad poetry submissions and pulling out her hair. "Tentacles!" she shrieks at one par- ticularly tense moment. "Why is everyone writing about tentacles?!"

The performances are right before Christmas break. In Ms. Godwin's updated, girl-power version of Hamlet, Joelle rocks the house, as we all knew she would. She's fierce, she's confused, she's furious, she's sexy, she's mur- derous, she's sad, she's scared--she's every emotion a person ever had, all packaged up in the body of a pop star. Watching her, I feel this funny feeling, this end-of- life-as-we-know-it feeling. We all thought that Joelle had no plans after graduation except to do more commer- cials, but Joelle has submitted an application to the drama program at Juilliard and is scheduled to audition in January. When she takes her final bows and someone runs out to give her a bouquet of flowers, I feel like the curtain is coming down on us all, that we've got to start

174 gearing up to leave this school behind. I don't know how I'll make it without seeing Ash and Joelle every day. All I've ever wanted was to be older, to be free, and instead I feel young and lost and stupid. I tell Ash, and she tells me to knock it off. "Months, Aud. We've got months left."

"If you include vacations, it's only four months," I say.

"I keep telling you, the key word is months. Now read this and tell me what you think of it. Is the line about the black bile spewing from the dead guy's mouth a little much, or what?"

Christmas comes, and I take Joelle to Christmas Eve services with us just so that she can see what it's like. She freaks over the church--"This is so cool! Like Europe or something!" she says, and really gets into singing the hymns. She promises that she'll take me to temple sometime if I really want to go. There are no pretty stained-glass windows to look at, she says, and there's no Jesus, but she thinks I'll like the rabbis singing in Hebrew. "Just don't expect any Bat Mitzvah, wedding, `Hava Nagila' stuff. It's not all dancing around with chairs."

Over Christmas vacation, I spend practically every sec- ond reading and studying for finals in January. The girls drag me out of the house a couple of times for a movie, shopping, or whatever, but I refuse to go to any parties

175 and they have to go without me. When they talk about them later, I can tell that they're not telling me everything or everyone they saw, but I don't care. Well, I do, but I don't. I've got college applications, I've got studying, I've got exams, I've got plans. I've got my seventeenth birth- day in less than two months--hallelujah!--but that means driving lessons with my dad.

Ugh.

"Let's try this again, Audrey. Bring your foot down on the clutch and put the car in reverse. When you have it in gear, ease up on the clutch. Okay. Back up slowly. That's it. Turn the wheel all the way to the left. To your left! LEFT!"

Mom had promised to take me but at the last minute changes her mind. I know what she's up to. Me and my dad haven't been getting along all that well or even speaking all that much since the infamous photo appeared in his e-mail box. She wants to bring us together. I think she could have picked a better way to do it, something that didn't involve the operation of large pieces of machinery and a whole lot of yelling.

"Don't do that! You'll burn out the clutch!"

"I'm sorry! I've been driving your car for exactly ninety seconds, okay?" I fiddle with the gearshift and try again.

"You've been riding around in this car for five years," he says. "You mean to tell me you never noticed

176 how it sounded? You never paid attention to what I was doing? What did they teach you in Driver's Ed, anyway? I thought you were good with mechanical things."

The car bucks, stalls, and dies.

"Audrey!"

I don't bother to restart the car. "Dad, can't we take Mom's car out? That way I won't burn out your clutch and you won't give yourself an embolism screaming at me."

"Audrey, I'm not screaming."

"You're screaming."

"I've barely raised my voice. Anyway, you should know how to drive a standard. What if you're out with someone and they get sick?"

"Uh, I call an ambulance?"

"Not that sick, but sick enough that they can't drive and you have to?"

Oh, I get it. "You mean drunk, don't you? What if I'm out with some person who gets smashed and I have to drive him home?"

"Well, yes. It happens."

"I know, Dad."

He opens the glove compartment, takes out a napkin, and starts to dust the console. "I hope I don't have to remind you about the dangers of drinking and driving, Audrey."

"You don't."

177 "You can kill or injure yourself permanently. Or you could hurt someone else."

"Dad, I know that."

"If I catch you drinking and driving, I will personally bring you down to the jail myself."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I say.

"That's not what I meant," he says. "I'm just remind- ing you how dangerous drinking and driving is, that's all. It's not that I don't trust you."

Of course it is, but I nod anyway. That's my job. Nodding.

"I know that kids sometimes lose their heads, espe- cially when they're seniors. Their parents go out of town, someone has a party, somebody gets the idea to steal from the liquor cabinet. Things can get out of con- trol."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not going to any parties anymore," I say.

"Yes, well. Maybe there will be some that you'll want to go to later on. Spring parties. Or graduation parties."

More nodding.

"You have such a bright future ahead of you," he says.

Not if I drive this car into a telephone pole.

He stops wiping the dash and folds the paper towel into squares. "I don't want to see you hurt."

"Neither do I," I say.

178 "You'll be careful?" he says. "From now on?"

I don't need to ask what he means. "Yes, Dad. I'll be careful all the time."

Now he nods. "Good. Let's try this again."

January. We suffer through the last week of classes and then suffer more through finals, which means that classes change and I'm out of both history and study period--and Chilly is out of my face, hopefully for- ever. The thought of a totally Chilly-free semester is enough to keep me from crying over the short, dark days and the long, freezing nights. It's a gift that keeps on giving.

Ash has a gift of her own, a copy of the winter edi- tion of Ebb&Flow, the literary magazine. (She's surren- dered and named the edition "Tentacles.") It's a huge hit with the Goth and Emo kids. Pam and Cindy each get a copy and take turns reading the angriest poetry out loud to each other over lunch, alternating lines:

Pam: "Beware, little boy, I am Death."

Cindy: "The chemical cold in your gut."

Pam: "The churn of rot in your head."

Cindy: "I am the jerk in your knees."

Pam: "And the ghost in your bed."

Cindy: "I am the wet dream."

Pam: "And the frozen dread. Wait. Did you just say `wet dream'?" She waves the pamphlet at Ash.

179 "They let you publish that?"

Ash shrugs. "We have advisors, but they're not much for advising. We pick what we want and wait for some- one to notice. Any minute now, some mom will call and complain. But that's the fun part."

Pam flips through the pages. "Any more in here about wet dreams?"

"I don't think so."

"What about doing it?"

"Jesus!" says Ash.

"So," Joelle says to me. "What are we doing for your birthday?"

"I don't know."

"We have to do something! You're finally going to be seventeen."

"If I actually pass my road test, I'll drive you guys around in my dad's stick shift."

Pam says, "Oh, wow. The fun never stops with you, does it?"

"I know," says Joelle. "We'll all get dressed up and go to that new club. Stoke."

"A teen club?" says Pam. "They're so lame."

"We can't get into a real club. Come on," Joelle says. "It will be fun! I overheard Cherry Eames talking about it in the hallway." Joelle catch's Ash's expression. "What?"

"I'm not going to an under-twenty-one dance club.

180 And I'm not going anywhere Cherry Eames has been, okay?"

"Ash," Joelle says, "she doesn't own the place. I doubt she'll even go again, I--"

"I said I'm not going." Ash grabs her backpack and stomps out of the cafeteria.

Joelle's eyes tear up. "What did I say?"

I sigh. "You said the word `Cherry.'"

"But that was so long ago!" Joelle says.

"Obviously not long enough," Pam says. "Not that I really know what the hell you guys are talking about."

"I'm going to go and make sure she's okay," I say, and run out of the cafeteria after Ash. She isn't in the hallway or by her locker, so I race out to the parking lot to see if her car's still there. It is. Even though it's like minus a hundred degrees, Ash is sitting in the backseat with the door wide open, sucking on a cigarette so hard that she'll need another one in about thirty seconds. I hug myself tightly and jog to her car.

"I don't want to talk," she says dully.

"Well, I want to get warm," I say. "How about we close the doors and turn up the heat?"

"Whatever," she says. She digs in her backpack and hands me the keys. I jump in the front seat and start the engine, cranking the heat all the way up. Then I get out of the car and push into the backseat with her, closing the door behind me. I crack the window so we don't

181 asphyxiate ourselves. I shiver for a while until the heat comes on.

"So," I say, after my muscles stop twitching, "are you going to tell me what's going on?"

She rolls down her window, throws her butt out, and lights another cigarette. "Nobody took a picture of me, if that's what you're asking."

"Don't be a bitch," I say.

"I yam what I yam," she tells me, blowing smoke out the side of her mouth.

"Give me that," I say, grabbing for the butt.

She holds her arm away from me. "No!"

"Then tell me what's wrong."

"I told you. Nothing."

"Ash, you've been acting all weird for . . ."

"Stop," she says, looking hard at the ceiling. She swipes at her face. "Crap. I hate crying. It's so girly."

I wait.

"You remember Joelle's party?" She smacks herself in the head. "Well, duh, of course you remember that party. That's when Chilly took your picture."

"Yeah, let's forget about the picture, like, forever," I say. "What about the party?"

"While you were hanging out with Luke, Jimmy showed up."

"He did? Joelle never said anything!"

"I don't think she knows. Even if she saw him, she

182 probably wouldn't think anything of it. You know her. She thinks everything is `such a long time ago.' She thinks yesterday is a long time ago."

This is totally true. "So Jimmy showed up. Was he with Cherry again?"

"No," she says. "He told me he broke up with her. He said he made a mistake when he cheated on me with her." Tears squeeze out of the corner of her eyes. "I believed him, and I . . ." She trails off.

"What?" I say.

"I . . ."

"Yeah?"

"I did him," she bursts out.

"You what?"

"On the floor of the bathroom. I am so dumb."

I'm confused. "But if he broke up with Cherry . . ."

"That lasted exactly one night," she says. "One. I went home and I was so . . . hopeful. Can you believe it? Me? Hopeful? But then I called him the next day and he . . ." More tears, mixed with her eyeliner, make tracks down her cheeks. "He tells me that they had a bad fight but that everything was okay. He went back to her, Aud. He went back to that twit." She shakes her head. "And then you tell me that you finally stopped messing around with Luke, and you were all proud of yourself, and I'd been on your case about it the whole time. Don't lose your head, Audrey, watch what you're doing, Audrey,"

183 she says, mimicking herself.

I think about this. "That's why you got upset when I said that I did it with Luke?"

"Yeah. And here I am, the biggest idiot of all."

"Ash, why didn't you just tell me?"

"I couldn't." She shoots a plume of smoke into the air. "Why didn't you tell me that you'd done it with Luke?"

Oh, that. Well. "I felt stupid."

"Well, I am stupid."

"Stop it. You didn't know what Jimmy would do."

"He did it once before. Why did I think he wouldn't do it again?"

"Because you loved him?" I say.

She puts her face in her hands and sobs. I always thought Ash was so strong--that she could handle any- thing, stand up to anyone--that it's a shock to see her like this. So that she doesn't set her hair on fire, I take the cigarette from between her fingers and fling it out- side. Then I put my arms around her and hug her. I tell her that Jimmy's the biggest loser clown boy ever known to women.

"More," she says, her voice muffled against my shoulder.

"More what?"

"Call him more names. I like the names. And cre- ativity counts, just so you know."

184 "He's a flesh-eating lamprey. He's a penis-brained, pimple-headed pimp. He's a bottom-feeding, scum- sucking slut jockey."

She sniffs and pulls away from me. "Those are good. Even though I have no idea what a lamprey is."