Life by Committee (21 page)

I rub my eyes. The truth is, I'm still so exhausted and I have a knot of anxiety in my stomach that will not untangle.

“Stop talking to her,” Alison mumbles. It's not like the rest of us can't hear, though, so it's especially lame.

“Yeah. Stop talking to me,” I say. The smallest, weirdest part of me wants to know what Devon
did
say about me and who he said it to. Because even though I don't buy what Jemma's saying, something has set her off. “I've never done anything remotely terrible to you. And you know it, too. That's why you're blushing right now. Because you know that I may look like some slut, but you're a huge bitch.”

It's like the words came out of someone else's lips. My heart races, and I cover my own mouth for a moment. The room is absolutely still. Luke isn't laughing anymore. The other girls aren't whispering. Absolutely no one is doing last-minute homework catch-up.

I kind of can't breathe. I'm caught between feeling amazing and terrible about what I said. I can't decide if it's a jolt of bliss or regret. It's like those two things are located too close to each other to tell.

“I—” Jemma tries, unsuccessfully, to get some more words out.

“You can't rewrite history to make yourself feel better about what you've done,” I say. “I mean, isn't that what your therapist would tell you?” Now that I've jumped over the line from polite to terrifically, terribly honest, I might
as well stay there.

Jemma's eyes go so wide and wild, she looks like a cartoon. She is the Donald Duck version of herself: angry, tongue hanging out, spirals instead of eyeballs, smoke whistling out of her ears. There are some barely disguised giggles.

“I'm not in
therapy
,” Jemma lies. She may be my personal mean girl, but she's still pretty low on the Circle Community Day School totem pole. Plus now that's she's all tight with Sasha Cotton, it won't surprise anyone to hear she's in therapy.

I don't respond. Like Star said one time, sometimes it's best to let someone dig their own grave.

I feel absolutely full with new knowledge. It's like suddenly I can do everything in a completely different way than I would have before, and the stability of the Vermont mountains and cold and my scared self are up for grabs.

My red shoes pinch my toes a little, truth be told, but they are worth it.

“I'm
not
,” Jemma says again. “I don't have a therapist.” Her eyes are pooling with tears. “You should be in therapy. For your problems. With guys,” she says. With the eyes of the entire class on her, she's getting more and more awkward. I sigh and shake my head, since I've heard it all before. “You want attention from all of them. People's brothers. People's boyfriends. It's disgusting,
what you're doing with Joe. Like, completely. Awful. In the worst way.”

She said his name.

“Good ole Joe,” Luke says, his smirk back on his face, his eyebrows raised and jiggling when I accidentally look his way. It's his way of confirming, for everyone else in class, what Jemma's accusing me of. That I'm hooking up with Joe Donavetti, one half of everyone's favorite, super-strange couple.

Girls wrinkle their noses. This tall, skinny, almost-pretty girl named Ginger tears up. Literally tears up. My mind rushes, waterfalls, with things to say in response. Denials and defenses and comebacks and distractions.

But before I can choose which one to use, Ms. Gilbert finally comes in, all flustered and red-faced and apologetic.

“I didn't,” I say to the room. None of them are looking at me anymore. Except Ms. Gilbert, who wrinkles her forehead in confusion. “I mean, I'm not. Doing that. With whoever.”

“Tabitha?” Ms. Gilbert says. I get the feeling, from her tone of voice and the way she's blushing and watching my classmates, that she knows about my growing reputation. I get the distinct impression that Mrs. Drake has been making the rounds with her thoughts on me, and
that the most popular teachers are in on it too now. They have these group meetings to discuss Student Life every week, and I'm suddenly super sure I've been on the agenda.

“It's nothing,” I say. “Rumors.” I gesture to our ethics book. Like, I don't know, as a defense against them. As if I'm ethically right and want Ms. Gilbert to know it. I sort of give up on the gesture, though, because I don't think I know whether I'm ethically sound or whatever.

Ms. Gilbert shakes off my awkwardness and starts a heated class discussion on the difference between ethics and morals. Jemma keeps looking at me, like I'm the example of someone with neither.

I make a note in the margin:
What about your moral obligation to yourself?

I tap my pen over the note.

Zed would like that. I have to remember to post it onto the site later today.

Ms. Gilbert is saying something conclusive and diplomatic and thought provoking, and I am putting the pen back to the page. I write the Life by Committee address next to my little margin note.

It's not exactly a safe thing to do, but it feels right.

I smile at the idea of some girl in a few years using my old textbook and needing to discover a new world, the way I needed it. Cycle of life, or something. Sort of
beautiful.

I curl into a couch at Tea Cozy when school is over and watch my parents make awkward paths around each other. They pass off dishes and shout out orders over the rumble of the espresso machine, but otherwise they avoid eye contact and keep at least two feet of distance between their bodies at all times, which is particularly impressive given how narrow the space behind the counter is.

It's hard not to feel doubt at my decisions, seeing them like that. Knowing that I caused it.

Tiny, tiny seeds of doubt that Zed promises are natural, are part of the process. He's said so over and over to other members who have struggled. I've seen it all over
the site.

Growing pains, he calls them.

I type out what I wrote to myself in my ethics textbook, about my obligation to myself, and ask if that's right, if that's part of LBC and this new way of living. Zed responds right away, happy to see me back after my day off yesterday.

I nod along with what I'm reading, even though I don't completely understand it. Sometimes when I'm really deep in LBC, I think I am seeing some new shade of life, like a color I didn't know existed and maybe isn't as pretty as blue or green or yellow, but is still worth knowing. I've never worked so hard to understand something. All those years of math class, I thought I was really pushing myself. Turns out I wasn't even close.

I try to picture Zed, and hope, hope, hope that he is tall and strange-looking with light eyes and strong hands and broad shoulders. I hope he wears sweaters. I hope he drinks coffee. I hope he walks barefoot. I hope he
reads long books and short haiku and has glasses and a deep but soft voice.

I rub my eyes and rock back and forth in my seat a little. I sigh too loudly for public, and eventually, Cate comes over with a cup of coffee. At first I think this is a kind of peace offering, but from the shrug of her shoulders when she places it in front of me, I know that it's actually a sign that she's given up on me. Up close I can see the redness of her eyes and the frizzy, unwashed texture of her ponytailed hair. She smells like her mother's outdated, too-floral perfume. I press record on my computer, thinking maybe I'll post the audio of some of this conversation on LBC.

“We're not going to talk about it,” Cate says instead of hello. I almost hit stop on the record. This isn't the kind of thing I want people knowing about my mother. That she can be cold and harsh and leave the most important things undiscussed simply because she doesn't feel like addressing them. But it's real. And Zed says real is the whole point.

I keep it recording.

“I think we should talk about it,” I say, angling my words toward the computer. I sort of want to apologize, though it seems like the LBC-ers wouldn't like that. I am probably supposed to stick by my actions and ride them out fully. “I am so, so sorry. I know I messed up. And I
know saying I'm sorry is the lamest, but Jesus I really am sorry.”

“You know I love you, okay?” she says, but there's no hiding the fact that she did not accept my apology.

“I know you love me.”

“I hate being mad at you,” she says. Which means:
I am mad at you
.

“Both of us,” I add, meaning Paul but remembering not to say his name in the recording. She nods.

“But I am. Mad. Right now. And pregnant.” She looks at me like I'm supposed to know what's coming, but I don't. “I'm going to stay with my parents.”

She doesn't say for how long. I don't ask, because I'm scared of the answer. I wait, thinking maybe she forgot to finish the sentence, but nothing else comes.

“I know why you're mad,” I say, trying my best to sound Together and Composed. “I don't want to, like, be a stoner. I'm not going to let the baby smoke up. Or smoke near the baby. Or smoke ever again.” Cate nods, but there are deep worry lines in her forehead, and I'm not sure she believes me. And she definitely doesn't believe whatever version of that Paul said to her.

I need to say more. I need to say something unlikely and new.

“I can't be just your daughter and nothing else, you know?” I say. Cate looks at me funny. I can see a
sentence forming behind her eyes, but she shakes her head and I guess decides not to say it. She shrugs, like she has no idea what to do with what I've said, or what I've done, or who I'm becoming. That's fair. I'm not sure what to do with who I'm becoming, either.

“Look. I love you more than anything,” she says, too calmly. “I'm right down the street. And here, of course. So it's not a big thing. Just need some pregnancy space,” she says. “I don't want to be that crazy, angry pregnant lady, you know?”

I nod, but I don't know what it means. Cate kisses my forehead and gets back behind the counter. As soon as she's back there, she nods in my direction, giving Paul the go-ahead to have his part of The Talk with me. We've never had family talks in succession like this. We've done everything the three of us.

I check the computer. It is still recording.

“What you got there?” Paul says, taking the seat that Cate was just in. He has brought another mug of coffee, and when he realizes I already have one, he get flustered, eventually choosing to put it next to the one I'm drinking, like it's backup.

“Ethics,” I say.

“I could have used that class, huh?” He grimaces. He is not so good at this on his own.

“I think you do pretty well,” I say.

“I made a huge mistake Saturday,” Paul says, sighing so the words are a kind of waterfall of noise.

“Isn't she supposed to kick
you
out?” I ask. In the two minutes since Cate spoke to me, I've thought of seventeen different important questions. Like, isn't it totally counterintuitive to leave me with Paul after what happened? Shouldn't Cate be vehemently stepping in to protect me from his influence? Isn't she concerned about my new rebellious attitude? I look up to catch her eye, but she's facing the other direction.

“This new baby . . . ,” Paul begins, but he can't seem to get past those three words, and he starts picking off pieces of my peanut butter cookie and channeling all his energy into that.

“I know,” I say. “You want to do it all differently. You want to do it right. I got it.”

“Your mom's ready to be an adult,” Paul concludes, not answering a single one of my questions but creating space for more to pop up.

The line at Tea Cozy is getting longer, snaking past my little table with Paul. He tries to ignore the crowd and turns my papers toward him, checking out what I'm reading and writing with fake interest. “I can look over your paper tonight,” he says. He has not checked my
homework for me since fifth grade.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Don't bother her about this stuff, okay? Let her do her thing for a few days.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I'm going to cut back,” he says.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Definitely will stop before the baby comes,” he says.

I don't say
yeah, okay
again.

“She thinks I'm a lost cause,” I say, clearing my throat before finishing. I take a sip of the coffee Cate brought over, to prove my point. It's more bitter than usual. “But we all grow, all the time, you know? There's no such thing as a lost cause.” My voice rises, to make extra sure this last thing has recorded. Life by Committee needs to know I get it.

“You're my girl, Bitty,” Paul says, which is maybe him admitting that Cate does think I'm already lost to her, the way he is.

“I'm my own girl,” I say, and I don't mean it cruelly, but his face collapses a bit when the words hit him, and I hear it the way he must have. Like I'm leaving them, like I'm not one of them anymore.

Paul gives a sad little nod and kisses my forehead on his way back to the trenches, and he doesn't smell like weed, which means he at least hasn't smoked up today.

I post the audio on LBC that night. I play with the sound levels a little, to distort my voice and my parents' voices. It's more fun than anything else, plus this could be my signature style. I want to have artistry in my postings, like Star.

The first response is not a usual supportive message.