My Name Is Chloe (16 page)

“You know it’s impossible for me to pick out anything that you’d like,” she explained. “So you’ve got to come along and help me.”

Why are we doing this? I kept screaming inside my head. But like a trained poodle I patiently trotted along beside her as we trekked from store to store. Fortunately, I did manage to find a couple of things that I actually liked and, well, that she probably barely tolerated. But she acted as if it was all fine and good until we were driving home. Then she dropped one of her little bombshells. That’s how I think of them. Like she says this little thing that could
easily be harmless, but it just seems to blow up like dynamite inside of me. Still, I hoped we could defuse this one before it was too late.

“I had always hoped that my daughter would like clothes and shopping,” she said as we left the crowded parking lot.

“Oh, Mom,” I began, feeling like
here we go again
. “You know, I’m just not like that.”

“I know. But it could be so fun. Karen at work is always telling me how she and her daughter have such fun shopping and sharing clothes. And, well …”

“You wish I were like that.” I turned and looked out the window.

“After raising two boys, you think your daughter will be different.”

I laughed. “I am different, Mom.”

She frowned. “You know what I mean.”

So I thought about it for a while. I’ve been asking God to help me in this specific area with my mom, and suddenly I wondered if I was about to lose some great opportunity. “I guess I just don’t get it. I can’t really see what’s so great about shopping and clothes and looking a certain way.” I turned and looked at her in her perfect designer outfit with coordinating jewelry. Even her shoes and purse go together. “Why is it so important to you?”

Now this seemed to throw her for a loop, and I
could tell she was trying to brush me off. “Oh, it’s not
that
important, Chloe.”

“But it is, Mom. You won’t go anywhere unless you look absolutely perfect. Even Dad complains about it sometimes. And I’m not saying it’s wrong. I mean, I think you look really nice and everything, but it’s just not for me. Still, I have to wonder sometimes, why are you like that? Do you even know?”

She thought about it. “I’m not sure, Chloe. I suspect it has to do with how I was raised.”

“But Grandma’s not like that. In fact, she seems pretty normal to me.”

She laughed. “Well, she would to you.” She hit her hand on the steering wheel. “Maybe that’s it!”

“What?”

“Maybe I was trying really hard not to be like my mother, and now you’re trying hard not to be like me.”

I considered this. “I don’t think I’m trying not to be like you, Mom. I think I’m just trying to be me.”

“Well, that’s how I felt too.”

“So, what was Grandma like when you were growing up? What was so bad that you wanted to be different?” All I could think of Grandma Brown was how she loves to cook and sew and garden and how I always feel warm and welcome in her old-fashioned farmhouse. She remarried
when I was about five and now lives a couple hours away from us.

“You know my parents got divorced when I was little. And my mom just barely scraped by.” Mom made a face. “It used to embarrass me almost to death in grade school to see my mom wearing a hair net and working in the cafeteria. If she was up front serving the food, I would duck my head down and just look at my tray as I passed by. I never even said hi.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I suppose I can understand that. I probably would’ve felt the same way if you were working in the cafeteria.”

She glanced at me. “You would?”

“Yeah. It’s always kinda embarrassing having your parents around no matter how cool they are, or aren’t.”

“I guess so. But my mother was definitely not cool. She wore these horrible housedresses everywhere she went. Do you know what a house-dress is, Chloe?”

“Not really.” Grandma usually just wears jeans and sweatshirts and casual stuff now.

“Well, a housedress is this frumpy thing in awful colors with snaps that go down the front.” She groaned. “
Very ugly
.”

“Maybe it was all she could afford.”

She nodded. “You’re probably right. And I have to give her credit because she did manage to
scrape together enough money to buy fabric and sew nice-looking clothes for me.”

“She’s a good seamstress.”

“But just the same, I was always ashamed of her. And as soon as I was old enough to work-baby-sitting, housecleaning, whatever—I started buying and even making my own clothes. And I suppose it became very important to me to look a certain way.”

I was starting to get it now. “So you could rise above it all?”

“Yeah. That’s probably what I was trying to do. I didn’t like being poor or having a single mom who always looked frumpy. I think I was trying to make up for it with my own appearance—so kids wouldn’t make fun of me.”

We were at a stoplight now, and she turned and looked at me and I think I saw tears in her eyes.

“But do you love Grandma?” I asked.

“Of course, I do.” She turned and looked straight ahead. “But I don’t completely understand her. She has more money now that she’s married to Fred, and she could afford to dress better if she wanted. And sometimes I’ll get her something pretty for her birthday or Christmas and she’ll just put it away in her closet. I don’t understand that.”

I thought maybe I did but knew I would never be able to explain it to my mom.

“And I know that she’s like you, Chloe. She often tells me that I worry too much about appearances. And maybe she’s right. Maybe you both are. I don’t know. But the truth is, I
like
pretty things. I
like
shopping and I
like
feeling as if I look attractive.” She glanced at me again. “Is there anything terribly wrong with that?”

“I don’t think so, Mom. Maybe the thing that bugs me is that sometimes it feels like you’re trying to push those things on me. I mean, how would you feel if Grandma and I tried to get you to dress like us?”

She laughed. “That’d be pretty funny.”

“Right. So maybe if you think about how you’d feel if the roles were reversed, well, maybe it would help you to understand us better.”

“Chloe, you’re pretty smart for a kid.”

I laughed now. “Gee, thanks.”

“No, really. I wasn’t nearly as mature as you are back when I was fifteen. I was completely obsessed with clothes and boys and popularity. But you’re different. It’s as if you were born old.”

“Yeah, that’s what Grandma says too.”

“I think I’ll give her a call when we get home.”

I smiled. “Tell her hi for me.”

Oh, it’s obvious that Mom and I will probably never be best friends, not like those mothers and daughters who share clothes and giggle about boys. But maybe today was a step of progress. I
think I understand her a little more, but to be honest, I really relate better to Grandma.

Allie, Laura, and I are now practicing several songs to do for the church’s Christmas concert. It was Willy’s idea. One is a rearrangement of an old Christmas carol and the other two are my own creations. And one of them I’ll do solo (both Allie and Laura are okay with this) because it just seems to work best for the song. But it’s fun practicing together—especially now that we’re all on the same spiritual page! And Willy talked us into practicing at the church so that Allie can have a decent drum set to play on, plus the acoustics are better.

I’m also playing a couple evenings at the Paradiso (and Mike has promised to have our whole little group there after the New Year—yippee!). Plus I’m singing a couple of solos in our school Christmas concert. So December is quite the performing month for me! I feel, well, almost famous! Ha-ha!

So I should be flying high now, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, I have this old thing still doggin’ at my heels. And it seems to bring out the very worst in me. It’s like as soon as I think I’m doing pretty good as a Christian, this thing comes up again. I suppose it’s not nice to call her a “thing” since she’s really a human. At least I think she is. Sometimes I wonder though. Yes, it’s Tiffany Knight. And for some reason she just seems to have it out for me. It’s like every day is open season on Chloe Miller. And today, I’m afraid I just blew it.

I think things started getting worse after my second time playing at the Paradiso Café. You see, this small ensemble group that I’m in also has a couple of very popular girls in it—girls that Tiffany would kill to be friends with. And to be honest, these girls really aren’t half bad. One’s name is Cortney Stein and the other is Torrey Barnes. Anyway, I guess one of them overheard me talking to Mr. Thompson about my little coffeehouse gig the previous week.

“Hey, Chloe,” she said to me just before choir today. “Is it true that you actually performed at the Paradiso Café?”

I smiled. “Yeah. It was my second time there.”

“That is
so
rad.” She reached over and tapped me on the arm with her finger. “It’s like you’re famous now. Can I touch you?”

I laughed. “Yeah, playing at the coffeehouse, my only claim to fame.”

“Hey, it’s a start.”

And I have to admit it was kinda cool hearing her approval. I’m not even sure why. And, okay, I may never be her best friend, and I sure wouldn’t be willing to conform myself to the way she and her friends look and act, but it was sort of fun just the same. But here’s the downside.

Unfortunately, Tiffany witnessed this little exchange. And after choir today, after I picked up a new arrangement for one of the Christmas songs from Mr. Thompson, she came up to me in the hall and said, “Hey, Spike, can I touch you too?” in her snooty voice and then punched me in the arm, hard.

“Hey!” I rubbed my arm. “What’s your problem?”

She just laughed. “I wanted to touch the famous singer. Is anything wrong with that?” I glanced around to see if I could spy Laura down the hall, but she was nowhere in sight. In fact, the hallway looked pretty deserted.

Then her friend Kerry did the same thing, only her punch felt even harder. And then, for no explainable reason, other than I’m still human and I still blow it sometimes, I reacted. I reacted badly. Okay, I’m sure some people would say it was understandable and maybe even self-defense. But I still know it was wrong.

I hadn’t put my backpack over my shoulder yet, and so after Kerry’s punch, I just gave my pack a good swing and let it fly, whacking Kerry (the closest one to me) right smack in the face. As soon as I heard it hit her face, I knew it was a mistake. A great big, stupid mistake. I probably had more than twenty pounds of books in there. And when my pack came down, her nose was bleeding.

“I—I’m—” But before I could finish my sentence Tiffany was screaming, crying for help, and yelling like I was trying to kill her poor friend.

By then Mr. Thompson came out to see what was going on. “What happened?” he demanded when he saw Tiffany. But then he saw the blood coming from Kerry’s nose and put his arm around her and quickly escorted her to the office with Tiffany right on his heels.

I know I should’ve followed, but somehow I couldn’t. I was too angry and embarrassed and sorry and mad and just plain confused to even think straight. And I didn’t go to the cafeteria either. I just went outside and walked around in
the cold, begging God to forgive me and to help me out of this humiliating little scrape. I almost didn’t even go to fifth period but didn’t want to get into trouble for skipping as well. It was about midway through geometry when the office aide came in and handed a note to Mr. Henderson.

“Chloe Miller?” he said in his normally stern voice.

I went up and he told me they wanted to see me in the counselor’s office. Well, everyone knows when you’re summoned to “the counselor’s office” that something is wrong—that you’re in trouble. And looking very much, I’m sure, like the old Chloe Miller, the one who didn’t mind trouble, I held up my head and walked out of that room. But I didn’t feel like the old Chloe Miller. Today I felt upset and sad and a little scared. I wasn’t even sure why. I prayed as I walked toward Mrs. King’s office.

“Have a seat,” she said.

I sat and waited, looking at her neatly arranged desk. She seemed neatly arranged too, with perfectly styled hair and a silk scarf around her neck.

“Do you know why you’re here, Chloe?”

I nodded. “I hit Kerry in the face with my backpack.”

“Right.” She glanced out the window. “Did you know that Kerry’s nose appears to be broken?”

“No.” I stared at Mrs. King in horror. “It’s really broken?”

She nodded. “And did you know that Kerry can press assault charges and the police can be involved?”

I swallowed hard. I felt like I was about to cry, and maybe it was the old tough me, or just my foolish pride, but I didn’t want to cry right there in Mrs. King’s office. I looked down at my lap in silence.

“Chloe?”

I looked up.

“Tiffany has already made a statement. Now, I need to get yours. What exactly happened today?”

So, fighting to hold back the tears, I told her. But I didn’t just tell her about today, I also told her about the day when Tiffany and her thugs beat me up and about other days when they’d teased me in the past.

“Were there any witnesses?”

“Not today. But Laura Mitchell has been around before. And other girls too. Tiffany and her friends pick on a lot of girls that are—” I choked now and I could feel a tear slipping out—“different.”

“I see.”

But I looked up at her and wondered: Do you
really
see? Sitting behind the protection of your tidy desk with your neat designer suit and expensive
jewelry do you
really
see what it’s like for the rest of us, for the ones who don’t fit in?