Nothing Bad Is Going to Happen (3 page)

God, I sound like Ruth. Why can't I just be preemptively happy for Libby? Probably because deep down I know we're not friends, at least not in a lasting way. I only hang around her and Colt because who else am I going to talk to? Everybody at school thinks I'm damaged goods. Mystery solved.

“Hiya, Soggy Bottom,” Colt says, rustling Libby's hair. She quickly fixes it, making a face that's somewhere between a frown and a smile.

“Gross,” I mutter. I hate their nicknames for each
other. Not that I have an issue with pet names in general; I call Davey “Lampy” because he lights up my life.

As Libby wriggles her hands into the kangaroo pocket of Colt's sweatshirt, I try not to think about the Colt/McKetta rumors. People are saying he and McKetta have been hooking up again, and McKetta said something weird in the van once, but who even knows. Anyway, I don't feel like I'm obligated to tell Libby about what I heard, since she falls pretty solidly into the “I'm nice to Kippy so that I'll go to heaven” camp. I mean, she has literally told me (many, many times) that the only reason she even talks to me and drives me to the post office to send Ralph hate mail is because it's what “Gah” would want.

“Ew, why are you looking at me like that?” she asks now. “Are you gonna puke?”

“Are you going to the Frostbite Challenge?” Colt asks, pulling Libby's hands out of his pocket.

The Frostbite Challenge is this competition on Christmas Eve where anyone who wants to can pay a fee, get a gigantic slab of ice, and try to make something pretty out of it using any tools at their disposal, besides migrant workers. One of the wealthier families once hired an entire group of contractors from Mexico to come and carve for them, and everyone agreed it was cheating. Also, none of the contractors were mentally, emotionally,
or physically prepared for the Wisconsin cold. They all showed up in denim jackets and two of them went home with full-blown pneumonia.

“Yeah, I'm going,” I say. “Davey's making a sculpture this year, so—”

“What's he making?” Libby asks, all lightning quick. I can hear the competitiveness in her voice. She and her dad have won the Frostbite Challenge three years in a row, and she's always on the lookout for potential rivals. Last year they did a perfect ten-point buck and this year they're doing Jesus on the cross (they're really religious, hence why Libby never says “God”).

“It's just, like, a big heart, actually,” I say, grinning. “A big heart by a big, big-hearted boy.”

She nods, satisfied that Davey won't beat her.

“I think my dad and I are going to make a square this year,” Colt says. “Last year we tried to do a sphere, but it was too complicated.”

“Hey, did you guys see someone painted over all the speed limit signs on Main Street?” I ask. “Mildred, like, whizzed by them today and we almost died.”

“That was me.” Colt grins. “Hey, maybe you should call 1-800-TEENTIP.” In an effort to crack down on petty larceny, the Friendship police set up this thing called the Teenage Tip Line—aka, 1-800-TEENTIP—which relies
on the notion that younger residents who are more “with it” will call in and rat on their hoodlum peers. So far, the tip line has mostly been used to prank people, and the most recent victim was Dom; the kids at Friendship Middle School where he's a counselor called and said he kept human bones in his desk. Staake and his minions showed up a few hours later with their sirens blaring and essentially turned his office upside down looking for skeletons. Obviously they found nothing and meanwhile there were three car accidents on Main Street.

“I've actually called the tip line about speeding,” I tell them quietly, “countless times, and to no avail.”

Colt and Libby laugh, thinking I'm joking.

I frown, picking lint off my crotch. “Whoever runs it must recognize my voice or something and delete the messages. I don't exactly have the most sterling reputation around here, if you didn't know.”

“You're so paranoid,” Colt says, rolling his eyes. “Look at how many people like you.” He flicks a finger at my leg cast, which is covered in squiggly signatures. After a while people at school ran out of space and started signing my arms and stuff—like, my actual skin—and since I couldn't always get away fast enough, I had to start wearing a sign around my neck that said,
Please don't autograph me; I'm a human being with feelings
.

“You must be psyched to get it off,” Colt says, shaking the hair out of his eyes. “How long has it been?”

“Forever.” I glance at the clock. Only two more hours before Dr. Clegg.

Libby's eyes are wide. “What if they take the cast off and your leg is gone?”

I shake my head.

“I've heard sometimes the leg is gone,” she insists.

“Libby—”

The intercom crackles above our heads and Principal Hannycack starts reading the lunch menu.

“Pizza,” Colt screams as soon as the main course is announced. “Pizza, pizza!”

Libby and I watch him sprint toward the cafeteria.

“I wonder if he'll get into college,” she says, cocking her head.

Something flashes in my peripheral vision and at first I think it's Albus, but it's the bubbler. I roll my eyes around in their sockets, trying to fix them.

Libby jabs me lightly on the shoulder. “FYI, Kippy, I know you asked me to get you a scrunchie, and I actually found one in our attic, in this box marked, like,
1997
, but I decided against bringing it, because it's, like, deeply against my fashion principles to contribute something so ugly to such a special occasion.” I actually asked Libby to
root around for a scrunchie because of this other tip I read in
Cosmo.
But I keep that to myself. She glances anxiously at my pajama pants and the Christmas stocking sock that Dom slipped over the bottom of my cast to keep my toes warm. “What are you wearing tonight?”

I smile, grateful to think about something other than anthropomorphized drinking fountains. I rattle off my outfit: one sexy cream slip, and everything else the color of a red velvet cupcake. I describe each accoutrement in so much detail that eventually she cuts me off.

“Ew, what does ‘festive hat' mean?”

I shrug. “It's, like, floppy.”

“Don't forget to pray first. Also you should shave your legs, your armpits, and your arms. Davey will expect some sort of effort, you know.”

“My arms? I didn't read anything about that in
Cosmo
.”

She looks alarmed. “Yes, Kippy, girls shave their arms—and you have fuzzy arms, no offense. Also, don't forget to use Summer's Eve on your hoo hah. It's a douching product.”

I chuckle heartily. “I'm not doing that.”

“You should douche, Kippy. Your hoo hah's precious. It's supposed to taste like a flower.”

“First of all, humans don't eat flowers—”

“Dinosaurs ate flowers.”

“—and it's called a vagina. Wait, you believe in dinosaurs? I thought the whole idea of Jesus was at odds with dinosaurs?”

Before she can answer, a football player called Dollar Dan runs by and slaps me on the ass. “Hey, Crazy Kippy,” he says, winking at me.

“Stop it, Dan!” Libby snaps. He's been doing stuff like this ever since I got back to school. He keeps saying that I should tell him the next time I'm getting sent to Cloudy Meadows so that he can do something crazy and get sent there, too, and we can finally be alone. No matter how many times I explain to him that I'm not going back—that it was all a big mistake to begin with—he doesn't seem to get it.

Dan grins. “You know it doesn't matter if you get your precious daddy to shut down Cloudy Meadows, right?” he shoots back. “Everybody still knows it's where you belong.” He leans in so I can smell his bacon breath. “Where
we
belong.”

Libby shoves him. “Back off, Dollar Dickwad. Stop trying to make this like some insane indie romance.”

I swallow, wondering how he found out about the lawsuit we're building against Cloudy Meadows. Dom and Rosa and Jim Steele have been working on it with Dr.
Ferguson for weeks now. But so far it's all been secret. They're trying to prove that I'm not the only person who's suffered unethical treatment at the hands of Cloudy Meadows nurses. I've been really careful about not mentioning it to other people.

“Also I told you that stuff about the lawsuit in confidence,” Libby says.

“Libby!”

“I want her,” he says, nodding at me. “When're you gonna get rid of that boyfriend, anyway? Or do you want me to get rid of him for you?” He cracks his knuckles.

“If you come near my boyfriend, I'll kill you.” It's a weird, gravelly voice, and it takes me a second to realize that it's mine.

I shake my head hard, trying to get whatever that was out of me.

“Come on, Kippy,” Dan says, whining now. “Talk to me. I just wanna know you, baby. Tell me about what it was like in there, with all those wild, crazy girls. Better yet, tell me about Ralph.” Dollar Dan is as creepily obsessed with Ralph as he is with me. It makes my skin crawl. I cross my arms and shake my head, feeling queasy.

“How close were you guys, exactly?” he continues. “Did he ever see you in a nightgown or whatever?”

Libby shoves him so hard he lands on his butt.

“What the fuck, bitch?” he shrieks, scrambling to his feet.

I smile at Libby, my ambivalence toward her suddenly evaporating. Not everyone's great at keeping secrets, for one thing, and people were going to find out about our lawsuit anyway. Plus, something that's cool about Libby is that even though she takes a lot of shit from Colt, he's pretty much the only person she takes shit from. It's nice to have someone stand up for me.

“Girls are crazy,” Dollar Dan yells to no one. “Dollar Dan rules!” He jogs off.

“It's so gross that people call him Dollar Dan,” I mutter.

“Yeah, because he's got nipples the size of silver dollars,” Libby says. “He's always getting drunk and showing everyone at parties—it's a total deformity, but he's a guy so people think it's awesome. Like when Nate Silver took a crapola the size of a guinea pig and everyone lined up outside the boy's bathroom like it was Six Flags Great America. If you or me had Dollar Dan's reputation, they'd call us salami tits and nobody would ask us to a dance, ever. Meanwhile he's some fatso but so many girls kiss up to him that he thinks he's cool to touch butts.”

I shake my head, awestruck. Libby might think that casts make legs disappear, but she just nailed so concisely
a complete double standard that I've never been able to articulate. Suddenly part of me wants to blurt out the McKetta rumors, because even though it's just gossip Libby deserves to know that Colt is most likely cheating on her the way he cheats on everyone—although maybe it would be gentler to simply lend her the Gloria Steinem book from my backpack? Yes. With Gloria's help, Libby could come to understand that her insensitive nonboyfriend's hold on her is part of a complex system of oppression—and then the two of us could see eye to eye, and become best friends, and start a blog about our shared beliefs.

“You're making that pukey face again,” she says.

Who am I kidding? Libby and I are never going to start a blog. She probably doesn't even like me—she talked to Dollar Dan about me and my lawsuit, for goodness' sake. I need to get a grip—to remember Ruth and Ralph, and how everyone I get close to either dies or betrays me. It might sound like narcissism, but it's also based on cold, hard facts. I have the tendency to get obsessed with the wrong people, and I need to protect myself from that.

“Personally I think Dollar Dan seems nice,” I lie, and hobble away, feigning interest in today's lunch.

“Kippy, I'm so sorry
for killing your best friend,” Ralph says, standing over me. Albus blinks from across the room, frozen on her Cloudy Meadows standard-issue twin bed, and I am screaming, but screams do nothing, noise never has—and now his hands are on my leg, clenching hard, and the pain in my knee is like lightning.

“Pickle,” Ralph says. “Pickle.”

Why is he—

“Pickle?”

I blink, sucking in air. Dom's hand is on my shinbone. Behind him, through the living room window, I see snow falling gently on the lawn.

“It's just a dream,” he says. “You fell asleep on the couch.”

My eyes dart wildly, still expecting to see Albus or Ralph
crouched in a corner. I don't usually dream about them both at once. To tell the truth, I don't usually dream about Albus at all, which is weird since I think about her a lot. Ever since Dr. Ferguson resigned from Cloudy Meadows on my behalf I've had lots of guilty feelings about her. He's helping us but she's still stuck inside, being forced to down pills and walk through life in a drugged-out haze. Dom says the case we build against Cloudy Meadows will help Albus, too. But in the meantime part of me sometimes wishes Dr. Ferguson still worked there. If only to look out for her.

“Should I get the Ativan?” Dom asks. He's always offering me the stuff Dr. Ferguson prescribed, but I'm like, How can a pill help with nightmares if it just puts you to sleep, leading to more nightmares?

“Honey?”

I shake my head. My back is slick with sweat.

“You conked out after school is all,” he says. “Are you ready to get that cast off?”

I let him pull me up. Fear is sort of my default these days, so we're used to this routine by now: I come home from school tired from not sleeping due to nightmares, and then I take a nap and have a nightmare. Dr. Ferguson tries to put a positive spin on it all by saying that hyperawareness and hair-trigger panic are part of my newly honed survival instinct.

As we enter the hospital through the automatic doors, I gaze up at the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead and blink, reminding myself that I'm supposed to be excited. My cast is coming off. I have big plans tonight. This is the start of the rest of my life.

The nurse leads us to the small white room divided down the center by a curtain, and the first thing I do is yank it back, expecting Albus to be there, but it's just another empty examining table.

“Honey?” Dom asks, an anxious note in his voice. He wants to know why the heck I'm tearing back curtains. I wish he wouldn't worry so much.

“I just wanted to see . . . if that table . . . looked more comfy.”

He nods, seeming to accept this, and holds my crutches while I hoist myself onto the examining table. The little saw for cutting patients out of casts is affixed to the wall in some kind of holster, and the curlicue cord is plugged into the floor. The blade is silver and catches the overhead lights in a way that makes my mouth water. Not like I'm hungry but like I might throw up. I close my eyes. Everything smells like bleach.

“Well, here we go, you little Evel Knievel,” Dr. Clegg says, walking in and rapping his knuckles on the plaster.
“It won't hurt even a little—I promise.” But he's promised that before.

“Okay,” I squeak.

He plucks the cast cutter off the wall and revs it a couple of times. I watch the tiny blade glint under the white lights and taste metal.

“What's your name?” Dom asks, trying to get me to focus. “Spell your name for me—you're excited about this, Kippy, remember?”

But I'm already gone.

“Hello?” Dr. Ferguson says. “Ferguson speaking.”

“Hey, Dr. Ferguson. It's me, Kippy.”

“Hello, you Kippy.” He pauses. “Everything okay?”

“I thought you said I could call you on this number whenever.”

“I did. It's just that when you call me on my home phone, I assume it's urgent—especially when I'm going to see you at your house in . . . forty-five minutes.”

“Yeah, but we're going to be surrounded by people then and I wanted to talk to you in private. I'm calling from the bathroom at the hospital. I got my cast off.”

“Congratulations!”

“Yeah. Thanks. But I had another one of those fainting spells, and I was just wondering—”

“You blacked out? When? Are you all right?”

“Yeah, fine—I was already lying down. But I just wanted to check with you about sex . . . things. What I mean is: Am I going to flashback during sex?”

Silence.

“I mean, I know I want to have sex. But now I'm worried I'll have a flashback or whatever in the very middle, only in flagrante—like, completely naked.”

“I'm familiar with the term
in flagrante
.”

“What if I'm flailing around all flashbacky and I ruin the whole moment?” I look down at my new walking cast. It's an ugly black boot. “Not to mention, what if I associate sex with trauma forever after that, and can never get it right? What then?”

“Let me get this straight,” he says.

“Okay.”

“You called to see if I think you're going to faint during sex tonight.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But otherwise you're okay.”

“Yep.”

“No panic attacks?”

“No.”

“And how is your overall mood?”

“Ugh, Dr. Ferguson, no offense but I don't have time
for your whole suicide-checklist rigmarole.”

He sighs. “What were the exact circumstances surrounding today's fainting spell?”

“Getting my cast cut off. I saw the blade they were using and just conked out.”

“Because . . .”

“Because it reminded me of that night. Ralph's machete. Like, bam, I was back in his house. I could smell his musty closet all over again. I could basically feel the vibrations of his footsteps on the stairs.”

“Flashbacks are completely normal, Kippy, given what you've been through—”

“I know,” I blurt. “But am I going to have one tonight?”

“You blacked out today because you were reminded of a near-death experience that centered almost entirely around intense physical pain,” he says gently. “Correct?”

“So?”

“So are you afraid that Davey will hurt you?”

“No. Davey only ever makes me so happy that I want to be immortal.”

“And are you afraid that sex will hurt you?”

I scoff. “I've been wearing super-jumbo tampons for, like, four whole years.”

It's quiet for a second.

“Dr. Ferguson?”

“I can't make any promises,” he says finally. “But in my professional opinion it seems unlikely—given that you have never associated Davey with Ralph, or vice versa, or confused the two—I simply think—”

“Yay!” I yell, and hang up.

Friendship, WI, is weird, huh?

Text from Kippy (mobile):

Hello?

Text from Kippy (mobile):

Helloooo? Lampyyyy?

Text from Kippy (mobile):

Sorry! I'm turning into Dom. All of his texts are like manifestos.

Text from Kippy (mobile):

Eeeeeeeeee!

Text from Davey (mobile):

ok, so the bbq thing, I sorta wanna clean up 4 when we “talk on the phone” later. Ok if I don't come?

Text from Davey (mobile):

oh u mean . . . . . . . . . . . . when I say . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Text from Davey (mobile):

?

Text from Davey (mobile):

“talk on the phone”

Text from Davey (mobile):

“talk on the phone”

Text from Davey (mobile):

KNO WHAT I'M SAYIN

Text from Davey (mobile):

no ur cool

Text from Davey (mobile):

ok

Text from Davey (mobile):

yeah . . . . . . . . talk to u later . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Text from Davey (mobile):

“ON THE PHONE”

Text from Davey (mobile):

xo

Text from Davey (mobile):

***catches u***

Text from Davey (mobile):

bye beautiful

Miss Rosa plants her elbows on the kitchen table, bows her head, and says a quick prayer in Polish. Dr. Ferguson fiddles with his Santa napkin, watching her uneasily, like he thinks she might be casting a spell instead of talking to God. Meanwhile Dom drums his fingers on the red-and-green Christmas tablecloth, salivating at the pile of hot dogs sweating on a platter in the middle of the table, and Jim Steele stares blatantly at his watch. I guess none of us is particularly religious. Also, we don't speak Polish. So we have no idea what Rosa is currently saying.

Eventually Rosa looks up, blinking at us through the hot-dog steam.

“I am saying no more evil, please,” she explains, translating.

Jim Steele shakes his head, scowling in disbelief. “What an absolutely hideous-sounding language.”

She ignores him. “I tell Jesus, ‘Kippy's cast? Gone. Cloudy Meadows? Almost gone. Now? Nothing bad is going to happen, please.'” She passes me a charred veggie burger patty. “Special food for Kippy, who is hating hot dogs.”

I smile at her. “Thanks. I don't hate them, it's just . . . I don't know.” I stop myself before I can blurt out that I'm having sex tonight, and eating phallic foodstuffs at a time
like this seems a little
much.
Metaphorically speaking.

Rosa thumps the table and I scream, nearly dropping the imitation meat. It's embarrassing how easily I startle. Two weeks ago I opened my eyes to see Dom clutching his mouth and bleeding—apparently he snuck up on me while I was dozing off after school and I socked him in the face.

“Have you been doing your exercises, Kippy?” Dom asks. I made the mistake of telling him about the relaxation exercises Dr. Ferguson suggested, and now he won't shut up about it. Basically Dr. Ferguson wants me to imagine myself on the beach, digging my feet into the sand, anchoring myself someplace peaceful. Or to hum a song I know and focus on the lyrics—something joyful, preferably. Pinching myself can also fend off fainting, he says. But the problem is, I can't predict when somebody will drop a tray in the cafeteria, or when a storm will hit. I can't control the random stuff that fuels my anxiety, so it's not like I can really prepare for it, can I?

“Yeah,” I lie. “I'm fine.” I'm starting to think that sanity and lying to make people happy are basically the same thing.

“Oh baby Kippy,” Rosa whispers. “Sweet animal in human skin.” She's been getting way more affectionate
with me since she and Dom started dating, but the language barrier can make it weird. Sometimes she calls me Mud Dumpling.

“You are my sugar lump,” she says now, nodding at me sternly. “Later I will hug your body.”

I sigh. Back when she taught the Non-Violent Communication Group, Miss Rosa wouldn't let herself touch anyone in case she accidentally hurt them—and I kind of preferred that, honestly. Now she holds my father on her lap during breakfast.

I yelp at the sound of Dom smacking the serving spoon against his plate to get the potato salad off, and everybody turns to stare at me again. “You're like a girl possessed,” Jim mutters. You'd think he could be a little more sensitive.

Dom shakes his head. “Kippy, I really think we should reconsider medication—”

“Get off her nuts about it,” Rosa hisses, losing her temper unexpectedly. “Look her face, how red, you embarrass!” She's prone to little outbursts, but I notice more and more that they're usually on my behalf.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “You embarrass. Besides, I tried that stuff and I hated it. I couldn't study on it.”

“Everybody talk, talk, talk, Mud Dumpling,” Rosa
fumes, switching her glare to Dr. Ferguson. “All these men saying they know. Who knows? She fine. Is normal for scream all the time after murder. What you think, she should be happy rainbows with milkflies in her eyes?”