Paint Me a Monster (19 page)

“Mr. Heuland mentioned you might stop by.” He leans in again, the way people do when they really want to hear what you have to say. “So what’s up?”

I’m in the cave. It’s cool, and in spite of its size, the cave is crammed with obstacles—formations too hard to reach.

“I don’t know.”

“How can I help?” Mr. Algrin looks through my eyes as if there are directions inside my brain.

“Don’t know.” My chest hurts from the breath I hold back.

“I think you might know,” he says in a voice as sure and steady as the ticking clock that hangs above his desk. Ten minutes until class.

I shrug. The passageways in the cave narrow. It’s difficult to inch through them without touching the wet walls. The walls pocked and hardened by time are unwelcoming. I want to turn around. I want to be in the sun—twirling, arms wide. I want to dive into the warm air that carries the songs of birds and the scent of flowers. I want to disappear.

“Sometimes I feel invisible,” I whisper. “Like being on a remote island, alone.”

“Invisible, huh. Size-wise, there’s not much to you. Do you eat?”

I stare him in the face and pinch the skin covering my ribs. “Of course I eat. I’m the cook in the house.”

“That doesn’t mean you eat,” he responds.

“I promise. I eat.”

Mr. Algrin shakes his head in agreement, as if to say, “OK, I believe you,” and moves on.

I’m glad he doesn’t ask what I eat. What would I say?
Only things with three ingredients or less. No sugar, no carbohydrates. No oil.

“You have a sister in school, don’t you?”

“She’s a senior.”

“Are you friends?”

“Best.”

“Any brothers?”

“One.”

“Is he younger or older?”

“Younger. He lives with my father.”

“Do you see him often?”

“Who?”

“Both of them.”

This is like a game of Ping-Pong, ping for me, pong for Mr. Algrin. The ball is back to me. Ping.

“No. I see my dad more than Evan, because Evan does stuff with his friends. I see my dad once a week, sometimes.”

Mr. Algrin clears his throat and stands up. He pours himself a cup of water and offers one to me.

“Rinnie, here’s how this works. I rely on the information you give me to understand the obstacles in your life. The only way I can know this is if you share with more than one-word answers. It takes a long time to build a road using pebbles.”

“You’re right, it does,” I say.

But inside, I’m confused. The road is dark, and I don’t know the way.

Today, Thursday, was ONE BIG PIG-OUT! Mr. Heuland stopped me after English class to talk. He’s concerned about me. After school, I changed from my baggy tunic to something even baggier, my overalls. Too afraid to try on my jeans.

Tonight, I got in bed and felt the valley between my pelvic bones. There’s a hill there now. Maybe it’s the diet Cokes I drank this afternoon. If I keep eating like today, nothing will fit. I can feel my thighs spreading. The more I think about it, the more I eat. Here’s what I ate:

Breakfast
: Four fat carrots, two raisins, the longest celery stick in the package, three cups warm water.

Snack
: Starving by 10:15,
eight
dried tomatoes halves!!!, two teaspoons of peanut butter, two more raisins.

Snack:
11:00, hard-boiled egg without the yolk, two more carrots, a saltine.

Lunch
: Lettuce with tomato, cucumber, and two radishes cut into small chunks, a medjool date, big apple, bite of Jamie Silverman’s lox, bagel, and cream cheese sandwich without the bagel.

Snack:
4:00 P.M., another medjool date—too delicious, none tomorrow. Diet soda.

Dinner
: Half a chicken breast, lettuce with vinegar, ten green beans. Verna made the chicken, didn’t want to hurt her feelings, two raisins, one strawberry, a few capers.

Snack:
8:02 P.M., one huge helping of strawberry jam out of the jar on my finger.

Can’t think this hard without getting a headache.

FRIDAY RULES—NO PIGGING OUT!

Write down everything I eat.

Breakfast
: Three medium carrots, a bite of a saltine (I spit it out).

Lunch
: Bowl of lettuce tossed, chunk of chopped cabbage, one-half dill pickle, cup of cooked cauliflower, peel of a small apple. When I opened the baggie filled with cauliflower, Jamie, the girl next to me, gagged and said my lunch smelled like I was eating a skunk. It sort of does, but it has fewer calories.

Dinner
: Three bites chicken breast, one carrot, one stalk broccoli. Mom didn’t eat much more than I did, though she did smoke two cigarettes with her coffee.

Jittery all day, couldn’t stop thinking about what I ate, what I can’t eat today, what I’ve eaten so far. Have to stay in control.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for letting me get through the day without pigging out.

SATURDAY

Breakfast
: Ran out of carrots, huge stalk celery, one dried tomato, and two raisins.

Lunch
: Hard-boiled egg, white part only, three celery stalks, two raisins.

Dinner
: Mom out on a date. Cheese from a slice of pizza. Spit half into my napkin, swallowed the rest, half-cup tomato juice, six peanuts, small bowl Jell-O, half a leftover fortune cookie—fortune said good things come in pairs—so I ate two more raisins, two teaspoons jam from jar. Remember, put carrots on grocery list.

I hate seeing everything I eat written down. It’s gross. There’s so much stuff. I don’t like how disorganized it looks with my scratch outs. Have to stop changing my mind. Or spitting food out. Next time, I’m using a pencil.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Jack’s Chevy skids around the corner on the wet pavement.

“Hop in, you might melt,” he says through the open window. Drops of rain splatter his face.

I hustle into the car as fast as I can, careful not to lose my balance. The books in my backpack reel side to side in rhythm with my steps.

“Thanks. My shoes are beginning to leak.”

“I’m going to call you Charlotte Atlas.” Jack takes my pack. “How does a skinny girl like you carry a load like this?”

“I’m not so skinny. These uniforms hide a lot,” I say.

It’s a good thing my legs are short, and the seat doesn’t need to be pushed back. Crammed against the back of my seat are books, a baseball, a bat, and assorted pieces of clothing. Each time the car starts or stops, the baseball rolls into my feet.

This isn’t the route Jack would take if he drove directly home from school. He came this way to get me.

“How’d you know I’d be walking home?” I ask.

“Lucky guess. It’s raining, slippery from the leaves on the ground. . . . I know your mom,” he says, shifting gears to neutral as we creep toward a red light. Jack, always money conscious, says it saves wear and tear on the engine to shift to neutral and glide, rather than to downshift to first and then up again.

“Where’s Liz? I thought she’d be walking, too?”

“She’s at Susan’s. They’re putting together a skit for Latin Club. You know, ‘veni vidi vici.’”

“Hail Caesar,” Jack extends a rigid hand. My bare legs, wet and cold, shiver back in response. Then I lean over and kiss his cheek.

“Thanks for coming to get me.”

Every girl needs a Jack in her life. He’s smart, captain of the football team, funny, popular, and he adores me. He’s the only one I believe when he says how pretty I am because he’s Catholic, and he’d never lie. Jack mostly abides by his religion, but frays the edges by staying out too late with me.

“You’re like a windup toy with a jolt of enthusiasm,” he tells me. “You’re always ready for an adventure.”

I have his letter jacket. In Mom’s eyes, he can do no wrong. She even forgave him for parking in the driveway when she tore out of the house in a fit and smashed into his Volkswagen.

We date until I fall into deep like with Bruce. Jack and I break up but remain buddies.

Jeff, Chip, Tom, Bill, Vince, Gary, they all hang with Jack. And I date them all, one by one. Like a bowling ball knocking down pins, I rolled through the sophomore and junior boys at Cincinnati Prep, the brother school to CGS. Now, there’s a senior I want to go out with. I ask Jack to drop a hint. Fait accompli. My entrée to the senior class is a success. I know some guys from the public school I used to attend and go out with them, too. Mom loves it when my dates make a point to ask how she is. I think it makes her feel pretty. I love knowing the guys think I’m cute enough or interesting enough to date—at least once. Weekend nights are something to look forward to.

The movies, parties, restaurants, all away from home, are like splashing in a pool on a scalding day.

I invite most guys to come inside for a soda after a date. The light in the family room is always on. Next to the light, thumbing through a magazine is Mom . . . waiting.

“Come in!” She says to my dates. “Would you like a Coke? We have plenty. Rinnie, get your date a drink. Would you like some cookies? Rinnie, bring cookies, too. What’d you think of the movie? Hi, whomever, it’s good to see you again. Tell me about school.”

Gross!

She sits on the sofa and tucks her legs under her like a schoolgirl. “That’s so interesting. What else are you up to? Really? Tell me more . . . ”

She acts like I bring the guys home for her.

More than once I’ve said, “Mom, tonight my date and I would like to visit with each other—alone. Please don’t sit with us and talk.”

My mother has become deaf.

Occasionally, I wonder why so many guys ask me out. Why I have so many repeat dates. What they want. I always come up with the same answer, and it isn’t as Mom said, because my hair is my personality. Whatever they want, I give nothing away but conversation with Mom and soda.

The hallway is empty. The only other kids at school this early are the ones who come in for extra help before classes begin. The door to Mr. Algrin’s office is open. He’s expecting me. Copies of
American School Counselor
fall across the cluttered desk like a landslide. A pile of small rocks lays half buried under the magazines. Mr. Algrin balances the phone receiver between his shoulder and neck, gathers the journals, and drops them in a box labeled “CATCH UP.” I wish life were as easy to arrange. Mr. Algrin crooks his neck deeper into his collar. It looks uncomfortable. He cups the receiver. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he mouths, turning his back to me.

I hear the words “love you too,” before he hangs up. To me, the words are mysterious.

“Have a seat,” he says, closing the door. I sit in the oversized armchair. Mr. Algrin offers me an oversized mug. White slips of paper rise from the top like albino French fries. Each crinkled paper has a fortune printed on it. I pull one from the bottom and read aloud.

“Look for answers where the eyes can’t see.”

“Where do you suppose that is?” Mr. Algrin asks.

“In the dark?” I say.

Mr. Algrin turns off the light. “Maybe,” he says. But light from a small window keeps his office from being dark.

“How’d it go this week?” Mr. Algrin tries again.

“I got a good grade on a poem. I used
The Catcher in the Rye
for references.”

“I’d like to hear it if you have it with you.”

“OK,” I say, feeling pride press through my line of defense. I sort through the graded papers in the back of my binder until I find the verse:

Standing near the edge, of the ledge,

On some crazy cliff . . .

I catch everybody—keep them whole.

No one calls my name,

I’m apart all alone,

On some crazy cliff . . .

Standing near the edge, of the ledge,

Roots barely taken hold.

Catching souls in my shoots,

Stemming punishment

I’m a weed overgrown

Apart all alone

On some crazy cliff.

Struggling to survive I contrive,

Order, truth, and fact

Trusting no one, even me

Taking heed of etiquette

Please and thank yous fly

Apart, on my own, all alone

On some crazy cliff.

I gaze at the paper in my hand. It’s quiet. Maybe Mr. Algrin fell asleep.

“Wow. Thanks for sharing. I like it,” comes his voice. “Can we talk about your poem?”

“OK.” The chair’s lost its coziness, and the temperature feels colder.

“You use a lot of words of estrangement. There’s, hmm, there’s a sense of over-responsibility.”

I look at the hangnails I’ve chewed and try to fix them with my teeth.

“Well, I was thinking of Holden Caulfield,
The Catcher in the Rye
.”

But I know the catcher didn’t care about punishment or etiquette. I do. A tired list of things I want to be runs through my head: honest, open, brave, loved, skinny, perfect.

Mr. Algrin continues. “What do you mean by the phrase ‘I catch everyone, keep them whole’ or ‘Stemming punishment’?”

He’s the catcher, and I’m caught. I look right at him and say. “Things grow for different reasons. I don’t want people to hurt. I don’t want them to bleed pain. I can catch them and keep them safe.”

If only I was prettier,
Smarter, wittier, funnier, a better athlete, a boy?
Dad might have stayed.
Dad might have asked me
To live with him.

If only I weighed less,
Was lankier, cuter, bubbly, pert,
I’d be visible.
I’d be something
Special.

If only I knew which clothes would fit when
I dressed each morning,
If only the numbers on the scale didn’t
Dictate how I feel,
And I didn’t think about
What to eat, when to eat, or how much to eat,
All day long,
I’d be happy.
I’d be safe.

If only there was more to me
Than how I look,
Pretty dresses, matching shoes, mascara’d lashes
I might be
Enough.