Perfect (11 page)

I thought about what April said yesterday, when I was
the one in bed. You're not the only one, you know. I miss
him too.

"What about April?" I said. "Don't you have to pick
her up?"

"Hmmm?"

"Mom!" I spoke like she was ninety years old. "Don't ...
you ... have ... to ... pick ... April ... up ... from ...
ballet?"

From underneath the covers she mumbled, "Carpool.
Sara Winston's mom is ..." Her voice trailed off like she
was too tired to finish the sentence.

"Oh?" I said loudly, as if my old deaf mother was still
participating in the conversation. "Sara ... Winston's ...
mom ... will ... be ... picking . . . her . . . up? Okay!
Great!"

I felt so angry I wanted to shake her.

Instead, I took $20.00 out of her purse. I rode my bike
into town. At Pay `n' Save I bought $19.98 worth of Prin-
gles, HoHos, and Diet Coke.

To the checkout lady, I said, "I'm having a study party
tonight. Me and some of my friends from school."

I lined my items up on the conveyor belt. Five cans,
four boxes, three bottles. "Thought we might need a little snack, you know? Brain power? There's gonna be four of
us. Me, and my three friends."

The checkout lady, wearing green eye shadow and a
lot of cheap-looking bracelets, looked at me like I had
three heads. "Uh-huh. Paper or plastic?"

"Plastic, please."

Behind the Shoe Barn, I alternated handfuls of potato
chips and HoHos with swallows of Diet Coke. The hubbies burned my nose and made my eyes water, but I didn't
stop. It always feels better coming up than going down.
You just have to get yourself to that point and then everything takes care of itself.

I slid my fingers inside my mouth and down my throat.
I pushed and pushed until my knuckles reached the soft
place in the back, the gaggy part. I held the plastic bag in
both hands and watched everything come back up. Diet
Coke, HoHos, chips.

Afterward I tied the handles together so nothing
would leak out. In the garbage can out front, I buried the
bag under a shoe box. Chocolate Lorena, Site 6M.

I got home about fifteen minutes before Ape Face did.
When she came in the door I was in the kitchen making
macaroni and cheese.

"You're cooking?" she said.

"Yeah." I poured more milk into the pot and stirred.

Ape Face plopped her tote hag on the floor and walked
over to the stove. She was still wearing her pink leotard
and tights. "Mac and cheese?"

"Yeah."

"Yum." She leaned in to take a whiff. Then she said,
"Where's Mom?"

I gave the pot a couple more stirs before I answered.
"Upstairs," I said. "In bed."

"In bed?" said Ape Face. Her voice sounded small.
"What's wrong with her?"

"You know," I said. "She gets tired sometimes."

Ape Face hoisted herself up onto the counter and
wrapped her arms around her knees. Her ballet slippers had black marks all over them. I wanted to tell her
to get her dirty feet off the counter, but the look on her
face stopped me. That, and how long her bangs were.
She needed a haircut. Didn't my mother notice anything
around here?

"Isabelle? She's not sick, is she?"

"Of course not," I said.

"How do you know?"

"I just do, that's all."

"But what if she is?"

"She's not! Okay? She's not sick. Trust me."

"Okay." April leaned over and rested her top teeth
against her kneecap, biting down. She looked like she
might start crying any second.

"Hey . . . ," I said. "Don't eat yourself. We've got a
whole pot of mac and cheese here. Much tastier than your
knee."

Ape Face lifted her head. She tried to smile a little.

"Come on," I said. I held out my hand to help her down
from the counter. "We can watch TV while we eat."

ON WEDNESDAY TRISH handed out magazines. Seventeen, YM, Self, Glamour, Elle. She told us to take a few
minutes to flip through them.

Ashley and I sat next to each other on the couch, sharing a Seventeen. Rachel didn't show up, so everyone was
shifted.

"Look at this girl," Ashley said, pointing to the model
on the cover. "She's perfect."

"I know," I said. "Her boobs are two perfect spheres."

"Double bubble," said Ashley, and we both cracked
LIP.

We flipped to the survey. Calculate Your Flirtability
Quotient. Not surprisingly, Ashley scored the highest possible mark, an 18. She is The Life of the Party. With a
whopping 6.5, I am The Wet Blanket.

A few minutes later, Trish asked us to stop reading.
She wanted to know what these magazines tell us out
about ourselves. "Mathilde?" Trish said. "Would you like
to start?"

Mathilde ducked her head. She was wearing barrettes
in her hair. Green plastic turtles.

Holding her magazine up in front of her face, Mathilde
whispered, "This is what I'm supposed to look like." With
one finger, she tapped a picture of a blonde in a flowered
bra.

Trish nodded. "Thank you, Mathilde."

Mathilde lowered the magazine and let her hair fall in
front of her face.

"Dawn?" Trish said. "What do you think?"

Dawn shifted a few times in her seat. "Um ... if I want
to lose ten pounds by Christmas? I should try this new
soup diet." She held up a picture of a model doing stomach crunches with a bowl of soup resting on her abs.

"Good," said Trish. "Good.... What else? Lila? Any
thoughts?"

Lila was sitting alone in the corner, with her sweater
pulled over her knees. As usual, her fingertips were tap,
tap, tapping against her kneecaps. She didn't respond to
Trish's question, she just stared at the carpet.

"Okay, Lila," Trish said, walking over to touch her on
the shoulder. "Okay ..."

"Trish?" Ashley was speaking, and I was surprised. She
hardly ever says anything in Group.

Trish turned around and smiled. "Yes, Ashley?"

Ashley used her hands to help her talk, just like she
does in English class. "Well, these girls, in these magazines. They all look so perfect, right? But maybe underneath all that . . . perfect . . . it's not so great for them.
Like what if they got a had grade, or they got in a fight
with their friends? Or their parents are getting a divorce,
or something. You know? You can't always tell, just from
looking."

Trish nodded. "Good, Ashley."

It's amazing how Ashley knows just what to say in
every situation. Where does she come up with this stuff? I
know what she'd say if I asked her. I read a lot, Isabelle.

"Okay," Trish said, looking around at us. "Let's think
about this. What about this idea that we have two sidesone that we show to the outside world, and one that
we keep in, maybe even hide? Are there things people
wouldn't necessarily know about you, just from looking?"

I pretended to be busy biting off a hangnail, but I was
really thinking, Yeah. Lots of things.

Nobody said anything.

Trish put her fingers together in a steeple. "I know,"
she said. "This can be hard stuff to talk about. Why don't
we get out our journals?"

Except for the first two pages, my journal is completely
blank. Trish wants us to write in them at home, whenever we feel what she calls HALT feelings, which means hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. A couple of times I tried to
make myself sit down and write, but nothing happened.
I just ended up chewing on my pencil and staring at the
empty page.

It was like when I used to try to talk to my mom after
Daddy died. I would start telling her how sad I was, how
much I missed him, but right away she would cut me off.
"No, Isabelle. We're not going to do this. I can't do this."
Pretty soon I knew not to bring him up. I made my mind
blank instead.

The same thing was happening now. Lila, Dawn,
Mathilde, and Ashley were write, write, writing away.
What was I doing? Blanking out. Drawing miniature vines
and tiny footprints.

As I doodled though, Trish's question started bouncing
around my brain like a pinball. What wouldn't people know
about me, just from looking? What wouldn't people know
about me, just from looking?

Pretty soon the answer started bouncing around too.
They wouldn't know my dad is dead. They wouldn't know
how much I miss him.

Sometimes thinking something is just as hard as writing it.

When Group was over Trish stopped me on my way out
the door. "Isabelle?" she said. "Got a minute?"

I paused in the doorway, backpack half on. One step
ahead of me, Ashley paused too. She turned, caught my
eye, raised one eyebrow. I shrugged back.

"Uh, Trish?" I said. "I've got to catch a bus, so ...'

Trish smiled. "This won't take long."

Why do I feel like I'm in trouble? Am I in trouble?
Trish is going to yell at me for doodling when I should
have been writing.

I looked at Ashley. She was already walking backward
down the hall, holding her hand to her ear like it was a
phone.

I nodded and watched her backpedal down the hall,
around the corner to the elevator. I thought about running after her, making a break for it.

"Isabelle." Trish touched my arm. "You're not in trouble."

"I know," I said.

"Would you like to sit?"

"That's okay," I said. "I like standing." I shifted my
backpack so it was all the way on. I kept one hand on the
doorknob.

Trish hoisted herself up onto the back of the couch
and let her feet dangle. I noticed she was wearing the
same kind of sneakers my mother wears, plain white with
blue bottoms. "How are you finding Group, Isabelle?"

"It's okay," I said, focusing on a stain in the middle of
the orange carpet. The more I squinted at it, the more the
stain looked like a yawning dog.

"Good," Trish said. "What would you think about finding another time to meet with me? Just the two of us."

"What?" My head jerked up like a yo-vo. "Are you
kicking me out?"

Trish shook her head slowly. "No. Our one-on-one
time would be in addition to Group, not a substitute."

"Why!"

"Why a one-on-one?" Trish said. "Or why am I asking
you, as opposed to someone else in the Group?"

"I don't know. Both, I guess."

"Those are good questions, Isabelle. First, I'd like to
get to know you better. And second, everyone in Group
will be working with me privately at some point. It's part
of the process."

I shifted my gaze hack to the yawning dog.

"I'm asking you now because I think there's a lot on
your mind. And I think you may feel more comfortable
sharing some of your thoughts and feelings when there
aren't so many eyes on you. What do you think?"

It was hard to shrug my shoulders with a backpack on,
but I tried.

Trish didn't say anything for a minute. Neither did I.

Then she said softly, "Is there someone else you'd rather talk to, Isabelle? Another adult? Someone you trust? A
teacher maybe, or a relative. It doesn't have to be me."

I thought about Aunt Weezy. Last night on the phone
she asked, "How are you sweetheart!" just like she always
does. And I said, "Fine," just like I always do. What am
I supposed to say when Weezy doesn't even know about
Group? She and Mom talk twice a day, but Mom never
tells her anything that matters.

"Isabelle?" Trish said. "Can you think of anyone you'd
prefer to talk to?"

I shook my head no.

"How about meeting with me, then? Thursday at
four?"

"I can't."

"Thursdays don't work for you? Do you have another
commitment?"

I said the first thing that popped into my head. "I'm
on student government." Even though I haven't been to
a student government meeting since sixth grade. I used to
do a lot of different things after school. Now I pretty much
just go home.

"Student government," Trish repeated. "I didn't know
that. That's great. How about Tuesdays then?"

I didn't say anything.

"Isabelle.? Tuesdays at four? Does that work for you?"

I shifted my gaze from the yawning dog to the tips of
Trish's sneakers. "I guess. I have to check with my mom."

"Do that," Trish said. "And then give me a call."

Trish reached into the breast pocket of her shirt and
took out a little white card with some phone numbers on
it. "You can call either number, any time."

I shoved the card in the back pocket of my jeans.

"We'll start next Tuesday, Isabelle," Trish said.

Next Tuesday. Yippee.