Reasons to Be Happy (14 page)

It felt so good to tell my dad about my battle won. For the first time, I felt like we might be on the verge of understanding each other. I told him about the lost-wax bird, of missing Mom, of all the things I’d done to try to divert…and of the giving in.

As I typed, it struck me that I hadn’t really conquered Bulimia myself; I’d been interrupted by Modesta…but I knew if I’d still really
wanted
to purge, I would have. Modesta gave me the perfect excuse: that the meat had upset my stomach. Poor fragile little American pansy? Who wouldn’t have bought that story? I didn’t know if Dad would get it, but I knew that, by the point Modesta left me, I hadn’t
needed
to purge. That’s what made it a real victory.

• • •

When an email arrived from Jasper, my heart fluttered just looking at his name. Why hadn’t I recognized my attraction to Jasper immediately?

I thought about Jasper, picturing him at the piano at school. School. Oh,
that
was why: Because I didn’t recognize
myself
at school. Because I’d let my true self get hijacked.

School. I looked around the little schoolroom, at the open-air windows, the rudimentary chairs and desks. I pictured the B-Squad here. That was funny…except I would hate to subject the good people of Tafi Atome to those girls. Brooke
here?
No mirrors, no flush toilets, heck, no toilet
paper
(unless you’d brought your own, as we had). Goats under your bed. No screens. Monkeys who stole things from you. (The day before, I’d had to scramble to take an unopened tampon back from a monkey who’d spied it in my bag. Tampons were treasure here! I’d wrestle a monkey to keep it if I had to.)

My period was back, for the first time in over a year.

What if a monkey stole Brooke’s tampon? How long before she was reduced to tears?

I never had been. Wow. I thought back—all the craziness, that scary first night, the goat. I’d never cried. The only thing that had reduced me to tears was the memory of my mother.

• • •

I’d told Jasper everything about Tafi Atome and the wonderful people who lived here. I’d sent him pictures of everything too—my room, my aunt, “my” goat, the water pump, the school. I took pictures inside the school, showing him the computer I used, and the plastic Tupperware box that went over it when it was not in use.

He commented on that photo.
What’s on the shelves behind the computer? It looks almost empty, but what are those books?

I hadn’t even paid attention. Three books stood on the shelf: a battered hardback of
Little
Women
, a paperback of
Tom
Sawyer
—the pages soft as flannel—and
Runaway Bunny.

Modesta told me, “That is our library. Every person in Tafi Atome has read these books.”

I’d brought some books with me to read on the plane. I’d already finished two. I gave them to her, saying she could read them first, but then I’d love for them to go to the library. She acted as if I’d given her a million-dollar grant.

I told Aunt Izzy and the crew, and they all dug through their own luggage to produce seven books, a
National
Geographic
, and three
Newsweek
s. We’d brought the library from three titles to thirteen books and three periodicals.

It’s a good thing I took a photo of the “complete collection” when I did, since the library shelves were scooped bare at the first whisper of the new books.

I relayed all this to Jasper in my next email, thanking him for being so observant because his one question had made a huge difference in this little village.

He emailed back:
Wow. I can’t imagine a life without books. Trying to feels like having an arm amputated. You know what? I haven’t been able to figure out my Make a Difference Project. I think this decides it. I’m going to do a book drive for your village library. Could you send an address?

Wow. What a good idea.

Imagining
a
life
without
books
feels
like
having
an
arm
amputated.

I thought of my own ignorant wish to be disfigured.

Englebert said Modesta was like the mother rabbit in
Runaway Bunny
.

Modesta smiled and said she wanted to write a book like Jo in
Little
Women
about her adventures as a doctor. That book had made her want to do something with her life to be proud of.

What did
I
want?

I’d wasted too many years of my life wanting to be skinny.

• • •

Dad’s next email was great. “Congratulations, Hannah, on a successful battle with your demon. I’m so proud of you.”

Chills shimmied down my back, even though I sat in the oven of a room, no breeze to speak of. When had my dad last said that to me? I’d felt like all I’d done was disappoint and embarrass him with my ugliness, my weight, my stealing, my inability to get myself together
.

I’m so proud of you.

That
was weight loss; reading those words, I felt one hundred pounds lighter. Like I might float away.

He wrote more:
I’ve won some battles too. Some just barely. Remember: you don’t have to do it on your own. You can ask for help. That’s not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

Turns out Dad was still in the vampire movie!
I
won’t always get second chances like this
, he wrote,
so
I
can’t blow it.
Because of his court orders, there were lots of stipulations and limitations, but the producers had agreed to all of them—Dad could only film in L.A., he had to be available for random sobriety tests, and he had to be free when I got off school.
The
court
didn’t demand that one. I did. Not that you need babysitting, but I want to be there for you. I’m sorry for not getting it right, for not understanding your bulimia. I knew you were in trouble and I didn’t know how to help you. It was easier to just numb myself out, to feel nothing rather than to feel that pain of failing you. There’s nowhere more important for me to be than with you.

We’d be back together in the same house, but without Mom. That would be hard.

Back together, though, and able to tell the truth to each other. That would be new. My bulimia would be out there, not a secret stinking away under the rug. Now that the truth was out, I had nothing to hide behind. I’d have to be pretty damn brave.

• • •

Jasper emailed to tell me how things were going with his Make a Difference Project:
All
I
had
to
do
was
send
some
emails
and
make
one
announcement
at
school. I already have more books than I know what to do with! The real issue is going to be shipping them. I had no idea how expensive it would be to ship books (which are heavy…duh) to Africa. I had a day of thinking I couldn’t do it. I told DeTello I’d made a mistake, but she gave me a ton of ideas for help. Do you think that woman has ever given up on anything?

I thought about that. Nope. Nope, I couldn’t picture her ever saying, “I can’t do this.”

She was the sort who “jumped in with both feet,” as Aunt Izzy said.

Hey, wait a minute…Izzy and my mom used to say that of
me!

What
do
you
think
you’re going to do?
Jasper asked me.
People’s ideas say a lot about them, I think. Kelly’s raising money for something called Project HOPE. They provide school tuition, uniforms, and books to kids from Sierra Leone who are now orphaned. Did you know $100 will pay tuition and expenses for one kid there for a whole year? Don’t you wish our tuition was that cheap?

I’d never thought about what our tuition cost. I thought about Kelly with her vintage dress and high-tops; what a cool idea she’d come up with.

Brooke
is
petitioning
to
install
mini-lockers in the bathrooms so girls don’t have to carry all their ‘beauty products’ around
.

I laughed out loud, frightening away a monkey who’d crept into the window sill. Beauty products? Other than shampoo, soap, and some sunscreen, I had no beauty products here. I’d asked Modesta if she had a mirror the other day and she’d snorted as if I’d asked her if she had a big-screen TV.

Brittany
is
raising
money
to
buy
the
school
lounge
chairs
so
we
can
tan
comfortably
during
lunch. I’ve already heard Brittany say her mom is just going to buy the lounge chairs because she doesn’t want to deal with a bake sale or something! The whole point is we’re supposed to raise the money ourselves, by giving something of ourselves, right? DeTello doesn’t want us to just write a check, but to learn to “be the change we want to see.” Oh, Kevin is petitioning to start a school surf team. What do you think about that? There are some who “get it,” like Kelly. Amy is raising money for the Chinese orphanage she was adopted from, some kids have organized teams for beach cleanup, Sam is starting a recycling program at school (can you believe we don’t have one?), and Laurie is doing a way cool project: she’s organizing an urban garden in some empty lots near the school to raise produce for local food pantries
.

I felt a twinge at the way he wrote about Laurie’s “way cool” project. I recognized it with surprise. Jealousy. I wanted Jasper to see
me
as way cool. I shook my head. What did I expect?

Did he tell me the Kevin project on purpose? To paint Kevin in a bad light? Ha, like any painting was needed! There was no light worse than what Kevin had already cast himself in. But did Jasper wonder if I still liked Kevin? Had Jasper ever heard any of those gross lies of Kevin’s from the pool party?

I decided not to say anything about Kevin, one way or the other, even though I wanted to say, “Who gives a monkey’s butt what Kevin does for his project or anything else?” That day in the art room still made a weight settle on my chest.

Instead I wrote,
So, when did you realize there was a world beyond your own? What was the moment Jasper Jones recognized he was part of a bigger world than his own experience? I know the exact moment when I realized it. I think I was six.

I would’ve written him the story then and there, but I’d already been at the computer for an hour. I didn’t want to be the self-absorbed American hog.

I thought about my story for Jasper as I helped Aunt Izzy and the crew that afternoon.

I thought about my story for Jasper as I helped Modesta prepare dinner for the children.

I caught myself at one point doodling Jasper’s eye, drawing that lighter, golden slice.

• • •

We were winding down to only a few days left in Tafi Atome, so I got busy. I gathered all my beads, shells, and trinkets, some of Philomel’s coal clay, and some beer and Fanta cans. A whole day went by as I worked on a wooden table behind the Children’s House, sweat dripping into my eyes and beading on my top lip. Monkeys jeered at me from the trees above. Twice I was so engrossed that a monkey was able to swipe items off my table; one was just a beer can that he tossed back from a tree later, but the other was a pretty cool shell. Ah, well. I tried to stay vigilant and shoo them away after that.

I built a miniature African market on a 16x20 piece of cardboard Modesta managed to wheedle for me from the village’s only café (nothing got thrown away here; everything was of value and could be used). This was the smallest project I’d ever done, but I knew I didn’t have much time. I made four rows of market stalls from clay, then augmented some of their walls with colorful tin cut from the cans—orange, green, brown, and purple. Other stalls were augmented with sticks, and some with small pebbles. Inside each stall I arranged items for sale: a pyramid of yellow and green beads for lemons and limes, seashells, bottle caps filled with painted rice to be plates of red-red, tiny sacks (cut from an old T-shirt of mine) stuffed with dirt, tiny bundles of dried grass and twigs. I framed one door of a stall with chicken bones to represent a voodoo market. I chopped up a chicken feather to glue a pile of miniature feathers there, and used the feather stem to make a pile of bones. Some stalls sold heaps of my most colorful tiny beads, and some stacks of fabric (folded piles of every scrap I could find, many of them trimmed from hems of my own clothing). I salvaged everything usable from my duffel and trash. To finish it off, I put five of Philomel’s brass people in the aisles. It was a rush job, but when I wiped my sweaty face and stood back, it looked pretty darn cool, if I did say so myself.