Reasons to Be Happy (5 page)

Brooke’s mom wouldn’t stop knocking on the door being all nosy. When I opened the door and told her I felt sick to my stomach, she gave me 7-UP and some lip gloss.
Lip
gloss?

I thought Jasper would like that detail—giving lip gloss to someone who was nauseated. But then, I’d have to tell him the whole story. Starting with a party he wasn’t invited to.

When I went back outside, I caught a glimpse of Brooke and Kevin
making
out
under the diving board!

As I waited for my heart to unclutch, Bebe sidled up next to me and said, “Well. Finally. Maybe he’ll get over his obsession with you and they can get back together.”

I swallowed.
Back
together?

I went home and cut my green bikini into tiny pieces with a pair of scissors.

• • •

I wrote in my journal,
The
SR
isn’t working. My throat hurts all the time. I’m still fat. It isn’t fair. I can’t stop, though. I can’t sleep without it. I need something good. My life sucks.

• • •

Aunt Izzy came to visit from Ohio, to spend time with my mom. She would’ve been here lots earlier, but she’d been in Ghana, in West Africa, working on her newest documentary about African orphans.

Aunt Izzy walked into baggage claim and narrowed her eyes at me. She put her hands on my face and rubbed her thumbs over my chubby cheeks, then under my eyes, where broken blood vessels mottled purple. She took both my hands in hers, turning mine palm down as if searching for something, then stopped, with her thumbs on the middle knuckles of my right hand.

Standing right there at baggage claim, before she’d even really said hi to any of us, she turned to my mom and said, “Why didn’t you tell me Hannah was bulimic?”

I about fainted.

The thing was, my mom hadn’t told her because my parents didn’t
know
.

Dad was talking to some fans and missed that little blurt.

Aunt Izzy used to be anorexic. Like really, truly anorexic. She had to be in the hospital for
six
months
when she was in high school. My mom said Izzy had nearly died.

So, Aunt Izzy knew a little bit about eating disorders and she was on to me like
that
.

That night, while Dad was on set, Aunt Izzy had a long talk with Mom about it. I know because I eavesdropped on them, terrified. Aunt Izzy convinced Mom to take me to a counselor.

I hardly slept that night.

The next morning, though, Mom was really sick and the appointment never got scheduled.

• • •

By Sunday evening, Mom had to go back to the hospital, and my SR got shoved deep down in the trash can, like all the wrappers from my binges.

I felt so guilty. I pleaded with the universe, I pleaded with God—
I’ll go to a therapist every single day if you just let her live!

• • •

Monday at school, as I worked in the cafeteria, Jasper asked, “So, how was that pool party?”

My stupid face scalded red again. How did he even know about it?

“Sucked.” I hoped he wouldn’t see my face. No such luck.

He tilted his head. “You okay?”

I nodded, then reached up to pat my flaming cheeks. I saw his eyes follow my hands.

“What’s that mark on your fingers?” he asked.

I froze. He took my right hand, and it gave me a shudder—but a much better shudder than when my bare shoulder had touched Kevin’s. He held my hand in both of his, gently—like my hand was a baby bird—and turned it palm down. He rubbed his thumbs over the red mark across my middle knuckles, just like Aunt Izzy had. “What
is
that?” he asked, his voice full of concern that confused me.

I became acutely aware of the laughter from out in the cafeteria, the thumping of my own heart, the musky-under-the-clean-soapy-smell of Jasper’s body.

I pulled my hand away, my heart zipping like I was afraid.
Afraid
of
what?
“I don’t know,” I said. “A blister I guess.”

He tilted his head, that golden wedge in his eye flashing at me. “Who gets blisters on their knuckles?” he asked in a serious tone, like he was trying to solve a mystery.

I shrugged again. I think the mark was from my teeth. But I couldn’t tell him that.

He nodded and returned to the lettuce.

I remembered that day in art class and wished I could replay the scene. I longed for another take. If I could have it, I’d play it totally differently.

• • •

The second Bad Thing happened the week after the pool party when it was time to hang up the life-size portraits.

Kevin’s reaction to me after the party confused me. I thought he’d be mean to me, but he was overly friendly, winking at me, calling out “Hey, Hannah” whenever he saw me. This always prompted the boys with him to snicker. Then, he’d turn and make out with Brooke!

I also thought the B-Squad would be done with me. But it was like they kept me around to be the permanent whipping boy or insulting girl or whatever you wanted to call me. They were openly disdainful; at least, Brooke and Bebe were, saying things like, “Don’t you know not to hook up with a boy on the first date?”

“I
didn’t!
”

They snorted. Brooke pursed her lips and raised her waxed eyebrows. “Not what
I
heard.”

Great. I
hadn’t
let Kevin grope me, but he’d told everyone we’d done it? And how pathetic was that, Brooke throwing herself all over a boy who said he’d been after someone else?

I prayed word of his daughter’s “hooking up” wouldn’t somehow reach my dad on the set. I hated when Kevin was at school with his creepy winks and pats on my shoulder, but I hated it equally when he was absent because I knew he was with my dad. I made myself sick imagining worst-case scenarios of what he might say about me.

I was terrified Kevin was going to do something hideous to his portrait of me, like give me zits or make me really fat, but he didn’t. His portrait was way more beautiful than the real me. I couldn’t look at it without blushing.

Jasper’s, though, looked like
me
. It freaked me out a little; it was so accurate it was like a photo. He even got details like the fact that one of my eyebrows was higher than the other. That my cheeks were all chubby.

He even included that mark on my knuckles.

I volunteered to help the art teacher hang the portraits because I wanted to be sure to hide the portraits of me. Mr. G. and I lined the front entry hall and the two side halls with them. They looked like real people at first glance. I hung up Kevin’s portrait of me on a patch of wall behind the counselor’s room; during the day, when her door was open, no one would see the portrait.

As Mr. G. and I worked our way into the front hall, I heard Kevin’s voice around the corner back by the counselor’s office. He was talking to Brooke and Bebe and Max. I heard Brooke say my name.

“That’s pretty damn good, Kevin,” Max said.

“
Too
good, if you know what I mean,” Brooke said.

“Yeah, you did cheat a little!” Bebe’s laugh echoed down the hall. Panic built inside me, making it hard to breathe.

Kevin laughed and said, “Well, I couldn’t exactly put her fat butt on my final project.”

They all
laughed
. I heard Brooke’s distinctive laugh; she sounded like a hyena.

“I thought you
liked
her butt,” Brooke jeered.

“Please,” Kevin said, “what was I supposed to do? She
threw
that butt at me.”

I dropped my hammer and fled. I couldn’t let them know I’d heard them.

• • •

Those first two Bad Things kind of seem like nothing compared to the third.

The third Bad Thing was my mom died.

There’s like a whole month of my life I don’t remember.

We knew it was coming. We knew she was going to die…but there’s no way, no matter how much warning you get, to be ready. There’s no way to avoid being ripped open, crushed until there is nothing left of you.

My dad and I pretty much fell apart.

Everyone says that,
fell
apart
, but it’s what it truly felt like—like actual pieces of us fell away, scattering around, until there were
too
many
fragments to possibly repair. How could you even
begin
to fix us? The idea was too overwhelming—easier to ignore the shards, to just get used to being broken.

I miss her. It seems so stupid to even say that. It’s such an understatement. I
miss
her. I look for her and she’s not there.

After she died, Dad started drinking. Too much. I pretended not to notice.

After she died, I wrote a whole section of “Mom things” on my list:

102. The way Mom gave me butterfly kisses with her eyelashes when I was little

103. That lemon meringue lotion she used, so she always smelled like dessert

104. The way she called me beautiful

“Hey, beautiful, what are you thinking?” she’d ask, coming out to the backyard where I crouched working on my cities

105. The way she’d actually listen

106. Mom’s smile when I walked into the room

107. The way she called me Hannah Banana

108. The look on her face the times I watched her studying my cities when she didn’t know I was looking

109. Our beach glass door frame in moonlight

110. Mom’s dorky birthday poems

111. The way Mom sang off-key to the car radio

If she were still here, I wouldn’t be such a disaster.

Sometimes I sit and picture her, the way she’d hardly ever wear makeup when she wasn’t on a set, and she looked so clean. Or I remember being in the ocean, seeing how long I could hold my breath and float underwater—the way she yanked me up by the hair, her face panicked, thinking I’d drowned. Her fear—which showed she loved me—felt like a solid thing in the air around us. Then she laughed, choked, and said, “Hannah! You always take things too far.”

She was right.

She was so, so right. I’d taken my SR too far. No longer my friend, but a creepy stalker I couldn’t get rid of. It scared me and I wanted to stop it more than anything in the world.

No, that’s not true.

More than anything in the world, I wanted my mom back.

But stopping the SR? That was second.

My newest reason to be happy should’ve been to
have
a reason to be happy again! I hadn’t been able to up come with anything except stuff that had to do with my mother since she died, but now I had a new one:
blue
icing
. I could finally add a #114 to my list:

112. The way Mom always smiled and never rushed her fans when they approached her

113. Dreams where my mom is still alive and healthy

114. BLUE ICING!

This blue icing was the best thing to happen to me all that day. No, all that week. Maybe the entire two weeks I’d missed school after Mom died. That’s all I could think about when I got back in the car with my pissed-off dad: that bright blue icing on the cupcakes would be
perfect
.

My brain stuck on that blue icing even though my dad had just caught me shoplifting. I didn’t steal the cupcakes. Please. Where was I supposed to hide a plastic container of four cupcakes? I’m not
that
fat. Dad caught me slipping a Three Musketeers bar into the pocket of my cargo pants.

This floating feeling washed over me:
Maybe
this
is
it. I’m busted. It’s over
.
I
don’t want to be this person. I
know
stealing
is
wrong.
The floating kind of felt like relief. But mostly it felt like a freak-out. I really needed it that night.

He caught me. I still couldn’t believe it. Most of the time he was so clueless. Mom had been too. Maybe she never noticed me stealing because she usually felt so awful it took all her energy just to stay upright and walk through the grocery store. But Dad didn’t have that excuse. (At least when he was sober, which he
seemed
to be right now. Who knew anymore?) Didn’t he ever wonder why I always waited in the car when he went in that one market in Malibu? One of the cashiers there had caught me stealing a loaf of bread.

I had to give up a lot of the food I’d swiped when Dad caught me…but not all of it. I still had the most important stuff. I just hoped Dad couldn’t hear the crinkling noise of the plastic baloney wrapper I’d shoved down the front of my pants. The baloney was so cold it almost burned. I’d lifted it from the fridge near the deli counter.

Little bulges poked out of Dad’s tight jaw, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. I wished I could tell him I was sorry. I wished I could do better. I wished I could just tell him the truth, so he would save the day and make everything okay like he did in his movies.

I wondered if he hated me. For being alive. When Mom is dead.

I wished he would talk or say something, even if he yelled at me.

Somewhere down beneath the lunch meat in my pants, the candy bar started to melt. Another Three Musketeers, soft and mushy. I hated how the candy bar felt, pressing against me, like gross Kevin’s hands in the pool. Just thinking of him brought back that prickling, frozen shock. Gross stupid moron. Now they all acted like idiots around me, snickering and stuff. I hated them. I hated that whole school. My classes, the teachers, everyone.

That’s not true. I didn’t hate DeTello. I think she suspected something. I didn’t think she suspected the SR, but she kept writing these notes on my assignments and keeping me after class to tell me I have power and potential and I can do anything.

I don’t think she
meant
to lie, but I didn’t feel it. I looked inside and I didn’t see it. I remembered that I
used
to see it. I didn’t know what happened. I couldn’t remember when I started impersonating Hannah Carlisle instead of actually being her.

In the car, my dad still didn’t talk.

Why couldn’t everything be the way it used to be, before I started this disgusting habit, with my mom alive and my dad not hiding bottles of Scotch all over the house? I clutched the cupcakes. Thank God for the blue icing.

We took the groceries into the house in silence. Maybe Dad wouldn’t talk to me ever again. Mom and Dad’s best friends, Sean and Laila—both actors too—were coming over for dinner.
That
could
work
in
my
favor. Maybe that will keep Dad too occupied to deal with me
.

I reached into a bag, pulled out the tabloid I’d bought, and used it to mask the bag of Ho Hos. Maybe if I was just really casual…

“Hannah,” Dad said, “we need to talk about what happened.”

I let the Ho Hos drop back into the bag, but kept the magazine.

“Why did you shoplift?” he asked.

“I
didn’t
shoplift.”

“You were
going
to shoplift. You just got caught.”

“I was going to put them back.”

I wished Dad could see himself, his eyes popping out of his head. He opened his mouth and held out his hands like he was totally ready to freak. Looking at him right then, it was hard to believe he was actually a pretty good actor. But I felt bad for him. You’d think if your wife just died, you’d be too distracted to flip about something like this.

All I wanted was to get rid of the candy bar and baloney. I had to get to my room.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that,” Dad said. “You’re lucky
I
caught you. If someone else had seen you, they would’ve pressed charges. It would’ve been all over the tabloids. And I’m standing here thinking that maybe I
should’ve
gotten the manager.”

Sweat trickled between my belly and the lunch meat. I knew he meant it. I knew it in the store; that’s why I gave up the candy bar, the Peppermint Patty, and the two Oatmeal Cream Pies. When my dad was mad, he didn’t say stuff he didn’t mean, like some people. When Dad was mad, he
only
told the truth (well, except about his own secret remedy, that is).

“You want to get arrested?” he asked. “You want to have a criminal record?”

Like
you?
I wanted to snap, but didn’t. The vein in his forehead turned purple.

“You stole from school, and I caught you today. Are there more times we don’t know about?”

You
have
no
idea.
My hot skin itched. I wished I could unzip it and peel it off.

He yelled and made me jump. “Damn it, Hannah! I don’t need this crap right now!”

I’d never seen him look like that before—a hot red spot shone from both cheeks. His eyes glittered like those crazy street people who act like they want to fight you.

Was he calling
me
crap? He didn’t need crappy old me anymore?

I surprised myself by screaming back, “Well, I don’t need
you
anymore either!” Screaming felt really good, even though my throat was raw.

His face shifted again and I felt like I was watching him on film. His eyes welled up with tears and everything about him softened.

“No, no, no, Hannah, that’s not what I meant.” He reached for me, to hug me, but I backed away. “Don’t
ever
think that. I
do
need
you
. I didn’t mean I don’t need you, I just…I don’t understand this. Why are you doing this?”

I was glad he said he needed me, but I had everything ready upstairs in my room. I needed to get the candy bar out of my crotch. I needed to
start
or I would go crazy.

Dad whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I nodded. “It’s okay.” Perfect exit line. I picked up the magazine and cupcakes again. Forget the Ho Hos. I’d get them later. I started to leave the room.

“Whoa. Excuse me. Where do you think you’re going? We have groceries to unload and dinner to make.” He paused, all dramatic. “And I want you to talk to me about the shoplifting.”

Oh my God! I slammed the magazine down and longed to smash my fist into the cupcake container lid. I yanked one of the reusable cloth bags toward me. I shoved stuff into a pantry cupboard. I slammed cans and each bang fueled me more. I couldn’t help myself. The SR was taking over. It was beginning and I wanted to go give in to it. Dad was ruining everything. I flung the cupboard shut so hard it bounced back open.

Dad started unloading groceries too, and that meant he wasn’t watching my every move. Maybe I could snag the bag with the Ho Hos.

“You want candy bars?” he said. “You can buy candy bars.
I’ll
buy you candy bars.”

He stopped unloading groceries and touched my shoulder. I jerked away. I didn’t even mean to, but I couldn’t
stand
to be touched, not when it was beginning. This was turning into an emergency.

“What is this
really
about?” he asked.

How could he be so stupid? Did he really not get it? Dad turned to reach into the bag I’d left unguarded. I wanted to tackle him when he pulled out the bag of Ho Hos.

“Hannah! Did you put this in the cart?” He shook his head and said, “A dozen Ho Hos?” like it was a bag of human hands or something. He dropped the bag and snatched up the receipt. “These better be paid for, or I swear to God, we’re getting back in the car this second.”

Where did he think I could hide a bag of twelve Ho Hos? Was he insane?

“You’re in luck,” he said, sticking the receipt in his pocket. “But you’ll be paying me back for these.”

“Why? I can’t have a snack because you’re spending too much money on booze?” Saying that felt as good as slamming a door.

Dad’s hand twitched and I thought he might slap me. I sort of wished he would.

He tossed the bag to me, but I didn’t catch it. It hit me in the chest and fell to the floor. When I bent to get it, the baloney packet dug into my gut. Something hot and burning rolled up my throat. I swallowed hard. I stood up with the bag, dizzy.

Suddenly I didn’t
want
to leave the room. If I left, I knew what I’d do. Maybe Dad would make me help with dinner or something. This dinner was kind of a big deal, after all—our first guests since Mom died…even though Sean and Laila hardly counted as guests. Maybe if I stayed here in the kitchen, the feeling would go away.

“The money is hardly the point,” Dad said. But he didn’t tell me what the point
was
. Why couldn’t he see what was happening to me? Why couldn’t Izzy have told
him
instead of Mom?

I stood there in our kitchen, holding the bag of Ho Hos against my chest like a pillow while Dad started fixing dinner. I wanted him to talk about it. I
wanted
to stop it, I really did.

I sat down at the kitchen island and tore open the bag. Inside were six packages of two Ho Hos each. I took one out. Dad was doing something at the stove, but he glanced at me over his shoulder. I could tell he was disgusted, but he tried to hide it. I shoved in a big mouthful, eating half the Ho Ho in one bite. Dad’s lips curled down. I ate the other half. When I licked the cream off my fingers, he turned away. Without looking at me, he laid four chicken breasts on the grill, and said, “If you’re going to eat high fat, you might as well eat
better
tasting
fat. I mean, that cream filling tastes like Styrofoam and the icing has no flavor.”

Icing! I remembered the cupcakes. I needed to eat that blue icing. I’d already had one Ho Ho, so I’d be sure to go way past the blue icing when it reappeared. Just to make sure.

I picked up a cupcake and licked the icing off the top. Dad pinched up his face and turned away. I got every bit of icing I could, then I ate the cupcake. If I wasn’t safe from the SR sitting in the same room with him, then I knew it was up to me to protect myself. The blue icing was all I had.

I could tell from the ingredients that Dad was making Thai salad with grilled chicken, my very favorite. He cut a lime in half. When I opened a second pack of Ho Hos, he glanced at me, his face and neck all red. He ground the lime against the juicer.

I pulled the magazine back out of the grocery bag with chocolatey fingers. I’d put it in the cart along with the Ho Hos because Dad’s picture was on the cover—not the feature, not this time (Sean and Laila were, though), but one of the smaller boxes. Mom never wanted me to read stuff about Dad or our family before she read it first, but she wasn’t here anymore to stop me.

Dad chopped vegetables, whacking that knife around, making more noise than he needed to. He’d probably cut off a finger and blame it on me. I flipped through the magazine.

I found the article. The first picture was a full page of Dad on the set of
Blood
Roses
. Production had been halted for nearly a month because of…because of Mom. He’d just gone back to it two days ago. The photo was good, except that Kevin was in the background.

I ate another Ho Ho.

“Hannah,” Dad said, his voice all shocked like I’d picked my nose in public or something.

I ignored him.

He reached out and moved the bag of Ho Hos away from me. We glared at each other.

I kept reading the article.
Blood
Roses
was about vampires. My dad was playing a vampire. He had to ride a horse English style and wear period costumes. It was set in the 1890s.