Spectacle (A Young Adult Novel) (20 page)

Emily swallowed hard. She was tempted to get Kristen so they could read it together. She wanted so badly to let her in on the secret: that she knew the whereabouts of their mother and had contacted her. But Kristen seemed so happy and well adjusted. Why knock a hole in that?

If she were honest with herself, she was also a little afraid Kristen would thwart her somehow, talk her out of communicating with Marilyn.

Emily briefly considered deleting the email without reading it at all.

Why today? What the hell?

But then … all she had to do was click once to read words her mother had composed. To Emily. She may, in the email, ask Emily never to contact her again, but whatever she’d written, she’d written to her. Assuming it wasn’t another form letter from the gallery.

Anxiety welled up in her chest like a third lung. She waved her hands in front of her face, as if this would help her breathe, and clicked the message.

Dear Emily,

Did you know your name means Rival. Laborious. Eager? Yes, your father picked that one out.

Thanks for emailing me. I’ve wondered about you and your sister often over the years.

To answer your question, I am just shy of six feet tall. I am married to a wonderful man, Winslow, who is six ten! He reminds me a lot of my own father.

Do you have a photo of you and Kristen?

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something”. ~Henry David Thoreau

Marilyn Wozniak

At the bottom of her message, she’d attached a photo of one of her paintings. Or, what Emily assumed to be one of her paintings. It was a wolf standing on a cliff, howling into the sunset. The strokes were colorful and bold.

Emily felt let down. The message was too short and sterile. But then, what had she expected? Pronouncements of love and regret? An offer of a plane ticket so Emily could fly to Arizona for a visit? This was a woman capable of leaving two young daughters. A woman who hadn’t sent a single birthday card in the past twelve years.

And the Thoreau quote? Good God. Marilyn Wozniak was out of touch. Worse, she was delusional.
Yes, don’t worry about being good, Marilyn. Don’t worry your frizzy little head about doing what’s right.

Emily started crying and could not stop. Not even when Melissa knocked on her bedroom door with offers of smoothies and peanut butter/sprout sandwiches. She came back a second time saying she’d toasted Emily a Pop-Tart and made her hot chocolate. Emily could only respond with a choked, “No, thanks.”

When she’d calmed enough to breathe, she called Thomas. She told him about the break up and the barren email from Marilyn. He was enjoying a rare day off, shopping a late night sale at Nordstrom. He clucked sympathetically and tried to talk her into meeting him so they could look for jeans together.

Emily declined. She couldn’t have cared less about clothes right then.

“I just needed to talk to a friend,” she said.

“Anytime, babe. Night or day.”

This made her smile a little. She was grateful for Thomas.

Later, when Kristen jimmied Emily’s lock with a paperclip and stood in her doorframe, yellow light from the hallway pouring in around her, Emily only turned swollen eyes in her direction and grunted.

“You’re scaring me, Em. What’s wrong?”

“Close the door!” Emily yelled.

So, Kristen did. But she stayed inside Emily’s bedroom. “I’m not leaving.”

Emily rolled over and pulled a pillow on top of her head.

“What happened today?”

“Lots of things.” Emily’s voice was muffled and full of contempt. She did not want to say any of the day’s catastrophes out loud. Least of all to her always-together sister.

“Well, can you be more specific?” Kristen asked, coming over and sitting on the edge of Emily’s mattress.

“Not really.”

Wind buzzed through the window screens and rattled the house’s siding.

Kristen, wisely, sat still and didn’t say a word.

Finally, Emily took the pillow from her head and said, “Do you really want to know?”

“Duh. Why else would I be in here?”

“Okay.” Emily took a deep, shuddering breath. “Ryan dumped me.”

“Oh, Em.”

“And Mom emailed me.”

She heard Kristen gasp. “What do you mean ‘Mom’ emailed you?” She made air quotes around the word “Mom.” Her expression was a mix of horror and hope.

There was a gust of wind so powerful that the whole house shook. Emily said, “I found her online and emailed her. She emailed me back.”

“What’d she say?” Kristen yelped, agitatedly cracking her knuckles.

“Not much.” Emily filled her in on the content of Marilyn’s email.

“That quote–What the hell?” Kristen cried.

“I know.”

Kristen jumped up from where she’d been sitting on the bed. “Did she ask anything about us and our lives? Did she apologize?”

Emily’s throat was scratchy and she badly needed a drink of water. “No, none of that.”

“What is her problem?” Kristen bellowed. She stood in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. Emily hadn’t seen her sister so worked up in years. Not since Emily had borrowed Kristen’s bike in middle school, run over a nail, and forgotten to tell her about it until Kristen was ready to set off on Schwinn with her friends. “The woman gave birth to us! And she doesn’t even care? She doesn’t even wonder?”

“I know.”

“Something’s wrong with her.”

“Uh, yeah.”

Emily got up and moved across her room like a massive, wobbling bubble that hadn’t yet popped. She retrieved a glass of water from her and Kristen’s shared bathroom and took it back to bed.

Sipping, she said, “She’s selfish. She’s a narcissist. We just have to accept it.”

Kristen folded to the floor, looking wounded. “We already knew that. Why’d you have to find her and confirm it again?” she asked softly.

“I’m sorry.”

They sat there silently, wind thrashing the trees and house.

“And Ryan,” Kristen said. “What happened?”

“I’m too tall. Too mopey. I think he’s seeing someone else.”

Kristen walked on her knees over to Emily’s mattress. She laid her head on Emily’s leg. “I’m sure it’s not that you’re too tall.”

Emily felt wracking sobs overtake her again. She just managed to squeak, “I could really use a hug right now.”

As her sister embraced her, Emily wondered what, when she was done wallowing, her next step would be. Email Marilyn? Fight for Ryan? Or just sit back and let her fate unfold?

49. Applying Herself

T
RIX STARED NUMBLY
at the sheaf of papers in her hands. It was an application to The Art Institute of Seattle. Her guidance counselor had given it to her and suggested that Trix would have enough credits to graduate at the end of junior year if she wanted to.

The Art Institute had a fashion degree program. Thinking about applying excited Trix. It was, in fact, the one thing getting her through the throes of her current Down. She was coming off a night out with Marjorie where Trix had slept with another guy she didn’t know or particularly like.

She’d met him at a basement party. This is what she remembered about him: he was Asian with beautifully sculpted cheekbones, a dainty chin, and wild mohawk that looked less stiff than moppy. He said hardly anything, but pulled her onto a coffee table with him and danced.

When it tipped and they both fell onto a sofa, they started to make out. Literally no words exchanged until they’d moved to a back room and she asked if he had a condom.

She’d felt special, in those fifteen minutes they’d been dancing. He’d chosen her out of all the other girls in the room. And, though his eyes had barely met hers and he didn’t say anything, their bodies moved rhythmically with the music and she had erroneously sensed that they were in tune, communicating on a level higher than words. But then, it could’ve been all the vodka tonics she’d consumed.

Stupid
, she thought.
Stupid, stupid drunk girl. Again
.

Underneath her, the bus rumbled up 15
Avenue.

She was on her way to her shift at Frederick’s. She avoided the break room now as if it were rat infested. Instead, she took her breaks outside, sitting on a small strip of grass along the road smoking or, if it was rainy, standing under an eave.

The feeling of waking up that morning and knowing she’d added another notch to her metaphorical bedpost had been miserable. There was no way to describe the sensation except
gross
. She’d assumed, once upon a time, that if a girl slept with many, many guys it would become rote. Boring. Un-upsetting. But, no. If anything, every time Trix did it, she felt deeper remorse. Dirty. Unworthy of the good people of the world. Which perpetuated itself, because the next time she went to a party and got drunk on alcohol and the attention of a boy, she’d think,
Why not? I’m a loser anyway
.

She looked down at the papers on her lap. The words blurred together as if they were underwater. Which they sort of were. Trix realized her eyes had filled.

What made her think she could get into the Art Institute, or, if she made it, afford tuition? Okay, so, if she started trying again she could easily ace the academic stuff, the books and memorization that was high school. She could get loans, too, she supposed.

She needed confidence to prove her creative talent, though. And, in that moment, her self-assurance was at an all-time low.

No more boys, she told herself. No more partying or hooking up. She needed to pull herself together and focus.

The question was, could she?

50. Tricky Times

M
ELISSA JUMPED AROUND
the living room to a Jillian Michaels DVD. Emily lay on the couch watching her and sipping a chai latté that Melissa had brought back from a morning walk to Tully’s.

“You know,” Melissa said, only slightly out of breath. “When someone falls out of our lives, I think it’s for a reason. To make room for new people.”

The storm of the night before had subsided into a gray, drippy day, just like so many other gray, drippy days in the Pacific Northwest.

Emily refused to believe that a cosmic force had nudged Ryan out of her life so she could meet someone even more fabulous. He’d been perfect. Or as close to perfect as any girl could reasonably expect.

She was beginning to suspect that Kennedy was right, Ryan’s termination of the relationship was the work of underhanded high school girls. She didn’t know how or why, but she felt it in her bones.

She grunted at Melissa, who was now lying on the ground with her feet together, at a ninety-degree angle to her torso. She lowered one leg, then the other and brought them back up.

“I mean, like Trix,” Melissa said. “It took her stepping aside so you could spend time with Ryan. And now someone else gets a chance with you.” Melissa was on a mid-workout high, giddily spouting platitudes because she couldn’t help herself.

“And, like, my mom had to leave so my dad could meet you and bring you to us,” Emily said. Her voice snagged on the word “leave” and slid into haughty insolence.

“Right!” Melissa chirped, but her gaze shifted doubtfully toward Emily.

Emily muttered, “I thought Ryan was better than that.”

“The teens are tricky times.”

“You get an A for alliteration.”

Melissa ignored Emily’s jab and continued, “You know, good people sometimes do and say things they’ll later wish they hadn’t. Trust me on that.”

“You think he’ll regret dumping me?”

“Of course!”

Emily watched Melissa finish her workout and down two glasses of water at the kitchen sink. She then wandered up to the shower.

After watching a few episodes of a show about teen moms, which was the modern version of Jerry Springer, Emily hoisted herself off the sofa and went to get ready for work. She hoped Shutter Ho would be busy that day. So busy she wouldn’t have time to think.

51. Triptych

A
WEEK UNTIL
Christmas. For the first time Emily could remember, she didn’t care at all. There was none of the excitement from years past. No pleasant lifting of her stomach as she wondered what she might get or anticipation over watching her family open presents she’d given. Numbness had overtaken her.

She would, however, be infinitely grateful for the holiday break. To not have to be at school seeing Ryan and Trix drifting through the hallways would be a relief. Maybe by the time she went back in early January she’d be over Ryan. Or more over him than she was right then. Which wasn’t at all.

It was on that day, seven days before Christmas, that she decided to email Marilyn Wozniak back.

But, as she sat down to send a message, she found herself checking airfares to Arizona instead. She’d saved enough money from her job that she could afford the trip. And nothing sounded better, right then, than leaving cold and rainy Seattle for the desert.

Her heart thudded in her ears as she came upon a last minute deal. Three hundred and twenty dollars for a round-trip flight. Provided she was willing to leave Christmas Eve. Now, her obstacles. How to convince her dad this was a good idea? Where to stay? And should she tell Marilyn she was coming or surprise her?

Was she really thinking about doing this?

After a little more searching, and with shaking fingers, she booked herself in a youth hostel for the first night, hoping (probably foolishly) that she could stay with Marilyn for the second and third nights. She put the plane ticket on hold until she could plead with her dad for permission and his credit card number that night.

There was still a lot standing between her and meeting Marilyn Wozniak.

“Why not?” Emily asked her dad as she stood behind him in his home office. The room was starkly masculine with slate blue walls and a huge, dark wooden desk. She swore she could smell his golf clubs—metallic and rubbery.