The Bitch Posse (11 page)

She bites her lip, hard. As the blood blooms into her mouth, her anger falls away like ash from a cigarette. She senses a presence behind her and feels guilty suddenly. Being caught for biting her lip, imagine that. She bites harder and vows never to send out her poems again, never to make herself vulnerable again. Hattie Gibson-Smythe can go screw herself, and now the water springs to her eyes and she hates herself for crying. Are her poems really grim? Bleak? Worst of all, unrefined?

“Why try?” The words haul out of her mouth like boulders, rolling, heavy. But out of her pen, words dance like ants. Josie loves her poems. Writing opens her mind, frees her, sends her out of this place and into wherever she wants to go. Writing curls her inside herself, and she dives into the primordial ooze, pulling up fossils, dinosaur bones, pain, hurt, usually, but sometimes a diamond comes up too. Can she really give up writing?

She bites her lip again, and the breath at her ear is insistent now, smelling like milk and cigarettes. It’s all she can do to restrain herself from yanking back her arm and slugging whoever it is, and she turns and it’s Michael of the Mohawk, Michael of the Temper Tantrum, the Fuck You Michael, the one who reminds her of all her faults, the one who reminds her of Sam, Sam. . . . Suddenly she’s far too close to his glassy green eyes, and he’s looking into her, way too deep inside. He sees the oozing pool, he knows, he
knows,
somehow she’s sure of it.
Energy seeps from his eyes into hers, and she’s afraid suddenly, afraid she’ll lose control like him, wreck her chances of ever getting out of here. Her hand shakes, trembles. It doesn’t stop.

“What’s that?”

She hefts across another brick of a word. “What?”

“What you threw away. What is it?”

The old Cherry would’ve snapped back:
What do you care?
The new Cherry’s tireder now, resigned. Too much effort even to answer.

He walks to the garbage and pulls out the letter. “That’s not bad, you know, Cherry?”

She just looks at him.

“If she really hated it she wouldn’t have written a note.”

“No, she hated it all right.” She pulls the paper from his hand, crumples it up again, and puts it where it belongs.

“Just trying to be nice.”

“Why?”

His eyes harden into green Czech glass, like the beads on the necklace Amy made for her, way back when. She can see beyond the real skin of his flesh, and she watches anger creep into him, spread through his body. Josie, who’s been sitting in the corner with the television all this time, turns up MTV, probably in the hopes of avoiding another Michael tantrum, but his face webs over with fury. Cherry turns away, but not before Michael throws words at her. “Fuck you.”

They hit her back like a whip. In a way it feels good to be insulted, to hear aloud the
Fuck You
Hattie Gibson-Smythe wrote to her. The impulse spins through her head again, to pull out the pain through a slit in her arm. One slice across with a knife or razor blade and pain and hatred and self-loathing melt away, and oh, God, when she feels really bad she reminds herself Diana did this too, threw herself into a glass cabinet at Kensington Palace, slashed her chest and thighs in front of her Prince. He called her melodramatic, but how could he understand cutting if he never tried it?

And she will never write again never write again never write again and she’s such a chickenshit for saying she will never write again. She sinks to her knees next to Josie and lights a cigarette and stares, stares, stares at MTV’s
The Real World.
Laughter bubbles up in her.
The Real World.
Pretty funny.

March 1988
Holland, Illinois

Me and Cherry are sitting on her bed, doing each other’s toenails with funky polish Cherry got from her last excursion to The Alley in Chicago. She’s already packed a bowl with primo weed from her mom’s stash, but we’re waiting till Rennie gets here to fire it up. While we wait we’re chewing gobs of Juicy Fruit, which we’re all of us addicted to. Patchouli incense burns next to the bed.

She’s trying Rub My Petals, I’m being daring and going for Fuck Me Fuchsia. One of these days I’m going to get up the nerve to open the Manic Panic Atlantic hair dye I’ve had in my bathroom for a month and just use it. Cherry insists blue hair would look great with my eyes. Like with a lot of things (LSD, which me and Rennie are still fraidy-cats about), I need to close my eyes and just jump.

Cherry caps the Fuck Me Fuchsia polish and blows on my toenails. “Looks great.” Later we’ll watch the
Degrassi Junior High
Cherry
videotaped this afternoon. It’s about eighth graders, but we love it because the kids seem real. They watch porno movies, have sex, try drugs. I don’t know why more shows aren’t like this. Sitcoms are so phony and we all refuse to watch them. But sometimes
Degrassi
freaks me out. Mr. Colby looking down Lucy’s top and groping her? Spike getting pregnant at fourteen? I don’t even want to think about it.

Cherry Scotch-tapes another Diana picture onto her shrine by her mirror. I think we could safely call this an obsession. Forty million pictures of the gorgeous, perfect Princess contradict the Sex Pistols poster that hangs next to the Diana Altar. I mean, in “God Save the Queen” they pretty much call Queen Elizabeth a Fascist, so what does that make Diana? But there she is, plastered to the wall, smiling up at Sid Vicious as if he’s one of her most loyal subjects. Okay, Cherry, whatever you say. But I’m drawn to Diana, too, we all are. I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman; she’s not some manufactured model, she’s like a rose, just real and breathed full of life. You get the feeling if you ran into her on the street she’d be really nice, would ask you if you were okay. You get the feeling, she’d actually give a damn.

Mom let me stay home from YMCA Day Camp to watch her wed-ding. I was eleven, and of course Diana’s set the stage for what my own wedding is going to be like, someday. Lady Diana Spencer stepping out of the glass coach, oh, my God. And the dress. The snowy satin ruffles, the crinoline, puff sleeves, sequins, jewels, and the train, oh, the train! Even the dress was only half as gorgeous as the new Princess, a wide-eyed doe at the altar, positively scrumptious. The Archbishop of Canterbury said:
Here is the stuff of which fairy tales are made.
He was right. And since then Diana’s only gotten more beautiful.

Cherry’s fingers fall away from the photo. “Why the hell’d she marry that dipshit?”

“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you wouldn’t marry a Prince if you could.”

She shudders. “She’s way too good for him. God, where’s Princess Rennie? It’s almost six.”

I wonder if Mom’s passed out yet. It’s a Hemmler week, and that means they start pouring the cocktails early, almost as soon as I get home. By dinnertime they’re spilling spaghetti sauce, dropping bottles, there’s an edge to their words. After dinner, Mom crashes for a couple hours on the sofa and Dad can start in on me. What I didn’t do this week. The A’s I didn’t get. All the million infinitesimal ways I’ve disappointed. Then Mom wakes up, pours some more vodka and orange juice, and the real drama begins, the Callie fight. I could write it all down, like a stage play, line by line. That’s why I headed here straight after school. “I don’t know where Rennie is.”

One time I actually told Father O’Neill about Mom and Dad, figured he could talk to God for me or something. Seems stupid now. Know what he told me?
Pray, Amy.
So I did. That very night was the time Dad decided it was somehow my fault the Mustang got keyed, called me a brainless bitch, took my driver’s license and scissored it up. That was the night Mom got so toasted she fell down the stairs and sprained her ankle. So, I guess there’s static on Father O’Neill’s direct phone line to God.

Sorry, that number is no longer in service.

You know it’s gotten bad when the songs from Girl Scout camp make more sense than stupid prayers.
A circle’s round, it has no end, that’s how long I want to be your friend. . . .

The only praying I really do anymore is
Hail Mary, full of grace, help me find a parking space.

By the way Cherry chomps her gum, I can tell she’s itching for her dope, which is also why she’s so impatient about Rennie getting here. “If it’s not rehearsal, it’s studying,” she says. “That girl needs to get her ass over here and get high so she can lighten up a bit.”

“She’s not at rehearsal though. I wonder where she is.”

A strange expression crosses Cherry’s face. “She told me she had play practice today.”

“Well, she doesn’t. Abby Green came running out of school this afternoon shrieking, all upset because Mr. Schafer dared to cancel practice.” Who else but Abby Green to play Sandy? If there’s anyone more high-strung than Rennie, it’s Abby, whose braids are wound as tight as her nerves.

Cherry starts to say something, then closes her mouth.

“What?” I ask.

She takes a deep breath, fingering the bowl. “Why would she lie?” Just then Rennie bursts in, all happy and breathless. Her cheeks are flushed like they are in P.E. when we run the mile, and she flings down her overnight bag and says “What?” which is when I realize we’re staring at her, both of us.

Cherry leans into Rennie and sniffs. “You’re drunk, you bitch. What the hell are you doing drinking in the middle of the afternoon?” She shakes her head and I do too; something is definitely going on with our Rennie.

Rennie doesn’t answer.

“Where were you?” asks Cherry.

“Play practice.” Her eyes shift from the ceiling to the bowl in Cherry’s hand, and she grabs it, foams the lighter over it, and takes a big long hit.

“You were not.” I stash my gum in the wrapper and take a hit myself. “I saw Abby and she was freaking out because it was canceled. So what gives?”

The Bitch Goddess Notebook flops onto Cherry’s quilt and Cherry reaches for it. Rennie’s such a writer. Cherry’s a little jealous, I think, but she always wants to read Rennie’s stuff, says she wants to learn. “Fess up, Rennie.” She flips through the pages quickly. “You didn’t even write this week.”

Rennie? Not writing?

“You’ve been acting weird all day.” Cherry tosses the notebook back down, takes a toke, and passes the bowl to me. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Rennie pretends to be very absorbed with arranging her hair. “I just had a few things to go over with Mr. Schafer.”

“A few things? Till six o’clock?” Cherry picks up the notebook again and sketches out the weekly questionnaire in a chart on a new page.

“What, have you been body-snatched and your brain replaced by Kelly’s?” Rennie takes herself another hit, the bud glowing orange to red as she inhales. “I have a mom,” she chokes out. “I don’t need you to step in.” She can’t hold in the smoke anymore and lets it creep out.

Cherry and I exchange a glance. It’s not like Rennie to be so defensive. “All right, moving on,” says Cherry, dropping the subject. “No poems, no stories, only empty pages to fill. Extra work for us all tonight.” She draws some flowers around the chart. “So who got laid this weekend, let’s see, Cherry did. . . . ” She spirals the pen around her name with a flourish. “How about you, Aim?”

I sigh, not really wanting to share the fact that after Brandon and I drank most of the vodka I stole from home on Friday, he fell asleep on my shoulder. We just slept in my car in the parking lot for a few hours, my top off and my jeans half-unzipped, until I felt well enough to drive him home. Anyway, the true purpose of the evening was to blot out Callie from my head, which it did, despite a headache that lasted till Saturday afternoon. And now I’m thinking of Callie again, I’d rather just think of getting laid, and I pull in some more smoke and push her away from my mind. “Put it this way, it’s closer than we’ve gotten in a long time.”

Cherry gives a flat-lipped smile. “That would be a no from the lovely Amy Linnet.” I poke her and she pokes me back, the pot’s gotten into my head now and I can’t help giggling. Leaning over to the stereo, I pick up a cassette by a new band called They Might Be Giants. Cherry says,
These guys are like the Beatles, they’ll be around for years.
I fast-forward to my favorite song, “She’s an Angel,” and hum along,
since I’m following an angel too. I only need about one or two more tokes, and I make this one nice and long. When I look up again Rennie and Cherry are giving each other a hard stare. “So who’s still the most beautiful virgin east of the Mississippi?” says Cherry as she does every week. We never give Rennie a hard time about being a virgin. I think we respect that she’s waiting for someone special. Anyway, it’s her body, hell, isn’t that what abortion rights are all about?

Rennie doesn’t answer and the music keeps playing in the background. Her cheeks are so flushed I can see the blood vessels, matching the tiny red glass beads of the necklace around her neck, the one I made for her that goes with my blue one and Cherry’s green one. My Christmas gift for all of us.

“Rennie?” I take one last hit, and that’s the one that gets me there. The air’s breathing around me and, mesmerized by Rennie’s glass beads that seem like they’re on fire, for a minute I forget why I’m here and what we’re talking about. All I know is I’m in a room where I’ve been since the beginning of time, with my two girls, my best friends, the sisters I never had, for always.
A circle’s round, it has no end.
. . . I can read Rennie’s mind, I really can. I’m about three thoughts ahead of her, and anyway, the truth is painted in her eyes.

“What, Aim?”

I can’t remember what I was talking about. “Crap.”

“Tell the truth, Rennie. You got laid, didn’t you?” Cherry asks. Rennie hates being questioned. I watch her fidgeting fingers, her eyes that float everywhere except to ours. I hate being questioned too, it’s like Dad on one of his drunks, everything’s up for debate, my clothes, my report card, even the way I’m looking at him. The most I can say is he’s never laid a hand on me. He doesn’t have to. He does it all with words.

So I know how Rennie feels, sitting under the burning naked lightbulb as you’re the prisoner being interrogated. Having your being poked and prodded, unfolded, like an origami project, revealing parts
of yourself, the little white slips of paper you thought no one knew about. The nice thing about being drunk is that all that’s blotted away. The nice part about being stoned is that it doesn’t really seem to matter because all I care about is being here and now with my best friends in the world. But now Rennie’s being unfolded by us, by Cherry specifically, and I don’t want it to happen but at the same time I’m glad it’s not me and so, despite myself, I join in too. “Virgin schmirgin.”