Alone at 90 Foot (14 page)

Hmm. Linda and I are not impressed.

“Naw, that's weak,” I say.

Linda agrees. “Too many things could go wrong. Besides, Danielle would love it. It would give her another chance to flaunt what she's got.”

“Hey, Pam.” A voice interrupts our conspiring circle.

I look up to see where it is coming from. Matt Leighton is standing, tall and slightly stooped, smack in front of me.

Well, by now, you know me. And you can probably guess my initial reaction is to continue sitting
there — just gawking at the delicious guy. Real stupidly. Which I do. As do both Joanne and Linda. I quickly perceive this from the absolute silence next to me. But to my credit, I am also able to revive myself before they do. When this happens, I am able to mumble, “Hi, Matt.” Although my own voice sounds mega-miles away from me. I then add something else. I say, “Why don't you sit down with me?”

Bold of me, you might think. But there is something, like, no kidding, I'll use the word vulnerable, in his appearance. Maybe it's just the way his hands are stuffed all the way into his pockets. Like he doesn't know what to do with them. Or maybe it's the way this one piece of hair hangs kind of, like, waifishly over one eye. Whatever, I feel this obligation to make him feel comfortable.

“Thanks,” he says. And he sits on a patio chair across from me. “So, how's Emily?” He pulls his chair toward me. He looks to his left, then leans forward with his fingers interlocked, balancing his elbows on his knees. This is to create some intimacy. Between himself and me. Mostly because Joanne and Linda continue to stare at us with their big eyes blinking and their mouths hanging wide open. Like two monster caverns, each large enough to house a colony of bats. Reluctantly, they take the hint and pretend to have something to say to each other.

“She's good,” I answer to his question about
Emily. “She's getting longer. Maybe one day she'll even grow into her ears.”

Matt listens, but he seems distracted by something. He keeps looking over my shoulder in the direction of the patio doors. “That's nice.” He starts fidgeting with his fingers. Locking them. And unlocking them.

“How's Swat?”

There is a bit of a delay before he answers. Like my question has to wrestle with whatever else is occupying his head. “Oh, good. He's good.” More fidgeting. This time he focuses on his watch.

I have to ask the obvious. “Are you okay?”

“Huh? Yeah, yeah.” More fidgeting. More silence.

“It's supposed to snow six inches tomorrow.”

Another delay. “Really? That'll be good.” His forehead crinkles ever so slightly. “What are you talking about? It's the second week of June.”

I laugh. “Just testing if you're really here.”

For the first time since he sat down, Matt shows his wonderful grin. “Sorry. I guess I'm not thinking very clearly.”

Inside the house, I hear the music stop. More people file outside, laughing, fanning themselves with their hands, coming out to cool off.

I lean a little closer to Matt. “Is something bothering you?”

He stops fidgeting. He looks up, sort of intently at me. Like he's trying to decide if I will understand. I guess he decides that I will.

“Yeah. It's Danielle. She's not ...” He glances to his side again, at Joanne, who is talking to someone else. “Well, let's just say it's not working out. And I don't know how to call it off. She's a very ...” he fumbles for the right word, “determined person. I don't want a big fight.”

Yes! I have to try real hard to keep a helpful, concerned look when I'm, like, flying inside! He's almost free! And he's talking to me. Right here. Right now. Sharing his thoughts.

“Well,” I say, and I bite my lips hard so they don't sneak into a smile and give me away. “Why not just stop calling her? After a while, she's likely to get the hint.”

“That would be alright. If it wasn't her that's always calling me.”

We both sit thinking about this. Which strikes me as pretty funny, considering I'd been contemplating something very similar with Joanne and Linda not too long before. Around us, the party is moving onto the patio. It's too warm in the house. Some people are wandering down toward the canyon. Concentrating on Matt's dilemma, we don't really notice the shifting people around us. We don't notice Danielle come up behind Matt. Until she slaps
her arms around his shoulders.

“There you are! I've been missing you.” She is really toasted now. Her hair is a mess and her eyes don't focus on anything. The lipstick she has recently stuck on gives her this crazed sort of look. “Let's get out of here.” She slobbers all over him. “We'll go hide in your basement. Nobody ever goes down there.” Danielle sloppily kisses him on the mouth.

I have to turn away. I can't watch anybody be that disgusting. Besides, I know that's what Matt would want me to do. He stands up suddenly, the movement throwing her off his shoulders. Danielle staggers back. Quickly recovering, she comes back with even more force.

“I know that was an accident,” she says angrily. She pushes her body against his again. Matt takes her by the arms. Determinedly, he lifts her off.

“It was no accident, Danielle.”

Even in her wasted state, she understands what he is saying to her. He is telling her something nobody has had the guts to tell her before. He's tired of her vanity. Hot flares jump from her hazy eyes. She is, all of a sudden, absolutely focused. Right in his face.

“You jerk! You lousy creep! How dare you push me away!” Danielle gives Matt a shove. “You disgusting animal!”

There is absolute silence. Like — noo-body moves. Nobody knows what to say.

Matt nervously rubs his forehead. “Please, Danielle,” he pleads quietly. “Just let me take you home.” He reaches out to touch her shoulder.

She slaps his hand away, hard. “Don't touch me! And just who are you playing around with behind my back?” Danielle turns her spiteful gaze to me. “Her?” Like she can't believe it. “That nobody?”

Okay, this is getting way too nasty. I rise from my chair. Joanne jumps to her feet beside me.

Danielle's eyes narrow as she talks to Matt, but she doesn't lift her eyes from me. Her voice is cutting. And much steadier than her body. “Do you know something about her? She's a nutcase. She comes from a family of them. Her mother was as demented as they come.”

“That's enough, Danielle.” Matt's tone is flat and demanding.

“No.” She ignores him. She moves a little farther away from him. And a little closer to me. “I don't think you know this about her. And you should if you're going to mess around with her. Her mother was a kook. Crazy. Psychotic. A serious wacko! Last year — huh, this will make you laugh — she took a swan dive off the suspension bridge!”

“Danielle!” Matt orders. Still, I see him look at me. He didn't know. He had absolutely no idea

“Do you really want to get involved with someone as mentally crippled as that?!”

Joanne lunges forward, about to tear her evil heart out. I catch her by the arm and pull her back. I hold her there while she spits and swears. My eyes are stinging. My head is spinning. I feel suffocated by this major lump swelling in my throat. I fight hard — harder than I've fought for anything in my life — to hold the tears back. Several people around me are really angry. Joanne. Linda. Sarah. John. These people, my friends. Matt tells Danielle it's time she learned to keep her great fat mouth shut. Mike tells her to get the hell out of his house. The rest just don't know what to say.

I stand there numb for what seems an eternity. Hearing the anger grow around me. It is because of me it started. It is up to me to put an end to it. Danielle's words have torn a soft wound wide open. But I'm not going to bleed all over everybody. Not on Danielle's account. Not for her entertainment. I step forward.

“Danielle.” My voice sounds distant, and, thankfully, detached. Everyone stops and listens. I have to say something worth saying. Something profound. Something deadly. Something killing. “You ...” Something that proves I win. “You are ...” I hesitate only a moment. “You are ... a doofus.”

Yes, I pick Jenn's word. The thing is, I don't
swear. Years ago my mom told me it's not necessary to be vulgar to get your point across. You are more persuasive if you're not rude in someone's face. So, I don't. But still, I needed something really obnoxious. And doofus was the last obnoxious word I had in my head. Thanks to Jenn.

At first there is astonished silence around me. Then a few snickers. Then uproarious laughter — from everyone. All at Danielle's expense. She glows red in the darkness. Sways a bit, and drops lifelessly into a chair. The laughter continues.

But I don't laugh with them. The wound inside aches painfully. I can't continue to keep the tears from spilling out. I know I'm very close to falling apart. Before it happens, I want to be far, far away from here. I head for the door. But before I get to it, there is a shout from down by the canyon. We hear it again, this time several steps closer.

“Hey!” It is Danny Kim. “Hey!” He and Man-deep stumble breathlessly onto the patio. Danny is carrying something. “Look what I found!” And he holds up a small pink sweater.

That's all it takes. At the sight of that small pink sweater, the tears I'd been stifling come rushing out. I duck through the door. I run out through the basement, through the garage and I don't stop until I'm in my own house.

Dad and Jenn are watching a movie in the living room. I charge past them, straight to my bedroom, where I crumble onto my bed. How could anyone in this world be so mean and horrible? Within minutes I am nothing but a damp, sobbing mess. Dad and Jenn appear in the doorway.

“Pam? Why are you home so early? Pam? Pammy? Oh, sweetheart, what's wrong?” Dad sits down on the bed and pulls me close to him. Jenn leaves the room and quietly closes the door. “What's wrong, honey?”

Although I can hardly talk and I probably don't make much sense, I tell Dad everything that happened at the party.

“Oh, Pam.” He tries to brush my tears away. “She's just a very mean, selfish person. You can't let those kind of people get to you. I know it's hard. But you're better off to try and ignore what she said.”

“I don't care about her, Dad.” I sniffle and snurf. I am really having a problem trying to get myself together. “I want to know why she did it.”

Dad appears sort of puzzled. “Well, you just told me. Because you were talking to her boyfriend. She didn't like that.”

“I don't mean her!” I take a deep breath before falling apart again. “I mean Mom. Why did she do it? Why did she do this to me?”

I feel Dad draw me closer. He strokes my hair and rocks me just a little. He doesn't say anything. I don't think he can. It's a question to which even he doesn't have an answer.

“I mean, why didn't she want to be with me? She'd only known April for eight months. She couldn't even walk yet. She'd known me my entire life. Didn't she love me anymore? Why did she want to be with April and not me?”

“Is that what you think?” Dad holds me away from him so he can look at my face. I see the tears fill his own sad eyes. I feel guilty. He'd been happily watching a movie with Jenn. And here I am dragging him down with me.

Dad takes a shaky breath. “Oh, Pam.” He hugs me again. “It was exactly because she loved you so much that, in her depressed mind, she felt you'd be better off without her. That I'd be better off without her. It was a terrible symptom of her illness. Do you remember your last walks in the canyon together?”

How could I ever forget them in my entire life? I can only nod.

“She'd come home and hurt so badly. She'd cry on those nights. You know why? Because you were so enthusiastic. You tried so hard to get her to enjoy those walks the way she used to. And she just couldn't. She felt she let you down. She didn't
think she could ever make you happy again.”

We are both crying now.

“Well, now for sure she can't.”

Dad shakes his head. “No. I know you think that now. But let me tell you something, dear. Your mother was a beautiful, intelligent, caring woman, who, before she became ill, laughed easily. She loved life. Perhaps more than anyone I've ever known. You are absolutely like her. You have her sense of humor. You have her love of life. She will always be a part of you. It's because of her that one day you will laugh at life again.”

“Think so?” I've cried so hard my whole insides ache.

“I know so.”

After a while, Dad moves to my desk chair. We talk about Mom until long after midnight. Dad tells me a lot of things about her that I never knew before. Things about her when she was a teenager. A little bit older than me right now. How she won a ribbon at the school science fair for her display of the leaves of British Columbia's rainforests. How when they were in university, they'd go for walks in Lynn Canyon. Mom would break off root licorice from the moss that grows on the vine maples and peel it for Dad to try. This makes me start to cry all over again. After I thought the tears were all used up. I've cried a lot tonight. And Dad has cried a lot.
But somehow, I feel so much better. And I think he does too.

“Tell me again what you called her?” Dad asks, long after our tears are exhausted.

I kind of smile. “A doofus.”

Dad can't stop laughing. “I would have loved to see the look on her face.”

June 14th

Last night I dreamed that I was walking with Mom in Lynn Canyon Park. It was sunny and warm and we were walking with our arms around each other, just meandering down the path. We were chewing root licorice and looking for the woodpecker Mom heard high up in a cottonwood. We weren't in any particular hurry to get anywhere. And as we walked, we talked about everything that's happening in my life right now. Just so unbelievably matter-of-fact. We talked about what my friends are up to, and how I'm
doing at school, and what my teachers are like. Funny thing is, she knew all about what was going on with me. She knew I had to dance with Mr. Bartell. She knew about the man who chased me. She knew Danny was going through a rough time. She knew Joanne was grounded. She knew how I had stood up to Danielle. She knew all that. And in my dream, it didn't surprise me that she knew, it seemed only normal that she would.