Driving With Dead People (13 page)

He swung around with his fist in the air. I closed my eyes, waiting for the impact that would have felt exactly right, but there wasn’t any. When I opened my eyes, his face was about three inches from mine.

“If you EVER hit me again, you won’t live one second longer. Do you understand? I will snap your neck like a toothpick,” he said. “You don’t believe me?” He put one hand around my neck. “Try me.”

Vomit came up in my throat, but I held it in.

Dad was out by New Year’s. I stayed out of his sight until all of his things were finally gone. It hadn’t occurred to me, until he’d said it, that he could kick me out of the house. I wasn’t going to tempt fate by exploding at him again.

Saturday morning Mom was in the kitchen putting glasses into a cardboard box.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I was able to rent a small apartment at Wright State in graduate student housing,” she said. “I can go there between classes and study.” She was now working on her master’s degree and had changed her major to American history. Now that she had Jim, she wouldn’t need elementary education.

“You rented an apartment?” I asked.

“To study in,” she said, gathering a couple of plates.

“Are you ever going to sleep there?” I asked.

“If there’s a snowstorm or something, I might have to sleep there,” she said.

I watched her looking under the stove for a small skillet and saucepan. I was trying to ward off the dread that had seized me. Tears were stinging my eyes again.

“I hope you don’t stay there,” I said.

“Can’t you be happy for me?” She turned on me, the skillet in her hand. “Why is everything about
you
? Guess what? I’ve done
you
my whole life. This is about
me
. Do you know how difficult it is to even get one of these apartments?”

“No,” I said.

“There’s a waiting list. So I’m lucky to have it.” She slammed the skillet down into another box. When she turned around, I was on my way up to my room.

I told Becky that night in the bathroom as she was putting makeup on for a date with Paul, “Mom’s rented an apartment in Dayton.”

“So?” Becky kept brushing on mascara.

“So, do you think she’s going to sleep there?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Becky said. I sat on the side of the tub. I couldn’t tell if Becky was surprised about the apartment or not.

“She took some dishes and pans up there,” I said.

“Who cares?” Becky zipped up her makeup bag. “Who cares what she does?” She grabbed the bag and stomped out of the bathroom. I closed the door with my foot and stayed seated on the side of the tub with my head in my hands.

On Monday, I wasn’t ready when the bus pulled up, so I had to drive to school with Becky.

“I’m not driving you every day,” she said.

“I know,” I said, secretly happy to be sitting in the car with her.

I was a sophomore in high school and she was a junior, which meant we saw each other in the halls more often. Becky was less pleased about that than I was.

With Mom jumping ship, I signed up for every extracurricular activity I could find. Anything to be with a lot of people and take my mind off our empty house. Again, my sense of humor helped me make friends. The problem was finding a ride home after speech practice. Mr. Selman offered to drive me, but he was already standing way too close to me when he spoke. It was best to steer clear of being in a car with him. Sometimes I went home with Julie and spent the night.

Becky had her group of friends and I had mine. We didn’t talk at school and we didn’t socialize outside of school.

Mom and Jim began staying at their new Dayton apartment, coming home on the weekends. I adopted Mom’s attitude, deciding to be happy for her. I even began giving Jim a chance. He seemed nice enough, and apparently he wasn’t going anywhere. Better to be a part of them than to fight it.

At school one morning in March I was called into the counselor’s office.

“How are you?” Mrs. McCormick asked, leaning in. She looked exactly like the Charlie-in-the-box from
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
: round red nose, squinty eyes, and hair pulled up in a curlicue on top of her round head.

“Fine,” I said, forcing a smile.

“You look awfully thin, Monica,” she said. “Are you getting enough to eat?”

“Yes,” I said. For once Mrs. McCormick was right; I wasn’t eating much. There weren’t meals at my house. I was five-foot-nine and weighed 102 pounds. What was she getting at?

“How’s your mom?” she asked. She wanted to know if Mom was living in Dayton.

“Fine.” I smiled. Did she think I’d admit that my family was in shambles and that I was so frightened it was difficult to get a piece of toast to stay down? Mrs. McCormick was a notorious gossip. Any information she squeezed out of students ended up all over town, and there was no way I was giving her a kernel of dirt on me.

“Is there anything you’d like to talk about in regards to your home life?” she asked.

Yes,
I wanted to say,
my dad moved out and hates us, Mom moved out and doesn’t care about anything except her new boyfriend, I don’t have enough money to live on, and there isn’t enough food in the refrigerator to put a meal together.

I shook my head. “Not that I can think of.” She stared at me. I shrugged my shoulders and got up to leave.

“I know you’re going through your parents’ divorce right now,” she said to my back, “so if you need anything, you just come to Mrs. McCormick.” I turned to see her very best smile.

She was right about one thing—I did need a caring, responsible adult around. If I could have cried on the shoulder of someone I trusted, I never would have stopped. Where were all the adults? They must not have known, and I was too embarrassed to ask for help. Mr. Selman would have been all too happy to lend me his shoulder, but that would have been a monumental mistake. I was lost.

Granda was always loving. She brought over covered dishes once in a while, but she was also fiercely protective of Mom. When JoAnn asked her why Mom was being so neglectful, Granda scolded, “You have the best mother in the world.” When JoAnn chose to differ, Granda said, “I will never love you like I used to since you turned against your mom.” Granda would not be on our side.

I smiled back at Mrs. McCormick and said, “I definitely will.”

“By the way, is your mom’s boyfriend actually living with you?” She couldn’t help it; it just popped out of her.

Jim was living with us on the weekends, and I’d heard them together in the shower. It was inappropriate, but I didn’t want anyone to know. I was furious that the gossip circuit had picked it up as something to snicker about. Slowly I swung back around and leaned across her desk.

“They’re not really living together; they’re just fucking,” I said.

“Anything else?”

Mrs. McCormick looked positively clobbered. Her face was pale and the sides of her mouth turned down.

“Okay, then,” I said, opening the door to leave. My hands were shaking. I’d never talked to an adult like that.

I walked back toward Selman’s class, but the principal, Mr. Martin, grabbed my arm before I could open the door to the classroom. Everyone inside was looking at us through the square glass window of the door.

Mr. Martin and I were good friends, but this wasn’t going to be good.

“Monica, did you just curse at Mrs. McCormick?” he asked. She must have recovered enough to run to his office.

“Yes,” I said, wishing he hadn’t seen me in this particular light.

“She’s very upset and would like an apology.” He looked tired and mad.

My eyebrows flew up. “An apology? She asked me personal and insulting questions about Mom and Dad and
she
wants an apology?”

“You can’t curse at faculty, Monica. I was surprised you’d do something like that.”

He got me there. I was always living clean around Mr. Martin. He didn’t know I’d been cussing my whole life, because I would never have cursed in front of him. I adored Mr. Martin, and he was right, I shouldn’t have said “fucking” to Mrs. McCormick. I was mad at myself for losing control.

“Okay, I’ll apologize after school,” I said.

“Right now.” He turned me back toward the counselor’s office.

“She’s nosy—,” I said, but Mr. Martin interrupted.

“Monica, you need to be careful about the way you present yourself. You’re smart and funny. You don’t want to bring yourself down by behaving badly. You may be going through a tough time right now, but this is when you need to step up and be bigger than all that stuff.”

“It
sounds
easy,” I grumbled.

“It’s more difficult to be a good person than a bad one. And you’re a good person.” He patted my shoulder. At least he still believed in me, and I appreciated his efforts to steer me straight. He opened the door to Mrs. McCormick’s office and came in behind me. Shit.

“I’m sorry I cursed,” I said quickly. I wanted to hurl her easel with the poster of a cartoon gorilla sitting on top of a skinny man with the caption “No problem is too big to solve” out the fucking window of her claustrophobic office.

“Well, I would think so,” she said. “I have never been so shocked in my entire life—especially after I was trying to help you. And you used such a terrible word.” Clearly, I had just added my own degrading behavior to the gossip about my family.

“I’m sorry.” I stared at her. I was trying to think of a way to end the confrontation and not have her trash me. I put my hand on my forehead and I cried. It wasn’t that difficult. I was already sad; I just let it come. “I wish I hadn’t behaved like that. I’m going through a rough time right now,” I sobbed. Now I couldn’t tell if I was really sorry or faking it, but it sure felt good to cry—a festering boil had blown wide open.

“Behavior like that will get you detention next time,” Mr. Martin said. “Do we understand each other?” Mrs. McCormick reached for the tissue box on her desk and handed it to me. With that gesture, I knew I was in the clear.

“Absolutely,” I said, accepting her Kleenex.

“Don’t you feel better now, getting all that out?” she asked.
Don’t push it
, I thought.

“I do,” I said, nodding. The truth was that in the end, sad felt better than rage—a lot better. But rage came easier. Sad felt like the world was ending.

Mr. Martin opened the door and we walked out of the counselor’s office.

“Take some time in the ladies’ room if you want,” he said, walking back toward his office.

Mr. Martin was worried about me. He tried to call Mom, but couldn’t find her. Neither could I.

That night Becky said, “I heard you cussed at Mrs. McCormick.”

“Was it announced on the loudspeaker?” I asked.

“Everyone’s talking about it,” she said, smiling. “Your temper is a real problem.”

“Good,” I said, but I was flustered that everyone knew.

“I called Mom, and she sounded pretty mad,” Becky said, walking into the living room.

“Like I’m even scared,” I said, wondering how Becky had managed to get Mom on the phone to bust me. She was never at the apartment when we really needed her.

That spring I heard Becky talking to her friend Clare on the phone about cheerleading tryouts. As it turned out, the only thing she wanted in life was to be a cheerleader. There was no reason she couldn’t make the squad; she was adorable and good at gymnastics, her long blond pigtails flipping around in circles as she did several front walk-overs in a row.

I decided that if she were a cheerleader, she’d be a happy person and easier to live with. Maybe we’d eat together and be the way we’d been when we were little, playing Dark Side of the Moon with the Whitmores. Also, I needed her to like me so she’d pick me up from practice sometimes.

Tryouts were in two weeks, so I took it upon myself to campaign for Becky during homeroom and in the hallways. “Vote for Becky Peterson,” I told them. “She’s great at gymnastics.”

At the tryouts I sat in the bleachers nervously chewing the side of my cheek. Suddenly I wanted Becky to win because she was my sister. She’d helped me slap mud pies onto our back patio when we were toddlers, and cried along with me when a wasp stung my foot at Rocky Fork State Park. I wanted her to win because she was mine—my family.

Each of the girls came bounding out onto the gym floor one by one, yelling their cheers and flinging their arms around, ending in a high kick or a split.

Becky ran out and stood stock-still. She slapped her two hands into a fist over her shiny blond head and shouted, “Let’s yell for the red, the black, and the white.” She was facing to the side now, head turned toward the bleachers, where I smiled in case she saw me. She continued, moving her arms in front of her chest.

“Let’s yell for the Braves, ’cause they’re all right.”

“Braves.” (Front walk-over.)

“Braves.” (Back walk-over.)