Hyacinth Girls (22 page)

After we got home I went to bed and let Rebecca baby me. She brought in cold drinks and soup, and called me sweetheart in a runny voice. It gave me a swampy feeling, but I was too weak to struggle. My bed was a raft, and the water and quicksand were pulling me under, and I knew if I didn't try to swim, soft bubbles would rise from my lips, and I could let go. When Rebecca asked to wash my new-old shirt, I said okay. I was letting go. When she asked me if there was anyone else who could've written the note, I couldn't tell her the truth. Then Rebecca said maybe Robyn deserved to be bullied because she gave off a bad vibe.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: (no subject)

Date: Sat, Sep 12 2009, 14:51:45

Robyn

What if I could become you and teach myself a lesson, tell everyone the truth about Callie, show them her messages? I'd teach the others too, show them what they did to us. Make sure that they remembered and never did it again.

Remember that girl I told you about, Autumn Sanger? After she drowned people remembered her for the rest of their lives. Rebecca didn't even know her but she still talks about her 20 years later. And I was imagining what would've happened if Autumn left a note. What if she blamed her bully and said that she killed her? Or what if she was a bully and admitted what she'd done? Would our lives be different now? Do you think one person can change things? I'm changing all the time now. I'm changing into you. C

By Sunday night, there were thirty-one members of “
HAVE YOU SMELLED BABYSHITS
?” and I made myself throw up so I wouldn't have to go to school on Monday. The next morning, after Rebecca left for work, I put
on my new-old shirt and sat down at the computer. I looked up “how to hack passwords” and watched videos on YouTube showing how to download programs that would break into your friends' accounts. Other pages gave advice on how to guess passwords and claimed that if you really knew a person, you could figure it out. I'd never downloaded a hacking program before and I wasn't sure if it was a scam that would infect my computer with a virus. So I decided I'd give myself a deadline. I'd keep trying to guess their passwords for a week, and if I couldn't crack any, I'd take a chance on downloading one of the hacking programs.

I drank cans of Coke and cracked Life Savers between my teeth while I tested different passwords on their accounts. I looked up the names of famous swimmers to try with Ella's. For Dallas, I typed in places she'd been on vacation: Mexico, Paris, California, Hawaii, Colorado. I wasn't hungry, but sometimes I made myself get up to walk around the house and open the refrigerator. I'd be staring at a container of soup and a new word would pop into my head, so I'd rush back to try it. I didn't feel like myself then; I didn't feel like anybody. It was like I was an investigator, or a scientist. I thought that if I tested enough words, I'd find the one that worked. I filled my notebook with pages and pages of them, marking them off when they didn't work. My phone buzzed sometimes and I didn't even bother checking what they said anymore—that was how I knew I'd changed. It didn't matter what they said about Babyshits now, and the hundreds of texts they'd sent would become evidence later—after I'd cracked the password and wrote the messages that would arrive at our school and the newspaper.

I started thinking about some other people, too. I called Grandma's house, but nobody answered. I spoke to her answering machine for the third time. I Googled “Alex Penders” and then “Josie Dixon.” They both had online profiles I could send messages to, but what would I say to
them? I'm sorry? Their pictures looked normal. Alex had straight brown hair and you could see his dimple. Josie's lips curved in a shy smile and she'd made sure there weren't any hairs growing out of her face. Was I really sorry now that I knew how it felt? My dad knew what it was like to grow up without a dad, but that didn't stop him from ditching me twice. First when I was born, second when he died. But maybe he had been sorry. Maybe that's why he killed himself: because he knew how bad he was. Or maybe I was tricking myself again and he didn't have a conscience at all. Some people were born without one, and others got one at the last minute.

I remembered the way I used to laugh, and then Googled “Irene Lutz.” Nothing came up, so I checked the website of our middle school and found an e-mail address for the school office.

I could send messages to all three of them—to Josie and Alex and Mrs. Lutz—telling them I was sorry and promising that Dallas and Ella would be sorry, too. They might not believe me, but after they heard the news they'd know I'd been serious. I just needed to find the password first and then I could write my apologies.

When it was five o'clock I closed my laptop and got into bed so that Rebecca would think I'd been sleeping all day. She was wearing her work clothes and she sat down on the edge of my bed, putting a damp washcloth onto my forehead. She smelled like dental floss, and I kind of felt sorry, thinking about how she might sit here in the future.

“Do you think you can eat something for dinner?”

I'd hardly eaten anything all day and suddenly I was starving.

“How about mac and cheese?”

I heard my stomach purr. Mac and cheese was my favorite, and Rebecca was actually a pretty good cook. Food that seemed boring, like a lump of potato, turned ultra-delicious when she cooked it. She'd throw in salt and pepper, cheese and chives, buttermilk and butter, and you'd
be trying to lick off every little molecule on your fork when you took a bite. I was embarrassed to be so hungry, but by the time I sat down at the table, I was practically drooling. I could smell all the cheesy vapors pulling me closer. She'd made it extra-gooey and it slipped under my fork—all that soft white salty cheese—and I thought about how much I'd like to dive in and swim around for a while.

“Callie!” She knocked back her chair, almost landing on top of me. “What's wrong!”

I was bathing in cheese, letting the warm creamy glue wet my sleeves and my hair and my chin, and when I saw how scared she looked I almost laughed. Then I stuck out my tongue to lick off the tangy sauce.

“Are you okay?”

I smiled at her. “Uh-huh. Yummy.”

I was getting silly, and I tried swallowing my giggles when I saw her face. I wanted to tell her it was magic cheese, miraculous cheese. I started eating it off my hair because I didn't want to miss the tiniest bit. Rebecca looked at me like I was foaming at the mouth—
I was foaming at the mouth
—and I started laughing out loud. I was making a mess, and I didn't care, and it tasted even better, and then she was laughing, too. Everything went away and it was just cheese and laughing and I forgot what I'd been planning and what I'd spent the whole day doing, and for those two minutes I felt like my old self again.

I knew it couldn't last. When I checked my computer after dinner, there were thirty-four members of “
HAVE YOU SMELLED BABYSHITS
?” All I had to do was think about going back to school the next day and it was easy for me to puke.

By Tuesday morning, when Ella's e-mail account finally opened for me, I'd spent almost twenty hours trying different passwords, but it had taken me less than a week. The password she'd used wasn't even hard to guess, and I wished I'd tried it sooner. It was
credit
. When I looked at her inbox, I realized I'd gotten lucky. I could make my plans even bigger now. This wasn't Ella's main e-mail account, but it was the one she'd used to register Phoenix Drake, and her inbox was full of unopened notifications. Every time someone posted a comment on “
HAVE YOU SMELLED BABYSHITS
?” Ella got a message, letting her know. Ella was Phoenix, Phoenix created “
HAVE YOU SMELLED BABYSHITS
?”, and now I could control them both.
Credit
, I thought.
Fucking credit
. I logged out. Everything could go fast now if I wanted it to. But I felt shivery and I wasn't as excited as I'd expected. I wasn't running around and falling all over myself with happiness. I knew that Ella almost never changed her passwords, so if I wanted, I could wait. I could give myself a little time to think about it and prepare.

I knew I couldn't waste the rest of the day inside. I put on a sweatshirt and jeans and looked at my hair for the first time in days. I watched myself brushing it and didn't tug the knots. The smooth wood of the paddle brush was solid in my hand, and I took my time, lifting my elbow and watching the strands pull away from my scalp before dropping back down. I tied it in a ponytail and then opened the front door. This day reminded me of a thousand other days when the sky was white and the leaves swished on the trees. I could see the telephone poles and electric lines, and I remembered watching snow fall in the street from this spot on our balcony. When school was cancelled, Rebecca would make me put on snow boots and a coat over my pajamas and then we'd stand right
here, watching the white drifts covering up the driveways and lawns and bushes. I wished I could see it all again today. Snow and hurricanes. Thunderstorms smashing the sky.

I went back inside to count my money. I had almost two hundred dollars saved up. I looked up the number for a taxi and called to ask how much it would cost. Twenty minutes later I climbed into the backseat of a plain gray car.

“They didn't tell me you was a kid,” the driver said. His eyes slid from my face to my jacket to my bag. I snapped on my seat belt while he kept on staring. “So what's the deal? You running away?”

“I'm not running away. I have to get to my grandma's. They told me it was forty-five dollars. I can pay you right now.”

“Your grandma's or your
boyfriend's
?”

“My grandma's,” I told him, and then I mentioned her illness. “Terminal,” I said sadly, pulling the money out of my purse.

He took my cash. Then he apologized and started driving.

Grandma's car was parked in her driveway, and someone had cut her grass. I walked up the cement steps and began knocking on her door. The taxi waited by the curb as I knocked, and I wished he'd go away. I wanted Grandma to smile when she opened the door.
How the heck did you get here?
Then I'd tell her I was worried about her sacs. And she'd say,
What are you thinking about that for? Don't waste your time
.

Then I'd say I was sorry. It wasn't her fault about Dad.

“Grandma! It's Callie!” I yelled. “Grandma, are you okay?”

I knocked until my knuckles twanged. I kicked the door three times. “Grandma, Grandma, Grandma, Grandma!”

The taxi was still in the street and the driver motioned to me with his
hand. I tried to wave him away because I wouldn't leave until I'd seen her. I could wait in the backyard or climb in through a window. I could use my library card to pick the lock or sleep under the bushes.

Maybe she couldn't hear me knocking. Maybe she was sleeping. Maybe she'd fallen down and needed my help. Her car was right there, so she had to be inside. I looked around the yard, trying to figure this out. Then I walked over to the raggedy bushes under the front window and saw that her curtains were open a crack.

When I stood up on my tiptoes, I saw right inside.

Grandma was there. She was sitting in her chair. And she wasn't getting up because obviously she hated me. She didn't return my calls. She sent me home last month. She'd seen what I was like and it was absolutely pathetic. This had been my last chance and now my decision was made.
Thrash! Crash!
I wanted to smash through the glass window. I would scream and bleed until everything went dark. I lifted my hand to do it and I saw she wasn't alone. There was a woman standing with her, and my hand slapped the window. The woman stared at me with surprise—like I was a snapping, snarling pit bull—and then Grandma was looking, too, and she shook her head at me.

The woman walked over to the window, and she raised her hand like she might wave. Instead her hand flew out, pulling the curtains closed.

I let myself fall. I lay on the ground. The seconds ticked by as I waited for someone to come. The earth tilted and the clouds drifted and I waited to hear the door. I waited, but they didn't come. Nimbus, nubes, cirrus, cumulus. I closed my eyes and imagined a flock of birds. Curved feet tramping lightly across my shirt, wings tickling my neck. I would be so quiet that they wouldn't fly away. They'd think I was just like them—a large, calm bird with no thoughts beyond air and trees and water. Take me, I'd say. And they'd lift me from the earth, so that this house and this town and our state got smaller and smaller, and we'd finally stop on
a stony mountaintop where the air was so thin that I'd forget my name, and my language, and I'd only speak in cheep-cheep-chirrups. Eating berries, scratching dust.

I walked to the taxi in slow motion and slid into the backseat. Chirrup, chureep. It was good to be a bird, to have no more thoughts. Peep peep. A hundred bird years later, I heard the man's voice.

“You ready to go home?”

“Take me to Saint Benedict's cemetery.”

I wrote the letter in the car. I wanted her to know I was coming. I needed to tell someone exactly why.

Nobody cares or understands me on this fucked-up planet and what if I wasn't meant to be here and everyone saw I was a mistake? Every day I walk around listening to them laugh and laugh and all of us know that I should be dead. I was a shitty mistake and I'm ready to be erased. I want to look up and the sky will be DIRT!

I asked the driver to wait in the parking lot while I ran to Mom's plot. I ripped the page out of my notepad and left it beneath her empty stone.