I Love You More: A Novel (14 page)

During those months when Mama, Jewels, and Bert were swapping woe-are-we stories, I was just living my same old boring life. What with Mama’s body being inhabited by an alien and Daddy’s increased travel schedule, my only-child-at-home status and my generally unpopular-at-school status prompted me to pursue other, more creative and intellectual outlets. One thing I started doing was playing this game with myself where I’d close my eyes, open one of my dictionaries to any old page, zero in on a random word with my finger, and then add it to my word journal where I’d study it until I knew the ins, outs, and nuances of its meaning. Prior to this, I’d concentrated on P words, because of the substitute names Daddy was always calling me, but I figured it was time to expand my vocabulary. Getting even smarter was important. It was one of the few ways in which I could be superior to those All That Girls. As it turned out, my dictionary game was timely. There was a regional spelling bee planned for sometime in the spring, and because I’d been winning all our class contests, Mr. Dork chose me and one other kid to represent our school’s fifth-grade class. Having a personal and recognizable expertise, especially one that was needed and necessary for the success of my school and fellow classmates, would surely raise the other kids’ opinions of me. The
fact that Ryan Anderson was the other kid was a bonus, but even though Ryan was within spitting distance of me for one hour a day, five days a week, he still barely talked to me. He didn’t even seem to know my name. I decided this was due to one, not too small problem: Ashley Adams.

Ashley was Ryan’s girlfriend and the prettiest, most popular girl at school. Even I liked her. She was nice. On top of that, Adams and Anderson were next to each other in our alphabetical class order, so Ryan sat behind Ashley in class, next to her in the lunchroom, beside her whenever we went on field trips, and followed her in recess lines. They both, no lie, lived on Cupid’s Court. Their mothers were best friends. Their families vacationed together. And they looked alike; they were round-faced, blond-haired, blue-eyed specimens of perfection. So what else could I do but
lament
(express my grief passionately) the
futility
(unlikely to produce any useful result) of my crush? After all, it seemed the entire
universe
(all existing matter and space as a whole) was stacked against me.

Then, I found the book.

I was searching through our bookcases for the planets book Daddy had given me for my science project when I came across it.
Taking Charge of Your Life
, the spine said. I figured it was Mama’s book, and for the most part I didn’t much care for Mama’s books, but for some reason I felt compelled to look at it. I slid it from the shelf, took it up to my room, read the entire thing in one night, and started doing everything it said I should do in the exact way it said I should do it. And, as it turned out, it was a good thing I did, because just like the book promised, my life started changing for the better. For one thing, I grew three inches (Daddy said it was just my time, whatever that meant). For another, I lost a bunch of weight. For a second another, Ryan Anderson did a whole lot more than just notice me.

How did all this happen?

Well, first of all, I quit wallowing in my own self-imposed island of grief—I mean just because Ryan and Ashley shared a few itty-bitty similarities, it didn’t necessarily mean that they were meant for each other—and embraced my higher self. I took the “Journey of Transformation Through Manifestation,” which basically had to do with visualizing and believing. I
saw
myself as the fantastically amazing, beautiful, and powerful Super Picasso. I
believed
I could paint the sky, rescue small children and pets from impending disaster, and rattle off the letters of a word with the speed and clarity of a master speller. I
saw
and
believed
I could make Ryan Anderson understand that
I
, not that goody-two-shoes Ashley Adams, was his destiny. I did all this by practicing three essential principles that, as it so happened, all started with the letter
P
(a sign?): patience, positivity, and perseverance.

My journey to Make Ryan Anderson Like Me began with a compliment here and there. I knew from watching Mama shower them on Daddy that boys like compliments, especially ones to do with their looks and masculinity. I told Ryan things like “I really like the color of your shirt,” or “I can’t believe how strong you are,” or “I wish my hair were as thick and full as yours.” Saying these sorts of things would help my cause in three ways. First, commenting on the color of his shirt would likely make him look at mine, and that would help him start to notice me. Second, saying he was strong would make him feel good about himself, and in turn make him feel good about being around me. Third, comparing his hair to mine in a self-deprecating manner would help him see me as modest and nice, traits he obviously liked in Ashley Adams, traits boys seemed to like in girls. Within one week of my syrupy flattery, Ryan Anderson not only called me by my given name, he didn’t use a mean adjective in front of it—at spelling practice that is. During regular school hours, it was the pecking order as usual. He was with Ashley. Though no longer Plump Picasso, I was, after all, still Plain Picasso, so I had to do something else to upset our,
by then, established dynamics. I had to create a situation where the kids in my class belittled and humiliated me to such an extent that Ryan, being the nice boy that he was, would have no choice but to stick up for me, thereby also bringing about another, even more important result. He would realize, at least on some level, that he cared for me. But in order to ensure my plan wouldn’t backfire, leaving me even further down the rungs of the social ladder than I already was, I’d have to wait for the exact right set of circumstances.

It should come as no surprise that this took awhile. Luckily, by then I’d become an expert on patience, positivity, and perseverance. Before long it was Christmas holiday, then January, and soon February. Finally, I saw my opportunity: Valentine’s Day. (Which, by the way, was also my birthday, and which, also by the way, wasn’t necessarily a good day to have a birthday, since, at school at least, any special-day acknowledgment given by Mr. Dork was either forgotten or minimized by the fact that Valentine’s Day was every girl’s special day.)

I remembered from the previous year, and if I thought about it really hard, the year before that, that Ryan Anderson always brought Ashley Adams a heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. She gave him a homemade valentine, which always seemed to embarrass him. A similar type of exchange had always gone on between Mama and Daddy, and I knew, because Daddy told me, that although it was certainly sweet of Mama to give him whatever she usually did, what he really would have preferred were tickets to a Bobcats game (even though they played all the way over in Charlotte), a new golf club, or even a sleeve of golf balls, and not because those sorts of gifts were manly-type gifts but because it would mean that Mama had recognized his special likes. I was in a bind. I needed to give Ryan Anderson something that he wanted, and at the same time something that would progress my larger plan. I decided to ask Daddy for advice, because since he’d been one himself, Daddy was surely an expert on boys.

“How much cash do you have, Palomino (a horse with a golden or tan coat and a white or cream-colored mane and tail, thought to have been developed from Arabian stock)?” We were sitting on the screened-in porch in the back of our house trying out the new space heaters Daddy had installed.

“Six dollars and fifty-three cents,” I said. I wasn’t very good at saving my allowance, at least for very long. Our school had extra snacks you could buy, and I’d just spent a really big amount, the most I’d ever saved all at once, on the two-volume set of
The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
, a stellar addition to my dictionary collection.

“Hmm. That’s a pretty tight budget. What sports does he like?”

“Sometimes he plays soccer.”

“I don’t know,” Daddy said. “Playing soccer sometimes doesn’t seem enough of a like to me. Is there anything else you can think of that he likes to do?”

“He likes to spell,” I said.

Daddy thought for a while. “You like to spell too, don’t you? Is there something you’ve been wanting that would help with your spelling?”

Spelling
. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I was awestruck. I mean I knew Daddy was smart since he always said he had a very high intelligence quotient, also called an IQ, but this time he was especially smart.

“There are these pocket-size electronic spelling games,” I said. “Kind of like flash cards but more interactive.”

“Sounds perfect,” Daddy said.

I lowered my head.

“What’s wrong, Paris (the capital and largest city of France, in the north-central part of the country on the Seine River)?”

“They cost more than I have.”

“How much?”

“The one I was looking at is $16.99.”

Daddy reached into his back pocket. He pulled two twenty-dollar
bills out of his money clip. “How about I spot you?” he said. “Just don’t tell your mama, okay?”

“Okay.”

Later that day Daddy took me to Walmart, and I bought two Word Whizzes, one for Ryan and one for me.

The kids in my class always get to school early on Valentine’s Day, and that Valentine’s Day was no different. While Ryan was busy passing out his valentines, I put his gift on his seat. From my desk, I had a clear view of Ryan’s. Probably because it was the only present, Ryan opened it first. He immediately looked my way and smiled.

Now, every year pretty much the same thing happens, and that year was no different. Jimmy Wilkes had taken a count of the number of valentines on each of our chairs, and also like every year, I had zero. He started laughing, calling me Pathetic Picasso, Porky Picasso (obviously he needed new glasses), and other embarrassing names.

Ryan Anderson stood, slammed his fist on his desk. “Stop it, Jimmy.”

Then everything happened really fast. The whole class, including Mr. Dork, stopped what they were doing and stared. Jimmy Wilkes returned to his desk. Ryan walked in my direction, stopped in front of my desk, and handed me something: an envelope with my name written on it. Everyone, including Ashley Adams, watched me open it. And right then and there I think I was happier than I’d been in my entire life. Not only had Ryan Anderson stuck up for me, he’d gotten me a valentine, and on the back of it he’d written “Happy Birthday.”
That
was a double bonus.

We had been meeting for six months by the time the word
murder
crossed our lips. We were having lunch in Chapel Hill, a short distance from Jewels’s home in Raleigh. By chance, Diana was attending a Junior League state chapter meeting in Research Triangle Park, and Bert was in town for a booksellers’ convention. The restaurant, a chic, contemporary space with white tablecloths, wood floors, exposed brick walls, and sleek pendant lighting, was crowded. The University of North Carolina was hosting March Madness. We were enjoying a leisurely dessert and warm beverages, tea for Diana, coffee for Jewels, and hot cocoa for Bert, when Bert brought up a murder that had happened recently in Boone.

“Did you guys hear about it?”

“No,” Diana said. “What happened?”

“It was all over the news,” Bert said. “A woman killed her husband. Apparently he’d been abusing her for years. She got up, went about her morning routine, made his coffee, poured it in a cup, and doused it with arsenic.”

“Arsenic?” Jewels said. “Wow, that’s ancient. How old was she?”

“Eighty-two,” Bert said.

“Seriously?” Jewels asked.

“Yep,” Bert said. “When the paramedics showed up, she told
them she thought it must’ve been a heart attack. One minute he was eating his cereal, and the next his head was in the bowl. Later she admitted to poisoning him, said she hadn’t planned it, that she’d snapped, that he’d lorded himself over her one time too many.”

“Good for her,” Jewels said.

“What happened to her?” Diana asked.

“Her lawyers are calling it self-defense,” Bert said. “She’s out on bail. Thing is she’s got cancer and may not live long enough to make it to the trial.”

“How sad,” Diana said. “At least I guess it is. Must be hard to live with.”

“Oh I don’t think so,” Jewels said. “The bastard had it coming to him. At least she bought herself a few months of happiness. Murder is inside all of us, you know.”

“That’s true,” Bert said. “Psychologists say that all the time.”

“How do you know what psychologists say?” Jewels asked.

“I read,” Bert said.

Jewels rolled her eyes. “You don’t read all the time. You just like people to believe you do. You want to sound smart. Lying about your accomplishments is a sign of insecurity, you know.”

“I’m not insecure,” Bert said. “And I do read all the time. You’re just jealous.”

“Why in God’s name would I be jealous of you?”

“Because you might be street smart, but you’re certainly not book smart. I have a PhD. What do you have, a high school diploma?”