Never Enough (29 page)

Why was she telling me this?
Claire had been away for her eighteenth birthday. We’d sent her gifts and called, and she’d reassured us that they celebrated with her in California. She’d even said it had been the best birthday ever, which felt a bit off at the time. The same way her last sentence felt off.

“Claire, don’t you
want
to get better?”

She cocked her head and stared at me, her gray eyes glazing over. “Of course I do, Loey.”

Her whole attitude, her weirdness, made me angry. And driven. I cleaned every inch of the café in an effort to be the best employee in the history of the world. I stayed up late doing homework, right at the dining room table so Claire wouldn’t miss it. I left my college brochures on the coffee table, right under the TV remote.

I wanted to remind her of all we’d talked about on the phone while she was away. Of all she’d looked forward to coming home to and becoming.

On Monday at lunchtime, there was an edge to Marcus’s voice. “You don’t have
to sit in the auditorium and watch me sleep.” His eyes were on Ethan, just down the hall.

I’d steered clear of Ethan and Ron since the cafeteria episode, plus avoided any of the gazes of other guys I thought could be friends with Josh, but Marcus was wide-awake enough today to realize something was up.

“Look . . .” I searched for the words that would make sense without having to spell it all out, here in the middle of the hallway. “It’s just really not like that.”

“What is it like?” he asked, flipping open his math binder and thumbing through all the homework I’d done for him. “This was really cool of you, Loey. But seriously, I can’t have
you doing stuff like this for me. First of all, I’m not that smart, and the teacher is bound to catch on. But also? You just shouldn’t have to cheat for me. You’re not a cheater.”

Then Josh appeared, leaning against a locker to talk to Ethan.
Not a cheater?
No. I just sleep with my sister’s boyfriend when they were barely broken up. Claire seemed to have forgiven me, but I still just couldn’t forgive myself.

“So do you have a plan?” I asked Marcus, as a distraction. I hoped he was finally ready to talk to his mom, tell her he couldn’t keep up with two jobs and school.

“I’m working on it,” he said. “I’ve found this online-schooling program—”

“Um, what?”

He kept flipping calc pages like he hadn’t heard me.

“You’re not seriously thinking of dropping out of school.”

By the look on his face, he was.

I shook my head and shut my locker. “I can’t watch you do this to yourself,” I said, and headed off to class.

I made a point of avoiding Marcus for the rest of the day. I had to show him I was serious—
this
was serious—before he did something stupid.

*   *   *

When Marcus didn’t show up at school the next day, I was livid. I called his house and e-mailed him, but got no response from either.

I spent the whole day stewing about it. At the Arts Club later that afternoon, I demanded an answer from Armando. “Did Marcus quit school?”

Armando’s eyes widened. “No. Marcus good boy. He no quit school.”

“Well, do you know if he’s sick? Because he wasn’t there today.”

Armando didn’t have any answers for me. He looked almost as tired as his nephew, since he’d been filling all the daytime shifts since school started up.

*   *   *

At home, Claire followed me up the stairs and into my bedroom, not seeming to take the hint about my grumpy mood or my desire to be alone. I couldn’t exactly ask her to leave, when I knew she was still trying to adjust to being back.

“Body image” was still a major player in her vocabulary, as were “self-control,” “support,” and “encouragement.” I tried to be positive, but then Claire seemed positive enough for the whole family. She spoke as though every experience had been full of perfect beauty and wonder. Today I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

I stared down at my art portfolio as she chattered on. The project was frustrating me to no end. Some of my pictures were good. Maybe even most of them. But they didn’t have a theme, like Mr. Dewdney had wanted.

“You should have seen the campus, Loey. You would’ve loved it! Sometimes we took long walks under the palm trees. Or we packed a picnic lunch and went out as a group. And of course the weather was nothing like this dreary mess.” She paraded around my room waving her arms as though if we both tried really hard, we could see the palm trees growing in our front yard.

I was sick of her bragging. It was like she was trying to cover something up all the time.

“Now that you’re home, I guess you’ll be looking for a job, huh?” In the past week, I had decided that too much free time had been a big part of Claire’s problem. I, for one, didn’t eat nearly as much junk now that I kept myself so busy between work, school, and college prep, and I was convinced that busyness would help any kind of food issue.

She studied her nails. “Actually, Dad got me a job over at Marvin’s.”

“Marvin’s Gas?” I asked, incredulous. “What about, like, the mall or something?”

She looked away. “Uh, no. I didn’t try there.” She went to her room and came back moments later with an armful of brown polyester. “This is my uniform?” She spread it out on my bed. Her voice rose at the end, like it was a question. “I’ve never worn a uniform before.”

I didn’t know what to say, what she wanted me to say.
Was I supposed to rescue her from this?
But that would be pretty difficult if she wasn’t at least trying to find something better herself.

“Don’t you want more than this?” I asked.

That dazed look came over her again. “No. This’ll be fine.” Then her face brightened. “I met the manager already. His name’s Ray. He’s kinda quiet, but
really
cute.”

At first, I was surprised to hear her opening up to me about boys, but then I remembered: She had no one else.

Our role reversal took me by surprise. Where was Jasmine? Or her other friends? I was used to being the one left alone to figure things out on my own. I didn’t know how to be the advice-giver. Besides, I really needed to get to my homework. I opened a textbook to give her the hint.

“Do you know what was funny about the campus in San Diego?” she asked.

I gave my head a quick shake as I buried it in my English binder. I knew what was coming . . . the wonderful ambiance, the support, and the love. I flipped pages of my textbook loudly, nearly tearing one.

“Most of the girls didn’t want to get better.”

I held my page midflip. It was the first negative thing I’d heard out of Claire’s mouth since she’d been home.

She went on. “Maybe in short spurts they did. But then it always ended the same.”

When she said, “always ended the same,” part of me knew she was talking about herself, too. I stayed as still as the chair beneath me, thinking maybe if I didn’t move a muscle, she would continue.

“Sometimes,” she added, “the girls would even try to outdo each other.”

After several seconds of silence, I had to ask. “Outdo each other how?”

Claire laughed. “Oh, nothing, Loey. It wasn’t so bad.” She shook her head like she was just being silly.

I stared down at my homework, not reading a single word on the page.
Pressing her to talk about her experience at the clinic may hinder her from moving on
, the counselor from San Diego had told Mom.

Claire looked out my window. “Sophie used to tell us how she would binge and purge through the days, because her parents worked all the time and with five brothers and sisters, the house was always full of food. She couldn’t wait to get back home so she could slide back into her routine.”

I kept my eyes averted, thinking that maybe if I didn’t look at Claire, she would tell me more. More of the truth.

“Brianne said she’d usually spend her entire evenings on the elliptical. The girls said these things as if that’s what they were good at, what they were proud of.”

“And what did you say?” I asked before I could stop myself.

After a long pause, long enough that I didn’t think she was going to answer, Claire said, “I told them I didn’t do much. That I wasn’t that bad.” She looked out my window, but something had changed. Something had faltered within her. “They told me, ‘Don’t worry, you will be.’”

The reflection of her tears gleamed in my window. I could see how afraid she was.

“It’s not true,” I said, but had to swallow my misgivings. My sister had barely been home for a few weeks, and there had already been times I didn’t trust that she wasn’t falling back into it. “Look at you, Claire, you’ve got so much going for you. You’re beautiful and talented, and so smart. You can do anything you want with your life.” I felt like I was trying to convince myself as much as her.

“You’re probably right,” she said in a dull tone, and I knew I had it wrong.

All wrong.

*   *   *

The next day at school, I thought about Claire. Why couldn’t she see the amazing person she was?

In art class, I had an idea:
What if I designed my composite around Claire so I could show her how beautiful she is?
I could blow up photos of her features, like her eyes in that image with the mascara wand, and set them on just the right angles. She would
have
to see it then.

I’d put one single word, “Beauty,” right in the middle with her photos around it.

To make my day even better, Marcus called back. He hadn’t been in school again, but at least he wasn’t avoiding me.

“Hi, Loey,” he said, sounding as tired as last week. “I’ve thought of another way,” he said.

“Without quitting school?” I asked, not allowing my hopes to rise just yet.

Even though we were on the phone, I could sense him shaking his head. “I’m cutting the job to two nights per week. I might be tired on Mondays, but it’ll be bearable.” Before I had a chance to worry about where he’d make up the difference in money, he explained that, too. “If I can fix up the Camaro, I can get some good money for it. I’ll have to work on it in the afternoons, but at least it’s not graveyard shifts at the supermarket.”

“That’s great,” I said. And I meant it, even if I still couldn’t quite picture Marcus as a mechanic.

As I put down the phone, Claire walked through the front door, followed by a cute guy. They both wore matching brown polyester. Claire gave a shy wave in my direction, but didn’t make any effort to introduce her friend. I figured he must be Ray from the gas station.

He
was
cute. She wasn’t lying about that. But in kind of a nonconformist way, which seemed an odd match for Claire.
His dark brown hair was brushed straight down all around, as though he’d gotten out of the shower and left it that way.

Claire told him she was going upstairs to change, and then before I knew it, Ray stood in the doorway all alone.

“You like
Seinfeld
?” I asked in his direction. In the late afternoon, comedy reruns were all that seemed to be on.

“Yeah,” he said, louder than I expected. I gestured my head to the side to invite him over to watch. He sat on the far side of the couch. As Kramer came on, sporting an unusually funny, three-sizes-too-small suit, we both started to laugh. I snorted a little.

I looked at him, “Sorry,” I said through my laughter. “Sometimes I do that.”

“You’re as funny as Kramer.”

“Yeah, well, you should see me when I back-comb my hair.”

He chuckled again. Claire came down the stairs in an over-size white cotton T-shirt and loose pants—not exactly much of an improvement over the polyester. I felt bad for her. She was probably still so self-conscious. I couldn’t wait to finish my art project so I could show her.

Ray quieted when Claire came in and took a seat across from us, but I continued.

“I don’t know, maybe after high school I should go into acting. Get my own sitcom?” I laughed.

Ray grinned, then asked, “You’re still in high school?”

“Yeah, senior year. Could be worse.”

We talked a bit more, about school, about Marvin’s Gas Station, about college—which Ray had no intention of attending. When pressed, Claire offered a few vague, softly worded answers, but basically it seemed up to me to entertain her date.

When Mom called us for dinner, we assembled around the dining room table. I sat between Mom and Ray, shoveling in bite after bite to give Claire a chance to communicate with him, but she kept her face in her chicken breast, her shoulders hunched forward as though she were ducking for shelter.

“Great dinner, Mrs. Rochester,” Ray said.

“Thank you, Ray.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “So you work with Claire at the gas station?” she asked.

He indicated his agreement.