Sticks and Stones (3 page)

All over the page, someone had drawn pictures of couples having sex. Under each girl was written my name. Each guy got a different name.
“Getting into the family business”
was written across the top.
Sophie
, I thought, as the meaning hit home. Everyone knew Sophie lived with me. Everyone thought of us as sisters.

“Let me see it.” Carlos had his hand stretched out toward me. I shook my head and stared out the window.

“C’mon,” he insisted.

“Carlos, perhaps you could tell us…” Old Dead Lips was on Carlos’s case again. Relieved, I stuck the note into
The Taming of the Shrew
. After class, I took off. I was halfway down the hall when Carlos caught up.

“Let me see it.” He had one hand on my arm.

“No.” I tried to pull away. But he
reached out and took my book. As he read the note, Carlos talked under his breath in fast Spanish. I stared at a nearby fire safety poster.

“You’re letting them tell you who you are,” he said.

I wanted to shove him so hard he’d join Spock in outer space. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

I yelled at him. “This is not happening to you. This is happening to me. So don’t tell me what I think. And don’t tell me how to feel.”

He didn’t turn and walk away like I expected. He looked at me and said, “Sorry.”

My next words came out of the place that hurt the most. “It feels like it’s true, Carlos. Once they say it, that’s the way it feels. I
know
it’s not, but it
feels
like if everyone’s saying it, somehow it must be true.”

“I’m not saying it,” he reminded me.

“You’re hardly everyone.”

He was quiet, watching me. Maybe now he was finally starting to get it. “It hurts, Carlos. It hurts like hell.”

I took the note out of his hand. As I shoved it back into my book, Sophie walked up.

Perfect timing
, I thought. Since she was in grade twelve, I hardly ever saw her.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing”

“You look like the end of the world,” she said.

Carlos glared at me. I handed Sophie the note.
Getting into the family business
. I watched her read it.

Sophie doesn’t swear much. When she does, I learn new ways words can be put together. Carlos got that impressed look again.

“Family business, huh?” Sophie tore up the note and threw it into a nearby garbage pail. Then she put an arm around me. “We’ll show them family.”

Chapter Five

After the note, things kept up, steady as a heartbeat. Most of it didn’t seem to have much to do with Brent anymore. He probably didn’t even know about a lot of it. Still, I blamed him. Just thinking about him made my hands go to fists. He’d started all this. Now, guys I didn’t know and had never talked to made comments in the hall.

“Busy Friday?” someone would call out.

“Busy at lunch?” another would add.

They never actually touched me, but it felt like they had — wherever they wanted. I kept trying to smile, treat it like a joke. I’d say, “Real busy,” and walk away. I told myself there were other things to think about. Old Dead Lips had given the class a project called “Ways We Communicate — TV, Movies, Radio, Books.” I tried to focus on this since it was due in a couple of weeks.

Things were heating up between Sophie and her mother. I got home one afternoon to hear Sophie arguing on the phone. “But you promised we’d go to a movie this weekend, Mom!”

The phone slammed down. When I came into the kitchen, Sophie was tearing open a package of graham crackers. When she’s upset, Sophie eats. Then she complains that she’s fat.

I picked up the graham crackers.
“You can have three. That’s it.” I started to walk out with the package.

Sophie’s voice was thin, as if stretched over a terrible sadness. “Mom’s spending the weekend at Dad’s.”

I stared at her. “How could she?”

“He can be really nice sometimes.” Sophie stared off.

“But you’ll stay here with us, right?” We both knew I meant
if your mother goes back
.

“But what about my mom?” Sophie started to cry.

I hugged her tight. “I’m here. I’ll be your sister forever.”

She sniffed. “Yeah. Remember — family business?”

When her mother got home that night, Sophie started in on the silent treatment. I sat with Popcorn and watched “Star Trek” reruns I’d taped on the VCR. It was going to be a rough week and this was only Tuesday.

The next day, I was in the girl’s bathroom before gym class when I saw it. I was checking out how much of my eyebrow had grown back in. I could hear the other girls leaving the locker room and heading into the gym. That was when I saw something behind me on the wall. In the mirror, the word was backwards, but it looked familiar. Slowly, I turned around.

There, on the bathroom wall, someone had written my name. Not just once — several times. A lot of other things were written around it:
SLUT, FOR A GOOD TIME CALL JUJUBE GELB
, my phone number. In one corner, different girls had added comments about me, one after the other. It was all the usual stuff, but this time it was about me.

I leaned on the sink and stared at the words. The whole thing felt suddenly ridiculous. This couldn’t possibly have
anything to do with me. I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t find the place in me that laughed. I felt nothing, as if I was nothing.

I remembered something a guy had said to me in the library that morning. “Hey, Jujube — every time I take a leak, I think about you.”

Every time I take a leak
. I left my gym stuff in the locker room and walked out into the hall. I knew this was the period Carlos had a spare. He was in the cafeteria, by himself as usual, watching the snow come down.

“I need your help,” I said.

“Sure.” He followed me down the hall. When I stopped in front of one of the guys’ bathrooms, he looked at me, confused.

“I’m going in there,” I told him.

Right off, he knew why. “I dunno, Jujube.”

“I’ve got the right to know what they’re saying about me.”

“You must have the general idea.” His eyes were asking me to back off.

I heard my heart thumping as if from a long way off. I just looked at him.

He sighed. “It’s your funeral.”

Carlos went in to check if anyone was in there. As I waited, I heard the “Star Trek” theme softly in my head.
Go where no woman has gone before
, I thought.

The bathroom was empty. As I went in, Carlos stood guard at the door. I walked along the row of mirrors, in and out of each stall. The worst stuff was written over the urinals. I stood for a long time reading, glad I had my back to Carlos.

When I was finished, when I’d gotten every last word, I turned around.
So this is what they think about me
, I thought.
When they look at me, they think this
.

“Are they all like this — all the guys’ cans?” I asked.

Carlos looked alarmed. “You don’t want to check them all out, do you?”

“I think I’ve got the picture,” I said.

He blinked quickly, his eyes suddenly red. “If it was one guy, I’d take him on, Jujube. I can’t go after everyone.”

Neither can I
, I thought. “That’s never helped anyone before.”

“Maybe not.” He tried a half grin.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

When I got home after school, Sophie was watching TV. I sneaked upstairs, dropped down on my bed, and stared up at the ceiling. Popcorn jumped onto the bed and laid his head on my stomach.

Brent’s name hadn’t been up on any of those walls — just mine. I’d seen the names of other girls. In the back corner of one stall, I’d even found Sophie’s name, faded, but still there. I wondered if any of these girls knew their names were up there. I’d never talked to most of them.
But it looked like we had something in common.

The club that doesn’t even know it exists
, I thought.
Welcome to the Slut Club, Jujube Gelb
.

Chater Six

The next morning, I decided not to get up. Just for one day, I’d lie in bed and let everything go by. I deserved one day off from hell.

“Hi, Jujube.” It was Mom in the doorway.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Sophie says you feel sick. What have you got — sore throat? Flu?”

“Sounds good.”

As she sat down, I pulled the blankets over my head. I knew she was going to get it all out of me. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Mom started to tug at the top of the sheets.

“You seem more heartsick than anything else to me.” Her voice was very close. It made me feel like a little kid. Under the blankets, I crawled to the foot of the bed and curled into a ball.

“Hey, where are you going?” Mom asked in surprise.

“I don’t want to discuss it,” I said through the blankets.

But Mom had followed me down to the end of the bed. She was tugging away, and soon a sliver of light appeared. I grabbed at the blankets. Mom yanked them away. I sat up, blinking after all that dark.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” She sat down and put her arms around me. Then she started to stroke my hair. Well, that did
me in — knowing how much she wanted me to feel loved. The crying started. When the worst of that was done, the words came out.

“They called me a…” I couldn’t say it.

“A what?” Mom asked softly.

It was such a heavy ugly word. I didn’t want it in my mouth.

“You can tell me,” Mom said.

“A slut,” I whispered.

Her arms hugged me tighter. “Say it again,” she said.

“Mom!”

“Trust your old mother on this one. I want you to say slut ten times.”

I swallowed. She was making this worse.

“C’mon,” Mom said.

So I did. At first, I could hardly say it. By the tenth time, I was yelling it. When I was finished, Mom made me say it ten more times. By the end of it, “slut” was coming out of my mouth like any other word.

Mom took my face between her hands. “When you can say a word, you own it. Which means that that word can’t do anything to you anymore. It’s just a word, Jujube — not your name. Not you.”

I blinked and her face came into focus. That was when I noticed she was breathing hard and fast. Usually, this meant someone was in for it.

“I can handle it, Mom. Don’t do anything —
please
,” I said.

Mom looked ready to tackle the entire football team. “I happen to have a free morning on my hands. I think I’ll pay your school a little visit.”

“No, Mom!” I scrambled out of bed and followed her out the door. I knew it’d be a bad idea to let her out of my sight.

She looked back over her shoulder. “If you’re coming with me, you’d better get dressed.”

I got dressed, fast. As soon as she saw me coming down the hall, Mom
walked out the front door. “I’ll warm up the car while you eat breakfast.”

“Mom — ” The door shut.
Why’d I have to get a mother who thought it was her job to change the world?
I grabbed my jacket and ran. Mom was driving off before I even got the car door closed.

“This is my problem,” I began. One look at her shut me up. She was wearing her Statue of Liberty face, the one she got at her maddest. I think the office secretaries could feel Mom coming. When we walked in, everyone was looking at the door.

“I’d like to speak to the principal of this school,” Mom said coldly. “Now.”

The nearest secretary began to move. “I’ll see if he’s free.”

“He’d better be,” Mom said.

Unfortunately, for the principal, he was free. As we walked into his office, some kids I knew came in for late slips. Their eyes widened when they saw me
with my mother.
Wonder how fast this’ll hit the bathroom wall?
I wondered.

Mom laid into that principal like the meatpacker she was. She cut and diced him into small pieces, then packed and wrapped him up. When she was done, he’d practically promised to move his office into the nearest guys’ bathroom. He looked as if he’d like to suspend some kids for life.

“We don’t allow students to write on walls. You must understand it’s difficult to catch them at it. To clean it up, we have to hire workmen. Like everyone else, we’re short on money right now,” he said.

Mom ignored this. “When will it be removed?”

“As soon as possible,” the principal said.

Mom gave him a look that seemed to last about a week. “It better be.”

But it wasn’t. Carlos tried to lie to me.
But I knew from the girls’ bathroom that nothing had been done. Maybe all the workmen were on strike, or busy somewhere else. At any rate, now everyone knew my mother had charged in to rescue me.

“Your mom coming on all your dates from now on, Jujube?” became the standard joke.

You’ve got to be kidding. I’m never going on another date
, I thought. I was in the library, watching a girl at the photocopier. I’d seen her name in the guys’ bathroom. Finally, I walked over to her.

“Megan?” I asked.

She had on a lot of makeup and a heavy metal T-shirt. “Yeah?”

“I’m Jujube Gelb.”

She didn’t laugh, didn’t look away. “I know.”

“You got a minute?” I asked.

“If you got a smoke,” she replied.

I didn’t, but she came with me
anyway. We found a quiet hall corner by a window and stood looking out. It was hard to get started talking about it. When I did, I found her story was a lot like mine.

“I heard about your mother.” She grinned.

I rolled my eyes.

“You’re lucky. My parents heard some of the stories and beat the hell out of me. They said they always knew I’d turn out this way.”

This way
, I thought.

“It can’t last forever,” I protested.

Megan laughed a little. “Yes, it can. Once they call you a slut, you’re a slut.”

“You’re a person. You’re a human being.”

“I’m a person who is dying for a smoke,” said Megan. She headed off down the hall in search of the nearest pack. I watched her go. There was no way I’d tell Mom anymore about this. Not for the last bit of love in the world.