Tell Us Something True (3 page)

“I see them. Thank you. That was very nice of you.”

We stood and stared at each other. The only sound in the room was the sound of Juana's potatoes frying on the stove.

“Well, I guess I'll go, then.”

“Yes, you should go.”

“Good-bye, Juana,” I said.

“Good-bye, River. You come back soon.”

“Don't worry, I will.”

It was all over school by the end of the week.

Penny and River broke up.

Most people thought I'd broken up with her, except for the people who really knew me and knew it would never go down like that.

We only had one class together, Penny and me: Spanish 2, which was
muy, muy
awkward. I arrived first on Tuesday and staked out a new seat on the opposite side of the room. Aside from those fifty minutes, from 12:55 to 1:45 each day, I didn't see her at all.

By Friday afternoon I started to feel the weight of a looming Penny-less weekend.

“I should have gotten you a ticket to Tig Notaro tomorrow,” Maggie said. We were sitting in a diner sharing an order of fries. Maggie had to fight like a champ to get her share, but she was skilled in holding her own.

“What's a Tig Notaro?”

She looked at me. “River. I've seen like every one of her shows at Largo. You know that.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, you do, because I told you about them.”

“Oh, right. What does she play again?”

“She's a comedian,” Maggie said. “She plays her wit and unbridled humor like a freaking violin. And she has cancer. Get this: she found out right after her mother died
and
her girlfriend left her.”

“She sounds like a real riot.”

“Trust me.” Maggie swiped the final fry. “She's amazing. I would have asked you to go if I had any idea you'd be single by the time the show came around.”

I tried to ignore the dig. “I have plans Saturday anyway.”

“You do? Really?” She couldn't hide her shock.

“Yeah, I do.” Since I couldn't tell her I had to bring the snacks to the support group for my fake marijuana addiction, I said, “I'm going out to dinner with Leonard. Male bonding or whatever. He's pretty much forcing me.”

“That's nice.” Maggie did a little pouty face at me. Everyone loved Leonard, but Maggie loved him especially because she knew me in the years between when my dad left us and when my mom met Leonard, and let's just say those weren't the golden years for what remained of the Dean family. Mom struggled to balance her job at the nonprofit where she worked on global access to water with raising a boy who was often described, lovingly, as a “major handful.” I spent most of my formative afternoons at Maggie's house baking cookies, having tea parties and letting Maggie give me makeovers until Mom could leave the office. Mom and I ate a lot of microwave dinners back then. We didn't have a Juana.

“Maybe I'll see you after,” I said.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Everyone knows that nobody walks in LA, there's even a song about it—so I probably looked like a vagrant as I wandered along Pico Boulevard early Saturday evening weighed down by grocery bags. I'd picked up brownie bites, veggie chips and kettle corn; then right as I got to the front of the checkout line, I thought of Mason, and ran back to grab a plastic tub of fat-free meringues.

I still hadn't told my family about the breakup; somehow I dreaded telling Natalie the most. Natalie loved Penny because Penny wore dresses and mascara, and Penny tied her hair up in a bun, and she carried this roll-on stick of perfume in her purse that she'd let Natalie try. Mom was your basic grown-up tomboy with a short haircut who never wore anything other than Levi's and sweatshirts except when she took rich people to lunch to ask for money, and then she'd bust out a black pantsuit.

Mom and Leonard really liked Penny, but I was less worried they'd mourn her than I was they'd start to focus unwanted attention on me. Right now I came and went as I pleased without having to account for my whereabouts. They trusted me partly because I had such a trustworthy girlfriend. Ha.

Christopher, of the Molly habit and enviable sneakers, was standing out front with the shoplifter and Mason, the brutish bulimic.

“It's the snack man!” Christopher called when he saw me approaching. “What'd you bring us, snack man?”

I handed over my shopping bags for inspection.

“You know why you got assigned snacks, right?” Mason asked.

“Um, no?”

“ 'Cause you understand the munchies.”

“You got the experience,” added the girl. “You got, like, the institutional knowledge.”

“And? How'd I do?”

She peered into the bags again. “I give you a C-plus.”

“A C-plus? That's all?”

“Well, you got sweet and savory, yes. And you have soft and crunchy. You get bonus points for the fat-free option. But you don't have anything crispy. Nothing fresh. And let's not even get started on how you didn't bring anything to drink. With all this sodium?” She waved a finger with a long pink-painted nail at me. “Tsk. Tsk.”

“I'm new. Go easy on me.”

She looked me up and down. “Okay. B-minus.”

“Grade inflation.” Christopher blew out a final plume of smoke and stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his gorgeous shoe.

“Don't be mad, Christopher,” she said. “You're still the reigning snack champ. But that's only 'cause you're rich as hell.” She looked at me. “Club kid. Club drugs. You know the type. He brings those individually wrapped nut bars that cost two bucks each. Those are sick.”

Everett opened the door to the meeting room. He was wearing a green T-shirt with an elephant on the front.

“Hello, Mason. Christopher. Daphne.” He nodded at me. “River, I'm glad you came back.”

“Well, I had to bring the snacks, so…”

“It takes courage to come here.”

“Or a consent decree,” muttered Daphne.

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes the terms of one's arrest and restitution dictate that the defendant attend a counseling program, but it's our goal that we all come here because we want to, not because we have to.”

“I'm just messing with you, Everett,” she said, shoving him playfully. “You know I live for this.”

He let us inside and we all unfolded chairs and set up a circle. A quiet fell naturally over the group, and then Everett began a call and response.

“Here,” he said.

“Is where we belong,”
the group chanted.

“This.”

“Is where change begins.”

“Now.”

“Is the time.”

I'd chosen my seat in the circle so that I'd share last, but Everett pulled a fast one, switching the direction to clockwise.

I told everyone I'd had a hard week, which triggered many of those hand gestures. I said I'd fought for what I wanted (Penny, which they interpreted to mean my sobriety) but that I'd lost (Penny, which they interpreted to mean I'd gotten high). I said I wanted to get better, to
be
better. I said I wanted to think about things more.

“Don't be too hard on yourself,” Everett said.

“Yeah,” Daphne added. “If you wanna be hard on yourself, be hard on yourself for bringing mediocre snack foods.”

This kid with a lazy eye talked next about how he stole a six-pack from his stepmother and blamed it on his sister.

“She's only fourteen and she doesn't drink,” he said. “But my stepmother hates her and is always looking for an excuse to punish her, so I knew she'd believe me…or at least pretend to. I did feel kinda bad about it, though. My sister was, like, crying for hours because she had to miss her friend's party.”

I couldn't imagine making Natalie cry. Ever hurting her on purpose. If I wanted to dodge blame for something, Natalie would be the last person in the world I'd throw under the bus. But I knew I was in a much different place than most of the people in this room. That my issues, whatever they were, paled in comparison.

This girl Bree spoke about eating only green leafy vegetables for three days straight. Daphne told us she'd put a mascara in her pocket but then returned it to the shelf before leaving the store. And Christopher dreamed of feeling the same kind of euphoria without the drugs.

Despite all the talking—So. Much. Talking.—the meeting quieted something inside me. Outside this room, everything in my life reminded me of Penny, and I couldn't catch my breath without breathing in more of her. Even though I'd stumbled into A Second Chance because of her, she felt far away from that circle. I spent my time in the room thinking about people other than Penny; I could even start to see her in my rearview mirror.

Here
was where I belonged.
This
was where change began.

The meeting ended before I felt ready for it to. It was Saturday night at eight o'clock and one of my best friends was off listening to a comedian with cancer and I didn't know where the other two were because I'd become a lousy friend. I had nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Out on the sidewalk Everett asked, “So we'll see you next week, even though you're relieved of snack duty?”

I nodded. I wanted to come back. Penny was onto something when she said I didn't think about things. Now I was working on that.

I watched him and most of the kids walk away, toward their own cars or cars that waited for them out front. Christopher lit another cigarette and Daphne hung back, so I did too, and then it occurred to me that maybe there was something going on between them and I was just a third wheel.

She tugged on one of her large hoop earrings and narrowed her eyes at me. “So why are you really here, River? What's your real story?”

I felt my face go bright red. It was a curse of my partial Nordic heritage. One of the many unwelcome gifts my father left me along with fatherlessness. And my stupid first name.

“Awww,” she said. “I made you blush.”

“Nah.” Christopher took a deep drag from his cigarette. “He just knows in his heart that an addiction to weed is wicked embarrassing.”

“Kids don't usually come here because it's how they want to spend a Saturday night,” Daphne said. “So what's your story? Your parents find your stash? You get caught dealing at school? You got a lady who likes you better when you're straight?”

“I'm just…here because I want to be here,” I said.

“Yeah, sure.”

“What?”

“That reeks of bullshit,” Daphne said. She stared at me long and hard. Christopher chuckled. “But you do look like you're hurting. I can see that. It's in your eyes.”

I brought my hand up and rubbed my forehead, shielding my face.

“The problem isn't
that
you need weed, River,” she said. “It's
why
you need weed. So why? Why do you need weed?”

I wished I smoked cigarettes like Christopher so I could take a long, thoughtful drag off one. Instead I just stared at the sidewalk and thought of Penny. “I guess it's what made my life feel full. And without it…”

“You're empty.”

“Well, thanks for the Hallmark memories, guys,” Christopher said. “I'm outta here.”

“Right. Me too.” I turned and started walking west. I figured Largo wasn't too far out of the way—maybe I'd wait for the Tig Notaro show to get out and hitch a ride home with Maggie. Or maybe I'd get lucky and there'd still be tickets left. I could have used a good laugh.

Daphne called out after me. “Yo, River! You…
walking
?”

“Yep.”

“But nobody walks in LA!”

“Nobody but me.”

There weren't any tickets left, and the bouncer was unmoved by how my best friend was inside and I needed a laugh, so I waited across the street at a bus stop for the show to get out. Penny was right. I had never once, in all my seventeen years in Los Angeles, taken a single bus. And waiting for Maggie helped illustrate why—I sat in that bus stop for forty-five minutes and no bus ever came.

When the crowd started spilling out onto the sidewalk, I searched for her. It was a big crowd, so I stood up on the bench to get a better view, and that was when I spied them, shoulder to shoulder, still smiling at some joke: Maggie, Will and Luke.