The Princesses of Iowa (27 page)

“What was the job?”

Ethan’s laugh was ragged. “Yeah, the job. I can’t say I know, because so far Ed hasn’t done a goddamn thing but lie on the couch and drink beer and yell at my brothers while my mom busts her ass working double shifts at the hospital to support him.”

“She’s a nurse?”

“Yeah.” He leaned back against the seat. “I’m going to take my little brothers and raise them myself. After college. I’ll get an apartment and a job, a real job, and I’ll take them to school in the mornings and help them with their homework at night. Dave Eggers did it, he raised his little brother. I’ll be like that.”

My notebook sat slack in my lap, all pretense of cub reporter forgotten. “How old are they?”

“Andy’s six and Sam is four. Their dad left after Sam was born, said he couldn’t take the commitment.” Outside it had started to rain, and Ethan flicked the windshield wipers on. “I know Starbucks is the corporate man, blah blah blah, but they do health insurance, and if I stay with them all through college they might give me my own store when I graduate. And then once Andy and Sam are old enough to watch themselves, in eight or nine years, maybe I’ll have time to go to grad school and get my MFA.”

“God, Ethan. I’m sorry.”

He looked away. “It’s not your fault.” The rain faltered and the windshield wipers groaned against the glass. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “Way to put a damper on a great evening, huh?”

“No.” I reached for his hand without thinking, but then stopped halfway, my fingers hanging in the air above the stick shift. He glanced down and I tucked my fingers into my palm. “I’m glad —”

He cut me off. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I don’t want sympathy.”

“Of course.”

He sighed. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” He shook his head. “Just forget it, okay?”

“Hey,” I said.

“It’s late.” He closed his eyes, massaged his head between his fingers and thumb.

I got the hint. “Okay.” I swallowed hard and swung from the Jeep, landing lightly on the driveway. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Oh,” he said. “Sure. Of course.”

“Well.” I hung in the door for a second, looking back at him. “Drive safe.”

“Yeah.” His voice was thick and his hands wrapped around the steering wheel. “Have fun at the bonfire, Paige.”

I bit my lip and shut the door. I stood watching as he backed out of the driveway, wondering what I’d done wrong, how I’d managed to ruin the only good night I’d had in months. Even as he pulled to the end of the street and turned out of sight, I stayed frozen in place, staring at the empty spot in the driveway.

In class on Friday, we did our first round of workshopping with Ethan’s and Shanti’s stories. Mr. Tremont led the discussions, facilitated them, but didn’t contribute that much about any of the stories. His rule was that the writer couldn’t talk, couldn’t defend her piece or explain anything, until everyone was finished discussing it. He had this way of completely validating everything we read. He didn’t make many comments, but the few he did make about each piece brought them to life in new ways. It was like putting glasses on for the first time, when the world you thought you knew is suddenly clearer and more beautiful than you’d ever imagined. I almost wished I’d turned my bat story in after all, even though it was so stupid and banal compared to what Ethan and Shanti had written. But I almost believed Mr. Tremont could find something worthwhile even in my dumb little piece.

I wanted to catch Ethan and Shanti after class and tell them again how much I’d liked their stories, but they both seemed a little shell-shocked from the workshopping experience and wandered into the hallway with private, dazed expressions. I’d talk to them later, I decided. Shanti would be at the bonfire, and Ethan — well, if I didn’t run into him this weekend, maybe I’d stop into Starbucks on Sunday. I headed out to my car, smiling at the thought.

After school, my mother was in a complete panic over the latest Stella Austin event, and she forced Miranda and me to roll a million napkins with pieces of burlap and tie them with long strands of colored raffia. “Stella’s been so edgy lately,” she kept saying. “Everything has to be perfect.”

At one point she went tearing into the garage to find extra double-sided tape to keep the ribbons around the vases, and Miranda whispered, “She’s psychotic. You better not break up with Jake.”

“What?”

“I mean,” she said, looping raffia around her fingers, “you
should,
because he’s a loser and you can do better, but you shouldn’t, because Mom’s head will explode.”

“Jake’s not a loser,” I said. “Anyway, why would you even say that?”

Miranda rolled her eyes. “I’m not an idiot, Paige.”

“We’re not going to break up,” I said. “And even if we did, Mom would be fine.”

My sister snorted. “Sure, Paige. And your actions never affect anyone else.” She shook her head. “If you and Jake broke up, I bet Mom would get fired.”

“What? No she wouldn’t. Stella wouldn’t do that.”

My sister raised her eyebrows. “Wouldn’t she?” Just then, my mother came tearing back into the room, clutching double-sided tape like grenades in both hands. My sister looked at me meaningfully and went back to tying raffia.

Around five, my mother looked at the clock and screeched. “Paige! What are you doing?”

“Rolling napkins?”

“Look at the time!” she cried. “The bonfire starts at eight!”

“It’s three hours away,” I said.

“Aren’t you going to Lacey’s to get ready? You have to do your hair!” She yanked the yard of burlap from my hands. “Did you steam your dress? You still have to take a shower!”

I raised my hands in defeat. “Okay, okay, I’ll go shower.”

“Tonight’s the announcement, Paige! When’s the final vote, next Thursday? You have less than a week! And you have
not
been dressing to impress lately, that’s for certain!”

I glanced down at my worn jeans and threadbare green hoodie. Under the hoodie I wore a T-shirt that said
NOT EVERYTHING IN IOWA IS FLAT,
but I supposed that didn’t count as ‘dressing to impress.’ She’d been so wrapped up in Stella Austin drama all week I was kind of surprised that she’d noticed my wardrobe at all.

“Why don’t you jump in the shower and I’ll call Brenda to let her know you’re on your way over,” my mother said.

“I wasn’t going to —” I started.

“Cool, can I be finished too?” Miranda asked.

“Is that a joke?” my mother asked Miranda. “We need to finish these napkins before tomorrow morning! And I still have to do my hair and put on my face for the bonfire!”

“You look fine, Mom,” I said.

My mother gritted her teeth. “Girls, please try to cooperate for once! Paige, get in the shower! Miranda, please finish these napkins!”

She was still screeching when I got out of the shower, so I finally packed my things and headed for Lacey’s. My mother shouted after me to be patient with Lacey. In case I wasn’t aware, she was having a “really rough time right now.”

At the Lanes’, Brenda was just as psycho as my mother had been. She grabbed my arm at the door and pulled me up to Lacey’s room, where the girls were both standing in front of Lacey’s mirror, examining their reflections. “It’s good there’s no game this year,” Nikki said. “This way my hair will still be perfect.”

“You never know,” Lacey said. “There’s always a chance it could get messed up.”

“How?” Nikki asked reasonably. “If I’m not making out with anyone before the bonfire, my hair will be fine.”

“Look who’s here, girls!” Brenda announced.

“Hi, Paige,” Nikki said.

Lacey continued talking to Nikki as if I weren’t there. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the wind? Maybe a random spark will just fly out of the fire and ignite the product in your hair, turning your head into a giant fireball?”

Nikki clapped her hands over her head, stricken. “Oh my God! I never thought of that!”

“I’m sure it will be fine, Nik,” I said, dropping my bag on the bed and hanging my dress over the door.

“Right,” Lacey agreed acidly. “As long as you don’t have a chance to whore around under the bleachers, I’m sure it will look fine.”

“Jesus,” I said, and Lacey flipped her gaze to me.

“Speaking of whoring, what did you do yesterday, Paige?” She sat on a small bench in front of her faux-French vanity, her bad leg sticking out awkwardly straight in front of her. She watched herself in the mirror, pulling a comb through her fine hair, following it with a curling iron.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I kept my voice steady as I pulled my dress from its bag and stepped behind the closet door to change.

Lacey’s voice was innocent. “I’m just asking what you did yesterday.”

“Nothing.” I slipped the dress over my head. The fabric was soft against my skin, and I stepped back into the room, enjoying the swish of material against my bare legs.

“Nothing?” Lacey asked. “Really? That’s weird, because I could have sworn I saw you in Iowa City.”

“Why were you in Iowa City?” I asked.

Nikki looked up from her bottle of nail polish and blinked at Lacey. “I thought you had physical therapy, and that’s why you couldn’t hang out.”

“But let me ask you this,” Lacey said to me, ignoring Nikki. “Where was your boyfriend yesterday, when you were running around with those queers? Are you too good for him now? Huh? Just like you’ve been too good for the rest of us ever since you got back from Paris?”

Nikki tried to interrupt. “Lacey —”

“Doesn’t it bother you, Nikki? Doesn’t it bother you that ever since Paige got back from Paris she hasn’t wanted to hang out with us?”

“More like every time I tried to hang out with you, you were ‘comparing physical therapy notes’ with my boyfriend —”

She raised her voice over mine, speaking to Nikki. “How about spending your summer in the hospital while Perfect Paige went to Paris? While you were stuck here watching your family fall apart?”

“I was exiled!” I said. “My parents were so embarrassed of me that they sent me out of the country!”

Lacey put down her curling iron and spun around to look at me. “Right. Exiled. We’re all supposed to feel so sorry for you because your life is so difficult. Well, guess what: without us, your life would be a hell of a lot worse. So think long and hard before you throw it all away.”

Her eyes were cracked with summer lightning. She turned to Nikki. “Doesn’t it bother you even a little bit to see her treating Jake like shit, taking him for granted, when he does nothing but fawn all over her and she doesn’t fucking deserve him? Hmm?”

“And you do?” I asked.

Lacey hit me with the full force of her glare. “Maybe I do. Because you haven’t fucking been there for him one minute, and I have.”

“You’ve been there for him?” I shouted. “I thought it was the other way around! Because it seems to me that all I’ve heard from the second I got back this summer was all about how you need help, you’re going through a rough time, you have it so hard, you you you! I haven’t heard one thing about Jake having a hard time, even though he’s obviously so sick of your drama he could scream!” I was screaming now, my arms pulled tight across my chest like safety straps.

Lacey yelled, “Maybe that’s because you haven’t taken one second to think about anyone but yourself!”

Nikki stood, reaching between us. “Girls —”

“Since when are you Miss Do-gooder anyway, Lacey?” I yelled. “I thought you left that act to Nikki!”

Nikki’s face dropped, and her outstretched arms fell to her sides. “Act?”

“Oh, Nik,” I said. “I didn’t mean —”

“No,” she said. “I don’t really want to hear your apologies anymore, Paige.”

She turned and walked out of the room.

“Nikki!” I called.

“Let her go,” Lacey said. “And get used to it. Because after tonight, nobody’s going to want to listen to your shit anymore. You’re done.”

I stared at her until she became unfamiliar, like when you repeat the same word over and over until it seems like the most unlikely combination of consonants and vowels and you wonder how it ever could have had meaning for you. Her eyes were small in her face, her cheeks flushed and hot. The longer I looked, the more monstrous she appeared, until I was overcome by it. How could Jake have chosen her over me, even for one minute?

“You know what?” I finally said, grabbing my bags and makeup and the clothes I’d worn over to her house. “You are a small, judgmental, mean little girl. You think no one else sees that? They remember who you were, and so do I. You were the bully on the playground, the one who had to scare people into playing with her. And now you’re a bitch!”

“I’m a bitch?” she hissed. “Look in the mirror, Miss Paris!”

“No wonder your dad left. I would have left you, too!”

My words rang in the air, clearly marking a line between before and after. A line I couldn’t cross back over, even if I wanted to. But I didn’t — and as though to prove it, I kept going. “Jake doesn’t like you; he just feels sorry for you,” I said. “But I don’t. You deserve everything that’s happened to you.”

“You deserve ten times that!” she yelled. “You should have been the cripple! The accident was all your fault! If you hadn’t been such a slut . . . You ruined everything!”