The Weight of Zero (2 page)

I hear the regular pattern of her breathing. Silently, I whip back into my room, pick up the box and lightly make my way down the steps. Who knew how handy ten years of ballet would be for sneaking around? I glide like a ghost through the dark living room and into our spotless kitchen, where the butterfly night-light glows over the sink. Fresh Italian bread from the restaurant lies sealed in a ziplock bag on the counter, but I can still smell it. Grandma's door is shut.

Her bedroom door never squeaks. I step inside. The curtains are open and the corner streetlight washes her room in light. Her twin bed is neatly made, with the yellow afghan folded at the bottom. It's been two years and three months since she died, but framed pictures still line the dresser along with her brush, Yardley English Lavender perfume and tchotchkes on white lace doilies. Her drawers are still crammed with makeup, clothes, belts and scarves probably dating back to 1940. Mom dusts everything in here, including the extra-large crucified Jesus above Grandma's bed that keeps watch over the vacant room.

I take a deep breath. Every so often, the scent of peppermint, her favorite candy, wafts by. It's Grandma, I know it is. But I'm glad that's all she can communicate from heaven. I can't bear to hear what she thinks of me now.

Avoiding Jesus's gaze (he might still be pissed at me), I lift the bed skirt and pull out the plastic box of Grandma's summer clothes. It slides soundlessly on the worn carpet. Farther back, in the black hole under the bed, my hand searches and then connects with the cracked handle of the beaten plaid suitcase. Unzipping it, I wedge my shoe box alongside packets of old letters, envelopes jammed with photographs, old jewelry and Uncle Jack's musty military jacket.

I push the suitcase back, followed by the plastic box, and fix the bed skirt so it hangs straight. I listen at Grandma's door before exiting into the kitchen. All clear. Filling a glass with water, I tiptoe up the stairs. This is always the tricky part—the possibility of having to explain to Mom what I was doing downstairs. Hence the water.

But there's no sign of Mom in the upstairs hallway, and I slip into my room. My bed is still warm. It feels nice. My new med seems to be quite effective in the slumber department; I'll definitely be able to sleep again tonight. And tomorrow I'll start looking for my first and last connection.

“All right, now, everybody, pair up!”

Shit.

It's third period, Monday morning. Way too muggy for the first week of October. Mr. Oleck bounces around the room, ready to crap his starched khakis over some new AP U.S. history project he's about to assign. Typical fresh-out-of-grad-school teacher. I slide down farther in my chair, the backs of my sweaty legs catching on the plastic seat. I'll just wait until Mr. Oleck orders some other friendless loser to work with me.

“Hey, dyke,” a low voice whispers from behind, hot breath in my ear. “Be my partner?”

It's Louis Farricelli, Cranbury High's alpha male, senior captain of the varsity football team and resident hymen thief, responsible for the deflowering of maybe fifty percent of the vaginas here.

I don't bother to respond.

“Aw, c'mon,” he moans. “I'm really digging that hair.”

I had all my hair cut off this past June during a particularly productive manic episode. I had vibrated with energy those sunny young summer days. I tore through my room and the garage and attic, cleaning and organizing. I must've posted fifty pieces of crap from our basement on eBay. I thought I could easily finance a twelve-night Mediterranean cruise for Mom and me. On my emergency credit card, I charged maybe a thousand dollars worth of vacation clothes for our nonexistent trip. Online. In an hour. And then I decided that the gala cruise required a makeover. Schlepping the mile into town, I demanded that Rodrick of Rodrick's on the Green, Cranbury's snottiest salon, cut my hair. Rodrick's was the only place granted the honor of clipping the golden tresses of my former BFF, Riley, and her mom, Mrs. Judith Swenson. I can still see the pages of photographs of Audrey Hepburn and her short haircut in
Roman Holiday
that I printed off the Web, spilling from the salon receptionist's desk onto the floor.

Just my manic luck, the master was not only free but also amped to do something crazy. Rodrick was tired of the Cranbury housewives with their regulation highlights and keratin treatments. He wanted to ditch our little town for Brooklyn, but he said the money was too good here. And then he pulled my hair back into a ponytail and lopped it off. It shimmered like a glossy horse's tail in Rodrick's hand. At least twelve inches of my thick, wavy, former-ballerina hair, shining golden brown in the salon lights.

When it was done, Rodrick placed his immaculately manscaped face next to mine. Our eyes met in the mirror. “Never wear your hair long again,” he breathed solemnly. “Sweetie, you were made for short hair. Look how your eyes pop, how it lengthens your neck. You're gorgeous.”

Louis kicks my desk. “Hey, lesbo, I'm waiting for an answer.”

Without turning around, I give a quick shake of my head and move my desk forward.

“D-day!” Mr. Oleck barks from his lectern and my head snaps up. In his plaid button-down with creased short sleeves, Mr. Oleck looks directly at me. And despite the fact that we're covering pre–World War II events, my cheeks grow warm because the only D-Day I'm thinking of is the one on my phone.

“I know.” Mr. Oleck nods approvingly at me. “A project on D-day. How could it not be great?” He runs a hand through his beige crew cut, his cheeks shiny and flushed with the buzz this assignment is giving him. “This will probably be the coolest thing you guys do in high school.” From behind me, Louis snorts. Mr. Oleck rushes to a canvas computer bag on his desk and pulls out a manila folder. “You and your partner will explore an aspect of D-day that you'll never get from your textbook or online. At the American Cemetery in Normandy, there are roughly ninety-five hundred soldiers interred. One hundred and thirty-one came from Connecticut. The two of you will select a Connecticut soldier who is buried there, research the heck out of him and write a biography. I want you to go all out—track down family, do interviews, get photographs, letters, town records, school info, World War Two archives. Use primary sources if at all possible. If you run into logistical problems or transportation issues, let me know. We might be able to get some help from the history department in terms of a trip to Hartford to check the archives or genealogy records.” He slaps the folder against the lectern, and I jump. “This is going to be a yearlong project. I'll be handing out the rubric in a minute, but there is one thing you need to remember.” Mr. Oleck clasps his hands in a prayer position and goes still. “Honor these soldiers with your work.”

Mr. Oleck remains frozen for about three more seconds before grabbing his iPad to record the research pairs. I'm tempted to take a quick look around to see if anyone else is left stranded like me, but I don't. Been there, done that. I gouge at a cuticle instead.

“Do we have any other solo students out there?” Mr. Oleck calls out.

I don't move. I won't risk the attention.

There's some murmuring from the other side of the class and then Mr. Oleck strides over to me. “Catherine, I'm going to pair you with Michael Pitoscia, okay? I think you two will work well together.”

“Fine,” I say. No clue who this kid is. I keep my head down when I enter any classroom now. Eye contact is dangerous, because I'm permanently tagged, the injured one in the herd and easiest to take down.

At least it's not Olivia or Riley, my former friends. I despise having a class with them. I wasn't even supposed to take any AP classes. When I returned to school last year one of the idiots in guidance had suggested I “go easy” and avoid any unnecessary “academic stress, due to your, ahem, difficulties.” So just about all my sophomore honors teachers gave me a pass on homework and sympathy-graded my tests, barely taking off for wrong answers and piling on bonus points for correct ones. Only my Western civ teacher, Mrs. Abbott, pushed for me to take this AP class. I always liked her. She never treated me any differently afterward.

Mr. Oleck claps his hands. “All righty! Pack up your stuff and find your partner. We're headed to the computer lab. I'll give you a sheet with the names of the Connecticut soldiers. Do some research online with your partner and decide which soldier you're gonna write about. Then I want you to provide me with a short summary of whatever you could find out about that soldier by Wednesday's class.”

There's the herdlike shuffling and rise in volume as voices and bodies wake from the classroom coma. I don't move. And then there's a tap on my shoulder, so soft it could be a hummingbird touching down.

A throat clears. My peripheral vision detects a pair of brown cargo shorts on my right. “Uh…um…Catherine?”

My partner has arrived. So this must be what's his name. I swallow and look up from my cuticle. Please let him be civil. That's all I'm asking.

“Catherine, I'm Michael. Michael Pitoscia,” he says.

My God, this kid is tall. And skinny. With dark brown hair cropped close to his skull and a goatee of maybe four hairs. I don't recognize him. I didn't go to grammar or middle school with him. He must have come from one of the other two middle schools that feed our high school of 1,800 inmates.

He awkwardly extends his hand to shake, making our introduction oddly formal. I rise to my feet and our hands make contact. His is surprisingly cool to the touch and his grip is firm and strong but not overly so. It's the first hand I've touched in a very long time that hasn't belonged to Mom or Aunt D. He gives me a quick smile. He must've had braces, because his teeth are straight and white. And while no one would say he's hot, he's definitely not gross-looking. He's just a generic high schooler. Unmarked. The type that blends into the masses. Just like me.

Or just like I used to be.

Michael stays by my side as I walk into the hall. It feels weird to have someone beside me, someone who actually walks next to me on purpose. I keep glancing at him to make sure it isn't a mistake. That he isn't keeping step with me because of some clogged traffic in the hallway. But no, there he is, voluntarily chatting away, asking me if I watch some zombie show. I don't. (Those shows aren't all that appealing when you relate more to the zombies than the humans.)

Inside the computer lab, we go through a couple of names on the sheet but come up short on any Internet info. It's actually not bad working with him. He seems nice—genuine. When the bell rings, we stand.

“Uh…Catherine?” Michael asks. “Maybe we should exchange numbers? I'll work on it tonight and I can uh…t-text you if I find somebody. If you want, then…uh…you could maybe check out that soldier.”

As Michael's talking, a mottled flush makes its way up his neck. The same thing used to happen to Olivia seconds before we hit the floor for a middle school dance competition or a Miss Ruth recital. Nerves.

“Just because it's due on Wednesday,” Michael is saying, “and it may take a while…to, you know, find somebody.”

My fingers curl around the four-week-old iPhone in my shorts pocket. Mom broke her rule against using the Visa card to buy us each one. While she won't admit it, the first app she got was Find My Friends, which allows her to track me (or at least my phone).

Michael says, “My number is…,” and then stops and waits for me to pull out my phone. I don't want to give him my number. It's much safer to just take his.

“Okay.” I pull my phone out into the light of day. “How do you spell your last name?”

As if this really matters. I have a total of six contacts on my phone: home, mom's phone, the law office, Dominic's restaurant, Aunt Darlene and Dr. McCallum.

“It sounds like ‘pit-toe-sha,' but you spell it P-I-T-O-S-C-I-A,” Michael answers. After he gives me his number, he says, “You know, we met freshman year. At the holiday show? ‘Cranbury's Got Talent'?”

I shake my head. I can barely remember my own performance.

“It was before Christmas break.” Michael nods, willing me to remember him. “Yeah, you did a dance thing with some girls, and me and Tyler, Tyler Connelly, did a magic act. I sawed him in half? To that old song ‘Ice Ice Baby'?” His neck is scarlet now and the color is creeping into his cheeks.

December of freshman year was not a good time for me. Grandma had died five months earlier—July 3—and then Zero arrived, and the two of us entered high school together, sending my first psychiatrist, poor Dr. A, into a prescribing tizzy as he tried to combat my depression. What variety! Who knew the sheer number of psychiatric salvations? None of these prescriptions really worked but I have to hand it to the old guy—he really tried. Definite A for effort. I ended up with a lot of almost-empty bottles that I initially saved less out of any suicidal ideation than as a tribute to Grandma. She never threw anything out, recycling everything from ziplock bags to empty blood pressure pill bottles. She'd use the bottles to store safety pins, buttons and sewing needles in her underwear drawer. My collection was half a memorial to her, half a monument to the lottery of meds I'd tried and failed to improve on.

So even though my freshman year was on the mild side compared with sophomore year, it remains a painful haze.

Michael's still waiting for me to acknowledge this talent show, so I muster up some enthusiasm and lie, “Oh yeah!”

He smiles, relieved, and it makes me feel like I've done something good. I find myself smiling back at him. He pulls out his phone and, index finger poised above the screen, asks, “What's your number?”

And then, from somewhere in the computer lab, a male voice screeches, “Don't do it, Pitoscia!” And then someone else sings out in a high voice, “Cuckoo, cuckoo.” A burst of laughter erupts.

I stiffen as the familiar wave of shame breaks over me. I don't have to turn around to know it's Olivia and Riley and their theater crowd. I'd recognize my ex–best friends' laughter anywhere. It roars through my head like a train.

I grab my books. I need to get away. Now.

In the safety of my cubby in the farthest recesses of the library, I lay my head in my arms while Zero pants on my neck.