Page 103 of Fade into You
“Or will that just make it easier for you? Church ladies love a grieving parent…. Much more socially acceptable than a crazy daughter.”
“Go to your room,” Mom says. Her face is red, lips white from how hard she’s pushing them together. She’s staring at me with the most anger I’ve seen from her in years. Me, breaking up the perfectly imperfect Thanksgiving. Saying the quiet part out loud.
“Fine,” I say. I want to sweep everything off the table. I want to scream at them. I want to spit in their faces. I stuff it all down, but I still want to do everything Mack would do. I’m scared about her, but I’m also scared that if or when I turn, they’ll do the same thing. Hide me away until I become a chore rather than a daughter. Or let me die to save face.
Instead, I get up quietly, set my napkin on my plate, and take the stairs to my room two at a time.
Upstairs, I understand the allure of a personal cave. I could stay here all day, safe from everything except my own brain. I would sleep and make it go away, but the adrenaline from the confrontation has me shaking. I think about calling Bird. I thinkabout calling Dade. I think I have no one left to call and it’s all on me…. It’s all my fucking fault.
But I have music. I have stacks and stacks of jewel cases. I have all the people who over the years have sung about anger and pain and depression and so many loves lost.
So I start grabbing CDs one by one. Stacking them on my desk, pulling out a composition notebook as I slide the Tori Amos CD into my player, letting her speak the words I couldn’t create on my own:
“My scream got lost in a paper cup.
You think there’s a heaven where some screams have gone.”
In the poetry of Tori and Dar Williams and Janis Ian, I do the only thing I can think of. At the top of the page in block letters, I start the plan.
BIRD, I’M SORRY MIX
Black Friday, I sneak out butt early and drive to Pterodactyl Records, since I promised Dwayne I’d help with the chaos of the day. When I arrive, light is barely cracking the sky, I’m the first one there. I grab my Altoids case, all painted up in nail polish, and pull out a joint. I smoke it, far too fast. For once, the calm doesn’t go all the way through me. So I pull another out. I’m definitely high as theHindenburgby the time I finish, but I don’t feel much better.
Dwayne is pulling in with his old red Bronco covered in band stickers. It shudders to a stop beside my car, and he pops out with a definite game face on. I open the car door and a billowing cloud of trapped smoke follows me, my feet feeling like they’rewalking on clouds, my head absolutely in the stratosphere.
“Whoa, Cheech, hitting it a bit hard?” He’s already got a smile on, but behind it I can see a touch of… is that judgment or concern?
“Shitty Thanksgiving, I needed a pick-me-up.” I grab the car air freshener spray and give my Offspring shirt a few good spritzes. Now I smell like skunk and Black Ice.
“Well, nothing like the hordes of Black Friday shoppers to make for an easy post–Turkey Day reentry,” Dwayne says, and pulls out his keys, headed to the shop.
“Are you even running a sale?”
“Fifteen percent off the entire store, twenty off CDs, and thirty off cassettes.”
“You might get swarmed.”
“My bankbook can only pray.”
The door swings open and we wander in, flicking on the fluorescents, getting the register open; he’s already planned ahead and has signs taped all over the place showing the discounts. I’m hoping it gets slammed, I can lean into the bustle and forget thinking about anything. After all, avoidance is genetically passed on in the Papadopoulos family as a coping skill.
But there’s no one lined up outside, and when the clock hits eight I’m still sitting on my stool with Dwayne rattling off interesting facts about the latest release by Counting Crows. I’m not really paying attention, so when he hits my arm with the pricing gun, my two-cent price tag startles me.
“Care to share with the rest of the class, Jessa?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re obviously not happy, and completely distracted, and definitely stoned, so what’s going on?”
I look at Dwayne, a big brother with his shit together, a musical soulmate, and probably the only person left in my life who I can trust. His face is open and ready to listen. He never pushes me; just opens doors and gives me opportunities. I wish people in high school could be like this. I wish my parents could be like this.
“Bird and I took a break.”
“Man, that sucks,” he says, tugging at the knit cap he currently has containing his long-ass locs. “Your call or hers?”
“Mine.” I look down at my hands, chipped black nail polish, chunk of the right forefinger nail gone, knuckles clean even though I wish I’d punched something until I bled.
“Any particular reason or you just miss the single life?”
