Perfect (4 page)

Just like magic.

Later, my mother knocked on the door. "Isabelle? May I
collie m?"

"It's a free country," I said. I was lying in bed with A Separate Peace, this hook we're reading for English.

"A Separate Peace?" Mom said. "That's one of my
favorites. Have you gotten to the part where Finny shows
Gene the tree?"

"I'm only on chapter one," I said.

"Oh. Well, I didn't ruin anything for you by telling you
that. But the tree does become an important symbol in the
novel. Let me know when you get there, and we can discuss it."

"Uh-huh." I picked the book back up and pretended to
he very busy reading.

"Isabelle." My mother sat down on the edge of the bed
and took the hook right out of my hand.

"I'm reading!"

"Well, I'm talking."

I looked at the ceiling with my eyeballs. My mother
could talk all night and still not say a thing.

She reached out to grab a loose thread hanging from
my pajama sleeve. She twisted the thread around her finger, yanked. "So. How was it today?"

"How was what?"

"Group therapy."

"It's called Group, Mom."

"Okay. How was Group?"

"Fine."

"Did you find it helpful?"

"Not particularly."

"Well, give it some time."

I didn't say anything. I just kept looking at the ceiling,
thinking about my stash in the closet, how it was getting
low.

I felt my mother shifting on the bed. I knew she wanted
me to tell her I was fine. In her head she was probably saying, How did I get one normal daughter and one screwup.'

Well, guess what your screwup was doing while you
were downstairs planning Ape Face's fabulous writing
career?

"I need a blank hook," I said. "You know, a journal. For
next Wednesday."

"Oh?" said my mother. I could hear a little smile in her
voice. "You'll he writing in Group? Great! We'll pick one
up this weekend."

Yippee.

I felt her look at me, then away, then at me again.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing."

"What!"

"Nothing, Isabelle," she said. "It's just ... well, lots of

girls your age begin worrying about their weight. When in
fact it's natural that their bodies start carrying extra fat."

"Whatever," I said. It gave me the creeps the way she
said that. Carrying extra fat. Like I had a backpack full of
butter instead of books.

"Anyway," Mom continued, "if you're worried about
it, how about trying to eat more fruits and veggies? Less
junk? We could probably all do to cut hack on our calories
around here, eat some healthier meals." She patted her
stomach and smiled. "Your mother included."

I looked at her, raised an eyebrow.

"There are much less dangerous ways to lose weight
than making yourself throw up, Isabelle. How does that
sound? We could do it together. Okay?"

I knew she wanted me to say okay more than anything.
It didn't even matter if the okay was a lie.

I didn't say anything.

"Isabelle? Please. I want to help."

"Um ... ," I said, like I was thinking it over. "Sure."

"Great! I'll do the grocery shopping tomorrow. I'll go to
Whole Foods, even."

"Great," I said, feeling terrible.

When she leaned over to kiss me goodnight I held my
breath. Even though I'd brushed my teeth twice and rinsed
with mouthwash, I didn't want her to smell what I'd done.

In the middle of the night, I woke up and couldn't go back
to sleep. This happens a lot but it's worst when I can hear
Moni. Most of the time I just put my pillow over my head
and hum for a while to drown her out. This time I went
and stood in the hallway outside her bedroom. The light
from the crack under the door made a long, skinny rectangle on the wood floor, covering the tips of my toes.

She was crying. Not loud, but loud enough. And she
was saying his name, over and over again, the way she
always does when she thinks we can't hear her. Jay. Oh,
Jacob. Oh, Jay.

I waited outside the door for her to stop crying. But she
didn't.

"Mom?" I whispered. "Mommy? ... Are you okay?"

She didn't answer, but I know she heard me. I know
because the light went out right away, and everything was
silent.

"Mum'"

I waited a while longer. I waited even though I knew
she wouldn't answer, no matter how long I stood there.

Finally I left. I didn't even try to be quiet. I didn't tiptoe, I walked like a normal person down the hall, down
the stairs, across the living room to the kitchen, and
across the kitchen to the refrigerator.

Bread and butter, pasta salad, string cheese, strawberry yogurt, applesauce, more bread and butter, cold leftover pizza, olives, peanut butter straight out of the jar. I
ate until my cheeks hurt, until the skin of my belly was
stretched tight like a drum. Then I opened a brand-new
carton of orange juice and drank the entire thing, standing up. Orange juice ran down my chin and onto the front
of my nightgown. It dripped onto my bare feet. Every swallow hurt, but I didn't care. After a while, it almost feels
good, the hurting.

The first time it happened was the day of Daddy's
funeral. Our house was full of strangers, all of them patting
my head, talking in whispers. Every so often my mother
would come over to me and April and squeeze the breath
out of us with her hugs. "Don't cry," she kept saying. "We
will none of us cry." Finally some lady I didn't know came
up to me with a plate and said, "Here you go, honey. Try to
eat a little something." So I did. I ate cold cuts and salads
and fancy cookies. I ate a whole pile of brownies. Whatever I wanted I ate. I ate until it hurt to stand up. Finally
I went into the bathroom and puked three times.

The first time is hard because you don't know what
you're doing. Now, in the middle of the night, it's simple.

I stood over the kitchen sink with my fingers down
my throat, watching everything come back up. Afterward
I went over to Daddy's old chair. I picked up the big pile
of papers sitting there. I walked them into my mother's
study and dropped them on top of her desk, where they
belonged.

But I didn't cry. Not once.

MR. MINX'S CLASS, THURSDAY. Ashley Barnum
didn't speak to me.

It's not that I expected she'd sit with me or anything.
It's not like I thought we'd he best buds now, just because
we talked for two minutes. Still, did she or did she not say
"See You in Minx's class third period"?

Minx's class, Friday. Not a peep.

Maybe the word see meant just that. She would see
me, but not necessarily speak to me. In which case, fine,
she was off the hook.

Minx's class, Monday. Nothing.

Quite possibly, Ashley Barnum was ignoring me on
purpose. And could I blame her? Get caught talking to a
loser like me, and the popularity rug could be yanked out
from under you like that. Poof!

Minx's class is had enough as it is. It is the kind of class
where you scrunch down in your seat the whole time,
praying you don't get called on. What Mr. Minx loves is
books. What he loves even more is the sound of his own
voice. Sometimes, when he's reading out loud, he gets so
impressed with himself you can actually see tears in his
eyes. On Tuesday, he was as gaga as ever.

"Vocabulary dictation," said Minx, holding a stump of
yellow chalk to his mouth and tapping his upper lip with it.
"Adjectives.... Alienated. Disenchanted. Disillusioned."

Another thing about Minx, he loves using big words.
Those three he said, I had no idea what they meant.
Minx knew it too. "I'm getting some blank looks, people.
If you don't know a word, get out your dictionary. This is
Advanced English. Advanced. You are expected to take
some initiative here."

Minx squinted across the room, holding the chalk
stump in the air like a dart. "Alienated ... Disenchanted ... Disillusioned ..."

He gave us about ten seconds with our dictionaries
before he fired a question at us. "When ... under what
circumstances ... might one feel alienated? Hmm?"

Minx paced the aisles in his Wal-Mart sneakers, the
Velcro kind. He stopped at the end of my row and pivoted,
tapping Georgine's desk with his chalk. "I'm not asking
this question for my health, people." Taptaptaptap. "I'm actually looking for an intelligent response. Ms. Miner, do
you have an intelligent response?"

Georgie sank a little lower in her seat. She shook her
head no.

Minx gave her desk one final tap and moved on to the
next row. As soon as he was out of earshot Georgie leaned
over and poked me with her pen. "Alienated, like alien?"
she whispered.

I shrugged back.

Georgie is what you would call a worrier. She worries
like crazy when she doesn't know the right answer for
something. You can tell she's stressing by these two little
lines between her eyes. Every so often she gets one of her
"tension headaches," as her mother calls them, and has to
stay home from school for two days without any visitors.
Georgie's mother is very bugsome, to tell you the truth. If
I had to live with her I'd get tension headaches too.

In Minx's class you have to watch him every second.
You never know when he's going to pounce. It's best to
take certain precautions. Like for instance, you wouldn't
want to be reading a comic hook.

"Mr. Fosse," Minx said, leaning over Dan Fosse's desk
and snatching Spider-Man right out of his hands. "If you
would be so kind as to beam the great light of your knowledge upon us."

Dan Fosse looked up at Minx. "Huh?"

"Huh?" said Minx. "Earth to Mr. Fosse. Come in, Mr.
Fosse. We are discussing adjectives, which, as you may
recall, are those pesky parts of speech that describe things.
Words like Inattentive. Oblivious. Negligent."

"Sorry," Dan muttered.

"As am I," said Minx, not sounding one bit sorry.

Minx may think he's the coolest thing on the planet,
but here's something most people don't know. I saw him
outside of school once, on a Saturday night. April and I
were walking into Movie Mayhem and he was walking out,
wearing the exact same getup he wears to school: white
shirt with yellow armpit stains and tan corduroys. He even
had one of those fluorescent bands strapped to his calf, to
keep his pant cuff out of his bike chain. I reached across
the metal divider and waved my hand in front of his face.
"Hi, Mr. Minx. It's me, Isabelle Lee." Minx blinked at me
a few times, like a mole. "Oh. Hello there, Ms. Lee," he
said, and he hightailed it out of there, but not before I saw
the movie he'd picked out: The Parent Trap.

The Parent Trap!

Minx scuttled over to Ashley's desk, opened his palms
to Heaven. "Ms. Barnum. Please."

Ashley tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and
clicked her ballpoint pen a few times. "I think," she said
slowly, "that I would feel alienated if ... if l traveled to
another country. Like Zimbabwe, for instance? And I
didn't know the language, or the customs. And I didn't
have the right clothes.... That would also be, urn, a disenchanting experience."

A disenchanting experience' Come on. Sometimes
Ashley Barnum sounds like she is trying out for the part of
the thesaurus in the school play.

Minx bobbed his head up and down like a puppet.
"Yes. Yesss. Excellent, Ms. Barnum. Excellent."

Ashley smiled and clicked her pen a few more times.
She is so used to being right.

Brian King was practically falling out of his chair, he was
so in love with her right then. He was probably composing another love note in his head that very second. Dear
Ashley, My love for you is not alienating, or a disenchanting
experience. Oh, no, my darling. It is like ... it is like .. .

Minx walked hack over to Dan Fosse's seat, picked
up Dan's dictionary, and whacked it against the edge of
the desk. Wham! "You see, people?" Whain! Wham! "It
helps to actually look the words up. The dictionary is your
friend. "

Apparently Mr. Minx is in the habit of whacking his
friends against his desk.

On and on he went. "There arc still a few spots open
in Standard English. I believe there are also a few in Basic
English. Any takers?"

This, coming from a grown man who rents The Parent
Trap. I wanted to climb up on my desk and announce to
the world that our English teacher-the one who thinks
he's the Albert Einstein of hooks-rents eight-year-old
girl movies in his spare time.

The problem is I have no guts. I had to wait until I was
outside the classroom to open my mouth. "Minx is a total
jerk."

It was then that Ashley Barnum, with one hand on
the water fountain and the other holding hack a hunch
of blonde hair, turned to stare at me. She licked a head of
water from her upper lip and said, in this very deep voice,
"I believe there are a few spots open in Standard English,
Ms. Lee."

I wagged my finger at her. "And several in Basic English,
Ms. Barnum."