Seashell Season (14 page)

Chapter 42

I
t was probably rude of me to just get up and walk away from everyone like that, but jeez, Cathy going on about the kids next door was driving me crazy. It had brought back this memory I'd thought was long gone. I wish it really were gone.

Thing is, I don't know how I can remember something that must have happened when I was in, like, first grade or maybe even kindergarten. I could have made it up, I suppose, but why would I? Or it could be something I saw happen to someone else or maybe on TV, and later on my brain made me think it was a memory of something that had happened to me. I'm not a neurosurgeon or a psychiatrist, so I don't know.

Anyway, this is what happened or didn't. Dad and I were in a grocery store, and he was looking at the big table of bananas. I wandered away a bit, not far (I was very attached to Dad in those early days), and was looking at the apples or pears or something when this woman came up to me and said, “You have such beautiful hair.” Then she reached out to touch my hair, and I just stood there, kind of stunned, I guess. Then the woman said, “But your mommy should have brushed it better this morning. Look, there's a big tangle.”

And suddenly in my memory Dad was there, and he was furious. “Don't touch my daughter!” he yelled, and the woman scurried off, probably afraid he was going to hit her.

And that's it. But when Cathy was going on about Molly and Michael, I remembered the incident. And I also remembered that when Dad asked what the woman had said to me, all I said was, “You have nice hair.” I didn't tell him the mommy part. I thought it would make him feel bad, that he wasn't my mommy and that he had done something wrong by not brushing my hair enough.

See? Wasn't I too young to make that judgment and to have those feelings or insights? So maybe the incident never happened.

Funny about the hair, though. It seems I got my hair, thick and dark and straight, from Verity.

Mommy.

Anyway, I don't believe in maternal instinct. I mean, come on. Take a look around. How many women with kids even really wanted them in the first place? How many times do you see a woman yank her kid's arm when he's being stubborn and won't walk as fast as she wants him to, or yell at her kid when he won't stop crying? I've seen that sort of thing a lot, and you can't tell me those women are really glad they had kids.

Maybe I'm a selfish person but the idea of always having to sacrifice for someone else who probably doesn't even appreciate what you're doing sounds ridiculous. I want stuff for me.

Besides, who says I'm qualified to be a decent parent? Isn't it like an extreme act of ego to think you're smart enough to have a kid and not screw him up entirely? There should be a test or something to determine who's allowed to have kids and who isn't.

Would Dad have failed that test?

I bet there were times when Verity was glad I wasn't around, pestering her and using up her time and her money. Now that I'm back, she pretty much has to pretend she's glad, at least until next year when I'm eighteen and she doesn't have to care any longer.

But there was the website.

All right. I'm being a jerk for some reason. Maybe I'm cold. Not entirely. I mean, I feel stuff. But maybe not as much as most people. Normal people. Maybe I was born this way, or maybe something happened early on to make me—hard. But what? Dad was always good to me, and he obviously loves me.

But he was lying to me all along. Do you think it's possible I sensed that at the bottom of our life together, there was this massive lie, and that's what made me not give a shit about stuff I probably should have given a shit about?

Sometimes lately I feel like I'm driving myself crazy, thinking too much. But there's so much to think about.

Like how Cathy Strawberry is one of those touchy-feely types. I bet she's like that with people she's not super close to, like just an acquaintance at school. Some people are like that; they have no boundaries, and they don't respect the boundaries of other people. Either way, it's obvious Cathy considers Verity close, maybe even a friend, because she's always touching her or saying something just to her—telling secrets?—when other people are around. And Verity doesn't seem to mind it one bit. I know she must be thinking,
Why isn't my daughter more like my friend's daughter?
and frankly, it pisses me off. Why can't people just accept me for me?

Dad's an affectionate guy. At least with me he is. Was. He was always hugging me or trying to. He couldn't pass me on the way out of the kitchen without laying a hand briefly on my shoulder or kissing the top of my head. I often got the feeling he had to touch me to make really sure I was actually there, that I was his. Now, don't get me wrong. There was never, ever anything at all gross about Dad's touching me. I think he'd die before ever even thinking of being sexual with me. But he's a touchy-feely parent. That's actually nice when you're little. It's comforting, reassuring. But when you're not so little, believe me, it gets seriously annoying. And he'd be all huggy and kissy in front of what few kids I ever had to our apartment or house or wherever it was we were living. It was embarrassing. I know it was only his way of showing he loved me, especially when he wasn't able to do things like buy us a house of our own or a car less than fifteen years old that wasn't about to disintegrate from all the rust. With Verity, I have no desire to be close, physically or emotionally. That first time we met, at the hotel by the airport, I'd tolerated the quick hug. Barely. She got the message, releasing me as if I were on fire. Now she doesn't make many attempts.

Still, now that there's no one to put a hand on my shoulder, I sometimes feel . . . What? Lonely? Bereft? Kind of like I don't really exist. Maybe if we had a dog or a cat, it wouldn't be so bad, but Verity's allergic so that's the end of that. (Dad had always said we couldn't afford a cat or a dog and we probably couldn't, but I finally decided that the real reason he didn't bring home a pet for me was that he figured it would steal my attention away from him. Crazy but true.) There's always a guy, of course. I mean, I don't know anyone here yet, and I don't see how I'm going to get to know anyone other than the people Verity wants me to meet unless I walk the freakin' three miles to town and back, with everyone staring at me and wondering who I'm going to curse out next. I can't wait to get a car of my own. But in the meantime, if I can manage to meet someone, I could at least have sex. And that always makes you feel—at least for a few minutes—like you exist. Like you're
there
.

I wonder what Verity would think if she knew I've been having sex since I was fourteen. I wonder what Cathy would think. Not that I'm going to tell either one of them anytime soon. My life is really nobody's business but my own. It used to be Dad's business too, but now . . . now he's forfeited the right to be part of my life, hasn't he? Or has he?

Almost a week to go before his next call.

Chapter 43

T
his morning Verity took me to see the high school where I'll be enrolling in the fall. It was a warm and sunny morning, but even with not a cloud in the sky and French toast for breakfast (she used this bread called challah, which I'd never heard of before; it was pretty good), I couldn't work up any enthusiasm for the venture. I mean, school is school, right? From the outside Yorktide Memorial High School (that's its official name, but Verity said people usually just say Yorktide High) looks pretty much like a lot of the schools I went to—square and boring. Like a prison. I have to admit that the inside is a lot nicer than most of the schools I went to. All of the schools, actually.

The woman who guided us around the place, Aida Collins, is a Spanish teacher there. Verity said she knows her through Aida's husband, who works at the college in administration. Aida—she told me I could call her that and not Ms. Collins—has this chipper personality and she looks like one of the characters from that hilarious cartoon show
Bob's Burgers
. I mean, she has no chin! I can't imagine how I'm going to keep a straight face if I wind up in her class this fall.

Verity introduced me as her daughter, Gemma Peterson-Burns. I didn't bother to correct her. I could go on calling myself Marni for the rest of my life if I wanted to—I don't care much about the Armstrong—and I could go on asking people to call me Marni, but I guess I have to accept that for now my legal, official name is Gemma Peterson-Burns. A hyphenated last name. It makes me sound like I'm British or something, and rich. I don't care about being British, but that last part's not too bad.

Anyway, Aida led us through science labs, regular classrooms, the gym, the library, the auditorium, and the cafeteria, all the while going on about academic standing and good results of standardized tests and the percentage of graduates who go on to college and a bunch of other stuff that didn't interest me in the least. Verity seemed to be paying attention, as she said things like, “Oh, really?” and “That's impressive.” Then Aida Collins took us outside and showed us the playing fields.

“There's a girls' soccer team and track and lacrosse,” she said. “Football games are held every Friday night and are a big social event for the school. Most everyone comes out to cheer our boys on. When there's an away game, we rent a bus for those students who can't get a ride from a parent.”

“That sounds like fun,” Verity said, looking to me to agree with her.

“I'm not into sports,” I said flatly. That's not a lie.

Aida went on brightly, as if I hadn't spoken. “You'll be given a laptop, of course, which you'll return at the end of the school year. It's only for use for homework and research, but most people have a personal computer at home for other purposes.”

“Yes,” Verity said. “We've got one.”

We've,
I thought.
Now Verity and I are a we?

“I know it's hard to transfer schools,” Aida was saying then. “We have a wonderful staff of counselors to help our students adjust to all sorts of challenges.”

“Transferring isn't hard for me,” I said bluntly. “I do it all the time.”
Well,
I thought,
I used to do it all the time
. Who knows how long I'll be at this school; it's possible I'll be here until I graduate.

Verity looked uncomfortable, and neither of them said anything more. We said good-bye to Aida Collins after that. Neither of us spoke on the drive home, though once, Verity pointed out a very tall old man walking an enormous white fluffy dog. “That's Tarquin,” she said. “The dog, I mean. Isn't he beautiful?”

Tarquin was beautiful, but I just grunted and went back to my thoughts. I was trying to figure out how many different schools I'd attended over the years and was coming in at around twelve to fourteen.

The thing is, I'm naturally smart, so it wasn't really hard for me to catch up with the rest of the class if they had gotten ahead of where we'd been at my old school. And more than once, I was way ahead of my new class, sometimes because I'd already read on and looked up a bunch of information on whatever topic we were studying because I was so unbelievably bored by the way the teacher kept us creeping along at the pace of the dumbest kid in the class.

I'm not only smart, I'm tough by nature too—or maybe that came with living with someone like my father; I mean, did I instinctively know he wasn't the strongest or smartest father around and so I learned to rely a lot on my own strengths and intelligence? Anyway, by tough I don't mean that I would pick fights or look for trouble; just that when someone picked a fight with me or trouble came my way no matter how hard I'd tried to avoid it, well, pretty much I could handle things. Like in almost every single new school I went to, there was someone in my grade—usually a girl—who wanted to make me suffer for being new and who tried to bully me into submission or, at least, make my life uncomfortable if not unbearable.

I remember this one chick who had it in for me from the moment she first saw me. Her name was Megan, though everyone called her Mo, and she was the female version of the classic bully from old movies, big and kind of stupid looking but mean enough that no one would dare to make fun of her for being either fat or dumb. And unlike what most girl bullies are supposed to be like—cunning and doing a lot of damage behind a person's back—she was right out there with her attitude. I hadn't been at that school long, maybe a month, when one day as I was leaving the building after detention (it was no big deal—I hadn't done some homework), Mo suddenly blocked my path. There was a girl on either side of her, but really, Mo was so big, she didn't need the backup. She said, “I don't think you want to go this way,” and she grinned like she'd said something smart or funny. I said nothing and turned around to walk back inside the building and leave through another door—I'm not stupid enough to take on a fight I can't win—and boom, she shoved me and I fell to the rough pavement, landing on my knees and my palms but mostly on my chin.

All I felt at that moment of impact was sheer rage. But somehow—being tough—I controlled my fury and got up, half expecting to be knocked down again. “Gonna tell on me?” she taunted when I turned back around to face her. “Gonna report me?” “No,” I said, wiping blood and grit from my chin. And then I turned my back on her again and walked through the door I'd come out from.

Whether she respected me after that, I had no idea and I didn't care; all that mattered was, she never bothered me again. When I got home, Dad saw my face and turned as pale as a sheet of paper in a notebook. I helped him to sit in our one old armchair that we had for a while and got him to put his head between his knees until he felt more normal. I told him I was fine and that I'd tripped and fallen. An accident was all it was. I still have the scar, by the way. It's the one Verity asked about; I lied to her about how I got it. I don't want to give her any ammunition against Dad. She has enough already. Anyway, maybe the cut should have been stitched. Dad didn't suggest it at the time and I wasn't eager to go running off to the hospital, so I just let the cut mend on its own.

Can you imagine what Cathy Strawberry would have done if she had been the one knocked down by that chick? Gone running to the principal and her parents and maybe even to the police and made a big stink of it all and made it worse for herself in the end because who would respect her? What kids, I mean. I know that's what you're “supposed” to do—tell an adult if someone's bullying you—but come on. If I had told an adult what had really happened, I wouldn't have been able to go anywhere in that crappy little town without being taunted and knocked around. My life would have been hell.

I didn't like to always have to defend my right to be there among all those kids who'd been together since forever. It was exhausting. I just wanted to get through the day and get out of the building and get home to Dad—or, sometimes better, to an empty apartment where I could do as I liked.

But also in every school there would emerge a few other kids like me—or maybe not especially like me personality wise, but kids who were also sort of outcasts (like that guy Kirk I'd told Cathy about)—and we'd somehow find one another, drift toward one another, and hang out after school, pool what little money we had for soda or beer or cigarettes, and just go sit somewhere, like, it seems to me now, the stereotypical teen outsiders we were. No one shared big confidences, and mostly we were quiet—smoking, thinking, listening to music—and when we weren't quiet, we'd be laughing over something stupid one of our teachers had said or something lame one of our supposedly popular classmates had done. We were all sort of friends, but no one was invited to anyone's house and we never went anywhere other than the park, if there was one, or the steps down to a parking garage to just hang around. We were a sort of club or gang, exclusive, but not because we thought we were better than the other kids. No, we were not under any illusion that other kids were dying to get in tight with us. What we wanted was to be left alone. And largely, we were. Which suited me fine, or I always used to think so.

And the bottom line is that not once did I try to reconnect with one of my “gang” after moving to a new town or school district. And not once did any of them try to connect with me, not even via text. None of us really cared all that much about one another, I guess. Maybe we felt we couldn't afford to care.

In case you're wondering, no one from my last school made a big deal of Dad's arrest. I mean, the local papers showed more interest in me than any of my so-called friends from school. Even the neighbor who had said hi to us all the time and who had once baked a cake for us (I have no idea why) didn't try to see me after I was taken “into care.” I know because I asked the woman I was sent to stay with if anyone had wanted to see me, and she told me no. She was okay, by which I mean, she left me alone. Her husband gave me the creeps, but he worked double shifts at the convenience store in town, and anyway, I was only with them for less than two weeks. Which was good, because I absolutely loathed the other girl living there. She chewed with her mouth open. How the hell do you do that, anyway? It's disgusting. I mean, I know I don't have the best table manners, but still.

At dinner tonight Verity asked me what I thought of the high school. It was a silly question, because I thought I'd made my feelings pretty clear.

“It was a school,” I said, biting into an ear of corn. It was my third; corn on the cob is probably the best thing about being here in Maine. Anyway, I knew I was being rude, but I wasn't in the mood to fake excitement over a language lab and the stupid football team.

“It's got a good reputation,” she went on. “Did you hear what Aida Collins was saying about the foreign language department being among the top ranked in the entire state?”

I shrugged and wiped a trickle of butter from my chin with the back of my hand. “It doesn't matter. There's nowhere else to go, right?”

I saw Verity's hand tighten on her water glass. “There are other schools, private ones, but I can't afford them.”

“See? So what does it matter how good or bad Yorktide Memorial High School is?”

Really
, I thought, watching as Verity got up abruptly from the table and began to clear the dishes,
I can be such a jerk.