Kayla

Kayla is caught up in a bad situation at Brian Kepler’s party…  Kayla has been a frequent character at OGW, and is now a main character in my next book, Somebody’s Daughter.  To catch up with Kayla and her friends in earlier parts of this thread, read OGW 10/1, 11/5, 11/12, 12/10, 12/31, 1/14, 2/11.

Kayla:  I feel weird.  Everyone is looking, and I don’t like to be looked at.  I’m Rain’s best friend, but I’m not like her, especially not tonight.  She’s more than her usual self, like possessed or something. 

“Come on, Kayla,” Rain whispers.  “You want Brian to notice you!”

I look around the hot tub.  Brian isn’t noticing me, that’s true.  He doesn’t even know I’m here.  I want to pretend he’s looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and he isn’t talking to me because he respects me too much to grab my breast the way he just did that other giggling girl, oh shit, I am a loser.  I can’t believe it took me two beers and this stupid, insanely stupid, visit to the hot tub for me to realize that.  Where is Casey?  I want to just go home, so I stand up. 

Like an idiot, like a little baby, I want to cry, and I’m just standing there, shivering, when Rain stands up next to me, and she’s all “Oh yeah, you go Kayla,” and she’s bumping my skinny hip to make me dance and now everyone is looking and we look so stupid, Shit Rain stop!

She doesn’t stop.  Before I can even say, “let’s go,” she’s pulled off her bikini top!  Before I can even grab her and pull her under the water and ask her what she’s on and why she’s doing this, before I can even—

She pulls off my top!  Holy shit!  My nipples are cold and hard, and I don’t feel good, but now Brian is looking, and he’s forgotten about the other skanks, and he’s cheering us on! 

Someone hands me a jello shot, which I swallow, and then a beer, which I chug, and then I, little, meek, pathetic eleventh-grader at a senior party, not-even-invited girl, I wiggle my hips, and dance with Rain.

She says, “They want to see a show, Kayla, should we give them a show?”

My head is a little swimmy.  I see Casey coming toward us, and she looks concerned and nervous and as if she’s about to put a stop to all this.  For a moment I’m torn between the comfort of my old self, promised by Casey, and the promise of following Rain’s lewd behavior and branding myself in Brian’s mind forever -- but then Brian’s best friends Kris and Damien from the basketball team, they get in the way so I can’t see Casey anymore.  All I see is how happy Rain and I are making the boys and I’m thinking, Brian will never forget me, and when Rain squirts me with beer, I squirt her back with the beer that magically appears in my hands, and now those other girls who were in the hot tub before have disappeared, fucking disappeared!  It’s all Rain, it’s all me!  We play fight, and everyone is cheering, everyone loves us.

We put on an awesome show.  Rain spreads beer foam on me and you won’t believe this, but I lick it off her stomach, because that’s what the crowd wants!  They love me!  Afterward, when I’m sweaty and breathless and drunk, Brian – Brian Kepler! -- gently lifts me out of the hot tub and ties my bathing suit top back on for me.

“You don’t belong up there” he says. He smiles at me!  He likes me, me!  “Come on,” he says, grinning, “let me get you a beer or something.”

Arm in arm, Brian and I walk to the keg, if you can call what I’m doing walking.  Really, it’s more like I’m floating.

Jenna

Jenna:  Jenna is from Spun, a novel I wrote about a girl with a crystal meth addiction.  Here, she’s been clean for several weeks, but her boyfriend Josh convinces her to get high again.

Jenna:  One sniff, and it’s back.

            Confidence, yes.  I mean, Yes!  Who did I think I was before, trying to be someone

            What?  Who?

            This is me.  The real me.

            All that tormenting of myself, wondering if I was worth anything, wondering if it was okay for Josh, or my mother, or drugs to complete me, and now here I am, and when Josh offers me the cd case again, I snort another line of meth without even thinking about it because all that crap about feeling my feelings was just crap, and now I feel it, I feel it all, it’s all good, and I’m all in my head:  Josh, Mom, Paige!  I love you guys!  Ruby!  And that great writer I love too, that Yann Martel who is totally awesome!

            Burning in my nose and brain, and I’m a little anxious and my thinking is going all over the place but so what!

            “Did you ever read Life of Pi?” I ask Josh, whose hands are on me, and it makes me uncomfortable (but I love him!  I do and it. is. all. good. smiles.) The author, Yann Martel said-- 

Don’t know why I’m talking to Josh about a book right now it’s crazy and has nothing to do with me really, and yet it does, because now everything means something.  I want to cry.

            “I love that you’re the smart one,” Josh says, kissing my neck.

            Hey!  I’m trying to talk here!

            Josh isn’t listening, but I say anyway, because I am so profound right now, and I am the smart one, why didn’t I see that before?  “Life and death, birth and love,”

            “Mm hmm,” Josh says. 

            Straighten up, Jenna.  I try to remember the whole quote from that author guy I love whose name I can’t even think of right now because I feel buzzy in my head, and it’s like every book I ever read is spinning around in there.  Suddenly, out of the whirl, I pull out, “Life and death, birth and love….They’re not problems, they’re life itself.”

            That’s it.  That’s me and my experience.  High on meth again, and it’s all in focus for an instant, and I’m not so sure anymore.

Josh doesn’t answer, but I don’t care, I’m just wishing I could get that initial buzz-burn back, that feeling of everything inside of me, but I can’t. 

            Whoa.  I am suddenly empty, I feel nothing.  When Josh tries to lift my shirt over my head, I say “No,” for the first time.

Caitlin

Caitlin’s younger brother Corey matters even more to her than her mermaid collection.  If she can’t have him in her life anymore, she doesn’t want anything…

Caitlin:  There’s an old glass salad bowl on my desk at home, full of mermaids.  All I have to do is reach in, and grab a memory.

     Like this one – She is missing her tail, so technically she’s a little girl with a sparkly bikini top and nothing on the bottom but jointed legs.  When I was four, my parents took me to Catalina Island, and they told me a story about the mermaid fairy, who lived off the shore of the island, and who brought good little girls mermaid dolls in their sleep.  I woke up in the morning with a little girl mermaid under my pillow, a mermaid as young as I was, but with a real tail that came off and everything.

     There’s a picture of a mermaid fountain outside a bar where my mother took me, six, and my baby brother.  We used to go there everyday after my mother picked me up from school, and stay until just before Daddy got home.  I ate grilled cheese.  She had a small bowl of lobster bisque and three vodka doubles rocks everytime.

     The mermaid with the broken tail fin.  I pick it up.  The ceramic is cool against my cheek.  The edge of the broken fin matches the scar on my eyebrow like a jigsaw puzzle.  Corey threw it at me when he was eight.  I needed seven stitches.  He said seven was his favorite number, and he cried.  He always loved me, and I always loved him, and we always had each other.

     Until I was fourteen.  He was ten.  It was the first time he was sent away.  My parents couldn’t control him.  He was ten, but he sent me a letter asking me if I could get him any acid and bring it when I visited.  I wasn’t allowed to visit, they said he wouldn’t get better if he always had me.  Here’s the mermaid I got in New Hampshire at Storyland, where my mother took me while my Dad visited Corey at “camp,” they called it.  I was too old for Storyland.  Corey was too young for “camp”.

     This silver mermaid on a leather cord was a gift from Corey the day my mother was a year sober, and Corey was home for the weekend.  He stole the mermaid, but I didn’t tell.  I never told.  He said he wanted to put a bomb in my mother’s car that would blow her up when she got in to go to one of her meetings with all her new friends.  He was so angry, always so angry at her.  I never told.

     The mermaid on a rock, topless, from the white elephant sale at the carnival where I met Corey when he was thirteen.  I brought him clothes and food.  He said he didn’t need it.  He smelled bad.  His teeth were brown.  One was blacked out from a fight.  He wore an old army jacket from my Dad’s closet. He said, “That’s a nice mermaid, Kath.”  He said goodbye.

     I don’t have a mermaid for today, but I found this head, copper colored with flowing hair, and it could be a mermaid’s head.  I place it in the bowl.  My Mass card doesn’t have a mermaid on it either, but I place it in the bowl, too. 

     When I was five, I told my mother everyday, “I want a baby.”  She’d be tired, and her hair would be wild, andf she only wanted to kiss me goodnight, her good girl, and she’d say, “If we have another baby, it will cost money and time.  What if we can’t get you that mermaid costume you want?”  I said that was okay, I just wanted a little brother or sister.  She said she’d think about it.  In the end, she got me the mermaid costume anyway, and a mermaid Barbie too, that I used to take a bath with.  It’s in the bowl with its glamorous eyes stained from our hard water. 

     “Goodbye Corey,” I say.  Then I pick up the bowl and throw it.  Mermaids and memories break and scatter and I suck in air, but it won’t come.

Juliet

Juliet:  “You’re wearing your mermaid dress,” I say to my mother as she pours us to-go cups of dark coffee.  Is my smile stretched too tightly?  I’m just so happy that she’s so happy – as indicated by her wearing her “mermaid dress,” a long, spaghetti-strapped, emerald green casual gown covered with cheap lace, worn under a faded denim jacket that matches mine.  Her “happy” -- so happy she’s like immortal -- dress.

     I’m wearing a faded black tank with a faded silver arched cat on it, over a bright white tee, under my denim jacket.  Black leggings, knee-high boots with zippers up the backs.  Everything soft and worn, from my heart to my heels.

     “You should try wearing a tee shirt and leggings and cute boots sometime,” I say, getting into her car.  She never drives me!  This is way special.  I am way special today…  I don’t even miss not getting a ride from Derek, even though he’s my best friend and he’s driven me every day for this whole year and even though this year he turned into a total hottie, not that it matters -- Michael is, and always has been my one true love…

     I shake my head so that my thoughts stop jumbling.  My curls fall out from behind my ears, and I look even more like my mother.  Smiley and red-headed.  “I mean, it feels really good,” I continue – “I always feel really good when I wear this outfit.  Like, calm.  Comfy, but also kind of shiny, you know what I mean?”

     My mother pauses, the car key poised to turn.  Did I say something wrong?  Oh Goddess no… why can’t I do anything right?  I love you Mommy --

     But my mother doesn’t burst into tears, she just says, “Interesting, very interesting.”  Then she smiles at me, and I lean in close, holding on to her arm and breathing in her scent – peaches and bergamot and coffee.  Rosemary in her hair.  Love in her warmth.  She loves me!

     But suddenly, she’s gone!  Just like that, on the way to my school with me hanging on to her every word and movement and mood.  She’s drifted into a world I only get to watch-- Heavy lids, eyes almost unfocused but not enough that she can’t multi-task – still letting me hold tightly to one of her arms, and driving at the same time.  This while her brain has sunken into creative mode.  The artist at work in my element…

     Sliding into a parking space at school, she suddenly breaks the surface, splashing up at me with an excited sparkle– “When I wear my mermaid dress, I feel slinky and cool, like I’ve just risen from the deepest, darkest part of the ocean, up into the light.  I feel renewed.”  My mother ruffles my hair as she says, “And shiny, too.”

     “Um… interesting?” I say, trying to see where she’s going with this.

     “Okay, picture this – I’m onstage—“

     “Or me, I’m onstage—“

     My mother waves at me with one hand.  “Shh, shh.”

     I hate when she does that.

     She continues, the ideas bubbling up like the froth of a wave, crash! Ideas! And bubbly-bubble— “and the show’s called ‘You Are What You Wear,’ and I have on an outfit, and I’m talking about how it makes me feel and—“

     I join in.  Crash!  “—it’s one outfit, but it’s in layers that I peel back into other outfits, each one with a different feeling attached—“

     My mother has clasped my hands in hers.  (Crash!)  “We must make lists.  Of outfits, different outfits and feelings that go with them.”

     (Crash!)  “We’ll have to go shopping!” I add.

     “Maybe one of us will be lit at a time, and the other changes clothes meantime instead of showing the layers revealed—“

     “—maybe we call the show, ‘Layers Revealed’!”

     “No, honey, ‘You are what you wear.’ Is better, it’s like ‘You Are What You Eat,’ but--”

     “We should practice wearing our outfits one at a time all day and write down what we’re feeling—“

     This is so great, I don’t even want to go to school, I’m all—

     Oh no.  Shit no!  All of a sudden she has those glassy eyes again.  Mommy’s hands grow cold as she withdraws into her own creative space again.  Without me.  Goddess damn it!

     A boy whistles.

     Michael?  No he did not.

     OMG, it was Michael.  Not whistling at my mother, not not not!

     Was.  Was whistling.  At.  My.  MOTHER!

     I tilt my head down and hurry out of the car, run into school.  I will not cry. 

     I will not cry!  Leave that to her.  Let her cry.

Maree

Maree, still frustrated by her adoptive family (see OGW 1/8, 11/19, 1/7), seeks her birth mother out on Facebook.  The Facebook search really happened, to me!

Maree:  In my room, I ::weep:: on Facebook to all my friends about my horrible adoptive father, my horrible life, my adoptive mother who doesn’t care about anything except that I call her Mom, my sisters who think I’m weird and probably a little more than stupid –-  “Who on earth besides Maree doesn’t believe in God?” 

“God, Maree, you’re so dumb,” says Marigold before she storms out of the room, crying “Daddy!”

Who on earth besides Marigold is named Marigold?

I get up from my desk and go lock the door.  If my so-called father comes pounding, I guess I’ll have to open it.  But at least he won’t take me by surprise.  It was worth it to make my snotty little sister cry.

Putting my head down in my hands, I reach under my glasses with my fingertips and rub my eyes.  Who on earth does God hate as much as me?  If there were a God, I mean.  I wipe away a stray tear.  I’m not a mean person.  I want a family, complete with a weepy little sister-bug.

I just don’t want this one.

     Taking a deep breath, I shake my hair and my head out, and it’s as if I can see my thoughts, all criss-crossed and laid out like Pick-up Sticks.  OMG, there’ one I never thought of before, OmyGod OhmyGoddess Oh My Whomever, it’s fucking genius!  I think and grab for the idea, hold it in a fist over my heart, then quit playing and get serious.

     Facebook.  It was the place I courted, landed and lost Chris Hazelton.  It might be the place where I find my real family!  My real mother!  Facebook!  My heart is a blur of quick beats, and my hands are shaking as I type into the search box, “Wilhemina German”.  I pause.  I press return.

     My real mother’s not there, or rather she might be, but there are eighty-six of her.  Eighty-six possible Mommy’s. Breathing in and slowly letting the air out, I glance at my bedroom door, still safely locked.  I get up to make sure.  Then, I get to work.

     “RU My Mother?” I type as the subject line in a message to the first woman who appears she might be old enough.  I look at her profile pic and think she kind of looks like me.  I tilt my head, look harder.  Untilt, press send, and go on to the next Wihemina German, not knowing whether she’s married now with a different last name.  Not knowing much of anything.  Wondering why I don’t just know when I see her face, why can’t I just know?  Huh?  God, if you’re there, if you’re real?

     Sudden pounding on the bedroom door doesn’t even make me pause, because it’s too small to be my father, and I know it’s only Marigold.  “Maree you let me in!  What’re you doing, playing with yourself?  I’m telling Daddy!  Daddy!”

     The mouth on that girl.  And she’s only nine, but she does believe in God, or at least in Daddy and his belt.  I keep typing, RU My Mother, RU My Mother, RU My Mother, RU My Mother…

     Suddenly a warning appears on my screen:  “You are engaging in an activity that others may find annoying.  If you do not discontinue this activity, you may be cut off from performing this activity on Facebook for a period of hours or days”

     What the—

     I slam my mouse finger down on okay, and then return to scrolling through names, Wilhemina German, Wilhemina German, Wilhemina German, Wilhemina German, Wilhemina German—

     “You are engaging in an activity that others may find annoying.  If you do not discontinue this activity, you may be cut off from performing this activity on Facebook for a period of hours or days”

     Oh fuck off, I think, because suddenly, there she is!  I know it!  I click on raven-haired, sloe-eyed Wilhemina German King, and type in RU My Mother in a blur.  My heart is going to shimmy out of my throat in a moment!  I click send!

     The Facebook gods send me a box with this message now:  “You have engaged in the same activity too often in too short a time, and Facebook will not allow you to continue.  Your message has not been sent.”

     And then the real pounding starts, my fucking adoptive so-called father at the door.  Maybe the Facebook team called him.  Shutting down my page, I think, Wilhemina German, where RU? 

     I open the bedroom door and the real world presses in, his belt already off and swinging in a loop in his hand.

     You see Marigold?  I told you there wasn’t a God.

Anna

Anna’s piece evolved on its own.  The direction it took even surprised me.  I only wanted to write about the new paint in our upstairs hall.  From there, Anna took over, and I actually started to cry. 

Anna:  I reach out and touch the wall, placing my open hand flat on it, feeling for the life that must be there.  The new paint shines even in the small halo of light from the sconce in the hall.  In the energy of the wall, I feel my father’s hands, three times the size of mine, rough knuckled, dry.  Able to reach halfway around my waist, and then met in the middle by the opposite hand, thumbs on one side and fingertips on the other. 

He painted the hall in an afternoon, strong, sure swaths of paint drawn by those hands, the roller an extension of him.  He is big, I am small.  He can do anything, while I am clumsy and can’t even paint my nails without dripping on the table and my mother crying, “Anna Titania Dorfman!  What did you do?” 

My father is certain, but I wander the house alone, touching walls and searching shadows for an answer to what?  I don’t even know the question.

Why am I here?

What did I do to deserve this?

Who am I today?

What did I do?

Why me?

Why him?

Why didn’t they come get me?  Why didn’t anyone know that I needed to be there, even if the ER doc said he was going to be fine.  My mother, my brother – okay, he’s only six, but still – my grandmother, someone should’ve said, “We’d better call Anna, just in case.  She loves her father more than anyone in the world, and she’d want to be here, even though he’s going to be okay.  She should be here.”

No one called.  I can see it, my grandmother trying to keep Aiden occupied with the odd things in her purse and promises of cookies.  My mother getting coffee.  Getting an extra cup for my father even though he just had his head stitched up and his arm set after the fall.  Even though his brain was secretly bleeding… but she didn’t know that (be fair, Anna).

He was just painting the porch!  He’d already painted the whole house, all but the stupid porch, and I was like…  I told him, “Dad, don’t forget about soccer.  Don’t forget you’re taking me out for pizza when we win.”

(Tell the truth Anna)

I told him “Mariah’s coming over, remember?  I don’t want her to think we’re –“  (sigh)  “Just could you paint the porch?  The outside, at least.  First impressions matter, Dad.  And please change your shirt before you show up at the game.  Take a shower, too.  Dad, I know it doesn’t matter to you, but how about you wear that team tee shirt I got you for your birthday, and don’t wear it when you paint!  Clean your fingernails or cut them or something, come on Dad!  I know, I know -- appearances aren’t important, blah blah blah, it’s what’s inside that counts.  Okay, Daddy, I love you.  Gotta go.”  I don’t know if I kissed him goodbye.

Why didn’t anyone come get me?

Why didn’t he tell them as soon as, before, why…

He should’ve said, “Anna should be here.  I want to see Anna.”

     He shouldn’t have let them tell him he was fine just because he was able to sit up and talk and sip the coffee my mother got and ask about my game and

    

     He shouldn’t have died.  He was strong, he was smart,  he was certain and wise and loving and his hands could reach all the way around my waist and the wall is cool as if he never touched it and I want my Daddy!  Please, please, please Daddy, I’m sorry, just come back to me, please.

Rain

Rain, missing her Mom and in a way, her Dad too, takes care of herself – she thinks.  Here she’s getting dressed and drunk just before the big party.  For previous parts of this story from Nancy, Casey, Kayla and Rain, check out OGW 10/1/09, 11/5, 11/12, 12/10, 12/31, 1/14/10.  This thread of OGW has evolved into the skeleton of a new novel, called either “The Party” or “Raped”, I think.

Rain:  I emptied my Dad’s ashtray, and put it on the kitchen counter.  Took one of his cigarettes out and lit it.  Coughed, some.  Felt a little woozy – then a lot, like I was going to throw up and-or pass out.  I sat down quickly on the floor, putting my head between my knees until the feeling passed.  Stood up and inhaled from the cigarette again.  It had an awful taste, like soot, but the second hit was smoother than the first, and I figured I could get used to this.

Next – retrieved the vodka from the coffee table, poured a shot into a glass, added OJ like my Dad had taught me, and gulped. 

Whew.  Fuck.  ‘Nother head rush.  Sat down on the floor again, cooling my bikini’ed butt on the tile.  In a minute I was already on my feet again, because I always get up again, and I always will no matter what, fuckin remember that world.

As I started my second drink, I was feeling way better.  Less tense.  Smooooth.  I swiveled my hips and ran my hand over my belly, savoring the warmth, appreciating my body, which wasn’t exactly slim, but it wasn’t fat anymore and it was strong.  Like me. 

      I didn’t even want to put something on over my bikini, wanted to go to the party just like this, slinky and warm and smelling of smoke.  But Casey’s mother would freak, I was sure of that, and then she wouldn’t take us to Brian’s house.  What a bitch.  Mothers. 

I looked down at the red spot around my bellybutton piercing.  The vodka sure cut down on the throbbing.  I wished it didn’t look so new.

Upstairs in my room, I fumbled through my makeup and found a cover-up stick, which I smeared around the new piercing.  It worked pretty well at covering the red.  I looked at myself in the mirror.  Swiveled my hips again – Look, Mom, I’m dancing.  Thinking about my mother killed my buzz, made me suddenly sad.

Fuck that, I said.  Yanked a spaghetti strapped, low-cut, tie-dyed long dress from Target off its hanger and pulled it on.  Tripped going into my parents’ bedroom looking for a scissor.  Fuck!  I pulled in my knees and held on for a moment, trying to stop crying.  Gotta grow up Rain!  Not a little Mommy’s girl anymore.  Gasping for air, I pulled it together, found the scissor and cut down the dress to fit my height – sort of tall, but not enough to match my cup size, so the big dress.  The vodka I’d drunk plus the blur from my tears made me cut a jagged edge, but it was okay.

No one was going to be looking at my hem anyway.

The phone rang.  “Mom?” I said, a sudden rush of hope flooding my synapses -- hoping she was waiting at the train station now for a ride.

Stupid Rain.  I hung up on whoever it was because it wasn’t her. Felt my heartbeat slamming in my chest and tears starting again because it seemed like I wasn’t just on my own tonight.  No one lived here anymore. Not even my Dad, not really.

Not even Rain, myself, not always.

Tonight I would be someone else.  I hurried downstairs, leaving all the lights on as I went because in spite of the hard, all-together, strong person everyone knew me as, I was scared of everything, even the dark.  In the kitchen, I tossed the pack of cigarettes and my Dad’s lighter into my tote on top of my towel, did a shot of vodka straight from the bottle, and left the lights on in the kitchen and living room as I passed through to the front stoop to wait for my ride.  I felt better already.  But I stayed in the halo of light by the front door just to be safe.