Bad Apple (3 page)

Mr. Doctor picks me up from school and deposits me at home with the usual warnings to go nowhere and speak to no one. He drives back to his office to rescue more children from their own wandering teeth.

I go to my room. My bedroom isn’t on the second floor like other bedrooms. It’s a third-floor attic room half pasted like an afterthought on the back of the house. It has huge windows on three sides and skylights hacked into the slanted ceiling. The only way to get there is a staircase so steep and narrow that your feet don’t fit on the steps, and you have to climb sideways.

Before he left, this room was my father’s office. One night right after, when I couldn’t sleep, I went up there to think. There wasn’t much in the room, a few pens and pencils strewn among the dust bunnies. A couple of storybooks that my dad didn’t want piled on the built-in shelves, one of them the old,
marked-up copy of
Grimm’s
. In the corner of the room, a white half-finished model of something, I didn’t know what. Someone’s dream home that would never be built.

When I was little, I couldn’t go to sleep unless I’d said good night to Rapunzel’s miniature tower and the dwarves’ tiny cabin and listened to my father tell me a story. That night, on the floor of my father’s almost-empty office, I thought about the fairy tales, how they were basically the stories of screwed-up families: Stepmother hates gorgeous stepdaughter, wishes her dead. Father dies and leaves two older sons with the money and his youngest son with nothing but a cat. Father lets his crazy wife talk him into leaving his kids to die in the woods. You could read this kind of stuff in the newspapers, I thought, except fairy tales were jazzed up with gnomes and fairies, fancy outfits and happy endings.

The newspapers weren’t much on the happy endings.

I couldn’t bear what was left in the room, or what wasn’t left, so I sat under the skylight and looked straight up. A full moon was centered perfectly in the skylight like a gift. I stared at it until it burned itself into my eyes. Everywhere I looked, there it was. So, a trade-off: the moon for my father. Seemed magical enough.

The next morning, my mom found me sleeping on the bare floor in a wad of blankets. She didn’t complain, so I stayed. My easel is set up right in front of the windows, directly under the skylight.

But the moon is hours away and I can’t paint now, not with the substitute teacher’s voice grinding in my head. And I refuse to do any other kind of homework out of principle. I go to the backyard and call for my cat, Pib. We’ve got a huge yard, six-foot cedar fences on the sides, a thick wall of trees at the back. Perfect for keeping out reporters. I hear the rustling first, then see Pib slinking through the wet leaves. He sidles up to me, but as soon as I reach down to pet him, he bounds away, making for his favorite tree. It’s a crazy old oak, with rough whorls of bark bunching around its base like a rumpled nightgown, and a deep black hole hunkering under twisted roots. The bark whines as Pib’s claws sink into it. Sometimes Pib just hangs there, stapled to the brown trunk, looking over his shoulder, daring me to catch him.

I turn from the tree and pretend I’m not interested in him anymore. Behind me, I hear the scraping sounds of his claws as he backs down the tree. I wait a few more seconds till he’s creeping up behind me, then I turn to grab him. Too slow. He takes off again, racing up the side of the tree, striped lemur tail lashing the air. He meows and then keeps his mouth open so that he seems to be grinning. He could play this game all day.

Even with Pib, I’m
It
.

“Hey, Tola,” a voice says.

Mr. Rosentople’s dark head pops up like a hairy jack-in-the-box over the fence. I can’t see the rest of him, but I know that he’s standing on top of a stack of stones he piled
on his side of the fence just for this reason. All the better to see you.

I want to say, How’s your delinquent son, Miles? When do you think he’ll end up in jail? Or maybe, How’s the recluse wife? Did you bury her in the basement?

I settle for: “Hey, Mr. R. How are you?”

“He left us a prize again,” Mr. Rosentople says.

“Who did?” I know who, and I know the prize, but I don’t like talking to Mr. Rosentople. I don’t like looking at his stupid hairy face. He has handlebar
eyebrows
.

“Your cat left a mouse on our doorstep.”

“Oh,” I say.

“At least, I think it was a mouse.”

“Right,” I say.

“Hard to tell what the things are when your cat gets through with them.”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

“It really upsets my wife, you know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You might think about getting him declawed.”

We’ve had this conversation before, Mr. Rosentople and I. Most adults want to talk about my delicate psyche or my poor poor mother or about the nosy reporters calling day and night, getting into everybody’s business. They want to see if they can get the real story out of me. Mr. Rosentople wants to talk about my cat. He’s a man obsessed. “I can’t get him declawed. Those are his weapons, his protection. He’d
be defenseless without them. What if he were attacked by another cat?”

Mr. Rosentople snorts. “Your cat has probably already eaten all the other cats around here.”

“I don’t think that’s fair.”

“He’s bigger than my dog.”

“You have a tiny dog.”

“I have a normal dog. Your cat is a beast.”

“He’s just a cat.”

“Why doesn’t he leave the mice on
your
doorstep?” says Mr. Rosentople.

“I don’t know why,” I say. But I’m pretty sure Pib doesn’t leave bloody gifts on my doorstep because he doesn’t want to upset me. (I love cats, but I also love rabbits and chipmunks and squirrels, oh my.) And I’m pretty sure Pib leaves his kill on Mr. Rosentople’s doorstep because Mr. Rosentople is the butcher who wants Pib’s claws ripped out. Pib is not stupid. Pib believes in making a statement.

Mr. Rosentople says, “If he doesn’t stop doing it, I’m going to have to talk to your mother again.”

“You don’t need to talk to my mother,” I say.

“I’ll have to.”

“She’s just going to tell you the same thing.”

“Your mother’s a reasonable woman,” he says, which proves that he doesn’t know the first thing about my mother.

“I’ll try to keep a better eye on Pib,” I say. “I’ll keep him inside more.”

“Thank you,” says Mr. Rosentople. “That’s all I ask.”

It’s not. But like everyone else, we pretend.

I play Pib’s game a while longer, then coax him inside, away from the barbarians who would do him harm.

And, in the kitchen, run smack into another barbarian who would do him harm.

“Get that rabid thing away from me,” says Madge, kicking at him with one stocking foot. In the face of her ferocious rage, Pib yawns.

“I wouldn’t do that,” I say. “He’ll bite off your leg and leave it at Mr. Rosentople’s.”

“Oh,
him
” says Madge. She makes the pronoun sound like a swear. “I can’t stand
him
.”

“Who can?”

“Mrs. Rosentople, I guess,” Madge says. She’s emptied all the cookies from a package of Oreos. She wets her finger and presses it inside the bag to get it covered with crumbs. Then she licks her finger. I can tell she hasn’t left her bedroom all day. She’s wearing her pajama bottoms, and her greasy hair is plastered to her head. On the table is her laptop, which is currently showing
The Pianist
, one of Madge’s Top Ten War Films Guaranteed to Depress You into a Coma.

“How about a shower?” I say.

“I’m conserving our natural resources.”

“For how long?”

“I’m not taking a shower until Mom cans my stupid therapist.”

I had to go see her therapist once for a family session. I didn’t think he was so bad. “Why? He seemed nice enough,” I say.

“Nice?
Nice?
” she says. “Please. They all start out that way, until they try to convince you to take drugs.” Madge’s skin is the gray of skim milk, and her eyes look like she’s used red liner on them. If I ever wanted to paint a ghoul, I’ve got the ideal model. Maybe drugs could stop the transformation before it is complete.

I say, “Don’t some people need drugs?”

“Do you want to know what the latest research says? That drugs don’t work. That they’re no better than placebos. And some other studies say that the drugs can increase thoughts of suicide in anyone under eighteen. The drug companies don’t want you to know that you’re paying three hundred dollars a month to take something that’s just as effective as a sugar pill or will make you want to kill yourself.”

“Do the drugs really cost three hundred a month?”

“That’s not the point!” she yells. “Why don’t you ever listen?”

Sometimes I think that Madge is like one of those stepsisters, never happy with anything. Like she’s going to make me dress in rags and sweep out the fireplace. “I’m listening, I’m listening.”

“Therapists just like to hang out with crazy people so they don’t feel so bad about themselves.”

Madge is feeling bad about herself. She’s spent the last month working on her essay for Harvard, even though she doesn’t even want to go there. I helpfully remind her of this fact.

She sneers. “I still want to get in.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? So that I could say I got in.”

“Mom says you might get in all your schools if you’d only finish the essays and submit the applications.”

She’s mad again. “So?”

“So…okay. I see what you mean,” I say, even though I absolutely don’t. Madge is supposed to be away at school. This time last year, she had all her applications and essays ready, all she had to do was press Send. Then our high school announced that every senior with a grade point average over 4.0 would be considered valedictorian of the class, which meant that there would be more than forty-plus valedictorians jostling for space at graduation. Madge raged for three days. After that, she made her own announcement: She would be putting college on hold so that she could do a “gap” year. I thought that gap years were for joining the Peace Corps. Apparently, they’re for watching war movies, breathing into bags, and declaring moratoriums on bathing.

“Anyway,” Madge says, “how do you know what Mom says about anything? Is she talking to you now?”

“She’s doing that nontalking talking thing.”

Madge nods. She knows what I mean. When my mom is mad, she talks about everything but what’s really making her mad. Which has the interesting effect of making her sound even madder.

“Instead of talking about the school-board meeting or Mr. Mymer or what the cops said,” I tell Madge, “she talks about you and your college applications.”

“Uh-huh,” says Madge. “She doesn’t talk to me about college.” Madge doesn’t say what they talk about. I bet I can guess.

“Mom thinks I’m a liar,” I say.

Madge shrugs. “She thinks we’re both full of it.”

“But
why?
”

“She’s been pissed off ever since I wrote that affidavit for Dad last spring.”

“That was six months ago,” I say.

“That’s Mom for you.”

“And
I
didn’t write it! I didn’t even read it!”

“She probably thinks you agreed with me.”

“How can I agree with what you wrote if I don’t know what you wrote?”

Madge finishes licking the cookie crumbs out of the Oreo bag and scrapes the cookies back in the package. I make a mental note not to eat any.

“I told you what I wrote,” Madge says. “I said I didn’t think the court should tell us where we could spend our weekends, and if we wanted to spend them at Dad’s, then
we should be able to. That if we wanted to live with him, we should be able to. I mean,
duh
, I wrote it for you. I turned eighteen, so I can do whatever I want. You didn’t want me to defend your rights?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“So then what are you whining about?”

“I’m not whining,” I say.

“By the way, another reporter called.”

“How did they get the new number?”

“They’re reporters, stupid. It is their job.” Madge rummages in the fridge and in the drawers. “I was originally thinking about a hunger strike, but I’m too hungry right now.”

“That’s genetic,” I say.

Madge laughs. Her laughs are more like the shrieks of banshees. When Madge laughs, puppies have nightmares. “I’m hungry because I didn’t have breakfast or lunch. You, on the other hand, should wear a sign that says
WILL EAT FOR FOOD
.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“What else is new?” she says.

She grabs some slices of white bread that she finds in the bread box. She rolls the bread into little rubbery balls that she tosses into her mouth. I like to do this, too, but I put chocolate chips in the center of the bread. In my opinion, it’s not worth the effort without the chips.

“You need chips,” I say.

“We have chips? Why didn’t you tell me that, you bitch?”

This is what passes for conversation with the Riley sisters. Can’t you just feel the love?

It wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, there were four of us: one slightly sarcastic mom, one slightly gloomy dad, two girls who only occasionally hated each other. Now we walk around snarking and sniping like some fake movie family.

I think about the affidavit, why she wrote it. Maybe Madge thought Dad would take her with him. Maybe she thought he would save her.

Pib crouches under the kitchen table and hacks up a hairball. He backs away from it as if he’s shocked at what’s been fermenting inside him.

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