Outcast (27 page)

“I’m sorry, Penelope.”

“So am I. Chicago is a big city, Joyce. I don’t have the resources to help you.”

I thought I heard my mom muffle a sob. Of course, Aunt P knew how to get in touch with Becca if she wanted to. But she exacted her revenge against my mother by withholding information.

I tiptoed back to my room, showered, and prepared for the day. I heard more than enough personal information. I needed time to absorb it all. I sat in my room listening to the Colbie Caillat CD that
Chad
bought for me—for us. I listened to
Oxygen
until I couldn’t stand to hear it anymore. Hours passed. My parents never came to my room. I think they received too much reality over the past twenty-four hours.

I heard the phone ring several times, but no one ever came to my room to say that it was for me. I wondered if it was
Chad
.

My mind wandered over everything:
Chad
, Grace, Trina, Becca, P, my mom, my dad. Someone had to give in, something had to change. Maybe that someone was me. I hated who I had become. I desperately needed a change.

I emerged in the early afternoon. My mother veiled herself in her room. I had no idea where my father was. He developed a habit of fleeing from problems and confrontation. I knocked on the bedroom door and walked in when no one responded.

My mom was curled in a blanket at the edge of the bed. She stared blankly at the television set, but showed little interest in the TV.

“Mom?”

Sadness appeared in her eyes, and I felt sorry for her.

“I’ll help you find Becca.”

She forced a smile, which rapidly disappeared. “Thanks.”

“I know I can find her.”

I ventured further into the room and sat on the opposite side of the bed. I wanted to help her, to try to make things right again. But as much as I resented Becca for just about everything, and my mother for passing so much judgment on me, I couldn’t tell my mother that Becca was in Chicago with a married man—a man who once belonged to Aunt P. It would make our family fall apart completely. The lie seemed to be the only thread holding us in place.

Optimism sprouted from the mask of sadness she wore. The blow-out with Aunt P clearly took a toll on her.

“I was wondering,” I gambled. “Do you think Celine can squeeze me in without an appointment today?”

“You’re grounded.” She tried to camouflage her excitement.

“I know.”

I’d never been to Celine’s before.

She was much younger than I expected. When my mother mentioned her, I always pictured an old woman with gray hair who specialized in tight permanent waves and big hair. Celine was in her mid-twenties. Her brunette tresses were streaked with auburn highlights; her style was short and mussed up. I liked it. She wore Capri pants with a sleeveless black tank top and a tattoo. It was hard to believe that my conservative mother was her customer.

I told Celine I wanted it short. A smile crept across both my mother’s face and hers. To Celine my request meant endless possibilities for hair design; to my mother it meant a cross over to conservatism.

“I think we should lighten it, too.” Celine ran her fingers through the lifeless strands, visualizing her art. “What do you think, Joyce?”

“I don’t know.”

My look pleaded with her, and Celine proved very persuasive. My mother caved.

I saw my mother’s reflection in the mirror, watching every slice Celine cut into my hair. It seemed to take her mind off of everything else that was going on. Ruler-length strips of dirty-blonde fell to the floor. She painted goo on sections and wrapped them in foil. After thirty minutes of hair dressed as leftovers, Celine unfolded my hair, washed it, and styled it for me.

The reflection in the mirror seemed to belong to someone else. The style was modern and a little wild. I liked it, especially since she added blonde highlights. I looked older, more mature. Surprisingly, my mother appeared pleased, too.

On the ride home, my mother raved about the new hairstyle. She never mentioned the events of the previous night, never asked who told me Becca was in
Chicago
.

“
Chad
called. He seems like a nice boy.” Her confession came from nowhere.

“Yeah.” I knew better than to ask if I could call him back. Didn’t know if I wanted to. I was still hurt over the rejection. I touched the pizza pendant which hung around my neck. That should have been answer enough, but I needed more. I needed him to prove I was more important than Trina was to him.

When we arrived home, I waited for my mother to prepare dinner before sneaking to the back of the house to use the telephone.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you. But your mother has been a bit surprising lately,” P answered the phone.

“She doesn’t know I’m calling.”

“Oh?”

“I need Doug’s number.”

The silence on the other end of the phone was stagnant.

“I need to contact Becca,” I continued.

More silence.

“Please.”

After a great deal of begging, she finally gave Doctor Doug’s number to me. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it. Maybe nothing, but at least I had it. She asked no questions, and I volunteered nothing.

“So what do you think?” she asked.

“About what?”

“The gift.”

She must have been tapping into the liquor again because she made no sense.

“What gift?” I asked.

“She didn’t give it to you.” It was an angry statement, not a question posed for me to answer. “That fucking bitch! I stopped over at your house this morning to give you a present, since I ruined your job and all. I left it with your mother. She said she’d give it to you. I hate that woman.” Her words trickled through the receiver like a soliloquy. “I’m coming over.”

“No, don’t.” I wished for everything to remain calm, even if it was just a translucent peace that distorted the truth like frosted glass.

I remembered the heated discussion from earlier in the day, and the thought of her abortion rode the current of my mind. Questions about it crested and fell. I wanted so desperately to know all the details. Did she know if it was a boy or girl? What were the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy? Did she love the father? Love the unborn baby? She had no idea that I knew, so all I said was, “I’ll get it from her.”

The middle of the night. I went to Becca’s room and sat on the bed where Becca had held intimate phone conversations with Gloria and Kevin and God knew who else. That
Florida
guy, Bay? The one who got her pregnant.

I held the number in my hand. It was wrinkled and soggy from the sweat of my palm. I picked up the receiver and punched the numbers on the pad. It was ten-fifty in
Arizona
, so it had to be close to one o’clock in the morning in
Chicago
. I was unconcerned about waking either of them in the middle of the night. Especially Doctor Doug.

A groggy, male voice answered.

I hesitated. “Is Becca there?”

“Rebecca is asleep. Call back in the morning.”

I immediately stepped over his words with my own. “Doug? This is Noelle. Claire’s niece. Rebecca’s sister.”

I thought he fell back to sleep because of the lengthy pause. I heard him call her baby as he woke her up. Disgust fell over me in a violent wave.

“She’ll be right there.”

Becca must have left the room to grab the phone in another area of the house because Doug asked me, “So how
is
Claire?”

“Wonderful,” I pretended. “She met a terrific guy. He’s a pediatrician—a real doctor.”

I amazed myself with the momentous lie I created. I loved how I was able to stab him with it.

After what felt like a long time, Becca came on the line. “Noelle.” She said it like the start of a mantra. Her voice sounded sad and far away.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” I said, trying to keep my emotions in check at the sound of her voice.

“Everything okay?”

Everything was falling apart: our family, my relationship with
Chad
, the lies we believed as truth.

“Fine,” I lied.

There was a slight pause. Then she asked: “How’s mom?”

“Not well,” I confessed.

“Good.” Her intonation told me that she didn’t really mean what she said.

“Becca, why are you there? Why don’t you come home?”

“I can’t. I’m happy here.”

There was a pause where we both didn’t know what to say.

“You know she’s going to do the same to you,” Becca finally said.

I thought of telling Becca that I wouldn’t get into the same trouble that she had. The things that happened to her would never happen to me. But pregnant or not, abortion or not, Becca was right. My mother would crush everything original in me. She already had.

I yearned to tell Becca that Doctor Doug was a cheat, a womanizer, that he would eventually find someone to replace her like he did his wife and Aunt P. But I knew if I said those things to her, she would hang up and I might never speak to her again.   

“Can’t you just come home for awhile? I miss you.”

I seemed as shocked to hear myself utter those words as she did. When I thought about it, I realized that I missed having her around, taking some of the pressure off of me, more than I missed her as a person.

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

“At least come back to see my hair.”

“Your hair?” She laughed.

“I cut it.”

“I’ll talk to Doug about it and let you know.”

“Should I say anything to mom? She’s really worried about you.”

“Just…just tell her I’m okay.”

With my parents at work, I ignored the small detail of being grounded.

Before leaving, I practiced styling my hair similar to Celine’s. I bought a bottle of Bed
head styling gel, making it wild and funky. I preferred a messy hairstyle. It made me look more mature. I applied my eye makeup more thickly than before, outlining my eyes to give the illusion that they were bigger, and that I was older.

Cassie and I started a tradition of hanging out at Arizona Mills. A college guy worked at the record store, and Cassie had a thing for him. Every day he worked, she bought a new CD just so she could talk to him. Apparently, her
California
boyfriend, Shane, was as far from her thoughts as the ocean was from the
Arizona
desert.  

The new guy was Pete. He was twenty years old, and a sophomore at ASU. He had shaggy dark hair and a lanky frame. He gave me a brief smile, but I basically ignored him, thumbing through the racks of CDs instead.

I pretended not to overhear their conversations that brimmed with sexual innuendo. There was no way Cassie was a virgin. She seemed equipped with an expansive arsenal to combat Pete’s advances. She learned it somewhere. I couldn’t imagine she read it in a book.

Seeing the two of them together reminded me so much of
Chad
. How we had lingered together in the same music store, sharing headphones, listening to songs that would forever remind me of him. I missed him and all the silly and simple things about him: his obsession with pizza, his dimples when he smiled at me, and even his stupid car magazines. I inhaled the last breaths of my Camel before following Cassie. I ached to look at him, talk to him, touch him. My heart burst just to hear his voice again.

The summer heat was searing. Petunias wilted under the sun, their paper petals wrinkled like an old woman’s skin. Gardens lethargically expired; flowering plants and vegetables took their last breaths, then withered and finally crisped. The monsoons draped the air in humidity, but no rain fell. It was the tease of a hand over a lover’s skin.

I finally called
Chad
. He came over to the house, and my parents never knew. We spent hours watching talk shows and syndicated sit-coms while kissing on the couch. But our affection was as innocent as it was when we first met. It never graduated to where it was the night I went to him high and willing to do anything. And we didn’t talk about that night. At all. It was as though each of us was afraid to mention it for fear of driving the other away.

Chad
clicked off the TV and turned to me. “I love you.”

“What?” I asked, stupidly.

“I love you,” he said again, brushing his fingers over mine.

I could feel the empty space left by his rejection filling up again. I wanted to say the words back to him because I loved him, too. But a part of me was untrusting, wondering if he was saying those things to lure me back into his bed. I wanted to believe him. I just couldn’t get Trina out of my mind. How easily he yielded to her; how quickly he sent me away.

“You do?” I asked.

“Yeah, of course.” He almost looked into me for an answer. “Don’t you love me?”

I studied his eyes, the line of his jaw, and the place where his dimples perforated his cheeks. I was afraid to say the words because, once they were out, I was opened to the possibility of more pain if he rejected me again. But I did love him. I wanted to be with him. To have his heart be my own. But to do that, I had to take back what Trina had stolen from me. She owned a piece of him that I didn’t have yet. And I wanted it. Badly.

I ran my hands through his hair, trying to soak in every bit of his face, trying to capture him like an out-of-reach butterfly. We were inches from one another as he waited for my answer.

“I love you,” I said.

His shoulders rested as though he finally exhaled.

“And I want to
be
with you,” I continued.

“You are with me.”

“No,” I said. “I want to
be
with you.” I watched as the understanding of what I said washed over his face.

He raised his eyebrows. “Wow.”

“Yeah wow,” I parroted.

“Now?” He visibly gulped.

I nodded. “Unless you don’t have—”

“I have it,” he said. “I’ve had it ever since…”

My heart galloped. “Really?”

“Definitely.” He cheeks seemed to flush at the realization of what was happening, what was going to happen. “I’ve been wanting this for so—”

I pressed my lips against his, cutting off his words. I closed my eyes, melting completely into him until I no longer knew wher
e my heart began and his ended.

August. My punishment was lifted in time to fly to
Florida
with my mother. I wanted to stay behind in
Arizona
and be with
Chad
. But life—or rather my mother—couldn’t be that kind. So I was forced to go. The trip was just a different form of punishment, if you asked me.

My father claimed he had pressing work to attend to at the bank, so he stayed behind.
Smyrna
Beach
was muggy and uncomfortable. The trip was entirely different than when we last went.

I spent the week lounging in front of the television set, watching
I Love Lucy
and
Leave it to Beaver
on cable—a luxury we never had. Instead of listening to the dialogue between the Ricardos, I eavesdropped on my mother and my grandparents in the kitchen. They speculated over Becca’s whereabouts, but never took measures to find her. Gossip seemed more titillating than the truth, and guesswork proved more interesting than fact-finding.

They tried to push me to go to the beach, but I had no interest in going alone. Occasionally, I walked to the shore, reliving my moments with
Chad
. I took only myself and a package of Camels. It was the only opportunity to smoke. I needed to try to quit. For him. But the stress of
Florida
was just too much.

I stepped inside from one of my smoking expeditions and overhead another of the many discussions in the kitchen. My mother spent her entire vacation in that room. Her visit to
Florida
must have been as dreadful as mine was.

They were deaf to my return. My grandmother offered advice to my mother. It sounded like another dead-end gossip session about Becca until the words
marriage
counseling
were spoken. I eased onto the stairs to glean more information.

“He won’t talk to me. He blames me for her disappearance.”

“You are
not
to blame, Joyce.” It was my grandmother. “You didn’t force that girl to get pregnant, and you certainly didn’t make her have an abortion.”

My mother ignored my grandmother, continuing with her confession. “He doesn’t sleep in the same room with me anymore.”

My father. He held my mother accountable for what happened to Becca. How could he not? She was overbearing and judgmental. She never let us express ourselves as individuals. She wanted us to model our lives after hers. Anything less was unacceptable. I started to see things from Becca’s point of view. I understood why she had to leave. My father saw it all along. So did Aunt P. But it took Becca leaving for my dad to make his frustration known. If Becca had never left, none of this would have come to the surface. My father would have maintained a vow of silence, allowing my mother to dominate us all as usual.

The truth didn’t always unearth promising rewards. In this case, it exhumed a treasure chest filled with heartache, marital problems, and pain. Perhaps some things are best left buried. At least before, we all knew what our role was. Now everything was unclear. If Becca was home, maybe everything would return to normal. But I didn’t know if I wanted her back.

The trip to
Florida
was a therapy session for my mother. That was all. It seemed as though a lifetime had passed since we first arrived in
Smyrna
Beach
. In reality, it was only one week. Nonetheless, I was relieved when the plane departed for
Phoenix
, leaving behind the worst vacation I remembered and taking me back to
Chad
.

My mother left her car in long-term parking. We said nothing to each other until we were safely inside the vehicle. I waited for the right time to talk to her about things that weighed on my mind, but that never seemed to come.

“Where’s the gift from Aunt P?” I knew a confrontation was the last thing my mother needed.

Instead of answering, she used the question as an opportunity to voice her opinion. “I don’t want you accepting anything from that woman.”

“Why not?” My nerves sparked with anxiety. I longed for a cigarette to diffuse them.

“I’m not in the mood for this conversation right now.” She hyper focused on navigating through traffic to avoid an honest discussion with me.

Normally I would back down, but I wanted to start a fight with her. I realized the only way to capture her attention and to receive an honest answer was to make her angry. She said things in rage that she’d never reveal in calmness.

“I’m sure Aunt P’d be mad to know you’re keeping it from me.”

“Penelope is not your mother. I am.”

“Unfortunately,” I mumbled toward the passenger’s window.

She heard me, just as I wanted her to. She said nothing, concentrating on the road ahead. Her silence was more frightening than her fury. Her fingers tightly wound around the steering wheel, but she collected herself before striking back.

“You want to know about Aunt P’s gift?” It was a rhetorical question. “She left you the keys to a new car.”

I was ecstatic! My own car. Endless possibilities revealed themselves to me as I pictured myself driving all over the Valley. A slew of questions scampered through my head. What kind? What color? And where was it? I was too stunned to say anything.

My mother sensed my exhilaration. The sound of her voice splintered my thoughts. “Pretty thrilling to get such a big handout, don’t you think?”

“Handout?”

“You didn’t work for it, did you? As a matter of fact, all you had to do was quit your job to earn that car … according to her card.”

“You had no right,” I shouted.

“I’m your mother. I have the right to do whatever I want until you’re out of my house.”

“You don’t control me,” I warned.

“I control what you do and what you can and cannot have. And I won’t allow you to have a car, which you didn’t earn. I don’t want you thinking you can manipulate and use people to get what you want out of life.”

“I don’t. Besides, I’ll be responsible. I promise. I’ll get a job, make payments to her,” I pleaded.

“It’s too late. It’s gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean?” I glared at the side of her face.

Her eyes were fixed firmly on the road. “I gave it away,” she seemed to say to the pavement and the center lines.

“Becca was so right about you. No wonder she won’t come home.” I yelled even louder.

My mother cut through two rows of freeway traffic, making her way to the emergency lane where she stopped. The look in her eyes changed from anger to suspicion.

“What do you mean she won’t come home?” She waited for a response from me. Though I said nothing, she gleaned what she needed from the fear that painted my face. “You know where she is, don’t you?”

“Yes.” I stared directly at her, not allowing myself to be intimidated.

“Where is she?” Now my mother implored me for information.

“You think I’m going to tell you? After what you did?”

I punished her with my secret. She desperately wanted to know where Becca was. She missed her. As much as they seemed to hate one another, my mother loved Becca, more than she loved me. As much as she begged me for Becca’s number and location, I refused to tell her. It was my first success at the manipulation she accused me of.

My mother peeled into the driveway. The remainder of our trip was littered with a tomb-like silence. She marched out of the car with her bags in hand, leaving me behind. My father’s Chevy Blazer was gone.

I dragged while unloading my two bags. I wished to be anywhere but inside the house with her. She stole my car, invaded my privacy. I hated her.

When I finally stepped into the foyer, my mother was nowhere in sight. Before entering my bedroom, I looked across at hers. She sat on her bed, sobbing. A note slipped from her hand. She looked up when she saw me standing in the hallway. I said nothing to her because  I already knew. My father was gone. Not just a trip to the Home Depot this time. He left us for good.

I went to my room, offering no condolences, giving no encouraging words. I left her alone with her sorrow and the blame for all that happened to us. I no longer cared about the car because I no longer had a father to help me with my driving skills. It was all her fault.