Playing Nice (18 page)

And Ms. Everley is a vegetarian? But she doesn't look like one. In my mind, she becomes one big bun with boobs.

When Lil and I walk into school the next day, Sarah, Pippa, and Eliza are just walking out of the bathroom, lip gloss freshly applied. My stomach drops to the floor and an anger I've never felt consumes my mind. It shocks me how much I want to punch Sarah in the face. How could she like that page?

"Well, if it isn't Thing 1 and Thing 2," Pippa says.

Lil stops, her clomping boots becoming silent, and licks her red painted lips. Pippa's brown eyes get wide. "Has anyone ever told you, you look like a Weeble Wobble?" Lil says.

Pippa brushes her dark hair over her shoulder. "Whatever, carpet muncher."

The words sting deep in my heart, but I tap my foot on the ground and force myself not to care. I can't bring myself to look at Sarah. A part of me knew she was capable of doing this, but another part thought we shared enough that she wouldn't dare. Lil doesn't even blink. Compared to "whore," I'm sure "carpet muncher" doesn't seem so bad.

Pulling on her arm, I force her to walk down the hall away from the three powdered and puffed girls. Nausea is slowly consuming my stomach and I don't want to spend another day stuck crying in the library behind a stack of smelly old books.

Lil turns when we're halfway down the hall and yells, "Nice dress, fire crotch!"

"Lil!" I whisper.

"What?"

"You can't yell things like that," I say.

"Isn't Sarah supposed to be your friend?" Lil snaps. "She sucks ass."

"But if you call her names, we're just as bad as them and I don't want to be like that."

Lil looks at me. Tears are so close to the surface they prickle my eyes. "Fine. I won't say anything," she says through clenched teeth.

"Thank you." I squeeze her arm. I'd hug her but I'm afraid someone will snap a picture and things will just get worse.

The Facebook page disappears after Ms. Everley brings it to Principal O'Neill's attention and he threatens to open an investigation. But the words don't go away. People hiss and laugh and whisper when Lil and I walk by, but as the days pass and it starts to snow, I care less. Seeing the ground blanketed in white with frozen solid soil underneath reminds me that life changes seasons, like my grandma said, and soon enough I'll be wrinkled with a day job and not free, driving in Lil's car with the windows down. The thought makes me sad, sadder than if the entire town thinks I like to make out with buns instead of hot dogs.

Each day when I get home from school, my house has changed. It starts with the Christmas lights. My mom insists on white.
Color is tacky and we are anything but
, she always says. Then it's the eight-foot Christmas tree. Then the ten nutcrackers on the mantle. Then the Nativity scene on the dining room table and the red and green towels and the mistletoe and garlands down the front staircase and the Santa toilet seat covers and my mom's endless Christmas sweaters. Soon my house is covered in so much shit, I can't find myself anymore. And it all makes me wonder if any part of my parents' existence is real or if life is just about covering up the truth with knickknacks and ugly Christmas sweaters with actual bells that hang off the front like chiming nipples.

My mom prances around the house with a big, fat smile on her face, totally content with herself, and I wonder if she knows this is all a way of disguising her real self. Like Sarah and her lip gloss. To them it isn't about loving everyone, like Jesus said, but loving the
right
people. That doesn't include homeless people, ugly people, poor people, gay people, or wonderful, bruised, banished-to-a-trailer people. I'm pretty sure Jesus would spit on my house and its plastic representation of love. Wasn't he born in a barn? I bet he'd rather be at Lil's. I bet he'd take one look around her trailer and remember what it felt like to be banished and he'd love her.

***

I go downstairs Christmas morning to find that my parents got me a car. It's a twenty-year-old silver Honda that belonged to an old guy who died at the retirement home. My dad even put a big red bow on the hood, like in those holiday car commercials, except my car has rust around the base and a half-cracked windshield.

"Sorry, honey, but I couldn't get the entire bumper sticker off," my dad says as we stand in the snow, bulky winter coats thrown over our pajamas. At one point the sticker said
over worked and under laid
. Now, all that's left is
worked
and
lai
.

"Thanks, Dad. At least you got the
d
off. Now, I won't be completely mortified at school," I say.

"We figure you can take it to U of M and come home on the weekends when you're missing us." My mom smiles as she looks at the car, no regard for what I've said, like she didn't even hear me.

I stare at the car, the interior freshly cleaned and shined with Armor All, and all I can smell is death. I should be happy that I finally have a mode of transportation other than the bus, but it feels wrong to me, like this is another way of manipulating my life. I can already hear my mom telling me that she never wants to see my car parked in front of Lil's house again.

After all the presents are opened and my mom's neck is properly gleaming with new jewelry, I decide to take my car for a spin. I drive over to Lil's and knock on the trailer door.

"Pollyanna, what are you doing here? Wait, is that a new car?"

"Merry Christmas!" I say, and hold out a card. "Yeah, my parents bought it from a dead guy."

"What the hell kind of bumper sticker is that?"

"Long story," I say, shaking my head.

"Solid. Want to see what Maggie got me?"

I walk into the trailer, an ease coming over my body that's been missing all day, and take off my black pea coat, putting it on the bed. I was so anxious to get out of the house I didn't even change out of my pink fleece pajamas and Uggs. "Where is she?"

"The store," Lil says as she rummages around in the closet. "We ran out of popcorn. I have a feeling she'll have to drive to Finley to find a place open today, so she might be gone a while. Tah-dah!" Lil emerges in a long black fur coat that goes all the way down to her ankles. She twists her hips. "Maggie found it at a thrift store in Columbus."

My hand skims over the glossy material. "My parents get me a dead man's car and you get a dead animal's coat. That sounds about right," I say and laugh.

Lil sits down next to me and smiles. Her face is scrubbed clean, no black makeup around her eyes. The white twinkle lights hanging in the trailer make a halo around her head and I think she might be the prettiest person I've ever seen.

"Open the card," I nudge her.

"I thought we agreed not to get each other anything."

"It's not what you think. Just open it." I smile.

She pulls out a white piece of paper with red and green writing in perfect calligraphy. An invitation to the Hart's Annual Post-Christmas Day party.

"A party at your house?" Lil says as she reads the card. "You know I can't come."

"I know. But I wanted you to know that I think you and Maggie should be there."

Lil takes the card and tacks it up on their cork board next to Maggie's waitressing schedule and Lil's school picture, in which she refused to take off her red sunglasses. "Thanks."

"Well, I better go. My mom will send out a search party if I'm not home for dinner."

I walk out to my car, but Lil stops me before I get in. "I have something for you, too."

In her palm is the skull ring, silver and glinting off the snow.

"I can't take your ring."

She shoves it in my hand. "You already did. Merry Christmas, Pollyanna."

Lil disappears back into the trailer and I slide the ring on my finger. It fits perfectly.

***

Outfitted in the gold dress my parents gave me for Christmas and Lil's Christmas gift, I stand in the foyer waiting for guests to arrive, twisting the ring around my finger. A stack of red and green house shoes sits next to me.
I don't want people scuffing up our bamboo floors
, my mom said. It's the same every year and in the past, I've loved it. My mom will flash the new necklace or earrings or ring my dad gave her. My dad will drink gin and tonics and tell bad dentist jokes, like
how many dentists does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to administer the anesthetic, one to extract the light bulb, and one to offer the socket some vile pink mouthwash.
And I'll walk around the house passing out refreshments and getting compliments.
Marty, don't you look pretty. Marty, isn't that nice of you. Marty, will you marry my son, the one who can't get his life together and is high on pot every day?

Except this year, I'm different and the thought of seeing Sarah and mean old Mrs. Schneider and my mom all painted and pretty for the show makes me want to scream. As I got ready, I decided the only way I'd survive and not end up running around the house screaming or writing poetry on my mom's perfect walls is if I let my mind think what it wants.

Mrs. Schneider is the first to arrive at the party every year. She walks in carrying a blue sweater and hands it to my mom.

"I finished it this morning. I had a bunch of free time since my kids don't visit me anymore and the nursing home won't let me drive outside of Minster," she says. Mrs. Schneider's the kind of mean that only affects old people because they realize they're dying and they want everyone to pay attention before they aren't able to say any more words because they're dead. She likes me, probably because in the past all I've done is nod and smile at her.

"Thank you!" My mom beams and hands me the sweater. The pokey thick material makes me sweat just from looking at it. "What do you say, Marty?"

"Thank you." My teeth are clenched so hard I might chip a tooth.

"Merry Christmas, Mrs. Schneider," my dad yells as he hands her a red pair of slippers.

"I thought I might freeze to death on the way over. The roads were terrible. What are my taxes paying for, anyway? A bunch of poor people who don't want to work for a living, that's what," Mrs. Schneider says. My dad holds her arm as she wiggles out of her shoes.

I smile. In my head I'm writing.

Ah. It's like a piece of the boulder on my chest has chipped off, and even though I'm locked in my house with a bunch of vapor-filled people, I'm me.

The next to arrive are the Wackers and all four of their kids. Each one is more obnoxious than the last.

"So good to see you," my mom says, and holds out her hand to shake.

The youngest bolts away from the door, leaving a trail of white snow across the floor.

"Jimmy, get back here!" Mrs. Wacker yells before heading after him in her heels.

My mom leans into my dad and whispers, "Why must we invite them every year?"

"They're clients." He smiles and speaks through his teeth. "Big families mean big money."

My mom turns toward Mr. Wacker, who's holding his other three children by the back of their shirts, a smile as big as the moon returning to her face. "It's always so lovely to see you." She hands him their slippers.

"She's the one who insisted on four. I would have stopped at one." Mr. Wacker swipes the shoes from my mom and trudges into the living room.

Another rock chipped away. Soon everyone starts to file in. My chest is getting lighter and lighter.

Chip.

Chip. Chip. Chip
.

I think Lil would like that one. I'm not sure I could say the word
dong
out loud, but it sounds like something Lil would do. As I walk around, it's like she's here with me and I smile. I'm sure my mom thinks I'm enjoying myself, when really the party is comparable to what I think going to the gynecologist is like. I've never been, but we saw a video in Health class that made Maxwell Smith pass out. That's kind of how I feel right now. Like my legs are stuck in stirrups.

The doorbell rings, and I answer it. Sarah and her parents stand under the twinkling lights of my front porch.

A bright halo she's wearing
,

CRASH! The boulder is back and heavier than ever.

"Merry Christmas, Mrs. Wellington," I say flatly.

"Marty, it's so good to see you." She wraps her boney arms around me and gives me a light hug, the kind when people pat your back but don't fully embrace. "Is your mother in the kitchen?"

I nod and the Wellingtons make their way into our home like it's their own. All except Sarah, who stays in the foyer, arms crossed, holding a pair of green house slippers.

"These don't match my outfit," she says, holding up the shoes.

"You could always leave," I say, so much animosity flowing through me. It's been weeks since the Facebook page and all she's done is hang out with Pippa and Eliza.