Playing Nice (22 page)

And we would all know what it felt like to be alive
." Lil reads off one of the sheets.

"You wrote that?"

I nod, a nervous bubble squeezing my throat. I've never heard someone read my words out loud and I don't know if it's good or bad or nonsense. Lil's face doesn't reveal anything.

"It's beautiful, Pollyanna," she says. "Like you're screaming all over the page."

An exhale pushes out of my chest, coming from my words and from the box that's kept so much locked up for so long. For the first time, everything in me breathes.

"Not all words are bad," I say as I sit down next to her.

Lil looks at me, and then grabs my hand in hers. "You're my best friend."

We lie on my bed and she reads through more of my poetry with no regard for the time or the fact that we both should be in school or that Lil's home has been ruined.

"You should be a writer, Marty," Lil says.

I shake my head. "I'm not that good." I pause for a second and think the words in my head before saying them into the universe. "You're not your mom."

Lil turns to look at me, her dark hair falling to the side of her face. "What if everyone leaves me like they did her?"

"I won't." I say, grabbing her hand and holding her black polished fingers between mine.

I don't know where I was before this year. Lost in some floating atmosphere, maybe, filled with smiles and politeness and absolute nothing. Lil brought me back from the dead.

We lie, heads touching and hair mixing together, strand after strand overlapping. A meshing of two people, each with her own distinct color and texture, but so beautiful when chaotically woven together.

"I have an idea," I say, sitting up.

"Does it involve little Cupids holding shotguns?"

I roll my eyes, "No."

"Shot through the heart and you're to blame," Lil sings.

"Shut up!" I elbow her and she laughs. "But we have to go back to your place."

"That's fine. This pink is making me want to vomit." Lil gets up off the bed as I stuff all the poetry back in my box. "Seriously, Marty, your poems are beautiful."

I smile as I close the desk drawer. "Let's get the hell out of here."

***

"Do it," I say.

Lil's trailer is silent. Not even she has snappy words for this moment.

"Are you sure, Pollyanna?"

I nod and say, "I trust you."

Lil smiles at me with deep, crystal blue eyes. "Okay. Maybe you shouldn't look."

I close my eyes and breathe. The only sound that echoes in the trailer is the splitting of scissors.
God's blessing
. They touch the hair falling at my shoulders, the cool metal pressing against my skin for just a second.
It's a thing of beauty
. Lil touches my arm and I know I'm safe.
Never cut it
.

Then I hear it. Snip. Mahogany hair rains down from my head and onto the floor. With each strand a weight is lessened in my heart. By the time Lil is done cutting, I'm so free I might float.

My dad is sitting at the table when I walk through the back door, still dressed in his doctor costume of baby blue scrubs and ugly brown clogs, the
Columbus Dispatch
laid out in front of him. I jump at the sound of his voice.

"You're home," he says. "And your hair? I'll leave that one for your mother. How was school?"

I choke a little and set my backpack on a hook by the back door, trying to act calm. "Fine." Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Sit down for a second, Marty." He pats the seat next to him. I spin the skull ring around my finger to keep my hands from shaking. I'm dead. D.E.A.D.

He walks over to the stove and sets the water in the teapot to boil. "Hot chocolate?" he asks. I nod, not wanting to say anything for fear the truth will come spilling out of me at a million miles a minute.

My dad empties two packets of hot chocolate powder into mugs, and then sits back down next to me. He smells like mint mouthwash. "You know, I remember painting your room before you were even born. Your mom was so sure you were a girl. She insisted on pale pink." His lips turn up in a smile. "I know most men are supposed to want boys, but I prayed she was right. Not to talk badly about my gender, but teenage boys kind of gross me out."

I want to say to him that mom's always right in her mind. That she just got lucky that what she thought was actually true. Instead, I nod and wait for the last domino to fall.

"It was your grandma's room before that," Dad says.

I sit up straighter. "It was?"

The teapot whistles. My dad nods, getting up to pour water in our mugs. "She liked to see the sunrise through the window in the morning. Said if she was going to lose her mind she better have a good view." He plops three marshmallows on top of each cup and places one in front of me. I blow across the top, steam swirling up my nose.

"She always made sense to me," I say.

"You have her eyes," Dad says.

"I do?" A grin widens on my face behind my mug, but in the next beat it falls. "Some days I have a hard time remembering her."

"Me too."

We sit, our hands wrapped around steaming cups of hot chocolate, taking sips every few seconds. Just like when I was younger and came in from sledding or making a snowman with Sarah. Three marshmallows. Not too many. Not too few.

"Why did you let mom tear up Grandma's kitchen?" I finally ask.

My dad gulps down the last bit of his drink, gets up, and walks over to the sink. "Keeping it the same wouldn't have brought her back," he says as he rinses the cup and puts it in the dishwasher.

"But it would remind us of her."

My dad turns to look at me, resting his back on the sink. "Do you think your grandma would want this, us just sitting around in her kitchen remembering her?"

I chuckle, hearing her rough voice in my head.
Get your ass out of this nursing home and don't come back unless it's to break me out
.
And bring whiskey. They don't allow me any of that. You'd figure if I'm going to die here, at least I could be drunk.

He walks over to me and rubs his thumb across my cheek. "I don't need a kitchen to remember her, Martina. I have you."

"You really think I look like her?"

"You bet. A Hart with a heart." He takes my empty glass and loads it in the dishwasher beside his. I smile. I can almost see my grandma in the kitchen with us.

"Oh, and Marty, I won't tell your mother that you skipped school today."

CHOKE. My heart rate spikes. My dad sits back down in front of his newspaper. "As long as you promise me that it will never happen again."

"I promise," I blurt out, adrenaline rushing through my veins.

He nods and turns to the Sports section. "Nice haircut, by the way," he says out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes never straying from the page.

I run my fingers through the shortened strands, my hand almost looking for what isn't there. "Thanks."

In my room, I lie on my bed and stare at my grandma's picture. I imagine her here, sitting at my desk and watching the sun come up over the empty fields. Before the walls were covered in pink, they were covered in her. I close my eyes and still my body, trying to breathe past the paint to the soul below the surface. I think,

And I swear, at that exact moment, the air fills with the scent of lilacs.

***

All my mom does when I come down to dinner is say, "Next time you want to cut your hair, please tell me and I'll take you to an actual salon," while she sips her Chardonnay.

I smile at my dad. He places his pointer finger over his mouth and shushes me.

I drive over to Lil's early the next day and bang on the door. The words are still there in bright color, but I'm determined to fight against them.

"What the hell is it, Pollyanna?" Lil asks, squinting and rubbing her eyes in the morning sunlight.

"You're not missing anymore school," I say. "I don't care if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming. Plus, English is super boring without you."

"So, this isn't about my precious education. It's about your entertainment?" Lil runs her fingers through her hair and yawns.

"Exactly." I go over to her drawers and leaf through her clothes. Settling on a black T-shirt and red skinny jeans, I toss them on the bed. "Now get dressed," I say, hands on my hips.

Lil's eyes flicker, a mix of sadness and anxiety, and I know she's worried she'll break open for everyone to see. That one person will swing one more time and Lil's statue will come crumbling down.

"If you hide, then they win," I say.

Lil shakes her head like she's clearing it and turns on the record player. "I can't get ready without music." She pulls out a record and puts it on the turntable, placing the needle down gently, like it's the most precious thing in her life.

A guitar springs to life and fills the trailer with raucous music. Lil bops over to the clothes I laid out; I nod my head to the beat as she disappears behind a makeshift sheet-turned-wall hung up at the back of the trailer.

I could stay here all day, living away from the world with Lil and Maggie, but if there's one thing I've learned this year, it's that living actually entails doing. I won't let Lil fade away in a trailer covered in lies.

She comes out two minutes later dressed, the red jeans tucked into her black combat boots. Inhaling a deep breath, she shakes her arms at her sides, then pushes them out forcefully. "Okay, I'm ready," she yells over the music.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" I point to her face, indicating a lack of black eyeliner.

"I think I'll give my eyes a break for the day." My mouth curls up into a smile as big as the moon as Lil turns off the record player.

"You look beautiful," I say.

"You look," Lil's eyes travel down my outfit. "Weird. Are you wearing jeans on a Thursday?"

I spin in a circle, my legs relaxed in a pair of dark jeans and pink ballet flats. I open my jacket and reveal a black turtleneck. "I'm trying to tap into Rizzo."

Lil's smile actually reaches her eyes. "Rizzo? Is that some sort of hair treatment? Because I'm here to tell you, Pollyanna, with that new hair cut you'd look like a pube lollypop with a perm."

"The character from
Grease
," I giggle. "My audition is coming up."

Lil raises her eyebrows at me. Rizzo isn't just any character. She's a bad girl. The misunderstood hard ass with a soft center. Everyone will expect me to try out for Sandy, but in my heart, I want to be Rizzo. I want Lil to come see the performance and know that part of her lives in me. And if part of me is Rizzo, part of Lil is Sandy and Juliet and any other character with sunlight inside of them.

"Well, I say if you want to be the girl named after a walking pube stick, go for it. No one could play the part better." Digging through her purse, Lil takes out a cigarette and holds it between her fingers, unlit. "I have something for you."

She walks over to her nightstand, which is a cardboard box covered with a crocheted blanket, and picks up a green notebook.

"What's this for?" I ask.

"For you to write in, so the pages don't get lost." Lil hands it to me, a half-smile tugging at her lips. I stare at the plastic cover. It's a cheap notebook, one I would write in at school, but it fills my heart with so much love I might burst.

"Thank you." I wrap my arms around Lil's neck and hold tight to her.

"It's just a notebook, Pollyanna," she squeaks out.

I pull back, my eyes focused on hers. "It's more than that and you know it."

"So Rizzo? Is she cool?" Lil asks as we walk out of the trailer. The air's changing, becoming warmer. I think spring isn't too far off. It might even come early this year.

"Yeah, she's the head of the Pink Ladies," I say.

"Pink Ladies? Is that some sort of lesbian club? Maybe we should join."

I giggle. "If I'm forced to listen to your music, I think it's time you listen to some musicals." I nudge her in the side. "They're cool. Green Day actually wrote a musical."

"Are you tempting me with Green Day? Did we time travel back to the 90s? Because that's the only time people have ever cared about Green Day."

"You are such a snob," I say.

She smiles. "We can't all be nice."

***

Lil and I walk into school holding hands. Tension radiates up her arm; her elbow is stiff as a board. Her eyes, two hard aquamarines, stay fixed on the path ahead of us. A few people stare; others whisper under their breath. At one point someone coughs,
dykes
. I squeeze Lil's hand and refuse to let go.

"A rock is a rock no matter what people say," I whisper. I'm not leaving her. I'm not her dad and grandpa.

She peels off at my locker, her shoulders back, chest out. I don't know the strength it takes to be Lil, what it feels like to protect yourself with a layer of toughness because the alternative is opening yourself up to being crushed. Crushed by words.