The Opposite of Love (15 page)

36

ROSE

Rose confessed to taking the tzedakah money three hours before they found it. Turned out the whole thing had been a misunderstanding. Keeping that amount of money in an unlocked cash box in the temple office had always been an area of concern, apparently. The rabbi deposited it in the bank every two weeks.

The word was that Mrs. Rosenberg, as assistant rabbi, had made an extra bank run the evening before her annual young adult camping trip. She explained that the box seemed full, and, well, why take the risk of waiting the extra week? Problem was, she forgot to tell the rabbi before she left. Or the office manager. Or leave a note for Mrs. Stein. As far as everyone knew, the money had gone missing.

Rose figured she had nothing to lose by taking the blame.
Chase wouldn't call her anymore. She'd burned that bridge, and thank god. She decided to confess the moment the thought entered her mind. That would clear Chase's name. Sure, he'd hate her even more, but that was okay. It would make it easier to hate him back.

The Parsimmons accepted her confession with no more than a raised eyebrow, but their heads practically spun in circles when Mrs. Stein called to clear things up, and they figured out her confession was a lie.

Mrs. P. slammed the phone into the charger, her eyes wild. “
What
is going on? Are you
crazy
? Are you on
drugs
?”

Purely for spite, Rose picked at the loose fabric on the underside of a couch cushion.

“Are you trying to make
me
crazy?” Hursula leaned against the couch arm for support, then switched tactics and spoke to Mr. P., who sat on the LazyBoy with his arms and legs crossed. “We need to watch this child twenty-four hours a day. Either that or send her to some kind of locked boarding school.”

“We looked into those last time,” Mr. P reminded her. “Their monthly payments are more than our mortgage.”

Hello? I'm sitting right here
. Rose glared at them and yanked harder on the loose part of the cushion. With any luck, she'd ruin it completely.

“There's only one thing left to do. It'll be tough on all of us, but I see no other choice.” Hursula sank down onto a couch-chair, her voice grim. “Home school. Then we can watch her. All the time.”

That snagged Rose's attention like a thorn. Her heart missed at least three beats. “No
way
!” she yelled, standing up, forgetting her mission to silently destroy their couch. “No way in
hell
!”

“Watch your language in this house,” Mr. P. said, standing up too. “We'll do what we see fit.”

“I
hate
you!” Rose screamed, pulling fistfuls of her own hair. “I
hate
you! You're
ruining
my
life
!”

“Well, that may be the case,” Hursula said, her voice gathering strength as she went on, “but we're your parents and we have to do what we think is right to keep you safe.”

“You are
not
my parents!” Rose screamed so loud she thought her brain might burst. They just stood there staring, mouths open. She slammed her way into her room, knocking over a lamp on the way in. The sound of ceramic shattering was music to her ears.

Mrs. P. came in to talk to her a few hours later. Rose spent the whole time lying on her bed with her face to the wall. Hating her. Trying not to cry any more. Her face ached, swollen from all the tears.

“Oh, Rose,” Hursula sighed. “When are you going to grow out of this silent treatment thing? It's so
juvenile
.”

And the light in Rose's brain clicked on.

The Silent Treatment. The only real way to make a statement. They'd taken everything that mattered to her. The only thing she had control over was herself. Her voice. And that's when Rose decided to stop talking again. Completely. No matter what.

Rose didn't have a clue that, at that very moment, Chase sat packing his bags for the move to Bakersfield.

37

CHASE

Within two days of his arrival at Walter's pink stucco condo complex, after Chase had braved the new school, Walter gestured for him to pull up a folding chair for a man-to-man chat. Even though so much seemed different about Walter, Chase felt his palms grow moist and his heart race around in his chest like it was training for the Olympics.

Besides, Chase wasn't sure how much of the difference was Walter and how much of it was him. When Walter left three years ago, Chase had been almost fourteen, getting ready to start high school. And now Chase was one year shy of being a grown man, and side by side to Walter, he stood nearly as large.

Walter. The new Walter took up two-thirds of the doorway as he ducked through it, looking like a cross between a gorilla and an out-of-shape surfer. He spoke softer than Chase remembered. “Dude,” he started. Since when did Walter call him ‘dude'? “Once school gets out, you're with me for the summer. Understand? You need to learn a trade anyway.”

A trade? Chase considered Walter's thick, sandpaper-rough hands—lined with deep grooves and calluses. Chase turned his own hands over to look at them. “You want me to roof with you?”

“Yep. It's a good honest business.”

“I'm sure it is,” Chase stammered. “I just—I want to go to college.”

“Last I heard, your grades were Cs and Ds.”

Last you heard? Last you heard?
Chase wanted to yell in his stubble-dotted face.
What do you know?
Chase balled his fists. “Whatever,” he mumbled, mentally checking out. This was not going to work. He'd give it a week or two and then head back home.

“Listen here, Chase.” Walter's voice lowered and toughened. Chase snapped back to focus like one of those rubber-band slingshots he made in elementary school. “I'm glad to have you here. I
wanted
to have you here. But I understand the reason your mother sent you was for a little attitude readjustment.” He paused for a moment, and Chase met his eyes head on. Steady. Serious. “Don't worry. I won't readjust your attitude the way I have before.”

“Uh-huh.” Chase watched Walter the way he'd watch a poisonous rattlesnake. Walter's hair hung longer than Chase remembered—a little past his ears and scraggly, but in a cool kind of way.

“I'm different, Chase,” Walter explained. “I know now that I'm an alcoholic. A raging, out-of-control alcoholic. My life has only begun to become manageable in the last ten months since I got into the Program.”

Chase once again wanted to tune him out. Being drunk didn't excuse the things Walter had done. Being drunk didn't excuse being
mean
. Chase tilted back in his folding chair so that it leaned back onto its hind legs. “The Program?”

“Alcoholics Anonymous. I have a sponsor and a higher power, and I've finally found some serenity.” Serenity. Again that word.

“And a hot girlfriend.” The deep throatiness of the voice surprised Chase, and he turned around to find a waif-like girl padding in with bare feet. As she stepped, the wooden beads around her ankle jangled. Chase noticed a second string of wooden beads around her neck and a long earth-colored skirt.

Walter half turned, holding his arm out to her, curving it around her waist. “This is Lex, Chase. My girlfriend.”

The possibility that Walter might have a girlfriend, that he might have moved on from his family in some way or another, had never crossed Chase's mind. This girl, seemingly closer to Chase's age than to Walter's, could not have been more different from Candy if she tried. Every day, Candy spent twenty minutes on makeup alone, while this girl's face looked as fresh and clean as if she'd just stepped out of the shower.

Candy dressed in short skirts and tight tops. This girl wore a long, flowing skirt and a loose top. Lex moved like a ballet dancer—light, each bare footstep carefully placed. Candy's hair was long—styled, colored, the whole bit. This girl's hair was cut short, just about the length of Walter's, but it had been sculpted with mousse to stand up at all angles.

“Hi,” Chase said, trying not to stare. She was, after all, his father's girlfriend. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about that.

Lex reached her hand out to Chase and shook it strongly. “Ahh, a new victim.” She grinned widely, showing rows of slightly overlapping teeth. “Don't look so scared. I'm training to teach yoga.” Chase immediately pictured Daniel in a contorted yoga pose. “I make it my mission to get everyone to try yoga at least once.”

Chase turned his eyes to Walter. “Even my dad?”

“He
is
stubborn, isn't he?” Lex laughed like that was the funniest thing ever. “I'm still working on him, I have to admit. I can get him to meditate with me when we're inside and no one could possibly see him, but he won't take a damn class. He thinks everyone's looking at him. Talk about self-obsessed!”

Chase stared at her. Then he turned and stared at his father. Walter shrugged and chuckled. If that had been Candy teasing him three years ago, he'd have dragged her down the hall by her hair. Chase shrugged. “I don't think yoga is my thing.”

“Yoga is an acquired taste. Like fine wine,” she said, staring pointedly at Walter with a look of amusement. “Only I don't drink wine anymore, so now yoga is my new release.” She ran her hands through her hair, and it clumped together. She looked sort of like a
Dragon Ball Z
character, but he couldn't remember which one.

“Or your new addiction,” Walter teased softly, looking first at Lex and then back at Chase. “Don't let her fool you. She's obsessed.”

Chase didn't think Walter really expected a response from him, so he just sat there picking at his fingernails and watching, strangely curious. Lex snorted, though, and messed up Walter's hair. “That's the thing about your dad, Chase. He's always calling me on my shit.” She laughed. “I don't mind, though. Someone's got to do it.” She picked up Walter's hand.

“Your dad was there at my first meeting, when I had less than twenty-four hours sober. All I could think about was how long it would take me to walk to the nearest liquor store. I would have ditched the meeting if your dad hadn't stopped me, and who knows if I would have ever found my way back to a program? He might have saved my life.”

“Glad to be of service in
every
way I can.” Walter winked at her, his fingers still intertwined with hers.

Corny as hell and awkward too, but there was something about the look they shared in that moment, that look of connectedness, that made Chase think of Rose. Suddenly he missed her. And Daisy, and his mom, if he was honest. And Daniel. He felt that ache in the center of his chest—like someone had his work boot on his heart and lungs, pressing down. He knew how that felt, because in middle school Walter had stood there for nearly five minutes, one foot digging into his chest. The bruise it left displayed the ridges of his boot sole. But no one was standing on him now. He wondered if this ache was what it felt like to be homesick.

School in Bakersfield was school, just like any other place, he figured. Only he didn't know anyone. With a month left of class, no one seemed interested in making new friends, or even being friendly. He couldn't hang with the stoners or the goths or the rejects because he looked like a jock. He couldn't hang with the jocks because he wasn't a jock. He didn't seem to fit in anywhere.

So he used lunch break to go to the library to email Daniel, if there was a computer available. He didn't email Rose, although he'd thought about it a bunch of times. But she'd made it pretty clear she wanted him to stay away. That hurt worse than the homesick ache, but he tried to push it away. He'd actually even done a little studying in the library too, just to see if that would make a difference in his grades. Sometimes he used lunch to run the track a couple of times when a breeze made the heat bearable.

He wasn't there to make friends, he reminded himself. He'd be home by July, before the fireworks. Maybe that'd be just enough time for Rose to have cooled off. Because no matter what Walter said about the serenity crap, Chase knew Walter was liable to make fireworks of his own. Maybe Lex hadn't seen his temper flare yet, but Chase wasn't about to stick around for that kind of a show.

38

ROSE

After three weeks of complete silence at home, the Parsimmons packed Rose into the car and dragged her to see that pill-pushing headshrinker. Rose immediately flopped down onto his black leather couch and covered her face with an arm. The air conditioning blasted through the vents. The top layer of skin on her bare legs began to feel numb.

The Parsimmons sank into separate chairs and spoke directly to the doctor, whose eyebrows looked bushier than ever. It was as if Rose wasn't even there. “We think she's depressed, doctor.”

Well, duh! Of course I'm freaking depressed. What do you think? You stole my life! You took away everything I care about and everyone who ever cared about me.

“Hmm.” Dr. Gutman was a “hmm-ing” doctor if she'd ever met one. “We've had her on an antidepressant for years.”

“Maybe it's not enough?” Mrs. P. asked, with a layer of worry to her voice that grated on Rose's ears.

“Hmm. And it looks like we've got her on some hormones as well, which also help to regulate her mood. The birth control pill serves multiple purposes here, I'd think.” He chuckled to himself.

Real funny. I love how everyone in this room thinks I'm a whore.
And suddenly an image of Chase popped into her head. She hadn't anticipated how much she'd miss him. Besides Nala, he'd been the only reason she had to get up every morning. But now he was gone, just like everyone else she'd ever loved.

“Hmm. Let me run through a battery of depression-related questions. How about it?” Dr. Gutman asked, but didn't wait for an answer. “Diminished interest in activities?”

Mr. P. piped up then, like this was a chess game instead of her life. “Check.”

I have no activities to be interested in. You took them all away from me!

“Hmm. Weight loss or weight gain?”

“Check. She's hardly been eating.”

Nothing tastes good.

“Hmm. Sleeping too much or too little?”

“Check.”

I spend 90 percent of the day in my bed.
To punctuate this thought, Rose turned herself facedown on the couch and pressed her face into the couch cushion. She didn't want to hear any more. The words came through, though, just more muffled.

“Hmm. Fatigue or loss of energy?”

“Check. She mostly stays in her room with the door shut.”

And what would you have me do? Jump rope in the living room? Kickboxing in the kitchen?

“Hmm. Feelings of worthlessness? I guess we have to address that one to Rose.” Dr. Gutman raised his voice to a near shout. “Rose, dear! Are you feeling worthless?”

The absurdity of the question struck Rose as funny, and she would have laughed out loud but she really didn't want to. So she didn't. She didn't so much as stir from her catatonic posture on the couch. “Doctor?” Mrs. P. asked, after a suitable silence. “She's not talking again.”

“Hmm. If I remember correctly, she never talks in here.” Dr. Gutman shuffled through his notes. “I guess that makes it difficult for me to ask her if she's having thoughts of death.”

Depends on whose death you're talking about.

“She's not talking to
us
at all.” Slight sniffle from Mrs. P., revving up the tear works.

“Hmm. Regression back to previous behavior.” Some scribbling noises as Dr. Gutman wrote on his prescription pad. “All right then, let's increase her Prozac an additional 10 milligrams. That should do the trick.”

If Rose had been talking, laughing, or reacting to anything that was said with more than an eye twitch, she would have cackled. Her parents had no idea that she'd been cheeking every pill they handed her. They put five or six of them on a napkin by her cereal bowl in the morning. All different shapes and sizes.

First she would pick out the vitamin and swallow it. Then she would cup her hand around the rest of them and dump them in her mouth, then push them into her cheek with her tongue and pretend to swallow. When their backs were turned, she spit them out into her napkin. Anything they wanted her taking, she didn't want sliding down her throat into her body. Besides, it was a behind-your-back screw-you, and that brought a smile to her eyes any day of the week.

Rose pressed her face further into the couch cushion, feeling the imprint of the seams on her face. It hurt a little and that was good. It reminded her that she was alive. Because she was starting to forget.