The Symptoms of My Insanity (21 page)

Jacob cracks up as if that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard and then they both sing together, “Bow-chicka-bow-bow! Chicka-chicka-chicka! Bow-chicka-bow-bow!” and start laughing all over themselves again.

Blake walks in then and leans against the door. “You guys are so loud, what are you—” He stops dead when he sees us. Or sees
me
.

“Hey. Long time no see,” I say, in this terrible forced, cheery voice.

Blake doesn’t say anything back.

“What’s up?” I say again, this time with a little less enthusiasm.

But Blake just stares at me with this expression on his face that I’m pretty sure is identical to the stuffed deer my mom wants removed from Mrs. Burk’s living room.

“Oooh,” Nate says, pointing at me and then back at Blake. “You guys are so cute. Why don’t you two pose together and let me take your picture?” Which for some reason makes him and Jacob burst out laughing.

“Shut up.” Blake glares at them and then looks back in my direction, but in this way where he’s looking everywhere at once, and never directly at me. It’s just like at the museum, but worse now because there are witnesses.

“I need some air and you guys aren’t improving the smell in here.” Meredith pops up off the mattress. Soon I’m pulled to my feet, feeling like I need something to punch and something to hug at the same time. I make my way past Blake fast, keeping my eyes straight ahead, like he’s an accident by
the side of the road that I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop staring at once I start.

Finally we’re outside. I take a deep breath of cold air.

“Mr. Greek?” Cara shrugs at us.

“Yes!” Meredith nods.

“Who?” I ask.

•   •   •

“So much better than pretzels.” Meredith laughs, shoving a forkful of feta-covered salad into her mouth.

“Totally.” Cara nods, mouth full of a Coney dog.

I smile, leaning forward in the booth at Mr. Greek’s, not realizing how much I needed this grilled cheese till now.

“This is always my favorite part of the night.” Meredith gleefully holds up her Greek-salad-speared fork.

“Me too, totally.” Cara nods again.

“I think we lasted longer at this one than some of the others.”

“Eh,” Cara says, squirting some more mustard onto her hot dog.

“You guys always end up here?” I ask.

“Yeah”—Meredith nods—“’cause the parties always end up lame.”

“Yeah, Becca’s lame, totally.”

“Your sister’s not lame. She just gets so drunk, she doesn’t know how lame the parties are.”

“You guys never drink at these things?” I ask.

“Well …” Meredith fishes an olive out of her salad and
drops it onto her napkin. “I just don’t want to end up in a
Babes Gone Bananas
video or something.”

“Me too!” I say, and I guess a little too loudly, because it makes Meredith laugh.

“So Izzy,” she says after a while, her mouth straightening. “What was that with Blake earlier?”

“Oh. What do you mean?” I’m trying to look casual as if I don’t already have Blake’s deer-in-headlights face burned into my mental snapshot library.

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” she teases, and then stops, seeing my face, which has betrayed me once again. “Wait, what did he do?” she asks, her thickly lined lids dropping low over her eyes.

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “It’s more … something I did, I guess.”

“No, it was probably him, totally all him,” Cara says, nodding at me seriously with the beginnings of a chili beard on her chin.

I sigh and then tell them about the DIA, and his sister, and the Buddha room, and the bra fumbling, and me screaming, “Hey no, no, no,” and our beyond-awkward ride home.

“Oh Izz Friz,” Meredith breathes, which I haven’t heard her call me in years, “that’s so awful.”

“Yeah,” I sigh, putting down my grilled cheese.

“You know, he was probably just embarrassed tonight because he tried to get some and he failed. Guys are totally insecure, especially when it comes to bras and stuff.”

“Huh,” I say, mulling that over.

“All those guys are such douches, total douches,” Cara adds.

I scrunch up my face.

“Yeah, Nate especially. I mean, like you don’t already know.” Meredith rips off a piece of pita bread from our pile.

“Like I don’t already know what?”

She looks over at me. “It’s okay, Izzy, you don’t have to protect her.” Meredith nods.

“Yup, yeah, totally, we know,” Cara adds.

“I’m not protecting … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay.” Meredith nods at me like I’m a toddler who’s successfully Velcro’d her own shoes. “I get it. I won’t bring it up again, say no more. It’s just, ugh, Nate is just like Jacob. A douche with a capital
D
. Stupid basketball and their stupid initiation crap,” she says, her face wrinkling up.

“Oh, you mean like the hazing?” I ask.

“Well, yeah, and their tasks.”

“Oh … right. Wait, like the underwear?”

“What? No, like tasks. Like Nate’s task, to get pictures of me doing you-know-what to him in the girls’ bathroom? Not like I would even go into the bathroom with him in the first place. And Nate was so pissed I wouldn’t do it. It was kinda funny. Well, until he started telling everyone I
did
do it, and this whole story about how Miss Larper caught us … doing that.” Meredith pauses, putting down her fork and grinding her teeth on her lower lip.

“Right …” I nod, taking this in.

“And people actually believed him! That was the worst part, you know?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Like my mom, I know she knows the truth now, but I still feel like things are weird with us.”

“Wow, I’m … I’m so sorry, Meredith.”

“Yeah, well.” Meredith just shrugs and gives me a half smile. “Anyway, point is that Jenna and I, we know firsthand about capital
D
douches.”

“What? Oh … so, you do know about what happened over the summer? I mean with Jenna’s—”

“Ugh, it was awful. And I’m sure she’s painted me in a terrible light, but you know it really wasn’t my fault. Even though, yes, I still feel somewhat responsible.”

“
You
feel responsible?”

“Wasn’t your fault, totally not,” Cara says.

“Well, I mean, I was the one who kind of set them up, and I thought he liked her, we all did, I think he did, but you know, he screwed up.”

“Wait,” I say, trying to put it all together, realizing now that Meredith knew Jenna’s cousin Amy, and was the one who set her up with the guy in the basement in the first place. “But how do you even know—”

I’m interrupted by my phone buzzing in my coat pocket. I see Allissa’s name flashing across the screen. And then my stomach drops down to my shoes. I have five missed calls from my mom. I’m breathing hard, but trying to look calm and not freak out as I listen to my most recent voicemail.
At first I can’t really understand Allissa because her voice is cutting in and out. Finally I make out what she’s saying.

Text! Address! Now! Mom! Flipping! Out! I’m! On! Way! You’re! So! Dead!

Allissa’s driving is even more erratic late at night and when she’s angry. I grip the arm rest as she swerves. I haven’t said a word since I got in the car, mainly because the first thing she said after I got in was “Don’t say a word.” But I need to feel things out.

“Thanks for coming to get me. I’m sorry you had to,” I start.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Allissa says with a feigned flippancy. “I was just hanging out with some friends, trying to enjoy
my
weekend, when I get a frantic call from Mom, who’s basically about to call
America’s Most Wanted
.”

“Oh God, so she was mad?”

“Well … she was worried.
Now
I’m sure she’s mad.” Then her voice starts rising, and stays pretty much in that high octave range. “Ugh, first this morning and now this. God, Izzy.”

“This morning?” I close my eyes and we drift closer and closer to the highway’s guardrail.

“Two hundred and sixty dollars!” she blurts out at dog-whistle pitch.

“Oooh.” I drop my head down, and then start shimmying off my coat in the one-hundred-and-five-degree car.

“I got a new charge on my gas credit card, which Mom gave me for
gas
. It’s not just like free money for you!”

“I’m sorry. I know. I meant to tell you. I have some of the cash, but …”

“And you didn’t even get anything good! Sunglasses? Who needs seven pairs of sunglasses? And two art-something neti pots? What the freak is a neti pot?”

“It’s for sinus irrigation.”

“Oooh, right.” She nods and laughs, but in that way where you definitely don’t find something funny. “Sinus irrigation.”

“It’s important to irrigate your sinus cavities.”

Allissa flashes me a death stare.

“It’s just, Mom’s been so congested and coughing. And I wanted to try it too, for myself, but you can’t share these things. Do you know how it works? It literally goes all the way up your—”

“No! There’s seriously something wrong with you. You need serious therapy. You’re always doing this, you’re always buying this crap and then I have to cover for you. It’s too much this time.” She catapults into the driveway. “I’m showing Mom the bill, and then you can explain to her why you bought overpriced glasses and two ugly clay pots that cost more than my nicest pair of shoes!”

I nod, feeling my nose tighten like it does just before I cry.

Allissa miraculously speeds into her space in the garage
without a scrape, and then turns to me and sighs.

“Izzy, just … the less you say in there, the better, okay? Just nod a lot and then say sorry, okay?”

I nod at Allissa and then say, “Sorry.”

She rolls her eyes and laughs a little. “Good job.” And then before getting out of the car, she turns back and gives me a once-over, seeming surprised by her own words when she says, “I like that top.”

Mom is sitting at the kitchen table when we walk in. She gets up fast, the pajama pants she’s swimming in almost falling down to the floor.

“You’re safe!” She runs to me and gives me a huge hug, which I wasn’t expecting at all. But then, as soon as she pulls away, her whole body goes stiff and straight, and I know she’s morphing into Grandma Iris. Whenever Mom’s angry, I mean really angry, she starts talking and acting just like her mother. I could never tell her. But it’s pretty freaky.

Now she starts pacing around the kitchen, talking in that ice-cold monotone with the occasional dog-whistle squeak and asking me how I could do this to her, telling me how scared she was, and how angry she is, all the while waving her really bony arms around a lot. Then she stops and leans against the counter to catch her breath and cough. She coughs. And coughs, and coughs, and coughs.

“I knew it. I knew Meredith was still troubled.”
Troubled
is Mom’s euphemism for “girls who have oral sex on school property.”

“No, Mom, she’s not,” I burst out, forgetting Allissa’s
“nod and apologize” advice. “You don’t understand. She’s fine.”

“Fine? Really, well—” And then Mom stops and blinks at me, as if she’s willing the image in front of her to change. Her regular voice returns for a moment. “Where did you get that
nafka
top? That is not appropriate for you at all. Did you go out in that?”

“Yes, but it’s fine. The top is fine. I don’t look—”

“You look inappropriate and—”

“And Meredith is fine. And I’m sorry I went out without asking you, but I left you a no—”

“Did you know that after the whole Meredith incident, Stacy Brightwell lost three clients?” And the Grandma Iris voice is back.

“What? No, Mom, listen—”

“Three! I know because two of them came to me, because nobody wants to hire a woman who can’t control her own children; who can’t set an example. It’s about [cough] trust, and respect, and how [cough] is somebody going to trust me to [cough] reconstruct their home environment if they don’t think I can raise children who respect their parents [cough, cough] and themselves?”

I pour Mom a glass of water. She grabs it from me and takes a tiny sip.

“This isn’t a large town, girls, so what you do, it doesn’t just get lost in the shuffle. It matters [cough] and I’m just so … very … you’re just making things harder than they have to be for me right now, Izzy.” She takes another baby
sip of water, moving her fingernails up and down her forehead.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I nod. And I just keep repeating that, and nodding, feeling smaller and smaller every time I do.

Mom shakes her head at me and sighs. “I’m heading up.”

“Are we still going tomorrow?” Allissa asks quickly and quietly.

“Oh. Yes.” Mom turns back and gives me a serious Iris look. “Don’t think you’re getting out of girls’ day, and your haircut. We are going to the mall. We’re cutting your hair. End of story.” She brushes past me, pulling up her pajama pants and coughing.

“Guess she didn’t give you a chance to show her your gas bill,” I mumble at Allissa.

“She’ll calm down once we get her inside a mall,” Allissa whispers. She gives my shoulder an encouraging squeeze and follows Mom upstairs.

I lean back against the kitchen chair to sit down, almost crushing Leroy, who’s managed to sleep-balance himself across it, his belly taking up the whole seat and his arms and legs dangling off to either side. I scoop him up and take us to the living room, where I collapse on the cushions, and close my eyes. Leroy pushes his paws into my thigh and purrs in my ear while I cry.

Please don’t drop it. Please don’t drop it.
I repeat this to myself as I attempt to maneuver my now massive map sculpture onto its other side.

I only have about twenty minutes left in the studio before I should head back to study hall to avoid Miss Larper noticing I’m gone. I wish I had longer—who knew Mom’s dance decor would be such a great muse?

“Need some help?”

I slowly crane my neck around, both hands clutching the sculpture, and see Ina walking through the studio door.