The Weight of Zero (30 page)

The school library is quiet and cool on this Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I've just finished the chicken salad I made for Mom's and my lunch. Mom was painfully grateful this morning when she came into the kitchen to find me finishing up our sandwiches, her flowered tote already packed with an apple and a pack of cheese crackers. “I could get very used to this,” she had said, reminding me that no one has cared for her since I've been on this planet. “Maybe we can start taking turns?” she asked brightly.

I said yes, but I was thinking that Bill could return once I am gone. He could make her lunches. There'd be nothing in the way, then—no Catherine with all the incessant and unrelenting worry her existence demands. No twenty-four-hour monitoring of moods and meds. Mom would be free, her life open to so many possibilities: a new job, maybe something that would utilize her accounting degree and isn't based solely on flexibility; money for better clothes and hair color at a nice salon, not from a box from ShopRite; and Bill. Companionship. Love. Marriage. A new part-time family, mothering Bill's adorable,
normal
kids.

Inside my cubby, my phone vibrates with a new email. It has to be from Jenna. She's the only person who communicates with me via email instead of text. I hope she's located another Jane letter. I scan her message. She has a partial letter—only the bottom half. I type back a quick thank-you before allowing myself to read the letter. Knowing Jane's story, her tragedy, makes the reading almost unbearable.

And now, popping uninvited into my head is the image of freshman me locked in Michael's phone, dancing and dancing forever.

That girl and Jane are equated in my mind somehow.

My eyes run along Jane's sentences and immediately I sense the difference in her writing and tone. The 6888th has been transferred from England to France and Jane doesn't seem too happy about it.

don't clean up like the British do. The rubble was everywhere, like they're all just waiting for the war to be over to start sweeping. We took a train from Birmingham to Southampton, where we crossed the Channel in the tiniest boat you ever saw. At night, we slept on canvas shelves basically, four or six high, stacked so tight I couldn't sit up without bumping my head on the one above me. Like I said, Le Havre was a pile of rubble. And just when I thought our troubles were over, they put us on a train with big holes in its roof. I guess we should've been grateful for those holes because the cars had not a single window. When we finally got to Rouen, there were hundreds of our boys, Mama, all waiting to welcome us. In cars, in trucks, on roofs, waving from any place you looked. Most of the girls were laughing and carrying on, but others did not like it one bit. Those boys
were
helpful, Mama. They carried our bags and helped us get settled at the Caserne Tallandier (Napoléon's troops slept here—that's how old it is!). It was a very lively scene, with many of the French coming to greet us. But deep down, it made me sad. Because most of these welcoming soldiers were Negroes. Coming over here, seeing how the British people treated us—how nice and kind they were, it kind of makes it harder now to see the prejudice. There's other stuff too. Hurtful stuff they say about some girls, how they don't like men, they like women. Or that most of us get pregnant and have to go home. It is shameful. Because we WACs, we're proud of what we're doing here. The girls always say that they picked the best of us to come overseas. But it feels like no one recognizes it, at least not too many Americans do.

Sorry to be complaining so much. It's hard sleeping on a mattress stuffed with straw. The ends keep poking into me every time I roll over. I barely get any rest. I can see you smiling as you read this, Mama. You know I turn into a bear without my rest. Not too much longer now I'll be writing to let you know when I'm coming home. Give Mari and Petey and yourself triple, no, quadruple hugs from me.

Your loving daughter,

Jane

I feel aggravation dangerously close to rage building. I know what happened to Jane was ages ago, but the prejudice she suffered is making my heart thump angrily. Maybe it's leftover emotion from history this morning with Farricelli hissing “cunt” and “dyke” at me throughout class. I didn't dare do a thing. I don't want to get Michael in any more trouble. Tyler got a one-day in-school suspension, but Michael slid by with just a warning. Probably because of his prior history with Farricelli. So I just sat there and absorbed Farricelli's stream of hate. Is that why I'm so infuriated for Jane right now? Or maybe it's the fact that this institutionalized racist bullshit is still going on today.

Overheating with the unfairness of it all, I unzip my hoodie. How could they treat Jane like that? How could they treat any of them like that? She was there doing her part. For the very country that was shitting on her. All because she was black and a woman. But mainly because of her skin color. A white woman would never have been treated that way. Tears blur my vision as I think of Jane. Joyous, adventurous Jane. She couldn't help when or where she was born. She was innocent.

The word echoes in my head.

Innocent.

Innocent.

Innocent.

And then something deep inside me shifts—it is a major, tectonic-plate kind of shifting, the type that creates new landscapes. I have to rest my forehead on the desk and take deep breaths. I am shaking, but I understand something now. Something good.

I'm innocent too. Just like Charlie.

This knowledge purrs through me a full twenty-four hours, a steady current of something warm and sweet like reassurance or exoneration or both. It soothes me and prompts me to return the briefest of smiles to Olivia in the hallway at the end of school on Wednesday.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Cath,” she says, uncharacteristically alone at her locker, her smile expanding upon spotting my abbreviated one.

Michael is waiting for me at my locker, and I have to fight the urge to plant a very public kiss on him.

“So you can come over on Saturday?” he asks me, his hands fidgeting with the zipper on his backpack. He's been different since he brought me to school on Monday. Mechanically, the same—waiting for me in the morning, walking out of history class together, texting at night, making plans for the weekend. But he's more reserved now. Like he's disappointed.

“I'll be there,” I say as Tyler approaches.

After greeting me with a hello plus direct eye contact, Tyler says to Michael, “We better get going. Gonna be a long line.”

Wait. What? Are they doing something?

Michael turns to me, a flush creeping up his neck. “We're gonna check out that zombie movie….It's…it's that special deal. You know, five-dollar shows before five o'clock.”

The reality slaps me. Hard. Because the three of us had already planned on seeing it together. In two days—the Friday after Thanksgiving, when the theater would be packed with fellow zombie fans.

He changed the plans and didn't ask me to go with them.

“Today's the premiere. Can't wait!” Tyler says. “Catherine, you sure you can't come?” He is clearly under the impression that Michael already asked me and I said no.

Michael's whole face is red now, but he stays silent, watching me like we're playing chess, awaiting my move. What's with him? He should be fumbling an excuse my way as to why he didn't include me. I could've gone on Friday, or even tonight. But Michael's just waiting along with Tyler for my answer.

Of course, I can't divulge that today is my last IOP at St. Anne's and I would never miss it. Instead, I stutter-lie, “No, I—I'm…I'm working.”

“I feel like a slacker next to you,” Tyler says to my deceitful face. Another dart.

Michael, clearly uncomfortable, throws his backpack over his shoulder. “Let's get going, Ty.”

Awkwardness is thick and sludgy between Michael and me, and Tyler senses it. But he misconstrues the heaviness, probably thinking that Michael and I want to be alone for some dramatic good-bye or something. “So, Mike, I'll…I'll meet you at your car?” Tyler asks.

Michael nods and waits until Tyler is out of earshot. The hallway is still hellishly full of kids who laugh and flutter by, the looming four-day Thanksgiving weekend ratcheting up their energy level. But not me. I am stunned, flattened by Michael's exclusion.

“Cath, I didn't ask you because I knew you wouldn't be able to come,” Michael says, the expression on his face a weird mixture of guilt and defiance. “Work, right?”

This time I can't lie. So I say nothing as my heart beats triple time. God, please don't let me cry in front of him. Michael must see my bewilderment, because he suddenly pulls me close and buries his face in my neck. An edge of the Band-Aid on his chin hurts me, but I hug him back anyway.

“Cath, don't be sad,” he says. “I didn't ask because I didn't want you to…” He stops.

“You didn't want me to what?” I whisper, my lips pressing against his ear.

“I didn't want to make you feel bad,” he says, pulling away just enough to look at me. “I don't want to hurt you.” And then, in the middle of the crowded hallway, he gives me a very public kiss. It's a complicated kiss, layered with hurt and apologies and something else on Michael's part, maybe frustration, but he keeps kissing me. And the fact that he doesn't stop kissing me tamps down the hurt and fear about what just happened.

But not all the way. Both Michael and I know this kiss is a short-term patch job. Because what started in the car ride to school on Monday is not a product of my imagination. This change of plans is undeniable proof that I'm losing him.

“Congratulations!” Mom cries minutes later when I slip into the Accord. “It's your last IOP!” She retrieves a Dunkin' Donuts bag from behind my seat. “Let's celebrate!” She places the bag in my lap before shifting into drive.

I can still feel Michael's kiss vibrating on my lips, but I feel numb, lidocained by his zombie-movie betrayal. Before, I would've been walking on air right now, jubilantly scarfing down the contents of this bag of doughnuts. But now the fragrance wafting out of the waxed bag is wrong—too sweet. I swallow drily. I can't eat.

“What's wrong?” The lightness in Mom's voice is gone, instantly replaced with worry: doughnut rejection is a big red flag in Pulaski Land.

“I just had two candy bars.” The lie sails smoothly from me.

“Two?
Two?
What'd you get?” Mom asks, so happy all is okay in Appetite-ville that she ignores my egregious nutritional blunder.

“Reese's.”

“They should add a third peanut butter cup to the package. Two just doesn't cut it, hunger-wise,” she says gamely. She guides the Accord through downtown Cranbury and past the Green, where the huge Christmas tree and jumbo menorah take center stage. Red bows and baskets laden with evergreen boughs adorn every faux antique black lamppost, each quaint “shoppe” tastefully decorated for the shopping bonanza that Christmas has morphed into. Strings of white lights loop every storefront, restaurant window, shrub and tree. Even Rodrick's is festooned up the wazoo. Cranbury prides itself on having one of the best-decorated small-town New England greens, an award that probably originated from our hokey non-news newspaper, the
Cranbury Courant.

Unaware of the holiday skeptic beside her, Mom murmurs, “I just love this time of year. Do you think you and Michael will exchange gifts?”

“We agreed not to.” Again, the lie soars effortlessly into the interior of the Accord. I need to prep her for what's ahead.

Surprisingly, Mom doesn't dissect this, interrogate me or overanalyze my and Michael's “decision” not to exchange gifts. She gives me a quick glance, nods and then changes the subject.

“Catherine, do you think Kristal would be able to drop you off at home next Friday? Dominic asked me to help with a private party and Aunt Darlene is going to Boston for the weekend.”

I text Kristal right away with the request. My phone choos with her immediate reply: “Yes! Yes! A 1000 times yes!
Let's do chipotle
. And where are you??? Get your ass here asap! Last day party!!!
 
 
”