Tools of Ignorance: Lisa's Story (23 page)

AT FIVE O’CLOCK in the afternoon, Lisa, her mother, and Sam were still sitting in the emergency room at the Clarksonville-Northwood Hospital. They had been there going on three hours and were still waiting for the results of Lisa’s hand x-ray.

Lisa’s mother stood up. “I’m going to step outside to call your father. I’m sure he hasn’t even thought about making dinner.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Lisa’s mother headed toward the automatic sliding doors, but then stopped and looked back as if remembering something. “Samantha, will you please get me if the doctor comes out with Lisa’s results?”

Sam nodded. “Yes, of course.”

Once her mother was out of sight, Lisa slowly turned to glare at Sam. “Were you ever going to tell me?” This was the first moment they’d had alone since Sam’s news.

Sam sighed. “Yes.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

The silence between them lasted for the longest twenty seconds of Lisa’s life, until Sam blurted, “I was going to tell you when you came over. You’d see it all, anyway.”

“But Sam—”

“I know,” Sam interrupted. “I should have told you that my family owns the D’Amico’s Restaurant building. I should have told you that we own half of East Valley, parts of Clarksonville, Southbridge, and Northwood, and that I live in a mansion. I should have told you that I’m really Samantha Rose Payton, heiress to the East Valley Payton’s fortune.”

Lisa shook her head still not quite able to wrap her brain around why Sam had kept it secret. “I can’t believe you own the Payton Arena. I never put that together.”

Sam simply shrugged.

“So, you’re telling me that when I saw Jewel last summer, I was sitting in a building you own.”

“Well, not me. My family.”

“Oh, and do you own anything yourself?”

Sam grinned, and Lisa’s heart fluttered, but she wouldn’t give in. Sam had kept something important from her, and she didn’t want to be distracted by Sam’s smile, or her silky blond hair, or the pendant dangling dangerously above her cleavage. Lisa cleared her throat and looked away from Sam’s blue-gray eyes, so she wouldn’t get sucked in.

Sam took a deep breath. “You really want to know?”

“Yeah.” Lisa snuck a peek for her mother, but the coast was still clear.

“You know that McDonald’s billboard on County Road 62 just outside of Clarksonville?”

“Yeah?”

“I own that.”

“A billboard?”

“Yeah. That one and a few dozen others.”

Lisa knew a look of disbelief crossed her face. “Oh, geez. I remember the little sign on the bottom that says, ‘Payton.’ Oh, my God, and all this time it stood for Samantha Rose Payton.”

“Could you not call me that?” Sam pulled her knees up and hugged them tight.

“Call you what?”

“Samantha Rose.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I don’t…” Sam rested her chin on her knees.

“You don’t what?”

“I don’t want to be Samantha Rose.” She looked up at Lisa with pleading eyes. “I just want to be ‘Sam’ with you, like before. For once, I didn’t want to have to be Samantha Rose Payton, dutiful daughter of Gerald and Mimi Payton. My life is so much of a dog and pony show that I’m sick of it, actually.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lisa spat. “It must be tough having more money than God. Geez.” Lisa looked away.

Sam groaned, and Lisa felt bad instantly, but the black hole in her heart wouldn’t let her give in. Lisa had been embarrassed at the restaurant in front of her friends, when Susie blindsided her with the news about Sam’s wealth. According to Susie, Sam’s family was East Valley royalty and Sam was its princess. When Jeri and Marlee turned to look at Lisa with accusing eyes obviously wondering why Lisa hadn’t told them, she had no answer. She hadn’t known herself, which made her feel incredibly stupid because Sam’s family owned the building they were standing in. Even Jeri hadn’t known.

Lisa’s mother walked back through the automatic doors. The physician’s assistant scurried up to her from behind the nurses’ station.

“Dr. Sternberg sent me out here to fetch you,” the physician’s assistant said. “The x-rays are done.”

Lisa turned to say something to Sam, but Sam sat stonily with her face hidden in her hands, so Lisa left without saying a word.

Dr. Sternberg wasn’t in the examination room yet, so Lisa hopped up on the green exam table. Her mother sat in a gray metal folding chair at the foot. Lisa noticed the x-ray in the viewing box. “Is that my hand?”

Her mother didn’t have a chance to answer because Dr. Sternberg breezed into the room, salt and pepper hair pulled back in a bun, white coat billowing behind her.

“Yes, it is, and,” she switched on the viewing box, “you have a break right here just at the neck of the fifth metacarpal bone.” She used a pencil to point to a small fracture on the x-ray below Lisa’s pinky finger. “You must have clenched your fist just before the ball hit you. The force of the impact compressed the knuckle in the pinky finger which snapped the bone.”

Lisa’s stomach churned at the doctor’s description of her injury, and she had to turn away from the x-ray.

The doctor reached for a box that the physician’s assistant left on the counter near the sink. “Your injury is called a Boxer’s Fracture, and it’s fairly common. As long as you stay away from catching and other contact sports for a while you’ll be okay. Wear this soft cast religiously, and you should heal up in six to eight weeks. Twelve weeks maximum.” The doctor undid the Velcro straps on the soft cast to get it ready for Lisa’s hand.

“Mom, I have softball camp in two weeks.”

Lisa’s mother sighed. “I know, honey. We’ll figure something out.”

Dr. Sternberg showed Lisa how to place her injured hand gently into the soft cast and tighten the Velcro straps. “You may want your mom to help you out at first. It’s kind of tricky trying to do it with your non-dominant hand.”

“Okay,” Lisa said.
This sucks.

“You can take the cast off for showers and to air it out, but I want you to wear it faithfully.”

“Okay, I will. Thank you, Dr. Sternberg.”

“No problem. If you don’t have any questions, I’ve got a snake bite on its way in.” She looked at them expectantly.

Her mother shook her head. “Thank you, doctor.”

“Okay, then. Good luck to you, Lisa.”

“Thanks.” Lisa took a deep breath. Her life had seemed so perfect a mere three hours before, but now not only did she have a broken hand, but she had a broken relationship, too.

It wasn’t her fault that stupid foul ball broke her hand. Lisa steeled her jaw and told herself it wasn’t her fault that Sam broke her trust, either.

AFTER SAM DROPPED them off, Lisa held her new cast high in the air in the living room. Lawrence Jr. seemed the most impressed and wanted to try it on, but their mother herded them all to the kitchen table to eat. Lisa’s father had made the Brown Family specialty of hot dogs and instant mashed potatoes. Seeing the combination made Lisa even more tired because it reminded her of Sam.

Lisa sat down at the table, and just after her family said grace, her cell phone vibrated.

Sam’s text read, “I wanted u 2 myself 4 a while. I didn’t want 2 share u with my complicated life. Sorry.” After reading the text, Lisa decided that her phone had been off, and she hadn’t received it yet. She powered down her phone and let her father plop a scoop of mashed potatoes on her plate.

After dinner she excused herself to study for her English exam the very next morning. Once in her room she changed into sweats and a T-shirt. She knew she should have pulled out her backpack and opened up her English book to study, but instead dug into her top drawer for her journal. She pulled the cheap green ballpoint pen out and sighed. Where the hell was her favorite blue gel pen? She rooted around the drawer for a few more seconds, but came up empty.

She opened the journal to a new page.

Today started out so great. Clarksonville was so proud of our softball team and Coach Spears that they threw us a parade. Hoo-daddy! Oh, speaking of “daddies,” William was there with his really cute fiancée Evelyn. Mom made a tentative lunch date for me and him next Saturday. That’s cool. I have so much I want to ask him, like, do I have another set of grandparents? Do they want to know me? Do I have cousins? Aunts? Uncles?

Lisa sighed and decided not to go down that road just yet. Maybe he’d volunteer information about his family when they met. They might not even want to know she existed. Kind of like he didn’t seem to know she existed for sixteen years. She started a new paragraph.

Oh, I fractured my hand in the quarterfinal game against Overton Corners on Monday (seven days ago). Geez, that sounded kind of melodramatic. To be precise, I broke the fifth metacarpal bone on the pinky finger of my right hand. I have to wear a soft cast that you Velcro on. I’m glad I don’t have to wear a hard cast. Writing isn’t so bad, either. I was worried about final exams this week and next, but I’ll be okay, I think. Anyway, Mom made me call Coach Spears when we were on our way home. Sam drove us, but more about Sam in a minute. Coach Spears was surprised that there was an actual break. She yelled at me again for hiding it, but c’mon! I wasn’t gonna take myself out of the playoff games. We needed to win a championship, right? Shoot, Mayor Bradley even gave Coach Spears the key to the village after the parade.

Oh, speaking of the parade, I freakin’ came out to Julie (White Girl) today. I didn’t even mean to. Sam was on the sidewalk as we drove by during the parade, and Julie figured it out from the dumb-ass look on my face. She told me her uncle is gay, but he moved because he didn’t fit into the North Country any more. She said he moved to “San Francisgay.” When I burst out laughing, she laughed, too and then told me that her uncle called it that. I wonder if I’ll have to move out to San Francisgay or somewhere else, so I won’t get harassed. I don’t know what my future holds. I don’t even know what college I’m going to. I want to be a firefighter or a police officer. Do I have to go to college for that? What college is Sam going to? No, I’m not thinking about Sam yet.

But, see? Julie didn’t freak out about me, because she already knew somebody that was gay. So there. My theory is correct. If straight people know at least one gay person, then it makes it so much easier for the rest of us to come out. We perpetuate our own “Tools of Ignorance” by staying in the closet. Ha! I am so philosophical tonight.

Hey, queers everywhere! Come out, come out, wherever you are. Make it easier for me, please. Geez, I’m such a hypocrite, ‘cuz I don’t know if I can be open and public about it, either.

Oh, Julie told me some more bummer news. She said that a long time ago it was a law (a stinking law! GEEZ!) that blacks and whites couldn’t even get married. Kind of sound familiar now? Gays can’t get married, either. Well, not really. I think you can go to Toronto or Boston or something to do it—even Iowa now— but the good old Federal government in the good old USA won’t recognize it. Everybody gets so excited about civil unions and such. Sounds like second class status to me. Why are gay people okay with being second class citizens? Maybe ‘cuz then we’re not, like, the scum of the earth anymore? I think I want to hold out until marriage is real for everybody. Life is so unfair sometimes.

Okay, yeah, remember how I said the day started out great? Well, it’s not ending so well. Sam and I are in a fight. Yeah, Sam is as rich as Paris Hilton. Well, maybe not, but Sam or Samantha Rose or whoever she is didn’t tell me any of this. Susie laughed at me ‘cuz I didn’t know. I felt like such an idiot today. My heart hurts so much. How can you love someone, but feel your heart sink when you think about them?

Seems like everybody’s in one kind of closet or another. Me, Sam, Marlee, Susie, and Coach Spears are all in our gay closets. Julie is in the closet about her inter-racial relationship with Marcus, and William was in the closet about my very existence. Hell, even Sam was in the closet about being rich, and she still would be if Mr. D’Amico hadn’t outted her. I don’t know if I can trust her now. Grrr! I don’t want to think about this right now.

Lisa signed off and closed her journal. Instead of tossing it in the back of her top drawer, she stood up and pulled out the Rubbermaid step stool she kept in her closet. She stashed the journal on the top shelf under some sweaters.

She felt satisfied that she had gotten a lot of thoughts on paper, but also felt like a lot of things still weren’t cleared up. She still had to have her heart to heart talk with William, she wanted to talk to Julie some more about being gay, and she needed to digest all that she learned about Sam, but before any of that, she an English final exam to study for.

She fished her English notebook out of her backpack and pulled out the handout entitled, “English – Eleventh Hour Notes.” She shimmied down the bed and rested her head on the soft downy pillow. She blinked her eyes wide to try and stay focused, but the day’s events got the better of her, and she couldn’t keep them open anymore. The last thing she heard was Bridget flying into the room asking if she was awake. Lisa kept her eyes closed.

Chapter Twenty

There Are Ways

LISA SAT IN the front passenger seat of the family minivan watching the purple and yellow wildflowers as the car whizzed by on highway 81.

She jumped when her mother spoke. “Are you excited about softball camp?”

“Yeah.” Lisa looked at her mother in the driver’s seat. “Why are you letting me go, Mom? I can’t do anything.” She held up her broken hand in the soft cast.

Her mother laughed softly. “I know you won’t get to play any softball, but the camp director said you could still be useful as a CIT.”

“Counselor in Training?”

“Um hmm. And when she cut your camp fee in half, that convinced me you would still benefit from a week away from home.”

“Trying to get me out of the house, eh?” Lisa grinned.

“Honey,” her mother’s tone was serious, “I’m proud of you for getting all A’s and B’s on your report card. I know how hard you worked on your studies, and I, for one, am especially proud of your B-plus in Geometry.”