Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You (2 page)

3.

F

“Sweetie! Congratulations.”

Steeling herself for the inevitable even as Daddy stooped to hug her—(a clumsy Daddy hug, since Daddy wasn't so at ease hugging his seventeen-year-old daughter as he'd been years ago hugging his daughter at seven)—“I knew you'd come through, M'rissa!”

Knew you'd come through.

And how the hell did you know, Daddy?

Friday afternoon. Merissa's dazzling week was winding down.

So much good news, it was like a roller coaster ride. One of those wild, terrifying rides where you believe you will die—you will not survive—shrieking with terror that sounds, to people on the ground, like laughter.

Funny to think she belonged to an
elite
.

So Daddy loved her again, for Daddy was proud of her.
A top Ivy school—that's my girl. Brown!

“Mom had something to do with it, too, Daddy. Don't forget poor old Mom.”

“Hey, nooo! Never forget poor old Mom.”

Daddy and daughter laughed together, cruelly.

 

She'd confided in Tink once: “There's this really weird,
funny
thing between Daddy and me—like Mom is somebody to laugh at, and she doesn't have a clue.”

And Tink said, “What makes you think your mom doesn't have a clue?”

Tink smirked and scratched at her freckled arms, and fixed Merissa with her green-glassy-laser stare.

Merissa said, shamefaced, “I don't remember how it got started. It just always seemed to be there, from when I was a little girl. Daddy has always been traveling on business, he's away half the time, so when he comes home it's an
occasion
, and Mom, well—Mom is always home. Mom
is
home.”

“Not like Big Moms.”

(Tink's mother was a well-known—or, as Tink would say,
superannuated
—daytime TV actress. Veronica Traumer was a glamorous woman driven into a rage when Tink called her Big Moms.)

(Tink's father was no longer married to Tink's mother. Or maybe had never been married to Tink's mother. And so Tink did not like to talk about her father, whom she called sometimes the Invisible Man; or the Amazing Vanishing Man. But you could not—ever—ask Tink about either of her parents, or anything she considered
Private
.)

Merissa said, “When I was really little, Daddy would squat down beside me and we'd kind of whisper and laugh together, and Mom would try to laugh with us—she'd say, ‘What are you two conspiring about?' and when we wouldn't tell her, it was all the
funnier
.”

Tink laughed a flat, nasal, chortling laugh: “Ha-
ha
. Fun-
ny
!”

“I'm just worried Mom might feel hurt. And there isn't anything to it, really—just teasing. . . . Sometimes Daddy reminds me of guys at school—not nice guys, but the others.”

“‘Male chauvinist pigs,' fem'nists used to call them.”

“Oh no—Daddy isn't like that. Daddy can be a little cruel sometimes, but definitely, he is not a
pig
.”

“And you know this, how?”

 

Her? That pug-faced little thing all freckles and elbows? She was a child star on TV?

Mr. Carmichael had encountered Tink only a few times, and not ever any really good time. Among Merissa's friends whom she'd been bringing home in recent years, he'd seemed to like Hannah, and Chloe, and Nadia—(though knowing who Nadia's father was made a distinct impression)—but not Tink Traumer, who'd startled him when Merissa first introduced them by reaching out to shake hands with him, as an adult might have done—“H'lo, Mr. Carmichael! Nice to meet you”—with the kind of smirky-scowl of a smile that you'd have to know Tink to realize wasn't insolent, or even meant to throw off an adult's expectations, but just a playful parody of a little-girl-meeting-her-friend's-daddy-for-the-first-time smile.

“Well! ‘Tink'—that's your name, is it? ‘Tink'—”

Mr. Carmichael loomed over Tink awkwardly. At her tallest—and Tink could stretch herself “tall” by sucking in her breath, lifting her shoulders and head, and balancing herself on the balls of her feet like a scrappy featherweight boxer—Tink was just five feet tall; she weighed less than ninety pounds; you'd have thought she was possibly eleven, twelve years old, not, as she'd been at this time, fifteen.

Merissa recalled, wincing: those months when Tink had virtually shaved her head, and sharp little red-tinged quills were sprouting from her scalp like a bizarre form of thorny plant life. And Tink's face and forearms were covered in freckles like splatters from a paintbrush, which gave to her lopsided little smile the prankish-quirky look of a mischievous child.

“Well, nice to meet
you
, Tink. Have a great time, girls.”

Mr. Carmichael had backed off. The handshake with Tink was quick.

“Sorry about my dad,” Merissa said, disappointed that her father hadn't seemed to like her friend Tink more, “but he's really, really busy—we almost never see him during the week. He's—I'm not sure what my dad
does
—he's ‘chief legal counsel' of—”

Tink laughed. If Merissa's father hadn't made any effort to be charming to her, as he usually did with Merissa's friends, if he had time, it didn't seem to bother Tink at all. In fact, Tink had to be the only person Merissa had ever met who was amused when others, especially adults, hurriedly left her presence.

“Your dad picks up the signal—Tink doesn't
F
with her friends' dads.”

“Tink doesn't what?”

“Tink doesn't
F
.”

Merissa didn't know whether to be shocked or annoyed—or offended.

“So, what's
F
?”

“Flirt—Flatter—Fawn Over.”

 

“Merissa?”

“Y-yes, Mom?”

“What are you thinking about, honey? You seem to be lost in space and looking a little . . . sad.”

Blood rushed to Merissa's face. “Oh, Mom! I hate it—you spying on me.”

“Merissa, I'm not spying on you—truly. I only asked . . .”

“Well, I'm not thinking about anything, Mom, just going upstairs to start homework. And I am not
sad
.”

“You certainly shouldn't be, honey. Not after this week—all the wonderful things that have happened to you. At least, the ones you've told me about.”

Merissa's mother laughed. As if this was some kind of joke and not a silly, senseless remark of the kind Merissa's mother was always making lately, that made you wonder what she was talking about—if she knew more than she let on, or wanted you to think that she did.

“Don't worry, Mom—I'm not thinking about you-know-who.”

“I—I didn't think you were. Not this week, with so much—good news. . . .”

Tink. Of course, I am thinking about Tink.

I am thinking about Daddy, and when I am not thinking about Daddy, I am thinking about Tink.

And when I am not thinking about Tink or Daddy I am thinking about
—
something else.

“I heard your father talking to you just now—he's really thrilled, Merissa. This early acceptance at Brown is very good news for us—I mean, all of us.” Merissa's mother was smiling—trying to smile—but you could see the strain in her face. Quickly Merissa looked away, not wanting to acknowledge those damp, anxious eyes.

“He's so
proud
of you, Merissa. He brags to everyone. . . .”

Just barely managing not to be impolite—Merissa felt sorry for her mother, and frightened of her, of what her mother might one day soon reveal—Merissa mumbled something more about homework and needing to text Hannah about the yearbook cover, and moved toward the stairs.

By this time she'd been home about ten minutes. That itchy-excited sensation had begun, on the most secret parts of her body, beneath her clothes, as soon as she returned from school—as soon as she stepped through the door into the back hall.

Almost! Almost where I need to be.

Waiting all day for—this.

Merissa dreaded her mother catching her by the wrist, or just touching her. Merissa's mother was one of those women who
touch, touch, touch
to make sure you're listening to them.

“. . . dinner tonight, just a little later at seven thirty. Your father needs to be on the phone for a while, there's a conference call . . .”

“Sure, Mom. I'll come down and help.”

“He's been under pressure lately. Which is why . . .”

“Sure, Mom! See you.”

On the stairs, her heart beating quick and light and excited, and she's thinking,
Flirt. Flatter. Fawn Over
.

Thinking,
Maybe I haven't, enough. With Daddy.

4.

(SECRET!)

Now Merissa was alone.

For the first time since early that morning, when she'd wakened in the dark before dawn and the heaviness of GOOD NEWS! GOOD NEWS! CONGRATULATIONS! sank down on her like a low-lying toxic cloud.

Quickly shutting the door. In her room, and safe.

Listening to hear if her mother might be following after her—no?

And in the little bathroom adjoining her room, with trembling hands—trembling with excitement, anticipation!—opening a drawer beside the sink, and, at the very back of the drawer, seizing the handle of a small but very sharp paring knife—bringing out the knife, and pressing its tip against the inside of her wrist, where the skin was pale and thin and the little blue veins just visible—“I can do this. Any time. Nobody can stop me.”

Her voice was gloating, joyous. In all of the week of Good News, not once had Merissa spoken in such a voice.

“The Perfect One,” Tink had teased Merissa Carmichael.

But not even Tink knew about this.

In the mirror above the sink, a luminous-pale face hovered. The wide-set eyes were shadowed, shining, and fierce.

At such (secret) moments Merissa could bear to see herself.

For it was not
herself
she saw but another—a stranger—with the (secret) power of life/death in her hands.

Just an ordinary paring knife, stolen from the kitchen downstairs.

Where there were so many knives—some of them gorgeous, glittering, Japanese-honed stainless-steel carving knives, very expensive—no one would miss this little knife.

This (secret) Merissa had cherished for the past eighteen months—when she'd first cut herself, clumsily, foolishly, in an act of desperation and not of sublime cerebral design.

Now Merissa was
in control
.

Even Tink hadn't known. (But maybe she had guessed?)

For the girls at Quaker Heights, maybe for the guys, too, Tink Traumer had shown the way. You didn't have to like Tink—in fact, Tink had more detractors than admirers, by far—but you had to admit, Tink Traumer had not only
taken her own life in her hands
, she'd had the guts to
throw that life away
.

This week of GOOD NEWS was making Merissa sick, finally. Just so many times you can smile and say, “Thank you!” when someone congratulates you—at a point, you want to say, “Please just leave me alone! It will never happen again.”

High grades, class offices, yearbook staff, field hockey, girls' chorus, Elizabeth Bennet in
Pride and Prejudice
, every honor list you can think of, plus, now, early admission at Brown—she was feeling guilty, selfish.

Like her belly bloated with Diet Coke. Just—
disgusting
.

Still, Daddy was proud of her. And if Daddy was proud of Merissa, that meant that Merissa was all right to keep going, for a while at least.

(Secretly) lifting her shirt, to check on the most recent cut.

Just a small cross, on her upper abdomen, each stitchlike scab about an inch long. Already Merissa had forgotten why she'd cut herself there—what the particular reason was scarcely mattered—but it looked good. Healing, and not infected.

And if she prodded it with the tip of the paring knife, a quicksilver flamelike pain leapt from the tiny wound like a muted shout.

Now Merissa was happy.

“‘Congratulations!'”

5.

(BAD NEWS!)

“Merissa, sweetie? I have something to tell you.”

No no no no NO.

6.

(PUNISHMENT!)

At 7:20 p.m. Merissa went downstairs, finally.

Wondering why her mother hadn't called her to help with dinner.

(Hadn't that been the plan? What was going on?)

After all the good news. Merissa Carmichael among the
elite
.

After Daddy hugging her and telling her,
Knew you'd come through, Merissa! That's my girl.

Of course, this was nothing to be upset about. Morgan Carmichael was a very busy man.

Except if Daddy loves me. Loves us.

What happened to Tink will not happen to me.

Too distracted to focus on homework, she'd been wasting time before dinner texting her friends, whom she'd seen just hours before and of whom one—Nadia Stillinger—had lately a habit of texting Merissa back within seconds, as if Nadia was very, very lonely or very, very anxious, and such obvious neediness made Merissa feel mean.

Merissa didn't want to get into
that
—whatever it was.

“Mom, why? I mean—why not? Where is Daddy?”

“I—I think he had to go back to the office, honey. He'd been on the phone almost since he came home. He said—I think he said—it was some sort of ‘quarterly dividend crisis.' Or maybe—”

Merissa stopped listening. She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears.

So often this had been happening, since September. So often, Daddy was working late at the office—away all weekend on business.

A hot flush of shame came into Merissa's face.

“It's all right, Mom. It's cool. No problem.”

“We can eat in the kitchen, Merissa, or if you'd like to watch TV—”

“I'm not hungry, Mom. I wasn't really hungry anyway.”

As if she could eat! When punishment was needed, clearly—fasting as well as cutting.

“Daddy asked me to tell you, to be sure to explain, that he was called away ‘unavoidably'—he'll make it up this weekend.”

Merissa thought,
Mom is lying. Mom is scared. Just like me.

“Why couldn't Daddy tell me himself? I was just upstairs in my room. He just saw me an hour ago.”

Embarrassingly, Merissa's voice was childish, whining. Tink would be surprised—was this the Perfect One? Was this the girl everyone had been envying this week at Quaker Heights Day School?

“Well, there are these sudden emergencies, Merissa. Things happen out of our control—it's no one's fault.”

Yes it is. It is your fault.

If he doesn't love you. Why should I love you?

Coolly Merissa said it was all right, really she didn't mind. She'd see Daddy on the weekend, he was taking her skating at the Meadowlands.

 

Merissa ran back upstairs. Shut—the—damned—
door
.

Checked her cell phone, but just one text message awaited.

CONGRATULATIONS MERISSA!

HEARD TERRIFIC NEWZ U WILL LUV BROWN

XXX COREY

Corey was one of Merissa's cousins—a niece of her mother's. So quickly Merissa's good news had traveled through the family, obviously spread by Merissa's mother.

Corey was nineteen, a sophomore at—where was it?—Sarah Lawrence. Typed at lightning speed and never looked back.

Merissa erased the message without replying. Corey wouldn't remember.

The week had been too long. It was getting to be some kind of joke. She was sick with shame; Shaun must hate her.

At Brooke's party, he'd tried to kiss Merissa—in fact, he had kissed her, for the first time ever, trying to prod Merissa's lips open with his tongue—but Merissa had (involuntarily) flinched.

After so long, after years—being “friends” at school, attracted to each other—or so Merissa had thought.

When Merissa stiffened and drew back from him, Shaun stepped back from
her
.

A flush rising into his face. He'd stammered what sounded like
Oh, hey—cool. Sorry M'ris.

Merissa had insulted him, for sure. She had made an utter fool of herself.

Shaun Ryan was a nice guy—basically—and he'd seemed sincerely sorry, he'd been too aggressive with Merissa; he'd misread her smiles at him, her warm, throaty, giggly laughter. But the other guys would know, and so Shaun would be embarrassed and quickly then he would come to dislike Merissa Carmichael.

No way Merissa could text Shaun

SHAUN PLEASE TRY AGAIN. PLEASE KISS ME AGAIN. I AM SO SORRY—BUT PLEASE WILL YOU TRY AGAIN. . . .

No way. You get one chance.

Anyway, Merissa had beat out Shaun and half the guys in the senior class, getting admitted early to Brown. They'd all applied; Brown was tops on their lists.

But Alex Wren had been nice to Merissa, and Alex had applied, too. Desperately Merissa thought,
Alex likes me! Maybe Shaun will know and be jealous.

It was all so ridiculous. Tink was correct: You know when it's time to
bail out
.

Now again the shivery sensation rose in Merissa, the itchy excitement crawling along her skin. Eagerly her fingers sought out the secret, stitchlike cuts and scabs in her flesh, more than just the little cross in her abdomen—others, diamond-shaped, heart-shaped beneath her hard little breasts, on the soft curve of her belly, the insides of her thighs.

Punished! You need to be.

Now.

“Disgusting.”

Her flabby skin, Merissa meant. If you could pinch and squeeze flesh between your fingers, you were
fat
.

All the girls at Quaker Heights felt this way. Utterly, utterly disgusting to be
fat
.

How Nadia could bear to look at herself in the mirror, Merissa couldn't imagine. Nadia's features were pretty—especially her warm brown eyes—but her face was round as a plate and she had, if you looked at her sideways, an actual
belly
.

Merissa shuddered. If she looked like Nadia, she'd slash her wrists.

A text message arrived on her phone—
NADIA.

Merissa deleted it without reading it.

“What does she want with
me
? She isn't my friend.”

Merissa fumbled for a pair of scissors on her desk. Just a small pair of scissors, not the knife.

Quickly pressing the sharp point of the scissors against the inside of her left forearm, at the elbow. (Higher on Merissa's arm were several small, scabby wounds like tattoos.) Just a swift gesture, piercing the skin to relieve pressure in her lungs so that she could breathe.

The cut was shallow—a few drops of blood. Soaked up in a wadded tissue and the tissue flushed away in the toilet.

Not much punishment. But Merissa felt better.