Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You (23 page)
Read Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You Online
Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
Tags: #General Fiction
Winter was ending: Rivulets of icy water ran glittering in the sun, as banks of soiled snow melted. A sharp wind blew last year's leaves scuttling along the pavement like scraps of tin, and overhead the sky looked like a giant flame was pushing against a cloud barrier and about to burst into flame.
Nadia seized her friends' hands. Excitedly they cried, “What?”
“It's Tink. She's here.”
“Tink? Where?”
They turnedâthey looked upâthey were desperate to see Tink, knowing that she was close, teasing.
“Tink? Tink!”
“Tinkâare you here?”
But there was silence. Except for the wind, and leaves blown across the pavementâsilence.
“It's like Tink not to come when you want her.”
They laughed nervously. Their fingers, gripping one another's fingers, had gone icy cold.
“Tink is a
bitch
.”
“Tink is
so bitchy
.”
They laughed. They listened. They heard nothing.
The house at 88 Blue Spruce Way had been sold. Veronica Traumer had moved awayâto L.A., it was believed.
On the internet, Veronica Traumer continued to exist in a sequence of glamour photographs, of which virtually none resembled the others. The actress's exciting news was that she'd just signed a contract for another
Lifetime
daytime series, in which she would play the female lead.
There was very little about Veronica Traumer's daughter, Katrina, except notations that the “seventeen-year-old former child actress” had died in June 2011. On the Wikipedia website was the additional information that Katrina Traumer, a “longtime leukemia patient,” had died of “complications” involving that disease.
Leukemia! None of Tink's friends had ever heard that she had had
leukemia
.
“Tink would have told us if she'd had leukemia. We would have known!”
“Wellâmaybe. Butâyou know Tink.”
“Butâif Tink did have leukemia, thenâ”
“This Wikipedia page says it's âuncorroborated.' We can't believe it.”
“I think that Tink had a bone marrow transplant when she was a little girl. I
think
she'd mentioned that onceâin the way that Tink alluded to things, you know? So you didn't know if they were true or notâor maybe they'd happened to that little girl Penelope she played on television, and not to her.”
“Bone marrow. We could have donated bone marrow to her. . . . They look for donors, don't they?”
“Maybe that's what she was asking me. âA favor.' Oh God! And I didn't realize.”
Merissa was stricken. She pressed her hands to her face, in sudden horror.
“I meanâshe'd started to ask. Then she changed her mind.”
Hannah clutched Merissa's hand. All the girls stood close to Merissa, who was trembling.
“It would explain so much, wouldn't itâif Tink had been sick. If she'd had operations, and was tired of being sick. And so that's why sheâwhy she did what she did. To spare herself more pain and also to spare other people who loved her . . .”
“But Tink would never have said a word; she didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her.”
“She didn't want anyone to really
know
her. That wasn't fair.”
“Look. We don't know. And if we tried to ask Tink's mother, we wouldn't know if she was telling the truth.”
“Tink's mother probably made it up herselfâthat Tink was sick. That that was how she d-diedâof a sickness that no one could cureânot something Tink did because she wanted to. That way Big Moms could have sympathy for losing her daughter, instead of people hating her because she was a lousy mother.”
Nadia spoke with surprising vehemence. Since the incident with Mr. Kessler, and the cyberbullying, she was much less passive and compliant than she'd been; at times, you could discern an edge to her voice that was reminiscent of Tink's voice when Tink was in a combative mood.
“You have to be a match, don't you? To donate bone marrow? It must be likeâa blood type? Not just anybody could donate bone marrow to anybody else. . . .”
“Tink wouldn't have wanted to ask. She'd have thought it was just tooâtoo much to ask.”
“
I'd
have done it. She didn't give me a chance!”
“I'd have done it. . . .”
The girls of Tink, Inc., joined hands to comfort one another.
“I feel so terrible about this! So kind ofâlost . . .”
“Look, we can't be sure. Like it said, the Wikipedia entry is âuncorroborated.'”
“I wish we could know. . . .”
“Wellâwe won't know.”
“Like about Tink's fatherââthe Amazing Vanishing Man'âwhoever he was, we won't know.”
Overhead the sky was losing its light. The glowering red sun behind the clouds had begun to fade. A faint rustle of leaves across the pavement and then silence, and if Tink had been hovering near, now she had departed.
Â
Except that night a dream came to each of us, swift as a flash of light across a wall.
And there was Tink, peering at us from a short distance, as if across an abyss, an expression of reproach on her faceâ(her face had a fever-tint, a smoldering glow)âit seemed that she was pissed as hell that we'd been speculating about her health behind her backâ(her health was her own bloody business)âbut she was forgiving, too.
Â
Not going anywhere.
Not for a long time.
You guys would screw up totally if I did.
Just be coolâokay?
JOYCE CAROL OATES
has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time. Her first novel for teens,
BIG MOUTH & UGLY GIRL
, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, followed by the acclaimed novels
FREAKY GREEN EYES; SEXY
; and
AFTER THE WRECK, I PICKED MYSELF UP, SPREAD MY WINGS, AND FLEW AWAY
. A recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Art of the Short Story, Ms. Oates is also the author of many bestselling novels, including
WE WERE THE MULVANEYS; BLONDE
, which was nominated for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize;
THE FALLS
; and
THE GRAVEDIGGER'S DAUGHTER
. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University. You can visit her online at www.readjoycecaroloates.com.
Â
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Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You
Copyright © 2012 by The Ontario Review, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oates, Joyce Carol.
    Two or three things I forgot to tell you / Joyce Carol Oates. â 1st ed.
        p.        cm.
    Summary: When their best friend, Tink, dies from an apparent suicide, high school seniors Merissa and Nadia are alientated by their secrets, adrift from each other and from themselves.
    ISBN 978-0-06-211047-3
    Epub Edition © JULY 2012 ISBN: 9780062110497
Version 09062013
    [1. SecretsâFiction. 2. FriendshipâFiction. 3. Self-esteemâFiction. 4. Cutting (Self-mutilation)âFiction. 5. Preparatory schoolsâFiction. 6. SchoolsâFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.O1056Tw 2012
2012009699
[Fic]âdc23
CIP
AC
Typography by Alison Klapthor
12Â Â 13Â Â 14Â Â 15Â Â 16Â Â Â Â LP/RRDHÂ Â Â Â 10Â Â 9Â Â 8Â Â 7Â Â 6Â Â 5Â Â 4Â Â 3Â Â 2Â Â 1
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