Something Maybe Magnificent, page 14
The beep sounded like a wail.
And then a click, and a dial tone.
Jack scowled at Maggie and me. “We missed it because of you.”
“We’re not supposed to answer it anyway,” I said. “Unless it’s Mom.”
“What if it was Dad?” Jack said.
And just like that, the room felt hot and sticky and way too thick.
No one said anything for a while. Jack shook his head and started back toward the living room.
“It wasn’t Dad,” I called after him.
He swung around. “How do you know?”
“He would have left a message.”
“How do you know?” Jack said again.
I don’t.
“He could have called a million times and never left a message,” Jack said. “And we would never know.”
It’s kind of tragic, the stories hope tells you. I couldn’t even argue, because I’ve had the same thoughts myself. How else can you explain zero communication from your dad in a year? Your dad who’s supposed to love you just because you’re his kid.
The stories hope tells are better than the stories despair tells. Those sound more like, It’s all because of you.
So when Jack said, “Next time I’ll answer the **BLEEP** phone,” I didn’t say anything except, “Watch your language,” because I’d rather listen to hope, you know? And also, I know Jack won’t really answer the phone next time, because it’ll be truth on the other line, and truth isn’t always nice. It’s better to keep believing Dad’s called a million times without leaving a message than to know he hasn’t once picked up the phone and thought about dialing our number.
Maggie slid to the floor. I followed. She dropped her head on my shoulder. I dropped my head on hers. We stayed there like that until my butt went numb.
June 30, 8:32 p.m.
Well, it turns out peroxide may be good for drying out your face and preventing pimples popping up everywhere, but it’s also good for something else.
Every night I have been faithfully washing my face with Mom’s expensive cleanser (just a little bit, so hopefully she doesn’t notice), and then using peroxide on a cotton ball to soak up any remaining oil and dirt, like Seventeen magazine told me to do. I haven’t had a pimple in three months. I thought it was a miracle cure.
Whoever wrote that article didn’t mention anything about side effects. And I was so busy staring at my face I didn’t even notice them either.
But today Jack said, “What’s wrong with your bangs?”
I wanted to say, Nothing. What’s wrong with your face? I only thought the words instead.
I had no idea what he was talking about. I mean, I’d had sort of a restless night and I hadn’t paid much attention to the mirror when I went into the bathroom this morning, because last night Jack wouldn’t let us watch anything but Candyman, and since it was Mom’s Sunday night “work late” night, she wasn’t there to tell us how inappropriate it was, and now mirrors and bees are ruined for me. Forever.
(A quick side note: I know I said I wanted to find something to write about in this journal every day, but I live out in the middle of nowhere, and things don’t happen all the time, and it was a boring weekend, and I’m doing the best I can, okay? I don’t want to bore Future Me to death.)
I wanted to know what was wrong with my bangs, so I said, “What do you mean?”
“Did you dye them?”
“No?” It came out like a shouted question, maybe because this is a little of a sore spot for me. All my friends started dyeing their hair last year, but Mom won’t let me until I’m at least sixteen. She says even that’s too young, probably.
“Then why are they a different color than the rest of your hair?” Jack said.
“They’re not,” I said.
“Uh…” Jack laughed. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”
He was one to talk—his hair stuck up in a billion places, like he hadn’t showered in days. He probably hadn’t.
I was just about to turn his words back on him when Maggie said, “They are. They’re, like, blond.”
I thought they were being ridiculous, maybe ganging up on me for some unknown reason.
“Whatever,” I said. I haven’t had blond hair since I was four.
“Go look in the mirror,” Jack said, “if you don’t believe us.”
I knew he was just trying to get me to admit I’m now terrified of mirrors, thanks to him making us watch Candyman.
“No,” I said.
Jack shrugged. “I mean, it’s not me who looks like a bleached blonde.”
“I don’t look like a bleached blonde,” I said.
“You look like you dyed your bangs and forgot about the rest of your hair.”
“Do not.”
“Do too.”
Jack was being very juvenile. He kept answering back, and I wanted to have the last word. Maggie watched us like she was watching a basketball game.
Finally I shoved into the bathroom so he would shut up.
And… oh my God. He was right! My bangs were this white-yellow color and the rest of my hair was its regular brown. How had I not noticed this before now?
I could hear Jack laughing in the living room. I glared at my face in the mirror, and then I was pretty sure I heard a bee buzzing, so I got out of there quick.
I didn’t go for a run. I waited until Mom got home and then wailed to her. (I didn’t really wail to her…. I cried a little—but that’s because my hair was all messed up and I thought I’d have to chop it off and start all over, and I have this abnormally large forehead and I need bangs to hide it and how would I hide it now?!!)
In retrospect I know it’s ridiculous to make such a big deal out of my hair—my appearance. Not exactly a feminist thing to do.
Mom was surprisingly calm about the whole thing. She asked me if I’d started using any new face cleaner. I mentioned the peroxide, but not her expensive cleanser.
“That’s it,” she said.
“What’s it?”
“The peroxide,” Mom said. “Peroxide bleaches things.”
WHAT?!! The article didn’t say ANYTHING about keeping your hair out of the way or making sure you don’t spill the peroxide on your clothes. That’s a glaring omission in a teen magazine, if you ask me.
“I’m glad they mentioned that before I tried it,” I said. I was feeling very sarcastic in the moment.
“You know you can always ask me questions,” Mom said. “You don’t have to get all your information from magazines and…” She made a gesture, like she was saying, Wherever else you get your information.
“I know,” I said. But the truth is, sometimes it’s easier to get my information from other places, not just because Mom’s so busy but also because… well, sometimes you don’t want to get advice from your parents. They’re old.
Mom fluffed my bangs.
“Should we cut them off?” I said.
“I think that might be a bigger mistake,” she said. She was probably right. I’d look like a kindergartner who had tried to cut her bangs and never got them straight, so she kept cutting and cutting and cutting. “You’ll just have to let it grow out,” she said.
“How long will that take?” I said.
Mom tilted her head and squinted at my bangs. “A few months, maybe.”
“So I’ll have to start eighth grade with bleached bangs.”
Mom tried not to smile. “You can just tell them you spent the summer at the beach.”
“What if I dyed my hair so it’s all the same color?”
“Not happening,” Mom said.
It was worth a try.
I didn’t ask Mom why she didn’t notice the bleaching happening. Before Kyle, she would have.
I kept that question to myself, because that was the most time I’d gotten alone with Mom for a long time, and I didn’t want to spoil it.
I checked the magazine, by the way, and there was an asterisk by the peroxide trick, and when I followed the asterisk down to the bottom of the page, there, in tiny print, it said, “Be sure to tie your hair back from your face, since peroxide is a known bleaching agent.”
I’m going to write a letter to the editors. The title will be, “Who Puts This Sort of Thing in Fine Print?!!”
July 2, 7:49 p.m.
Mom had today off, so guess who also spent the whole day with her?
Kyle.
He didn’t say anything about my bangs, probably because Mom told him not to mention it. Or maybe he doesn’t notice things like that, although he’s always going on and on and on about Mom’s “pretty curls.”
Mom had three kids, and not one of us got her black curls—every strand on our heads is as straight as Mom’s back when Jack turns his music up loud enough to disturb the neighbors a quarter mile away. She hates Jack’s music, but she lets us listen to whatever we want, as long as we keep it “at a manageable volume.”
Jack usually waits until she’s gone to rattle the windows. He pretends he can’t hear me tell him to turn it down.
What Kyle did say was, “What’s the best way to get extra oil off your face?”
“Astringent,” Mom said.
“What kind?”
“Probably Neutrogena,” Mom said. “Or Burt’s Bees. It doesn’t have any extra chemicals in it.”
“You don’t sell any of that stuff yourself?” Kyle said.
I was about 99 percent sure they were talking about skin stuff and Mom’s Avon because of me. They thought they were being sneaky.
Kyle closed up the last 1 percent when he left to pick up our pizza supper (the regular Wednesday night offering) and brought back with him a plastic bag from H-E-B (the grocery store). In that plastic bag was some Burt’s Bees toner and my own cleanser (“for oily skin,” it said). He handed it to Mom, but about three seconds later she gave it to me and said, “Use this instead of peroxide, Victoria.”
I didn’t know if I should feel offended or grateful. Probably grateful, but to tell the truth, I felt way more offended.
“Thank you,” I said anyway. It came out a little grumbly. Mom raised an eyebrow at me and nodded toward Kyle, like she was saying, “Thank him.” So I did.
He smiled and said, “Anytime you need anything, all you have to do is ask.”
I almost said, Yeah, right. I shut myself up before my mouth caused a disaster.
I know that’s just something people say. They don’t mean it.
Besides, he’s a guy, not a girl, so that eliminates a lot of things I could ask for. Second of all, he’s not my dad—he’s not even remotely related to me! And to round it all out, I don’t want to ask him for anything, because I don’t want him to think he can weasel his way into our lives by buying us things. Even if we need them.
I’d like to say Kyle’s interference is what made me do what I did later.
We sat down to an early supper, since Kyle had to be at work by seven. Mom and Kyle asked us all kinds of questions, like they were trying to pretend we were one big happy family. Jack only offered one-word answers. “How did your day go?” “Fine.” “What did you do?” “Fish.” “How many did you catch?” “Five.” “How does this happy family supper make you feel?” “Furious.”
(They didn’t ask that last one, but I imagined Jack would have answered it that way, keeping to the F theme, if they had.)
Maggie answered with long monologues that made my eyelids droop and put my teeth to sleep.
And when it came round to me, I had to bite my bottom lip to keep the sarcastic answers from flying out. (“How did your day go?” “Well, I’m no longer bleeding from my vagina, so that’s a win, and I had enough Womanhood Supplies, unlike last summer. Two wins.” “What did you do all day?” “Tried to ignore my arguing brother and sister by getting thoroughly lost in one of my mom’s forbidden romances.” In my defense, she shouldn’t leave them on the shelf if she doesn’t want me to find them. “How many did you read?” “All of them.”)
I couldn’t wait for supper to finish.
My name was on the dish schedule tonight, so I washed about a billion cups. (Jack and Maggie must get a new one every time they need a drink, since Mom uses her red refillable water bottle and Kyle has a matching one in blue.) And not much else. Kyle always brings paper plates for pizza, and only weird people eat pizza with a fork. (I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Future Me; maybe you’ll go off to college and discover that everyone eats pizza with a fork in the big city because it’s the way refined people dine, and now you use a fork too. If that’s the case, I will go ahead and say I was wrong, you’re not weird, you’re sophisticated and all grown up.)
So, anyway, I finished my chore before Kyle hopped in the shower. Which gave me plenty of time to come up with my next plan of attack.
I got the perfect idea.
Mom hates when we leave our dirty clothes everywhere. She’s always nagging us to put them in the hamper, even though, come Laundry Day, we’re technically only responsible for doing our own laundry. Which means if we’re all putting our dirty clothes in the same hamper, we have to touch other people’s dirty clothes—Jack’s crusty socks, Maggie’s shirts with accidental Vienna sausage drips (you thought they smelled bad right out of the can—try three days later!), and now Kyle’s used underpants (I just threw up a little in my mouth) to get ours out. No thanks. It’s just easier to keep my dirty clothes in a tidy pile in the corner of my room.
Mom hates even this. “Clothes belong in a hamper,” she says. “Buy me my own, then,” I say. “We have one already,” she says.
Sometimes I think she deliberately pretends not to understand for the sake of shutting down a legitimate argument.
Knowing Mom hates dirty clothes in any place dirty clothes don’t belong (which, to review, is anywhere but the hamper), I slipped into the bathroom right after Kyle came out. It smelled like the Great Outdoors—but a little too strongly. I was glad of it, though, when I opened the hamper and pulled out the clothes on top—Wrangler jeans, collared shirt, tighty-whities.
I dropped them on the floor and shoved them (with my feet) into the corner, near the trash. Mom would see them, but it wouldn’t be completely obvious they were on the floor. Like Kyle had just forgotten they were there.
Kyle pulled away at twenty till seven, and I waited for Mom to find the clothes pile.
It happened at 7:29. I could hear her through the bathroom wall, talking to herself. I’m pretty sure she said something like, “Oh, that’s not gonna work,” and I felt the satisfaction spread all over my face.
That’s right. It was not gonna work, and maybe Mom was finally starting to realize it.
I have to admit, I felt a little bad. But then I reminded myself that Mom doesn’t need Kyle.
None of us do.
So the sooner he’s gone, the sooner we’ll get on with our lives.
July 3, 10:17 a.m.
Eli started running with me again. I guess I didn’t scare him away.
I’m enjoying it more and more.
Now that I’m no longer womenstruating (at least until it comes round again), I can think about other things on our runs together instead of whether or not I’m leaking blood everywhere. Like how we’re starting to run faster and I’m not breathing as hard.
In the last week, Eli’s joined me for every morning run, even though it seems like every day it gets hotter and hotter—which is probably true, since July and August are the most unbearable parts of the summer. And maybe it’s my need to impress him that gradually picked up my speed, but I’m glad for it. Coach Finley will be impressed when we do our first run to the T. I might even finish first this year.
We talk about all sorts of things on our runs: school, friends, how cool his stepdad is (I tried to ignore that one). Yesterday Eli told me his stepdad keeps chickens (which I already knew—because I’ve seen them in the yard—but pretended not to know so he didn’t think I was spying on him or something), and every morning he gets to gather eggs and they cook them fresh. I told him Mom used to have a garden back when she was married to Dad, and we’d pick green beans and cantaloupe. But the watermelons were always half-eaten by coyotes.
Eli’s eyes looked like blue lasers, all shiny and bright, when he said, “Coyotes?” He didn’t look the least bit scared.
Coyotes are the reason I don’t go running in the dark. But I didn’t tell him this. I just said, “Have you heard them, howling at night?”
Eli shrugged.
“They don’t always sound like they do in the movies,” I said. “Sometimes they sound like yapping dogs.”
Eli looked like he was thinking for a minute. He said, “We should try running at sunset or something. See if we can see any.”
Uh… no thanks. I used Mom as an excuse. “My mom only lets me run in the daylight.” It’s mostly true, anyway. Mom did make me promise I would stick to daylight hours if I was running by myself. And even though, technically, I wouldn’t be running by myself if Eli was there, I don’t think Mom embraces technicalities.
We ran without talking for a few minutes, until we reached the end of the road, touched the stop sign, and turned around. That’s when Eli said, “You ever wonder if your dad will come back?”
I almost stopped right there, in the middle of our run. I didn’t know what to say. We had never talked about our dads or his mom (I still wasn’t sure if she wasn’t around at all or if she just worked a lot like Mom) except in passing memories. Philosophical questions were not allowed. It was like an unspoken agreement.
And now here we were, in shaky territory.
He added, “Or why he left in the first place?”
I breathed in and out in time with my feet for four steps, eight steps, twelve steps.
I considered. We’re definitely friends, I think. And the people who are definitely my friends, not the people who are just “friends” at school and it never goes beyond that—the people who get and love me (Sarah is the only one I’d put in this category right now, besides maybe Mom and Memaw)—deserve to know me.
Whoa. Love. Strike that from the record—it’s weird when talking about a boy, right? Like, things are different with boy friends and girl friends and boyfriends and girlfriends and it’s all complicated and weird….
