If You Loved Me Read online

  “You should hear Shawna’s first sentence for her autobiogra­phy,” I tell her, immediately wishing I hadn’t.

  We’ve all promised that whatever goes on in creative writing is confidential to that group. Otherwise, people might be afraid to write honestly.

  “What is it?” Amber says.

  I hesitate, not wanting to break a confidence.

  “Come on! Spit it out,” Amber says, nudging me lightly on the arm.

  “Well, what you said about Shawna being mad at the world?”

  “Yeah?”

  “She’s way mad at her father.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s all I’m saying.”

  “They’re both freaks.”

  “I don’t know about Mark,” I say. “But Tyler says you just have to understand Shawna. He says she’s nice, once you get to know her.”

  “Maybe. Remember, in sixth grade she was like everybody else—quiet, but not obviously strange? Then, in the seventh grade she started with that hair down over her face thing, and wearing those massive, heavy flannel shirts over huge jeans, winter and summer.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess I’d forgotten how she used to seem normal.”

  “Now, though, no kidding, I can easily imagine her picture under one of those newspaper headlines, “Loner student kills fourteen with grandfather’s automatic rifle.”

  “I’m glad your sense of drama has returned,” I say.

  “What would your Tyler say about that I wonder—if his nursery partner went ballistic?”

  I turn away, not wanting to show my sadness, not wanting to think that maybe he’s not my Tyler anymore.

  Amber keeps looking my way until I finally have to turn back toward her.

  “Hey, what’s up?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Whoa. I spilled the beans to you the other day. Whatever it is can’t be as embarrassing to talk about as the big H problem.”

  “It’s just . . .”

  “Not Tyler? You guys are the perfect poster kids for young love.”

  “I think he’s mad at me.”

  By this time we’re at the door to our English class.

  “You want to go for coffee and talk?” Amber asks.

  “We better not,” I say, knowing I’m on the verge of a Din English, anyway.

  “Turnabout’s fair,” Amber says. “It might help to talk. It helped me.”

  “Snyder’d kill us if we cut his class again,” I say, walking into the classroom.

  Schools are so schizoid sometimes. Yesterday Mr. Snyder was all mad at us because we cut Monday. He wouldn’t let us into class until we had a re-admit slip. So that meant we had to go to the attendance office, where the line was like waiting for Space Mountain at Disneyland. So it took all period to get that stupid piece of paper stamped re-admit. So not only did we miss Monday, we missed yesterday, too. I don’t much care, but does it make sense? He’s mad because we missed a day, so he makes us miss another day?

  I sit at my assigned desk and Amber sits across from me. “What’s Tyler mad about, anyway?”

  “I don’t even know for sure he’s mad. But he sounded mad last night, when we hung up from talking on the phone, and then he wasn’t at the bench this morning. But he may not even be mad. I hope he’s not mad.”

  “Okay, okay,” Amber says, sounding irritated. “If he’s mad, what’s he mad about?”

  “It’s kind of private.”

  “Like herpes isn’t?” Amber whispers. “I spilled my guts to you, so out with it.”

  “Sex. He wants sex,” I whisper.

  “Intercourse? Penetration? The whole package?”

  She can be way too loud at the worst possible times!

  “Don’t broadcast it!”

  “Oops, sorry,” she whispers.

  She looks around to be sure no one’s paying attention, then leans in close to me.

  “Don’t do it! You’ll be sorry!” she says.

  “Maybe it’s not that simple,” I tell her.

  “It is! Look at me. The same thing could happen to you!”

  “Tyler’s not like Keith was.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think Keith was like Keith was, either, but he was.”

  “Huh? Could you repeat that please?”

  “Oh, you know what I mean!”

  “I’ve known Tyler a lot longer than you knew Keith,” I remind her.

  “So? You don’t know everything about him. He could have been with someone else and not wanted to tell you, afraid he’d hurt you, or you’d get mad. Guys are like that, they don’t bother to tell you important stuff if it might inconvenience them.”

  “You sound bitter,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, well I’ve got a right to be bitter. You’d be bitter too if you spent much time with itchy, oozy sores all over your private area.”

  “Yuck!”

  “I’m just telling you,” Amber says, looking all intent. “Don’t let any guy talk you into anything you don’t want to do.”

  “But, I love him so much,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, well, true love waits. If he loves you he’ll understand.”

  “I hope so,” I say.

  Mr. Snyder has given us two full days of silent reading and independent work in class, so those of us who are behind in the Jane Eyre assignments can get caught up. I think it’s partly for him to get caught up, too.

  He has a huge stack of papers spread out on his desk, and his grade book open in front of him. He’s nice enough and knows his subject, but he strikes me as one of those teachers who’s marking each day off toward retirement, like a prisoner might mark off days left in his sentence.

  I’m reading Angela’s Ashes tucked inside Jane Eyre. Snyder’s always preaching to us that we’ve got to have a background in the classics or we’ll never be truly educated. But right now all I want to do is read about Frank McCourt. Maybe it’s that I know McCourt’s story is true, and Jane Eyre is made up.

  One thing I know about Frank McCourt is, he read whatever he could get his hands on, classics or not, and he hasn’t said a word about Jane Eyre. I think even Mr. Snyder would have to agree that McCourt is educated. Anyway, that’s my excuse for being sneaky and reading Angela’s Ashes.

  I’m reading the part about how Frank thinks his father is like the Holy Trinity, with three people in him, the nice one in the morning who reads the paper and drinks tea with him, and the other nice one at night with stories and prayers, and the bad one who smells of whiskey and drinks up all their money.

  I don’t get that trinity stuff. How can a person be three things at once? Maybe God can do that—but just a plain old person? I don’t think so. To me, Frank’s dad undid everything good when he drank up their food money, and their rent money. To me, the dad was a murderer, letting his children go without the things his drinking money could have bought, letting them die of compli­cations of not enough food, or warmth, or medicine. He was so awful, he didn’t deserve to be alive. Like Marcia. Like Sarah Mabry.

  Just at the part in the book where the family gets a letter from the dad saying he’ll be home for Christmas and everything will be different, I sense someone standing over me. I don’t want to look up because I know it’s Mr. Snyder.

  “Miss Bailey?”

  He reaches down and takes Angela’s Ashes from where it rests in the novel I’m supposed to be reading.

  Shaking Angela’s Ashes in his bony, dark-spotted hand, Mr. Snyder says, “I assume this means you’ve finished Jane Eyre and are ready for the test right now?”

  I shake my head no.

  “Where are you in Jane Eyre?” He frowns down at me. “Be honest.”

  “Where she’s in trouble,” I say.

  “My dear, that could be anywhere in the whole book. Might you be more specific?”

  “Umm, she’s at that school,” I say, flipping frantically through the pages of the book.

  “Find your place, then bring the book up to my desk and
we’ll talk about it.”

  Finally I figure out where I am—page 68, where this Mr. Brocklehurst guy is making Jane stand on a stool while he tells everyone in the whole school that Jane is a liar. I check the assignment sheet in my notebook. I’m supposed to be on page 249. Oh, well . . .

  I take my book up to Mr. Snyder’s desk and show him the page I’m on.

  “Please, have a seat, Miss Bailey,” he says, indicating the chair beside his desk. I know he’s really mad because he’s being so formal.

  “Now, tell me, Miss Bailey, if you can. Is this a remedial class? Or is this an honors class?”

  “Honors.”

  “And is it not an honor to be in this class?”

  I nod, though right now I’m not exactly feeling honored.

  “Well, then. By Monday morning you must be caught up with your reading, or we’ll consider a change of classes.”

  “But . . .”

  “No. I warned you about not keeping up last week, and the week before. No buts this time.”

  I sit, waiting, while Mr. Snyder shuffles papers on his desk.

  “That’s all. See if you can get some reading done before the end of this period.”

  “Could I have Angela’s Ashes back?” I ask, standing.

  “Ummm. Monday morning,” he says.

  “That’s not fair,” I say.

  “Nor is it fair for you to lag behind in your assignments.”

  I stomp back to my desk and slam Jane Eyre down with a loud bang.

  “Miss Bailey?”

  “It’s not even legal for a teacher to take a student’s own book away from them!”

  “Oh? Hire a lawyer then,” Snyder says, turning his attention away from me to Scott, who has asked a question about the symbolism of some storm in the novel.

  I want my book back! I’m so angry I want to scream and throw things. Instead I sit down at my desk and take deep breaths, like Tyler always tells me to do, and I try not to sweat the small stuff. It doesn’t seem like small stuff, though.

  I open Jane Eyre and stare at a page. Amber gives me one of those shame on you signs she learned from her old-fashioned mother, one index finger scraping across the other, pointed in my direction. Everyone is watching. In my head I hear Grams’ voice saying what she always says when I get really mad—Don’t let your anger get the best of you. That always makes me wonder, what is the best of me anyway?

  When Amber and I leave English, I start ranting about Snyder.

  “What right does he have to take my library book? And what does he care what I read during independent time anyway? There’s got to be some rule against taking a student’s property.”

  Amber looks at me thoughtfully. “Now it’s your face I can see under the shooting headline instead of Shawna’s,” she says.

  “Oh, yeah, right. ‘Student drowns fourteen with grandmother’s high-powered water pistol.’”

  “There’d be a picture of you, proudly holding a squirt gun, wearing camouflage,” Amber laughs.

  “And water-wings,” I manage to croak out.

  It’s not really that funny, but Amber and I crack up over it

  We lean against the wall, laughing ourselves silly. It’s dumb, but at least for a little while I forget my problems.

  We’re still leaning against the wall, wiping tears of laughter from our faces, when I see Tyler coming my way.

  As soon as I see his grin, I know things will be fine.

  “See ya,” Amber says, walking off toward her third period class.

  “Sorry I missed you this morning,” Tyler says. “My mom and I got in this big argument about Nana staying at our house and taking care of me and Parker there, instead of Parker going to Nana’s.”

  Tyler shakes his head in a sign of disgust. “She really ticks me off. I’m old enough to pay for my own clothes, but I still need Nana to babysit me? Give me a break!”

  “So is your nana coming over on the weekend?”

  I don’t know what answer to hope for. In a way it would mean less sex-pressure for me if Ms. Hughes were coming over. In another way it would be a big disappointment because it’s great to be with Tyler when there’s no one else around.

  “I finally convinced her I was a big boy,” Tyler says. “But it took a long time to do it.”

  He gives my hand that little “I love you” squeeze and for the moment all my old virginity promises are forgotten. Luckily we’re in the middle of a school hallway—not exactly the appropriate setting in which to lose one’s virginity.

  “My mom . . .”

  “She’s trying to do what’s right for you, Ty. Think of it that way.”

  He smiles. “I know. You’re right. I’m lucky to have a mom that cares.”

  “Really,” I say, wondering what it would be like to have a mom that cares. That’s something I’ll never know.

  “I can hardly wait for Friday,” Tyler says, grinning his glorious grin.

  Chapter

  8

  This is a minimum day, no volleyball practice, so I’m home by one in the afternoon.

  “Grams?” I yell as I open the back door.

  “In here,” she says. “The living room.”

  She is stretched out on the couch. Her face is all puffy—like she’s been crying.

  “Grams? What’s wrong?”

  She shakes her head and looks away. “It’s nothing,” she sighs. “Just the day.”

  “The day? What’s wrong with the day?” I ask, then suddenly remember. October 6. The day Marcia died in the explosion.

  My grandmother is one of the original positive thinkers. Almost nothing gets her down. If it’s broken, she fixes it. If she can’t fix it, she goes on to the next thing. But October sixth is always a bad day for her. And Christmas, too, sort of.

  “I’ll never figure out what went wrong,” she says. “I wasn’t a perfect mother, I know that, but . . .”

  She sighs, looking at the faded family picture that still sits on the mantle. Everybody looks happy there, like a TV family.

  Marcia is fourteen in the picture, and Aunt Claudia is sixteen. Grams still has brown hair and my grandfather definitely doesn’t look like a man with only five years left to live.

  “I just can’t help thinking about her today. My precious daughter.” She looks away, but I know she’s crying. “She was the happiest child and then . . .”

  I stand, helpless, not knowing what to say. Then I say what’s in my heart.

  “She threw her life away! She got me born addicted. I know the reason math is so hard for me is because she messed up my brain before I was even born. And she treated you like dirt.”

  “Still . . .”

  “I hate her,” I say.

  Grams is quiet for a long time. Then she tells me she used to be very angry with Marcia, too. But she had to get over it to get on with her life. I nod my head, as if I understand. But the truth is, I don’t want to get over it. I hate Marcia and she deserves it. If she’d loved me, I wouldn’t hate her. But she didn’t even love her own daughter.

  “It was the drugs,” Grams says. “If she’d stayed away from the drugs . . . Oh, I suppose I made plenty of mistakes. Maybe I didn’t notice until it was too late that things had gone wrong. I didn’t want to believe my own dear daughter could be in such trouble . . .”

  It’s really hard for me to see Grams so sad. I hug her and go back to my room. After staring at the bird feeders and watching the squirrel scare birds away, I decide I need a change of scene. I tell Grams that I’m going to Amber’s for a while. It’s just an excuse. Amber’s not even allowed to have friends over except on weekends. To keep from being a total liar, I drive to Amber’s house. I stop “for a while,” like I told Grams I was going to do. But instead of going in I sit in the car at the curb, blocked from view of anyone at Amber’s by the big hedge in front of her house.

  After Amber’s, I drive up Garfield, following it all the way to where it ends at the edge of the foothills. I park and start up the trail
toward Clark’s Peak. After only about fifteen minutes of walking, I turn and look out over the valley. On some days I can see all the way to the ocean from here, even to the island that sits alone, twenty-six miles from shore. Today, though, I can’t even see the steeple on the big church just a few short miles away. The smog blankets the valley, gray and dense and heavy. It’s one of those days where it’s best for our health if we don’t breathe.

  I continue up the trail to the spot where we found Baby Hope. I take my backpack off, get my journal out of it and then sit on the pack. I start writing, anything that comes to my mind—the smell of sage brush, the sounds of rustling leaves, the heavy gray air, the filth of the world, Tyler. Tyler. Real sex or pretend sex. Grams’ sadness. Incomplete sentences. Incomplete thoughts. Marcia, blown to bits twelve years ago. Her own doing.

  What was it like to give birth to a baby right here, on this trail, so early in the morning the sun wasn’t up yet? What an airhead prom queen trick that was! Poor Baby Hope. Her first taste of life in the world was being left alone, cold, no one to care for her. Damn Sarah Mabry! Damn Marcia Bailey!

  We found her, though. We saved her. I soak up the sense of Hope that surrounds this special place. I think of good people—Grams, Tyler, Amber, Blake, Mr. Harper. I think of Hope out there somewhere, being loved and growing strong. I’ll bet she’s smart. I’ll bet she can already print her name.

  Life is better now. Better than it was before I came up here. At least that’s how it seems to me. I write a bit more in my journal, then pack up and walk back down the trail.

  I go to the library to see if they have another copy of Angela’s Ashes. No luck. I browse around there for a bit, then go to the McDonald’s drive-thru and get hamburgers and soda, then take them to the nursery.

  “Hey, Curly. Nice surprise,” he says, glancing at the clock. “Just in time for my break, too.”

  We sit on two upside-down pots, eating and talking. When Tyler goes back to work I go home. It is after eight when I get there.

  Grams is sitting in her big, purple, overstuffed chair, her legs pulled up underneath her, like a kid. She doesn’t look so sad now.

  “Feeling better?” I ask.

  She points to Stephen King’s name emblazoned across the front of a book about as thick as my College Dictionary.