If You Loved Me Page 8

  “I needed something to take my mind off things. But now I’m afraid this guy’s going to keep me awake and on edge for the next week . . . Want some hot chocolate?” she asks.

  I hesitate for a moment. What I really want right now is to be alone with my thoughts. But then I remember how sad Grams looked when I left. I can’t turn her down.

  “Hot chocolate would be cool,” I say.

  At first she looks puzzled, then laughs. “Cool—hot chocolate coming up.”

  I watch her mix powdered chocolate into a pan of nonfat milk and stir it over the burner ’til it gets tiny sizzle bubbles in it. I get a whiff of the chocolate aroma and the scent reminds me of a long ago time when I was five, and I sat in my grandma’s kitchen feeling lost and scared.

  “I’m sorry I was such a grump today,” Grams says. “It’s so predictable—I should simply go hide in a cave every October 6, but I always think this time will be different. And it’s the same, year after year. I remember what a sweet baby your mother was, and her laugh. I remember how she stopped eating meat when she was in the sixth grade, because she didn’t want any animals to be killed for her food. She worried so much about your grandpa’s lungs that he finally quit smoking. Over and over I ask myself, how did it happen? How could someone like my Marcia have turned into such a . . . a lost soul.”

  She turns away from me and I see her shoulders tense with the effort to hold back sobs.

  I go to her and put my arms around her. She shakes her head.

  “Oh, I’m not fit company for anyone on this day. Your mother gave me the greatest gift in the world when she had you. That’s what’s important for me to remember.”

  We stand in the kitchen, hugging, for a moment. I feel my gramma catch her breath, still trying not to cry.

  “I hate that she still makes you so sad, and that she didn’t take care of me, and that she got me on drugs before I was born. She was a rotten mother and I hate her.”

  “She’s to be pitied.”

  “Why? She didn’t pity me. She let my head get full of lice and she didn’t feed me right. She let me be born addicted and probably damaged at least the math part of my brain.”

  Grams sighs, picks up the wooden spoon and gives the chocolate milk mixture one more stir. She pours a cup of chocolate for each of us.

  “Let’s talk,” she says, carrying the steaming cups out to the living room. I follow. Grams takes her place in the purple chair and I sit on the floor in front of the coffee table.

  “You have every right to be angry, to hate your mother. Over time, though, the anger and hatred will hurt you more than anything she ever did to you.”

  “I can’t help it,” I tell her.

  “Lauren, I know you have a loving heart. The creator of the universe gives us all loving hearts. But when love turns to anger and hate, it’s like a cancer in your soul. Don’t let that be you.”

  “It’s under control,” I tell her.

  “I’m not so sure,” she says. “Sometimes your anger seems to get the best of you.”

  “I’m never sure what you mean when you say that,” I tell her. “Remember that time last month, when old Mr. Miles came banging on our door to complain that I parked my car in front of his house too often?”

  “That was so stupid though,” I say, embarrassed at the memory of that day.

  “Of course it was stupid. But your reaction, yelling and threatening to shove him off the porch, was a bit over the top.”

  “But I didn’t touch him.”

  “But you were angry out of proportion to the situation. That’s all I’m saying, Lauren. It’s just something for you to think about,” she says, leaning forward and running her hand lightly over my head.

  I think about how angry I was with Mr. Swallow. I think about how Blake looked at me when I threw the book on the floor, like I was some kind of weirdo, and how Tyler keeps telling me not to sweat the small stuff.

  We sit quietly for a while, then Grams tells me some things I’ve not heard before.

  “I don’t like to dwell on the past. What’s done is done and it’s our job to make the best of our lives in the present. But your mother was a delightful child. And your grampa, Ray, was crazy about her. He was crazy about Claudia, too, but Claudia was always a little more reserved. Marcia would crawl up on Ray’s lap and tell him she loved him . . . she had him wrapped around her little finger. But then, sometime around fifteen or sixteen, things changed. Her grades dropped. We started getting calls from the attendance office that she wasn’t in school. She became secretive. Once she put a padlock on her door. Ray went berserk—went to the hardware store and bought a lock cutter. He not only took the lock off the door, he took the door off its hinges.”

  I look back at the picture over the mantle, trying to imagine the scene with those people.

  “That was the first time she ran away,” Grams says. “We filed a missing person’s report. Then Ray drove to all of her friends’ houses, trying to find her. The trouble was, the ones he knew weren’t her friends any more. They’d been friends from Girl Scouts and soccer and the days before Marcia was lost to us. After two weeks, the police found her and brought her home. She’d lost weight. She was filthy and her hair was so dirty it hung together in clumps. Ray took one look at her and walked back to our bedroom. He lay on the bed and sobbed.

  “Marcia yelled that she hated it here—hated us. That she’d just run away again, and she did. We both did all we knew to do to try to get her back, but the Marcia we knew was gone.”

  “Was she using drugs then?” I ask.

  “I’m sure she was. We didn’t think so at the time—didn’t want to think so. But looking back on it, I can’t imagine what else would have brought such changes. Later, though, in all those letters from prison, she sounded like the old Marcia. You can’t read those letters without feeling her love for you, Lauren.”

  “Yes, I can,” I say. “They’re fantasy. She didn’t do one loving thing for me when she got out of prison. She took me away from a safe place with you, to live in some drug lab.”

  “She wasn’t all bad, though. It’s best if you can see that. Will you at least try? Try to let go of some of the anger?”

  I nod my head, though I’m not sure I can let go of the anger. And besides, if I did, it might ruin my volleyball game.

  Chapter

  9

  The day the ex-druggies come to peer communications I sit way in the back of the room instead of up front in my usual place near Amber. I don’t even want to go to class, but I can’t afford another cut. Really, though, why should I listen to stuff I already know? What are they going to say? Drugs messed me up. Don’t do drugs. Etc. Etc. Puhleeze. I already know all that stuff, and I already know I’ll never do drugs.

  I sit in the back, where I can work on the second draft of my “Baby on the Trail” composition for creative writing and not be noticed. Except Shawna notices. I swear she’s reading over my shoulder—every word I write. It makes me nervous. I dig out the 3x5 card with my druggie questions on it, then close my notebook. I’m trying not to pay attention when Woodsie asks me to read one of my questions.

  “Address it to someone on the panel,” she says.

  Since I wasn’t listening when they introduced themselves I sit there with a blank look on my face.

  “Ask Helen,” Shawna says, nudging me.

  “Who?” I whisper.

  “Helen. The fat one,” she says, too loud.

  I can tell Woodsie is losing patience. I call on Helen, since that’s the only name I know.

  “Helen, why did you start doing drugs?”

  “Well, as your friend there so kindly pointed out, I have a weight problem—always have had. When I was in high school I started on cigarettes and amphetamines so I could lose weight. I know most of you don’t think of cigarettes as drugs, but they are.”

  “Did it help?” Mark asked.

  “If you mean did I lose weight, I sure did. But I wouldn’t say it helped. I’m tw
enty-eight years old and I look about forty. I’ve got heart problems, and no one in my family even speaks to me anymore.”

  “That’s cold,” Scott says.

  “Unless you consider that I stole from them, even the antique coins my father’s grandfather had given him.”

  “You stole from your own family?”

  “Yeah, well, I needed a hit. And it was easier stealing from them than from strangers, ’cause I knew where to find everything of value.”

  I swear, these people disgust me so much! Why can’t we have a panel of people who’re working on a cure for cancer, or even who do beautification projects—something worthwhile, that’s what I’d like to hear about.

  I check out the panel more carefully now. Next to Helen there’s this Latina with big hair and lots of make-up. I don’t know how old she is, but she’s not young. Next to her is a white guy, with a ring in his eyebrow. He looks like he weighs about ninety-five pounds. On the end is a black guy in a white shirt and tie, looking like the president of a bank or something.

  I open my notebook again and try to concentrate on the “Baby on the Trail” story. Why should I care if Shawna’s reading it? We saved the baby. We were making things better instead of worse. Not like a bunch of irresponsible, thieving drug addicts.

  I’m hearing the drone of classroom discussion, not listening to the words, trying to find a better way to describe the stretcher the paramedics used for the baby, when Shawna nudges me and I hear Woodsie call my name. From her tone, I think she’s called me more than once.

  “Lauren?”

  I look up. “Yes?”

  “Lauren, is it asking too much for you to pay attention?”

  I want to tell her yes, it is too much to ask, but instead I just say, “Sorry.”

  “Do you have another question?”

  I do have a question. It’s not one of the ones I’ve written down, but it’s something I used to think about a lot.

  “Why do people who are on drugs have babies?”

  “I’ll take that question,” the black guy sitting on the end says. “Lauren? Is it Lauren?”

  “Yes.”

  He looks at me for too long, dark eyes boring into me, like he can see inside my skull. I look away.

  “Lauren, people on drugs aren’t planning anything but the next hit. So they can feel good. So they won’t feel miserable. And when they’re feeling good, they may feel good enough to have sex. But they’re still, in the back of their mind, planning for the next hit. Where can I get it? Where can I get the money for it? Maybe they’re having sex not because they’re feeling good, but because someone is paying them for it. So they can get the next hit. And they’re not thinking about pregnancy, or AIDS, or anything else. When people are on drugs, they’re subhuman. I was subhuman for a long time. I’m working hard to be human again.”

  It’s real quiet in the room when the business-type guy is talking. When he stops, I glance up. Our eyes meet. Again, I look away.

  “Subhumans should be in the zoo!” Shawna says, her voice filled with anger.

  “Possibly,” is all he says.

  Mark starts laughing his head off. Woodsie walks back to where we’re sitting and stands by his desk. He puts his head down on the desk to stifle his laughter.

  “Anyone in here who’s never made a mistake?” the skinny white guy asks. “I made a mistake. One simple mistake. And it’s costing me my life. I’ve got full-blown AIDS, and none of the new stuff works for me. I keep getting sicker and sicker, no matter what combination of medication they try.”

  There’s a long silence.

  “Maybe there’ll be a cure pretty soon,” Scott says.

  “Look at me, man. Do I look like I’ve got time to wait for a cure?”

  He lifts up his T-shirt, exposing his chest. It’s got dark red splotches all over it, and he’s so skinny his rib cage is nearly as visible as the one on the skeleton in biology.

  “All of you, watch out for stupid mistakes. You don’t want to end up like me.”

  The bell rings and I hurry out of the room.

  “Intense!” Amber says, catching up to me in the hall. “It’s like that AIDS guy is the voice of doom.”

  “You’ve been listening to too much of your mom’s the-end-is-at-hand talk.”

  “Maybe it is. You don’t know.”

  “I know people have been expecting the end forever and it hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Well, it’s going to happen for Steven,” Amber says, all serious.

  “Steven?”

  “The guy with AIDS who gave us that warning.”

  “The guy who seemed creepy to me was the black guy who said he’d been subhuman.”

  “Jacob,” Amber says.

  “Whatever his name is, I don’t know. He kept looking at me.”

  “I think he was looking at everyone,” Amber says.

  “Maybe, but it felt like he was looking at me all the time.”

  “I felt really sorry for Angelica,” Amber says.

  “Which one was she?”

  “You know. The one who had her kids taken away from her and doesn’t even know where they are?”

  “The one with all the make-up?”

  Amber stops walking and gives me a long look.

  “Were you in the same class I was?”

  “Not really.”

  “What’s going on with you, anyway? I thought everything was okay with you and Tyler.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Well?”

  “Well—I’ve got better things to do with my time than listen to a bunch of druggies. That guy was right, they are subhuman.”

  “But, Lauren! They’ve all quit! And they’re trying to do good things now, like keeping kids from making the same mistakes they made.”

  I feel my fist clenching, the way it does before I serve the volleyball—before I slam my druggie mother in the face. I wish it were volleyball practice time right now, instead of English.

  “Lauren?”

  “What?”

  “You look so . . . strange.”

  “I’m thinking about my gramma’s high-powered water pis­tol,” I tell her. I mean it to be funny, but Amber doesn’t laugh.

  I guess the herpes crisis is over because Amber shows up to volleyball practice. We give it our best—setting each other up for spikes, or just for fun, always targeting the other side’s weak spots, urging each other on.

  “S.B.!” I call out, lifting the ball high off my fingertips, over Amber’s head.

  “S.K.! Back to you!” she calls, as she taps the ball back to me, high.

  I jump, my arm reaching way higher than the net. Slam! The Marcia ball that can’t be blocked. Amber and I laugh and do the quick handshake that lines up the blood sister spots on our wrists, affirming our blood sister bond.

  “That’s more like it,” Coach Terry says. “See how these two spark the game? Take a lesson from Amber and Lauren. Bring some intensity to the game!”

  It’s flattering, I guess, but it’s mostly embarrassing to have the coach always using us as examples.

  After practice we’re both starving, so we go to Barb ’n Edie’s. Amber sits munching away, first on her mountain of onion rings, and then on mine.

  “Hey, save some for me, will you?”

  She looks at her empty plate, then at my plate of mostly eaten onion rings.

  “Oops,” she says, as if she’s surprised.

  One thing I know about Amber is that whenever she’s feeling tense, she eats everything in sight. I guess she’s tense right now, maybe because of the favor I’ve just asked.

  “Could you do this one thing for me?”

  “I’m not a liar,” Amber says, shoving another batch of onion rings into her mouth.

  “I know. But you probably won’t even have to lie. Just if Grams calls, tell her I’m in the shower or something and I’ll call her back. Then call me at Tyler’s.”

  Amber looks at me, chewing.

  “Look
at it this way. I just don’t want to worry Grams. She probably won’t even call, but if she does and you say I’m not there, she’ll panic. She’ll think I’m dead, or I’ve turned into my mother, or all kinds of scary stuff.”

  “Why not tell her the truth?”

  “I don’t want to get into it with her. If I say I’m spending the weekend with Tyler, she might freak out.”

  “You think so?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t want to take the chance. Come on,

  Amber, this is really, really, really, important to me.”

  “Why should I help you do something as stupid as losing your virginity?” she says, reaching for the last of the onion rings.

  “I told you, I’m . . . ”

  “Yeah, right!” Amber oozes sarcasm. “You’re spending the whole weekend, with Tyler, alone in his house, being lovebirds, and you’re going to come home a virgin.”

  Amber’s licking her index finger, pressing it down on little pieces of fried batter, licking it again. I sit watching until she notices there’s a lull in the conversation.

  “What?”

  “You can be pretty gross with food sometimes,” I tell her, laughing.

  “I’m gross? I’m not the one planning a big sex orgy! That’s gross squared to infinity.”

  “Shhh! It’s not a sex orgy and stop showing off with math terms.”

  I throw my napkin at her and she flicks the last remaining crumb of fried stuff back at me. We laugh until we’re gasping.

  Finally she says, “Okay, but don’t blame me if you get herpes.”

  “Well, you’re the only one I know who has it,” I say, which sends us into another fit of laughter. I don’t know why. It just does.

  Amber shows up as planned in the late afternoon. I run out to her car with my backpack and a shopping bag full of clothes for the weekend. Grams stands on the front porch, waving.

  “Have fun, you two! See you Sunday.”

  I wave back, feeling sneaky and guilty.

  “Bye, Mrs. Bailey,” Amber calls out the window.

  We drive to Tyler’s and Amber lets me out.

  “You’ve got Tyler’s number?”