This Is Not the Jess Show Page 3

  “So you think…” I waited for the answer.

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  We pushed into the hall just as the bell rang. Amber waved to a few girls on the dance team. She was heading to History and I had Calc next, which meant we only had until the last set of gym doors before we went opposite ways.

  “Can I see it?”

  “Look, Jess, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said, heading down the stairs. “I gotta go. I’ll meet you guys in the parking lot after school.”

  I looked to Kristen, hoping she’d explain what the hell just happened, but she was walking toward the science wing. Her flannel was tied around her waist, her books stacked in one arm as she waved at me over her shoulder.

  “What was that about?” I called after her.

  “You know Amber…” Kristen just shrugged.

  Then she slipped into the AP Bio room, leaving me to replay the moment in the locker room over again, wondering why the two of them were being secretive about it. I tried to remember what the thing looked like. I’d seen that logo before, I knew I had, but on the school’s computers. Behind the glass, this one had been sleek and silvery.

  An apple with a bite out of it.

  5

  I could hear every word of “Not the Doctor” through Sara’s bedroom door. After it became too difficult for her to go outside, she’d become obsessed with my CD collection. Tori Amos and the Indigo Girls, Jewel and Fiona Apple. We’d sit in her room listening to them, or sometimes I’d bring in my guitar and we’d have a sing-along. Lately it was Alanis Morissette. Just the week before I had to explain to her what it meant to “wine, dine, sixty-nine” someone.

  I rested my head against the doorframe. She was sitting up in bed, the lyric book in her hand, memorizing the words to the song.

  “Don’t worry, I’m being super careful with them,” she said, as she patted the CD case beside her. It was six inches thick. “I haven’t even scratched one. Mint condition.”

  “I trust you.”

  “You sure you don’t want to stay home tonight?” she asked. “The new TGIF lineup is just riveting. I’m sure Sabrina can compete with Jen Klein’s party.”

  “If anyone can, it’s Sabrina.”

  Fuller, our terrier, was whining beside the bed. He was too arthritic to get up on his own, so I snuggled him to my chest and slid in beside her, letting him lick my chin.

  When they first delivered the hospital bed, I’d hated it. It was too big for the room, and even though Sara was fourteen, she looked like a child inside it. But now I’d gotten used to tucking in next to her and watching TV, or just lying back and staring at the white Christmas lights we’d strung across the ceiling. Fuller would curl up with us and we’d rub his belly and count the spatter of gray spots across his chest.

  “I would definitely rather do that. But I promised Amber and Kristen I’d go. Don’t tell Mom it’s a party…I said we’re seeing The Wedding Singer again.”

  Tubes snaked underneath Sara’s flannel pajamas, a metal clamp biting down on her finger. Guignard’s Disease. When I’d heard those two words I didn’t realize they’d hold so much power over us, that from then on we’d be consumed by tests and prescription bottles and whirring machines. It was a rare blood disease—so uncommon that only a few dozen cases had been documented. Sara was too weak to walk anymore, and the doctors recommended palliative care to keep her comfortable as the disease progressed. We never talked about what that phrase really meant, that the disease kept progressing, that Sara kept getting sicker. That there was no cure.

  “You’re going because Tyler will be there,” Sara said, smiling.

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, I did tell him about it. I’m hoping we can hang out without it being a big deal or whatever.”

  “It’s still a big deal.”

  Amber and Kristen knew I liked Tyler, but Sara was the one who heard all the minutiae: how he’d poked me in the side when he walked past me in study hall, or how he had snuck into my lunch period just to say hi. We’d spent the other night analyzing our interaction in the storage closet, and what it all meant. You definitely have that effect on me.

  Tyler was flirting, that was obvious. The question was how far he’d take it and if there was something real there. I’d heard a rumor he’d dated a girl from his camp over the summer, but he’d never mentioned it to me then or since, and Sara and I had interpreted that as its own sign. Maybe we weren’t just friends.

  “This would all be a lot easier if Mom wasn’t watching my every move.”

  “You can’t start sneaking out again.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  Last year, in an attempt to get around my curfew, I’d started sneaking out the door by the garage. I’d pretend I was just staying up late, watching TV, then I’d leave for an hour or two at a time. Kristen and Amber would pick me up one block over and sometimes we’d go to a party, but mostly Henrietta Park, where the upperclassmen hung out.

  It all ended one night in May. I must’ve left the door unlocked, because when I came home the whole first floor of our house had been burglarized. The television was gone, and so was our brand-new stereo system, along with my mother’s engagement ring, which had been sitting in the soap dish next to the sink. The police had been there until five in the morning, taking notes and dusting for fingerprints, and as soon as they left, my mom broke into tears. I’d felt so guilty that I eventually confessed everything. After our neighbors heard about what happened, they hired a private alarm company to do regular rounds. Now you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing one of the white and red SWICKLEY ALARMS cars driving by.

  It didn’t matter how many times I’d said I was sorry and promised it would never happen again. My mom’s list of rules had grown, and there was always this unspoken suspicion between us. I could do the dishes every night and rake the leaves and wear the green corduroy skirt she had gotten me, telling her how much I loved it, but she’d never trust me again. Not really.

  “The other night at dinner,” I started. “Were you just annoyed at Mom? Why were you looking at Lydia like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you were pissed about something.”

  I rubbed the back of Fuller’s head, careful to avoid his right ear, where our neighbor’s German shepherd had bitten him last week. Now two purple stitches kept the skin together.

  “I wasn’t mad…” She squinted like she couldn’t quite see me, even though there were three different lights on. “I guess I just didn’t know what you were talking about the other day. You were serious about hearing that stuff?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be serious?” I asked. “You must’ve heard it too, right?”

  “Yeah, I heard it.” She was still looking at me like she didn’t know who I was.

  “So?”

  She didn’t say anything for a good thirty seconds, just tilted her head to the side and studied me. Then she shrugged. “I don’t know?”

  Sara had shone brightest when she was a kid, running around the house singing the opening of Beauty and the Beast, a dishrag tied around her head like she was some maiden from the French countryside. It was hard to watch her lately, how she always seemed frail, how thin she looked now that she’d lost the baby fat in her cheeks. Sometimes it seemed like she wasn’t listening to what I said, like she was only half there.

  Fuller lifted his nose and licked my cheek. It was almost seven thirty. Amber and Kristen were supposed to be here any minute. “Have you ever seen this thing, it’s this silver and glass like…cartridge? This big…?”

  Sara watched me size it up with my hands. “I don’t think so?”

  “It fell out of Amber’s backpack, and then she got all weird when I asked her about it. She’s lying about it for some reason, and now Kristen won’t tell me anything either. It’s like they both know some
thing I don’t.”

  “I feel like it’s always something with them.”

  It was true. At some point in the last few years Amber and Kristen had gotten closer, and I’d drifted further outside our three-person orbit, laughing along to jokes I didn’t really understand. We still ate lunch together every day, and they still came over after school sometimes to see Sara and bring her Dunkin Donuts. But things were different. I’d thought about it dozens of times, trying to pinpoint how exactly it had happened, and when this space had ballooned between us. Was it because that middle-school awkwardness had clung to me so much longer, because I had to wait for my period, then my first kiss? Or was it after I got in trouble and started spending most weekends at home?

  “It had an apple logo on it,” I tried.

  “I’m not sure,” Sara said, but she was still giving me a strange look. “But I haven’t left the house in a year, so I’m probably not the best person to ask…”

  It seemed like she was about to say more, but then the door opened a crack. My mom pushed in with a tray balanced on her forearm. Sara called it the mush buffet, because she could only eat soft foods now, like mashed sweet potatoes and applesauce and vanilla pudding.

  “Potato and leek soup,” my mom said, maneuvering around the bed. She set the tray down on Sara’s dresser, then adjusted her pillow in nearly the same way I’d done minutes earlier. She was studying the machines when I heard Millie outside. Kristen always gave two short, peppy beeps.

  “That’s my ride.”

  “What time is the movie?” my mom asked.

  “Eight. I’ll come home right after.”

  “The roads are still a little slippery, so make sure Kristen drives slowly. And call us if anything happens.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nothing is going to happen.”

  “Things happen,” my mom repeated. “Flat tires, car accidents. I still think we should get you a beeper.”

  “Why? So Kristen can beep me BOOBS?”

  “What’s BOOBS?” my mom asked.

  Sara started laughing.

  “80085,” I said.

  “Boobs? Huh?” My mom still didn’t get it. “Just be careful.”

  I grabbed my denim jacket and headed for the door.

  “What about some lip gloss?” my mom asked, like she was puzzled I hadn’t thought of it myself. “A little mascara?”

  “Mom, we’re just going to the movies.”

  But she held up a finger to signal one sec, then started down the hall to her bedroom. She was always doing this. Attacking me with a mascara wand or a compact right before I left the house. It wasn’t enough that I was wearing the red plaid skirt she’d bought me, or the hoop earrings she and my dad gave me for my Sweet Sixteen. She always adjusted the metal clips that held my bangs in place, or combed through my hair with her fingers, tousling it at the roots.

  “Can you believe this?” I said, turning to Sara.

  “Yup. It checks out.”

  My mom strode in with two silver lipstick tubes in her hand, and a neon-pink mascara wand. She compared each shade of lipstick against my complexion and then went with the darker, purplish color, dabbing it on my bottom lip.

  “Okay, that’s enough. Can I go now?” I asked.

  “It just makes your features pop. A little goes a long way,” she said. “Doesn’t it, Sara?”

  “Ummm…I guess?” Sara said.

  My mom ignored me, twisting the mascara wand out of the tube and holding it up in front of my right eye, waiting for me to lean forward. I gave in, staring up at the ceiling fan until it was finally over.

  “I’m really going now.” I didn’t wait for permission this time. I hugged Sara and kissed my mom on the cheek before slipping down the stairs.

  “You look great,” she called after me. “Love that color on you!”

  6

  I’d already opened the back door, about to slide in, when I realized shotgun was free. Kristen was the only one in the car.

  “Where’s Amber?”

  “Grounded.”

  “Since when do her parents ground her?”

  Kristen tugged on a curl, pulling it completely straight. It had been raining hard all afternoon, but now there was a break in the storm clouds. Only the occasional gust of water hit the windshield.

  “Her dad found out she took that thing from his briefcase,” Kristen said. “I guess it was some kind of prototype that was supposed to be top secret. A disk drive or something. You didn’t say anything to anyone, did you?”

  It didn’t look like any drive I’d ever seen. I shook my head, even if it was (kind of) a lie. I hadn’t gotten specific with Sara.

  “You still want to go?” I asked. “You don’t think it’ll be weird?”

  We’d never been to a party without Amber. She’d been class president for the last two years and knew everyone, moving easily between groups, chatting about an upcoming volleyball game or making jokes about Joey Plink’s new haircut. One lunch period, a line had formed to talk to her. Maybe it was just three people, and maybe they were chatting with each other so it wasn’t as obvious, but it was an actual line.

  “I don’t know, I guess I figure why not?” Kristen looked in the rearview mirror. “Creeper Alert: your mom is still watching us.”

  Kristen came to a complete stop at the stop sign on the corner, lingering there for a full five seconds longer than normal. When I turned back I spotted my mom’s silhouette in the upstairs window. She’d always been overprotective, but since Sara’s illness her anxiety had gotten worse, and after the burglary there was this whole other layer of paranoia. If I was a minute late for my ten thirty curfew she began calling my friends’ houses, waking their parents. Lately I practiced driving in the Home Depot parking lot only once a month, sneaking off with my dad because she insisted I wasn’t ready to take my license test, that I wouldn’t have a car while I still lived at home.

  As Sara’s world got smaller, mine had too, the edges of it shrinking first to our town, and now to certain streets and certain places. Henrietta Park was too dangerous once the sun went down, or so my mom said, but my friends and I still went there to eat our Taco Bell drive-thru. I wasn’t supposed to get into a car with anyone who was drunk (obvious) or anyone who wasn’t Kristen or a parent (less obvious), and since the break-in I had to report to my parents’ room, in my pajamas, every night before bed, just to confirm that I was in fact home. She’d even put a set of Christmas bells on the outside of my doorknob so she’d wake up if I snuck out. Maybe I’d deserved it, but still. While every other junior was driving into the city or breaking curfew at Maple Cove, I was waiting on AOL for someone, anyone, to appear on my buddy list.

  “You’re the only friend she’ll let me drive with,” I said.

  “Well I am known for my rigorous safety standards.” Kristin, accelerated over a speed bump. Millie caught air and I grabbed onto the handle above the door, laughing.

  “That was messed up.”

  We passed the mall, the Weezer CD skipping as we took another bump at full speed. The parking lot was empty. We only saw one other car on the road, a lone Ford Taurus with a busted front headlight. Part of me wondered if it was the flu going around our small town, but it was hard to know for sure. The streets of Swickley were always desolate at night, as if everyone had an early bedtime. It’s not totally dead, Amber would say. You just have to know where to go.

  “It just doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “She was being so secretive about that stupid thing, and it’s like…why? Who cares?”

  “I’m just telling you what Amber told me, and her parents have been fighting lately and…I don’t know. Maybe there’s something else going on. Don’t get all bent out of shape about it.” Kristen shrugged.

  “I’m not all bent out of shape about it. Why do you always take her side?”

  “Why do
you always think I’m taking her side? Maybe there aren’t any sides,” she said. “Ugh, you made me miss my turn!”

  She hooked a right at the 7-Eleven, its windows dark, a CLOSED sign on the front door. Then we looped around the block so we could go back to the light. We drove the rest of the way in silence. When we got to Jen’s house we parked down the street so the party wouldn’t be as obvious, but a few kids were already outside, staggering up the lawn.

  “Is that Chris Arnold?” Kristen squinted out the windshield, trying to change the subject. “He’s wasted.”

  It was Chris Arnold, and he was wasted. He’d always been much taller and bigger than the other guys in our grade, but he looked almost comical now, as one of his friends helped him walk. His legs came up to the guy’s chest.

  In the quiet of the car it all seemed so stupid. Ty hadn’t said he was definitely coming, and now that Amber was out, why were we even here? I’d tried every drink there was—beer, wine, shots, cocktails with weird names like Sex in the Driveway and the Sassafras Slinger—but I’d never once gotten drunk. While everyone else was hooking up in closets or playing beer pong I was usually planted on the couch, petting the cat. I might’ve said as much, but Kristen was already out of the car.

  I could feel her staring at me through the driver’s side window, waiting. Eventually she tapped on the glass. I looked over and her nose was pressed against it so I could see up her nostrils. Her eyes were wild, like she was a pig monster from the woods, ready to gobble me up.

  “You’re a psycho,” I said, but it was what got me out of the car. We were both laughing as we walked toward the house.

  7

  There was no sign of Tyler. I kept watching the kitchen door like I could will him into appearing, but a half hour passed and nothing. The party was small, only twenty or so people, and mostly other juniors that I knew. Kristen and I stood in the narrow space between the island and the stove. I’d been drinking some pink concoction for the past hour, but I didn’t feel anything. I couldn’t even taste the liquor in it.