Like a Charm (34 page)

I went upstairs and when I was unpacking I came across that charm bracelet, the one I had stolen from him when we were just kids. It was just sitting there in the back of a drawer. I hadn't looked at it in so long, and I noticed the little charms it had: the little train engine, the tiger, the sax, ballet slippers, monkey. One of the charms was an angel, one of those angels down on its knees with its hands pressed together in prayer. For some reason I thought of Lamar sitting that way that day in the backyard, tossing handfuls of grass in the air and telling me so matter-of-fact how he had killed Anthony.

I threw the charm bracelet out the window.

I remembered the feeling of my fist hitting Lamar's arm, knuckles in his flesh, and I remembered one particular Saturday morning – we must have been around nine or ten – when Lamar just lay down.

'Go ahead,' he said. 'I don't care anymore. I don't care what you do to me.'

Benjamin stood over him with his angry black hair and his mean freckles and his hands on his hips. 'What do you mean?' he said. 'Aren't you going to dance around like a scared little John Travolta?'

'Why should I?' Lamar said smiling. 'You'll just catch me.'

Fat Anthony chuckled, his stomach jiggling.

Benjamin was confused, grabbing a handful of his own hair. 'Where do you want me to hit you?'

'It doesn't matter.' Lamar was defiant. He presented his bruised arm to Benjamin like a prize.

'I've been punching his arm,' I told Benjamin helpfully.

'Yeah,' Anthony said, 'hit his arm.'

'I don't know.' Benjamin tossed it off like he was turning down a dessert: 'I don't think I want to punch Lamar right now.'

Still on the ground, Lamar rolled his eyes. 'Just get it over with.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'Punch him.'

Benjamin started to walk away, and Lamar rose to his feet, lifting himself up with that sideways smile on his face, the same smile he would wear a couple of years later when he gave me that ant farm.

'Benjamin,' I said, 'what are you—'

Suddenly Benjamin turned round. 'I'll tell you,' he said, hitting Lamar to the rhythm of his words, 'when' –
punch
– 'I will beat' –
punch
– 'the crap' –
punch
– 'out of you' –
punch, punch.
And he wailed on Lamar, fists like pistons, his face full of hate, punching his message home, and my own hate was in there with each and every punch – worse, because I was standing beside Benjamin, me and fat Anthony, standing there smiling idiotically, laughing and grinning and enjoying every second of it.

And goddamn it if Lamar – it still kills me to think of this – if Lamar wasn't smiling, too.

Man, the things we did to that kid.

THE EASTLAKE
SCHOOL
Jerrilyn Farmer

'Fix Mommy a drink, Megan.'

My mom. She works so hard. She gets stressed. I looked at the kitchen clock. Four p.m. 'Do you want to wait a little?'

'I'm dying here, pumpkin. Be a good girl.' My mom put her keyring down on the counter, the keys sounding all jangly upset.

Our house has just been redone, by a quality architect, my mom says, but I'm still getting used to it. I tugged hard on the vacuum-seal of the built-in refrigerator to open the door. Arctic-Circle-type air rushed out as I grabbed a bottle of Diet Coke.

'That's good,' she said. 'Why is your hair in your face?'

I got out a crystal glass, tall and delicate, the kind Mom likes, and filled it with cubes. The Diet Coke splashed in, stopping at about three-quarters full.

I looked up and noticed my mother's lipstick was smudged almost completely off.

She must have read my mind or something. Maybe seen where I was looking. Her hand flew to her face. 'My lipstick?'

My mother looks like a movie star. She's blonde and gorgeous. She has perfect skin, the perfect tan. She has a great figure. Incredible, actually. She's skinnier than any of my friends. She's really amazing, my mom.

I went to the cabinet and found the bottle of Barbados Rum. I poured a lot in. Mom likes it that way.

By then my mom had opened her little purse and found her little compact. She got very still, looking in that little mirror. 'I don't have on one single trace of lipstick.' Her voice had that stunned sound you hear when a guy in a movie suddenly notices the sky is filled with alien spaceships.

I handed her the drink, setting it down on the counter in front of her on a fabric cocktail napkin that matched the lemon yellow of the tiles. Neat. Not one drop spilled. Mom needed a pick-me-up every afternoon. It was my job to fix it. She'd start drinking rum and Diet Cokes about four thirty every school day and keep on drinking until just before Daddy came home from the firm.

'Aren't you interested in where I've been?' my mom asked. I have learned to decipher what my mom says as she twists her mouth in the application of lipstick. She quickly capped the tube and looked at me.

'Sure.'

'I know you've been depressed, darling. I know what it must feel like to be rejected by Eastlake.'

My neck hurt. My wrist itched.

'Honey?' My mom was so worried about me it made me feel awful.

The Eastlake School. It was the most prestigious school in the Universe. It ran from grades seven through twelve. Not everyone can get in, though. They are famous for rejecting everybody. My application had been rejected and I have been working hard, hard, hard. At least three hours each and every night since kindergarten. And I get straight As. It doesn't matter to them. They get dozens of girls applying who get straight As. They get hundreds. Everyone around here wants their daughters to be Eastlake girls and Eastlake gets to choose. That's the way it is with the Eastlake School.

'You've been very depressed, Megan, isn't that right?'

My mom really didn't deserve all the trouble I brought. The arch in my left foot began aching pretty badly.

'Well, your problems are solved. I just saw the Director of Admissions, Mrs Williams. She's agreed to move you up to the waiting list. See? And after Daddy talks to the Head of School, I'm sure they'll find a spot for you in their seventh grade class, after all.' My mother smiled a fresh-Chanel-lipstick smile and then raised her glass.

I watched her drink. In a few seconds the glass wore the perfect outline of my mom's beautiful smile on its rim.

The truth about my mother is she doesn't look old enough to have a twelve-year-old daughter. I'd heard people tell her that all my life, adding a year every time I'd had another birthday.

'Did you hear what I said, Megan?'

I guess I must be the most ungrateful teenager in America. Here my mother and father have been doing everything in their power to move me across the chessboard of my life towards their wonderful goals and I'm like some sort of imbecile pawn who doesn't even say thank you.

'Thank you, Mom.'

'You're more than welcome, honey.' She looked radiantly beautiful at that moment.

'Do you think maybe the teachers there are kind of hard, Mom? Maybe . . .'

'They'll love you at Eastlake. All the best girls go there. You'll have a wonderful time. You'll see. And look what I've brought you?'

My mom opened her little purse and pulled out a jewellery store box. She opened the hinge and set the box before me.

'Is this for me?'

'Isn't it adorable. Try it on! We're celebrating you getting into Eastlake, silly. I found it at that cute antique store at the Plaza where they have all that funky old stuff and it just called out to me. It's got charms, see?'

My mom is always super sweet like that. Always giving me gifts when I get down at heart. I don't have her cheery temperament. I don't have her naturally upbeat personality, so she gets me little gifts, she loves me so much.

'Don't you adore it? Now why are you pulling so hard on your hair? That's got to hurt, Megan. Stop it, please.'

I picked up the bracelet and let it dangle, clinking the charms together. One, a small gold puffy heart, glinted in the down-beam of the fancy recessed lights Mom had chosen with her decorator. I examined the heart more closely, noticing it had a tiny jewel, as Mom kept on talking about Eastlake and refilled her own glass.

Along the edge of the heart I detected a fine seam. This was too cool. The puffy heart was a locket! I tried to prise my fingernail into the creased edge, but it just slipped off. It was no use. The locket was maybe welded shut. Totally stuck. And my fingernails are pathetic, really. My fault. I bite them – isn't that gross? Ugly nails. Ugly hands.

Mom's voice: 'Honey, are you zoning out on me? I was talking about how you're going to have to do your part. Give Eastlake your best effort. You can do it.'

'Mom . . .' I fiddled with the little heart, unable to open it, unwilling to let it alone.

'Yes, dollface?'

'Eastlake . . .'

'Yes?'

'It's a very tough school.'

My mother held her drink between her two beautifully manicured hands and smiled. 'So you'll work harder.'

You know how you can be fine one minute and then suddenly the next minute you find some dumb thing is happening, like tears are pouring out of your eyes? That's the sort of thing that happens to me all the time, lately. For no reason. And it began happening right then. Somehow, my face was just all wet. Lucky my hair was hanging down or my mom would have been really worried, wondering what was wrong with me now. I turned to get her more ice from the freezer and wiped my face with a dishtowel when she wasn't looking.

Mom was happy about the fresh ice. 'So what have you been up to while I was out?'

'Me? Just drawing.'

I pulled my sketchpad from the corner of the breakfast nook table and opened it to the page.

Mom slowly took the pad. 'Is that
me?

It was a sketch using oil pastels. I'd made my mother's skin a little too peachy, I realized, having coloured it without her there to look at while I drew. And I hadn't remembered just how light were the golden highlights in her hair. But other than that, I thought it was maybe not too bad. I had gotten her chin just right.

Mom took a while to tell me what she thought of it. And while I was waiting, standing in the cool kitchen, I realized that I got her nose wrong. Completely. And her eyes. My neck started hurting again. And I couldn't wait any longer. I wanted to snatch the sketchbook out of her hands. Grab it. And rip out the page, punch it into a ball and throw it away. Fast.

'Do you like it, Mommy?'

'It's just fine.'

Fine? No. It was awful. The eyes were horrible. I'd gotten the nose all wrong. What was I thinking? My mother's eyes were a million times prettier than I had drawn them. I could just kill myself for showing her that picture.

'It's just . . . honey, I don't think this artsy stuff is for you. I know you met the art teacher at the public high school.'

'Miss Sanchez. She said . . .'

Mom put her hand up gently. 'She tells
all
the kids they have talent, honey. That's her job. I will not have you attending the public high school simply because one teacher appealed to your vanity. So just get that idea right out of your head. Next thing you'll be telling me you want to drop out of the honours programme and hang around with a lot of troubled kids, is that right?'

How could I keep on letting my mom down like this? I was way too selfish. My mom once said I had my father's selfish gene and I guess that's so. I made a secret promise right then to stop thinking like this. To stop disappointing my mother.

Mom looked at me closely. I wondered if she could see I was going to try harder, because I really, really was. 'You need to be more positive, sweetie. You'll do fine at Eastlake. I've gotten you this far, haven't I?'

My mom's smile faded immediately when she saw my face.

I stopped looking at her; stopped breathing, even, for a few seconds. It was the thing we never talked about.

I pulled my hair down over my face, which I know I shouldn't since she doesn't like it, but sometimes I can't help it. My grades are a subject that's tricky. It's like something we can't talk about, because we both know it's been my mom who has been earning all my As at Pasadena Country Day, practically doing all my homework and projects and papers since kindergarten. Everyone in my sixth grade class suspects it. My teachers know it. And so do I. That's why when the rejection letter from Eastlake came in the mail, I wasn't surprised. I was kind of expecting it.

Are you worrying again? About the letter?'

'No. Honestly.' I gave her the kind of smile she deserved, real nonchalant and carefree.

Last Saturday was like a funeral around my house. My father glared at my mother. My mother was so trembly she asked me to fix her a drink at noon! Even with Daddy at home.

Are you worrying, Megan? Please don't. I'll help you, sweetie. You'll love Eastlake.'

She held out her glass and I got up to refill it, making it mostly Diet Coke this time, hiding behind my hair.

When the letter came and Mom was so disappointed, I realized something. She regrets having me. I know she does. I could tell by the look on her face. And you know something else? I can't blame her one bit. She's right. I'm just a screwed up kid and she deserves so much better. As much as I always try to be just perfect for her, I always find some supremely stupid way to muck it all up. Typical me. Instead of making her happy, like I always, always try, I just end up embarrassing her. How screwed up is that?