Tell Us Something True Read online

  “Hey, River—how are you?” She asked this like she’d ask How are you since someone ran over your puppy? Or How are you since your face got disfigured? “Going to the dance? It should be super fun. Penny is going.” She held up a single ticket. “The theme is Purple Rain.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. My mind was a blizzard of thick, soft snow.

  That night at Jonas’s party Penny and I took a walk around the block together and I grabbed her hand and told her I was going to kiss her and she said: What are you waiting for?

  I leaned in close. I put both of my hands on her cheeks. We were standing out on the street, under a tree, in front of a house where the lights had just gone out. She was chewing that blue sugar-free gum she loved.

  I can’t say that the kiss was perfect. I’d liked her since freshman orientation and I was having a hard time just being in the moment because my brain kept screaming I’M ABOUT TO KISS PENNY BROCKAWAY. But the kiss was good enough that afterward she pulled back and bit her upper lip. It was the first time I made note of her habit. She smiled at me. “Let’s go someplace and do more of that.”

  I dropped my jaw in fake shock. “You little tramp!” I said. “Do you think I’m that easy?” Then I leaned in again and gave her a short peck, the kind you give someone you’ve been kissing forever, not the girl you’ve only kissed once a minute ago. But it already felt like I’d been kissing Penny forever, not in the way that you’re bored with doing it, more in the way that it felt like second nature.

  We walked holding hands for three more blocks to a park I took Natalie to sometimes.

  We sat on a bench away from the lights and we kissed until we both had red rashes around our mouths. I felt drunk. My hair was a mess from the way she ran her hands through it. Penny always did love my hair.

  I wondered what it would be like at school the following Monday. Would I know how to talk to her? Would it be awkward? Would she want to sit with me at lunch? But all of a sudden we were a couple. It was easy. I never worried where things stood with us until the afternoon I pedaled her out to the middle of Echo Park Lake.

  “I can’t go,” I said to Vanessa.

  “Why not?” She sounded genuinely disappointed.

  “I’m busy.”

  “Too bad.” She put the ticket back into the box. “I guess I should let you know that Penny is going with Evan Lockwood.”

  Snow. Falling hard inside my head.

  “Don’t tell her I told you, okay? I don’t want her to be mad, but…I feel like it’s only fair if you know.”

  Before I knew what I was doing, I was opening my wallet and buying two tickets.

  “Are these for you and Maggie?” she asked. Vanessa knew Maggie and I were just friends.

  “No.”

  She counted out each dollar and flattened it.

  She handed over the tickets. “See you and…whoever there.”

  I was late to study hall, and I slid into my seat next to Luke, who stared at the tickets in my hand like I’d just walked in carrying a rubber chicken or a hamster.

  “The dance?”

  I shrugged.

  I’d avoided school dances like…well, school dances. I’d never been to one until I started going out with Penny. She liked getting dressed up, picking out an outfit for me, walking around clinging to my arm, and pulling me close for a slow song. The rest of the time she’d dance with her friends—that was more fun for her and also more humane, because nobody needed to see me dance. It wasn’t pretty.

  Luke never went and Will had only been to one dance because a girl he didn’t like that much caught him off guard and asked him and he didn’t have the heart to say no. Maggie went sometimes with other girls, mostly just to spy on people. But now that we were seniors, regular dances seemed especially stupid because the year was going to end with a prom anyway.

  “I guess I just thought maybe we should go.”

  “Are you asking me to the dance?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Dude. Have you completely lost your mind?”

  “Shhhhh­hhhhh­hh.” Mr. Baumgarten, our study hall proctor, looked up from his pile of papers.

  Evan Lockwood played basketball with Luke. Maybe Luke knew that Evan had asked Penny to the dance, or maybe Vanessa had her facts wrong.

  Luke took out a sheet of paper and wrote: Get a grip. Don’t go to the dance to stalk Penny.

  Solid advice, but instead of tearing up the tickets I put them away in my wallet.

  I didn’t do any work. I just tried to erase the image of Penny pressed against Evan Lockwood during some cheesy Bruno Mars song.

  For the rest of the afternoon those tickets burned a hole in my wallet. What if I went to Penny’s house with those tickets and got down on a knee even, and said something like: Penny Brockaway, will you do me the honor of going to the Purple Rain dance with me?

  Would Penny fall for a gesture like that? Part of me thought she might, judging from the number of romantic comedies she’d made me sit through. When we’d watch those movies—a bowl of popcorn, my arm around her shoulder, her legs draped across my lap, Nuisance curled up next to us on the couch—I felt like she was trying to teach me about how to be the dreamy boyfriend, the one who always does and says the right thing, and when he doesn’t, he makes it up to his girlfriend in just the right way.

  Guys in those movies wouldn’t sit by and let Evan Lockwood take their girlfriends to the Purple Rain dance without a fight.

  “I need a ride,” I said over dinner.

  “Where to?” Mom asked.

  “Penny’s house.”

  “I thought you broke up.” Leonard said this without making eye contact, like it was no big deal, like you’d say Nice weather we’re having.

  “They did,” Natalie chimed in. “But Penny and I can still be friends.”

  I smiled at her. “At least there’s that.”

  “So are you two patching things up?” I loved Mom. I really did. But sometimes her expressions were just so old person-y.

  “I hope so.” When nobody said anything I added, “I bought us tickets to the dance.”

  “Tickets to the dance.” That was a habit of Leonard’s: repeating something I said when he didn’t like what I was saying. Like when I mentioned I wanted to drop precalc because why torture myself when I’d already fulfilled my math requirements. Dropping precalculus, he’d said.

  “Yes, I thought I’d go over tonight and ask her to be my date to the dance.”

  “Oh, honey.” Mom patted my arm. “Why don’t you just give her a call? You don’t need to go over there so late at night.”

  “It’s only seven-thirty.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “But what?”

  “But…maybe you should give her some space?”

  This was not what the guys in the romantic comedies did, they didn’t give space, but I couldn’t tell Mom this. She wouldn’t understand. Over the last two years Mom had gently tried—many times—to tell me that I focused too much of my attention on Penny, that I should back off a little, not let my relationship be the center of my universe. But I ignored her because she was my mother. What did she know?

  “Buddy.” This was Leonard’s signal that he was speaking with authority, about something beyond the realm of Mom’s expertise. I never minded when Leonard played this part, even if I didn’t always agree with him. Leonard meant well, and he was often right. I still wish I’d dropped precalc, though.

  “Maybe it’s better to let her realize what she’s missing? You could even ask someone else to the dance. You know what they say about fish in the sea and all that.”

  “Yeah, they’re full of mercury poisoning.”

  I was starting to feel sort of pathetic, and I didn’t want to make it worse by begging them for a ride, so I just excused myself and went to my room.

  But those tickets. The image of me on one knee with them fanned in my hand, looking up at a surprised and delighted Penny. It wouldn’t leave me alo
ne.

  Penny’s house was a thirty-minute walk, twenty-five if I hustled. I didn’t want to take all those minutes because now it was starting to get late, and I didn’t want her to be in pajamas or anything. That wasn’t how I imagined it all going down.

  I climbed out my window. I’d done this lots of times, often when I wasn’t even headed anyplace but the backyard. Sometimes it was just nice to come and go without getting noticed.

  Leonard’s truck was in the garage and the keys hung on the hook. He’d taken me driving a few times. I was pretty sure I could make the trip to Penny’s without causing a multivehicle pileup, but the last thing I needed was to do something illegal. I didn’t want to give Mom and Leonard any more cause to worry about my judgment.

  Natalie had gotten a new bike for her birthday a few months back. She was in between frame sizes so Leonard bought her the next size up to grow into. Her feet barely touched the ground when she sat on the seat and this made her spooked about riding it, so she hadn’t yet.

  I took it on its inaugural ride, pedaling standing up the whole way because I couldn’t sit without knocking my knees into my chin. My overall appearance on this bike wasn’t helped by the fact that it was hot pink. I looked absurd. But it was dark. And I was on a mission.

  As I approached Penny’s block I hopped off the bike and stashed it in the tall hedges of a neighbor’s front yard. I caught my breath. Wiped my palms on my jeans and slowed to a casual walk.

  I found Juana in the driveway, dragging the black garbage bins out to the street.

  “Hola, Juana.”

  I’d startled her. She jumped and put her hand to her chest, but then didn’t seem all that relieved to discover it was me.

  “Hi, River.”

  “Here, let me help you.” I walked back up the driveway with her and grabbed a recycling bin. She grabbed the other and we dragged them down to the street together.

  “Why are you here, River?” she asked.

  “To see Penny.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

  “But I have tickets,” I said. “For the dance.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Penelope has a new dress. It’s purple.”

  “Does she have a date?”

  “River, I can’t—”

  “Never mind.”

  I knew. Vanessa was telling the truth.

  Maybe Penny and Evan Lockwood had been secretly planning to go to that dance together long before the tickets went on sale. Maybe Penny had been thinking about Evan Lockwood when she said, “Riv, I can’t do this anymore.”

  I stood looking up at Penny’s huge house. Every light seemed to be on. This house had been my second home, and now here I stood, out with the garbage bins.

  “Maybe don’t tell her I came by. Is that okay, Juana?”

  “Yes. It’s okay, River. I won’t say a word.”

  I went and retrieved Natalie’s bike from the hedges and I pedaled sitting down, knees splayed and aching, all the way home.

  I needed more than my spotty memories of those junior high Say No to Drugs assemblies, so I turned to the Internet for material to use in my Saturday-night meeting.

  I searched: teenage + marijuana + addiction.

  Mostly I uncovered facts I knew—that marijuana is bad for brain development, it’s stronger than it used to be and it can act as a gateway drug. Some experts argue it’s not possible to have an addiction to marijuana, while others document addiction in a small percentage of users.

  I eventually stumbled upon the blog of an anonymous teenage boy living in an undisclosed Midwestern city who took to the Internet to chronicle his struggle with marijuana addiction in the hope of helping others in his situation, or in my case, others who might be trying to pretend to be in his situation.

  Bam: interconnectedness in the digital age!

  This kid started getting high the summer after eighth grade and what began as a weekend activity morphed into an everyday activity until he got busted. He said he’d stop but he didn’t, until he got busted again and said he’d stop for real. But then his days felt so long and dull, and he couldn’t find anything that quieted his constant agitation, so he kept smoking, and when he finally got busted the third time his parents sent him into rehab for a thirty-day detox and he came out and started a blog: itainteasybeinoffgreen.

  For Saturday’s meeting I homed in on this entry from a few weeks back.

  I went to a party last night and it was kind of okay because the music wasn’t awful. Some music makes me want to get high so bad because it’s music I used to listen to when I’d get baked and I have this physical need to hold a joint in my hand. I can almost taste it. And some music makes me want to get high because it makes me depressed, like that Emo crap. But last night at this party the music was okay because it was neither of those things and I was in a good mood because I was with my friends and we were hanging out and laughing and then some douche asks if anyone wants to get high. I said no. He said why not? You scared? And I said no, it’s just that I’m addicted to marijuana. And he laughed in my face. It totally ruined my night. I had to leave. I can’t even be anywhere near weed. I’m too weak.

  Because…it ain’t easy bein off green.

  Peace out.

  —

  Okay. So maybe he wasn’t Shakespeare but he did give me someone to inhabit. Someone to plagiarize.

  Christopher skipped the meeting. It hadn’t occurred to me to worry about someone with a love for euphoria-inducing drugs blowing off group therapy on a Saturday night, but Everett opened the circle by saying, “I want to assuage any concerns you might have about Christopher. He isn’t here tonight because he had a family event to attend—his cousin’s Bat Mitzvah. He’ll rejoin us next week.”

  I’d never seen Molly at a Bat Mitzvah, so Christopher would probably be just fine.

  I was bummed he wasn’t there because I’d hoped for a repeat of the week before. That was fun. And I’d been counting on not having to walk the five miles home.

  After our call and response—Here, This, Now—Everett said, “Tonight I want you to tell us something good. Tell us something true.”

  Daphne took a long time getting started. She seemed less animated than usual. Maybe she was missing Christopher. “So…” She stopped. “So…” More silence. “Something true…” She looked carefully at her fingernails. She’d repainted them from light pink to dark blue. “Something true is that I’m tired.” More silence. “I’m so tired.”

  “Can you—”

  “Yes, I can say more, Everett,” she snapped. “Obviously I know by now that just saying I’m tired isn’t going to cut it in here. So yeah, I’m tired because I get up every morning at six to make breakfast for me and everybody and then I take the little one to the neighbor’s house, and then I get the middle two to school. My sister Maria, she’s big enough to take care of herself but she still expects me to make her breakfast and pack her lunch, because that’s what I do. And sometimes, when I’m taking Roberto over to this lady’s house? Where he stays all day with a couple other kids? Sometimes I feel like maybe I should just quit school and watch him, because what’s the point? Is this why my parents work so hard? Why my dad works night shifts? Why my mom cleans another family’s house and takes care of other people’s kids? So that they can pay for someone else to watch their own kid? Sometimes…it all just seems pointless.” She leaned forward, arms on knees, and stared at the floor.

  “And something good…” Daphne lifted her head and stared right at me. I felt my body go insta-hot, like all the air had just left the room. I looked away, because I didn’t want her to see me react, but then when I snuck a look at her I realized she wasn’t looking at me at all, she was focusing on a spot on the wall just above my head.

  “Something good…” She brought her gaze back to the circle. “Something good is Roberto. The little one? He calls me Mamá sometimes. He’s so beautiful, that boy. He’s just got this big, perfect heart, you know? And this week, we were w
alking to the neighbor’s house, and I was holding his little hand, and he says to me, Te amo, Mamá, and I tell him I love him too, and then he says You’re pretty, and I say You love me because I’m pretty? And he says No, I love you because you’re brave and strong, like a ninja.” Daphne smiled and put both hands to her chest. “He kills me.”

  When the circle came around to me I started with something good. I thought about my crappy week. About Penny’s new purple dress and my incomplete precalc homework, about how I’d Googled my father even though I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t, and how he’d trimmed his beard back to the look of someone too busy to shave and switched his glasses from round wire to square wire frames.

  “My good is my sister Natalie.” I looked at Daphne. “She doesn’t think I’m a ninja or anything, in fact I’m pretty sure she’s totally aware of my shortcomings, but still, she worships me. All she wants is for us to share a last name. To be even closer than we already are. And I…I want to be the person she believes me to be.”

  I felt that frog throat thing happening so I took a few long swallows. I’d used Natalie as my good, but she was also my true. What I’d said about her was as true as anything I know.

  “And something true…,” I said. Daphne’s eyes were dark and shining and not focused on any spot above my head, but right on me. No hand motions needed. There was an understanding—something about me she connected to something inside herself. “Something true…”

  This would have been the perfect moment to admit I wasn’t addicted to pot. That I came here each week because I was trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be.

  I cleared my throat. “Something true is that I went to a party last night and it was kind of okay because the music wasn’t awful…”

  —

  Mason’s mother stood waiting outside on the sidewalk. How someone like him could have come from someone like her was a mystery of science. Everything about her was tiny, her face, her ears, her feet. She couldn’t have stood more than five feet tall.

  He embraced her and she disappeared. Then he took her tiny hand and led her over to Daphne and me.