Separate Sisters Page 3

  Relativity. Ha! Get it? Donni’s a relative, and I understand her.

  Okay, that was lame.

  Another insight is, I understand why Donni has so many friends and I don’t have any. In a nutshell: Donni is fun. She’s playful, and she jokes around and does outrageous things and—and she’s a total rebel. I even like the way she dresses, thumbing her nose at Mom and everyone else. I wish she liked me half as much as I like her.

  I wish anyone liked me.

  Perhaps I’m more like Dad than I had realized. Aloof. No fun. Even when I try to make a joke, it’s no good. I don’t get any practice, because I’m so serious all the time. Maybe I should talk about some of this to someone besides you, Emmy. But I can’t. I simply cannot let Mom know how unhappy I feel. It would worry her, and she has more than enough problems. She thinks I’m mature and solid in myself, she depends on me, and I mustn’t let her down. I cannot possibly tell her I’d like to just give up. Emmy, the only one to whom I can talk is you.

  I promised faithfully that I wouldn’t do it again but I did.

  I did it the day my suspension was over. I never even made it back to class, and I really wanted to go back, to see my friends and have a life again. Staying home was boring. But before I could go back to class I had to see Mr. Billet and apologize to him for the things I’d said to him. That was fair. I really had said some sick things to him. I don’t like apologizing and the idea of apologizing to Mr. Billet made my stomach hurt, but I could see that it was fair and I needed to.

  So during the three days I was home I had painted a picture for Mr. Billet to present as part of the apology. His boring office needed some pictures on the walls. I didn’t admit to myself at first that I was going to give the picture to him; I just painted it. First I did a picture of him standing in the hallway with the platter-faced policeman while I barfed on his shoes. I didn’t put in a lot of barf, just the gesture. It looked like I was bowing to him, actually. It was a good picture and I took a whole day doing it right, Prismacolors and Windsor Newtons on heavy watercolor paper, but I decided he probably wouldn’t like it. It was good, but he wouldn’t want to be reminded of barf all the time. So I kept that one and did a whole other multimedia rendition, this one of Mr. Billet giant-sized straddling the middle-school building and riding it like a horse. It was simpler, yet it took even longer because I had to imagine the folds of his business suit and the sunlight coming down in glory spokes through stormy clouds and the wind in the hair, what hair Mr. Billet had left, and stuff like that to make him look noble. I used a dramatic angle, looking up at him, and put his head in profile against the clouds, and I did a really good job. It was my best work so far.

  I couldn’t hide it behind my dresser. I’d been so awful I had to give it to him to show that there was one good thing about me.

  It was the first time I’d ever done anything like that, I mean made art especially to give somebody as a gift, except maybe some drawings when I was three years old and didn’t know better. But there’s a first time for everything. It was the first time I’d been suspended.

  So the morning I went back to school I carried Mr. Billet on Schoolback sandwiched flat between two pieces of cardboard in a grocery bag. I waited in the office. My heart was thumping and I was sweaty and all the rest of it.

  “Donni. Come in, please.” He sounded like he was dreading this as much as I had been.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Billet,” I told him right away, as soon as he closed his door. “I shouldn’t have said, you know.”

  “No need to go into detail.”

  “I really am sorry. I apologize.”

  “Um, good, Donni.” He seemed kind of surprised. “I accept your apology.”

  “Look, I brought you something.” Carefully I pulled my painting out of the bag and laid it on the desk in front of him.

  He sat there with no expression at all on his face.

  I explained, “You need some art in here. I mean, besides Washington Crossing the Delaware.”

  “I see. It’s very nice.” My chest started hurting worse because I could tell he didn’t mean it. He didn’t even say thank you. He stopped looking at the painting and looked at me. “But your time would have been better spent on some of the subjects you are failing, Celadon.”

  “You don’t like it.” Stupid thing to say. Anybody could tell he didn’t like it.

  “That’s not the point. The point is, you shouldn’t be drawing pictures when …”

  When I was behind in civics, algebra, etc.—but I barely heard what he was saying. My heart was pumping so hard I could feel the blood pulsing in my neck and temples. My face felt hot, yet my hands and feet felt cold. There was a tidal wave thundering and surging inside my head. Mr. Billet kept talking, something about appropriate behavior, efficient use of time, would I be drawing if I was sitting on the deck of a sinking ship, that sort of thing. It didn’t matter what he was saying. All I understood was that he was trying to take away my art. He was trying to take away my art. HE WAS TRYING TO TAKE AWAY MY ART.

  “Why don’t you just poke my eyes out!” I didn’t realize at first that I was screaming at him, but I was. Just as loud as last time. Leaning on his desk and screaming into his face. “Why don’t you cut my hands off!” I needed windows, his office was a square tan prison with the door closed, no windows, and suddenly I felt like I really could not breathe. Like there wasn’t air, like I was drowning or underground or something, my chest would burst, I would die, and there were words and noises coming out of my mouth and some of them were swear words, but they made no sense even to me, and I had to get out of there.

  He didn’t exactly suspend me that time. I sort of suspended myself. Running out of school is automatic suspension. I ran out.

  I ran out of his office and out of the school. I was getting good at this.

  But as I went charging out the door, I ran straight into Trisha.

  I mean I really ran into her. I almost knocked her over. I was panting and crying so hard I couldn’t see right.

  Trisha took some courses in the high school and she must have been coming back from there. I knocked her books and pencils all over the sidewalk. Her calculator broke open and the batteries rolled out.

  She squeaked, “Hey!” like a mouse that’s been stepped on. “Donni, for the …” But then her voice changed. “Donni, what’s wrong?”

  I was what I guess you would call hysterical. I couldn’t talk.

  Trisha said, “Calm down,” and she put her arms around me. I leaned against her, but I still felt like I couldn’t breathe. I kept gasping for breath. It was worse than crying, worse than sobbing. Though I was crying, too.

  “Shhhh,” Trisha said, patting me. “Just relax. It’ll be okay.” She sounded like she almost believed that. “Tell me what happened.”

  I heard a bell ring, and I managed to choke out, “Go in. You’ll be late.”

  “I can be late for once.”

  I stood back from her. “You—you’ll get detention.”

  She didn’t even move to pick up her stuff. “I can get detention for once.”

  She lifted her chin as she said it. And I knew she was scared to death of detention or ever doing anything bad. I mean, she’d never had detention in her life. She’d risk it for me?

  All of a sudden I calmed down. “I’m okay now. You’d better go in.”

  “Not till you tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing happened except that I’m a certifiable lunatic and I’ve got suspension again.” I gathered up her stuff for her and handed it to her. “I’m going home. See you tonight.”

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes.”

  After she was through the door and it was too late for her to hear me I added, “Thank you.”

  I walked home. I had lied when I said I was sure I was okay. Actually, I was starting to feel pretty sure there was something wrong with me, and it scared me. Even the idea of Mom and Dad getting together and talking with me didn’t h
elp, because I’d been thinking about what Trisha had said, that I was getting in trouble to try to get them back together. It made me so mad I knew it might be true. But if that was it, then it wasn’t worth it. They were never going to get back together. They probably shouldn’t get back together. All I was doing was hurting myself.

  I would stop getting in trouble. I would just plain stop. It was that simple.

  But I had meant to stop when I promised. And here I was again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dear Emmy,

  Please forget all that talk of understanding Donni. Evidently it was premature. And please forget anything negative I said about her, because now I am truly worried about her. Something is very wrong. When Donni ran out of school today, she was not just upset and she was not just being a jerk. She looked as though she was out of her mind with fear, her face so white that her lips looked blue. She was crying as though someone had beaten her or tried to kill her. I have never seen her look so terrified. She seemed so frightened that she frightened me, but I didn’t show it, because someone needed to be strong. Inwardly, I was shaking, and I still am.

  After she had calmed down somewhat, I went into the school, and Mr. Billet met me in the hall and demanded to know whether I’d seen Donni. When he found out I’d let her go home, he yelled at me. He said I should have made her come back in and talk with him. I’ve never been yelled at even by a teacher, let alone by Mr. Billet, so that was a first.

  By the way, Emmy, I have detention. That is another first. But I suppose one who wants to be a writer should welcome new experiences.

  Mom is so worried about Donni, Donni, Donni that she barely noticed when I told her I had detention. She doesn’t even care.

  I am noticing my own tone of voice and I sound brattish. This must stop. I need to grow up. Mom is right to worry about Donni. Now I know what it is to worry about Donni as well.

  The school insisted on a big meeting with Mom and Dad and the school psychiatrist and the guidance counselor and the principal and Mr. Billet and me. Three women, three men, and me in pick-a-gender overalls with one shoulder strap hanging. Mom and Dad both had to take time off from work, but neither of them acted mad at me. That made me scared because it showed how serious things were. But what made me even more scared was what might happen. Not what anybody might do to me, not detention or suspension or anything, but I was scared of what I might do. What might go on inside me. The awful weirdness hurting my chest and burning in my throat. The shakes, the sick feeling, the awful words vomiting out of me. I was more scared of me than I was of anything. I was so scared of me that I was feeling shaky and my chest felt tight and my stomach felt queasy just from thinking about it. About not wanting to be that way.

  I made up my mind not to say anything. Not a word. Not even if they yelled at me or thought I was sulking. If I didn’t say anything, then I couldn’t say anything sick, and I might get through the meeting.

  So there we all were in the conference room behind the office, in cushy swivel chairs around a big table, like the board of directors. It was a little better than Mr. Billet’s office. At least there were windows.

  Mr. Billet started things off by filling us in on the history, as he called it. He was fair. He didn’t make it sound any worse than it was. “Donni apologized with apparent sincerity,” he said when he got to telling about the second time I had flipped out at him. “Then she immediately presented me with a painting—”

  “She did?” my mother exclaimed. Mr. Billet just looked at her. Nobody was supposed to be interrupting, but my mother was so intent on what she was thinking that she kept right on going. “You must rate,” she said awed. “Donni never gives art to anybody.”

  At least somebody understood. I almost smiled at her. Go, Mom.

  Mr. Billet looked at her like she had extra heads. “My impression is that Donni uses art as a crutch—”

  Mom interrupted again. “What sort of picture did she give you?”

  “I felt it was not very appropriate—”

  “Do you still have it?” the school psychiatrist asked. She was a dyed blonde and needed to take care of her roots. “May we see?”

  If he’d thrown it in the trash—no. No. I must not say anything. Must not think anything, either. Must not go weird again. Must not. Must not.

  “It’s not really—”

  “I’d like to see also,” said the guidance counselor, who was younger and skinnier and had a better dye job.

  Mr. Billet mumbled something and went to his office. A minute later he came back with my painting. At least he hadn’t ripped it up.

  The room got stop-the-world silent as everybody looked. Usually there are small noises in a quiet room. People sniffing, tapping their fingers, moving their chairs. But there were no noises. None.

  Then Mom turned her head. “Donni,” she said straight to me, “that is fantabulous.”

  “It’s absolutely extraordinary,” the principal said.

  The guidance counselor was nodding and staring.

  I breathed out.

  “Huh,” Mr. Billet said. “Well I, uh, I didn’t feel it was the best use of her time. I don’t know much about art.”

  The school psychiatrist sat up straight. “But aside from the exceptional talent that’s displayed in that piece, don’t you see what Donni was trying to tell you?”

  “Uh, no.” Mr. Billet looked hassled. “I, uh, I don’t.”

  “Well.” She took a breath to talk, then changed her mind and turned to me. “Donni. Perhaps you can explain it better than I can.”

  I shook my head and curled deeper into my chair.

  “Donni, go ahead,” Mom urged.

  I couldn’t if I wanted to. I was shaking.

  Mr. Billet said, “None of this changes the fact that Donni then flew out of control and started to abuse me, using highly inappropriate language, very similar to the previous time.”

  “Donni,” the principal asked, “do you have anything to say?”

  I shook my head.

  “We’d really like to help you. Can you explain your conduct to us? Tell us what is going wrong?”

  I put my hands over my mouth.

  The school psychiatrist was looking at me and she understood better than the rest of them, dark roots or no dark roots. “She looks very pale,” she said. “Donni, do you need to be excused?”

  I nodded and got out of there. I sat out front even though it was cold, because I felt better in the fresh air. I sat there till my parents came out nearly an hour later.

  “Okay,” Mom told me, “you go back to school tomorrow, on one condition.”

  “Apology?”

  “No. Not this time. But you’re supposed to see the psychiatrist.”

  My father smiled at me like it was all nonsense. He hadn’t said a word.

  This is the part I’m ashamed of. Most of the rest of it I don’t mind telling about. It’s like, I had some problems and made some mistakes; so does everybody. Dumb stuff happens. But this part—I really wish I could take back what I did.

  So I was back in school, and Trisha was coming over every night to help me with my homework or at least make me do it, and I didn’t like it, she acted like a teacher, so I acted like a kid who hated teachers, but it was sort of kind of working. I felt like school was going a little bit better. I was still getting detention for tardiness and lost books and dumb stuff like that, but I was staying out of Mr. Billet’s office. So I began to think I might pass the year after all. There was this big English assignment, which counted a lot, and I had to type it, but Dad’s computer was down. So the Sunday before the Monday it was due I had Dad drop me off at Mom’s place so I could type it on Trisha’s computer.

  It was this analyze-a-poem paper. Rhyme, meter, imagery, symbolism, all that. There were some poems in the book I absolutely loved.

  So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

  In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm

  O
ut of the whinnying green stable

  On to the fields of praise.

  I love that. It makes me see the most amazing pictures in my head. But I couldn’t write about something I loved. I couldn’t let anybody know, least of all a teacher. Look what had happened when I gave Mr. Billet a painting. So I chose an Emily Dickinson poem because I think she was a creepy old hag.

  Because I could not stop for Death,

  He kindly stopped for me …

  She sure didn’t give me any pictures in my head, but it was easy to analyze the meter. This poem could be sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and sounded better that way and I said so. I also said it used personification to convey abstractions and it tried to be important, but nothing seemed real. The horses drawing the carriage with their heads pointed toward eternity didn’t seem like real horses. I said a lot of stuff. Trisha helped me. She was good at this.

  “Why don’t you type it up for me?” I invited her.

  “Type it yourself, Donni.” She sounded cranky. She went downstairs and sat in front of the TV set. She seemed tired.

  I got halfway through typing my paper and I was ready for a break. But I didn’t want to leave Trisha’s room because if I went anywhere near Mom she would want to talk with me about school. So I started fooling with Trisha’s computer. I don’t like computers much, they’re Trisha’s thing, but I was bored, so I figured I’d try a computer game. But, duh, there weren’t any. Like, this was Trisha’s computer, and it had a calculator and a clock and a note-taking program and a calendar and schedule and all sorts of rinky-dink stuff but no cool screen savers and no games, either. It was annoying, like Trisha. I clicked on File Manager and browsed through the file titles, just fooling around, and I saw one called Journal and I clicked on it.

  And I read it.

  A lot of the time I just want to cry … Donni acts as if she’s divorced me … I miss her … Maybe she’ll stop hating me if I can help her … I wish she liked me half as much as I like her … I wish anybody liked me … Emmy, the only one I can talk to is you.