While I'm Falling Part 15

"Oh! Veronica! Hey!" My mother looked up at me as best she could without moving her head. Marley was making pigtails, one on each side; the braid she had already finished curled up a little at the tip. "How's she doing back there? I don't see how she's going to pull it off. I've got layers, I'm pretty sure."

"Natalie, keep your head still." Marley shook her head and smiled. She was wearing the pig slippers and a dress that was denim on top, a flowered skirt at the bottom. Her horn case lay open on the guest bed, the horn brightly gleaming in a snug bed of crushed blue velvet.

My mother's eyes rested on mine. "Sorry, honey. I was on my way out, but then your friendly neighbor stopped by, offering chocolate and music." She scrunched up her nose and smiled back at Marley. "How could I resist? And hey, have you ever heard her play?" She nodded back at Marley, as if I might otherwise not guess who she meant. "It's really something! It's one of the most difficult instruments to play well. Did you know that? Someone else told me that once. You wouldn't know it, watching this girl. She has to think about her breathing and her hands and even the way she's holding it. Marley, you'll have to show Veronica when you're done."

"Okay," Marley said. She looked up at me. "What's the matter? You look really weird."

I didn't want them there. I didn't want either of them in my room. I lowered my eyes and put my hand over my mouth. "Mom," I said, looking down. "I need to borrow your van."

"Why?" She moved her head to look up at me. Marley clicked her tongue and gently pulled back on the braid.

"Can you just give me the keys?"

My mother looked up at me, saying nothing. I knew, from vast experience, going all the way back to my earliest years, that the conversation would not continue until I apologized. You don't take that tone with me, young lady. You don't take that tone with me, young lady.

But apparently, these days, I could. "Okay," she said. She leaned forward, reaching for her purse on the edge of her bed. Marley moved with her, still holding the braid. I stared at the bag of M&M's on the floor.

"They're mine," Marley said. "You want some?"

I shook my head. I just wanted the keys.

"Veronica saw me play once." Marley was up on her knees, twisting an elastic around the end of a braid. "She came to the football game when the band played." She tilted her head, still looking at the back of my mother's head. "Or at least she said said she did." she did."

What happened next, what I did next, is difficult to defend or even explain. I will say I was tired, going on little sleep, and too much worry and adrenaline. I was in no mood for any complaint from Marley, no matter how subtle, no matter if what she was saying was true. I saw my mother look at me, wondering if I was, in fact, a liar. I saw Marley in a horror show of a dress and the pig slippers, the very picture of an easy target, and something ugly and fast in me decided, You! You are the one who must be punished! You! You are the one who must be punished!

"You know, Marley. You might take some responsibility for yourself, for making friends, instead of just pestering me all the time. Maybe if you tried not dressing and acting like you were twelve years old, the other freshmen wouldn't avoid you."

They both stared up at me. My mother pulled her head back a little. I was already embarra.s.sed, aware now of how I must look to them, and how I must have sounded; but in my swirling head, despite my embarra.s.sment, or maybe even because of it, I felt I had no option but to stand my ground.

"I'm tired of feeling sorry for you." I kept my eyes on just Marley, though I could feel my mother looking up at me as well. "I'm tired of you being so pathetic. This is my room, by the way. I didn't invite you in here. And sorry, no, I didn't go to the football game. I'm not your mommy. I don't want to be."

My mother stood up quickly. "That's enough," she said, her voice very low. "Just stop talking, Veronica. Just stop talking right now."

Marley stood quickly. She smoothed her flowered skirt and looked at me, her eyes small, her mouth open, as if she still couldn't believe what I had just said, as if she were waiting for me to smile and say I was only kidding.

I stepped aside, giving her room to leave.

"I'm sorry." My mother touched Marley's shoulder. "I really have no idea..." Both of her braids turned up at the ends, like Pippi Longstocking's. She looked at me and spoke through clenched teeth. "I don't know what has gotten into my daughter."

Marley shrugged, and leaned down to close her horn case. I could see pink splotches on her pale cheeks, the same kind I got when I was trying hard not to cry. I put my hands against my face, my hands cold against my cheeks, my cheeks hot against my hands.

"Honey," my mother said. She was talking to Marley. "You don't have to go." She gave me a hard look. "Or if you want to go, I'll come with you."

Marley shook her head. "I've got to go anyway. I have cla.s.s." She gave me a look of misery or hatred or maybe both, and ran past me out into the hallway.

When I finally looked up again, my mother had her head tilted away from me. She took a small step back and watched me from the side, birdlike, as if she couldn't bear to look at me full-on. I stalked over to my desk, unzipped my backpack, and started pulling out books.

"What is the matter with you?"

I said nothing. It was a question with too many answers. Where do I begin? Where, oh where do I begin? Where do I begin? Where, oh where do I begin? I didn't know what to do with myself. I stacked three pencils in a row. I scooted my chemistry book toward me until it was in line with the edge of my desk. I looked at my watch. It was after one o'clock, and still raining hard. I didn't care. I didn't care about Jimmy. I didn't know what to do with myself. I stacked three pencils in a row. I scooted my chemistry book toward me until it was in line with the edge of my desk. I looked at my watch. It was after one o'clock, and still raining hard. I didn't care. I didn't care about Jimmy.

"Answer me." My mother leaned forward. She was trying to see my eyes. "You have no right to speak to her-to speak to anyone anyone like that. Do you understand? Veronica! Are you listening to me?" like that. Do you understand? Veronica! Are you listening to me?"

She grazed my arm with just her fingertips. When I didn't move, she sat on the foot of my bed.

"Honey?" she said, her voice soft, a little shaky. "Are you...are you doing drugs?"

I actually laughed, only for a second, but the pressure caused tears to spill out from under my eyes. I glanced down at her. She wasn't laughing.

"No," I said.

"Then what is it? What in the world would make you act that way? How could you say that about not being her mother, when she just lost hers? What is wrong wrong with you?" with you?"

I looked up. Lost. For a moment, I really thought that she meant that Marley had lost her mother by leaving home and coming to college. What I'd said still wasn't so bad. My mother was overreacting, looking at me like that.

I shook my head. "I don't...What do you...?"

"Her mother just died last spring. Cancer." She turned her palms up, holding them out, as if holding something fragile and round between us. "How do you not know that?"

I looked at the floor, at the bag of M&M's. I looked back at my mother's face. I tried to think what I knew of Marley's mother, what she had told me. She played the piano. She gave lessons out of the house, and she accompanied the church choir. Those details had all made it into my long-term memory somehow. If I had been told she'd also just died of cancer, I would have surely remembered that, too.

"What?" I asked. "Why are you looking at me like that? How was I supposed to know if she didn't tell me?"

But already I understood that I had just outdone myself. Out of all the stupid things I had done since Friday morning-the car, the party, Third Floor Clyde-yelling at Marley was the most shameful, the error I would remember the longest.

My mother crossed her arms. "She told me in about ten minutes. What's the longest you've ever talked to her?"

Bowzer woke and started scratching his chin with his back paw. My entire bed moved with the vibration he made, the mattress rattling in the frame. I wanted to get up and lie down next to him, the way I might have done when he was a puppy and I was a girl. I wanted to press my face into his fur and scratch him behind his ears until he sighed with pleasure and forgot about his aching bones. Even my mother would not ever forgive me, perhaps. She might still love me, but she would not think of me the same. She loved Elise, too, but for different reasons. I had always been the nice one.

"Isn't it your job to look out for the freshmen on your floor? Veronica, that girl is just dying of loneliness. Don't tell me you can't see it."

I closed my eyes. "Mom. If you had any idea how much stress I'm under...You were just telling me that I need to focus on my schoolwork..."

She waved her hand. "Don't give me that. You took this job. You signed on for it, and it's important. If you're not going to do it right, you shouldn't do it at all." She started to say more, and then stopped. She looked at me, frowned, and started again. "You're doing all this studying so you can be a doctor? You know, doctors have to deal with people, Veronica. And I'm pretty sure the stress doesn't stop in school. Is this how you're going to treat patients? You sure you want to go into a caring field?"

I started crying. I worried she would think it was a ploy, but really, I just couldn't help it. She handed me a tissue. When I looked up to take it, she did not smile.

"I'll talk to Marley tonight," I said. "I'll apologize."

"Okay." Her voice was neutral, her expression blank. She seemed to be waiting for something.

"What?"

"This isn't how you act. This isn't like you. What's going on?"

The landline rang. We both flinched. It rang again, and again, and again.

My mother's gaze moved from the phone to my face. I shook my head. I had no answering machine for the dorm phone. But anyone normal would have given up by now. Nine rings. Ten rings. It was Jimmy. He would let it ring all day.

She looked at the phone. She looked back at me.

"Things have gotten a little crazy," I said.

She leaned forward a little, squinting. The phone was still ringing.

"I've done some pretty stupid things lately. I've gotten myself into a mess."

She nodded. Her eyes moved to the phone. The ringing seemed to be getting louder. I put my hand over my eyes. "It's the guy whose car I wrecked. That was his town house I stayed in. He's mad because I had a party, after I wrecked his car. He wants rides all the time, and he doesn't care that I don't have a car. He wants a ride back from campus right now."

"Oh." My mother c.o.c.ked her head. "Well. Do you want me to answer?" She did not give me a chance to reply. Her hand moved quickly to the phone.

"h.e.l.lo?"

Apparently, while waiting in the rain, Jimmy had lost his ability to stay calm. I could hear him through the earpiece, though I was sitting several feet away. Some words were clearer than others: "b.i.t.c.h," "better," "NOW." I watched my mother's eyebrows move up, up, up, her eyes growing wider beneath them. She looked at me. She again appeared to be waiting for something, some critical word from me.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't know what to do anymore."

She rubbed her lips together, looking back at the phone with narrowed eyes. She moved her fingers down one of the braids to the pink ribbon Marley had wrapped around the end. One of her eyebrows lowered, and the other stayed high, deep lines appearing across her forehead. She put her hand on my shoulder. "Yes," she said into the phone. "I think I do understand. As a matter of fact, I do."

I couldn't believe he thought she was me. Her voice was lower. She sounded older, at least to me.

"No problem," she said. "Just wait there. We're on our way."

12.

"THIS PERSON HAS MY PHONE? Why does he have my phone?"

We were in the van. Wet dog smell hung heavy in the air, but it was raining too hard to roll down a window. Bowzer rode between my mother and the steering wheel, his front paws resting on her right arm. He was panting, but he held his balance fairly well, gazing out the blurry windshield and occasionally barking at nothing.

"Turn here," I said. "Left." Jimmy had told my mother/me to pick him and Simone up at the Union, where they would be angrily waiting and staying dry. I was to call when we got very, very close to the doors. He hadn't said whether I should call his number or my mother's. I a.s.sumed he had both phones with him.

"You must have left it there when you helped me clean," I said, wiping mist off the side window. She was driving carefully, slowly, the pavement slick beneath the tires. But really, any speed at all would have been too fast for me. I wanted to just stop or, even better, turn around. I did not think that what was about to happen would be a good thing. I did not think my mother understood the situation. I did not think she had adequately imagined Jimmy Liff. I knew I should be grateful that she wanted to help me. But I couldn't help but think that between my two parents, my father would be much more helpful in dealing with someone like Jimmy. My mother, well meaning as she was, was just an older, worn down, and temporarily homeless version of me.

"And he's not giving it back?" Her voice was calm, an adult extracting the facts of a story from a wounded child. He meant to break your pink pony? You're sure it was on purpose? Did you see him do it? He meant to break your pink pony? You're sure it was on purpose? Did you see him do it? She still had both of the braids in, the ends sticking up from under her hat. Her scarf was still stained with ketchup. She still had both of the braids in, the ends sticking up from under her hat. Her scarf was still stained with ketchup.

"He keeps saying he doesn't know where it is. He's mad, Mom. He's mad about the car. He's mad about the party. I don't know if you can just ask for your phone back. Honestly, I don't think he'll give it to you. Not until his car is fixed."

She glanced at me, then back at the road. "Why didn't you tell me about any of this? Why didn't you tell me this was going on?"

We sailed past open umbrellas, people running with coats and newspapers over their heads. I waited, saying nothing. I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

She glanced at me again.

"You seemed like you had enough to worry about," I said. "You know what I mean? You sort of have your own problems."

She was quiet. A gust of wind made the rain blow sideways. A plastic garbage can rolled off the curb and into the road. She swerved hard to the left, and then back. Bowzer sighed and moved to her other arm.

"I know," she said. "But I still want to help you with this."

I could see the roof of the Union rising up over the hill. Dread weighed heavy in my chest. "I don't know that you can, Mom. He's kind of a scary guy."

She rolled her eyes. "He's a college kid living by a golf course."

"He deals drugs."

She glanced at me. "How do you know?"

"I don't. Just rumors."

She tapped her fingers on the wheel and glanced at me again.

I clapped both hands over my eyes. "NO! I DO NOT DO DRUGS."

"Lower your voice, please." She looked at me with brief displeasure. "Fine. Well, good. That's something that would scare me." She shrugged. "This guy, he doesn't scare me." Under her breath, she added: "Not at this point."

She did not, in fact, look even a little afraid. She was concentrating on driving, on getting us up the rain-slicked hill without sliding into the car in front of us or the car behind us, Bowzer still perched on her arm. She was wrong not to be scared, I thought. I was afraid of him, and it seemed unlikely that I had only been afraid out of my imagination and worry, the whole dilemma a creation of my own head.

She glanced at me. "What? Does he carry a gun or something?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay. That's good. Is he going to hit me?"

There was laughter in her voice, a happy mocking.

"Mom. Don't laugh. You don't get it."

"Switchblade?" She bulged her eyes. Bowzer was licking her chin. "Nunchucks? No. Wait. A shank? Like in prison movies?"

"It's not funny. He's creepy."

"He likes to swear a lot. I got that. He likes to use the 'f' word on the phone." She held Bowzer steady as she turned the wheel. "Is that supposed to make me afraid of him? His potty mouth?" She shook her head, her lips pursed. "I have absolutely had it with people using that kind of language." We stopped behind a line of cars. "And who's this Simone person? Is that a girlfriend? His moll? What?"

"It's Haylie. Simone is Haylie b.u.t.terfield. Remember? I told you she changed her name to Simone? She's Jimmy's girlfriend. And she's evil now."

She pressed Bowzer's head down to better see my face. "Little Haylie b.u.t.terfield? The girl you used to play with?" She held the flat of her hand just beneath her shoulder, which I guessed was the approximate height of little Haylie b.u.t.terfield when my mother knew her best.

I nodded.

"She was in your Girl Scout troop!"

She appeared stricken. She was driving fine, even with Bowzer still resting on her arm, but her jaw was clenched, her eyes wide. My mother had been our scout troop's leader when Haylie and I were in fourth grade. The meetings were held in our bas.e.m.e.nt, sunlight streaming down from the high windows, though she'd regularly opened up the kitchen to all fifteen of us so we could earn our cooking safety badges. My mother had, of course, performed all her scout leader duties with zest. She supervised cookie sales and first aid cla.s.ses, and also a visit to a farm that trained Seeing Eye dogs. She taught herself to tie seven kinds of knots so she could teach us. Even so, I would not have thought that she would have taken all those campfire songs, with their rhyming lyrics about loyalty and kindness, so much to heart that years later, Haylie b.u.t.terfield's rejection of Scout values would be what finally made her snap.