Authors: S. Walden
“Well, how special was it if she donated it to a consignment shop?” someone asked.
“You’re totally missing the point here,” the girl huffed. “It was
their
dress from last year. She wore it just for him.”
“Okay, I see what you’re saying.”
Clara pulled out her notebook.
Clara, maybe you should turn around and scream at those girls
, her brain suggested.
She shook her head. She tried to focus on fifty minutes. Just fifty minutes and then she could run out and be alone for the rest of the day. No other shared classes with him. Corner table in the cafeteria. A new book.
He walked in and glanced her way. She looked at him and he averted his eyes.
“But Amy’s forgiven him,” the girl continued. “She’s got such a forgiving heart. I guess he apologized to her or something. I heard they had sex and they’re back together.”
“They always belonged together.”
Now Clara, are you going to let them say those things?
her brain asked.
They don’t belong together. Amy is a whore. Go ahead and turn around and say that she’s a whore.
“No,” Clara said softly.
“What did you say?” came a sharp voice from behind her.
Clara froze.
The two girls walked over to her desk. One sat on it.
“Did you say something to us?” she asked. “Because you weren’t part of the conversation.”
“You w . . . were t-talking about m-me,” Clara stuttered, her face lowered.
“What is
wrong
with you?”
Clara didn’t respond, wouldn’t look up at the girls. She was afraid of them. She was afraid of Amy. Of Evan. She was afraid of everyone.
“You are such a goddamn weirdo,” the girl said after a moment, and they walked away back to their desks.
Well, she does have a point, Clara,
her brain said.
You are a little weird. I wouldn’t say a goddamn weirdo, but weird, yes. Go on and run away. Remember we talked about turning you into a ladybug?
***
Clara heard Beatrice talking at the dinner table, but she was unsure if it was important.
“Beatrice, hold on,” Ellen said. She turned to Clara. “Two weeks, Clara. What’s going on? You’ve lost six pounds and you’re not doing your homework.”
Clara looked at her plate. “May I be excused?”
“No, you may not be excused,” her mother snapped. “Now I know you got your feelings hurt. What Evan did was terrible, but you’ve got to get over it.”
This is rich coming from her
, Clara’s brain said.
She lay in bed for a month before disappearing. Go ahead and tell her that, Clara. Ask her why you can’t lay in bed for a month and then disappear. We can make you a ladybug.
“Everything out on the table,” her mother said. “We know what’s not being said.”
Beatrice looked over at Clara. Clara’s eyes stayed glued to her plate.
“I was depressed. I stayed in bed for weeks,” Ellen said impatiently. “We all know it.” She looked at Clara. “Clara, look at me right now,” she demanded.
Clara looked up from her plate.
“Do you think for a second I’m going to let you do what I did?” her mother asked, but her tone wasn’t harsh. It was gentle and pleading. “I hurt you.” She looked at Beatrice. “And I hurt you, honey.”
Beatrice smiled tentatively.
“It hurts people,” their mother went on. “When you sink down like that. You hurt yourself. But the pain you cause others is worse. And I’m so sorry, girls. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. And I won’t let you do it, Clara. I won’t.”
Tell your mother to go fuck herself, Clara
.
“Okay, Mom,” Clara said without a trace of humanity in her voice.
***
She only had a few steps left to take. She was eating alone again, now that Evan was gone, now that she effectively pushed Florence away. She didn’t mean to. She couldn’t help it. She had retreated into herself. And Florence wanted nothing more to do with her because she was just seventeen and didn’t know how to handle a friend who was losing her mind.
The tray had become too heavy, and she knew if she didn’t move fast she would drop it. She shook with a new violence and watched in horror as the tray tipped, spilling everything onto the floor in a loud crash.
People seated at the nearby table looked over and rolled their eyes. She was a nuisance, and they didn’t want spilled food sitting on the floor next to them.
Clara, look what you did
, her brain said.
We talked about being invisible, didn’t we? Now you have all of these people looking at you. Aren’t you embarrassed?
Her eyes welled up. She looked around for someone to help her. She needed something to get the potato salad and spilled milk off the floor. But the adults in the room didn’t see, or if they did, they ignored her.
She knelt and started picking up the trash, her plastic plate and utensils and carton of milk. She used her napkin to try and get up some of the potato salad. She gathered it all on the tray but was afraid to pick the tray back up. She watched the tears plop onto her empty plate. She wondered why she came into the cafeteria today. She wasn’t even hungry, but she wanted to create a semblance of normalcy. If she did what she always did, then she wouldn’t be crazy.
“Here,” someone said gruffly. She looked up to see the custodian looking down at her. “I ain’t got time to clean this up. Just use this mop then roll it over to the corner. There.” He pointed to a section of the cafeteria she never ventured into. And she would have to walk by
him
on her way. Her heart began to ache with panic as fresh tears fell.
“Can I put it over there?” she asked. She pointed in the opposite direction.
“Girl, put it where I said,” the custodian snapped, then took out his radio at the sound of a buzzing metallic voice. “This is Jeffrey,” he responded and walked away.
“Could you please hurry up with that,” a girl said from behind Clara. “It’s gross.”
Clara walked her tray to the trashcan then returned to the mop and bucket. It was one of those gigantic buckets on wheels, and she couldn’t figure out how to wring the mop. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand grateful that she wasn’t wearing mascara today. Some students watched and snickered as she tried to figure out how to wring the mop until someone approached her. He told the giggling students to go fuck themselves, and they looked at him reproachfully before turning back to their conversations.
“You know how many times I’ve been in detention?” he asked Clara.
She looked up at him, a scrawny freshman with an acne-pocked face. She shook her head.
“A lot,” he replied, and smiled. “Here. This is how you do it,” and he turned a handle on the side of the bucket that squeezed the mop between two thick plastic grids. He took the mop out and started on the floor.
“I’ll do it,” Clara offered reaching for the mop.
“Nah, it’s okay,” the boy said, dunking the mop and wringing it again. He slapped it to the floor once more and wiped up the remaining milk.
“Thank you,” Clara whispered. Her chin quivered and as much as she tried, she couldn’t help letting out a quiet sob. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, and the boy shuffled uneasily.
“They’re just a bunch of assholes,” he said. “Don’t let them make you cry.”
Clara nodded. She reached for the handle of the bucket and started rolling it towards the corner of the cafeteria where the custodian instructed. She was shaking so much the bucket rattled, and the boy, sensing that at any moment she might faint, walked beside her.
“You want me to roll it?” he asked when she hesitated before passing Evan’s table.
Evan looked over at her. She stared back. His green eyes appeared tired and defeated. There was anger there still, but it was subdued, and sadness seemed to fill its space. He looked like he felt the humiliation she now felt, the spilled food, the laughing, the loss of any remaining dignity she might have had. It fell to the floor along with her lunch, and the boy mopped it up and drowned it in the dirty water.
She tore her eyes away from his face.
“No, I can roll it,” she said absently. “Thank you, though.” And she pressed forward.
***
“I had sex with a man for money!” she screamed at her mother. “It’s not about a goddamn dress!”
Ellen flinched and took a step backwards. They were in the middle of another fight, Ellen arguing that Clara had to let go of what happened at prom and Clara screaming that her mother didn’t understand.
“You want to know why I can’t forgive you?” Clara went on. “You turned me into a fucking whore!”
Beatrice slipped into her bedroom and closed the door. She slid down against it until her bottom hit the hardwoods. She placed her hands over her ears, but she could still hear her sister—a person she no longer knew—yelling obscenities in the next room.
“Clara, calm down,” Ellen urged.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Clara yelled, and continued to pace the living room. She looked at her mother with disdain. “We had nothing! My boyfriend had to pay to get our gas and electric back on! We were sleeping by the fire on your goddamn mattress freezing to death! And you left us with all of that! The bills. The unpaid debt. The fucking property tax. What could I do? I couldn’t make enough money, not even with two jobs!”
Ellen was crying outright.
“You made me old. You made me a whore,” Clara sobbed.
Ellen knew Clara might hit her. She deserved it if it happened, but in that moment nothing would stand between her and her daughter. She would go and touch Clara and suffer the consequences.
Clara had no more fight in her as she felt her mother’s arms go around her. She simply cried into her neck saying over and over how much she hated her.
“I know,” Ellen whispered. “I know.”
“Why?” Clara sobbed. “We needed you! Why did you leave us? Why?”
Ellen walked with Clara to the couch still holding her tightly, unable to let go for fear it was the last time Clara would ever let her touch her.
“I left because I was a bad mother,” Ellen said.
Clara continued to cry into her mother’s shoulder.
“But I’m not going to be a bad mother anymore,” Ellen said. “I’m going to take care of you Clare-Bear. You don’t need to worry about a thing. I’m here, and I’m going to take care of you.”
She rocked her daughter from side to side.
“Do you hear me, Clara? I’ll never leave you. I’m always here for you. I love you, and I’ll never leave you. Do you hear me?”
Clara’s voice came from a distant place deep in her heart when she was six years old playing in the fall leaves, the breeze whipping about her long brown hair. Her mother stood at the open kitchen window and asked if she’d like to come in for dinner, and Clara flung the pile of leaves into the air. She walked to the kitchen window and looked up at her mother who smiled down at her. She smiled back and responded in the soft lyrical voice of a young girl.
“Yes Mommy.”
***
Clara, we need to talk about why you insist on wearing unflattering clothes,
her brain said.
Leave her alone. It’s not her fault she’s poor and can’t afford nice shirts. You have a stain on your shirt, by the way.
Clara didn’t know where the second voice came from. She looked down at her shirt and noticed the small stain. She couldn’t remember where she got it. It didn’t look like a food stain, and she didn’t spill her food while she ate anyway.
No, you just spill it off your tray.
You are so cruel to her.
Well, it’s time she knows the truth. She’s a freak, and that’s that.
She’s not a freak.
She is! She told me she wanted to be a ladybug and go crawl under a rock.
That’s because you pester the shit out of her.
Clara kept her eyes glued to her notebook. Her brain had split in two, she thought horrified. She wanted it dead. Maybe then it would stop arguing, stop talking to her. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t concentrate, and all she wanted to do was concentrate on the lecture.
She looked up at the white board. She searched for the meanings of the words written in a blue dry erase marker, but they eluded her.
I wish he would have used a green marker. Green is my favorite color.
That’s because Evan’s eyes are green.
“Stop,” she whispered, and a few students turned to look at her. She froze, eyes fastened to the board, and they turned away.
You’re still in love with him, Clara. Why don’t you get up right now and tell him that?
Are you really suggesting she interrupt class with a declaration of love? Get real.
It would be so romantic. Of course, you’d be sent directly to the principal’s office, Clara, but who cares? Who cares when it’s romance we’re talking about?