Miracle (21 page)

“We’ll be ambitious bitches together, then.” The blonde stuck out her hand. “Mary Beth Vandergard. Welcome to the big time, sugar.”

Amy moved in that weekend. Mary Beth came outside to gawk at the Ferrari. “Shit, why don’t you just buy yourself a house?”

“I’m not rich.” Amy carefully lifted a box from the passenger seat. It contained the herbs Sebastien had given her. She held the box close to protect it from the February chill and started inside. Mary Beth marched along beside her.

“Sugar, those better not be dope plants.”

“They’re herbs. I don’t … I don’t use drugs.” Amy looked at her anxiously. “Do you?”

“Oh, I’ve been known to smoke a joint at a party now and then. But I don’t want the shit in my house.”

“That’s fine with me.”

“So how’d you get the Ferrari?”

“It was a gift.”

“From who? Your parents?”

“No.” They entered the house.

“Sugar, you need to loosen up. Talk. Comeon. I’m a journalism major, okay? You can’t escape my probing, incisive questions.” Mary Beth chortled. “Also, I may be
little, but I can beat the shit out of you if you don’t cooperate.”

“Do you know that you’ve said ‘shit’ three times in the last five minutes? A record?”

“Not even close.”

Amy frowned as she carried the box of plants down a long hall to the back, where she had a big, musty-smelling bedroom across from the kitchen. She loved the room; it was hers alone. She didn’t want to share it any more than she wanted to share her memories. She had spent months thinking that she was going to wither and die from missing Sebastien, and she was only now beginning to feel better. This summer she was going to France. She only had a few more months to wait.

“I’m really … you see, I’m really not much of a talker,” she insisted, hating herself for feeling awkward around someone her own age.

Mary Beth crossed her arms over the front of a football jersey that bore Harlan’s number and sighed impatiently. “Okay, Amy. Here’s the scoop. I’m a nosy broad, and I talk too much, but I know how to be a good friend. I don’t want a housemate who’s going to treat me like a fucking landlord instead of a pal.”

Amy clenched her teeth. “Why didn’t you get one of your friends to move in here, then?”

“Because I needed rent money to help pay my bills this month, and none of them could move that soon. Besides, they’re all dweebs. Their idea of a good time is a binge- and purge party. I wanted to meet somebody new. Somebody with goals.” She shook a finger. “But I don’t want a damned clam living here. No introverts.”

Amy dropped the box on the bed she’d bought the day before at a discount furniture store. “Everybody in the whole world isn’t like you, you know. Some of us have trouble talkin’ about ourselves!”

“God, when you get mad, you squeak. What a great voice. My speech professor would puke with despair. He couldn’t ever change that voice.”

“Look, you’ve called me a clam, you’ve made fun of my voice, and you’ve basically admitted that you only gave me a
room here because you need money in a hurry. Would you like to just stomp on my self-esteem and get it over with?”

“I knew it! I knew it! If I got you pissed off you’d be fine!” Mary Beth threw both arms around her in a hug. “Nobody stays around me for long without learning to defend themselves.”

Startled, Amy stood for a moment, thinking about what Mary Beth had said. Then she began to laugh. Mary Beth plopped on the bed and belched, looking satisfied. Studying her in growing wonder, Amy decided that she might be a blessing in disguise.

“You’re living with a sociopath,” Jeff said bluntly. He walked around the living room looking at Mary Beth’s Grateful Dead posters. Then he picked up a switchblade she’d left on the coffee table. “I suspect that she’s a classic case of borderline personality disorder.”

“She’s not violent,” Amy assured him. “And I like her. She works part-time at one of the local radio stations as a reporter and disc jockey. She’s going into broadcast journalism. I hope you get to meet her sometime.”

“I’ll continue to avoid that pleasure if at all possible.”

“Come see my room. It took me weeks to get it fixed up the way I want it.”

They went down the hall to her bedroom. He took a couple of rangy strides into the center of it and stood, looking around with a droll expression on his face. “Are there walls under all these posters of France and Africa?”

She smiled. “I like posters. Besides, the wallpaper has holes in it.”

He looked even less pleased and gestured toward a bedside table made from a pair of orange crates, then at the towels she’d stuffed into the window casements to keep out drafts. “Why are you living like this? Sebastien gave you enough money to have an apartment and be comfortable. What are you spending it on?”

Amy stiffened with pride. “I’m saving it. I’m gonna give as much back as I can.”

The look of surprise on Jeff’s face bordered on insulting. “So how’s your social life?” he asked abruptly.

“What social life? I’m taking an overload every quarter and making straight A’s. I spend all my time studying.”

“Why are you doing that? You ought to be partying and making C’s.”

“I want to get a
great
job after I graduate.” She knotted her hands inside the pockets of a corduroy skirt and went to a window hung with homemade curtains. Under a gray wool sweater her shoulders hunched with tension. “I gotta graduate and get on with my life.”

“And then what?”

“I’m gonna get a job in France.”

“Amy, come here.” He held out his arm. She eyed it warily but stepped inside the brotherly curve. It closed around her like a vise. He gave her his hypnotist’s stare.

She shook her head. “Oh, no, you don’t. Don’t go all glassy-eyed and syrupy on me.”

“You know that you want to forget Sebastien. It’s all right to forget. He’s forgotten you.”

“No.”

“Think about it, sweets. A man like him … can’t you imagine how many women he’s, hmmm, dated after all these months?”

She made a mewling sound of despair. “Yes.”

“There. Good. Reality.” He kissed her, flicking his tongue over her compressed lips, sinking it inside her mouth when she gasped. The wet, probing heat frightened her because it was so easy to accept. Wanting it didn’t mean she had forgotten Sebastien, she realized. In fact, the kiss made her want Sebastien more.

Bewildered, she swiveled out of his arms and moved across the room. “Did Sebastien ask you to look after me this way?”

“Yes.”

“He did not.”

Jeff was silent for a moment, his blue eyes holding her green ones with so much sincerity that dread curled through her. “He told me to do whatever I thought best.”

“That didn’t include puttin’ these moves on me.”

“For God’s sake, Amy, don’t you understand? He didn’t
care
whether it included that or not.”

She sat down on the bed and buried her face in her hands. “He did care.” She had to believe her own reality, not Jeff’s. “You better go. I got some thinkin’ to do.”

Jeff came over and lightly touched her hair. “You need me,” he whispered. “I’ll call when I get back to Atlanta. We’ll talk about this some more.” She shook her head. “You need me,” he repeated, trying to hypnotize her. “I’ll call.” She remained hunched in confused silence as he sauntered out of the house.

Mary Beth, annoyed with Amy’s studying to the exclusion of everything else, convinced her to try out for a Neil Simon play at a local dinner theater. “Sugar, all you have to do is read the lines in that goofy, wonderful voice of yours, and you’ll get the part,” Mary Beth assured her. “And it will do your self-confidence a shitload of good.”

“I’m a business major.
International
business. And I’m making great grades at it, too. I’m going to do something respectable and work in Europe.”

“Yeah, you’re a business major who listens to comedy albums and watches reruns of old television shows all the time. Admit it, sugar, you’re not meant to walk around in a pin-striped suit with a copy of
The Wall Street Journal
under your arm.”

“
Va te faire foutre.
”

“Oh, indeed? Getting uppity now that you’re studying French, are you? I went to a private high school, sugar, and I know
all
the French obscenities. So get stuffed, yourself.”

“Business may not be exciting, but I know I’d be good—”

“Oh, stop it. You’re just a chickenshit introvert.”

“I … you … if that chip on your shoulder was any bigger you’d need a back brace to get through the day. And sometimes I get tired of your foul mouth.”

“Chickenshit.”

“I’m fighting a war of wits with an unarmed person.”

“Coward. Shy little sugar-tit.”

“All right! I’ll audition!”

Seated at a rickety table in the darkness of a cotton warehouse that had been turned into a stage and dining area, Amy squinted at the students around her. Most of them were drama majors, judging from the conversations she overheard. They were poised and nonchalant; a few looked her up and down then turned away, obviously unconcerned. She felt foolish for competing with them. Her legs began to quiver, and perspiration soaked the underarms of her green shirtwaist dress. She propped her elbows on the table and hoped desperately that her dress would air-dry.

What a great horror movie this would make. Killer armpits. The armpits that flooded Tokyo
.

Amy clenched a copy of the audition monologue that the director’s assistant had given her. She noticed that most of the other students had brought their own copies of the play.

The director began calling people. Amy’s mouth went dry. She tried to concentrate on the other student’s performances. They were incredibly polished. They held nuances of emotion that she’d never even considered. They were professional. She heard her own name. Someone laughed. Miracle.

Oh, this was bad, very bad. She hadn’t even gone to the stage yet and people were making fun of her. Every ego-bashing remark Pop had ever made to her echoed in her head. She forced herself to the stage, not feeling the floor beneath her feet, her senses frozen from fear of ridicule. This wasn’t the circus. This wasn’t a carnival or a children’s party. This was the
theater
. Shakespeare and Olivier and Broadway and audiences who didn’t throw coins after the performance or spit up their ice cream.