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At Least There Was Pie

Because of Becca’s situation, Mom canceled
our Thanksgiving plans with Aunt Linda and decided to bring Becca home for half a day, hold her breath, and see if she’d be able to handle it okay.

First, a few words need to be said about our meal. You haven’t really
lived
until you’ve experienced tofu turkey for Thanksgiving. The five of us sat down—Roman was with us—and studied the gelatinous, glistening, gooey glob that was our main course. Mom poked at it with a long serving fork, and it made a little glurpy sound.

After Becca’s extreme reaction to the fried chicken, the last thing we wanted was for her to freak out at the sight of a giant bird lying in the middle of the table. Mom kind of half-sliced it and half-scooped it onto our plates. Poor Roman sat there staring at it for a while. He’s much too nice to say anything about anything, which is why he gets along with Becca so well. He goes with the flow.

“Mmmm, it’s not too bad, Mom,” I said, trying my best to be upbeat about the whole thing.

Mom kind of shrugged her shoulders and gave a little laugh. What else could she do? Jill, of course, wouldn’t touch it, being the true carnivore that she is.

“I think I’ll just fill up on the sides, Mom,” she said, scooping a mountain of mashed potatoes onto her plate.

Poor Mom. Becca was happy as a clam, though, and just dug right in.

I can’t really describe the taste except to say that it tasted brown and chewy. And wet.

But at least there was pie.

Becca helped Roman in the kitchen. He sliced each piece and put it on a plate, then she sprayed the whipped cream, creating a little mound on top of each piece. Or that’s what she was
supposed
to do. After the first piece, she squirted Roman on the nose instead. He then grabbed the can out of her hand, shook it, and sprayed whipped cream all over her. They warred, laughing like crazy the whole time, ending with Becca smearing Reddi-wip into Roman’s hair.

“Hey, what are you two
doing
in there? You’re
wasting
my whipped cream!”

Mom was laughing, Becca was laughing, Roman was laughing. It seemed so normal and natural until I realized Becca was
laughing
, something none of us had heard in a long time.

We ate our pie (minus whipped cream) and watched
Miracle on 34th Street
—the original version with Natalie Wood—and I realized that her character, the cynical little girl who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, could be Becca’s long-lost twin.

I’ll never forget when I was five years old and Becca told me that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. She was only eight, and she had it all figured out. I refused to believe it was true, but she kept bringing up more and more evidence to support her claim. “Have you ever seen Santa Claus? Why do the tags from Santa all have Mom’s writing on them? How can one person deliver gifts to billions of kids in one night? What about the ones who don’t have a chimney?” I was devastated. She rocked my world. And you never really get over something like that.

But today Becca acted like a little kid again—happy, not a care in the world.

We said our goodbyes after the movie, and Roman took Becca back to Brookside for her evening meds. Roman’s determined to stick by Becca through weird and sane, crazy and noncrazy. They’ll probably end up marrying each other some day. I can just picture them with their beautiful goth babies all dressed in black. You never know. Stranger things have happened.

Black Friday

I called Chad.
For no other reason than it just seemed like the right thing to do. Also, I was plain old lonely, to tell the truth.

“Hi, Chad. It’s Stacy.”

I heard voices in the background.

“Hey, I can barely hear you.”

His voice was muffled, and he kept cutting out. Then I heard a girl’s voice, “Who is it?” Then Chad’s, “It’s no one.”

My heart sank.
Why
was I calling him again? It was obvious Chad didn’t want horrible Vanessa to get jealous. I was surprised he didn’t call me some fake name like “Jim” or “Bob” as a cover.

“Sorry, you cut out there. What’s up?” he asked, not sounding like himself at all. His voice seemed deeper, like he was talking to one of his guy friends.

I tried thinking of an excuse but came up empty-headed, so I faked interference on the line.

“I can’t hear you, Chad. You’re cutting out. I’ll talk to you later.”

And I hung up, feeling like a big dork loser. (Faking interference—amateur hour. Fail!) Thirty seconds later, he called me back, but I didn’t pick up when I saw his number on the caller ID, and he didn’t leave a message. It was just as well, because I decided right then and there I was going to avoid him from now on. I was
not
going to worry about guys. I was just going to put them out of my mind. Yeah, right. Who am I kidding?

Something
(Someone)
Interesting

After she got tired of hearing me complain
about how bored I was, Mom dropped me off so I could visit Becca during her afternoon visiting hours. Becca looked
good
. Really good. It surprised me a little, the transformation. Her hair was brushed, and she had her pink and black hair pulled back in a black headband covered with little rhinestones. The caked makeup was gone. She gave me a typical Becca greeting and not a frail little lost hello like when she first came to Brookside.

“Hey, curly.”

I laughed at the insult, a leftover from the time in fifth grade when I tried to give myself a bad home perm.

“Hey, farty.”

I had to dig down deep for that one, but it had the desired effect. If she would’ve been drinking a glass of milk, it would’ve spurted out her nose.

“Oh my God, that was the
best
. Stacy, you
kill
me.”

If we were able to insult each other, that was a sign that things were getting back to normal, right?

“Come here, I wanna show you something.”

She took me over to the little seating area by the window and picked up a sketchpad—one of Roman’s that he must have given her. She started flipping pages, showing me sketches of the people around her. There was one of the woman with orange hair looking out the window. There was another of Dante, Becca’s counselor. His dreadlocks were perfectly reproduced, his wire rim glasses, and his great smile. Then there was one of the guy with the tattooed arms talking to the woman with orange hair.

“Wow, Becca. These are really
good
. I never knew you could do this. Since when did you know how to draw?”

“I don’t know. I’m just seeing things a little more clearly now. I don’t know how to explain it, but I can really concentrate, really focus on things. I’ve just been screwing around, but they look pretty good, don’t they?”

As I flipped through her sketches, Arm Tattoo Guy walked over to us.

“Hey there.”

“Hi, I’m Stacy—” I put out my hand, “—Becca’s sister.”

“Hey, I’m Bobby. I’ve seen you here before, haven’t I?”

He remembers me! Calm yourself, you big goober.

“Yeah, you look familiar.”

“Come on, Becca. Wanna play a game?” He gestured towards the pool table, but Becca groaned. He kept trying to convince her to play until she said, “I really don’t want to, but Stacy does. She’s a pool shark.”

I shot daggers at Becca. She was just getting back at me for calling her “farty.”

“Shark, huh? Maybe you can teach me how to improve my reverse slip.”

And he gave me this movie star smile, and I focused on his brown eyes with the long, dark eyelashes.

“Um, okay. I have no idea what you just said right now, but sure.”

Here was a total stranger, covered in tattoos, and I had no idea why he was here, but why not? What could possibly be the downside of this situation? (I know, I am ridiculous.)

I suck at pool. I mean, I’ve never really had the chance to get any good at it since we don’t have a pool table at home. I’ve played a few times at friends’ houses, and they usually play great since they have their own table.

“Wanna break?” he asked me.

“No way, dude.”

I couldn’t let myself be humiliated like that. I don’t have enough force to really break at all. When I can even manage to get the pool cue to make contact with the cueball, it kind of wobbles over to the rest of the balls and—well, it’s just sad.

Bobby broke, and two of the balls shot right into the pockets.

“Nice,” I said. He got three more in, then it was my turn. I made contact but just barely. It was actually pretty pathetic. But Bobby gave me tips the whole time.

“Take your time. Line up your shot first. Relax.”

He leaned over me and put his arms over mine to help me hold the pool stick just right. He was really close, close enough for me to smell his aftershave. Close enough for me to imagine what it would be like to kiss him. He had a tongue piercing, so that would be weird. But I think I’d do it. I’d definitely kiss him.

I am ridiculous.

By the time we were done with the first game, I’d managed to get two balls in the pockets.

“Another game?” He asked me.

“Sure, why not.”

I mean, what was the harm? And it’s not like I had anything better to do.

We were having such a good time, I couldn’t help myself. My curiosity was getting to be too much. I asked him, trying to seem relaxed and not like I was super interested, just making casual conversation, “So…how long have you been here?”

“Oh, wow.” He paused, holding his cue. “Since somewhere at the end of June, beginning of July.”

Whoa. I felt myself deflating a little, but he flashed me this great smile and I melted, just a tiny bit. It was the end of November, so he’d been at Brookside about—what?—six months. I watched him, trying to figure out why he’d been there so long, but I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to be rude. Besides, it was none of my business.

I think it’s natural, though, to want to know what’s wrong with somebody, especially when that somebody lives with your sister. Especially when that somebody is somebody you’re interested in kissing.

I watched all of the people at Brookside. Most of them, though, didn’t seem crazy. Some had little tics, or they’d move kind of strangely, or they might stutter or stammer, but it wasn’t like
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
or anything. It wasn’t like that at all. The people living with Becca didn’t seem all that much different than the people who visited them or the staff. Sometimes I guess you can’t tell when someone has problems—you don’t see it from the outside.

Dude Has Issues

I started to play better after the second game
, after all of Bobby’s coaching.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and he walked over to a couple of ladies sitting on the couch. He was talking to them all animatedly, waving his arms, and they were laughing. He seemed normal enough, maybe a little on the hyper side.

Becca walked over and poked me on the shoulder.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“What?”

“I saw the way you were looking at him. He’s got issues.”

“What kind of issues?”

“I don’t know. He hates his dad; his parents don’t understand him. You know. He’s got a lot going on.”

“Becca, I just played pool with him, I’m not planning to marry him.” (Yet.)

She gave me a skeptical look as Bobby walked back over to us. I brushed off her comment and played her next. He still gave me tips. She beat me too but not as bad.

The three of us were laughing together, comfortable with each other. I watched Bobby and Becca play, and it was normal. Until I heard screams. A woman was screaming somewhere just down the hall. I nearly jumped out of my skin, but Bobby seemed very calm about it.

“Don’t mind her,” he said, like it was no big thing. “Lillian doesn’t always take her meds, and she goes off a little sometimes.”

We went back to playing pool. Just another day in Crazy Town, I guess.