The Symptoms of My Insanity (11 page)

“Hello? Isabella?”

“Yes Grandma, hello.”

“I said I’m sorry to call at this hour and I hope I didn’t interrupt your studies.”

“No, no, you didn’t interrupt my studies, Grandma,” I say, and then, remembering who I’m talking to, immediately want to change my answer.

“Why aren’t you studying? You should be studying at this hour. What do you have of more importance to do at this hour than study, Isabella?”

“Nothing, Grandma, I just … I’m taking a break from studying right now, that’s all.”

I mouth “Sorry” to Blake and he mouths “No problem” back, and heads around to the driver’s side. My eyes flick back to Cathy Mason’s car. Oh my God, why is she here?! She probably saw us kissing and now she’s going to run into our
house to tell my mom wildly exaggerated tales of my newfound promiscuity.

“I’m sorry to be the one to break the news to you like this, Linda. But that’s what I saw.”

“Oh, Cathy, are you sure? This is just awful. I can’t believe Izzy fornicated with that boy in our driveway.”

“I know, Linda, it’s
inappropriate, immoral, and disgraceful.
She should be locked up.”

“Isabella, did you hear what I just asked you?” Grandma Iris screeches and then speaks very slowly. “Is your house on fire?”

“What?!” I say, turning to the house. “No, Grandma.” Then I hear a “Hey,” and thank God, it’s just Marcus standing in front of Blake’s car.

“Well, if there is no fire or any other kind of household emergency, then can you please tell me why it is that no one is able to pick up a phone in your house?” Grandma asks, sounding more than a little irritated.

“My mom sent me to drop this off to your mom,” Marcus says quickly, holding a huge white binder up in the air, looking at Blake and then back at me now with the same expression my mom has when she thinks I’m walking too suggestively. “It’s dance planning stuff. Jenna was supposed to leave it with you today. I guess she forgot,” he adds, his eyes sliding back to Blake. I hold a finger up, like just a sec, and then point at the phone.

“Oh, sorry,” Marcus whispers, and then turns to Blake and says, “Hangry,” somehow conveying a hello, nice to see you, and good-bye all from just saying his last name.

Blake responds with an equally packed “Mason,” and then waves bye to me. I watch him pull out of the driveway, semi-listening to Grandma Iris ramble on about household emergencies and fires, and wondering when exactly Marcus pulled up. Then Grandma Iris shouts, “Isabella, do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“Uh-huh,” I say into the phone, and gesture for Marcus to follow me back to the house.

Mom and Pam are sitting in the living room, and I make sure to talk loud enough for them to hear me when I say, “No, no Grandma, the house is not on fire. I’m sorry that nobody picked up the phone.”

Upon hearing this, Mom bolts up from the couch and rests her hands against her head as if she’s sleeping.

“Well, fine. That’s fine,” Grandma Iris says. “So where is your mother? Is she there? If she’s able to talk, please put her on.”

“I’m sorry Grandma, but she’s um, taking a nap.” Mom shakes her head at me. “Actually, she’s totally asleep … probably for the night.”

“All right fine, yes, she needs to rest. All right then. Listen, Isabella, please tell your mother this: I’ve received Dr. Madson’s new invoice and have taken care of it in full. Please don’t send me any money. Did you locate a writing utensil? Shall I repeat it?”

“No Grandma, I got it. Thank you.”

“Fine. Now get back to your studies, stay well, wear clean socks,” she says, hanging up.

“Sorry sweetie,” Mom says. “I don’t have the energy for Iris tonight.”

“You guys got a lot done.” Pam is surveying all the new boxes.

“Oh, Blake had to head home,” I tell them. “He says good-bye.”

“That was very nice of him to help out. He seems … on top of things,” Mom says. She’s nodding and looking at me, as if waiting for me to contradict this.

“He has a healthy appetite too,” Pam chimes in. “I’ve seen him at lunch. Not a terrible student, good athlete, really nice hair.” Pam stops rambling when she sees my mom’s face. “What?” she says. “Can’t I be excited for her?”

“Are you two going steady now?” Mom asks.

“No!” I say, laughing, and then glance back at Marcus, who looks so uncomfortable, it would almost be funny, if we weren’t talking about me going steady.

“What’s so funny about going steady?” Mom asks, coughing a little.

“They don’t go steady anymore, Linda, they just date,” Pam says, smiling knowingly. “Well, the good ones date, and the bad ones just—”

“We’re not dating,” I interrupt Pam. “We’re not going steady, we’re just … hanging out. That’s all,” I say. And kissing. We’re kissing. We kissed. We kissed and we’re kissing. I need to sit down.

“Sorry to, um, interrupt,” Marcus says now. “Just wanted to drop this off.” He holds up the giant Dance for Darfur binder.

“Oh, hello Marcus! I didn’t even see you back there! Thank you, thank you,” Mom says. “I just talked to your mom and I was frantic because I left a flash drive in there with all my spreadsheets. Izzy, you have to help me decide on food. Remind me about that. Speaking of, are you hungry, Marcus?”

“Oooh, a tuna melt, make him a tuna melt. You make such good tuna melts, Linda!” Pam says, looking like she might want one herself.

“Oh, no I’m all right, thank you,” Marcus says.

“Marcus.” Pam turns to him and says in a very serious top secret tone, “Linda makes the best tuna melts.”

“Oh, Izzy.” Mom is looking me up and down now and shaking her head as if she’s seeing me for the first time today. “Look at you. You’re dressed like a homeless person.”

“No, that’s okay, Linda. The homeless look is trendy now,” Pam assures Mom. I catch Marcus smiling a little out the corner of my eye.

“I can’t believe this is what you were wearing this whole time!” Mom eyes my art studio clothes again as if my wearing them today will have catastrophic effects on both of our futures.

I don’t care, though. I just kissed Blake Hangry in our driveway. I just
kissed
Blake Hangry in our driveway. I repeat this to myself over and over again as Mom picks me apart from head to toe. But my mental “I just kissed Blake Hangry in our driveway” shield is penetrated when I hear Pam say out of the corner of her mouth, “I knew she liked boys, I just knew it!”

“I know,” Mom says back to her in an equally terrible stage whisper, as if they’ve discussed this before. “Allissa and her theories. Not that I wouldn’t support it if—”

“Of course, no. Both sides of the pond are fine and dandy, but I knew, I knew she liked boys!” Pam rasps, grabbing a cold stuffed mushroom from the coffee table.

Allissa and her what? Oh my God! And now Marcus is outright laughing.

“You guys!” I burst out. “I’m standing right here!”

“What?” Mom says as if she didn’t just imply that she’s had a talk about my sexual orientation with both Allissa and Pam. Great, so up until tonight, my mom thought I was a homeless-looking lesbian. That’s just great. Sometimes my mom lectures me about spending too much time thinking about boys, how they have one-track minds, and how not to lead them on or give them the wrong idea, and then other times I hear her on the phone talking to Pam and saying how worried she is because I’m not social enough, or ever talk about boys with her. I never know what I’m supposed to do. I’m either too suggestive or I’m not suggestive enough. I’m about to go upstairs and strangle my sister, when I remember,
I just kissed Blake Hangry in our driveway,
and everything around me goes mute as I smile and cling to that incredible mental snapshot.

“So what did Grandma want?” Mom asks, zapping me back to the present.

“Oh. She said she paid another doctor’s invoice, a new one, and she says don’t send her any money.”

“Right,” Mom says. “You know, I really could scarf down a whole tuna melt right now!”

“Oh,” Pam says, turning to Mom, “really?”

“Yes, but … we really should finish with the tiles upstairs before it gets really bad outside.”

“You’re right, yes. Okay, I’ll choose one, I promise,” Pam says, leading Mom back upstairs.

I watch them go. Since when does my mom ever scarf down tuna melts, or anything else for that matter? She’s more a re-arranger when it comes to the food on her plate.

“Hey,” Marcus says, and I turn around as he’s putting the binder down on the coffee table.

“Hey. Sorry. I’m … I’m so sorry you had to witness all that,” I say.

“No, I didn’t see anything.”

“Oh, no, I was talking about … Oh. Well … Oh.” I look back at Marcus, his face slowly turning a familiar nail polish pink. “I was um … talking about … my mom and Pam and all their crazy—”

“Right. Yes, well … right.”

“Do you want a pop or something?” I ask.

He nods and walks with me to the kitchen.

“You know, I thought you were your mom.” I hand him a can and an empty glass.

“What?”

“When I saw the car in the driveway, I almost had a heart attack.”

“Yeah? Well, if my mom saw you with Blake like that
she would’ve probably dragged you into the house and … hosed you down with hand sanitizer or something.”

“Exactly!” I wipe my mouth from almost drooled juice, and then, “I knew you saw!”

“Oh. Yes. Guilty.” He takes a large gulp from his glass. “Actually, I kind of had this urge to punch Blake in the face.”

“What?!” I sit next to him, resting my elbows on the table.

“No! I mean … it’s just ’cause … I mean, if I saw a guy groping Jenna in our driveway I would want to punch that guy too.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Then I look down at my cup, getting it. “Oh, right.”

“So, not that it’s any of my business, but why was your grandma calling about your house being on fire?”

“No, she was just being overdramatic,” I explain, heading to the sink to wash out the pulp from my glass. “She was calling about Mom’s doctor.”

“Right.” Marcus nods, getting up to bring his glass to the sink as well. “So why …”

“Well, my grandma’s helping us out a little because insurance doesn’t really cover Mom’s visits with her specialist, and there were a lot last summer, so …”

“Hmmm,” Marcus says, and then, “So what exactly does your mom—”

“I’m in Broom tomorrow, Friday, and head back Monday morning,” Allissa practically shouts into her phone, strolling into the kitchen on her cell. “And prob next weekend too to help move the office stuff out, but let’s do lunch on
Wednesday. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!” She pauses when she sees what looks like Marcus and me doing the dishes together. “Uh-huh,” she says into the phone, opening the fridge. “I know, me too!” She grabs an apple from the drawer and waves at Marcus. He returns the wave and walks over to the fridge, grabbing us a couple of apples too. “Well, tell her she’s being cheap. Or next time you go out, just make sure she has cash on her.” Allissa fades out as she goes back upstairs.

“Here,” Marcus says, handing me an apple.

“Thanks. So … you’re alive.”

“What?” he asks mid apple bite.

“You survived the rest of rehearsal without me.” I keep a straight face, taking a bite.

“If you call crawling under the auditorium seats and curling into the fetal position for two hours ‘surviving,’ then yes.” He smiles at me with all his teeth, and I laugh so hard, I spit out a piece of my apple, which lands on his shirt.

“Classy,” he says, picking the apple bit from his collar. “Yeah it wasn’t that bad. And I remembered I had ice cream in my bag from Steve’s Freeze during my free eighth period, which I successfully used as a peace offering when mediating a fight between Emily Belfry and Sara Ronaldson over who had the more perfect, perfect pitch. So really, I was a hero.” He shrugs one shoulder.

“Well, wow. I don’t have perfect pitch, but you should probably bring me a pint of Steve’s ice cream tomorrow anyway.”

“Oh, I should? Huh, one play rehearsal and you’re already a diva.”

“Strawberry, please. Um … shouldn’t you be writing this down?”

He raises his eyebrows at me.

“Actually, make it vegan ice cream. Real dairy might sully my vocal cords.”

Marcus chuckles and sits back down at the table. “So …” he says, “you and Blake, huh?”

“Oh. Yes.” And soon I succumb to another driveway-kiss mental snapshot that sends me sitting back down too.

“So you’re, ah … you’re going steady now? Congratulations.”

“Thank you, yes, I’m wearing his pin on my sweater right here.” I point to my T-shirt. “Kinda weird, right?”

“Yeah, I guess he is kinda weird.” Marcus smiles.

“No, you know what I meant … him interested in me and stuff?”

“No. I don’t think that’s weird.”

“It’s just that guys are always paying attention to my sister … or Jenna—” I stop, seeing his expression. “Sorry.”

“Moving on,” he says, waving his hand.

“I’m just saying that when guys talk to me, it’s usually just comments and stuff, or being jerks, and that doesn’t really count.”

“Hmmm …” is all he says, and then, “So you have a date for the dance now, that’s good.”

“Well no, not yet.”

“Oh. Well, maybe you have to hit a bunch of house parties with him first before you can go to an official school dance.”

I can’t tell if he’s joking. “Yeah, maybe,” I say, thinking about this Saturday night. And I guess I make a weird face or cringe or something, because then Marcus asks, “What? You don’t like parties?”

“Oh. No … I like them fine. I just … I mean, I’m not antisocial or anything, but I sometimes don’t see the point of hanging out with a whole bunch of people at a party if all you really want to do is hang out with just one person.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I think I would rather hang out with that one person, but have a party on speakerphone. That way we could still have an audio party vibe and not feel like total losers.”

“That’s a brilliant idea. We should make an app—
Party Sounds: For People Who Just Want to Stay Home
.”

“We could branch this out, you know, beyond parties,” Marcus adds. “Maybe make a whole series of audio apps. Like
Restaurant Noise: For People Who … Just Want to Order In.
”