Unlovely (7 page)

It was bad enough that her dad would
disregard his wedding vows, but what disappointed Claudia most was that her
father had cheated on her – on his daughter, his own flesh and blood – as well.
If he couldn't stick it out for Sylvia, he should have stuck it out for
Claudia. He was willing to lose his family for sex.

It made Claudia hate him.

No matter what, no matter how he felt he
was being treated at home, however crappy life had been or could ever be, he
was supposed to be a man and stick it out. But her father had subverted it all
and had destroyed his family. Even if her parents stayed together, it would
never be fixed. It would never be good again. All because he wanted to have sex
with someone else.

The next morning all three appeared at
the breakfast table as usual. Sylvia had prepared eggs and bacon. Tony was
sipping coffee and reading the morning paper when Claudia entered the kitchen.

"Good morning, Claudia. Would you
like some eggs?" her mother asked.

Claudia looked at her mom, then her dad.
This was unnatural.

"What?"

"Eggs. Do you want eggs?"

Claudia nodded and sat down. She fiddled
with the napkin holder in the middle of the table. The kitchen was silent
except for the sound of grease crackling on the stove top.

"Do you guys have anything to tell
me?" she ventured. Might as well get it over with.

"No," her mother answered,
setting Claudia's plate in front of her.

"Really? It seemed like –"

"Whatever it seemed, it's none of
your business," her father interrupted from behind his paper. "The
subject is closed."

"Sorry," Claudia said.

She forked up a bite of egg and
swallowed it with difficulty. She didn't pursue the discussion.

"Just finish up and get to school,
Claudia," Sylvia told her. "You don't want to be late."

And so life continued on Smith Street.

After a couple of weeks spent sleeping on the couch in
his study, Tony was finally allowed back upstairs. He and Sylvia maintained a
civil, if awkward, relationship. It seemed that Tony had completely broken it
off with whomever he'd been seeing, because the weird phone calls stopped and
the family dinners resumed.

One morning Claudia stepped out the
front door to discover the porch was covered with dozens of broken eggs;
another day she found the word "prick" spray-painted on their bottom
step. Claudia assumed it had something to do with the other woman, since
"prick," obviously, could only refer to her father.

Her dad went out to remedy the
situations with hose and paint, respectively. Tony and Sylvia never discussed
any of it with Claudia. She didn't want to know the details, but she would have
liked some sort of reassurance that everything was going to be all right, that
they loved each other despite all and that they loved her as well. But even a
small reference to the mood of the house brought nothing but an instruction to
mind her own business.

"I can't believe you came!"

"How could I refuse?"

Claudia embraced Melanie once more in front
of the nurse's station. She smelled good, like a combination of the outside
world, leather and some expensive cologne.

"So what now?"

"Do you want to head back to my
room for a few minutes? We have to wait for Dr. Phillips to call us up."

They walked the short hallway to
Claudia's private room. Melanie could see a few of the other residents in the
common area. One older woman smiled and waved hello. Another one just stood
perfectly still and watched them. Melanie waved back to the first and gave the second
a little smile, so as not to appear rude.

Claudia opened the door without a key;
there was no lock. Melanie looked around the small room. The only furniture was
a bed, a dresser, a nightstand and a
chiffarobe
. The
bed was neatly made, the window shades half drawn. There was not a single piece
of clothing in sight, everything was tucked away. The only sign that someone
was actually living in the room was a glass of water on a coaster and a book on
the nightstand. It was in German.

"Where should I sit?" she
asked.

"I don't know. On the bed, I
guess."

Melanie sat down on the foot, Claudia
near the head.

"Can I get you something?
Coffee?"

"No, I'm fine. When do we go
up?"

"They'll get us. Probably in ten
minutes or so."

"What's she like?"

"The doctor? She's okay."

"Is she helping?"

"I guess."

Melanie gave her friend a quick
assessment and smiled. "Well, you look good."

"Thanks. I guess I look better than
the last time you saw me. You should see my legs, though."

"No razors?"

"No. Not unless I'm supervised."

"You should have told me, I would
have brought you some Nair."

"I'm not sure I can use it. I'd
probably have to be supervised for that, too. They might think I'll try to
drink it or something."

"Well, find out and I'll mail you
some."

"Right. Thanks."

Claudia picked up the water from her
nightstand and took a sip, buying time before broaching the topic on her mind.
"Listen, Melanie, the doctor's going to want to talk about some pretty
nasty things that I shared with her."

"Well, sure."

"No, listen," Claudia
continued. "There are some things you didn't want me to tell anyone, and
there are some things you don't even know. You're going to be really angry with
me. You might hate me when we're done."

"That's nuts. I could never hate
you, Claudia."

"No, really. You could. I betrayed
you," Claudia said. To Melanie's surprise, Claudia began to cry. Her nose
was running and she didn't seem to notice.

Melanie searched the top of all the
uncluttered surfaces for a box of tissues, but found none. She opened her purse
and dug around.

"I'm not going to hate you."

"I've done unforgivable
things."

"Don't you think you're being a
little dramatic?" Melanie located a tissue and passed it to Claudia.
"You're not that kind of person. There's nothing you've done that can't be
forgiven."

"Maybe by God, but not by
you," Claudia said, wiping her nose and dabbing at her eyes.

"Let's just wait and see, then,
okay? I love you. I couldn't hate you. I can't imagine it."

Louis appeared in the doorway, massive
as a bear. He saw Claudia crying and sensed trouble. Crying already was not a
good sign. Sometimes the residents got really worked up during these sessions
and had to be restrained. Louis hated the idea of restraining Claudia; she
seemed so frail to begin with.

"Everything okay? Dr. Phillips says
she's ready for you guys to come up."

Melanie grabbed Claudia's hand and
squeezed it. "Are you ready? I'm ready."

Claudia wiped her nose and nodded.
"I love you, too. Please believe that."

"I do."

"Everything all right?" Louis
asked again. Both women nodded. ""Okay, ladies, let's go," he
said, and waited as the two passed in front of him into the hallway.

Claudia's mother began baking and knitting up a storm,
trying to maintain the illusion of the happy housewife despite the tension in
her marriage. Ever since the confrontation with Tony, Sylvia had shut down in
the motherhood department and made herself largely unavailable to Claudia. She
refused to hear any bad news and she wouldn't discuss matters of any gravity.
She simply couldn't stand to have one more straw loaded onto her back. She knew
that Claudia wanted to talk to her about their home life and needed
reassurance, but Sylvia was in survivor mode. All she could do was change the
subject and deflect. What could she tell Claudia anyway? Sylvia was ashamed of
herself and her husband, ashamed before the community, before God and before
their child. She didn't know what was going to happen. Why go through all the
details with her? Instead, she baked her cookies and cakes and knit her
mittens. Claudia would just have to accept them as tokens of love.

Intellectually, Claudia knew that her
mom was in crisis, but nonetheless she was disappointed in her. Sylvia was the
adult; it was time for her to act like it. As for her father, Claudia was too
disgusted to consider him any sort of confidante. She didn't even like him.

Nonetheless, although she thought little
of her parents, she was terrified at the thought of their separation. Just one
good conversation, just one hopeful word to put her mind at ease, that's all
Claudia wanted. Instead, she felt like her parents were actors in a lousy play.
They only spoke to her about school or her life in the most superficial way.
The only person in the world to whom Claudia felt she had any recourse, the
only one who could possibly understand her, was Melanie.

Melanie's own parents were openly
miserable. Her father had cheated on her mother, her mother had sought revenge
by cheating on her father, and Melanie and her younger sisters lived in an
atmosphere that alternated between screaming and sullen silence. Melanie spent
as much time as possible out of her home, often at the Milford house. As bad as
Claudia's situation was, at least it wasn't loud or violent.

Melanie had long ceased licking her
hands. Middle and high school students were allowed to chew gum in class, and
it turned out to be a miraculous cure for her old nervous habit. Now she never
went anywhere without a pack of Juicy Fruit in her pocket so she would have
something to chew when things got tense. As a result, Melanie was far more
accepted by the student population than she had been in the years of moist
palms. The whiff of the oddball still lingered about her, however, and she was
equally as dependent on Claudia as Claudia was on her.

As much as they had in common, though,
the onset of adolescence revealed a sharp difference between the two best
friends. If puberty were a war, Claudia would be counted among the walking
wounded: she was painfully thin, afflicted with acne and awkward. Melanie, on
the other hand, emerged from battle not only unscathed, but triumphant: she was
striking, with shoulder-length hair the color of black cherries, and skin
so
pale and unblemished as to appear almost translucent.
Furthermore, Melanie was voluptuous – not a bit of fiberfill required.

Claudia felt the contrast painfully.
Every boy behind the counter of every fast food place wanted to engage Melanie
in conversation. Men – adult men – would approach her at movie theaters and ask
if she wanted to go out when the feature was over (after she dropped off her
friend, of course). Melanie had no shortage of offers, and it was only a matter
of time before she began to accept them. Shortly after graduating from a B to a
C cup, Melanie became sexually promiscuous.

This was of no benefit to her
classmates; Melanie wasn't interested in the boys at school and their lewd
propositions. She was pursuing the fraternity brothers on
Mapleville's
small college campus, men she met at the frat parties she attended with her
older cousin. She was wildly successful on her man-hunts, with few of the
brothers having any compunction about engaging in sexual relations with a
sixteen-year-old.

The stories Melanie shared about her
conquests were seldom romantic. They were chronicles of hook-ups, followed by
endless analysis. Although Claudia had to admit that she found the tales
instructive, having had no sexual experience of any kind herself, she was
worried about the effect all this casual sex would have on her friend.

"I don't see why everyone thinks
it's such a big deal," Melanie would say. "It's natural. Everybody
does it. Your parents do it. My parents do it, too, although rarely with one
another."

Claudia didn't know how to respond to
that, so she said nothing. Maybe Melanie was right, perhaps her behavior was
completely rational. Still, Claudia was struck by how sad and dreary Melanie's
stories sounded. And the whole thing seemed risky, no matter how nice Melanie
insisted the men were.

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving Melanie visited
Claudia. They went upstairs to talk privately before dinner, Claudia stretched
out on her bed, leaning against the headboard, and Melanie sitting beside her.

"So I hooked up with Greg last
night," Melanie began, picking at a flower on the bedspread.

"Greg," Claudia muttered,
splitting her attention between Melanie and
Seventeen,
"Do I know
Greg?"

"No. I just met him."

"Oh."

"I mean, I'd seen him around
before, but I didn't really know him."

"Hmm."

"So we danced and drank a couple of
beers. I was feeling buzzed, but I wasn't drunk. You know I hate drunk
girls."