Big Girl Small Part 19

I felt something tumble through me, hoped it wasn't guilt. I closed my eyes, rubbed them until pinwheels of light spun under my lids. I had begun to feel that I was sliding back toward something toxic, a pool of bubbling chemicals that would melt my body right off the bones. I began scrambling back up, thinking-which way did up mean? Was up staying at the Motel Manor forever? Was it never going home? Never asking my parents what had happened in that room?

Sarah had crossed her legs in a kind of yoga position, and had her hands resting on her lap. She lifted them up and looked at them as if she'd never seen them before. "Um, so, Judy? There's something else," she said, not looking up. "About Ginger?"

"Ginger Mews?"

"Yeah, Ginger." I suddenly had an image of Sarah, Ginger, and the entire administration of D'Arts sitting around my kitchen table with my family, informing each other about the sordid, horrible details of my life. Sarah kept her legs folded, and straightened her back even more, preparing herself. Whatever she was about to tell me, I didn't want to know.

"So, it's just, there were others," she said.

"Others."

"Other videos. I mean, of like, other D'Arts girls."

I thought about this for a minute. "D'Arts girls," I repeated, my voice flat.

"With Kyle," she said, "you know."

My mind zoomed back to the stack on his desk. Sarah watched me, probably trying to tell if this was horrible for me. Because she knew that if I still loved him, had ever loved him, then it would be. And it was. I mean, in spite of everything, and even though it wasn't a surprise exactly, it still felt bad to learn that he had had s.e.x with everyone in the world. That my losing it to him had meant nothing. But the idea of those videos also made the one of me seem less uniquely terrible, too, so I could see why she'd decided to tell me. I wondered what made Kyle tape girls. Cruelty? Pathological need? I was thinking, well, maybe after he lost his sister, he needed to memorize everything else that ever happened to him, in case he lost all that, too. Had he made tapes before the thing with his sister? And why was I always trying to excuse him, I mean, even if he had done it out of illness, that didn't explain-I froze mid-thought and turned to Sarah.

"Are they like-all with-?" I couldn't get their names out.

Sarah shook her head. "The other ones are just-Chris and Alan weren't, you know, involved."

I sat there, shrinking into the bed. "So it was just me they-"

"Maybe that's why. I mean, maybe they were the ones who-"

It was the first and only concession she ever made to him. I couldn't tell what I felt, grat.i.tude maybe, relief that she was going to leave that possibility open to me. Maybe that's how I'd make a story I could live with, one where Chris and Alan edited and distributed it, and Kyle was too crazy or helpless or pa.s.sive to stop it. I considered my A version, in which he had fought with them about it, tried to keep it from happening. Or the A+ one, where he hadn't even known any of it was happening, the taping or the editing, and had been as surprised as I was at the whole thing. I tried a soft version out on Sarah: "Yeah, I kind of thought maybe Chris was-you know, the one who-"

She cut me off. I didn't know if this was because she knew something I didn't know and couldn't bear to hear me deceive myself, or whether she just didn't care about the details of who had edited what. She was picking at a rip in her stockings, worrying it into the sort of hole that would make her throw them out. "So the thing about Ginger-"

"One of them is of her, right?" I managed to say this as if the weight in my stomach wasn't threatening to sink me into the ground.

"Yeah. I'm sorry," Sarah said. "But that's why everyone found out. I mean, she's the one who told Grames." She got down off the bed and began wandering around the room, picking things up and setting them back down: the TV remote, a crumpled newspaper. She didn't seem to know what to say.

I asked, "Why?"

"I guess people were, you know, kind of saying s.h.i.+t, and Ginger was like, 'There are other ones,' to defend you, so everyone would know."

"Know what?"

"That it wasn't, you know, you. I mean, that there was no way it was, I don't know, what you wanted." So much for my idea that as long as I didn't try to arrest anyone, people would find me blameless. Sarah said, "Ginger was totally not okay with the one of her, either. And believe me, she didn't want anyone finding out about that video. Or watching it." She paused, while we both considered what horrible things that could mean. She bit her lower lip, appeared to be chewing on it for a minute. "But once she told, it was just so obviously his problem-"

Goth Sarah stopped the aimless pacing suddenly and began collecting clothes and things purposefully. "Do you want this?" she asked, holding up a can of tuna.

"h.e.l.l no."

She tossed it across the room into the trash, sank the shot. "Three points!" she said, and then looked over at me as if to apologize. "Come. Get ready and I'll take you home. People are falling apart without you."

"Yeah, right," I said. "Because I'm such a pillar of strength." But I stood up, went to find my shoes.

Sarah said, "I meant Sam."

"Oh."

"The Tappan jazz band is playing at the finish line of some charity run on Sat.u.r.day, down on Main Street-Sam's apparently drumming."

I had to clear my throat again. "How is he?"

"The science fair was yesterday."

"You're kidding! Our glorious square Earth climate project! My mom really kept you in the loop," I said. I felt joyful for a second and then, before I could even identify the emotion as happiness, was back to careening down a cliff toward my next thought. "Are people torturing Sam about me?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I think he's a pretty confident kid."

I went into the bathroom, pulled the rest of my crispy clothes off the shower curtain rod, where I'd hung them to dry, and shoved the whole pile into my backpack.

"Do you want to call your parents and tell them you're coming?"

"I don't have a phone."

"What does that mean?"

"I drowned it my first night here."

"I wondered if you were getting my messages."

"I wasn't."

"Do you want to use my phone to call them?"

"No," I said, "I'll just see them."

Sarah was standing still now, holding the Whole Foods bags she'd brought in one hand and my copy of The Bluest Eye in the other. She looked lost with her black dress, ruined tights, and newly light hair. I was happier to see her than I can express.

She saw me looking at her, tried to guess why. But I felt too tired to tell her I loved her, was grateful, to say any of the things I should have, even just "thank you." We both stood there.

"Can I do anything to help?" she asked.

"Yeah." I put my backpack up onto the bed, clothes still sticking out of it. "Could you jam the rest of this stuff in there while I go say good-bye and thank you to Bill?"

"Of course."

I went out into the spongy, dingy hallway, thinking how it was the last time I'd ever see it, and how Bill might see it five hundred or even a thousand more times. I knocked on his door, two quiet knocks, one loud one. He opened it, in jeans and a plaid flannel s.h.i.+rt.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi."

"I just wanted to stop by to say thank you."

"Thank you," he said.

"No, I mean, I wanted to thank you."

"I thank you, too."

"For listening to my story. That meant a lot to me," I said. "More than I know how to tell you. You're the only person I've told-"

"Thank you for telling me," he said. "That was a good story."

"And I also want to thank you for calling my parents, to tell them I was here."

"That was right," he said. "Your parents are good. They would need to know where you are, so they can find you if you have any trouble. They would need to know that. Or Sarah, your friend Sarah. Sarah would need to know. You have good friends. Sarah is a good friend. And your parents."

"You're right," I said. "Thank you."

I had this contradictory flash, of being unable to believe I might never see Bill again, and, at the same time, unable to imagine seeing him outside of the motel or this particular context, searing and horrific as it was. I felt my eyes heat up.

"You're good, Judy," he said, "very good. You're a good friend, too. I like you very much."

"I like you, too," I said. "I hope it's fis.h.i.+ng season again soon."

He turned and went into his room, came out with an ashtray from the motel, green gla.s.s with a jagged chip out of it.

"For you," he said, and handed it to me.

As we headed out the front door of the Motel Manor, I heard my name. "Judy Lohden?"

I turned, scared, and the desk clerk was reaching under the check-in counter.

"Ms. Lohden," she said again, gently, "I have something for you." She pulled out an envelope and set it on the counter. Sarah grabbed it and handed it to me.

"Thanks," I said.

"You're welcome," Sarah and the desk clerk both said.

I opened the envelope fast, carelessly, standing there. It tore down the middle and some business cards came spilling out onto the filthy rug. I bent down, saw the logos: Detroit Free Press, WPXD TV, M-live.com, ABC, Ann Arbor Observer. I stood up without recovering a single card and looked back at the desk clerk.

"These people-they were here?"

She nodded gravely. "I was told to have them call room 214."

I looked down at the cards again.

"Thank you for that," I said.

"Bill Tunner's a real good guy," she said.

I had never heard his last name before.

"Yeah," I said. I turned to leave.

"Well, thank you for staying here, Ms. Lohden."

"Please call me Judy," I said. I turned to go.

"Good-bye, Judy."

Goth Sarah and I walked out into the Motel Manor parking lot, where the light was so bright that I s.h.i.+elded my eyes like a blinded vampire. Sarah threw my backpack in the trunk, and then right before we got in her car, I asked her to take a picture of me, which she did. In front of the sign for the Motel Manor. Then we got in her car and drove away from the place forever. I felt, moving down Washtenaw toward the house I'd lived in my entire life, like I was about to arrive somewhere mysterious and meet myself for the first time.

Sarah must have called them while I was talking to Bill, because my parents were waiting outside when we pulled up, my mom at the base of the driveway, like she couldn't even bear to wait outside the door or something, and my dad, calm and kind of old-looking, on the front stoop. Sarah stopped the car so I could get out where my mom was, and my mom hugged me so hard I thought she might squeeze the remaining life right out of me. When she held me out to look at me, her entire face was soaked with crying, and the parts weren't even fighting each other. I guess this was a special occasion, or maybe now we'll all do less faking it.

"I made lasagna," was the first thing she said to me. Then she stood up and held my hand, led me into the house, said she had called Chad and told him I was coming home, that he was at swim practice but was going to show up for dinner. I wondered if he'd bring Alice.

My dad kissed me h.e.l.lo and then looked at me as if he'd either forgotten what I looked like and was studying for a test about it, or had been starved for the sight of me. When he was done, he stood up and went to the car and got my backpack, which he and Sarah carried straight downstairs for quarantine in the laundry room. I sat at the table, and when Sarah reappeared from the bas.e.m.e.nt she sat down across from me, and I thought how normal it was to be sitting there with Sarah. I turned to look at my mom, who had on green plastic oven gloves and was setting a sizzling pan on top of the stove. I could hear my dad puttering around in the laundry room underneath us. I thought how not normal it was that I'd been gone for so many days, how glad I was that Chad was coming. I folded my arms onto the table and rested my face on them. Then I heard Sam's sneakers squeaking through the foyer, and I looked up, straightened my hair a little as he peeped around the corner into the kitchen. I smiled at him and he walked in, wearing orange cargo pants and a white T-s.h.i.+rt nine sizes too big. His hair was very short, and his face was tiny and pink, his neck white. He looked like a delicate lollipop.

"Hey, Judy," he said, his voice all shy. Unlike my dad, he appeared to me to have gotten younger.

"Hi, Sam," I said.

"Look," he said, and he held his hand out. In it was an embossed medal: "Tappan Middle School Science Fair, Third Prize."

"Great! Congratulations, Sam! That's fabulous." I stood up from my chair, and with our third prize as an excuse, squeezed him as hard as my mom had squeezed me.

As soon as I let him go, he went and got a chair, which he pulled up next to mine, unnaturally close. He sat down and put the medal on the table just as my mom arrived with his plate of lasagna.

"It's for you," Sam said to me, pointing to the medal.

"Really? You don't have to do that. You should keep it."

"I want you to have it."

Then he leaned down and began gobbling lasagna so furiously that Sarah and I looked at each other and laughed. I put the medal around my neck.

After Sarah left, Chad arrived, without Alice, and the four of us sat at the table eating salad and more lasagna and garlic bread while Sam talked about the band, Chad about why he was breaking up with Alice (it was almost summer, they would want to see other people), and my parents caught me up on life at the Grill. Halfway through dinner, Chad was suddenly like, "Do you want to tell us what it was like to be away?"

"It was okay," I said. "I really missed you guys."

We all sat there, looking at each other. My mom appeared to me to be holding her breath. "Do you want us to tell you what happened here, sweetie? And at the hearing?"

I thought about it for a minute, shook my head slowly. "Not yet," I said. "Let's just have dinner, and talk about that stuff later. It's okay." I felt very grown up.

Chad smiled at me, nodded as if he understood. Sam reached across the table and spooned another heaping serving of lasagna onto his plate.

The funny thing about that dinner is that even though we didn't talk about the hearing, or the Motel Manor, or even the horrible thing itself, for one of the first times ever, it genuinely didn't feel like we were faking it. It was like we had decided to take the long, inevitable conversation slowly. To put it on hold for a moment while we sat back at the table together. I was grateful.

After Chad kissed me on the head and went back to his dorm, and Sam disappeared into his room, I went upstairs and lay on my bed, thinking about Meghan, looking forward to the conversation I knew we'd have when I called to tell her I was okay, fill her in on the Motel Manor adventure. My mom and dad followed me less than one minute later and sat down on the bed on either side of me. I sat up.