Kitabı oku: «A Girl Called Shameless», sayfa 4

Seriously, though, I have all new respect for Betty after just one shift. If my eighteen-year-old body is struggling by the end of a ten-hour shift, how must hers feel?

This is all just reinforcing the fact that I can’t possibly go to college come fall. I need to stay in this sleepy little town and work in the diner every day, so that Betty can finally retire in peace. I can write screenplays on my days off, or on my dinner breaks, or in the small hours of the morning while the rest of the town sleeps. Like some sentimental hipster type.

Oooooh, I might go full Romantic poet à la Samuel Coleridge. I mean, I’m not sure he moonlighted as a pancake chef, but he had the right idea. Do we know anyone who can hook a girl up with some opium?

10.59 p.m.

Sweet angel Carson Manning meets me after my shift to walk me home. He even brings me a leftover pizza from his own shift. A customer unfathomably ordered Hawaiian pizza, on account of the hallucinogens they were clearly under the influence of, then came to their senses and amended their order to the hugely preferable pepperoni pizza. But not before the chef had already put the first pizza in the oven. So now I have the original Hawaiian pizza in my possession, and I’m too hungry to shun the presence of pineapple on the world’s greatest food. [Well, world’s greatest food apart from nachos. Omg, are nacho pizzas a thing? If not, can we make them a thing? Who do I have to call to make this happen?]

“So how’d it go?” he asks as we walk side by side back to my apartment. He’s still in his pizza-themed polo shirt, though he’s thrown on a hoodie and a beanie hat to keep his noggin warm.

It’s still super cold out, but not too cold for me to practically inhale the first few slices of pizza. Carson holds the box open for me like it’s a silver platter while I cram fistfuls into my mouth.

“It was all right, I guess,” I say through a mouth of pineapple atrocity. “Angela seemed largely unimpressed by my character as a whole, but I think as long as I steer clear and mind my business, it’ll be fine. Plus, free food, so. Not too many complaints. Which is strange, because you know how much I enjoy the act of complaining.” I lick my fingers wolfishly.

As we keep walking through the frosty night silence blooms between us. And, as usual, my default reaction is to fill it with a joke or a story – anything to avoid awkwardness.

“So Ajita and Meg came by tonight,” I start, crunching through a pizza crust with more vigor than is strictly necessary. “Ajita had some interesting sentiments regarding the inherent arrogance of vegetables, though she made some allowances for potatoes. Your thoughts?”

As he always does, he considers this statement with utmost sincerity. “I concur, man, I concur. Like, have you even seen a parsnip? Ain’t no more high-and-mighty vegetable than a parsnip.”

I fumble in the box for another slice of pizza, and am mildly astonished that I’m down to the last piece already. My eating talents never fail to amaze me. “But you will concede that potatoes are, by and large, the humble champions of the vegetable arena? You know, in modesty terms.”

“I don’t see that they have a choice, my dude,” Carson says, shaking his head in mock sadness. “After all, intense modifications gotta be made to the humble potato in order to make it worth eating. Roasting, mashing, frying. A sorry state of affairs, man, and certainly nothing to brag about.”

My bad mood is evaporating with every step. I think part of me has always worried that I’d never find a guy whose sense of humor was as compatible with mine as Ajita’s. Like, what if you only get one soulmate, and my best friend is mine?

And yet every single second I spend with Carson reminds me that I’ve somehow hit the jackpot, and my boyfriend makes me laugh just as much as my favorite pal does. [Please hide the flaying equipment from Ajita. She is not above torturing me for the above statement.]

11.34 p.m.

Betty is asleep when I eventually get home, snoring like a manatee with a head cold. Although Carson offers to stay and hang out for a while, I can tell he’s just as wiped as I am, and looks pretty relieved when I give him a get-out-of-jail-free card. So we bid each other farewell at the gates, knowing we won’t get to smooch again until school on Monday.

This weekend marks a full two days of back-to-back shifts for both of us, and I’m already ready to drop at the mere thought. And also still feeling a little homicidal from earlier. Currently fantasizing about impaling Angela on a broomstick. [As Ajita suggests, my murder fantasies have definite Count Dracula vibes these days. Vlad the Impaler: the role model you never knew you needed.]

Still, I’m so nearly finished with the final screenplay edits, and I want to get the polished version to my agent before she inevitably realizes I am a fraud and drops me, so I decide to spend the next few hours putting in some more work.

My eyes sting with tiredness as I fire up my laptop. I consider making hot cocoa, but everything aches and the thought of doing anything physical, anything at all, is enough to make me give up and resign myself to a cocoa-free writing session.

Dumbledore curls up in my lap, sensing my exhausted, periody, done-with-the-world mood, and gently licks my knee as a means of easing the fury. This probably sounds gross, but in all honesty I will take any comfort I can get right now, even if it means having my stubbly legs moistened by a tiny canine tongue. I try not to think about the fact he’s probably just having a good suck because my skin tastes of diner grease and sweat. Yum.

At first, doing a round of dialogue polishing is like trying to get a post-rigor-mortis corpse to perform a limbo. [Good grief, my imagery is dark in this post. Send in the nuns, for I require a cleansing.] Usually I read dialogue aloud to myself to get a feel for what sounds natural and what sounds clunky and jarring, but since I don’t want to wake Betty, I have to settle for a low mumble, which does absolutely nothing to illuminate the subpar sentences. Le sigh.

After twenty minutes of quasi-productivity, I rub my sleep-deprived eyes and blink at the screen through the bursts of kaleidoscopic light caused by pressing my fingers into my eyelids with too much vigor. [Anyone else used to think they were the only ones who could do this? Or did I just suffer from snowflake syndrome as a child?]

My phone vibrates under the pillow, and I pull it out. A reply from Hazel Parker. The lump of defective muscle in my chest – commonly referred to as a heart in normal homo sapiens – twinges as I read.

Hey. Thanks so much for reaching out. It means a lot. Kinda feels like my life is over now, you know? I wanted to be a doctor. No med school will take me seriously after this. My parents won’t even look at me. I can’t stop crying. Can we meet? My friends have been awesome, but they don’t really get it :(

I do a funny little whimpering noise, and in the ultimate show of disrespect Dumbledore glares irritatedly up at me, furious that I dare interrupt his knee-sucking bliss, then leaps off the bed and makes a point of humping my stuffed teddy collection, looking me straight in the eye the whole way through. [Honestly, that dog has such an attitude problem at the moment. Total angsty Order of the Phoenix vibes.]

Swallowing the stubborn ice cube bobbing in my throat, I fire off a reply to Hazel, saying I’m more than happy to meet up outside of school and talk her through everything. Then I bury my face in my pillow and resist the urge to scream, digging my fingernails into my palm until hot crescents are burned into my skin.

The rage ebbing and flowing through me for the last few days won’t leave. I’m angry, angry for Hazel, angry at Danny, and angry at myself for not being to stop this happening again. And, to top it all off, my sausage dog is penetrating the ear of my favorite teddy bear.

After I regain a normal breathing rhythm, I turn my attention back to the screenplay, but the fury is like a dam for my creative energy. I can’t think past the scalding adrenaline, the uncomfortable edge it gives my heartbeat. The screen blurs. My pulse thuds. There’s an acrid, bitter taste in my mouth. Even as the least active person in the northern hemisphere, I have the sudden urge to throw something, to smash a plate, to punch a wall. Anything to let out some of this jagged energy.

Sunday 8 January

10.46 a.m.

After a long-ass Saturday spent working in the diner – thankfully without any major run-ins with Angela, the woman single-handedly keeping the town’s tanning salon afloat – I spend the rest of my Saturday night finishing up the remainder of my screenplay edits and sending them back to my agent.

I will literally never get tired of saying “my agent”. In fact, I may just start directing any and all enquiries I do not want to address myself to my agent instead. Izzy, would you please clean the burger-sauce spillage on Table Twelve? See my agent. Izzy, what’s the square root of an octagon? See my agent. Izzy, woof-woof-woof? See my agent. [That last one is Dumbledore asking me to take him out for a walk, in case you are not fluent in dachshund.]

This morning I treated myself to a lie-in until roughly nine thirty, at which point my darling grandmother decides to blare her 90s rap classics CD at full volume. I shit you not, the woman still has a CD player. I think Thomas Jefferson was the leader of the free world when she first brought it home. In fact, allow me to recount a charming conversation that took place roughly two weeks after she purchased it from a pawn shop for $1.50.

Me: Did you like the Ice Cube album I got you?

Betty: Mmmm, yes, very good.

Me: You didn’t listen, did you?

Betty: Well, I didn’t like to say anything, but . . .

Me: ???

Betty: It didn’t fit.

Me: What didn’t fit?

Betty: The CD you got me. It didn’t fit in the CD player.

Me: What are you talking about? All CDs are the same size??

Betty: Not the one you got me. It’s fat and has square edges.

Me: . . .

Turns out the crazy old bat hadn’t even taken it out of its case. She thought the case was the CD. I despair.

Anyway, the long sleep must’ve paid dividends in terms of melting away my anger, because I’m actually feeling refreshed and full to the brim of ludicrous jokes this morning. The last week has sapped my comedic energy somewhat, like a laughter leech. But now I’m back to best and ready to perform patronizing wildebeest impressions at the drop of a hat. [If you’ve never seen my patronizing wildebeest impressions I feel bad for you, son. I got ninety-nine problems but a gnu ain’t one? No, I don’t know what I’m talking about either.]

1.24 p.m.

Carson and I take Dumbledore for another walk in the park, except now that there are more than a few inches of snow on the ground, Dumbledore cannot actually touch the ground through said snow. He just kind of sinks into the powder with a disgruntled yelp. So really, a more accurate sentence would be “Carson and I take Dumbledore for a carry in the park.” I tuck him under my arm, dressed in his wizard’s robes, and he admires the view from a great height.

We reach the park and I wipe the snow from a bench, taking a seat with Dumbledore in my lap. He lies on his back and demands, with his eyes, that I tickle his tummy at my earliest convenience.

Carson begins immediately making a snow statue, compacting snowballs together to make . . . something. Really, it just looks like a pile of snow in a weird shape. Not that I don’t have full trust in his artistic abilities or anything.

“So how’re things going at home?” I ask Carson, Dumbledore squirming in creepy ecstasy.

“Not bad, not bad. Oh man, did I tell you Colbie’s super into basketball now?” He pounds snow into another tight ball and places it carefully. “Always stealing my jersey. Caught him checking himself out in the mirror while wearin’ it, even though it was down to his ankles. Five years old, man, and already thinks he’s the next LeBron.”

“That’s adorable. Has he ever, you know, played basketball?”

“Details.” Carson smirks, green hoodie making his eyes look even darker, and I honestly want to smooch his face off. “I’m savin’ up for one of those mini hoops for his bedroom wall. With the inflatable balls and whatnot. He’ll lose his shit when he sees it. Man, I can’t wait.”

“You’re so cute with your siblings,” I say, breath steaming up the air.

“It’s weird, y’know? We don’t have the same dad or anything, but we’re still so tight.”

“You ever talk to your dad?” I watch Dumbledore’s eyelids droop. “You don’t mention him much.”

His body stiffens slightly, but he bends down to disguise it. Picks up more snow, this time a smaller handful. Rolls it into a longer shape. “Nah, never. Ain’t seen him since I was in diapers. Doubt I’m missin’ much, from what my mom says.”

The slightly ethereal snowscape makes me want to talk. Like, properly talk.

“Still,” I murmur, “I know what it’s like to have that weird hole in your life.” The words feel horribly stark and honest against the quiet snow. But they feel right. Cathartic, somehow. I’ve always wanted to talk to Carson about this – this huge thing we share. I feel like it’ll bring us even closer together, having that connection. Truth be told, he’s the only person I’ve ever wanted to talk about it with. Ajita and Meg are amazing, but they can’t ever truly understand what it is to lose a parent.

But Carson just shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

He’s obviously not in the mood for Properly Talking, which I get. I’ve spent 99.9 percent of my life in the exact same frame of mind. And yet disappointment surges in my chest. I guess that’s something nobody tells you when they urge you to open up to the people around you. Sometimes the people around you just won’t be in the right place to listen.

So I keep my sentimental thoughts about parents and absence to myself, tucked away somewhere below my ribs.

“Whaddaya think?” Carson asks.

He steps back to reveal his finished sculpture, and I frown trying to make out what it is. Definitely an animal, of some sort, but it’s misshapen and lumpy.

“It’s an alpaca, dude!” he says, looking offended.

“Sorry. I just find its facial expression a little . . . a-llama-ing.”

“Oh my God.”

9.18 p.m.

For some reason my evening shift absolutely drags, despite the fact Betty is also working, which is all kinds of weird. We’re making a point of being overly formal with each other so our serpentine manager cannot accuse us of being unprofessional. I bow every time I see her, and she calls me Madam Hostess O’Neill, Probably One-Millionth of Her Name. I fail to see how we could possibly be any more professional than this.

But still. It. Is. Dragging. I think when you work the long ten-hour shifts they go quicker, because you’re not constantly looking at the clock. You just accept that you’re there for an eternity. But when it’s shorter the temptation to clock-watch is so much stronger, because you’re, like, surely I’m nearly done now? [This is obviously in my expert opinion, having worked a grand total of three shifts in my entire life.]

Also, while I’m peeling yet more potatoes, I cannot stop thinking about Hazel Parker. How is she feeling right now? Is she poring over the lewd comments, examining every inch of her naked body and sexual technique through the lens of public perception? Is she shutting herself away from the judgment of her parents, closing down when her friends try to talk to her about it? Has she stopped applying to colleges? Does she feel like I did – powerless and lost, like her whole future has been burned to the ground? I know how impossible it is to see past something like that. How nothing else seems to matter but the fact the world has seen you naked.

This meeting with Vaughan’s office cannot come soon enough.

Anyway, it’s still snowing outside, and Betty is doing a hilarious Canadian accent for little to no reason, and it’s only forty-two minutes until I can go home and have my knees cleansed by my pubescent dachshund. So all is not lost.

Monday 9 January

8.00 a.m.

Ajita, Meg and I convene in the school library to a) finally upload our sex-doll sketch and b) strategize for our impending political meeting with Ted Vaughan’s office. [Oh my God, if the Izzy of three months ago could read this sentence, she would pass out from awe and disbelief, and Dumbledore would chew her face off as an afternoon snack. RIP, needlessly massive nose.]

There are a handful of our Hermione-esque classmates in here already cramming for midterm exams, and a singular grouchy librarian clutching her flask of coffee. Snow falls gently past the window, and there are around fifteen space heaters pumping out warm, stale air. We huddle in a quiet corner, cradling a giant box of Honey Nut Cheerios and taking it in turns to shove fistfuls into our mouths.

“I feel like Vaughan’s the kind of guy who would respond better to facts and figures than to emotional anecdotes,” I say, partially because it’s true, and partially because I would rather stick rusty screwdrivers in my eyes than share my emotional anecdotes with the slimiest senator in Slimeland.

Meg jots this down in her notepad. Honestly, the girl takes notes almost 24/7. No wonder her GPA is roughly triple mine. “That’s true. He’s pretty unemotional as a human.”

“So what kind of stats do we want to present?” Ajita asks. “Like, how many young women are affected every year? How much the trend has risen since the dawn of smartphones?”

“Yeah, those are good. But won’t he still think, so what?” Meg counters. “Facts and figures are effective, but we need to show why those facts and figures matter. We need to give a reason for his stone heart to care. Otherwise we might as well be delivering stats on the color preferences of humpback dolphins.”

“Aren’t dolphins colorblind?” Ajita asks.

Meg snorts. “I don’t think –”

“What about suicide rates?” I mumble, rolling a Cheerio between my thumb and forefinger. “How many victims kill themselves as a result of revenge porn.”

I can feel them both staring at me, and I know I let more than a crack of genuine hurt into those words. Can they tell I’m thinking of my lowest point a few months back, when everyone had abandoned me, and I couldn’t see a future beyond the scandal?

“That would work,” Ajita says softly. For a second it looks like she might squeeze my hand, but since she finds physical affection as appealing as rabies, she settles for sticking a Cheerio up each of my cavernous nostrils.

10.15 a.m.

I have no idea whether I’m just projecting my own insecurities onto him, which I admittedly have the tendency to do, but I feel like Carson is mad at me.

Consider the following exchange:

Me: Heyyyyyy! *throws arms round Carson by the water fountain*

Carson: No, Iz.

Me: What? Why?

Carson: Because I’m mad at you, that’s why.

On reflection, maybe it ain’t just projection. [I could so be a rapper. Or at least a rapper’s lyricist, if that’s a thing, because there’s nothing cringier than a white girl rapping. As a white girl who frequently raps, I know this for a fact.]

Anyway, he issues that final sentence without a trace of aggression, so it’s hard to know just how badly I’ve messed up. In fact, he’s so calm he might as well be delivering a weather report.

So I say, “Okay, why?” which I feel is fair given the complete lack of context he has provided me with. And yet he looks at me like I have all of a sudden grown tree trunks as arms.

“You really have no idea, do you?” He stares at me as I run my fingertips up and down my arms in a panic, making sure they haven’t developed a bark-like texture during the course of this conversation. I seem to be in the clear, thank God. [No offense to tree-men, or anything. I’m just not super into photosynthesis.]

“I must confess, I do not,” I say, shifting uncomfortably. He’s looking at me like I’m the world’s biggest jerk. Which I might be. But I just don’t know exactly why this time. [You might have noticed this, but I am not all that self-aware.]

He scratches the back of his neck with a paint-stained palm and turns away. “Forget it.”

“No!” I say a little too loud, reaching out to touch his arm. The warmth of his skin radiates through his gray sweater. “I mean, if I’ve upset you, I want to know about it. So I can be better in future.” When he still says nothing I whisper, “Please?”

I don’t mean to use a soft voice to soften his mood – it’s just the way the plea came out – but it has that effect all the same. “Fine. Let’s talk at lunch, though, ’kay? I’m late for class. Meet you in the woods at twelve thirty.”

Ah, the woods. The backdrop of all traumatic exchanges in the life of Izzy O’Neill. I would not be surprised if I ultimately die among those trees, such is the impressive track record of tragedy in that one foresty patch. In fact, I should preempt the universe’s intentions for my demise and burn myself at the stake to get it over with. Joan of Arc made it seem enjoyable, in a martyr-y kind of way.

Riddle me this: How doth one buildeth thine own stake?

12.57 p.m.

The woods are like a snowy winter wonderland, which I suppose would make the pyre situation all the more dramatic, but before I can even assess the logistics of the plan Carson turns up. He’s not wearing a jacket, and even he, the warmest-blooded of all warm-blooded humans, seems to be shivering a little.

“What’s up?” he asks, with none of his usual affection. I must really have messed up. It’s alarming how easy it is to inadvertently make someone hate you. [A lesson I really should’ve learned by now.]

“Not much.” Snow crunching under my Docs, I close some of the distance between us. He stays stock-still as I walk up to him, eyes staring just over my shoulder. “Carson?”

It’s eerily quiet in the woods, the falling snowflakes muffling every sound except Carson’s mumbled, “Yeah?”

“Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“That video you guys just posted on YouTube.” He grits his teeth, biting back some of the annoyance he’s clearly feeling. “The sketch. Did you write it?”

“The crazed sex-doll one?” I ask, surprised by the direction of the conversation. “Yeah. Why? You didn’t like it?”

He laughs, but not like he thinks I’m funny. More in disbelief. “D’you really think all guys are that creepy and awful?” His condensing breath hangs on the air in feathery wisps.

“No,” I say, staring at my hands. My fingertips are so purple from the cold that they look bruised. “Of course I don’t think all guys are creepy and awful. But, like I said the other night, I believe there are enough bad guys out there that women have a right to fear them, you know?”

Carson says nothing, just sniffs sharply against the cold.

“You’re really mad at me about it?”

He shrugs.

“But why?” I ask as calmly as I can. Right on the tip of my tongue there’s a rant about why the #NotAllMen argument is a steaming heap of elephant crap, but I want to hear him out on this first. He’s a smart dude, and I value his opinions. “Talk me through it. Talk me through your anger. Because I don’t get it.”

At this he scoffs, kicking a hardened snowball with the rubber toe of his sneaker. Not in an aggressive way, just absentmindedly. But he still won’t look me in the eye.

A fresh flurry of snowflakes dislodges from a nearby tree. “Of course you don’t get it.” His voice is as cold as the air between us.

A cramp of discomfort seizes my stomach. “Don’t get what?” I nudge, after he doesn’t elaborate.

A moment’s pause. He weighs his words carefully, rolling them around in his mouth before they go any further. Then: “When you’re a black guy everyone assumes you’re violent and dangerous, or some shit, and it’s like . . . you always gotta be proving them otherwise. Always gotta be calm even when you’re mad.”

I nod slightly while I let myself digest this, allow his words to sink in, but he mistakes my silence for something else.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “I get that’s not what you wanna hear. Forget I said anything.”

“No! I’m glad you did. I’m just processing. Listening. Please, keep talking.” I reach out for his hands, but he pulls away again. From the strained expression on his face I can tell this conversation has gone too deep, too fast.

I give him more space to talk, but eventually he just says, “You know what? Never mind. Let’s get lunch.”

It’s tempting to push it further, tempting to push past the endless half-conversations I seem to have with him, but as we walk back to the cafeteria I decide to leave the ball in his court. If the Ajita stuff has taught me anything over the last few months, it’s that not everyone is an open book. Hell, I’m the worst offender when it comes to laughing over my issues, never allowing a jokey discussion to get too serious in case it forces me to reveal vulnerability. So I get it. I do.

The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that Carson never properly talks about what’s going on with him. Not really. He just shrugs, says, “Yeah, sucks,” and then we move on. And yet there must be so much pressure bubbling below the surface that never sees the light of day.

We’re yet to have our first major argument as a couple, and I can’t help but wonder how the hell we’ll ever talk it over when we do. They say opposites attract, but Carson and me? We’re cut from the same cloth. And that’s either going to make or break us.