Before, After, and Somebody In Between Read online

  Nikki strolls in as I’m wrestling with a pair of pantyhose. One big red handprint covers her left cheek, so now I guess her makeup will take her twice as long.

  “Sorry, Gina.” She doesn’t sound sorry in the least. “I’m such a bitch sometimes.”

  I hoist up my pantyhose and yank down my dress. Does she expect me to dispute this?

  “It’s just that I’m so stressed out, I don’t know what I’m saying half the time.”

  If I hear the word “stressed” one more time, there’s gonna be one less swan dancing around that lake.

  “So, anyway. Have a good time, and I hope you like the ballet. And I hope everything goes okay between you and Danny tonight.”

  Now this gets my attention. “Danny?”

  “Yeah, didn’t you know? He’ll be there with his folks, and …” She fiddles with her pink leg warmers, and I detect a hint of a sly smile. “Well, he’s bringing Caitlin. You’re all gonna be in the same box together, so I thought I’d give you the heads up.” She breezes back out with a strangled “Toodle-oo!” over her shoulder.

  Danny and Caitlin. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Do they honestly think my idea of a fun time is being trapped in a confined space with Danny and his ski-skank?

  I whip off my clothes, throw on my pj’s, and stagger downstairs to tell Richard and Claudia that I’ve unexpectedly been stricken down by a gory virus. After a brief and somewhat suspicious interrogation, they give me my birthday present, a complete CD set of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Lulled into mindless oblivion by flutes, violins, and harpsichords, I burrow under my warm quilted spread and do nothing but vegetate.

  By midnight everyone’s back, and man, you’d think it was opening night on Broadway. The Brinkmans gush on and on about Nikki’s “stage presence” and how it’s only a matter of time before she snags a major role, blah-de-blah. I nod politely as I try not to imagine Danny and Caitlin holding hands, sneaking adoring looks…

  Nikki’s radiant, and wired as hell. “Oh, Gina! I’m so sorry you missed it.”

  Yeah, I bet you are.

  She flits up to bed and Richard follows, ruffling my hair as he passes by. Claudia makes me some hot cocoa and asks how I feel. Poking at the marshmallows floating in my mug, I finally admit I wasn’t sick, I just didn’t want to go.

  Her perfectly mowed eyebrows fly up in an arch. “Gina, why?”

  “I didn’t want to have to sit with Caitlin, that’s all.”

  “With Caitlin? Honey, Caitlin wasn’t there.”

  Did I hear her right? “Danny didn’t bring her?”

  “No, Danny didn’t bring anyone. Why would he bring Caitlin, for goodness sake?”

  Because that’s what that lying, conniving, despicable daughter of yours told me. Shit! This means that if I’d been there, he’d have been stuck with me all night. He would’ve had to talk to me. There’d be no graceful way out of it.

  I’ve lost my taste for hot chocolate. “Guess I’ll go back to bed.” And hopefully lapse into a year-long coma. Anything to keep me from murdering Nikki.

  “Gina, wait. Are you doing okay? Are you happy here?”

  “Sure I’m happy.” Well, maybe not at this moment, but, yes, I’m basically happy. Can’t she tell?

  “Well, I want you to know, we’re glad you’re with us. Nikki too, although she doesn’t always show it.” Claudia’s smile wavers. “I’m not sure if you know this, but we lost our other daughter a while back.”

  Omigod. Somebody finally said it.

  “Her name was Rachel. She was a year younger than Nikki, and—well, it’s been hard on all of us, but especially hard on Richard. He and Rachel were very close…” She trails off, losing focus for a second. “You’re a lot like her, Gina.”

  That last sip of cocoa curdles in my stomach. Is this why he took me in? Because I remind him of his dead daughter?

  Claudia pats my shoulder, her smile a shade too bright. “Well, it’s getting late. Remember to turn off the light, okay?”

  I nod woodenly. And then as she starts through the kitchen door, I ask her what I’ve wanted to know since the day I moved in here. “How’d she die?”

  Claudia stops, but doesn’t turn. “She was hit by a car.”

  My scalp prickles, but at the same time I’m thinking that people get run over all the time, so what’s the deep, dark secret? “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” Claudia says quietly, and walks out the door.

  42

  Another appointment with Zelda, and I am so not in the mood. I’m still mad at Nikki, and even madder at myself for letting her trick me into missing that ballet. And all Zelda wants to talk about is Momma, Momma, Momma.

  “I spoke to her social worker at the halfway house. She’s had a few job interviews, and she’s taking good care of herself. And yes, she’s still sober and doing very well on her medication.”

  “What medication?” I ask narrowly.

  “Antidepressants, I believe. To help level out her moods. And,” she adds, “she’s very anxious to see you.”

  “Wow. That’s a switch.”

  “Martha,” Zelda begins in her sing-song accent, “why do you always have to be so sarcastic? Is this a defense mechanism with you? Is it so difficult to be pleasant? Are you always so angry at the whole world?”

  Shocked by the attack, I can only stare for a second. “I’m not angry!”

  “Yes, you are. You’re angry, and you’re scared.” I try to speak, but she steamrolls right over me. “And you know what? You have every right to be, but you need to acknowledge it. Don’t let it eat away at you, hmm?”

  “I’m not angry,” I repeat loudly. “Why should I be angry?”

  “Why indeed? You are exactly where you want to be right now, aren’t you? And even though it’s only temporary”—God, I wish she’d quit saying that—“you’ve seen exactly what your life could be like, what you could be like if you put your mind to it. You are safe, you are happy—but you still have so much anger, and so much pain, and you have to deal with that, Martha. Yell at me all you want, say whatever you want to say to me. I don’t care, this is my job, and it doesn’t bother me in the least. But don’t lie to yourself and pretend everything is rosy, because it’s not.”

  “Okay,” I say, just to shut her up.

  “Okay what?”

  “… I’m angry.”

  “What about?”

  Ha! Like I even know where to start. “Okay. First of all, my boyfriend dumped me. And Nikki hates my guts, and I did nothing to her, nothing!” I tick off each item, one by one. “Oh, and I just found out that the reason I’m with the Brinkmans is because they think I’m a lot like their dead freaking daughter.”

  Zelda soaks this all in. “Well, first tell me about your boyfriend. Why did he dump you?”

  Aside from the Brinkmans, I’ve only told Chloe and Faith about Danny. But even then I had to use some lame, made-up excuse—oh, we just decided to see other people for a while—because how can I tell them the truth? With Zelda at least, I don’t have to dance around the real story.

  “ ’Cause he found out about me,” I admit.

  “Found out what?”

  “Everything. My mom. Getting expelled. How I’m really not from Columbus.”

  “You mean you never told him?”

  I kick the leg of her fancy desk. Why can’t she just give me the lecture and be done with it?

  “How did he find out?”

  “I have no clue.”

  “How old is this boy?”

  “Um, almost eighteen,” I admit in a tiny voice.

  “I see. Were you sleeping with him by any chance?” I splutter all over myself, amazed at her nerve. That’s all the answer she needs. “Well, you’re a smart girl. I assume you used some kind of protection, hmm?”

  “God!” My face feels like somebody shoved it into a gas grill. “Do you, like, even know what the word ‘privacy’ means?”

  “I am not here to judge you, Martha.
But you are the one who brought it up, so maybe it’s something we should discuss.” She watches me pick at a nail, tearing off a bloody shred. “It’s very painful to lose someone you love, but …well, it hurts even more when you blame yourself. It makes it harder to let go.”

  Man, this lady can flip back into shrink mode at the drop of a hat.

  “Who cares? It’s over. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

  “That seems to be the way you deal with everything. Your boyfriend. Your mom. That shooting incident last fall.” I yank the bulky collar of my sweater over my face, but Zelda only waits till I run out of air. “Why didn’t you tell the young man why you ended up with the Brinkmans? I mean, if you thought he was serious about you, and you obviously did, why did you feel you couldn’t tell him the truth?”

  I finger Danny’s necklace, my Valentine’s Day gift, my one last link. “Um, I don’t know. Because I’m basically a coward?”

  “A coward.” Mild surprise. “Why do you think you’re a coward?”

  “Well, you’re the one who keeps saying I’m scared.”

  “Being scared and being a coward are two different things.”

  That’s news to me. “So what’s the difference?”

  Instead of answering, she asks, “Martha, what were you thinking about that night on the fire escape?” I never told her about the fire escape, or anything else about that night. I wonder how she knows. “What made you go out there?”

  I haul my feet up into the chair. “I don’t remember.”

  “Oh, I think you do.”

  “You don’t know anything about it!”

  Zelda tilts back in her chair and plays with her rings, watching me closely, waiting for me to explain. I stare at my hands, tracing the calluses on my fingers, the scar on my thumb.

  “I knew something was wrong,” I hear myself say. “I heard all these sirens.”

  “Did you hear the shots?”

  “No. I heard fireworks.”

  “You heard gunshots, Martha. Those boys were shooting up your house. It was a dangerous situation, and it was dark, and it was snowing—”

  “And I heard everyone screaming,” I whisper back.

  “Were you scared?”

  “Yeah,” I admit.

  “Why?”

  “I knew… I just kind of knew something bad was happening…”

  “And?”

  “I wanted to go see. I wanted to help.”

  “You wanted to help,” Zelda repeats quietly. “You were scared to death, and still you climbed up a fire escape in the middle of the night with no coat on, no shoes, in below-freezing weather, with sirens and police cars and people screaming?” I nod, and ridiculously burst into tears. “Well. That really doesn’t sound very cowardly to me.”

  I can’t answer because I’m crying too hard. And when she adds, “You must have loved him a lot,” it only makes me blubber a thousand times worse.

  43

  I need some time by myself to take this all in. Richard has hundreds of classical music CDs, and I play one after another, huddled for hours in the music room with only Taffy beside me. I remember when Jerome told me what Grandma Daisy likes to say, how if you don’t talk out your miseries, they eat you alive.

  I do feel better, and I only wish I could’ve told Zelda more. Like, would she still think I’m so brave if she knew about the money, if she knew the real reason Bubby is dead?

  Probably not.

  The last CD ends, a piano sonata by Chopin. I pick through the shelf again and whip in my breath when I find Jacqueline du Pré and Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor. I wiggle it briefly in my hand, trying to decide—do I really want to hear this again, or will it make me remember other things I don’t want to remember?—and jump when I notice Nikki standing behind me.

  “I saw a movie about her,” she says, nodding at the CD. “That girl was so-o off the wall, and she died a horrible, horrible death. I cried at the end, even though it kind of grossed me out.”

  Well, thanks. This is not what I needed to know. “Did you want me for something?”

  “Oh, yeah.” With a wicked gleam, she pulls her hand out from behind her back and holds out the phone. “For you.”

  I snatch it away, figuring it’s either Faith or Chloe—but no, it’s Shavonne. And here I thought she’d never speak to me again. “Hi, what’s up?”

  “Girl, same old shit. What’s up with you?”

  “Not much,” I fib airily, then cover the mouthpiece as Nikki hovers at my shoulder. Damn, why didn’t I give Shavonne my cell phone number? “Do you mind?”

  “Oh, gosh, not at all.” With a sunny smile, Nikki flits out.

  Silence. Should I ask about Shavonne’s mom, or wait for Shavonne to bring it up? I never know if she’s going to spaz out on me.

  “You still seeing that guy?” Shavonne asks, radar zooming in. “No. He dumped me.” My voice cracks and I have to lean into the wall.

  “No way! That dickhead. What happened?”

  “It didn’t work out,” is all I can say.

  “Well, forget it, sister-girl. You way better off without his sorry white ass. That faggoty rich boy don’t deserve you no way.”

  And this, I know, is why I truly love Shavonne. She knows what I need to hear and she always says it. Not “I hope you made him use a rubber, you moron,” or whatever Zelda meant by that protection remark.

  But then she asks, “Can I come over?”

  “You mean like over here?”

  “Girl, I am serious. If I don’t get out of this house now and away from Aunt Bernice, I swear to God I’m gonna lose my fuckin’ mind.”

  Right, and exactly how would I explain her to Nikki? Danny, as far as I know, hasn’t blown my cover because if Nikki knew, the whole school would be buzzing.

  “Shavonne, I don’t know. I got a paper due tomorrow, and a science test, and—”

  Call-waiting beeps, I put her on hold, and—omigod!—it’s Danny. Like somebody kicked me in the gut, I can’t draw a single breath.

  “Hi.” He sounds surprised, like what, he forgot I live here? “Can I talk to Nik?”

  Not me. Nikki.

  “Hold on,” I croak, and switch back to Shavonne. “I have to hang up. I got another call.”

  “Screw that,” Shavonne snarls. “You’re talking to me!”

  Yes, but it’s Danny! This might be my last chance.

  “You there?” Shavonne booms in my ear. “ ’Cause I really, really gotta talk to you about something—”

  Tick-tock-tick-tock. “Look,” I plead. “This is really important. I swear I’ll call you right back.”

  “Aw, don’t waste your precious time.” Slam! She does it to me again.

  I click the button, but by now Danny’s gone. I wait for him to call back…and wait and wait…and when he finally does, Nikki manages to grab the phone first. From her one-sided conversation, I know there’s a party tonight, and I seethe with such jealousy, I start to see double.

  If Shavonne hadn’t held me up, would Danny have talked to me? Given me a chance to explain?

  Now I’ll never know.

  …

  Instead of calling Shavonne back, I tackle my homework, figuring I’ll give her a call as soon as I wrap it up. Compared to Waverly, Jefferson was a piece of cake, and now, for the first time in a long time, I actually have to study. I can’t find my science notebook, so forget about tomorrow’s quiz, and I haven’t even started my paper for English. The Scarlet Letter? Puh-lease. Some classic! This book is unreadable.

  So unreadable, in fact, that I fall asleep with my face in page fifty-seven—and then I’m jerked back into consciousness by the Swan Lake overture, booming at top volume from Nikki’s room. Twelve-fifteen? Is she insane?

  Outraged, I jump up, rush into the bathroom, and hammer on her door. “Ex-cu-use me, but do you mind turning that down?”

  “Hey, Gina-Gina.” I hold my breath as she blows booze fumes up my nostrils. “Chill out, already.” She
hangs onto the door till I manage to slam it. Her answer to this? Crank up the music even louder.

  I perch on my bed with my fists smashed over my ears, trying to grasp the fact that Nikki, perfect Nikki, Miss Walk-on-Water Nikki, is smashed out of her skull. When I can’t stand the racket any longer, I hop back up and plow into her room. “You either shut that thing off or I’m gonna throw it out the window. I’m tired, Nikki!”

  “Jesus!” She slaps off the stereo and roughly shoves me back into the bathroom. “Anybody ever tell you what a pain you are? Go back to bed then, you whiny little baby. Nighty-night!”

  Maybe it’s because I’m still half-asleep. Or maybe it’s a flash of my hereditary insanity. Or maybe I’m so pissed off that she had enough nerve to put her hands on me, I have to say something to keeping from ramming her ass right back.

  Whatever the reason, I give a pretty clear-cut reply: “Fuck you.”

  Wow! Instant rampage. “What? What? How dare you say that to me? Who do you think I am, one of your slimy ghetto pals?”

  Ghetto pals?

  “I know who you were talking to on the phone tonight,” she rages on. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you, Martha? Well, guess what? I know all about you, how you’re nothing but a slum rat with a criminal record, and how they, like, threw you out of school for stabbing some girl—”

  The earth screeches to a halt. “I didn’t stab anyone!”

  Nikki’s face splits into a grin. “Oh, and I guess your mom’s not some kind of crazy drug addict, either. And your dad, what’d he do? Didn’t he like die in prison or something?” My neck cracks with the effort of shaking my head back and forth, hair flying, denying it all. “Oh, you should’ve seen Danny’s face when he heard that little tidbit,” she finishes happily.

  My head stops moving. I think I’ve been electrocuted.

  Nikki leans an elbow on the bathroom wall. “Not so tough anymore, huh?”

  “I never said I was tough.”

  “You never said a lot of things. But Daddy told me the whole story.”

  Oh, right! No way. “You’re such a liar.”

  Nikki snorts. “You’re calling me a liar?”