Don't Try to Find Me: A Novel (14 page)

LAST NIGHT, I DREAMED
I was back in junior high, in Principal York’s office. Mr. Jennings was there, too. He kept pointing at the Spanish test on the desk that separated them. “I know she’s the one who stole the answers,” he told Principal York. “She” was me.

I was in a hard-backed chair facing Principal York. I shook my head and repeated,
“No hablo inglés,”
until my parents raced in.

My mother had this long glittery scarf on, and it kept lifting high in the air, like it was catching a breeze. When I looked up, there was no ceiling, no roof, even. It was a baby-blue sky with a ton of marshmallow clouds. I pointed, but no one seemed concerned.

“Pay attention, Marley,” my dad said, admonishing me. “This is about your future. Your whole future hangs in the balance.”

My mother pulled me to my feet, wrapped her arms around me, and whispered, “Look, Marley. Such beautiful clouds.”

For some reason, I woke up crying. B. wasn’t next to me. I guess I slept through his alarm and now he’s at school. Part of me would have liked to have him here for comfort, but the rest of me is relieved to be alone. I’m still confused by what happened at the motel. I should think about it, and what it means. I just really, really don’t want to.

Mr. Jennings did haul me into Principal York’s office and accuse me of cheating. His face really was red with fury. My dad wasn’t there, though. It was the four of us: Principal York, Mr. Jennings, my mom, and me.

I remember how when the meeting first started, I hadn’t made up my mind about whether to confess. I was guilty, after all. Then I had to sit there and listen to Mr. Jennings. I had to watch him, too, with his stupid tomato face and his flatulent body. All year, he’d stood at the front of the room and let out nasty gas, and then he’d punished whoever laughed. (Someone always laughed.) He was the one with the problem, but he was making it our problem. Farting is funny, and everyone knows it. I don’t care how old you are. I got detention three times that year because of him, and I’d never gotten detention in any other class, ever. It’s the advantage of being Ordinary Girl. Mostly, I go unnoticed, even when I’m acting up.

So anyway, Mr. Jennings realized that something was wrong because people who never got 96s and 98s and 100s suddenly did. (You have to be some kind of idiot to cheat on a test and get every single answer right.) I was one of the 96s, whereas normally I got in the B+ range. So it wasn’t that crazy for me to ace a test every once in a while, and I thought it would be fun to show my parents a 96 in Spanish.

I probably could have gotten a 96 by working harder. But where’s the fun in that?

I don’t know exactly why I first stole the answers. Because I could? Because Mr. Jennings was gross? Because it made me feel like a badass for a little while? All of the above? I figured out that Mr. Jennings didn’t lock his desk drawer and when his lunch period was. It was so easy to run in, grab the answer sheet, copy it all down, and put it back.

If I’d stopped there, it would have been fine. But I decided to give a cheat sheet to Trish, and she asked if she could give one to Wyatt, who wasn’t doing so well in Spanish. She said she’d tell him I was the one who’d gotten it, and how I’d gotten it, which made me look incredibly ballsy. I should have said no, but I felt the pull to not be Ordinary Girl. To be Ballsy Girl instead, superhero for a day. And it was Wyatt. I wasn’t really crushing on him full-on anymore, but I had some residual feelings, like a bruise that’s not entirely healed.

That first time, it was only Trish, Wyatt, and me. But then they
were after me to do it again, like it was an amazing trick that only I could do. How could I say no?

I should have, because the next time, it got leaked to half the class, and Mr. Jennings got suspicious, and people named names. Well, one name. Mine.

It wasn’t Trish, because she never got busted. Her scores were already high. She was only cheating because she wanted to have sex with her boyfriend instead of studying. But I think that was the beginning of the end for our friendship. I started to see her for the manipulator she really is, and she started to see me as a liability. She didn’t mind a cheat (obviously), but it’s pretty lame to get caught.

Mr. Jennings said that three people had given my name. “I questioned them independently,” he said, looking smug, “and they all said Marley was the ringleader.”

I turned and gaped at my mother. Everything about me said: Me? A ringleader? It’s crazy!

“Marley doesn’t lead,” my mother said. “She follows. So if she actually was cheating on her Spanish test—which also doesn’t sound like her—it was because someone pressured her into it, not the other way around.”

I remember how angry I got right then. Not at Mr. Jennings, but at my mom. She didn’t think I had the guts to steal answers or the ethics to say no if someone tried to get me to cheat.

I almost confessed on the spot. But then I thought, No, I’ll make her go to bat for me instead. I’ll make her my pit bull. She hates confrontation, but she’d never let me get railroaded.

“Let’s ask Marley that,” Principal York said. “Marley, please be honest. We just want to help you. Did you take the answers to the test and distribute them to other students?”

I looked back and forth from my mother to Principal York with the kind of hurt expression I thought the wrongfully accused would have. I ignored Mr. Jennings completely. “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

He shook his head, incredulous and enraged. To Principal York,
he said, “With all due respect, I’ve been at this for fifteen years. They don’t just confess.”

“Do you have any proof?” I asked.

“See, that’s the question you ask when you’re guilty!” Again, to the principal: “We’ve got three other kids who say she’s the one.”

“Mom,” I said, “I did not cheat. I studied really hard. You saw me at the kitchen table until, like, 11:00.”

She saw no such thing, but she was trapped. “Marley studied hard,” she said, resigned.

“Who said I did it?” Now my hurt was a little genuine. I’d done them a favor, and they’d repaid it by ratting me out. Please, I thought, don’t say Wyatt.

Mr. Jennings wouldn’t answer. It’s like he was being spiteful. If I wasn’t going to confess, he wasn’t going to give me his sources.

My mother saw I was upset and took it as further proof of my innocence. “They might not like Marley. They might be trying to scapegoat her.”

“Three different people!” Mr. Jennings exclaimed. “Who I asked separately.”

“They were probably friends, and they decided ahead of time that if they got caught, they’d blame Marley.” My mother looked at Principal York. It was like she and Mr. Jennings were opposing lawyers, waiting for a ruling from the judge.

“That is possible,” Principal York said. Jennings got overruled!

Man, was he pissed. And I was loving it.

“Marley’s a good girl,” my mother said. She thought I had no guts or imagination, but at least I was a good girl. Whatever that means.

In the end, my mom and I won. Since Mr. Jennings was a douche with no proof and I had no record of “prior misbehavior,” I got away with it. Oh, and Mr. Jennings belatedly started locking his desk drawer.

I could have felt great about it. It’s like getting in a car accident and walking away without a scratch. But I learned all kinds of stuff I
didn’t want to know. Like, I found out where I stood in the pecking order (no one would have told on Trish or Wyatt). When I asked Wyatt point-blank if he’d given my name, he said no but he wouldn’t look me in the eye. So obviously, he used me to get the answers for him, and then I was totally disposable. I told Trish what happened, that it sucked to have people turn on you, especially when one of them was Wyatt. She shrugged and said, “But you got off, right?” Apparently, I was boring her.

That was when I really and truly started hating eighth grade, and I still had most of the school year to go.

One of the worst parts, though, was realizing my mom had such a low opinion of me. Her defense had been, basically, “Marley’s a follower with no mind of her own.”

On the drive home, we didn’t talk. It’s like she didn’t even want to know the details, didn’t want to know me. She’s a blind woman telling me I’m beautiful. She can’t seem to see through anything at all.

YOU WANT TO HEAR
a secret, Journal? I’ve been taking walks during the day while B. is in class. I leave the apartment unlocked and the back door propped open and so far, nothing bad’s happened. I’ve still never run into another inhabitant. The artists B. told me about must be nocturnal, like badgers.

Sure, I could ask for a key. But B. would want to know why, and it would be this whole conversation I don’t feel like having. It could eventually lead to his doing that scary tight look, like he’s just had Botox, or his other scary look with the intense eyes, like when he thinks I’m not being patient enough about Disappeared.com.

Mostly, though, he’s not scary at all. He can be so vulnerable—like after sex, when he’s sweet and silly and plays with my hair. Or after he’s seen his parents and he needs me to be appreciative and loving (basically, his anti-parents). Because of them, and because of his ex-girlfriends, he’s got trust issues, and that means I can’t tell him every little thing. I’m protecting him, really.

I love him, but one person can’t be a whole world, so I go out walking. If I head in a certain direction, within six or seven blocks, it gets less industrial. Then it’s downright suburban: square houses with triangular roofs like a child’s drawing, and lawns with sprinkler systems, and people out walking their dogs.

The heat wave is over, so it finally feels and smells like autumn. The leaves are falling, and they’re all these great Crayola-box colors like burnt umber and russet. I can wear my Ugg boots again.

I found this dog park I like. The different breeds and mutts frolic on the grass and kick up leaves like mini-cyclones. Sometimes they come up and lick my hand as I sit on a bench nearby. I don’t talk to anyone. I smile vaguely, the way you would if you were an exchange student and didn’t speak the language. I try to look detached but not unfriendly. It must be working. No one’s approached me, and they smile back.

See, B.? I’m still a secret. I’m still your secret.

He’s already talking about the weekend, thinking maybe we’ll go away somewhere, to another motel. He seems really into cheap motels, like a fetish.

I don’t like sex yet, but I like what comes after. Sex is the price of admission so I can get to this great place with B., a place where he drawls things like “You are the best.” It makes me wonder who else he’s slept with in his life, if I’m the best. But I don’t think he means only that. He means I’m his girl. He says that, too, in the same drawl: “You’re my girl.” I love that.

He can be sweet in other ways, too. Like tonight, he surprised me with a book of baby names. When I first saw it, my stomach dropped. I can’t have a baby with him! I’m friggin’ fourteen! He started to laugh, realizing what I thought. “No, it’s for you,” he said. “For the new you.”

I started to laugh, too. So he is still thinking about Disappeared.com. That’s good to know.

We sat on the futon with our heads close together and looked over the lists of names, starting with “C.” (It seemed too boring to
start with “A.” We don’t want a “B” name, because it’s too cutesy: B & B. Gag. And we’re going to skip “M” altogether because I don’t want anything too much like Marley.)

“What do you think of Cadence?” he asked. It was about the fifth name on the list.

“Impatient much?”

“No, really. I think it’s pretty. Cadence. It means ‘melodious.’”

“That’s nothing like me.” I laughed.

“It could be you.” He looked at me with serious eyes. It feels good, being taken so seriously. “You can be anyone.”

“Cadence,” I said. I peered down at my hands, trying to imagine Cadence playing the piano like I never could. Nah, still just me. “I don’t think so.”

“ ‘Calla,’” he read aloud. “ ‘Resembling a lily; a beautiful woman.’”

I shook my head.

“You’re not even thinking about them. You’re just shooting everything down.” He didn’t seem mad, exactly, but he did look a teensy bit tight around the mouth. I feel it in my stomach when he looks like that.

“You can’t find your new name on the first page!” I smiled, hoping to dispel the tension. “I’m going to have that name forever, so it has to be right.”

“Okay,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “You win. It’s your name.”

The truth is, Calla is a beautiful name for a beautiful woman. I’d spend the whole rest of my life trying to live up to it and failing. Time to change the subject. “Candida,” I said, pointing. “It means ‘white-skinned woman.’ Isn’t it also a kind of yeast infection?”

He laughed. “Why don’t we just call you Monistat, then?”

“Or Anusol.”

We riffed for a while, and the tension dissipated.

“I really like Charlotte,” he said. “I always have.”

“I like it, too.” It conjured images of the spider, and the pig.
Charlotte and Wilbur. My mother used to read that book to me, and when she was finished, I’d say, “Again!” and no matter how many times I said it, no matter how boring it must have become for her, she’d always turn to the first page and start over. She was good at doing the voices, making them really sound like whole different species from one another.

“You look sad all of a sudden,” he said.

“It’s just so huge, renaming yourself. You know how when your parents do it, they have no idea who you’ll turn out to be? They can pick something they think is pretty, or strong, or interesting. But I have to do it knowing who I am and who I want to be. So it’s way harder.”

“Who do you want to be?”

That’s what I love about B. How seriously he takes me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Where did your parents get Marley from?”

“My mother used to watch this soap opera called
Another World
. It’s not on anymore. Once I watched some of it on YouTube. It was as cheesy as you’d expect. Marley was a twin, the good twin, the boring one, and her sister had all the fun and made all the trouble. I guess my mom wanted me to turn out to be a good girl.” I smiled to try to overcome the lump in my throat.