Perfect (15 page)

"Mom?" April said.

"Yes."

"Can we do it?"

My mother stopped folding and looked at April. Then
at me. Then said, "I don't think so. No. Not this year."

"But Morn," said April.

"Why not?" I said. "Give us one good reason. And
don't tell us you're too tired to have this conversation
because it has nothing to do with tired. And don't say
we'll do it next year because we won't."

She stood up, still holding the second napkin. "I can't
do it, girls. It's that simple.... I just ... can't do it."

"You don't have to," I said. "We'll do it. Me and April.
We'll do the whole thing."

"Yeah," said April. "You won't have to lift a finger. You
can just show up and eat latkes."

We watched Morn's face getting red, her eyes start to
water. "That's not the point," she said. "I'm sorry, girls.
No. The answer is no." She pressed the napkin to one wet
eye, then the other.

Under the table, April nudged me. I nudged her back,
not to push her away, but to let her know I was glad she
was there.

TRISH WANTS US TO JOURNAL constantly. If she
had her way we'd he journaling every hour on the hour,
until Our hands cramped up into claws. Until our eyeballs
popped Out.

At first, journaling was the opposite of what I wanted
to do, it was like torture staring at all that blank space.
But then I started carrying my journal around with me to
school like one of my regular notebooks, just in case the
mood struck. And then, this one day, I wrote something.
Perched on the toilet seat in a girls' bathroom stall.

What happened was I had lunch at Ashley's table for a
hunch of days. The first couple of times I sat there I could
feel Nola and Georgie's eyes boring into me the whole
time, curious. And Paula's, jealous. But after a few days
they stopped looking over, like they'd forgotten all about
me. Which was okay because I had all these new friends.
I sure did. Maya and Arielle and Jessie and Hannah and
Heather and Talia and Sasha and Eliza. And, of course,
Ashley. And I was having a wonderful time. I sure was. I
was surrounded by the most popular girls in school, who
wore all the right clothes and said all the right things and
got invited to all the right places. And of course they were
thinking, Thank goodness Ashley introduced us to Isabelle,
because now our little family is complete.

But no. It wasn't that way at all. Not even close. It
didn't matter how much Ashley Barnum liked me, I still
didn't cut it. I was like a troll at a Barhie picnic.

Every day I ate at the center table I would run to the
girls' room after lunch and throw up. But one time I sat
there for a while thinking about what Trish is always saying
to us. "Before you throw up, HALT. Ask yourself, how are
you feeling? Are you hungry? Angry? Lonely? Or tired?"

And for once I took the pencil out of my mouth, wiped
the spit off on my jeans, and wrote something. I wrote one
word. Lonely.

Then, when the hell rang, I closed my journal and
ruined everything by puking anyway.

"What makes you think you ruined everything?" Trish
asked.

It was Tuesday again, four o'clock. The difference between this time and last time was I started talking the minute I sat down. I told Trish all about Ashley and the center
table. Only I gave Ashley a code name. Penelope Lutz, after
this girl I knew from nursery school, who moved to Oregon.
Plus, I brought my journal, which actually had some writing
in it now. In a way, I regretted bringing it. I didn't want Trish
to get excited over nothing.

"Isabelle?"

"Yeah?"

"You said you `ruined everything' by throwing up.
What did you mean by that?"

"Like you told us. You want us to journal when we feel
HALT feelings, right? Instead of throwing up, we should
journal, you said. Right?"

Trish nodded.

"Well, I did. I wrote something. But then I still made
myself throw up anyway, so what was the point?"

"Well. How did you feel while you were writing?"

"Okay ... I guess."

"You felt okay."

"Yeah."

"And after?"

"After I journaled or after I barfed?"

"After you journaled. Did you feel better?"

"I don't know. I guess so. Yeah."

"All right, then," Trish said. "I would call that progress."

"Progress?"

`.Yes.

"Even though I threw up anyway?"

Trish nodded. "Even though you threw up anyway.
The progress, Isahelle, shows in your decision to try something else first. You were feeling badly, and what did you
do? You wrote in your journal. You put your feelings on
paper. Okay, so you threw up afterward. But next time,
maybe you won't. Next time, maybe the writing will be
enough."

I thought about this, then said, "What if it isn't?"

"If it isn't, we'll try something different."

I leaned hack in my chair, rocked a little. I looked at
Trish and thought, We. We'll try something different. Me
and Trish.

"Bingeing and purging is not an easy cycle to break,
Isahelle. Changing those habits, those deeply ingrained
ways of dealing with your emotions, doesn't happen overnight. It takes practice and patience and hard work. But
you can do it, and I can help you. Are you willing to let
me?"

I looked at Trish. Her crazy red hair harretted hack on
two sides, like a little kid's. Her eyes on mine, waiting.

"Yeah."

Trish smiled. "Okay then."

I took a minute to picture myself, helped. Me, Isabelle
Lee, a regular person eating regular meals and not throwing them up afterward. Not sitting on the floor of my closet
stuffing Doritos down my throat, or sneaking down the
stairs in the middle of the night to raid the refrigerator. Not
having to cover my ears with a pillow sandwich and hum all
the time.

Trish said, "What about your friend Penelope?"

"Who.?"

"Your friend Penelope. Lutz, is it? From the center
table. Tell me about her."

Ah yes, my good friend Penelope Lutz. "What can I
say ... she's perfect."

"Perfect?"

"Uh-huh. She's got the hair, the body, the clothes.
Everything. Boys drooling all over her. A million friends.
You know. Smart. At least I think she's smart. I used to
think so, until ..."

"Until?" Trish said.

I pretended to he very interested in the toothpaste
splotch on my shirt. I frowned and picked at it with my
fingernail. How could I tell Trish about the Cliffs Notes
without telling her about me snooping? Which was worse,
a cheater or a snoop?

"Isabelle?"

"She's just ... trust me, okay? She's perfect. She's, like,
the person everyone wants to he friends with."

Trish nodded. "She sounds great."

"Uh-huh."

Trish was quiet for a minute. Then, "Isabelle?"

"Yeah."

"Have you ever heard of something called the halo
effect?"

I shook my head.

"I want you to read something." Trish stood up and
walked over to a bookshelf filled with hooks. She picked
out a fat blue one, flipped through it until she found what
she was looking for. "Here. Page 172."

Trish put the book down on the desk, slid it toward
me. She tapped the spot with her finger. "Start here."

I leaned in and squinted at the tiny writing. The halo
effect occurs when major character traits influence the overall impression, leading perceivers to infer trait information
beyond what is actually given-

"Is this English?" I asked.

Trish smiled. "Keep reading. I'll translate in a minute."

Attractive people are usually viewed as more socially capable, more influential, adjusted, and intelligent. The effect of
attractiveness -"what is beautiful is good" -may be attributed
to the halo effect.

I looked up. "Whatever that means."

"What it means is that people who are good-looking,
people who are beautiful like your friend Penelope, are
often perceived as being perfect simply because they are
beautiful. We're so blinded by the prettiness, we don't see
the imperfections. We don't see them as real people, with
real flaws. In fact, we see them as smarter, nicer ... cooler
than the average person."

"Huh," I said.

Later that night, I thought about it. The halo effect. I
pictured Ashley floating through the halls of school with
her little gold halo on, everyone staring at her, thinking
she was so great, that she had this great life.

Then I thought about the other things I knew about
her. How she thought she was so fat even though she
wasn't, how she made herself throw up all the time, and
used Ex-Lax, and how her parents were hardly ever home.
I remembered what Ashley said in Group that one time, about the girls in the magazines. "You can't always tell,
just from looking."

At first I thought about calling her. I started to. But
then I didn't. I lay in bed for a long time, wondering what
it was really like to be Ashley Barnum.

AUNT WEEZY SHOWED UP AGAIN on Saturday
morning, early, when I was the only one up. She was wearing a line green cardigan and carrying a loaf of banana
bread wrapped in cellophane. Instead of the drop earrings,
she had on tiny pearl studs.

She followed me into the kitchen and I found a platter
for the banana bread. She took a knife out of the silverware drawer and started slicing. "So. How are you doing,
honey?"

I took a glass out of the cupboard, poured myself some
juice. "Okay."

Weezy lowered her voice. "Your meetings? With the
counselor? Are they helping?"

I nodded, picked up the juice and swirled it. "Kind of.
Yeah."

"Good." Weezy took a breath, nodded. "Good.... So,
I've gotten the name of a therapist, a grief counselor. And
I've gone ahead and made your mom an appointment for
next week."

"Aunt Weezy," I said. "No offense, but she's going to
freak. She'll be so mad."

Weezy put the knife down and started arranging
banana bread into the shape of a fan. "I know. But I have
to do something. I can't just stand by pretending everything's fine."

I leaned my hip against the counter, whispered,
"That's what she does. Pretends everything's fine all the
time. Even though it isn't."

"I know it isn't, sweetheart. That's why I'm here."
Weezy turned and looked at me, put a sticky hand on my
arm. "I'm sorry I didn't know sooner, Isabelle. I just didn't
realize."

"No. It's okay."

She nodded. "It will be. I can promise you that."

After Aunt Weezy and Mom left the house, April and I
sat on the floor of her room and put the finishing touches
on her family tree project. The pictures, color copies we
made of the photos we found under Mom's bed, looked
just like the real thing. We stared and stared at each one,
at our dad smiling back at us like it was yesterday.

The letters of the title were rainbow. When you leaned
in you smelled a fruit howl. The Lee Family Since 1922. Everything was crooked because Ape Face refused to use
a ruler. That part killed me. No matter how many times I
told her, she wouldn't listen. With Ape Face it's her way or
the highway. You never met someone so stubborn in your
whole life.

The rest looked great, though, I have to say. Especially the silver glitter for the tree, and the tiny gold stars
for each year. You wanted to stop and read every branch,
take your time and really get to know people. Jacob Joshua
Lee. Born June i i, 1961, Brooklyn, New York. Third Baseman, Brooklyn Rockets, 1976-1979. Graphic Artist, Cartoonist, Song Lyricist. Bilingual in French. Married Elizabeth
Jayne Lawrence, 1984, on Squam Lake in New Hampshire.
It went on and on. Luckily, Ape Face actually listened to
me for once and typed those parts on the computer, so the
writing was perfect. If she didn't get an A-minus at least,
her teacher was crazy.

"It's good, huh, Isabelle?"

"Yeah," I said. "It really is."

"Okay, so . . ." April leaned over, blew some stray glitter off the poster board onto the rug. "When do we show
it to Mom?"