The Divorce Express (2 page)

By the end of
The Divorce Express
, Phoebe’s father has fallen in love with the mother of Rosie, Phoebe’s new best friend, and their story continues in
It’s an Aardvark-Eat-Turtle World
, told from Rosie’s point of view. All Rosie wants is a happy family, but Phoebe doesn’t make that easy. Furthermore, Rosie, who’s biracial, faces issues that Phoebe can’t fathom, and once again, Paula writes candidly about a sensitive subject, illustrated in this scene when Rosie goes on a date with a boy who’s white:

While we look at each other, some guy comes up and says with hate, “Why don’t you stick to your own kind?”

I can’t believe it.

He repeats what he’s just said.

Jason turns to him. “We are the same kind—human. You’re the one who isn’t our kind. You’re scum.”

A year later, Paula’s next book,
This Place Has No Atmosphere
, was published and the setting is, of all places, the moon in 2057—a bold departure for Paula, who made the colony on the moon seem real and believable, and who drew us into the life of Aurora Williams on the first page. The book feels futuristic indeed, but Aurora’s story of adjusting to a move and finding a serious boyfriend is timeless.

Paula died in 2004, but her stories have already been passed from one generation of passionate fans to another. Her many best friends miss her, but I like to think of the hope with which she ends her books. She wrote great last lines, too.
If you take the letters in the word DIVORCES and rearrange them, they spell DISCOVER
.

Thank you, Paula, for showing us captivating beginnings, hopeful endings, and in between, how to look at life with laughter.

R
earrange the letters in the word PARENTS and you get the word ENTRAPS.

I found that out one day when I was playing Scrabble, got the seven-letter word, and had no place to put it.

That’s the way I’m feeling right now, trapped with no place to go.

It’s not fair. A growing girl should have parents who act more like grown-ups. They’re supposed to
know what they want out of life and not be confused and constantly making a lot of changes.

Not my parents though. They are still, as my father likes to say, “getting their act together.”

They started getting their act together by breaking up. That happened the summer I was between seventh and eighth grade. It was a real shock. Sure, I knew they weren’t getting along well, but I didn’t expect divorce. Not the way it happened.

Right after seventh grade I was sent to camp. My parents told me that camp would be good for me since I was an only child.

Good for me, ha! It was their chance. My father moved out.

I had no say. It was all arranged by the time I got home from camp.

My mother got to stay in our New York apartment and keep the furnishings.

My father sublet another apartment nearby and got the summer house in Woodstock.

Each of them got part of the savings.

My father got the car, which my mother had never learned to drive anyway.

Both of them got me, joint custody.

I lived half a week with one parent, the second half with the other. Weekends were alternated. If this sounds confusing, it was. I had to keep track of everything with a calendar. Once everything got really messed up. Each parent thought it was the other’s weekend to have me, and both of them made plans to go away. It was awful. I felt like neither of them wanted me. Finally I ended up calling my friend Katie and making plans to stay with her. By that time both of my parents had canceled their weekend plans.

For all of eighth grade I commuted between the two apartments.

It was weird.

At my mother’s I had my old bedroom. At my father’s I slept on a convertible sofa bed.

During that time, the differences between my parents really showed. They should never have gotten married so young. They should never have had a kid. But they did.

I had two different wardrobes. My mother likes me to wear designer clothes, the ones with alligator, horse, and swan emblems. My father, however, is always buying me message
T-shirts, like
DON’T HASSLE THE HUMPBACK WHALES
. It got so that my friends could tell which parent I was staying with by the clothes I was wearing.

My father really loves the country. He wants to paint and not work in an office for someone else.

My mother enjoys living in the city, loves being an interior decorator, and gets poison ivy from just looking at pictures of nature.

By the time that the divorce came through, the only thing they agreed on was that they should live in the same neighborhood so I wouldn’t have any trouble getting to school.

I had no trouble getting to school. I just had trouble once I got to school.

Something happened to me after the separation and divorce.

They thought they had everything figured out just right. Only they didn’t. They forgot that I might have feelings too.

So I did lots of things at school. I talked in class all the time, never turned in any homework, wouldn’t give the right answers when teachers called on me.

One day I got to school real early and snuck in. I
Krazy-Glued everything I could. In the men’s faculty bathroom, I glued down the toilet seats. In the women’s faculty room I plugged up the coin slot on the Tampax machine. In the science lab I glued everything in sight—chairs, the desks, the Bunsen burners. I even found the teacher’s marking book and glued that to her chair, which I had already glued to the wall.

Then I went to homeroom.

It didn’t take them long to figure out that something was wrong, since I’d also glued the lock to the front office. It also didn’t take them long to find out who was responsible, because the tube had leaked and the fingers on my right hand were glued together.

The principal said she was shocked to “see a girl create such havoc.”

I told her that with Women’s Liberation anything was possible.

My parents really had to pay that time. They had to come in for meetings and then they had to pay for repairs. They’re still taking money out of my allowance for that.

I was suspended for a week. When I got back, I talked to Ms. Fowler, the guidance counselor. She
discussed it with me, asking if maybe I just wanted something in my life to stay in one place.

My parents started to see each other to talk about the problem—ME. For a while, I thought that maybe they’d even get back together.

They didn’t.

While all of this was being discussed, other decisions were made. My mother decided to open up her own design business and would have to travel more. My father decided to quit his job and take two years to live in the country, paint, and try to support himself as an artist.

Once again they decided what was “best” for me.

Now I’m living in Woodstock all week with my father and almost every weekend, I go down to New York City to be with my mother, riding the Divorce Express.

T
he Divorce Express. I don’t have to board it this weekend because my mother’s on a business trip. It’s the bus that leaves Woodstock on Friday afternoons and returns on Sundays filled with kids who live with one parent in town and visit the other parent in New York City. It’s really public transportation, but because of all the kids, it’s nicknamed the Divorce Express.

Maybe not every place has a bus like it, but I know
that there are other ways divorce kids travel to see parents. Planes. Cars. Trains. Subways. Cabs.

The transportation industry would be practically bankrupt if it weren’t for divorce. A presidential candidate could run on the platform that divorce is good for the economy. Make it seem patriotic to have kids, then split up. He or she’d probably win—especially since kids don’t vote.

This is my first weekend in Woodstock since school started and my father, the big game hunter who grew up in The Bronx, a part of New York City that is definitely not country, has just trapped a raccoon.

Not just any raccoon—my pet. At least I think of him that way. He came around a lot at night and even though he didn’t eat out of my hand, he was getting close.

Some people may not think that’s such a big deal, but it was to me. Ninth grade. A new school. All of my friends are back in New York City. I went away to summer camp again, so I didn’t meet new kids here—the all-year-round ones. I’ve been in school a whole week and know no one, except to sort of nod hello. It’s really rough. And I can’t even have a cat or
dog because my father’s allergic. The only person I really know here is my father. It’s all so different and kind of lonely. I really looked forward to the nights when the raccoon came around. He was my only friend, and now he’s in a trap.

At least it’s a Havahart trap, so that his whole body is inside, instead of just his paws. My father said he wouldn’t use the other kind, where the paws get trapped and sometimes the animal chews off the paw to get out. But, any trap entraps. It’s so gross, I can’t stand it. I guess I should be thankful that he’s not hurt, but my father is still planning to take him away.

“Phoebe, honey,” my father says, motioning me to come over. “Look at it.”

“He’s got a name,” I snarl. “It’s Rocky. Let him go.”

“Rocky keeps knocking over the garbage even when the lids are tied down. He’s got to go.” My father runs his hand over his head. That’s a nervous habit he’s developed since he’s started going a little bald, like he’s checking to make sure there’s some left.

“Let’s keep the garbage in the house,” I say.

“Collection’s only once a week. It’ll stink.”

Personally I think you stink, I want to say to him,
but don’t. Instead, I make another suggestion. “I’ll pick the trash up every morning before school.”

He shakes his head. “No. Last time you did that, you went back into the house and threw up from the smell.”

The raccoon is beating his body against the cage, trying to get out.

“The only reason I threw up was because of the smelly yogurt containers. I’ll wear a clothespin on my nose.” I pick up a twig, refusing to look at my father.

The yogurt containers. I came back from camp to find out that my father’s turned into a health nut—no red meat, almost no processed sugar, no cigarettes. Now our garbage is filled with healthy trash—granola boxes, bean sprout wrappers, mung bean, and tofu leftovers.

My father’s got that look on his face that means no fooling. “Phoebe, I’m taking Rocky over to Charlie in the morning and letting his dog sniff him, get the scent, and release him over there. He’ll get away with a fighting chance.”

I pick the bark from the twig. It’s no use. The dog’ll get Rocky’s scent and then when it’s hunting season, my raccoon will be a goner.

My father comes over and puts his arm around my shoulder.

I duck out from under it.

Rocky’s still throwing his body at the side of the cage.

I think about a line from a poem my English teacher read to us in class last year: “I know why the caged bird sings.” Then I miss New York City. New York, where you just dumped the garbage down the compactor and never thought about it. New York, where my best friend Katie lives. Where Andy, my boyfriend until I moved, still lives.

My father smiles. “Look, honey. The cage is made in Ossining, New York . . . the home of Sing Sing Prison.”

Snapping the twig in half, I fail to see the humor.

He tries again. “Come on, Phoebe, he’s got to go. Remember how he tore a hole in the screen door, got in, and practically destroyed the kitchen?”

It’s dark by now. I can’t see the trap but I can hear the banging noise.

“Tomorrow morning I’ll take Rocky away and you and I will go some place special.” My father tries to pat me on the shoulder.

I move away, throwing the pieces of twig on the ground.

Parents think they can bribe you into anything. Well, it’s not true.

I pick up my flashlight and walk across the lawn, careful not to trip over the newly delivered firewood.

My father follows.

The banging noise continues.

Going in the front door of the house, I walk into the living room and look out the window at the Ashokan Reservoir. It’s one of my favorite views, but tonight even that’s not enough to calm me down. Nothing can.

I go into my bedroom, slam the door, and throw myself on the bed. I stare at the Sierra Club calendar that my father gave me and wonder how he can do this to Rocky if he cares so much about nature.

I’m never going to talk to him again.

There’s knocking at my door. “Phoebe. Let’s talk. Or play Scrabble with me. You know you love to play Scrabble.”

DO NOT DISTURB
says the sign that my father and I made up the time we worked out a system to allow each of us privacy. I open the door and put it on the
outside knob, careful not to look at my father. Then I go back inside.

He yells, “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to do this. Rocky’s a nuisance.”

So are you, I think.

Finally I hear him go away.

I lie on my bed, on my side, staring at the picture my father painted of me sitting by the pool. He’s so hard to understand. This move has really confused me. I don’t even have a place to go if I run away. My friends in the city don’t have that much room. Anyway their parents would tell on me. My mother would just send me back. She’s too busy looking for perfect antiques for other people’s houses. I could sneak out in the middle of the night and free Rocky, but my father’d never forgive me and I’ve got to live with him. There’s no way to win.