The Symptoms of My Insanity (31 page)

And that’s when Marcus tells me that they only have one cousin named Amy, and that she’s turning three tomorrow.

I’m waiting for him to say
Just kidding
, or
Happy, excessively early April Fool’s Day
, but he doesn’t. So I ask again, just to be sure I heard him correctly. I make him repeat his answer like three more times, until I’m sure he thinks I’m either crazy or hard of hearing. And suddenly, as we near the school, I feel like one of those cartoon characters with the lightbulb popping up over its head. Mine’s dimly lit, but it’s there.

•   •   •

The theater is a complete madhouse. I’ve never seen so much pandemonium take place while listening to four-part harmony with twang. At the end of the act, Marcus holds up the pizzas. Soon chaps-wearing boys, can-can girls, and Southern belles swarm him from all sides.

“Don’t eat in your costumes!” Jenna shouts, hopping down from the stage and shaking her head. She stops when she sees me standing next to Marcus, handing out pizza.

“You’re here.” Jenna breaks out into a huge smile.

“I am,” I say, opening up a pepperoni box to a crowd of drooling cowboys.

“Do you want to help out, or are you just hanging? You can just hang, but if you—”

“No, I’ll help. Or hang … whatever,” I say.

She grabs a plate and loads a couple slices on it. I get some napkins and follow her out of the chaos. We walk into the
choir room and see Ryan Paulson standing on a chair, finishing up some foliage painting.

“Hey,” he says, jumping down, eyes on Jenna, “how’s it going? I’m almost done here, how’s it looking?”

“Great,” Jenna tells him. “Pizza’s here.”

“Oh cool. Did you get some? Do you want me to get you a slice? Izzy?” he asks.

“We’re good,” Jenna says, looking down at the plate of pizza she’s holding.

“Oh, yeah right.” Ryan makes a goofy, “I’m so stupid” face and then just stands there, bouncing from one foot to the other, looking up at Jenna.

“So … you should probably go get some before it’s gone.” Jenna waves him out, shaking her head and laughing a little. “He’s like a worker bee jumping bean.”

I laugh and then tell her the set looks great.

“Thanks. It’s almost done. We’re kind of behind, though.” She walks around the piece Ryan was finishing, looking amused. “He thinks he’s Rothko or something. It’s just a tree. I keep telling him one shade of green will do.”

“Well.” I smile. “We all need to express ourselves.”

“Izzy!” Meredith spots me as she’s walking by. “I’m so glad you’re here!” She rushes into the choir room, holding what looks like one of our cafeteria’s napkin dispensers.

“We ran out,” she explains, “and pizza hands plus costumes …” She shakes her head.

“Good thinking,” Jenna says. Then quietly, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Meredith smiles and turns to me.
“Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I don’t think you should turn yourself in tomorrow. I know you’re planning on it, but I don’t think you should.”

“Oh, oh no, Meredith—” I stumble around for the right way to tell her to keep her mouth closed, while Jenna stops mid pizza bite and gapes at Meredith as she continues spilling my beans, getting more and more animated and energetic as she goes.

“I just don’t think you admitting to being Boobgirl will make anything better. Why should you do that? Don’t do it. I’m sure they won’t cancel the dance, and if they do, oh well. It’s not your fault. It’s Blake’s fault. And you shouldn’t feel guilty. Right? Jenna, you agree, right? Will you please help me convince Izzy not to go Preston tomorrow? It’s just so not worth it!”

Jenna doesn’t respond. In fact, I think she might be choking on her pizza. Finally she coughs, swallows, and gasps out, “You’re Boobgirl?” It sounds like she’s asking a question and making a statement at the same time. “Why didn’t you say something? Oh my God!” She puts her pizza down on the chair next to her and starts zigzagpacing around the room. “Here I am going on and on about the play and the set and you’re Boobgirl?
You’re Boobgirl
. I have to sit down.”

“No! That’s wet!” Meredith screeches, stopping Jenna from getting brown paint all over the back of her pants. Which would be hilarious for a second and then just really unfortunate.

“Wait a minute, you didn’t know?” Meredith asks Jenna. “How did you not know?”

“Yes, Meredith. Thank you. Why didn’t I know?” she shrieks, then says in a softer tone, “So … you told Meredith, and not me?”

“No, she found out by accident.”

“How come you didn’t tell me? I mean, I know that we’ve been … Oh my God! This is so huge. I didn’t even know … you were … doing anything with Blake. You … you haven’t told me anything.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me anything about last summer until last week. And you lied about it,” I counter pointedly.

“I … what are you talking about?” Jenna gets up slowly and walks toward the set, hiding herself behind a Rothko green tree.

“I know about Amy!”

“What?” Meredith’s looking at us both now like we’re the walls of some maze she’s stuck inside of. “Who’s Amy?

“Jenna’s cousin, who had sex with the capital
D
douche last summer. Only it wasn’t—”

“Your cousin had sex with Nate Yube too?” Meredith sits down now, taking this in.

“No, no, no.” Jenna paces a full circle around the foliage. “There’s no cousin Amy, I mean, there is, but … never mind.”

“Nate Yube?” I turn to Jenna. “What does she mean … Oh.” Oh! “Well … right … so then it’s true. You were … it was Nate Yube?” I ask, the lightbulb over my head
growing brighter. “Wow. Wow, so is there anyone else you were secretly dating last summer that you decided to not tell me about? Ryan Paulson? Jacob, maybe?”

“See? This is why I don’t tell you these things, because you’re so … judgmental.”

“Judgmental?”

“Yes. You’re … Your tone, you’re judging me.”

“No,” I say, turning toward her, “do whatever, with whoever you want. Date the whole basketball team. I dated Blake, if you can call it that. But when you lie to my face about it—”

“I was going to tell you the truth. I started to a million times, and then … I don’t know, the whole Amy lie just came out. And it was so much easier because then I could tell you what happened, and you’d still … want to be my friend …” She trails off.

“You think … You thought I wouldn’t want to be friends with you anymore … because of that?”

“No. But, I don’t know. Maybe.”

I chew my lip and look down at my slice.

“I thought,” Jenna continues, “I thought that’s why you and Meredith weren’t friends, because she was
that
girl.”

“I’m sorry,” Meredith whispers, who we now realize has relegated herself to a corner of the room, and is just standing against the wall trying to make herself scarce. “I should go.”

“Oh, crap. No,
I’m
sorry,” Jenna says to her. “I didn’t mean it like that, I—”

“It’s okay, I get it.” Meredith nods. “I should get this to
the theater anyway,” she says, picking up the napkin dispenser and walking out of the choir room.

“I should go apologize.” Jenna looks toward the door. “She’s been nothing but nice this week, trying to make amends, and I feel like I should—”

“Did you think … ? I mean, you thought I wouldn’t want to be friends with you anymore … because you had sex with Nate Yube? I can’t … I can’t believe you thought … that’s really what you think of me? Really?”

“No, I just … I don’t know. I’m sorry I lied. I wish I hadn’t and I wish you had told me about Blake because I feel like I could have maybe— Oh my God, that picture. Are you really going to turn yourself in?”

“I have to. I just … I already made the appointment. By one p.m. tomorrow I will officially be Boobgirl.”

Jenna just shakes her head, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, she seems tongue-tied.

“I should get back to the studio,” I say, picking up my uneaten pizza slice and throwing it in the trash, then heading for the door.

“Hey, Izzy,” Jenna calls. I turn and she opens her mouth, and then closes it, and then opens it again and then just sighs and says, “Don’t paint Leroy.”

I shake my head, fighting a smile. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m working on a whole Leroy collage. It’s pictures of him mixed in with garbage and I’m calling it …”

“Kitty Litter!” Jenna finishes for me, which was the phrase on Mrs. Kerns’s sweatshirt today. Only it was a cat garbage
man that looked nothing like Leroy. We laugh, and it feels easy again.

“Good luck tomorrow,” she adds, and smiles.

“Thanks,” I say. I head back to the studio, appreciative of Jenna’s well wishes even though I know good luck won’t make Boobgirl go away.

•   •   •

I step away from my Mom canvas, stretch my arms up over my head, and shake out my wrists, which are starting to feel a little numb. I wonder if it’s something to do with my circulation or if it’s maybe some kind of clot. Then that
“You’re fine!!!”
voice bellows into my head again, and I stop myself from flipping through my mental Symptomaniac archives of illnesses with blood clot side-effects.

I shake my wrists out again and pick up a couple vintage picture frame pieces that Miss S. left lying on the table.
They’re probably just asleep. But what if they aren’t?
I shake them out again. Okay, if I still have wrist tingles in ten minutes, I’ll worry.

Every time something like this happens now, I remember what Marcus said the other day about me
wanting
to be sick. And okay, I know wanting to have a heart attack sounds even more messed up than feeling like you’re having one when you’re not. But if I really was sick like that, then at least Mom could concentrate on something about me that’s potentially fixable and not out of my control, like the way my body looks when I walk. And then she and I could
be sick together; we could be in the hospital room together right now, and then maybe she wouldn’t be so ashamed about it all, and about me.

I squirt some paint from the almost empty bottle of yellow and mix it with some water. I back away from my canvas and see Mom’s perfect snapshot face staring back at me.

I’m sorry I’m not with you right now, but Pam told me to stay here,
I think at her.

Relax, Izzy,
she says.
I’m fine. Get your work done. Why waste your time idling around a dreary hospital with your comatose mother when you have so much to do!

I guess you’re right,
I think at her, and then zigzag the end of the wooden shard across the canvas, cracking her into pieces.

I look at my reflection in the mirror. My keypad is indented in my cheek. I guess sleeping on my cell phone wasn’t a good idea.

I get out of the shower ten minutes later and have two new voicemails. I almost drop the phone hearing Allissa’s voice, but then relax after she says, “Status quo, nothing new to report.” Then Cathy Mason’s voice keeps me company while I walk to school.

“Hello, Izzy. It’s Cathy. Cathy Mason. Hope you’re eating breakfast. Pam said to get you the whole wheat English muffins, so that’s what I got. Yum. So let me get down to business here. I e-mailed you a dance checklist. Check your e-mail. It should be in your e-mail by now. Subject is ‘dance checklist.’ So most of it is self-explanatory. But honestly just peruse it, if you see something you can do, or want to do, do it and let me know. If not, no worries. No stress. I’m going to take care of finalizing and e-mailing ‘Ray Ray the DJ’ the inappropriate song list. And I’ll keep you posted this afternoon on how it goes with Mrs. Preston. But don’t you worry
your head about that smut. Okeydokey. Love and light to your mom, and talk soon-ish.”

I walk through the school parking lot but feel like turning right back around. I keep going, though, repeating my mantra:
Show up, tell the truth, and it’s over. Show up, tell the truth, and it’s over.

By the time I get to my locker, I feel like I’m in one of those dreams again, except not the one where you go to school naked. In fact, I don’t know what I’d be wearing or not wearing when I go to school in this dream; I just know that people would be acting super-duper strange. Like all the girls would be huddled together in little clumps whispering and giggling. And not in their usual clumps, either. These are, like, mixed-up clumps—girls standing around with girls they would ordinarily never stand around with.

I get to my locker and, as I’m pulling out my Spanish book, I see Meredith reflected in the mirror on my door. She’s leaning against her locker with Cara down the hall and also … Jenna? Meredith’s waving her arms around a lot, and Jenna’s writing stuff down in a notebook and nodding. Then Cara and Jenna scatter in different directions. Meredith stays at her locker, though, furiously typing into her phone.

I’m about to head over to see what’s up when I feel someone tap me on the shoulder. I turn around and see Ina standing behind me.

“Hi,” I say.

She grins at me wildly and then gives me a thumbs-up and says through mostly closed lips, “I’m in! Are you in?
Hope you’re in too!” and then slouch-sprints away.

Okay. What?

Then in Spanish when I’m heading to the front of the room to give my oral presentation using the subjunctive, Sara Ronaldson, in her cheerleader uniform, pats me on the back and says “Rock it” like she’s revving me up before a big game or something.

And by the time I book it out of English to Mrs. Preston’s office for our appointment, two more people have given me a grinning thumbs-up, and this freshman girl I don’t even know fist-punches me in the shoulder. What the hell is going on? Why is everyone being so …
nice
to each other?

When I get to the lobby, I see a crowd of girls lined up outside the main office. Oh God, maybe I’m too late. Maybe the dance has already been canceled. But then why would everyone be acting so happy about it?

“Try and stay in order, please, and keep your chatter to a minimum.” Assistant Principal Kippley is walking through the line, handing girls what look like little slips of paper, like at the deli in Farmer Jack’s. When I get closer to him, he hands me one too. It says
60.