The Symptoms of My Insanity (6 page)

“Of course it is,” I confirm, mustering a nonchalant shrug. “But stop taking your mom’s menopause meds,” I faux scold her, wagging my index finger before we part for opposite ends of the hall.

On my way to Spanish, I try not to focus on the fact that my best friend thinks I’m going to end up in a straitjacket. Instead I wonder about Jenna’s semi-healthy thyroid glands, and my own possibly unhealthy ones, and then all of Blake’s glands, which are probably perfect, and how no, I definitely don’t want to boycott dates for the dance.

•   •   •

My ears are completely immune to the speed Spanish firing out of Señora Claudia’s mouth.

I’m thinking about Blake, his perfect glands, and how maybe it’s a real DIA date this Saturday, and how maybe that real DIA date will lead to a real dance date. Then I can convince Jenna to go with Nate, and we can all go together. Because I know Jenna wants to go to the dance with a date and not just as a PTO mom helper. This whole date boycott thing is just another one of her random tirades.

“
Señorita Isabella? Hola? Señorita Isabella?
”

I wish I wasn’t hearing Señora Claudia calling me up to the front of the room to talk about what I did yesterday “
en español
,” but it’s kind of hard to ignore a woman in a giant sombrero shouting your name.
Less than two hours until I’m in the studio.

“
Hola. Me llamo Isabella. Y ayer …”
I try. Great. There’s nothing I did yesterday that I know how to say in Spanish. “
Ayer … ayer … miré la television
.”

“
Bueno, Isabella
,” Señora says, and I start to head back to my seat, happy that at least the buttons on my suggestive shirt didn’t pop open in front of the whole class. But Señora soon stops me, saying, “
Y qué más?
”

What else? What do you mean what else? Um … okay, Señora.
Como se dice,
I was up all night worried about play practice, my pathetic art portfolio, and breast cancer,
en español
?

“
Y qué más?
” Señora Claudia is repeating. “
Y qué más?
”

“Um …
nada
,” I reply. Señora is not happy with that
response and says, “
Nada
?” and then starts blasting me with more speed Spanish:

“
Trabajodelaescuela? Comerlacena? Ustedlimpiasusitio? Elhablarenetelé fonoconsusamigos?”

What? What? What about my friends? And then Jacob Ullman whispers really loudly, “
Miré la television con mis knockers. Mi encanta mis knockers, son grandes.
” His freckled cheeks lift in approval as people start snickering, and I know Señora hears them, because she says, “Okay.
Bueno
,” and gestures for me to go back to my seat.

I slide back against my chair, pretending not to hear Jacob’s guttural, seagull-like laugh, and the boys whispering “knockers” in bad Spanish accents, and wishing I was small enough to fit inside that open pocket of my backpack.

See Mom, I’m wearing my new bra, they’re supported properly, but it doesn’t change anything.

Why did I think for a second that Saturday was going to be an actual date with Blake? It’s obvious that guys are interested in me for a good laugh and that’s all. Jenna’s right, Blake just asked me to go with him because his mom made him. She probably said, “Blake you should invite a real art student, somebody up for the Italy scholarship. Wouldn’t that be nice for Jillian?” Yup, I’m just an art buddy for his sister.

Señora announces that we’ll be spending the rest of class working in pairs on our cultural research projects. Meredith Brightwell’s my partner—well, my silent partner, since I do most of the work—and we’re doing our project on this
Colombian artist named Botero and his awesome, colorful paintings of people who are … well, really fat.

“Hey, Izzy.”

Meredith’s dragging her desk over to mine carefully, as if not to chip her nails, which are done in that French style Allissa tried to do on me once. My nails ended up looking like I was attacked by a bottle of Wite-Out. Meredith’s nails look pretty, though, and I see she’s still wearing that tiny gold ruby ring she got for her thirteenth birthday. I was always amazed how the red in the gem was almost the exact same strawberry shade as her hair. I wonder if she’s grossed out by the paint manicure I always have on my nails.

“Hey,” I say back. And then we flip through our Botero books in silence.

I’m not super-sad about not being friends with Meredith anymore. We just kind of naturally grew apart. It’s strange seeing someone every day though who used to be your best friend. I met Meredith in first grade, when I was desperate to try out this new prank kit I got for my birthday with fake vomit and snot. So I sat down next to her and faked a huge sneeze, making tons of gooey prop snot appear in my hands. She started crying so hard, she had to leave class. When my mom made me go over to her house that night to apologize, I showed her how to fake vomit, ended up sleeping over, and we were basically inseparable until about seventh grade. That’s when she made lots of new friends who didn’t seem to want to include me in anything. Also, that’s when I got
more interested in art than whose lunch table at I sat at.

“You should tell Jacob to just shut the hell up. That’s what I do.”

Meredith’s smiling at me in such an unusually friend-like way, it impedes my motor skills; I drop my Botero book to the floor.

“Don’t let them get to you, they’re such idiots,” she adds.

Okay, why is Meredith Brightwell half whispering and smiling at me? Where’s the
Twilight Zone
music? Where’s the celebrity host and the camera crew to tell me I’m being pranked?

I manage to nod back at her and pick up my book. Is she buttering me up to ask me to officially do this whole Botero project by myself? I ignore her and go back to my research. But just as I’m learning that Botero’s subjects aren’t of “fat” people but rather “inflated” people, Meredith half whispers to me again, “So, what are you up to this weekend? You doing anything fun?”

Okay, seriously?

“Um … I don’t know. Are you … up to anything fun?” I full whisper, trying to avoid the penalizing shade of Señora Claudia’s giant sombrero, since we’re only supposed to be speaking in Spanish.

“I don’t know … maybe.”

Wow. The last conversation I had with Meredith was the other time we were paired up in Spanish. It was for an oral presentation using food vocabulary:

Me gusta los bacalaos. Y tú?

No me gusta los bacalaos. Me gusta los cacahuetes.

Which I think roughly translated to:

I like cod fish. And you?

I don’t like cod fish. I like peanuts.

I realize now it was my turn to talk and I didn’t. So I just go back to studying Botero’s happy, inflated families.

One hour and twenty-five minutes, and then I can go from looking at pictures of paintings to actually painting them. Yes, I am definitely going to paint something new today. I never had a moment to really sit down and figure out what I wanted to do for my portfolio this past summer, so I ended up doing all these drawings and paintings of my cat, Leroy. My cat! It’s beyond embarrassing. I mean yes, Miss S. asked me to go next door and talk about one of my cat paintings to the 101 class last month, and she went on and on about how I realistically captured the movement in my lines and how great it was and all. But the thing is, Miss S. is always talking about how art is supposed to say something about you, and about how you know you’re doing the right work when you’re “whispering your secrets to other people” and stuff. I mean, my cat? No, I can’t use anything I have in my Italy portfolio. I can’t have a
cat
theme.

Unghhh, and now today I’m losing a whole afternoon of studio time, and a night of studio time too, because of Jenna’s musical and cleaning out the attic for Mom. So I really need to use my studio time today.

“Actually, Izzy,” Meredith half whisper-smiles to me,
“I’m thinking of going to this party this weekend. In Ann Arbor.”

“What?”

Meredith drops her book onto her lap and blinks her gold-shadowed eyelids at me. “There’s this party on Saturday night that a bunch of us might go to that Cara’s older sister Becca is going to in Ann Arbor. It’s at her boyfriend Phil’s house.”

“Oh. Um. Cool.”

“Yeah. And Becca said invite whoever,” she continues, actually twirling a strawberry strand of hair, “so do you wanna go?”

“What?”

“To the party? You wanna go?”

“Um … well … wait what?”

“And Jenna’s invited too. See, the thing is that—”

“Psst, Izzy!”

We both turn toward the door. Oh, no. Pam Rubinstein is standing in the doorway. Meredith picks her book back up and mouths to me, “We’ll talk later.”

We’ll talk later? Since when do we talk ever?

“Psst, Izzy!”

Pam’s still standing in the doorway, now waving and smiling at me. She does administrative stuff in the main office, but she’s also Mom’s best friend, so she always finds a way for our paths to cross. Once she came up to me and Jenna in the cafeteria and said, really loudly, “Izzy, are you eating? What are you eating? Go grab a donut, or a quiche. There
are no carbs on your tray?” Then she turned to the table of boys next to us and said, “Will you guys tell my Izzy to eat a slice of pizza please, oh my God, she’s so gaunt!” And Pam grew up in New York, so what we heard was, “Oh my Gawd, she’s so gawnt!”

I was called “Gawnt Girl” for at least a month after. But that wasn’t nearly as humiliating as the time she called me a “Botticelli babe” in front of a bunch of senior guys. And hello? Botticelli didn’t paint gaunt women, so Pam really needs to make up her mind.

“
Hola
.” Pam waddles over to Señora Claudia, whose pupils dilate upon hearing Pam’s East Coast Spanish accent. “
Lo siyento, necessito hablwar con Izzy. Tiyene correo
,” she delightedly gets out, holding up a small postal box. I immediately know what’s inside.

Pam shuffles over to my desk. “Izzy,” she whispers, “is this one of the birthday presents for your mom?” She shakes the box slightly with a grin.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you.” I forgot I’d had my latest two purchases sent to Pam to avoid Mom finding out what I’d ordered, or how much I’d spent.

Pam hands me my package, then fishes around in the pockets of her sweater jacket and produces a small object wrapped in a napkin that hits my desk with a thud. “That’s a blueberry scone for you,” she whispers loudly. “It’s a little on the dry side, but not so terrible. Save it for later, keep your blood sugar up.”

I notice that Meredith is smiling down at her Botero
book. “Thanks,” I say to Pam, putting the scone in the side pocket of my backpack, reserved for Pam’s food presents. Pam looks at me and then at my package, which I’ve placed on the floor next to my desk, her eyes swinging back and forth like that scary kitty cat clock on her kitchen wall.

“So what did you get her? What is it?” she finally says.

“Oh … um … well … I’m in the middle of Spanish—”

“You know what?” Pam thankfully interrupts with another loud whisper. “I was thinking of ordering her some organic ginger.”

“Ginger?”

“You buy it online. It’s from this farm. I forget where. It’s a ginger of the month club! Fresh farmed ginger every month.”

“Oh. Wow.” I glance over at Meredith, who’s now listening to this exchange with confused interest. “I didn’t know Mom was … that she even liked ginger—”

“Well, you know those ginger candies she’s always eating aren’t real ginger,” Pam responds, as if that explains everything, “but real ginger is good for nausea and healthy digestion. That’s what I read. Maybe you can ask Mr. Bayer in bio if it’s true, he’s so smart. He almost went to medical school, you know. Anyway, since she’s been dealing with it so badly lately, poor thing, I thought raw ginger! Perfect, right? She can make tea, or just chew on it when she’s not feeling so hot …”

I look sharply at Pam. “Oh. Yeah … right. Wait, so—”
but before I can ask more about Mom, Señora is shouting, “
Adios, hasta mañana!
” Pam waves good-bye, and me, my postal box, my stale scone, and my knockers
grandes
head off to try and find a casual way to ask Mr. Bayer about the effects of raw ginger on nausea.

I have to stop sneaking out of class to go to the art room. It’s not right. Even if I do have a nineteen-year-old substitute who basically takes a nap while I’m writing out the Krebs cycle. Even if it does mean I get the art room all to myself.

I practically skip to the drying rack to grab one of the canvases I primed last week. After throwing on my smock, I take a deep breath. I love the way it smells in here, like paint and glue and dust and old clothes.

I squirt out some red paint and some blue and lots of white, then dip some paper towel in a little water and use it to blend the colors across the canvas. I didn’t intend to ditch the last half of bio, but when I was writing out my Krebs cycle and trying to remember what happens when plant cells are respiring, I kept thinking about human cells respiring and about glucose and our conversion systems, and what a big deal it was last summer when my mom’s system wasn’t … converting. But it is now. So I decided Pam was definitely overreacting about Mom being so nauseated that she needs constant organic ginger. Still, I couldn’t stop
thinking about my cells, and my mom’s cells, and then it was like a furnace turned on inside me and I started to sweat. I didn’t even try to wake up Mr. Nineteen-Year-Old Substitute to tell him I needed a bathroom pass. I just left. And came here.

I’m feeling better as I add more red to the top left corner and swirl it around with my towel. I glance at the canvas and blink my eyes because all I see is a mental snapshot of Meredith dealing me a totally out-of-left-field party invite. What, does she want to be best friends again all of a sudden? More red. I need lots more red. And I can’t go to that party anyway. I mean, it’s not like I
can’t
go. It’s not like I should feel guilty for going out to a party now that Mom’s basically better. And Jenna would probably be excited; happy I’d finally go with her to an Ann Arbor party. I need to make more purple.