When Lightning Strikes (4 page)

"I already called your father," she said. "We're going to Mastriani's for lobster."

"Cool," I said. "Can I invite Ruth?"

My mom made a little waving gesture. "Sure, why not? When have we ever gone out for a family dinner and not brought along Ruth?" She was being sarcastic, but she didn't mean it. My mom likes Ruth. I think. "Michael, perhaps there is someone you'd like to invite?"

The way she said "someone," you could tell my mom, of course, meant a girl. But Mike has only ever liked one girl his entire life, and that's Claire Lippman, who lives two houses over, and Claire Lippman, who is a year younger than Mike and a year older than me, barely even knows Mike is alive, since she is too busy starring in all of our high school's plays and musicals to pay any attention to the geeky senior down the street who spies on her every time she lies out on her carport roof in her bikini, which she does every single day without fail starting as soon as school lets out for the summer. She doesn't go back inside, either, until Labor Day, or unless a cute guy in a car drives up and asks her if she wants to go swimming at one of the quarries.

Claire is either a slave to ultraviolet rays or a total exhibitionist. I haven't figured out which yet.

Anyway, there was no chance my brother was going to ask "someone" to go with us for dinner, since Claire Lippman would be like, "Now, who are you?" if he ever even got up the nerve to talk to her.

"No," Mike said, all embarrassed. He was turning bright red, and it was only me and Mom standing there. Could you imagine if Claire Lippman had actually been present? "There's nobody I want to ask."

"Faint heart never won fair lady," my mom said. My mom, besides frequently talking in a fake French accent, also goes around quoting from Shakespearean plays and Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.

On second thought, maybe she's not so much like other people's moms after all.

"I got it, Mom," Mike said through gritted teeth. "Not tonight, okay?"

My mom shrugged. "Fine. Jessica, if you're going, allow me to assure you you're not going in
that
."
That
was what I normally wear—T-shirt, jeans, and my Pumas. "Go put on the blue calico I made for Easter."

Okay. My mom has this thing about making us matching outfits. I am not even kidding. It was cute when I was six, but at sixteen, let me tell you, there is nothing cute about wearing a homemade dress that matches the one your mother has on. Especially since all the dresses my mom makes are of the Laura Ingalls variety.

You would think, considering the fact that I don't have any problem walking up to football tackles and punching them in the neck, that I wouldn't have any problem telling my mother to quit making me wear outfits that match hers. You would think that.

However, if your father promised you that if you wore them without complaining, he would buy you a Harley when you turned eighteen, you would wear them, too.

I said, "Okay," and started up the back staircase, what used to be the servants' staircase, back at the turn of the century—the nineteenth into the twentieth, I mean—when our house was built. "I'll tell Douglas."

"Oh," I heard my mom say. "Jess?"

But I kept on going. I knew what she was going to say. She was going to say not to bother Douglas. That's what she always says.

Personally, I enjoy bothering Douglas. Also, I asked Mr. Goodhart about it, and he said it's probably good to bother Douglas. So I bother him a lot. What I do is, I go up to the door to his room, which has a big Keep Out sign on it, and I bang on it really hard. Then I yell, "Doug! It's me, Jess!"

Then I just walk in. Douglas isn't allowed to have a lock on his door anymore. Not since my dad and I had to knock it down last Christmas.

Douglas was lying on his bed reading a comic book. It had this Viking on the cover, with a girl with big boobs. All Douglas ever does, since he came home from college, is read comic books. And in all the comic books, the girls have big boobs.

"Guess what," I said, sitting down on Douglas's bed.

"Mikey got into Harvard," Douglas said. "I already heard. I expect the whole neighborhood heard."

"Nope," I said. "That's not it."

He looked at me over the top of the comic book. "I know Mom thinks she's taking us all to Mastriani's to celebrate, but I'm not going. She's going to have to learn to live with disappointment. And you better keep your hands off me. I'm not going, no matter how hard you hit me. And this time, I might just hit you back."

"That's not it, either," I said. "And I wasn't planning on hitting you. Much."

"What, then?"

I shrugged. "I got hit by lightning."

Douglas turned back to his comic book. "Right. Shut the door on your way out."

"I'm serious," I said. "Ruth and I were waiting out the storm, underneath the bleachers at school—"

"Those bleachers," Douglas said, looking at me again, "are made of metal."

"Right. And I was leaning on one of the supports, and lightning struck the bleachers, and next thing I knew, I was standing like five feet from where I'd been, and I was tingly all over, and—"

"Bullshit," Douglas said. But he sat up. "That is bullshit, Jess."

"I swear it's true. You can ask Ruth."

"You did not get hit by lightning," Douglas said. "You would not be sitting here, talking to me, if you'd been hit by lightning."

"Douglas, I'm telling you, I was."

"Where's the entrance wound, then?" Douglas reached out and grabbed my right hand and flipped it over. "The exit wound? The bolt would have entered you one place, and left you in another. And there would be a star-shaped scar in both places."

As he'd been talking, he'd let go of my right hand and grabbed my left, and flipped it over, too. But there wasn't a star-shaped scar on either of my palms.

"See." He flung my hand away in disgust. Douglas knows about stuff like this because all he ever does is read, and sometimes he reads actual books, as opposed to comics. "You weren't struck by lightning. Don't go around saying stuff like that, Jess. You know, lightning kills hundreds of people a year. If you had been struck, you'd definitely be in a coma, at the very least."

He lay back down and picked his comic book up again. "Now, get out of here," he said, giving me a shove with his foot. "I'm busy."

I sighed and got up. "Okay," I said. "But you're going to be sorry. Mom says we're having lobster."

"We had lobster the night I got my acceptance letter to State," Douglas said to his comic book, "and look how that turned out."

I reached out and grabbed his big toe and squeezed it. "Okay, big baby. Just lie here like a big lump, with Captain Lars and his big-busted beauty, Helga."

Douglas looked at me from behind the comic book. "Her name," he said, "happens to be Oona."

Then he ducked back behind the comic book.

I left his room, closing the door behind me, and went up the stairs to my own room.

I'm not too worried about Douglas. I know I probably should be, but I'm not. I'm probably the only person in my family who isn't, except for maybe my dad. Douglas has always been weird. My whole life, it seems, I've been beating up people who called my older brother a retard, or a spaz, or a weirdo. I don't know why, but even though most of the time I'm way smaller than them, I feel obligated to punch them in the face for dissing my brother.

This freaks out my mom, but not my dad. My dad just taught me how to punch more effectively, by advising me to keep my thumb on the outside of my fist. When I was very little, I used to do it with my thumb on the inside. Consequently, I sprained it several times. My thumb, I mean.

Douglas used to get mad when I'd get into fights because of him, so after a while I learned to do it behind his back. And I guess it would be humiliating, having one's little sister constantly going around, beating up people on your behalf. But I don't think that contributed to what happened to Douglas later. You know, this past Christmas, when he tried to kill himself. I mean, you don't try to kill yourself because your little sister used to get into fights over you in junior high, or whatever.

Do you?

Anyway, once I was in my room, I called Ruth and invited her out to dinner with us. I knew that, even though today was the first day of what would be another one of her diets, thanks to Jeff Day, Ruth wasn't going to be able to resist. Not only was it lobster, but it was Michael. Ruth tries to pretend she doesn't like Michael, but between you and me, the girl has it bad for him. Don't ask me why. He's no prize, believe me.

And just like I knew she would, she said, "Well, I really shouldn't. Lobster is so fattening. Well, not the lobster, really, but all the butter … but I guess it
is
a special occasion, what with Michael getting into Harvard and all. I guess I should go. Okay, I'll go."

"Come over," I said. "Give me ten minutes, though. I gotta change."

"Wait a minute." Ruth's voice grew suspicious. "Your mom's not making you wear one of those gay outfits, is she?" When I remained silent, Ruth said, "You know, I don't think a motorcycle is enough. Your dad should buy you a damned Maserati for what that woman puts you through."

Ruth thinks my mom is suffering from the oppression of a patriarchal society, consisting mainly of my dad. But that isn't true. My dad would totally love it if my mom got a job. It would keep her from obsessing about Douglas. Now that he's home again, though, she says she can't even think of working, since who would watch him and make sure he stays away from the razor blades the next time?

I told Ruth that, yes, I had to wear one of my mom's gay outfits, even though
gay
is the wrong word for it, because all the gay people I know are really cool and would sooner drop dead than wear something made out of gingham, except on Halloween. But whatever. I hung up and started undressing. I pretty much live in jeans and a T-shirt. In the winter, I'll put on a sweater, but seriously, I don't dress up for school like some girls. Sometimes I don't even shower in the morning. I mean, what is the point? There is no one there I want to impress.

Well, at least there
hadn't
been, until Rob Wilkins asked me if I wanted a ride home. Now
that
might be worth blow-drying for.

Only, of course, I couldn't let Ruth know. And she totally would, the minute she swung by to pick me up. She'd be like, "Mousse much?"

Although she'd probably approve—at least until she found out who I was moussing for.

Anyway, while I was undressing, it occurred to me that Douglas might have been wrong. There might have been a star-shaped scar somewhere else on my body, not necessarily on my palms. Say on the bottoms of my feet, or something.

But when I checked, my soles were just pink as usual. No scars. Not even any lint between my toes.

It was weird about Rob Wilkins asking me if I wanted a ride like that. I mean, I hardly knew the guy. We had detention together, and that was it. Well, that isn't strictly true. Last semester, he'd been in Health with me. You know, Coach Albright's class. You're supposed to take it as a sophomore, but for some reason—okay, probably because he'd flunked first time around—Rob had been taking it his senior year. He'd sat behind me. He was pretty quiet most of the time. Occasionally he'd have a conversation with the guy behind him, who was also a Grit. I'd eavesdrop, of course. These conversations generally revolved around bands—Grit bands, mostly heavy metal, or country—or cars.

Sometimes I couldn't help butting in. Like once I said that I really didn't think Steven Tyler was a musical genius. The artist formerly known as Prince was the only living musician I'd call a genius. And then, for about a week, we kind of dissected their lyrics, and Rob eventually agreed with me.

And once Rob was talking about motorcycles, and the guy behind him was going on and on about Kawasaki, and I was just like, "What are you, high? American, all the way," and Rob gave me a high five.

Coach Albright hadn't exactly been there in the classroom a lot. Football emergencies kept coming up, requiring him to leave us to work on the questions at the end of the chapter. You know the kind of questions. The spleen performs what function? The adult male generates how many sperm each day? The kind of questions you instantly forget the answers to as soon as you've passed the class.

I decided that, for school tomorrow, I might wear this Gap shirt Douglas had given me for Christmas. I'd never worn it to school before, because it had a scoop neck. Not exactly the kind of thing you want to wear while taking down a quarterback.

But, hey, if that's what it took to bag a ride on that Indian …

It wasn't until I was buttoning up my hideous lilac-colored Laura Ingalls dress that I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and saw it: this fist-sized red mark in the middle of my chest. It didn't hurt or anything. It was like I'd suddenly broken out in hives or something. Like someone had slipped a bad clam into my shells and sauce.

From the center of the red mark radiated these tendrils. In fact, looking at it in the mirror, I saw that the whole thing was …

Well, kind of shaped like a star.

C H A P T E R
4

R
uth said, "I'm telling you, I don't see another one. There's just the one."

"Are you sure?"

I was standing, stark naked, in the middle of my bedroom. It was after dinner, which I guess had been delicious. I wouldn't know, having been unable to taste anything, what with my excitement over having been really and truly struck by lightning. The star-shaped burn proved it. It was the entrance wound Douglas had been talking about.

The only problem was, I couldn't find an exit wound. I'd made Ruth come over after dinner and help me look. Only she wasn't being much help.

"I had no idea," she said from my bed, where she was lying, flipping through a copy of
Critical Theory Since Plato
—you know, just a little light reading—she'd brought over, "you'd actually grown breasts. I mean it. You aren't an A cup anymore. When did that happen?"

"Ruth," I said, "what about on my back? Do you see one on my back?"