Where the Staircase Ends (10 page)

And I lied from time to time, and I had improper thoughts and what not, although anyone would after seeing Justin Cobb. If that kind of thing sent people to the boiling flames of Hades, then the entire female population of Morris High would have been right there next to me walking up the stairs to hell.

But mostly what I thought about was Alana James. I hadn’t forgiven myself for that one, so how could I expect God to?

Alana ranked right up there with Sunny on the list of things I wanted to forget, but her ghost kept popping up in front of me on the stairs, forcing the memories forward no matter how hard I tried to push them back. And I wanted to push them back more than anything—they were the kind of memories that deserved body bags and cement feet.

This time she stood smack in the middle of the steps, making it nearly impossible for me to pretend she wasn’t there. Her eyes were somber, boring into me.

Remember
, her eyes said.
Remember what you did to me
.

I opened my mouth to shout her away, but nothing came out. The sight of her unsmiling face knocked the wind out of me, replacing the air in my lungs with the thick feeling of regret.

Her chubby cheeks glistened in the afternoon light, but she didn’t bother to reach a hand up and wipe the wetness away. Instead she stood there watching me, still as a statue, her dark hair tangling around her in a gusting wind I could not feel. Her hands clutched a birthday present, wrapped carefully in pink-and-purple lined paper and topped with a glittering silver bow.

She held it out to me. My guilty hands reached for it, and I felt the slickness of the paper beneath my fingers. It was clear a lot of time had gone into wrapping the gift—the stripes were lined up perfectly so that you had to lean in close to find where the paper had been cut, and the tape was trimmed into tiny, barely visible strips.

I knew what it was Alana wanted to show me. I knew what she wanted me to relive, and no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I knew she would make me remember. The present was an unwanted souvenir.

History was my least favorite subject but my most favorite class, because Sunny was always in full entertainment mode. We spent class time passing notes back and forth with crazy games and drawings scrawled across them. Sunny’s favorite class-time activity was hangman. I’d show up to history and a note would be sitting on my desk, folded meticulously into one of Sunny’s signature origami flowers or cranes. I’d keep it hidden under my desk so Mr. Montgomery couldn’t see what I was doing. Not that it mattered; between his coke-bottle glasses and general lack of interest in his classroom we were usually in the clear. She loved to design lengthy, complex puzzles that would take most of class to work through. The notebook page would be filled with blank spaces, and I’d pass my guesses back and forth to her while we fought to cover up our laughter. Alana James was one of her favorite puzzle subjects.

Like this one:

_ _ _ _ _ / _ _ / _ / _ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ / _ / _ _ _ _ _ _.

Which meant: Alana is a butt monkey who belongs in a circus.

Or this one:

_ _ _ _ _/ _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ ?

/ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _.

Which meant: What’s better than Alana James? Anything. Even cancer.

They were a little juvenile, but that was what made them so funny. Plus they made the droning sound of Mr. Montgomery’s voice more palatable. If I had to sit through that class without Sunny’s notes to get me through the hour-and-fifteen-minute period, I would have impaled myself on Mr. Montgomery’s laser pointer, he was that boring.

One day I showed up to class as usual and found one of Sunny’s paper cranes waiting for me. I grinned the way I always did when I saw a note sitting on my desk and raised my eyebrow when I saw Sunny bouncing up and down in her chair, biting her lip to suppress a smirk.

I took my time opening it, dramatizing each movement because it drove her crazy. She almost fell out of her seat trying to get me to open it faster, her red head bobbing up and down with excitement as she motioned for me to hurry up.

This particular day she drew a picture, the detailed shading a dead giveaway that she’d worked on it all afternoon. I smoothed the paper against my desk to get a better look while Sunny leaned over my shoulder to admire her handiwork. The grin on her face was enormous.

I knew immediately that it was a drawing of Alana, not because Sunny was an especially good artist, but because I’d seen enough of her artwork to know what her Alanas looked like. This Alana had her back to me and her face turned to the side. The main focus was on her naked butt, which Sunny exaggerated so that it took up half of the page. She’d drawn dimples and pockmarks all over the Alana’s enormous butt cheeks, with arrows pointing to each dimple and the word “seats” scribbled next to the arrows. At the bottom of the page there was a row of tiny stick people gathering at the Alana’s feet, with a little stand labeled “ticket booth” and “$2 per ride” next to the Alana’s gigantic big toe. Above the whole thing were the words:

Ride Inside Alana James’s Butt Dimples!

Feel Them Jiggle and Shake!

The Scariest Ride in the History of Rides!

Sunny clapped her hand over her mouth after I’d taken it all in, her face red from holding in her laughter. Usually I was right there with her, but something was off that day. Something about the picture made me feel a little sick, like she’d gone too far even though I’d seen Sunny draw crueler pictures and use meaner words to describe people.

I should have told her I thought it was mean. I should have said something to let her know I didn’t think it was very funny. But I didn’t. Instead I grabbed my pencil and drew a stick person into one of the dimples, passing it back to Sunny with a note reading, “It’s more realistic if you show someone riding inside one of her butt dimples.”

This made Sunny really happy, and she started to draw more stick people, all of them with wide open mouths, screaming in terror as they bumped and jiggled inside the Alana’s terrifying dimples.

Sunny wanted her artwork to get the attention it deserved, so she passed it to Mark Schroen who passed it to Tracey Allen who passed it to the girl with braces whose name I could never remember. I turned around and faced forward, pretending to be engrossed in the list of historical dates Mr. Montgomery scrawled on the board so I wouldn’t have to hear the snickers and titters filling the classroom. When the picture made its way back to my desk, I glanced at it long enough to see there were smudges and finger prints around the butt dimples, the paper sticky from all the fingers touching it. Sunny snatched it from my hands and sent it around the other side of the classroom before I could protest.

Sometime during lunch I noticed Alana occupying her usual spot in the cafeteria, sitting on the floor away from the other tables with her books spread out around her. She held a piece of notebook paper in her shaking hands, and even through the dim florescent lighting of the cafeteria I could make out the words “Butt Dimples” from where the black ink had bled through to the other side of the page.

I didn’t want to look at her face. I didn’t want to see her red, swollen eyes or the way her bottom lip trembled. I didn’t want to see the way she kept staring at the paper, like she was memorizing the details or looking into a mirror to inspect her makeup. But I couldn’t stop. It was like the stairs; all I could do was face forward. It made me wonder how many other notes and pictures had made it into Alana’s hands throughout the years, and how many times she sat quietly in the corner of the cafeteria examining our creations like she was looking at her reflection.

But the worst prank we played was last year, when Sunny gave Alana an invitation to her birthday party with the wrong address printed on it.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry, you know, for teasing you so much,” Sunny said when she handed the cream-and-pink swirled envelope to Alana. “Would you like to come to my birthday party on Saturday?”

Alana hesitated for a second before taking the invitation from Sunny, then opened the envelope slowly, as though she expected something to jump out and bite her. She flicked her eyes over to me, looking for reassurance.

Sunny glared at me expectantly, but my lips were suddenly thick and useless. I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I couldn’t even look Alana in the eye.

“It’s going to be fun, isn’t it Taylor?” Sunny prodded, then she mouthed “What is your problem?” at me while Alana waited for my answer.

I could’ve said nothing, and maybe Alana would have understood from my silence that it was a prank. Or I could have grown a pair and told Alana the truth. But I didn’t want to fight with Sunny. It was easier to play along.

“Sunny’s parties are legendary,” I finally offered.

It wasn’t exactly what Sunny had asked me to say, but she stopped giving me the stink eye over Alana’s shoulder, so it must have satisfied her.

“Seriously, you should come.” Sunny added.

My heart squeezed when I saw Alana smile and take in the swirly pink font and glittering picture of a champagne glass printed on the front of the invitation. I felt sick.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her words soft and fragile. “I’ll ask my mom if I can come.”

I’ve had my own idea of what happened the day of Sunny’s birthday party playing inside my head.

In my version, Alana took the invitation home and ripped it into tiny pieces, tossing them into the air like confetti. She stomped the flakes of paper into her bedroom carpet, taking care to twist her shoe over the top of each piece while picturing Sunny’s face. She never gave the party another thought.

It’s what I wished happened, but my heart and the Alana-ghost who gave me the pristinely wrapped gift told me that’s not what happened at all. Her eyes bored into mine, and even though I wanted to tear my eyes from hers, I couldn’t.

She blinked once, purposefully, and then suddenly the day spun through my head the way Alana experienced it, the way it really happened.

At first, Alana’s mom said no, rightfully suspicious of Sunny’s sudden niceness given the years she’d spent ridiculing Alana.

“Why would you even want to give that horrible girl the time of day, Alana?”

“It’s different this time,” Alana promised. “Please, please, please … ” she begged over and over again, tears spilling down her cheeks until her mother finally agreed to let her go to the party.

They went shopping after school the next day, and Alana spent hours at the mall pouring through racks of clothing and accessories in search of the perfect gift and the perfect outfit that would finally let her fit in with Sunny’s perfect friends. She settled on a Coach wristlet, and even though it was more than her mom thought she should spend and it meant depleting her allowance savings, it was too perfect to pass up.

The night before the party Alana barely slept, tossing and turning as the butterflies flitted around inside her stomach, her mind spinning with possibilities. The meticulously wrapped present was perched on her nightstand, a glittering reminder of the exciting day ahead.

In the morning she woke up early, taking care to do her makeup and ensure that every pleat of her dress was perfectly placed. Once she was flawlessly coiffed, she climbed into the car and readied herself for the afternoon at Sunny’s house.

“Stop here,” she said to her mother when they were a few houses down from the address on the invitation. Her mother frowned at her daughter’s attempt to dispel embarrassment, but she agreed, driving off after Alana grabbed the shining package and adjusted her new party dress.

The smile on Alana’s face was enormous, slipping only slightly when she saw the “for sale” sign sticking out from the front yard of Sunny’s claimed address.
Maybe they’re getting ready to move
, she told herself. Even after she took in the curtain-less windows and empty living room it didn’t register that the address was fake. It was only after she rang the bell three times and heard the chime echo inside the empty house that she realized she’d been tricked. There was no party, no Sunny, and no one to appreciate the carefully selected gift that Alana was so sure Sunny would have loved.

The long walk home was blurred with tears, but Alana was too embarrassed to call her mom. She walked until her new shoes rubbed blisters onto her feet, the pain barely comparable to the ache of disappointment.

The Alana-ghost didn’t move, her sad eyes watching me with a heaviness I didn’t want to understand. She reached forward and took Sunny’s present back from me, her hands clinging to it like it was a buoy that could save her from our cruelty.

All this time I’d told myself she stayed home, that she knew it was a trick. But as I watched the shadow from my past, I knew with certainty that she went to the empty house. Maybe she doubted Sunny when she first gave her the invitation, but it was my words, or lack of words, that reassured her. All because I was too much of a coward to stand up to my friend.

There was a song lyric from a band that Justin liked: “Words don’t sink, they swim.”
I used to dream about those lyrics; I dreamt about a sea of glittering invitations, paper cranes and origami flowers with pictures and hangman puzzles scribbled across them. Alana James was in the center of them all, trying to bury her head under the massive pile of notes so she didn’t have to look at them. But every time she tried to drag herself under she was pulled back to the surface of the paper sea, the words swimming all around her.

The Alana-ghost faded into the stairs, leaving me with one thought: maybe the stairs didn’t need to lead me to hell, because I was already there.

BLIND MAN’S BAR

Competition does funny things to people. Like my mom at Christmas. Every year our neighborhood held a competition, giving out awards to the houses with the best decorations. Pretty much every participating house got some kind of award, like “Best Use of Reindeer,” or “Best Paper Luminary Display.” But only one house got the coveted “Holiday House” award for best overall display. Every year my mom turned into a crazy person obsessing over that stupid prize, which incidentally was nothing more than a metal sign stuck in the winner’s front yard a few weeks before Christmas.