I stood in the wicked circle, watching the ponytail swing back and forth like a pendulum. I counted the seconds until I could wrap my hands around it.
But what good would it do me to confront Alex here? She had a group of friends to back her up, to defend and protect her. What point was there in me yelling at her when they’d all burst out laughing as soon as I stomped away? And where would I sleep tonight if not at Alex’s apartment?
Tonight was not the night for teaching a lesson. Alex and I had been friends for a long time, and the least I could do was give her a chance to apologize when she was sober again. I owed her that much—no, I didn’t owe her anything—but I would grant her another chance.
She and her ponytail would remain attached. For now.
But I needed to be more careful about people. I was too quick to trust. My mom had fooled me and Alex had too. I had to quit letting people walk all over me. Quit letting people like Phil call the shots.
Why couldn’t I go see him the same way I had come to see Alex? Soon I would get the interview money. I didn’t have to wait for him to invite me. Phil was shy and would never take charge. I could catch a bus so I didn’t have to drive across the country on my own. I sent him a text.
Me: I wish we were together tonight
I made a resolution among the group of friends. Sometime in the next year, I would visit my boyfriend and get my first kiss. I was long past overdue in finding out who was on the other side of the screen.
When Moose Shirt went to the bar to buy more drinks, Alex finally made eye contact with me across the circle. She blew me a kiss, oblivious or cruel or maybe both. I smiled at her, teeth exposed. About time I let her see the ugly side of Rose Gold.
7
Patty
I spend my first night out of prison tossing and turning in the twin bed. The eyes on the ceiling watch me. I listen to Adam’s piercing screams in the next room. Whenever he stops crying, I’m convinced I hear the snap of a belt outside my bedroom door. I plug my ears and chide myself for being such a wimp. During my five years in prison, I snored soundly every night, give or take the first month of adjusting. Even after some of the women found out what I’d been convicted of, I had never lain awake all night, never seriously worried for my safety.
I like to think my time in prison was made easier not because of my size, but my charisma. The key—inside prison and out—is befriending the people in power. Once I had the guards and the warden in my pocket, the inmates fell in line too. They began to see me as more than an obnoxiously jolly doppelgänger of the Kool-Aid Man. I became useful.
A new round of wailing interrupts my six a.m. musings. I forgot how shrill babies can be.
My parents’ bedroom door opens. I cannot hear Rose Gold’s footsteps over the shrieks of the baby. The cries move farther away—the kitchen or the living room. I swing my legs off the mattress and sit up. I need to get away from these watery blue eyes.
I make my way to the living room, where Rose Gold is giving Adam a bottle.
“Good morning,” I say.
I notice the door to the basement is open. I rush to close it.
She glances at me, hair sticking up in several directions. The dark rings under her eyes are pronounced. “Morning. Did he keep you up all night? I’m sorry.”
Those two little words ring in my ears. So she can apologize for her crying son, but not for sending me to prison.
“Slept like the dead,” I chirp. “Have you eaten? I’ll make us eggs.”
In the kitchen I turn on the radio. When I realize “Every Breath You Take” by the Police is playing, I turn up the volume and smile. I pull a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator.
Rose Gold sets the empty baby bottle on the kitchen table. She begins to burp Adam. “That’s okay. I’ll have a granola bar or toast.”
“Toast? That’s not enough to fill you up.”
Rose Gold shrugs. “I’m not a big breakfast person.” She keeps patting the baby.
“Have at least one egg,” I protest. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised she’s not a huge fan of my cooking.
“Not everybody eats as much as you,” she snaps.
Wounded, I shut my mouth. I put two pieces of bread in the toaster and pull three eggs from the carton. A blue flame crackles when I turn on the burner.
Even as a girl, I was on the cusp of too big. My body was square before it turned round, and I winced at the words people used to describe it. Stocky. Big-boned. Thick. They were all unsubtle ways of reminding me I looked more like a boy than a girl. I took up too much space. I finished every brown-bagged lunch. Jimmy Barnett used to joke, “You eat the napkin too?” But no one bullied me over my weight. Their matter-of-factness was almost worse. Everyone knew Patty was the burly one, like they knew the Earth circled the sun and never to order the chili dog from Dirty Doug’s unless you were ready to butt-trumpet your way through the following twenty-four hours.
Imagine showing up to the Dress Barn at ten years old and being told dresses weren’t “for you.” “None of them?” I managed to squeak. I glanced at the hundreds of styles in every color and shape. The saleswoman’s grimace was answer enough. It’s hard to be a little girl when you’re not little.
I used to have dreams of getting in shape, of going on some bonkers pepper juice diet and hiring a trainer to shriek at me on the treadmill like they do in those reality shows. But Oreos and Diet Coke were easier to scarf down between Rose Gold’s feedings and schooling and doctors’ visits. Not until prison did I realize how powerful I am, how useful my body can be. The more space I take up, the less people push me around.
I scramble the eggs, butter Rose Gold’s toast, and tuck my hurt feelings aside. I glance at my daughter, now glued to her phone. “Whatcha looking at?”
“Instagram,” she says.
My silence gives me away.
“It’s a social media platform,” she adds.
“Like Facebook?” I ask, hoping the question isn’t absurd.
“Yeah, but better.”
I don’t care to learn the finer points of Facebook versus Instagram, so I move on to what I really want to know. “So who called last night?”
Rose Gold’s zombielike expression sharpens. “No one.”
“Didn’t look like no one,” I say casually. “Looked like you saw a ghost.”
Rose Gold doesn’t say anything. We stare at each other across the kitchen. I wait for her to budge and am surprised when she doesn’t.
“Was it Adam’s father?” I guess.