“I needed that,” she sighs. Then, setting down her spoon, “Alright. I’m ready. What do you want to know?”
I sit next to her at the counter, our knees almost touching.
Leaning forward, I say, “Tell me about Randall.”
Mara
Twelve Years Ago
Mad World – Gary Jules
Spotify → geni.us/no-devil-spotify
Apple Music → geni.us/no-devil-apple
I’m walking home from school, slowly so that I won’t catch up to the group of girls in front of me, but not so slowly that Randall will be angry that I’m late.
Mandy Patterson is at the center of the pack like usual, impossible to miss with her long flow of ash-blonde hair, perfectly curled and tied with the kind of oversized cheerleader bow that has become such a trend at school.
I don’t have any bows.
I asked for one for my birthday. Randall and my mother got me a used violin instead. I have to take lessons with Mrs. Belchick every Tuesday and Thursday. Her house smells like rancid cooking oil, and I’m allergic to her budgies. My eyes swell up every time, and my fingers are so itchy that I can barely grip the bow. I’ve begged my mother not to make me go anymore, but this is my punishment for not practicing piano enough.
I fucked up bad at the recital.
I hate performing in public, hate everyone staring at me.
I had never played on that particular piano, and when I sat down on the bench in the awful silence of the auditorium, the glaring overhead lights reflecting off the glossy black Steinway, I was hit with the horrible realization that I wasn’t sure which key was middle C.
It sounds ridiculous after all the years I’ve played, but I always orient my hands relative to the chipped golden script on our own piano, which reads Bösendorfer across the fallboard, only missing the second “o.”
I stared at the keys, the seconds ticking past.
I could see my mother standing just offstage, already starting to pace in agitation, snapping her fingers at me to start.
“I don’t know where to put my hands,” I whispered at her.
“Play the song,” she hissed at me.
I was already sweating under the blazing lights, my hands shaking as they hovered above the keys.
Desperately, I repeated, “I don’t know where to start.”
She marched across the stage, furious and embarrassed, grabbing my arm and wrenching me off the bench. She dragged me off, not listening as I tried to explain that I could play it, I had practiced it over and over and knew it all by heart, if she would just show me where to put my hands …
That was six months ago. It could be six years past and she’d still enjoy punishing me for it.
They’re always watching, always waiting for me to make a mistake.
And that is the one thing in which I never disappoint them.
They can always count on me to fuck up.
The girls ahead look back over their shoulders, giggling and whispering behind their hands.
I can’t hear what they’re saying because I’m wearing headphones. This is the one gift Randall gave me that I truly love. He didn’t want to hear music leaking out of my room. Wearing the headphones encloses me in my own bubble of song. It protects and comforts me. My own little pod that follows me wherever I go.
I drag my feet, trying to create more distance between me and the girls.
They’re slowing in pace too.
Kinsley Fisher calls back to me, “Mara! Are you coming to Danny’s birthday party?”
I can hear this, just barely.
Sighing, I take a bud out of one ear.
Before I can answer, Mandy replies for me: “She can’t. She wasn’t invited.”
She makes the statement calmly, factually, her soft pink lips curved in a satisfied smile.
I thought Danny might invite me. Out of all the boys in our class, he’s one of the few who is occasionally nice to me. Once he even gave me a pencil that had little black cats all over it. It was a week after Halloween and he said he didn’t want it anymore, but I thought maybe it was because he knew how much I like cats.
“Why didn’t Danny invite you?” Kinsley asks with mock concern.
She already knows the answers to these questions. In fact, she probably knows them better than I do. The three Peachy Queens—Kinsley, Angelica, and her royal highness Mandy Patterson—surely were party to the conversations where it was publicly discussed who would be invited and who wouldn’t, how our classmates ranked as potential guests, and all the reasons why.
“Danny said his mother wouldn’t like it,” Mandy explains in the same matter-of-fact tone.
Mandy is not above lying, but this has the uncomfortable ring of truth.
The parents at Windsor Academy are much more involved than at my old school. They seem as highly interested in the social lives of the middle schoolers as the children themselves.
It’s only too likely that Mrs. Phillips has seen and judged me on some scale I can’t even begin to imagine. All I know is that I came up short.
“Maybe she knows Mara’s a little whore like her mother,” Angelica says sweetly. Angelica has the round, cherubic face you’d expect from her name, but she’s the meanest cunt in that whole group. Worse even than Mandy. “Everyone knows she married your stepdad for his money.”
This is something so fundamentally acknowledged, even between Randall and my mother, that I can’t possibly deny it.
The problem is, Randall doesn’t have that much money anymore. From the shouted arguments I’ve overhead, even with my pillow pressed over my ears, I’ve gathered that Randall’s sons are running his business into the ground and my mother is trying to spend whatever is left before it all runs out.
“I guess those short skirts don’t work on Danny,” Mandy says, smiling enough to show her pearly white teeth.
We all wear the same uniform at Windsor Academy—the same white blouse, plaid skirt, maroon knee socks, and loafers. That’s why accessories like cheerleader bows and smart watches are so important—they’re the only way to show who’s in and who’s out.
I’m out.
I was never even close to in.
The short skirts are a different problem entirely. Randall refused to buy me new uniforms this year, even though I’d shot up two inches. My home room teacher keeps making me come to the front of the class and kneel in front of everyone, to prove that my skirt doesn’t come down to my fingertips. She’s given me detention six times.
Randall punishes me every time I’m late coming home, but he won’t buy me new clothes.
I’m going to be late now if I don’t run the rest of the way home.
I don’t have time to continue this conversation with the Peachy Queens. It wouldn’t matter either way. I’ve tried being nice to them. I’ve tried fighting back. They despise me, and nothing will change that. Even the kids that used to be nice to me, the ones I would have called friends, have learned better than to say a word to me where these girls can see.
“Tell me what does work on Danny,” I say to Mandy. “If he ever starts to give a shit about you.”
I’m already sprinting away as the calls of, “Freak!”, “Slut!”, “Bitch!”, ring out behind me.