Annie: (sighs and falls back in the chair) Try to control everything. Spend too much energy trying to make people believe something that isn’t true.
Me: About . . .
Annie: About what I’m doing as opposed to how I’m feeling.
Me: And . . .
Annie: It feels good when it’s working, and really really shitty when it isn’t.
Me: And . . .
Annie: It always ends up feeling really really shitty.
Me: So, you’re really mad, and feeling awful, about not controlling something you had no idea was going to happen, even after you knew you had no business trying to control it in the first place. Let’s talk about what’s really going on.
Annie: (choking) What if he’s dead? Or what if he’s somewhere awful wondering why nobody’s coming to save him. I’m supposed to be the one who saves him. (falls into my arms and lays there for the rest of the session.)
Impression: Obvious
Emily Palmer, M.A.
ChapterEleven
Time supposedly heals all wounds, but I think the saying should be time heals clean wounds. Frankie’s disappearance is jagged. He’s been gone three weeks and there’s been nothing. If he isn’t alive—if we knew he isn’t alive—we could know how to feel. But no matter how long he’s gone, it just sneaks up on you that he might be somewhere in big trouble wondering why nobody who loves him will come. You see this stuff on TV all the time, but when it’s someone you know, it attacks your imagination.
That’s where Frankie is for me, and my imagination can be a horrifying place.
But whether time heals wounds or not, it does march on. (There are so many clichés about time it makes me want to throw up, but I don’t have time.) And now school has started, and on the surface I’m just another hotshot jock cranking up my volleyball season where I can win some games, do my schoolwork, and appear to responsible adults like I’m making good choices. Basketball is my sport of choice but volleyball is a good warm-up.
There’s no manipulating games during the season. You can take the other team out in three games or stretch it to five, but there’s no time in between for socializing, and these days all bets are off with Pop and the Boots anyway, because as far as he’s concerned their presence on the planet is a curse, and with Frankie gone the whole Boots unit, such as it is, is more fractured. Nancy showed up with Walter for our first exhibition game, but I only waved toward the stands when I caught her eye.
Officer Graham makes contact every week just to say there’s been no progress, so the whole ugly mess sits as far back in my mind as I can push it, filed under “Shit You Can’t Do Anything About.”
And because my life seems only to progress on the wings of conflict, Pop and I stay locked in unpleasantness.
I came in after the match tonight—which we won in straight games—chucked my duffel into the corner, and plopped onto the couch. Momma had the TV on one of those reality shows that is anything but real. In this one the contestants are all wannabe singers getting judged by real singers so they, too, can become real singers. By real singers I mean those who make a lot of money. To my untrained ear, it sounds like some of the contestants are already better than the real ones, only no big bucks. I hate this show because every time someone gets picked, someone else doesn’t. Whoever doesn’t acts like they’re really grateful for the opportunity to have worked with one of their true heroes and to have had the chance to perform on the national stage. Hey, statistically there’s no way one of those four superstars is the one the losing contestant grew up wanting to be just like, so that part’s a crock; and there’s no way the person is that grateful right after not being picked. I mean, I don’t care how far up the ladder I’ve made it, if you have the chance to pick me and you don’t, I hate your guts.
“So how do you grade yourself on tonight’s match?” Pop got straight As all the way through high school and college. He’s a big fan of the alphabet.
This is an irritating conversation we have after every one of my sporting events, excluding swimming, of course, where we both happily give me an F. It’s easier when we get into it over school grades, because I can fall back on whatever the teacher gave me. The problem with this conversation is, if I give myself an A he points out the physical errors or lapses in judgment he believes should put at least a minus after that, and if I give myself something lower than an A, he wants to know what I could have done to bring it up. That’s the long way of saying Pop likes to tell me what I did wrong. After all, Michael Jordan was never satisfied, right?
“I don’t know, Pop,” I say, hoping beyond all experience that for once I could hit the letter on the head, “a B maybe? B plus?”
“You know there was a scout there from Eastern, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I sat with her.”
“Was she cute?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Momma smile. If this gets too hairy, she’ll take my side.
Pop says, “I see. You’re not going to take this seriously.”
I take a deep breath. “C’mon, that was funny. If I get recruited, it’ll be for basketball anyway.” Then I bite. “So what grade did the Eastern scout give me?”
“She was more interested in Hannah,” he says. “They’re looking for a good setter. Seemed like she set up Mariah more than you tonight.”
“Well, she’s got no shot at Hannah,” I tell him. “She’s WSU all the way. Her parents and older sister were all Cougs.”
“You might want to get on her good side.”
“C’mon Pop, Mariah was on fire tonight.”
“But everyone
