Afterward, her parents took her to Oscars, a fancy restaurant on Park Avenue, for dessert. A pair of person-sized gold Academy Award statues flanked the door. Mother gave her a box of roses that Father had sent. Mother and Stepmother gave her a jewelry box, and a card with a check.
“Do you want to have a graduation party?” Mother asked. Girl was startled. She didn’t think Mother wanted to be around her at all, let alone have a party. “We could have it at the house,” Mother said. “And we could invite Marty, Shirley and Betty, all our friends.”
“I’d love that,” Girl said softly. It was as if she was still a part of the family. She was afraid if she said more, she’d cry.
“So when are you and Jacob getting married?” Brother asked her.
“Oh,” Girl said, her eyelashes dripping tears, “you didn’t hear? We broke up.” She had called her mother right away, and assumed Mother had told Brother. That’s how it usually worked in her family.
“Yeah, Mother told me, but …”
“Why would you say that then?” Girl wanted to stab him with her fork. “Is that supposed to be funny?” She had made sure not to wear her class ring on Christmas, on their anniversary, and on Valentine’s day, hoping Jacob would ask her to marry him. It had been her only dream of the future. She was going to college as backup plan—what she really wanted was to be a wife and mother, the sooner the better.
“No, I just, ya know. I figured you’d get back together,” Brother said lamely. Girl ignored him for the rest of dinner.
college and beyond
college
Mother had always stressed that having children was an “eighteen-year commitment,” and Stepmother had made it clear that once Girl graduated high school, she had to move out and either go to school full-time and live in the dorms, or work full-time and support herself. Now that Girl had graduated high school, it was too late for them to want her to come home, so although nothing was said, the tension suddenly lifted. She was back on their agenda, no longer an embarrassing runaway.
Girl volunteered in Mother’s office once a week, in exchange for using Mother’s car to volunteer at a horseback riding program for children with cerebral palsy. Girl didn’t actually get to ride horses, as she had hoped, but instead walked them around in circles while the children clung to the saddle. Still, it was something to do. When she and Jacob broke up Girl had filled her schedule as much as possible. At the end of the summer, Mother took Girl on a long weekend road trip to Boston. It was the only vacation with just her mother she had ever had. They stayed at a bed-and-breakfast and complained to each other about the freezing room even though it was August. It was as if the fight had never happened. Mother and Stepmother had been paying Girl child support along with father, although Girl put their checks in the bank and never spent them. At the end of the summer she gave Mother one thousand dollars as a down payment on Mother’s old car.
In August Sharon and Girl got an apartment together a week before they started their freshman year of college. It was big and airy, with windows on three sides, and heated by steam radiators. There was a built-in bookcase where they arranged all of their mementos. They went to the Salvation Army and bought a wingback chair together, and melted crayons into candles. Girl loved everything about the apartment and her roommate. She had been lonely for so long.
The phone rang at three in the morning, two weeks after school started. The ringing phone woke Girl, who batted the receiver about as she struggled to awaken and find the source of noise and make it stop.
“Tigger is dead,” Brother told Girl. Suddenly she was on high alert.
Tigger was Brother’s best friend. He and Girl had spent half of high school dating when neither of them had anyone better around, dropping each other without malice when someone more interesting came into the picture.
“What?” Girl said, thinking, Why does it have to be Tigger? If someone had to die, why couldn’t it have been John, one of Brother’s other friends, instead?
“He was in Chicago with Karl,” Brother explained. Brother was supposed to go on the trip back to Karl’s hometown, but had backed out at the last minute. He was trying to get his life together, which meant working full-time at 7-Eleven and going to the same community college as Girl. She had been proud of Brother for choosing to be responsible. “They went to a party, Karl got drunk, Tigger didn’t. Karl was driving. He hit a tree. Tigger was launched out the front window. When they found his body, all his clothes had been ripped off in the accident.”
Girl didn’t ask how he knew the details.
“I called Tigger’s parents to tell them, but they hung up on me. They thought it was a joke.”
Girl and Brother had drifted since she found religion in high school. She looked down on how his whole life revolved around Rocky Horror Picture Show; he scorned her new conservative mindset. But Brother had just decided to make a change. He had been previously living with Karl and Tigger and getting high, but he had just gotten his own one-bedroom apartment, just a few blocks from Girl’s, and he had decided to get sober again. He was
