Pretty Amy Read online

  He looked at me and sighed, taking the door from my hand and closing it when he found the store empty. “I know you’re under a lot of stress right now, but your job should not suffer for it.”

  “Don’t worry, there’s no one here anyway—it’s not suffering.”

  “There are other things you could be doing. Other things I could be doing.”

  Of course there were other things I could be doing. I could be with Aaron. I could be in my room with AJ, smoking. “Relax, Connor, it was just a joke.”

  He shook his head. “I know, Amy,” he said.

  “You know what?”

  He reached for my hand. “It’s okay. Your mom told me.”

  I shook his hand away. “How do you even know my mother?”

  “She just needed someone to listen to her. She’s very upset.”

  Who didn’t she have working for her? “Yeah, apparently her feelings are on the eleven o’clock news.”

  He looked at me in a way that said, I am so glad you are not my daughter. “We thought it would be best if you came to prayer group at my church.”

  “I’m Jewish, Connor.”

  “You can be any religion to ask for Jesus’s help and guidance,” he said, looking up.

  My mother was actually willing to put my life into the hands of Jesus—that was how bad she thought things had become. If only I had known that getting arrested could have been the thing that made my parents get a Christmas tree when I was a kid.

  “We feel you are scared and think a circle of peers might help you make the right decision.”

  “Your church freaks are not my peers,” I said, realizing I shouldn’t be taking this out on him. It was all coming from my mother. Connor was just a pawn in her game.

  “Call them whatever you want now—after tomorrow night you’ll call them friends.” He paused to see if I would agree, and when I didn’t, he continued. “My wife and I will pick you up. We’ll have dinner beforehand. How’s Denny’s sound?”

  “I’m not going.”

  “You have no choice.”

  I stormed over to the counter and started cleaning it. I wanted to do anything other than look at him, anything other than realize that my life and my decisions were still being run by my mother. Connor was right: I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have a choice about anything anymore.

  Didn’t anyone see that maybe this was why I wasn’t just going along with everything? I mean, besides not wanting to screw over Lila and Cassie, and Aaron’s hot breath in my ear. I finally had a decision that was mine to make.

  “So that was all I had to say to get you to do some work?” he asked, smirking.

  I glared at him.

  “Come on, Amy. I just want to help.”

  “You’re only doing what my mother is telling you to do,” I said, rubbing the counter hard enough to start a fire.

  He stood there watching me. There was nothing else to say. My mother had him doing her dirty work. She was probably paying him, too.

  “Please, just go away,” I said, still scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing.

  “All right, all right,” he said, holding up his hands and walking away from me and into the back room like a gun had been raised at him.

  I wished I had one.

  The bell above the door rang to announce a customer’s arrival. Connor didn’t even run out when he heard it, which meant I had to deal with whoever it was. I turned away from the counter and fiddled with the cigarette rack, hoping that if I ignored the customer, he or she would go away.

  I heard someone walk up to the counter and the drumming of her nails against it.

  No such luck.

  “Salem 100’s.”

  I turned and found Cassie’s mother standing on the other side of the counter. Her hair was shorter and darker, oil black.

  I touched my own hair. I was barely even bothering to brush it anymore.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said, her eyes squinting.

  “Hi, Mrs. Wick,” I said, feeling my legs start to shake. It was what I always said to Cassie’s mom, but I doubted it would fly this time. I reached for the emergency bat under the counter.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I work here,” I said, indicating my shirt. Though it probably wasn’t really what she was asking. She was asking, What are you doing in my line of vision? And how long until you are out of it?

  “How’s Cassie?” I asked before I could even stop the words from coming out of my mouth.

  “How do you think?”

  I knew how I was doing, but I wanted her to reveal some secret about how Cassie was surviving. I wanted her to tell me anything.

  I saw her turn and glance at her parked car. Cassie was sitting in it, her head down. I dropped the bat and made a move to go outside.

  “Stop right there,” she said. “Don’t bother. She doesn’t want to see you.”

  It couldn’t be true. Could it?

  “Just stay away from her.” She put her hand on the huge pickle jar that sat on the counter. Maybe she was looking for a weapon. Thinking she could break it over my head so that when I fell to the ground, my skull would be haloed by a briny, bloody puddle like a fertilized chicken egg.

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she’s great,” she said. “How about those Salems?”

  “I miss her.” I wasn’t sure why I was bothering. It sounded more pathetic than I had planned. I guess I was lonelier than even I thought I was.

  “Good for you,” she said. She handed me a twenty.

  “Everything will be fine,” I said, which was what I wanted everyone to say to me.

  “Maybe for you, maybe not,” she said, taking the cigarettes and her change.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, surprising myself. Wondering why I could say it so easily to her when I couldn’t even really say it to my own parents, other than thoughtlessly repeating it because I hadn’t known what else to say the morning after the arrest. Maybe because saying it to Cassie’s mother didn’t have to mean anything.

  “Right, that’s what Cassie keeps saying, too,” she said, walking out of the store.

  As I watched them drive away, I tried to picture Cassie saying it, wondered where she found the strength to keep saying it. Maybe she didn’t know what else to say, either.

  …

  My mother was waiting for me when I got off work that night. Which meant Aaron wasn’t. His car wasn’t there. He’d probably been scared off by her suburban-mom minivan. She was really racking up reasons for me to be pissed off at her. I passed her, determined to walk home alone. Dealing with Cassie’s mom had been enough mother for one night.

  She drove up next to me and rolled down the window. “Ignoring me is not going to make this go away.”

  She had a point, but I didn’t care. “I can’t believe you told Connor.” I didn’t say what else I wanted to say, which was that in telling him, she had taken away the one place I could go where I could act normal, like nothing was wrong. Even Aaron knew I had been arrested. As good as I felt when I was with him, I couldn’t pretend.

  “I wish we could talk,” she said.

  I wondered if we ever had. Wasn’t that why she had gotten me AJ, so I would have someone to talk to, even if that someone was a bird?

  I kept walking while she drove next to me at a crawl. “What did you expect me to do?” she asked, and I could hear tears in her voice. But at least I didn’t have to look at her.

  I lit a cigarette.

  “Put that out,” she said, the tears subsiding under her stern parental voice.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I asked.

  “Amy, I just want to help you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “You can’t, okay? You can’t.” It was mean, but it was also true.

  I heard her tears coming back. “Amy, I’m your mother,” she said, putting the car into park. “I love you.”

  I stopped walking and looked at her. I could have just repeated
those words, said them easily, like I used to when I was little. I could have said what she wanted me to say and done what she wanted me to do. But it wasn’t that easy. I wanted it to be that easy, but it wasn’t.

  Eventually she gave up and drove past me, her red taillights bright and hot as coals at the bottom of a fire as she made her way down the street.

  As I walked home, I couldn’t help thinking about Cassie being reduced to a girl sitting in a car with her head down, waiting for her mother. Saying she was sorry over and over again. Cassie was the tough one, the stubborn one.

  I was the one who should have been able to apologize. Who should have been able to tell my mother the words she wanted to hear. Maybe I was more stubborn than I realized.

  Twenty-four

  The following night was Moons Over My Hammy for Connor and his wife and chocolate milkshakes for me. Connor had been right—I didn’t have a choice. I had to go to dinner and to their church group with them, just like I had to do all the other annoying things my mother told me to.

  I’d never admit it, but it was mostly because I didn’t know what else to do.

  I called Aaron as Connor beeped in my driveway, hoping he might come to my rescue, but he didn’t answer his phone. He probably didn’t know it was me. I called again as my mother banged on the basement door. It went straight to voice mail and I hung up. What message was I supposed to leave? Meet me at Denny’s?

  I sat across the table from Connor’s wife, trying to figure out what she saw in Connor. Not like she was any prize, but she was female and she was breathing. Considering the age of their children, they must have met in high school. I wondered if he used to surprise her in parking lots, if they used to have hot and heavy make-out sessions in cars parked in dark places.

  She had a chin-length bob and apricot-blond hair. The color you get using an at-home color kit, which, other than usually turning out orange, illustrates like nothing else that you are completely uncomfortable with yourself. I knew that because I’d used them.

  She wore one of those plaid flannel overall dresses with a yellow turtleneck that made her look like Big Bird from the neck up. I couldn’t help feeling like I looked pretty good sitting next to her. Maybe she could be my new best friend. I tried not to wonder whether Lila had thought something similar the night we first met.

  I looked over at the blue daisies Connor’s wife had brought for me. I guess blue daisies signified a last-ditch effort with a burgeoning convict, like red meant love and yellow meant friendship. I considered going back to Blooming Maples to give them to Mrs. Mortar, since then, at least, I wouldn’t have them around to remind me that the only person who had ever bought me flowers had been Connor’s wife.

  “You could at least be grateful this whole prayer circle is for you,” Connor said between bites of his sandwich.

  I sipped on my milkshake. “Don’t they have anything better to do? Like drinking strychnine or speaking in tongues?”

  “That is very closed-minded of you,” he said.

  “I’m Jewish, Connor,” I reminded him again, in case he’d forgotten.

  “Well,” he said, wiping his mouth, “look where that has gotten you.”

  “This night is not about converting me,” I said, spooning up chocolate ice cream from the bottom of the glass.

  “The night’s not over yet,” he said.

  His wife stayed silent, but she ordered me another chocolate milkshake.

  “Do you guys eat like this all the time?” I asked, starting on my second milkshake, even though I felt like I might puke. I really hadn’t eaten much since the arrest. It felt good to have a stomach full of chocolate.

  “Only on special occasions,” his wife said, finally breaking her silence, turning to look at Connor and rubbing his shoulder.

  Hopefully this prayer circle really did drink strychnine, so I could kill myself as soon as we got there.

  …

  I hated to admit it, but part of the reason I didn’t want to go to Connor’s prayer circle was because I was afraid of churches. Any time I went to one, I was immediately made aware of my otherness.

  Sure, every church I’d been to looked the same as my temple at first, brick on the outside, waxy tiled floors on the inside, hallways flanked by classrooms and offices, and school-grade public bathrooms. But then I would enter the sanctuary and see that big cross hanging on the wall, and I’d realize it was all different and I was all different. There was nothing more terrifying than being completely unlike everyone around you.

  I felt that enough in my secular life.

  Luckily, the prayer circle was in the rec hall, so at least I could pretend I wasn’t in a church—that is, until they started praying.

  Connor paused for a second before we entered, just long enough for me to see that all the women were dressed exactly like his wife. Like they had taken a big pile of those overall dresses that were on sale and had them all blessed.

  Connor put himself between his wife and me, then put his arms around both of us. I elbowed him. “I was forced to agree to praying, not to touching.”

  “Touch is one of the most powerful healers.”

  “So is morphine. I’ll take that instead.” I walked ahead of them to a seat in one of the metal folding chairs they had arranged in a circle in the middle of the room. I crossed my arms and legs and harrumphed, letting everyone know I was not a willing participant.

  A woman in a blue-and-green-plaid overall dress sat next to me and said, “You must be Amy.”

  I wanted to say something smart, but I couldn’t figure out what, so I just nodded.

  “We get strangers here, but not too often,” she said, like some maid in a haunted mansion taking you up to your room, where you’ll be killed that night. “We are just so glad to be able to help you with this decision.”

  “I don’t know how much help you’ll be,” I said.

  “Well, not us. Him,” she said, looking up.

  The craziest thing about all of this—and there were many crazy things: the fact that I was in a church, the fact that I was with Connor and wasn’t at work, the fact that I was with a bunch of Dress Barn rejects, the fact that within minutes I was going to be praying to Jesus to ask Him for guidance—was the fact that this was my mother’s idea.

  My mother, who was an image Jew, which is a Jew who only cares as much about her Judaism as the person she is trying to prove it to, was sending me to the feet of Jesus for help. She must truly have run out of options.

  “Let’s get started,” some guy said, cupping his hands around his mouth to make sure everyone could hear. I guess this was supposed to include the Man himself.

  Everyone sat down in the circle of chairs, alternating man, woman, man, woman, and I felt instantaneously uncomfortable. Not because it was obvious I was the only one here who was not adhering to God’s Perfect Plan, but because my stomach hurt and not in the tummy hurts sort of way. It hurt in the dysentery sort of way.

  Someone said something about taking your neighbor’s hand, but I was afraid that if I let go of my stomach, which I was clutching like a ball in my lap, it would explode, and by explode, well, just guess.

  Then Connor said, “Jesus, we come to you today for guidance for our sister Amy.”

  I think I groaned, because everyone looked over at me—either that, or they were trying to picture me as their sister, superimposing an orangey bob and my own overall dress.

  “She seeks your wisdom in making a decision with immense gravity over the rest of her life.”

  I groaned again, and Connor whispered, “It’s okay.” Pulling me to him and shaking me, like an older brother giving your whole body a noogie.

  It caused whatever had been struggling to escape from inside my stomach to start coming loose. I got up and ran for the bathroom.

  “Where are you going?” Connor yelled after me.

  I didn’t bother explaining. I was afraid that if I took the time to stop, my soul wouldn’t have been the only thing this congregatio
n was cleaning up.

  I practically pulled the bathroom door from its hinges as I ran inside, saying my own little prayer, thanking whoever was responsible for putting the bathroom right next to the rec hall.

  As I sat on the toilet, I couldn’t help wondering whether God was punishing me. Not that everything that had happened already hadn’t made me consider it, but until that night I hadn’t actually been purposely taunting Him. Maybe this was His way of telling me that I had even less control over things than I’d thought.

  There was a knock at the bathroom door. It was Connor’s wife, asking me if I was all right.

  “Fine,” I said, even though my stomach was saying something very different.

  I heard someone come up behind her and heard her whisper, “Just a case of the Loosey Gooseys,” and then, “Hell hath no fury like lactose. That’s why Connor and I stay away from it.”

  Then I heard that someone chuckle.

  Connor’s wife opened the bathroom door. “Do you need anything?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I just groaned. Even if I could talk, I was not about to have a conversation with this woman while I was on the toilet.

  “Some water, some juice?”

  I said nothing, just answered with the sounds of someone whose large intestine is turning to liquid.

  “She’ll be okay. We’ll just move everyone out here into the hallway,” she said as she closed the door.

  To which I answered by puking onto the floor in front of me, which seemed more than appropriate.

  I sat there, dying on the toilet, as a group of Christians I didn’t even know huddled in a circle in the hallway outside of the bathroom and prayed that their Lord Jesus would give me the wisdom to make the right decision. If that isn’t enough to turn someone into an atheist, I don’t know what is.

  …

  Connor called my mother and told her what had happened. Which was why I was surprised that, when I found her waiting for me at our front door, it was with a scowl instead of with a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. I was glad Joe wasn’t out on his bike. At least my humiliation would be reserved for family members and a few select members of God’s assembly.

  She was yelling before I even got inside the house. I could see her through the storm door, her mouth moving like a fish out of water gasping for breath. “This is real, Amy. As much as you like to play around, this is real.”