Please Ignore Vera Dietz (Page 42)

Please Ignore Vera Dietz(42)
Author: A.S. King

DAD: Language, Vera.

ME: Oh, f**k off, Dad. You say I’m screwing a twenty-three-year-old and you’re concerned with my language?

Silence, until I realize that I did, in effect, just tell Dad to f**k off.

ME: Sorry about that. I didn’t mean it in the “fuck off” sense. I just meant, uh—that this is bullshit.

DAD: (Trying to look innocent, but failing.) I don’t know what you mean.

I excuse myself and go to the small bathroom in the corner of the office to pee. I inspect the lump on my head, and it’s still sore. My black eyes have toned down, so now I just look tired, and I figure I’ll be good to go back to school next week.

I flush the toilet and wash my hands, and return to the pathetic scene. My father and Dr. B, talking about teen drinking.

DR. B: Why do you think kids drink, Vera?

Smooth.

ME: It’s there, you know?

DAD: Not in our house, it’s not.

ME: I don’t mean there there. I mean, it exists. Just like all the other stuff kids try. This isn’t a mystery, really, is it?

DAD: So you drink because it’s there?

ME: I guess. (I’m lying.)

Dad looks really sad. I can tell he’s got something to say.

DR. B: How do you feel about that, Ken?

DAD: Sad.

ME: (Raises eyebrows.)

DAD: That first night you came home drunk, I cried all night.

ME: You cried?

DAD: You’re my daughter, for Christ’s sake.

ME: But why’d you cry?

We look at each other until he speaks again.

DAD: I failed you.

ME: No you didn’t.

DAD: I should have warned you more. More than just shoving brochures at you. I should have taken you to a meeting with me to see what it’s like. So that you’d understand your responsibility.

ME: Uh, news flash. I’m not an alcoholic. I just had a few drinks, like a normal teenager.

DAD: But you’re not a normal teenager.

ME: Sure I am.

DAD: I’m a recovered alcoholic. My parents were both alcoholics. It’s different for people like us.

ME: That still doesn’t make me anything but a normal teenager.

DAD: It makes you a teenager with addiction genes.

ME: But I’m not just my genes, Dad.

He looks up at me and finally stops fidgeting with his zipper.

DAD: Can I tell you what I think? I nod.

DAD: I think you haven’t gotten over Charlie.

Dr. B nods his head at this.

DAD: I think you’ve never quite accepted that he’s dead or moved on to find new friends.

Dr. B nods again.

DAD: I’m sorry your friend died, Veer, but you have to find a time to move on and stop torturing yourself.

I’m wondering if anyone else hears the irony in this. Move on? Stop torturing myself?

ME: I think we could both benefit from that advice, Dad.

DAD: (After some fidgeting with his zipper.) Yeah. But at least you know that I’m struggling. I have a house full of self-help books and meditation tapes. I still haven’t emptied your mother’s clothing out of our closet. You? You just go on like nothing’s changed. You need to let things out, Vera. Trust me. Drinking will only hide shit that you should be facing.

Here is where things get freaky for me.

As I try to stay the molasses pace of my father’s remedial emotional purging, my mouth is now controlled by the thousand Charlies who are crowded in the small white room with the three of us. I bite my lips shut from the inside, but it doesn’t work. He blurts out my secrets.

CHARLIES THROUGH ME: I know who burned down Zimmerman’s Pet Store.

DR. B: (Raises eyebrows.)

DAD: (Leans forward.)

CHARLIES THROUGH ME: I know Charlie didn’t do it.

There’s a pause. They look at me as if they can see the Charlies, too.

DAD: Why didn’t you say this when it happened?

ME: It’s complicated.

Don’t they know that regret begets regret begets regret?

DR. B: Vera, you need to answer the question.

ME: Because I loved Charlie too much.

DAD: Loved him?

DR. B: Is that all?

ME: Because I hated Charlie too much.

The daffodils are popping up in the beds. The view from my room is still brown and dead, but soon it will be new again, as if this stupid winter never happened.

Dad says I can go back to school next week and start part-time at Pagoda Pizza again, but only after our last visit with Dr. B, who we now make fun of during the ride home, as a sort of family bonding. Also, Dad has accepted that I swear, and I think I’ve convinced him that it’s a fair trade-off. Swearing for drinking. He hasn’t asked me again about clearing Charlie’s name, and I’m hoping he’ll let me do it in my own time. Because clearing Charlie’s name is way more complicated than he thinks.

“Can we stop at McDonald’s? I’d kill a Big Mac.”

Dad makes that tiny sound that means Oh please Vera don’t make me go against every grain in my hippie freak body and make me give my money to those horrible corporate deep-frying bastards. Then he perks up and says, “I’d love a Quarter Pounder with cheese. God, I used to love them.”

We pull from the drive-thru into a parking space, and we watch the traffic go up and down the main strip while we eat. Before I bite, I whisper, “Sorry, Charlie,” soft enough so Dad doesn’t hear over his chewing.

A BRIEF WORD FROM THE DEAD KID

What Vera doesn’t know is: I’d kill to be a pickle on her Big Mac—ground to relish between her perfect white teeth.

I’d kill to be a bug she squishes with her holey Army-issue combat boot.

But she’s too good for me. She always was.

Her parents were so nice. They said please and thank you. They had pictures on the walls. Paintings with frames. They had civilized furniture in neutral colors and daffodils around their flower beds. They had bird feeders. And Vera had responsibilities, something my father didn’t think I should have because my mother should be doing everything for us.

One night, I tried to take my plate to the sink.

“What do you think you’re doing?” my dad yelled.

“Just—uh—helping out.”

“Don’t make a woman out of yourself! Bring that back here.”

“It’s fine. I want to help.”

“NOW!” He got up from his chair so fast, it toppled behind him and banged on the floor, making my mother and me jump. He grabbed my arm and took me to the sink. “Take it back,” he said.

So I picked up my plate and glass, which still had an inch of milk in it, and took them back to the table. When I put them down, he let me go, backhanded the glass, which spilled the milk over Mom’s favorite tablecloth, and picked up his chair.