Please Ignore Vera Dietz(49)
Author: A.S. King

During lunch, everyone is talking about it. I sit with the dorks in the center back, by the long, rattling heating and air-conditioning unit. I think about the fight I had with my father this morning. God, adults are hypocrites. Look at Corso. The only way Bill Corso got to be a senior in high school was by adults overlooking his reading problem in order to help our school make it further in the PIAA championships … which never happened. Now he’s been accepted to a small college with a crappy football team, and he can’t read.

“What do you think you’re looking at?”

It’s Jenny Flick and Gretchen. Jenny is looking especially nuts today—her eyeliner has curlicues at the edges.

“Nothing.” I’m staring out the window. I’m looking at the huge oak tree out by the parking lot and creatively visualizing climbing it.

“So you think you need help?” Jenny says.

I look up through my bangs, now long and unkempt, like Charlie’s used to be. “What are you talking about?”

“Gretchen saw you in the bathroom.”

“So?”

“So this is about Charlie, isn’t it?” she says. I think: Isn’t everything about Charlie?

Jenny leans into my ear to whisper something and I get chills up my back and shiver. She says, “Too bad you never got to know him like I knew him.”

I jerk away from her, pick up my books, and walk out of the cafeteria. Everything seems like Lord of the Flies now. We’re all animals. Out to compete. Out to win. Out to kill. This means Charlie, in the end, is Piggy, right? I think about this through my next classes, because if Charlie is Piggy, then I should feel more sympathy for him. I know I do. Deep inside. I know he’s sorry. He’s been telling me he’s sorry for nearly nine months.

Nine months is how long it takes to grow a baby. (Can you tell I’m in eighth-period Health class?) When my mother was my age, she was just about to have me after I’d spent nine long months growing inside her. Now it’s my turn. I am going to birth myself. I am going to be a better mother to me than she ever was. I’m going to stay faithful and stand up for myself. I am going to do more than send me fifty bucks on my birthday, and if I ever call myself on the phone, I’m going to act like I care, just a little, because I’m aware that I might need it. I will comb my own hair gently and never make myself get into bathwater that’s too hot. I am going to be the kind of mother who shows warmth. A mother who would call the police when Mr. Kahn hit so hard, we could hear it all the way at our house—or who might drop in on Mrs. Kahn the day after to try to help her figure out how to leave that abusive bastard.

Today I am in control because I want to be. I can set Jenny Flick’s future to zero. I can dial up Charlie’s reputation to ten again, even though he’s dead. I have my fingers on the switch, but have lived a lifetime ignoring the control I have over my own world. Today is different. On the night he died, Charlie said he left something for me. Today I’m going to find it.

I have twenty minutes before I leave for work, so rather than go inside the house, where Dad is probably waiting to lecture me about calling him a hypocrite this morning, I leave all my school stuff in the car and disappear into the woods between our house and the Kahns’ house. I climb the ladder like I have a thousand times before and swing myself onto the octagonal deck that’s covered in a mix of old, crackling autumn leaves and a layer of spring-green pollen. There are spiderwebs. I pull out my key and am surprised to find he didn’t change the lock.

When I get inside, I see that nothing has been disturbed. The bed looks slept in. There are snacks. A mug with a ring of dried liquid at the bottom. I don’t want to look around too much. The last thing this tree house saw was Jenny Flick and Charlie having sex, and I really don’t want to think about that. So I shift the mattress to the right and find the floorboard that Charlie wants me to find. I can’t pry it open without a tool, so I look back to his makeshift kitchen and find a teaspoon, still sticky, and insert its handle into the crack. After considerable wiggling, the board lifts, and I stick my hand in the dark hole beneath.

It’s empty. I search the hole more and I feel stupid. I mean, seriously. Did I really think that images from a dream I had while passed out drunk would equate with real life?

Then my hand feels a crumpled napkin and I pull it out and straighten it. It’s a Burger King napkin. My heart races. But all it says is Hi, Vera. I stick my entire arm in to see if there’s anything that feels remotely like a box, but there’s nothing. I fold up the note, stick it in my pocket, replace the foot-long floorboard, and hammer it in with the heel of my hand, then I shift the mattress over again. I back out, close the door, slip the padlock through the loop, and snap it closed. On my way down the ladder, I hear the patio door at the Kahns’ slam, and it gives me such a fright, I jump from too high up and almost turn my ankle on the forest floor. Then I run home.

“Vera?” Dad calls from his office.

I poke my head in. “Yeah?”

“You want to talk about this morning?”

“I have to get to work, Dad.”

“Are we okay?”

“I guess.”

“I want you to be careful out there.”

“I will.”

“Don’t let them send you into the projects,” he says.

I say, “It’s building character, remember?”

I wonder does he feel bad yet.

HISTORY I’D RATHER FORGET—AGE SEVENTEEN—AUGUST

I had Sunday off, so I went school shopping at the thrift store across town. It was the safest place I could think of to go—I wouldn’t run into anyone from Mount Pitts, and I was guaranteed a good selection at a low cost. I already had my combat boots and jeans that still fit from last year. I only needed a few shirts and anything else I could find.

The bonus purchase of the day was a dark brown 1970s knee-length sweater with fuzzy fur around the collar.

On the bypass, Charlie passed me on his bike. Behind him, Jenny Flick raced her old Nova so fast, she wobbled a few times and nearly hit the concrete barrier. I couldn’t tell if she was chasing him or if they were racing for fun. I slowed down to avoid any bullshit. Up ahead, I saw Charlie zig and zag into places Jenny couldn’t keep up with. Then he took the next exit while she was stuck behind a truck and couldn’t see him.

“Don’t care. Don’t care. Don’t care,” I said aloud, and then cranked up the funk.