The Mother's Promise(23)
She watched speeches.
She had her favorites. Obama’s inauguration speech, Steve Jobs’s Stanford commencement address, pretty much any TED Talk. It didn’t really matter what the speech was about, so long as there were gasps when there were meant to be gasps, and claps when there were meant to be claps. So long as people were enthralled. So long as they were moved to tears or laughter or both. So long as they were on the edge of their seats.
When Zoe found a speech she liked, she watched it on her laptop until she’d memorized every word and gesture, every pause and hand movement. Then she delivered them. The funny thing was, when she spoke to her wall, her voice held power. Her heart didn’t race. Her hands didn’t tremble. She felt the absence of her fear as strongly as if it were a presence. A balloon of air, a feeling of fullness, pushing out the blackness that she always felt. In her bedroom, the silence was people on tenterhooks for her next word, the looks were of admiration. And she wanted, for once, to be noticed.
As far as vices went, it could have been worse. And yet, in a way, it was a form of self-harm. Like the kid in the wheelchair who dreamed of being an Olympic high jumper, the mute who dreamed of being an opera singer—she was dreaming about something that would never be possible for her. Which meant the best she could hope for was delivering speeches to a wall.
*
On Monday morning, Zoe’s walk to school was long. It was always long—almost forty minutes’ walk—but she preferred it to the world of potential horror that existed inside the bus. The side of the road in Atherton was never busy because most people drove. The people Zoe did pass—bringing their garbage out, or returning from walking the dog—were friendly enough, but despite talk of Atherton’s strong sense of community, no one chatted over the fences. They couldn’t; the fences were too high. It made Zoe wonder how many people were actually like her—wanting to be surrounded by people, but needing to shut them out.
At six that morning Zoe had felt her mom’s lips brush her cheek before she’d headed off to the hospital. Zoe had kept her eyes closed, wanting to linger in that not-quite-awake bliss where the terror of the day hadn’t crashed in on her yet, but now she wondered when she had done that. Her mom was probably lying on an operating table somewhere right now and Zoe hadn’t even bothered to wake up and say good-bye? What did that say about her?
Keyhole surgery, a Web site had said when she’d Googled the gallstones operation over breakfast. Very safe. Patients should be able to return to normal activities after a week. It seemed reassuring, Zoe thought, until she scrolled down to “Risks.” Infection of an incision. Internal bleeding. Bile leaking into the abdominal cavity. The liver being cut. Death.
Death.
As she thought about it, her mind brought up an image, a B-grade-film-type image, of her being called into Mrs. Hunt’s office that morning and told the news. “We’re very sorry, Zoe, but your mom, she didn’t make it.”
And Zoe hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye.
She could feel herself spiraling then, picturing it all in minute detail. The casket and eulogies, the outfit she’d wear to the funeral, herself crying on a pew that was empty apart from herself. She wouldn’t have to go to school for a few days, or even a few weeks. Emily would forgive her—because what friend held a grudge against someone whose mother had just died?—and she’d spend a few weeks holed up in her apartment, eating frozen meals that had been left on her doorstep by one of her mom’s clients. It played out almost like a fantasy, a horrible fantasy, and yet it soothed her somehow. Which went to show that she was a truly horrible person who didn’t deserve her mom, or anything else.
At the gate a senior guy bumped into her (heavily) and, after taking a quick glance, exclaimed, “Watch it, would you?”
She jumped back, horrified. If there had been a hole to jump into, Zoe would have jumped. And she would have stayed in that hole all day, safe from people’s eyes. Safe, even, from her best friend’s eyes.
Zoe hadn’t heard anything from Emily since the movies, despite sending several texts. She’d thought about calling, but the phone was terrifying to Zoe at the best of times—the pauses, the silences, the inability to read facial cues—and this time there were just too many uncertainties. What if she doesn’t answer? What if she screams at me? What if she is screening the call and laughing? In the end Zoe had just put her phone in a drawer and hadn’t looked at it until this morning. There was still nothing from Em.
Zoe had known Emily would be mad, but the silence was not like her. It worried her. What had happened with Cameron? Had he been a jerk to her? Or had it all worked out and she’d spent the whole weekend in loved-up bliss, too busy to check her messages? Whatever it was, Zoe was fairly sure it wasn’t good news.
When she arrived at her locker, she twisted in the code and shuffled books around unnecessarily until she noticed Emily. There were a few people around—Jessie Lee crouched at her lower locker next to Emily’s, looking typically weird in big bullet-style earrings and a red T-shirt with giant slashes over a black bustier and black lace-up boots. Lucy Barker was also there, talking to no one in particular about her haircut, which she hated. But this was probably the best opportunity Zoe would get. She steeled herself and came up behind Emily.
“Em?”
Emily kept her back to her. “Maybe your bangs are a little short,” she said to Lucy, who was now looking in the mirror on her locker door. “But otherwise I’d say your hair is totally on trend.”