Everything I Never Told You(46)

“I love it,” she said. “Thanks, Daddy.”

James could not miss the edge in her voice, but he brushed it aside. Of course she’s annoyed, he thought, at a present she doesn’t need. Lydia already had plenty of friends; almost every evening she was on the phone with someone, after she’d finished all of her homework. How foolish of him to have bought this book at all. He made a mental note to come up with something better for her next gift.

The truth was this: at thirteen, at her father’s urging, Lydia had called up Pam Saunders. She hadn’t even known Pam’s number and had had to look it up in the book, which lolled on her lap as she ticked the dial around. Aside from the phone in the kitchen, and the one in her father’s study, the only other phone in the house was on the landing, a little window seat halfway up the stairs where her mother kept a few throw pillows and a wilting African violet. Anyone passing by downstairs could overhear. Lydia waited for her father to head into the living room before she dialed the last digit.

“Pam?” she said. “It’s Lydia.”

A pause. She could almost hear Pam’s brow crinkling. “Lydia?”

“Lydia Lee. From school.”

“Oh.” Another pause. “Hi.”

Lydia wormed her finger into the phone cord and tried to think of something to say. “So—what did you think of the geography quiz today?”

“It was okay, I guess.” Pam snapped her gum, a tiny tsk of a sound. “I hate school.”

“Me too,” Lydia said. For the first time, she realized this was true, and saying it emboldened her. “Hey, do you want to go roller-skating on Saturday? I bet my dad would drive us.” A sudden vision of her and Pam, whizzing around the roller rink, giddy and giggling, flashed through her mind. Behind them, in the stands, how delighted her father would be.

“Saturday?” Sharp, startled silence. “Oh, sorry, I can’t. Maybe some other time?” A murmur in the background. “Hey, I gotta go. My sister needs the phone. Bye, Lydia.” And the clunk of the receiver being set back on the hook.

Stunned by how suddenly Pam had hung up, Lydia was still clutching the handset to her ear when her father appeared at the foot of the stairs. At the sight of her on the phone, a lightness crossed his face, like clouds shifting after strong wind. She saw him as he must have looked when he was young, long before she had been born: boyishly hopeful, possibilities turning his eyes into stars. He grinned at her and, on exaggerated tiptoe, headed into the living room.

Lydia, phone still pressed to her cheek, could hardly believe how easy it had been to bring that bright flush of joy to her father. It seemed, at the time, like such a small thing. She remembered this the next time she lifted the receiver and held it to her ear, murmuring, “mm-hmm, mm-hm—she did?” until her father passed through the front hallway, paused below, smiled, and moved on. As time went by, she would picture the girls she watched from afar and imagine what she’d say if they were truly friends. “Shelley, did you watch Starsky and Hutch last night? Oh my god, Pam, can you believe that English essay—ten pages? Does Mrs. Gregson think we have nothing better to do? Stacey, your new hairdo makes you look exactly like Farrah Fawcett. I wish my hair would do that.” For a while, it remained a small thing, the dial tone humming in her ear like a friend. Now, with the book in her hand, it no longer seemed so small.

After breakfast, Lydia settled cross-legged in the corner by the tree and opened the book again. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. She turned a few pages. Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems.

Across the living room, Nath put his eye to the viewfinder of his new camera, zooming in on Lydia, pushing her in and out of focus. He was apologizing for giving her the silent treatment, for shutting the door in her face when all she’d wanted was not to be alone. Lydia knew this, but she was not in the mood to make up. In a few months he would be gone, and she would be left alone to win friends and influence people and pioneer in science. Before Nath could snap the photo, she dropped her gaze back to the book, hair curtaining her face. A smile says, “I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.” That is why dogs make such a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their skins. Dogs, Lydia thought. She tried to picture herself as a dog, something docile and friendly, a golden retriever with a black smile and a fringy tail, but she did not feel friendly and purebred and blond. She felt unsociable and suspicious, like the Wolffs’ dog down the street, a mutt, braced for hostility.

“Lyds,” Nath called. He would not give up. “Lydia. Lyd-i-a.” Through the screen of her hair, Lydia saw the zoom lens of the camera like a giant microscope trained on her. “Smile.”

You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy.

Lydia pulled her hair back over her shoulder in a slowly untwisting rope. Then she stared straight into the black eye of the camera, refusing to smile, even the slightest bend in her lips, even after she heard the shutter click.

? ? ?



By the time school started again, Lydia was relieved to escape the house, even if physics class was the first thing she had to face. She set the failed test—signed now by her mother—facedown on Mr. Kelly’s desk. Mr. Kelly himself was already at the chalkboard, drawing a diagram. Unit II: Electricity and Magnetism, he wrote at the top. Lydia slid into her seat and rested her cheek on the desktop. Someone had etched a dime-sized FUCK YOU into the surface with a pushpin. She pressed her thumb against it, and when she lifted her hand a backward FUCK rose on her fingertip like a welt.