Change Places with Me(24)

Clara wriggled out of Kim’s grasp and said, “You better sit far away from me. I’m getting sick and don’t want you to catch it.”

Clara didn’t know most of the people there. Her dad’s friends from the TV production company showed up, and there were a lot of them—camera operators, sound mixers, dolly grips, boom operators. Some made a point of telling Clara what a nice guy her dad had been and how much he’d loved her. Others were sobbing, some loudly, some quietly; still others sat in silence. It was like they were demonstrating many ways for Clara to feel. But Clara began to feel something else. She could see and hear, but everything seemed distant, muted, as if she were behind glass, like Snow-white in the glass coffin. It was almost pleasant. This was a place she could stay, like Snow-white, for a long, long time.

Several months after Clara’s dad died, Evil Lynn took Clara to a psychologist. He had wispy hair and thick black glasses.

“When someone you love dies, there is no right or wrong way to react,” he told Clara.

Clearly Evil Lynn thought differently, or why drag Clara here?

“You are angry,” he said. “Every child is angry at the parent who died. How could your father have done such a thing, leaving you like that?”

Clara was well aware that her dad had done such a thing. I will keep you safe and sound, he’d said. He’d broken that promise, big-time.

“You are terrified, the terror of a child who fears she can’t survive. Such feelings may intensify as the anniversary approaches,” he said.

What feelings? There were no feelings in the glass coffin.

“Why don’t you hit the couch with the noodle?” He picked up the noodle—a long, lime-green Styrofoam thing.

“I don’t want to hit the couch with the noodle.”

“Why not?”

“The couch didn’t do anything to me.”

“You are heartbroken that you never had the chance to say good-bye to your father. Would you like to write him a letter?”

“How would I mail it?”

He put the noodle down. “You must miss him dreadfully. Wouldn’t you like to tell him that?”

“If I could tell him that, then I wouldn’t be missing him.”

The doctor drew a deep breath. “If you could say one thing to your father, what would it be?”

“What’s it like to be dead?”

Clara saw this man a couple of more times; he tried to get her to draw with markers, punch and squash mounds of clay, talk to puppets, rip up old telephone books, go into a small, soundproof room and scream as loud as she could.

“She’s not willing to do any of it,” the doctor told Evil Lynn.

“That stubborn streak,” Evil Lynn said.

The years passed, and Clara grew her limp brown hair out and kept her bangs long so you couldn’t see her eyes. Her face rounded out like the moon, and she shot up practically overnight, between her tenth and eleventh birthdays, long skinny arms and legs like juice sticks. She began wearing denim overalls and flannel shirts in winter, and short overalls and T-shirts in summer, when Evil Lynn put her in day camps, which were like nonacademic versions of school. In both places Clara did what was required of her, nothing more or less.

Occasionally Kim called and sent messages, but Clara didn’t answer her phone and ignored the texts and messages. What was the point? There was only room for one in the glass coffin. At school, when Kim tried talking about getting together, Clara said, “I’m really busy.” With what, Kim asked her, and Clara just shrugged. Kim and her family moved to Belle Heights Tower, right across from Clara’s apartment house. Clara never visited her. In the cafeteria, they didn’t sit together; Clara told Kim she used this time to do crossword puzzles on her phone, planting herself at a corner table with a view of a brick wall.

Though sometimes Kim spoke to Clara as if nothing had gone wrong between them. When they had the same phys ed class, for instance, in seventh grade. Kim was one of Clara’s spotters when Clara was on the trampoline. “C’mon, jump higher,” Kim urged her. “Do a double turnaround seat drop! I’ve got your back.” But Clara just did a regular seat drop.

Evil Lynn continued to take Clara to psychologists and therapists. “I believe there’s something or someone out there who can help you,” she explained. Whatever works, Evil Lynn made a point of saying again and again, whether they were trying talk therapy (which would have required Clara to talk), medication (which made her too sleepy), some new advance, an established treatment, or a combination; the list included anything that was reliable, proven, and safe.

Clara kept her word—or lack of it, ha-ha—when it came to Evil Lynn, and only spoke to her when necessary. Clara’s preferred method of communication was by Post-it. I need this signed for school, Clara would write on a Post-it stuck to a medical form. Or Evil Lynn might leave Clara a note on the kitchen table: Going to the drugstore. Do you need soap? Clara’s answer: No soap. Which was one of her dad’s expressions. It didn’t mean he didn’t want soap. It meant no deal, more or less.

Without discussing it, they worked out the household chores. Evil Lynn cleared the table and Clara did the dishes—always by hand; they had a dishwasher with powerful suction, but it shook so violently Clara thought it might explode at any moment. Clara also vacuumed and did the laundry, folding clothes in piles so neat they still looked like they were in the store. Evil Lynn did the grocery shopping and made breakfast and dinner. If Evil Lynn had to work late, Clara had frozen pizza. Clara kept her room clean, and Evil Lynn was not allowed to enter. If Clara got ready for school too slowly, Evil Lynn stood in the doorway and told her it was getting late. When that happened, Clara glared at her stepmother and made extra sure she hadn’t set foot inside the room, not one inch, which, Clara was sure, would poison the atmosphere just as surely as Snow-white’s stepmother had poisoned the apple.