Life Is Funny Read online

  My mom is partly crazy because she’s an alcoholic. She’s not drinking now because she went through all these programs that the ad agency had to pay for. She’s been sober for five years. But once you’re an alcoholic, you’re always an alcoholic. She still has to go to AA meetings once a week and twice on holidays. That’s another reason why she’s so busy. She’s got work, AA meetings, and her therapy, too. She’s been in therapy for five years. I went with her once. Her therapist was this woman who had a birthmark on the left side of her lip, spreading into her cheek. I didn’t hear a word she said because I was busy trying to figure out if that birthmark was getting bigger right in front of my eyes or if I was just imagining it. I squinted a lot, trying to see it from all angles, and my mother said later the woman thought I had a twitch. My mother was laughing so hard when she told me that, she wet her pants. She showed me the stain.

  I remember the last time my mother was drunk. I was eight, and we were at the Bronx Zoo. My mother was walking too fast for me. She wouldn’t stop to see the animals. I wanted to look at the elephants and the gorillas. I wanted to just watch them for a little while. But my mother wouldn’t stop. She made us walk and walk and walk. I needed to use the bathroom, but she wouldn’t let me. After a while I could barely lift my feet. They were scuffing the ground when a man told my mother it looked like her pretty little girl was tired. Keep your goddamn hands off her! my mother screamed at him. Then she threw up. Then she fell asleep. It was right in front of the elephants, so I got to look at them for a while before they came to get us.

  * * *

  China says me and Ebony have a lot of anger. China reads college books, and she always knows stuff about people and life and that kind of thing, the way your grandmother might know. I guess China is wise, more than smart, but she’s pretty smart, too.

  We always meet under the bleachers during lunch because it’s private, plus we see all kinds of good stuff from under there, like Mr. Stappio feeling up Ms. Manning and Denny Stephens selling coke to Mercedes Little.

  Today me and China take our hot dogs into the gym and stoop over to Ebony, who’s concentrating really hard on pulling a razor blade across her wrist. I just stand here like an idiot, not even believing what I’m seeing, while China smacks Ebony’s hand, and the blade flies and then skids out from under the bleachers.

  “Bitch,” Ebony complains, like cutting herself is no big deal. “I wasn’t done.” Two thin lines bead red onto her skin, like a liquid bracelet.

  “Are you trying to kill yourself?” China hisses. “Because if you’re trying to kill yourself, you better tell us now. Right now!”

  I clamp one of my cafeteria napkins over Ebony’s wrist.

  “Damn,” China says, while I pat down on top of the cuts. There isn’t much seeping through, just enough to make the napkin stick.

  “Bitch,” Ebony grumbles again. “I’m not trying to kill myself.”

  I start breathing again. I didn’t know I’d stopped.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?” I ask. I’m the weakest out of the three of us.

  “It hurts”—Ebony sniffs, all proud—“but it feels nice, too. Like when you get tickled until you could die.”

  “You’re crazy,” I tell her. “Apologize.”

  “Sorry,” Ebony says.

  “Tell us you’re not going to do it again,” I order.

  “It feels nice,” Ebony argues. “Especially when you’re mad.”

  “Tell us!” I say.

  “I won’t do it again.”

  “You better not,” China goes.

  “What are you mad at anyway?” I ask.

  Ebony shrugs.

  “Her asshole father,” China says. “Right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bet you he called again last night, right?”

  Another shrug.

  “Was he drunk?”

  He was probably whining about all the letters he supposedly sends that Ebony never gets. We spent practically all of seventh grade hating Ebony’s mother, thinking she was throwing those letters away, before we figured out Ebony’s father never wrote a mad scrap.

  “Both of y’all,” China says, “ought to get into therapy.”

  She’s said that before. She thinks you can’t have an alcoholic parent and not need therapy. I used to wonder who she thought is more screwed up, me or Ebony. But now with this razor blade thing, it’s pretty obvious.

  Ebony grabs my cheese puffs bag and pulls it apart while I shift my weight a little. The bleachers are hard and sharp in your back or your side. You have to move around a lot underneath them if you want to stay comfortable. I start to snatch the cheese puffs back, but Ebony’s fingertips, already dusted orange, change my mind. They’re bitten so bloody it makes you hurt all over, just looking at them.

  “You shouldn’t be cutting yourself,” I say. “It’s fucked up. You don’t have to get all fucked up.”

  China says something better. “If I ever see you do that again,” she warns Ebony, “I’m telling your mother.”

  * * *

  There are two messages on the answering machine when I get home from school. I eat a chocolate chip granola bar and listen to them, careful to keep my crumbs over the wastebasket. The first message is from my mom, telling me not to make crumbs when I get home from school. The next message is from my agency, telling me to be at some building in Manhattan the next day at three-thirty, and to be sure to wear my hair down, a white shirt, and no makeup. I never wear makeup.

  I’m on the phone in my room when my mother gets home from work. I’m talking to China.

  “Why a white shirt?” I’m asking.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s for some sort of laundry ad or something.”

  “Grace!” my mom yells from the kitchen. I can hear the answering machine beeping its finishing beeps.

  “Why’s she mad this time?” China asks.

  “Same reason as always,” I tell her. “No reason.” We laugh.

  “Damn it, Grace!”

  China and I hang up, and in two seconds my mother is standing in my doorway. She looks like me, only she’s not pretty. I never could figure that out.

  “Why didn’t you call me at work to tell me about your audition?”

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

  “I told you to call me immediately if you got something.”

  She never said that. I don’t answer back because if you stay quiet, you have a better chance of her staying calm. She sighs some dramatic sigh and storms out of my room. I walk into the hallway and begin to count to myself, in Mississippis. Usually I don’t get up to twenty before she’s yelling about something else. Boom. On eleven she starts up from her room.

  “It’s six,” she complains. “It’s Wednesday!”

  “You said six-thirty last week,” I answer from my spot in the hall. I’ve stood there so much there’s a worn patch on the wood floor under my feet.

  “Six o’clock!” She stomps into view. “Why do you always have to make everything so hard for me? Damn it. You do this on purpose.”

  I walk slow down the hall from our apartment to Walker’s, wondering why the neighbors don’t complain about me and my mom. I know they hear her. They used to hear me, but I stopped yelling back a while ago. Walker’s as bad as the neighbors. He acts like he doesn’t know anything either, but I bet he does.

  “Time for dinner,” I tell him when he opens his door. He’s tall and skinny and has a goatee.

  “I thought we decided six-thirty.”

  “Talk to her,” I answer.

  He’s quiet for a minute, looking at me.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “She just got home,” I explain. “Nothing’s even ready yet.”

  “We’ll order pizza.”

  Later, through all of my mom’s bitching about how she’s going to have to miss work to take me to my call, Walker congratulates me.

  “Well, I didn’t get anything yet,” I go.
br />   “You got a call,” my mom says. “And I’m sure you’ll get the job, whatever it is. Walker’s absolutely right. Congratulations.”

  “If I get it,” I hear myself asking, “can I invite Ebony and China over to celebrate?”

  “Another slice?” my mother offers Walker.

  He looks over at me. “What about it, Judy?” he asks my mom. “Can she?”

  “No more?” My mom picks up the last slice with the tips of her fingers. “I’ll eat it then.”

  Walker and I clean up the kitchen while she takes her shower.

  “She’s racist,” I tell Walker, handing him a dish towel and a wet plate.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Walker answers.

  “She is. That’s why she doesn’t like them.”

  “I don’t think your mom’s racist.”

  “Why does she hate my friends then?”

  Walker concentrates on drying. He makes the plate squeak, he rubs so hard.

  “She acted like she didn’t even hear me.”

  “She has a lot on her mind,” he says.

  A plate slips from my fingers, and for a second Walker and I freeze. There’s no telling how long my mom will go off if it breaks. But it just clatters in those edge-to-edge circles on the floor until I manage to grab it into silence. We hold still for a while, listening to see if she heard anything from the shower. Nothing.

  “How can you stand her?” I ask him.

  For a minute I think he might slap me. Instead he puts his hands on my shoulders. “I love her,” he says. “And so do you.”

  * * *

  The next day I bring a note to my homeroom teacher excusing me from school after fourth period. When the bell rings, me and China and Ebony sneak out the fire doors to Ebony’s house for lunch. Her mom is cool with us leaving school grounds to eat sandwiches instead of cafeteria food. She’s finishing her coffee when we walk in.

  “Congratulations, Grace!” She smiles.

  “It’s just a call,” I say. “I don’t have the job yet or anything.”

  “Y’all hungry?” she asks, putting her coffee mug into the sink and grabbing plates and glasses to put around the table. Me and Ebony and China start pulling bologna and tomatoes and stuff out of the refrigerator.

  “If I get it,” I say before I can stop myself, “my mom’s going to take us all out to celebrate.” Nobody misses a beat.

  “Cool,” China goes.

  “I’m ordering steak,” Ebony goes.

  Ms. Giles unscrews a mayonnaise jar and says, “‘Hope, caught under the jar’s rim, crawls like a golden fly.’”

  “Mom!” Ebony moans, reaching up into the freezer to grab some ice.

  “What does she mean?” I ask.

  “Dream on,” China translates for me, and then Ebony’s mom grabs Ebony’s wrist.

  “What is this?”

  “Nothing,” Ebony says, pulling away.

  Her mother glares at me and China. “What is that?”

  China shrugs, while I blush. Sometimes I hate being white.

  “Cat scratch,” Ebony says, smooth as a pearl.

  “Then why is Grace’s face so red?”

  “I’m hot,” I say quickly. I try to catch a glimpse of that wrist to make sure it still has only two scratches. Ebony’s covering it up with her palm.

  “You. Children. Are not starting that tattoo nonsense in this house,” Ms. Giles says, pointing three fingers hard at all of us. “Do you understand me!”

  Then she glances over at the kitchen clock and grabs her coat.

  “I mean it,” she warns, smacking Ebony’s head lightly with her palm on the way out.

  A few minutes after she leaves, when Ebony’s taking a chomp out of her sandwich, I see four more scratches. Fine and thin, like dark hairs. I kick China, who glances over to check things out for herself. Ebony notices us looking and shakes her head at China.

  “Don’t you dare tell her,” she says.

  “You promised,” China accuses.

  “You going to be a bitch?” Ebony asks.

  “She’s being a friend, bitch,” I snap.

  “Both of y’all can leave then,” Ebony says. She says it quiet.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” China goes.

  “My call isn’t until three-thirty,” I remind Ebony.

  “Leave,” Ebony orders us.

  We sit there through every last crumb, and nobody remembers to wish me luck when it’s time to go.

  * * *

  In the waiting area my mother puts on a good show. She keeps her arm around my shoulders and plays with my hair. She wants people to think we’re really close.

  “It’s our first call,” she gushes to the receptionist. I want to kill her.

  There are about three million other girls there, all in white shirts except a few, who look completely embarrassed. One of them is slinking out the door when my mother and I get there. They all have long brown hair and are really pretty. A lot of them wear makeup. A lot of them are alone and look bored. One of them has a miniature television set. She’s watching Sally Jessy Raphael. She has the volume up pretty loud. All of them stare at me when I walk in.

  “I was just wondering what the product is,” my mother says to the receptionist.

  The receptionist shrugs. “Got me.”

  “You’d think they’d let us know what the product is,” my mother says, looking around at some of the other mothers for support. Nobody bothers.

  We wait and wait and wait. Sometimes a girl disappears down this long hallway and is gone for fifteen minutes. Other times a girl is back practically before she even left. By the time they call my name, there are only three or four of us left.

  My mother walks fast. I have to work hard to keep up with her. The audition room isn’t any big deal. It has wide windows and a wooden desk, and there are five people sitting in folding chairs along the wall. A man with a goatee like Walker’s takes one look at me, stands up, and says, “She’s the one.”

  It’s just like in the movies. I can’t believe it. The others are nodding.

  “What’s the product?” my mother asks.

  “Don’t you need me to walk or turn or anything?” I say. I know I should probably be quiet, but it doesn’t seem right. They’re just handing this to me. They aren’t asking me to do anything, even.

  “What’s the product?” my mother asks again.

  “Perfume,” the man with the goatee says. “For teens. It’s called Future.”

  “I don’t really wear perfume,” I tell them.

  They laugh like it’s the funniest thing in the world. My mother tries hard not to glare at me.

  “She’s definitely the one,” the goatee man says, looking over at the others. “Right?” They all nod.

  “Usually we let you know through the agency,” the goatee man tells my mother. “We’ll make it official tomorrow morning.” Then he turns to me. “But you’re the one.”

  Before we leave, I find out that the people sitting down are the client, the producer, the client’s lawyer, and the artistic designer. The director is the goatee man. It’s a TV commercial, not a magazine ad. Which means more money and, if I don’t screw up, more work, too.

  “Why did I have to wear a white shirt?” I ask the director.

  “You didn’t,” the director says. “Our people made a mistake.”

  I can’t help it. I roll my eyes. The director rolls his right back, which makes me smile. He looks like I just shot him or something.

  “You have a stunning mouth,” he says, “but don’t smile on the shoot.”

  * * *

  “Rude,” my mother accuses as soon as we get home. Walker’s there, with sparkling cider as a stand-in for champagne, since my mom isn’t allowed to even have one sip of anything alcoholic.

  “I got it,” I tell him.

  “I knew you would,” he says.

  “You could have lost the whole thing, telling them you don’t wear perfume.”

  “It just came
out, Mom.”

  “And you gave him that face!”

  “He didn’t mind.”

  “How do you think that makes me look?”

  “I made a great dinner,” Walker interrupts. “I thought we could celebrate.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I try. “They gave it to me, didn’t they?”

  “Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter,” my mother snaps. “Don’t tell me what matters!” Her voice is getting witchy.

  “Judy,” Walker says, using his let’s-just-stay-calm tone. Sometimes, coming from him, it works.

  “Don’t Judy me,” she spits at him.

  “I got the job,” I remind her. And then I can’t help myself. “Nobody was thinking about you. They were thinking about me.”

  “That’s it,” she says, and her voice goes really soft. When her voice gets soft instead of louder, it’s way worse. I can feel myself stiffen up, even though she hasn’t hit me for a long time. “Forget it.”

  There’s this big silence. Walker and I look at each other.

  “Forget what?” I finally ask.

  “Forget the job,” she says. “You’re not doing it.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not doing it.”

  “What about college money?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she singsongs, making fun of me.

  “Judy, that hardly seems fair,” Walker tries.

  “Don’t you start with me!” she yells at him.

  I don’t yell. I can’t. I can hardly get the words out.

  “You’re a goddamn bitch,” I whisper. “And I hate you.”

  She hits me hard. With her fist. The force of it knocks me off my feet, and I stumble backward onto the floor. The part of my head above my left ear feels like it’s been blown up. I don’t cry. I just stare at her until she walks into her room. Walker helps me stand, and then he leaves.

  * * *

  I hide out under the bleachers the next morning waiting for China and Ebony to find me. They show up for second period.

  “You didn’t get it?” China says.

  “I got it.”

  “Why are you skipping?”

  We don’t usually cry in front of each other. I’m trying hard not to start.

  “What happened?” Ebony asks. They both look pretty worried.

  “My mother’s a fucking bitch.”

  “You want us to stay?”