them in my room. I lowered my eyes and put my hand over my mouth. “Mom,” I said, looking down. “I need to borrow your van.”
“Why?” She moved her head to look up at me. Marley clicked her tongue and gently pulled back on the braid.
“Can you just give me the keys?”
My mother looked up at me, saying nothing. I knew, from vast experience, going all the way back to my earliest years, that the conversation would not continue until I apologized. You don’t take that tone with me, young lady.
But apparently, these days, I could. “Okay,” she said. She leaned forward, reaching for her purse on the edge of her bed. Marley moved with her, still holding the braid. I stared at the bag of M&M’s on the floor.
“They’re mine,” Marley said. “You want some?”
I shook my head. I just wanted the keys.
“Veronica saw me play once.” Marley was up on her knees, twisting an elastic around the end of a braid. “She came to the football game when the band played.” She tilted her head, still looking at the back of my mother’s head. “Or at least she said she did.”
What happened next, what I did next, is difficult to defend or even explain. I will say I was tired, going on little sleep, and too much worry and adrenaline. I was in no mood for any complaint from Marley, no matter how subtle, no matter if what she was saying was true. I saw my mother look at me, wondering if I was, in fact, a liar. I saw Marley in a horror show of a dress and the pig slippers, the very picture of an easy target, and something ugly and fast in me decided, You! You are the one who must be punished!
“You know, Marley. You might take some responsibility for yourself, for making friends, instead of just pestering me all the time. Maybe if you tried not dressing and acting like you were twelve years old, the other freshmen wouldn’t avoid you.”
They both stared up at me. My mother pulled her head back a little. I was already embarrassed, aware now of how I must look to them, and how I must have sounded; but in my swirling head, despite my embarrassment, or maybe even because of it, I felt I had no option but to stand my ground.
“I’m tired of feeling sorry for you.” I kept my eyes on just Marley, though I could feel my mother looking up at me as well. “I’m tired of you being so pathetic. This is my room, by the way. I didn’t invite you in here. And sorry, no, I didn’t go to the football game. I’m not your mommy. I don’t want to be.”
My mother stood up quickly. “That’s enough,” she said, her voice very low. “Just stop talking, Veronica. Just stop talking right now.”
Marley stood quickly. She smoothed her flowered skirt and looked at me, her eyes small, her mouth open, as if she still couldn’t believe what I had just said, as if she were waiting for me to smile and say I was only kidding.
I stepped aside, giving her room to leave.
“I’m sorry.” My mother touched Marley’s shoulder. “I really have no idea…” Both of her braids turned up at the ends, like Pippi Longstocking’s. She looked at me and spoke through clenched teeth. “I don’t know what has gotten into my daughter.”
Marley shrugged, and leaned down to close her horn case. I could see pink splotches on her pale cheeks, the same kind I got when I was trying hard not to cry. I put my hands against my face, my hands cold against my cheeks, my cheeks hot against my hands.
“Honey,” my mother said. She was talking to Marley. “You don’t have to go.” She gave me a hard look. “Or if you want to go, I’ll come with you.”
Marley shook her head. “I’ve got to go anyway. I have class.” She gave me a look of misery or hatred or maybe both, and ran past me out into the hallway.
When I finally looked up again, my mother had her head tilted away from me. She took a small step back and watched me from the side, birdlike, as if she couldn’t bear to look at me full-on. I stalked over to my desk, unzipped my backpack, and started pulling out books.
“What is the matter with you?”
I said nothing. It was a question with too many answers. Where do I