in the Fishbowl where she’d sat as Devon Brady’s girlfriend, a girl who was pretty and admired, a girl who hadn’t been spoiled, raped, ruined.
“You’re dropping out?”
In Bethie’s head, the voice of the doctor—if that’s what he had been—was loud as a shout. Next time, try keeping your legs together. She knew she’d be hearing that voice, those words, on an endless loop in her brain, maybe for the rest of her life.
“I can take some business classes at Wayne State. There’s always a job for a girl who can type,” she said, repeating the mantra of Mrs. Sloan, who’d taught Business Typing at Bellwood High. “You should go back on your trip,” Bethie said.
Jo didn’t answer.
“I’ll pay you back,” said Bethie. Just like that, a plan was forming. “I’ll work at Hudson’s this semester. Mom can get me a job. I’ll earn enough money to give you back whatever it cost. You can go on your trip. You should go on your trip.” The image of Jo’s money in that awful woman’s hands, the idea of Jo missing out on her chance to escape, the chance she’d wanted so much and had worked so hard for, tore at Bethie’s heart. She could feel all her shame and sorrow gathering into a heavy knot at her center, an iron weight where her heart had once been.
“Don’t worry about it,” her sister said. “It turned out Shelley couldn’t come after all. So, you know, it wasn’t going to be what I’d thought.” She was staring at the road, not meeting Bethie’s eyes.
Bethie adjusted her grip on her purse, closing her eyes as her insides cramped. “Thank you,” she said when Jo had pulled into the driveway. “Thank you for everything.” She got out of the car, moving slowly, hunched over like Bubbe. It was the end of August, the air thick and humid and buzzing with the noises of lawn mowers and sprinklers and cicadas, those good, familiar summer sounds, beneath the wide, innocent Midwestern sky. Soon, school would begin. Kids would laugh and call in the early-morning light, mothers would pop their curlered heads out of front doors and yell at stragglers to hurry, or call kids back for homework and permission slips. Halloween would come, and costumed kids would knock on their door for candy. Then Thanksgiving, Chanukah, and Christmas. Snow would fall, snow would melt, grass would grow, be mowed, grow again. Mrs. Johnson across the street would bring over her squash and peppers and pumpkins, and Sarah would offer her roses and snapdragons and hydrangeas in return, and Bethie would always feel the way she was feeling, dirty and ashamed and unclean.
She went into the bedroom, pulled the shades to blot out the daylight, crawled into bed, and pulled her pillow over her head. She slept for an interval that could have been an hour, or eight hours, or a day. She woke, shuffled to the table, ate food she didn’t taste, slept again. One morning, Sarah appeared in the doorway. “Bethie, you have to get up. You’ve got an interview in Housewares at eleven.”
Bethie pulled herself out of bed, into the shower, and into the only dress she had that still fit, an old one of Jo’s, green polyester with long sleeves. She couldn’t fix her pasty complexion or the circles under her eyes, but she washed and set her hair, and put on lipstick and blush, and rode downtown with her mother, and promised the manager, one Mr. Breedlove, that she would work hard, and that she’d be grateful for the opportunity. When Mr. Breedlove smiled at her with yellowed teeth and said, “Happy to have you on the team,” she felt a great weariness. Time for another ride on the carousel, she thought. Round and round again.
At lunch, Bethie ate cheeseburgers or fried chicken or the meatloaf special, while Terri and Marcy and Liz, the other girls on the floor, had salads or cottage cheese with pineapple. What was the point of watching her weight now? Once, she’d thought beauty was power, but now she could see that it was just trouble. A pretty face, a cute figure, a smile, all of those were weak spots. They were ways in, and Bethie wanted to be armored, defended, unbreakable. At home, she would poke and pick at her dinner, and when her mother and Jo were asleep, she’d pull ice cream out of the freezer, or a box of Bisquick from the pantry, add eggs