Tully

‘What’s Topeka High’s minority population?’

‘Piss off,’ said Jennifer, snapping out of it.

Tully smiled. ‘Want to go upstairs to the library?’

‘It’s closed,’ said Jen.

‘Let’s try,’ said Tully, leading her friend up the stairs.

It was open. Tully and Jennifer walked in, softly shutting the door behind them. They sat on the bench near the fireplace with their feet up.

‘God, this place is creepy in the dark,’ said Jennifer. ‘Those stained glass windows seem so pretty during the day, but at night, boy, are they creepy.’

‘I wish the fireplace was lit,’ said Tully, with her back to the stained glass windows. She wasn’t creeped out at all.

‘Soooooo,’ said Jen slowly. ‘Did you and he talk about anything?’

‘What, while we jigged around? No,’ said Tully.

‘Nothing?’ Jennifer wanted to know.

‘Nothing, Mandolini,’ said Tully. ‘If you wanted me to talk to him you should’ve sent me there with a mission. I’ve never spoken two words to him in my entire life. You want me to engage in conversation on the dance floor when your stare is driving me to distraction?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jennifer. ‘I didn’t mean to stare. I just thought you might talk, that’s all.’

‘Talk about what?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jennifer. ‘Something.’

‘Like? The weather? Politics? Football, God help me? You?’

‘You, maybe?’ said Jennifer.

‘Why the hell would we want to talk about me?’

‘Me, then,’ Jennifer said.

‘Now you’re making sense,’ said Tully. ‘We didn’t, though I’m beginning to wish we did, just so you’d stop interrogating me.’

‘It’s okay,’ Jennifer said. ‘Let’s go home.’

Later, in the Camaro, Tully said, ‘Jen, you know, you lost a bit of weight. I noticed when we were dancing, you’re getting this thin waist. Are you dieting?’

‘No, I just kinda go on not being very hungry lately,’ answered Jennifer. ‘Not thin like yours.’

‘No, but then I don’t have boobs like yours, either.’

Jennifer didn’t say anything.

‘Love your car,’ said Tully.

‘Yeah, it’s pretty neat, isn’t it?’

Tully sighed. ‘Okay, that’s it. Jennifer, what do I usually ask you? How’s cheerleading going? Well, tonight I’m gonna ask you something different. How is Jack?’

Silence. ‘Great. You danced with him.’

‘Yes, I did. You did, too. You guys looked good dancing together.’

‘We did?’ Jennifer brightened a little. ‘I always wonder what we look like when we are together. Whether we fit, you know.’

‘I know,’ said Tully. ‘And you do.’ Tully saw it in Jennifer’s eyes again, the mute withdrawal, and changed the subject. ‘When do you think we’ll be hearing from Stanford and UCSC?’

‘February,’ replied Jennifer.

They parked in front of Tully’s house.

‘Do you really want me to come in with you?’ asked Jennifer.

‘You must,’ said Tully. ‘That is, if you want me to live.’

They woke Hedda up, who sat with her head drooped and mouth open in front of the late news. Tully woke her up.

Hedda thanked Jennifer for driving Tully home and asked Tully where she got her pretty dress. Tully actually felt lucky then that she looked like a flower shop.

‘Want to sleep over, Jen?’ Tully turned to her mother. ‘Is that okay, Mom?’

‘Tully!’ Jennifer said. ‘You want me to sleep over? I haven’t asked my own mother.’

Tully nodded. ‘So ask her.’

Jennifer looked briefly away but called her mother and made sure it was all right.

‘Jennifer, how could anything not be all right with your parents?’ Tully said as they were getting ready for bed. ‘If you told them you were heading for Texas to become a tattooed rodeo girl, they’d pay your way.’

‘You’re wrong, Tully,’ said Jen. ‘They’re not happy we’re going to Palo Alto.’

‘Are they paying your way?’ asked Tully, adding, when she saw Jennifer’s expression, ‘See?’

They climbed into Tully’s bed together. When Jennifer was younger she had many nightmares, many bad things frightened her in the night, and Tully, who used to stay over at Jen’s house three, four times a week, would climb into Jennifer’s bed to calm her down. Tully did not mention all the bad things that came to her in the night. The habits of children die hard, and as they got older, Tully did try to sleep on the floor when she stayed over. When she did, it felt as if she and Jen were fighting, so they continued to sleep alongside each other. When Julie stayed over with them, all three girls slept on the floor. In the last few years, Tully seldom slept over with just Jen.

Tully pulled her blanket over them and spooned Jennifer, the only position in which Jen liked to sleep. Tully occasionally wondered through the years what it would be like to be spooned herself, but never brought it up. It was never that important.

Jennifer’s hair smelled faintly of Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific. Tully touched it. Jennifer didn’t stir. She seemed tired, or silent. Uncomfortable?

‘Jen, your hair smells terrific. Jen?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Jennifer? Are you uncomfortable?’

‘Me? No, why should I be uncomfortable?’

‘You go through these things sometimes. You get awkward.’

‘I’m okay, Tully,’ Jennifer answered. ‘I’m glad to be here. I haven’t been here in so long. With you for so long.’ Jen paused. ‘We missed you, Tully, when you weren’t with us.’

Tully swallowed and held Jennifer tighter. ‘I was with you guys, I was constantly over.’

‘Not constantly,’ said Jennifer. ‘Not like before. And never alone with me. Admit it, Tull, you wanted to be away from us.’

‘No, that’s not true,’ said Tully.

‘So why did you do it, then? Why did you stay away?’

‘Who knows? I guess I just wanted to be with people who didn’t know me at all.’

‘Yes, but why?’

‘Because,’ said Tully, ‘I guess I needed some seclusion.’

‘Seclusion? Like anonymity?’

‘Yes, just like that.’

Jen was quiet. ‘Anonymity, like…death?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tully slowly. ‘I guess like death.’ In the dark, she could almost bear it.

‘So would you say that you sort of, like, died during those years?’

‘Yes,’ said Tully. ‘I guess you could say that.’

Jennifer was quiet. ‘Why did you need that so much, all that anonymity? What happened to you that you needed to…die? Did you fall in love with someone? Did something break your heart?’

Tully shook her head. ‘Jenny, I didn’t fall in love. And no one broke my heart.’

‘Tell me, Tully,’ said Jennifer.

After a moment of silence, Tully said softly, ‘Nothing to tell, Mandolini.’

‘Makker, you even stopped playing softball. Come on.’

‘Really,’ said Tully, smelling Jennifer’s hair again. ‘Believe me.’

‘Makker, you are full of shit. You really don’t want to talk about it, do you?’

‘No, Jen, I really don’t.’

‘Well,’ said Jennifer, ‘in any case, I’m glad you came back, Tully. We missed you when you were gone.’

And I missed you, too, guys, thought Tully, but remained silent.

‘Tell me, Tully,’ said Jennifer. ‘Tell me about the first time with your wrists.’

Tully moved away slightly. Jennifer reached around and pulled her back. ‘Go on.’

‘Not much to tell,’ said Tully.

‘Tell me why you do it.’

‘Jennifer, what the hell is wrong with you, what are you asking me this shit for?’

‘Just tell me, Tully,’ whispered Jen. ‘Tell me. Do you do it to die?’

Tully sighed. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t think I do it to die. I do it because I want to feel what death feels like. I just want unconsciousness to wash over me, I do it almost like they did it in the ancient times – to heal myself. And then when all the bad is out of me, I come to and go on.’

Tully trailed off, thinking of the very first time she sat down inside a bathtub filled with water with a double-edged razor in her hand. She thought her young breastless body was all relaxed, but when she put the razor near her wrists, her fingers were shaking so badly, she had to put them back in the water for a few minutes until she calmed down. Am I going to die? thought Tully. I mean, is that what’s going to happen to me? Am I going to die? I’ll cut my wrists and lose consciousness and bleed to death like the Romans did, except that nobody will find me until next week, after I will have been stone dead for so long. Am I going to die? I cannot count on anyone to come and save me, that’s for fucking sure, so before I put this steel blade to my hand and watch my veins pop open like dough out of a Pillsbury can, I want to be sure that I don’t want to die. Tully looked around the bathroom, looked at the towels near her, at the gauze bandage, at the iodine, and thought, I am ready. For whatever. For what-fucking-ever. And she took the blade out of the hot water and sliced an inch-long horizontal gash in her left wrist, thinking Oh, goodness me, my hands are so steady, oh, my goodness me, look at all that blood. She put her wrist down and watched the water near her slowly turn pink. She lifted her hand and, fascinated, watched her prepubescent blood pour down her arm. She touched the blood with her fingers, then tasted it. It was salty and slick. And then Tully cut her other wrist. She put both her hands under the water and closed her eyes, but that wasn’t as good as watching herself bleed. She opened her eyes and lifted both her hands up high, lying down all the way up to her neck in the blood water, and gazed in disbelief as the bright red blood oozed down her arms. It was when Tully’s eyes started to close, it was when she started to hear strange noises and see water and waves and rocks in front of her eyes, it was when she started to smell the salty sea, that Tully thought, It’s time, or I will die. If I don’t get up now, I will die. She felt herself to be in slow motion, moving with all the deliberate speed of a tanker on the horizon – seemingly immobile and soundless – when she lifted her body out of the water and bent over for the towel. Again, rocks were washed over with water in front of her eyes, water broke against the rocks, making gurgling sounds. Gurgling, burbling waves rose up and crashed in front of her, whooshh…whoooshhh…whoooshhh…whooooshhhh…Let me lie down for a moment, Tully thought, just for a moment. But she didn’t. She pulled herself up and grabbed on to the towel instead, pressing it to one wrist, then the other. She kept herself up, kept her arms up, got out of the bath, got another towel, and, wrapping it around the other wrist, pressed her wrists together hard and sat there naked on the cold tile floor, with her arms up and together, eyes closed, trying to will the blood to stop. And it did, eventually. The towels were ruined. Tully didn’t even need to dry herself off, so long had she sat on the floor. When she unwrapped her wrists, her gashes were black and swollen, but no longer fluid. That was good. Pouring iodine on the wounds was not so good. Tully whimpered and grit her teeth, and finally bit her lip to blood to keep herself from screaming.

She bandaged her wrists tight, went to her room, and prayed, swearing to God that she would never, never do that again.

But time passed, and her wounds healed, ragged, jagged scars though they remained. Tully forgot the closeness to death, remembering only the closeness to the waves and the rocks. And so she cut her wrists again some time later, and again and again, longing to be washed away by the salty water.

Jennifer’s back was to Tully. Nudging her and getting no response, Tully sighed and said, ‘Jen, what’s wrong with you?’ feeling tightness around her stomach. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?’

Tully patted Jennifer’s shoulder. ‘Jennifer, you’re not playing ball. Want to talk?’

‘Tully, there’s really nothing to talk about.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ said Tully. ‘There never is. You forget who you’re talking to. Still, though,’ she said, using one of Robin’s phrases. ‘Something you want to tell me?’

‘Nothing to tell, Tully,’ said Jennifer sadly. ‘Wish there was.’

Taking a deep breath, Tully said, ‘Jennifer, have you slept with him?’

Jennifer didn’t answer, and then began to cry. Tully was speechless. Crying! She touched Jennifer’s hair and managed only, ‘Please, please.’ Crying, my Lord, over what? I cannot believe, just cannot, is she really crying over –

‘Oh, Tully,’ Jennifer sobbed, sitting up against the wall. Tully sat up, too. Oh, Tully? What the hell was Oh, Tully? Jennifer was smearing tears all over her face with her fist, like she used to when she was young, but God, it had been since about then that Jen last cried in front of Tully. ‘You just don’t understand.’

‘Then explain it to me,’ said Tully softly.

‘It’s nothing like you think.’

Tully thought Jen was wrong there. Tully was afraid it was exactly as she thought.

‘Jennifer, my God, but are you crying over him?’ Tully, shaking her head, got up for a box of tissues, sat on the edge of the bed and gently wiped Jennifer’s face. It was minutes before Jennifer was collected enough to speak.

‘Jennifer,’ Tully said. ‘You’re fucking crazy. Have you slept with him?’

‘No, Tully, I haven’t,’ said Jennifer. ‘But do you know why I haven’t? Do you know why? Because he hasn’t asked me. He hasn’t asked me!’ she cried. ‘And if he had asked me, I would say, When? Now? And if he asked me to jump before I did it, I would say, How high, Jack Pendel, how high? Here I am, a virgin till I die, as you say, and I would give it to him faster than I could say Jack.’

Tully was at a complete loss for words as she wiped Jennifer’s face. At a loss, and helpless, too. Helpless in part because she did not understand her. Tully Makker just did not see what the problem was.

‘So go after him, Jen, go after him. You want him. Tell him you want him. Let him know you want him. They get it after a while, they do, believe me.’

‘Oh, Tully, you really don’t understand, do you? It’s not a matter of going after him, don’t you see?’ Jennifer began to cry again. ‘Don’t you see that if he wanted me, he would’ve seen by now what’s so plain to me and to everyone else? He would’ve seen it. But he doesn’t see it because he doesn’t feel the same way.’

Tully disagreed. ‘Jen, he doesn’t get it because he is a football jock.’

‘No, Tully, he doesn’t get it because he doesn’t love me. When you don’t love somebody you never get how they feel. You don’t even look for it.’

‘Hmm,’ said Tully. ‘I know plenty of people who love each other and still don’t get how they feel.’

Jennifer waved her off. ‘Who do you know, Makker?’

Tully wavered. ‘Well, your parents, for one. Julie’s too.’

Jennifer was still crying. Tully coughed and switched tactics. ‘Jenny, okay, so he doesn’t get it,’ she said. ‘For whatever reason. So you just say fuck you and move on. That’s it. Just move right on,’ said Tully, making a sweeping motion with her hand. ‘Move right on to Palo Alto,’ she added. ‘Where there are so many Jack Pendels, where there will be so many Jack Pendels dying to steal your heart and with it your bikini, you will have to buy twenty just to keep up. Bikinis, I mean.’

‘Tully, you just don’t get it, do you?’

‘Honestly, Jen?’ Tully said apologetically. ‘No, I don’t. See? I don’t get it, but we love each other.’ Tully was trying to make a little light of it, but Jennifer hit at Tully impatiently.

‘It’s not the same, now, is it?’ said Jennifer.

‘It’s not?’ said Tully.

‘Well, of course it’s not!’ exclaimed Jennifer. ‘Makker, that’s why I don’t want to talk to you sometimes. You’re just so obtuse.’

Tully saw in Jennifer’s face that thing, that crazy crazy thing. She is so far out there that where she is, not even I can reach her.

‘Don’t you understand, Tully?’ Jennifer said. ‘I love him, I love him.’

‘You do?’ said Tully distastefully. ‘So, okay. So, un-love him.’

‘Tully, you don’t – you just can’t – just stop loving the people you love.’

‘You can’t? Why the hell not?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t,’ said Jennifer brokenly. ‘He is my first love. My very first. And I will never stop loving him.’

Tully sighed and tried to reason with her. ‘Jen, I know, but everyone says that. Everyone feels that way, that we will never stop loving someone, that we will never love anyone else, that we can never feel more than we do right now, but yet…we do, somehow, stop loving. We do get over it. Don’t we? We have to. We must. Otherwise, how could we go on?’

‘Tully, I know you, of all people, are skeptical. I don’t expect you to understand. I just know the way I feel about him and have felt about him for a long time. I will never love anyone else for the rest of my life.’

Tully patted Jennifer’s head. ‘And it may be a very short life indeed, Mandolini, because if you don’t stop crying, I’m going to have to kill you.’

Jennifer laughed a little and wiped her face with her arm.

‘I love when you do that,’ said Tully, handing her a tissue. ‘You look soooo attractive.’

The girls settled back into bed. Jennifer faced the wall and Tully lay down beside her.

‘I’m hot, Tully, I’m very hot. Can you blow on my forehead?’ Jen said, turning around. And Tully did, while Jennifer whispered with closed eyes that trickled tears. ‘Why do I love him, Tully, why? For what good and damned reason do I love him?’

‘Because he is beautiful and he moves well?’ said Tully.

‘You think he is beautiful?’ exclaimed Jennifer.

‘No,’ said Tully quickly. ‘You think he is beautiful.’

Jennifer closed her eyes again. ‘I shut my eyes and I see his face,’ she whispered. ‘I see his face as it talks and laughs, I see only his face and nothing else. Not even you, Makker, not even you. You know? I don’t even see Palo Alto anymore. Just him. My God, Tully, what’s happening?’

‘You’ve taken complete leave of your senses,’ Tully said gently.

Jennifer continued to cry, but softer and slower, and Tully continued to wipe her face and blow on her forehead, but softer and slower. Finally Jennifer fell asleep, but Tully did not.

She lay perched on her elbow, tenderly blowing on Jennifer’s face for a long time, remembering the first time she had met her. Julie had introduced them. And Julie had met Tully by finding her wandering on the street not far from Lowman’s Hill Elementary School, where Tully attended kindergarten. Tully had gotten lost again – accidentally on purpose – and Angela Martinez brought the five-year-old girl home. Tully played with Julie while Angela called the police. ‘Oh, it’s that Makker kid again,’ the cops said when they arrived. ‘She’s always getting lost, once a week, about. One day she’ll wander out onto the turnpike and that will be the last we’ll see of her. She’ll just keep going. She’s a spunky little kid. We’ll drive her home now.’

Oh, no, Julie and her mother had objected. Let her play. We’ll take her home. They fed Tully dinner: burritos and tacos. Tully had never eaten such delicious food.

Angela was worried that Tully’s parents might be going out of their minds looking for her. Tully wanted to tell the nice woman that was not a problem, but Angela found out soon enough when she brought Tully home and Hedda said, ‘Have you been out again? What did we tell you? Stay in the yard.’

From then on, Mrs Martinez tried to pick Tully up from kindergarten and bring her to the house. Tully remembered that several weeks later during the summer, Lynn Mandolini brought Jennifer over. Jennifer! So plump, so bossy! She came into Julie’s house and immediately told the two girls to give her the bike. The three of them played together all summer, and every summer after that. When Jennifer was young, she lost her temper frequently when she did not get her way. Screaming, she would throw toys that weren’t hers, throw sand, throw herself on the ground, spit. When Tully was younger, she found Julie a little easier to get along with; Jennifer’s tantrums upset her.

Jennifer improved as she got older, and it was only when Tully was older herself that she discovered Jennifer was moderately autistic at the age of two and three, and Jennifer spent years overcoming the remnants of the illness as an adult. Minor vestiges of withdrawal remained: the compulsive neatness and slight detachment from physical closeness were the most obvious. But there were other things, too. Every day, Jennifer counted the number of cracks in the pavement from her house on Sunset Court to the corner of 17th Street and Wayne. She always verbalized the discovery of a new crack and showed it to Tully and Julie. She counted the number of lockers on each floor of Topeka High. She kept careful track of the gross national products of the twenty-five most developed countries, and of the broken streetlights from 17th Street to Gage Park. Also Jennifer got 800 on her math SATs she took last October. Tully pressed her lips to Jennifer’s damp forehead.

Before Tully knew Jen was sick, she thought that Jennifer was the luckiest girl on earth. Out of the three of them, she seemed to Tully the one destined to live in perpetual sunshine, having lived a sunshine childhood. After all, Jennifer had the fortune to be born to two people whose sole mission in life was Jennifer’s happiness.

While Tully played barefoot and alone in a dirty yard with chickens and stray cats. Dusty and unwashed, Tully spent her summers and afternoons in that yard of the house on the Grove, looking out onto the turnpike and the railroad. Who put suntan lotion on her? Who kissed her boo-boos and washed her face and gave her toys? The early years swam together for Tully. Somewhere in there, there were two brothers and even a father, but then Hedda and Tully were alone, and Aunt Lena and Uncle Charlie came to live with them to help Hedda with the mortgage. When Uncle Charlie died, it became easier to pay the bills with his insurance. Hedda worked as she always had, while Aunt Lena stayed home, having never worked a day in her life. Aunt Lena was gray and heavy, though she had been only forty when she became a widow. She kept mostly to herself in her rooms: she took a bedroom and a dining room after Uncle Charlie died. She said she was entitled to the space since the house now technically belonged to her.

Tully breathed on Jennifer’s face. Jenny, so many things you have at God’s grace. But I don’t care. I don’t care, and I mean it. I don’t give a shit. I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but I swear to you, Jennifer, I would relive my whole life exactly the same if somehow God, by again denying me, could bring you happiness, bring you what you really want, want with all your heart, the only thing you want. Dear Jennifer. It’ll be all right.

The next morning, her eyes red and swollen, Jennifer lay in bed and said, ‘Tull, tell me your story of the turtle and scorpion.’

‘Jen, get the hell out of here. I am dead tired. The sun is out, isn’t it? I’m like a bush baby. Now I go to sleep. You slept all night.’

‘Tell me, Tully, tell me, and please rub my back while you do it.’

‘God, Mandolini, you’re fucking demanding. Oh, all right.’ Tully sighed, sat on top of Jennifer’s rear end, and began to rub Jen’s shoulders. ‘Once upon a time,’ began Tully, ‘a scorpion swam all the way to the middle of a big lake. And when he got there, he realized he did not know how to swim and started to drown.’

‘Not so hard, Tully, not so hard!’ exclaimed Jennifer.

Tully sighed and continued, ‘“Help! Help!” the scorpion yelled. But no one came to help him. A turtle was swimming by, and the scorpion saw her and said, “Turtle, please help me. Can’t you see I’m drowning?” And the turtle said, “No, I will not help you. If I come near you, you will bite me, and then I will die.”’