Violet in Bloom Read online

(to no one)

  I’m ho-ome! And boy, am I parched. All that lying thure doeth make a girl thirthty!

  She notices a vase of roses on the granite island.

  NATALIA (CONT’D)

  Ooo, flowerth. Pretty!

  She leans in to smell them, and her massive headgear gleams. Then her nose wrinkles, and her upper lip twitches. Her eyelids flutter uncontrollably.

  NATALIA (CONT’D)

  Ah . . . ah . . . ah-choo!

  She wipes a snot worm from her nose with the back of her hand, and then she wipes her hand on her jeans. It leaves a smear. It is disgusting. But Natalia doesn’t care. She skips to the refrigerator and takes out a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola.

  NATALIA (CONT’D)

  Mmm, Coke! I love Coke! And Pepthi, too. Mmm!

  She uncaps the bottle, tilts it to her mouth, and chugs. She downs the entire bottle—and then, quite unexpectedly, she gets a weird look on her face. She approaches the vase of roses and leans in.

  NATALIA (CONT’D)

  (staring straight into the camera lens) Who’th thpying on me?

  The image wavers.

  NATALIA (CONT’D)

  Ith that you, Katie-Rothe? Ooo, you are in tho much trouble!

  DISSOLVE TO:

  “—don’t want to ask again,” Ms. Perez says, exasperated. “I expect more from you than this, Katie-Rose.”

  From the front row, Natalia makes a sound that’s almost, but not quite, a snicker. Yasaman, who’s now sitting next to Natalia—(wait a second, how did that happen?)—shakes her head at Natalia, like Don’t. The fact that Yasaman sticks up for Katie-Rose makes Katie-Rose feel better, but only for a second. What is Yasaman doing in the front row with Natalia?

  Katie-Rose looks at Yasaman’s desk, which is now occupied by Chance. She’s completely confused.

  “Katie-Rose,” Ms. Perez says. “Take your workbook and join Ava now.”

  Obviously, Katie-Rose has missed a big chunk of Ms. Perez’s instructions. She grabs her workbook and goes to Ava, feeling dumb and out of sorts.

  “We’re doing the next problem set with partners,” Ava whispers.

  “We are?” Katie-Rose says. She doesn’t sit down, because there’s no chair for her. “When did that happen?”

  “Um, just now?”

  “Did Ms. Perez assign us partners, or did she let us pick?”

  Ava regards Katie-Rose uneasily. “She let us pick. You didn’t have a partner, so . . .” She lifts her shoulders.

  Katie-Rose’s breaths grow shallow. If they picked their own partners, why is Yasaman in the front of the room with Natalia? Why isn’t she back here, with her?

  Unless Natalia claimed her and made her be her partner while Katie-Rose was off in la-la land. Omigosh, that has to be what happened. The nerve of that girl!!!

  Katie-Rose marches to Natalia’s desk.

  “Yasaman is my partner,” she declares. “You leave her alone, Natalia. And Yasaman, you need to just—” Just what? And is she really saying this, in front of the whole class?

  She needs to pull it together. She can’t pull it together, and Natalia is gaping at her, her pale face like a trapped moon inside the cage of her headgear.

  “You need to stop talking to Natalia, period!” she says. “I officially forbid you from talking to her anymore!”

  Natalia bursts into fake tears, only her sobs are so loud—so wild—that Katie-Rose’s heart speeds up.

  “Come on, Yasaman,” she says shrilly. “Let’s go.”

  Yasaman stays seated, staring at the crazy lunatic wearing the Katie-Rose suit. That’s what it feels like. Everyone stares at the crazy lunatic wearing the Katie-Rose suit, and the real Katie-Rose, the one who isn’t a shrill bossy-boss, wishes desperately she could rip the wretched thing off and go back to being normal.

  Katie-Rose steps back. She bumps into Ms. Perez, who has come up behind her.

  “Out,” Ms. Perez says, pointing at the door.

  “Wh-what?”

  Ms. Perez, normally so bubbly and warm, looks at Katie-Rose as if she doesn’t even like her anymore. “You can do your work in the hall.”

  Katie-Rose gulps and turns to Natalia, whose sobs have tapered off.

  “I’m sorry, Natalia. I’m really, really sorry.”

  Natalia starts up again, wailing as if her kitten has just died. Katie-Rose waves her arms helplessly.

  “What I did was a bad decision,” she tells Ms. Perez. “I know that now, and I’m sorry, and I promise I’ll be quiet and not disrupt the class anymore. Okay?”

  “Go sit in the hall, Katie-Rose,” Ms. Perez says.

  Katie-Rose looks at Yasaman, who drops her gaze. This is the worst blow of all. She feels dizzy, and though she’s never fainted before, she thinks this might be a good time to start. Then everybody would feel bad for her, and fuss over her, and Natalia’s sobbing would be forgotten. Ms. Perez would like her again, and so would Yasaman.

  She walks toward the door on legs that are strangely light. Chance cowers as she passes, making a show of holding up his hands to protect himself.

  “Was it the Cheezy D’lites?” Chance says in a stage whisper. “Did they poison your brain?”

  No one laughs until she’s out of the room.

  And then, they do.

  spicuously absent, and Yasaman was vague about why—Violet gets called to the office. When she arrives, she sees Cyril Remkiwicz over by the copying machine, and her first thought is that she’s been called in to talk about the poking game on the playground. But Cyril is lying on a blue mat like the ones the preschoolers use at naptime, which tells Violet he must be sick. Rivendell doesn’t have an infirmary, or a school nurse, so the blue mat is where kids rest while they’re waiting to be picked up by a parent. Maybe her being called to the office has nothing to do with Cyril after all.

  Either way, Violet feels bad for Cyril, but not so bad that she’s tempted to go give him a hug or anything. Euggh, she thinks. Then she feels not-nice. But then she reminds herself that thinking euggh about someone is different than poking someone for points and then refusing to apologize, and, in Modessa’s case, skipping school to get out of it.

  Also, sometimes bad thoughts come into your mind whether you invite them or not. In fact, the more you try not to think something, the stronger that thought becomes. Violet saw that happen to her mom in those last awful weeks before she went to the hospital, when her hand shook so much she couldn’t apply her lipstick. She would gaze at herself in the mirror, with Violet standing behind her shoulder, and she’d say, “Oh, Violet, I’m such a bad mother. Such a bad mother. Such a bad mother!”

  “Mom,” Violet would say. She felt so helpless. She’d take the lipstick from the vanity and stand in front of her mother, blocking her reflection. “Hold still. You look beautiful, Mom.”

  Hovering outside the main office, Violet closes her eyes. Her therapist, back in Atlanta, told her, “Don’t push too hard, Violet. When an unwanted thought comes, acknowledge it and move on. Don’t fight it, or it will fight back.”

  She opens her eyes to find Cyril Remkiwicz staring at her, his head turned on the blue mat. His shirt today has a zebra on it with the head of a fish. It’s as if he wants to be unnatural, or point to the unnatural, or suggest that the whole world is unnatural.

  She goes to the secretary, a skinny man straight out of college named Mr. McGreevy. Mr. McGreevy is from England and has an accent that makes everything he says sound charming.

  “Hi,” Violet says. “I got a note to come see you?”

  Mr. McGreevy holds up a finger. “One sec, love.” He straightens up from his filing, pushes his shock of hair off his forehead, and smiles. “Ah, Violet. Yes. Your mum phoned, wants you to phone her back.”

  Violet goes stock-still.

  “Nothing bad, love,” McGreevy goes on, concerned by Violet’s response. “Just wants a quick chat?”

  But . . . mothers aren’t supposed to call their daughters at school for “a quick chat.”
Is it because she rarely takes her mom’s calls at home, ducking the obligation by holing up in her room, or by conveniently choosing to take a shower during the slot of time inpatients are allowed to use the community phone?

  Violet has allowed two full weeks to go by without talking to her mother, and now it’s coming back to bite her. Her eyes slide to Cyril, but she drags them back. If he’s listening, she doesn’t want to know.

  Mr. McGreevy lifts the phone from its base and hands it to Violet, who takes it robotically. It’s an old-fashioned office phone with a cord. Violet is tethered to the front desk.

  “I’ll punch in the number for you?” Mr. McGreevy says. He shuffles through the post-its on his desk. “Ah, yes. You’ll be routed through the nurse’s station—I s’pose you know the drill—and they’ll patch you through.”

  Violet feels like she’s stepped through the looking glass. Mr. McGreevy knows her mom is in the hospital? Does he know which one, and which ward? Do all the staff members at Rivendell know? Do the students?!

  Violet puts her hand on the desk to steady herself.

  The phone is ringing. Violet hears the faraway sound of it even though she has yet to bring it to her ear. Mr. McGreevy arches his eyebrows, and Violet lifts the receiver.

  “California State Regional Hospital,” a lady blares. Violet presses the phone tight-tight-tight to her ear, hoping to keep the lady’s shrill voice from escaping the black plastic.

  “I was hoping . . . you could, um, connect me . . .” Violet folds in on herself, hating how exposed she feels.

  “Patient’s name?” the lady asks.

  “Lavinia Truitt,” Violet whispers.

  “I can’t hear you. Could you please speak up?”

  “Lavinia Truitt,” Violet says, hating herself, hating Mr. McGreevy, hating Cyril, who better not be listening.

  “Lavinia Truitt,” the lady repeats. There is a pause, and Violet imagines the lady running her finger down a list, or scrolling through a computerized directory. “There we go. The locked ward uses a different code, but I’ve found her.”

  What, was she lost? Violet thinks. She doesn’t want an answer to that question, actually. Mothers shouldn’t be in locked wards. People shouldn’t say the words locked ward.

  “I’m connecting you now,” the lady says.

  “Wait!” Violet says, suddenly panicked.

  Too late. There is dead air, and then a spot of horrible elevator music, and then a click. Her mother’s voice, breathless. “Violet?”

  “Mom,” Violet says. Her skin flushes. The ache inside her threatens to swallow her whole.

  “Violet. Baby. I miss you so much, Boo. You know that, right?”

  A lump forms in Violet’s throat. I miss you, too, her heart says.

  “I talked to Daddy,” her mother says. “He says you’ve made some good friends?”

  Daddy. Violet hasn’t called her dad “Daddy” since they moved here from Atlanta. And her mom is no longer Mommy, and Violet is no longer a little girl.

  “I need to see you, Boo,” her mom says softly.

  Well, tough! Violet thinks with a flare of anger. You should have thought about that before getting so depressed! It’s so true about how bad thoughts enter your brain whether you invite them in or not.

  “I miss you, Violet,” her mom says.

  Violet lowers her voice. “I miss you, too, Mom.”

  “Will you come soon? Will you come today?”

  “I can’t. Dad’s working late. How would I get to the hospital?”

  She detects movement from her peripheral vision. Cyril has lifted his head; he seems to be listening in on her conversation. Oh crap, she thinks. What, exactly, did she just say? Did she say “hospital”? She did, didn’t she? Oh crap.

  “Tomorrow?” her mom says.

  “Fine,” Violet says. Her voice is ragged, and Mr. McGreevy glances up from his paperwork.

  “You will?” her mom presses. “You won’t forget, or change your mind?”

  “Yes, Mom. I mean, no. I mean, I’ve got to go.”

  “Yes, you’ll come, or no, you won’t?”

  Shut up! Violet thinks. And stop staring at me! If everybody would just shut up and stop staring at me!

  “Yes, I’ll come,” she says tersely. “I’ve got to go now.”

  “But—”

  “Bye, Mom.” She hangs up, catching a scattering of her mom’s final flutter of words. Understand. Love. Tomorrow.

  Cyril is still looking at her, his eyes flat and black.

  Max’s door, because that’s what you do when you show up at somebody’s house. (After going home and changing outfits and brushing your hair and stuff. And popping a peppermint Lifesaver into your mouth for freshness.) Anyway, once you get to someone’s house, you knock. And maybe it’s scary if you’re, like, selling something, because who knows? The person who answers could growl, “Hi, little Girl Scout. NO, I DON’T WANT ANY COOKIES!”

  She giggles. There is no reason to be scared, she coaches herself. Knock.

  Her hand hovers.

  Knock on the door!!!

  Right as she goes for it, the door opens, and Milla’s momentum throws her forward into Max.

  “Oh!” she cries. He smells like toothpaste. He looks embarrassed as he steadies Milla and pushes her back into a normal position. Well, Milla is embarrassed, too. She giggles.

  “Hi,” she says. When he doesn’t respond, she adds, “I’m here to meet Stewy.”

  “I know,” Max says. “But, uh . . .”

  His ears are red, Milla notices. And his mom is standing behind him in the entry hall. A set of car keys connected to a silver loop dangles from her index finger.

  “We need to get going, Max,” she says. She smiles at Milla apologetically. “Hi. You’re Milla?”

  Milla nods, confused.

  “Sorry for the misunderstanding,” Max’s mom says kindly. “I hope you’ll come back another time?”

  Milla turns to Max. He’s bright red. Not just his ears, but his whole face.

  “I have tap today,” he confesses.

  “Tap?” she says, confused. She takes in his outfit: fluffy gray shorts, a loose-fitting T-shirt, and white socks, pulled all the way up. Dangling from his hand, a pair of shiny black tap shoes. “Oh. I didn’t know you took tap dancing.”

  “I didn’t, either,” Max says. “I mean, I forgot.”

  It’s sinking in that Milla won’t be meeting Stewy today, little tuxedo or no little tuxedo. She put on cute shorts and biked all the way over here. She screwed up her courage to knock on the door. And now? Nothing.

  She’s supposed to leave, she guesses, so she turns on her heel. She hears Max speak urgently to his mom, but she can’t hear what he’s saying over the rush in her head. She’s reached her bike by the time he catches up with her.

  “Milla,” he says. He’s out of breath.

  She tries not to let her face show anything, but there is a wideness to her eyes that she can’t help.

  “You could come tomorrow morning,” Max suggests. “And then my mom could take you to school, if you want. Do you want to?”

  Tomorrow morning? That’s strange, a morning playdate. Not that it’s a playdate, or any kind of date! But it’s also sweet. It means he wants to reschedule ASAP. A smile creeps across Milla’s face. “Okay. I’ll see if my mom can drop me off on her way to work.”

  “Max, baby, we’ve got to go,” Max’s mom calls.

  Max takes off, but Milla’s smile stays right where it is. This is the second time Max has asked her to do something, and so what if it’s the same something as the first time? It is like being asked out on a date, she decides. Kind of.

  She imagines the message she’ll send Yasaman when she gets home. It will include frog smiley—no, a hamster—and underneath, the words Omigosh!! I haz date!!!

  She lies on her bed, rigid as a corpse, trying to build an airtight case against her that proves how Natalia is made of wrong and Katie-Rose is made of right.

/>   It would be easier if Natalia had yelled at Katie-Rose in class and made her cry, instead of the other way around.

  And if Katie-Rose hadn’t issued that ridiculous command about how Yasaman could no longer talk to Natalia—not one word, ever—that would have been good, too. It would have been helpful in terms of making Natalia out to be the bad guy instead of Katie-Rose.

  Natalia is the bad guy. Unfortunately, Katie-Rose sees how she might have left room for misinterpretation on that point.

  “Here’s the thing,” Katie-Rose tells the dimpled eggshell-colored plaster of her ceiling. She scowls. What is the thing? Something is the thing, that’s for sure. And it’s not her. The yuckiness Katie-Rose is feeling is not her fault. So whose fault is it?

  “Katie-Rose?” her babysitter, Chrissy, calls. She raps lightly on her bedroom door. “Sure you don’t want to watch TV with me? Modern Family is on.”

  “No, thanks,” Katie-Rose says. She likes Chrissy. She likes her a lot. But Chrissy is sunny and bright, and Katie-Rose is a sad and grumpy rain cloud. “I prefer to be alone.”

  “Okay,” Chrissy says dubiously. “If you change your mind, I’ve got ice cream.”

  Katie-Rose hears her clomp back downstairs, and despair presses Katie-Rose’s spine into her mattress. The rest of Katie-Rose’s family is off doing boring things: Her brothers are at karate, and her parents are having a “coffee date,” and the truth is, she doesn’t prefer to be alone. Being alone, as it turns out, is lonely.

  She sits up, swings her legs off her bed, and goes downstairs. She plunks down on the arm of the sofa where Chrissy is sitting, grabs the remote, and hits the Mute button.

  “Ahem,” she says.

  Chrissy looks at her, ice-cream spoon paused midway to her mouth. “Yes?”

  Katie-Rose slides onto the actual sofa cushion, right up next to Chrissy. It’s a tight fit. Katie-Rose has to use her hip to wedge herself in.

  “I need your advice,” she says.

  “Excellent, as I am a fabulous advice giver,” Chrissy says. “Spill.”

  Katie-Rose fills Chrissy in on the Yasaman-and-Natalia situation, and Chrissy listens. Katie-Rose’s rant is long enough that Chrissy is able to finish her ice cream, and when Katie-Rose finally reaches the end, Chrissy leans forward and plunks her bowl on the coffee table.