FIVE
Okay, so it’s probably worth taking a moment to say that my life is not all rainbows and glitter. How could it be? A person can’t live on glitter alone. Not that anyone’s ever put in the effort and tried.
For example, that performance I did at my grandmother’s ninetieth birthday, where my uncle pulled me off the stage because he thought I was in my underwear? (To be very very clear, I wasn’t in my underwear. Also why do girls always get accused of being “in their underwear” and boys never do? How are shorts so different from boxers?) Okay, so, what I didn’t tell you is what happened after he got me off the stage.
First of all the whole thing was a scene out of a family sitcom. Millie, who was running music and lights for my performance (like a desk lamp that I brought from home because the hotel didn’t have an actual lighting setup), jumped off the stage, ripping her phone free from the audio cord that was plugged into the sound system in the process, cutting off the music. In a flash she’d also yanked me out of my uncle’s grip.
Lucy, who was at the back of the room filming, bolted to the front of the room. I remember hearing the clip- clop of her heels on the floor as she raced toward us.
I, it was said later, was howling like a cat in the shower (not my description) this whole time.
Before Lucy got to the stage, Millie got into it with my uncle because Millie is not a fan of my uncle because he does stuff like this.
Millie got her face very close to my uncle’s face and growled. “Herbert! You TOUCH my kid one more time and they’ll be wheeling you out of here on a STRETCHER.”
Herbert doubled down, shoving me out of the way. “Maybe your kid shouldn’t be parading around my grandmom’s birthday party in her undies.”
Undies?
“Herbert.” Millie got even closer. “You SHOVE MY KID or say undies around my kid one more time, you won’t remember the experience of being rolled out of here on a stretcher because I’m going to beat you unconscious.”
At that point, Lucy arrived.
“Okay.” She stepped in between Millie and Herbert. “I need everyone to take a deep breath. Herbert. You owe Anne an apology.”
“WHAT? This is Grandmom’s BIRTHDAY, Lucy! You think you can come in here with your—”
Lucy cut him off. “Herbert. I’m going to have to insist that you bring your voice down.”
As Lucy attempted to de-escalate and Millie, I believe, considered the possible legal consequences of decking my uncle, I, still in my outfit and taps, released from my uncle’s grip, was walking through the crowd, toward the dessert table at the back of the room.
By then, according to the video taken by my cousin Louise, who wasn’t taping my performance so much as recording the whole event for a paper she was doing on community gatherings, the hotel had turned on the piped-in hotel Muzak that was, I think, a loose rendition of the Beatles song “When I’m Sixty-Four.”
Mostly what I remember hearing was the telltale whooshing in my ears. The pounding of my heart in my chest, which my brain translated to the opening chords of “Mama Mia” by ABBA from the album ABBA, released in 1975, not to be confused with ABBA: The Album, which came out two years later in 1977.
(I know, right? Was it that they just really liked their name or was it that there were four people in the group and they couldn’t agree on an album title so someone, maybe Björn, was like, “Fine we’ll just call this one ABBA, too!”)
(Yes, my cat is named after the lead singer of ABBA. Surprised?)
Many of the desserts at my grandma’s birthday were things guests had made, which they had placed on a set of foldout tables at the back of the conference room. The tables were covered in plastic tablecloths and liberally sprinkled with colored confetti. Not exactly classy, but who says an older person’s birthday has to be classy?
Herbert’s grandmom, my great-grandmom, was a very interesting lady.
She was the one who bought Lucy her first disco record, the Jacksons’ self-titled 1978 album The Jacksons. Which is why I knew she would love my performance.
For this birthday, Herbert bought her decorative soaps, just FYI. Who buys someone soap as a pre sent?
(Herbert. Consistently.)
Okay, so back to the story: So on these tables there were two trays of Rice Krispies Treats, two platters of Jell-O squares, two dozen chocolate-chip cookies, and three cakes, all because everyone ignored Lucy’s organizing email with a chart of desserts and just did their own thing. Which is also standard on that side of the family.
Two of the three cakes were store-bought. Which, obviously, I have no judgment on that. Not everyone has time to make a cake (and I don’t know how to bake).
The thing about store-bought cakes is they are mostly icing. Like at least an inch, as anyone who has ever pushed her finger into the icing on one of these cakes or dared to try to eat a mostly icing corner piece will tell you. I don’t know if that went into my decision, standing in front of that table. I was only standing there a minute. Maybe I picked the big-ass white cake because it was one of the desserts at the front of the table and I could barely reach because I was, as I said, seven.
I remember my thumbs sinking into the icing as I picked up the cake and marched it back to my uncle and my moms. Who were still fighting.
“Herbert. This is a situation we can either choose to be CALM, in the interests of Grandmom’s birthday, or we can choose to make this day about conflict—”
“Jesus, LUCY!” Herbert thundered. “You and your fucking feminist politic—”
I remember Millie stepped back when she saw me, I guess out of the corner of her eye. Maybe to see what I was doing or what I was carrying. I gather she figured out what was about to happen just as I heaved Grandmom’s birthday cake up and slapped it into my uncle’s torso.
Lucy said she did think something was going on because she could hear my tap shoes as I stalked back over to my uncle from the dessert table.
My grandmom later expressed her relief that it was one of the store-bought cakes.
To this day, whenever I have to go to anything when my uncle Herbert is there, he always holds up his hands by his face when I walk in, like in defense of future cakes.
I could give you a few other examples of me doing this kind of thing.
Like when we lived in Kansas City and I started a hot dog fight at Debbie Smolkum’s eleventh birthday party after she made fun of my friend Alice’s bathing suit because Alice was wearing her mom’s old bathing suit. Debbie said Alice looked like a senior citizen. I told Debbie there’s nothing wrong with senior citizens. Debbie told us we couldn’t be in the pool because seniors pee themselves (not true) and so I walked over to Debbie and I hit her with a hot dog her dad had just grilled me on the BBQ, which ended up ruining the Smolkums’ pool because Debbie retaliated and threw a bun at me and it went into the pool filter.
(Which, let’s say it, that’s on Debbie.)
I will say I’ve never, like, physically harmed anyone. But overall it’s not good. I know it’s not good.
So, yeah. Anyway.
BACK TO THE IN-THE-NOW STORY
So, to recap. Tanner was a homophobic, sexist, probably other things, jerk.
I hit Tanner. . .with a pizza.
Still technically hitting.
I’m not exactly clear on how the actual full-on food fight started after I slapped Tanner with the pizza. What I do remember is that as soon as the pepperoni made contact, he basically bounced up from his seat, knocking me back on the ground.
(On my already bruised ass, BTW.)
And by the time I got to my feet, the food fight was in full effect. Food flew, hard and fast like propelled by the winds of a hurricane, until the whole thing came to a crashing end with many angry whistle blasts and me and Tanner getting pulled into the office.
I will say, at least it wasn’t a waste of pizza, because the Greenville High cafeteria pizza was and is horrible. Like don’t call it pizza if it’s actually a soft, barely edible, triangular piece of cardboard covered in red-and-yellow goop. Like, maybe people in Greenville are so mad all the time because they’ve never had a decent slice. Which I can say I’ve had in almost every other place I’ve lived in, including Petaluma, which has a population of 60,000 and at least a dozen great pizzerias.
(Do the math. Greenville could still have at least one.)
I gathered that the pizza detail was not something anyone, my mom included, wanted to hear from me as I stood in her office—her new office—an hour later, with her new boss, Principal Lynde, who I will describe as a woman who was tall and made of granite, with impossibly shiny hair piled on top of her head in a perfect silver bun and green wire-frame glasses. A woman with the smallest, angriest mouth I have ever seen on a human.
Principal Lynde was standing in the middle of my mom’s office when I arrived. Tanner and who I could only assume were his parents were sitting in the waiting area just outside. The look on my mom’s face said that these things were not in any way good things.
“Well then,” Lynde snapped, her voice cutting glass, “quite the first impression. Violence. And disorder. And spreading her influence all over the student body. And. . .” Principal Lynde leaned forward and peered over her glasses. “Dressed like a prostitute to boot.”
My eyes widened.
“And that hair.” Lynde shook her head.
Lucy stepped forward. “Principal Lynde,” she cut in. “Anne’s clothing and hair are not at issue here, and I would like to be clear—”
“OH!” Principal Lynde swiveled, her body stiff. “So you are clear what is and isn’t at issue here? Are you? I’m glad you’re so experienced with these matters, Miss Shirley.”
“I am. . .” Lucy snuck a look at me. “I am of course not pleased to have to discipline Anne on the first day, but that falls within my responsibilities, and I will make sure I deal with this situation appropriately.”
Principal Lynde sniffed the sniff of the unimpressed.
“I see. Well, pardon me if I question your judgment given what your child is wearing and how she has conducted herself since arriving at my school.” Lynde stepped forward, one step closer into my space than I would have liked. Possibly so she could look down on me like one looks down a cliff at something that has just fallen off that cliff and ended up a splat on the ground.
Or maybe that’s just what it felt like.
“I will go and reassure the Spencer family, then.” Lynde took another moment to deliver another steely look before gliding across the floor and out the door. “I’m sure they will be thrilled to know you have this under control.”
As the door closed behind her, I took my first breath in five minutes.
Lucy also took a deep breath, leaning on her desk, which had, I was only then noticing, just pillars of paper, precariously perched on every inch of space. It looked like she was conducting an experiment to see how many pieces of paper she could fit on her desk. And the answer was a lot.
It looked like Lucy had also had. . .kind of a day. Her smooth morning hair looked like it had been restyled by an angry horde of kittens. Her suit looked weirdly wrinkled and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. I was pretty sure this discussion about me was not my mom’s first not-great discussion with Principal Lynde.
“Mom,” I said, catching myself.
Lucy stared at me. Then her eyes skipped past me.
Coach Harras, whistleblower extraordinaire, appeared in the doorway.
“Who started it?” Lucy looked at me, then at Harras.
“Your ki—” Harras started.
“I did,” I cut in.
Lucy gave me a sharp look. “You’re interrupting Coach Harras?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, chin to my chest.
“Darn right,” Harras mumbled.
“Sorry to whom?” Lucy asked.
I turned toward the doorway. “Sorry, Coach Harras, I shouldn’t have interrupted.”
“We’re fine now, thank you, Coach Harras,” Lucy said, with her softest, calmest voice. Coach Harras gave a small huff, then turned and walked away. Lucy closed the door behind her.
“Okay,” Lucy said, a few seconds after the door clicked. “Okay.” She took another deep breath. “This is hard. This is a new school. This is a town that’s not like other towns where we’ve lived.”
“Mom—”
“You can’t keep— Anne. Do you understand what it means when you act this way?” Lucy looked to the door, through which she could see Tanner and his family.
“I—”
“You cannot act out this way.” Lucy’s voice cut sharply. “I say this as a mother and as the vice principal of your school, Anne. Do you want to talk about why this happened?”
“Not really,” I said quietly. I could still hear Tanner’s voice shouting the word dyke ringing in my ears, but the idea of saying anything about that to my mother in that office at that moment seemed as possible as turning into a bird and flying out the window. Or something.
“Are you sure?”
The phone on her desk started ringing.
“Yeah.”
Lucy looked like she wanted to say many things to me. There was a knock on the door.
“Well. We’ll revisit this when I get home. Go to class.”
And then she stood up, walked over to me, and peeled a pepperoni off the top of my head I legit didn’t know was there. She flicked the pepperoni into the trash, opened the door, and walked out of her office and into the room where Tanner and his parents were waiting with Principal Lynde.
“Are you going to talk to her?” Tanner’s father barked at Principal Lynde, clearly pointing at me. “Where’s that kid going?”
The last thing I heard as I exited into the hall was his booming voice: “DISGUSTING.”
Berry had to go to Band practice after school, but she sent me a text of a bunch of pizzas and happy faces. Which, every time I thought about the look on Tanner’s face when the pizza hit him, I agreed, but then I got home after school. And then an hour later Lucy got home, and it felt like it was less happy faces and more the face with all the lines on it.
I won’t give you the whole thing. But the highlights were as follows.
I was in serious trouble.
Lucy’s first day at her new job, which was already going to be really difficult, was a nightmare for reasons that did not need to be described to me in detail in order for me to take them seriously. But needless to say, it wasn’t just the students who thought a militant dyke was taking over their precious school.
The PTA, including Tanner’s family, had already expressed serious doubts as to Lucy’s qualifications. Through a series of emails. And voicemails.
Sitting on the couch, Millie frowned, rubbing Lucy’s back. “It’s your first day. It’s Anne’s first day. How can they even presume to judge anything?”
“Right,” Lucy sighed. “Well, Lynde said she is considering this incident as ‘meriting a probationary approach to my job.’ ”
Millie looked like she wanted to say more, but she gave Lucy a hug instead.
So. Yeah, I guess since there were bigger things going on, in the end, I was not grounded. But they were disappointed.
This is the ultimate lesbian punishment, by the way. Disappoint ment.
After Lucy left to go to her study, Millie took a few minutes to just look at me. Then she stood and went to the kitchen. I followed. Then she looked at me some more, and standing next to a giant bag of cat food that already had a hole in the bottom, she drilled her lesbian laser beams into my brain. Searching. Assessing. Debating. Judging.
“Please say something,” I cracked, dropping my head back.
“Say something?” Millie mused. “Anything? Why pizza? Why on the first day? That kind of thing?”
“I’m sorry,” I moaned. “I’m sorry I hit Tanner with pizza and then it started a whole pizza fight.”
“Yeah, the problem with that is that it sounds funny,” Millie said, kicking a stray pebble of cat food across the floor, to Bjorn’s delight. “But it’s not really funny.”
“No.”
“You know, when you were a kid, your doing this sort of thing was admittedly kind of amusing to me,” she said, walking back over to the couch and flopping down. Monty promptly joined her. “And I thought it was good you were standing up for yourself because I knew you were going to have to do that. Probably your whole life, for some reasons that are obvious and many reasons that are not.”
“Okay.” I sat on the coffee table as Bjorn plopped down and rolled over to show us a belly that suggested he’d been breaking into the cat food on the regular.
“Can you tell me exactly what happened?” Millie asked.
Monty picked up her head from Millie’s lap and raised her dog eyebrow at me. Like she knew. Golden retrievers always know.
Damn their adorable dog faces.
“That kid, Tanner, said something shitty.” I frowned. “It wasn’t. . .I just. . .I couldn’t just not do anything, so I did a shitty thing, okay?”
“So two. . .crappy things? How’s that working for you?”
“I don’t think they’re equal,” I countered. “If someone says something hateful, that’s not the same as a pizza in the face.”
“I think it’s hard to say what is what, especially when you weren’t exactly in control of your actions. Right?”
“You don’t know what kids here are like.”
“Oh yeah, I do,” Millie rubbed Monty’s ears between her fingers. “Believe that, kid. I do know exactly what they are like.”
“Well, then if you know, you know how crappy it is, and you know how bad it can be.”
The thing about Millie is, she’s stealth. She’s observant. She’s always right in this way I find really annoying.
“Well, given how bad it is,” Millie noted, “it’s a good thing you dealt with it in a way that will make everything better for you, and for your mom.”
Millie is not a lawyer. Like she does this job that doesn’t involve words. I think maybe she takes pictures because if she did use her words, she would just eviscerate us all. Like it wouldn’t be fair, is what I’m saying.
“It’s not that I don’t believe, don’t know, that moving here means there’s a ton of not great stuff you have to deal with, Anne. It’s that I’m worried maybe you’ve settled on one way of dealing with it, and really, kiddo, that’s just not going to fly anymore. Not just because we’re living here, by the way. But just in general. It doesn’t solve any of the legit problems you are having to smack someone in the face with lunch.”
She reached over and clicked on the TV, which she likes to watch on mute so she can talk over and about it.
“Okay,” I grumbled, “I get it. I will apologize. To Tanner.”
Millie nodded. “Sounds like something that could actually make things better.”
“Thank you for the life lesson,” I mumbled.
“You’re most welcome,” Millie propped her feet up on the coffee table, lightly tapping me out of her way. “Go do your homework.”
“Fine.”
I was almost out of the room when she added, “Small towns aren’t like the other places we’ve lived, Anne.”
“They don’t like newcomers here,” I said.
“They don’t like newcomers? Interesting. I wouldn’t go that far,” Millie’s tone was level. “They is an amorphous and not exactly helpful amount of people to describe. As you well know.”
“The people who live here,” I said slow and enunciating. “Don’t like newcomers. It’s true. Stereotypes can be true.”
“I’m just saying you don’t know this place yet, and maybe instead of just reacting to it, you could figure it out first,” Millie said. “Figure it out m ore.”
“Fine.”
“Take Monty out before you go up to your room,” Millie said as Monty sprang off her lap.
“What about dinner?”
“I’ll get dinner later. Walk Monty.”
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I’m cheering for you in this, by the way. I don’t wear the official Mars intergalactic cheerleading outfit, but I am still. . .cheering. For you.”
“Great.”
Monty still didn’t know the lay of the land in Greenville either, which meant getting her to walk any farther than a block from our house was still basically like pulling teeth. I felt like I was torturing her.
“Come on, Montsamillion,” I moaned, “help me out here.”
In the end, our “walk” was me standing next to Monty while she lay on the sidewalk and looked up at me.
“You look like I feel, Monty o’ Mine,” I said. “You’re annoying and you look like I feel.”
Millie was right, I didn’t know Greenville.
And maybe I didn’t want to.
I was carrying Monty home when I got a text from Berry.
More pizzas. And rainbow emojis. And unicorns. All arranged in patterns around a single sentence.
BERRY
SEE YOU TOMORROW, PIZZA FIGHTER!