Monstrato by Christopher Ganey

  Chapter 10

  Hope and I were sitting together in computer class and working on our assignment, which was a PowerPoint presentation. Ms. Strauss said it could be about anything we wanted, but it had to be informative. We titled ours Best Songs of the Year and started making slides for each song and writing things about the artists. For a while, I'd been seeing something out of the corner of my eye, beyond the doorway. When I looked, I saw Corena lurking out in the hall, checking up on Calvin. Calvin had started coming to class again, probably because he was worried about his grade, and every day, Corena would come around to check on him. Some days, she'd be standing out there talking to Sidney Bouchard or Garrett and making so much noise that Ms. Strauss would have to go shut the door. Other days, she'd kind of slink by like a ghost or stand out there real quiet, just out of sight, peering in and not wanting to be seen, which is what she was doing on this day.

  It was just a few days earlier that Calvin was wandering around the computer lab with nothing to do, and Makayla asked him if he would help her with her assignment. Calvin went over and stood behind Makayla's chair. He was leaning over her with his hand on her mouse when we heard Corena say from out in the hall, "Calvin, I need to see you, right now." Calvin stood up looking surprised. Then, just like a dog getting ready to be scolded, he started walking towards the door where Corena stood glaring at him.

  Ms. Strauss said, "Calvin, you're not leaving this room. We're still having class."

  Calvin stopped, looking confused. With kind of a smirk on his face, he looked at Ms. Strauss and then back at Corena, shrugged his shoulders, and started walking back to his seat. Corena said, "I'll talk to you later," and walked away. You could hear oohhs and hisses and giggling, and soon, K.P. and Cecil were falling out laughing.

  Calvin, who was turning plum red, starts saying, "Hey now. Hey, I got my business straight," which just made them laugh harder. I got a big kick out of that. The one thing Calvin never had to worry about with me was jealousy.

  I nudged Hope and said, "Corena's out there spying again, keeping an eye on you-know-who." Hope leaned back in her chair, looked out the doorway, and turned back to me smiling. She seemed to be in a much better mood lately. She was talking to people, wanting to be involved, and sometimes even smiling. I thought about our conversation from a couple of days earlier and said, "Maybe we should make a PowerPoint presentation titled Things We Hate About Our Mothers." It was a joke, but when I saw her purse her lips and sit there looking thoughtful, I wished I hadn't said it.

  Hope stared at the computer screen for a while and said, "You remember what we were talking about the other day? Well, I went ahead and asked my mom."

  "Asked her what?"

  "If I was adopted."

  I said, "Oh, Hope, you didn't. Why?"

  She said, "I don't know, but when I asked her, she acted kinda weird at first, then we started talking. She wanted to know why I would ask that, so I told her."

  "You told her you read it on a table at school?"

  "No, but I told her everything else, about how she treats me different than my brother and how she ignores me and never asks how I'm doing or anything else about me. She said it was because I never cause any problems and I always do well at school. She was saying that she didn't have to worry about me because I act so grown up." Hope rolled her eyes and went on, "So anyway, I got mad and started telling her that I do have problems, but she doesn't know about them because she never asks. I told her she doesn't know anything about me, and it doesn't seem like she even wants to know. I said that whenever I try to tell her things, I always feel like it's a big inconvenience for her just to listen. Well, that got her attention, and after that, we talked for a long time about a lot of stuff."

  "Like what?"

  "Well, I told her Garrett and I were having sex."

  "Really!"

  "Yeah, and I told her about me thinking I was pregnant."

  "Wowww.."

  "At first she was like, 'Oh my god, what have I done,' and I said, 'You haven't done anything. It was my fault, not yours,' and she said, 'No, I should know about these things.' She was like, 'I'm so sorry, Hope. You should be able to talk to me about stuff like this.' And then she told me I should definitely get on birth control, and she was going to help me do that."

  I said, "Damn, your mom's cooler than I thought."

  Hope said, "Well, I don't know about that. But then I started telling her about wanting to go live with my dad, and how I'd talked to him about it, and about my step mom and all that. It made her sad, and she said she'd do whatever she had to so I would stay with her. She said she'd be totally lonely if I left."

  "Well, see, Hope. I told you she loves you."

  Hope turned and looked at me with a bit of a smile and said, "I even told her that I didn't like her sleeping around."

  "You didn't."

  "I did. I told her everything I was feeling. At first, she denied it and said she wasn't sleeping around. Then she started crying. She said she was an awful mom and a failure. I said, 'No you're not, but look at the example your giving me,' and when I said that, it seemed to make her feel even worse."

  "I'm sure it did. Damn, Hope, you really stuck it to her."

  "I didn't mean to, but once we started talking, it just all came out."

  "Well, good. It was probably the right thing to do. Do you feel better?"

  "Yeah. I mean, I don't know if she's gonna change. She says she is, but I don't know. But I'm glad I told her."

  "Well, good," I said. Then I started imagining trying to have a conversation like that with my mom. I thought about the times I'd tried to talk to her and tell her what I was feeling and how she'd start screaming and act like I was being ungrateful. Or she'd act real hurt and say I didn't love her when all I wanted to tell her was that she was putting too much pressure on me. Either way we never got anywhere. My mom was the opposite of Hope's because all she ever did was ask questions. She was always nosing about in my business and had an opinion about everything I did, which is why we couldn't talk about anything.

  I began to think of everything that was bad between me and my mom—how she was always bugging me with her problems, her reaction to me and Calvin breaking up and the way she blamed it on me and all that shit. It didn't seem fair the way we're stuck with the parents we're stuck with. As I thought about the conversation Hope had with her mom, I started feeling really low and cheated and even a little jealous of Hope. And with Calvin sitting just a couple of chairs away and Corena creeping around out in the hall, I could feel an evil mood coming on fast, taking me to a place I didn't want to be. So I tried to put it out of my mind.

  I turned to Hope and said, "Hey, why don't you come to Alley's house tomorrow night? She's having a party, and we're even getting a keg."

  She said, "I don't know. I might have to watch my little brother."

  "Get somebody else to watch him. It'll be fun. Hell, tomorrow's Friday. You should go out."

  "Garrett's gonna come over, and I know he won't wanna go."

  I said, "Well, think about it because it's going to be a crump party, and the whole school's gonna to be there." I knew she wouldn't come for that exact reason. She didn't like wild parties or big crowds. I was just wishing she would hang out with us girls sometimes, instead of Garrett.