After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

why.
    Why didn’t I call home when I knew I was going to be late?
    I did. I think I did. My cell wasn’t working.
    Maybe the battery is low. Whatever.
    Why’d somebody call from school? I don’t know. I attended all my classes this week. I think I did. Some of my teachers, they are always in my face. It’s like they hate me ’cause I’m a transfer.
    No, I wasn’t drinking beer on school property! I was not.
    I was not smoking on school property! If somebody saw me, they are lying.

    Aunt Caroline is saying, Jenna, we need to talk. Please.
    Aunt Caroline is looking hurt. Aunt Caroline is looking angry.
    Uncle Dwight is nervous, asking what’s wrong. Jenna, we need to talk.
    Damn, I can’t make it inside and up the stairs before they hear me. Before they catch me. Smell my breath.
    Trina took my sailor cap from me and wouldn’t give it back, saying it was ugly. Wish I had it now, to yank down on my head.
    Wish Trina were with me now, she’d tell my aunt and my uncle to mind their own business. F---off , Trina would say.
    Wild! What Trina would say. I’m trying not to laugh. Buzz at the back of my head. In my mouth beer tastes soooo sour, but once it’s swallowed, once that buzz starts…
    Jenna, please. Look at us, please.
    Jenna? What is so funny?

    …at the mall. With my friends. No, not the guys. Just my girl friends. You don’t know them. I said we went to the Cinemax, can’t think of the name of the movie. We ate there. At the mall. No, I don’t remember. No, I said it was just girls. I said we weren’t with guys. Somebody gave us a ride, okay? A ride to the mall. No big deal. How do I know when the mall closes? I’m not checking the time every five minutes. Who’s spying on me, whose business is it? I tried to call you, I said. I’m not lying. I worked hard on that paper. It’s because I’m a transfer to Yarrow High, which I hate, and they know it. The teachers know it. My English teacher knows it. Any chance he can, he makes fun of me. Stares at me. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a novel that made me anxious, see. I knew how it would end. I knew. I hated it, the feelings that I would have, so I guess I never finished it exactly. I never read the last chapter. Flipping through the novel back to front, I thought: Anybody’s life could be a story you would not know how it ended, except somebody who didn’t know you at all might know, flipping through the pages of your life and not even caring. And that freaked me. So it was hard to write a paper on Of Mice and Men like Mr. Smart-Ass Farrell wanted, so I guess I didn’t write a paper exactly. Something I printed off the Internet. I don’t even remember. Why’d I do it, I told you. I did not cut so many classes. I did not cut gym class. I like gym class. I like my teacher Ms. Bowen. I tried to call you, I said. Not my fault if the cell battery is dead. Not my fault if you don’t believe me. If you think I’m lying. If you think I’m lying, maybe I shouldn’t be living in this house with you. Maybe I don’t deserve to live in this house with you.
    If you can’t trust me, I mean.
    If I can’t trust you.

23
    “Baby, come on .”
    Trina is laughing at me. The look on my face. The dazed way I’m blinking and staring.
    Thinking: Trina Holland lives here? In this house?
    Trina laughs just a little impatiently. Pinches me like to wake me up. My head’s still ringing from high-decibel Metallica pounding inside T-Man’s SUV. My eyes are still watery from so much cigarette smoke. And I’m trying not to hiccup from the beer. This house Trina says casually is hers is so surprising to me, so awesome I guess I can’t believe it, almost. All this while thinking Trina Holland is what Ryan calls trailer trash, and it turns out that the Hollands’ house is twice the size of the McCartys’ house—and the Moellers’—and much more expensive.

    I guess I’d been picking up that Trina isn’t what you’d call poor. From remarks she’s made,