Like A Charm

I threw the charm bracelet out the window.

I remembered the feeling of my fist hitting Lamar's arm, knuckles in his flesh, and I remembered one particular Saturday morning – we must have been around nine or ten – when Lamar just lay down.

'Go ahead,' he said. 'I don't care anymore. I don't care what you do to me.'

Benjamin stood over him with his angry black hair and his mean freckles and his hands on his hips. 'What do you mean?' he said. 'Aren't you going to dance around like a scared little John Travolta?'

'Why should I?' Lamar said smiling. 'You'll just catch me.'

Fat Anthony chuckled, his stomach jiggling.

Benjamin was confused, grabbing a handful of his own hair. 'Where do you want me to hit you?'

'It doesn't matter.' Lamar was defiant. He presented his bruised arm to Benjamin like a prize.

'I've been punching his arm,' I told Benjamin helpfully.

'Yeah,' Anthony said, 'hit his arm.'

'I don't know.' Benjamin tossed it off like he was turning down a dessert: 'I don't think I want to punch Lamar right now.'

Still on the ground, Lamar rolled his eyes. 'Just get it over with.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'Punch him.'

Benjamin started to walk away, and Lamar rose to his feet, lifting himself up with that sideways smile on his face, the same smile he would wear a couple of years later when he gave me that ant farm.

'Benjamin,' I said, 'what are you-'

Suddenly Benjamin turned round. 'I'll tell you,' he said, hitting Lamar to the rhythm of his words, 'when' – punch – 'I will beat' – punch – 'the crap' – punch – 'out of you' – punch, punch. And he wailed on Lamar, fists like pistons, his face full of hate, punching his message home, and my own hate was in there with each and every punch – worse, because I was standing beside Benjamin, me and fat Anthony, standing there smiling idiotically, laughing and grinning and enjoying every second of it.

And goddamn it if Lamar – it still kills me to think of this – if Lamar wasn't smiling, too.

Man, the things we did to that kid.

THE EASTLAKE SCHOOL by Jerrilyn Farmer

'Fix Mommy a drink, Megan.'

My mom. She works so hard. She gets stressed. I looked at the kitchen clock. Four p.m. 'Do you want to wait a little?'

'I'm dying here, pumpkin. Be a good girl.' My mom put her keyring down on the counter, the keys sounding all jangly upset.

Our house has just been redone, by a quality architect, my mom says, but I'm still getting used to it. I tugged hard on the vacuum-seal of the built-in refrigerator to open the door. Arctic-Circle-type air rushed out as I grabbed a bottle of Diet Coke.

'That's good,' she said. 'Why is your hair in your face?'

I got out a crystal glass, tall and delicate, the kind Mom likes, and filled it with cubes. The Diet Coke splashed in, stopping at about three-quarters full.

I looked up and noticed my mother's lipstick was smudged almost completely off.

She must have read my mind or something. Maybe seen where I was looking. Her hand flew to her face. 'My lipstick?'

My mother looks like a movie star. She's blonde and gorgeous. She has perfect skin, the perfect tan. She has a great figure. Incredible, actually. She's skinnier than any of my friends. She's really amazing, my mom.

I went to the cabinet and found the bottle of Barbados Rum. I poured a lot in. Mom likes it that way.

By then my mom had opened her little purse and found her little compact. She got very still, looking in that little mirror. 'I don't have on one single trace of lipstick.' Her voice had that stunned sound you hear when a guy in a movie suddenly notices the sky is filled with alien spaceships.

I handed her the drink, setting it down on the counter in front of her on a fabric cocktail napkin that matched the lemon yellow of the tiles. Neat. Not one drop spilled. Mom needed a pick-me-up every afternoon. It was my job to fix it. She'd start drinking rum and Diet Cokes about four thirty every school day and keep on drinking until just before Daddy came home from the firm.

'Aren't you interested in where I've been?' my mom asked. I have learned to decipher what my mom says as she twists her mouth in the application of lipstick. She quickly capped the tube and looked at me.

'Sure.'

'I know you've been depressed, darling. I know what it must feel like to be rejected by Eastlake.'

My neck hurt. My wrist itched.

'Honey?' My mom was so worried about me it made me feel awful.

The Eastlake School. It was the most prestigious school in the Universe. It ran from grades seven through twelve. Not everyone can get in, though. They are famous for rejecting everybody. My application had been rejected and I have been working hard, hard, hard. At least three hours each and every night since kindergarten. And I get straight As. It doesn't matter to them. They get dozens of girls applying who get straight As. They get hundreds. Everyone around here wants their daughters to be Eastlake girls and Eastlake gets to choose. That's the way it is with the Eastlake School.

'You've been very depressed, Megan, isn't that right?'

My mom really didn't deserve all the trouble I brought. The arch in my left foot began aching pretty badly.

'Well, your problems are solved. I just saw the Director of Admissions, Mrs Williams. She's agreed to move you up to the waiting list. See? And after Daddy talks to the Head of School, I'm sure they'll find a spot for you in their seventh grade class, after all.' My mother smiled a fresh-Chanel-lipstick smile and then raised her glass.

I watched her drink. In a few seconds the glass wore the perfect outline of my mom's beautiful smile on its rim.

The truth about my mother is she doesn't look old enough to have a twelve-year-old daughter. I'd heard people tell her that all my life, adding a year every time I'd had another birthday.

'Did you hear what I said, Megan?'

I guess I must be the most ungrateful teenager in America. Here my mother and father have been doing everything in their power to move me across the chessboard of my life towards their wonderful goals and I'm like some sort of imbecile pawn who doesn't even say thank you.

'Thank you, Mom.'

'You're more than welcome, honey.' She looked radiantly beautiful at that moment.

'Do you think maybe the teachers there are kind of hard, Mom? Maybe…'

'They'll love you at Eastlake. All the best girls go there. You'll have a wonderful time. You'll see. And look what I've brought you?'

My mom opened her little purse and pulled out a jewellery store box. She opened the hinge and set the box before me.

'Is this for me?'

'Isn't it adorable. Try it on! We're celebrating you getting into Eastlake, silly. I found it at that cute antique store at the Plaza where they have all that funky old stuff and it just called out to me. It's got charms, see?'

My mom is always super sweet like that. Always giving me gifts when I get down at heart. I don't have her cheery temperament. I don't have her naturally upbeat personality, so she gets me little gifts, she loves me so much.

'Don't you adore it? Now why are you pulling so hard on your hair? That's got to hurt, Megan. Stop it, please.'

I picked up the bracelet and let it dangle, clinking the charms together. One, a small gold puffy heart, glinted in the down-beam of the fancy recessed lights Mom had chosen with her decorator. I examined the heart more closely, noticing it had a tiny jewel, as Mom kept on talking about Eastlake and refilled her own glass.