Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood [85]
I’m given a get-well card with violets on it from Carol, shoved through the letter slot. On the weekend Cordelia calls me on the telephone. “We didn’t know you fell in,” she says. “We’re sorry we didn’t wait. We thought you were right behind us.” Her voice is careful, precise, rehearsed, unrepentant.
I know she’s told some story that conceals what really happened, as I have. I know that this apology has been exacted from her, and that I will be made to pay for it later. But she has never apologized to me before. This apology, however fake, makes me feel not stronger but weaker. I don’t know what to say. “It’s okay,” is what I manage. I think I mean it.
When I go back to school, Cordelia and Grace are polite but distant. Carol is more obviously frightened, or interested. “My mother says you almost froze to death,” she whispers as we stand in line, two by two, waiting for the bell. “I got a spanking, with the hairbrush. I really got it.”
The snow is melting from the lawns; mud reappears on the floors, at school, in the kitchen at home. Cordelia circles me warily. I catch her eyes on me, considering, as we walk home from school. Conversation is artificially normal. We stop at the store for licorice whips, which Carol buys. As we stroll along, sucking in licorice, Cordelia says, “I think Elaine should be punished for telling on us, don’t you?”
“I didn’t tell,” I say. I no longer feel the sinking in my gut, the held-back tearfulness that such a false accusation would once have produced. My voice is flat, calm, reasonable.
“Don’t contradict me,” Cordelia says. “Then how come your mother phoned our mothers?”
“Yeah, how come?” says Carol.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” I say. I’m amazed at myself.
“You’re being insolent,” says Cordelia. “Wipe that smirk off your face.”
I am still a coward, still fearful; none of that has changed. But I turn and walk away from her. It’s like stepping off a cliff, believing the air will hold you up. And it does. I see that I don’t have to do what she says, and worse and better, I’ve never had to do what she says. I can do what I like.
“Don’t you dare walk away on us,” Cordelia says behind me. “You get back here right now!” I can hear this for what it is. It’s an imitation, it’s acting. It’s an impersonation, of someone much older. It’s a game. There was never anything about me that needed to be improved. It was always a game, and I have been fooled. I have been stupid. My anger is as much at myself as at them.
“Ten stacks of plates,” says Grace. This would once have reduced me. Now I find it silly.
I keep walking. I feel daring, light-headed. They are not my best friends or even my friends. Nothing binds me to them. I am free.
They follow along behind me, making comments on the way I walk, on how I look from behind. If I were to turn I would see them imitating me. “Stuck up! Stuck up!” they cry. I can hear the hatred, but also the need. They need me for this, and I no longer need them. I am indifferent to them. There’s something hard in me, crystalline, a kernel of glass. I cross the street and continue along, eating my licorice.
I stop going to Sunday school. I refuse to play with Grace or Cordelia or even Carol after school. I no longer walk home over the bridge, but the long way around, past the cemetery. When they come in a group to the back door to-collect me I tell them I’m busy. They try kindness, to lure me back, but I am no longer susceptible to it. I can see the greed in their eyes. It’s as if I can see right into them. Why was I unable to do this before?
I spend a lot of time reading comic books in my brother’s room when he isn’t there. I would like to climb up skyscrapers, fly with a cape, burn holes in metal with my fingertips, wear a mask, see through walls. I would like to hit people, criminals, each fist making a red or yellow light-burst.