Chapter One
Flipping the record one more time, Allison curls on the bed in a fetal position. She should have known Claire and Andy wouldn't change. It was as Claire had said, neither she nor Andy had recognized her existence. Neither of them had the strength to carry on without someone like Bender. And Bender was gone, expelled over the fallen ceiling incident. Even Brian had failed to keep his promise Monday at lunch. After being rejected by the other two, she hadn't been surprised when she saw Brian's eyes stop on her and then snap away. Instead of returning her wave, he sat down at the geek table, avoiding her eye.
She tries to push away a scene that keeps replaying in her mind. The way Andy looked at her. A flash of recognition, a soft sad look for a second, then a false smile for the jocks, turning his back on her. He had pledged loyalty, but it meant nothing to him on Monday morning.
The record player needle lifts automatically as it comes to the end of the Cure album. She doesn't have the will to get up, flip the record, and start it again. In the silence she finds her tears are gone, as dried as the desert of her heart.
It was all too good to be true, it always is. Nothing good stays. Brick by brick, she begins erecting her wall again.
Summer finds Allison sitting alone again, at her usual table in Shermer Tech's cafeteria. At least here her invisibility is impersonal. All the other students are years older than she and one lonely high schooler doesn't even register. They are not ignoring her, they don't even see her.
She rises and slings her purse across her chest. Trash disposed of on her way out the door, she heads to the community college's art department. She's early as usual and enters the scent of saw dust and turpentine with something that approaches happiness. She erects her easel and painting, then arrays the tools from her oversized tackle box. Everything else in her life's a mess of disorganization, but her paints and brushes are meticulously arranged. The self portrait is a study in blue, blue background, deep blue shadows, a blue tinge to her pale face and white chemise. It's an underwater wash of blue making her look far away and untouchable.
The other students trickle in and set up their equipment with the sound of chatting and the clatter of easels being unfolded. Her teacher comes to stand behind her and instead of guiding her toward proper technique as she does with the other students, she asks Allison if she had a chance to look at the Picasso book she lent her. They discuss the painter's blue period, so different from her own blue. His subjects were sad and gaunt. Her own painting shows her pale face and bushy hair in rounded shapes. Not sad but as though seen through glass, through water, through distance.
Canvas and equipment carefully stowed two hours later, Allison emerges from the air conditioned building and is blinded by hot sunlight. Shermer Tech is located on the edge of downtown, near her north Shermer neighborhood. As she rounds the corner of Ames Hall, she almost collides with someone. She looks up to mutter an apology and finds herself looking at John Bender's face. Her eyes start to slide past him, expecting to be ignored by this last member of the breakfast club. Instead, Bender smiles. A habitually sarcastic smile, but one that acknowledges her.
"Long time. You here to improve yourself or something?" He sounds like he's mocking Vernon's words, from detention. She notices his GED prep book, thick as a Chicago telephone book.
"Hah!" Her exclamation seems to satisfy him.
"Me too. Nose to the grindstone and all that. You heading this way?"
He turns to accompany her toward Maple Street.
"How's Queenie?"
"Claire's a bitch." She doesn't mean to shout this, but that's how it comes out.
"Same with me. She didn't want to be around a delinquent drop out. Andy ditch you too?"
She nods, looking down. Bender's voice is almost gentle when he says, "He's a dirt bag. You're better off without him, Al."
In a much cheerier tone he says, "Vernon finally got his wish. It was the fallen ceiling that put the last nail in my coffin." He sounds as though this pleases him. "I'm done sitting in detention every Saturday."
They are now enclosed by the shade of the old trees lining Maple Street.
"Where do you live? North Shermer? I figured you were another richie; I saw that Cadillac your parents drive." He seems content to carry the entire conversation without comment from her. "You keeping your hands to yourself? No more five finger discounts?"
That is a reference to their encounter in juvenile last year, when he was being processed for possession of marijuana and she for shoplifting. He looks at her as if she has spoken and says, "Yeah, takes more than that to cure me too. You gotta be careful with that knife though. Weapons are serious trouble."
She has been using his switch blade to open packages and boxes, as well as clicking it open and closed just to hear the sound, to feel it leap in her hand. It's in her bag right now. It goes everywhere with her. As much as the rejection of the others hurts, she still day dreams about that one day when she had friends. The knife is proof that it happened.
Now here is Bender acting as though detention was yesterday and they're still friends. A friend. That's a novel idea, an idea too good to be true. Detention was too good to be true and this is too. Bender never sticks around and she has no illusions about that. He appears, stirs things up, then disappears. That's what John Bender does. It's nothing personal.
"This your street?" They have reached Ledgewood Place. "I'll see you around, Al."
She squeaks a tiny "Bye."
At the end of the housing division's cul-de-sac she sees her mother's Cadillac in the driveway, but her father's Mercedes is gone. She troops up the manicured sidewalk to the immaculate green-painted door hung with a summer wreath. Her mother buys these wreaths from some catalog, a new one every season. Allison looked at the picture in the catalog once and noted the price. Having $50 hanging on your front door feels stupid. That would set her up in art supplies for a whole semester. Her parents are always so grudging with money for her supplies. She saves her allowance to augment the small amount they give her every school term, but it's never enough.
Her parents don't begrudge spending money on other things. Every few months her mother raids her closet, takes away all the gray and black clothes and insists Allison go shopping. She then forces Allison to try on pastel clothes. They come home with an entire new wardrobe, a wardrobe Claire would kill for. Allison obediently puts it away in her closet. Then she retrieves her emergency monochrome clothes from the hiding place under her bed, brings all the pastel clothes to the homeless shelter and buys replacement garments at the thrift store.
When she comes in, she can tell it's going to be bad. The liquor cabinet in the living room is open and when she enters the kitchen she sees a highball glass filled with an amber liquid.
"So pretty and you wear those clothes."
Allison cringes as her mother starts in on her.
"When I was your age, I went to dances and wore pink. Not this ugly black."
"I've got homework, mother."
"And always having homework. A girl doesn't need good grades. That's for boys who have careers. You just need to be well-bred."
"I'm going to my room."
"Don't you leave until I am done with you, missy."
Allison pulls into herself.
"I went into your room and it's a mess. How will you ever take care of a husband and household if you can't take care of your own bedroom? Not that you'll ever get married wearing all that black. And I told you, no eyeliner. You look like a raccoon. I spend so much money trying to make you pretty and all you do is mope around. And never a boyfriend. As for your 'art' I give you classes and supplies, and what do you do? Make these depressing blue things..."
She stands woodenly while her mother goes on, right back to the old subject of making a debut in good society. She had inadvertently destroyed that scheme of her mother's by beating up a boy in dancing class when she was 12. Her family didn't have enough money and influence to hush that one up and she had been banned from the social club that produced debutants and their suitors. The mention of the beaten up boy somehow makes her feel better this time. She thinks Bender would have approved of her kicking the stuffing out of the little shit. He was cruel to animals, plus he had tried to pinch her while they were dancing.
She's finally excused. She slips into her room and closes the door. After divesting herself of her purse, she gets out her large sketchbook, the one bound in leather. She can lose herself in her drawings. She turns to an unfinished one. It's a country scene, serene rolling plains of grass with an old white clapboard church in the distance, the spire bright in the sun. She doesn't feel serene. She opens to a blank page, picks up her pencil, prepares to savage the fresh sheet with her pain, her anger and finds she can't. Only one thing seems to want to come out of her pencil. She flips back to last spring. This drawing is of five people in a circle, lounging on the floor. In the corner, in tiny letters, it says "The Breakfast Club."
She slams the book shut, re-slings her purse, and heads out to her favorite place. Behind the last building in the development runs a stream. Allison makes her way down the slight slope and hunkers down on a smooth rock. The silver sound of the stream soothes her. She can feel the fine hairs on the back of her neck relaxing and imagines the pearly nerve endings re-knitting themselves. As her mind unkinks and her stress slips away, her thoughts empty out. She searches for a favorite fairytale… She can be a CIA agent in World War II, a camel herder in Mongolia, a Russian submarine navigator... She can be anything, but she keeps coming back to Bender.
The next morning Allison rounds up the last yogurt and a browning banana for her breakfast after determining that is all the food in the house, aside from some stale cornflakes and exotic condiments in the fridge door. Her parents eat out so much they forget she needs food. With no lunch available she'll have to go to the college cafeteria for lunch. That's okay because her class starts at one anyway. Until she needs to leave for the college, she returns to a sketch for a painting she wants to start. She works carefully, giving shape to her vision of a rain-darkened street under the elevated train in downtown Chicago. She intends to discuss the logistics of making this sketch come to life on canvas with her teacher today.
At school, preoccupied with thoughts of her painting, she chooses Jello, a ham sandwich, fries and a carton of milk from the cafeteria line. She drowns her sandwich in mustard and dips her fries in the Jello. As she is enjoying her odd combination, she becomes aware of someone standing next to her table. It's Bender.
"Hey Al, you got room for me?" Bender seats himself and says, "What are you doing to those french fries?"
"Eating them."
"With Jello? Al, you're one strange girl." This doesn't sound like an insult the way he says it, but her defenses are prickling.
She blurts, "Why are you here?"
"My math class starts at one." He squirts some ketchup on his plate, ignoring her angry tone.
"Why are you sitting here?" she persists.
"You want me to stand?"
"No." She settles back, anger giving way to curiosity. He still hasn't answered her question, but instead of continuing her interrogation, she simply watches him. He doesn't seem to be making fun of her. Taking big bites of his burger, his eyes drift to her open sketchbook.
"Under the El?" he asks.
She nods.
"That's right by the record store. You'd like it, heavy metal all the way." He continues looking at the sketch. "That's a bad neighborhood. You need to go there again, tell me. I'll take you."
"I'll be fine." She says this defiantly, but it's automatic. She did feel a bit nervous when she wandered over into that area and would have liked someone with her.
"Just let me know."
She continues to watch him eat. She knows the intensity of her gaze can be disconcerting, but that doesn't stop her from inspecting him carefully. He has a slight shadow of stubble and his hair is still long. There's an earring in his left ear that looks like a diamond. But it can't be a real diamond. She knows a bit about jewelry. Her mother's collection is extensive and includes some pieces she keeps in a safe deposit box. No way Bender could get a diamond that big. It must be cubic zirconium. He has on his fingerless gloves and the sleeves of his t-shirt are ripped off at the shoulder. The black shirt has some kind of pentagram and eagle design on it. He doesn't have a tattoo, but he looks like he should.
"You wanna take a picture?" She's unembarrassed by this question as his sarcastic tone excuses her from taking him seriously. The old Bender trick, sarcasm to deflect attention.
He pushes back his tray and glances at his watch, which is mounted on a wide black leather cuff.
"Gotta book. See you later." He walks off with his tray in one hand and his GED book in the other. She slowly gathers her own things and buses her tray.
That night at home, she doodles in her small sketch book while listening to the Smiths. Absorbed in the music, she isn't paying much attention to what her pencil is creating, until she recognizes the pentagram design from Bender's shirt. She slams the book closed and throws the pencil across the room. Thinking about Bender is not allowed. No hope, no desire for friendship, no kind feelings. No wanting to see him again.
But she does see him again. He joins her in the cafeteria again the next day.
"Al, what are you taking? A drawing class?"
"Painting." She says this abruptly, not really expecting ridicule but out of habit.
"I'm here for GED prep. Vernon actually did me a favor, kicking me out. I'll have my GED by the end of the summer, and I was going to be a senior next year, so I'll be a year ahead." He takes a few more bites of his sandwich. "I wasn't cut out for high school, all the bullshit and Obey this Obey that. They don't give a fuck here, as long as you come to class and try your best."
"High school sucks." This is the most detailed self expression she has dared so far.
"You like your painting class?" She nods. "Let me look at what you're working on sometime. I want to see what goes on in that head of yours."
Monday morning Allison wakes to the sound of birds. She stretches her toes and luxuriates in the clean sheets before heading for the shower. Something conventional pops into her mind, startling her. Scrambled eggs! There's just enough mustard to coat her eggs to her liking. Her morning passes quickly, trying to bring a little order to her room. She finds her favorite purple socks and adds them to the load of dirty laundry she's accumulating. Soon it's time to go if she wants to have lunch at the caf.
She chooses her favorite, Jello and french fries, along with barbeque chicken and a salad. Weaving her way through the crowded dining hall, she takes her usual seat by the window. Watching the door, she begins her lunch with gusto. As time goes on and no Bender, she slows down, lets her fork drop. At 12:45 she must give up and go to class. He has not come.
She's ashamed of her tears in the women's bathroom. He made no promises. She had no reason to expect him. So they ate lunch together twice. That meant nothing. Maybe he has something better to do with his time. Something other than sit with a social idiot like herself. She repairs her makeup and gets to class only a few minutes late.
She has finished her self portrait and is now blocking out her new painting of the street under the El. But for the first time since she started this class, she doesn't want to work. She cleans her brushes and excuses herself, claiming a headache.
Once home she puts Psycho Candy on the turntable, sinks into the loud, monotonous guitar feedback and wishes she could escape being Allison Reynolds. Before Bender, before the breakfast club, she had lived entirely in her own world. She had been content there. That day in detention had awoken something in her. Now that she has something to lose, life hurts.
Tuesday morning Allison scours the kitchen looking for some kind of lunch. The pantry is empty again. Eating at the caf is her only choice. At noon, she forces herself up and on her way to the college. The cafeteria line choices seem unappealing so she just gets a yogurt. She walks right past Bender and he has to call her name to get her attention. When she turns back, he's wearing an uncomplicated look of pleasure. Pleasure to see her? She bangs her purse down out of habit, but can't help a tiny smile starting in response.
"Hey Al, how's it going? You have a good weekend?"
Her smile gets a little bigger and she deliberately tears the foil off the top of her yogurt.
"Mine sucked. I swear I will never smoke again. It felt like someone went at my lungs with a cheese grater. I was sick as a dog."
"Do you want your pickle?" She knows this is a non sequitur, but she can't find another way to express her happiness.
"Have at it. I'm done."
She forks up the pickle spear and dips it in her yogurt.
"You still working on that sketch, of the El?"
In a burst of bravery, she says, "I'm putting it on canvas."
"A painting?"
She nods.
"Cool. When are you going to let me see your stuff?"
"Now?" She doesn't know where all this courage is coming from.
After showing him the sketchy beginnings of her new piece and a life-size painting of two lilies in a vase, she shyly uncovers her self portrait. He looks from her face to the painting and back several times.
"It's you. It's like you are on the other side, looking into water."