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when I looked at him. I could actually feel his eyes on my little pubescent ass. And I didn’t not enjoy it, either.
    Henri says parents sometimes have to go separate ways in order to do the things they need to do to be happy and successful, and when my mom and dad are both doing the things they need to do separately all three of us are going to be much, much happier, so really it’s a good thing and we’re celebrating and I’m really glad they’re getting divorced because when all three of us are happier it will be even better than if we all stayed together and weren’t as happy or as successful. So we’re having a divorce party and everything.
    I almost liked being with her, I disliked her so much. It had an addictive flavor, hating her. One of those bossy little bitches who find a way to twist things so that she’s always a winner, always triumphant, always in charge. Never screwed, never sad, never sorry, never at the mercy of others. One of those self-aggrandizing little bitches who refuse themselves any admission of weakness. Always play-acting that idiotic control. Jenny with her absurd mop of kinky orange curls, her freckles. The kind of girl who was going to spend her life demanding to be taken seriously. And no one takes those girls seriously.
    She didn’t scare me one little bit, and boy did that scare her .
    She did this thing about my mother with huge watery eyes, being So Very Sorry for me, to imply that my mother was very close to dying—which she was, it was true—and that therefore I was a pitiful wretch.
    It must be so very difficult for you that your mom is so very ill , she’d say reproachfully. The know-it-all tone, the superiority (her parents were just getting divorced , which was actually great news), the hierarchy of pain in which I was the winner, and so really the loser. She made me insane. I couldn’t get enough of her.
    Yeah, I guess , I said, incapable of spin. (We have lots of delicious Popsicles in our freezer ’cause she gets these huge mouth sores from the chemo, it’s great!) The lights in our house were always dim. My mother spent months dying. Weeks and weeks tiptoeing up to the very, very, very end. It seemed that it could be any day for an enormous number of days.
    How traaaaagic . Jenny gazed out her bedroom windows at the tops of other buildings. What terrible circumstances. Such a difficult thing for a young girl .
    She’s gonna be fine , I said, and almost had to laugh. She was not going to be fine. She was not going to be alive very much longer. She could be dead right then and I wouldn’t know it until I went home. But something about those self-aggrandizing bitches makes it impossible for you to be weak, and so you wind up sorta becoming one of them, at least temporarily, to deal with them, which is so goddamn sad. It’s a trap. You must avoid those bitches at all costs.
    I don’t think so , Jenny said. And she’s only in her forties! And with such a young daughter! So, so sad . She looked like she was trying to make herself cry, like it was some kind of acting exercise. She reached out to pat my shoulder, and what did I do? Why, I punched her in the face. With closed fist. So satisfying. I can just about feel the shameful, electric pleasure of it reverberating up my arm even now.
     
    Faculty party at Cameron and Betsy’s tonight. An opportunity to put on decent clothes, something I don’t have to yank down or up for boob access. Maybe a piece of jewelry, maybe go totally nuts, dab something shiny on the lips. Feels downright like Halloween.
    Well, well , Cam bellows as we make our way up their stoop, three blocks away in a cold drizzle, the baby asleep under the care of a student babysitter. I pray she’s not as stupid as she dresses, this babysitter. With her obnoxious ringtones and hot-pink sweats, COME HERE OFTEN printed across the ass. I pray she’ll keep righteous watch.
    Cam means well and wants to chill but doesn’t know how and so channels all