Free Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

with Merissa’s father, this was the tone she used: a desperate sort of lightness, interrupted by nervous laughter.
    Merissa knew: Her mother was determined to seem cheerful around the house so that Merissa couldn’t guess how anxious she really was.
    (For Merissa eavesdropped shamelessly now. And cynically. At first it had been accidental, and before that—years and years before—she hadn’t cared in the slightest what her mother talked about with her women friends on the phone, or even with her father. Now all conversations had to be monitored. Their contents had to be decoded, assessed. If Merissa overheard her mother saying , “Oh God—money! Will I need to be worried about that, too?” she knew that her mother was worried about separation, and divorce. Really there was only one subject in the household any longer—Merissa’s father—whether he would return to them, or leave permanently.)
    Merissa said, “Hannah has her own friends. A boyfriend.”
    â€œShe does?”
    â€œEverybody does. No big deal.”
    No big deal. NBD. What Tink had said, in her last text message.
    â€œBut—”
    â€œBut what about me ?” Merissa laughed. “I don’t want a boyfriend. I don’t want to do the things you have to do, to have a boyfriend.”
    Merissa’s mother was silent. As if Merissa had reached over and punched her in the thigh.
    â€œWell, I—I don’t know—how does Hannah have a boyfriend then? I thought you all went out together—you met boys at the mall, and went to the movies. . . .”
    Merissa felt her face heat, just a little. The lie about Hannah had sprung from her lips like a poison toad in a child’s fairy tale.
    â€œMaybe it’s Nadia, I mean. Nadia Stillinger.”
    â€œNadia? I haven’t seen her in a while, either.”
    Because Nadia is a slut. Even a rich girl has to be a slut if she’s fat. You don’t have a clue, Mom!
    â€œI’m just wishing that we could spend a little more time together, Merissa. Now that your father is . . . Now that it’s just us here, for a while at least. Since you’ve been accepted at Brown, I don’t see why you have to work so hard. . . .”
    â€œMom, don’t be silly. The admission to Brown isn’t absolute . I still have to finish my senior year, and I have to keep my GPA up, of course.”
    â€œAnd I don’t see why you dropped out of the senior play, that would have been enjoyable, and fun—you’d always wanted to have a lead in a school play, and your father was so impressed. Now—I don’t even want to tell him.”
    â€œFine! Nobody has to tell him.”
    Merissa was furious. How badly she wished her mother would leave her room, so that she could click onto Blade Runner. Badly she wanted to send a message to Blade Runner, except she worried—if her father discovered what she was doing—what a nightmare that would be!
    He would never love her again, then.
    â€œAnyway, Mom, I didn’t ‘drop out’ of the play. I told you—I don’t respect the Jane Austen world, it’s just silly, and depressing. It isn’t funny—but people laugh. Women with no opportunities in life, no lives , except marrying some stupid man with an ‘income’—meaning interest on some property. Poor people had to work for these ‘property holders,’ which means they were like slaves. They didn’t have any choice but to work for them, like the women didn’t have any choice but to get married. It’s not funny . I didn’t want to be damn old smarty-pants Elizabeth Bennet, whom everybody envies because the richest man proposes to her.”
    But was this the entire truth? Merissa had to concede she just wasn’t an actress. She just didn’t care about wearing costumes and makeup and reciting lines on stage, to impress an audience