Belly Up Read online

  Mom cared. She showed it by asking Karen every day, multiple times a day, how she could help make Quinn’s transition easier. She treated Quinn like a VIP, buying her iced coffees and ice cream sundaes that Quinn would reject on account of calories. Whenever Quinn emerged from her Quinn hole, Mom was at her beck and call.

  Through all of it, Quinn remained...aloof was probably the nice way of putting it, but she was cold, and sharp, and dismissive. She never showed any signs of appreciation. She took and took and took and offered nothing in return, which was why when I heard her slamming my mother when she was on the phone, I wanted to put her head through the wall.

  “I hate it here,” she said. “It’s awful.”

  I was passing by her room when she said that, the thin door not enough to keep her voice contained. I paused even though I knew I’d regret it, and she continued. “Emma, Dana’s daughter, is boring and fat. This house is ghetto, this town is gross. Dana got her lesbian all over Mom and I want to puke whenever they touch each other. Like, keep your gay to yourself, please.”

  It was stupid, awful and bigoted. It was also crap; neither of our mothers was demonstrative, probably because they wanted us to be comfortable and their relationship was still new to us. Quinn was making stuff up to her father. I shook my head and rolled my eyes, about to head back to my room, when she said, “I don’t even dare wear shorts around here. Dana’s constantly checking me out.”

  Oh, no. Nope, not today, Satan.

  “My mother’s not a pedo,” I snapped, slapping hard on Quinn’s closed door. “And she’s been nothing but nice to you. If you’re going to lie, at least do it where someone can’t call you on your crap.”

  “I gotta go, Dad.” Something smacked against the wall and I heard her stomping my way. I stepped back right as she pulled open her door, her eyes narrowed to slits, her hair tied up on top of her head in a sloppy bun. She wore one of those tank tops that showed off a belly button ring and a pair of pink and blue checkered pajama pants.

  “Don’t listen to my phone conversations!” she screamed in my face, a spray of spittle striking my cheeks.

  I winced and wiped my face, my jaw grinding. “The walls are thin. And don’t pretend me overhearing you calling my mother a pedophile is somehow worse than you saying it in the first place.”

  “You’re standing outside of my door, you fat bitch. Don’t even!” Behind her, Versace snarled like he was Cerberus guarding the gates of Hell. I eyed him, he eyed me back and then he charged. Quinn could have stopped him, easily in fact, but she moved aside to let him come at me, the little turd of a dog darting in to attack. Razor-sharp teeth tore into my skin, Versace’s head worrying back and forth when he got a good grip on me. I yelped and punted the little jerk to get him off me.

  He hit the wall with a thud and a whine.

  Quinn flew out of her room to scoop up her teeth-gnashing baby, checking him for lingering injury. She assessed him for damage, bending all of his limbs to ensure I hadn’t snapped them in half like an ogress.

  “Oh my God. Stay the hell away from my dog! Ugh, you are such a bitch!” I stared at her in horror, rivulets of blood streaking down my bare foot to stain the rug below. I was so mad I thought I’d rip her hair out, but hearing the kerfuffle, both of our moms crested the stairs to intervene, Karen stepping between us. She herded Quinn back into her bedroom while my mom took me to the bathroom to bandage my foot.

  Mom shut the door to tune out the screeching harpy next door.

  “Are you okay?” She sat on the edge of the tub, pulling my foot into her lap. It wasn’t so awful—a few puncture wounds, a scratch. Thankfully Versace wasn’t a German shepherd, though my ankle throbbed something fierce. Chihuahua teeth are no joke.

  “Would you be? Her dog bites me and I’m the asshole.”

  “Language,” Mom chastised. Right, language. Because that was the important part. But being snide wasn’t going to help my cause, and so I sat on the toilet, looking at the countertop. Quinn had commandeered it from day one, multiple baskets holding her lotions and potions and skin care. There were trays for her makeup, bins for her feminine products and EpiPens, and a cup holding combs and hairbrushes. The upstairs bathroom used to be mine, but her stuff was a flag staked into the ground, claiming that six-by-eleven space for the nation of Quinn.

  Can I secede? Please?

  Mom dabbed at my cuts with hydrogen peroxide. “She’ll calm down. Karen says Quinn’s struggled with the separation.” Mom glanced up from her doctoring, strain lines framing her eyes and mouth. “I know she’s being difficult, but we can give her a chance to settle in before we call it a wash, right?”

  “She just told her father on the phone you were checking her out,” I said. “I’m not sure she deserves a chance.”

  That stopped her cold, and she peered up at me from behind her dark brows. Her mouth did a pucker thing, her shoulders tensed and she sighed. “I’ll talk to Karen, but the point remains. She’s having a hard time. Let’s be the bigger people.”

  Whatever.

  “If the dog bites me again I want it gone,” I added as an afterthought. “I don’t need to be mauled in my own home.”

  Mom nodded and reached for the Band-Aids. “That’s fair. Maybe we’ll get him a muzzle.”

  Can we get one for Quinn, too?

  Nah, I’m not that lucky.

  * * *

  The damage went deeper than the bite marks. Quinn was such a problem child, I secretly hoped Mom and Karen would break up. I knew it wouldn’t happen—they were far too happy—but my peaceful home was in tatters as a result of their relationship. As a result of Quinn. Mom kept assuring me that Quinn was adapting and to be patient, but I knew what evil lurked behind that bedroom door. A bona fide bitch. And bitches kept right on bitching because that was their basic bitch function.

  Quinn threw the curveball our first day of school. I went downstairs in my jeans, sweatshirt and wet hair, expecting attitude, but she was smiling at the breakfast table. Rare. And conversational. Rarer. For the briefest moment, I wondered if maybe Mom was right. Maybe Quinn had purged the douche bag demon festering inside. Or maybe her fairy godmother had granted her a modicum of decency sometime during the night.

  “You have good hair, Emma. Like, a nice color and it’s long. You should wear it down,” she said.

  I blinked at her over my wobbly pile of scrambled eggs, expecting a second head to sprout from her neck. She smiled. I glanced over at my mother, who was hovering by the sink. Mom and I shared a look. She nodded, encouraging me to say something equally accommodating. It took me a minute to get over my opossum-in-headlights shock, but after a couple of bites I managed, “Thanks. I’ve been growing it out.”

  “You can use my flat iron to straighten it before school if you want. Tomorrow or whatever.”

  “Oh. Cool.” I had no idea how to use a flat iron, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. I apparently didn’t need to, either.

  “...I’ll show you later. After school.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  One morning of her being nice didn’t assuage the pain of our introductory weeks, but it did shake my resolve to hate her with the fury of a thousand suns. The whole time we waited for the bus, she chattered about how she missed her old friends and how much a new school terrified her. I mustered some sympathy for her that day. Actually, I maintained that sympathy the first week of school because she was nice to me. In turn, I introduced her to everyone I knew because that’s what you did when you had the new kid on your hip.

  I wasn’t so stupid as to think that we were going to be best friends, but she was tolerable enough that I thought maybe we could coexist amicably. I was even encouraged when I found out we were going to be in the same art class. Quinn liked photography and I slanted toward sketching and inking, but art was a common interest.

  The first day of art class, she took the s
eat next to me. The way the classroom was set up, there were four double rows of black tables, each one big enough for three workstations. I sat at the end, Quinn took the middle and, right as the bell rang, Nikki Lambert came running into the room, her hair dyed pink and gray and purple, to take the third seat. She wore a black shirt, a short black skirt, black-and-white striped tights and a pair of black combat boots. She was a punk rock chick with runway style, cool in that outcast “too mature for the rest of us” way. She and I weren’t super close friends, but we’d hung out a bit during sophomore year and over the summer, and I liked her a lot.

  “Hi, I’m new. Quinn Littleton,” Quinn said as an opener. “I’m Emma’s—My mom’s dating Emma’s mom, so we’re like sisters living in lesbian land.”

  Nikki dropped a camouflage bag with a red anarchy symbol embroidered on the side onto the table. Her eyebrows lifted as she looked between me and Quinn, a weird smile playing around her mouth. Her lip piercing gleamed silver as she wriggled it around with her tongue.

  “I’m Nikki.” Nikki waved at me and I noticed that each of her fingernails was painted a different color. I thought it was awesome. So did Quinn. She reached out to take Nikki’s hand, pulling it close to admire it.

  “The gray is Opi, yeah?”

  Nikki peered at her for a long moment, not snatching her hand away but clearly surprised by Quinn’s friendliness. So was I. I never would have had the guts to be so outgoing with a stranger.

  “Yeah. I think so,” Nikki said.

  “I love their stuff. I’m such a nail polish whore.”

  They shared a look that I couldn’t quite read. Before anything else could be said, our teacher, Mr. Riddell, walked in. He always looked like he smelled something foul—his brow was knitted with worry lines, his nostrils were pinched, his mouth was flat and wide like a guppy’s. Even his smiles looked pained. But the better I got to know him, the more I understood that this wasn’t an indicator of bad disposition. Nature had given Mr. Riddell a resting sad face.

  “Welcome, everybody,” he said. “I’m looking forward to a creative year!”

  We didn’t do any art that day, just got a tour of the classroom to see where all our supplies were kept. Mr. Riddell talked about his syllabus and asked us what we’d like to focus on for the year. It was the standard first-day stuff. By the time the bell rang, I was eager to get started but that’d have to wait another day. I stooped over to grab my book bag, and when I stood, there was Quinn, a grin on her face.

  “Mind if I invite Nikki to lunch?”

  “We’re having lunch together?” I blinked stupidly.

  Quinn smirked. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t we?”

  I nodded despite the because you hated me two days ago rattling around inside my brain. “I don’t mind. She’s pretty cool.”

  “Nice. I’ll ask.”

  And I watched as Quinn dazzled her way into Nikki’s charms. She made it look so easy, like people were puzzles she had no problem solving. I should have realized then that this was indicative of a lot of experience. I should have realized that only a person who cycled through friends would know how to ingratiate herself so well so quickly.

  Live and learn.

  * * *

  Not only did Nikki eat with us that day, she ate with us every day that week. I’d taken up my usual seat between my two best friends at the time, Laney Rosenberg and Tommy Naughters. Quinn sat across from me with Nikki to her side. They kept to themselves, giggling and whispering, so it was no big surprise when Quinn informed me that Nikki would be coming home with us after school that day. I thought it was neat that Quinn had already made a friend. Nikki clearly thought it was neat, too.

  I had no idea exactly how neat things had gotten.

  At the house, the two of them disappeared into Quinn’s room. I was disappointed at being relegated to third wheel, but I settled in at the kitchen table and let my mountain of homework keep me busy instead of brooding about being ignored. Every so often a peal of laughter would ripple downstairs, but that stopped fairly quickly. They were so silent, I almost forgot they were there until Karen called at half past four sounding out of breath.

  “Hi, Emma. Quinn about?” she asked.

  “She’s in her room.”

  “Can you get her for me? I need to ask her a question so I can schedule her allergist appointment.”

  I mumbled a yes and trod upstairs, wary of a Versace attack as I rapped my knuckles on Quinn’s door. She hadn’t quite latched it so it swung open with barely any pressure on my part. The Chihuahua immediately started doing his angry Chihuahua thing from his bed in the corner, and I glanced at it, but then Quinn let out a squeal. My eyes flew to her double bed with its white canopy. I blinked. I blinked twice. It took a moment to register what I was seeing, but when I did, I couldn’t unsee it.

  There was Quinn, naked as the day she was born, with Nikki doing stuff to her.

  Quinn grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest to cover her boobs, Nikki lifted her head in a panic, the dog scrambled to his feet and ran at me like he’d maul me from the knees down. Something clicked on in my brain telling me I should extricate from the situation before a Chihuahua devoured me, so I closed the door, my hand resting on the knob, the flat pane of white wood a blur before my face. All the while, the phone in my grasp called my name over and over again.

  Finally, Karen’s voice penetrated the yeah, I totally saw that stupor, and I lifted the phone to my ear again.

  “She’s uhh...indisposed,” I said.

  Lame, yes, but I was pretty sure telling Karen her kid was having sex in the other room would do no one any favors—least of all me. I already wanted to remove my brain from my skull and give it a solid bleaching.

  Karen sounded alarmed. “Everything all right? I heard her shout.”

  “Yeah. She’s—” I struggled for the right words as Quinn and Nikki hissed furiously to one another on the other side of the bedroom door “—she’s fine. She was getting changed. I surprised her.”

  “Oh! Yikes. Okay. Right. Well, tell her to call my cell. I have a dinner appointment at five so I won’t be available after that, but—thanks, Emma.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. I went back downstairs, my face burning fire. What was I supposed to say to either of them when they emerged? “Sorry I interrupted your sex?” or maybe “Gee, Quinn, maybe being a lesbian is contagious after all?” We’d had peace around the house since school started, but that was probably out the window. Quinn was undoubtedly going to hate me for...

  “Hey, Emma?”

  Her voice wasn’t angry.

  My spine stiffened all the same. “Yeah?”

  “I’m really sorry ab—you know. That.” I glanced up to see her leaning over the railing of the stairs in a T-shirt and pair of shorts. She was flushed, though whether that was embarrassment or sex glow, I didn’t know. Nikki appeared behind her, her anarchy bag slung over her shoulder, her colorful hair disheveled. She was red in the face, and she barely looked at me as she darted outside, muttering a goodbye before the door slammed in her wake.

  Being caught inside my stepsister embarrassed her. I couldn’t say I blamed her for that.

  “Crap. I can follow her if you want,” I said, feeling guilty Nikki was so weirded out.

  “No, it’s—I’ll call her later. It’s cool. But don’t say anything to anyone, okay? It’s nothing serious. I’m just messing around.” Quinn jostled her weight back and forth, her hands fluffing out her hair. “It’s not like I’m gay. I was getting off. But you don’t want that kind of stuff getting around school.”

  I nodded dumbly at her, and then kept nodding when she returned to her room. I had no intention of saying anything to anyone, especially not our moms who weren’t going to take that last comment all that well. No, I’d keep my mouth shut and hope that it’d all go away.

  Except it didn’t.
It really, really didn’t.

  Quinn lay low all that night through the next morning. When I came down for breakfast, she was quiet, tossing me a half smile but offering none of the friendly-ish chatter of the last few days. The wait for the bus was silent. Walking into school was silent. It put me on edge, but I tried chalking it up to a bad day or late-breaking awkwardness that I’d seen her being intimate with someone.

  No, it wasn’t at all a sign that the dark times returneth.

  I passed Nikki in the hall once and she met my eyes for a brief second before jerking her gaze away. She scampered into her classroom, head down. And when art class came I sat down at my station beside Quinn only to watch Nikki park herself at another table across the room, as far away from the two of us as possible.

  “What’s that all about?” I asked under my breath.

  “She’s mad,” Quinn said matter-of-factly.

  “Why? What’d you do?”

  “Nothing! She’s mad I won’t be her girlfriend. I’m about the pole, not the hole. Silly dyke.”

  There were multiple problems with the answer. The first was her tone—it was grade A snark, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since before school started. It was enough to put my body into fight-or-flight mode: my palms went clammy, my stomach clenched. I wanted to dive under a rock to get away from such concentrated meanness.

  The second was the context. Nikki had definitely not been holding Quinn down. In fact, one of Quinn’s legs had been firmly propped on Nikki’s shoulder, which was not an indicator that Quinn had been forced into anything. Nikki might have instigated it, but it was hypocritical to call someone a “silly dyke” when you were a willing participant in your very queer sex.