Rose of No Man's Land Read Online Free Page A

looks melty, like a wax candle. Thick and droopy. If you have half a brain you can probably guess that MaryAnn’s not the most popular person in her high school, which happens also to be my high school. People say mean things to her in the hallway, call her “freak,” write things on her locker. I swear, it’s like an after-school special. Only on an after-school special everyone would learn something, and MaryAnn’s humanity would be exposed and whoever was being an asshole would suddenly get a clue and life would be better. I guarantee that is not going to happen. But if life were fair, MaryAnn would be the popular one. Everyone would want to be around her because she really survived something. Like someone in a movie, she stood up for justice and got horribly wounded but carried on. She would be our hero and we would all want to help her out. Plus there is the curious dizziness that comes with looking at her face for a bit. I had one class with MaryAnn Baxter this last semester and can testify that if you stare at her for too long this certain tingly lightheadedness can overtake you, a sort of drunken feeling. I don’t know why, but it’s true, and why not add that to the list of reasons to be good to her: she is like a strange drug. Maybe if everyone in the world got their periods at the exact same time MaryAnn would be universally accepted for about a minute. But not even, ’cause then there’s still all the guys.
    Bernice O’Leary came to Kristy on her last day of shop, for her regular fluffy hairdo, and she was all bent out ofshape because her prize employee Kim Porciatti was unavailable for work and now that schools were letting out it was truly summer inside the mall and there were boxes of overpriced plastic-wrap bikinis waiting to be stocked. And then, said Kristy, Bernice started to tear up. Kristy thought it was the fumes from the perm solution that a student who’d just been smoking pot in the bathroom was liberally squirting onto the head of an old lady. This student was just dousing the lady and laughing and her eyes were all bloodshot and Kristy was thinking, Jesus, she is wicked high, and then she noticed that Bernice’s eyes were all red too and maybe the perm sauce was getting to her and when she began to ask, Bernice toppled from sniffling into straight-up crying and confessed to Kristy that she didn’t really care about the bikinis, she was just so concerned about poor Kim Porciatti who had actually tried to kill herself.
    She was really upset
, Kristy told me.
    Really? It sounds lousy to be skeptical of such a thing, I know, but everyone loves when something like this happens. Anytime someone tries to kill themselves or crashes their car up drunk driving, they’re suddenly everyone’s best friend. And I felt a bit of dread, because everyone was already trying to be Kim Porciatti’s best friend and now that she’d gone and tried to kill herself I knew it would be unbearable. How’d She Do It? I asked.
    I think she cut her arms.
    Which Way? I asked. The Phony Way Or The Real Way?
    Kristy rolled her eyes.
Everyone knows about that
, she said.
I’m sure it was the real way. No one cuts their wristsexcept cutters.
    Maybe She Was Just A Cutter, I suggested. Maybe Her Parents Caught Her Cutting Herself And Got The Wrong Idea. I sort of liked that theory. I know the whole cutting thing is very trendy right now but still, it gave Kim Porciatti a dark side I hadn’t thought she had. I shared my theory with Kristy.
    Oh, suicide isn’t dark enough for you?
she asked. She had an unfriendly look on her face.
    It’s So Showy, I said. A Cry For Help. I had to resist the pressure to feel upset about it. No doubt every high school in the area was about to declare a regional day of grief at the very idea that someone as cute as Kim Porciatti could feel emotional pain. Then I remembered that high school was out now, and such mourning would play out at the mall if anywhere, and I thought it was poor