Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson Page A

will not kill me, potatoes rarely cause death—and shove it in my mouth and chew, chew, chew, smiling across the acres of tablecloth.
    Dad and Jennifer watch the division on my plate, but they don’t say anything about it. When I first moved in, this would have been called “disordered behavior” and Jennifer’s voice would pitch up high and Dad would twist his wedding band around and around his finger. Now it falls under the category of “battles not worth fighting, because at least she’s sitting at the table eating with us, and her weight hasn’t dropped into dangerland.”
    I drop my left hand to my lap, under the napkin, under my waistband, and find the three scabby lines, drawn straight and true. With every bite I press my fingers into the cuts.
    “You did a great job,” I tell Emma. “The potatoes are amazing.”
    As Dad complains about a professor from Chicago who just published a book that is exactly like the one that Dad is writing, I skate the food from the one o’clock position to the two, then the three o’clock edge of my plate. I squeeze the gravy through the tines of my fork.
    Jennifer asks Emma to divide one-hundred-twenty-one by eleven. Emma can’t.
    I chew every bite ten times before I swallow. Meat in my mouth, chew ten times, lettuce in my mouth, chew chew chew chew chew chew chew chew chew chew, soggy Brussels sprout, mushroom cap, chew, chew, chew. I sip the milk, staining my top lip white and proving that we are all just fine.
    “Can you figure out one hundred divided by ten?”
    asks Jennifer.
    A tear rolls down Emma’s cheek and splashes on her cheesy potatoes.
    Dad pauses his rant and holds up his hands. “No tears, Emma. Lia had a hard time memorizing this stuff, too, but she got it in the end.”
    That’s my cue. “You know what saved me?” I ask.
    “Calculators. As long as you have a calculator, you’ll be okay. Trust me, math is not worth crying about.”
    Jennifer shoots me a steplook, sharper than normal, and pours another glass of water. “Didn’t you have a test today?”
    I spear the thinnest slice of potato. “Physics. He post-poned it. Nobody understands the speed of light. How’s the migraine?”
    “Like a herd of cattle stampeding through my head.”
    “Ouch,” I say. Emma tries to cut a Brussels sprout with her fork, but it jumps off her plate and rolls across the table to me. Jennifer winces when the fork screeches across the plate. I toss the runaway sprout to Emma, who catches it with a giggle and wipes her eyes on her sleeve.
    Jennifer reaches over to take the sprout out of Emma’s hand, and knocks over the glass of milk. Emma flinches as the milk floods her plate, then soaks the tablecloth and starts to drip on the new carpet.
    The phone rings. Jennifer buries her head in her hands.
    Dad stands up. “Let the answering machine get it,” he says. “I’ll clean up the mess.”
    Jennifer takes a deep breath and heads for the kitchen. “I hate people who screen their calls. I’ll get it.”
    Dad mops up the spill, pats Emma’s back, and tells her it’s just a glass of milk. I sweep my roll and half the meat into my napkin, fold it up and put it in my lap.
    Jennifer comes back with her mouth in a perfect knot.
    “It’s her.” She holds the phone out to Dad.
    Jennifer is not the reason my parents got divorced.
    The reason was named Amber, and before her Whitney, and before her Jill and the others. When Mom finally kicked him out, Dad went to a new bank to open his own checking account. Jennifer worked there. He was so smit-ten he went back every day for a week, making up dumb questions about home equity loans and IRAs. They were married before I was used to the fact that my parents had actually divorced.
    Dad takes the phone. “Hello? Hang on. . . . Chloe, I can hear you —”
    Jennifer frowns and shakes her head.
    He gets the message. “We’re eating dinner,” he says as he walks out, phone three inches from his ear. “Yes, all of us.