My Beautiful Failure by Janet Ruth Young Read Free Book Online Page A

Jenney’s voice was clear again. It was late July, early August. I was getting ready for school—e-mailing mynew roommate, buying odds and ends for the dorm room—and I suddenly felt like I was somewhere else. I got disoriented, and I panicked, like something really bad was about to happen. I didn’t feel like Ms. Successful College Student. I felt small and helpless, like I was suffocating, and I could barely see the four walls around me, which were in my bedroom at home.
    “You felt small and helpless. Why do you think you felt that way?”
    Because I was having a flashback. To my childhood. I was horribly abused as a child.
    “By who?”
    By my parents. Both of them.
    “Your mother, too? Your mother who went to St. Angus’s?”
    That’s right. My mother who went to St. Angus’s. Who did everything right and was a big success story and a famous social butterfly. My mom who wrote books and my dad who owned a TV station. But the two of them, nobody knew it at the time, but those two were hurting me all along. These two supposedly great parents turned out to be the most evil people on the planet.
    I looked at the clock—8:52. I had to end the call, but I had no idea how. What would I say? What Jenney’s parents did was wrong. No parent had the right to hurt a kid. People like that shouldn’t even have kids. That’s what I would have said to someone else. But that was my opinion, and we didn’t give opinions at Listeners.
    “I’m so sorry, but I have to go in a minute.”
    I know you have to go. You have to go just when I pulledoff this scab that covers my heart. That’s what they all say at Listeners.
    “I can give you one more minute,” I said. “I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. I hope things get better and I hope you call again.”
    All right, she said as the clicking began again. That’s the thing about Listeners. You expect us to turn our emotions off and on like a faucet. I waited, and the clicking stopped. All right, that’s enough for tonight. I’m sure I’ll be okay. You know, talking to you about all this made me feel a little better.
    “It did? I’m glad. I’m really glad you called, Jenney. I mean, we’re really glad you called.”
    I do feel better. Talking to someone who believes me. You’re a great guy, Billy, did you know that?
    “Thanks. Good night, Jenney.”
    I can’t believe you’re new. You’re practically the best one over there. ’Night.

22.
a dark side
    D ial tone. Now I knew what Richie meant about the planets, because Jenney’s world disappeared and I was back in the office. My replacement, a college student named Vince who would be covering the overnight shift, grasped the back of my chair.
    I told him I was a little freaked out and needed a minute. I ran one hand over my hair and face. My skin felt damp. I wasn’t sure what Jenney meant when she said she’d been abused. My parents had never hit me or Linda. I knew that kids got sexually abused, but I never knew anyone who said they did. And a kid in my neighborhood who moved from place to place often because his parents were in the military had a black eye a few times and his arm in a cast. My mom was disgusted and wanted to say something to his parents, but they moved away before she could say anything. What kind of hurting was Jenney talking about?

23.
picturing
    A t the end of the shift, Margaret, Richie, and I took the elevator to the first floor of Cabot Insurance. Their parents picked them up while I unlocked my bike.
    I found myself conjuring a face to match Jenney’s voice. What would she look like? She was a swimmer and her parents were rich, so she was probably at least average. Athletes usually look good. And rich people can fix all the defects that poor people live with. She wouldn’t have weird teeth or an odd-looking nose. A picture swam into my mind: a slim girl in a one-piece Olympic-style bathing suit, with wavy wheat-colored hair in a damp braid. But then I told myself that as a Listener