Doreen (12 page)

So it was over before it began, without Heidi having to meddle. Lucky break!

As Heidi hauled Biz home and put her to bed, she thought of Gordon Lichter. With the right trinket he might be able to lure Doreen to the dance as his date after all. Something pretty but not too flashy, something that said there was more where that came from. And there would have to be a dress, of course. The promise of a dress could do wonders.

“Hello, Gordon? Listen, I know Doreen hasn't been around much of late. . . . No, no! She hasn't been avoiding you. She's been sick. . . . Oh no, nothing serious. Some kind of something, but she's better now. Listen, I think you and I should talk Fall Dance, okay? . . . I know you were, but you don't have to give up. I think there are ways to make her, uh,
amenable
. But you have to be quick, the store is only open for another hour.”

In downtown Hamilton, the second half of the homecoming game wore on much as the first. Even the visiting team seemed bored with its own easy victory. The crowd became thinner and thinner, until, when at last the clock wound down at the end of the game, the bleachers were mostly empty. From the lips of the few fans that remained, the name Simon Vale emerged like a curse. Doreen could hear it and feel it in her body like a lashing. A hero fallen is a disgrace, Doreen thought, an abomination. Better to be ordinary your whole life than to so recklessly squander genius. Simon's performance insulted all who had glorified him, including Doreen.

Oh, how she used to cherish every step that brought him nearer to her, how she would skip and rush through the empty high school, unable to control herself. To see and be seen by him, to hold and be held by Simon Vale—that was all Doreen had wanted then. But on this evening she could neither skip nor hurry. If her shoes were made of lead, it would require no more effort than it did to inch herself through the abandoned halls of Hamilton High, her heart heavy with shame.

By the time she arrived at the door of the locker room, everyone had already left. Only Simon remained, looking scrubbed in his sweatshirt and jeans, his expression dreamy and—could it possibly be? Happy.

“Doreen!” he called, pulling her rigid body into his warmth. “Wasn't I awful?”

“Horrible,” Doreen agreed. She could barely look him in the face. He took her hand to walk her out, but she pulled away.

“Are you angry? Ah, you don't understand, yet. That's okay. I'll explain it all, little Dorie. First, come here. No need to be so serious. Let me kiss you.”

But Doreen wouldn't let him get near her. “Understand? How could I possibly? You were an embarrassment, Simon. My friends were bored—I was bored. And the crowd! Are you sick? Have you got a fever or something? Maybe you should have stayed on the bench for this one. Really, I never saw anything so humiliating.”

“Sick?” Simon laughed aloud, flicking the locks on the lockers as he passed them by. “Doreen! I've never felt better. Listen.” He stopped and grabbed her by the wrists.

“Ow! Simon, let go of me.”

“Baby, don't you see? Football . . .” He wrinkled up his face as if grossed out by the word. “Football was all I had before. It was my escape from this blech, sorry excuse for a life I had. Leaving Place, remember? What kind of name is that for a street?” He chuckled to himself. “But once I had you, once you told me you loved me, oh, Dorie! Who needs football? Who needs to throw and run and jump around? What for? To win the adoration of regular people? Who needs them? I already have the adoration of someone so much better! Doreen.” He held her by the shoulders. “Why should I want to escape from life now? Now that I have everything I ever wanted?” He leaned in to kiss her, and she rolled out of the way.

“No! Don't touch me!”

“Baby, don't be mad at me. Is it because of your friends? Yep.” He nodded. “I can see that might have been embarrassing for you. But hey, I'll meet them at the dance, right? I'll make it up to 'em then. Doreen, babe, why aren't you looking at me?”

In fact, Doreen had huddled against the wall, her face buried in her hands. “You ruined it,” she whispered bitterly.

“What? Sweetie, I can't hear you.” Simon laid a big paw on Doreen's shoulder. The feel of his hand repulsed and enraged her. She flipped around and pushed him away.

“You ruined it!” she screamed. “You killed my love!” Despite his size, the thrust of Doreen's rebuff sent Simon reeling backward. When he regained his stance he stood blinking at her as if she was speaking another language. Finally, he smiled.

“That's not right,” he said, coming to some kind of pleasant conclusion. “Nope. No way.”

“You don't get it. You idiot! I loved you because you were exceptional. Because you had brilliance in you—specialness. But the way you lumbered around out there. Ugh! I can't bear to think that I ever let you come near me! You're just some lame public school nothing! Some
boy
!” And this last came out of a mouth so pinched with disdain, in a screeching voice so heavy with spite and violence, that it wounded Simon like a shot to the gut.

“But you can't mean—”

“I never want to see you again! The sight of your face makes me want to vomit. Do you hear me? Don't call me, don't come find me. I wish you were dead! Just so I could be sure that I would never see you again!”

Simon crumpled down to the floor, the great athlete reduced to a cowering, quivering thing. “No, no, it's not true. It can't be,” he moaned. “I love you, Doreen. I need you. Please! Don't you understand? I won't make it without you!” He crawled over to her and threw his arms around her legs. Seeing him like that inspired no sympathy in Doreen Gray. All the warmth and affection she'd felt only that morning was gone. She felt nothing for him now, and his dramatics did not lower or raise her estimation of him—she had only one feeling left, and it was the desire to be elsewhere.

“I don't care,” she said, and kicking him away, she walked out of Hamilton High School forever. She slammed the door behind her, shutting out the sound of his pathetic sobbing. The cool autumn air on her face smelled like relief.

“Good-bye to all that!” she said. She huddled into Biz's beautiful coat and hastened her pace home to Chandler Academy.

Cutting the dead weight out of her life lightened Doreen's step and her mood. The quad was lit up for the evening and crossed at intervals by students traveling in pairs and packs between the library or the dining hall to their dormitories, laughing in a way that Doreen herself sometimes laughed now—comfortably, as if the possibilities for the future were endless.

And weren't they? Only that morning, Doreen's fantasies had been so caught up with Simon that she had barely thought of her own future except insofar as it pertained to him. And at what cost? Her grades had been getting steadily worse, she'd spent so much time away from campus—physically and mentally—that she had failed to make more inroads with the popular kids, disappointing Heidi and herself. Doreen had simply allowed herself to become distracted, to take this amazing opportunity for granted. But now she had to get serious. She had to make the most of her two short years at Chandler, to set herself up for the glittering life Heidi always talked about, the kind of life she deserved.

A towering pile of books greeted her in the dorm. “Time to hunker down,” she said to herself. She might not have been as good a student as Biz, but she was clever enough, and she would have to improve her grades if she wanted to get into a good university. “Yes,” she said. “No more distractions.” As blissful as it felt to float around with her mind only on Simon and memories of their kisses, it was nice to feel more like herself again. It was like returning from some magical vacation in a tropical paradise, only to find herself surprisingly happy to be home. At least, Doreen imagined it was like that—she'd never been on a vacation.

Doreen sat on her bed and passed her hand over her comforter. It was soft white eyelet. She'd had it since she had been a child, and feeling the nubby cotton under her fingers made her feel grounded, like she knew who she was after all these changes. And here she was, changed again. Truly, she felt an internal shift, as if the confrontation with Simon had made a mark on her. She looked up at her reflection in the closet door mirror, however, and saw the same porcelain-skinned girl with the black flowing curls that she had become accustomed to seeing.

“Just one peek,” Doreen said to her stuffed elephant, Mopey, who seemed to give her a chastising look from his position near her pillow as she reached across to the drawer in her nightstand. “Then I will hit the books, I swear.” Earlier in the semester, she would look at the photograph almost daily, when she was first learning to navigate the perks of her new face and body. But ever since she saw Simon Vale play quarterback at Hamilton High, she'd forgotten all about it. Now she slipped the paper out from the drawer with giddy anticipation.

“Mopey, let's see what Mama used to look like, shall we?” she said with a wicked little giggle.

At first glance, the picture seemed just as she remembered it. Her flesh protruded unflatteringly from the red dress, her expression meek and ill at ease. But then—it was strange, but she thought she saw a difference, a slight tonal shift. She took the picture over to her desk and studied it under her lamp.

It was there, in the eyes. A disturbing glow had come into them, as if she was lit by some kind of internal, sinister force. Her mouth had also changed, ever so slightly. The corners of the smile had receded, sunk, turned into a sneer. What could it mean? Doreen looked from the image to her reflection and back again. Her own face remained unchanged, but the difference in the picture could not be blinked away.

A tap came from her window and Doreen screamed. She put her hand on her heart, trying to regain her breath. “It's just a tree,” she told herself. “It's just the wind. You're being hysterical.” But then she heard the tap again and she could hear the sound of her name being called through the small opening in her window.

“Doreen,” someone whispered. “Doreen Gray. Come to the window.” Should she run to get her RA? Call campus safety? But what would she say, that the trees were calling her name? “Doreen!” said the voice again, even more urgently.

Doreen closed her eyes and took in big, deep breaths, feeling her heartbeat begin to slow down. Another tap came at the window. “Dorie,” said the voice, “Come on! I'm freezing my balls off out here!”

Doreen rushed to the window and saw Gordon Lichter standing under a tree in the mostly dark. He was rooting around in the grass, probably looking for another pebble to throw. She hoisted up her window and stuck out her head. “Gordon!” she whispered as admonishingly as she could. “What are you doing here?”

“Doreen! There you are. Come down, okay? I want to talk to you.”

“I can't, Gordon. It's after check-in. You want to get me kicked out of here? And shouldn't you be back at your dorm, speaking of?”

“I'm a senior, remember? I have until ten.” He looked around. “Fine. I'm coming up.” He wiped his hands on his khakis. “Screw it. All those years of gymnastics should be good for something, right?” And with that he jumped up and pulled himself up the drainpipe, using the trellis as a ladder to climb his way toward her second-story window.

Doreen quickly slipped the picture into the top drawer of her desk, hiding it under a notebook. He was coming to ask her to the Fall Dance. She'd been dodging him for days, and now here he was and what could she say? What would she do? She would turn him down. She'd have to, it was the right thing to do, wasn't it? She didn't give a whit about him, and her breakup with Simon was barely an hour old.

Gordon came flying feetfirst through the window, landing with a light thud on his feet. He was no Simon Vale, she thought, but he was impressively nimble.

“Huh?” he said with a little bow. “How you like me now? Bet you don't know a lot of guys who would shimmy up a drainpipe just to talk to you. Do you?”

“No. I don't suppose I do. Here.” Doreen plucked dry leaves from his hair with a laugh. “You're a bit of a mess.”

“Oh. Thanks,” he said, bending at the neck and closing his eyes as she picked through his hair and clothes. He was barely taller than she was, but his hair was glorious. It was shiny and white-blond, like corn silk—the sort of hair one might expect to see blowing in the headwind on the bow of a yacht.

“There. I think I just about got it all.” Gordon opened his eyes, gazing directly into hers. She saw pain in his eyes and need, a kind of hunger unique to men.

He reached out and grasped the edge of one of her curls. “Not fair. Shouldn't I get to touch, too?”

Doreen escaped from his grasp. “If I ever have dead leaves in my hair.” She walked over to the waste bin near her desk to throw out the detritus.

“You're so cruel! How can you be so cruel!” Gordon cried. He buried his face in his hands.

As she saw cocky Gordon Lichter reduced to sniveling, she wondered if he could be right. Could she be cruel? After all the cruelty she'd suffered in her life? The change in the picture seemed to suggest at least that much. But how absurd. She must have imagined the change in the photo. Of course! It was some sort of trick her mind was playing on her. A little leftover guilt from her breakup with Simon. Doreen was a nice girl. It wasn't her fault that Simon wanted something from her that she couldn't give him. Staying with him when she didn't love him, now that would have been wrong.

“Me? Me cruel?” she said. “What about you?”

“Me?” asked Gordon. “I've been nothing but kind to you. I dote on you, Doreen. I'd do anything for you, you know that!”

“And what about Samantha Brooks? Huh? I've seen the way she follows you around. And you won't even condescend to say hello to her. The poor thing obviously just wants you to acknowledge that she exists.” Doreen had noticed chubby, unloved Samantha Brooks on Gordon's tail like a bad stink. She'd never spoken to the girl, but she would. She would do it soon. Tomorrow! Tomorrow she would be so good!

“But she's . . . I'm not . . .” Gordon sighed deeply, with resignation. “You're right. You're right.” He sat down on the edge of her bed and grinned up at her. “The amount I've suffered because of you, Doreen. I probably have it coming to me. But I don't care. I don't care how much you hurt me. And you do hurt me, Doreen. But I'll take a punch in the gut from you over some other girl's kiss any day of the week. Doreen Gray, you know I love you, right?”

“Hush now, Gordon,” she said, though it pleased her enormously.

“I won't. I won't hush. Doreen, look. I bought you something. Here, come sit next to me, okay? I'm not going to bite. Please? After all I did to get up here?” Doreen sat beside Gordon on the bed. It amazed her how little his closeness affected her. With Simon, every centimeter closer he came to her she could feel all over her body.

“Doreen?” Gordon said. “Are you listening?”

“Yes, of course, Gordon. What is it?”

“Here.” He pulled a black velvet box from his pants pocket. “Open it.”

Doreen took the box. It had a pleasant weight to it. Whatever was inside (a necklace? Earrings?) would certainly be more elegant that anything she'd had back in the Midwest. Gordon was so rich. And popular. And he clearly had very strong feelings for Doreen. So her own feelings for the boy weren't the stuff of rock songs, so what? He would get her a dress, wouldn't he? And a hotel room.

“Oh! Oh, Gordon,” she said breathlessly when she saw the ring—rose gold, with a single, perfect pearl beset with two small diamonds on either side. “It's beautiful.”

“I thought you would like it. Listen, Doreen, why don't you go to the dance with me, okay?”

“Mmm?” said Doreen. The look and feel of the ring had her completely transfixed. How it relaxed her, to see such beauty beam up from her own hand.

“Earth to Doreen!” said Gordon with a laugh. He grasped her bejeweled hand and turned her chin to look at him. “To the dance, Doreen. I want you to come to the dance. Listen, we'll get you all decked out, okay? Whatever you want. And you'll go, we'll go together. What do you say? Me and you, Dorie. Please. It would make me so happy.” Gordon looked at her with pleading, pitiful eyes. The poor kid couldn't be accustomed to the sort of runaround he'd received from Doreen during these past months. Life for him had been nothing but open doors and green lights until he'd met her, and now that kind of life would be hers, too.

She slipped her hand from his grasp and moved a pesky strand of hair away from his eye. “Of course, Gordon. It would be my pleasure to attend the Fall Dance with you.”

“Oh, Doreen!” Gordon leaned over to kiss her, and she let him. He should have his fun, she thought, as he moved himself around her mouth like it possessed some necessary nutrient of which he'd been long deprived. “I love you! Oh god, I love you so much!”