My Invented Life (11 page)

I spend the entire morning mismatching accessories in a vain attempt to develop a funky new look. I shouldn’t have bothered. Andie arrives at my door wearing a fake fur hat and snaky black eyeliner—Cleopatra goes Cossack. Does my heart beat a little faster when she arrives? Her boots have stiletto heels that wobble when she walks.

“A car, a car, my kingdom for a car,” she says.

“It’s only two blocks from here,” I say. Our progress is slow. Andie takes off her boots for the last half block. Nico’s house is a dusty blue color with cobwebs on the window screens, fronted by dull grass and one small olive tree. It has an erased look, except for the bright green front door with mysterious symbols painted onto each of the six panels. I’ve never been inside before. I knock.

Nico opens the door right away, and as I slide by him into the house, I estimate that I outweigh him by several pounds. The seating arrangement in the living room is original—two chairs shaped like hands surrounded by floor pillows. A basket of rocks and bones (animal bones, I hope) sits next to an umbrella stand.

Nico takes us into the kitchen to meet his grandma. She scowls at Andie and me from under her visor cap before offering us mugs of hot chocolate. Nico sprinkles his with spices from a small wooden bowl. I do the same. The flavors battle on my tongue, but my good upbringing makes me take a second sip.

“Delicious,” I say.

“And you think you’re such a great actress,” Andie scoffs.

“Thank you,” I say to Nico’s grandma.

“I’m going out,” she mutters. “Behave.”

Nico collapses into a hand chair while Andie and I sit together on the big pillows. “You two look good like that,” he says. Or is this his flirty twin brother?

Andie smooshes her cheek against mine. My heart clangs in my chest like a clumsy thief in a dark garage. Andie like likes me. Imagining a crush on Andie in the privacy of my mind is totally different from having a real girlfriend with real hands and real lips. I do the reasonable thing—hide my panic with efficient action.

“Let’s get to work,” I say.

Oblivious to my mini freak-out, Andie extracts a small pipe from her bag. “May I?” she asks. “I can concentrate better when I’m high.”

“Pot messes with your memory,” I say. “Once my
ex-boyfriend went onstage stoned. He said his lines okay. Sadly, they were lines from a different play.”

“That was Marcus, right?” Andie says. “I thought he was Eva’s ex.” She holds a lighter to the bowl and inhales. After a few seconds, she exhales through the open window.

“Put that away,” I say in my tyrant voice.

Andie hurls a loose pillow at my chest.

“Pillow fight,” Nico yells. He charges, whacking me over the head.

“Get him,” Andie says. I body-slam him with my floor pillow while she pummels him from behind.

Nico knocks me over. “Bombs away,” he shrieks.

I bump into the porcelain umbrella stand. It topples. When Nico rights it, I see that a wedge of pottery has chipped off the rim. This is the fourth time I’ve broken something in less than a month. Sierra would be able to explain it. I’ll have to email her with the whole crazy story.

“Grandma will kill me.” He fetches a bottle of glue to reattach the shard. “Fight’s over,” he says when he finishes the repair. “Time to kiss and make up. Ladies first.”

Andie puts her hands on the back of my neck and pulls my face toward hers.

NOT. But would I kiss her back if she did?

When Nico says, “Time to kiss and make up. Ladies first,” Andie laughs so hard she can barely stay upright.

“So that’s your perverted plan,” she gasps between giggles. “Sorry. No free show for Nico. Roz is cute, but she’s not exactly my type. Don’t think
you’re
getting any kisses either.”

Her rejection hurts my shallow ego. “What’s your type?” I ask.

“More toward the Goth.”

I slip into a bad German accent to cover my feelings. “Thiss iss a sserious rehearssal. Makink out iss abssolutely verboten. Infractionss vill be punisht by floggink.”

Nico shakes his hair over his eyes. Good-bye, flirtatious Nico; hello, sullen Nico.

“Let’s go powder our noses.” Andie drags me down the hall, pushes me into a room, and shuts the door.

I look at the messy bed, dirty clothes draped on a chair, and dresser drawers not quite closed. “Why did you bring me into Nico’s room?” I say.

“To show you something.” She points to a group of candid photos tacked to the bottom of a poster from our last school play. They’re all of me. “Nico likes you. Like likes.”

“So he’s really into lesbians?” I say. Is this a test?

“Maybe.” Her lips curve into that Mona Lisa smile of hers. She follows it with an exaggerated wink that wrecks the effect. We go back to the living room.

Nico positions the umbrella stand with the damaged side toward the wall. Andie puts away her pipe and plays Phebe in Nico’s scene, scorning him most passionately. Nico says his lines with two emotions—forced anger and fake enthusiasm. I coach him on voice control, body language, and the scenery of the mind. After that he’s slightly better than terrible.

When Andie woos me in the second half of the scene, I freak out again because I kind of like it, which means maybe I’m falling for her. But at the end of the scene, she hugs herself and rolls around on the floor making kissy noises. “But I love myself best of all,” she says.

“New scene,” I say. While Andie is still in full hysteria mode, Nico’s grandma returns from her errand and fixes her piercing scowl on the umbrella stand.

“Maybe you should go,” Nico mumbles.

We gather our things in silence and hurry outside. The slippery leaves on the brick walk squish under my shoes. I fan myself with my script.

“Want to go somewhere and smoke?”

“Pot gives me a headache,” I say primly.

“Come anyway. I’d love the company.”

“I have to reorganize my closet,” I say. She said I wasn’t her type, and though one part of me feels relieved, the other part of me feels hurt. Okay, I admit it. Girls aren’t a lot easier to understand than boys, after all.

By nightfall I’ve forgiven Andie for rejecting me. It’s not her fault that I’m as un-Goth as Mary Poppins. I have to learn to accept the way things are. Andie and Nico go around like a couple. Andie likes me. Maybe Nico like likes me, while I don’t know how I feel about either of them in the romantic sense. But I wish I could redo the scene on the sidewalk outside Nico’s house when Andie asked me to hang out. She’s my closest friend at the moment, though I barely know her. How pathetic is that? She’s online, so I IM her.

Me: hey, sorry bout 2day *slinks with tail between legs*

Me: i was feeling bitchy

Andie: no big

Me: thnx *pops a bottle of bubbly*

Me: i think carmen is just pretending

Me: she doesn’t really like like nico

Andie: no duh

Me: she’s covering for her tete a tetes with bryan

Andie: not

Me: then y pretend? *bites pinkie nail in confusion*

Andie: u r a smart girl

Andie: u figure it out

Me: y do u know so much?

Andie: i observe people, i notice things

Me: aren’t u speshul

With a friend like Andie, who needs adventure? Prozac could come in handy, though. After signing off, I send the world’s longest email to Sierra. In it, I confess all that I’ve done and cross my fingers that she won’t take a month to answer back.

O
n Sunday afternoon
when Eva returns from her piano recital, I dangle a salacious Lesbian Report as an incentive for her to drive me to the outlet mall. She agrees without hesitation. Soon enough I figure out why. The inside of her car acts as the perfect soundproof bubble. She chews me out the second I slam my door closed.

“You think rehearsals are bad now? If you don’t leave Bryan alone, it’s going to get worse.” Rant. Rant. Rant.

“I’m no threat,” I say. “I’m a dyke, remember?”

She ignores this, punctuating her long tirade with abrupt and unnecessary stomps on the gas pedal. The crazy accelerations make the point rather effectively. I’m guessing that lesbians aren’t usually this touchy about their boyfriends. My theory about Eva’s sexual orientation—thin and shaky to begin with—enters its final death throes and expires on the threadbare carpet at my feet.

While we’re stopped at a light, she wipes the inside of the windshield with a small towel because the fan broke two years ago. I slide a Good Charlotte tape into the player and turn the volume on high. Her ancient Honda doesn’t do CDs. I meant to spin an exciting version of
events at Nico’s house yesterday, but her venting has put me in a dark mood.

When she pulls into the parking lot, the tires screech. “What happened to the L Report, Ch—Roz?”

I could mention her hateful lecturing, but she stopped herself just before using my hated nickname, and that act of grace softens my resolve to fight with her. Besides, I need someone to talk to. Maybe Eva can break Andie’s secret code.

“Why do you think Carmen’s all over Nico like cat hair on velvet?” I say.

“He’s kind of cute in a depressed, punky way.”

“I guess,” I say. “Andie and I went to Nico’s house yesterday for acting lessons.”

“And he taught you some advanced techniques,” she says.

“Ha ha. I was hoping to loosen him up a little. While we were practicing, Andie acted like she might kiss me.”

“In front of Nico?” Eva lowers her voice. Sitting in the car with her—the windows clouded with the moisture from our breaths—I get that under-the-kitchen-table feeling again.

“Details,” Eva says.

“We were doing the scene where Phebe falls for Rosalind. Andie looked at me with burning lust. Maybe it was the pot talking.”

“What will you do if she does? Kiss you, I mean.”

“Kiss her back.”

Eva squeezes the steering wheel with both hands, I’m guessing to keep herself from strangling me. “I get it. You’re so engrossed in the
role
, you think you’re a lesbian now.”

Why do I do that? I should carry around a pair of socks to stuff in my mouth whenever I get the urge to stir things up. Clean and sassy socks. With lace cuffs. Still, I’d like to know what she thinks of Kinsey’s ideas.

“Pretend the dashboard is a line,” I say. “The far left equals lesbian and the far right equals heterosexual. Everything in between is bisexual, okay?”

“If you say so,” she says, her eyes still focused on the opaque windshield.

“I’m about here,” I say, pointing to the glove compartment door. “If Ms. Perfect came along, I could fall in love with her.” Maybe.

“So you’re in love with Andie.” She drops the steering wheel and flexes her fingers.

“Not exactly. I’m just curious.”

Eva turns toward me. “Have you ever dreamed about making out with a girl?”

“No. But I dreamed that I kissed that fat, ugly guy with the bumpy nose at Pet Mania—”

“And you woke up screaming.” She cracks a smile.

We’re having a bonding moment. Then I go and ruin it. “How about you? Any hot girl-on-girl dreams?”

“Will you stop with that, Chub?” She snatches up her bag off the backseat. “Let’s go in.”

While Eva the Diva searches through the size threes, I suppress the urge to suffocate her with an XL jog bra. Why did I inherit the Amazon genes? I remind myself that she can’t help being Tinker Bell. “I’ll tell you a secret if you tell me one.”

“I don’t have any secrets.”

“None that you’ll tell me,” I say.

She holds up a pair of pants with embroidery at the hem. “These would look good on you. See if they have your size.” She’s like one of those amazing rope knots with no beginning and no end, no obvious spot to start unraveling.

“I didn’t finish the Lesbian Report.”

She darts a look at the people around us. “Let’s go try these on,” she says.

We take adjacent changing rooms. “No one knows us here,” I say. “We could liven up their dull lives by having a real conversation.”

“Shut up.” She launches a plastic hanger over the barrier with painful accuracy.

“Ow. What can we talk about, then?”

“How those pants fit.”

Back in our soundproof car bubble, she revs the engine and drops the clutch into reverse. Grinding gears smell sweet and smoky. “I’m a private person,” she says. “I don’t even like to talk about what I ate for lunch in front of strangers.”

“Okay, okay. You want to hear the rest?” The fog has thickened. We crawl along at tortoise speed because this freeway is known for its multiple-car accidents. “Andie told me she falls in love with who she falls in love with. Does that sound the same as bisexual?”

“More like confused.”

“I thought you two were friends.”

“In your mind, Chub.”

I scan the local radio stations for something to fill the silence and settle on a mushy oldie.

“I used to love that song,” Eva says, turning up the volume. “I played it like twenty times that day I canceled my birthday party. Was that fifth or sixth grade?”

“Fifth for me, sixth for you.” The taillights of the car ahead appear and disappear in the fog.

“None of my friends could come, remember? You said they were all losers and I was perfect. I hated that you said that.”

Back then, she was my goddess and I her disciple. I once pretended to
be
her for a week, dressed exclusively in leotards and ballet shoes until Mom made me stop.

“You hated that I thought you were perfect?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” I add. “I don’t think you’re perfect anymore.”

“Hooray!”

“Hooray what?”

“I can barely see the road.” She wipes the windshield again. “Maybe I need glasses.”

I reach over and remove her sunglasses.

Five songs later, we arrive home. “I thank thee for thy gracious transport,” I say.

Monday morning after fortifying myself with a banana and a spoonful of almond butter, I leave the house. Suddenly an army of girls in baggy sweatshirts and short spiky hair mobs me.
We love you, Roz
. They crash and grind like crazed metal fans.