My Invented Life (16 page)

Saturday morning I hide my body essay on Bryan with a long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants before going to Eva’s room. There is no good lie to explain what I wrote. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little sister. Translation? If she sees it, I’m screwed.

“L Report,” I say at the door.

“Come in,” she says. The ab queen is on the floor doing Pilates.

“Why didn’t you go to school yesterday?” I ask.

“You should try this exercise,” she says. “It’s great for the thighs.”

If I had her extension I’d do the scissors night and day. I try to follow her next moves. The desire to confess overwhelms me. I squash it the best I can, but a little warning pops out against my will. “You’re too good for Bryan.” Luckily, the exalted warrior pose forces you to look straight ahead.

“I know,” she says.

I lose my balance and fall in a heap on the floor. I expected her to say “Why’s that?” or “If he’s no good, why do you want him?”

Since I’m on the floor already, I move on to crunches. “Well?” I gasp between reps.

She crunches with me. “Sometimes it’s easier to keep things going than to break up.” She doesn’t stop at fifty (but I do). “And he loves me in his warped way.” She has no idea how warped, but she won’t hear it from me. Or read clues written on my body. “I’m going to break up with him any day now.”

This revelation fills me with awe and bliss. She trusts me with another secret, though I SO don’t deserve it. My long sleeves and pant legs are all that separate this glorious moment from disaster. I pull them down tight.

“Why?”

“Not for you, Chub,” she says. “And don’t give me that indignant-slash-innocent look.”

“What look?”

“I’m doing it for me.”

I open the window to let in some cool air. Sapphire’s lemon yellow VW bug is gone, which means that Jonathan has gone too. In all the crazy aftermath of my beef-witted tryst with Bryan, I forgot to call him. Regret sucks.

“Give me the L Report,” Eva says. After two hundred crunches, she’s still not winded.

I lie down next to her and follow the next exercise at one quarter speed. “Jonathan’s mad at me because of the limerick I wrote for Carmen. I’m totally bummed. I thought we were friends, but he took her side.”

“She could use a friend right now.”

“I’ve been nice to her since my promise. Anyway I’m talking about Jonathan, not Carmen. Now he’s going home for a week, and I’m not there to support him. I’m worried.”

Eva rolls onto her stomach, and I roll too. That’s when I spy a stack of printouts under her bed.

“Hey, aren’t those
my
coming-out stories—the ones you didn’t want?”

She sits up. “I read them because of Carmen.”

“And?”

“They’re fun.”

“I know. Some are so moving, I almost cry when I read them. I wish my coming-out had been real so I could write about it online.”

“You are so weird, Roz, there could be a reality TV show about you.
America’s Psycho Little Sisters
.”

I think about Jonathan all day Sunday. Getting together with his family could be a good thing. Maybe his parents are accepting him, showing him their love, wrapping him up in it. But I have a bad feeling. Sierra would call it a premonition. I call it worry. He’s been acting moody for days, which has to be a sign of anxiety. The statistics on the Web about gay teens are not pretty. Gay teens do worse in
school, drop out more, and kill themselves more often than other teens. I log on to my favorite Ouija Web site.

“Is Jonathan safe?” I ask.

I close my eyes and let the mouse drift, opening them when it stops. Instead of choosing yes or no, the spirits picked the letter
F
. I repeat and get the letter
I
. In the end, I have the word
F-I-A-R-Y
. Spirits are notoriously atrocious spellers. Still, this answer has me stumped. Maybe he has a fairy godmother. I stick to this hopeful interpretation because my other ideas—say, self-immolation—don’t reassure me. Reading about Joan of Arc in the third grade traumatized me for life. I log out. When the internet fails, there’s my cell. I send Jonathan a message.

Me:
sup

He replies right away.

J:
nt tlking 2 u

Me:
i know. this is txtng

J:
lol

Me:
4give me?

J:
mayb. gtg

Me:
ttfn

So he’s alive, but that’s all I know. When communication fails, a girl can fall back on frozen desserts. A few bites into my first bowl of ice cream (I planned on thirds, at least), I remember about my diet. I dump it down the garbage disposal and fix myself a tasty feta radicchio salad sprinkled with pine nuts. After I chomp it down like a good little bunny, I ride the DykeByke to the Zip-Stop for a Häagen-Dazs bar.

“Stay and talk,” Jenny says. She pats the counter. “Sit.”

“What’s new?” I say. She throws my wrapper in the trash for me.

“The Peeping Tom has moved on,” she tells me. “No Birkenstock footprints for weeks.”

“How do you know?”

“My partner’s an officer.” She smiles.

“That’s cool.” I lick the chocolate off my fingers.

“It is. Between the gossip from the store and the things my partner tells me, we know almost everything that happens in Yolo Bluffs. I’m kind of sorry the Peeping Tom left, though. I thought we’d become friends. He might know even more than I do.”

“I heard he went south,” I say, “to the Mecca of breast enhancements.”

In homeroom, I lean across Nico to whisper into Andie’s ear. “No rehearsal Wednesday. Should we do a private one?” A fine line of purple runs along her silvery green eyeliner.

“My place or yours?” she whispers. The skin on my neck tingles when she flirts with me like that. I pluck at my sleeve.

“I have to drive my grandma to the doctor,” Nico says. He catches a glimpse of my essay on Bryan before I can cover it.

Thankfully, Mr. Beltz interrupts us. “Quiet. I have an announcement. Carmen has been accepted into MIT. Congratulations, Carmen.”

Nico pushes back my sleeve. “What’s this?”

“Nothing.” I cover my arm again.

“I don’t believe in nothing. Did he do something to you?”

“Nothing.”

I look up. Mr. Beltz looms over me, and I can see things that shouldn’t be seen. The dried shaving cream that sticks to the underside of his chin is the least of it. “Would you like to make an announcement too?” he asks me.

“Oooh,” someone says.

I flash him a plastic, synthetic, apologetic smile. “I was just saying to Nico how happy I am for Carmen.”

After class Nico follows me into the hall to pester me some more. I deny all his guesses, though some of them get close to the truth. No point in piling another humiliation onto the ever-growing heap. While I stand my ground, the subject of the essay himself appears. Bryan drags me into an empty room. Nico does not exactly follow us in, but his face accuses me through the tiny pane of glass near the top of the door.

“About Friday,” Bryan says. “Things aren’t always like they look.”

“It looks like you’re a jerk to me.”

He gets down on one knee (really) and holds my hand like in those pathetic fantasies that used to populate my invented life. “I didn’t know what I was doing. You make me so crazy. I can’t think straight around you.”

He’s had me alone for fifteen seconds, and already the heat of his desire softens my steely resolve. I mentally scrub at my skin that reads
BRYAN
#1
ASSHOLE
. The ink darkens the rinse water and swirls down the drain. But Nico hasn’t left the window. The fact that he’s watching us gives me a pinkie-hold on reality.

“Then break up with her,” I say.

“I don’t want to hurt her.”

One painful punch deserves another.
Knavish coxcomb! She’s about to break up with YOU
. I keep that lovely and satisfying secret to myself. My ammo belt clip has just one bullet left.

“I’m not looking for a boyfriend,” I say. “Because my girlfriend kisses way better than you do.” Unfortunately, the bullet is the size of a gnat.

“Who’s your girlfriend?”

“Andie.” I look toward the window. Nico grins in a way that says he’ll pass this on.

Bryan tries a new approach. He stands close to me and traces my cheek with his finger in a slow and delicious way. I can feel the heat coming off his body. He’s the snake charmer, and I’m the snake. He leans in so that his lips hover an inch away from mine. I can’t stop myself from closing the gap. A thump on the door breaks my trance. I run and fling it open.

“It’s not how it looks,” I yell to Nico’s retreating back.

Felicia grants me a promotion in the cafeteria kitchen at lunch. Today I’m allowed to open packages of grated cheese for the salad bar. She even smiles when I mention that the scissors are a tad dull. “Use this.” She hands me a knife.

“You took your happy pills this morning,” Vera of the varicose veins says.

“My daughter got accepted at MIT.”

The knife slips out of my hand and comes within inches of impaling my foot.

“You must be so proud of her,” Vera says.

“No. She’s lazy. I don’t know why they accepted her. And I’ll have to take an evening job to pay her tuition unless several scholarships come through.”

I retrieve the knife from the floor. “What’s your daughter’s name?” I ask.

Felicia closes down. Think heavy velvet curtains dropping unexpectedly before the scene comes to an end.

Vera gives me a dirty look. “Careful with that knife,” she says. So cafeteria ladies can do double entendre. Who knew?

“She goes to another school,” Felicia says.

Though I’ve been blind, I’m no fool. Carmen got into MIT, and she has Felicia’s arched eyebrows.

H
ey, lover girl
,” Eyeliner Andie says to me before rehearsal starts. “Nico told me all about our affair. I’m glad I kiss better than Bryan.”

“Prove it,” I say, and pull her into my arms.

She ducks out of my embrace. “I hate public displays.”

“Behind the props, then.”

“Get away from me, you lech,” says the girl who sews bits of fishnet stocking over the holes in her jeans. “If you must have something in your mouth, chew on this.” She gives me a deep blue gumball.

An awkward silence follows. When I picture myself blurting out Felicia’s secret, the juicy story turns to dust in my mouth. I hate how empathy interferes with malicious gossip. Poor Carmen. Having your mother work in the cafeteria at your school tops the list of Ten Things More Embarrassing Than Discovering a Piece of Dried Snot on Your Cheek After Talking to Your Crush. And Felicia isn’t any ordinary cafeteria worker; she’s more like a wolf in midget’s clothing. As if the whole undercover lesbian-slash-unrequited-love thing wasn’t sad enough.

Eva interrupts my reverie to command us. We need to
run through act 3, scene 2 for the third time. Bryan watches me from the right-hand wing. His soul is in torment because I rejected him. Maybe I should put him out of his misery, but before I get a chance, the scene starts blah, blah, blah. I swallow my gum and enter reading one of Orlando’s love poems. The court fool mocks me.

“Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, such a nut is Rosalind,” the substitute Touchstone says.

“When there’s dyke love on your mind, go hook up with Rosalind,” Bryan says.

Eva laughs so hard she falls off her director’s chair. “Good one,” she says when she catches her breath. “Let’s change the script.”

Blame the blue food coloring in the gum for my hallucination
.

Actually the opposite happens. After Bryan recites his rude verse, Eva takes my side.

“Cut! You’re history, Bryan,” she says. “Nico plays Orlando today.”

You could hear lip gloss being applied in the silence. Bryan gives Eva his patented squishy-snuggle-bunny look. “I was kidding,” he says. “Roz can take it. She’s tough.”

Nico takes a break from combing his hair over his eyes. “No, she’s not,” he says.

“I told you to leave,” Eva says.

Sulky Boy drops his script on the stage and descends the steps two at a time like he’s late for an aftershave commercial.

“Your line, Touchstone,” Eva says.

“This is the very false gallop of verses,” Touchstone says. “Why do you infect yourself with them?”

“Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree,” I say.

When he comes back at me with, “Truly the tree yields bad fruit,” it takes all my self-control to keep from cracking up, even though the substitute Touchstone doesn’t hold a candle to Jonathan. Eva’s bold move in my defense inflates me till I’m a balloon high above it all shouting, SHE LOVES ME.

At the end of the scene, Eva looks drained. She rests with her head in her hands.

“How shall we proceed?” Carmen asks.

“A short break,” Eva says.

Nico, Andie, and I retreat to the zone behind the speakers. We lie on our backs with our heads together.

“I love hiding here,” Andie says. “I can’t stand it when people look at me.”

“So what’s your plan on opening night?” I say.

“That’s different. I’m not Andie onstage. I’m Audrey. Besides, I act for me. The audience can screw themselves for all I care.”

“How would you explain your clothes, then?” I say.

“The clothes are for me too.”

While I ponder this perspective so different from my own, Eva descends upon us. “You two took a drive to the peach orchard, didn’t you?” Eva says. Everyone knows what the peach orchard means.

“Did not!” Nico and Andie say in unison, misunderstanding the charges.

“None of your business,” I add.

“I think it is,” she says.

“Excuse us a minute.” I jump up and push Eva out the side door.

We face off under the trees. “Bryan told me you dragged him there,” Eva says.

I cross my big toe with the index toe of my left foot in preparation for lying. “That
plume-plucked lout
. And you believed him?” I could mention that she’s about to break up with him anyway, but that would make me look guilty. I try a silent but honest plea instead.
Okay, we took a short drive and kissed a little before the condom incident, but that’s all. And I swear on my future Oscar that I’ll never do it again, if only I can get away with it this one last time
.