My Invented Life (19 page)

Andie shows up at rehearsal flushed and happy. Nico trails three feet behind her. He’s her new pet iguana trained to heel. Carmen has yet to arrive, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Where were you today? I needed to ask you something,” I say to Andie.

Nico hangs out next to her with his back toward me, which looks pretty weird, to be honest. What’s his freaking deal? First he stalks me and now he ignores me. More than ignores me. Shuns me.

“I’ll grant you three questions,” Andie says with a bow. I swear she’s part genie and part Sphinx. “Choose carefully.”

“Girl talk,” I say to Nico, swatting him away. “Leave us.” He stumbles twice in his hurry to get away.

“Were you getting physical with Nico this morning?”

“Wrong question,” she says.

That has to mean yes. I decide not to dwell on how this
makes me feel. “I overheard Eva rehearsing Rosalind’s lines. Do you think she has a plan up her sleeve to off me so she can play Rosalind on opening night?”

“That’s way outside the AndieZone. You’ll have to ask her yourself. Last question.”

“But you haven’t even answered ONE.”

“It’s not my fault you’re wasting them like a fool in a fairy tale.”

“Why has Nico stopped liking me?”

Andie flashes her International Woman of Mystery smile. “Because I told him to.” She makes to walk toward the stage, but I block her path.

“Did you tell him to like me in the first place?”

She taps my temple gently with her yin-yang-painted nail. “Hello? Anybody home?”

Carmen arrives and calls us to begin. I’m nervous in her presence because I can’t predict what she’ll do to me. She has to be furious that I revealed her secret involvement in the play to her mother. But she also knows I went to great lengths to make up for it. And I know a secret about her she doesn’t want out. In fact, she won’t breathe the word
cafeteria
around me for the rest of the school year. But she could try something more subtle. Like pricking me with her poisoned hairpin.

We rehearse the final scenes of the play, where everyone has fallen in love with someone who’s fallen in love with someone else. Romantic entanglements haven’t changed much in the last several centuries. Downtrodden shepherd Nico loves haughty shepherdess Carmen, but Carmen loves me disguised as a man. Bryan pretends to woo the mannish version of me, but loves the absent womanish me
instead. Despite all the confusion, I promise all will marry on the morrow. I lose myself in the scene.

Nico slumps his shoulders and says, “Love is to be all made of sighs and tears; and so am I for Phebe.”

Carmen makes doe eyes at me. “And I for Ganymede.”

Bryan drops to his knees and grasps my masculine hand. “And I for Rosalind.”

I adopt Andie’s impossible-to-read smile. “And I for no woman,” I say.

Bryan’s burning looks promise future passion of the backseat variety, and I let myself enjoy the fantasy. It distracts me from my other worries. His constant wooing—the sad puppy eyes and brows teaming up to beg for my love—gratifies me after so many months of longing for him. Then again, now that he’s abundantly available, his platinum glow fails to blind me to the same degree. Is Andie right that I want only what I can’t have? Or maybe I’ve finally recognized the real Bryan, not the guy he plays on TV.

When we finish practicing our bows, Carmen asks me to stay after. I hate unrehearsed death scenes, but I can’t think up an excuse to leave.

“Who knew you had that kind of talent?” I say the second we are alone.

She blushes, but I detect hostility beneath the profusion of pink. I quickly pluck a tissue from my bag and wave it like a surrender flag.

“Can’t we be friends?” I say.

“How long have you known about my mom?” She picks up the broom and does a frantic sweeping thing with it.

“A few days, but I haven’t told anyone. Not even Eva.”

“Why not? You usually blab everything.”

She should be thanking me for my discretion, kowtowing to my feet, offering to massage them. In scented oil. Three times a day.

“I’ve turned over a new leaf,” I say. I cough a little from the dust she’s stirring up.

“But you told my mom I was directing the play.”

It’s my turn to pretend sweeping. I snatch the broom away and hand her my surrender flag. “Not on purpose. It just slipped out.” I hide in my cloud of dust waiting for the prick of death. When it doesn’t come, I keep on talking. “Your mom really cares about you. My mom hardly notices me.”

“Want to trade?”

I think about Mom in SuperMode—faster than a speeding bullet. But Felicia can leap tall buildings in a single bound and would squash her like a bug.

“I’ll pass,” I say. “Not much gets by Felicia. That’s a quality I don’t need in a mom.”

Carmen blows her nose in my surrender flag. I take it as a sign that our feud is over. We’ve become the keepers of each other’s secrets.

“I’ve got to go,” I say.

“Can I ask you something first?” Carmen says. “Why hasn’t Eva shown her face at rehearsals? Is she really sick?”

“No,” I say. “She’s been hiding in her room practicing Rosalind’s part. I think she plans to steal the role from me.”

“No way.” She hesitates for a moment. “I might try that, but Eva? She would never stoop that low. Don’t you know her at all?”

I do, actually. Despite Eva’s imperfections, her feet barely reach the ground.

Home suffers from unearthly quiet. The parents are still at work, and Eva has become a hermit. I turn on my computer for company. Electronic messages are solace for the lonely. Among the spam, unread horoscopes, and unsigned petitions, two gems await me in my inbox. I read the email from Sierra first.

hey girlfriend
i loved hearing your news, well except for the
troubles with eva. lezzie roz made me laugh so hard i
got a stomachache AND peed my pants. i crazy time
miss you. breaking glass means bad juju btw.
something in your life has gotten out of whack. i
threw some cards and they said be yourself.
i love u . . . but not like that you perv ;) !!!!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo S

I read her message over and over like a hundred times. It’s a relief she thinks I should be myself. But then again who is that? And maybe I should be 98 percent Roz instead of 100 percent. Drop the 2 percent that wants to tell Felicia that Carmen prefers girls. Tact can be a good thing once in a while. Not to mention staying out of other people’s business occasionally. I read the email from Jonathan next.

pixie
i read that coming out story u gave me . . . mine went
nothing like that . . . lol . . . .
i told a friend . . . he spread it around . . . my
girlfriend broke up with me . . . .

2 boyz tried to beat me up . . . teacher broke up the
fight . . . .
i told my mom who told my dad . . . .
they sent me to our church . . . when that didn’t
work . . . they called Aunt S . . . .
the rest is history . . . .
my dad doesn’t want me in the house until i’m
cured . . . .
back on monday
pyro

All the messy tears I’ve stuffed away into my basement over the years come pouring out after I read it. Parents are supposed to accept their children no matter what—tend their autistic offspring, love their ugly losers, and defend their murderer sons on death row. Jonathan is OH-SO lovable. I will never judge a person who keeps his or her sexuality private. Not anymore, anyway. When I get a grip on myself, I reply to his email.

to thine own self be true. your friends here love the real you.

I’ve become part of something bigger after all. It hurts more than I expected. The soulful tune playing on my stereo blends with the mixed-up feelings tumbling around inside me. Everything that’s happened in the last few weeks comes into focus. Not that I understand it better. I am sure that Jonathan is my friend, though. He’s seen my dark side, and he still cares about me. There should be a word for that.

I dry my tears. Too bad I forgot to ask Sierra for advice
on my love life. Of course, the pertinent details change more often than the daily special at a sidewalk bistro. Now that Nico and Andie have glommed into a bizarre unit that could be called a couple and Eva broke up with Bryan for real, should I go for him? I want to have someone to call my own. Despite his bad behavior he has this bizarre effect on me. I can’t entirely eliminate him from my system, type “format H,” and reboot my heart.

Thus the Bryan voodoo doll is born. A few socks, the blond hair from my old Barbie, a little twine, a magic marker, and voilà, mini Bryan. Sierra would be so proud. First he woos me.
Goddess sweet and yet divine, such a girl is Rosalind, etc
. Then I slap him around some and make him kiss my unwashed feet. Voodoo doll Bryan has eyes only for me.

Eva fails to show for rehearsal on Friday, and this is worrying. Her mental health day has stretched into a week. She won’t answer the taps on her door or the notes I’ve pasted to her window. Opening night is a mere week away. She could be suffering from PTBS (Post Traumatic Bryan Syndrome). Or is this about my lesbian act at school? In any case, I have no doubt I am to blame somehow.

Andie and Nico keep on treating me like I’m barely there, without the decency even to notice me ignoring them in return. RoZ iZ despiZed. Just days ago Andie said she liked me. And Nico defended me when Bryan called me a dyke. He laughed at my jokes. Okay, so he also ate what looked like a gift from BlueDragon in front of all the theater geeks. Still, he looks good with Andie’s waif arms around his torso.

“Should the couples be seated or standing whilst they
await your arrival?” Carmen asks me. Luckily for my ever-shrinking ego, now flea-sized and in danger of vanishing altogether, Carmen has asked me to sit with her in homeroom again. And she consults me constantly during rehearsals.

“Standing,” I say. “That shows their anticipation.”

She jots a note on her script and calls for some chairs. She makes me feel as if we’re doing this together, that I’m her codirector. I return the favor by taking her side in arguments and complimenting her ideas. When we finish, she says, “Are you going to the Silo, perchance?”

“What? By myself?”

“With me,” she says. The idea of Carmen as my actual friend has yet to take root. It rotates around my consciousness like when BlueDragon circles a spot on the grass. A person wonders if he will actually lie down before the lunch minute is over.

“Let’s go,” I say. She bikes slowly alongside my scooter.

“Sorry,” she says, pointing her chin at the DykeByke graffiti.

“Sorry.” I nod at the bald spot on her frame. I wonder if she’s going to apologize for the threatening alien sign. She doesn’t.

When we get to the Silo, she stands at the counter to order while I settle us at a table. “My notes are in the side pocket of my bag,” she says.

I’m hungry, but a muffin at the Silo costs a small fortune. You’d think they were made from beluga caviar and gold dust. So I unzip the top of her sports duffel to search for free snacks.

“I said the pocket!” Carmen yells. As she sprints
toward me, I stop going through her things to look at her. Wherefore the sudden panic?

“Any munchies in here?” I hold up a plastic grocery bag.

She snatches it away from me and it rips open, scattering a hundred gum wrappers onto the floor. Juicy Fruit gum wrappers, to be precise.

I
watch Carmen
as she stoops to sweep up the gum wrappers. Top-quality acting is always worth observing. The clenched expression on her face changes to bewilderment. I anticipate her accompanying lines.
Where did these come from? I never saw them in my life
. Or,
Is there a law against chewing gum?
But the inexplicable happens. Tears spring to her eyes as she lets the wrappers slip through her fingers onto our table like dirt onto a coffin in an open grave. Okay, I’ve never seen a coffin in an open grave, but her face does say mournful.

I help her along. “You’re the Peeping Tom,” I say.

“WE are. Were. It was Eva’s idea.” She flattens one of the wrappers using the edge of the table. “The Birkenstocks too. When we were . . . friends.”

What is this—National Confession Week? I didn’t spike her coffee with truth serum. I swear.

“Wow,” I say.

“You know how tedious it can be around here. We’d look into windows, scatter gum wrappers, and try not to laugh too loudly.”

“Did you ever see anything . . . interesting?”

“You wouldn’t believe how many people pick their noses when they think no one is watching. Once we saw Mr. Duncan with his hands down his pants. I thought I’d die. We never went back.” She blushes and looks down at the tabletop.

“Weren’t you afraid of getting caught?” I ask.

“Not really. We’d go to houses with the TV blaring.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Promise you won’t tell anyone. Police officers have no sense of humor. And my mom less than that.”

“I promise.”

When Carmen smiles, I feel good that she trusts me. BlueDragon finishes circling and settles down for a nap. We have become friends.

On Saturday morning I make myself quinoa hot cereal for breakfast with chopped nuts, soy milk, and a distinct lack of syrup. If this weren’t bad enough, Mom comes in and frowns at me. “You did something to upset Eva,” she says.