Someone Else

by Rebecca Phillips

  “Bronzer,” she said as we gathered our things after French. “That’s what you need. If you don’t have any, you can borrow mine.”

  I could safely say I didn’t have any bronzer, as I had no idea what it was. My makeup bag consisted of eyeliner, lip gloss, and that mineral foundation that Jessica had given me weeks ago.

  “It’ll give you a healthy glow,” she said. “No offense, but you’re looking kind of washed out today.”

  I didn’t mention the monster hangover I’d been nursing all weekend. “I guess I’m just nervous.”

  “Oh, you’ll do great. I bet he’ll hire you on the spot.”

  I gave her a smile. Jessica may have been “shallow and flakey”, as Ashley had claimed, and she may have been a little hypercritical, but deep down, under all that eye shadow and conditioner and cool indifference, there was a big heart. Ashley didn’t see it, but she also hadn’t seen Jessica’s face when she spoke about her mom dying, or when she gushed about her fish, or when she described something funny her little brother had said or done. She showed me what she kept hidden from most people, and that was why we were friends.

  We made a pit stop in the washroom because Jessica had to check out her hair, which according to her was “sticking up in one spot despite half a tube of gel”. By the time we got to the chemistry lab, McDowell had already started setting up. He glared at us as we scurried to our table. Well, I scurried while Jessica casually strolled.

  “We have a lot to cover today, people, so let’s get started,” the teacher said as I slid onto a stool next to Dylan, whose dimples were nowhere in sight. Surprisingly, he hadn’t followed Ashley’s lead and ditched us too.

  McDowell explained today’s lab, which had to do with transforming common metals into gold. After a boring Power Point presentation on the history of alchemy, we got our supplies: pennies, galvanized nails, and drain cleaner. I could see this as being potentially disastrous for my outfit, so I figured I’d stick with writing down the observations and leave the dirty work to Jess and Dylan.

  That was pretty much how it happened anyway. Dylan did all the heating and adding and rinsing while Jessica examined her manicure and I wrote stuff down. And through it all Dylan did not look at me once. I found this strange, especially after feeling the weight of his gaze all last week. It seemed he only watched me when I was safely far away.

  “Seventy-nine,” he said at one point during the lab.

  These were practically the first words he’d ever spoken to me, so I sat there stunned for a moment. “What?”

  He looked at me, finally, and I saw that his eyes were a light, golden brown. The color of weak iced tea. “The atomic number of gold.”

  “Oh. Right.” I jotted the answer down, pressing on the pen extra hard. These days, being around him distressed me so much that my manner toward him bordered on hostile. He sensed it too—I could tell by the tension in his back whenever he sat near me.

  The bell rang and I let out a sigh of relief. Then I remembered it was lunchtime, and I’d have to sit near Dylan again. But there would be more people there, and noisy conversation, and food to concentrate on instead of the unsettling awareness of how nicely some guy who was not my boyfriend filled out his jeans.

  Miraculously, I managed to get through the whole lunch hour without feeling awkward or staining my outfit (I’d eaten only a package of pre-sliced apples) and the rest of the afternoon flew by. When the final bell rang I sprinted to my locker, where I’d agreed to meet Jessica for our makeup consultation. She wasn’t there yet, but someone else was. Dylan stood in front of his open locker, trying to shove in an oversized book that did not want to fit. The second I saw his head start to turn toward me, I ducked behind my locker door.

  The Dungeon was quiet for once, and as I picked through my notes I could plainly hear him struggling with that book, all the while cursing under his breath. Finally there was a loud clunk, so loud that I couldn’t stop myself from peeking over. The book was no longer in his hands, and his usual scowl had been replaced with a triumphant smirk. I assumed this meant he’d won. I averted my eyes again.

  “Ready?”

  Startled, I spun around to see Jessica beside me. “Oh. Um, yeah.”

  “You didn’t forget, did you? I found my bronzer.”

  “No, I didn’t forget.”

  “Good.” She peered over my shoulder. “Hey Dylan, Austin’s waiting for you by the gym.”

  He nodded, hitching his backpack over one shoulder as he passed us. Then he turned and caught my eye, his dimples appearing for a split second and then disappearing just as quickly, like a flash of sun on an otherwise dreary day. I wondered if I’d really seen them at all. “Good luck with your interview,” he said, and he walked away before I had time to grasp that he’d spoken, let alone thank him.

  “Let’s go,” Jess said, taking my arm and steering me away. Halfway to the washroom, I looked over at her and saw that she was smirking.

  “What?”

  A snicker escaped her lips. “Nothing.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I charged ahead into the washroom, hoping Jessica had a foundation in that magic bag of hers that would help camouflage a blood red face.

  ****

  Mr. Moretti was nothing like I pictured. My expectations of him probably stemmed from the TV portrayal of Italian men as being fat and loud, with heavy accents and possible ties to the mob. But Mr. Moretti was a thin, soft-spoken man in his mid-forties, with only a trace of an accent. As for mob ties, I doubted it. This man wasn’t the whacking type. He had a warmth about him that made me like him right away.

  The restaurant was virtually empty in the late afternoon, so we sat at a table and talked over steaming cups of the richest coffee I’d ever tasted. He asked me questions and I answered them; it was all very casual, even as his questions got harder.

  “I must admit I have some doubts about hiring someone so young,” he said at one point during our interview. “Do you think you’re mature enough to handle this kind of job?”

  My answer came quick. “At my current job, I once served an entire busload of senior citizen tourists and didn’t mess up one order. If I can handle that, I think I can handle anything.”

  He laughed. “And why do you want to leave your current job?”

  “I’d like something more challenging.”

  “More challenging than a busload of senior citizen tourists? I’m impressed.” He lifted his coffee cup in salute and then got to his feet. “Let me show you around while we discuss hours and pay.”

  “Great,” I said, and just like that I had a new job.

  Chick N’ Burger needed two weeks notice, of course, and Charlie was such an asshole about my quitting that it made it a lot easier to leave. He retaliated by stiffing me on some shifts, but I didn’t care because it meant I got to be finished with the place that much sooner. On my last official day, I said good-bye to my envious co-workers and happily left my grease-stained uniform behind for the next poor sucker.

  Two days before I was due to begin training, I gave Jessica and her friends a lift home from school. Apparently someone had said something to someone else during lunch, and then drama ensued in the parking lot after school. I wasn’t sure of the whole story, but it ended with the three of them getting sidetracked and missing the bus. This happened a lot with Jess and Lia and Mallory—some girl would make a catty remark, or what they interpreted as catty, and all hell would break loose. Or Jill Holloway would flirt with one of their boyfriends and all three would gang up on her, cutting her down with clever insults. I wasn’t usually present for the scandals myself, but I got the play-by-play every day during lunch. These girls could be so petty, I dreaded the thought that someday they might turn on me over some silly little comment, like I’d seen them do to countless others. Everyone at school was scared of them, and rightly so.

  Jessica invited us all in. Her dad was working and her little brother had hockey practice, so we had the house to our
selves. I’d been to Jess’s house—a small split level on a long, tree-lined road—a couple of times before, but I still marveled at her bedroom. The rest of the house was modestly decorated, average, but Jessica’s room looked like it belonged to a girl from Redwood Hills. Or a princess.

  Considering the sizable square footage of the room—and attached bathroom—I assumed she’d taken over the master bedroom. The walls were painted lavender, which matched the trim on her bedspread and curtains. Directly across from the bed, a flat-screen TV sat on an ornate white dresser. And to the right of the bed, next to a walk-in closet bursting with clothes and shoes, stood Jessica’s most prized possession—a twenty-gallon fish tank.

  “I guess I’m a little spoiled,” she’d told me the first time I went to her house. “So sue me, I’m a daddy’s girl.”

  That was when I told her about my father, about how he’d cheated on my mom with my now-stepmom and moved out when I was twelve. And that at one time I’d been a daddy’s girl too, but not so much anymore. Jessica had been horrified. “I’d die if my dad did that,” she’d said. “I mean, he loved my mom so much that he can’t even bring himself to start dating yet. And it’s been eight years.”

  I told her I admired that kind of rare devotion.

  “I think Henry has fin rot,” Jess said now as she examined her fish. “Or maybe Sheila bit him again.”

  “Why do you keep naming those things?” Mallory said, leaning back against the piles of pillows at the head of the bed. “They’re just going to die anyway.”

  “Why did your parents name you?”

  I sunk into a pink faux-leather beanbag chair and watched as Jess sprinkled fish food into the tank. At least ten little fish bobbed to the surface, their mouths open wide. They were kind of cute.

  “So did you see the look Courtney gave me in math?” Lia asked no one in particular. She was stretched out at the bottom of the bed, her long hair fanned out around her head. “Like, who does she think she is?”

  This started another rehashing of the afternoon’s events. As usual, I kept quiet, mainly because I hadn’t been there to witness any of it. Finally, the topic moved on to Jill and the contemptible outfit she’d been wearing today—capris and a tube top. In November.

  “The weather forecast says snow for this week,” Jess said, joining me on the floor, “and Jill’s dressed like she’s going to the friggin’ beach.”

  “So tacky,” Mallory said.

  Lia rolled over onto her side. “And did you see her and Austin practically, like, dry humping at her locker this morning?”

  Jessica snorted. “Typical.”

  “She had the gall to wink at Zach the other day,” Mallory said. “She’s lucky I didn’t put her eye out.”

  “Why is she interested in guys with girlfriends?” I asked. Jill was one person I could not figure out. She was always nice to me, but I sensed a deep resentment toward Jess and her friends. It was like she enjoyed goading them.

  “Thrill of the chase,” Lia replied. “Available guys bore her. Like, she totally leaves Dylan alone. It’s weird.”

  Mallory sat up and crossed her legs. “Maybe she’ll act interested in him now that he wants…” She looked at me like she suddenly remembered I was there and then slapped a hand over her mouth.

  All at once I could hear every sound in the room, even sounds I hadn’t noticed before, like the gurgling of the fish tank. I even heard the rustling of Lia’s hair as she wound it around her fingers.

  Mallory removed her hand and looked at Jess, who I assumed was shooting her the death glare. “Oh, come on, she’d have to be blind not to notice.”

  “Mal, shut up,” Jessica said.

  Mallory turned to me. “You knew, right? You can’t honestly tell me you didn’t know.”

  “Stop! You’re embarrassing her.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. The last thing I wanted was for them to fight about me.

  “So you knew?” Mallory said, leaning toward me. “About Dylan having a massive crush on you?”

  Jessica groaned, resting her forehead on her bent knees. “Oh my God will you shut up?”

  “It’s not like it’s a secret, Jess,” Lia said as she braided a strand of hair. “Everyone knows.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “What?”

  “She’s exaggerating,” Jess assured me. “Look, Taylor, it’s no big deal. I knew you’d figured it out weeks ago but I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable by mentioning it.” Here, she glared at Mallory. “Anyway, Dylan knows you’re not available. I told him you had a boyfriend who you’ve been with for a year and that he’s away at college.”

  “You like Dylan though, right?” Mallory asked me, and Jessica reached for one of her shoes and threw it at her. Luckily it was soft-soled because it got her right in the leg. Mallory threw it back and it bounced off the dresser before landing sideways on the rug. “What is your problem?” she shouted at Jess.

  “I don’t even know him,” I said before Jessica had a chance to strike back. “And even if I did like him, nothing would happen. Like Jess said, I have a boyfriend.”

  Mallory smirked at me. “Oh right…the same dude who had a girl in his dorm room a couple of weeks ago.”

  I looked sharply at Jess, who actually blushed. “I sort of told you that in confidence,” I said. It was obvious from the embarrassment etched on her face that she’d known very well it was supposed to be kept between us. My issues with Michael were not public property.

  “Sorry,” she said, hunching her shoulders.

  I shifted in my beanbag. “This whole thing makes me really uncomfortable.”

  “I can tell him that,” Jess offered. “If you want.”

  “No, don’t. Then he would be uncomfortable too. Please don’t let him know that I know.” I knew I was taking a leap of faith in hoping for any kind of discretion. “Maybe I should switch groups in chemistry,” I said, grasping for a solution to make this all go away.

  “Don’t you dare. Having you in my group is the only thing that makes that class bearable.”

  I smiled. “It is pretty bad.”

  “McDowell’s a fossil,” Mallory said.

  Jess nudged my foot with hers. “Taylor, don’t worry about it, okay? Dylan’s kind of intense sometimes, and he’s sensitive, but he’ll survive. He likes you, but really, it’s just a harmless crush. He sees a girl who’s pretty and nice and he thinks he feels some sort of connection between the two of you.”

  “Which is dumb because you guys don’t even hang out,” Lia put in.

  I wanted to agree with her, to say it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard, but all I could think about was how not dumb it really was. Maybe we did have a connection. And maybe we didn’t hang out, per se, but over the past couple of weeks we’d started talking a little more. Small talk, for the most part, little comments exchanged during chemistry lab or at our lockers between classes. Innocent enough that it made me think that one day we might even get to be friends. Just friends. Never mind the spark between us. Never mind the fact that whenever I was with him, I would spend the entire time searching my brain for something funny to say just so I could see his dimples when he smiled.

  Chapter 8

  My mother was on me the second I walked into the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I knew I looked like death warmed over after an eight-hour Sunday shift at the restaurant. Being a server was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. Moretti’s wasn’t like Chick N’ Burger at all. At first, I felt like maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew, but after two weeks there I was finally starting to get the hang of it.

  “Don’t you have an English test tomorrow?” Mom asked. She was sitting at the table with her laptop and mug of tea, catching up on work.

  “I’ve been studying all weekend.” I extracted my plate of dinner from the fridge and dug in, not bothering to heat it up. “All I have to do tonight is go over one poem.”

  “Remember what we discusse
d…if you fall behind in school, the job goes and so does your car.”

  “I know, Mom.” I’d heard this line so many times, it may as well have been tattooed down my arm. I shoveled in some more cold chicken.

  “I know you know,” she said. “But it’s so easy to become overwhelmed.”

  I didn’t dare tell her that I already felt overwhelmed most of the time. Handing work and school and friends and a relationship was a delicate juggling act—if one fell, the rest would follow. It took some effort to keep them all in the air.

  My beeping cell phone waited for me in my room. I sat on the bed, muscles sighing with relief, and picked it up. Two texts from Jessica, one about some chem notes she needed to borrow and one asking when I wanted to go dress shopping for the holiday semi-formal dance, which was this Friday. I deleted that one. She already had a dress—it was me she insisted on shopping for. Me, who refused to go the stupid dance without a date, even though a lot of other girls were going with friends. Me, who was sick and tired of everyone bugging me to go, even though I didn’t have to work that night, and even though the prospect of staying home, alone, when every single one of my friends would be out having fun, was really depressing.

  There was one more message—Michael, calling to apologize for not getting in touch with me yesterday. I deleted that one too and tossed the phone over my shoulder. It landed softly on the bed behind me. A second later I flopped down next to it, my unstudied poem forgotten.

  I stared up at the ceiling, trying to figure out when my relationship with Michael had changed, the exact moment we’d gone from so close to so distant. Maybe it wasn’t a moment at all…maybe it had been a gradual thing, building since the day he left. Whatever was happening between us, I did know one thing for sure—being apart wasn’t getting any easier. With every argument or misunderstanding or missed phone call, we slipped a little further away from what we used to be. I knew a lot of it came from the pure frustration of missing each other, but it was more than that. I just wasn’t sure what, or how to fix it. Or if it could be fixed.