Someone Else

by Rebecca Phillips

  With my eyes still on the ceiling, I felt around for my phone and punched in Michael’s number by heart.

  “Hey,” he said. The way he sounded, so happy to hear my voice, melted away any residual hard feelings I had over not hearing from him yesterday. That was how it was with us lately—extreme highs and lows. One minute I’d be pissed as hell at him and the next my heart would be practically bursting with love. So bipolar.

  “I got your message. I was at work.” If we talked more often, you’d have known that, I added in my head. Okay, so I was still a little pissed.

  “Oh, right. It’s Sunday. How’s that going?”

  “Getting better. Luckily Mr. Moretti is really patient.” I scrambled into a sitting position and caught a whiff of garlic. Instead of reeking of onion rings after work, I now reeked of garlic. “So,” I said, getting it over with. “Where were you last night? When I tried to call you I got voice mail after one ring.”

  “I forgot my phone in my room,” he said. “I was gone all day and didn’t get back until two in the morning. Sorry. I can’t believe I forgot to take my phone.”

  I couldn’t believe it either. Michael didn’t forget things; he was an extremely organized person. Or he used to be, anyway. Then again, he used to tell me the truth too.

  “It’s okay, it’s not like you have to check in with me every single day. I’m not your parole officer.” Michael didn’t respond to that, but I could sense his annoyance. “Sorry,” I said quickly. I examined a red stain on my sleeve. Marinara sauce. “I’m just tired.”

  “Yeah, I knew that was coming next.”

  I did not like his tone. “You knew what was coming next?”

  “The ‘tired’ excuse. You use it every time you bite my head off.”

  The garlic smell was starting to make me nauseated. It didn’t help that my stomach—along with the chicken I’d gulped down earlier—was suddenly in my throat. “You know, I’m on my feet twenty-five hours a week at work,” I said, my voice trembling. “Then I come home and study so I can maintain the B average I need to keep my mother off my back. So yes, I am pretty damn tired, and that makes me a little testy sometimes. Especially when I’m looking forward to talking to you all day and you don’t call.”

  Silence again, but this one had an apologetic quality to it. “I’m sorry,” he said, sighing. “I guess I’m just tired too.”

  “Everything will be better once you’re home,” I said, warming to him again. It was dizzying, this roller coaster of emotions during our phone calls. “Less than three weeks now.”

  “Yeah. Christmas vacation.”

  We could have been discussing a funeral for all the enthusiasm he packed into that statement. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  After we hung up I sat there for over an hour, thinking about our conversation and how weird things were between us now. And how the past three months had been like living in limbo for me, the days filled with waiting. Waiting for a call, waiting for an email, waiting for us to be okay again. I didn’t want to wait anymore.

  Screw it, I thought as I cracked open my poetry book. I’m going to that stupid dance.

  ****

  “You’re going?” Ashley said the next morning as we walked to our locker before lunch. “But you said you wouldn’t go without a date. Why the change of heart?”

  I shrugged. “Everyone else is going.”

  “Usually I don’t support that line of reasoning, but in this case I’m all for it.” She dug out a bottle of hand sanitizer and squirted some into her palms. “Do you even have a dress?”

  “Just the one I wore to Michael’s prom in June, but that’s too dressy.”

  “I’d go shopping with you but I have meetings all week.”

  “No worries.” We reached the Dungeon. “Jessica offered to go with me.”

  As I said this, I looked in the direction of Dylan’s locker, which was where I could typically find him this time of day. Sometimes we’d talk about chem lab or even walk together—with Jess—to the cafeteria. But none of that would be happening today, I knew. Because Dylan was not alone.

  “Who’s that?” I whispered to Ashley, who knew virtually everyone in school. She glanced over at the very cute, very tiny blond girl who was beaming a luminous smile up at Dylan. He smiled back at her, his dimples one notch away from a full bloom.

  “Breton Reese. She’s a tenth grader. Amazing dancer, so I hear.”

  I didn’t know how to react to this, so I snickered. “Breton? Like the cracker?”

  “Taylor.” She poked me with the corner of her math book. “She’s nice. I kind of know her from Drug Awareness.”

  “So she’s a tenth-grade dancer who doesn’t like drugs. Are they…dating?” Ashley would know this too, as she was Queen of the Rumor Mill.

  “Apparently.”

  “Huh,” was all I said to that. I turned my back on the cute couple and left the Dungeon, Ashley hot on my heels.

  “Are you okay, Taylor?”

  “Uh, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You’re doing that thing with your lip that you do whenever you’re worried or upset. The biting thing.”

  I mashed my lips together. “I’m fine.”

  She examined me through narrowed eyes, not convinced. “I have a band meeting,” she said after a moment. “See you later.”

  “See you.” I detoured to the washroom. Not to stall, I told myself. Just to pee.

  Breton the Dancer turned up in the caf too, at our table. Sitting right next to Dylan. When I plunked down next to Jess with my sandwich, she nudged my knee with hers. I glanced up and she gave me a wide-eyed “can you believe this?” look. I focused on my lunch, which wasn’t easy considering Jess’s incessant nudges and throat-clearing on one side of me and Breton’s chirpy little-girl voice yammering on the other side. Not to mention the distracting sight of Dylan’s arm on the back of her chair. For once, I was grateful when the bell rang.

  As I started down the hall, Jessica, Lia, and Mallory caught up to me and shepherded me into a bathroom, where they cornered me by the sinks. No escape.

  “He hooked up with her at Zach’s party Friday night,” Mallory said.

  “She’s so little and perky, I want to smack her,” Jess said.

  “He, like, asked her to the semi-formal,” Lia said.

  I studied the three of them, looking at me so expectantly, and then turned away to wash my hands. Three sets of eyes burned into my back.

  “He likes you,” Mallory told me. “Not Breton.”

  “Why should I care who he likes?” I ripped off some paper towel. “I have a boyfriend.”

  No one said anything. Their doubtful faces filled the mirror in front of me. I met each pair of eyes before saying, “I don’t like Dylan that way and I don’t care who he dates. Okay?”

  They studied me for another few seconds and then Jessica looped her arm through mine, steering me out of the washroom. “Dress shopping after school,” she said. “Me and you.”

  I nodded, grateful for both the offer and the fact that the sidekicks wouldn’t be joining us. I could only take so much of Lia and Mallory, and the three of them at once was more than a little daunting. But I could handle Jess by herself.

  Later, in French class, she leaned over to me. “Taylor?”

  My eyes stayed glued to my workbook. “Hmm?”

  “Dylan doesn’t really like her.”

  “Jess?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I really don’t care.”

  Madame Bedeau was watching us, her orangey lips pursed, but Jessica wouldn’t stop until she had me convinced. Finally, I turned a page in my book and ignored her completely.

  Chapter 9

  I looked like a whore.

  Okay, so maybe whore is a little harsh. Not all women who wore ten pounds of makeup on their faces were slutty. Jess wasn’t. No, Jess just had unique standards of beauty. I knew that much when I saw myself in a mirror.

  “Wow...um…wow,” Ashley s
aid as I approached her in the school lobby.

  “Photo op!” Jessica skipped toward us and rested her cheek against mine. She held her camera at arm’s length, snapping a picture of the two of us. “I did all her makeup and picked out that dress,” she bragged to Ashley. “Doesn’t she look awesome?”

  “No comment,” Ashley said. I pinched her arm. My mood was edging toward antagonistic, and the last thing I wanted was to be teased. Actually, make that the second last thing. The last thing I wanted was to be standing outside the school gym on a Friday evening, about to cross the threshold into the Annual Holiday Semi-Formal Dance. Dateless. With ten pounds of makeup on my face.

  At least my dress didn’t scream “trying too hard”. I’d steered Jess away from the sequins and sparkles and she ended up finding me a cute little purple dress with spaghetti straps, marked down half price. Too bad the understated effect I was going for had to be tarnished by the over-the-top makeup job—foundation, powder, lipstick, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, mascara, blush, eye shadow. I never wore eye shadow. Jessica promised it would make my green eyes pop, whatever that meant. It didn’t sound good to me. But I let it slide, like so many other things.

  The walls of the gym were strewn with twinkling lights, spruce boughs, and wreaths. In the corner near the supply closet stood a tall, fully-decorated tree—for posing, I assumed. Jessica dragged Brent over there for another photo op while I stuck with Ashley and the other dateless girls. Being here, in the midst of all this holiday spirit, only succeeded in making me feel worse. I kept thinking of home, and how nice it would be to climb into a hot bath. And that’s probably what I would have ended up doing tonight if Jessica hadn’t sat me in a chair and changed me into someone else.

  All week I’d been resigned to the fact that my attendance at this dance was expected, even mandatory. By Thursday, I was even kind of looking forward to it. When Jess suggested the four of us get ready at her house and then go together—they all had dates, but agreed to meet them at the school instead of being picked up so I wouldn’t have to tag along with a bunch of couples like some loser—I readily agreed even though I knew my usual lip-gloss/mascara combo wouldn’t be enough for her. And when she dove into her Bottomless Bag of Cosmetics, I surrendered like the coward I was and let her transform me.

  And when Michael called my cell at six-thirty and the girls wouldn’t let me answer it because this was “girl time”, I gave in again, figuring I’d call him back once Jess tired of treating my face like her personal canvas. Which she finally did, a half hour or so later.

  It was even my idea to take the picture, an image of me looking so unlike what Michael knew, and send it to him. But first, I wanted to call him back and tell him to check his phone right away, so I could hear his reaction before we left. So, giggling like fiends, we took a bunch of pictures and I sent him one of me, posing like a homecoming queen. Then I called him.

  “Hello?”

  I would have recognized this voice if I’d been eighty years old and deaf in one ear and part senile. It was tattooed on my brain, a part of my subconscious. Even worse, this time around it sounded sleepy, like she’d just woken up. In Michael’s room. On Michael’s bed.

  I hung up the phone.

  “No answer?” Jess asked.

  “Nope,” I said, keeping my body turned toward the fish tank.

  “I bet he’ll call you when he gets it,” Lia said as she brushed her hair again, even though it already shone like polished black onyx. “He’ll froth at the mouth when he sees how hot you look.”

  I swallowed a few times and then turned around, making sure the ringer was turned off on my phone. “Let’s go.”

  ****

  “Are those eight coats of lipstick weighing down your lips so you can’t talk?”

  Ashley and I were standing in line for the washroom along with several other girls. I’d spoken maybe half a dozen words in the hour and a half that we’d been here, and my unpleasant mood had slowly escalated into a downright shitty one. Ashley was at her wit’s end with me.

  “What is with you tonight?” she asked. “You’re acting like you want to rip someone’s head off.”

  I couldn’t tell her. The hurt was too fresh, and my brain was having trouble formulating anything beyond rage.

  “I’m fine,” I said, and then hurried into a vacant stall. I stood there, leaning against the wall, and blinked back some tears. I thought of the many coats of mascara and eyeliner around my eyes. If I cried, the whole school would know because I’d look like a drug-addicted raccoon no matter how much Kleenex I used. I wouldn’t cry, not here. I’d do it later, in bed, with my favorite stuffed swan as the only witness.

  But first, I had to get through this stupid dance.

  As Ashley and I emerged from the washroom, I heard someone call my name. I glanced around the gym and caught sight of Jessica over by the refreshment table, where she stood with Brent and a few other people, drinking eggnog and waving me over. Ashley quickly made up some excuse about needing to go ask Brooke something and took off in the opposite direction.

  “Hey, Jess,” I said, forcing a smile as I approached.

  “Cookie?” She held up a shortbread in the shape of a snowman. I eyed all the goodies on the table, none of which looked appetizing to me.

  “No, thanks.”

  “They really went all out for this thing, didn’t they?”

  Lia squeezed in beside us and helped herself to a glass of punch. “Not a menorah in sight,” she said, and right then I remembered that Lia was Jewish. Everyone had been so careful about calling it a holiday dance instead of a Christmas dance, but no one thought to cover all the holidays in the food and decoration planning.

  “I haven’t seen you out there, Taylor,” Brent said, nodding toward the dancing couples in the middle of the gym.

  “I haven’t been out there,” I said, and before the words had even left my mouth, Dylan appeared in front of me as if he’d sprung up from the floor.

  “Hey,” he said, his eyes flicking over my face in a slightly concerned manner. I guess I did look a little ferocious. For his own safety, he moved away from me and started talking to Brent. I wondered where Breton Cracker was. Had they broken up already? Or was she at home, propped up in bed, her leg broken from an unfortunate dancing mishap, tears of pain and disappointment running down her smooth cheeks?

  No such luck. A minute later, Cracker glided over in a skimpy black dress that showed off her dancer muscles. She greeted everyone with a smile and sidled up to Dylan, who grabbed her hand while I grabbed a cookie without even checking to see what kind it was first. A gingerbread man, I discovered after I’d taken an unconscious nibble. I gnawed off another, bigger bite. It was good—sweet and chewy. Instead of biting the head off first like most people did, I always started with its limbs. I liked to save the head for last. It seemed more humane that way.

  As I devoured my cookie, I furtively studied Breton. What was it about her, I wondered, that had attracted Dylan? She and I weren’t alike at all—she was blond instead of dark, lean instead of curvy, outgoing instead of reserved, athletic instead of uncoordinated, short instead of…not as short. If Dylan liked me, if he was drawn to my type, then why out of all the girls in the school had he chosen my antithesis?

  I popped the gingerbread man’s head into my mouth and walked away. It had been a mistake coming to this dance. When I wasn’t thinking about Michael and Lauren, I was thinking about the past week, seeing Dylan and Breton together all over the school. Walking together in the hallways. Smiling at each other, constantly, Dylan’s dimples out in full force. And I thought about why that bothered me, and why it made me so damn mad.

  Yes, I was mad. A lot of the time. At a lot of people. Myself included.

  I leaned against the far wall, near the water fountain, and let the anger burn through me until it settled into a heavy, thorny ball in my stomach. I let myself remember Lauren’s voice, the raspy tenor of it. I let myself acknowledge why Michael had called m
e first, earlier than usual—to head off my call, prevent me from catching him with Lauren. To hide her from me. If he was innocent, I reasoned, he’d have nothing to hide. If he and Lauren were “just friends” like he’d claimed, there wouldn’t be any reason for her to be napping in his room and answering his phone.

  Still, even with this recent evidence, I didn’t believe he’d cheated on me in the physical sense. I still trusted him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d made a promise to me, months ago, that he’d never be unfaithful, never hurt me like that. But he didn’t promise that he’d never consider it. And that was what I believed he was doing with Lauren—considering it. Maybe he hadn’t yet crossed the line, but he was standing at the edge of it, weighing all the consequences involved in stepping over.

  And I couldn’t really fault him for that, because I had been toeing that line myself.

  “You okay?”

  I jumped. Again, it was as if Dylan had materialized out of thin air, like the Ghost of Christmas Present.

  “Yeah.” I tried to smile but only got as far as a tight-lipped grimace. “Did Jess send you to find me?”

  His brow creased in confusion, and for the first time that night I noticed how cute he looked in his button-down shirt and dark pants. “No. I was on my way to the bathroom and saw you over here. You looked upset.”

  I peered into the crowd, searching for Breton. I didn’t see her, but I did see Jill Holloway out on the dance floor, wearing a dress that was probably popular in the adult entertainment circuit.

  “I’ll be okay,” I said, with a real smile this time. “I just miss my boyfriend.”

  My words made him flinch a little, which cheered me up more than I cared to admit. “Oh,” he said, his usual scowl slipping into place.

  “He’ll be home soon.” I felt driven by some need to….what? Let him down easy? Provoke a reaction? Get back at him for Breton?