Cornered

by Rhoda Belleza

  Remember what I said before about not being crazy? Yeah, well, at that second, I felt pretty damn insane.

  My lips were dry and my heart was pounding. My feet no longer felt like they were firmly planted on the pavement. I considered simply backing away. But how do you back away from a lady with wings? Um, you don’t. Then she whirled around and caught me staring.

  “Cera!” She cried out, sounding less alarmed than surprised. “I didn’t know you were still here.”

  “I, uh, sorry . . . ,” I trailed off, sure that I was seeing things, sure that a trick was being played on me. I half expected someone to pop out of the bushes with a video camera, like they were filming the whole thing to post tonight online.

  “I know this may seem strange, but you can come closer,” Ashley said, moving toward me. I felt rooted to the spot, completely in shock. Slowly, I began to realize that this was no trick, at least not a trick of the eye. The woman standing before me was definitely Ashley—right down to the cakey foundation and bony elbows. And she had real, verifiable, non-costume-shop insect wings sprouting from the spot between her shoulders. She was saying something to me: “Don’t be scared.”

  I looked over each shoulder three times. Licked my lips. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Who are you?”

  “Don’t ask questions now,” she said, her wings fluttering almost imperceptibly behind her. “I was scared too, at first. You’ll understand soon enough.”

  Before, Ashley had often appeared pinched, fearful (much like I probably did, at school). But now her wings made her beautiful—and not just because they were stunning—but because with them behind her, she appeared stronger, straighter, self-possessed. In charge of herself.

  Her left wing leaned toward me slowly, and intuitively I reached out to graze my hand against it. Like a moth’s, there was a hoary deposit of dust on its thin surface; when I took my fingers away, they felt velvety against each other.

  “What . . . are those?” I asked, my voice coming out in a hoarse staccato.

  “They’re my defense,” Ashley said, returning my eye contact. “When I want to, I can fly away.” As if to punctuate her point, her wings whirred behind her.

  • • •

  I had so many questions. The night went by excruciatingly slowly, exacerbated by the fact that Erin bailed on our TV date to hang out with some of her ski-team friends. I was alone, trying desperately to stay composed, dying for the next and final self-defense class. Images of Ashley’s wings flickered in my mind as I made my way to my shift at the video store. I rode my bike furiously along Hillsdale’s suburban streets, as if the days would pass quicker if I pumped my legs harder.

  About an hour before my shift was over, I heard a familiar screech echo through the video store aisle. This was, unmistakably, Anya’s flirting mechanism. Imagine, if you will, a boy tickling her or threatening to throw her over his shoulder. Then imagine a fake, piercing, “Noooooooooooooooooo,” that begs yes with every added syllable. That’s the sound I heard.

  Shit. I’d been mercifully free of asshole run-ins this week; some of my tormenters had gone away for Spring Break, and I studiously avoided the typical cool-crowd hangouts like the Riverside bowling alley, Barry’s Ice Cream Pavilion, and the Portside beach—places I used to go all the time.

  But now here they were, waltzing as a pack into Reel Them In. Anya, Lily, Katie, Sean, this jock named Mike, and—double shit—Brian. Brian Doyle. I wanted to sink into the floor and duck behind the counter, anything to avoid whatever they had planned. Instead, I pretended to be very interested in the Reel Them In computer system. Chill out, I told myself. Maybe they really just want to rent a movie.

  No such luck.

  “Hey, Cera,” Lily said loudly, “could you point us toward the lesbo section?” Cue ridiculous explosions of laughter from the rest of the group. My boss, Pete, looked up quizzically from where he was shelving movies.

  “Our GLBT section is over there,” I said, pointing to the far-right corner of the store.

  “Figured you would know,” Anya said to more giggles. Brian’s face was twisted into a simpering smile.

  “Well, I do work here,” I said curtly. “So yeah, I know the sections of the store.”

  “Gosh, there’s no need to be rude,” Anya said, loudly enough for Pete to hear. “I’m so sorry to have bothered you.” As she sashayed past him, I heard her say something along the lines of “unhelpful.” Terrific. Maybe I would get fired on top of everything else.

  They took forever in the store, taking movies off the shelves and putting them back in the wrong places, opening a box of candy before paying for it, and generally making a scene. Of course they didn’t rent anything.

  “It was so great to see you,” Katie said drippingly before they finally left. “You should really get outside some more, though. You look like the girl from The Ring. Have you seen that movie?” They started to leave, amidst an outburst of hysterics.

  “You look like the girl from Precious. Have you seen that one?” I called after them. Katie whirled around, speechless. It wasn’t like me to fight back. In fact, I kind of shocked myself. Katie glared at me, then she turned on her heel and left.

  “If your friends aren’t going to rent anything, they can’t come in here,” Pete said gruffly once they’d gone. “I don’t want them aggravating the other customers.”

  “They’re not my . . .” I gave up halfway through. “Sorry about that, Pete. Won’t happen again.”

  • • •

  “I hear our veil of secrecy has been lifted,” Diane said with a knowing smile at the start of class that night. I’d gotten there early, practically been bouncing in my seat waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. I was dying to see Ashley again and find out what the hell was going on. Now, every head in the room swiveled to face me. Diana asked the group: “Should we do a demonstration for Cera?”

  My palms started to sweat and I felt a little like I was on a boat, bobbing up and down over huge swells. I felt a tingling in my feet, like they were waking up from having fallen asleep. I waited. I knew I was at the edge of something big.

  One by one, the women stood up. Here is what I saw:

  First there was Gerrie. I watched her lift her arms like she was about to start a yoga session. “Cover your ears,” she warned. Then she emitted a brief, ear-shattering scream that made the rest of us drop to the floor, grimacing. I looked around wildly. What the hell was happening? But everyone else seemed unconcerned. In fact, they looked impressed.

  Then Rose stood up, squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists, and suddenly her skin appeared to vibrate slightly. When the vibration ceased, Rose’s body was covered in armored plates, making her look like a cross between a woman and an armadillo. My mouth hung agape.

  When Madeline arose from her seat, needles were already emerging from what looked like goose bumps on her arms and legs. Once they were fully in place, she lifted her leg, pointed her toes toward the far wall, and yelled, “Hah!” As she did, a fistful of needles shot out of her body, puncturing the wall and staying there, quivering. Like arrows. “Jesus hotdamn,” I whispered to no one in particular.

  One by one, they revealed their talents. There were feathers, gills, springs implanted into feet. Diane, her auburn hair pulled back from her face, watched with a satisfied expression. She was the last to transform. I saw her feline features become more angular and defined, and watched as pointed, curved claws sprung from her fingertips. “I can see in the dark, too,” she added proudly.

  “You’re . . . superheroes,” I said, trying to fit these women into whatever categorization I could think of.

  There was a murmur of amusement.

  “Kind of,” Diane said, approaching me. I took a step backward, and she retracted her claws. “Let’s check back in, ladies,” she said, and I saw the women start to transform back into their normal—allegedly normal—selves.

  “How . . . how did you do that?” I stuttered, not directing the question
at anyone in particular. “Who are you?”

  “You’re here to learn how to defend yourself,” Diane said, repeating the words from the advertisement. “You’re here because you deserve the chance to control your own destiny.”

  “Only certain people can see that ad,” Rose piped in. “You newbies saw it because you needed it.”

  I glanced around to Gerrie, Madeline, Ashley. “So this is new to you, too?” They nodded, and Madeline offered: “But it happened to us almost immediately, like after the first night. I got my quills two days ago.”

  “Do you use these powers?” I asked, incredulously. “I mean, you’d think people would know that we have a Catwoman in Hillside. . . .”

  “We use them,” Ruth said. “We do. Once you have a power like this, you’re always using it. Just not . . . overtly.”

  “These skills aren’t for showing off,” Diana added. “In fact, it’s practically impossible to flaunt them.”

  “So you don’t wear your porcupine suit to your kids’ show-and-tell day, I get that,” I said, motioning to Madeline. “But how about you, Ashley—can your ex see your wings?”

  She cocked her head and stared at me, weighing her response. “I think he can see that something is different,” she said. “I’m not the same as I used to be.”

  The others nodded. There seemed to be some consensus, and I was starting to understand.

  And then, the scariest and most exciting question of them all: “Am I like you?” I looked down at my arms, my legs, half expecting to see scales or fur or lightning bolts. “Do I have . . . something?”

  “Of course you do,” Diana said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world that yes, I had some type of nascent magical power. “You wouldn’t have seen the ad if you didn’t. But it’ll come out on its own. We don’t rush these things. Usually our strength has emerged by the final sessions, but there are exceptions. You may be one of them.”

  She was right. Nothing special emerged that night, or by the final class. And that concluded She-Ra’s five-session self-defense course.

  • • •

  On the Sunday before Spring Break ended, I agreed, uncharacteristically, to go bowling with Erin at the Riverside lanes. The alley was mercifully empty, which left me confident enough to suggest we ride our bikes to Barry’s for milk shakes. Erin was taken aback, but she jumped at the chance. We had a dessert before dinner ritual, and we hadn’t gotten to indulge our ice-cream cravings—or anything that involved emerging from my house—over the last couple of months.

  When we rolled up to the shack, I saw Brian and Matt sitting on the hood of Brian’s car. For a moment, I stiffened. But my anxiety lasted for only a second. I didn’t ask Erin to leave, and as we ordered, I didn’t feel the usual eyes burning into the back of my head. I just pretended the boys weren’t there, even when they tried to bait me.

  “Hey, Cera, is that your girlfriend?” I heard Matt call out from across the parking lot.

  I gave him the finger over my shoulder.

  Once sufficiently full on milk shake, we headed back to my place, where we ordered spring rolls and Pad Thai while watching old episodes of Friends on DVD. I was dying to tell Erin about the women and their defenses, but I knew I couldn’t. At least not yet. Oh, so guess what? I may have some sort of superpower. . . . Yeah. Not so much. She’d be having secret meetings with the guidance counselor—if not the nearest mental institution—by noon tomorrow.

  But then, out of the blue, she asked, “What’s up with you?” I snapped my head in her direction. Was I being that obvious? Or worse: was I transforming right in front of her? I stole a look down at my hands and body. All clear. Just plain old Cera Asher.

  “Nothing’s up,” I answered, moving the noodles around on my plate. A laugh track rang in the background. “I’m fine.”

  “I know,” Erin said. “That’s kind of why I’m asking. I saw Brian and that cretin friend of his at Barry’s. But you didn’t even seem to care. You seem calmer. Calmer than usual.”

  Huh. I didn’t get that one a lot. “Really? I dunno . . . I guess I do feel kind of a bit more at ease.”

  “I haven’t seen you look over your shoulder once all day.” Erin whirled a strand of auburn hair around her finger. “It’s been like hanging out with someone who isn’t a paranoid delusional! Quite a change of pace.”

  I threw a balled-up napkin at her. “Thanks, babe. What a compliment.” I shrugged. “I guess I’m not that worried about tomorrow. I mean, whatever happens, happens. I really don’t want Brian and Anya and the rest of those idiots ruining the rest of the year.” Or the rest of my life, for that matter.

  Erin nodded, her eyebrows raised so high that they were, like, in the middle of her forehead. “Totally,” she said. “I mean, I agree completely. It’s just a bit of a one eighty.”

  “Well, my other strategy wasn’t really working for me,” I said wryly. “By which I mean not at all.”

  “I won’t argue with that,” Erin said. She crawled over the couch to where I was sitting and hugged me, hard. “This is awesome, Cee. Just let it roll off your back.”

  • • •

  Erin passed out in a food coma around ten o’clock, but I wasn’t the slightest bit tired. I covered her with an afghan on the couch, turned off the light in the den, and went upstairs to take a shower.

  She was right—I felt serene, like the feeling I get when I’m coasting down a hill on my bike, kind of carried by the breeze.

  I lingered in the shower, letting the warm water run over me, soaping up my hair twice, shaving my legs. I was finishing up my right calf when I felt a sharp prickling in my back, like something was uncoiling between my shoulders. The razor clattered to the tile floor as I stood up, twisting and craning my neck to see behind me. My pulse quickened at what I saw.

  Two tiny dark things, springing swiftly and painlessly from my back. I saw they would soon be too large for the shower enclosure. I stepped out onto the bathroom floor, still dripping, and gazed into the mirror.

  Like Ashley, I had wings, but that’s where the similarities ended. While hers had whirred anxiously, mine fanned out majestically. They were wide, long, and muscular—I could see the tight tissue working between the tendons, strong and flexible. They were black and shiny, like those of the diving cormorants we’d seen in the Everglades on last year’s family vacation. I stood perfectly still, trying to isolate the muscles in my back that manipulated them. With great concentration, I discovered that I could fold my wings in and spread them out. The movements were jerky at first, but at least I knew I was in control. I watched myself in the mirror, in awe of my visage.

  The rest of my body was covered in a soft down, and off of that, the water from my shower was rolling. Beads formed atop the fluttery feathers, and if I shook from side to side, water sprayed from my body. Like water off a duck’s back, I said to myself, almost laughing at the perfection of it all.

  The next step was obvious. I mean, new wings beg for only one thing, right? To be flown? And so I obviously had to put on clothes, before I gave the neighbors the weirdest show they’d ever seen. I shimmied into a strapless dress—something loose and flowing that wouldn’t crimp my feathers—and then I crept outside, being careful to skip the third stair, which creaked. What would I say if Erin or my parents woke up? Oh, just trying out an early Halloween costume! Thank god everyone I know sleeps like they’re on sedatives.

  Outside on the lawn, I allowed my wings to unfurl to their full span. I felt powerful and otherworldly. And also confused. How do you start to fly if you’ve never done it before? They should put that on the SAT. I tried to jump and flap my wings at the same time. No go. I tried getting a running start. Ended up falling face first onto my mom’s geranium planter. Oops. Then I tried pumping my wings until I was kind of hovering above the ground, and then propelling myself upward. It worked. I zoomed into the dark sky, leveling off around the tree tops. Buoyed by exhilaration, wind, and my new, working parts, I flew. Down my street. P
ast the bike path. Along my route to school. Everything looked miniature from up there.

  When I soared above Cornwall High, my mind swam with visions of Brian slobbering on my neck, my former friends pointing at me from their lunch tables, my teammates shying away from me in the locker room. I felt my body tense up; my wings came together in a narrower, more aerodynamic fashion. I started speeding downward, like I was going to dive-bomb the school. I sliced through the air, and I didn’t even feel like I was falling. As I pitched toward the ground, I heard myself shouting, at the top of my lungs, “NO!” Over and over. “NO!”

  And just before I smashed into the building, I made a smooth arc and began to climb back into the sky, flapping my wings, thrusting myself upward and above it all.

  Sweet Sixteen

  BY ZETTA ELLIOTT

  “OH! OH! I have to go! I have to go!”

  This bitch is gettin’ on my last—fuckin’—nerve. I been stuck in here all day with these hyper, snot-face brats—it’s like fuckin’ romper room! These kids are laughin’ and playin’ and tearin’ around like this is some kind of party. Like they’re at Chuck E. Cheese and all those social workers out there are waiters about to bring in the pizza. I want to snatch them up and yell, “YOU’RE IN CUSTODY, STUPID!” But then they’d start whinin’ and cryin’—and one of ’em already pissed his pants. I can smell it. Goddamn! And this white bitch—little Miss Mary Poppins—she’s been playin’ nanny to all the rug rats, but the social worker just took the last one away. They always take the little kids first. People show up for little kids.

  Now it’s just me and this whitegirl, and I can tell she ain’t never been in custody before—she’s freakin’ out and I swear, if that bitch don’t calm the fuck down, I’m a go upside her head with that stupid plastic dollhouse over there. After I finish my nails. They call this color “Galaxy Moon” but it looks just like regular old silver to me. When I get home I’ll add a coat of glitter. That’ll make it pop. Chynna says find somethin’ to think about while you work. I focus on my nails.