Y in the Shadows

by Karen Rivers

I avoid Michael’s eyes and more specifically her neck. She’s looking at it in the mirror, her thin neck rising like a reed out of her perfectly matching Lululemon outfit that probably cost two hundred and fifty dollars. “Does this show a lot?” she says to me, through the mirror.

  I pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about. “What?” I say.

  “This,” she says, frowning at her neck. She touches it again, like she can brush it off.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It shows.”

  For a second she looks upset, and I wish I’d said more, but I can’t think of anything else. There’s a pause, and then she expertly fills it by laughing. “Oh, well,” she says. “Too bad.” Her laugh doesn’t reach her eyes, though. I can see that.

  Samantha makes a kissing noise, and they all start laughing again. Too hard. Michael’s laughing, too, but she isn’t happy. Or maybe I just think that because, now that I’ve stolen a look into her house, I feel like I know her. Like feeling that you know a celebrity just because you’ve seen a few films that they’re in.

  I change quickly, my back to them, stuffing my things into my unlocked locker. Noticing that someone has stuck instructions from a box of tampons onto the door. Funny. Sam looks at me and smirks, showing a flash of braces. For a second, I’m furious. Why does she think she’s so great? She isn’t pretty, not really. She has people fooled into thinking that she is but that has more to do with expensive clothes. A good haircut. A lot of makeup. I mean, give me a break. She has braces years after everyone else got them off. Why does she get to laugh at me? I snarl. Out loud. Like one of those yappy, filthy dogs. Close the door to the locker hard with a shuddering bang, drop the HOW TO INSERT paper on the ground.

  Michael, washing her hands, moves slightly to let me past. Aurelia calls my name and I stop and turn. “You forgot these,” she says, sweetly but not sweetly, holding out the box of tampons that the instructions came from.

  So funny.

  “Ha dee ha,” I hiss. I feel almost feral. Like I could turn into an animal of some sort and just out and out attack.

  I force myself to move past Michael and the sink. The soap smells like something medicinal, not like you would expect soap to smell. She’s intent on the washing. She doesn’t look up.

  “Hurry,” I say. “We’ll be late.”

  Then she catches my eye. “I’m hurrying,” she says. “Go ahead.”

  “I’m going,” I say. I run into the gym, sidling past Madison, who refuses to move or meet my eye. What is going on? What are they up to?

  Something. I can feel it on my skin. My heart thumps irregularly.

  It’s cold in the gym. I jog on the spot, to stay warm. My T-shirt has a hole in it exactly over my belly button. It makes both the hole in the shirt and my naval look ridiculous, endless, comical. I stick my finger in it and pull, the threads tight on my skin. My shirt says BOULDER, COLORADO over a picture of a horse and a setting sun. I’ve never been to Boulder.

  Coach clears her throat. (She’s always doing that, like a big cat who’s licked herself too much, swallowed too much hair.) “Okay,” she says. “Okay.” Her voice is hushed, but also loud. Coach is one of those women who look like a man trying to be a woman. Sexually ambiguous is how I would phrase it. Or asexual. Her asexuality makes me feel bad. It makes me feel too girly. It makes me feel silly.

  Dumb.

  She shifts back and forth from one foot to another. She has huge feet. She must wear men’s shoes. I’d never noticed before. Her shoes are new and glowing white. “Okay,” she says again.

  The gym always feels so big at this time of day, the equipment set up over at the far end, no one else around. Sometimes the whole school is crammed in here for pep rallies and other wastes-of-time. Now with just five of us — six now that Michael runs in, her long ponytail bouncing from side to side — it feels hollow. Like we’re on the inside of an echo.

  “Okay,” says Samantha impatiently. Bitchily.

  Coach clears her throat. (See: hairball.)

  “Coach, what are you trying to say?” Samantha has a way of talking to everyone like they work for her, which sadly usually works to make them answer her respectfully.

  “I have here,” Coach says, waving her clipboard, “the events for the meet on April 3. I’ve decided to enter you in these events. Um, let’s see.” She squints at her own writing, and then starts listing. I tune her out until she gets to me. “Yale,” she says. “Beam and floor.”

  “Beam and floor,” I repeat.

  “Beam and floor,” she says.

  “But,” I say. “What about bars? Bars are my best event. We need for me to do it. I mean, I’ll get the most points.”

  “Oh, no,” she says.

  Samantha rolls her eyes. “Obviously you don’t want to do those again,” she says. “Duh. Well, we wouldn’t want you to, anyway. Isn’t that right, Coach?”

  Aurelia chortles as though that was the funniest thing she ever heard. Coach looks slightly abashed. Or at least I think she does. She clears her throat again. “Well,” she says. “Well. The thing is that what happened to you last time, well. It was just embarrassing. For the team. The whole team. The school. For their sake, you won’t do bars again.”

  “What?” I say. I press my fingers against the bruise on my forehead. “What?”

  “C’mon, Tampax,” says Samantha in a singsong voice. “Think about it.”

  “I assumed you’d understand,” Coach starts. “Girls...” she pleads. Her obsequiousness with The Girls makes me want to scream. She kowtows to them. She’s like the fat kid in junior school who would do anything to be liked. Suddenly, I get a flash of Coach as a teenager. Coach on the outskirts of groups like The Girls. Coach dying to be liked.

  Well, fuck her. She’s adult now. I stare at her mouth, moving. I can’t hear her. There’s a roar in my ears like a million crows cawing at once. I swear, I feel wings against my skin.

  I turn, squeaking on my shoes.

  I force one foot after the other. Concentrate on walking fast but not too fast. Someone could stop me if they tried.

  They don’t try.

  I’m walking away from the only thing about this horrible place that I like. I want them to stop me, and I don’t. I’m leaving. I guess I’m gone.

  Wearing my gym clothes still, I walk out of the gym through the emergency exit. An alarm rings, a loud beep reverberates behind me, within me, bells so loud they shake my guts. I keep walking. The rain hits me hard. The gravel is covered with deep puddles. I walk onto the field. It’s windier than I had thought. The grass is soaking and muddy. I start to run toward my scooter, but then I realize my keys are inside.

  I disappear. It’s the first time I’ve done it out of anger. It’s like they can go fuck themselves if they think they’ll see me again. “Never,” I’m saying out loud. “Never.” I’m so hot, I’m burning. The taste of pennies and kerosene is strong in my mouth. I feel faint. If I faint when I’m faded, will I ever come back?

  I go back to get my keys, I have to. I go through the front door, back to the change room. It seems to take forever. No one is around. The empty halls are filthy from muddy feet. The janitor is in the Math room; doesn’t look up from his slow-motion wiping of the chalkboard.

  I’m dripping water like crazy — what kind of rain is that? It’s a monsoon, a typhoon, the apocalypse — which I notice only in the deserted halls. The change room reverberates with emptiness, but I can hear The Girls’ voices rising and falling in the gym. I feel disoriented. Dizzy. Scared.

  I get my stuff. Grab my keys. Practice rings on without me. The thud of someone jumping off the beam. The thwap, thwap, thwap of someone doing a tumbling run. The sound of the springboard someone is using to mount the bars or the beam or the horse. The sounds of gymnastics.

  Frankly, I don’t care if I never hear those sounds again.

  I do care.

  I don’t.

  I go to the entrance of the change room, slip into the gym. My feet slap, slap, slapping the
floor. The gym smell saturating everything. Aurelia is on the bars, her body thwapping the lower bar as she prepares to dismount, her body a rubber band. Madison is on the beam, deep in conversation with Coach. Sam and Michael are stretching on the mat, having an intense conversation. I move as close as I dare, protected by the shadows of the banners hanging on the walls.

  “I just think it isn’t necessary,” Michael is saying. “Why do you care that much about her? She’s good on the team.”

  Sam smirks. “It worked, didn’t it? Now she won’t be an issue.”

  “But that’s just stupid,” says Michael. “She was the best on the team. Now we’ll never win.”

  Sam looks affronted. “Yeah, but we won’t be humiliated either.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” snaps Michael. “It was an accident. You are such a bitch.”

  “What?” says Sam. The air around them seems dangerous. Heated. A vibration of something that’s almost a colour.

  “You heard me,” says Michael coldly. She reaches over to stretch her left leg. I can see her hand is shaking.

  “Yeah,” says Sam. “I did.”

  My heart is going crazy. What was that? What happened?

  In my confusion, I almost reappear. I see my own foot and I realize I have to concentrate.

  I run. Out through the change room so no one sees the door slam behind me. As soon as I’m safely outside, I let myself come back. It’s so cold at first. The transition is getting more extreme, it seems. Like a fever so bad you could convulse, eyes rolling back, lips blue. I shiver, bite my tongue.

  I walk back to my scooter, shaking.

  Well.

  That’s over.

  But what really happened? Michael saying, “You are such a bitch.” The way the air crackled around her, the way The Girls seemed to move away in a pack. Was Michael standing up for me? Was she defending me?

  Because that’s what it looked like. That’s how it felt.

  My scooter jutters underneath me, moving over a puddle dangerously, skimming and slipping. I try to concentrate on the road. The cars. People have their headlights on because the storm is making it so dark. The cars coming toward me are blinding me and then in turn choking me with their exhaust. The scooter judders and shakes dangerously. Don’t break down, I whisper. Not today.

  I go to Michael’s house, telling myself it’s because it’s closer than mine, but that isn’t true. (It’s easy to lie to yourself when there is something you want that you know is wrong.) I can’t help it, it’s like I have to do it now. I have to see something. What, I don’t know. Something more. I park the scooter in the playground across the street, lean it up against a bright yellow plastic slide with water running down it like a river. I wait until I don’t think anyone can see me and go up to the door.

  It’s not locked but it’s obvious no one is home. Even in the deafening rain, I can hear that the house is empty. Where is Sully? I wonder. Do they take him out places? Obviously. I mean, of course, they do. Does he walk? Does he have a wheelchair? Where do they go? Does he do normal things, like go to movies?

  I wonder if the other Yale gets taken out. Who takes her? I hope it’s someone who loves her. I hope someone cares.

  I go in like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I walk from room to room, dripping on the carpet, which absorbs the water, rendering it instantly invisible like some kind of scary green sponge. There’s nothing new to see that I haven’t seen already, not really. The pictures are the same. The closed doors. The dead squirrel on the balcony. The deer’s head peering around the corner. But it sort of feels new. I go into Michael’s room — which is new to me — and look in her closet. (How creepy am I? Does this cross the line?) Her clothes are all perfectly arranged by colour. Everything smells like fresh dry cleaning. Each hanger has a small sachet of potpourri that smells like vanilla and something floral. Her shoes are lined up evenly on the floor by colour, by heel height.

  Everything is perfectly in place. For some reason, this makes me feel sad. I’m about to walk away, when I see the notepad on her bedside table. There are doodles on it. The name “Tony” written over and over. “Israel.” And then, under that, “Yale.”

  What does that mean?

  A passing car throws light up against the wall that startles me. It’s bright, like a spotlight. It highlights how I shouldn’t be here.

  What gives me the right to do this? It’s all wrong. So why can’t I stop?

  I make myself leave, closing the door carefully behind me. It’s raining harder than ever. Can it rain this hard? There is almost no space between raindrops, just sheets of water falling from the sky like solid objects being dropped.

  I’m drenched. Uncomfortable. Cold. But I don’t care.

  I leave the scooter and walk for a while, completely hidden by the thick falling water. I walk to Tony’s house. I can’t pretend (even to myself) that it’s an accident. I do it completely on purpose. It’s creepy and wrong but I’ve started and now I can’t stop.

  Just one more time, I tell myself, but already I can tell that I’m lying. My ability to do this is like a narcotic and I’m hooked.

  Sick.

  I crouch beside a shrub near his front walk. Why? I’m invisible. The front door is partially open, as though a dog has just escaped. I push it and go inside.

  Dark. It’s so dark, it takes my eyes a second to adjust. I’m leaving wet footprints on the thickly carpeted white stairs. Someone is asleep on the sofa. The TV is a flickering light in the room at the end of the hall. I go in. Must be his mother. Sleeping like a child, curled into fetal position. The other rooms are empty.

  I go into a room that I think must be his. Definitely his. It smells like him. I am so attuned to his scent that I think I could probably track him, like a bloodhound. Like one of those dogs.

  He has posters on the wall of bands that I’d never have guessed that he listened to. I’m such a creep, I think. But I can’t stop looking.

  Violating.

  It’s not like I’m looking at him naked. Not like I’m doing anything wrong. (But it is.) (I am.)

  I lie down on his bed. It smells so much like him, I get dizzy. It’s too much. Earthy. Fresh. I hang over the edge and peek underneath. Under it, comic books spill out in piles. I grab one. It’s full of naked, big boobs.

  Oh.

  The dizziness changes to something else.

  I drop the magazine back on the ground.

  That’s too much information, I think. It’s too personal. I don’t want to picture him with this magazine, doing what he’s probably doing. I feel funny, bad, in a way I can’t identify.

  Yes, I can. I feel embarrassed.

  I’m so flustered that I accidentally reappear, which makes what I’m doing seem even more wrong. I don’t belong here. I catch sight of myself in Tony’s mirror. It takes me a minute to fade again. Long enough that I panic, my breath coming in short bursts. I can’t forget how to do it now, I can’t.

  I force myself to stand up, out into the hall, into the next door. This room is unnaturally still. It’s... oh. Well, it’s obviously his brother’s room. There’s the musty smell of a room that isn’t used. Where no one lately has moved around, breathed. The room of someone dead.

  My heart is racing. Poor Tony.

  I feel so confused. Strange. My head is spinning.

  I go out the same way I came in, but faster. I close the door tight behind me. His mum must be cold in there on the sofa. Seems only fair to protect her a bit from all the rain and cold wetness of outside.

  There are three more places where I feel like I have to go.

  I start at Aurelia’s. I have been there only once before and that was a birthday party when we were so young that all parents automatically invited everyone in the whole class. She’s always hated me, I don’t know why. I remember in the seventh grade, I got a sweater for Christmas that I’d wanted more than anything. Man, I loved that sweater. It was purple. Puffed sleeves. Awful now that I think about it, but so id
eal at the time. I couldn’t live without it. I wore it to school the first day back after winter break, wore it feeling pretty for a change, feeling okay. She was wearing the same sweater.

  The look of horror on her face was scary.

  She came right up to me, slammed me up against a locker — impressive because she’s really, really tiny — and said, right into my face, “If you ever wear that again, I’ll kill you.” She scared me. I threw it out and pretended that I’d lost it. She’s like that. There’s something in her eyes that says you should be scared. That there’s good reason for it.

  I don’t go in, after all. I just change my mind. I make excuses to myself: there are two cars parked outside, so someone is definitely home. I can hear a dog barking inside and I don’t know what a dog would make of me. It sounds big, like a Rottweiler or a pit bull or something else that she probably has trained to attack. She’s like that. I’m willing to bet the dog would go for me, anyway, an apparition sneaking up the stairs. And I’m willing to bet that Aurelia’s dog is as scary as Aurelia.

  The truth is that I really don’t want to be close to Aurelia’s things. I don’t want to know anything about her. I don’t want to know her at all.

  Next.

  Staying gone like this is starting to hurt. There’s a feeling in my chest like something trying to get out, something pushing on my flesh. The next house is Samantha’s. I know she isn’t there, but I go inside. I go to her room.

  The funny thing is that of all The Girls, Sam and I were the closest to being actual real friends. When we were little kids, we took a ballet class together. I used to come here more when we were small. Her mum used to look after me after school sometimes. I can’t exactly remember why, but I remember that it stopped when her mum found out that my mum smoked pot. I remember Sam hissing to Aurelia in the cloakroom, “Mum says Yale’s mum’s a pothead.” And the horror in her voice.

  But it was a fake friendship, anyway. Do little kids have real friendships? It was forced by circumstance. Still, I used to love it here. Her mum always made butterscotch chip cookies. So good. She was like a storybook mum, always baking and pouring glasses of milk and braiding Sam’s hair and making her clothes by hand, which Sam hated.