by Karen Rivers
Sam was okay back then. That was before she got in too tight with The Girls. Before Madison was even at our school. Before Sam turned into someone better than me. Before she started hating me for whatever it is that they hate so much.
Her mum and dad are drinking wine (wine seems like such a proper, adult thing to drink, so not like my parents drinking POG and smoking dope, that I’m actually jealous) — I can hear the clink of glass against the marble counter, the glug, glug, glug of it being poured . They’re cooking something in the kitchen. I hear chopping and sizzling. It smells incredibly good, garlicky and like frying meat. I’m leaving wet footprints everywhere on the shiny wood floors. Samantha’s room is papered over with pictures of models posing, models caught at airports, models on magazine covers, models on catwalks. The girl has a problem, I think. She’s five feet tall. Does she imagine this being her own life?
I think, it would be so easy to get her to like me. I think of this morning in the bathroom with Michael. One little compliment. I study the pictures. There are a lot of Gisele Bündchen. I could say, “You know, you look a little like Gisele.” It wouldn’t be totally untrue. She does, a bit. Maybe. It’s a stretch, but it would make her happy. Maybe that’s all there is to it, just making them happy.
I sit on her bed, leaving more moisture from the rain. She still has the white ornate dresser and desk set from when she was little. Her walls are still painted pink. A stuffed dog called Snoop is still tucked into her sheets by her pillow.
Weird.
I touch her things but I can’t feel them and, as I touch them, they fade away. I hold Snoop in my arms and then put him back. For a minute, I think about looking for a diary but I don’t. I don’t know Sam now, but I used to. I don’t want to stumble on too much. You know? Then I take a scarf. I don’t know why. I just take it. It looks like something that would be itchy, purple and green with small jewels knitted into the wool. I’d never wear it. It’s ugly. I stuff it into my coat pocket.
I go out the front door, leave it swinging open behind me. I bet the cat will escape. I bet Sam will get blamed.
Last, but not least, I guess: Madison’s.
Madison’s house is huge. It’s comic-book big, like something that isn’t real. I bet they have staff.
I stand at the front door, hesitating. What am I looking for? Why did this feel like something I needed to do?
There are alarm stickers all over the glass. Could I trigger an alarm? I’m tired. And I’m too scared to try the heavy wood door. Too scared of getting caught. Her house is so huge and serious and intimidating. It’s beautiful, too. No wonder she acts so entitled. Look what she has; look where she lives.
I give up without even trying. It feels like I’ve been faded forever.
I reappear and jog through the rain, which has now faded to a drizzle, like the intensity of the weather (of everything) has just passed. I go back to my scooter. Lights are on in Michael’s house now. Cars in the driveway. They’re home, then. I’m tempted to look again, see what they are doing. Listen. But I force myself to leave.
I go home.
I feel strange. Buoyed up. All the lights are on. The living room, dining room, kitchen, all the rooms are empty. I start to go into my own room and hesitate. There is one more thing I have to do, to see. I want to see my parents. I want to ... I can’t explain. Just be with them, I guess, but not have to talk about Yale or anything. I just want to sit with them for a few minutes. That’s all. So even though it’s making my skin throb in a way that’s reminding me to get back to myself, I vanish again.
I’m not home either.
I go downstairs.
I can hear Mum and Dad, typing, typing, typing. The smell of marijuana is everywhere, crawling through the vents, saturating. Overwhelming all the other normal smells. I crouch under the table, glad that they are so ensconced that they wouldn’t see me even if they looked. It feels safe to be there, seeing them when they can’t see me. I can’t explain, but it’s what I wanted. For a second I’m reminded of when I was really small, like two or three, and I ran away from my mum in a busy shopping mall. Then I couldn’t find her. I ran and ran and finally someone found me, picked me up and called my name — my first name because I didn’t know my last — through the PA system. And my mum appeared, completely calm and unharried. In retrospect, she probably hadn’t noticed I was gone, but at the time it felt like I was being saved from something so big and scary it couldn’t even be mentioned.
“Are you done yet?” says Mum. Her voice startles me.
“No,” says Dad. “I’ll tell you the second I’m out.”
“Are we doing the right thing?” she says.
“It’s the last time,” he says. “Think of it like we’re Robin Hood.” He laughs, and then so does she, the strange laugh she gets when she’s been smoking, giggling, girlish and so amazingly irritating.
I suddenly get the strange feeling that maybe my sister is here in the room. Invisible, like me. Hunkered down by the filing cabinet. In the messy pile of empty boxes in the corner.
But, no, I can see so much. I can see everything. I can see dust, the dry skin on Mum’s nose, a tiny feather stuck to my dad’s hair. I’d definitely see the apparition of another person, crouched under the window, in the corner, or behind the couch.
Mostly I wonder if she looks for me. Or if maybe she just feels like something is missing. Something isn’t right.
I sit back, close my eyes. Rock.
Wait, Robin Hood? What are they doing? Some kind of new game?
I crawl out from under the table to look. I stand behind my dad. His screen is scrolling numbers fast. Is that what programming looks like? It makes me feel carsick, like hairpin curves in long roads taken too fast.
“Don’t take too much,” says Mum. “Remember last time, that was too much, someone must have noticed. We agreed to only much smaller fractions of pennies.”
“I know,” he says. “Relax. It can’t be traced.”
Traced?
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
My parents are robbing a bank.
I crawl back under the table. I try to think, but it’s hard to think when I’m invisible. It’s hard to make sense. My parents — my parents — are bank robbers.
Last time?
This time?
The last time?
How many banks have they robbed? What are they doing with the money? Not buying me new cars, that’s for sure. Who are they giving it to?
I stand up again, and watch. The money looks like it’s going out of one account into another. I can’t see where it’s going. Maybe they aren’t keeping it.
“Think of it as charity,” Dad says. “Take from the rich, give to the poor.”
“Is it really like that?” says Mum. “Or is it just that we’re selfish and want our daughter to be well taken care of?”
“It’s both,” says Dad firmly. “The big banks don’t need this money. They won’t notice it’s gone. And it will make her life better. Everyone’s life better who is in that place. It’s the right thing to do.”
That place?
I’m reeling. Bank robbers. I half-expect sirens to suddenly sound, the room to be bathed in red and blue light, teams of SWAT members to crawl through the windows.
I sit back down again.
I stay there for some time: an hour? More? Until I start to feel so weak that I think I might sleep, and who knows if I would suddenly reappear while I’m sleeping? Have to explain why I was there, crouched under the table?
I go upstairs. And I let myself come back, but only in the privacy of my room. It’s funny, my room is starting to feel smaller and smaller to me. Almost like I’ve already grown up and left home, and am only now coming back to visit and remembering who I was. Someone who I’m not anymore. So when I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror, it surprises me that I still look like me. I still look younger than I am. My hair, my skin, everything is the same.
How can I look the same?
I’m not.
****
Tony
Chapter 11
Mum went back to work. I can’t believe it. This morning when I got back from rowing practice, dripping with sweat from the run home from the docks, she startled me in the kitchen. She was wearing an actual suit. Dark grey. Pressed. No evidence of dog hair. Stockings with no runs. A shirt underneath her jacket that looked hopeful: a colourful silky one that I hadn’t seen her wear for longer than I can remember. She had on makeup. I could tell because there was a chunk of black mascara clinging to her bangs. I reached over and picked it off for her. She smiled.
Smiled.
Her heels click-clacked on the floor. She ate breakfast like nothing was unusual, kissed me on the sweat-soaked cheek, which she hasn’t done for months. Like she did it every day. Like she hadn’t been lying on the couch forever. Crying.
Before I knew it, before I could figure out exactly what to say, she was gone, walking down the drive to her car. Holding her leather briefcase. Swinging it.
I felt almost disoriented, like I was still dreaming or imagining it. But no, it was real. The car started and pulled away. There was a lump in my throat like I was going to cry, but I didn’t let myself. I’ve been crying too easily lately. Too much.
I have to suck it up. Get over it. Move on. Focus on the future. Give myself the kind of pep talk that Coach gives us before a regatta. I got into the shower fast, like hurrying through the routine of it would make me stop thinking so much. Would make the strange feeling stop as suddenly as it began.
In the past few days, something has been in the air. Not just the actual air, although it is heavy outside, like a thunderstorm is coming. Darker than it should be. But it’s more than that. I can’t pinpoint it. I just feel like something’s wrong. My spidey senses tingling.
Last night, I saw Israel and Michael, heads together: his dark, hers so blonde. They looked like models in a commercial for Abercrombie or something. They were talking so close, his lips must have been on her ear. Touching her skin.
Israel’s been avoiding me, really obviously. I’m not imagining it; I couldn’t be. Maybe I deserve it. I was a dick to him the other day and obviously he was reeling about all the stuff with his parents and I wasn’t there for him. I owed him more than that. After all, he was there for me. He’s like my fucking brother and I was a jerk.
I waited for him like always after school to give him a ride, but then I saw him climbing into Michael’s Jeep. Casually tossing his bag into the back like he did it every day. Didn’t even glance in my direction, and I felt like an asshole, sitting there in the car with my engine idling, waiting for nothing.
Stupid, but I felt jealous. Not of him, but of her. Fuck it. He’s my friend, isn’t he? Don’t friends come first? Blood brothers? We did that, you know, when we were drinking one time. We were getting sappy about our friendship in a way that would never have happened if we were sober. Little kid stuff that is taboo when you’re not, well, a little kid. That thing where you cut your thumb with a pocket knife and hold it against your friend’s thumb and swear that forever, no matter what, you’ll be friends.
Even when I’m pissed off at him, I still kind of need that.
But I still think I had a right to be mad.
And I am mad. I feel mad at everyone, as if my anger is bubbling under my skin like some kind of acne about to erupt everywhere. People are acting strangely. Wrong. Like everyone is playing out of position. Rowing port when they usually row starboard. Playing defence when they are normally on the offensive line. Making it so I don’t know how to act, to react.
For example, Samantha was texting me yesterday, stuff that she shouldn’t have been saying. Stuff that sounded wrong coming from her to me, or to anyone for that matter. Like she saw it in a movie and she thought it would make her seem hot, when it just made her seem awkward. Messages like, ME + YOU = HOT. I couldn’t even look her in the eye. Hyperaggressive girls like that freak me out. It’s like being hunted.
What gives with that? I don’t think we’ve ever even really talked before, except in passing. Except that she’s always been around the same people as me.
I get that we’re all older and all that. More mature. Whatever. Can’t we just get through this year, this last year of school, and then all go our separate ways and not have to care about one another anymore?
I’ve gotta admit, it’s more than bugging me that Michael and Is are ... well, what are they? I don’t know. It’s not like she’s “mine” or something. I didn’t even call her. What kind of person am I, anyway? A jerk, that’s who.
I just didn’t know how to do it. I mean, I knew how to do it but I didn’t know how to follow through. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t picture us together, there just wasn’t anything there. There wasn’t enough. She’s pretty, she thinks I’m cute or whatever, but still, it didn’t click.
How can you call someone up and say that? I was just waiting for the right time, and it didn’t come.
And now she’s with Israel, so I guess I’m off the hook.
It scares me a bit that I don’t feel more toward Michael. Like maybe I’m more like Joe than I thought — more removed, distant, disconnected. But then I look at my parents. Did they ever “like” each other? Did my mum ever jump on the phone when Dad called? Did Dad feel anything when he kissed her that was something different than just biology?
It all makes me feel disoriented. Mad. At myself, mostly.
And maybe I do like someone.
Maybe I like Yale. I remember that one day, when I saw her running. I liked her then, even though “liked” isn’t a strong enough word. I just fell for her. And to be honest, it didn’t go away. She looked so ... I don’t know. I was attracted to her. I am attracted to her. She has those eyes, those amazing eyes. And besides, there’s something about her.
Even though I know it’s all wrong. And it would be social suicide, too. I know that. I’m not an idiot. Great way to end my school year, trying to hook up with the girl that everyone hates for being too human, for messing up. Lately she’s just looked so sad. I guess I could have a thing for sad girls.
And Michael? For a second there, I thought she was sad, and then I realized she was just shallow. She sure took up with Is pretty quickly and he’s my best friend. That’s bad, no matter how you look at it. Bad of both of them. Really rude, to say the least.
I guess maybe I’m a bad kisser. Maybe that was all it took. It’s not like I have so much practice, but I’ve been around. I mean, it wasn’t my first kiss and no one has complained before.
I just...
I understand sports. Sports are easy. You get into the boat, you row. You go to the basketball court, you shoot some hoops. Simple.
I don’t know what else to do but I have to do something so I go into my room and throw on some clothes. Then I dig the letters from the colleges out again and look at them closely. Maybe that is the answer, after all. There’s nothing for me here, anyway. Maybe if I go somewhere and row and win, then I’ll be someone other than Israel’s best friend. I’ll be me. Myself.
I guess I’d be dumb not to get one thing for sure: Michael’s eye probably was always on Israel. He’s The One. The one all the girls want. He’s the big star.
I hate that I feel jealous about it. I hate that it pisses me off. Hate it so much that I want to punch something. I want something to hurt more than just my muscles from working out. Like really hurt. Bones crunching. Bleeding.
I don’t. But I do.
Man, I’m so messed up.
The things I don’t understand could fill a book. Like my mum. My dad. Joe. Michael. Israel. Samantha.
Yale.
The sad, fucked-up thing is that I’m mad at everyone for just not getting me at all. Not that there is much to get, but somehow it feels like no one in the whole world knows me. Like the “real” me, whoever that is.
Who am I? I have no one to ask.
I miss my b
rother. He was a fuck-up, sure. But he never would have stabbed me in the back.
Although I guess he did, didn’t he? In the end, he did it worse than anyone.
I grab my keys and head out, drive back down to the rowing club. I should be at school but I can’t bring myself to go. And I need to work out. I need to do it in a way that I can’t fight. In a way, it’s like an addiction. The exhaustion point. The pushing. I’ll get on the erg — the rowing machine. I can work out so hard that the ringing in my ears will stop. I’ll go ten kilometres. That’s a long way. That’ll take a long time. And at the end of it, I’ll be exhausted. I’ll be able to sleep the rest of the day away. I’ll be so tired that none of this will matter.
Not as much, anyway.
****
Michael
Chapter 12
Michael doesn’t know why she thought that going on this ski trip would be a good idea. She’d had an idea, way back then (has it only been a couple of weeks?) when she signed up that she and Tony would be together. She imagined digital pictures that she’d frame and hang on her wall later. A shot of them in the snow, laughing, her hair in two braids sticking out from under her new pale blue cashmere toque. Something she would take with her to college, to remember her high school boyfriend, to intimidate the boyfriends still to come with his good looks. His height. His athleticism.
Well, that’s over. That whole idea has evaporated into thin air. Pictures are being taken, but she doesn’t want anything to do with them. Not with Israel’s face pressed against hers. Not with her expression of frigid barely concealed dislike that she’s sure she can’t hide. Besides, she has a blemish on her chin that is as glaring as a signal on a lighthouse. Disgusting.
She ruined it. Everything. Her skin (probably that chocolate sundae she ate last week, probably also the reason for her tightening pants, her overall bulgy awfulness). Tony. Her plan. Tony won’t be The One now. Her idea backfired horribly, his interest in her did not pick up at the sight of her with Israel. He still hasn’t called. Never called. Probably never intended to call. And now she’s stuck with Israel (better than being alone, probably, socially it is) but she’s not going to let him be The One. No way. For one thing, he’d make fun of her for being a virgin. Or worse, he wouldn’t believe her.
