“Here we go! Opening kickoff. Ooh, this is so exciting!” said Doreen, clapping. “Go, Hawkeyes!”
“It certainly is exciting!” Biz said to Doreen. Then, in Heidi’s ear, “What are the rules of this game, Heidi? Do you know? I should have read up on it before.”
Heidi lowered the camera. She happened to know that the pilled, filthy, baby-blue hat that Biz wore over two greasy braids was Italian cashmere and that it had come with a matching scarf that Biz had lost. Just lost somewhere, left behind. It was a splendid scarf, too, soft and long enough to wrap and wrap around an appreciative neck. Heidi felt the loss of that scarf physically, as if it had been hers to cherish—which it would have been, eventually. Contempt and jealousy bubbled up from her guts. But she swallowed it. Poor Biz looked panicked.
“Don’t fret, dollface,” Heidi whispered, passing her the flask. “Just follow my lead.” Biz nodded. “Woo!” Heidi screamed. “Let’s go, Hamilton!”
“Yeah!” Biz tried. She stood and waved her arms. “Hurrah for the team!” She sat back down with a thud. “How was that?”
“Good.” Heidi patted her friend on the knee. “You almost sounded like a teenager there. A teenager from Mars, but that’s not nothing.”
“Thank you,” said Biz proudly. She took another shot of schnapps. “Minty!”
“Careful there, sport.” Heidi screwed the cap on and dropped the half-empty flask back into her purse. “We don’t want you to get sloppy.”
“Don’t we? Where is Simon? Is he out there?”
Doreen clicked her tongue with irritation. “No, Biz. The defense is out now. He’s the quarterback. See? He’s there on the sidelines. He’s number ten.”
“Ah, yes. He’s a wonderful ssssitter, isn’t he?” Biz stared longingly at the camera in Heidi’s hands.
“He’s wonderful at everything,” Doreen replied. Heidi hid her rolling eyes by peering through the viewfinder. She saw Simon sitting on the bench, but instead of looking at the action on the field, he was staring right at them. A teammate was trying to say something to him, but he wasn’t listening. Heidi lowered the camera and turned to Doreen, who was cheering on Hamilton’s defense. If she noticed Simon’s unfaltering stare she made no indication. Heidi had enjoyed her share of admirers, but Simon’s possession was beyond what even she had experienced.
“Fascinating,” said Heidi, resuming her spying gaze through the camera.
“Indeed!” Biz said boisterously from her hunched-over position near Heidi’s knee as she poked through the Vuitton.
“Hey! Can I help you? It’s not polite to rummage through another girl’s handbag, Ms. Gibbons-Brown.” Heidi kicked away Biz’s prying hands and fished out the flask that she knew was her object of desire. She raised it high above her head. “I would expect better of someone with your upbringing.”
“I wasn’t! I mean, technically it’s my handbag.” Biz reached for the bottle, but Heidi had longer arms than she did. “Technically.”
“Right, well. Still.”
“Don’t be stingy with the bottle, Heidster. Pass ’er over! Schnapp me, baby!” With a resigned sigh Heidi handed Biz the flask. Meanwhile, some activity on the field had fired up the crowd. Doreen whooped and hollered.
“That’s right! Don’t mess with the Hawks!”
“Doreen is, like, a sssuperfan!” said Biz with a giggle. “Go sssports!”
“Here he comes,” Doreen whispered. She grasped Heidi’s hand. And though as a policy Heidi did not tolerate hand-holding, especially from another girl, she let it slide. Her friend’s excitement was palpable—her pale, lovely skin flushed from the cold and the thrill of anticipation, her eyes sparkly and wide. “Heidi, just, you won’t be able to . . .” But the girl’s emotion was too much; she could not even finish the sentence.
“I know I will,” said Heidi, her heart filled with tenderness for her friend. The Hamilton offense took their positions at the line of scrimmage.
“Simon’s the one with his hands up that other guy’s bottom?”
“Biz, hush.” Heidi raised the camera to watch the snap. He looked magnificent, Heidi had to admit, as he caught the ball from the snapper and hustled back to make the pass. But he was strangely listless. His position with his arm behind his ear was all strength and grace, but there seemed to be no fire behind it. When at last he let his pass go, the ball came out in a soaring, lazy trajectory that bounced on the line and dribbled out of bounds, beyond the reach of any receiver.
Heidi felt Doreen’s body tense beside her. Doreen shook her head. “I don’t under—”
“He’s probably just warming up,” said Heidi. “It’s only one pass.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Although . . .” Doreen didn’t continue, but Heidi knew what she was thinking. Out on the field, Simon seemed not just unapologetic, but triumphant. His upward gaze toward the girls’ position was proud and sneering, as if the bad pass was part of his own secret victory. Against whom, Heidi had no idea.
“Second and ten!” Heidi yelled with a rallying clap. “Go, Hawkeyes!” But Simon continued to perform as woodenly in the subsequent downs as he had in the first. Play after play, as the game wore on, the Hamilton offense failed to convert a single down. And after every lob, bad handoff, sack, interception—of which he threw no fewer than five in the first half—he repeated the same strange triumphant smirk up toward Doreen.
“I’m speechless. I—oh, you probably think I made it all up, but I promise you this is not like him. It’s just so disappointing!” Doreen cried bitterly. “What could he be thinking?”
Meanwhile, the crowd began to boo. They called Simon out by name, yelling nasty, cruel things at him.
“Hey! Hey! Leave him alone!” Biz yelled back. “What have you ever done in your life? Huh, Fatty? How about you, Ugly Shirt? Go, Simon Vale!”
“Shh, Biz, don’t bother. Let them yell. They have a right to. Boo!” she yelled, using her hands to magnify her voice. “Simon Vale, you suck!”
“Doreen!” Biz pulled on her friend’s coat. “He’ll see you! He’s looking right up here.”
But Doreen would not sit down. She hissed and jeered at her beloved as he maneuvered mechanically on the field, failing to make any gains. At long last the half ended and he trotted into the locker room, waving with the same dumb rapture he possessed when he first entered. Doreen sat down hard on the bleacher, her face frozen, her trembling lips slightly open. The band struck up what may have been a medley of disco or popular Ukrainian folk tunes or movie songs from the future. Fans began to file out of the stands, grumbling and incredulous.
“He’ll be better, Dorie, don’t dessspair,” Biz slurred. “Maybe he was nervous!”
“I don’t think so. I was so wrong about everything.” Doreen buried her face in her hands.
“But football—is it really that important?” Heidi asked.
“Of course it is! It’s everything! Without it he’s just a boring public school kid from Leaving Place. So conventional. So utterly unexceptional. Oh, this is a mess. I’m sorry I wasted your time. Why don’t you go? Yes.” Doreen wiped away her tears. “Yes, there’s no need to stick around and freeze to death in order to witness this embarrassment.”
“Normally I would insist on staying,” said Heidi, “but I’m afraid that Biz might have overserved herself.”
Biz was waving her hat over her head and shaking her hips. “Macho macho man. La-la-la-la-la macho man!”
Heidi lay a hand on Doreen’s shoulder. “He’s obviously very handsome. There’s no reason that shouldn’t be enough. After all, there won’t be any football at the Fall Dance.”
“There won’t be any Simon Vale, either.”
“Really?” Heidi hoped Doreen couldn’t hear the pleasure in her voice.
“Can’t you understand? He disgusts me now! Oh, it’s revolting. I couldn’t stand to be held i
n his arms, I’d rather die. Go, go. Let me wallow in this humiliation for the rest of the game. Please. I want to do it alone. I will come by your room tomorrow. Please.”
“Poor Dorie,” said Biz. She took her camera from Heidi and aimed it at Doreen’s despondent face, but Doreen immediately grasped the lens and pushed it away.
“If you put that thing in my face one more time, Elizabeth, I am going to sock you. I mean it. And shatter your precious camera into a thousand pieces.”
“Sorry,” said Biz. “Doreen—”
“Don’t.” Doreen shrugged off her friend’s touch. “Just leave me alone! Go on, get out of here! Can’t you see my heart is breaking?” Doreen shoved her hands into her pockets and closed her eyes until her friends had gone.
So it was over before it began, without Heidi having to meddle. Lucky break!
As Heidi hauled Biz home and put her to bed, she thought of Gordon Lichter. With the right trinket he might be able to lure Doreen to the dance as his date after all. Something pretty but not too flashy, something that said there was more where that came from. And there would have to be a dress, of course. The promise of a dress could do wonders.
“Hello, Gordon? Listen, I know Doreen hasn’t been around much of late. . . . No, no! She hasn’t been avoiding you. She’s been sick. . . . Oh no, nothing serious. Some kind of something, but she’s better now. Listen, I think you and I should talk Fall Dance, okay? . . . I know you were, but you don’t have to give up. I think there are ways to make her, uh, amenable. But you have to be quick, the store is only open for another hour.”
In downtown Hamilton, the second half of the homecoming game wore on much as the first. Even the visiting team seemed bored with its own easy victory. The crowd became thinner and thinner, until, when at last the clock wound down at the end of the game, the bleachers were mostly empty. From the lips of the few fans that remained, the name Simon Vale emerged like a curse. Doreen could hear it and feel it in her body like a lashing. A hero fallen is a disgrace, Doreen thought, an abomination. Better to be ordinary your whole life than to so recklessly squander genius. Simon’s performance insulted all who had glorified him, including Doreen.
Oh, how she used to cherish every step that brought him nearer to her, how she would skip and rush through the empty high school, unable to control herself. To see and be seen by him, to hold and be held by Simon Vale—that was all Doreen had wanted then. But on this evening she could neither skip nor hurry. If her shoes were made of lead, it would require no more effort than it did to inch herself through the abandoned halls of Hamilton High, her heart heavy with shame.
By the time she arrived at the door of the locker room, everyone had already left. Only Simon remained, looking scrubbed in his sweatshirt and jeans, his expression dreamy and—could it possibly be? Happy.
“Doreen!” he called, pulling her rigid body into his warmth. “Wasn’t I awful?”
“Horrible,” Doreen agreed. She could barely look him in the face. He took her hand to walk her out, but she pulled away.
“Are you angry? Ah, you don’t understand, yet. That’s okay. I’ll explain it all, little Dorie. First, come here. No need to be so serious. Let me kiss you.”
But Doreen wouldn’t let him get near her. “Understand? How could I possibly? You were an embarrassment, Simon. My friends were bored—I was bored. And the crowd! Are you sick? Have you got a fever or something? Maybe you should have stayed on the bench for this one. Really, I never saw anything so humiliating.”
“Sick?” Simon laughed aloud, flicking the locks on the lockers as he passed them by. “Doreen! I’ve never felt better. Listen.” He stopped and grabbed her by the wrists.
“Ow! Simon, let go of me.”
“Baby, don’t you see? Football . . .” He wrinkled up his face as if grossed out by the word. “Football was all I had before. It was my escape from this blech, sorry excuse for a life I had. Leaving Place, remember? What kind of name is that for a street?” He chuckled to himself. “But once I had you, once you told me you loved me, oh, Dorie! Who needs football? Who needs to throw and run and jump around? What for? To win the adoration of regular people? Who needs them? I already have the adoration of someone so much better! Doreen.” He held her by the shoulders. “Why should I want to escape from life now? Now that I have everything I ever wanted?” He leaned in to kiss her, and she rolled out of the way.
“No! Don’t touch me!”
“Baby, don’t be mad at me. Is it because of your friends? Yep.” He nodded. “I can see that might have been embarrassing for you. But hey, I’ll meet them at the dance, right? I’ll make it up to ’em then. Doreen, babe, why aren’t you looking at me?”
In fact, Doreen had huddled against the wall, her face buried in her hands. “You ruined it,” she whispered bitterly.
“What? Sweetie, I can’t hear you.” Simon laid a big paw on Doreen’s shoulder. The feel of his hand repulsed and enraged her. She flipped around and pushed him away.
“You ruined it!” she screamed. “You killed my love!” Despite his size, the thrust of Doreen’s rebuff sent Simon reeling backward. When he regained his stance he stood blinking at her as if she was speaking another language. Finally, he smiled.
“That’s not right,” he said, coming to some kind of pleasant conclusion. “Nope. No way.”
“You don’t get it. You idiot! I loved you because you were exceptional. Because you had brilliance in you—specialness. But the way you lumbered around out there. Ugh! I can’t bear to think that I ever let you come near me! You’re just some lame public school nothing! Some boy!” And this last came out of a mouth so pinched with disdain, in a screeching voice so heavy with spite and violence, that it wounded Simon like a shot to the gut.
“But you can’t mean—”
“I never want to see you again! The sight of your face makes me want to vomit. Do you hear me? Don’t call me, don’t come find me. I wish you were dead! Just so I could be sure that I would never see you again!”
Simon crumpled down to the floor, the great athlete reduced to a cowering, quivering thing. “No, no, it’s not true. It can’t be,” he moaned. “I love you, Doreen. I need you. Please! Don’t you understand? I won’t make it without you!” He crawled over to her and threw his arms around her legs. Seeing him like that inspired no sympathy in Doreen Gray. All the warmth and affection she’d felt only that morning was gone. She felt nothing for him now, and his dramatics did not lower or raise her estimation of him—she had only one feeling left, and it was the desire to be elsewhere.
“I don’t care,” she said, and kicking him away, she walked out of Hamilton High School forever. She slammed the door behind her, shutting out the sound of his pathetic sobbing. The cool autumn air on her face smelled like relief.
“Good-bye to all that!” she said. She huddled into Biz’s beautiful coat and hastened her pace home to Chandler Academy.
Cutting the dead weight out of her life lightened Doreen’s step and her mood. The quad was lit up for the evening and crossed at intervals by students traveling in pairs and packs between the library or the dining hall to their dormitories, laughing in a way that Doreen herself sometimes laughed now—comfortably, as if the possibilities for the future were endless.
And weren’t they? Only that morning, Doreen’s fantasies had been so caught up with Simon that she had barely thought of her own future except insofar as it pertained to him. And at what cost? Her grades had been getting steadily worse, she’d spent so much time away from campus—physically and mentally—that she had failed to make more inroads with the popular kids, disappointing Heidi and herself. Doreen had simply allowed herself to become distracted, to take this amazing opportunity for granted. But now she had to get serious. She had to make the most of her two short years at Chandler, to set herself up for the glittering life Heidi always talked about, the kind of life she deserved.
A towering pile of books greeted her in the dorm. “Time to hunker down,” she said to herself. She might not have been as good a student as Biz, but she was clever enough, and she would have to improve her grades if she wanted to get into a good university. “Yes,” she said. “No more distractions.” As blissful as it felt to float around with her mind only on Simon and memories of their kisses, it was nice to feel more like herself again. It was like returning from some magical vacation in a tropical paradise, only to find herself surprisingly happy to be home. At least, Doreen imagined it was like that—she’d never been on a vacation.
Doreen sat on her bed and passed her hand over her comforter. It was soft white eyelet. She’d had it since she had been a child, and feeling the nubby cotton under her fingers made her feel grounded, like she knew who she was after all these changes. And here she was, changed again. Truly, she felt an internal shift, as if the confrontation with Simon had made a mark on her. She looked up at her reflection in the closet door mirror, however, and saw the same porcelain-skinned girl with the black flowing curls that she had become accustomed to seeing.
“Just one peek,” Doreen said to her stuffed elephant, Mopey, who seemed to give her a chastising look from his position near her pillow as she reached across to the drawer in her nightstand. “Then I will hit the books, I swear.” Earlier in the semester, she would look at the photograph almost daily, when she was first learning to navigate the perks of her new face and body. But ever since she saw Simon Vale play quarterback at Hamilton High, she’d forgotten all about it. Now she slipped the paper out from the drawer with giddy anticipation.
“Mopey, let’s see what Mama used to look like, shall we?” she said with a wicked little giggle.
At first glance, the picture seemed just as she remembered it. Her flesh protruded unflatteringly from the red dress, her expression meek and ill at ease. But then—it was strange, but she thought she saw a difference, a slight tonal shift. She took the picture over to her desk and studied it under her lamp.
Doreen Page 9
