My Invented Life

by Lauren Bjorkman

  The snipping stops. Dad twirls me to face him, his eyes serious like the day he told us Grandma Peterson died. “Your mom and I have talked about it,” he says, searching my face. “We said it wouldn’t change anything. Of course, we’d be sad about no grandchildren.”

  “Lesbians have ovaries, Dad. Anyway, it was just a hypothetical question.”

  “Of course.” He twirls me back and accidentally jabs my ear with the tip of the scissors.

  Please don’t Van Gogh me.

  “Your mom wondered that time you asked for a tool set for your birthday,” he says. “As if all that tractor driving she did in college wasn’t just as suspicious.”

  I can feel hot blood rise up my neck. “That’s so stereotypical,” I say.

  “True,” he says. “But stereotypes often contain a grain of truth.”

  The phrase not in this case dances on my tongue. If I say it aloud, though, he might figure out that I mean Eva.

  “Oops.” Dad pulls back the scissors. “I cut your shirt by mistake.”

  “That’s okay,” I say. “It’s stained anyway.”

  Elmo thinks he can handle having a lesbian daughter, but scissors speak louder than words. I thank him for the trim. Back in my room, I indulge in my latest secret pleasure, coming-out stories on the net. I read one by Cindy.

  Unlike many of you who post here, I was completely head over heels for boys at an early age. In high school alone, I had seven different boyfriends. None of them lasted long. I didn’t think anything of it. Until I met Frieda my freshman year of college. It was the first time I felt that way about a girl, and she turned out to be my soul mate. We’re still together three years later. I’ve never been happier.

  She didn’t notice she might like girls until she hit college? I am a bit of a tomboy. I asked for a tool set for my birthday. I’ve had five short-lived boyfriends. What if my obsession with boys turns out to be a repressed longing for girls?

  Chapter

  10

  I slide Better Than Chocolate into my computer DVD player, engaging the English subtitles in case a certain someone has her ear pressed to my wall. I’ve never seen a girl kiss another girl, and imagining the act gives me an odd feeling, like when I picture Gethsemane and Elmo having sex. My legs jiggle while I wait for the first love scene. By the time it happens, I’m so into the story that the making-out part is neither gross nor earth-shattering. Normal. Ish.

  A tap on the door gets me to click the stop button. Mom peeks in. “Lights out,” she says. “You need your cutie rest.” She smiles in a silly way.

  “I’m already too cute.”

  “Go to bed or I’ll reformat your hard drive.”

  “Okay, good night,” I say.

  When she’s gone, I stuff an old towel in the crack under my door, lock it, and watch the rest of the movie, wondering if the “real thing” has ever taken place in the next room over.

  I scoot into the school bike racks a few minutes after the bell. Fortunately, Mr. Beltz, who behaves as if a little whispering and note passing will cause the downfall of civilization, ignores tardiness. Go figure. With everyone safely dozing off in homeroom, I’m free to distribute my bumper stickers at will.

  The bottom of Bryan’s skateboard has an inviting blank spot. I peel off the backing and paste my sticker next to his PHANTOM, covering a bit of the skull and cross-bones, but oh well. I read the result with satisfaction. SAVE THE GAYS! But will he appreciate the little details like the clip art showing two boys holding hands and the Web address I invented—www.YouLoseAgain.com?

  I tag Carmen’s bike next. Not nice, but just deserts for the divots she’s made walking all over me with her spiky heels. Eva parks her car in the lot nearby. Should I tag her next? I waver. She asked me to give her the L Report at the Silo after school. That reminds me about the boxer shorts over the Barn door and how I need to take them down. But when I go to retrieve the ladder we use for aerial pranks, it’s not there.

  I circle to the front of the Barn. There’s Jonathan coming down the ladder, the boxer shorts dangling from his back pocket. He smiles at me, his gorgeous eyes flashing friendliness. For a second, I wonder if I’ve entered a parallel universe where I’m someone he likes.

  “You took them down?” I ask. “Hey, thanks.”

  He folds the ladder. “No big deal.” Together we carry it to the storage spot. He hands me the boxers from his pocket. “I thought Aunt S asked you . . . you know, to convert me, or something.”

  If I were a cartoon character, a little balloon with a light-bulb inside would appear over my head. How Jonathan doesn’t look like a typical juvenile delinquent, that he had to change schools, why he took down the insulting banner. I’ve been as oblivious as someone with an IQ in the single digits. Jonathan is gay. Then again, except for wearing dress shoes to school, he doesn’t act like the gay men I’ve met—Dad’s uncle and Mom’s teaching assistant—nor the ones I’ve seen in movies. No eyeliner, no effusive hand gestures, no high-pitched giggle to tip me off.

  “Convert you?” I ask. “Like convert you to straight? Sapphire wouldn’t do that.” I make the boxer shorts do a little dance. “I flirted with you because you’re cute.”

  He grabs them back. “Let’s burn them,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say, thinking he’s having me on.

  He takes off into the field behind the Barn, and I follow him. The contents of his pack impress me—matches, newspaper, and bottle of rubbing alcohol. He wads the paper to make a little nest around the shorts.

  “Are you a Boy Scout or something?” I ask.

  “Aunt S says I’m a pyro.”

  He pours the alcohol and lights a match. Flames shoot up spectacularly, and then quickly burn out. We stomp the embers together. I’ve been initiated into “the club” after all.

  “I never have any marshmallows when I need them,” I say. His smile encourages me to continue. “Now someone can finally tell me Sapphire’s real name.”

  He laughs out loud. “Sassafras? No? Sunshine? Don’t believe me? How about Summer?”

  “You’re not going to tell me,” I say.

  He shakes his head. I don’t know him well enough (yet) to tickle it out of him, so I drop it. For now.

  When we make it back to the pavement, Jonathan wipes the dew off his shoes with a handkerchief. Okay, I can’t picture Bryan doing that.

  I duck into the bathroom to wash my hands. Haiku written in permanent marker decorates the wall by the mirror. Since we’re near the English classrooms, some of it could be called literary—WHO’S AFRAID OF VAGINA WOOLF? and THOMAS HARDY GETS IT UP. A new addition reads ROZ IZ A CARPET MUNCHER. At first I don’t get the joke, but the adjacent illustration explains everything. I add a line of my own—LESBIANS ARE THE BEST THESBIANS. Lame, I know, but I’m late for class.

  Just as I reach my seat in homeroom, I notice Carmen’s purse on it, a leather barricade with fashionable pockets. She who hesitates looks dumb. My walk practically oozes unconcern as I stroll over to a chair next to Eyeliner Andie. She touches the back of my head where my beavertail used to be.

  “Better,” she says.

  Nico flashes me a micro smile before fixing his gaze on a fascinating poster about the water cycle.

  “Carmen put up the boxer shorts,” I say so she’ll understand I’m not as clueless as I look.

  “Now, that wasn’t hard, was it?” she says.

  Before lunch I duck into the bathroom to slather my eyes with indigo and bronze shadow. Bolstered by my exotic look, I head over to theater-geek central. I’ll show Bryan how hot a dyke can be. When I round the corner, an unwelcome scene unfolds before me—Carmen stuffing a Frisbee up the front of his shirt. Tramp! Fly-bitten flax-wench! The one-sided fight she staged with Eva makes perfect sense now. She wanted to go after Bryan free and clear.

  At this precise moment, Felicia’s invitation to volunteer in the cafeteria kitchen seems like a good idea. When I get there, she doesn’t notice me standing inches away from her t
rying not to slip on the treacherously wet floor. “Chef Roz reporting for duty,” I say.

  She opens a box of frozen pizzas. “You.”

  “At your service.”

  “You won’t be cooking anything. Go help Anita with the vegetables.” She points at a young woman by a steel counter.

  Anita is young and playful, which makes the work more fun than I expected. I practice my Spanish on her, and she teaches me the words they don’t cover in class. She compliments me on my eyeliner. Thirty minutes and one sliced finger later, I’m finished with my first shift. Felicia doesn’t thank me when I leave.

  After my last class, I go to the Barn for rehearsal. Since homeroom, Andie has added an iridescent green stripe to her eyeliner and folded over her pigtails so they point straight up from the top of her head. Not wanting to look like an inferior copy, I rush to the bathroom to remove my new eye makeup. Someone enters while I have my face in the sink. Luckily, that someone is only Sapphire.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Jonathan?” I ask her.

  She locks herself into a stall. “Tell you what about him?” Tinkle tinkle. I hate it when people hear me pee.

  “That he’s gay.”

  “He said that?” she says through the door.

  “Yes.” More or less.

  The soap dispenser has been empty since my freshman year. Ditto the paper towel dispenser. I dry my face on the inside of my sweatshirt. I hear toilet paper unfurling and the toilet flushing. She emerges from the stall.

  “Well, I’m not sure that he is,” she says matter-offactly. “Gay, I mean. The breakup with his girlfriend turned nasty. That could be the cause of his confusion.”

  She doesn’t meet my eyes when she says this. For once I’m speechless. While she washes her hands, I stare. Adults are beyond comprehension, and she has become one of them for the first time since I’ve known her. She blows on her hands to dry them. I don’t think to offer her my sweatshirt. We return to the stage without further conversation.

  In today’s scene, Nico plays the pitiful shepherd, Silvius, rejected by the woman he loves, Carmen/Phebe. Nico’s performance reminds me of the radio ads produced in Yolo Bluffs:

  “Oh, no, Susie! It’s only three days till Christmas, and I haven’t bought any presents.”

  “I know, let’s go to Annie’s Home Gifts. They have something for the whole family. Toys for the kids, a tea cozy for Aunt Betty, and an electric meat fork for Dad.”

  “Great! Let’s go right now.”

  After the first unsuccessful run-through, Sapphire attacks Nico with a bottle of styling mousse and a comb. He’s more attractive with a forehead. The new vulnerability doesn’t change the stiffness of his performance, though. Between scenes Carmen hangs on to him and whispers in his ear like he’s a finalist for Teen Idol. Whey-faced flirt-gill. She ate Bryan for lunch and is having Nico for a snack—so who did she devour for breakfast? She used to be such a prude. Never even had a boyfriend.

  Sapphire finally calls for a break, and Eva offers me something to eat—sliced peppers with ranch dressing. When I bite down, a crazy burning sensation starts with my lips and travels along my tongue, lighting my throat on fire. I do an immediate flip across the hardwood floor followed by extreme hopping and shrieking for water. Carmen pours a bottle of Evian over my head.

  “It’s not my hair, stupid, it’s my mouth!” I shout. At which point she sloshes water in my face and down my front.

  “I’m so sorry,” Eva says. “I didn’t know they were spicy.”

  There’s never a lie detector around when you need one. Not that I need one. I know this is another one of her ploys to undermine my performance. Even after downing a bucket of water, I can barely talk. Sapphire asks Carmen to take over my role since she knows all my lines. I watch the action from a place off to the side, glowering all the while until Bryan joins me. I try to bring my nervous mannerisms under control for his benefit.

  “How’s it going with your dad’s girlfriend?” I ask, stuffing my fingertips into my pockets.

  “Not good. She’s a total clean freak,” he says. “She called me a moron when I accidentally got some grease on her new kitchen towels.”

  “Harsh,” I say. My metal chair clunks as I stand up.

  “I’ll survive.”

  We watch Nico struggle through his lines one more time.

  “Do I ever sound that bad?” Bryan says.

  “Oh, please. You’re magnificent.”

  He turns toward me. “No. That shirt is magnificent,” he says.

  I look down. My bright pink bra shows through the wet cloth. My brain turns to Jell-O, the ridiculous kind with embedded fruit cocktail and mini marshmallows.

  “I don’t believe in pink,” I say. Onstage, Carmen delivers my next line with finesse. I take some consolation that while she’s usurping my starring role with Eva’s help, I’m usurping Eva’s perfect boyfriend. Yon Bryan has a lean and hungry look. Translation? Who am I to resist? I kiss him on the lips.

  Chapter

  11

  The second our lips touch, impulse control kicks in for once. I back away.

  “Don’t stop.” He drags me behind the speaker. “I’ll make you forget your grrlfriend.”

  Oh, I get it now. Fury takes over from confusion. I’m a test of his virility. He’s thinking, “One kiss from a sexy scoundrel like me and *poof* she’s hetero again.” I make to slap him, and he grabs my wrists. He has to let go when my knee threatens his prize possessions. The course of true love never did run smooth. Translation? The difference between a prince and a toad is overrated because they are both just boys underneath the glitter and the warts.

  I exit without a backward glance, buttoning my laceedged cardigan over my wet shirt. Did Eva see our little kiss? I’ll find out soon enough if she keeps our date at the Silo. I zoom toward town on my scooter, and the cold air clears my head. While I wait for my espresso at a little table in the café, I text Eva to gauge her mood. I need to be prepared.

  “Darest thou show thy vllns face?” I write. Shakespearean language is murder on the fingers. When my shot arrives, I doctor it with generous amounts of milk and sugar. Mom says caffeine will stunt your growth. Too bad she didn’t tell me that before my growth spurt.

  Eva’s reply: “I hsten frthwth 2 yor side.”

  So she didn’t see me kiss Bryan. I still have the high moral ground in our little war, and I plan to press my advantage. When she arrives and settles in next to me with her decaf chai, I stare her down without saying a word. This technique encourages confession according to several psychology Web sites. Ten minutes from now, she’ll be prostrate on the floor apologizing for poisoning me at rehearsal.

  “Don’t be like that,” she says. “You’re not usually wimpy about a little spice.”

  “So you admit it,” I say. “Did Carmen put you up to it?”

  “Just give me the L Report,” she whispers. “And quietly.”

  The café is deserted except for a middle-aged man with a comb-over and the barista, whose bored expression says that she could care less whether we’re discussing the life cycle of ferns or the Kama Sutra. Besides, no one even knows what the L stands for except us. I’m about to shout “Lesbian Report” when I notice Eva sitting on the edge of her seat folding and unfolding her napkin. I lower my sword. What’s done is done. Translation? I suffer from adoration-induced amnesia. Chili peppers, what chili peppers?

  “What do you want to know?” I say quietly.

  “Anything. What happened at school today.”

  “Okay,” I say. “When I came into the locker room, Jada had her top off. You know that uptight girl on student council? My locker happens to be close to hers. When I walked past, she covered her chest with her T-shirt.”

  “Details,” Eva says. She rests her hand on my arm. It feels good, like when Mom used to drape a sheet over the kitchen table and we would crawl under pretending to be prairie dog sisters in the dim light.

  I ham it up. “Her eyes g
ot all huge. She acted like I might grab her breasts and ravish her. Boil-brained simp.”

  Eva’s look says sympathy and disgust, with a little fascination sprinkled on top.

  “I mean, her chest is as flat as a soccer field,” I add.

  “So what’d you do?”

  “I told her the truth. Her boobs were nothing to look at. I’ve seen mosquito bites bigger.”

  Eva laughs so hard that she chokes on her chai. “You’re a riot.”

  Actually, this whole incident barely happened, and I didn’t say anything at all to Jada. But what’s a little vacation from reality if I can make Eva laugh?

  “There’s more,” I say. “Jonathan’s one of us.”

  “You mean . . . ?” she asks in a breathy voice, one hand fluttering over her heart. “A long-lost Peterson? I always wanted a brother.”

  “No,” I say, but I’m laughing too. “He’s gay.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Pretty much. And he took down the boxer shorts over the Barn for me.” I skip the part about the bonfire.

  “Cool.” She brings her creased napkin to her lips.

  The door opens, and I look up. Eyeliner Andie and Nico enter holding hands.

  Eva stands. “Well, I’m off,” she says. She and Andie nod at each other as they pass.

  Andie sits down next to me. “Why did you leave rehearsal early?” she asks.

  Nico stops hovering, sits down too, and picks at an unidentifiable glob on the table with his nail. “Because of my sorry acting,” he says. With the mousse still in his hair, I can see his eyes up close for once. His eyelids droop downward in an attractive curve.

  “Your acting is fine,” I say. No point in lowering his morale now that he’s been cast as Silvius. The minute the playbill is posted, we theater geeks become a team.

  He laughs through his nose and makes eye contact with the table. What an unlikely couple they are. Eyeliner Andie lights up the room like a neon sign when she talks, while Nico flickers on and off—her fifteen-watt sidekick. Her nails are painted denim blue with gold zippers down the center. Obviously my problem is boring nail polish.