My Invented Life

by Lauren Bjorkman

  From the east to western Ind,

  No jewel is like Rosalind.

  Her worth—

  “Did someone take my script?” Eva interrupts loudly.

  “Quiet, please,” Sapphire says.

  I launch into my poem again, but halfway through, Eva’s watch alarm goes off.

  “Sorry,” she says, feigning confusion. When I begin for the third time, I’m so out of the zone that I sound as flat as a rice paddy.

  When Eva enters the scene to tell me that the love of my life has appeared in the forest, I say, “Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? I prithee tell me who is it quickly—” at which point her cell bursts into song.

  “I forgot to turn it off,” she says. Sapphire confiscates it anyway.

  In the next part, Bryan and I are alone onstage. Rosalind, disguised as a man, offers to cure Orlando of his hopeless love for Rosalind. I should enjoy this scene, but with all the interruptions, I’m performing on par with a zombie in a B-movie. I can read regret all over Sapphire’s face written in Day-Glo marker. She wishes she gave the lead to Eva.

  Sapphire ambushes me after rehearsal. “Can we talk?”

  “I’m memorizing my lines,” I say. It comes out harsh, like I’m talking through ice that I’ve ground into slush with my teeth. Ever since that day in the bathroom when she hemmed and hawed over Jonathan’s sexual orientation, I’ve demoted her to the realm of unfathomable and irritating adults.

  “Can we talk about your new persona? It’s not like you to keep things from me.”

  “You don’t tell me everything. You never mentioned a sister.”

  “We’re estranged.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We’ve barely spoken in years. You can ask about it another time. This conversation is about you. I thought you were head over heels for the opposite sex.”

  I meet her gaze at last, taking in her friendly eyes filled with questions. My teeth warm up a little. “I am crazy about boys. I’m just expanding my options. It’s not carved in stone, or anything.” And if you say I’m confused, I’ll deck you.

  Thankfully, she gets it. “Okay, then. And about the play . . . you’re capable of being an amazing Rosalind. Don’t let the others destroy your focus.”

  “No problem,” I say. “Tomorrow I’ll send your socks into orbit.”

  The next morning I take the DykeByke from its hiding place under my bed and throw it out the window. I will ride it to school today to prove to Eva I’m not a coward. Still, there’s no point in acting the clotpole by wheeling it through the house. Dad didn’t take it well when I mentioned the L word during our haircut chat. Besides, hate vandalism makes lousy breakfast conversation. I wash down my microwave Tofurky sausage with soy milk, worrying a bit about the effect of soybeans on mental health.

  When I zip into the school parking lot—early for once—an unwelcome scene awaits me. Jonathan and Carmen are holding hands under the big olive tree. Something is rotten in the state of California. Translation? Reality keeps wrecking my life. I could survive sharing him with a cute boy, or just about anybody else in the world. As I watch them disappear together through the cafeteria door—his hand now on her waist—my thoughts turn to war.

  Chapter

  15

  I hang by the door to the cafeteria waiting for them to come out. When they emerge at last, they’re still in holding-hands mode. I follow them at a discreet distance. They finally part ways, and there is no swapping of spit at least. But in homeroom, my morning plunges further south. A limerick covers the entire dry-erase board. The letters are so large that a nearsighted person from the planet Myopia could read it. The war started without me.

  There onZ was a dyke-grrl named RoZ

  Who would do anything for apploZ

  She tried to kiss all her friendZ

  And pat their rear endZ

  Beware! Dont get caught in her cloZ

  Carmen has a dangerous stillness to her. Think the eye of a hurricane. I have no doubt she is responsible. My only hope is that Jonathan wasn’t present when she wrote it because that would be the unkindest cut of all. Andie fails me by not showing up, and Nico turns the knife by copying down the low-class verse into his notebook. He doesn’t look up when I call him a name. Even Mr. Beltz has the audacity to smile before erasing it.

  My feverish effort to compose an equally offensive verse in honor of Carmen consumes the remainder of the homeroom eon. I allow myself one grim snort that could be called a laugh when I rhyme cafeteria with bacteria. My poem, the embodiment of the Platonic Ideal of Nastiness, is complete when the bell rings. I hurry to the Barn to copy it onto scroll paper. When I finish, I tuck it in with the other scrolls to be used later.

  I haven’t spoken to a soul this morning, unless you count the uncivil words to Nico in homeroom. So I call Andie’s cell between my next two classes, adopting a radio voice when she answers. “If your name is Andie Orlov, you’ve just won a two-year supply of Thor condoms. They come in Bodacious Blue and Orgasm Orange.” For all her wild eyeliner, clothing, and opinions on sexuality, she’s very shy when the subject of actual sex comes up.

  “A two-year supply?”

  “They come in boxes of one thousand.”

  “That means I’ll need, let me see, zero,” she says.

  “Hi,” I say. “Where were you? Are you?”

  “I’ll make it to school by rehearsal. What’s up?”

  “Did you know that Jonathan and Carmen are love-birds?”

  “Liar,” she says.

  “I know something you don’t know,” I chant like a second-grade taunt.

  “Do not,” she says. I like the way she argues.

  “Do so.”

  “Prove it.”

  “If I prove that Carmen and Jonathan are sucking face in secret, you have to tell me everything you know about everyone. Deal?”

  “Deal. Except what do I get if you’re wrong?”

  “I know what I saw,” I say, but she interrupts before I give her the details.

  “Sure you see things, but you don’t really SEE. That’s why you have no idea what’s going on.”

  BlueDragon waddles over to where I’m spazzing out. “There’s someone NICE who LIKES me who wants to talk to me. Bye.” I hang up and scratch BlueDragon’s ears. Maybe I should compose a limerick to Andie next.

  By rehearsal time, I’m lonely, and in the spirit of loneliness, I make a tiny confession to myself. Andie is right; I don’t understand anyone or anything. Now that Jonathan is dead to me, my only friends (is that even the right word?) are Machiavelli meets Mata Hari and Cousin Itt.

  Eva—Why has she shut me out?

  Jonathan—How could he get smoochy with the anti-Roz?

  Carmen (the anti-Roz)—Why does everyone choose her over me?

  Andie (Machiavelli meets Mata Hari)—Where do I even begin?

  Bryan—If he’s into me, why doesn’t he break up with Eva?

  Okay, the last question is a tad superficial, but enquiring minds need to know. The tabloid headline could read: WORLD’S OLDEST MAN ASKS WORLD’S OLDEST WOMAN ON FIRST DATE. I HAVE WAITED A HUNDRED YEARS FOR THIS MOMENT, SHE SAYS. I slink into the shadows at the back of the stage, pretending to be engrossed in my script while keeping an eye on the happenings around me.

  Nico sits slumped over on the edge of the stage. The swath of hair curtaining his face stirs a little as Andie whispers into his ear. When Eva puts her arm around Bryan’s waist, Carmen sits abruptly in Nico’s lap. Nico sinks down a little under her weight, but doesn’t move a muscle. Think compost. Okay, maybe one person in the world would choose me over Carmen.

  “New jacket?” Andie asks Carmen.

  “Yes,” Carmen says. “Don’t you adore faux fur? It’s so PC.” She strokes the collar like it’s mink.

  The word sweatshop comes to mind. I clamp my lips together to keep from shouting it. Nico pushes Carmen off his lap and stands up.
<
br />   “A child made your coat for twenty cents an hour,” he says.

  I dig the synchronicity. Maybe I’m being harsh calling him Cousin Itt.

  “And you are as pure as the driven snow.” Without warning, Carmen turns back his shirt collar to read the tag.

  Nico’s eyes are hidden on account of his hair, but his lips look smug. “I buy American.”

  Carmen grabs at the waistband of his underwear with lightning speed. “Made in Pakistan,” she crows.

  Nico pulls away from her. “Hey, my grandma buys my underwear,” he says.

  Bryan hoots. “Your grandma?”

  I struggle to keep my eyes on the script. My Gandhi-and-Me side thinks Nico is sexy-cool for being political about his clothes. My social radar side says he’s a dweeb for announcing that his grandma buys his underwear, and a double-dweeb for letting his grandma buy his underwear. He’s back to Cousin Itt.

  Warm hands cover my eyes from behind. I smell Sapphire’s patchouli soap.

  “Whatcha doing in the dark, Pixie?” Jonathan says.

  My heart swells. Despite the fling with Carmen, he’s still my friend.

  “Pixie,” I say, “that’s cute. I like that in a nickname. Use that one from now on.”

  “Will do, Shrimp.”

  I laugh. “Andie says that if I want to understand people, I have to shut up and observe them. So I’m watching today instead of hanging out. All has been revealed. Everyone’s crazy. Especially you.”

  “I can see you are in a mood,” he says. “I’ll be moving along now.”

  I grab his wrist. “Not before you tell me Sapphire’s real name.”

  “Sedona,” he says, and then grins at me.

  “I see that you’re going to be tight-lipped about this. I bet you won’t tell me what you were doing with Ms. Low-cut Sweater before school either.”

  Jonathan’s grin vanishes. “What’s your problem?” he growls.

  I have no small talent for making conversation go south. Why can’t I keep that sharp tongue of mine in its sheath? Note to self: Destroy the scroll with my love poem to Carmen before Jonathan sees it. I want to hear him call me Pixie again.

  “She isn’t always the nicest to me,” I mumble.

  Sapphire arrives and calls us to take our places. I pour all my misery and confusion into Rosalind’s lines. When my scenes flow well for once, a smudge of confidence grows inside me. With each well-acted line, a petal of my blossom unfolds. At the break, I step outside the Barn so I won’t be distracted by the little conversations. I want to stay in the zone. The thick fog makes me feel as if I walked into the witches’ scene in Macbeth.

  But my new confidence doesn’t last because when I go back into the Barn, the furled scrolls are hanging from the rafters. Panic knocks the blossom right out of me.

  “I thought we’d try the scrolls early,” Sapphire says. “Give the stage techs a chance to work out the kinks so they might actually work on opening night.”

  I should leave now. But that will only make me look guilty. If I’m lucky, the ropes will tangle. But they don’t. My poem unfurls perfectly near the end of the scene. Maybe no one will actually read it. But everyone does. I kiss my shiny new nickname courtesy of my former friend Jonathan good-bye.

  Darling Carmen,

  There once was a she-dog in heat

  Who chased every boy she did meet

  She lured them to the cafeteria

  (Despite the bacteria)

  And ate them, except for their feet

  A few geeks laugh until Sapphire, her ears back and tail twitching, stares them down.

  “Fess up,” she says.

  Carmen drops to her knees on the stage in front of Sapphire. “I’m so very sorry,” she says through her tears. “I started the whole thing. I posted a vicious limerick about Roz in homeroom because I’m so jealous of her. Please don’t force me out of the play.”

  “I’m afraid I have no choice,” Sapphire says.

  Like that could happen. My invented scene stretches even the limits of Roz Fantasy Land.

  “Fess up,” Sapphire says, looking right at me.

  “I don’t believe in limericks,” I say. A giant laughter-sucking vacuum empties the Barn of all sound.

  “This has to stop,” Sapphire says.

  “Why is everyone looking at moi?” I say. “I didn’t do it.”

  “The play is canceled.”

  The silence deepens. It reminds me of the moment in an old movie I saw once when the doctor pulled out the bone saw to amputate a limb without anesthesia.

  “Please,” I say.

  “The mean pranks are only one part of why I’m canceling the play. I have to go away next week. On family business. If I leave you to your own devices, I’ll come back to find your skeletons scattered across the stage.”

  Eva steps forward and clears her throat. “Almost everyone has had it in for Roz since she got the lead. Me included.”

  “Go on,” Sapphire says.

  “Her prank was a reaction to someone else’s prank, which was a reaction . . . well, you get the idea.”

  Although she doesn’t say Carmen’s name, only a clot-pole could miss the implication.

  “I’m sorry that it got out of hand. If someone can direct while you’re gone, I promise we’ll work together like a team. You can check in by phone every day.”

  “Well,” Sapphire says. We hold our breath while she considers. “Okay, Eva will direct. If I catch the faintest whiff of unkind behavior at rehearsals, it’s curtains for the production. I have my spies. We’re done for today.”

  I’m torn between throwing myself at Eva’s feet in gratitude and tearing out her eyes from envy. Director, no less. The Diva triumphs again. Before I can do either, our savior clamps my wrist and drags me toward the door.

  “Andie,” I yell over my shoulder, “if you haven’t heard from me by tomorrow, call in the National Guard.” Eva stops at a copse behind the Barn. It’s a few degrees above freezing, and I don’t have a jacket.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Eva says.

  “Since when did Carmen become a candidate for sainthood? Like you said, she started it.” I am already drizzle-moistened and shivering. “Besides, I thought you weren’t even talking to her.”

  Eva sighs. “She was my best friend before that. Ease up on her a little.”

  “Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them?” I say. I stomp my feet to stave off the cold. “Tell her to ease up on me.”

  “There’s a reason . . . .” She inhales like she might actually tell me something. A big thing. An important thing. About Carmen. I try to look as trustworthy as Yoda.

  “What?” I ask. The fog seeps through my thin sweater. Eva rubs my hands between hers. While she has me trapped, she exhales slowly in my face like the divas of old, except it’s water vapor instead of cigarette smoke.

  “If I tell you something,” she says, “you have to swear on your life—no, that’s too puny—you have to swear on your ambition to be the next Julia Roberts that you’ll never tell a soul.”

  This is it. The wall is coming down. But will the truth hurt? “I swear,” I whisper.

  “On your ambition.”

  “May Hollywood forever shun me.”

  “And Broadway, too.”

  “And Broadway, too,” I repeat.

  “A while back, before our fight, Carmen told me that she’s a lesbian,” she says.

  This takes many long seconds to penetrate my circuitry because it never occurred to me before. Then, as I try to integrate this new fact into all that I know, my brain bogs down like a computer with too many programs running in the background. “Oh,” I say at last.

  Eva nods.

  “Oh,” I say again. “That’s why she detests Bryan. She’s in love with you and can’t stand that you’re with him.”

  “Maybe,” she says.

  Eva has a hat and scarf in addition to her warm coat. I capture the hat easily, but the tassels on the scarf get
tangled in her hair. She takes it off and winds it around my neck.

  “And the whole flirty act,” I say. “She dresses like a slut so no one will guess.”

  “You do have a handful of gray matter after all. I was wrong about you, Chub.”

  “I’ve lost five pounds,” I say.

  She doesn’t understand what I mean. Calling me Chub must be a reflex for her.

  “You’ll leave her alone now that you know,” she says. She grabs hold of the scarf and chokes me lightly. “Don’t blab it around. She’s afraid her mom will disown her. I don’t trust you. Here’s your chance to prove me wrong.”

  The calculator in my head keeps adding things up. “Did she say she was bi?”

  “She’s not bi,” Eva says.

  “But she could like boys.”

  “Girl plus girl equals lesbian, Chub.”

  “What about Jonathan?”

  “What about him?”

  “If Carmen’s a lesbian, why is she Jonathan’s new girlfriend?”

  “What?” Eva makes a face like the star in a daytime soap when her ex-husband’s evil twin comes back from the dead. Then a slow smile spreads across her face. “I get it. You’re joking.” She takes back her hat. “Good one, scrambled-eggs-for-brains.”

  Chapter

  16

  What happened at school today?” Mom asks over dinner.

  Let’s see now. Jonathan went to the cafeteria to make out with Carmen. Carmen ambushed me with a limerick in homeroom. I retaliated. Sapphire almost canceled the play. Eva informed me that Carmen is an undercover lesbian.

  “I have to write an essay on a historical figure,” I say. “I’m thinking Amelia Earhart.” These irrelevant tidbits make Mom believe she knows what’s going on in my life. I bolt the rest of my dinner to escape more questions and Dad’s brooding stares. Eva follows suit.

  “Dishes, girls,” Mom says.

  “I promised to help Roz with math tonight,” Eva says.

  Only she didn’t. Fortunately, I catch on fast. “Yeah, trig’s a beast,” I say. Mom will clean up herself rather than interfere with a sibling bonding opportunity.