My Invented Life

by Lauren Bjorkman

  Actually, Jonathan’s hands are clean. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. A beetle maybe, but not a fly. He most definitely wouldn’t hurt me.

  When I bound over, he says, “I don’t want to talk to you. I’m in a mood.”

  “Just read this,” I say, giving him the coming-out story I found on the Net.

  Sapphire makes an entrance. Everyone quiets down.

  “I leave tonight,” she announces. “I’ll be gone all next week. Jonathan, too.”

  Oh. So maybe his mood isn’t just about me.

  “Eva was supposed to strut her directorial stuff today,” Sapphire continues. “Unfortunately, she’s out sick. What does she have, Roz?”

  Eva stayed home from school? “Just a cold,” I say, too embarrassed to admit my ignorance.

  Sapphire moves a chaise longue to one side on the stage and settles in. “Carmen will direct, and Andie will read Eva’s part. Pretend I’m not here and go at it. Act four, scene three.”

  Carmen looks like she just died and was reincarnated as Sofia Coppola. That’s when I notice a faint sprinkling of green paint on her sexy mesh sleeve. Before, I suspected. Now, I have proof. I contemplate which violent death would be best for her, but after the bear pit, the poisoning, and the beheading, my thoughts take a new direction. Carmen risked Sapphire’s wrath and the demise of the play for the slim chance of playing the lead. How sad is that?

  The poor girl has become completely unhinged. Maybe Carmen lied to her mom and told her she got the lead. In that case, she’d have to do anything she could to make that happen. Including bumping me off. My insides become a tangle of annoyance and sympathy coated with a thin layer of fear. Think spaghetti with olive oil.

  I try to focus on the play. In the first part of the next scene, Nico delivers a letter from Carmen wherein she declares her love for me, a woman disguised as a man.

  “She has a leathern hand,” I say about Carmen after reading the letter. “I verily did think that her old gloves were on, but ’twas her hands.” Feeling sorry for Carmen doesn’t have to dampen the pleasure of insulting her in the play.

  Bryan looks at me like he can’t wait to devour me after rehearsal. I forget about Carmen then and start obsessing about my secret date with him. My internal spaghetti gets so knotted up, I’m forced to try a relaxation technique Sierra taught me. You’re supposed to picture yourself in a soothing place far away. But when I close my eyes, the picture that comes—Bryan kissing me in his car—only makes my pulse rev faster.

  Despite my yummy daydream, I’m dimly aware of the rehearsal going on around me. Oliver (played by Noah, a theater geek I haven’t mentioned because he’s not terribly interesting) comes out of the forest clutching a handkerchief soaked in Orlando’s blood. While he tells the tale of the wounding, he and Andie fall in love at first sight.

  “I like the way Andie bent down her head in the scene,” Sapphire says. “It gives her the right mix of shy and bold. Tell Eva to try it.”

  “I’m the director, am I not?” Carmen says.

  “Sorry. Carry on.”

  “Excellent scene.” Carmen writes a note on her script. And then reality makes another unwelcome intrusion into my invented life. “Roz! Pay attention. Start downstage for the story and float upstage for the swoon.”

  In the spirit of niceness, I stow the attitude and comply. Still, Carmen as director falls into a specific category of nightmare—the kind where you’re at the front of the school auditorium wearing an undersized coconut bra and plastic hula skirt to debate the relevance of the United Nations. Except you forgot to prepare.

  At the end of rehearsal, Sapphire shouts “Bravo! Olé!” She leaves with Jonathan before I can talk to him. Bryan slips out behind them. I know where he’s headed. The guilt over my impending tryst taints my euphoria.

  Chapter

  18

  My invented life is about to turn real. Sadly, I have to lie about it to my friends and slink out the back to meet it. When I cross the deserted field, the wind blows through the dry grass, whispering RoZ iZ stalking Eva’s ex-boyfriend.

  “We’re just going for a drive,” I tell the grass, “so shut up.” I’ve made up my mind to limit today’s activities to talking. If he tries anything, I’ll tell him to keep his hands to himself.

  Clouds of exhaust billow from Bryan’s ancient Trans Am at the far edge of the back parking lot. Bryan, wherefore art thou Bryan? Translation? I wish I were meeting Romeo instead.

  “Get in quick before someone sees,” he says. Romeo he’s not, in more ways than one.

  I duck into the passenger seat.

  He shifts into first gear. “I didn’t think you’d come.” He flashes me the forlorn-puppy look.

  Now that he’s inches away, his magnetic properties work their magic on me. “Why not?” I say. “You’re good to look at and fun to be around.”

  He laughs and his lips are at their most kissable. Okay, maybe one little make-out session to test my sexual orientation before I put on the brakes.

  “What do you see in me?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  “You don’t know?”

  “You make me feel good, I guess.”

  My hopes and dreams circle the drain. I wasn’t exactly expecting, “You’re the most beautiful woman on earth, and I love you.” Still, he should’ve at least said, “You’re hot, and I’m into you.”

  He pulls into the old peach orchard at the edge of town. The engine clicks as it cools. He inches toward me. Despite my resolve, I can’t resist the touch of his lips. But when I kiss him back, he puts his hands up my shirt. That’s when I detect alcohol vapors. Here lies RoZ Peterson, killed in a senseless car wreck with her sister’s stupid ex-boyfriend.

  I push him away. “You’ve been drinking.”

  “I don’t believe in alcohol. The bottle is under the seat. Want some?”

  I shake my head. This is turning into the date from hell.

  Bryan puts his hands into his jacket pockets. “Pick a hand,” he says.

  “You got me a present?” I ask. “How sweet.” As he uncurls his fingers, I gasp. A beautiful ruby ring rests on his palm.

  I would have settled for a semiprecious stone. But no.

  He opens his hand with a flourish and reveals a foil-wrapped condom.

  Both my fists thump the middle of his chest. “I said slow, Bryan. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you. You suck romance from a date like a weasel sucks eggs.” Translation? Another Roz fantasy bites the dust.

  “You knew what I wanted. You want it too.”

  I roll down my window and drop the condom onto the ground. “My father was no prostitute,” I say. “No wonder Eva broke up with you.”

  The way Bryan bites his lip reveals everything.

  “Craven, dissembling rabbit-sucker! You didn’t break up with her?” I yell. That makes me the sorry side dish. RoZ iZ coleslaw. I push open the passenger door with my elbow. “I hope you lose all your teeth and hair. I hope you die ugly and alone. Today.”

  I start marching back toward town. The engine roars to life and he creeps alongside me, creep being the operative word.

  “I didn’t lie,” he whines. “I never said I broke up with Eva.”

  “Mewling coxcomb,” I growl without looking his way.

  “But I’ll break up with her soon.”

  I’m sick of his excuses and breathing his exhaust. I pick up a rock. He rolls up the window in a hurry. A satisfying cracking noise says I don’t throw like a girl. He accelerates abruptly, kicking up a storm of grit.

  As I trudge down the lane, I picture myself taking a baseball bat to his precious Trans Am. I slash his tires in my mind. Hell hath no fury like a woman falsely seduced. Translation? I’d rather blame him for my crazy self-deceptions. Soon self-pity takes over from anger. After walking a few miles in my invented shoes, they’re giving me blisters. The sad part is how I fooled myself into coming today because I wanted to. But at my core there’s a small voice,
and if I listen carefully, it speaks the truth. If only I could hook an amplifier to it.

  On the outskirts of town, a painful laugh rises from deep inside. I finally have proof about Bryan’s two-timing, lying ways. Too bad I can’t tell Eva without having to explain my role in it. I’ll use that as an example of irony in my next English paper. There’s a rock in my shoe, and I leave it in for penance. A quarter mile later the Woe-Is-Me channel grows tiresome, and I switch it off. Poor Eva has it worse. Bryan is her boyfriend.

  After dinner and in the privacy of my room, I write BRYAN #1 ASSHOLE across my arm with a permanent black marker. I write it a second time. Maybe after a thousand repetitions I won’t forget. When I’ve finished covering my left shin, the phone rings. For one mentally ill second, I imagine it’s him calling to apologize. I let the phone ring while I work on my other shin.

  Saturday morning I hide my body essay on Bryan with a long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants before going to Eva’s room. There is no good lie to explain what I wrote. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little sister. Translation? If she sees it, I’m screwed.

  “L Report,” I say at the door.

  “Come in,” she says. The ab queen is on the floor doing Pilates.

  “Why didn’t you go to school yesterday?” I ask.

  “You should try this exercise,” she says. “It’s great for the thighs.”

  If I had her extension I’d do the scissors night and day. I try to follow her next moves. The desire to confess overwhelms me. I squash it the best I can, but a little warning pops out against my will. “You’re too good for Bryan.” Luckily, the exalted warrior pose forces you to look straight ahead.

  “I know,” she says.

  I lose my balance and fall in a heap on the floor. I expected her to say “Why’s that?” or “If he’s no good, why do you want him?”

  Since I’m on the floor already, I move on to crunches. “Well?” I gasp between reps.

  She crunches with me. “Sometimes it’s easier to keep things going than to break up.” She doesn’t stop at fifty (but I do). “And he loves me in his warped way.” She has no idea how warped, but she won’t hear it from me. Or read clues written on my body. “I’m going to break up with him any day now.”

  This revelation fills me with awe and bliss. She trusts me with another secret, though I SO don’t deserve it. My long sleeves and pant legs are all that separate this glorious moment from disaster. I pull them down tight.

  “Why?”

  “Not for you, Chub,” she says. “And don’t give me that indignant-slash-innocent look.”

  “What look?”

  “I’m doing it for me.”

  I open the window to let in some cool air. Sapphire’s lemon yellow VW bug is gone, which means that Jonathan has gone too. In all the crazy aftermath of my beef-witted tryst with Bryan, I forgot to call him. Regret sucks.

  “Give me the L Report,” Eva says. After two hundred crunches, she’s still not winded.

  I lie down next to her and follow the next exercise at one quarter speed. “Jonathan’s mad at me because of the limerick I wrote for Carmen. I’m totally bummed. I thought we were friends, but he took her side.”

  “She could use a friend right now.”

  “I’ve been nice to her since my promise. Anyway I’m talking about Jonathan, not Carmen. Now he’s going home for a week, and I’m not there to support him. I’m worried.”

  Eva rolls onto her stomach, and I roll too. That’s when I spy a stack of printouts under her bed.

  “Hey, aren’t those my coming-out stories—the ones you didn’t want?”

  She sits up. “I read them because of Carmen.”

  “And?”

  “They’re fun.”

  “I know. Some are so moving, I almost cry when I read them. I wish my coming-out had been real so I could write about it online.”

  “You are so weird, Roz, there could be a reality TV show about you. America’s Psycho Little Sisters.”

  I think about Jonathan all day Sunday. Getting together with his family could be a good thing. Maybe his parents are accepting him, showing him their love, wrapping him up in it. But I have a bad feeling. Sierra would call it a premonition. I call it worry. He’s been acting moody for days, which has to be a sign of anxiety. The statistics on the Web about gay teens are not pretty. Gay teens do worse in school, drop out more, and kill themselves more often than other teens. I log on to my favorite Ouija Web site.

  “Is Jonathan safe?” I ask.

  I close my eyes and let the mouse drift, opening them when it stops. Instead of choosing yes or no, the spirits picked the letter F. I repeat and get the letter I. In the end, I have the word F-I-A-R-Y. Spirits are notoriously atrocious spellers. Still, this answer has me stumped. Maybe he has a fairy godmother. I stick to this hopeful interpretation because my other ideas—say, self-immolation—don’t reassure me. Reading about Joan of Arc in the third grade traumatized me for life. I log out. When the internet fails, there’s my cell. I send Jonathan a message.

  Me: sup

  He replies right away.

  J: nt tlking 2 u

  Me: i know. this is txtng

  J: lol

  Me: 4give me?

  J: mayb. gtg

  Me: ttfn

  So he’s alive, but that’s all I know. When communication fails, a girl can fall back on frozen desserts. A few bites into my first bowl of ice cream (I planned on thirds, at least), I remember about my diet. I dump it down the garbage disposal and fix myself a tasty feta radicchio salad sprinkled with pine nuts. After I chomp it down like a good little bunny, I ride the DykeByke to the Zip-Stop for a Häagen-Dazs bar.

  “Stay and talk,” Jenny says. She pats the counter. “Sit.”

  “What’s new?” I say. She throws my wrapper in the trash for me.

  “The Peeping Tom has moved on,” she tells me. “No Birkenstock footprints for weeks.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My partner’s an officer.” She smiles.

  “That’s cool.” I lick the chocolate off my fingers.

  “It is. Between the gossip from the store and the things my partner tells me, we know almost everything that happens in Yolo Bluffs. I’m kind of sorry the Peeping Tom left, though. I thought we’d become friends. He might know even more than I do.”

  “I heard he went south,” I say, “to the Mecca of breast enhancements.”

  In homeroom, I lean across Nico to whisper into Andie’s ear. “No rehearsal Wednesday. Should we do a private one?” A fine line of purple runs along her silvery green eyeliner.

  “My place or yours?” she whispers. The skin on my neck tingles when she flirts with me like that. I pluck at my sleeve.

  “I have to drive my grandma to the doctor,” Nico says. He catches a glimpse of my essay on Bryan before I can cover it.

  Thankfully, Mr. Beltz interrupts us. “Quiet. I have an announcement. Carmen has been accepted into MIT. Congratulations, Carmen.”

  Nico pushes back my sleeve. “What’s this?”

  “Nothing.” I cover my arm again.

  “I don’t believe in nothing. Did he do something to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  I look up. Mr. Beltz looms over me, and I can see things that shouldn’t be seen. The dried shaving cream that sticks to the underside of his chin is the least of it. “Would you like to make an announcement too?” he asks me.

  “Oooh,” someone says.

  I flash him a plastic, synthetic, apologetic smile. “I was just saying to Nico how happy I am for Carmen.”

  After class Nico follows me into the hall to pester me some more. I deny all his guesses, though some of them get close to the truth. No point in piling another humiliation onto the ever-growing heap. While I stand my ground, the subject of the essay himself appears. Bryan drags me into an empty room. Nico does not exactly follow us in, but his face accuses me through the tiny pane of glass near the top of the door.

  “
About Friday,” Bryan says. “Things aren’t always like they look.”

  “It looks like you’re a jerk to me.”

  He gets down on one knee (really) and holds my hand like in those pathetic fantasies that used to populate my invented life. “I didn’t know what I was doing. You make me so crazy. I can’t think straight around you.”

  He’s had me alone for fifteen seconds, and already the heat of his desire softens my steely resolve. I mentally scrub at my skin that reads BRYAN #1 ASSHOLE. The ink darkens the rinse water and swirls down the drain. But Nico hasn’t left the window. The fact that he’s watching us gives me a pinkie-hold on reality.

  “Then break up with her,” I say.

  “I don’t want to hurt her.”

  One painful punch deserves another. Knavish coxcomb! She’s about to break up with YOU. I keep that lovely and satisfying secret to myself. My ammo belt clip has just one bullet left.

  “I’m not looking for a boyfriend,” I say. “Because my girlfriend kisses way better than you do.” Unfortunately, the bullet is the size of a gnat.

  “Who’s your girlfriend?”

  “Andie.” I look toward the window. Nico grins in a way that says he’ll pass this on.

  Bryan tries a new approach. He stands close to me and traces my cheek with his finger in a slow and delicious way. I can feel the heat coming off his body. He’s the snake charmer, and I’m the snake. He leans in so that his lips hover an inch away from mine. I can’t stop myself from closing the gap. A thump on the door breaks my trance. I run and fling it open.

  “It’s not how it looks,” I yell to Nico’s retreating back.

  Felicia grants me a promotion in the cafeteria kitchen at lunch. Today I’m allowed to open packages of grated cheese for the salad bar. She even smiles when I mention that the scissors are a tad dull. “Use this.” She hands me a knife.

  “You took your happy pills this morning,” Vera of the varicose veins says.

  “My daughter got accepted at MIT.”

  The knife slips out of my hand and comes within inches of impaling my foot.

  “You must be so proud of her,” Vera says.

  “No. She’s lazy. I don’t know why they accepted her. And I’ll have to take an evening job to pay her tuition unless several scholarships come through.”