“Don’t be so dramatic. They didn’t lock him up,” she says. “But he’s making a choice that hurts them.”
I have trouble keeping my voice down. “What about hurting him? Why would he CHOOSE to be gay if it’s so much easier not to be? How can you believe that?”
“Teens are often self-destructive, and feelings aren’t always logical,” she says. “You’ll understand when you’re a mother.”
My anger builds to violence, the hair-pulling, nail-scratching, and shin-kicking kind. I storm off to stew behind the speaker. When I have a daughter a million years from now, I will accept her for who she is. More than that, I will encourage her to follow her heart, to embrace herself. I hope she turns out to be even crazier than I am.
During the break, Sapphire talks to Carmen. When Andie drags Nico behind the props, I ask Jonathan to take a breath of air with me.
“You still remember your lines,” I say.
“Pretty much. But I can’t stop thinking about my mom. She wants me back, but Dad says no. And she’s going along with it. It’s insane.”
“Since you go both ways, couldn’t you . . . you know . . . ?” As soon as the idea takes shape in my head and right before the last few words enter the air in front of my mouth, I know how wrong I am. I should sell my big mouth on eBay under Blooper Collectibles. “Forget I said that.” I clap a hand over my mouth to emphasize the point. “To thine own self be true.”
“Huh, what?” he asks from Jonathan Land. He gently pulls my hand away from my mouth. It appears that he missed my faux pas. Thank the goddess for small blessings. He squeezes my hand so that the bones crunch into each other. “Thanks.”
“You’re way ahead of all the gays in the closet,” I say. “It’s good to be out and proud. Strength in numbers.”
“Tell that to Matthew Shepard.”
I try to wriggle my fingers. “Who?”
“Don’t give me that shit,” he says.
When I get home, Dad surprises me in the kitchen. We make tomato-garlic soup with heaps of onion and squash, performing each task as if for an haute cuisine show on TV. I use a fake Italian accent as a foil to his fake French accent. For a while I can pretend that everything is back to normal, that Sierra still lives in Yolo Bluffs, Eva still loves me, and everyone takes my obsession with boys for granted. Ah, the simple life.
“Zee squash shood be tendair,” he says, holding out his pinkie finger as he jabs at the zucchini with a fork.
“Coat da garlick wit da oil olivo. Perfetto,” I say, drizzling the yellow-green oil into the pan. We kiss our fingertips after each step. Just when I’m feeling especially happy, Elmo fixes me with one of those long, uncomfortable stares of his.
“What?” I say, drilling him back with my cyborg eye.
“I love both my daughters, whatever happens.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” I say in a tough voice—though I’m going all squishy inside—“when I embark on my new career.”
“Which career is that?”
“Serial ax murderer.”
After dinner I hit the Google. Matthew Shepard was a gay college student living in Laramie, Wyoming. One night he was hanging out in a bar when two young guys offered him a ride home. They drove him to a remote spot, tied him to a fence, and beat him. He wasn’t found until the next day. A few days after that, he died while still in a coma. Later in court, the young men claimed he was hitting on them. No wonder I spend so much time in my invented life. Nothing that horrible ever happens there. Sometimes reality sucks more than I can handle.
I make an altar to Matthew using a photo printed off the Net and illuminating it with a scented candle Sierra gave me. I write his name on the skin near my heart. I download an uplifting coming-out story to cheer myself up, reading it through a haze of sandalwood.
My name is Jay. Like a lot of boys in the third grade, I had a crush on my teacher. Only my teacher was a man. I kept it to myself. Then the whole story poured out of me unexpectedly at my fifteenth birthday party. My friends were upset with me, but not because I was gay. They were mad I hadn’t trusted them to support me. Though it was the happiest day of my life, I couldn’t stop crying.
I visit a Christian Web site that says God won’t punish gays unless they consummate their love with physical acts. So gays are supposed to remain celibate? Like that could ever work for anyone with hormones. Except for the no-sexuals, I guess. I forward Jay’s coming-out story to them and to Sapphire while I’m at it.
Tuesday morning Andie shows up in homeroom for the first time in many days sans pet. The combination of white makeup and a red-streaked scarf wrapped around her neck like a blood-soaked bandage gives her a positively ghoulish look. If I kiss her cheek, will her head topple and roll across the floor?
“Where’s Nico?” I ask.
She sets a stack of date-stamped photos on the table in front of me. As I leaf through them, a pattern emerges—Bryan holding hands with a girl, Bryan kissing a girl, and Bryan fondling the butt of a girl. The theme of each picture is the same, but the girl is not. All the while that Bryan has been giving me the woo, he’s been hooking up with two freshman girls on the side. Eye-offending, wenching rampallion. The girls are shorter and skinnier than I am. But let’s not forget what we have in common. Stupidity.
Andie offers me a tissue from her funereal black purse.
“Yesterday’s news,” I say. “Who took the pictures?”
“Nico.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Do I have to spell out everything for you? You’re not in kindergarten anymore.”
“He’s your boyfriend.”
She rolls her eyes so vigorously, it’s a wonder they don’t fall out of their sockets.
The afternoon of our first dress rehearsal, we sift through gowns and petticoats in a curtained-off dressing area called the Mosh Pit. I turn toward the wall when I take off my shirt, but despite the evasion, Andie spots the ballpoint tattoo on my clavicle.
“That’s passion.” She traces the name with her finger. “New boyfriend?”
By her smile I can tell she knows about Matthew Shepard. “We met at a séance,” I say. “He’s perfect for me. He doesn’t fool around with other girls, and he always compliments me on what I’m wearing.”
She zips my dress, and we both stare at the vision I make in the mirror. Now that she doesn’t want to get physical with me, I can enjoy her appreciative looks with palpitations minus the panic. I straighten my shoulders from their usual slump that helps me feel shorter.
“I hear him paying you a compliment right now,” she says.
Mirrors don’t lie. The fitted bodice, puffed sleeves, and A-line skirt transform me from giantess to goddess. I could slay the heart of Zeus himself. And Juno’s, too.
After rehearsal, I add a dried red rose and a Lindor truffle to Matthew’s altar. Who knew he’d become my closest confidant? Not really, but I’ve talked to him more than anybody else today. Ever since I offered Eva the world, apologized for everything, even the parts that weren’t my fault, she’s blown frosty air my way. She doesn’t want Bryan anymore. She doesn’t want the lead in the play. There must be an explanation for why she’s hibernating in her room. It’s not always about you, she said.
Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me, I plead to the wall between us. Sierra said the broken glass means that some part of my life is out of whack. And that part is this strange disconnect between Eva and me. But I don’t know how to cast off the bad juju. How do I get my sister back?
Soon she’ll dance off to college, start a career in a distant city, get married to someone I can’t stand, have sticky babies, and send me a lousy e-card once a year on my birthday. I should go to her room right now and shake her till she talks. My favorite Ouija Web site might tell me what to do. As I type why, a banner slides across my screen, a ghostly answer to my prayers.
I’m in love with Carmen. Will you help me Slim?
I banner her back. YES!!!!
Chapter
24
I knew it, I knew it, and I knew it some more. I’m not as delusional as everyone gives me credit for. But when I throw myself through Eva’s door—after her banner we’re so beyond knocking—she’s not there. I search under the bed and behind the curtains. Her cell is off too. That’s just as well because answering my thousand and one questions will take more minutes than her plan can handle. Where is she?
I hop on one foot and deny my teeth the food they crave—my new fingernail extensions painted to look like miniature zebras. After that I go to the office to ask Mom.
“Where’s Eva?” I say as if it doesn’t matter.
She looks up from her work. “With Bryan.”
I resist the obvious retort. That was so last week. Don’t you read the paper? But it’s not her fault that she revolves in a different orbit than we do. “So why aren’t you making her go to school?” I ask.
“She said she’d be home by ten.” That’s when I notice the sign blinking on Mom’s forehead: NOT UP FOR DISCUSSION.
“Well, good night,” I say.
“Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the alligators bite.”
I go back to my room. Bouncing on my mattress helps to settle me down. My sister likes a girl. Like likes. True, she lied to me all this time. But the new-and-improved Roz understands why. I haven’t always been on her side lately. But I’ve matured since last summer. I’m finally the type of girl who can keep a secret or two. More or less. I know how to be a good friend. I still don’t have the best taste in boys, but two out of three beats zero out of three. And I forgive her because:
She trusts me now. FINALLY.
She asked for my help.
She called me Slim.
Besides, I relish the romantic assignment to reunite star-crossed lovers. It’s like courting Eva’s ex-boyfriends, only better because I like Carmen more. Romantic frippery is one of my strong suits. In the end the princesses will live happily ever after in the castle. Of course, I’ll have to slay a certain very short dragon first.
Unfortunately, I fall asleep before Eva returns home from “Bryan’s house.”
Wednesday morning, Eva comes into the kitchen dressed for school, and my excitement jumps upward to Level Orange. Sadly, I can’t ask her a single question about last night because Mom happens to be in the kitchen with us. And really I should wait until Eva volunteers the information herself. Then a miracle happens when Mom offers to drive us.
“Roz and I are walking to school together,” Eva says, heading out the door. Her girly-girl broomstick skirt and tunic top shimmer like jewels in the outside light. I scoop up her hand and walk with her in silence. It’s so hard to keep quiet, I feel like Hercules on one of his tasks for the gods.
“Marshmallow got your tongue?” she says after torturing me for two blocks by not speaking. “You’re curiously uncurious.”
“I was trying to be the new Roz. But now that you’ve introduced the topic . . . when did you know?how did you know?who was your first crush?have you ever kissed a girl?what else do you do?what do you call yourself?bi or lesbian?who else knows?are you planning on telling the parents?did Bryan suspect?what really happened between you and Andie?did you know that over a thousand species of animals practice homosexuality . . . ?”
“Enough!” she says quickly. “That’s too many questions, Slim.”
I revel in the new nickname even though I came up with it myself. “Tell me what you want to,” I say.
“Okay, I’ll tell you something. But it doesn’t answer a single one of your questions. It’s about when you found the tampons in my room.”
I slip on a wet patch, and she tightens her hand to steady me.
“I really did lie to make you feel better,” she says, “but there’s more to it.” Pregnant pause. “Mom made such a big deal out of me getting my period. You’re a real woman now. But I hadn’t mastered being a girl yet. I wanted to postpone the whole thing. I already knew I was different from other girls.”
I drape my arm over her shoulder. “We’re all different. In some way or another. Take me.”
“That’s true. Still, you’re pretty great . . . most of the time.” Her grin says she’s (mostly) teasing.
“You’ll be calling me better than great when you’ve heard all the details of Operation Seduce Carmen.”
Eva groans. “You’re scaring me.”
“Does Carmen know you like her?”
“Yes.” Our shoes crunch on cold gravel as we cut through the park.
“Like like?”
“I’m guessing so.” Eva picks up the pace then, and I’m forced to drop my arm from her shoulder. “I kissed her. The day before our fight at tryouts.”
She’s a little ahead of me now, so I can’t see her face.
“Any tongue?” I ask. Tact will elude me my entire life no matter how tirelessly I pursue it. Admittedly I’m not trying that hard at the moment.
Eva turns around and swats me with her bag. “It freaked us both out, I think.”
“Did it feel weird?”
“It felt . . . right. That’s all I’m going to say about it. Now tell me about your covert operation.”
“Step one,” I say. “Nostalgia. Do something to remind her of one of your P. Tom escapades.”
Eva stops walking and looks at me. Her face is flushed. “Carmen told you?”
“I found out. She carries the wrappers with her everywhere. That’s a good sign.”
Eva relaxes a little. “What else?”
“We can work on it tonight after rehearsal. So who was your first crush?” I ask.
No answer. I decide not to take her reticence personally. We have all the time in the world to discuss details. Still, silence was invented for me to fill with chatter. “I remember mine,” I say. “Jake French with the chin dimple. I probably told you about him a dozen times.”
“Alyssa Todd,” she says at last. “The girl who wore horseback-riding clothes all the time.”
We’re a block from school now, and since I don’t want this conversation to ever end, I shorten my steps considerably. “I remember her. She had enormous hair.”
Eva shifts her bag to the other side. “I used to daydream about braiding it.”
“But you wrote stink about her in your di—” I stop myself almost in time.
Flight attendant: Miss, you’re allowed only one carry-on.
Me: This is my carry-on. This other bag is for my big mouth.
Eva’s expression reads smug. “That’s because you read my decoy diary. Today I woke up and brushed my teeth. Then I got dressed and went to school. Ran into Shay from Spanish class. Sound familiar?”
I’m not the only Peterson with a touch of the serpent. “So what happened?” I ask.
“Nothing. I kissed Alyssa’s brother in the shed one time.”
“So you really do like boys?”
Despite my ever-shrinking step length, we’ve arrived at school. She stops walking, and I’m grateful. “All that stuff you said about dashboards and falling in love with whomever?” she says.
“Yeah?” BlueDragon runs over to greet us like we were lost for weeks in the Arctic tundra.
“Dead on. I’m so mad you figured it out first.”
Eva loves me despite my big mouth and spying ways. Bliss. Even the fresh muddy paw prints on my pants don’t upset me.
The obstacle to all my romantic schemes towers under me. She points toward the freezer. “Bring out five trays of lasagna,” she says. I steal glances at her while I work. There’s less than a zero percent chance she doesn’t know about Carmen’s orientation. She is omniscient after all.
“What do you think of Jonathan?” I ask as I whisk past her.
“I don’t.”
“You don’t what?” I say, dropping a tray of lasagna on the counter next to the ovens. “Approve of him as boyfriend material?”
Felicia snorts. “He’s not her boyfriend.”
So the whole decoy boyfriend scheme failed. I think up a way t
o keep her talking without showing my hand, searching for a daisy to shield my next question.
“He’s not her boyfriend now. But you wouldn’t disown her if he was, would you?”
She narrows her eyes in a way that says shooting flames are in my future. I back up a few feet.
“I would never disown her. But I might ground her till her wedding day.”
I scurry off to fetch another load from the freezer. Felicia won’t allow poor Carmen a boyfriend, let alone a girlfriend.
When I deliver the next batch, she hands me a nail file.
“What’s this for?” I ask. I imagine some new ordeal, an enormous kitchen device that can only be cleaned with the tiny scraper at the end.
“For your nose.”
My hand jumps upward.
“File it down so you can’t poke it where it doesn’t belong.” She laughs. I laugh too, although more from nervousness than enjoyment. “Stop bothering me now.” She sends me off with one of her patented slasher-movie smiles.
During a break in rehearsal, I drag Jonathan to the bathroom for some privacy and lean against the door so no one else can enter. “Eva could waste away from unrequited love.”
“You’re talking about Carmen?”
I knew he knew. Everyone knew. Except me. “Help me get them together,” I say.
“You make the dinner reservation, and I’ll play the violin for them.”
“You play violin? I didn’t know that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know.” He rinses his hands at the sink and twirls the paper towel handle. I laugh. He doesn’t know everything either, like that the dispenser has been empty since the Clinton administration.
“They’ll have to keep their love a secret from Felicia.”
“Tough assignment, Pixie.” He dries his hands on my shirtsleeves.
I still have her nail file in my pocket to remind me of this fact. But should Carmen ruin her life to please her mom? Still, I’m wise enough to change the subject, a sore topic of conversation for Jonathan, given how his parents are behaving.
My Invented Life Page 16
