What Z Sees

by Karen Rivers

  Anyway, it was like, well, how some people feel comfortable only on horseback and some people love books, it was like you suddenly found a place where you felt okay. Weird, but true. Something you’d never tell anyone, ever, not even Zara, who you once confided everything in. Zara would have gotten it before she started being so weird. She totally would have gotten the whole pin and balloon thing. You don’t want to hear yourself making it a joke for her benefit. You also don’t want her to laugh. It’s like it was something sacred. Something ungiggly.

  Not that she has giggled at all in the past month that you’ve noticed. You haven’t seen her that much except a few times when she’s called and asked you to go with her to the club. She’s still singing. “Still” meaning “more than ever.” Obsessively. Constantly.

  Which you guess is a good thing. How can it not be?

  But it feels wrong. It feels ... you can’t explain. Forced. Or frantic. Both.

  Still, if she were really depressed, she wouldn’t be singing, right? So it makes the rest of her mood seem like an act, like she’s being purposely extra dramatic and odd. It’s just too much. She’s started wearing sunglasses all the time, for example. Maybe her eyes are extra sensitive from the concussion. That makes sense, but she sort of looks like one of those girls in People magazine who are famous for having eating disorders and being rich and wearing giant bug-eye sunglasses everywhere they go.

  Which makes people look at her more.

  You hate that you’re jealous. Hate it. It doesn’t make sense and it confuses you and makes you feel like, somehow, in some convoluted way, it’s your own fault. And anyway, you love Zara more than anyone in the world, really. She’s obviously unhappy and instead of being a nice person and helping her; instead you envy how her misery makes her prettier. That’s sick. It’s awful.

  The epitome of shallowness.

  But seriously, even Hamster has started mentioning how good she looks, which bugs you more than you want to admit. Like yesterday, for example, you were downtown, just walking along. Looking at the street buskers and stuff. Hamster wanted to go to this creepy comic store he likes. A bus went by with a big ad on the side for some

  movie and Hamster said, That girl looks like Zara. And the girl was Hilary Duff.

  You agreed but you didn’t really. Zara’s pretty, but she’s not that great. Is she?

  But there it is again: the bitchiness. You hate yourself for feeling bitchy toward her. Hate yourself for feeling conflicted about her. Hate yourself for not handling any of it the way you probably should. After all, she has been your best friend always. She’s done things for you that go way beyond the call of duty. Like last year when you got caught shoplifting at the mall, she came down and sweet- talked the store detective into letting you go without filing a report. And she never told anyone about the time, after drinking a whole bottle of gross bubbly French wine that she stole from her mum’s stash, that you told her that you were in love with Axel (something that makes you cringe when you think about it now). And she always tells you that you look great, always compliments you, always points out stuff like your pretty eyes to other people and manages to do it with a straight face.

  She’s a good friend. You? You are just petty. Small- minded. Undeserving of a friendship like hers to begin with if you can’t get your focus off yourself and onto her and what she needs. What she’s crying out for. Whatever it is.

  Axel called you this morning (which made you happier than you’d ever admit) to tell you how Zara hasn’t gone to a single horse show since the accident, has only ridden Cake a few times in a pointless loop around the indoor ring. He figured, in his boy way (which is to say an obtuse way that wasn’t thought through), that you should talk to her and fix it up.

  Just fix it.

  Like you have a wand you can wave and correct the whole mess.

  He says this a tiny bit like it’s a job you thoughtlessly forgot to perform. But you’re so happy that he called that you find it hard to be as irked as you should be. But, you wanted to say (but didn’t), after what happened to Maman, who can say she’s wrong to want to stay away from the horses? Instead you said, I’ll talk to her. I’ll call you back after I talk to her.

  Which as soon as you said it made you feel guilty, like you were going behind her back.

  Then you said, I’m sorry.

  Which was as bad as admitting culpability for something you couldn’t possibly be blamed for. And he said, Thanks. When he should have said, It’s not your fault. Or something — anything — like that.

  Talking to him on the phone made you so nervous. Overall, you’ve already forgotten almost all of the remaining conversation. Out of the blue, your palms got all sweaty and you felt panicky. Stupid. It’s just a crush! You can’t have him. You don’t deserve him. At least, he would obviously feel that way seeing as in his own self- centred way he’s seemingly blaming you for Zara’s nuttiness. Also — and more importantly — you already have a boyfriend, a serious boyfriend, who you are sleeping with. Sleeping with. Not sleeping, exactly.

  Although it might never happen again. Not with Hamster. You can’t stomach even the idea of it, which is inexplicable given your other mixed-up feelings. It’s something like this: sex = good. Hamster = repugnant.

  You hunch over on the treadmill so you can better see the pages of your magazine. All those shiny happy people who probably aren’t happy. Actually this particular magazine makes them all out to be miserable: cheating, fat, drug-addicted, or closeted gays. You sigh. You want the glossy pretty people to be happy. If they aren’t happy, who else can be?

  Across the room, Hamster grunts delicately. He is lifting weights. Well, weights. Hamster is lifting what can only be called lights. He is in worse shape than you and you are fat. It just isn’t fair. Your mother, the bitch, gave you this gym membership as a start-of-summer present! She thinks that being thin for senior year is more important than anything on the planet, which makes you not want to do it at the same time as sort of inwardly agreeing with her. Ugh. And to make sure you went, she gave one to Hamster, too. Like he’s somehow the boss of you. Like he has the power to get you to do whatever he wants.

  Not.

  It’s a nice gym. The showers have tons of Aveda products and white fluffy towels and privacy. The headphones are free. The TVs get a thousand channels. The magazines are always current. You actually like working out but for some reason you pretend that you don’t. You roll your eyes when it’s mentioned.

  When you flex in the mirror, your arm muscles pop up like small hams. You love that. You do it again and again. You probably aren’t any thinner, but you don’t give a crap. You’re stronger.

  You flip the page, your fingers sticking to the glossy paper with sweat. On the next page the daughter of a famous billionaire confesses to her addiction to prescription painkillers. She talks about how they made her disconnect and how she liked being disconnected more than she liked being with her shallow, ridiculous friends.

  You flip again. Some poor pregnant starlet whose boyfriend also impregnated a supermodel is sobbing about her baby’s future. Well, its future is probably pretty good. Genetically speaking, it’s bound to be preternaturally gorgeous. And probably rich. Nothing to cry about there that you can see.

  You flip back. Prescription painkillers.

  Maybe that’s it.

  Maybe that’s what’s up with Zara. The way she doesn’t quite look at anyone directly anymore. The way she’s been avoiding you. Maybe they gave her something in the hospital that’s wigged her out, somehow. She’s never been much for drinking or drugs. Weird things happen to her. One time when you got high with her at the lake, she suddenly went blind. Like she literally couldn’t see. She was stumbling around sobbing. She’d only taken three puffs. The girl just can’t handle any kind of substance. So if they gave her some kind of painkiller or something, maybe her body chemistry is just messed up.

  Maybe it’s as simple as that.

  The thing is that everyone is
noticing but everyone seems scared to talk to her directly. Not that you can blame them. You are, too. Even Wick, who hardly ever talks to you outside the context of the group, at least not alone, cornered you at The Gap, where you have a job folding, stacking and tidying up, selling uniform clothes to the masses. You nearly jumped out of your skin.

  Maybe it was just the rarity of a boy who wasn’t Hamster visiting you at work, but he became, instantly, blush-when-you-talk-to-him cute, the kind of cute that made you look away, blinking like there was something stuck in your contact lens, that made you pretend to be listening to something on your Gap-issue headset even though no one was talking.

  Oh help, you thought. Not this kind of crush. Not on Wick, with his sticking-out ears and borderline buck-teeth and cheekbones so sharp that, instead of looking chiselled, he just looks like he’s been unevenly cut out of a piece of paper. It’s bad enough that you feel this way about Axel. It’s dumb to get fluttery about Wick. It simply would never happen. You know this by the way he stands a bit too far away from you for you to be able to hear him. By the way he looks at the piles of pants instead of at you. Besides, he’s with Chelsea. He’s always been with Chelsea. For the first three years that you knew them, you thought they were twins, like Axel and Zara.

  Something’s going on with her, he’s saying. It’s weird.

  He picks up a folded sweater, unfolds it and holds it up to himself and glances in the mirror. The clothes here are awful, he adds, like you won’t take it personally.

  They’re not, you say automatically even though you secretly agree. They don’t fit you mostly anyway so it’s irrelevant. It’s hard to find chain-store stuff to fit over your ridiculous breasts.

  The quality is good, you add. That sweater is washable.

  Whatever is going on with Zara, he says, is making Axel weird, too, don’t you think? I feel like ... I don’t know. We should ... You could ... I...

  He trails off like he can’t quite form the sentence properly and you feel sorry for him because, after all, you aren’t a horse and he clearly doesn’t know much about conversing with humans. He’s just so awkward, which is nearly painfully endearing. And he seems so serious, so Tom Cruise (although without the confidence), so overly earnest that you almost laugh.

  You must be able to ... he starts again.

  But I don’t know anything, you say. Axel’s her twin. He’s the one who should know all this. He’s the one who should be able to tell what’s going on with her.

  As soon as you voice it, you realize it’s true. Shouldn’t Axel be closer to Zara than even you? Shouldn’t “fixing” her in whatever way is required be his job? Why does everyone think it’s to do with you, that it’s your responsibility that you’ve somehow chosen to shirk?

  Wick drops a pair of pants and the hanger clatters on the ground. You bend over and pick it up and notice his hands are shaking. Do you make him nervous?

  I’m sure it’s all to do with Zara falling off the horse, you say, just to fill the silence.

  I can’t ask Axel, he says in a rush. We’re not that close.

  And we are} you want to say. But you don’t.

  I don’t think he is any different, you say loyally, though why you feel more loyal to Axel than to Zara doesn’t make sense even to you.

  Zara just hit her head, that’s all, you say. You are starting to feel a bit exasperated with the whole situation.

  Maybe she has brain-swelling or something. Maybe she’s just in a bad mood. Maybe she just wants to be left alone.

  Oh, he says.

  You go on: maybe she just is sick of us. Maybe she’s mad. Maybe she’s just a bitch. Maybe ...

  Don’t be nasty, he interrupts.

  I’m not, you say, more hurt than you let on. (You sometimes think that part of your role as the fat girl, and the price you pay for being popular, is your mantra: never let them see you wince.) I was just... I don’t know anything.

  Why does everyone think I know? She’s acting weird. Maybe she just feels like being weird. Or maybe she has brain damage. Besides, how is it my fault? Why is everyone acting like I should fix it? Like it’s my job?

  I thought you’d understand, he said. I thought everyone talked to you about everything.

  He made a snorting, disappointed sound and walked out without a backward glance. You went back to folding the sweaters but the whole episode left you shaken.

  The more you think about it, the worse it seems. Perhaps, after all, there is something you’ve missed that you should have done. Zara has been your best friend forever. Why don’t you know what to do? You’ve done everything you know to do: you phoned her about six times a day when she first got out of the hospital. But half the time now she doesn’t even answer your calls. Whole days go by without you talking to her, which has never ever happened before. The summer is dragging on, hot and sweet, the air as thick as melted ice cream. And you’re busy. You’ve got a job, for one thing. And the whole not-breaking-up-with-Hamster drama takes up a lot of your time and your thoughts. And there’s the daily gatherings at the lake, sometimes only you and Hamster, sometimes the whole gang. And you’re working out. These things fill up whole days and next thing you know it’s night again and you’re tired. Too tired to deal with Zara. Too tired to try.

  But are you really not helping her when she needs it most?

  A lethargy has taken over your ability to act, somehow, though here, now, alone in the crisply air-conditioned gym (well, with Hamster, but that’s like being alone) you finally feel motivated. The article on the slightly rumpled page in front of you ignites you.

  Drugs. Zara’s weirdness could be drug-related. Drugs could explain something, anyway. Part of it. You can find out. You know the signs of addiction, not that she could be addicted, not Zara, but maybe she’s just... even if she’s taking something regularly that she doesn’t usually take, even then it could mess her up. Advil messes her up, for heaven’s sake. She gets all inexplicably stoned from it, all in touch with her feelings and nature and, well, frankly a bit embarrassing. You’ll get Axel to check her bathroom and her bedroom drawers for pills. You’ll stop her from taking them. You’ll help her see what’s happened. Everyone will help: Wick, Des, Chelsea. All of them.

  It’s not just up to you to figure out on your own. You aren’t alone in this.

  Zara

  Chapter 7

  MY WHOLE LIFE SEEMS different now. It’s as though every key on the piano is being played at once. It’s awful. It’s both awful and incredible, if I’m being honest. It’s easier to just think of it as awful, but it has a good side, too. I’m mesmerized by it, even though I also want it to stop.

  This thing.

  I was confused when I woke up in the hospital. I just thought that was normal. Everyone is confused when they come around after being unconscious, right? Only it didn’t pass. I’m still confused.

  Well, not exactly confused. More like stoned, but without any drugs. Like that time Axel and Sin and I got that acid and I was too scared to take any, but still hallucinated alongside them anyway. It was like I was experiencing their experience. Like I was too connected to them and I couldn’t pull away. It was a feeling of being disoriented, lost, sucked into something bigger than me. The colours were too bright. When it faded, when they came back down, it was such a relief, like recovering from a headache I didn’t know I had.

  Anyway. It’s like that, a bit.

  I’m so ...

  The last few weeks have just been a haze of heat and avoiding people, pretending to be busy, waiting to recover; to get back to myself.

  It’s a long story. I have to go back a bit for it to make any kind of sense. Not that it does anyway, but I’ll try.

  People always say that regaining consciousness is disorienting and too bright and too dizzy and too everything. And it’s true in such a profoundly true way that even while it was happening I felt like I’d somehow already done it, experienced it exactly the same way before. I remembered nothing beyond the rid
e. Cake’s breathing. The way the air smelled and the decision to close my eyes, the velvety blackness of that, how I was in the moment. So completely woven into it.

  Then I opened my eyes and I was in a room painted the colour of powdered lemonade, and all that stuff about “too bright” was too true. Seriously awful.

  The bed was not even really a bed, more of a stretcher, narrow and uncomfortable, the vinyl of the “mattress” exposed by the rumpled sheet. I was sweating but I was also cold. The bed was cordoned off from the larger room by curtains. In the next bed, an old lady was mumbling, Oh help me, help me. Why won’t anyone help me?

  I was alone. It wasn’t like the movies where everyone that the victim loves is crouched around the bed weeping.

  My head ached in a sharp, thunderclap way that echoed, saturating everything with a throbbing pain. The hospital smell, that stench that needs no describing, felt like something I’d been dunked in, like the smell was coming from me and not from the room. And the hospital itself gave me flashbacks, scary sad memories of Maman after the accident. Like the last thing I needed was to go back to that. My head ringing, not knowing where I was or why.

  I wasn’t alone for long before the curtain shifted and Maman appeared in her chair. Something was different, though. She was different. At first, I didn’t realize what I was seeing: a brightness around her so saturated it was like watching a colourful glass tile mosaic being thrown through the air, in slow motion. She was thinking blurrily and I automatically read it, interpreted it: My baby, my baby girl, ma jeune fille. She was thinking, Thank God for this, that she’s okay. I’ll never ask for anything again.

  Oh no, I thought. No no no.

  But that thought was interrupted by a nurse bustling in, blood pressure cuff in hand, chirping happily, How are we feeling? While thinking, Two more and I can go home. If that pig hasn’t eaten the whole pizza maybe I’ll have some of that and take a bath. Maybe I’ll eat it in the bath, have a glass of wine, paint my toenails. I never paint my nails anymore. I wonder when I stopped.