“A couple of times.”
“See?” Evan says. “She didn’t forget you.”
At lunch, people turn to look as Usha enters the cafeteria in her ridiculous red boots, but she glares at them and their faces spin away like targets in a carnival shooting gallery. I’ve never seen Usha narrow her eyes at people, much less outright glare at them; that was always me. Usha bypasses the table of biblicals who are waving her over and takes a spot at an empty table, yanking an orange, a sandwich, and chips out of her lunch sack. She sets them in a row, then goes straight for the chips, pulling apart the silvery lips of the bag. I stand directly behind her, hands at the ready, almost as if we were doing a trust fall.
“We saved you a seat,” a voice chirps over my shoulder.
Two of the biblicals have appeared; they step past me and hover on either side of Usha. An angel on each shoulder. And a devil at her back. “You don’t have to sit alone, you know.”
Usha looks from one to the other of them. Paige, she thinks. This time the whisper has an annoyed quality, and I know why. The biblicals only want her to be friends with them because she’s the school charity case, the girl whose only friend turned out to be a jumper. No wonder she wants everyone to forget me.
Sorry, Usha, but I won’t be forgotten. I step between the two biblicals, plunging my hands, past any resistance, straight into Usha’s back.
Salt.
Salt sharp on my tongue.
On Usha’s tongue.
I close my mouth and let the salt taste spread out. I’m vaguely aware of the biblicals on either side of me, and the rest of the milk-slurping, sandwich-crust-balling cafeteria around us.
But at first there’s nothing except for salt.
The taste is a shape: a prickly ball in my hands. The taste is a sound: a dozen taut wires plucked at once. The taste is a color: a gleaming silver. I bite down and feel the chips crunch, and that crunch is something else entirely. I chew, the bits of chip breaking apart on my teeth and tongue. It’s been almost a month since I’ve eaten. I’d forgotten how it feels, how it tastes. Actually I’d forgotten taste existed altogether.
Then I see the orange sitting here in front of me. I grab it like it’s a prize, which it is, bumpy and waxy and round and sour-sweet. I look down at my hands that are not my hands—light brown, knuckles whirled with charcoal, nails polished with picked-off green. I dig a painted finger into the orange peel and nearly laugh out loud at the feeling of pith caught under my nail. I dance my feet with a squeak, the rubber of the boots rubbing against each other. My squeak!
Then I remember that I’m in the middle of a crowded cafeteria. I’m Usha. So, as Usha, I should probably fight my impulse to run down the cafeteria line taking spoonfuls of all the foods. And maybe I shouldn’t pass behind the tables of eaters, running my hands over my classmates’ backs—the nubby flannels of the burners, the slick letterman leathers of the testos, and the careful cottons of the biblicals. I pull myself away from my salt and orange peel and squeaky boots. I am Usha. I have to act like Usha.
The biblicals have stopped hovering and have taken a seat on either side of me. Usha and I used to make fun of these girls, calling them by saints’ names, which she’d pulled from an app on her phone: Agnes and Humbeline and Bertilia. But their real names are perfectly normal: Jenny, Erin, and Rachel.
I peel a strip off my orange and decide that I’m ready to try talking.
“Hey,” I say. It works. The voice that comes out is Usha’s. “I need to ask you something. As friends,” I add for good measure.
“Of course you can,” Jenny says.
“You’ve heard the rumors about Paige’s death, right?” I ask. My question is accompanied by a faint stirring, a jostling inside me. Is that you, Usha? I wonder, setting my palms flat on the table. I’m sorry, but I need you right now, just for a minute. Please don’t push me out. The stirring comes again. It’s not nearly as strong as yesterday’s shove, so I push back against it, focusing on being solid and still and here. It’s sort of like hovering, like holding yourself in place.
The biblicals share a look, their bangs clean lines across their foreheads.
“Have you? Heard them?” I prod.
“No, I don’t think so,” one says in a tone that makes it clear she has.
“Really? You haven’t heard that Paige committed—”
“We try not to gossip,” Rachel cuts in.
“Okay, fine. But you have ears. People say she jumped. You heard that, right?”
“We heard it,” Erin admits grimly. “Everyone’s heard it.”
“Well, I just want you to know—as a friend—that it’s not true.” Again comes the stirring feeling; this time, I ignore it.
The girls look at each other, then back at me.
“We hope it’s not true,” Rachel says.
“It’s not,” I say. “I was there. She fell.”
“We hope so,” Rachel repeats. “We pray for her.”
I stare at her. She blinks back at me placidly.
“You what?”
“Pray for her,” Rachel says uncertainly. She’s heard something in my voice, something sharp-nailed, quick-tempered, and trapped in a small space. She continues, “If she killed herself, she can’t go to heaven.”
“What if there is no heaven?” I say.
“Pardon?”
“You know: tra-la-la heaven? What if it doesn’t exist?”
The biblicals’ smiles disappear, then reappear like cards in a magic trick.
“It’s all right if you don’t believe right now,” Jenny says. “It takes time to—”
Enough of this. As if it isn’t painful enough to be stuck here, stuck here forever, without having to hear this. I cut Jenny’s sentence clean in half: “I don’t believe or not believe. I know. I know, and I’ll tell you so that you can know, too. Heaven doesn’t exist. It’s a story you’ve made up so that you can feel better about dying. But you know what? You die, and it’s not better. It’s just like it was before. Except worse because you’re dead.”
Suddenly I’m standing, with all of them staring up at me. The orange is squeezed in my palm, its sticky juice running down all the way to my wrist.
“It can be hard to understand His reasons—” Erin begins.
“You’re not listening to me. There are no reasons. There is no Him, no pillows stuffed with fluffy clouds, no free harps at the door. No door. There isn’t a heaven for you or for me. There’s just this.”
Their Chapsticked lips part in surprise. As I turn away from the table, I realize that half the cafeteria is staring at me. I stride past them and almost run smack into Kelsey Pope, who stands gawking at the recycling station with her empty tray. Her eyes widen, and she shuffles back, bumping into the bin.
“By the way,” I say, “we never would have been friends.” I drop the deflated orange at her feet and storm out of the cafeteria, my boots squeaking in anger with each step.
I end up in Brooke’s bathroom, washing juice off my hand and arm. My anger has left as quickly as it came, and now I just feel empty and tired. And sticky. I glance into the mirror above the sink and meet the brown eyes of Usha’s reflection. I make a face, feeling the skin and muscles pull into the shape I’ve told them to, but it’s my expression on Usha’s face, not her own.
That’s when I realize my mistake: I’ve become one of the only people I want to talk to. Now Usha is further away than ever.
I wrap my arms around myself, feeling Usha’s body, round arms, breasts, and stomach. It’s pleasant, this extra flesh, as if it were here to comfort me. I shake my head, and Usha’s bob swings against my cheeks and ears. I haven’t worn my hair this short since I was little. I feel young and then, suddenly, very, very old.
You’re only seventeen, I tell myself.
You’re only seventeen forever, my self answers back.
I exhale. I hadn’t expected to get so angry. I shouldn’t have yelled at those biblicals. They weren’t trying to hurt me. Maybe
they’ll leave Usha alone now anyway. That seemed to be what she’d wanted. But she hadn’t wanted it enough to yell at them, I think guiltily. That was you.
Usha? I think as loud as I can. No answer, no stirring inside me, no shove. I wonder where she is now, if she saw the whole thing, hidden back there behind my eyes. Or maybe she’s gone to sleep and will wake when I leave her. Forget that I don’t even know how to leave her. Yesterday in physics, I’d only inhabited her for a second before I’d been pushed out again. As an experiment, I try to welcome it, the shove, but it doesn’t come. My feet stay in Usha’s red boots, planted firmly on the dirty tile. And I have to admit, I’m a little relieved that it didn’t work, that I still have her body for at least a little while longer.
I flick water at my reflection in the mirror. It’s all getting complicated. I’d been so focused on getting into Usha’s body that I hadn’t thought about what would happen after I was in it. And now I’d ruined my opportunity to stop the suicide rumor by making a scene. People would hardly believe Usha if she told them that my death wasn’t a suicide, not now that she’d acted so crazy in front of the whole school.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Usha’s reflection, but the words come out in her voice, not mine. “I’m going to make it better.”
But how? If only I could become more people, different people, then it’d be easy to reverse the gossip and set the record straight. To do that, though, I’d need more people to think about me more often. Or I’d need to predict when they’d think about me.
I stop.
I look in the mirror. Usha’s face is smiling at me. I’m smiling at me. And I deserve it, this smile, because I’ve just had the best idea.
Mr. Fisk is in the middle of another glazing explanation when I show up in the doorway to his classroom. When he sees me lingering there, he signals for the class to pause, setting the lump of clay on the mat in front of him and walking to me while wiping earthy streaks onto his pants.
“Usha, what is it?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“That’s all right. You look flushed.”
“I do?” I touch my cheeks.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay. But . . .”
“Yes? You’re okay?”
“I’m okay, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“I want to paint the memorial mural.” My words are answered with a shove so enormous that I nearly take a step back. I hold on tight, though, wrapping my arms around my body. (Usha’s body.)
“You’re sure?” Mr. Fisk asks.
“Completely.” I nod emphatically. “I want to paint the mural. I want people to remember Paige.”
11: PAINTING EYES
SMALL PROBLEM: I CAN’T PAINT.
During that afternoon’s illustration class, Mr. Fisk has me wait by his desk while he gathers the mural materials. I wait for more resistance to come, but it doesn’t. I know you don’t want to, I tell Usha silently, but you don’t understand. Let me fix this, and you’ll understand.
Greenvale Greene sits quietly in her corner of the classroom. She doesn’t look crazy today; she doesn’t look at me at all. Wes Nolan is on time for once and bent over his sketchbook, drawing away. The ponies roll eyes at him and nicker. Kelsey, though, seems more concerned with stealing worried glances at me. I must’ve scared her in the cafeteria. Good. The pony next to Kelsey whispers something and nods at Wes. Is he drawing me again? I wander to the window by Wes’s table and try to peek over his shoulder. I’m not used to casting shadows, though, and when I lean over, he immediately looks up.
“Eyes on your own paper, Das,” he says with a grin. As usual, everything’s a joke. Too bad death isn’t that funny, Wes Nolan.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “Just curious.”
“Oh, this?” He flashes the page. “Bowl of fruit.”
And that’s just what it is, the grapes at odd angles on their vine, the orange a little lumpy. It’s not a picture of me after all. A relief, of course, and never mind that twinge of disappointment. It’s just that when I close my eyes, she’s painted on the backs of my lids, that girl he drew, the branches of her tree spread out above her. I thought if maybe I saw her one more time, I could get her out of my head.
“I don’t even like to eat fruit, much less draw it,” Wes grumbles.
“What do you like to draw?” I ask, then think, Duh. You. And I wish I could unask the question.
Wes answers, “People.”
“Just . . . just anyone?”
He thinks for a moment. “Anyone who sticks in my mind.”
“Oh,” I say, not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed. What is it? I want to ask him. What is it that makes someone stick in your mind?
“Usha,” Mr. Fisk calls me from the doorway. I turn, but Wes calls me back. “Hey, are you painting that mural? For Wheels?” Paige, his mind whispers.
“Who?” I ask belligerently.
“For Paige,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say cautiously. “Why?”
“No reason.” He shrugs, crooked shoulders, crooked smile. “Just . . . I’ll look forward to seeing it when it’s done.”
Mr. Fisk takes me to the blank stretch of wall by the doors to the student parking lot. He sets me up with a ladder, a drop cloth, cans of paint, and brushes. He reminds me that Principal Bosworth has given me creative control, but with the understanding that he, Mr. Fisk, is overseeing the project. “No pressure,” he says. “Just let me know when you have some of it up on the wall.” He also rolls out an overhead projector, in case I want to draw the design first and project it onto the wall to trace over with paint. I definitely don’t want to do this, as it would make it immediately obvious that I have no idea what I’m doing. Instead, I content myself with dipping the brushes in and out of the paint cans and staring at the wall. I tell myself that Usha is here with me. She’s here, and she’ll guide my hand.
I stare at my hand.
It doesn’t move.
After half an hour, I have succeeded in creating two eyes, or at least two ovalish shapes that I intend to be eyes: one oval is a little higher than the other, and both of them leak drips of paint. I try to make them like the eyes in Wes’s sketchbook—round, dark, glimmering with humor and life. Half a can of paint, three different brushes, and numerous drips on the drop cloth later, I’m proud to say that they look exactly like uneven, blobby black ovals.
People pass by as I paint, pausing for a moment to watch. Though none of them speak to me, all of their minds whisper my name. I grin. It’s already working.
Brooke and Evan show up near the end of the hour. I’m careful to let my gaze pass over them like I can’t see them. For a moment, I worry that they’ll be able to see me, Paige, standing here plain as can be in Usha’s clothing. Or maybe I’ll appear as a misty apparition, smothering Usha in a Paige-shaped fog.
“So this is it?” Brooke asks archly. “That chick better not paint me fat.”
“Paige should see this,” Evan says.
“Paige should see two mucky dots of black paint?”
“Yeah, let’s find her.”
“Oh, yes. Let’s hurry,” Brooke says sarcastically.
“Come on,” Evan cajoles. “Even if she pretends to be all tough, this will make her totally happy.”
On the ladder, my brush pauses. I don’t do that, I think, annoyed.
But Brooke snorts laughter. “Want to make a bet about how many times she shrugs and says, ‘I don’t care’?”
“I bet five times,” Evan says.
“Fine. I bet six.”
“That’s cheap,” Evan says, “betting one over mine.”
“That’s how the game is played, mister,” Brooke replies. Then there’s silence, and I’m about to turn around to see if they’re still there when Brooke speaks again. “Do you think there will ever be a time when we don’t care? When this—here, now—is our new life? And what came before was just . . . before?”
<
br /> “I hope not,” Evan says.
“Why? Don’t you want to forget about all that?”
“It was my life,” he says simply.
“I’d forget it all if I could,” Brooke says, “but then they gotta go and paint a damn mural to remind me.”
“I don’t know,” Evan says as they walk away. “I think a mural might be kind of nice. Think of it. Something there just for you.”
After they leave, I climb down off the ladder and paint something tiny, right by the baseboard. Sure it’s still a little blobby and uneven, but it’s recognizably a moth. A miniature secret moth, something there just for Evan.
That’s when Lucas Hayes marches past, telltale gold pass in his hand. He doesn’t think my name; he’s too busy glancing over his shoulder to even notice the mural or me, crouched behind my ladder. I expect to see his requisite group of testos following behind as if the coach has ordered them to practice formation even as they walk down the hall. But when Lucas glances over his shoulder once more, I realize that he’s not waiting for his friends, but rather making sure that no one is following him.
Which is when I decide to do just that.
The girls’ bathroom in the hall outside the gym is pristine. No knots of shed hair on the floor, no lipstick kisses on the mirror, or soap grime in the sink basins. Even the tile looks new here, its grout bright white, although it’s years old.
Why so clean?
No one uses it.
If you’re near the gym and you have to go, you use the bathrooms in the locker room or you backtrack to the one near the art room because, despite appearances, this bathroom isn’t a bathroom. It’s a trading depot. What’s traded here? A variety of goods and services: cigarettes, pot, soda bottles half-drained and refilled with booze, gropes, cheat sheets, gossip, swirlies, clothing ensembles, fake IDs, burner saliva and (it’s rumored) other bodily fluids, forged hall passes, reputations, and, this past September, a girl’s life.
Since Brooke’s death, most kids skirt the bathroom, though a few still linger when they pass, as if the door might swing open, revealing some whirling vortex, some forbidden fruit, a crimson-skinned secret of mortality offered just to them.
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