The Opposite of Invisible

by Liz Gallagher

  It’s the first time I’ve ever wished Jewel would go away.

  I focus on the music and close my eyes. Test if I’ll be able to memorize this scene, for thinking about later.

  Things to remember: The melodic guitar music. The purple of this place. Simon’s intense eyes.

  Jewel puts his fingertips on my upper arms, both of them. Holding me apart from the bodies around us. From Simon.

  Simon touches my arm too, sort of bumping into me, but I don’t know if it’s accidental.

  I can feel things changing. That makes me nervous.

  The photo of this moment would show me keeping my eyes firmly on Charm of Hummingbirds while Jewel stands behind me and Simon leans into me from the right.

  After this show, my Dove Girl is in for some serious listening.

  That is, unless Simon goes back to treating me like just a girl from Spanish class.

  I’ve always got Jewel. But it’s not like I’ve ever wanted to be with him, like a boyfriend. Those hugs lately, though. Those tingles and shivers. They’re not just friendly.

  Too soon, the show ends. People stop screaming and things die down as everyone begins to make their way out.

  Simon’s crowd is up ahead. They’re with girls wearing orange wristbands, signs of their ability to legally purchase and consume alcohol. Mission accomplished, I guess.

  They spot us, and Mike Corrigan … leers. His eyes are like a snake’s and he looks me up and down with them. I feel like he’s seeing me as something sexy. But it’s creepy. Then Corrigan makes a phone out of his hand and points at Simon. Asks him to call later.

  “How are you guys getting home?” Simon asks. “My dad’s picking me up. He could give you a ride.”

  Oh. That’s enough to take my mind off Corrigan being sleazy.

  “We’re taking the bus,” Jewel says. “We like the bus. Right, Alice?”

  This would be so much easier if Jewel weren’t here. But that’s so mean.

  “Yeah. We love the twenty-eight,” I say. “Thanks, though, Simon.”

  We get swept into the crowd heading out the doors.

  “Our stop’s this way,” Jewel says, and heads down the street.

  I linger with Simon.

  “You could’ve spared me some time alone with my dad,” says Simon. His eyes radiate. His eyelashes. “My parents are not letting up on me lately. No car tonight because they thought I’d end up driving around drunk or something.”

  I nod in sympathy, but really I don’t know what it’s like not to be trusted by your parents.

  “Hey, at least I’m getting a good meal out of it tomorrow,” he says. “They’re taking me to brunch down at that crab place in the market. Then they’re trying to convince me to hit some chick flick at the movies. One o’clock show is a discount.”

  “I better catch up,” I say.

  Simon looks right at my face, still smiling.

  “Adiós,” I say, and hurry to catch up with Jewel. I think about turning around and waving, but I don’t. Jewel’s at the corner waiting for me.

  The bus is on its way down the street immediately, which is good because of the rain, actual drops. We choose seats behind the driver.

  Jewel’s face is red. He looks worn out, but energized at the same time, I guess from standing in a warm crowd. I wonder how I look to him.

  I’m sure he’s thinking about Simon.

  “So.” I turn to him. “Good show.”

  “Yeah.” He’s looking out the window, away from me.

  “You had fun, right?”

  He nods. Maybe too quickly. Maybe just because he thinks it’s what I’d want.

  I look out the window, see a man sleeping underneath the neon sign for a gyro shop.

  “You know,” Jewel says, turning his head to look at me, “that guy is totally stalking you.”

  “What guy?”

  He blinks for longer than a blink. “Simon Murphy.”

  I look at Jewel and say quickly, “Whatever.”

  Jewel looks away from me and turns sarcastic. “He probably has clandestine photos of you taped up in his closet.”

  “Oh, yeah. He probably follows me around with a zoom lens.” My body begins to relax. Just a little.

  Jewel’s got a twitch at both corners of his mouth.

  “And night goggles,” he says.

  “And an extra cheerleader uniform so that he can make me into his dream girl.”

  Jewel says, “If anyone ever changes you like that, I’ll …”

  How does this sentence end?

  “I’ll go crazy.”

  My Dove Girl looks like she’s either about to fall asleep or about to wake up. She’s in that constant in-between state where a person can almost forget who they are. Can almost be someone else, in another world, half in a dream and half in their own bed.

  Me, I’m usually wide awake.

  Tonight I have a lot to tell my Dove Girl.

  We went to see Charm of Hummingbirds play a show tonight and we ran into Simon Murphy.

  He talked to me. We hung out. He came over and said hi and he chose to hang out with me instead of his friends. Me and Jewel. So strange.

  Me, Jewel, Simon.

  And Jewel was acting weird too. And not in his usual good-weird way. He kept touching me. Like he was trying to send signals to Simon that I was his. Like he was marking his territory.

  And I am his territory, aren’t I? To put it severely. Not his girlfriend. But I’m his more than anyone else’s. It should be fine with me if he touches me in front of Simon Murphy.

  But I’m still not sure if I like Simon seeing me claimed by Jewel, or this new aspect of Jewel that makes him feel the need to do that.

  Simon … who knew? We share the same taste in music, and he’s not as tight with the elite crowd as I thought.

  Dove Girl, I really want to see him outside school again. On our own.

  And I have a plan for how to do that.

  Chapter Four

  •

  •

  •

  Saturday morning, a little groggy from not a whole lot of sleep, I wake to the smell of bacon cooking. I shower quickly and drag on my jeans, stripy sweater, and Pumas. Put my hair in a ponytail. I am uniformed.

  When I get downstairs, Mom is cracking eggs and Dad is reading the paper, standing by the coffeemaker, waiting for the brew.

  “Scrambled?” Mom asks.

  “Of course.”

  I sit down at the table in our diner-style kitchen. The walls are painted red and covered in Coca-Cola memorabilia: a clock in the shape of a bottle, a tin advertisement featuring a smiling girl with bows in her hair, a poster of teenagers sharing their drink from two straws in one tall glass. My parents bought the stuff before they started being all organic, all the time.

  “To stunt your growth,” Dad says as he puts down my coffee. A joke. I am pretty well developed for a fifteen-year-old.

  He goes back to the counter and retrieves his own plate. Mom has arranged his sunny-side-up eggs like eyes with a bacon smile. Cute.

  He sits with me. We eat.

  “Your mom and I want to go by that coffee shop to see Jewel’s photo show,” he says. “You submitted pieces too, didn’t you?”

  “Didn’t make the cut. I did help Jewel, though. Maybe behind every great artist, there’s a girl who knows how to hang pictures.”

  “Alice,” my dad says. “Your drawings are getting better all the time.”

  “Not really, Dad. But thanks.”

  He does know what he’s talking about when it comes to art, but my dad would say nice things to me even if he knew I sucked. Which makes it hard to tell what he thinks sometimes.

  Jewel is an artistic genius. Of course only a certain type of person bothers to notice his amazing talent. I get some credibility around the art workshop just for being his friend. Even Mr. Smith seems to think I’m better than I am.

  I don’t want to be the hey-is-this-hanging-straight girl forever.

 
“My glassblowing workshop is next weekend,” I say.

  “Looking forward to it?” Dad asks.

  “Yep.”

  We finish breakfast and Dad heads out to the driveway, where he spends the bulk of every weekend working on his vintage Chevy.

  Sometimes I help him, which mostly means handing him tools. But not today.

  My parents and I have been out of the Pike Place Market spice tea for two weeks, so it’s a good excuse to go down to the market. I tell myself that this is not a decision to accidentally-on-purpose run into Simon Murphy. And that I’m not inviting Jewel for his own good, because he hates crowds.

  I look in my mom’s full-length mirror before leaving. My usual: ponytail, lip gloss, sweater, jeans. But are my jeans shorter now? Definitely, I’m taller. I thought this was supposed to happen when you’re nine, not fifteen. But there it is. Growth spurt. Long legs are a definite improvement, right?

  I put on my blue corduroy jacket and head out. I take the 26 bus downtown, get off by Nordstrom Rack. I think about checking out their cheap sneakers, decide against it, and walk down one steep block to the market. The city is gray, as usual, and I can smell salt from the sound; the water is as gray as the sky.

  The market, with its giant red neon sign, is always crowded. But I like to take it all in, especially now, in the fall, when sunflowers and dahlias bloom and I can look at them clustered together in metal buckets just waiting to be bought, smiles you can take home.

  This place always makes me feel like I’m French or something, like I should be wearing a bonnet as I buy the week’s sheep innards. Definitely like I’m not me. Not a regular girl.

  When I asked my Dove Girl for a boyfriend, I was not expecting anyone like Simon Murphy. Simon can’t be my wish come true. It would throw the whole social stratum out of whack. I’m nobody but Jewel’s friend. And that’s only to the people who bother to notice Jewel.

  The nonartist types who do notice him tend to think he’s gay. It’s been a common misconception among the baseball-hat crew ever since middle school. Because Jewel’s best friend is a girl, I guess. And because he’s creative.

  Probably most of our class doesn’t know either one of our names, let alone anything else about us. Invisible. For me to go out with Simon would be school-paper-headline-worthy news. Okay, it might not be quite that big of a deal. Simon’s not totally the most popular guy in school—that’s Mike Corrigan.

  The tea shop is full of big jars of loose tea to buy in bulk. I take the lid off the orange spice blend, move my nose to the rim of the jar, close my eyes, and inhale. India. The painting of this tea would be dark orange and some shade of purple. The shape would be vaguely lotus flower.

  I buy the Market Spice and then I wander, keeping my jacket pulled tightly over my sweater. Some of the sunflowers are so tall. They look like really skinny people with lollipop-proportioned heads. Smiling at their own crazy hair. The dahlias are my favorite, though. Such bright pinks and oranges. So many petals. Like the orange spice tea, the dahlias make me feel like I’ve traveled to other places, even to other times.

  I stand at the fish and chips counter near the leather goods stall, deciding whether I’m hungry. It’s so weird, the power of place. I don’t have to try hard to imagine I’m on another planet. Like fish and chips are food for aliens. Because how can so many sensations exist so close to home—the smell of salt water, fish ready to be cooked, the fainter scent of sweet fruit, the colors of everything, the voices of the people, the drum of KEXP playing in the background.

  Simon came for brunch, and his family needs time to make it up to Pacific Place for a one o’clock movie. The timing should be perfect, and the crab place is just past the vendors. To get out of the market, he’ll have to pass this way.

  I sit at the fish and chips counter.

  There he is.

  Simon is at the leather stall trying on cuff bracelets. His head is down, the same tilt as when he looks at his Spanish book. I can’t go over there. I manage to not stare at him as I order fries and soda. It takes all my effort to casually study the intricacies of the linoleum countertop.

  Simon taps my shoulder. He’s got on his backpack and he’s wearing a tightish turquoise sweater under his bright green Adidas vest, and very well-faded jeans, possibly so well faded that the fading was done prepurchase. His chocolate-colored hair is messy but the look is styled. Lots of gel. I evaluate him like he’s some guy in a magazine.

  “I keep running into you this weekend,” he says.

  “Yeah, I noticed.” I hear Jewel’s voice in my head. “That guy is totally stalking you.” I hope Simon doesn’t think I’m stalking him. Especially since I kind of am.

  “Do you come downtown a lot?” he asks.

  “I like to,” I say. “It feels like a vacation.”

  Oh, no. That was probably a really weird thing to say. What wouldn’t I do for the time-rewind superpower?

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he says. “There’s a lot of stuff to do.”

  Phew. “Yep.”

  “I volunteer at the aquarium.”

  “That’s so cool!”

  “I even get to feed the octopus.” He grins like he just won the Super Bowl.

  “No way.” The fish and chips guy gives me my food. Simon sits on the stool next to mine.

  “I’m meeting my parents later. They’re at the movies now, up at Pacific Place, but it was nothing I wanted to see.” He looks up at the chalkboard menu.

  “Oh,” I say, and take a sip of my soda. Brilliant conversation.

  “I was gonna do that Spanish sheet as proof of my ability to study in public. Maybe get a candy apple, too. Does brunch have dessert?”

  “Any meal can have dessert, as far as I’m concerned. I love that candy apple place,” I say. “Actually, I just like looking in the window. But I’ve always wanted to try it out.”

  “I’ll wait while you eat so you can go with me.”

  Simon sips a Coke while I try to eat my fries. I offer him some.

  “Thanks.” He grabs a five-fry pinch.

  “So,” I say. “Tell me about the octopus.”

  “We feed her crab bits inside Mr. Potato Head.”

  I can’t help chuckling at the thought. “The toy?”

  “Yeah. You know, Mr. Potato Head has that hatch for his eyes and nose and stuff? We put the food in there and close the hatch. It’s fun for people to watch her play with it. Only takes a minute for her to get it open.”

  “So it’s a girl octopus?”

  He nods. “Oh, yeah. Sad thing, though. They mated her. She’ll lay eggs soon.”

  “That sounds happy.”

  “Not for her. She won’t eat while she’s taking care of the eggs. When they hatch, she’ll die.”

  I drop my fry. “That’s horrible!”

  “Yeah. But it’s natural for the octopus.”

  So cool that Simon knows this stuff.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” he says.

  I hate when people say that. “Um.”

  “The show was good last night.” That, I can talk about. “Robb Moore is a genius.”

  “I know, how can you not love the Charm?” I sip my Coke.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  He takes another bunch of my fries. He finishes chewing and says, “What’s with your friend, anyway? He is just your friend, right?”

  I take the soda straw from my lips. “Yes.” Did that sound too formal? “Yeah.”

  “’Cause he’s the only person I ever see you talking to. Practically.”

  “We’re good friends.”

  “Is he gay?”

  Personal, personal. At this point, though, I don’t care; if he’s interested in who I’m dating, and who I’m not, he can say anything he wants. Like I’ve ever even been on a date.

  “Jewel is definitely not gay.”

  “He’s just … you know. So different.”

  “He’s an artist. He’s really talented.”

 
“Yeah?” Simon says. “You know him a lot better than I do.”

  “And you know everyone else in school a lot better than I do.”

  Simon eats some fries. “Why are you so quiet at school?”

  I certainly don’t announce my comings and goings like the how-was-your-weekend homeroom crowd. But I’m not a mouse. Unless. Unless that’s exactly what I am. Mousy. Boring. Ordinary. A little timid. Easy to miss if not in a state of scamper.

  I keep eating my fries.

  “You should talk more,” Simon says. “If you showed up to one of our parties and asked for a beer, everyone would love you.”

  Gee. Just what I want. The love of keg kids.

  But really. I study my plate, then sneak a look at Simon. Maybe the secret to having a lot of friends in high school isn’t a secret at all. Maybe it’s all about being in the right place at the right time. With the right person.

  The candy apple shop is right near the original location of Starbucks, the only one to still feature the mermaid logo in all her bare-breasted glory. Apples line the windows: coated in red, in caramel, in chocolate, and in any topping you can imagine, from nuts to sprinkles to full-on candy chunks.

  “The one with M&M’s and chocolate is my favorite,” says Simon.

  “That’s some heavy-duty apple eating.”

  He puffs out his chest. “I can handle it.”

  Is he being sarcastic? God, I hope he is, with that macho thing. Tarzan is so not my style. All those grunts. The loincloth.

  How about … we are candy-apple Adam and Eve. Tempted.

  The loincloth imagery is quite strong for me at the moment. But Adam would have been totally naked.

  I so should not be thinking about that.

  Being around Simon has got me feeling something tingly in my throat. I want so badly to nuzzle against his neck, my lips against his skin.

  Stop! Stop lusting after him.

  I choose a plain caramel apple and Simon gets his favorite.

  “My treat,” he says, and pays before I can protest.

  We sit on a bench next to a huge stuffed teddy bear.

  Simon asks me what I think of Spanish class. “For real,” he says, “does Señora’s accent ever crack you up?”