The Opposite of Invisible

by Liz Gallagher

Our teacher is from El Salvador. “Crack me up? No. She speaks English better than I’ll ever speak Spanish.”

  “I knew you’d say something like that. Something fair.”

  “I guess.”

  “My friends say she should be washing their sheets.”

  I sit up. “What! That’s horrible. Cruel. Your friends are mean.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “They kind of are.”

  “Sorry to say that, but I mean, that’s really terrible.”

  “I know. It’s okay. I’ve always figured that you and Jewel kind of hate us.”

  I look at my lap. “Not you.”

  “Jewel does. He was … glaring at me at the show.”

  Well. “He doesn’t know you.”

  He looks right at me. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about Jewel. And about me.”

  “I’m sure there is.” He has a little bit of green M&M shell on his bottom lip. “You know, I only moved to Seattle last year. Most of my friends then were seniors ’cause I made varsity football. Now they’re off at school. I don’t really know anyone here that well.”

  I know he dated a senior cheerleader last year. She was on the homecoming court. “You seem to do all right.”

  “I’m outgoing, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” I say, and concentrate on biting my apple.

  “Honestly?” He stops eating again but stares at his apple. He’s about to say something big. “I don’t really care about football and all that. But it’s fun. The parties and everything.” He turns his eyes back to his apple.

  “But …”

  “I’m kinda done with the whole thing. It’s fun but it’s not … I don’t know. It’s not enough? To define me? All the time?”

  I know that popularity doesn’t buy happiness, but I can’t help thinking it might make things easier. “Okay,” I say. I guess what I’m thinking is At least you get to have fun. At least you have more than one real friend.

  Then again, it’s kind of like what he’s saying is I don’t have any real friends. Just fun people.

  “How does our school compare to your old one?”

  “Same old,” he says. “Cliques. The outsider types here have taken it to kind of a new level, though. Like Vanessa Almond and that guy Nicolai? They’re out there.”

  Like me? I wonder. Not my look, but I’m in that art crowd.

  “I like it, though,” he continues. “They really know who they are. Or they at least think they do. It’s kind of … brave.”

  “To dress like a freak?”

  “To be who you are. In high school.”

  Simon finishes his apple and gets up to throw away the stick. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s walk.”

  “It’s not weird,” I tell Simon as we move to a bench on the stretch of grass down by the water near the market. “What’s not weird?”

  “Talking to you,” I say. “Even though we’ve never really talked before.” I can’t believe I’m saying this stuff to him.

  I sweep my hand out to indicate the park, the bay, the homeless people gathered in a clump.

  I’m feeling brave now. “Why did you even come up to me back there, at the lunch counter?”

  He looks at me.

  He keeps looking at me. With those eyes.

  Then he does something amazing. Puts his fingers under my chin.

  Simon Murphy, whose perfect girl had to be a cheerleader. That’s what I thought. That’s what Jewel and I joked about.

  He kisses me. He kisses me with candy still on his lips.

  So quickly I’m not sure it really was a kiss.

  If it was, it was my first.

  My heart is trying to beat itself out of my chest. I hope he can’t feel it. I hope he can. My toes are bent up in my shoes.

  Then he kisses me again, for real. This is easy; is this too easy? Why is he doing this? Does it matter?

  I try to melt into him. I try not to worry about my chest exploding as my heart pumps too fast. I try to remember what I’ve read in magazines about kissing. Open my mouth a little. Let him in.

  Just as he pulls away, I think People are watching this; they think we’re a couple.

  People would believe that this guy is with me.

  “Why wouldn’t I come up to you?” he asks.

  It takes a moment for me to remember what we’d been talking about.

  I don’t know how to answer that without saying, “Why would you?” But obviously we have stuff in common. And we’re having a good time.

  But. I’m in a cocoon with Jewel. Plus Simon and I barely know each other. Maybe this is all about my new longer legs. Is that possible?

  We look at the water. He stands up and says, “Parent time. Gotta go.”

  I nod, not sure if I should stand up and walk with him. Then he takes off. “See ya.”

  I keep staring at the water, sitting on the bench. See ya. The most enigmatic phrase ever. See me when? See me intentionally? I hope so. Soon.

  Twenty minutes of agonizing later, I float to the bus stop.

  Chapter Five

  •

  •

  •

  Of course I can’t sleep. I talk to my Dove Girl. “It felt like a movie. Like I was just watching some other girl.” But I don’t need anyone to tell me that it really happened. I know just from the way my lips, still, feel different.

  “I’m tingling.”

  Time passes.

  I hate that I can’t talk to Jewel. It’s the first time I’ve kept anything from him. Still. I can’t.

  Sleepless, I turn toward the wall. I fold my hands together under my pillow, so that they’re holding each other. Maybe this pose will help me sleep. Maybe this curl to my legs.

  I sit up and look at my Dove Girl in the half-light. She’s just a few black lines on a beige background.

  I catch sight of myself in the silver frame, barely lit by the streetlight coming through my window. Half of one blue eye, a sliver of nose. No dove.

  “Dove Girl,” I whisper. “Let me get to dreaming.”

  I lie down, turn over again, and look out the window by my window seat. Even in the dark night, the tree outside looks so full that I feel like I’m in the jungle, not the city. It’s hard to believe that the biggest SUV I’ve ever seen is parked by the curb waiting for my neighbor, the health-food mogul, to drive it downtown. That we’re not all running around in loincloths, befriending monkeys and eating coconuts for dinner. That we’re not watched by lions.

  I can’t stay in bed. I put my feet on the floor and appreciate the hardwood under my bare toes. I tiptoe across my small room to the door, down the stairs, to the front door. It’s unlocked. My parents are way too trusting.

  The October rain is cold, but painless. It feels refreshing, better than sunshine. I want to take off my T-shirt and be naked, but that’s just for a second. I have neighbors. I’m no jungle princess.

  I put my face to the sky and stand next to the tree that reaches up to my window. Its trunk is so wide. I can’t imagine how old this tree is. Jewel and I used to sneak out here when we were in middle school. One late night, I asked him what he thought it felt like to be a fish, to breathe underwater. He said if you were a fish you wouldn’t even think about it.

  That idea’s followed me since: You do what comes naturally to you without even thinking about it.

  I tell myself that, as I struggle to get Dove Girl-esque peace about myself. If you were a fish, you could breathe underwater.

  You’re Alice. Find your peace. Go back to bed.

  In the morning I go downstairs to find that Dad has been on his Sunday walk to Caffe Ladro. He’s brought me back a vanilla latte and a cranberry muffin.

  “I was just thinking of waking you before this coffee turns into lukewarm flavored milk,” he says.

  “That would imply that I was asleep. Which is sort of true, but sort of not.”

  He offers to pick up some valerian root at the health-foo
d place later, to help me sleep.

  We settle in at the table, Dad reading the paper.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “Knitting class. She’s learning how to do a beanie today.”

  I nod. My mom tried to teach me how to knit a scarf, but it turned out all clumpy. She swears it was just weird yarn, but I am completely unskilled in the art of tying knots with needles.

  The phone rings and Dad answers.

  “Oh, hi there!” He looks at me. It must be Jewel. Dad hands me the phone and goes back to reading about our dangerously hot planet.

  “I’m psyched about looking for my Bath costume,” Jewel says. “The bloodier the better. Maybe I can be a zombie type of thing? A corpse, risen from the grave? Leaving a trail of decomposition in my wake.”

  I won’t mention Simon. Because, really, no one wants a mess. But it will show on my face. This thing that happened yesterday.

  In the junk shop Jewel and I look at old hats, old board games, old valentines, old shoes, many old dresses.

  I find a powder blue tux on the rack at the back of the store.

  “You need this.” I finger the white ruffles on the shirt.

  I can tell by his smirk that he loves it.

  “You can be a lounge singer for the Bath. A dead lounge singer. I’ll do your makeup with our old Goth stuff.”

  In eighth grade, we had a short flirtation with the powers of darkness. Strictly as a fashion statement.

  “Yes!” He’s grinning like crazy. “And let’s find one of those things, those hatchet-through-the-heads? Ya know?”

  “Perfecto,” I say. “I’ll look around while you try that on. It better fit.”

  “It totally better,” he says as he goes to the dressing room.

  I look around until Jewel calls me over. The pants are a little big, but we decide he can wear a belt. And the effect makes him look even skinnier than he is, sort of skeletonlike, which is what we want.

  Jewel buys the tux for twenty-eight bucks, and I begin to see us at the Bath, me in my dress and Jewel looking hilariously great. We’ll dance, silly dances of course. It’ll be awesome.

  Simon. He’ll be there, for sure. “See ya.” What is that about? Will he talk to me at the Bath? Before then? At school?

  The dance is next Saturday. I’ll find out.

  Jewel and I go to the counter and the girl remembers us. “Your hem’s all done,” she says. “Try it on?”

  She pulls my dress out of a plastic bag under the counter and I go to the dressing room.

  If I borrow heels from my mom, the dress will still almost touch the floor. Guess my legs aren’t getting as long as I thought. That’s okay; it’ll look like I’m floating. Exactly what I want.

  I do a few pseudosexy moves at the mirror, trying out some other personality. I even pull the strap down off my shoulder, baring my skin. Smooth.

  Jewel taps on the dressing room door.

  I step out, beaming.

  He grins back. “You look …” Pause. “You look amazing.”

  He stares at me. Sees me. It feels … too real.

  “You’re too kind,” I say, batting my eyelashes. “But your words have saved you from my lizard-gut potions.”

  I do a scary-witch cackle as I close the dressing room door. I can still feel his eyes on me.

  Bags in hand, we go out to the sidewalk. “Gotta return this,” Jewel says as he pulls a Japanimation DVD out of his camera bag.

  So we walk over to Rain City, the video store. When we get there, I wait by the life-sized cardboard cutout of Hannibal Lecter that permanently stands guard over the checkout counter. Jewel goes to find our video store friend, Tommy.

  They emerge from behind the Directors to Watch section. “Greetings, darlings.” Tommy gives me a one-armed hug.

  Jewel pulls the tux out of his plastic bag and I pull out my dress.

  “Fabulous,” says Tommy.

  We grin. Jewel puts his suit on the counter, grabs the dress from me, and waltzes with it. He dances with exaggerated steps. He hums, does a dip.

  “You’re actually going to the Bath?” Tommy asks. “I thought it was cheese.”

  We nod. Jewel turns in small circles.

  “Tommy,” I say. “The Bath is a thing to talk about over your cafeteria fish sticks. There will be cheerleaders in attendance.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t make fun of cheerleaders so much now that I’m … whatever. Now that I’m doing whatever I’m doing with Simon.

  “Yeah,” says Jewel. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they wear their uniforms as costumes. Carry around their pompoms.”

  “In my day,” Tommy says, which means three years ago, when he was a student at our high school, “the Bath was like twenty of us who didn’t want to go around toilet-papering the neighborhood.”

  “Yeah, but with that whole curfew thing last year,” Jewel says, “’cause of those guys who broke some police cruiser’s windows, people are into the idea of drinking punch labeled ‘Bat’s Blood.’”

  “The powers that be actually had us sign pledges in homeroom,” I tell Tommy. “Saying that we agree to behave if they don’t turn us into pumpkins at eight p.m. It’s really gonna bring out the spike-the-punch crowd. They have nothing else to do.”

  A woman comes up to Tommy, asking him if something with a cartoon devil on its cover is appropriate for her four-year-old son. Her boy holds on to her legs from behind, peeking out us like we’re cannibals, or some other scary thing.

  Tommy gives me a kiss on the cheek, and one to Jewel.

  Back on the sidewalk, Jewel says, “Troll?” We haven’t been to visit the troll statue in a while, even though it’s right here in Fremont. I always forget how gigantic it is—and then I’m amazed. Maybe the troll is where I’ll tell Jewel about Simon. The kiss. Or maybe I’ll never tell him. Maybe it’ll never happen again and I won’t have to worry about it.

  “Troll,” I say, and we begin to walk uphill. When we get up to Thirty-sixth, I stop and look back at the main stretch of Fremont. The bridge is going up. Three tall sailboats float in a line, waiting to go through.

  Jewel stands beside me, breathing. If I moved my arm two inches, we’d be touching. Part of me really wants to touch his skin. It’s like there’s a zap of energy between our bodies, and our touching would either create a spark or be like an unplugging.

  Jewel nods toward the bridge. “I love having drawbridges in town. It reminds me of some other time.”

  “When people weren’t in such a hurry.”

  “I wonder what he does up in the tower. The controller guy.”

  We start walking again.

  “I guess I’d sketch,” Jewel says. “You’d probably sleep.”

  I don’t sleep well at night because I think.

  Thinking is the number one enemy of dreaming.

  Dreams are what I need.

  In dreams, I know everything, and nothing makes sense in that perfect way that’s sort of Zen. Like, the sky is totally not supposed to be that color. But cool. Let’s go fly a kite anyway. We’re feeling okay.

  It’s always we. I think in terms of we.

  Me and Jewel. Me and Simon, maybe. Me and me.

  I exhale. “If I could sleep up there, I’d definitely do it.”

  We walk another block and are at the giant stone troll. It sits, menacing, under the 99 freeway. The troll’s left hand crushes a real VW Beetle; that car used to travel the streets, but now it’s in a constant state of about-to-be-eaten.

  We barely hear the traffic above our heads as we climb the rocks to the troll’s back.

  Jewel is just ahead of me. I stumble and he turns around to grab my hand. We each have our junk shop bag in one hand, and now we have each other’s fingers in the other.

  We reach the troll’s shoulders, up where we can lean back against his head. Jewel keeps my hand. We let our bags rest on the stone.

  Then my planet wobbles.

  His hand.

  That wanting-to-be-close feeling star
ts to come over me again. I have the urge to lay my head on Jewel’s sweatshirt, on his shoulder. To feel how solid he is.

  Did kissing Simon release something in me? Or would I feel this way toward Jewel right now anyway?

  As if we’re at the slow-motion point in a movie, Jewel reaches across my body to my cheek. He pulls my face toward his. His fingers feel like hot ice. They’re cold but they burn me.

  My eyes close as he kisses me.

  I kiss him back, a dream I’ve never had.

  This kiss is so soft, it’s almost like rain falling on my face.

  I’ve never realized the softness of Jewel’s hair before. His skin.

  Jewel kissing me, me kissing him, feels like a rocket. Like blastoff.

  Finally, I pull away.

  I’m thinking we shouldn’t be doing this. I’m thinking it feels too real. I’m thinking. Simon.

  Jewel’s eyes are talking. They sparkle, and say yes, and please.

  It’s the please that gets me. The glint of the question, of please kiss me again and please mean it and please let’s be together.

  Because with Jewel and me, anything more than this, more than one kiss, means we’re a couple.

  I’m thinking.

  He says, “Wow.”

  I think, Tell me about it.

  I think, Have you honed your mind-reading skills yet, ’cause I hope not.

  He leans toward me.

  He lets out his breath.

  His lips are like the rain.

  Ten, nine, eight.

  The pressure in me builds.

  Seven.

  I push him away.

  He closes his eyes. Leans against the stone of the troll.

  He leans forward. He tells me everything with those eyes. He tells me I’m all he wants. He tells me I’m perfect.

  I say, “I better get home for dinner.”

  He knows we don’t eat till seven.

  He shuts his eyes. Climbs down the troll’s hill.

  He pauses by the troll’s gigantic thumb. He doesn’t look at me again. He jumps to the sidewalk.

  I watch him go.

  My heart just beats and beats and beats and Jewel and I and—

  We really kissed. This heartbeat might be a happy roller-coaster rush if it had happened one week ago. But now. It’s a two-guys-at-once-two-kisses-you-have-to-choose.