The Opposite of Invisible

by Liz Gallagher

  Whoa. “So far.” I try to be as casual as she is.

  “Not for long, I bet! He seems really into you.”

  “You know what? I think he is.”

  “So how far are you gonna go?”

  I’m blushing again. “Let’s just say, maybe I should go pick up that pretty bra.”

  “Ooh-la-la.”

  I sip my latte and she moves on to telling me about gymnastics.

  My mind cartwheels when I realize I’ve got a new friend.

  Chapter Twelve

  •

  •

  •

  I see Vanessa in homeroom on Monday. She’s wearing Jewel’s Backstreet Boys T-shirt. The one I found with him at the junk store last year.

  She makes sure I see, sitting up straight as I come in. Usually, she’s bent over her notebook, drawing weird things, like factory buildings with shoelaces.

  I want to rip that T-shirt off her. And then what would I have? Vanessa in her bra and me left gripping half a T-shirt. Not a good idea, especially the Vanessa-in-bra part.

  I’m wearing my jeans with the new black V-neck, and I swear there are eyes on me. In the same way that Corrigan’s been leering at me.

  I keep my arms folded across my chest, both hands grabbing my backpack straps under my armpits as I walk to my desk.

  Vanessa turns around in her chair, watching me.

  I am on exhibit.

  James Dill sits in front of me. Silent James Dill. He turns around and looks at me. I look back. He finally asks, “Simon Murphy?”

  I cock my head.

  “And that photo guy,” he says. “He used to be your best buddy, right? He’s going after Vanessa Almond?” He whispers her name like he doesn’t know that the whole homeroom is hyper-tuned to our conversation.

  “Kinda.”

  “Where did you come from,” he says, and faces the chalkboard. It’s not really a question; he knows I’ve been here all the time.

  This guy named after a pickle suddenly finds me interesting.

  Welcome to Popular World, I think.

  At lunch, I stare at Simon’s lips. I know what they feel like now. I know how he moves them. I know their taste.

  I drop my pretzel when he reaches for my hand.

  He holds it by the fingers.

  “I’m having so much fun with you,” he says.

  “Me too. With you.”

  I smile at him. He gives my hand a little squeeze. Something is up.

  “Corrigan’s having a party this weekend. Want to go?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say. That will sort of be my big-time social de-virginization.

  “And,” Simon says, “he asked if we’d want a room.”

  Whoa. That could be a whole different kind of de-virgining.

  Too fast! Too fast! My brain is screaming. I can’t go from gazing at neon condoms from afar to actually needing one. I’ve just started getting used to kissing.

  “Um,” I say.

  Simon’s eyes are on his carrot sticks. Notably not on me. What is he thinking?

  This is going way faster than I’d expected. But I’m his girlfriend now and people do go there.

  What if I’m only a girlfriend until we get there?

  “You know?” he asks.

  I just kind of nod. What should I do? I know what he means by “want a room.” I so don’t feel ready. I was a little embarrassed just talking to Mandy about him seeing me in my bra. How to tell him? Will he break up with me? I push my lunch away.

  Corrigan and those guys come up behind Simon. “Speak of the devil,” I say.

  “Coach posted those new plays in the locker room,” Corrigan says. “Let’s go.”

  Simon stands, flashes his dimple at me. “We’ll talk later.”

  During English, I doodle. Simon is in every stroke as I fill a page with countless bubbled-up question marks.

  I’m kind of mad that Simon brought up the room. Everything was going so well. He said it; we were having fun. Now there’s this big thing already.

  He did seem … weird about it. And he said it was Corrigan’s idea. Is it possible that Simon’s nervous too?

  On my walk home, I notice that the junk shop has changed its window display. It’s full of fifties-esque clothing now, and rhinestone sunglasses.

  The rain falls. I concentrate on the traffic passing by, its swishing sound. Like waves.

  It’s an effort to get through the mile home today. Minimal sleep combined with maximal weirdness has rendered me heavy and slow.

  At home, I sink into a nap.

  I dream that my Dove Girl has come to life. She’s speaking to me, but it’s all in Catalan. I have a feeling she’s trying to tell me where I belong. But I can’t understand.

  When I wake up, I work on my art assignment: a still life in charcoal. The rain misses me as I sit under a wool blanket on our front porch in the Adirondack chair and study the tree. The middle-of-the-night tree. The first-kiss tree.

  I am beginning to form its trunk when I see someone coming down the street. A guy wearing a black jacket with a hood, moving slowly toward my house. For a second, I’m not sure if it’s Simon or Jewel.

  When he reaches the porch, Simon stands in front of me, dripping.

  “You’re soaked.” I can’t believe he’s here. This is what I’ve dreamed of. It’s a boyfriendy thing to do, stopping by like this.

  He shakes his head like a wet animal. “I wanted to see you.”

  I close my sketchpad with the charcoal inside holding my page, smudging my work. “Yeah?”

  I put the pad on the wooden deck and sit back to look at him. Before I know it, he’s bent over me, kissing me, drizzling rain from his jacket, his face, his hair. I bet this is what it feels like to shower with someone.

  The idea of me and Simon naked together upstairs in the shower while my parents are in the dining room, scheming to save the world, makes me laugh. I pull awkwardly away.

  He’s grinning. “What’s funny?”

  I consider telling him, but No! Keep that little fantasy a secret. “You! You surprised me.”

  “Ready or not,” he says, “here I come.”

  We kiss again.

  The bedroom proposition enters my head and I freeze.

  He pulls back and sits down on the porch by my feet, facing me cross-legged. “So.”

  “I just, um. I was thinking about … the party?”

  He looks down at his sneakers. Is Simon Murphy nervous? About me?

  I have to just say what I think.

  How to phrase it? “I’m a virgin.” (Duh.) “No funny business.” “Have you been tested?”

  Oh, wow. What if the proposition was innocent and he just meant a room in which to … talk. Party. Like a VIP thing? Yeah, right.

  Say something, say something.

  He looks at me. “We don’t have to.”

  I swear, my shoulders deflate with relief.

  “We don’t?”

  “Can I tell you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Corrigan and those guys just like to talk big. It’s part of why I like you,” he says. “You’re separate from all that. It’s easier … to be myself around you.”

  I think I really am dreaming. What movie did he steal that line from, about being himself? Then I see his eyes, aimed up at me. He’s sincere.

  I want to be with him. I want him to keep looking at me like that.

  “Who’s gonna be at the party, anyway?”

  “Oh, you know. The crowd. Plus usually Nicolai Gregory crashes. People like him. He’s fun at parties.”

  “Plus he’s the king.”

  “Yeah. That too.” Simon grins again.

  I ask what I really want to know. “Is there any chance that his queen will show?”

  “Vanessa? He brings her around sometimes, yeah.”

  I pull my blanket tighter around myself. “Hey, there’s no way Vanessa will bring Jewel to Corrigan’s, is there?”

  “Would he go
?”

  “Doubtful.”

  “So. Probably not. But would you want Jewel there?”

  “Jewel at Mike Corrigan’s for a social event? That’s so alternate universe.”

  “But he hasn’t been hanging out with you lately. What’s up with that?”

  I look into those emerald eyes. “We’re both hanging out with new people.”

  “Is it … at all because of me? I don’t want to be in the way of you and your friend. Maybe you should bring him to the party. It’s fine by me.”

  That’s so sweet. So impossible, but so sweet. “I’d rather just go with you.”

  He takes my hand. We stare at each other for a while. I can hear the rain pinging on the porch roof. I’m cozy in my blanket. So I share it with him.

  We jump apart when my mom calls me in for clam chowder. Simon walks off in the rain, my kisses on his lips.

  Chapter Thirteen

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  •

  At lunch, I sit with Simon’s friends now. The girls compliment my hair. “Who does your highlights?” asks Mandy.

  “No one.”

  “You do that yourself? What, drugstore box stuff? Brave girl.”

  “No. Mother Nature did it.” Mother Nature? What kind of freak am I?

  “Natural?” She squeaks. “Whoa.”

  The guys mainly talk about sports.

  “So, Friday night?” Mandy looks at me over cold veggie burgers. “Corrigan’s party!” She pulls sesame seeds off her bun. “You’re going, right?”

  “Yeah, we’re going.”

  Corrigan grins at Simon and I want to puke. Is that about the room thing?

  Mandy looks at me. She’s looking at me … almost like she’s … jealous? “This party’s gonna rock. I’m so glad you’re coming.”

  Mandy’s blond streaks make her look like a model, seriously. “Thanks,” I say.

  “Hey,” she says, “want to do a pairs class with Jim?”

  I wonder if people think it’s weird that we both take glassblowing classes. But who cares?

  “Let’s set it up.”

  On Wednesday, Simon picks me up after dinner.

  We drive around for a while and decide to park and look at the view of downtown from the little park on Queen Anne Hill. The Space Needle looks truly alien.

  I try to concentrate on what I’m seeing. The sense of Simon, so close, makes it difficult.

  My favorite part of the view is that you only know that Elliott Bay is down there because it’s the absence of buildings, of lights in the nighttime. Darkest blue. You can look from downtown, over that almost-black water, all the way to West Seattle, knowing that between the pieces of land, another world lives. Orcas.

  We stand at the fence, Simon’s arm around my waist. His fingers press in and out, so lightly. I can’t see anything.

  “Are there wild octopi down there?” I ask.

  “Sure,” he says. “Lots.”

  “Tell me more about the aquarium,” I say.

  “The sea otters are fun,” he says.

  “They’re cute, huh?”

  “And they eat twenty-five percent of their body weight per day. Kind of like Corrigan.”

  I smile at that. “You’re so informed,” I say.

  “I don’t talk about that sea life stuff with everyone, you know.”

  “Why not?”

  “I guess people would think it’s weird.”

  “I don’t.”

  He looks out across the sound. “I know you don’t.”

  The breeze gets chilly. I don’t want to go home yet, so I concentrate on not shivering.

  “Let’s head out,” Simon says.

  When we get back to the car he unlocks our doors and puts his keys in his pocket. Not in the ignition.

  Literally, we steam up the windows.

  Our bodies stretch around the stick shift, the empty travel mug. Simon breathes slow and heavy, and I match his rhythm. It feels crazy, making out like this parked on a street in the ritziest neighborhood in town.

  We kiss, rocking. He moves his hands under my tank top, just on my back.

  I let him slip his hand under my bra. It feels so amazingly good.

  How far am I ready to go? How much do I trust him? Right now I think I’d do anything.

  I say, “Let’s move to the backseat.”

  He rests his head on my chest, his hair up under my chin.

  How to put this? “More comfy.” I kiss his cheek. He leans into my neck, nibbles. He lets out a grunt.

  That’s when I realize. That grunt. I am so not ready to do this. Like an animal. It kind of makes me feel like I could be just any girl, not special; to Simon, is the physical stuff really only just physical?

  I can’t believe that, for a second, I was forgetting that when you have sex, you’re supposed to be in love.

  He moves his head to look at me, eyelashes like curtains. “Are you sure?”

  Thank you, thank you for asking. No, I am not sure. Of anything. When he tells me he loves me, and I believe it, maybe that’s when I’ll be sure.

  I just kiss him again. And again.

  I guess he gets the point; no one is moving toward the backseat.

  For tonight.

  I haven’t seen much of Jewel since the Bath, even from a distance. In Spanish, he faces the wall. But I do know that he and Vanessa are glued.

  I do my best not to think about exactly what body parts might be coming into contact between the two of them.

  I have no right to be jealous that Vanessa is with Jewel. I know that. But I thought I broke his heart at the troll.

  Now does he even care about me?

  Of course, I see Vanessa in art workshop. She’s been doing a series of hearts. Not lovey-dovey bubble ones, but anatomic hearts. Organs. With valves. She’s painting them onto canvases, every heart a different color.

  Is that her way of falling in love?

  Today she works in red.

  I focus on my Christmas portrait of Mom and Dad. It’s their faces against a red background, which represents our kitchen. My mom’s nose is too long, so I get to work on fixing it.

  I zone out as I create a better world on canvas.

  Chapter Fourteen

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  •

  •

  Friday I take my parents’ portrait out of my cubby. I ended up making it more impressionistic because I couldn’t quite get their faces right. It’s done, I decide. Best I can do.

  I walk back to my seat. How much do I wish there were a glass studio at school? Working with glass is all I really feel like doing. After just one lesson it feels more exciting to me than anything in the studio. Plus it’s not in the studio. It’s my own thing.

  My mind wanders. It occurs to me that these are probably the stools that were used in the Bloodbath box room. I could be sitting where spaghetti-brains sat.

  As I take out my drawing pad to work on the showcase cover, I smile, thinking of being in that room with Simon. The way he kissed me.

  I draw an elephant, huge, his trunk raised.

  I go into an art trance as I work on filling in the beast’s body.

  My mind is blissfully blank until the bell rings.

  When it does, I walk out into the hall. Jewel stands there, waiting for Vanessa. He doesn’t even look at me as I pass.

  My brain spins.

  I didn’t factor in that gaining a boyfriend might mean losing a best friend.

  I barely make it to my locker before I start crying. I bend down and root around in the pile of junk at the bottom of my locker, hiding.

  I’m wearing my new denim mini and the light blue shirt my mom chose. The top brightens my eyes.

  I have no idea how Simon’s friends dress for parties. I can imagine some of the girls in clothes they consider rebellious, from Hot Topic in Westlake Center. Every time I go by there, I think it’s where quirky, cool things go to die.

  Jewel and I joked about that. It started when we saw a Gr
emlins T-shirt hanging in the window, lusted after it, and then saw Christy VanSant, head cheerleader, wearing it under her J.Crew blazer.

  At eight o’clock, Simon’s honk comes: three short bursts.

  “Hey, good-lookin’,” he says as I open the car door and climb in.

  He’s wearing the same outfit as the day at Pike Place Market. The turquoise sweater, Adidas vest, and his best faded jeans.

  I wonder if he knows how much I wanted him that day, before I actually had him. If that’s why he’s wearing it.

  “You look good,” I tell him as we zip over to Mike’s house.

  “It’s fun when Corrigan’s parents skip town,” Simon says as he finds a spot for the car.

  People I don’t recognize stand on Corrigan’s small front porch, drinking out of red plastic cups and laughing too loudly.

  “Private school,” Simon whispers into my hair as we approach. They all seem to know him, waving and even whooping as we approach.

  “Who’s your girl?” asks a guy wearing a white baseball cap over his buzz cut.

  “This is Alice,” Simon says.

  This is me, I think. I am Simon’s girl.

  Inside the house, someone props a stereo speaker on a window ledge.

  Some rap song thumps onto the porch.

  “Woo-hoo!” screams the guy, raising his drink above his head.

  “Let’s go in.” Simon gives my arm a squeeze.

  I follow Simon inside. He acts like it’s his own place.

  I realize that I’ve never felt as comfortable even at Jewel’s house as Simon seems to feel here. And come to think of it, he has a way of owning whatever space he occupies. I guess that’s confidence.

  Simon heads directly for the kitchen counter, stocked with a variety of alcohol. Every kid in this place, except for Simon and me, must’ve raided their parents’ stash.

  I guess I realized that a party at Corrigan’s would mean alcohol, but this is really a lot. Simon seems fine with it, though, even excited about it. I’ve never really had the desire to get drunk.

  He hands me a red cup that smells like raspberries and nail polish remover. I step out of my frame. I take a drink.

  Simon pours his own cup to the brim and we move to the couch.

  I give myself over, drinking up, chatting with strangers about pop music, borrowing lip gloss from Mandy. As she hands me the tube, she says, “What’s mine is yours.”