Cycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

  So that’s who the white tux was for.

  I duck behind a column, but the suddenness of the move draws Tommy’s attention. He scrunches up his face in inquiry, then says something to Ramie. Still leaning against the column, Ramie cranes her neck around to see me. I pull back, but it’s too late. She spots me.

  Tucked into a corner beneath a crepe paper archway, the DJ, some middle-aged townie trapped in 1985, spins “Tainted Love” to a round of squeals and another swelling of the dance floor.

  Tommy says something to Ramie. I can’t read lips, but I figure it’s something along the lines of “Who’s that ass hat hiding behind the column?” Colored lights throb in time with the song’s electronic hook as Ramie says something that looks like “I don’t know.” Then she walks over to me, the white tuxedo clinging like a second skin. Opening in a wide V down the front, it’s fringed with ruffles, as if to indicate a standard tuxedo shirt while exposing a torturously wide expanse of smooth vanilla skin. Memories of last night surge through me and I have to cling to the column to remain upright.

  “You came,” she says.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I know I should be looking around for plainclothes detectives or some other nefarious agent of Mom’s wanting to net me like an escaped gorilla, but I can’t stop looking at her. Her eyes are shrouded in dark blue, her lips all shiny, and her skin a flawless expanse of milky white.

  “You know it’s not true, right?” I say.

  “What?”

  “Whatever Jill’s mother told you.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “She told me quite a lot.”

  “Where is she? Why isn’t she here?”

  Ramie glances around. “She’s out looking for you. I told her I’d call if you showed up here.”

  “None of it’s true,” I say.

  “How do you know what she said?”

  “I know her, Ramie. She told you . . . let’s see. She told you I was an Esswich kid or . . . no, no, a Lansdale kid, probably. That I’m stalking Jill and that I’m wanted for . . .” I try to conjure the hideous capacity of Mom’s mind.

  “Murder,” Ramie says. “You killed a teacher. In Quebec.”

  I can’t help smiling at that one. “And how exactly did Jill meet me?” I say.

  Ramie breathes in deeply. “At the beach last summer.”

  “Really,” I say. “Where she was with you almost every day?”

  Ramie nods.

  “What an amateur,” I say. “Jill’s safe. She’ll be back by tomorrow or the next day at the latest.”

  Ramie’s nostrils flare. “And you know this because?”

  “I know this because—” I stop suddenly. Then I touch Ramie’s fingers and take her hand in mine. “I know this because I’m her.”

  Ramie says nothing as she stares at me, her eyes glistening with sudden tears that do not drop.

  “I know it’s impossible,” I say. “But—”

  She takes my other hand and pulls me close to her. Bringing her lips softly to mine, she kisses me, then pulls back.

  “You believe me?” I say.

  She shakes her head.

  “You think I’m lying?”

  She shakes her head again.

  “Ramie—”

  “Shhh.”

  Her left hand finds the small of my back as she shuffles me backward onto the dance floor. Wrapping her fingers around my palm, she begins swaying gently from side to side as her hand climbs my back to rest on my shoulder. Jason Grimby, a few feet to my left, takes a break from feeling up Alison Lambert to sneer inquisitively at me, then loses himself in her sloppy kiss.

  When the song segues to its Diana Ross bridge, I pull Ramie close and we begin circling gently, our knees bumping as we shuffle. We are not dancing, exactly. We are merely moving with and against each other, swaying side to side in a sea of swaying kids as if we were both perfectly normal. No one here knows I had sex with Ramie last night. No one here knows my secret. I’m not sure even Ramie has grasped what I’ve told her. It’s as if the heat of her torso pressing against mine has melted away the sordid truth and we’re just two ordinary teenagers committing foreplay on the dance floor while an army of chaperones watches helplessly from the perimeter. The ordinariness of it all is nothing short of extraordinary.

  Ramie gasps suddenly.

  “What?” I say.

  I follow her eyes downward. My right arm is shaking.

  “What’s wrong?” she says.

  “Oh no.”

  I pull her through the clot of undulating taffeta to the edge of the dance floor, but my own legs stop me.

  “Jack?” she says.

  Tommy Knutson, watching us from the support of a white column, rushes over.

  A sharp pain fires from my lower spine and I crumple to the floor.

  Ramie drops to her knees with me. “What’s happening!” she says.

  Tommy Knutson grabs me around the shoulders and helps me up. “Is he drunk?” he says. “Is he going to puke?”

  The two of them try to walk me to an exit door a mere ten feet away, but my legs won’t work. The pain shoots down my outer thighs. My knees crackle like fireworks, then buckle. I fall to the floor.

  A sharp gasp rises from a few kids nearby on the dance floor, but the music keeps playing.

  The muscles of my abdomen contract. “Please, no,” I say.

  Ramie drops to her knees again. “What should we do? Tell me.”

  “Get me . . .” My voice mutates into a deep groan. “Get . . . me . . . out of here.” I start panting.

  Ramie slings my arm around her shoulder and tries to pull me up. In the distance, Mrs. Tosier tries to squeeze through the knot of kids, some of whom are staring at me, some of whom are still dancing.

  “I’m serious, Rames,” I say. “Get me out of here.” A brutal jab attacks my lower spine and I hear myself moan. Ramie calls out to me but her voice gets swallowed up in the music and my own agonized breathing.

  Then all sound vanishes.

  My back arches, brutally plastering the top of my head to the hard wooden floor. Colored flecks of light spiral around me. Eyes bear down. Ramie’s eyes. Tommy’s eyes. Mrs. Tosier’s eyes. Alison Lambert’s and Jason Grimby’s eyes. Eyes atop tuxedoed bodies. Eyes atop satin and silk. Eyes beneath sweaty updos.

  I am no longer invisible. Their eyes consume me, big, open and full of horror.

  The change has begun.

  June 23

  Jill

  Through the murky screen of my eyelashes, the first thing I notice is a bright yellow light coming at me, followed by a pink one and a blue one. Underwater voices murmur indecipherably. Music plays loud and bassy. When I blink, I realize the lights are skipping across a wooden floor. Up above, a shiny reflective globe spins.

  “Can you hear me?” someone says. “Jill, can you hear me?”

  Other voices resolve from the din. “Wow!” someone says. “Did you see that?”

  A blurry round face sitting atop a blur of mauve bears down on me. I stare at it until I recognize it as belonging to Mrs. Tosier, a chubby Spanish teacher I never had. On my other side, a white shape, vaguely humanoid, sits or kneels while colored lights dance across it. As it scoots toward me, I try to make out its details. Angel-like, it kneels at my side, then whisks long fingers down my cheek.

  What a strange dream.

  I stare into the angel’s blurred face until its details become Ramie’s. Behind her in a beautiful green chiffon dress is Alison Lambert, her hands pressed together over her nose.

  It must be morning. I close my eyes and wait for the dream to end, wait for wakefulness to claim me. But the voices keep murmuring while footsteps patter and stomp.

  I hear music, then the words “ambulance” and “mother.”

  Then Ramie shouts, “No!”

  Sliding her white arm beneath my shoulders, she lifts my liquid torso off the wooden floor. Mrs. Tosier tries to stop her, but Ramie keeps pulling me until I am half standing on limp le
gs. Repositioning her arms around my waist, she jerks me upright. From the indistinct fringe of people shapes, another shape steps forward. Thrusting its forearms under my armpits, it lifts me up until I am fully standing. My legs stiffen and my knees lock into position.

  “Hey,” I say. I’ve endured the surreal logic of early-morning dreams often enough to know that there is no point in resisting them. These two angels want me to stand. That’s good enough for me. Perhaps they’re flying me out of here, wherever “here” is.

  “Ramie,” I say to the white angel. “Where are you taking me?”

  Both arms firmly around my waist, Ramie leads me away from the colored lights through a sudden parting of the fringe of people shapes. Some of them are dancing. Some of them are staring. A red exit light beams at us. I face the other angel, who holds my right arm firmly.

  “Hey,” I say. “I know you.” It’s Tommy Knutson. Judging by his ashen face, he appears to have endured a recent trauma.

  “Where are we going?” I say.

  He exhales but doesn’t answer.

  I look out at the crowd of people shapes until they turn into actual people. Samantha Kitteridge, Brenda Weinstein, Mrs. MacLaine from freshman English, Steven Price.

  “Hey, Steven,” I say.

  He doesn’t answer.

  Everyone’s dressed in long gowns or suits. It must be a wedding or . . .

  Looking down, I notice that I’m wearing a suit too, a man’s suit that is several sizes too big. Two giant black shoes poke out from the hem of my pants. I stare into their shiny facade, then face Ramie. “Why am I wearing this?”

  “Shhh,” she says. “Let’s go outside.”

  Mrs. Tosier steps forward and grabs Ramie’s elbow. “We need to call her parents.”

  “No,” Ramie says. “It’s okay. I’m taking her home.”

  Grabbing me around the waist again, she guides me to the bright red exit light.

  Tommy follows us. “Shouldn’t we at least call her parents?” he says.

  “Definitely not,” Ramie says.

  We emerge from the building under a canvas awning where a cluster of limousines awaits.

  “Ramie,” I say. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

  She guides me past the limousines into the expansive parking lot, which I recognize all too well. At the far end is a large wooden sign and on it are the words “Karn Beach Yacht Club.”

  “Oh mal,” I say.

  “Come on,” Ramie says. She tugs me between two rows of parked cars.

  I have to hold my pants up, and the bottoms keep getting trapped under the big black shoes as we crunch through the gravel of the parking lot. When we get to her Toyota, I almost collapse face-first against the passenger door. Ramie turns me around so that I’m merely leaning against it.

  “How do you feel?” she says. “Do you need to sit?” She straightens out my suit and wipes the sweat from my forehead with her sleeve.

  I bring the backs of my fingers to my forehead to feel how sweaty I am and realize I’m not wearing my wig. “Ramie,” I say. “How did I get here?”

  Ramie glances at Tommy, who shakes his head in utter confusion.

  I grab Ramie’s arm, awaiting both an explanation for and an escape from what I already suspect is a horrifying reality.

  “You don’t remember?” she says.

  But I’m starting to remember. Fragments of someone else’s reality are angling into my memory.

  Ramie steps even closer and puts both hands on my face. “It’s okay,” she says. “We’ll work it out.”

  She knows.

  She leans closer still and presses her forehead to mine. In the quietest of whispers, she says, “I knew last night.”

  I yank my head away from her. “What happened last night?”

  Tommy steps forward. “Yeah, what happened last night?”

  Ramie’s eyes burn into me and I cannot look away. The pale oval of my face reflects in her dark brown irises. We remain frozen in each other’s gaze, with no information passing.

  Until it does.

  In fast motion, like a sped-up movie, images of last night flicker through my mind. Ramie’s white stomach, her ecstatic face, the writhing, undulating spasms of our impossible union.

  “I am . . . ,” I say.

  “What?” Ramie says.

  “All girl.” Hinging at the waist, I collapse at Ramie’s feet. “Plan B,” I groan. “Black dot. Black dot!”

  Tommy puts his arms around me. “I’ve got her.” He lifts me to my feet while Ramie opens the door.

  “Lay her down in the backseat,” she says.

  Tommy slides me in, then sits next to me. I discover I’m sitting on something rough. I grab at a bit of black tulle, then pull it gently from underneath me. It’s my prom dress.

  Ramie gets in the front seat and starts the car.

  “The mirror,” I say. “I need the mirror!” I reach over the front seat and angle the rearview mirror so that I can see my face. It’s sweaty, pale, terrified and topped with a hideous outcropping of sloppy hair spikes. Neverthless, I take it all in. Then I sit back and close my eyes. “I am all girl,” I whisper.

  “Shouldn’t we take her home?” Tommy says.

  “Home,” I say. “Yes.”

  “No,” Ramie says. “We can’t do that.”

  “I am all girl,” I whisper.

  “I know,” Tommy says. “It’s okay.”

  “I am all girl.” I keep searching for the black dot, but it’s nowhere to be found. And frames of last night’s grotesque Jack-movie keep flickering by. Not just sight but sound and touch. Her voice. My voice. My Jackvoice. A full picture in three dimensions and all five senses fleshes itself out.

  I grit my teeth. “I am . . .”

  The car jerks forward and I open my eyes. At the entrance of the club, Mrs. Tosier waddles from beneath the awning, trailing a handful of curious students who stare at us as we drive past.

  “I am . . . ,” I say.

  Tommy puts his arm around me. “Jill?” he says. “Tell me what to do.”

  I face him. “. . . all girl?”

  But it’s not working. I drop my head into his lap and pass out.

  “I don’t trust her, Tommy. Jack was afraid of what she’d do.”

  “Ramie, hold on. Are you telling me—”

  “I’ve never liked her.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I know, Ramie. I just—”

  “Listen to me, Tommy. The woman is not right.”

  “I get it.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “Okay, Ramie. Fine. We won’t call her mother. You had sex with Jill last night?”

  “Shhh. I had sex with Jack last night.”

  This time, I know I’m not dreaming. I’m in the back of Ramie’s car with my sweaty cheek plastered to the leather seat, my unworn prom dress slung over the front seat.

  “But you said you knew it was her,” Tommy says.

  “Only sort of.”

  I lift myself up and wipe the drool from my chin. All of the windows are open, and the car is parked at the edge of the woods. Ramie and Tommy stand about twenty feet away, at the shore of Arrowhead Lake.

  “What do you mean by ‘sort of’?” Tommy says.

  They both have their hands in their pockets and their backs to me.

  “Subconsciously,” Ramie says. “I think.”

  They’re nearly the same height, Ramie in white, Tommy in black.

  “There were clues,” Ramie says.

  “There were?”

  “Come on, Tommy. The haircut. The scar.”

  “I don’t know anything about a scar,” Tommy says. “And I didn’t know Jack. He was your mystery window guy, not mine. This is so messed up.” Tommy kicks at a rock and it goes skidding into the water.

  Ramie grabs his wrist. “Tommy,” she says. “You deeply cannot freak out.”

  If I’m very quiet, I could slide o
ut the window and sneak home. It’s less than half a mile from here.

  “Well, what are we supposed to do?” he says.

  “Does it matter?”

  I start to squeeze my shoulders through the open window.

  “She’s passed out in the back of your car, Ramie. We have to do something.”

  “No,” Ramie says. “I mean, does it matter to you? What she is.”

  Silence. I freeze with the window’s edge pressing into my stomach.

  “I guess it shouldn’t,” Tommy says. “But—”

  Ramie faces him. “But what?”

  Quietly, I slide back into the car.

  “Well, what are we supposed to do? Share them?”

  Ramie shrugs, then kicks at a stone, which skids a few feet from her. “I don’t know, Tommy. But I do know that we can’t take her home to her mother.”

  “Why not?” he says.

  “Her mother told me Jack was a murderer.”

  “Maybe he is.”

  “She told me he was stalking Jill, which is not physically possible.”

  “I don’t know how any of this is physically possible.”

  “Neither do I.” Ramie crouches and picks up a flat rock. Sidearming it into the lake, she watches it skip twice, then disappear.

  Resting my arms on the open window, I let the damp aquatic air cool my face while Ramie and Tommy stare into the black face of the lake without speaking.

  Ramie and I used to ride our bikes to Arrowhead Lake in middle school and pretend we were Indian princesses founding a new tribe, a tribe of two. There were no houses visible from the lake and no one to interfere with us. We told each other everything. We kept no secrets. Her name was Skipping Rock. Mine was Swooping Dragonfly.

  “Maybe we should wake her up,” Tommy says.

  “No,” Ramie says. “Let her sleep for a while.”

  Through four years of high school I have lived a lie, never realizing, until now, just how lonely that was.

  But high school is over. The lie is dead. There’s only one thing left to do.