by Liz Miles
“Will never happen again. Promise you that.” He taps the bridge of his baseball cap in her direction and then, by a total twist of freak-fate, he looks right at me and we have a brief flash of eye contact.
Please don’t see me. Please don’t see me. Please don’t see me.
I jerk my neck straight ahead, but can still see Jesse out of the corner of my eye as he continues to scan the room. Either he didn’t recognize me or he doesn’t want to recognize me. I can handle Eve’s nausea, other kids’ wild-eyed pity, Ms. Tea’s wonder, but I can’t handle Jesse looking at me like that, like I’m someone to be pitied, instead of the girl who used to be his friend.
Heat rises on my cheeks as his stare burns in our direction.
“Hide me,” I whisper to Eve as I bend over, head over ankles, smooshing my metal face into my backpack. I move it around a bit, feigning business, but then panic and unzip it so fast that I catch my finger in the metal strip. Blood oozes out, and I wipe it on my blue and white P.E. clothes, staining my tiger-orange gym shorts dark purple. When I zip my backpack back up in the now silent room, it causes even more of a commotion.
“You okay, Cher?” Ms. Tea asks with genuine concern.
I freeze, still bent over, my eyes glued to my (indeed they are) stinky bare feet.
If I stay down here long enough, surely she’ll start talking about the play again and Jesse will find somewhere else to sit. “I’m fine,” I mumble.
Eve speaks up on my behalf yet again. “She’s okay. She’s taking off her shoes.”
I crank my neck to whisper, “Thank you,” which she interprets as a devilish green light to commit the worst best-friend fraud on the planet. I watch in horror as she stands up, smoothes down her gauzy skirt, tucks a piece of her Barbie-doll hair behind her ear and faces the audience of our classmates.
“Okay, guys, here’s the deal. Cher got head- and neckgear over the summer, which her psycho mom and Evil Dr. O. are making her wear all the time. Even to school. Even to play rehearsals. So even though she looks super weird and freaky, it’s not her fault. So let’s not make a big deal about it. K?”
How could the day get worse?
Two letters: P.E.
So I change into my gym clothes and head into the basketball gymnasium where all the normal kids are dribbling basketballs. Of course, I’m late arriving due to the fact I had to rip the neck of my T-shirt open to make space for my enormous mechanical head.
Of course, they’ve already picked teams for the basketball “drills.”
Coach Boots, the bald JV basketball teacher, grimaces so hard at my appearance that thick blue veins stick out of his neck and I’m thinking he may have an aneurysm.
“Uh. Ms….?”
“Ther Johnthon,” I say.
“Cher. Do you have a doctor’s note?”
“No.”
The wheels in his Mr. Clean’s bald head are churning.
“No doctor’s note?”
“No.”
Some kids snicker. My bodyguard/translator is not in this class.
“Quiet! So can you participate in that … uh … thing?”
I shrug.
“Would you rather sit on the bench for today?”
Sit on the bench instead of running up and down the squeaky b-ball court for an hour?
“Maybe that would be good.”
“What, hon?”
“I THED okay.”
When I turn to walk away I hear even more snickers and then a gasp. I turn around as a girl I recognize from last year’s art class runs up next to me.
“Cher, right?” She has brown hair and kind eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Are you having your monthly visitor?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Because there’s blood all over the back of your shorts.”
What? Oh my God.
“Really? Cuz …”
Oh sheesh. The zipper cut from drama!
I have to turn my whole body around to check and see if the class is staring, which of course they are.
“ITH FROM A CUT ON MY THINGER!” I announce. Why? I have no idea. I guess I don’t want them to think I’m a human Freaksicle who also forgets to bring tampons to school.
Everyone stares until finally Coach Clean blows his whistle and the gym fills with the horrific sound of echoing bouncing balls and “Here!”, “I’m open,” and “Nice shot!”
I slink back on to the bench and cross my legs tight.
I pray that someone misfires a newly blown-up ball straight at my face and shatters my walking prison into a million pieces.
Of course, no one does.
• • •
I’ve survived mostly on liquids the entire summer because I can only open my mouth an inch. So Mom’s been making me this juice/fruit drink in the blender. She puts in a cup of orange juice, half a banana, and some yogurt and presses blend. I told her it wasn’t going to work for school, but did she listen? Of course not.
I’m sucking the luke-warm gunk through a straw when Eve plops down beside me at our favorite wall outside in the quad. It’s a relief to be with someone who understands what I’m saying. I guess it’s like how a mom can decipher her toddler’s gibberish when nobody else can. Another talent gold star for Eve. Or maybe she just knows me?
“You aren’t athamed to be theen with me?”
“Hell no!” Eve blurts out, smacking on some minty gum. “How’s your day going?”
My eyes roll.
“What happened?”
“Everyone thought I wath on my period in P.E. becauth I wath wearing bloody thortth. Remember the zipper debacle in theater?”
“Shit! You serious? God I’d die. That sucks ass.”
“Tho embarrathing. Good thing wath Coach Clean took total pity on me becauthe of the obviouth,” (point, point) “and let me thit on the bench and watch.”
“That’s cool.”
“I gueth. Tho aren’t you eating?”
“No way. Now that you’ve lost all that weight, I need to as well.”
“Eve! I wathn’t trying to lothe weight. I jutht can’t eat. You know how dithguthting protein powder ith? Try thucking down thith fruit drink thing!”
I shove the straw into Eve’s face and she shoves the mug away. We start laughing (well, she’s laughing, I sound like a hog in heat), and the mug slips out of our tangled hands, lands on the grass and rolls down the hill. Straight into Jesse’s back.
“Holyshitballs.”
“Hide me.”
I duck behind Eve’s suede vest, careful not to tangle my wires in her angel-food hair.
“Doeth he know it wath uth?”
Eve speaks in a low, slow voice. “He’s looking around, but I don’t think he sees us. Shit. He’s looking at me. What should I do? Okay, I’m waving at him. Oh no, Cher, he’s picking up the mug and walking over … Hi, Jesse!”
Should I flip my other leg over the wall and run?
What are my options?
“He’s coming,” Eve hisses.
So I do it. I fling my other leg over the wall and jump down, smashing my face into the concrete as I skim down the flat wall. I squat down just in time.
“Hey Eve … what’s up?” That voice. Melt.
“Nothing much.” Smack, smack, smack.
My nose is pressed hard into the wall. No one’s walking down the ramp, thank God.
“I’m returning Sonny’s mug.” Sonny’s? Did he just say my nickname?
“Oh, that’s not Cher’s.”
Jesse says in his eye-twinkling voice, “Nice try, Barbie. This mug says ‘Property of Cher.’ So do you know where she is?”
Property of Cher!? I’m going to kill my mother.
Eve’s voice is all sparkly now, too. “Haven’t seen her,” she plays along.
“Well, okay then. I’ll see you at After-School Club. Oh, and Barb?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell Sonny I said hi,” Jesse says.
Pause.
&
nbsp; Pause.
Pause.
Smack, smack, smack. Bubble pop. “Fuuuuuuuuuuck.”
“Ith he gone?” I whisper, peeking over the wall on my tippiest tiptoes.
“Fuckin’ Aaaaaa …”
“Tho it’th thafe to come back up now?”
“I think so.”
“Ith Newman gone? Totally, completely gone?”
“He’s back down by the picnic tables joking around with his smelly skater friends.”
When I see she’s telling the truth and the coast is totally clear, I swing my pink Converse All Stars over the wall until I’m straddling it.
“Giddee up, cowgirl,” Eve oozes.
“Funny.” I gingerly take the mug from Eve’s delicate fingers.
“He thed to thay hi to me?”
Eve nods. “Totally.”
I stroke the side of the YMCA plastic mug where his fingers had just traveled and it’s like looking into a crystal ball at the county fairgrounds.
I see his soulful reflection in the green-room mirror as I put on his stage makeup. I see him running his fingers through his thick mess of hair when he can’t remember a line. I feel our fingers touching carefully, as if by accident, as we run the light board during rehearsals. If it wasn’t for this stupid mess of wires, we may have had a chance this year. Tears burn in my eyes. “He’th even cuter thith year ithn’t he?”
She flips her mane to the side. “That’s the fucking understatement of the year.”
I don’t like the sound of her voice when she says it.
Nor the expression in her eyes as she watches him lean back and laugh into the air about something one of his punk friends said.
“Eve?”
She’s still staring at his back. “Yeah?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
Cotton-candy pink, she faces me. “No. For sure not. YPN? Totally not my type. Plus, well, I know how you feel about him …”
My eyes narrow suspiciously, but I’ll let it go for now. She did cover for me just now and she is my Barbie doll BFF. She would never do anything to hurt me.
Jessie kicks a knit hacky-sack into the air. It bounces off his knee and he rockets it back up into the air.
I hold the “Property of Cher” tightly to my chest.
I am never washing this mug again.
• • •
“Okay, then what?” I’m yacking with my green-room spy, aka 007 Boy George.
The egg timer buzzes, and I quickly add five minutes while Mom’s in the bathroom.
“I’m telling you, nada. Barbie and Newman sat by each other, which is not unusual because you weren’t there.”
“No holding handth? No making out? Nothing?”
“Making out? Cher, you are seriously paranoid. Nothing happened.”
I’m still suspicious but let it slide. “Tho what are you doing for your monologue at auditionth tomorrow?”
“Ms. Tea said we’re reading cold from the script.”
“Really?” I had a monologue from this cool theater book I found at the library all memorized and ready to go. But I wasn’t sure I was going to do it. I mean, I slur the words I say. Add a dental lisp to my long list of horrific traits.
BUZZZZZZ.
Egg timer again. This time it’s post-toilet-flush and Mom hears, too.
“Okay, Cher. Hang up,” she says, moving her flabby arms in slow circles like a kid acting out a choo-choo train.
“Mom, come on, jutht a thec. I jutht have to athk George about—”
My evil mom comes over, grabs the phone from my hand and says, “Goodbye, Cher’s friend,” and hangs up on George. Just like that.
God, I could kill her sometimes.
“Why did you do that?”
She’s still pumping her arms in the air. “Ten minutes on the phone is the rule, Cher. It’s time for dinner. Besides, I don’t know what you possibly have to talk to your friends about at night. You’ve already been with them all day.
Just because she doesn’t have any friends to talk to doesn’t mean I don’t.
“I haven’t been with them all day. I had to go to the orthodontitht, remember? I mithed my firtht drama clath, we were talking about auditionth …” My eyes burn. If Dad were here he would take my side. He’d say, “Mellow out, Carol. Your salad’s not going to wilt if it sits five seconds longer.”
“Oh. Well,” Mom says, finally resting her arms. “You can call him back after dinner then. But I’m setting the timer.”
We glare at each other, willing the other to say something else to escalate this argument into a full-on Cher-sprints-into-her-room-and-slams-the-door fight. I don’t have the energy tonight, so I shrug and flop down into my usual seat at the dinner table.
Mom grabs her salad off the counter and we settle in for one of our famous silent dinners. She crunches on dry lettuce and a tiny piece of steamed chicken breast while I barely choke down a yogurt smoothie with ultra-thick protein powder mixed in.
We don’t bother with the “How was your day?” thing any more.
It goes without saying we both know that the other one doesn’t give a crap.
And without Dad keeping the peace and Jason around for comic relief, it’s too depressing to even attempt to make small talk at the dinner table.
When we’re finished eating (sucking), Mom says that I can be excused to go up to my room to finish my homework. I remind her that she said I could call back George. She rolls her eyes, flashes five fingers, and then vanishes into the living room to lie on her back and do a thousand grunting stomach crunches.
Sometimes I think the silence is more depressing than all the yelling and screaming, and Dad and Jason should just ditch Sally-the-Perfect-Aerobicized-Realtor and move back in. But then I look at mom with her angry stubborn expression and her slick new workout clothes and I know that’s never ever going to happen.
• • •
So I was ill-prepared for auditions, but in a way I guess more prepared than some, because it turns out we weren’t reading cold from the script. We were reading cold from our script.
The script of our lives.
Ms. Tea was all prancy and dancy and peacock-feathered-proud as she paced back and forth on the edge of the stage—downstage as us theater geeks referred to the spot, where if you weren’t careful, one could easily teeter off into the audience and land on the lap of a greasy icky football coach’s lap whom you just know is sitting in the first row so he can peek under the actresses’ skirts. Perv.
Not that that’s ever happened to me.
So she says, “Instead of reading from the script, I want you to read from your heart.”
Eve’s hand immediately flies up. “Our heart?”
“Exactly. I want this to be a free-flowing exercise. I want you to share with your audience a feeling—personified. Whether it be fear, love, admiration, shame …”
Shame. I got that one nailed.
I raised my hand, “How long doeth it have to be?”
“Under two minutes.”
I nodded while everyone else looked at me like I had just announced I was leading the Nazi Fan Club and … Who wants to join?
A harsh whisper in my ear. “Dude. Cher, we need to talk her out of this, not agree to do it, especially as compliantly as that.”
George.
I shrugged.
After the day-week-month-summer I had, who cares? I had plenty to say and maybe now someone to say it to.
“Who’d like to go first?” Ms. Tea asked. Her eyes glided over the crowd and fell on me, full of pushing-milk-toward-a-hungry-kitty kindness. Full of her knowing I had something to say. “Cher?”
Faux red velvet rocked back and forth nervously. Nobody volunteered to take my place, and I imagined nobody wanted to be privy to what I was about to confess; they were about to get an earful.
Scampering up the side stairs and slumping into my spot, I stood downstage center, under the spotlight, cleared my metal-tasting throat and focused on dictatio
n the best I could. And yeah. It reads clearer than it actually was. Headgarial Hazard …
The Cher Monologue
CHER: I’m not kidding when I say I look like a wimpier version of Long Duck Dong’s uberdork girlfriend in Sixteen Candles. If you haven’t seen the greatest eighties movie of all time, get thee to the video store and rent it now cuz that’s so me and if you’ve already seen it, I won’t have to go into a long boring descriptive scene where I stare at myself in the mirror and tell you all about my hair color (clown) and eye color (dirt) and boob size (can’t complain).
(Cher pauses for audience laughter after gesturing toward spoken body part)
And if things weren’t fabulous in the looks department before? Well, they are full-on sucky now. Because on top of all of this …
(CHER pauses again, waving a hand from Top-to-CherBottom. This time there’s no laughter. Instead Cher hears a rubber shoe scuffing the auditorium floor; instead she notices one awkward cough. The lights are so bright she can’t tell who it came from, but her face reads that she has an idea. Jesse’s awkward cough gives her the strength to continue on with her monologue.)
I got this.
(CHER points to her headgear.)
And I talk like that lame bear from Sesame Street. Headgear Girl—me. I’m a freak. Or, since freak is not politically correct by even Quasimodo’s standards, I’m not what you would call “normal” whatever that even is nowadays. And I get that. I do. But guess what? Under all this metal, under all this slurping and beastliness? I’m me. I’m Cher. And besides …
(An uncharacteristic jetting of sharp hipbone meets a sly, nearly confident cock of the head as Cher hits the note of her final delivery.)
Paranormal chickth are all the rage right now, right?
After. After. After I rubbed a piece of my shirt between my fingers in a vain attempt to figure out if this was real or just some sort of crazy nightmarish daydream, I finally got brave enough to glance out at the audience. Even in the shadows, even with the glare from the spotlight, I catch their expressions: Ms. Tea’s, Eve’s, George’s, Jesse’s.
They were all looking at me like blank-faced dolls waiting for their mouths to be painted with smiles or frowns. Like they didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, clap—and needed an artist to tell them. So I just sort of stood there awkwardly rubbing rubbing rubbing that material, waiting for Ms. Tea to tell us what to do next.
