Why Can't I Be You

by Melissa Walker

  I pop my head in right before the fourth and final flash. Ronan yells, “Claire!”

  When the strip comes out there are three photos of Brianna, Eden, and Ronan looking cute and silly and serious. And then one of half my face blocking most of the frame while Ronan scowls at me. You can just see the top of Eden’s hair and one of Brianna’s arms behind me.

  Okay, that backfired.

  It seems like everyone is annoyed at me, so I grab a plate and some fruit and sit by myself in one of the pool chairs next to the dance floor. Beside me there’s a pile of fluffy towels—all the same pattern, yellow-and-white stripes—that match the pillows on the outside furniture. We’ve had our towels for as long as I can remember. I just stopped using the one with the little hood for a baby last year. I cannot imagine having extra towels that match furniture.

  Brianna’s dad calls her to the front for a daddy-daughter dance, and I watch them stand together as the music starts. He bends down a little so she can put her arms on his shoulders, and they move slowly together, around in a circle. They look stiff, but it’s still a cute picture. People are taking phone videos all around the dance floor. Mr. Foley has a glass of champagne in one hand, and he keeps raising it to other adults who are watching. Brianna is looking around and smiling at everyone. I’m staring at her but she doesn’t even see me. I feel like it doesn’t even matter that I’m here.

  I pop a blueberry into my mouth and attempt to shake off my mood. I hear my mom in my head: If you’re okay with your life, everyone else will be too. I close my eyes for a second and I try to remember that we may know other people’s bathrooms—and even, in the case of Brianna’s house, the songs they play in the bathroom—but we don’t know their real stories.

  What doesn’t make sense right now is that I know Brianna’s story. She’s my best friend. Or was. And now she’s like this . . . rich girl. The food, the flowers, the photo booth, the band! They’re all here just because it’s her birthday. I can’t believe how lucky she is.

  The song ends, and Brianna and her dad part. She kisses him on the cheek and then heads in my direction. Maybe she does see me here after all.

  She sinks down on the pool chair next to me. “Ugh, when will it be over?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “All this,” she says, waving her hand around like a snob.

  I can feel the anger building in my chest now. “God, Brianna,” I say. “How spoiled are you?”

  “Spoiled?” She looks surprised.

  “Yeah,” I say. “As in spoiled brat. Look around you! Look at your pool and your house and your . . . your giant birthday cake!”

  Brianna’s parents are wheeling out a white-frosted cake now—it’s taller than either of them and topped with what look like firework candles that give off a blinding amount of light. People begin to sing, and I see Gwen and Emily and Charlene and Faye moving toward the cake, but Brianna is still looking right at me, and I think I see her eyes start to get watery. I feel a twinge of guilt, but I’m too angry to let it stop me.

  “Go on,” I say. “Your new friends are singing for you.”

  She stands up slowly and turns away from me. Everyone is looking at her, so even though I don’t see it, I know she puts on a big fake smile.

  I don’t bother to sing; no one needs my voice in this crowd anyway. I watch Brianna blow out the firework candles, letting my eyes go fuzzy as I stare at their sparkling light, and then I just want to go home. I scan the crowd for Ronan.

  He’s standing with his back to me, talking to Daniel Jacobson, Justin Alonzo, and the other soccer boys. I wanted to avoid Daniel for the rest of the party, but I walk over anyway to ask Ronan to call his mom to come get us. When I get closer, I hear what Daniel’s saying. “You know you live in a trailer park when . . .” He pauses, his smile growing. “You wonder why the gas station bathroom is so clean,” he finishes.

  Everyone laughs, even Ronan, his shoulders going up and down, up and down. Justin slaps Daniel on the back. “Classic, man.”

  My mouth falls open a little bit, I can’t help it, and Ronan turns around and sees me standing behind him. His smile dims a bit as our eyes lock.

  I spin on my heels, expecting Ronan to call out, “Claire!” I listen for it, actively listen for it, as I stride through the house and out the front door. Then I march down the long tree-lined driveway, still straining my ears for the sound of someone following.

  But I don’t turn and look back. And I guess I wouldn’t have seen anyone anyway, because I get all the way down Forest Grove Road—to the place where I have to cross a highway to get home—before I stop. I check both ways and race across the road when there’s a gap in cars, feeling reckless and angry and alone.

  Chapter 16

  I high-step through the unmowed field in the middle of Twin Pines Park, and I think about how perfectly tidy Brianna’s lawn is. Here, there’s a pile of rusted metal tools that a man called Stubby left when he moved, plus a heap of old tires. When we were little, Ronan and I used to set those up in an obstacle course, until the owner came by and told us we couldn’t touch anything on the property because it would cost him money if we got hurt. Mom told him he should clean up his tenants’ old junk then, but he never did.

  When I get to the clearing where I hear the rush of the brook, I exhale and kick off my flip-flops as I shed my shorts and T-shirt. I’m still wearing my bathing suit—I never even got in the pool at Brianna’s—and I wade in toward the deeper water, wanting to dunk my head in the small swimming hole. The water is cold and perfect; I go under and come back up. Then I move to the rock where I can dry off and lie in the sun, alone.

  The wind makes the bright-green leaves dance above me, and when I turn my head to the side I like the way the sun-warmed rock feels on my cheek. I stay there for a long time, until the light, dimming as evening falls, plays across the water in waves. I think about Brianna’s eyes, how they got kind of wet when I called her spoiled. But she was acting spoiled. I sigh a loud sigh, annoyed with my own brain for confusing me about how to feel.

  I tell myself that I’m not waiting, but I am. I’m waiting for Ronan.

  And he doesn’t come.

  After a while, I jump off the rock and splash through the brook, heading home. As Twin Pines Park comes into view, I see Mr. Brewster’s car in his driveway, and then I spot Ronan with Mr. Brewster. They have sodas, and they’re sitting in plastic chairs. One is Mr. Brewster’s and the other is from my porch.

  I’m standing there, unsure of how to walk past them, what to say, when Mr. Brewster sees me and waves. I guess that solves that. I get closer.

  “Hello, Claire,” says Mr. Brewster, smiling through his shaggy beard.

  “Hi, Mr. Brewster.”

  “Ronan here was just telling me about the party over at the pool,” he says.

  I raise my eyebrows. “Yup,” I say. “It was . . . memorable.”

  “I’ve been to a few memorable parties in my day,” says Mr. Brewster, leaning on the back two legs of the plastic chair in a way that makes me nervous—they aren’t steady. He gazes up at the sky, and I’m standing there all tense, trying not to look at Ronan. Then Mr. Brewster brings the front chair legs down and leans forward, slapping his hands on his knees. “You two should talk!” he says, and it sounds more like a command than a suggestion.

  Mmmkay. I’m quiet, Ronan’s quiet, and Mr. Brewster lets his loud words hang in the air for a moment. Did Ronan tell him what happened?

  He stands up from his chair and Ronan starts to stand too, but Mr. Brewster puts out his hand. “Sit,” he says. He pats his chair to indicate that I should sit too. So I do. I sit. And he waves over his shoulder as he walks away from us, toward Mrs. Gonzalez’s trailer, I note.

  “Anyway,” says Ronan, not looking up at me.

  “That’s not a full sentence, you know,” I snap, my anger quickly surfacing again. It’s right there, ready to spring on my friends—Brianna, Ronan, whoever’s close.

  “Come on, Cl
aire, it was just a dumb joke.”

  I stare at him hard. “You expect me to believe the one I heard was the only one?”

  “Jokes, whatever,” says Ronan. “They don’t mean anything.”

  “I bet your new best friend Eden thought they were really funny. Was she impressed enough for you?”

  “Hey, Eden’s nice,” he says. “Besides, sometimes it’s easier to hang out with someone who doesn’t know . . . I don’t know, everything about me.”

  “Now I’m hard to be friends with?” I thought the brook had calmed me down, but I’m feeling madder than ever.

  “That’s not what I said.” Ronan’s voice comes out in a sigh. “Daniel was kidding around, okay? It was stupid.”

  “He was making everyone laugh at us,” I say. “He was making you laugh at us.”

  “Claire . . .” His voice is pained, and he pauses. “The jokes weren’t about us.”

  But that sounds like bullcrap to me. “You were laughing. You made it okay for him to say those things,” I say. I see Ronan’s face tense. “It’s wrong to joke that way, Ronan. It’s not funny. And it makes it seem like you think they’re better than you. Better than me. And our families too.”

  Ronan turns in his chair and faces me. His face is darker now, serious again, and for a moment I think he’s going to explain himself in some way that I’ll understand and be able to forgive. I’m hoping for that. That’s why we’re sitting here, right? So he can apologize?

  But he doesn’t say he’s sorry. His voice is bitter as he says very quietly, “They are better, Claire. Deal with it.”

  Chapter 17

  Dad comes to get me a little early on Sunday. He rolls up in Charlie and honks, and when I run out to get into the car I glance at Ronan’s trailer and find his face in the window—just for a moment.

  We haven’t talked since yesterday, and I haven’t answered Brianna’s text either. She only sent one, at least that I got. It said, How could you say those things to me? and I don’t know how to reply. She was being a brat, but maybe I was harsh. I’m not sure how to feel about anything anymore.

  “How’s the nose?” Dad asks as we drive. “Mom told me it was pretty gnarly, but it looks like it’s healing up.”

  Gnarly. Dad uses these funny words from when he was young. “Yeah, it’s fine,” I say, and I’m glad that Dad didn’t see it when the bruising was fresh. He would have freaked out—he gets protective like that.

  “How was your trip?” I ask, wanting to change the subject and giving a slight side-eye that I know he can sense.

  “It was relaxing,” he says.

  “Hmm . . .” We’re dancing around the fact that Dad may or may not have a woman in his life he likes enough to go on vacation with.

  Neither of my parents have had, like, serious relationships since they got divorced. My mom sometimes goes out with friends when I sleep at Dad’s, I know that. I’m sure sometimes the “friend” is a guy. But she’s never introduced anyone to me, so I know there’s no one who’s really important.

  Dad had a girlfriend when I was little, like, in kindergarten. Her name was Maureen and she smelled like pineapple, but she was only around for one winter. Since then I haven’t met anyone else.

  “I’m old enough to hear about things, you know,” I say.

  “What things are we talking about?” asks Dad, all innocent.

  “Ladies,” I say. “Loooove.” I exaggerate the word and make googly eyes at Dad while he’s driving.

  He lets out a big laugh. “I’m seeing a woman named Karen,” he says. “She’s nice, she works with horses out on Windsor Farm Road, and that’s all you need to know right now.”

  “Is she the ‘K’ in your phone?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “So you lied to me about her being someone from work.”

  “No,” he says, but his voice is slow, careful. “I didn’t lie, Claire . . . I was doing some building for the owner of the horse ranch where she works. So technically, she was someone I saw at work.”

  “Technically.”

  “Technically,” he repeats, nodding definitively.

  “Did she go away with you this weekend?” I ask.

  That makes him pause. But he answers after a beat. “Yes.”

  “Are you going to tell Mom about her?” I ask.

  Dad sighs. “I’m guessing you’ll take care of that,” he says.

  “Well, maybe you should.”

  The car gets quiet then.

  “Are you going to marry her?” I ask him.

  “Now see, that’s why I haven’t mentioned this to you,” says Dad. “I have no idea if I’m going to marry her. I like her and we have fun together and we wanted to go on a trip.” We stop at a red light, and he looks over at me. “Cool?”

  I nod.

  “Okay,” he says. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “I think I’m good for now.” And I am. That’s enough. I just wanted him to admit she exists.

  We start to drive again. We’re headed to Starside Marina, where Dad keeps an old beat-up canoe underneath the dock that his friend Tim owns. We do this at least once a summer, even though I’m not that big on paddling.

  When we get there, Dad tells me to take the front end of the canoe. First my flip-flops stick in the mud and then my fingernail bends backward as I shift my weight while placing the canoe into the water.

  “Ouch!” I shout.

  “Claire, it’ll be worth it,” says Dad.

  He always says that. And I guess it always is. I plan to use my injured fingernail as a reason not to paddle, but I think Dad knows he’ll be doing the work regardless. He doesn’t even try to hand me a paddle, and I sit in the front, watching the water flow past as my father’s arms make the broad strokes that move us out deeper into the lake.

  It’s hot and sunny, and Dad offers me a dirty ball cap from the bottom of the canoe. I lift an eyebrow.

  “Better than a sunburn,” he says.

  “I put on sunscreen,” I tell him, eyeing the mud that’s caked onto the Chicago Cubs hat. “And no . . . it’s not.” Dad gives up and lets the cap drop.

  When we get out of sight of the dock, around the bend to an inlet with overhanging trees, Dad sighs.

  “Can you think of a more beautiful view?” he asks. I can’t, and I say so. “You know, the best thing about nature is that it’s free,” says Dad, and I think about the brook and how there’s nowhere else I’d rather be most days, even this summer when things are all wrong. “All the best things are free, you know,” Dad continues.

  And then I start to get suspicious. “Did Mom say something to you?”

  “Maybe that you’ve been a little down,” he says. It’s nice to hear that my parents talked about something other than the schedule—I didn’t know they ever did.

  “A little.” I turn around in my seat to face Dad, but I don’t look at him. I kick the bottom of the canoe, and it makes a tinny sound.

  “What about?” asks Dad.

  I watch one of those big fat dragonflies, the ones who seem like they’d be too heavy to hover in the air gracefully the way they do, land on the edge of the canoe. I reach out my finger slowly to see if it’ll climb on, sometimes they will, but it flies away. And then I have nowhere to look, really, except at Dad.

  “Things have been weird with my friends,” I say, because his eyes are soft.

  “Ronan?” asks Dad.

  “Yeah.”

  “Brianna?” asks Dad.

  “Yeah,” I say. And we’re out here on a lake just the two of us and there’s nowhere to go and I realize I was set up for this conversation. And maybe I don’t mind. “It was weird to see Brianna’s big house and her pool and everything,” I say. “It made me feel . . . I don’t know. She was complaining through her whole fancy birthday party, she takes it all for granted. And when I brought it up with Ronan I thought he would understand, because we’re, like, the same. I mean, we’re . . .”

  “Claire, I know w
hat you mean,” says Dad, and I see him smiling. He gets that I’m talking about money, how Brianna has more. He’s not going to make me say it.

  I smirk. “Right. I know that doesn’t matter, but this summer it’s felt . . . I don’t know, just bad I guess.”

  “And when you talked to Ronan, what did he say?”

  “First he told me I was stupid, and then he said they were better than us.”

  Dad looks confused. “Brianna’s family?”

  “I think he meant people with money,” I say.

  “That doesn’t sound like Ronan.”

  I shake my head. I almost tell Dad about the jokes Ronan was laughing at, but it hurts to even remember that. I can’t.

  Dad looks out at the water, and I watch him thinking. Then he says, “I’m not sure what’s going on with Ronan or Brianna, but what’s going on with you is normal,” he says. “It’s natural to feel a certain way when friends seem to have more than you do. Hell, I’m jealous of Rod’s new F150—I wish I could get my hands on a truck like that!”

  I nod. “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind a window seat and my own bathroom,” I say.

  Dad smiles. “It’s good to dream and imagine what you’d like to have,” he says. “There’s no shame in it.”

  “Okay,” I say, my mood lifting slightly. “Then I also want a pool and a skylight and a room just for watching movies and pizza and garlic knots whenever I feel like it.”

  “Dream big, Claire Ladd!” Dad shouts across the water, and I hear it echo. “I bet there are things Brianna wants too, you know. No one has it all.”

  It’s suddenly quiet out on the lake, and Dad turns to me all serious. “Hey, what do you think Ronan wants?”

  I look at my dad then, really look at him. He’s getting older, even though he’s still young for a dad. His mouth crinkles around the edges when he smiles, like he’s doing now, and I guess that’s from the sun. His eyes look brown, but if you stare at them you’ll see a little bit of green in them too. Even some yellow. They’re kind, my father’s eyes.

  “Ronan probably wants a good dad,” I hear myself say. And then a tear blurs my vision. I didn’t even know it was coming, but as it makes its way down my cheek, another one follows, then another. Soon I’m sniffling and everything and Dad is down on a knee, leaning over in the canoe carefully and patting my back and telling me things are all right.