Outcast

by Susan Oloier

  “Please,” I begged. “I’ll do anything.”

  “I’ll call a cab,” he said over his shoulder as if speaking to something remote in the desert night. I sat under the ramada, sucking up tears while he waited inside his vehicle until the cab pulled into the park. Then he drove away without looking back.

  I cried silently the whole way home. I wasn’t fit enough to survive what just happened to me because Chad drove away with my pound of flesh.

  Sitting alone in the corner of my bedroom, I wore my sadness like an argyle sweater. I tortured myself, bought the Colbie Caillat CD, and listened to it over and over.

  Tears cramped in my chest, curdled in my throat, but they wouldn’t come out. I ruined the only good thing I ever had. Like a glass of spilled water, I wished I would soak into the carpet. Life was not for me.

  My door throbbed like a human pulse. It was Aunt P. She entered when I didn’t answer.

  “Your dad’s on the phone.”

  Old Town Scottsdale. A sea of tourists twisted in and out of shops like a vortex in the middle of the ocean. It was February. The vacationers drew attention to themselves by wearing shorts, tank tops, and cameras. The locals, accustomed to the heat, dressed in pants and the occasional jacket.

  All the stores peddled the same dream catchers, mummified scorpions under glass, and kokopellis.

  I was already bored. The three of us strolled up and down the side streets: my dad, his girlfriend, and me. It was a challenge to even fake an interest. She tried too hard, attempting to find common ground between us. It shouldn’t have been too difficult for her since we were so close in age. Yet she failed miserably. She commented on how cute some of the paintings were and how adorable I would look in a tie-dyed Indian shirt. Was she blind? I knew little to nothing about mid-life crises, but this had to be one. Sheena. The name spoke for itself.

  “Why don’t we get something to eat, Jack?”

  She clung to his arm like a trained chimpanzee, sweeping her long blond hair back with her French-manicured nails. She smelled so strongly of perfume that I nearly saw the aura of it surround her like Pig Pen’s dust in the Peanuts comic strip.

  “Good idea.” My dad looked at me, trying to gauge my reaction to things. I revealed nothing.

  “So your dad tells me that you’re getting ready to graduate from high school.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Do you know what you want to do when you get out?”

  She put a great deal of effort into easing the tension between us. But as hard as I tried, I couldn’t be nice to her.

  “I heard there’s a lot of money in drugs.”

  “Noelle,” my dad reprimanded.

  Sheena’s eyes expanded like balloons; she turned to my dad for help.

  “She’s kidding.” He reassured her.

  He treated her the way he should have cared for Becca and me but never did. Envy swept over me. Why was she more deserving of his love and attention than we were?

  “When are you going to tell her, Jack?” Sheena whispered to my dad as though I was invisible.

  We turned a corner onto the Civic Center Plaza. My dad led us to the edge of the fountain. It was the same place where Cassie first introduced me to pot. Sheena immediately sat down. My dad inched beside her, grasping her hand in his. I stood not knowing what to expect.

  “Noelle…” I hated the way he spoke my name. It was a portent. “Sheena’s going to have a baby.”

  They both smiled as if that was good news. They awaited my reaction.

  “Is it yours?” I asked my dad.

  The two of them chuckled. My question was not the punch line to a joke. I was serious.

  “Of course.”

  I remembered the night Cassie and I smoked. We wandered around the Civic Center, even ventured to the same fountain where I presently stood confronted with the realities of my life. Maybe if I poured my energy into my family instead of drugs and a social life, things would have been different. Sheena never would have existed in my world, and my parents would still be together. Somehow I allowed everything around me, including myself, to disintegrate. My life mirrored the very things that I once detested about Becca. I studied my reflection in the store window. The girl whose face was baptized with freckles and whose hair was as unbending as a straight edge suffered extinction. I didn’t recognize the person who replaced her. Maybe I didn’t really want to.

  I broke my trance. “I want to go home.”

  “I didn’t expect you to be happy about the news,” my dad diplomatically declared.

  “What did you expect?” I stared blankly.

  Sheena cowered from the ensuing confrontation.

  “I don’t know.”

  He wanted to say more, but was afraid to voice that he secretly wished for my blessing. He’d never get it.

  Twenty-One

  Mr. Gabreen held the two of us after class. I was anxious to go to lunch. Cassie planned to hold another private pool party at her house, and I promised to meet her in the parking lot. My breakup with Chad shattered me, so Samuel Adams and a few hits of pot seemed like a good way to numb the pain. I was passing with Ds in most of my classes; As in English and Art History. Why aspire to more than that?

  Mr. Gabreen shut the door and sat on the edge of the desk. “Have a seat, girls.”

  We avoided looking at one another.

  “It seems we have a bit of a problem. Aside from the names typed on the cover pages, your research papers are identical. I mean word for word.”

  His words sounded foreign. I tried to decode what he was saying. He tossed the essays onto one of the empty desks between us.

  “What are you talking about, Mr. Gabreen?” Trina asked.

  “You tell me. Clearly one of you stole this paper from the other.”

  It was Trina. I wanted to say it, but the words wouldn’t come. She beat me to it. “I wrote it. It had to have been…” She couldn’t even utter my name.

  “How could I possibly steal a paper from you?” I confronted her. “The only time you acknowledge me is when you have an insult to hurl my way.”

  “How? Your friend, Grace. That’s how.”

  “Enough.” Mr. Gabreen silenced our dispute. “Until one of you comes forward with the truth, you both have a zero for this paper. Cheating is serious.”

  “What?” Trina declared.

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  “Yes. Both of you are excellent students. I know you’ll do what’s right.”

  I collected my things and headed for the door.

  “I wrote that paper,” I heard Trina plead as I left the room.

  I worked too hard on that paper to have it stolen from me. Trina was right about who the responsible party was. And she was going to get her just desserts.

  I scrambled to meet up with Cassie in the parking lot. She impatiently drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. I sparked a cigarette the moment I tucked myself into the passenger’s seat.

  “Sorry. I was held after class.”

  “Why?” She started the ignition, anxious to get to her house.

  I spotted Trina with her cohorts. They conspired with one another, once again making me the butt of their jokes.

  “Because of her.” I gestured toward Trina.

  Cassie saw her and punched the accelerator to give them a scare. She slowed down prior to reaching them.

  “Stop the car for a second.”

  “What for?” She was already annoyed that I made her late.

  I stepped out and flicked my unfinished Camel to the pavement. I felt like a female version of James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, except I had one.

  “Trina!”

  I knew she heard, but she ignored me.

  “I’m talking to you, bitch,” I yelled.

  She finally turned around. Jamie and Liana shared Trina’s hateful glare. Cassie viewed the scene with sudden interest from the comfort of her car.

  “You fucking piece of chicken shit. You couldn’t even admi
t that you put Grace up to stealing my paper.”

  Suddenly, she seemed at a loss for words. She actually appeared frightened by the unsuspecting confrontation, even a little vulnerable. The three of them stood like a wall against my attack. Yet I continued to walk toward them.

  “Go to hell, Doctor Freckle,” Jamie chimed.

  I forced myself to pretend he wasn’t there, even though his words echoed in my ear. I focused on Trina.

  “One of your minions got your tongue?”

  Jamie glared. “Why don’t you and your freakish friend go smoke some pot and leave us alone?” he retorted.

  I didn’t like that they knew I smoked marijuana. It gave them more artillery to use against me. Trina & Company had no clue who I really was. To her, everything was about the exterior and the stereotype we all fit. She thought she knew me by the glasses and bad hair I had in junior high school. And now, she thought she knew me because I smoked, wore a lot of makeup, and befriended people she wouldn’t look twice at. She was so far from the real me it was unbelievable. But I couldn’t tell her that. She didn’t care. Perhaps I didn’t know the real Trina either. Maybe somewhere deep inside, she possessed some ounce of kindness and generosity. It could be that she was a great friend. I realized I stereotyped her, too. But it was a vicious cycle, one that would never be broken. And despite the revelation, I still hated her.

  Trina & Company turned and headed toward their vehicle. They were finished with me.

  “Don’t walk away from me,” I shouted.

  They ignored me again, so I chased on their heels. When I reached Trina, I shoved her. She fell to the concrete. Liana rushed to her side on the ground; they didn’t know how to react to physical confrontation.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Jamie stared with disgust at what I had done.

  The horn sounded on the Porsche. Trina crawled to her feet.

  “You’re going to pay for what you did,” I warned. And I wasn’t simply talking about the paper. In fact, I was mostly thinking of Chad.

  Satisfied with the fear that lighted in Trina’s eyes, I headed back to the car.

  I ranted in Cassie’s backyard, pacing back and forth across the pea-green lawn. I was furious about the way Trina treated me and deeply angered that Grace would conspire with her to steal my paper. I should have seen it coming, should have suspected Grace’s motivation for wanting to be my friend again. The only friend I had now was Cassie, and she focused her attention on Pete who sat poolside downing Samuel Adams. I wondered if he even attended classes at the university or if he was simply registered for show.

  “Relax,” Pete droned. “Why don’t you try some of this? It’ll calm you.”

  He extended a tray of chalk residue to me. Cocaine.

  He piqued my curiosity, so I crept to his side and sat down. Without words, he demonstrated how to do it. He plugged one of his nostrils and snorted the powder. It was the color of lilies, freshly fallen snow blanketing the treetops in winter. It looked soft like a newly washed blanket. Staring at it, I knew it possessed all the deliverance I had been searching for but never found. I wasn’t afraid when Pete held it toward me.

  It contained everything the relationships in my life did not; it cleansed me more deeply than the holy water that stagnated in the containers of the vestibule. I confessed everything to it, and it forgave me without the curse of guilt, Hail Marys, or penance. I floated, and all of the problems that had accumulated over time drifted away with the tide. Or maybe I was the one drifting away.

  Cassie tried to coerce Pete to drive to KFC for fried chicken. She smoked so much weed, her craving soared out of control. When he refused to go, she peeled out of the driveway to get it herself, leaving me alone with her boyfriend.

  I lounged in the lawn chair by the pool’s edge. Chad tiptoed silently into my thoughts. I saw his face in the cumulous clouds overhead. The memories of him flooded back to me. They were so strong, I felt I could reach out and kiss his dimples. I wanted to tell him how wrong I was, that I loved him, but it was too late. He lingered in my past. He didn’t want me anymore. I was a betrayer. A cheat.

  The liquid pool, the skies full with hollow clouds, and Pete were my part of my present. They were the things that were tangible. They represented what my life had become.

  I looked at Pete, and he leered at me. There was nothing left for me but emptiness.

  He pushed me against the washer in the laundry room just off the patio. The door stood ajar, and a sharp sliver of light sliced through the dimness of the room. It opened up everything inside of me and allowed it to spill onto the tiled floor, cold beneath my bare feet. As Pete pressed himself against me, I witnessed the shards of my broken life scatter across the floor. As hard as I could try, nothing would ever put it all back together the way it once was. It was changed forever.

  When it was all over, Pete left. I sat on the floor of the laundry room, playing Pick Up Sticks with my life. Wanting to feel something, needing to be affected somehow, I tried to push tears from my eyes. But they refused to come. Just like the unyielding clouds overhead, I was vacant inside.

  She scuttled through the hallways, camouflaged herself in bathrooms, and adopted new routes to get to her classes. But I finally caught up with her. Her reaction to seeing me, and her actions to avoid me, instantly implicated her.

  I trapped her near the lockers on the way to lunch, yanking her arm like a choke chain to keep her from escaping.

  “I have to go. I’m … meeting people in …” She tripped over her words.

  “They can wait,” I threatened.

  Her pupils dilated with fear. I cinched her wrist in my hand, and she writhed to escape it.

  “Why’d you do it?”

  “Do what?” She tipped her chin upwards in defiance.

  I glared at her to make the truth seep out from beneath the lie. “Don’t play these bullshit games with me.”

  She squirmed as my grip tightened around her wrist. I violently released her arm.

  “You know what? I don’t want any explanations from you. You’re so transparent, Grace. You think I don’t know why you stole my paper?”

  “You don’t know—”

  I cut her off. “What happened to you? This isn’t the tough Grace from junior high. This is cowardly, weak Grace.”

  “Wait a second…” she started.

  “Don’t deny it. I know you better than you know yourself. And if you think you got away with this, you’re wrong.”

  “Just wait…” Grace began again.

  “You think she’s your friend?’ I asked. “Come here.” I pulled her reluctantly by the arm toward my locker. For some reason, I still had them there after all that time. I unearthed them from the top ledge. “Remember these?” I asked.

  Grace gaped at the beads in my hand.

  “Remember?” I pressed again. “Sophomore Acting? You made a bracelet for Trina. Well, this is what’s left of it.”

  “You probably broke them yourself,” she stammered.

  “Yeah. I did this.” My tone was nothing short of sarcastic. “Believe what you want to believe,” I said as I pushed them at her. Most of them pinged on the hallway floor.

  It was the first time Grace seemed afraid of me. It wasn’t the way I wanted things to be between us; it was the way they had to be. As far as I was concerned, we were strangers to one another. I had no intention of seeking revenge on Grace for what she did. Someone else would pay for everything that happened. And that someone would pay dearly.

  I blamed Trina for much of the bad that happened in my life. I somehow linked the breakup of my parents to her in some remote way. My hatred for her intensified to a level I no longer controlled.

  My eyes were jaundiced with jealousy as I watched Trina and Chad play out their respective roles as the newlyweds, Corey and Paul. To me, it was no act. Now he was free to date anyone he wanted, be with anyone he wanted. I tried to restrain my imaginings of the two of them together, but the visions took on a life
of their own. And to make matters worse, Chad took huge steps to avoid me. It was all Trina’s fault.

  The only way to relieve some of my pain was to inflict some on Trina. So when opening night of Barefoot in the Park finally arrived, I was filled with adrenaline. I entered the backstage of the theater before any of the actors or technicians did. The plans were firmly stamped in my mind.

  I made my way to the dressing rooms, equipped with a chemically-altered bottle of Trina’s hair gel. Two parts Nair, no part hair gel. It was enough to remove a sufficient amount of Trina’s hair. Enough to ruin both graduation and prom for her. I stationed it near the mirror of her dressing table, turning it one hundred eighty degrees one way, moving it two centimeters another. For all the dress rehearsals, she had fixed her hair in the dressing room. The night of the performance should prove no exception. All I had to do was wait.

  Between props and lightning, I had no time to check things out in the dressing room. I desperately wished to see Trina apply gobs of hair gel to her sulfur-yellow tresses. Soon they would pool in clumps on the stage floor. A trickle of joy coursed through me when I pictured her wearing a wiry, slip-on wig to the prom.

  When the house lights dimmed and the production started, I anxiously observed from the wings. I knew it would be a show I would never forget.

  As the actors took their places at the wings of the stage, I scampered to the dressing rooms. If Trina failed to use the hair gel at the beginning of Act I, I would have to find a way to make her use it later in the production. But there was no need. The lid had been taken off of the bottle. True to character, she used it. Blood surged from my heart. I rushed back to the wings to watch the monster I created come to life.

  Father Dodd sat at the edge of the audience, proudly surveying his production. After years of battling, he finally won. Though he appeared happy, his days at Saint Sebastian High weighed heavily upon him. His wrinkles, pressed into the corners of his eyes like pillow marks, revealed his true age.