Analee, in Real Life

by Janelle Milanes

  My regret? That I only half-listened. That I shrieked and covered my ears instead of writing it all down. Because while Dad was there during the labor, he can’t stand the sight of blood and has blocked all the details. I assumed that Mom would be around to annoy me with stories for years and years. But now she’s not. She died, and the story of me died with her.

  “And that’s why you’re an only child,” is how she would end it after I uncovered my ears, every time.

  “And that’s why I’m never getting pregnant,” I would say in response, which never failed to make her laugh.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HARLOW TAKES US TO A massive bridal boutique located in a desolate strip mall. It’s jarring when we step into the powder-pink room with its crystal chandeliers and plush chaise longues. The room feels like it’s trying too hard, like it’s well aware that it’s situated next to a Blimpie. Harlow brought her best friend, Liz, along with us. Liz is unreasonably tan, even for a Floridian, and practically lives in jean shorts year-round. She’s described herself as “unapologetically sassy” on her Twitter account and likes to post pictures of beach sunsets and daily margaritas.

  Anyway. I’m not super-fond of Liz. I don’t think she likes me much either.

  A skinny saleswoman in peep-toe heels and a nametag that says “Marianne” comes out to greet us, and a waft of her perfume hits me. I recognize the scent immediately—violet and plum, with a hint of cinnamon. My mom’s signature scent.

  I have a bottle of it in my nightstand drawer that I take out and inhale at least once a day. Twice if it’s a particularly crappy day. I read that the part of the brain that processes smell is directly connected to emotion and memory. Maybe that’s the reason I huff Mom’s perfume like it’s glue, because it’s the closest I can get to remembering her. Sometimes the pictures aren’t enough.

  But rarely do I smell my mom outside of my room, in the middle of normal life. I wonder if it’s a message from her. Or a warning. Whatever it is, it seems especially wrong for me to smell Mom’s perfume today, when I have to watch her replacement try on wedding dresses.

  “Which one of you is the beautiful bride?” Marianne asks, and Liz practically pushes Harlow into her.

  “This one!” Liz crows. “She’s getting married in three months!”

  Marianne gives Harlow an approving nod. Harlow has that look, that cover-model-of-a-bridal-magazine look, with toned arms that would be showcased perfectly in a strapless dress.

  They all talk a little bit about what type of dress Harlow’s looking for, throwing out vocabulary I’ve never heard used to describe clothes, like “sweetheart neckline” and “trumpet fit.” I gaze around the store, feeling unfeminine and clueless. Avery has run over to inspect a rack of glittery dresses.

  Marianne sweeps Harlow away into a curtained dressing room, and Liz and I wait on the chaise.

  “Avery, hon,” Liz calls. “See anything you like?”

  “Tons,” Avery says. She runs over to us, squeezes her tiny body in between me and Liz. “I think Mom should wear something sparkly.”

  “I totally agree,” Liz remarks. I’m not surprised she and Avery are on the same page. Liz has all the stylings of an eight-year-old. Today she’s wearing a shirt that says #SQUAD. “What about you, Analee?”

  I’m not sure what any of the dress lingo means, so I settle on, “Something simple. Maybe . . . flowy.”

  If Dad and Harlow are having a beach wedding, it makes sense to wear something that could get whipped around by the wind.

  “That could be nice,” Liz says, both diplomatically and unconvincingly. She combs her fingers through Avery’s hair in an absentminded way, almost as if it were her own. Liz is one of those women who love to touch and hold and pet people like they’re animals. I’ve always been the opposite—I like a three-foot radius of personal space surrounding me at all times. I picture myself covered head to toe in police tape. DO NOT CROSS.

  Liz must sense it. She’s never tried to stroke my hair the way she strokes Avery’s.

  I hear the curtain being whisked back, and Marianne comes out first.

  “You ready to see the bride?” she asks us. She reminds me of a crowd warmer. It works, because Liz and Avery cheer and clap like a well-behaved audience. I copy Marianne’s worn smile as best I can.

  Then Harlow appears.

  The dress hangs off her thin frame and falls into a cloud at the bottom so that it looks like she’s floating on the sky when she walks. It’s simple, no glitter to be found, and the white brings out all the colors in her eyes. Harlow gives a small twirl in front of us, and Marianne brings her to a tri-fold mirror, where we can see her perfection at every angle.

  And I think I finally get it. I do. I get why Dad wants to marry Harlow so badly. I would marry her right now. The woman was made to wear a wedding dress.

  “What does everyone think?” Marianne asks.

  Harlow opens her mouth, but Liz speaks first. “No. No way.”

  “No?” Harlow tears her gaze away from her reflection to stare at Liz. She runs her hands up and down the front of the dress.

  “It’s boring. It does nothing for your body.”

  “Yeah, Mommy,” Avery chimes in. “We want to see you in something sparkly.”

  Harlow makes a humming sound and turns back to the mirror. She cocks her head, pressing the fabric against her waist. “I don’t know,” she says softly. “I think it’s nice.”

  “I do too,” says Marianne. “It’s very elegant.”

  “Analee?” Harlow’s eyes meet mine in the mirror’s reflection. “What do you think?”

  Jesus. I feel Liz’s and Avery’s eyes, silently pleading with me. But when I look at Harlow, I can see her walking down the beach in this, I can see the dress shimmering against blue sky and ocean, I can see Dad’s face when she’s walking toward him.

  “I think it’s perfect,” I say.

  “Okay, next!” Liz says, turning back to Harlow and rendering me useless. “Can you at least try one that Avery and I like?”

  “Something sparkly,” Avery repeats.

  Harlow’s smile flickers. “Sure, honey. I’ll try it.”

  Liz leads Marianne to some bedazzled monstrosities on the corner rack, and the two of them march Harlow back into the dressing area with heavy dresses slung over their arms.

  Avery and I sit together, listening to the sounds of rustling and zipping coming from the room.

  “Remember, your mom’s getting married, not you,” I murmur to her.

  “So?”

  “So, she should get the dress that she likes.”

  “That dress was boring.”

  I shake my head. “You’re just copying what Liz said.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  It’s hard to imagine that Avery and I will be related in a few months. We don’t look alike, and we don’t have any mutual interests. We’re just an introvert and an extrovert sharing the same house. Even though Avery’s half my age, she’s constantly judging me. I thought it would be “older sister knows best” when she moved in, but instead I feel her looking down at me for my life choices. Why don’t you ever paint your nails, Analee? Why don’t you have a boyfriend yet? Why doesn’t Lily come over anymore?

  Liz hurries out of the dressing room. “Girls, wait until you see this one. She looks gorgeous.”

  Harlow comes out a little less proudly this time. Her shoulders are drawn, and her smile is a straight line. In spite of all this, Liz is right—she does look gorgeous. But the dress itself is hideous. It’s an oversize tutu with ruffles and jewels plastered all over the front.

  Avery lets out a gasp. “Mommy, you look beautiful!”

  “Thanks, baby.”

  “I think this might be the one.” Liz fluffs up the skirt, which does not need any additional fluffing, considering Harlow barely fits through a doorway. “Raf is going to flip his shit when he sees you in it.”

  Liz is a bit of a fangirl when it comes to my dad. She’s constantly talki
ng about how hot he is, and she does it in front of me and Avery, which is both inappropriate and disgusting. More than once I’ve heard Liz refer to Dad as Harlow’s “Latin lover,” like he speaks with a seductive accent (his English is almost perfect, with the exception of certain words) and knows how to tango (two left feet, and his salsa is barely passable). Harlow had to give her a whole lecture on harmful stereotypes, but Liz just laughed it off and said, “It’s a goddamn joke, Har!”

  It’s not funny, I wish I would have said. You don’t know my dad at all. I still think about it, months later, how I should have said something.

  I look at Harlow’s pinched smile now, and the ujjayi breaths she’s taking in an attempt to stay calm, and I have to say something.

  “Isn’t it a little too . . .” Tacky. Ostentatious. Gaudy. Hideous. “A little too much for a beach wedding?” I finish.

  “The bride can never be too much,” Liz argues. She’s been flinging the label around all day—the bride, the bride, the bride—with the reverence a Catholic would use to refer to the Pope.

  “Analee has a point,” Harlow says. “As beautiful as this dress is, I don’t know that it will go with the theme.”

  “If you say so.” Liz clucks her tongue and releases the tulle skirt from her fingers.

  “You can’t go wrong either way,” Marianne says, and her smile quivers with pure desperation for a sale. She clasps her hands together. “Shall we look at some more?”

  I try very hard to conceal my despair.

  A few unremarkable dresses later, Harlow is back in her maxi skirt and sandals. She gives Marianne a kiss good-bye and thanks her, saying she’ll be in touch soon.

  “You’ll make a beautiful bride,” Marianne gushes. I briefly wonder about her existence outside of this pastel-colored bridal shop. Her face must be exhausted from all the smiling. Does she go home to a dark room? Spend hours scowling and listening to heavy metal? I think I would have to if I worked in a place like this. A small chuckle escapes as I picture it, and Liz shoots me a strange look. Liz constantly looks at me like I’m not of this earth.

  We push open the door and step out into the stifling Florida sun. The air is so humid that it clogs my lungs and causes my hair to swell to three times its normal size. As we walk, Avery and Liz engage in a debate over what color Harlow should paint her nails and whether she should wear her hair up or down for the wedding. Harlow hangs back with me. Neither of us says anything to each other. I wonder if it’s rude of me not to act more girly right now. I think I’m supposed to squeal and ask lots of questions about flowers and wedding favors, but I don’t have it in me. I can’t fake excitement about something I’m dreading. I can’t stop thinking about whether Mom can see me right now, if I’m betraying her by participating in this circus.

  “I’m glad you came, Analee,” Harlow says finally. Even though she’s talking to me, she looks ahead at Liz and Avery. “Thank you.”

  It’s nice of her to say that. Harlow is nothing if not polite. But still, she wouldn’t thank Avery for the same thing. It would just be assumed that Avery would participate in her mom’s wedding dress experience, because that’s something that a daughter does for her mom.

  I am not Harlow’s daughter, and the wedding isn’t going to change that fact.

  “I still like the first dress,” I say quickly under my breath. Not that my opinion matters, because clothes are so not my thing. I don’t know what’s in style, or the difference between a chapel- and cathedral-length veil. But I do know what it’s like to be drowned out by louder voices, like Harlow was today.

  Harlow is about to answer when Liz whips around to face us and says dramatically, “I need a drink. Can we go somewhere where I can get a mimosa, Har?”

  “Sure,” Harlow says. “I know a place nearby.” She rushes ahead to Liz, leaving me alone to trail behind the group.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I HAVE A SPECIAL CUBICLE in our school’s library. It’s on the second floor, way in the back next to a shelf of obsolete VHS tapes. It’s dusty in this corner of the library, but it’s private. When we used to do our homework after school together, Lily would sit at the cubicle on the other side of the divider in front of me. We were separated by a sheet of particleboard, and Lily used to throw paper balls over it when she got restless. She called them paper grenades. Around twenty minutes into homework time, Lily would lose all her attention span. Half of the pen scrawls on these cubicles belong to her. She would draw little cartoon robots one day and then an intricate mandala the next.

  These days no one sits across from me. Except for today.

  I’m bent over my math homework, and I hear the chair opposite mine scrape against the floor. My first thought is Lily. Lily was the only person I ever saw up here. But when I peek underneath the cubicle, I don’t see Lily’s shoes. I see rust-colored ankle boots that would look like hand-me-downs if I wore them but look appropriately vintage on everyone else.

  I recognize those boots, and the pair of slender legs wearing them. They’re Chloe’s.

  I draw in a sharp breath, debating whether I should get up and leave right now. I have my back to the wall, but the stairwell is closer to Chloe’s side. If I leave, she’ll see me. She’ll think it’s weird that I got up as soon as she sat down.

  Her phone vibrates against the table right before I can go. I feel the table quiver underneath my elbows. Across the cubicle Chloe sighs, but she doesn’t turn it off.

  It stops for a second. Then it vibrates again. And again. And again.

  Chloe gives another sigh, and I hear her pick it up. “Hello?”

  I hold my breath. For what, I don’t know. I should leave. Now’s a good time, when she’s distracted.

  “I was busy,” she says tersely.

  My curiosity gets the better of me. She sounds upset.

  “I wasn’t ignoring you,” she goes on. “I just told you, I was busy. . . . Look, I can’t really talk right now. . . .”

  The voice on the other end of the phone, from what I can make out, definitely belongs to a guy.

  Chloe lowers her own voice to just above a whisper. “How many times are we going to have this conversation? I don’t . . . I’m in the library, but—hello? Seb?”

  I freeze. There’s a pause. The sound of a phone smacking onto a table.

  I rearrange my notebooks and textbooks into one neat pile. Largest item on the bottom, smallest perched on top. All I have to do is pick the pile up in one swoop and head down the stairs. I’ll be like the Flash, and Chloe will never know I was here.

  I’ve made up my mind to do it, when I hear someone thundering up the stairs. I recognize his voice instantly.

  “Chloe, just talk to me for a second.”

  This is truly painful. I duck my head so low, I’m practically eating my notebook. Don’t they know I’m on the other side of this cubicle? Am I that invisible?

  “Seriously, Seb? You can’t just show up everywhere I am and demand that I speak to you.”

  “I need to know. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “I already told you there’s nothing going on between me and Matt,” Chloe says. “And even if there was, it wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t . . . change anything.”

  Why aren’t my legs moving? I have both hands on my pile, and my body is pulling me in two different directions. One is safely down the stairs, away from Chloe’s private conversation. The other is glued to this wobbly wooden chair, inching closer to the particleboard to better hear the two of them, like I’m some dippy Chleb shipper.

  “Please don’t cry,” she whispers.

  Oh. My. God. Seb is crying? Seb emotes?

  My first thought is that I have to tell Lily. Then comes my next unpleasant thought: Lily will never listen to anything I have to say. And Chloe will probably tell Lily herself, because that’s what friends do. The third thought is, Poor Seb, but I quickly push that one away. Seb will get no pity from me. So he doesn’t have Chloe. So what? Some of us have no one, and we make d
o.

  “I don’t understand what you want from me,” Seb says.

  “That’s just it,” Chloe replies.

  “What?”

  “You don’t try to understand, Seb. You don’t . . . care. About anyone or anything except yourself.”

  “I care about you.”

  Chloe snorts. I would have thought snorting was beneath her. Too undignified. “Funny. You didn’t show it until we broke up.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I really have work to do here. . . .”

  “Please.” Seb’s voice takes on a new, desperate quality that I’ve never heard from him before. “Tell me what I have to do, and I’ll do it.”

  “Give me time.”

  “But—”

  There’s a rustling of papers and the sound of a book slamming shut. “You asked me what to do, and I told you,” she says. “I can’t talk about this again. Not now.”

  “Chloe . . .”

  “Just stop!” Her voice pierces through the quiet in the library. “Listen to me. I need to be alone for a little while. Please.”

  She stands up. Any second now she’s going to spot me on the other side of the cubicle. I turn my head, keeping low, wearing my curly brown hair over my face like a shield. I hear Chloe descend the stairs, but I don’t dare sneak a peek in case she’s still watching.

  I’ll wait thirty seconds. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Miss—

  “Analee?”

  I look up slowly, my eyes panning Seb’s body, bottom to top, like a camera. Highlighter-colored sneakers, untucked shirttail, broad chest, lips sagging into a frown.

  “Hi,” I say in a tiny voice.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I motion to my notebook. “Studying.”

  “Right,” he scoffs. “Studying.”