Project Paper Doll

by Stacey Kade

  If I hadn’t been in the middle of trying to shut down a crisis, I would have pointed out that being his friend didn’t give her that right either, no matter who I was.

  But I could feel the power building and slipping away from me. The lightbulbs were rattling and so were the stacked metal bleachers against the far wall. Coach Kiler stormed out of the football booth, shouting for someone to shut down the music and fans. I wasn’t sure whether he thought there was an overloaded breaker or he wanted to hear better to determine where the problem was originating. Either way, not good.

  I stared at Rachel, trying to focus, but her mouth kept moving without sound, the overwhelming static of building power in my head blocking out her actual words. Shit. If I lost control here, people would be hurt. It was unavoidable. Even if just the lights blew, someone would get trampled in the panic, or catch glass in the eye.

  Hurting innocent people had never been my intent. I could feel sweat breaking out on the back of my neck. I had to stop this. I’d been so foolish to take the risk.

  Zane’s face appeared in front of mine, his forehead crinkled in concern. Ariane, are you okay? I couldn’t hear him, but his mouth moved slowly enough that I could read his lips.

  Then, over Rachel’s shoulder, movement caught my attention at the football team’s booth. The players were filling their tinfoil pie plates with mountains of shaving cream and using each other as targets. Making a huge mess of themselves and the booth.

  My attention zoomed in, hyperfocused. I could smell the soapy, aloey scent of the shaving cream, almost feel the weight of the plates. I had a second to recognize that this sensation—a weird, intense attention to detail—felt familiar in a very distant way. And then pie plates and shaving cream exploded in a hundred different directions.

  I jumped, startled. People ducked and shouted in surprise as the plates flew by and shaving cream landed on them. But better that than shattered lights and broken glass, I thought.

  The wall in my brain snapped back into place, and the energy abruptly cut off. But that didn’t stop what had already been set in motion.

  Several globs of shaving cream flew past Rachel and spattered onto Zane’s shirt and my face. Ew. The overheated gym had turned it more liquid than solid, and it trickled down my cheek on impact.

  I let go of Zane’s hand to wipe it away and noticed that Rachel seemed to have seized up in front of us. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her hands by her face in fists, and her shoulders hunched up by her ears. Well, at least she’d removed her claws from Zane’s wrist.

  Zane and I looked at each other in confusion, and I lifted my shoulder in an “I have no idea” gesture.

  “Rachel?” Zane called hesitantly.

  Her eyes snapped open, and if her nostrils had been flaring before, she now resembled an angry horse.

  “Are you…” Before Zane could finish the question, Rachel turned away, her dress clinging wetly to her legs.

  And once she had her back to us, it was clear why. She was covered in shaving cream, from tiny dots near her ankles to huge sprays of it across her shoulder blades.

  “Matty!” she shrieked, and one of the football players, a heavyset kid with a stunned expression and his hair sticking up in sweaty spikes, cringed.

  She charged toward him, leaving us behind, forgotten.

  I laughed, giddiness sweeping over me in the absence of the soul-crushing fear that had dominated only seconds before. I had done that—made a mess of Rachel by blowing up the shaving-cream pies. I hadn’t been able to bring the barrier up, but I’d redirected the power. I’d been in control, if only for a few seconds. It was a step in the right direction.

  Zane looked at Rachel, the shaving cream splattered across her back and hair as if she’d been caught in the crossfire of a violent crime against the giant marshmallow man from Ghostbusters; then he looked at me, giggling, perhaps a little manically, with relief.

  “Uh, I think maybe we’d better go,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, trying rather unsuccessfully to choke back my laughter. “Maybe if we stick around, someone will attack her with aftershave.”

  Zane shook his head, but the corners of his mouth turned up in a reluctant smile. “I think you have a death wish,” he whispered, putting a hand on my shoulder to steer me between the booths, where, presumably, we could make it to the door without attracting Rachel’s attention.

  No. Not a death wish. Just very little left to lose.

  IF I’D THOUGHT I WAS INTRIGUED by Ariane before, it was nothing compared to how I felt after the activities fair.

  Outside, in the much cooler air, she was glowing in the harsh white parking lot lights. Not literally. That would have been weird. But it was as if an energy suffused her, so much so that she could have been visible in the dark. And her hand gripped mine like she needed the tether to keep from floating away.

  “That was amazing.” She wasn’t shrieky or girly—not her style, I’d come to notice—but her voice was shaking with…excitement, nervousness, a mixture of both? I couldn’t tell.

  I dug my car keys out of my pocket and steered us toward the truck. “You know this is only going to make things worse for us,” I said, but I couldn’t help but smile in response to her euphoria. It was not an emotion I’d ever seen from her before.

  “Tonight? I don’t care.” Ariane tipped her face up toward the sky and laughed, a freeing sound. The light bleached all the color from her, emphasizing the pale color of her hair and the unusual lines of her face. She was beautiful but not in any kind of conventional way. She looked…foreign. In the way that people from Iceland or Estonia, or wherever, looked different—slightly higher cheekbones or pointy chins or something. Just enough to trigger the realization that they weren’t from around here.

  I wondered if her mother had been from outside the U.S. Her obituary hadn’t made mention of it.

  It wasn’t something I could ask without sounding like a major creeper, and it didn’t matter, except it was one more piece of Ariane that didn’t quite fit. I was beginning to wonder if maybe nothing about her made sense, and that, in and of itself, was the pattern.

  I pushed that thought away and made an effort to rejoin the conversation. “I can’t figure out what the hell Matty was thinking,” I said. “He knows better than to go up against Rachel.”

  Ariane slowed, frowning. “It was an accident. He wasn’t aiming at her. They were goofing around in the booth and things got out of hand,” she said decisively, almost as if she were trying to convince herself.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s not what it looked like.” But then again, I’d missed the start of what happened, distracted by the increasing tension between Rachel and Ariane. And the lights…

  “Hey, did you see the lights? Flashing all crazy like they did yesterday in the hall before they blew up.” It was strange. I was pretty sure I’d seen the same kind of thing in the cafeteria today when Rachel was taking out some of her aggression on Jenna. The stupid thing was, I kept thinking about what my dad had said about someone using the GTX research to experiment on a kid. Now, granted, the entire idea was whacked-out beyond all measure, a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream. And yet I couldn’t help but notice that the weird stuff with the lights only seemed to happen when Rachel was around…and pissed. Maybe I’d watched too many reruns of The Incredible Hulk, but the idea of scientific experimentation and “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” kind of went together. And Rachel certainly would have been an easy target, given who she was. But why go to all the trouble of making it seem like the research project had been stolen?

  Unless that’s what they wanted people to believe.

  Whatever. I would definitely not be bringing up any of that, now or ever. My dad had the crazy angle covered when it came to GTX.

  I realized suddenly that Ariane had gone quiet, and, looking over at her, I noticed some of her happy glow seemed to have faded. “Hey.” I swung her hand to get her attention, as we approach
ed my car. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I mean, no,” she said finally. “I didn’t notice the lights.”

  I stared at her. “How did you not see—”

  “I was too busy watching Rachel dig holes into your arm,” she said, her mouth pressed into an unhappy line.

  At the reminder, I grimaced, looking down at my arm. I couldn’t see much in the dim light—just slightly darker marks on my skin—but I could feel the cuts, small stinging souvenirs of Rachel’s disapproval. “It’s fine. Not a big—”

  Before I could say more, Ariane dropped my hand and grabbed my other arm, pulling it across my body and bringing it closer to her so she could see it in the dim light. The balloon I’d tied around her wrist at the beginning of the night bobbed in my face until I pushed it behind my shoulder.

  She ran her fingertips lightly over my injuries, sucking in a sympathetic breath so quietly I wasn’t even sure I was supposed to have heard it.

  She tucked my arm beneath hers, as a captive, and bent her head for a better look, revealing the pale and vulnerable back of her neck and a glimpse of the whiter-than-white edge of that mysterious bandage.

  But I found I didn’t care so much about that mystery right now. I could feel the warmth of her skin through her shirt and the rise and fall of her ribs as she breathed, and maybe even the underside of her breast against the inside of my elbow. It…she felt good. To be that close to someone and have her want to be that close to me, because I was me, not because of Quinn or my dad or because I was friends with the right people. We were alone out here; there was no one to pretend for.

  I cleared my throat. “You defended me,” I said, unable to keep the amazement out of my voice, the words escaping before I could stop them. “Against Rachel.”

  Ariane looked up at me sharply. “I didn’t mean to offend your manly sensibilities.”

  “You didn’t. It was…nice.” No one had stood up for me like that in a long time.

  Our gazes locked, and with the noise and the lights of the activity fair in the gym behind us, I could feel the connection thrumming between us. Her hands fell away from my arm, and I reached up to touch her chin, to tilt her face toward mine.

  She stepped away, ducking around my hand. “You should make sure to disinfect those cuts when you get home,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “There are millions of germs beneath human fingernails.”

  Human fingernails? What other kind of fingernails were there? I stared after her as she made her way to the passenger side of the SUV. Then I shrugged. At this point, I shouldn’t have been surprised by anything from Ariane, I guess.

  I unlocked and opened her door, and she didn’t even glance at the hand I offered to help her up. But I wasn’t dumb. I knew what I’d felt, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. I shut her door and went around to climb in behind the wheel. But maybe she had the right idea. This was already complicated enough, and who knew how much of that connection was due to these forced circumstances? Better to leave it alone.

  I stuck the keys in the ignition and started the car. Oh, screw it. “Speaking of home, how about something to eat first? Everyone in town is here. We could get chili cheese fries at Culver’s and eat in peace, probably have the place to ourselves.” I was surprised at how much I wanted her to say yes.

  Ariane glanced over at me, startled, and for a second I thought I saw a flash of emotion cross her face—longing or loneliness, or both.

  “I’d better not.” She turned to look out the window.

  I backed out of the parking spot and tried to ignore the rush of disappointment.

  “Besides,” she said, digging into her plastic bag to produce the Puppy Chow and French kiss cookies, “I think Reginald and I are set in terms of food for the night.”

  “Reginald?” I asked, confused. I put the car into drive and headed out toward the street.

  Ariane dropped the cookies and snack mix into the bag and held up the stuffed animal from the ringtoss game. “Yes, Reginald. The dog-bear.” She frowned. “Or bear-dog. Whatever you prefer.”

  “Reginald, the dog-bear,” I repeated.

  “Or bear-dog,” she reminded me.

  “That’s terrible,” I said in mock solemnity. “He’s already not sure what he is—a dog, a bear…a bog…”

  She giggled.

  “And then you tag him with the name Reginald?” I shook my head.

  “What’s wrong with Reginald?” she demanded, a smile pulling at her mouth.

  “Where do I begin? Is he an English lord of some kind? No. He’s a bog. And all the other bogs will make fun of him.”

  “I have heard that the bog community is known for being close-minded,” she said thoughtfully. “But maybe he can be a dear instead of a bog. You know, a d-e-a-r.”

  I pretended to gasp in horror. “You can’t switch allegiances like that! Don’t you know anything about the fierce infighting within the bog-dear communities? They hate each other. Especially after the stuffing incident.”

  This got the reaction I was hoping for—another reluctant laugh from Ariane. “I’ll probably regret this, but I’m going to ask anyway. What was the stuffing incident?”

  “Shhh! You can’t talk about it so openly. They’re both very sensitive about it.” I leaned closer to her, careful to keep my eyes on the road. “It involved a spy with a tail transplant and ear elongation surgery. And a bog-dear forbidden love.”

  She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “You are ridiculous.”

  “No, I’m serious. They’re crazy for that romantic shit. And you only say that because you have no idea what the bogs and dears have lost in this conflict.”

  “‘Many Bothans died to bring us this information,’” she intoned.

  It took me a second to place the familiar words. “You’re a Star Wars person?”

  “You have no idea,” she said, with a rueful smirk that I didn’t completely understand. “I mean, not dressing up and waiting for days in line, but yeah.”

  She paused for a moment, her gaze focused out the windshield but not on anything particular. “Have you ever noticed, though, how all the aliens are either scary or ugly?”

  I frowned. “You’ve thought a lot about this.”

  “You haven’t?” She gave me a knowing look. “You recognized a minor quote from a movie that’s almost older than both of us put together.”

  “Okay, so I might have watched it a few times.” In truth, it was something I’d never discuss or even bring up with anyone besides Ariane, but I’d been obsessed with those movies as a kid. Not a huge mystery there. Come on, it’s a story about a guy with an overbearing father who is always trying to force him into stuff he doesn’t want to do.

  “The slave girl that Jabba fed to the Rancor before Luke,” I said finally. “She was pretty hot.”

  Ariane gave me a skeptical look. “She wasn’t an alien.”

  “How do you know that?” I countered.

  “She looked totally human!”

  “Uh, she was green and had tentacle things coming out of her head. What would you call that?” Some part of me couldn’t believe we were arguing over Star Wars; it was so far from my normal life, but it was also the best night I’d had in a long time.

  “Good makeup and a slinky costume?” she shot back.

  “You’re just mad because she doesn’t fit your aliens are ugly/scary theory,” I said with a laugh.

  She glared at me. “Her look was created to be attractive to humans. That’s just as bad as making her ugly or scary. It’s faux alien, not realistic. I mean, I didn’t even notice she wasn’t…” She took a deep breath. “You know what? Never mind. Forget it.” Ariane shifted in her seat and returned her attention to the window.

  Somehow, I seemed to have offended her. She was taking this conversation seriously; I kind of loved that. “Realistically, I don’t think any of them are particularly human,” I offered. “Not the way we think of it. Tatooine isn’t exactly in our—”

  Ariane suddenly sat
up straight, staring out the window. “Wait. Stop.”

  “What’s wrong?” I tapped the brakes automatically at the urgency in her voice.

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “We’re here.” She pointed at the darkened street.

  “We’re in the middle of the road,” I said, in disbelief.

  “Here is good,” she said crisply. “It’s only a couple of blocks to my house.”

  I recognized the intersection as the same one where I’d picked her up.

  “No way. I’m not going to drop you off in the dark to walk home.” Okay, yes, this was Wingate, so the odds of something happening to her were small, but still. It felt rude, disrespectful to her in some way—like I was pretending not to know her or something. Plus, if her dad was going to be pissed that she’d gone out, how angry would he be if he found out I’d dropped her off in the middle of the street? I let my foot off the brake. “Which house is yours? I won’t pull into the driveway if you don’t want.”

  “Let me out,” she said, the steel returning to her voice. She put her hand on the door handle, and for a second I thought she might jump out while the car was moving.

  “Ariane, I’m just—”

  “Are you going to keep me in here against my will?” she asked in a stiff voice. The last thing I wanted was to scare her.

  “No!” I said, frustrated. “I just want to make sure you get home okay.”

  “I’ll be fine. Now, stop. Please.”

  It was the “please” that got me. It was softer, more of a plea than a demand. How could anyone resist that?

  I sighed and slowed down to pull over. “Just…can you tell me why? Is it your dad? Because, you know, I can introduce myself and—”

  “It’s not that,” she said sharply, leading me to believe it was exactly that.

  “Then what is it?” I asked, playing along.

  Ariane hesitated. “It’s complicated.”

  “I seem to remember someone telling me earlier today that wasn’t a good enough answer.” I reached the curb and put the truck in park.

  Ariane bit her lip, then said, “It’s the only one I’ve got.” She pushed the door open and hopped down, pulling her balloon out after her.