Chapter 5
On days when I feel the most invisible, I lie in my bed and pretend I’m not who I really am. I pretend I’m a girl who lives far, far away in a tropical place and I know how to sail the sea. I imagine my life is the sea. My bronze, beautiful-self smells of coconut oil. The sun kisses my long, straight hair. I’ve never been to the ocean, and it’s the sound of the waves that makes me open my eyes and know for sure I’m not in my attic any more.
All fourteen of us stand in our same circle, only we are standing in the sand, on a beach. There are palm trees and sweet smells and I’m freaked out. Nowhere near as freaked out as Ally, though.
“Where the hell are we?” Ally yells. She walks around with her hands stuck out in front of her like there’s some secret way out if she can just find the right spot. Like someone’s behind a palm tree somewhere pulling all the strings.
“How did we get here?” I say, grabbing handfuls of sand, letting it run through my fingers. “Where’s here?”
“We did it!” Hayden says with a smile on his face like I made him the happiest thirteen-year-old in the world.
“OK, I need to know what the freak you’re talking about because this isn’t happening. I have to get home. NOW. I mean I heard the garage door open before we, before we...whatever, before we...” I say, talking faster than I can spit the words out.
“It’s called AP. We’re all still in the attic but your mind is here with us at the beach on the island,” Adrianne says like she’s founded a wonderful new cult or something. I’m so out of here.
“Shut up, Adrianne. You know the rules. Stick to them, for once,” Romulus says.
For the first time, Adrienne doesn’t have anything to say and the peacocks aren’t all gothy anymore. We’re all tan and dressed in white linen and we’re all dressed the same, which adds to the whole freak-factor. I stare at my not quite flatter-than-flat chest. And I love this island because of my soft hair and my smooth hands and I feel like I’ve always wanted to feel, like girls on Clearasil commercials and Maybelline ads. The peacocks’ perfect hair and perfect skin look like they just modeled for Seventeen’s June cover.
“If my parents find out I’m not home, they will sic the FBI on our butts,” I say.
“But you are there, you’re just here too,” says Vanessa, the elusive red-haired peacock who never said word one to me before we stood in the sand together.
“How is that even possible?” Ally says. I pick my foot up out of the sand and take a closer look at it. No blood. No glass. Nothing hurts.
“It’s called Astral Projection,” Adrianne says finally catching her breath, in that way peacocks do when they seem bored and don’t want to talk to you.
“Oh good now I’ll know what to call it when my mom and dad ground me for the rest of my natural life,” I say.
“Astral what?” Ally says.
Hayden gives my hand a squeeze. He’s still holding my hand.
“You don’t get out much do you, Ally,” Ferdinand says, smiling. He’s on the short and slim side with perfect, shiny black hair.
And right when I’m about to let go of Hayden’s hand and punch him out, Hayden says, “AP is an out of body experience. The only reason we’re all seeing the same thing is because we all took the oath and we’re all holding hands...”
We’re all holding hands.
And just like that I’m cold again. We’re back in the attic and Lola and Mitch and Brian have already charged through the attic door. I know by the way Mitch examines me that this is one of those moments in my life. Epic. One of the ones I can point to where everything before is different from everything that comes after. My life will always be pre-peacock party and post-peacock party.
“What’s going on up here, Roxanne?” Mitch says. He’s wearing a new shirt and has his hair spiked up funny. Like he cares about how he looks. Weird.
“I know what’s going on. Adrianne, you’re coming home with me,” Lola says and when she walks over to the circle and tries to grab Adrianne’s arm like Adrianne is a little kid, how humiliating, Adrianne rises up like she’s Lola’s big sister and says, “Don’t touch me.”
“Listen, Adrianne, I know what’s going on here,” Lola says.
“You don’t know anything,” Adrianne says.
“I know why you’re doing this, and it’s not cool,” Lola says, checking me over like she wants to make sure I have all my fingers and my toes.
“You have no idea,” Adrianne says. She eyes me like she knows I’m the weakest link in their peacock chain. A chain I know nothing about. A chain they need me for. I wonder how I’ll ever keep this a secret. Even though I’m not totally sure what the secret is. I mean I traveled somewhere in my mind, and it felt like my body was there too, but why and how and what Adrianne is up to, I don’t know. So I can’t really spill much. I can still feel the warm sun on my back. I search the floorboards of the attic for the message from the bottle. I need evidence that what happened wasn’t a dream. Ally looks at me as frightened as a baby bunny who lost her mother.
“You’re a freaking doppelganger,” Adrianne says.
“Shut up,” Lola fires back.
Ah, ok, note to self: google doppelganger.
“You know you are. Tell us how to find her,” Adrianne says, eyeing Hayden like they know each other way too well.
Lola holds Mitch’s hand. “Why would I want that?” Lola says like she’s forcing words she doesn’t want to say out of her mouth.
What freaking world do we live in, that Lola holds Mitch’s hand? My stomach drops to my feet.
And I know right then that it’s much harder to be a peacock than I thought. I imagined peacocks had the easy life. Full of the mall and parties and boyfriends and roaming cosmetic aisles, picking out the perfect shade. But Adrianne’s life is way more complicated. People who lead simple lives don’t have to astral whatever-she-calls it. And they don’t call their sisters doppel-whatevers either.
“In case you hadn’t noticed we’re at a birthday party. I guess it’s against the law for me to go to birthday parties now?” Adrianne says.
“Ah, no,” Lola says. Point, Adrianne.
“Not that freaks like you understand things like birthdays,” Adrianne says so only Ally and I can hear.
Lola gives Mitch a sideways glance.
Ally’s eyes lock with mine.
What the heck is Lola doing with Mitch and Brian if this isn’t some prank they’re all in on together?
I turn to Mitch and say, “What are you doing here?”
“Duh, we live here. What’s going on Roxanne?” Brian says.
“Duh, I’m having friends over. It’s this thing called a birthday party, maybe you’ve heard of it,” I say all belligerent. Not really caring what they’re going to say because I just astral projected my butt to a tropical island and feel fabulous. And, I want to go back as bad as I wanted to go home when I was sitting in the sand. Because that whole AP thing is something that only happens in dreams and movies. And I want to do it again.
When all eyes are on me, I remember something we learned in English. It’s what got me to thinking about peacocks in the first place. Argos Panoptes was a hundred-eyed giant who lived in the region of Argolis in the Peloponnese. Once, when Zeus was playing around with the Nymph Io, his wife Hera discovered them. The god quickly transformed his lover into a white heifer, but the goddess wasn’t fooled. She demanded the animal for a gift and set Argos Panoptes as its guard.
Zeus sent Hermes to rescue his lover. The god first tried to lull the giant to sleep with his music, but ended up slewing him with his sword. I love the word slew. Because of this Hermes earned the title Argeiphontes (literally "the slayer of Argos"). Hera rewarded Argos for his service by placing his hundred eyes on the tail of her sacred bird, the peacock. There was something exceedingly cool about the tails of peacocks holding one hundred eyes of a slain giant. Eyes that could see everywhere. Like in my attic. And on the island.
It feels like those hundred eyes are all staring at me in the darkness of the attic and tingles shoot up my spine.
“Mom’s going to kill you when she sees you like that,” Brian says. I almost forgot about my costume. I almost forgot how much I look like a little girl compared to Lola and Adrianne and Marissa and Vanessa. But, we all share the same secret now. Even if I didn’t exactly know everything about the secret. And having a secret with peacocks made me feel less like a little girl and more like part of a pack. Besides, we traveled to some island they couldn’t get to without me and that makes me feel special.
“Come on Lola, let’s get out of here,” Mitch says.
“Mitch and Lola sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Adrianne sings.
“Roxie, Mitch, Brian? Are you up there?” It’s my mom. Her voice sounds so innocent. They aren’t due back until midnight. And if they are home, that means it’s midnight but it doesn’t feel like midnight.
I search through the broken glass on the attic floor for the message––the only evidence of my peacock present and that this night really happened. The rolled-up paper is wedged between the bottom of an old suitcase and the floor. I wiggle it free and fold it into a tiny square that fits into the palm of my right fist. My left fist still tingles from when Hayden held it.
“Yeah, we’re up here, Mom,” Mitch says, looking at Brian. Brian looks at me, and that’s how it usually goes when one of us is in trouble––even if it’s that person’s birthday. We make the rounds with our stares until our eyes settle on the one who’s about to die.
I’m in trouble, but I don’t care. And it’s the most grown up feeling not to care. And then I remember another story I heard about peacocks, how they can smell fear and charge grown men. How they can be like watch dogs. How a mirror will captivate them and they won’t be able to take their eyes off their amazing reflections. How their calls, some say shrieks, sound like calls for help. And the rare but beautiful albino peacock. An amazing creature that I swear, when you see one up close, if you don’t believe in God like Mitch and Brian don’t right now, you will. You totally will. All you need to do is see an albino peacock close up.
And when I stop thinking about peacock trivia, everyone’s filing out of the attic. Mitch and Lola and Brian go first. Brian stops to take a swig of the stuff in the bottle that was hidden just in back of the attic door. I’m the last one out.
Ally doesn’t let go of my hand. I’m the only one in bare feet and it takes me a long time to scoot out of there, trying to walk between the broken glass and not really doing a very good job of it. Just before I walk out of the attic there’s a pile up of people trapped by our narrow staircase down to the garage, the only way downstairs. I look back into the darkness of the attic, wanting to see the moonlight one last time. To try to hold on to one tiny me-moment before I’ll be in trouble. Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life plays in my head.
I walk out of the attic into the still-crowded, soon-to-be-boys’ den where about half of us wait our turn to go downstairs, and just before I shut the attic door, I peek into the blackness of the attic one last time. The broken glass is all gone, I mean completely swept away. All that’s left of my busted peacock present is the black-and-purple ribbon laying in the moonlight on the plywood floor. But then there’s something else. A weird, ghostly glow twirls in the moonlight in the center of the attic, in the middle of what was once our circle, where we all held hands. Where we all swore we’d never tell a soul about what happened there.
The white glow rises off the plywood and into the air, hovering about the same height as the small window. It hangs in the darkness, the coolest night-light ever, casting sparkly white light over my old tricycles, Mitch and Brian’s bikes, Mom’s old clothes, Dad’s discarded suitcases and the old pedal car.
I close my eyes to see if I’m losing my mind and at the same time I want it, whatever-it-is, to be there when I open them. I want it to be real because I want to go back to the island. I like being needed by the peacocks and want a way to go back so desperately, in my mind I will the glow to stay. When I open my eyes again, the ghostly glow is still there, hovering in my attic.
I tug on Ally’s arm but she doesn’t turn around and instead she yanks me out of the attic. I don’t think she finds astral-whatever as cool as I do. She closes the attic door on the weird glow. I rub my cheeks to try to wipe the blush off as I take the stairs one at a time. Wincing.
“What’s all this then?” Mom says when I limp in the kitchen door.
“It’s called a birthday party, Mom. Lots and lots of people have them. Especially when they’re teenagers,” I say so smug my mom’s speechless.
My dad says, “You’re bleeding.”
Any anger I think I see in my mom’s eyes fades away and she holds my hand and helps me to a chair even though I don’t need any help. And when we shuffle to get me seated, my dad picks me up and sits me on the counter like he did when I was a little girl, even though I’m a teenager now. I like when he does that.
Most of the peacock parents on schlep-duty arrive right then. I breathe easier watching the peacocks fly the coop and therefore won’t see me practically bawl when my parents ground me. Dad sees to it that every parent leaves with a smile. Something I know is pure torture for him. People. And parties. They just aren’t his style. But he smiles on his way back into the kitchen anyway.
“What have you gotten into?” Mom says, brushing my hair away from my eyes because that’s the first thing she does when she thinks something is wrong with me. “Clark, go upstairs and see what’s broken up there.”
“I’ll go with you Dad,” Brian says winking at me as he walks by. I don’t know if he wants to go up there to make sure Dad’s safe, or if he needs to go up there to make sure Dad doesn’t find his stash. When they disappear out the kitchen door, I imagine the ghostly glow in the attic snatching both of them. I wince.
“Are you ok honey?” Mom says.
“Fine, Mom. I’m fine.” But I’m the furthest thing from it. Everything’s changed. The world I knew isn’t the world I know. A part of me doesn’t want Dad and Brian going up in the attic. I don’t want them getting projected because of me. They don’t know what’s up there and I can’t tell them about it.
Lullaby by The Cure plays again. It brings a smile to my face and takes my mind off of Dad and Brian and Adrianne and becoming a teenager and what I’m going to do about all of it. And I turn to see who pushed play. Hayden smiles back at me and gives a little wave, “Happy Birthday, Roxie,” he says on the way out the front door. I wave back and stroke my left hand, the hand he held.
The only ones left in the house are me and Mom and her eyebrow tweezers, and slivers of glass sticking out of my foot. It doesn’t hurt bad, but it bleeds worse. And I want to know more than ever why the peacocks need me. I want to hold Hayden’s hand again.
My heart pounds to Dad and Brian’s thud-like footsteps coming back down the staircase in the garage. They open the kitchen door with smiles on their faces. Dad must have steered clear of Brian’s stash. Dad says, “Everything’s spic-and-span up there. How’d you cut yourself Roxanne?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I had no idea,” I say. Which isn’t totally a lie. I didn’t know how Adrianne shattered the bottle. I can’t tell him what happened because we all swore silence and the white blob upstairs didn’t munch Dad and Brian when they went into the attic to check things out, probably because I kept my mouth shut. And I don’t want the white blob eating my family. So I keep my silence. It’s never been so hard to keep a secret before tonight. I mean, on one hand it’s a super-cool secret and it’s kinda cool to have a super-cool secret as long as nobody’s hurt by me keeping it. Well, nobody got hurt but me.
“Hon?” My mom looks at my dad with a nod that says everything that needs to be said between them. She hasn’t called Dad that in a long time. He smiles, heads for the refrigerator, and pulls out the cake. Mom sticks the candles into the chocolate frosting. One, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Mom always puts an extra candle on for good luck. And this year, more than ever I am happy about that. Every other year it always kind of bugged me. I think the only time a person really has a clue about luck is when they’re a teenager, because life is very different when you become one. I’m officially thirteen. I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
Mom and Dad and Brian sing Happy Birthday to me and for the first time in my life I close my eyes and know what I want most of all. I know you’re not supposed to tell anybody what you wish for because of jinxes or bad luck [note to self: research the world’s unluckiest animal] but I’m going to tell you what I wish––to become a peacock, even if they do creepy things like AP and make me promise never to tell what happened in my attic.