Rachael takes off my sweater and puts on her own shirt. She looks at me and shakes her head. “No offense, but we have some serious under-eye makeup work to do.” She points to the bathroom.
I push myself off the chair. My stomach is starting to feel queasy. “I need to eat first. Or shower.”
“Okay, lets get you fed and shower-fresh. And you should take a few vitamins or something. Your skin is translucent. Good thing Danny is into the natural look.”
We head down to the kitchen and I smile, thinking how surprised my mother would be to find out she has more in common with Rachael than she’d suppose. They both want to do me over. Okay, there goes the smile, because now I’m wondering why they both think I’m so pathetic that I can’t get by without some change.
Rachael slides up to the breakfast bar while I take out some bagels. “Onion, sesame, or wheat?” I ask.
“Wheat, of course, and I think you’d better stay away from the onion. You’ll thank me later when you’re with Danny tonight.”
I start cutting the bagels in half. “Do you really think he’ll show up?”
Rachael laughs. “Do you want him to?”
“I think so.”
“Think so?”
“I guess. Okay, yes.” I hate to admit it, because if he doesn’t show, I’ll look like an idiot. I turn to Rachael. She tells me everything about her boyfriends, down to how many orgasms she’s had and what her boyfriends’ stuff tastes like. What do I tell her? Some, just enough to let her feel she’s gotten below the surface, but maybe she could be like Lisa. Maybe I’ve never given her a chance.
I put down the knife and look her in the eye. “Why does everyone think I wasn’t Michael’s type? I mean, why is it so impossible for everyone to believe that Michael could have liked me?”
Rachael’s eyes widen. I guess she wasn’t expecting me to switch topics like that. I guess she wasn’t expecting me to raise my voice. I think I’m a little surprised, too.
“Jordan, it’s not that you weren’t his type, it was just so obvious he wasn’t your type. Well, let me correct that; Michael was everybody’s type. He was a big stud-boy jerk bursting with testosterone, and he knew it. He knew any female within pheromone-sniffing range would be lusting after him. Hell, I thought more than once about how nice it would be to get a little action from the Green Monster, but I never liked him. There’s a difference.” She shakes her head.
“But Michael and I had something amazing, something I’m not sure I’ll ever have again.”
Rachael starts laughing hysterically. So glad I opened myself up to this ridicule.
“Jordan, you will love again,” she says dramatically.
Many, many times. I know he was your first, but girl, you have to get over it. He got over it. And I believe you broke up with him, right? That’s what you told us, anyway.”
“Yes! I did, and I regretted it.”
And he hasn’t gotten over it, thank you!
“Why did you break up with him if he was this love of a lifetime? Be honest, why did you do it?”
“It was Marnie, and the thought of having to hang out with her and her friends.”
“Yeah, yeah, the great ‘Thong Incident,’ but if you really loved him you could have gotten past that.” Rachael picks up the saltshaker and pours a pile of salt onto the table. “Did you and Michael really have that much in common? Was he into the stuff you like? ’Cause I never figured Michael to be the bookish type. What did you guys talk about after you played Rock, Paper, Scissors to figure out who was going to take a turn lying in the wet spot on the bed?”
She’s drawing hearts in the salt; I wish I’d never brought this up. I don’t really want to think about this anymore. We were in love, that’s all that matters.
“I’m waiting, or can’t you think of anything?”
“We had a lot in common. We’d, uh…” We’d sit in bed and I’d go into great detail about some book I was reading, or what I’d done with the twins, or how my mom was driving me crazy, and he would nod occasionally, eyes half closed. I assumed he was listening. He’d talk about practice, and keep me up-to-date with Major League Baseball. How much did I listen? Did I really care? What did we talk about before he rolled over and we did it again?
“Look, you were doing it with a gorgeous guy and after awhile you realized there was nothing else there. Happens all the time. You’re just having a harder than normal time admitting your virginal dream of marrying the guy that popped your cherry is pure fantasy. You can keep blaming the Mouth, or you can be honest with yourself. You and Michael were all sex with nothing else very deep going on, and the evil pink thong was just a good excuse for breaking up with him.”
Better than admitting I was bored with Michael? Better than admitting I gave it up so easily to a guy who immediately replaced me, and went on to sleep with the whole cheerleading squad? How do I face the fact that maybe I’ve been mooning over Michael all this time because it’s better than owning up to the fact that the whole thing was a colossal mistake. That I totally got off on the attention and didn’t care who was giving it to me, and that deep down a part of me thought it would be totally cool to sit at the front tables. So I imagined we’d had this undying love, and then believed it was true.
I guess my mother doesn’t have an exclusive on the crazies.
“Try this,” Rachael says. “When you think of Michael, what is the first word that pops into your head?”
“Regret,” I say without hesitating.
“Danny?”
“Regret,” I whisper. “A different kind, though.”
“Now, how did a summer of bumping uglies with Michael compare to hanging out with Danny down at the track?” Rachael asks.
I turn away from her and put the bagels in the toaster oven. Michael says he loves me. But what about me does he love? He doesn’t even know me.
I’m such an idiot, a huge, Titanic-size idiot. God, I almost opened my freakin’ window last night! I brace myself against the counter and try to resist the urge to slam my head into the toaster oven.
Rachael walks over and puts an arm around my shoulder. I’m biting my lip, trying not to cry. I want to tell her about Michael. I want her to make Michael disappear, because I do not want to spend an eternity with Michael. I couldn’t even make it past sixty-three days with him.
“It’s time to let it go and concentrate on the future, on Danny.” Rachael reaches past me and pushes down the switch on the toaster. “Works better if you turn it on.”
“Michael was kind of thick,” I say quietly.
“Yeah, but when you’re ninety you can look back and remember what a hottie you gave it up to. All I have to remember is a forty-one-and-a-half-second encounter with Ryan Honeywood in the wet leaves behind his garage. I walked home with mulch in my undies, wondering what all the fuss was about. Good thing Steve Swanson knew what he was doing. After that first romp in the back of his van, I saw the light!”
When I’m ninety will I still be chatting with Michael through my window?
The toaster oven clicks, and I scorch my fingers fishing the bagels out. I slide a plate across the table and wish Rachael hadn’t made such a mess with the salt.
“Thanks,” she says, and plunks down a huge glob of cream cheese. “I shouldn’t be eating dairy, but today I’ll make an exception.” She looks up from her bagel with this strange look on her face. It’s sort of like the look Gabby gets when she’s sitting on some incredible gossip. “I, um, brought something for you.”
“Oh?” Condoms? Drugs? Vibrator?
“And I want you to keep an open mind.”
I hope it’s not a vibrator. At least I think I hope it’s not. Rachael has actually made owning a vibrator sound sort of appealing.
She bites off a big piece of her bagel and runs off to the entryway. She comes back, unzips her huge crochet purse, and pushes a hair-coloring kit in front of me.
“I’m not dying my hair purple.”
She jabs her finger a
t the model on the box. “Not purple, blond, and it’s just highlights!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mom, I thought I was talking to my friend Rachael, who’d never imply that my hair sucks just because it’s ‘mousy.’”
Rachael laughs. “Your mom and I don’t usually see eye to eye, but I think she’s right on this one.”
A beautiful woman on the front of the box is smiling and showing off her very white teeth while some unseen fan blows her blond hair back attractively. Whenever the wind blows my hair, it ends up looking like greasy spaghetti.
“Highlights are just not me. I’m happy the way I am.”
“They’re no big deal. They’ll just give you a little lift, a little self-confidence for tonight.”
“What, Danny won’t like me the way I am?”
“This isn’t for Danny, it’s for you. And I can do just a few to frame your face, but more will look better. Trust me, you’ll love it.”
So I sit while Rachael blow-dries my hair. Why did I let her do this? I mean, I stopped reading Cosmo and all of those other stupid magazines in eighth grade because of the demoralizing messages they were sending to mousy, broken teens like myself. And yet here I am, sitting in my bathroom feeling light-headed from the dye’s noxious fumes.
“Oh no, the Stagano twins are always sporting these nasty roots. Will I have a paved black highway running up the middle of my scalp in a month? I will kill you if I end up looking like the Stagano twins!” I yell.
“Marissa and Mimi bleach their entire heads, and they have black hair to begin with. This is way more subtle,” Rachael says, turning off the dryer. “Ta-da!”
I open my eyes.
Wow.
I look different. I turn my head and check out the sides. I think I like it. I like it a lot. I hate that I like it.
“Well? Say something, and you’ll be lying if you say it doesn’t look great.”
“It’s… okay, but it goes against everything I stand for. I should feel good about myself just because, not because my hair looks…” I stare at myself some more.
“Because my hair looks great!” I wish I could stop smiling. “But I feel like I’ve sold out.”
Rachael is laughing. “Look, you’re thinking about this way too much. Highlights are not supposed to be some life-altering thing. They’re just for fun, for a boost. And if you’d spent the summer at the beach instead of hiding in your room, this is what you’d look like. It’s beach in a bottle, that’s all.”
“My mom is going to love this. I hate that she is going to love this.” I pick up the hairbrush and pull it through my hair. “And you will get major bonus points with her for doing it.”
Rachael looks in the mirror and rakes her fingers through her hair. “You needed something to get you out of your funk, and playing with my hair always makes me feel better. And I read in one of my books about how teens pierce and color and stuff because it’s one thing we have control over, and you know, it’s really true. It’s powerful.”
“Yeah, but this was your idea, not mine. The power is all yours.”
Rachael rolls her eyes and shrugs. “Well, you still look good.”
The phone rings and I run to my room to get it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, um, Jordan. It’s me, Danny.”
Yea! I sit at my desk and write his name on a piece of paper.
“Hi, Danny.” I wonder if he can tell I’m smiling. I reel like my smile is winging its way through the phone lines. I shake my hair and smile some more.
“Um, I don’t know if you’ve talked to Janine or Gabby or anything, but they mentioned this party, and uh…”
I’m sooo happy! I draw a heart around his name.
“Yeah, they said you might be coming. Do you need a ride?”
“Well, um, that’s why I’m calling.”
Uh-oh. He sounds more nervous than usual. Danger! Danger!
“I, um, called Janine to find out where the party was, because, um, my mom wanted to talk to that Mark guy’s parents, and…”
Oh, shit!
“Mark’s parents aren’t going to be there,” I say quietly.
“Yeah, that’s what Janine’s brother told me. She wasn’t home when I called, so Noah, um, filled me in. Look, my mom always has to check out the scene before she’ll let me go anywhere, and honestly, it doesn’t sound like my kind of thing. I’m really sorry, but I’ll, um… maybe we can do something some other time, okay?”
“Sure, call me.” I hang up the phone.
I feel totally flat. The highlights rush is gone. But isn’t that the way it is with rushes? I draw a big X through the heart I drew.
“Dahling, was that Gabby?” Rachael asks as she walks in my room and strikes a pose. She is wearing the green snake-print dress and a pair of my mother’s shoes.
“Danny’s not coming. It’s not his kind of scene.”
“Oh, crap, I’m sorry.” Rachael comes in and sits on my bed. She’s trying to look sympathetic, but she’s in that stupid dress, and I just want to be alone.
“You know, this is a sign I shouldn’t go to this party. I’m, I don’t know, not wanting to get all trashed tonight, you know? I don’t want to listen to Gabby’s spin on why Danny is a no-show. I don’t want to get all wasted, and I don’t want to end up with some guy’s hand down my pants or worse, because I know that’s what will happen if I go, you know?”
“You just said ‘you know’ three times in, like, one sentence. You need to get out and socialize. And you can just go to hang out.”
I glare at Rachael, but I know it’s not her fault Danny blew me off. Not his kind of thing? This party has been my kind of thing for a while. Does that mean I’m not his kind of thing either? Is it over again already?
“Look, Janine told me you’ve been missing in action lately.” She eyes the bottle of rum. “And if we leave you home you’ll just get trashed by yourself. Who knows, maybe you’ll meet someone new, someone more like you.”
“I thought Danny was my type.” And frankly, I’m not interested in meeting someone like me.
“Look, I don’t know if he is or isn’t. Just come to the party and have a good time.”
“I really don’t want to get trashed tonight.”
“No one is going to make you get trashed.”
She doesn’t get it. I can’t go and just have a good time. I will plan on turning down a beer or a joint or the coke right until the damn line is stinging a path up my nose and down the back of my throat. Then I will plan on being good at the next party.
I am never good.
And what about Michael? Does he have some vampire spider-sense-is-tingling thing? Will he be able to follow me two towns over? Will I get a free night out, or am I setting myself up for some sort of ambush? Do I care anymore?
“Fine, I’ll go,” I say.
What do I have to lose?
CHAPTER NINE
I’m looking at the trees whizzing by outside the car window, and now I know why I’ve been hiding out in my house these past months. Michael could be absolutely anywhere, and I’m insane to have come out. My heart is pounding faster than the bass blasting from the speakers. Gabby is in the front seat, singing along to an old Nirvana song like she’s Annie Warbucks. Giving Kurt Cobain the Kiddie-Broadway treatment usually would’ve had me roaring, but all I want is to be home, safe in my room.
I look over at Rachael. She’s singing along, too, oblivious to the fact that Michael could be flying bat-style above the car, waiting to get us when we step out into the night. Can Michael really turn into a bat? Why have I never asked him if he can turn into a bat?
What the hell was I thinking? That I didn’t care if Michael was out there? That I didn’t care what happened to me? Funny thing is, sitting here now I realize I care so much I’m afraid my heart will burst.
Deep breaths.
Okay, Michael is expecting me to be a good little girl, waiting at home for him like I’ve done every night since he reappeared. I’ve given him
no reason to think otherwise. Hell, I came very close to letting him in last night, so he’ll definitely be itching to give that window thing another go. As far as I know he has no clue who Mark Menducci is; he has absolutely no way of knowing where I’m going tonight. I’m sleeping over at Rachael’s, and while it’s possible he would go there looking for me, I don’t think he would risk being seen by her.
I think.
But what if Michael somehow knows I’ve had an epiphany of sorts today? What if he can sense I’ve finally made up my mind, and even though Danny dumped me I don’t want to be with Michael?
I can’t believe I have to break up with Michael again.
Oh God, would Michael move down his list of ex-girlfriends and start making his own vampire cheerleading squad?
I’m not even going there.
But if I meet up with Michael, would he attack or let the choice be mine? He says he loves me, and chances are he hasn’t had any sort of epiphany today. He still thinks we had something special, and I seriously doubt Michael even knows what an epiphany is.
“Oh, crap! We didn’t bring bathing suits,” Gabby calls out over the music. “Mark’s pool is still open, and he said he’ll have the heat cranked up. Of course, that won’t bother you, will it Rachael?”
Rachael rolls her eyes. “There’s no shame in being comfortable with your body!”
Gabby laughs. “Yeah, you’ve whipped your tits out so often, the thrill is gone.”
I shake my head. Everyone has seen Rachael’s tits, many, many times, but Gabby doesn’t need to make a stink about it. At practically every party since freshman year, Rachael finds some excuse to bare her breasts. I wonder if the guys do care anymore. She’s hung them out the car windows more times than I can count, titillating teenage boys with her bare-breasted Amazon Princess routine. It’s amazing the warrior boobs haven’t caused any accidents, really. I fully expect to see her on one of the MTV Spring Break shows where the girls are yanking their tops off, and only a blacked-out rectangle dancing across their chests saves their fathers at home from a trip to the ER. Of course, if some dad is watching that stuff, he gets what he deserves.