“Coming?” Dad says, already down the hall, in the kitchen. I can hear him setting up the island.
I take one last look at Aunt Alexia’s room, just as the door clicks shut.
“How’s she doing?” I ask Dad, joining him in the kitchen. I slide onto an island stool, noting the requisite trash bag he’s set out in which to dump any remaining evidence.
Dad pops the lid off a container of salsa and assures me that Aunt Alexia’s been taking all her medication, going to therapy twice a week, and receiving high marks for cooperation from Nurse Loretta.
“Yes, but she barely comes out of her room,” I remind him.
“At night, she does. She’s been sleeping a lot during the day. She’s got her days and nights reversed, I guess.”
I manage a nod, wondering if her erratic sleep schedule is the reason I’ve had the sensation of being watched: if maybe she’s been skulking around the house while I sleep, and peeking into my room.
We eat in silence for several minutes. I can tell Dad’s got a lot on his mind. He keeps gazing up from his trough of guacamole, taking big breaths as if about to say something.
“Is everything okay?” he asks, finally venturing to speak. He looks toward my plate.
“Better than okay,” I say, assuming he’s talking about the food.
“And what about between you and Aunt Alexia?” he asks. “Is everything okay in that department, too?”
I pause from polishing off the container of nacho dip. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, have you two gotten a chance to chat at all?”
“Not really,” I say, choosing not to tell him about last night, because I’m not so sure that being coaxed out of a closet and tucked into bed with my long-lost baby doll constitutes an actual chat. “She seems so much different now than she was at the mental facility—more afraid, less willing to talk. It’s like she’s taken a step back.”
“Well, I think you should at least try to talk to her,” he says. “Whenever you’re ready, that is. I think it might make her more comfortable. Nurse Loretta told us that Alexia’s feeling a bit self-conscious about staying here. Your mom and I want her to feel welcome.”
I swallow hard; a chip scrapes my throat. “I’d like to talk to her. I think we might have a lot in common.”
Dad meets my eyes, waiting for me to elaborate, maybe. But I’m waiting for him to elaborate, too. It feels like there’s so much more being said than what’s actually coming out of our mouths.
“I think so, too,” he says after a two-bite pause. “And not just with your art.”
“I agree,” I say, staring straight at him, silently challenging him to come clean about what he knows.
Despite the tension between him and Mom these past several months, it was actually Dad’s idea for Aunt Alexia to come and stay with us for a while— Dad, who approximately two months ago spotted Aunt Alexia’s journal in my bedroom when he popped in to say hello. He moved it to my night table, making room for himself on my bed, not even asking what it was.
Is it possible that he didn’t notice? Did he not see her name scrawled across the front cover?
Dad falls silent, looking back down at his food again, failing to ask me any more.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, trying to force him back to the topic.
He smiles, then nudges the container of sour cream toward me. “I’m thinking that we haven’t even talked about school yet.”
I bite my lip to keep it from trembling, disappointed that he doesn’t want to discuss Aunt Alexia more. “I take it you haven’t picked up your voice mail messages at work?”
“Why?” he asks. “Did something happen?”
I take a deep breath, trying to stay in control, but I suddenly feel like I’ve absolutely none. My eyes fill with tears.
“Camelia?” He leans across the table to touch my forearm. “Hey,” he says, finally getting up and coming to sit beside me.
I snuggle up into his chest the way I did when I was five, wishing that I could go back in time and be a little girl all over again.
Dad strokes my hair. He smells like coffee and chili peppers. “What is it?” he asks.
I break our embrace to look at him again—at his swollen eyes and the furrow lines on his forehead. He looks almost as scared as I feel.
“I had a panic attack in sculpture class,” I lie, wiping the tears from my eyes, “and Ms.
Beady recommended that I start seeing someone…a therapist, I mean.”
I don’t expect him to believe me. I’m almost sure he’s going to interrogate me and demand to know the truth. But instead he lets out a giant breath, relieved by the news; I almost spot a grin on his face.
“Did you think it was something else?” I ask, still hoping that he’ll open up and that he’ll want me to open up as well.
But he eats his grin with a side of denial, and then hops on Beady’s bandwagon, telling
me how unsurprised he is by the suggestion—not to mention the alleged attack—considering everything that’s happened these past several months.
“I think talking to someone is an excellent idea. You’ve been through a lot, and your mother and I want what’s best for you.”
“I know,” I say, proceeding to fill him in about Dr. Tylyn. “She works at Hayden, and Ms. Beady says she’s good.”
“Do you want me to give her a call to set something up?”
“Sure.” I hand him the sticky note from my pocket. “Just make sure the appointment is on a Thursday. I’ll be at Hayden for an art class anyway. Spencer wants me to take a life drawing course. He says I need to put more body into my work.”
“And what do bodies have to do with bowls?” he asks, finally unleashing his grin.
“Honestly, I have no idea. But hopefully I’ll find out.”
FOR THE NEXT COUPLE DAYS at school, people look at me as if I were some kind of freak. And I can’t really say I blame them.
My episode in sculpture class was far worse than I thought. Kimmie finally breaks down and tells me that I didn’t just call out “no” a couple of times; apparently I shouted it out at the top of my lungs and did some weird convulsive thing while clawing the air with my hands.
I’m assuming the convulsive thing was because I was so completely stuck inside my head, picturing the windows in the locker room and grappling to get out through one of them.
Not that it even matters, because every time I walk down the hallway now, I part the sea of onlookers as if I were a science project come to life. A far cry from the last several years of school, when I was barely even noticed; when I blended into my surroundings, ironically like my namesake, the chameleon; and when that was perfectly fine by me. Teachers, on the other hand, have been giving me special treatment, talking to me like I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown and opting not to call on me when I clearly don’t know the answer. You’d think it’d come as a perk, but it’s actually been more of an annoyance.
Case in point: yesterday, Mr. Swenson, a.k.a. the Sweat-man, my chemistry teacher, got all
are-you-sure-you-can-handle-doing-the-lab-this-week?-because-if-you-need-some-extra-time-jus t-say-the-word-and-I’ll-give-you-an-extension. His voice was powdery soft, reminding me of the way a pedophile might sound trying to lure unsuspecting kids into his van with the promise of candy. And he got this close to my face, enabling me to smell his burrito breath, which almost made me want to give up Mexican food altogether. Almost.
Ben’s been treating me differently, too. Instead of keeping his distance and giving me his usual polite nods and smiles in passing, he’s been making a point of walking by my locker more often than usual, and looking in my direction en route to his seat in chemistry. It’s flattering on one hand, because it shows that he still cares, but uncomfortable on the other, because we’re obviously no longer together.
“Hey, there, sexy lady,” Kimmie coos, sneaking up behind me at my locker.
It’s after school, and I’m trying to cra
m a bunch of books into my bag, but they keep dumping back out onto the floor.
“New?” she asks, giving my sweater a puzzled look. She reaches out to feel the hem.
“Borrowed,” I say. “From my mother’s closet.”
“Go, Jilly,” Kimmie says, using my mom’s first name. “One hundred percent cashmere?”
“As if I bothered to check the label.” At the same moment, an avalanche of books spills out of my locker.
Kimmie comes to my rescue by picking them up. “Something on your mind?” she asks.
“Because you seem just a wee bit distracted.”
“It might have something to do with the fact that I’ve been labeled a full-fledged freak.”
“Big whoop,” she says, pulling a fan (the paper kind that accordion-folds) from her bag and flicking it open. “I’ve been labeled a freak since birth, but I’m still as sexy as hell.”
I gaze over my shoulder, spotting Davis Miller, my wannabe-boy-band-member neighbor, doing a move that looks suspiciously convulsive, complete with clawing fingers and an obnoxious whine.
Kimmie lowers her glasses to stare at him over the rims—from his tight black jeans and muscle tank, to his Converse sneakers with an inch of vankle (visible ankle, according to Kimmie; basically, when your pants aren’t quite long enough to reach the shoelaces).
“Seriously?” she asks. “Is there a costume party I don’t know about?”
Davis responds with a flailing of his tongue.
“Gene Simmons you are not,” she says.
Davis appears thoroughly confused, clearly not a fan of seventies rock bands, nor of the man with the longest tongue ever.
A moment later, Danica Pete walks by, and Davis lets out an obnoxious sneeze, one that’s peppered with the word loser. “Hey, Twig!” he shouts, when she ignores him, referring to her less-than-curvy figure. “Running late to a flat-ass convention, are we?”
But Danica continues to ignore him, scurrying down the hallway, clearly on a mission. I want to say something in her defense, but before I can think of anything clever enough, Kimmie whirls me around and asks if I need her to sleep over tonight. “I mean, I totally will if you want,”
she says. “But if not, my dad’s invited me for dinner at his place, just the two of us.”
“Thanks anyway,” I say, managing to stuff a couple of notebooks into my bag. “But I’ll be fine. Go dine with Dad.”
“So, no more dreams about sculpting things, I take it?”
“No more dreams about anything,” I reply, hoping I sound optimistic, because I don’t want to disappoint her.
The truth is I haven’t really been sleeping much lately. The thought of my aunt’s being awake at all hours of the night, and possibly peeping in on me while I’m asleep, has turned me into an insomniac, as evidenced by the dark circles under my eyes and my apparent lack of coordination.
“Sweet deal,” Kimmie says, with a snap of her gum. “Plus, bonus points, you haven’t done anything weird in sculpture class in days. So, maybe things are finally getting back to normal.”
“Maybe,” I say, knowing that it isn’t that simple, and disappointed that she thinks it is.
Kimmie’s at least partly responsible for my “normalcy” in sculpture class. I’ve been having her elbow me every five minutes to make sure I don’t get too engrossed in my work (which is where I run into problems of the convulsive-and-voice-hearing kind). In one way it’s been good, because it keeps me from making a fool of myself. But it’s also been bad, because what I’ve been producing has been utterly empty, which, in turn, makes me feel empty, too.
“So I’ll call you later, after my dad’s?” she asks. “He promises that Tammy the Toddler won’t be there.”
“Is that what we’re calling her these days?”
“If the diaper fits…”
“Best not to give them any ideas,” I joke.
“So right,” she says, shuddering.
“And I’ll call you,” I add. “I have to go to Hayden later. Spencer got me into a life drawing class.”
“Whoa,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut; two red roses that perfectly match her fan have been painted onto her eyelids. “Life drawing…as in, naked people? Because you know that’s what they do in those classes, right? You know there’s going to be all kinds of floppy going on…and I’m not just talking about the guys. Hi, Ben,” she says, without missing a beat. A wide smile stretches across her lips.
I turn to find him directly behind me, mortified to think he might’ve heard the conversation.
“Am I interrupting something?” He smirks.
“Gotta go,” Kimmie says, leaving me to literally flop on my own.
“How’s it going?” Ben asks. He rests his palm against my open locker door, rocking my entire universe.
“Great,” I lie.
Still, it’s clear he knows otherwise. He squints slightly, as if he could pull the truth right out of me. “Yeah, well, I heard about what happened in your sculpture class.”
“Panic attack,” I say, lying again.
“Are you sure that’s all it was?” His hand brushes against my forearm, causing my insides to rumble and stir.
It’s all I can do to take a step back and let his hand fall away. “I’m fine,” I try to assure him, hearing a slight quiver in my voice. “How have things been with you?”
I want to hear how miserable he is now that we’ve broken up. But instead he tells me how nice it is that people are starting to accept him. “I have you to thank for that,” he says.
“People think I’m some kind of hero.”
“Well, you are,” I say, almost wishing that he could save me again.
Ben hesitates for a few more seconds, as if wanting to say something else, but I turn away before he can, and close my locker door.
“Well, let me know if you ever want to talk.” He smells like the fumes of his bike.
“Sounds good.” I turn to face him again, struggling to hold back tears. They burn a hole straight through my heart.
The next thing I know, Alejandra Chavez—ranked number one last year on Freetown High’s Most Beautiful People list—sneaks up behind Ben and taps him on the shoulder. “Hey, stranger,” she chirps, “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Ben doesn’t flinch, nor does he take his eyes off mine. “Alejandra, do you know Camelia?” he asks.
Alejandra looks at me for about half a second, then shakes her head, even though we hung out last summer at the community pool, when she forgot her towel and I loaned her my extra one.
I consider reminding her but decide it’s not really that important. Plus, Alejandra seems far too preoccupied to bother with me. She’s completely focused on Ben, asking him where he’s been and telling him that she needs a ride home.
“Plus, we’re still going for coffee, right?” she asks him.
“Right,” he says, finally turning to gaze at her.
She looks supermodel perfect in a short black skirt and tall leather boots. Her inky black hair is swept up in an intentionally messy ponytail, showing off her almond-shaped eyes and angular cheeks.
“But we’ll have to meet there,” he continues. “I’ve got a couple errands I need to do first.”
“I could come with you.” She gives him a flirty little smile, as if she realizes that although she’s being too persistent, her good looks make up for it.
“Let’s walk to the coffee place,” Ben suggests. “It’s nice out and my bike’s pretty low on fuel.”
It’s obviously a bogus excuse. He wants to avoid touching her, for fear that he’ll sense something he shouldn’t.
But I can’t really say I mind.
Dear Jill,
I’m sure you noticed that your manager started acting suspicious, like something seedy was going on. I’m sure you saw how he eyeballed me every time I came into the coffee shop, watching to make sure that I ordered something, and that I wasn’t just taking up table space.
But did yo
u also notice my efforts? My unwavering concern for your well-being? And my scrupulous attention to detail?
The napkin note, for example: I didn’t merely write it on the spot. You’ll be flattered to know that I’d actually written that note way ahead of time (the night before), because I wanted to ensure that things played out perfectly.
When I brought it up to the counter, it looked like you’d been expecting me. I remember you were wearing eye shadow and a bold shade of lipstick smeared across your mouth. In some way you reminded me of a little girl playing dress-up, but your attempts were a positive sign.
I ordered a cookie, but you got me a brownie instead. Also positive: I made you nervous.
I could tell that you really liked me.
I slipped you my note, making direct physical contact by sliding my finger along your thumb. It startled you-I saw your shoulders tense and your lips stiffen-but you didn’t try to pull away. Also good: you cared more about my feelings than you did your own.
I left the shop once your manager came around, but you’ll be happy to know that I lingered outside, hidden in the darkness, because I didn’t want to leave you just yet.
…
Dear Jack:
After a while you stopped hanging around the coffee shop as much. But then one day you walked in, scribbled something down on a napkin, and passed it to me as I wrapped up your brownie to go. Once again, your finger grazed my thumb, nearly knocking me off balance.
Carl saw it. The note, that is. But he didn’t say anything, because of the brownie purchase (it was our most expensive kind and not a huge mover).
The napkin pressed in my hand, I could feel it wilting in the sweat of my palm, but I didn’t want to open it until you were gone, in case it was a note revealing that I’d been the butt of some joke. It wouldn’t have been the first time, but I’m sure you already know that.
“What’s with that guy?” Carl asked, watching as you collected your books.
I was excited that Carl noticed your attention, that it hadn’t just been a figment of my imagination. “He seems pretty nice,” I said.
Carl gawked at me, his face as wilted as my napkin note. “You need your head checked.”