Skin

by Napoli, Donna Jo

  Poor Dad. I think it’s the fox who has tamed him. But I haven’t told him; it would mean talking.

  I’m grateful to know all this about foxes. I do my biology homework and then I do extra—extra reading, extra surfing the Internet. Biology is my lifeline. When I’m reading biology, I can pretend I’m still me.

  I often watch for the fox now, though I’ve never seen it. I stand in the kitchen, drinking my new favorite tea. It has toasted rice in it, and the smell almost calms me. I bought it when I went with Rachel, of all people, to Chinatown in Philadelphia last Saturday. She’s taking cooking and she needed ingredients for a Szechuan dish. I don’t know why I accepted her invitation. Probably just out of surprise. Rachel is on a definite path: she’ll be a science major in college, then go to medical school, then be a neurologist. Her father decided all that before she was born. So where this cooking class fits in, I don’t know. Most of the kids who take it are not on the college track. Maybe it’s just ’cause she loves to eat as much as I do, or as much as I used to. She talks about food like some people talk about love. Whatever. That’s where I found this tea. It’s Japanese and it’s become my habit.

  But Rachel is not my friend. I don’t talk to her.

  Devin and I walk to school, and others join us, but I’ve taken to eating a bagel as we walk, so my mouth is too full to talk.

  I walk home with Owen on Wednesdays, but I make a point of not speaking. If he’s noticed, he hasn’t given any sign of it. He simply talks the whole time. I don’t know why he doesn’t simply walk alone. Being with me is no better.

  And I don’t know why Rachel invited me that Saturday. But when I didn’t accept her next invitation, she didn’t ask again.

  Joshua texts me every night. It takes all my self-control not to answer. Once I wrote him a letter. Not an email message, a real letter. On lined paper. I kept changing my wording and having to start over again. Computers really are better than longhand. But I didn’t want something electronic. I didn’t want something repeatable. It was a onetime message. And I thought I finally got it right. I thought the words on the paper would make him understand, and make him feel better. Because I know he has to be a mess now. And that kills me. But then I ripped it up.

  I can’t go there. Just seeing there’s a message from him makes my chest squeeze so hard it hurts. Joshua Winer will never make me laugh again. We won’t share food. We won’t babysit Sarah. We won’t… well, we won’t anything. There will never ever be anyone like Joshua again.

  I plague myself with questions. What if I told him? Would he dump me because I’m not beautiful? I don’t think so. I think he’d do something worse. Stick it out with me and have to listen to all the nasty things people are going to say and just swallow his anger.

  And his embarrassment.

  Good God. I will never, never, never make Joshua embarrassed. Whatever is going to happen to me—and that’s the real kicker in all this, I have no idea how far this will go—but whatever does happen, Joshua must not feel the fallout. This is my problem, not his.

  And he deserves someone better than a blotchy mess.

  I didn’t contact the Changing Faces support group. I was going to. I went on the Internet to check them out. Then I found a blog called “I have vitiligo” and the big headline on it was “Vitiligo and Suicide.” Teens wrote in about feelings of depression, thoughts of suicide. One guy called it “white leprosy.” I found a YouTube video about a young man who committed suicide because he felt his vitiligo made him look like a monster. And I stopped.

  I feel sorry for people who think about suicide. I really do. But I don’t want to know other people with vitiligo. Not until I’m strong enough to be able to help someone else, and not so weak I could be dragged down by someone else. So, for now, no support groups.

  But I’m not alone. I have a fox. No boyfriend. No life. Just a fox. A fucking invisible fox.

  TIGHTS, LEOTARD, BLACK SNEAKERS, black scarf. My face is blackened. I have on ears and a tail and whiskers. I pad into the kitchen where everyone else has gathered.

  “Oh.” Dad looks at me and his mouth stays open just a little. “Pina, you’re so… grown-up.”

  “Yeah, a grown-up pussy.”

  “Dante!” Mamma clears her throat. But her eyes are on me, not him. “Well, Pina, you are eye-catching.”

  “No shit,” says Dante. “She’s going to collect the catcalls tonight.”

  “That’s enough, Dante.” Mamma glares at him.

  “I don’t really understand why teenagers go trick-or-treating,” says Dad.

  “The guys do it for candy—and to get an eyeful of girls who flash their bodies, like Sep’s doing tonight. You’d be amazed what low-cut costumes the most mousy girls put on.”

  “Your sister’s isn’t low-cut,” says Dad.

  “Nope. But Slut’s still strutting her stuff.”

  “Stop it, Dante.” Mamma drops onto a chair. “Just stop that kind of talk. Well, Pina.” She shuts her mouth, though. Nothing else to say?

  All right then. “If everyone is through, I’d just like to say thank you for the compliments.” I take my tail and twirl it at them. “You’ve got your ordinary clothes on, Dante. Going as the imbecile you are?”

  He pulls an inflated red balloon out of his paper bag. “Ta da.”

  “An imbecile with a balloon.”

  “My ball of fire.” Dante smiles. “I look like an ordinary soul, but I throw fireballs.”

  “Pathetic,” I say. And I take a paper bag with handles and go to meet Becca and Rachel. Devin is off with Charlie tonight, but we three girls will prowl together.

  For no reason in particular, I go out the back door and turn my face to the sky and stand there a long time just letting the twinkling stars mesmerize me. The air is crisp but the cold we had all week has gone suddenly. No need for a jacket, which is good, because Dante is right: tonight I strut my stuff. Defiantly, in fact. Being in costume is liberating. Everyone’s in costume tonight, not just me.

  And I’m not just me. I’m a cat. A witch’s black cat. If anyone crosses me, I’ll put a pox on them.

  I’m happy.

  Stars are good.

  Halloween is good.

  I lower my gaze and happen to glance toward the rear of the yard when, oh, something goes across the grass. It’s the fox! Our fox. And he’s bigger than I thought. I bet he comes up to my knees. The very tip of his tail is white. He bounces through the dewy blades over to Mamma’s fishpond and drinks. After a long while he straightens up and listens a moment, turns and looks right at me, then trots through the bushes.

  He’s gone.

  He wasn’t more than twenty feet from me.

  Scraggly and wild. But he wasn’t the least bit afraid of me.

  I twirl around with both arms extended and the paper bag flying. This will be a brilliant night, I know it.

  Becca and Rachel are waiting on the corner when I get there.

  “Late,” says Becca. She’s wearing an Eagles football uniform. She looks very butch. But I don’t think Becca is butch in the least. Maybe that’s why she can dare to dress like that—she’s got nothing to prove.

  “I have a fox excuse.” This is not true. I am late because I stood looking at the stars for a long time. But a star excuse is nowhere near as sensational.

  “What’s a fox excuse?” asks Becca.

  “Foxy. He lives in our yard.” That is also probably not true. But who can blame me if the excitement of the moment makes me exaggerate?

  “They have fleas,” says Becca.

  Which is true. Red foxes typically take over woodchuck dens when they raise a litter. And woodchuck fleas torment them till the cold weather kills them off. But I don’t tell Becca it’s too late for fleas. That would mean talking more than I’m willing to.

  “It’s too late for fleas,” says Rachel. Of course. She knows as much about foxes as I do—we’re both in Mr. Dupris’s class. She clasps her hands together in front of her chest. I’m not ex
actly sure what she’s dressed as, but it’s some sort of giant bug. She seems absolutely teeny inside those flopping wings and dangling antennae. Like a twelve-year-old. “Can I see him, too?”

  “He doesn’t stay in one place long.”

  “Don’t be mean, Sep,” says Becca. “If you’ve got a fox, share him with Rachel. She’s an animal lover, like you.”

  And Rachel’s looking at me, all hopeful.

  “My dad has seen him a number of times,” I say. “In the morning. But this is the first time I’ve seen him. Honest. I don’t know when he comes around.”

  Rachel nods. “It must have been a fluke, anyway, because foxes aren’t nocturnal. Something must have disturbed him.”

  “Maybe passing trick-or-treaters,” says Becca. “Come on. Let’s go gather the loot.”

  “I have something for you first.” Rachel reaches in her bag and hands us each a little white half-moon.

  Becca smells it and wrinkles her nose. “What is it?”

  “Char sin bao. It’s Chinese.”

  “Translate,” orders Becca.

  “Steamed bun with barbecue pork inside. Eat it.”

  Becca frowns. “Are you crazy, feeding us right before we’re going trick-or-treating?”

  “I made them miniature so we wouldn’t fill up.”

  “You made this cute, smelly, little thing?” says Becca.

  “Go on. Eat it.”

  We do.

  Rachel’s pointy face squinches in worry, watching us.

  “They’re great,” says Becca in surprise.

  “Delicious,” I say. And it’s true. I haven’t enjoyed eating since I went into hiding, but right now I feel like I could eat a dozen of those little half-moons.

  “All right, now we can trick-or-treat.” Rachel actually leads the way to the first door.

  We get candy. All sorts. And packages of microwave oven popcorn. And one house hands out old comic books, classics. They’re in terrible shape or they’d be worth a mint. We eat as we go. I glance at the time; it’s only 10 p.m. and I’m already puked out.

  “Becca, is that you? Nice costume. And who’s that cute little buggy and that hot cat?”

  It’s Tom Clements. He’s on the football team. Trailing behind him are Martin Roper, Bill Brant, and Joshua Winer.

  I stand stock-still. My body is leaden.

  They’re all talking but Joshua. He’s looking at me. I manage to turn my head toward the street.

  Then the girls go one way and the guys go another.

  Except for Joshua.

  And me.

  I force a foot to take a step.

  “Stay a second, Sep. Please.”

  I stand there. I am dead again. Why don’t I fall?

  “You look good.”

  In costume, I think. Covered.

  “I miss you.”

  My tongue sits like a rotting, dead seal on the bottom of my mouth. I will cry if he says anything else.

  This is bad. Very bad. I have to leave. I take another step.

  He puts a hand lightly on my forearm. “I don’t know what’s going on. I think about you all the time. If you’ll only talk to me, we can work this out. I know we can work this out.”

  “No,” I say with that big, blobby, dead tongue. “Some things can’t be worked out, Joshua. Forget me.”

  “You have to tell me. Not speaking is… God, Sep, it’s wrong. You’re wrong. This hurts.”

  I know. It’s killing me, too. I’m wrong, so very wrong. But I can’t find a way out that doesn’t seem a lot worse.

  I stand as tall as I can. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Good-bye, Joshua.” And I walk. One foot in front of the other. I walk away from the boy I love. I don’t look back. I won’t look back. I won’t.

  Becca and Rachel close forces around me, almost as though by some sort of instinct—the save-the-sister instinct.

  Neither of them asks what happened. Neither of them has ever asked what happened with Joshua. But I know people think he dropped me. Who can blame them? He’s Joshua Winer.

  Still, I’m so grateful to them that they’ve never asked.

  “Let’s go on over to Baltimore Drive,” says Becca. “The biggest houses are there. They give out the best treats.”

  I almost say it’s late. But 10 p.m. isn’t late. I want to go home. But I don’t want to be alone.

  Why is absolutely nothing easy?

  “THE WORLD IS VISHNU’S dream.” Those were the last words Ms. Martin said today before Becca took over Jazz Dance Club. I could swear she was looking at me as she said them. But maybe I just want to believe that. I’m still hoping for messages, answers, a way out. I’m still frightened out of my mind.

  I walk home silent with Owen talking nonstop beside me. I don’t even pretend to be listening. And he doesn’t pretend to think that I am. He doesn’t pause. He doesn’t ask questions, not even rhetorical ones. He is simply voicing his thoughts in front of me. It dawns on me that he is utterly unself-conscious around me. Maybe around everyone? How? How did Owen get to be so smart?

  We part at his corner and I walk the rest of the way repeating Vishnu’s name so I won’t forget it. But I don’t say it out loud. I am not Owen. I am not that smart. I don’t want others looking askance at me. I simply won’t let that happen while I can still avoid it.

  I hit the Internet, which has become my new home. I spend more time there than anywhere else.

  Vishnu is a sleeping god. He lies on a giant serpent, an endless serpent, who floats in the universal ocean, the milky ocean. And he dreams. Everything that happens, everything we see and hear and smell and touch and taste and know, all of that is Vishnu’s dream.

  That time I met Ms. Martin walking Monster, she talked about another god, Lord Ganesh. Ganesh removes all obstacles. I read the whole story then, but I read it again now. Ganesh removes obstacles for a reason, an unforgivable reason. Shiva, his father, cut off Ganesh’s head in a moment of anger, and then, when his wife had a fit, replaced it with an elephant head. What could be worse? But Ganesh somehow went on—he went through life with that ginormous head, that trunk, those ears, helping others, removing obstacles from their paths.

  And all because of Vishnu. Vishnu dreamed the world, so Vishnu dreamed that whole horror story. Vishnu created Ganesh’s misery. And he can’t make up for it simply by dreaming that Ganesh then does good for others. One act doesn’t justify the other. I’d like to punch Vishnu awake and yell that in his big flabby ear.

  Vishnu made a mess of his dream. Dad would call him a piece of work.

  I am nine hundred times better off than Ganesh. Nine hundred zillion times. I still have my own head, the right size, with the right parts. Only the colors are different.

  And I still have the same body.

  “Your body is your animal.” Ms. Martin said that today, too.

  I try to know the experience of the animal that is my body. The most animal I’ve ever been is with Joshua. I remember that moment in lovemaking, when you cross the line from one kind of consciousness to another. A different sense of self.

  I don’t have that anymore.

  But if I can believe Ms. Martin, people can get to that point of understanding themselves, of inhabiting the animals they are, if they can find a way to allow themselves passion and compassion.

  Maybe that’s what happened to Ganesh. That’s why he could remove obstacles from others’ paths. Maybe it had nothing to do with Vishnu. Ganesh could have taken control. He could have embraced passion and compassion and found a new way of being himself inside them, despite or because of that elephant head, it doesn’t matter.

  That’s what I need to do. I can’t just look to others to be kind to me. I can’t control that. I have to learn how to be kind to myself. To the animal that is me. To this body. This skin. This me.

  The rational part of me knows that this is the job ahead.

  It sounds so simple.

  The world is a giant deception. Hardly anything is simple.

&nbs
p; I hit the off button.

  IT’S THE SECOND SATURDAY of December.

  I have been a zombie for ten weeks. The splotch on my face that starts at the top of my lips and used to look like a worm has been joined by a splotch over my left eyebrow and a series of spots on my right temple. The shape of it compares to nothing. It’s a mess. My face is a mess. It’s official: I’m ugly.

  Fine. I wear my skin-cream mask. No one sees me. I’m safe for now. Who cares?

  With the exception of that one visit to Chinatown with Rachel and the fiasco of Halloween, I haven’t gone anywhere with anyone. Devin and I visit each other, but only after school at my house or hers. She’s with Charlie on the weekends.

  I’m over being envious of her. She has what she wanted: true love. I had it, too, though.

  And I’m getting rich. I babysit a lot. Often twice a weekend. At those sweetly inflated prices. Last night Sarah told me her mother ate a child. Here’s how the conversation went:

  “Mommy ate a baby.”

  “Sarah, don’t say such a crazy thing.”

  “She told me.”

  “She wouldn’t say that.”

  “She pointed to her stomach and said, ‘There’s a baby in here.’”

  “No, she pointed to her uterus.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a bag inside you that’s meant to hold babies.”

  “Inside me?”

  “Inside all girls.”

  “I can hold a baby in me?”

  “Yes. But not now. Not while you’re tiny. Ask your mother about it, Sarah. Ask her to explain.”

  So Mr. and Mrs. Harrison have benefitted from my babysitting. They’re getting it on again. If I keep hiding like this, maybe they’ll have a full house of little monsters. Then I could charge nine hundred dollars an evening. And all those kids wouldn’t drive me crazy, because I’m already crazy.

  I went officially crazy on the second Saturday of November. That was when our high school had the Homecoming dance. It was late this year, because our football team’s match with our archrival wasn’t until the last weekend of the season. And we always have the dance the night after that game.