Y in the Shadows

by Karen Rivers

  And so what? What’s wrong with being dumb? It’s just like he’s simpler than most people. Wouldn’t talk her ear off about idealistic crap like saving the world or curing cancer or all the other pretentious bullshit she’s noticed that the kids in her class are tending toward as graduation approaches. Overly dramatic, almost fake “smarts.” Stuff they don’t know anything about, but pretend to know so they look informed.

  Besides which, Tony’s so hot. Much hotter than he could know. Those eyes. His eyelashes — black, long. Looked at closely, they look like feathers. Surreal. And his body. Well, everyone knows that rowers have the best bodies. Totally cut abs. Crazy fine muscles that look like they’re sculpted out of stone.

  In the back of her mind, Michael has an idea that if she and Tony someday were to get married, have a baby, it would be so gorgeous. Her fairness combined with his darkness would be perfect.

  Not that she’s thinking about marrying him. So limiting to marry your high school boyfriend (not that he is, but he will be). So naive to limit your options. She’s sure that ultimately there is something bigger and better out there for her. Someone like Justin Timberlake. Someone like George Clooney, but younger. Someone, well, famous. Someone who can take her away from the life she has now, from this house, from her family.

  Still. It’s hard to imagine a boy better looking than Tony. He’s SO much more beautiful than that obnoxious Israel, who walks around the school like he owns it. She can tell that Tony doesn’t know how awful Israel is, how arrogant. Tony has no arrogance. He looks like he feels uncomfortable in himself. She can relate. She will not think about the way she saw him looking at Stasia Santiago when he thought no one was watching. He was staring. Ogling. Were they together?

  Not possible. No, Stasia is just Israel’s sister. There wouldn’t be anything there.

  Or would there?

  Her heartbeat speeds up and she opens her eyes. Meditation sucks, she thinks. She should call someone. Aurelia, or one of the other Girls. Anyone to distract her. Aurelia is such a vicious bitchy girl; she always somehow makes Michael feel better. It’s something to do with the way that Aurie slams everyone else, what everyone is wearing, how they look and act, what they say. Like she’s the judge and jury and no one else’s opinion matters. It’s mean, but because Michael knows she’s exempt from it, she’s also safe. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. And Aurelia always has something new to say, that’s for sure. Probably has some bitchy gossip about Stasia that would cheer Michael up at the same time as making her feel guilty for being happy about it.

  Stasia has black hair that she wears loose down her back. For a second, Michael wishes so hard that her own hair was dark that she can almost feel it changing. She wishes she looked exotic. She’s too pale to be exotic. It isn’t fair. Even with a tan, she ends up looking like a cheap Malibu Barbie and not like a mysterious foreign beauty.

  She stretches. Her cramps are killing her. Thinking about cramps makes her think about poor ridiculous Yale getting her period in front of everyone. Was it, like, her first period? At seventeen? Doesn’t she have a clue?

  There is something about that girl that is just so hopeless. Michael frowns. Hopeless. She wishes she didn’t care, that she could just write her off like the other girls have, but she does care. She can’t not care. She wants to somehow give her some advice. Do something to help her. To save her from herself. Stop her from embarrassing herself any further. Normalize her. Tell her, for example, that all the fake tattoos are too much. Show her how to put on her makeup so she doesn’t look like either a goth freak or a kid who stole Mummy’s mascara.

  She gets up and goes into her own bathroom (no dead animals there either) and scrubs her face clean. Her skin looks ideal. She nods, satisfied, trims one hair in her bangs that looks slightly longer than the others. For no reason (she’s not going out, no one to impress), she plugs in the straightening iron and starts the process of perfecting her hair. She has to look as good as she can. That’s the whole thing. If she doesn’t look just so, she can’t breathe. Meditation or no meditation.

  What she really needs, she thinks, is medication. Not meditation. Some nice little pill. Something to make her feel as relaxed and happy as she always tries to appear. She’s heard stories; she knows such a thing exists. All those famous It girls take them, sometimes too much (and end up in rehab) but she’d bet all of them use. She should, too. She’s an It girl. Sort of. Well, within the confines of her high school she is. But her parents would never give her the okay. Hope doesn’t even believe in Prozac. Hope believes in self. Hope believes in mind power. Hope believes in St. John’s wort. And, Michael happens to know, Hope drinks a lot of wine.

  It’s not fair. Sully takes pills. He takes Dexedrine and Prozac. Without those pills, he acts out more. Suddenly flips out. Gets mad super easily. With them, he’s calm. She could swipe some of his maybe, but no. She’d never do that. Sully is sacred. She’d never take anything from him. Never.

  Maybe she can buy something on the internet, Michael thinks. She wouldn’t specifically know what to get though. Ritalin? Prozac? Xanax? Probably not a good idea to experiment. She knows all the names but isn’t that sure which pill does what or why. Or how. That Nicole Richie was in treatment for heroin addiction, but heroin sounds too deadly. Too crazy, too dangerous, too scary, even for her.

  She likes to think that she’s brave, but really she knows it’s not true. Most things scare her. Drugs. Sex. Life in general.

  She squints as she concentrates on smoothing her hair. The smell of the hot iron makes her feel better. Tomorrow she won’t say anything stupid to Tony. Tomorrow she will think of some way to get him to like her. Something. He’s just so nice, though; it’s not like he doesn’t like her. He likes everyone. And so everyone likes him.

  Michael isn’t stupid. She knows lots of people don’t like her. Because she’s pretty. And she hates that they hate her, hates herself, anyway, more than they could. Maybe if she was nicer overall, she thinks. Maybe if she, like Tony, was just nice to everyone, then everyone would like her back. Like Yale, for example. It wouldn’t kill her to be nice to Yale. Especially now that everyone hates her so much for the whole gymnastics incident. She can be a better person — she is a better person — than all the girls who are still snickering when Yale walks by, still making dumb jokes, still sticking Kotex pads on her locker, still hating on the girl.

  And it’s hardly like she chose it, right? It was an accident, one that could happen to anyone. Well, any girl, at least. But no one has her back about it. It must suck to be completely socially outcast. Michael wouldn’t know. She’s always had lots of friends, girls she knows would trade places with her in a second, even if her life includes having to look at a thousand stuffed dead animals every day on her way to the kitchen to make her dry wheat toast. She’s pretty. She’s smart. She’s a good athlete. Who wouldn’t want to be her?

  I mean, really, Michael thinks. What would Granny Aggie do?

  She’d be nice, that’s what. In spite of everything, even though she looked like she could be a totally snobby bitch, Granny Aggie was always nice.

  Michael would never accidentally get her period, though, so she can’t relate. Not to that. She gets the cramps a day before. The pain that doubles her over. She’d never be caught off-guard. In a way, she’s both jealous and mystified. Imagine a life where you didn’t know when your period would start. When your body didn’t freak out the second the egg dropped, or whatever.

  She can’t stop thinking of Tony staring at Stasia, bouncing his stupid basketball with one hand. The image is like a song stuck in her head that she can’t get out. Israel trying to get his attention, clowning. A couple of girls, friends of Stasia’s, younger girls — so Michael obviously doesn’t know their names — noticing Tony noticing Stasia.

  Everywhere Tony goes, there seems to be lots of other people. Always Israel. Usually girls. A lump forms in her throat. Why isn’t she good enough?

  She blames everyt
hing. Maybe she’s too pretty. Maybe she’s too smart. She should act dumber. Maybe it’s the fact that she lives in a weird house. Maybe it’s the stupid business that her parents run. A horror movie joke.

  For years, she told people her parents were animal doctors. Not exactly true, but sort of. And then Israel’s dumb, ugly dog got hit by a car on the next block and he had come running up the driveway, the stinky broken dog in his arms, panicking, and her dad had told the truth: not an animal doctor, an animal stuffer. Taxidermy, he explained. He still helped (well, the dog died, anyway), but after that everyone knew. For about a week, she knew people were whispering about her.

  Ugh, she says out loud.

  It was the worst week of her life.

  She makes some final adjustments in the mirror. Smears on her expensive moisturizer (she read in InStyle that Courtney Cox uses it, and she has the best skin). Her hair shimmers. It’s okay, she thinks. I look okay. She goes into her room to pick out her clothes for the next day. She can’t sleep unless everything is laid out perfectly, two outfits so she can choose in the morning depending on the weather. She opens her closet and a marmot falls out.

  She screams.

  “Freaks!” she yells, throwing the marmot down the stairs.

  “Mike,” yells her mum. “Don’t throw the merchandise!”

  “Whatever,” Michael says. “Don’t put the disgusting merchandise in my closet!”

  “Chelsea! Angene!” she hears her mother yell. “Angene!” Then louder, “CHELSEA! ANGENE! NOW!”

  She closes the door, satisfied that her sisters will be in trouble again. Not that they care. It doesn’t matter as much for them. They’re both over twenty-one. They can come and go as they please. They aren’t stuck here in this funhouse of glass eyes and fur, waiting for the day they can escape. Of course, why they are still here is a mystery.

  Michael goes to her closet. Blue, she thinks. She feels like wearing blue. It brings out her eyes. After she’s done that, she’ll go down and eat her dark green leafy salad and exactly three ounces of chicken. An apple. Two glasses of water to get to her eight for the day.

  The phone beeps out her favourite song. She drops her pale blue cashmere cardigan and races to find it. Where is it? In a drawer? In the pocket of her jacket? She almost screams. After all, it might be someone important. Maybe this time, it’s Tony.

  Maybe.

  ****

  Yale

  Chapter 4

  This thing — this gift, if that’s what it is (am I supposed to know how to use it or was it just a one-time thing?) — is freaking me out. I can’t think about much else. Even though I haven’t vanished again, not yet, everything is different.

  For one thing, I can see things better. Not just better, but ridiculously well. My vision is so good that its intensity is becoming overwhelming; sudden flashes of light — even the TV — make me feel faint. I can see things, details that don’t even exist. Like every atom or molecule or cell. I can see colours that I’ve never seen, in-between colours that are almost just light. I can see the movement of dust mites on the surface of the carpet.

  I can see too much.

  Like I can see the lines around my mum’s eyes, but deeper than that. The redness hiding in the bottom of the lines, under a nearly invisible sheen of oil. The filmy pot haze that lurks over my dad’s pupils. The hair follicles of his shaved beard. Tiny flecks of dried skin that cling to the edge of his nostrils.

  I feel like I can see inside them.

  What else does it mean? What am I supposed to be seeing that I couldn’t see before? Is it about me? Or something bigger than me?

  And who can I ask?

  I don’t know. But I know it’s going to change my life. It already has. It’s like power in a way that I can’t pinpoint, but somehow I feel better. In control.

  Not in a Michael-way, but in a completely different way. In a strong way.

  I’m excited. But also I’m scared.

  I’ve never been so aware of all my parts. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. I’ve never felt my fingers moving. Obviously I know they move, but I’ve never been so aware of it. Every tendon, every muscle, every breath, every heartbeat. My mouth feels like it is full of cheese that’s too thick to chew but it’s just air and saliva. My eyelashes tickle my cheeks. I swear, I can feel my hair growing. When I take a drag of my clove cigarette, the flavour feels like it’s popping out of every pore of my skin, saturating me with spice.

  My hands shake and shake. If you thought I was jittery before, well, now it’s a whole new game. Now I feel electrocuted. I feel currents coursing through me that can’t exist. Like lightning struck or is still striking.

  I’m ignited.

  But what am I supposed to do with it?

  I have no idea.

  It feels like it has to have a purpose, a reason. Like a calling, but more than that and not necessarily something to do with God, if God, in fact, exists.

  I do what I always do. I’m trying to be normal, but really I’m just holding my breath, waiting for it to happen again. Waiting for someone to tell me what’s happening. Waiting to figure out what to do.

  I go to practice. As I ride to school on my scooter, I feel like the vibration might propel me into space. The exhaust is as thick as soup, spiralling behind me like spilled paint. The blueness of the sky is so sharp it almost hurts. The birds create such a cacophony, I almost want to plug my ears. Everything is a thousand times what it was before. A million.

  I make it to school on time, early even. Get to the gym first. I’m alone in there except for Coach, who is setting up equipment with Mr. Hastlewaite, the Math teacher.

  It takes forever. I do sit-ups while I wait. Push-ups. Stretches. Everything feels like more than it should. I’m so wired. I want to lift some heavy weights or something. Do something to feel anchored down.

  Then, finally, The Girls tumble in. Their shoes squeaking and thudding. Giggling about something, as always. Michael’s hair in twin ponytails, that on anyone else would make them look two years old, looking perfect. Relaxed. Happy. She gives me a half-smile while the other girls seem to look right through me, as though I don’t exist. I get that: they’ve written me off.

  Fine.

  Whatever.

  I knew they would act like this. After all, they saw and didn’t tell. They let me keep going, let everyone see, practically held me up so the school could laugh.

  I committed the worst sin of all, didn’t I? I embarrassed myself. Unforgivable.

  I’m on the beam, trying to fake normalcy, trying to pretend to be me instead of whatever I’m becoming. Trying to focus on nothing but the wood under my feet and hands, the solid thunk of my body moving away from the beam in a jump or a twist and then back onto it. Trying to ignore the sweat-soaked aura of everything, the harsh flicker in the bank of fluorescent lights, the swirling movement of the wood, which can’t be moving but seems like it is, and the smattering of sharp glances I keep getting from my so-called teammates.

  Other than the occasional whispers between them, it’s pretty quiet in the gym except for the sound of Michael talking to herself as she practises her floor routine. It’s all thud, thud, thud, whisper, whisper. She always does this and I can never hear what she says, but today I can.

  She’s saying, “Not good enough, not good enough, loser, loser, loser. Fuck. Shit. Damn. Do it again. Again, again.”

  I try not to watch her, but I can’t help it. It’s not that she’s good or bad or indifferent, it’s just that she’s compelling to see. She makes you watch. I force myself to look away, to stare at the grains of varnished wood of the beam. I tell myself it’s solid, not moving. But it is. Every nuance of colour. It’s crazy, is what it is. For a second I feel dizzy, and then I force myself to move, to try to do my round-off dismount that Coach is waiting to see.

  And I miss.

  Completely.

  At first it’s more of a sound than a feeling, like I hear the smack of my head against th
e wood like a hammer on a nail, it echoes and echoes. How could it sound so metallic? Bone on wood, nothing tin.

  I realize, Oh, my head.

  Aurelia and Madison are beside me in a flash. I flinch, like I’m worried they might kick me. You never know. They had been close, waiting for their turn to talk to Coach, who seems now to have vanished — where did she go? Shouldn’t she be helping me?

  While they waited, they’d been staring and whispering to each other about what I would have once guessed was me, but now I know was just some crap about a girl named Marnie Sims who graduated last year and apparently slept with Israel Santiago and then had to have an abortion.

  Who cares?

  Is it true?

  “You’re bleeding!” shrieks Aurelia, which completely pierces my brain, like an arrow.

  “Oh my God,” Madison says. “COACH! COACH!” Which also doesn’t help, her words ringing like church bells, too loud. Coach is there after all, there already, struck mute somehow. She seems helpless, like it hasn’t occurred to her that she might be called upon in this kind of emergency. Ever.

  “Too loud,” I whisper. “Can you get me a towel or something? Some ice?”

  I squint up at them from where I’m lying on the vinyl crash pad, the plastic smell of it making me queasy, blood trickling down my cheek and I swear I can feel it moving, feel every bit of it making a rivulet on my cheek, feel my cheek where it’s touching, feel my brain ricocheting from the blow, feel it all.

  I feel too much. I don’t like it. I want it to stop. This time, for real. What felt, for twenty-four hours, like an adventure now feels like something sinister. Scary.

  My hands are shaking so hard, all the way up my arms. Oh, it’s all of me. I’m shaking. Coach says, “Don’t move!” Like this is good and worthwhile advice. I move off the crash pad and onto the hardwood, it seems safer that way and less smelly. More solid. It slows the shaking.