Boy in the Mirror

by Robert J. Duperre

  Druggie Trish disappeared around the corner, and Jacqueline had a dark thought. She reached into her backpack, opened her compact (quietly hoping Mal would be there, which he wasn’t), and stared at her reflection. She had black rings around her eyes as well, and her skin, normally a light cocoa, now seemed sickly pale.

  She and Trish looked the same—ugly, weak, diseased.

  Jacqueline shoved the compact back into her bag. Mrs. Ansel was right. She was an addict, only her drug was a boy named Mal, who lived inside a mirror and might or might not be real.

  Jacqueline pulled at her hair to keep from crying. I’m pathetic. She’d refused to face her own problems until she’d connected it with someone she felt superior to.

  She pushed herself off the floor and stumbled down the hall, not caring about the looks the few remaining students gave her, and exited into the brisk chill of early October. She breathed in deep and slow to settle her nerves before wandering down the front walk.

  A secluded area with a huge concrete planter sat between two of the high school’s boxy subdivisions. Jacqueline sat down on the edge of the planter, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. She heard cars pull through the parking lot as parents picked up students at the curb. Solutions, she thought. You know the problem, now fix it.

  But how? She didn’t have a clue.

  Another car rumbled around the parking lot’s central island. It stopped, brakes squealing. A door opened and closed. Jacqueline glanced up, expecting to see Mitzy, but instead a very pretty redheaded girl strolled across the walk, hands in her pockets, heading straight for her.

  Jacqueline recognized the girl immediately. Phoebe Wolfe, one of Todd Sowinger’s friends, the one Olivia called Sister Mary of Sluttyhood.

  Phoebe stopped in front of Jacqueline and smiled, a dimple appearing on both her chipmunk cheeks. Her nose twitched in an adorable way, as if it was laughing all on its own. She might not have been as drop-dead gorgeous as her friend Hannah, but Jacqueline understood right then and there why many of the boys in school considered Phoebe the ideal girlfriend.

  “Hiya,” Phoebe said.

  “Um, hi,” Jacqueline stammered.

  “You need a ride?”

  “Um…‌what?”

  “I said, you need a ride?”

  Jacqueline just gawked. Why was one of the most popular kids in school talking to her? “No,” she said finally. “My mo…‌my aunt’s coming to get me.”

  “Oh, okay. Thought I’d ask.”

  “Thanks.” Jacqueline said, more like a question than a statement.

  Phoebe laughed. “You’re a funny chick.”

  Jacqueline nodded, suddenly afraid to speak.

  “Anyway,” the redheaded girl said, “I didn’t only come over here to see if you needed a ride.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Nope. Actually have another question for ya. Did you know there’s a dance tomorrow night? Here at school?”

  Jacqueline shook her head.

  “Well, there is. And I came to tell you, you’d better go.” Phoebe looked both ways, like a covert operative trying to spot a nearby spy, and then shuffled up to Jacqueline and knelt down. She leaned in so close that her lips brushed Jacqueline’s ear. “I know someone who likes you quite a bit,” she whispered, her breath smelling of cinnamon. “A certain someone who’d like to get to know you better.”

  Jacqueline drew back, eyes wide. Phoebe nodded slowly, as if she’d just spoken the gravest words in human history. “Don’t blow it,” Phoebe said, shoving a piece of paper into Jacqueline’s hands. “Seniors don’t usually go to these things. I’m not sure you’ll get another chance.”

  The redhead stood up and walked back toward the running car. She waved cheerily as the little Volkswagen zoomed through the parking lot. Jacqueline glanced down at the paper in her hands. IT’S HOMECOMING! the flyer read. $10 at the door.

  Jacqueline folded the paper in two and sat there, breathless, staring at another car as it circled around the island, heading for a small group of teen girls holding field hockey sticks. Her heart hammered in her chest, excitement and dread flowed in her veins. This might be a trick, she reminded herself. She’d seen enough teen movies to know the formula—popular kids pretending to be friends just to torment the awkward new kid. But this wasn’t the movies. This was real life. And even though Phoebe hadn’t said who that someone was, Jacqueline had a good idea she already knew, since Todd Sowinger had actually looked at her today.

  And he’d waved.

  Suddenly, she didn’t feel so sad anymore.

  But still…

  Jacqueline pulled out her phone and called Annette. The phone only rang once before her friend answered. Annette sounded absolutely overjoyed that she’d called.

  “I got a question,” Jacqueline said, and she smiled at the lilt in her own voice. “How do you feel about dancing?”

  CHAPTER 20

  “Oh wow. Oh man. Just…‌wow.”

  Jacqueline stood before her aunt. “Turn around again,” Mitzy said, eyes wide as saucers. Jacqueline spun, Mitzy whistled.

  “I look good?” Jacqueline asked.

  “You look beyond good, sweetie.”

  When Jacqueline had asked Mitzy for permission to go to the dance, her aunt reacted as if she’d just been asked if it was okay if her niece inherited a million dollars. Mitzy even gave her a dress to wear: a sleek, one-shouldered black number with triangular panels on the front—one red, one purple, one reflective silver. The dress was tight everywhere but the bust, but Mitzy did some mending. Her aunt had also given her a pair of shoes with thick, three-inch heels. Jacqueline originally tried Mitzy’s six-inchers, but she’d never worn heels before, and she kept twisting her ankle.

  Jacqueline caught sight of her reflection in the large television. She had actual makeup on and subtle ringlets in her thick, black hair. She looked like an entirely different person, a woman instead of a fifteen-year-old girl.

  “So beautiful,” Mitzy said, shaking her head. There were tears in her eyes. “So damn gorgeous.”

  “You think?”

  “Of course.” The woman sighed. “Makes me nervous, though.”

  “Why?”

  Mitzy’s expression became stern. “Remember what I said a few days ago about sex. And pregnancy.” She wagged her finger.

  “Come on,” Jacqueline said. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”

  “You’re a teenager. They’re pretty much one in the same.”

  They both laughed.

  Fifteen minutes later, a car horn honked. Jacqueline kissed her aunt on the cheek and said goodbye.

  “I’ll be there to get you at ten,” Mitzy said.

  “Okay.”

  Mitzy hugged her. Tears smeared her thick mascara. “Just be careful, okay?”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “Good. And sweetie…‌it’s good to see you smile.”

  “Feels good too.”

  Jacqueline gave her aunt one last kiss and trundled out the door. Mrs. Shepherd waved at Mitzy from her shiny blue minivan. Four other faces gaped at her from the van windows.

  The door slid open, and Jacqueline took a seat in the middle row, next to Annette. She couldn’t stop grinning. Annette looked her up and down, speechless.

  “What the hell?” she asked.

  The van pulled off down the road. “Language,” Mrs. Shepherd said.

  “Sorry, mom.” Annette looked back at Jacqueline. “What’s with the getup? This isn’t a dance club, you know. It’s the school gym. They don’t have a stripper pole.”

  “Annette!” said Mrs. Shepherd sternly. In the passenger seat, Ronni giggled.

  Annette rolled her eyes.

  “I think she looks great,” said Neil from behind them.

  “And happy,” added Olivia, leaning forward and playing with Jacqueline’s hair. “Ooh, curly.”

  Jacqueline’s shoulders hitched as she giggled. “This is Mitzy all the way,” she said. “I kinda put her
in charge of dressing me, and this is what she came up with.”

  “That makes sense,” said Annette with a shrug.

  “Is it too much?”

  Ronni swiveled around in her seat. “I don’t think so. If I looked like you, I’d want to dress like that all the time.”

  Jacqueline could hear Mrs. Shepherd groan as she drove.

  “I don’t like it,” Annette said. “But I like you, so I guess it’s okay.”

  Neil laughed. “I think she’s just afraid you’ll outshine her.”

  “Yeah,” added Olivia. “All of us, actually. You make us look plain.”

  Jacqueline took a moment to look at what her friends were wearing. Neil had on a pair of jeans and a frilly white shirt beneath his coat, Olivia slacks with a t-shirt and a leather jacket, and Ronni wore a blue cotton dress with vertical stripes. Annette wore a red sweater and a long skirt made from some thick material, though Jacqueline could barely see what it actually looked like beneath her old Army trench coat.

  “Maybe I should go back and change,” Jacqueline said.

  “Hells no!” said Olivia, and Mrs. Shepherd groaned again. “The Otaku Clan don’t exactly go to school dances often, you know. As in never. So it’s like an experiment! Toss as much against the wall as we can and see what sticks. Practice for next time.”

  “Next time?” asked Annette.

  “Hey, it might me fun.”

  Annette rolled her eyes again. “We’ll see. I’m not getting my hopes up. If I can get through this without someone sticking gum in my hair like they did in middle school, it’ll be a victory.”

  Jacqueline stared at her. “If you don’t like dances, why’d you say you’d come?”

  Annette patted her panty hose-covered knee.

  There was no other explanation necessary.

  The school parking lot was crowded. Packs of kids lingered about outside the front entrance. Some were dressed like they would be any normal day, others a bit more fancy, and still a few others were decked out like they were attending a wedding. Jacqueline breathed a sigh of relief. There was even a small group of goth kids, looking gothed out of control. There was enough dark eyeliner and lipstick out there to black out half the windows in Mercy Hills.

  The deep thrum of a bass beat rattled the windows as Mrs. Shepherd brought the van to a halt curbside. The five friends stepped out. Annette waved goodbye to her mom, and the small group waded through the throng of carousing students, Jacqueline at the center of the pack.

  Boys’ heads turned as Jacqueline walked by. A couple even whistled, making her blush. The only thing that kept her head from growing too big was the constant fear that she’d turn her ankle on her new heels and make a fool out of herself.

  The school’s central hub was a bustle of activity. Loud music filled the hall. The Otaku Clan paid their ten dollars, got their hands stamped. The woman that took Jacqueline’s money, an older lady with salt-and-pepper hair and a thick golden cross hanging around her neck, looked her up and down with disapproval. Jacqueline shyly looked away and followed her friends into the gym.

  The gym was organized chaos. The lights tracked along the ceiling pulsed on and off and it was loud as hell. Some kids danced, the majority just stood around. Most of those dancing were girls, and it seemed like every boy who joined in grinded openly with whomever they partnered with. The areas around the dance floor were crammed with mingling students. There were groups of miserable kids who looked like their dogs just died, while a few packs of boys ogled the prettier girls. Jacqueline suddenly felt nervous enough to quake out of her borrowed shoes. She’d never been to a dance before. She didn’t even know this many kids attended J. Robert Oppenheimer High.

  She and her friends found a somewhat open spot on the outskirts of the dance floor and planted roots there. Annette eyed the goings-on with obvious unease, while Ronni stared longingly at a tall boy with glasses who flopped around the dance floor as if having a seizure. Neil and Olivia stood off to the side, engaged in a shouted conversation that Jacqueline couldn’t hear over the music. Jacqueline herself scanned the crowd, seeking out the one who’d supposedly wanted her to come. She didn’t see any sign of him.

  An hour went by. Neil and Olivia clapped with glee when a particular song came on. They hustled onto the dance floor, hand in hand. Annette watched them, her cheeks growing pink. Ronni slunk into the background. A young boy with a deeply pockmarked face approached Jacqueline and asked her to dance. She politely turned him down, and the boy wandered away, dejected.

  Then, the boys really started coming. Those who’d been standing on the other side of the gym worked their way around the edge of the dance floor until they shimmied in place next to where Jacqueline, Annette, and Ronni stood. Jacqueline reddened as they leered and whispered. A stout boy with a faux-hawk and an expectant look in his eye approached. He said something, but Jacqueline couldn’t hear him.

  “What?” she shouted.

  “You’re hot,” he shouted back, then laughed. “Wanna hook up?”

  Jacqueline shook her head.

  “You sure? C’mon, dressed like that?”

  “Positive.”

  The boy looked down at Annette. “How ’bout you? You’re about the right height,” he said loudly.

  “Piss off,” Annette said loudly.

  The boy held up his hands and backed away to rejoin his circle of friends. They just stood there, intermittently staring at Jacqueline as she danced in place. When she bent over to fix a strap on her shoe, she heard one of them bark.

  Still no sign of her supposed knight in shining armor.

  Annette leaned into her. “This is a blast,” she said sarcastically.

  “Sorry,” Jacqueline replied.

  “You’re not even dancing. Why’d you want to come anyway?”

  “Don’t know. I guess I thought it’d be fun. I guess…”

  The dancing students in front of her seemed to part as her voice trailed off, and there was Todd Sowinger. He wore slacks and a sports jacket, the shirt underneath half unbuttoned, revealing a chiseled chest. His eyes sparkled in the strobing lights, making him look like one of the hunks on the covers of Aunt Mitzy’s Harlequin romances. He looked right at her, lips spread in a wide grin. He stepped through the growing throng of dancers with three other boys, Drew Cottard and two more members of the football team, walking behind him.

  Annette said something, but Jacqueline wasn’t listening. Even when the current song ended, leaving behind a moment of garbled silence, Jacqueline only heard murmurs. Her heart thudded in her chest. She mindlessly took a step away from her friend.

  A hand grabbed her arm, but Jacqueline shrugged it off. She and Todd approached each other, time seemingly slowing down. When they were separated by mere feet, they both stopped. It felt like they were the only two people in the whole gymnasium.

  Todd smiled, showing his pearly whites, and there was something deliciously dangerous about it. Once more Jacqueline thought of Tyler, of his roguish charm and bad-boy attitude. Somewhere in deep reaches of her mind, a voice told her to walk away.

  She didn’t listen.

  “You look pretty,” Todd said, and his friends agreed. Jacqueline blushed. He called me pretty. Not hot. Not sexy. Pretty. Her jittery nerves ratcheted up.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  The boy took a stride toward her, twining a loose ringlet of hair with two fingers. “I like your hair.”

  “Thanks. I curled it.”

  “I can see that.”

  The music came back on, a syrupy slow number. Half the kids left the dance floor while groups of couples entered.

  “You wanna dance?” asked Todd.

  Jacqueline nodded a bit too eagerly, slipping her arms around Todd’s waist while his draped over her shoulders. Their lower bodies pressed lightly together as they moved in rhythm with the song. Butterflies fluttered in Jacqueline’s stomach, making her shudder. Though they danced close, there was nothing vulgar about it, nothing dirty. Todd
acted the complete gentleman, looking in her eyes the whole while, the smile never leaving his face. Gone was the boy who’d made fun of Annette on that first day of school, and Jacqueline began to doubt that it’d ever happened at all. She finally leaned forward and rested her head on his chest. She could hear his heart beating beneath his ribcage—not rapid like her own, but steady, confident. She closed her eyes and swooned.

  When the slow song ended, replaced by another upbeat, bass-pounding one, Todd led her off the dance floor. For the moment, the Otaku Clan was all but forgotten. Jacqueline and Todd stood just outside the bustle of rapid dancing, looking at each other. It was so simple, so innocent, and yet dirty thoughts entered Jacqueline’s mind. She clenched her fists to calm herself, until Todd asked if she’d like to take a walk. She readily agreed.

  The rest of the dance went like that, with Jacqueline and Todd strolling quietly through the school’s halls, even taking a few moments to step outside. They didn’t talk much, but when they did, it was sweet. Todd asked her if she wanted water, told her about the last football game. She didn’t care about football, but that didn’t matter. His voice was soothing. Any time a slow song came on, they’d walk back in and resume positions, feet gently padding from side to side. Jacqueline felt like she was in a dream, and it was only toward the end, when the deejay announced the last song of the night and another ballad began to play, that she realized she hadn’t thought about Mal all night.

  When the dance was over, and the students began filing out of the gym, they both stood with hands clamped in front of them and stared at each other. Todd bent over, his lips brushed her cheek, and Jacqueline shuddered, nearly gasped.

  “I had fun tonight,” the senior boy said.

  Jacqueline nodded.

  “Yo, douchebag, let’s go!” shouted a voice from across the gym.

  Todd glanced over his shoulder, then back at Jacqueline. His eyes sparkled. “Listen, I gotta go. I’ll see you on Monday.”

  “Um…‌okay,” Jacqueline replied.