I attempt to understand Regan through the things she leaves behind, the treasures I find hidden in corners and behind doors. I paw through her underwear drawer (I have no shame) and model her knee-high purple rain boots. One day she nearly catches me making macaroni in one of her evening gowns. I whip it off just in time and stuff it into an empty pot (and a month later she finds it there, gives it a puzzled look, shrugs, and stuffs it back in). I pull out a pair of jeans with a rip in the crotch or a grass stain at the knee and try to imagine where she was when it happened.
Sorting through her photos, I get to know her at different ages: when she had bangs, when she broke her arm, when she went to dances with a parade of different boys in identical suits (echoes of a privileged childhood, her smile always forced, her dates always clean cut). I try on her jewelry and pull random things out from under the bed (a child-sized set of golf clubs?). I play all her CDs. I try to create a picture of her life for myself, to form an opinion without outside interference.
This is all ridiculous, admittedly. Regan will tell me anything about herself or her past (keeping me up nights recounting intricate tales of family intrigue and betrayal). Yet even once our lives have become so intertwined that I begin to forget whether it was she or I that had braces in the fifth grade (me), whether it was she or I that got lost on the way to Arizona that time (her), whether it was she or I that threw up after drinking sour milk during the power failure (both of us, on the same day)—even once we’ve become closer than I’ve ever been with a friend, I continue to creep into her room when she’s away and play.
I can’t explain it.
I always picture this part of my life against a backdrop of boys. There’s a steady stream of them trekking in and out of The Apartments at all times of day. Sometimes I wonder if Regan is even aware of them, if she invites them over or if they follow her home like stray puppies. I don’t often see her talking to them directly. They’re simply there, unavoidable bulky entities who eat all our food, dirty our bathrooms, and can sometimes be found lurking behind doors or in corners, forgotten and frightened. When they go they leave behind little mementos of their time with us, wondrous man-things that we examine with care: a book about motorcycles, a carabineer, a pair of blue boxers, a size fifteen boot.
Many times I’m forced to guide them to the door as they protest, unable to comprehend. Where did she go? they ask, their clothes wrinkled, their hair sticking out at odd angles. When will she be back? (And here I see it beginning, see my new self starting to form, a self who is not quite me, and never quite real. I see Regan starting to emerge.) I smooth their shirts, my fingers lingering on their broad shoulders, and smile in sympathy. I squeeze an arm, hold a chin. I pause in the doorway, my feet bare on the rug, as they turn their faces to me in appeal.
(Then they’re gone. The door closes and I slump against it, their faces swimming before me, the touch of their grasping hands throbbing on my own.)
One morning, as I sit on a stool at the kitchen counter eating Froot Loops, I feel a hand going up the back of my shirt and a tongue at the edge of my ear. I swing around to find a six foot naked man with an enormous erection staring at me, one hand clamped over his mouth and the other held out in front him, his eyes flicking from it to my face.
There’s no explanation for it. Other than our newly matching hair Regan and I look nothing alike. Regan’s breasts are twice the size of mine. She’s three inches taller than me. She’s achingly beautiful in that way the media teaches us not to appreciate, all voluptuous curves and smooth round limbs, while I’m skinny and gaunt, resembling in many ways an abandoned orphan child, my blonde hair knotted and losing its luster. While her skin is rosy with health, mine is pale almost to translucency with bluish veins visible at my temples and snaking up my arms.
Yet, I’m mistaken for Regan over and over as the months pass. No longer do I hear whispers about Regan Lathie’s roommate but about Regan herself, their hushed voices a constant rustling following me everywhere I go (Regan regan Regan regan). I hear her name coming to me on the wind, see eager faces nodding, their hands beckoning. Again and again I have to disappoint them. No, I am not Regan. Yes, I am quite sure. No, there is no amazing resemblance. Yes, you must be going crazy.
At times I believe this, believe the whole world must be going crazy to mistake me, me, for Regan. Can a bundle of hair really make such a difference? Is my identity so malleable that if change a single feature it will disappear entirely, a new one clicking conveniently into place?
In the middle of the night near the middle of January I’m woken by a pounding on the front door. I sit up in bed, clutching a pillow, the moonlight casting an eerie blue glow over the room. I creep into the living room, hugging the walls as the pounding gets louder, now punctuated by muted moans that remind me sharply of Simon.
Regan, typically, is not home.
She may be out with one of the Dannys—two boys (nearly interchangeable) who’ve been lurking about The Apartments a lot lately, constantly badgering me for details about Regan, flustering me with compliments that I understand, later, are designed to make me more pliable, easier to probe.
Now, I’m suddenly sure something dreadful has happened. Regan has drowned or been raped or worse, and here is Danny come to sob at his loss, come to weep into my hair. I inch toward the front door that looms humungous in the dark, tentatively calling out to whoever might be on the other side.
The pounding stops abruptly, the voice cutting off mid-moan. Regan? it enquires desperately. (I can almost feel his hands pressing against the wood of the door.)
Danny? I ask. Danny, is that you?
He collapses into tears. Let me in, Regan. Let me in! I don’t know what I did, but I promise I’ll make it up to you if you’ll just let me in. Why did you leave me, Regan?
For a moment, awash in fear and dread, I try to align his words with the image in my mind of Regan’s limp body being lapped by feeble waves. Then realization hits me and I let out a sigh that’s almost a groan.
(Wrong Danny, wrong Regan.)
Before I can correct him, before I can explain my cruel stony silence, he takes up the pounding again and begins to scream.
No! he cries, his voice cracking. You can’t do this to me again. You can’t! I love you, Regan. Why don’t you love me? Why? I was so good to you. I took care of you. Don’t leave me, Regan. I won’t let you leave me!
I stand helplessly in the middle of the floor, clenching and unclenching my fists.
He stops yelling and I can hear him breathing heavily. What can I do? I squeeze my eyes shut and take a step toward the door, my face turned away as if I’m afraid it might explode. I touch the doorknob with a finger. I know he’s waiting for me to speak. He’s holding his breath. And what else is there to do?
It’s… al-alright? I stutter, grimacing. (Is that the best I can do?) I say, Danny? I try to make my voice soft and soothing. I say, It’s okay, Danny.
No, it’s not, he replies, his voice suddenly hard.
I-I love you, Danny, I murmur, tears springing to my eyes. (But why am I crying? This isn’t real. I’m not Regan. This isn’t really happening to me.)
You’re a cold, hard bitch, Regan, Danny says. That’s what you are. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.
I feel myself shaking now, feel the tears streaming down my face and dripping off my chin as he pounds on the door over and over.
Let me in, you bitch! Danny yells. Let me in and I’ll show you how to treat someone. I’ll show you what you’ve done to me! LET. ME. IN!
I collapse against the door, sobbing, the wood vibrating against me. I’m pretty sure he’s pounding against the door with his head.
Eventually, he subsides and slides, from the sound of it, to the floor. I feel worn out and panicky, my face heavy with heat. I hear a shuffling sound. Is he going away?
I’m so sorry, I say, and as the words come out, I mean them. I mean them as much as I would if I’d done all the things Regan did to him myse
lf.
Not as much as you should be, Danny says and goes.
I fall asleep curled up in front of the door, a frown on my face, my arms wrapped around myself. I fall asleep as Regan.
(Hours later, once the sun has filled The Apartments with dusty light, Regan returns. She steps politely over my sleeping form, waking me by accident when she drops her keys on the floor by my face. My throat parched, my eyes red-rimmed and puffing, I follow her into the Library and confront her about Danny.
Are you sure this actually happened? she asks, settling onto the couch in front of the fireplace and picking a book from the pile on the armrest.
I’m incredulous. I stand before her in my nightshirt, gaping.
She tosses the book aside and pulls me down beside her. They’re only boys, sweetheart, she says, and kisses my cheek.)
My elaborate conjectures about Regan’s nightlife keep my mind occupied during the long hours when I should be in class. I imagine drug dens, strip poker, midnight bungee jumps off the Jacques Cartier Bridge. I cast Regan as an exuberant prankster daring tow-headed boys to ride a motorcycle naked or steal a Porsche from the Marriot’s parking garage (and when they refuse, going ahead and doing it herself). I fantasize her life into an ongoing flirtation with a never-ending line of handsome strangers, their business cards nestled in the back pocket of her jeans, their warm hands at the small of her back.
I’m childish and flushed with romantic ideals, spurred on by the tiny details Regan lets slip when she returns home (her complaint of a headache, her refusal of food, her aching feet and wind-swept hair). She hardly ever returns from her adventures excited, or even in a good mood, but I’m oblivious to these tell-tale signs. I await her return, distracting myself with insipid daytime talk shows, until she arrives, slackened, mute, and I trail after her collecting discarded clothes, desperately anticipating the day when she’ll collapse onto the couch, switch off the TV, and tell me all.
Then, a change.
It’s January. I’m holed up in The Apartments, hiding from the cold and my Economics professor whose year-long class bored me to tears until I stopped attending, and who I’ve lately discovered lives on our street. Regan is at school and shouldn’t be back for hours. (All her classes are at night, slotting conveniently into the hours of the day when she’s most alert and ready for study. I don’t try very hard not to resent this.) I’ve taken the opportunity to lounge around in my oldest flannel pajamas with an enormous bowl of oatmeal, one of Regan’s woolen scarves wrapped around my neck, my hair in braids. I look a bit like a scarecrow.
The sound of a key in the lock makes me lurch to my feet, oatmeal slopping over the side of the bowl and onto my fingers. I’m sucking on my hand when Regan bustles into the room with a boy in tow. (Oh god!)
But you went with her anyway! Regan exclaims as she dumps her book bag and purse onto the closest armchair.
She’s full of cold, her cheeks rosy, her body draped in shawls and scarves and her most dramatic winter coat (that wears like a cloak. Only Regan could pull it off). The boy is indistinguishable from any other, except for the fact that Regan is actually speaking to him. His short brown hair is sprinkled with snowflakes which slowly melt as he gazes avidly at the fireplace, pretending to ignore her.
Of course you did! Regan cries. She folds her arms and steps up to him, narrowing her eyes (she’s close enough to kiss him now, or bite. It could go either way). He grins at her.
She lifts a hand, parts his jacket and pinches his nipple. He gives out a little yap, the kind of sound a lapdog might make.
Hey! he exclaims.
Regan says, smiling, You’ll never learn, will you?
The boy shakes his head playfully. He tugs at Regan’s shawl like a child. He says, So you’ll come?
I set the bowl down on a side table with a little tap, and they both turn. The boy’s face falls into a grim mask at the sight of me (an expression, I will learn, this particular boy tends to favor), while Regan’s lights up extraordinarily (as though she’s the starving wolf and I the tantalizing doe. I nearly take a step back. She’s never looked at me like this before).
She bounces across the room and throws her arms around me. This is Trevor, she adds, as she pulls me onto the couch and perches by my side. Trevor sits on the arm of a chair across from us. I glance at the dripping bowl on the table with an embarrassed grimace.
Both of us! Regan says. She smiles approvingly at me (and I smile back, though I’m not really following. Both of what?). She hugs my arm. She says, Both of us will be there.
I stare at Regan in surprise and she stares back, her expression a muddled mix of eager happiness and something else, something I can never quite reach. She holds my gaze for the longest moment (as Trevor fades away, forgotten).
(If only I’d known! I would have taken a shower and brushed my hair. I would have wiped the sleep out of my eyes. I would have been presentable—I swear I would!—if only I’d known this would be the day she’d finally notice me.)
You’re in love with her aren’t you?
Annabelle Andrews, raven-haired and baby-faced, tucks a long white leg under herself and yawns extravagantly. I stare at her in the candlelight as she stretches her arms over her head (exposing an inordinate amount of pale belly-skin), without realizing she’s addressing me.
Don’t even bother denying it, she says. Everybody’s in love with Regan. Even Trevor (her boyfriend), even me (perplexing). It’s impossible not to fall in love with Regan. She’s absolutely divine.
I’m sitting with Annabelle on a couch in the dining room of a house belonging to Trevor Dryden’s parents (revolting people), watching a poker game being played by a bunch of overpriced boys at table large enough to seat fifty. Trevor himself is sitting cross-legged on top of the table, because in poker it’s essential to look your opponents in the eye (or so he claims, as he clambers up there. I think he just wants everyone to be forced to look up at him, like he’s the king).
Play on! one of the boys cries (the one with the black-rimmed glasses, whose name is either Benjamin, Gordon, or Pinkerton, though none of these choices suit him).
Regan, sitting with them, her blonde head an anomaly among the brown, merrily clinks glasses with Trevor.
Bastard, Annabelle mutters.
The party, long finished now, begins on the second floor of the house (or mansion to be precise—red bricked and columned, fountained and manicured, with stone lions at the gate and a curved driveway of stone, sitting atop the hill, on Grafton Square, its every window affording a view of the glittering city below). The festivities then spread throughout the wings and floors until they fill every room, even spilling into the pool in the basement, where the football team takes up residence.
When we arrive, Regan is all light and excitement, her eyes bright, her fingers laced with mine. (I hear her voice in my ear, hushed, reassuring, Don’t be afraid and don’t believe a word they say.) We ring the bell and wait an eternity before Trevor yanks open the door and snaps, For god’s sake Regan, couldn’t open the damn thing yourself, could you? She squeezes my hand.
Holding an oil lamp aloft (never explained), Trevor leads us at a determined pace up the marble staircase (a candle on every step) and down a multitude of mysterious corridors to a spacious billiards room where Regan and I are instantly surrounded.
It is here that I learn that unlike when I’m on my own and continually mistaken for Regan, when the true Regan is present, I attract very little attention. Though I shadow her every step, my hand hardly leaving hers for a moment (my clothes smelling of her perfume at the end of the night, as though we’re secret lovers), I don’t need to trouble myself with introductions or small talk or awkward nods of interest. Eyes don’t linger on me but continue their journey, unabated, to Regan’s face. I am inconsequential, invisible (at times, possibly, not even present), as the bodies press against mine, nearly trampling me in their haste to reach Regan. I am not expected to speak. I am not expected at all. I am nothing, in th
e face of Regan.
I couldn’t be more thrilled.
For hours we meander from room to room greeting Regan’s relentless fans. There’s Monica (chubby, in an orange wig and a dreadful brown dress), who Regan knows from high school and who is sure Bobby will stay clean this time. (Honey, Regan says, they never do.) There’s Denver, whose parents still hope he and Regan will marry one day, and whose hands continually stray to her ass (for which she doesn’t scold him, only readjusts his fingers accordingly, her smile never faltering). There are the football players, who leap out of the pool at the sight of Regan and carry her about on their shoulders, their broad energetic bodies dripping, their towels slipping, until she escapes up the stairs, clinging to my arm. (They think I’m good luck, she tells me. They don’t have a brain between them.)
As we make our way down a hallway (any hallway) we’re stopped at every step by another face, another friend, another giddy body propped in our way. (Where exactly did Regan meet all these people? Does she really have an intimate relationship with every one of them, or do they only pretend to have known her from camp or tap class or Biology lab, just for the chance to see the famous Regan Lathie up close?) At one point we sit on the stairs for half an hour with a bald guy named George as he explains in detail the improvements he made to his car. Then we’re waylaid into an argument between two highly made-up black girls over a beige leather purse (which Regan convinces them is hideous and not worth the effort).
The Grimly Queen Page 3