What Z Sees

by Karen Rivers

  He looks away from you and begins dancing hard, like some kind of comical bird doing a mating dance on a National Geographic special. The frenzy of it makes you think of feathers, flying. His head bobs. It does not look good. In fact, it looks sort of like he’s being electrocuted by a hair dryer in a bathtub. You want him to stop hopping up and down out of rhythm with the music. You want him to get his hands off his hips. He looks like he’s’ about to start the highland fling.

  You want him to ...

  You want to stop feeling so mad. You know it’s about

  Axel, this feeling of helpless anger that keeps sweeping over you. It’s frustration, that’s all, but it’s making you clench your jaw. It’s making you see spots. You know it’s because you can’t have him. It’s not about Hamster. Poor old Hamster. Hamster, who chose you, doesn’t deserve this. Does he?

  He’s changed his hair — when did he do that? — and it’s kind of spiked up to make him look taller, you figure. It’s not working. It’s bouncing, waving in the light where it should be stiff and held in place. It’s leaning to one side. Flopping. Flaccid.

  There is not one single thing about him that doesn’t irritate you.

  On the way here, he breathlessly announced that he’d got some apparent snuff film from Sweden off the internet. How can you like someone whose life is improved by watching someone apparently get killed? It’s so far beyond gross it makes you feel faint. Horrified. Isn’t that illegal?

  He’s horrifying.

  He should be illegal.

  You’re breaking up with him.

  For a split second, you actually hate him. Hate him.

  You are out. Tonight. You just can’t seem to work up the gumption to do it, to start a conversation, to get him away from the loud music and tell him the truth. You hate it in here tonight. It’s too hot. Sweat is trickling down between your boobs and your bra is cutting into your shoulders and you’re just uncomfortable. Hot and uncomfortable. You think longingly about the lake, where everyone else probably is tonight. Everyone.

  Meaning Axel, of course.

  You surreptitiously adjust your bra strap to shift the place where your back is aching. The skin underneath is raw and sore. It feels red. You look at your watch. You haven’t been here for long enough to leave. You haven’t even talked to Zara.

  You want to talk to her.

  You don’t.

  The truth is that you want to confide in her and tell her about Hamster and about the snuff film and about how his hair is killing you. You want to laugh with her just like always and then eat cookie dough and laugh more. You want her to tell you what’s going on with her; you want her to be herself. You want her to open her eyes. How can she dance so smoothly with closed eyes? How can she not stumble?

  Across the dance floor, you catch the eye of a tall boy with a shock of yellow-blond hair and a bright green shirt that in combination makes him look a bit like a daffodil. He has twinkly eyes. You like that. He looks very amused. In on the joke. Is Hamster the joke?

  Or maybe his eyes just look twinkly from where you are standing. It could just be a trick of the light. The music is so loud, it’s like it’s taking you over and you move a bit yourself. You’re not much of a dancer. Too much flesh- flapping. Too much ... ripple.Too much thump. Definitely too much sweat.

  For a second, the eye contact makes you feel good, pretty, wanted. Then you second-guess it: probably he’s looking at one of a hundred prettier girls on the dance floor, not you. Or maybe there is a TV or something above your head (you’re scared to check). Or he’s staring at you because he’s just so shocked that anyone with your proportions would be in such a cool and trendy place where the dress code is practically “pretty and thin” as opposed to “no open-toed shoes” and “no jeans with sneakers.”

  You take another drink of your Red Bull. It’s kind of gross, but still compelling. You don’t much like it but you can’t seem to stop drinking it. Maybe it’s just because it’s giving you something to do.

  You want to leave. You want to stay, listen to Zara singing, but you also want to leave before you have to deal with Hamster and his fake snuff film and sweaty hands and limp hair.

  And Axel...

  Well.

  It’s his fault, because of the leg thing, but now your crush on Axel has grown to terrible proportions, like Godzilla. It’s stomping over everything else in your life. It’s making you irrational. It’s making you ... lose your appetite. In the last week, you’ve noticed your clothes seem loose. It’s not like you’re really suddenly, miraculously thin. It can’t happen like that, not that fast. It’s like your body has been changed by just the touch. Rearranged. Reordered.

  The stupid touch. Meaningless.

  And because you can’t stop thinking about him, you aren’t hungry. It makes you, ironically, feel vulnerable, like a baby bird with no feathers.

  It isn’t making you as happy as it’s making your mothei; who exclaimed just this morning about how your ass has become somewhat less fat. It’s not possible, you want to explain. But then you realize, with the gym, maybe it is. Maybe it’s nothing to do with Axel. Maybe you have become, as the summer has gone on, somewhat less fat.

  Those were her words: “somewhat less fat.” As though you were so huge before, you shouldn’t have been allowed to live, and now you’re still huge but not so offensive to her as you were previously.

  You shift from side to side, as though you’re being moved by the music, which you aren’t. A group of giggling girls pushes past you, literally; one girl actually puts her hand on your belly and shoves. You’re so shocked it takes you a minute to get your balance.

  You step farther into the crowd on the dance floor and move for real, even though it feels awkward, just so you look busy. You don’t really know how to dance, that’s the problem. When you move, you’re aware of your arms rubbing against your sides. It makes you feel too over-sized, too sweaty, too much in contact with yourself. You make yourself keep going anyway, it would look pretty strange if you just started and stopped like that.

  Your self-consciousness makes you grind your jaw.

  It’s an underage club so the place is crawling with really young teenagers, like fourteen, though the girls all look older than they are by a mile. They are all incredibly put together, well-dressed, more makeup than you wear yourself and you thought you were bad. You’ve always applied it liberally, like you can build a mask. But these girls, for them it’s not a mask, it’s like a flashing neon sign that says, LOOK AT ME. You feel old. Like an old woman, really. An old, ugly, fat woman.

  A little circle clears around you as though because you’re fat, you need more room than them. That makes you mad, but you can’t do anything about it, so you follow Zara’s lead and close your eyes so you can’t see that anymore. With your eyes closed, you pretend that you’re Reese Witherspoon, your long blonde hair swirling around you, even though you are nothing like her.

  You try to calm your thinking down into a list. Things to do: talk to Zara. Dump Hamster. Go to the lake. Your real list is more like: understand Zara, climb right inside and figure out what’s going on. Vaporize Hamster. Make him evaporate. Turn him to dust and make him magically vanish so you don’t have to worry about hurting his feelings or ever seeing his hairy ankles again. Find Axel and let him touch your knee. Touch your anything.

  Zara. Hamster. Axel.

  You keep dancing, even though the music has stopped. Who cares? You don’t care. You don’t want to care.

  The club is so loud. How will you get Zara to talk? Her eyes still closed, she sips from her drink. She’s wearing a bracelet that looks like broken glass. Not her usual silver bangle. This one is glittery. It looks sharp.

  Your need to talk to her is like a wave, pulling you down. You make your way closer to where she is. She must know, after all, why she’s acting like she is. She has the answer. Why not just ask and be done with it? Even thinking about doing that makes you feel empowered, too.

  You
are a strong person. You can do that, at least.

  You catch Zara’s eye and she jerks her head toward the washroom, so you follow her like you always have. Here it is. This is your opportunity. She’s wearing heels so high even you are impressed. She walks so confidently suddenly, like a model. How can she be both confident and so depressive and so absent at the same time? None of it adds up.

  The washroom is pretty quiet, a few girls adjusting their lip gloss. Flinging their hair. Talking in low voices. Giggling. You only realize how truly loud it was on the dance floor when you’re treated to the velvety muted tones of the bathroom stalls.

  Zara leans over the sink, her bracelet tinkling against the porcelain.

  That’s pretty, you say.

  She looks at it. Frowns. It’s okay, she says. It’s sharp.

  Oh, you say. It looks nice.

  It’s ... she starts. Then shakes her head, firmly, as though to dislodge something from her ear. I found it at that market downtown, you know? On the weekends?

  Oh, you say. You should have called me, I love that market.

  She shrugged. Sorry, she says.

  Are we going to talk about any of it? you ask so quietly that you’re not even sure if you’ve spoken. Your eyes meet in the mirror.

  Yes, she says. Just not tonight, okay? I’m feeling really ... wasted. Not wasted, not like that, she adds quickly. Just emptied. I want to ... I have to ... When I talk to you about it, I want it to be just us, alone. Okay? Like maybe we can camp out or something. Hey, maybe all three of us, just like old times?

  Your heart skips in spite of yourself. All three?

  Yes, you say.

  Anyway, she says. She leans so close to the mirror, it’s like she might fall in. Vanish. She plucks a stray eyelash from her cheek. Anyway. You should go to the lake. It’s so hot in here. I would go but I have to sing. You should go. You want to go.

  I... you start. I guess I do, but I want to hear you.

  You can hear me anytime, she says. She’s pressing the bracelet so hard into her wrist that it must be almost cutting her.

  Stop that! you say, surprised.

  Stop what? she asks.

  You’re going to hurt yourself! you say.

  It’s not that sharp, she says quickly, turning on the tap, holding her hands under the water. It doesn’t hurt.

  Zara, you say.

  We’ll talk tomorrow, okay? she says. Tomorrow.

  Okay, you say. Okay.

  So you do it, you go. Push the heavy washroom door open, weave through the dancers on the floor, allow yourself to be floated out into the cooling evening breeze. Leaving your best friend and your boyfriend dancing to a song you don’t recognize, and driving off into the black velvet summer night.

  If you want to be honest with yourself, you’ll admit that you feel relieved.

  You feel free.

  You feel like you’ve escaped.

  Zara

  Chapter 10

  I PUSH MY WAY back out onto the floor and start dancing again even though my feet are killing me in these shoes. Or maybe because my feet are killing me. It helps.

  I found them in Maman’s closet. They’re old. Obviously she’d never wear these things now. And they’re way too small for me. They’re giving me blisters all over. I can feel them. Pockets of skin, raw and scraped. They make me tall. And when I’m taller than everyone else, I don’t have to look down and see too much. I just wish they were stilts. I wish they hurt more.

  Sin noticed. I know she did. But the bracelet with its points and bumps does the same thing. Pressing it into my wrist mutes the other, mutes her thoughts to me, anchors me in myself. It’s simple, really. I just have to have something that hurts.

  Anything.

  It sounds dumb, but it’s true. I can protect myself in this space, in this darkness, in all this noise. My focus can be on the pain in my feet, the pressure of the glass against my skin. Then, and only then, I can just be me.

  The darkness helps. The strobe lights. The loneliness. I know that sounds strange, but being here alone (well, with Hamster, but does that count?) is lonely. Even though there are lots of people here. A crowd of people, smiling, laughing, the smell of clashing fragrance and shampoo and sweat hanging over us in a cloud of fake happiness.

  I’ve been alone a lot.

  My wrist has a couple of scabs from where I’ve pressed too hard and broken skin.

  But what else can I do? It works. I have to have something that works. Singing worked for a while. Sort of. But not enough, it was never enough.

  I already know way too much about how Sin feels about Axel. How Des and Wick feel about each other. How Chelsea knows but pretends she doesn’t. How Maman is faking being happy most of the time so that we don’t get upset. That one breaks my heart. How can I know that about Maman and not say something? But what would I say if I did?

  That one I can’t stand to know.

  I can’t be with my friends like this, seeing all their private stuff. Looking at all their private stuff. I’ve realized that I don’t have to see it. I just stumbled on it, accidentally, the fact that I can turn it off. That pain button. It’s enough. It’s like a clarifying distraction that allows me to see past the cloud of images and right to the person in front of me. To them, but not into them, that’s the difference. But somehow I don’t always do it.

  I don’t always look away. Like I find myself looking in spite of myself. It’s like snooping in their journals. I’m compelled, but I know it’s just all wrong. It makes me feel gross. Horrible. Like I’m spying.

  Better to be lonely, to avoid, to be by myself, to close my eyes.

  I can’t shake Maman’s sadness. That’s the worst thing that I know. The worst thing that I’ve learned.

  When I’m at home, I avoid her. The weird thing is that what I’ve been doing is hiding in my room, reading old books from when I was a kid. Those are safe. I’ve re-read everything. From really old ones, like The Faraway Tree, Harriet the Spy, The Phantom Tollbooth. All that stuff. The whole Black Beauty series. My Friend Flicka. All the horse books that people always gave us when we were kids. Even The Hardy Boys. Nancy Drew. Sometimes I read three or four of them a day because, when I’m reading, that’s all I’m doing. There isn’t the intrusion of other people and their demanding, relentless thinking.

  Then, at night, I hang out here at Sin’s uncle’s club, which is only a comedy club on Thursdays. On the other nights it’s sometimes a dance club, sometimes karaoke, sometimes just me and the microphone and guitar. He’s been letting me sing almost every night and I’ve been singing my voice raw. My song, the one song that’s really mine, is changing every day. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. I sing it over and over again, slightly different each time, like I’m looking for it to fall into place.

  Absolutely.

  Singing until my throat feels like it’s been scraped with a kitchen grater. Singing with my eyes closed, the fabric of the music cocooning me in my own private zone where everything is okay. More than okay. It’s fantastic. It’s the best feeling in the world. In a way, it reminds me of when I’m outside, standing in one of the paddocks with the grass green and raw beneath my bare feet, insects humming around my head, the sky seeping into my pores. It’s like that, the intensity. The high. The amazing high.

  More and more, it’s saving me from the rest of it. The too much part. The assaulting wave of strangers’ thoughts. The more I see of those, the more I feel like I don’t even exist. I feel like I’m just a sponge for everyone else’s life. An audience for their feelings. A Polaroid camera that’s being shaken into developing an image of their innermost secrets. The girl behind the counter at the coffee shop, for example, who is thinking about getting her nose done. Hating herself for the shape of it. The guy who drops off the hay for the horses and picks up the manure in exchange, he’s thinking about going back to school. Changing his life. Reshaping it into something more like he wanted to begin with. He’s wondering if he can leave his wife and
kids and start over.

  It’s like movie after movie after bad movie after pointless movie. Worse, people are predictable. I mean, most of the stuff people think about is so vapid, so passing, it makes me feel this huge emptiness. And then there are the people who are thinking such serious things, such awful things. Things about dying, death. Things they’re scared about. Just seeing fear freaks me out. I can’t explain it. It’s like it cracks me open inside, makes me want to sob and sob and never stop. I hate that people are so afraid.

  Hate it.

  The fear is like spiders crawling through my own veins, the fear mingled with their sadness. That huge sadness.

  I want to gather them all up and hold them in my arms. Hug them. Tell them that it’s going to be okay. But that’s so naive. Some of the things I’ve seen ... well, they aren’t going to be okay. They just aren’t. Like cancer, for example. That’s not going to be okay. Horrible things that people do to each other, the way people have been hurt: nothing makes that okay.

  And seeing it is like being punched in the gut. Then it all blurs with the characters in all the books, becomes a mishmash I can’t make out anymore. I feel fragile. Inside. I feel broken, all jumbled up like the glass on my wrist, and no one can fix me.

  I dance.

  I dance like I’m outside and flowing into and out of everything.

  I dance like I’m falling from a plane, only I’m not afraid. I’m letting the movement hold me up.

  I dance more.

  My legs are getting sinewy and muscled from all this dancing. My blisters are turning to calluses on my toes and heels.

  Finally, it’s time to sing and I do. This is the part of whatever is happening to me that I’m addicted to, I think. This is the part I wouldn’t want to give up. I wish I could adequately describe it, sort of like falling straight through a piece of art, feeling the paint feather your skin. Like I become the song. I am the song. I am nothing but my voice, winding its way around the room, pouring from the speakers.