I'm Not Her

by Janet Gurtler

  When I turn the last corner toward my locker, someone is standing in front of it, waiting for me. I hold my breath for a second, thinking it’s Melissa coming to apologize, telling me it was all a mistake. But it’s not. Melissa’s no longer my person. Instead it’s Clark Trent who smiles when he spots me and, without thinking, I grin in return.

  “Superman,” I say to Clark.

  He pushes up his glasses and his cheeks turn a cute color of pink. “That’s getting old,” he says in a voice that says it’s okay with him anyway.

  He steps out of the way so I can open my locker.

  “You’ve been assigned to protect me?” I ask in a dry tone, but smile.

  He laughs. “I guess,” he says and then waits while I get my books.

  We’re both such brilliant conversationalists.

  “You ready for our test?” he asks.

  I stare up at him and then close my locker door and put on the lock. “Test?”

  He lifts an eyebrow. “In English. On soliloquies?”

  “Today?”

  “You’re kidding, right? Mr. Pepson told us to study on Friday.”

  “I totally forgot.” I lean against the lockers. It should be a level-four tragedy but I can’t muster up the energy to register it as one. It pales in comparison to my sister’s day.

  “Well, I mean, you should talk to Mr. Pepson. I’m sure he’d understand. You know. Under the circumstances.”

  “I’m not going to use my sister’s cancer as an excuse to get out of things,” I tell him, and my voice is sharper than I intended.

  “You know,” he says and looks away, “the Honor Society isn’t the be-all, end-all.”

  And just like that it’s over.

  “I didn’t get in?” I say quietly. It’s not really a question, but a statement. I swallow a sizeable lump in my throat. My dream of being on the elite team of brainiacs slips right out of my fingers. It’s so unfair I want to cry. It should have been easy for me. It should have been a given. Instead Kristina got sick and I got sidetracked and now…

  “They posted the members on the board outside Mr. Pepson’s classroom. You should talk to him about it. I mean, it’s not really fair. There’s still time left in the semester for you to get your grades up.” A few people trickle past us, but for once they ignore me. Two geeks talking about Honor Society.

  “It’s more than just grades,” I say softly. “I didn’t choose a service project and, well, there was the time I had the meltdown in front of Mr. Meekers.”

  I push off the locker. I’ve also been trying to focus on my art project, but I don’t tell Clark that.

  “It’s crap,” Clark says.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. You’re being punished.”

  “For what? For Kristina’s cancer? Not likely. No, I haven’t met the requirements. They’re stated in black and white. Marks. Leadership. Volunteerism.”

  “But it’s circumstantial. They should take it into consideration.”

  I don’t want to go there. My problems don’t even compare to my sister’s.

  “What about Melissa?” I ask instead.

  Clark looks away and then shakes his head, a quick no. “I guess she didn’t have the right personality or something.”

  Despite everything, I feel worse for Melissa. She’s the one who wanted it so badly. In the end she needs it more than I do now. I’ve got other things to worry about.

  I start walking and Clark easily matches my stride, using his bigger body to protect me from prying eyes again as we head down the hallway toward class. People stare, but I kind of like having him as a personal bodyguard.

  Without asking, he starts filling me in on his definitions and theories on soliloquies, trying to prep me for the exam. As he talks, his glance kind of sweeps around as if he’s sending warning signals to the kids staring at me. It works, because no one approaches with prying questions.

  I look around to see if Melissa is watching me, hiding out, but don’t see her anywhere. My heart dips. She really is gone. I focus on Clark and try to listen as he attempts to cram my brain with information for the test.

  A few weeks ago I would have had a fit that I didn’t study, but I know I’ll be okay. Shakespeare is a geek-love of mine and I can pull off a test about soliloquies. It won’t be a perfect score but I’ll manage. I actually look forward to burying myself inside an exam.

  The fact that Clark is helping me out strikes me as kind of funny, since I was supposed to be his competitor for the top freshman. I’m out of the game now.

  We walk around a corner and approach a group of seniors, and I duck my head but not fast enough to see Nick standing off to the side, watching me. He smiles and it’s sexy and mysterious and I think about him asking what I’m doing after school.

  “Tess!”

  The entire group of seniors is staring at me. My invisible shield is permanently down. I forget Nick’s unasked question.

  “How’s it going?” I squint and see that Devon made the shout-out. He smiles and lifts his hand in greeting. Like we’re buds. “You see the Seekers hockey game on TV last night?”

  I shake my head but don’t answer.

  Unlike the rest of Great Heights, I don’t worship the college hockey team. On the nights when they play at home, the stadium spotlights light up the sky. Every game sells out and is treated with the enthusiasm of a championship game.

  Devon walks over and even Clark seems to shrink down a little. “Well, even if you don’t like the college team, you should at least come out and see the high school team play. Go, Great Heights High, right?”

  It’s not about me, I remind myself. It’s about Kristina. They want me to be her voice. Keep her whole.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I lie, because that’s what they want to hear.

  “Kristina loved watching me play hockey,” he says. “Almost as much as I loved watching her play volleyball.” He laughs. “You know. Those little spankies…” He stops and his face turns bright red.

  Yeah. She might not look as cute in her little spankies soon. And he doesn’t even know the truth of it yet. An overwhelming desire to start crying consumes me but I shove it down.

  “It’s okay,” I say softly, because he didn’t mean anything. He wants to believe she’ll be back, just the way she was before. But it’s the sort of stupid, insensitive thing that is going to be a part of her life now, and I want to wail for her.

  Clark must sense the shift in my mood because he uses his big body to block me and starts talking overly loud about soliloquies and he walks me away. I’m barely managing to not melt into puddles on the floor. I can’t do this today. I don’t want her friends being nice to me. I don’t want to be nice to anyone else. I can’t handle it. Today I just want to make it through.

  ***

  After school, when I walk inside the house, it’s quiet. My guess is Mom is at the hospital with Kristina so I head for the kitchen and start searching the pantry for a snack. I pour milk on a huge bowl of Cap’n Crunch and, as I’m chewing, I feel someone watching and look up.

  Mom leans against the wall watching me. She’s got a glass in her hand. It tinkles with ice. I look closer and my eyebrows shoot up. Amber. I can smell the peaty stench from where I sit. Scotch on the rocks? I try to remember if I’ve ever seen her drink except the occasional one she nurses at parties.

  “You’re eating that horrible cereal again,” she says. Her Southern accent is pronounced. She tilts her glass and polishes off the rest.

  I look around the kitchen as if someone will miraculously appear to save me from what is happening. My heart beats like hummingbird wings. The mom I know doesn’t slink around swilling drinks in the afternoon.

  “How’s Kristina?” I ask.

  “Fine. That boy came to her room today. Jeremy. She asked me to leave. She isn’t my same little girl anymore.”

  “Well, how could she be?” I ask.

  She takes a step toward me, but loses her balance and gi
ggles. She reaches for the wall with her free hand, but misses it and stumbles.

  I put the spoon down as quietly as I can. “Mom? Are you okay? You want me to call Dad?”

  “Your dad. Why? What’s he going to do?” She pouts as if she’s going to cry. “When’s the last time he bothered to come home to talk? He’s too busy working or playing golf.”

  My mom doesn’t talk about Dad behind his back, no matter what. My butt melds to the chair. I don’t know this person wearing my mom’s body.

  “I guess that’s the way he’s coping?” I say, defending him even though I’m plenty angry with his disappearing act too.

  “What about me? When do I get to hide?”

  “Uh, Mom?” I say and stop. I want to tell her she has been, but frankly she’s scaring me.

  She wobbles to the fridge, stands on her tiptoes, and reaches for the cupboard above it, and pulls out a bottle of Scotch. She unscrews the cap and weaves back to the table, sloshing a few ounces in her glass, spilling some on the floor.

  “What, Tess?” she snaps. “What do you want?”

  I stand up and push back from the table, and reach my hand out to take the glass from her, but she pulls back and lifts the glass to her lips. Then she laughs but it’s a hollow sound, and I feel the vapors of desperation in the spittle that lands on my arm.

  “Stop it!” I yell. I’m not emotionally equipped to handle this.

  “Stop what? Drinking?” She lifts her glass, saluting me, and then finishes it and jiggles around the remaining ice cubes. “All gone.” She begins to laugh.

  “Stop it,” I repeat, shaking my head, but she starts moving, stumbling to get past me. She walks like a zombie.

  “Cut it out!” I yell.

  “Cut it out?” She stops moving and stares at me. Her eyes are bloodshot and her makeup is smudged.

  “Don’t you see, Tess,” she says and she speaks slowly, over-enunciating her words. “They are cutting it out. Your sister’s leg. They’re cutting out the cancer and taking off your sister’s leg.”

  Tears leak from my eyes. “This is why Dad says you don’t drink.”

  She swings around. Her free hand whacks me on the side of my face. The pain is instant but it’s masked by shock. My mom has never laid a hand on me. Not once.

  “You’re the one who this should be happening to,” she says, and her voice slurs, dripping with her visit to the dark side. “You’d rather sit around all day drawing pictures, like a five-year-old. Your sister had a future in volleyball!”

  She starts to run away but she trips and falls to the floor. Her head droops to her shoulders and she folds into herself and weeps. My heart feels like it’s been forced through a shredder, physically broken. I gasp and turn to leave her, crumpled and crying, a mess on the kitchen floor.

  “Tess,” she calls, her voice pitiful and repulsive.

  Queasy from her words mixing with the smell of Scotch, I tear out of the house as she continues to weep and call my name. Bile rises in my throat.

  I run to the garage, jump on my bike, and pedal.

  chapter fourteen

  I pull up to Nick’s place and the nerves in my belly help to block the memory of my mom. One foot hits the pavement. His house is old and small. Green paint chips off in chunks on the house and the fence that surrounds the front yard. The fence is rotting and broken apart in places. It would make a great haunted house for Halloween, but it’s not decorated on purpose.

  I get off my bike and roll it forward, and my nose wrinkles up at the smell that lingers in the air, a mixture of dog poo and garbage. Inside my head, I hear the disapproving voice of my mother. Except it’s me. My voice. And I’m not supposed to care about stuff like that. I don’t want to be anything like her.

  I drop my bike on brown, weedy grass and take a deep breath. I force myself to walk to the door and ring the doorbell. It sounds sick, like it has a cold. The bell sets off a dog’s barks inside the house and a man’s deep voice bellows out a curse.

  “Someone get the goddamn door,” he screeches. The yapping dog gets louder until it’s right at the front, separated from me by a flimsy door with a screen in front of it.

  There’s a bang, and the door opens and a little girl appears behind the screen. She’s thin, with dirty-looking brown hair. She’s wearing an unfashionable flowered dress that hangs to knobby knees. The girl has one hand on the dog’s head. He’s the homeliest dog I have ever seen. Lopsided ears, one sticking up, the other hanging down, long gray wiry fur. Luckily his tail is wagging and he’s not snarling like I’m his midafternoon snack. “Yes?” she asks me.

  “Uh, is Nick home?”

  She stares at me. “Are you Tess?” she says.

  I hide my surprise, but nod.

  “Nick told me about you.” She smiles and her face lights up, and I see the beauty underneath the dirt and old clothes. She has Nick’s features, but a smaller, feminine nose.

  “Goddamn it, Natalie. Who’s at the door?” the voice bellows from inside the house. I imagine the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. For a moment I’m afraid he’s going to appear, come out and find me on his front porch and chase me away, or worse, pull me inside and gobble me up.

  “If they’re selling something, tell ’em to get lost,” the voice shouts.

  “It’s okay, Dad. It’s no one,” the girl calls without taking her eyes off me.

  “Then get me another beer, would you? And hurry your lazy ass up.”

  “Wait here,” she says softly to me, and then she disappears from the door. The dog sits and stares at me with a low growl.

  I stand in front of the door, shifting from foot to foot, embarrassed and not sure where to look or what to do. The dog’s penetrating gaze makes me nervous. Just as I’m contemplating turning around to leave, the door bangs again and Nick appears in the doorway. My heart does a little machine gun sequence and my stomach burns.

  “Slumming?” he says. He doesn’t look very happy to see me. Like the little girl, his hand automatically goes to the dog’s head.

  “Uh, I was hoping we could talk.”

  “How’d you even know where I live, Tess?”

  I shrug. “I found it on the Internet.”

  “My address?”

  “You wouldn’t believe what else I found on there,” I joke.

  He doesn’t smile, just stares at me, then looks behind him in the house. He opens the door and steps outside and the dog joins him and he holds the screen door so it closes quietly behind him.

  “Come on,” he says. “Let’s walk.”

  “Uh, shouldn’t your dog be on a leash?”

  “Killer? Nah. She’s doesn’t need one.”

  I don’t say anything, but glance nervously at the dog. Killer stares at me with alert brown eyes.

  “You’re not afraid of dogs, are you?”

  “No.” I step back when Killer starts to pant.

  He laughs. “You are so.” He scratches the dog behind the ear and her tail thumps back and forth. “Don’t worry. Despite the name, she wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I trust her more than I’d trust any human being in this world,” Nick says. “Go on, let her smell your hand.”

  I don’t want to stick out my hand in case Killer wants to snap it off for a snack. I don’t want to look like a chicken either, so I put it out and Killer sniffs and then her long pink tongue darts out and she slurps my palm.

  I wipe the slobber on my pants and follow Nick down the sidewalk as he starts to walk. He takes big steps and I hustle to keep up with him and his four-legged friend who trots happily at his side.

  We stroll in silence to the end of his street, past equally beat-up houses, but when we turn around the corner the condition of the houses improves here and there. His house is no longer in view and he slows down and the dog matches his pace. His body seems less tense. He looks at me. “You okay?” he asks.

  I fight to keep myself from breaking into tears. My nose drips a
nd, mortified, I wipe it with the back of my hand.

  “Something happen to your sister?” he asks.

  His question sparks some rage, which takes me by surprise but helps keep tears away. “I don’t want to talk about my sister.” I glare at him. “What about your sister? I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

  He stops moving and stares at me. “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Tess.” He starts walking again past huge poplar trees that line the street.

  My cheeks warm. His voice sounds harder than it does at school. I wonder if he’s mad at me for coming to his house. A stupid impulse. “Yeah? There are a lot of things you don’t know about me too.”

  We pass a house decorated with hanging skeletons and a row of pumpkins on the porch. The house across the street has a small tree in front covered in fake spider webs. Must be kids in the house, excited for Halloween night.

  “Hey. You came to find me. You’re the one who wants to talk. So talk.”

  Killer growls at a squirrel jumping from one tree to another, busy collecting a stash for the winter. Nick reaches down and pats her head and her tail wags.

  “Do you want to go out with me?” I blurt.

  Nick stops walking and scratches behind Killer’s ear, watching me. “You mean, on a date?” he finally asks.

  When I see his confused look, I want to disappear through the cracks in the sidewalk, like a long-legged spider. I wish I could pluck my words back from the air. I am such an idiot! I was totally wrong. He obviously never had any intention of asking me out. And now I’ve made a total ass of myself.

  Who was I trying to kid? What was I expecting? He’d be holding the glass slipper I left at the ball? I don’t even want to be Cinderella. On principle, I’m supposed to be opposed to the idea of being rescued by a prince or even attending a ball.

  I really need some cooperation from God for once and pray to be struck down by a freakish bolt of lightning. I hold in my tears and mortification and study the sidewalk, feeling like I’ve been picked last for a soccer team. Again.